This is one of the first things I dig into in The Everything Code because you simply cannot understand the economy without it. After 2008 the world was left with a debt it can never repay, so the central banks do the only thing they can... they print the money to roll it, every year, and every year of that printing takes around 8% off the value of each dollar. Assets reprice against that. Houses, stocks, gold, Bitcoin... they all rise because there are more dollars chasing the same assets. Your salary doesnt. So if you earn a wage and dont own assets, you are getting poorer every single year. Nobody voted for it and it doesnt appear anywhere you can see it. But its a tax all the same, and once you see it, the rest starts to make sense... why the system feels rigged, why your parents path to wealth stopped working, and why the Exponential Age is the only way out.