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Keeping us distracted has been a key strategy used since ancient Roman times when the practice of ‘Bread and Circuses’ was provided to keep their citizens entertained, happy, and content while diverting their attention from more significant issues of the day - where people are preoccupied with short-term pleasures at the expense of their long-term freedoms.
Today, the practice of bread and circuses is still being used to keep us distracted from what’s really happening in the financial world. We are bombarded with the latest celebrity gossip, reality TV shows, social media, and sporting events, while the more important issues that affect our lives are being understated and even ignored.
One example of this is that very few people understand how inflation is created and the real impact it has on our wealth and our lives. So much so that one of the most influential economists of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes, speaking on inflation said; “By this means, governments may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of their citizens, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.”
He also added, “There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose,” found in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, (Nov. 1919).
History has shown us that this debauchment or debasement of currencies has led to the demise of the Roman Empire and so many others, and we are beginning to see the cracks forming in our own economies through recent bank and commercial real estate failures.
This seismic shift in the financial world is underway and its impact on our future is going to be significant. It has been warned of by a number of economists and even the head of the World Economic Forum in his book, “The Great Reset” published in July 2020.
Many are concerned about how this “Great Reset” and the replacement of our current monetary system with Central Bank Digital Currencies is going to affect our finances and wealth. And while there are no certainties, only probabilities, we ignore all these warnings at our own peril.
Clive Bydawell is a retired financial and investment advisor and will be speaking at the Ireland Portugal Business Network’s “Money Matters: Provocative Insights into the Future of Banking” event on Thursday, April 27, 2023, at the Tribulum Restaurant in Almancil, Algarve from 9h30 to 11h.
He will present possible solutions on this topic and how we can best protect ourselves for what the future will bring. This talk is purely for educational and entertainment purposes and is not to be confused with personalized financial advice.
The event is open to IPBN members and non-members and is free of charge. Again, you can find all the details of the event here where you can register.