The Hidden Game: How Money Lost Its Anchor

I was sitting at my kitchen table, staring at my paycheck. I’d just gotten a raise, but somehow, it didn’t matter. Gas was higher. Groceries were higher. Rent was higher. My numbers had gone up, but my life hadn’t. I wasn’t moving up. I was running in place. And somewhere deep down, I knew something didn’t add up.

I used to think inflation was just part of life. Like the weather, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Everyone complained about it, but no one really understood where it came from. We were told it was “normal.” That prices just rise over time. But if that’s true, why didn’t my grandparents talk about paying $8 for milk? Why didn’t my dad have to take out a second job just to cover rent? Something about that “normal” didn’t sit right.

That’s when I started digging. Late-night YouTube videos, podcasts, old clips of Nixon giving speeches I’d never seen in school. Every source said something different, but one phrase kept coming up: “the gold window.” 1971. A year I’d never thought twice about. Apparently, that was the year the dollar stopped being backed by gold. Before that, our money was tied to something real, something you couldn’t just print more of. After that? It was paper backed by faith.

Faith is a funny thing. It can move mountains, or it can be manipulated. When Nixon cut the gold tie, he didn’t just end a monetary system; he started a new game. The rules were invisible, and almost nobody knew they’d changed.

Imagine an anchor chain snapping in the middle of the ocean. The ship keeps drifting, but nobody feels it at first. That’s what happened to our money. The dollar floated away from gold, and prices started drifting, too. Slowly, silently, year after year. The storm didn’t come overnight. It was a slow tide, one that eroded purchasing power so gradually, most people never realized the shore was disappearing beneath their feet.

It wasn’t until I learned about something called the Cantillon Effect that it finally clicked. Inflation doesn’t hit everyone equally. When new money is created, it doesn’t rain down evenly. It flows like a river. And those standing closest to the source—the banks, corporations, governments—get to drink first. They spend the fresh money before prices rise. By the time it trickles down to workers, everything costs more. You’re not falling behind because you’re lazy. You’re falling behind because you’re last in line.

I remember pausing the video, sitting back in my chair, and just staring at the wall. It was one of those moments where everything I’d ever suspected suddenly had evidence. The invisible hand wasn’t just guiding the market. It was picking my pocket. The phrase “the rich get richer” wasn’t some cliché. It was a structural truth baked into the system.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Every stimulus check, every “bailout,” every central bank press conference—it all makes sense. New money doesn’t make everyone richer. It just rearranges the scoreboard. And the people printing it? They’re not doing it for you. They’re playing a game where the winners already have the rulebook.

For years, I thought the solution was just to hustle harder. Get another job. Save more. Cut back on coffee and streaming services like they tell you on those financial shows. But that’s like rearranging deck chairs on a ship that’s already drifting out to sea. It doesn’t matter how disciplined you are if the current’s against you.

So I started changing how I thought about money. I stopped treating the dollar like something sacred and started seeing it for what it really is: a game token with adjustable rules. I realized that true security doesn’t come from working harder within a broken system. It comes from stepping outside of it.

That’s when I found Bitcoin. Not as some get-rich-quick scheme, but as an exit door. A new set of rules. A fixed supply. A network that didn’t bend to politics or printing presses. It wasn’t about profits. It was about principles.

I started saving differently. Thinking differently. When I looked at my paycheck, I stopped asking, “How much do I make?” and started asking, “How much can I keep before it melts?” And suddenly, all those confusing headlines—debt ceilings, inflation reports, interest rate hikes—they stopped being noise. They became data. Signals of a system desperately trying to hide its own flaws.

Now, when I talk to people about money, I don’t start with charts or jargon. I start with a question: Have you ever felt like no matter how much you earn, it’s never enough? Because that’s where I was when this all started. Confused, frustrated, and tired of playing a game I didn’t understand.

But once you see how the game is played, you stop begging for fairness. You start building your own table.