The Perplexities of the Nations

I submit to you that one cannot understand “the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms” without understanding how our modern monetary system works.

And furthermore, that you cannot adequately be “prepared in all things.”

DC88:78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;

79 Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms—

80 That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.

One of the most compelling visual summaries of modern economic change is:
http://wtfhappenedin1971.com

The site overlays dozens of economic and social metrics with a clear breakpoint: 1971, when Nixon ended dollar convertibility to gold.

Across ~75 charts, several patterns emerge:

The core thesis: post-1971 fiat currency enabled sustained money expansion, which in turn accelerated financialization, widened inequality, and distorted incentives relative to the pre-1971 system.

To be fair, many of these trends have multiple contributing factors—technology, policy, globalization—but the monetary shift is a common underlying driver that ties them together.

If the command is to understand the perplexities of nations and be prepared, then understanding money is not optional, but foundational.

Centralized money systems introduce incentives that tend toward expansion, distortion, and, at times, abuse. Once you see it, you start to see it everywhere: in war, in food quality, in education costs, in healthcare, in taxation, in waste and fraud, in planned obsolescence, in political behavior, and in broader societal breakdowns.

The second-order effects compound.

At a human level, it shows up like this:
Young people feel less stability, less upward mobility, and fewer viable paths forward. Housing becomes harder to attain. Family formation gets delayed or abandoned. Birth rates fall. Long-term planning becomes harder in a system that increasingly rewards short-term survival and leverage.

That’s the downstream reality.

Knowing there is an opt-out matters. Systems persist when participation is unquestioned. When people understand the system, they begin to make different choices.

That’s where the “sound money” conversation, and increasingly, Bitcoin, comes in. Not just as an asset, but as an alternative framework with different incentives.

There’s a saying: “that’s so fiat.”
It gets used to describe things that feel cheap, disposable, short-term, or artificially optimized; appliances that don’t last, planned obsolescence, low-quality materials, bland design, junk food, chemical shortcuts. It’s shorthand for a broader pattern.

Whether you fully buy that framing or not, the underlying point stands:

If you want to understand the system: economic, political, and even social, then you have to understand the money that underpins it.