Broke2Alpha Intro (Extended Version)
Broke2Alpha exists to spread awareness about how the modern world is designed to make you economically irrelevant and what do you do to save yourself from economic irrelevance.
There are two parts to it.
FIRST: How the modern world is designed to make you economically irrelevant? This is the problem.
SECOND: What do you do to participate in it and save yourself from economic irrelevance? This is the solution.
Will Elaborate Both.
First, let’s define what is economic irrelevance.
Economic irrelevance does not mean you won’t be able to put food on your table (Government help will be there). It also does not mean you wouldn’t be able to buy materialistic things (over the years, we will live in the age of abundance and there will be universal basic income). Economic irrelevance means you will not be able to make money by tangibly contributing to the economy — i.e. by doing some kind of job or work — thereby taking away your dignity and ability to participate in any policy-making decisions.
Now, the million-dollar question is — how is the modern world designed to make you economically irrelevant?
There are two aspects to it.
One is supermassive efficiency gains industries (SME’s) — happening in some of the industries depending on the timeline, i.e. ranging from agricultural world to the industrial world to the web world and now the present world of AI.
And the second is the monetary and fiscal policies (M&FP’s) that are designed to help the top 1% who are directly involved in the supermassive efficiency gains industries, thereby feeding the loop.
Let me explain: If you look at this image below
The Rectangle is 100% of the population and it’s called the superset and the nexus between Monitory and Fiscal policies and the super massive efficiency gains industries feeding each other is top 1%, and it’s called the subset. If you remove the subset from the superset, we are left with the 99% of the population who are either already economically irrelevant or are going to be economically irrelevant.
The nexus between Monitory and Fiscal policies and the super massive efficiency gains industries feeding each other is what we call the top 1% game, and this 1% game is the foundation on which economic irrelevance is built. In order to understand it better, we need to understand this nexus in great detail.
First, let’s crack the Monitory and Fiscal policies: In order to understand this, you need to understand the concept of money and why do we have the monetary and fiscal policies in the first place.
Let’s understand money first.
Money is a medium of exchange and a store of value, and it can be in any form i.e. paper money, gold, bitcoin, digital money, etc. But before modern paper money, humans used barter to exchange goods among each other.
Imagine you are a farmer and you grow wheat and you want some rice. So, you find a farmer who grows rice and say let’s exchange rice for wheat. This is how trade began through barter. But here’s the problem. What if the farmer that grows rice does not want wheat? Maybe he needs fish or tools or whatever. This is the classic problem of barter. It only works when there is a double coincidence of wants. You had to find someone who not only had what you wanted but also wanted what you had. Inefficient and limiting. To solve this, humans innovated the need for a universal medium of exchange that almost all participants in the community accepted — something everyone would recognize as valuable, i.e. a store of value and medium of exchange as well — money!
Across civilizations, many objects served the role of money. In Africa, cowrie shells were money. In Rome, salt was money (Salary comes from salt, also the phrase ‘‘worth one’s salt’’) and pepper in medieval Europe. All these were money because they were rare, divisible, durable and universally desired.
But over the years, human civilization expanded like crazy and many of them were not feasible to be money anymore. For example, cowrie shells were rare in Africa because they needed to be imported — trade routes made them expensive enough to function as money. But due to efficiency in trade, cowries weren’t rare anymore as they’re abundant in the Indian Ocean.
Because human civilization became extremely big and well-connected, many forms of money ceased to exist. But among all the monies, one stood out — Gold!
Gold is hard to find and expensive to extract (even today). It’s durable, divisible, portable, recognizable and scarce but not too scarce, perfect for being money.
It became the bedrock of trade. For centuries, gold coins symbolized wealth and power. But gold is heavy, risky and impractical in large amounts. People, especially merchants, wanted something lighter, safer and easier to trade. That’s when they collectively decided to create a system where they would physically keep the gold in one place and print promissory notes saying X has Y amount of gold deposited in his name. Whoever has the promissory note will be the holder of gold because it’s been created by the collective system.
This is how the bank was born and the notes became currency and money. Remember, till now, the paper money is still backed by gold. It’s as good as having gold because the equivalent amount of gold is physically safe in the bank and only a promissory note holder can go back to the bank and surrender his or her promissory note and get back the gold.
But over the years, almost all transactions started to happen via notes and not through exchange of gold because notes were practical and they could represent many values. For example, if you have 1 kg of gold valued at 1000 in currency X, then you can have different combinations of notes — e.g. 10 × 100 is equal to 1000 and so on.
Since everyone started to exchange promissory notes instead of gold, the banks figured out an opportunity to print more notes than they had gold in their deposits. The banks could do it because not everyone would come to the bank and ask for gold all at once. This is how the bankers became extremely rich. But they got greedy as well. They printed so much money that people figured out that their gold wasn’t safe. And as the news became widespread, almost everyone came knocking down the doors of the bank to get their gold back. But by now, it was impossible for the banks to give gold to every note holder because the gold did not exist and the bank went bust. That’s what we call a bank run — it means a bank has become bankrupt.
This was not a one-off event. There were many banks that went bankrupt in many parts of the world in the past and in the United States as well. After repeated crises like this, the United States created the US Federal Reserve System in 1913. It’s called the Central Bank and it was created to stabilize banks, manage the money supply and prevent panics.
How?
By bailing out the banks. So, whenever there was a bank run situation, the Federal Reserve intervenes and bails out the bank. The trust resumes and it goes business as usual.
