broken money

80 - Sardinia for a bit

Roger Price

09 Sep 2023 • 11 min read

Palazzo Civico - Cagliari, Sardini

🇮🇹 We have had a very enjoyable week here in Cagliari, Sardinia. Of course, just as we left Belfast and Belgium the weather up there improved to what we would have hoped for while we were there - oh well, never mind! Here in the Mediterranean the weather is similar to that in Malta where we were last year, albeit a slightly cooler and much blowier - very nice!

Just like in Malta our apartment is on 6th floor with a pleasant balcony and just a short walk from all the facilities you would want. A one week bus pass is EUR 12 and the buses are frequent and you can go pretty much everywhere you need - they all go from the nearby bus station, itself beside the train station - so handy! The nearest beach at Poetto is well-connected and typically Italian, being divided into multiple private sections (payage) separated by heavily used and very popular public sections!

The old city is fairly walkable with many pleasant squares and Italian cafes (good value compared to elsewhere in Europe). Likely you do want to catch the #10 bus up the hill and then walk down rather than go the other way! The churches are numerous, vast and decorated spectacularly - indeed reminiscent of Malta. You will also find the remains of the Roman amphitheater - apparently much less than it used to be as many stones were re-used for more modern buildings! Down from that is the botanic garden, supposed to be one of the best in Italy; it is certainly pleasant and the Roman caves are worth visiting.

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Med after Sicily. It has similar population size to Northern Ireland and at double the area it is sparsely populated outside the main towns. Trains leave from the station nearby for all over the island but journeys are long. Good local markets are well stocked with local foods and cash is certainly preferred and used by everyone - nice!

During the week we also visited San Sperate. This small village located only a few kilometres from Cagliari, became famous in the 1970s thanks to Pinuccio Sciola, a local artist who began a project that’s still going on and progressing nowadays: filling the city with murals – wall paintings in various techniques and styles.

San Sperate has often been described as an “open air museum” because literally every corner of this village has something to offer to the tourist’s curious eyes, be it the aforementioned wall decorations, churches, not to mention the Parco Sonoro.

If any of you have tips or suggestions for our stay here in Sardinia, do let me know. I'm happy to share that we are being inspired by Claudia's site: Strictly Sardinia.

Book and Interview of the week

This week I was happy to buy Lyn Alden's new book "Broken Money". I am well into this on my Kindle and looking forward to the audiobook version too. She begins with Ledgers being the foundations and explains how Commodity Money emerges, then combines the Credit Theory into one Unified Theory of money. From there she covers Proto-Banking and Hawala, Double-Entry Bookkeeping, Free Banking vs Central Banking and Speed of Transactions vs Speed of Settlement.

We then move on to Global Money Orders, printing Money for Wars (including the 100 year secret of the Bank of England and WW1 war bonds), Bretton Woods, Petrodollar and Chaos at the Periphery. Next comes the Entropy of Fiat ledgers, the Modern Financial System and Financialisation of Everything, explaining the beneficiaries of the Cantillon Effect and the Long-Term Debt Cycle.

The book concludes with a section on Internet-Native Money and how important this will be. You also ought to think about the implications of Lyn's explanation of the current system as being "turtles all the way down"... there is no unencumbered asset forming a foundation!

For the best review and overview of the book - listen to this interview of Lyn by Stig Brodersen. Indeed this book moves the discussion to a new level of understanding.

Then Preston Pysh takes over for a second round, going into depth on Native Internet money and its implications. Particularly important features are the immediate final settlement and the ability to build a credibly decentralised ledger. You will understand Bitcoin's unique properties and how this fits in the big picture.

🛠️ Project Updates

The following are updates from some projects that I am following, supporting and collaborating with. What are you doing?

Focus this week has been mostly on the Nostr projects. Nostr is such an amazing discovery. It does really facilitate decentralised global discussions and forms a foundation for collaborative application development where all new apps benefit from all existing users of the ecosystem and all available data not to mention being fully integrated with uncensored global payments being fully available to all.

If you have not checked it out yet - you can follow me here. Nostr resources here.

Nostr dev team meeting

Happily we had the three-weekly Nostr dev team call with some of the most active and brilliant developers joining to discuss progress on all of the ongoing developments. It really is at the point that even they struggle to keep up with all that is ongoing.

Some highlights:

00:02:19 Stats rundown from Primal: Users: 557,963 - Public Keys: 33,362,789 - Zaps: 1,729,678 - BTC Zapped: 137.169 - Public Notes: 66,705,394 - Reposts: 13,692,981 - Reactions: 24,111,325 - All Events: 132,307,294
NostrWorld is coming up 1-3 November in Tokyo and Hong Kong; I am planning to be there in Hong Kong - how about you?

