Clean Water vs. Bitcoin

This week I provide you with a “giving opportunity,” drop some knowledge on Bitcoin, and pass on a couple of quotes to chew on!

Need I am Filling – Want to help?

Over the last few years, my father and I (with the help of some other volunteers and donors) started a charity called Well Spring of Blessings and have been building a secondary school in western Uganda and providing the region with fresh drinking water.

We have completed the school buildings and the school had its first graduation ever this year! We also installed three water wells. However, the needs are still significant. 

We’d like to bring electricity to the school via a solar array project ($6,500) and we’d like to install six more water wells in the region ($3,500 each; $21k total) in the coming years.

Before Our Wells – I won’t disgust you by telling you what else goes on in this stream. 

After Our Wells – Safe, clean water for drinking, bathing, and cleaning!

Next week I intend to donate $10,000 to the effort, and I plan to do the same next year. 

Do NOT let the size of my donation deter you! Every donation, large or small, will 100% go towards the projects; the administrative costs for the non-profit have already been covered.

If you are inclined, there are two easy ways to donate. By Paypal (click here) or by a check made out to Well Spring of Blessings and mailed to 43458 Mink Meadows Street, South Riding, VA 20152.

Book I am Reading (Listening)

I’ve been interested in learning about cryptocurrency for a while, but it was tough to find good unbiased information that isn’t tilted towards or away from the investment speculation. Then, The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous was recommended to me.

While Bitcoin is a new invention of the digital age, the problem it is supposed to solve is as old as human society itself: transferring value across time and space. Ammous takes an engaging journey through the history of technologies performing the functions of money, from primitive systems of trading limestones and seashells to metals, coins, the gold standard, and modern government debt. Exploring what gave these technologies their monetary role, and how most lost it, provides the reader with a good idea of what makes for sound money, and sets the stage for an economic discussion of its consequences for individual and societal future-orientation, capital accumulation, trade, peace, culture, and art. Compellingly, Ammous shows that it is no coincidence that the loftiest achievements of humanity have come in societies enjoying the benefits of sound monetary regimes, nor is it coincidental that monetary collapse has usually accompanied civilizational collapse.

With this background in place, the book moves on to explain the operation of Bitcoin in a functional and intuitive way. Bitcoin is a decentralized, distributed piece of software that converts electricity and processing power into indisputably accurate records, thus allowing its users to utilize the Internet to perform the traditional functions of money without having to rely on, or trust, any authorities or infrastructure in the physical world. 

In the coming years, you are going to see more adoption of cryptocurrencies, and a lot of country’s trying to figure out how to regulate it.

Quotes I am Pondering

I studied the lives of great and famous men and women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm, and hard work.  

~  President Harry S. Truman

I find television very educating. Every time someone turns on the set I go into the other room and read a book.  

~ Groucho Marx, American comedian, actor, writer, film, and television star

Don’t be fooled into thinking you are alone on your journey.  You’re not.  Your struggle is everyone’s struggle.  Your pain is everyone’s pain.  Your power is everyone’s power.  It is simply that we take different paths along our collective journey.  

~ Benjamin Shield, Ph.D.