🧠 Why Do So Few People Understand How Money Works—and Fail to Recognize It's Broken?
“The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.”
— John Kenneth Galbraith
Most people spend their lives working for money, saving money, and trying to accumulate more of it. Yet, paradoxically, very few understand what money actually is—let alone how it works. Even fewer realize that the money we use today is broken.
Why?
It’s not because people are unintelligent. It’s because the system isn’t designed for them to understand. In fact, it may be designed to ensure that they don’t.
1. Money is taught as a utility, not a system
From childhood, we’re taught how to use money, but not what it is. We’re shown how to count it, earn it, spend it, and save it. But virtually no one is taught how money is created, who controls its issuance, or what gives it value.
Imagine if people learned in school that:
Most money is created as debt by private banks.
Central banks can increase or decrease the supply of money at will.
The value of money is constantly being eroded by inflation—a stealth tax few understand.
Instead, we’re taught to trust the system. “It just works,” they say. But like a magician’s trick, the illusion only works if the audience isn’t looking too closely.
2. Inflation is normalized and misunderstood
Most people accept inflation as a natural and inevitable fact of life. Prices rise. That’s just how things are. But inflation is not a law of nature—it’s the result of monetary policy.
And it’s not just 2% a year anymore. Over the past few years, trillions in new dollars have been printed, eroding the purchasing power of money held by savers, workers, and retirees.
Yet the media and government rarely frame it this way. Instead, we’re told inflation is caused by “supply chain issues” or “geopolitical tensions.” And while those play a role, they conveniently obscure the elephant in the room: money printing.
3. The experts speak in riddles on purpose
Watch a central banker speak. It’s almost poetic—abstract, technical, and ultimately confusing. There’s a reason for this.
As Galbraith said, complexity is used to obscure truth. Terms like “quantitative easing,” “open market operations,” and “forward guidance” sound official, but they cloak a simple reality: they are debasing the currency.
And when people get confused, they tune out. They leave it to the experts. And the cycle continues.
4. There’s no incentive to explain the truth
Who benefits when people understand how money works?
Certainly not the government, which funds massive deficits through monetary expansion. Not the banks, which profit from being closest to the newly created money. And not Wall Street, which leverages inflation to inflate asset prices.
Explaining how the monetary system works is like explaining a magic trick—you destroy the illusion, and with it, the power. So the incentives are aligned to not explain it.
5. Bitcoin is the red pill—but it’s hard to swallow
For many, understanding how money works only begins after discovering Bitcoin. Bitcoiners often describe falling down a “rabbit hole,” where you start by asking, “What is Bitcoin?” and end up confronting deeper questions like, “What is money?” and “Why is everything so broken?”
Bitcoin forces you to confront uncomfortable truths:
That fiat money is backed by nothing.
That central banks distort markets.
That savings in fiat depreciate over time.
But it also offers a hopeful alternative—money that is decentralized, fixed in supply, and incorruptible. A lifeboat floating in an ocean of monetary debasement.
Still, many resist. Because accepting that the money is broken means re-evaluating everything: your job, your retirement plan, your investments, your politics. It’s existential.
Conclusion: The Lie We Live
The modern monetary system is a house of mirrors, built on trust and opacity. Most people don’t understand it because they’ve been conditioned not to. They're busy living paycheck to paycheck, raising families, trying to survive.
But those who dare to look behind the curtain are finding something powerful: truth.
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
“The first step is to recognize that you’ve been lied to. The second is to seek out a better truth. And the third is to act on it.”
Bitcoiners have taken those steps. And now they’re showing others the way.
Not financial or legal advice, for entertainment only, do your own homework. I hope you find this post useful as you chart your personal financial course and Build a Bitcoin Fortress in 2025.
Thanks for following my work. Always remember: freedom, health and positivity!
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Fantastic read 🙌