Click for info and to register your participation

Primal with Miljan

There has been quite a bit of noisy controversy recently over what was portrayed as "shadow-banning" being implemented in Primal (one of the best Nostr clients). An advantage of the open-source nature of Nostr is that such things surface quickly and are actively clarified and resolved. This is a most interesting interview: Miljan explains how he set about building the Primal app with a few collaborators and the step by step process that they are following to deploy and grow it. Indeed it seems that Semisol did not act in good faith - WDYT? Nostr is stronger and better now as a result!

Click for the interview - recommended listening - you will learn things

You will find many awesome thing here: A curated list of nostr projects and resources:

🔗 Links for your edification

The following are links from my NetNewswire feeds - learn, enjoy and share.

The system is truly rotten...

Sasha points out something that you might have missed: UBS just announced a world record profit for a bank making $29 Billion in one quarter - more than double the previous record by JP Morgan. This huge profit comes on the back of Credit Suisse shareholders losing most of their investment and AT1 bondholders losing 100% of their money. This is the biggest case of bank theft in history made possible by the Swiss Government.

Click to watch - do you still trust what your government says?

Meanwhile in the UK and Isle of Man

Neil recounts his experience of the last few days. Be aware... And he explains it is not just Banks but also Insurance companies that are parasites. They do not care about customers - they consider you to be a problem (or worse).

Click to understand what UK banks are doing

Bitcoin Big Picture

This is a most interesting interview by Saifedean of a Belgian who discovered bitcoin back in 2012 and it recounts his story of running a bitcoin-based investment fund. Tuur is well known in recent years for his balanced and astute observations on the market and its outlook.

Consider this paper that Tuur wrote back in 2012: Bitcoin Through The Eyes of a Central Banker (2012). How interesting that even then the BIS was terrified of what bitcoin could become; they understand perfectly the corrupt foundations on which Central Banking is built - that is a truth that they do not want the public to understand.

Click to read Tuur's paper of 2012 - how interesting

After that you likely want to read his latest paper:
How to Position For The Bitcoin Boom (2023):

Click for Tuur's latest paper - do not say that *nobody told you!*

Quarterly look at global money

Marty sits down again with Matthew Mežinskis to discuss the Q2 2023 Monetary Base update. Follow along the charts here: Links to specific topics are below. These discussions are important - many are unaware that the population of Nigeria is comparable to that of the EU. He gathers all these numbers from the official websites and sources of Central banks around the world.

1:26 - eNaira and CBDCs 21:29 - Top 5 currencies 27:51 - Compound annual growth rate 31:27 - FHLB exposure 37:48 - Inflation is impacting people 40:29 - Bitcoin chart 52:09 - Scandinavian physical currency 54:38 - US federal debt 1:10:29 - Canary in the coal mine 1:18:51 - Nations using Bitcoin and BRICS gold 1:35:23 - Optimal outcome

Checking the diary

Recall that we have identified a few significant dates for our diary for this year. Upcoming ones (in addition to 11 Sep) to watch include:

End of Jubilee (once in 50 years): 17-18 September
Autumnal Equinox: 23 September
Total Solar Eclipse: 14 October

You may be aware that Jordan has some strong opinions on these dates and a few others along with supporting arguments.

🤔 Closing Thoughts

I realise that some of you will not want to hear or believe what follows. That is entirely your right and decision. Before you skip recall what we discussed recently on Ethical Skepticism; as a minimum this is information that you should be aware of until further supporting or contradicting information comes along. As you will see you might not have to wait too long.

If all this stresses you too much, recall Steve Jobs' advice ...especially his third point.

For those who are still here: you will recall that last week Jason explained how January 2020 was the opening of the first seal with the arrival of Apollyon of Pharmakeia as the first horseman. Think about all that has happened since January 2020; does Jason's theory really seem so far fetched - perhaps you had already realised or suspected something was seriously amiss?

In this video Jason lays out all of the 7 Seals as projected by his isometric analysis. First download the supporting material for this video here.

Janon archaix 7 Seals

First download the supporting material for this talk.

Janon archaix 7 Seals.pdf

1 MB

Then watch as Jason talks you through his analysis. You will likely want to consider in the spirit of Ethical Skepticism; you may find this useful sooner or later. Listen carefully to what Jason explains about the rituals that many have been forced to participate in (incl 2012 and 2020). He also shows how Nostradamus' Quatrains also support his analysis in addition to many Calendric pointers and of course he refers back to Albert Pike's letter to Mazzini.

Click to watch the explanation - all seven seals explained

As a reminder and for those who want to research the historical evidence - Jason's Chronicon is here and you can also have it read to you here by Nick.

Jason is a most interesting character. He has decades of documented research from thousands of original books. He has also published many books. Listen to his latest AMA for more things in the pipeline.

Click for Jason's latest AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Forward to a friend and let them know where they can subscribe

No one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.‌‌- Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix

How to escape the matrix - do you see it yet?

🤔

"99% of all subjects accepted the program if they were given a choice - even if they were only aware of the choice at an unconscious level"
- The Architect

Any questions or anything else? Feel free to comment below!‌‌
You can also email me at: LetterFrom@rogerprice.me

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