Thread by @PKmemex

YOU CAN'T BUILD A CATHEDRAL OVER 100 YEARS IF YOUR MONEY DEVALUES 2% PER YEAR.

A thread 🧵

As an architect and city planner, I've wondered:

"Why aren't we building cathedrals or other grand, timeless buildings anymore?"

Monetary inflation is one of the underlying reasons. Let's take a look...

Say a church has $1b and wants to build a cathedral. The architect and builder determine it will cost $1b and take 100 years.

Let's assume a perfect, value-static money and set inflation at 0%.

After 100 years all funds have been spent and we have a fully built cathedral! Yay!

Now let's build the same $1b cathedral over 100 years, but set inflation at "just" 2%.

Uh oh; ya can't.

After 56 years there is no money left and only a half-built cathedral.

To finish it, the church would need to come up with another $2 billion.

womp womp

But we all know real inflation is higher than 2%. @truflation and the Chapwood Index puts it at 10%+.

Let's be conservative and say it's 8% and rerun the numbers...

After only 29 years you've burned through $1b and the cathedral is barely 1/3rd completed.

To finish it, the church would need to come up with another $273 billion dollars--that's not a typo.

So there you have it. Part of the reason we don't build beautiful cathedrals anymore is because we can't afford it! The @federalreserve devalues our money to keep us racing against each other and borrowing from our future.

Opt out with #bitcoin. Let's build cathedrals again.

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