The United States is in really bad financial shape.

The government has taken in more federal income tax every year since 2009, yet they lose more and more money each year.

Time for a thread 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1/ The US government has more revenue coming in the door every year.

Since 2009, federal income tax revenue has almost doubled.
2/ Although the US government has made more revenue each year, they continue to lose money year after year.

The last time the government spent less than it made was in 2001.

For 20 years, the government has lost money. Insane.
3/ The deficit problem is not a cumulative problem though.

We are running a larger deficit every year. Even though the government makes more money, we still lose more money each year.

This is the definition of bad business. Larger losses only ends one way.
4/ The problem has become worse since 1971.

We came off the gold standard, gave politicians the ability to print money, and now they are addicted to monetary stimulus.

Just like a drug addict, we need a bigger hit in order to deal with the gyrations in markets.
5/ Many people in the government or on Wall Street try to rationalize these issues.

They claim that the deficit doesn't matter. They say we can inflate the debt away.

None of this is true. Rich people just profit from it.

Savers get punished, investors get rewarded.
6/ It doesn't matter if you're an individual, corporation, or a government - you have to spend less than you make.

You may be able to live in debt for a period of time, but the party won't last forever.

Getting out of debt is the only path to freedom.

The US is no different.
If you enjoyed this thread, you should subscribe to the letter that I write every morning to 115,000 investors.

I break down business, finance, and Bitcoin in simple terms that anyone can understand.

Invest in yourself. Subscribe: pompletter.com

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More from @APompliano

31 Dec 20
One of my areas of focus in 2020 was to scale the size of our content business across platforms.

Here is our year in review 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1/ Everything starts and ends with Twitter for me.

Jan 2020: ~ 300k followers
Dec 2020: ~ 430k followers

I do over 100 million impressions per month and will continue to use Twitter to drive traffic everywhere else over time.
2/ The daily letter that I send to investors allows me to have nuanced, more analytical conversations with people.

Jan 2020: 38,500 free subscribers
Dec 2020: 102,000 free subscribers

The open rate is around 35% and the click through rate is around 10% when I email everyone.
Read 9 tweets
20 Nov 20
I've been running a sleep experiment for the last few weeks and I'm now averaging about 9 hours a night.

The hacks are simple. Anyone can do it.

Time for a thread 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1/ I used to pride myself on being able to function on a lack of sleep.

Whether it was travel, work, or procrastinating on the internet, I would regularly stay awake late into the night.

It was common for me to operate on 4-5 hours and then drink a gazillion coffees each day.
2/ It became obvious over the last few months that I needed to improve my sleep.

I read a few books. Listened to podcasts with sleep experts. And @polina_marinova annoyed me to death.

Here is what I learned...
Read 10 tweets
26 Oct 20
Many of the talking heads were screaming about Bitcoin being a horrible safe haven during the recent economic crisis.

They have been proven wrong.

Time for a thread 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1) The pandemic led to uncertainty & chaos across markets in March & April.

During shocks like this, we historically have seen liquidity crises play out — everyone starts selling any asset with a liquid market.

I wrote about it as it was happening.
pomp.substack.com/p/the-liquidit…
2) We are now 7 months since the start of the economic shock.

Bitcoin is up 83% year-to-date and up more than 300% since the March lows.

It has outperformed all other asset classes by a material amount.
Read 7 tweets
3 Oct 20
Some of the most successful companies today were started during economic recessions.

Uncertainty and market volatility creates opportunity.

Time for a thread 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1) Jan Koum and Brian Acton cofounded WhatsApp in 2009 after both serving as Yahoo executives.

They eventually sold the company to Facebook for $19 billion in 2014.

Fun fact: Jan Koum had applied to work at Facebook and was rejected before starting WhatsApp.
2) Iqram Magdon-Ismail & Andrew Kortina cofounded Venmo in 2009 to create better digital payments.

They sold Venmo to Braintree in 2012 for $26 million, which was a year before Braintree was acquired for $300 million.

Venmo processed $37 billion of payment transactions in 2Q20.
Read 11 tweets
2 Oct 20
UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH:

The conflation of "luck" and "randomness" is one of the most intellectually lazy things we do in our society.

Time for a thread 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1) Randomness (or random chance) is a math concept that is objective in nature. You can prove whether something is random or not.

Luck is a psychological concept that is subjective in nature. It is impossible to prove whether something is luck or not.
2) It has become socially acceptable to ascribe outcomes, particularly ones that involve success, to luck.

People do this as a form of virtue signaling, but it is incredibly misleading.

"How did you become successful?" "I was lucky!"
Read 12 tweets
5 Sep 20
There is one family that has three separate family members individually listed as one of the 12 richest people in the United States.

Time for a thread 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
1) Meet Sam Walton.

He is the founder of Walmart. His children and heirs collectively have become the richest family in the United States and the richest non-royal family in the world.
2) Sam Walton founded Walmart in 1962 at the age of 44.

He previously had served in the US Army, worked in retail stores, and run his own variety dime store.

Only after all this experience did Sam see the opportunity to undercut his competitors w/ lower prices & better service.
Read 13 tweets

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