Yesterday I spent the night in a hotel with my wife and son. The reason was that we had an early appointment at the Australian High Commission in the Strand and figured weād āmake a day of itā.
Our appointment was to get my son his Aussie passport, just like Daddy and Mummy. You see my boy is what Iād consider fortunate in that heās allowed to hold both British and Australian citizenship and passports.
That means heās a citizen of two wonderful countries. Heās British by birth and Australian by decent thanks to yours truly. And as we left the High Commission after our appointment my wife and I remarked that he was indeed āluckyā. We then realised it would mean at the appropriate age heād probably want to move out of home to whichever country we werenāt in at the timeā¦
Nonetheless, heās lucky in that he can live and work in two beautiful and very different parts of the world. But it also means he, like us, potentially has to go through all the difficulties as well that brings.
While the Australia is a part of the Commonwealth, outside of our Westminster-system style of government and the Queen as our head of state, there arenāt too many other similarities.
We speak different languages (Iāll let you dwell on that one). We have quite dramatically different climates. Our economies are in different predicaments. Our currency is different. Our social services, public services, healthcare systems are all different. Even our financial systems while they might appear similar, are also very different.
I noticed it when moving to the UK. When landing in the UK I had no history of credit. Why would I? It was all back in Australia where Iād held bank accounts, credit cards, Iād even previously owned a property with a mortgage.
But in the UK, I didnāt exist financially. And when you donāt exist financially, you canāt get a bank account. Without a bank account you canāt get a rental propertyā¦ let alone a mortgage. You definitely canāt get a credit card or any other kind of loan. Heck you can barely get a phone.
Thatās all the financial pain.
Then thereās the healthcare issue.
The NHS is a wonderful thing. āFreeā healthcare for all. Well, itās great in theory. Iāve never had to use it for myself. In six years, Iāve only needed to see the doctor once, and that was to register in the first instance. My son however arrived in this world via the NHS. And it was frankly wonderful in how we were treated during that process.
But my son is in āthe systemā so to speak. Heās British by birth, was born in the NHS. His medical records are all here, all in āthe systemā.
I on the other hand have a medical record in the UK about the size of the headline in this essay. Of course over my 35 years of existence Iāve been to the doctor loads of times. I had shingles twice, once as a kid, once as a 20-something. I fractured my wrist playing football once. I tore all three ligaments in my ankle in one go. Iāve had moles checked, been caught with viruses and bugsā¦ all kinds of pretty normal things.
But here in the UK, none of it ever happened according to my medical records.
Nope, Iām like the Wolverine here in the UK. 35 years old, never been sick. They only know I was born (somewhere) because I exist. But they donāt know where.
Thatās all obviously because the bulk of my records are in a filing cabinet or a local network in a GP surgery in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne somewhere.
Now, youād think that moving from one Commonwealth country to the Commonwealth country would make transition of life easy. But itās one of the most stressful, difficult, frustrating experiences of my life.
Add into the mix the ongoing saga of my own visas and itās very easy to see why people donāt move to a new country. Itās easy to see why people just stick with what they know
And for my son, it will be the same if he ever decides in the distant, distant future to live back in Australia.
Of course over the last six years Iāve had to build up all of these things. Bank accounts, credit histories, energy and phone bill histories. Iāve managed to get a mortgage. Even regularly exchanging currencies from one place to another.
It was and continues to be one of the most frustrating experiences ever.
But why is that so? We profess to live in a world thatās high-tech. Iām one of the biggest proponents of our incredible, revolutionary, modern technology world. Yet moving from point A to point B is actually the hardest thing in the world to do.
It challenges our very idea of what freedom is. Are we really all that free? Or do we continue to live under the iron fist rule of the elites in power?
I can tell you why moving to a new country is so hard. Itās because the country you leave never really wants you to leave. Why should they make it easy to leave? Why should they let you freely choose a better place to move for whatever reason you so decide?
They intentionally want to make it hard. If they let everyone easily move around, theyād lose tax revenues. Theyād lose money for their healthcare services. Theyād lose contributors to their social services. Theyād be forced to do a better job at building a better country to give people a legitimate reason to stay.
But in a kakistocracy (Google it) thatās not going to happen.
Of course it could all change. And in our modern, progressive world, my view is it all will change. In fact I envisage that by the time my son does want to stretch his wings and maybe think about living somewhere else in the world the difficulties Iāve experiences will be a thing of the past for him.
He will be able to go anywhere in the world and be able to transact and operate financially anywhere with complete seamlessness. He will take medical records, personal records, identity and data records with him anywhere and access them at any time.
Importantly he will control that data and information and he will do it thanks to cryptocurrency, blockchain networks and distributed ledger technology.
His currency will be bitcoin. His records and data will exist on immutable blockchain networks like Ethereum. He will operate different financial instruments with the likes of Binance and Tezos. He will connect and swiftly move through cities connecting to devices and the machine economy with IOTA.
This is the world 20 years from now. Where cryptocurrency is ubiquitous and seamless. Itās a world where the frictions and frustrations of todayās world no longer exist. This world is inevitable.
Thatās right, itās coming at us whether you like it or not. Sure, right now itās hard for some people to see. And along the way there will be power struggles that weāre already seeing from centralised authority like government.
But this is what breaking the shackles of the kakistocracies looks like and itās driven by the people. The crypto revolution will free us, it will empower us, it will break down barriers and borders like never before.
This is whatās coming, and if youāre smart, savvy and keen to profit from it, my view is you should already be immersed in the world of crypto to see exactly how this future is speeding at us.
Regards,
Sam
Category: Market updates