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Guest: Gregory Simon (10:10).

This broadcast was live from Caracas, on Fergus’s first trip to Venezuela, and he shares his initial observations regarding the center of Socialism for the 21st Century (along with Cuba). His image, “hecho en socialismo,” captures the many ironies on display.

In particular, he sees sadness — forgone potential and ruined lives. Despite beautiful scenery, right by the Caribbean Coast, and a diverse population, situated ideally as a gateway to South America, an economic crisis has set in. Venezuela is now the least free nation in the world, according to the Fraser Institute (of those they can measure). Inflation is also out of control, making a mockery of the official exchange rate.

The PanAm Post has an extensive archive on Venezuela. See the articles by Marcela Estrada, in particular.

Gregory Simon, of Knowmadic Life, used to work in the banking industry but quit in December, 2012. He didn’t know how to proceed forward after this, but he knew he wanted to do something different, something more positive, using his skills and experience.

This is when he took a year off and decided to travel with his girlfriend to over 40 countries. In 2013, he met his goal. He also used bitcoin to purchase a piece of paradise in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua (pictured).

He is a big fan of alternative, competitive currencies and has written on bitcoin’s human potential.

Bitcoin is a decentralized, denationalized, and an open source protocol. You can begin to use it as a medium of exchange without having any clerical changes whatsoever.

For Gregory, money is an economic good, a product we consume. However, many people are unaware of or have forgotten this, he says, and that leads to an acceptance and tolerance of poor quality, monopoly currencies, enforced by governments.

As he explains, money performs three functions:

a medium of exchange, to facilitate transactions;

a store of wealth, with confidence that in the future it will retain its value.

a unit of account, to assign measurements of value.

The good news is that Bitcoin and alternatives are breaking down the monopolies, and in a peaceful manner. They are simply replacing fiat currencies and making them obsolete.

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