So basically, the Federal Reserve artificially provided emergency liquidity to the banks in trouble, allowed fractional reserve banking to continue — i.e. money is not 100% backed by gold — and managed money supply and interest rates to calm the markets. That’s how the monetary system was born.
Fun Fact: The creation of the Federal Reserve and monetary policy did not fix the underlying problem of banks issuing more than they held. It bought time, prevented immediate collapse and created a controlled illusion of stability. But it also enabled banks to take bigger risks, meaning the fundamental instability of the system is still there — just postponed. This is what we call the Hyman Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH).
So, this is how the monetary system was created — to artificially manipulate the money supply!
And guess what? Who benefited the most out of the system?
The top 1% who were involved in the supermassive efficiency gain industries because they had the finance and wherewithal to do it.
In real life, it’s pretty simple — those who had access to capital could out-innovate and outwork those who didn’t. And this kept on accelerating because the wealth of capital owners exploded because of this arrangement.
According to Thomas Piketty, the rate of return on capital — i.e. income from profits, dividends, interests, rents and other capital sources — exceeds the rate of economic growth — i.e. income from capital far exceeds the income from labour.
Basically, favourable monetary policy has been the hidden engine behind every great leap, thereby making those people who were closer to the capital supply richer.
For example, in the agricultural age, it financed irrigation tools and technologies such as tractors and land movers, land expansion and the storage of wealth beyond harvest. This was the 1% game back then — lots of money invested into the most efficient industry at that time, i.e. agriculture.
In the industrial age, the monetary system funded the railroads, factories, steel and others, turning a few insiders into tycoons. Monetary policy kept credit flowing even through recessions, so factories kept running and the industrial boom did not collapse under its own weight. Again, it’s the 1% game. Monetary policy funded the industrial revolution, and the 1% became extremely rich.
The internet age was even crazier. On August 15, 1971, the U.S. government completely removed its currency from being pegged to gold. Now, the U.S. dollar was purely a fiat currency with no backing other than the promise of the Federal Reserve. So, during the web age, the U.S. had already matured its easy credit system and injected billions of dollars for the internet boom, enriching those who stood closest to the capital. Again, this was the top 1% game — monetary policy funded the internet age, benefiting the top 1%.
During this time, there was a dot-com crash, but the Federal Reserve stepped in with lower rates and fresh liquidity, after which we have the rise of the Magnificent 7 — FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix & Google) and a few others like Meta.
After the internet or the web age, we entered the AI age. But before that, there was another crisis that happened in the U.S. — the 2008 financial crisis. During that time as well, the Federal Reserve injected money into the economy and bailed out everyone.
Since 2008, broad money (M2) has approximately tripled, and the Fed’s balance sheet went from $1 trillion to $9 trillion — meaning the Fed has effectively pumped $8 trillion new dollars into the financial system since 2008, much of which went into banks, Wall Street, stocks, government bonds, and mortgages.
And what is the ripple effect of this?
More liquidity → More lending → More speculation → Higher asset prices (stocks, real estate, and crypto).
And guess what? Who owns this? The top 1% of the population.
What happens to the bottom 99%?
More inflation, less disposable income, more effort to keep up in life, debt traps, generational divides — and slowly, economic irrelevance!
Also, the story doesn’t end here. That was just the monetary policy. We have another beast — and that’s called fiscal policy.
Fiscal Policy: Unlike monetary policy, where the central bank controls the money supply through banks, fiscal policy is the government’s use of spending and taxation to influence the economy.
This is how it works. The government has a budget — the total of its income and expenses. Typically, the government runs a deficit — i.e. it decides to spend more than it earns — because it wants to boost certain industries.
And guess what industries those are?
Again, the supermassive efficiency gain industries — from agriculture to industrial to tech to AI. And who controls these industries? Once again, the top 1%.
For example: In the Agricultural Age, fiscal policies included land grants, irrigation projects, and similar measures. These interventions increased farming productivity and supported agricultural expansion — disproportionately benefiting large landowners and agribusinesses. Again, the top 1% game.
In the Industrial Age, massive government spending on railroads, roads, electric grids, and large-scale industrial projects facilitated the rise of corporate giants — again favoring owners of productive assets. That’s the top 1% game.
In the Tech Age, the government invested heavily in computers, semiconductors, and the internet — massively subsidizing early tech sectors, which led to the rise of Big Tech — a new form of asymmetrical wealth distribution. The tech era was the biggest asymmetrical wealth transfer in human history.
And what’s happening now — in the Age of AI?
The total capex on AI-related projects is more than $1.2 trillion, which includes both private and public funding.
So, all in all, throughout history, the nexus between monetary and fiscal policy and supermassive efficiency gain industries — i.e. the top 1% — has increased their wealth exponentially compared to the bottom 99 percent. And it’s accelerating fast.
This answers my FIRST question — how is the modern world designed to make you economically irrelevant? By the top 1% owning almost everything through decades of efficiency gains via innovation, technology, and favorable policies.
Also, the worst-hit class is the employee class because they are at the bottom of the priority list.
If you look at what’s happening today, mental labor is being replaced by AI, and physical labor will be replaced by physical AI — i.e. fully functional robots. We are heading toward an insane, jobless economic growth where 99 percent will be left behind.
Note: Broke2Alpha goes in depth about all these topics. So do follow us everywhere.
Basically, the modern world is designed to make you economically irrelevant because it’s working toward keeping humans out of the equation. Also, remember — you wouldn’t die or stop consuming, because we’ll live in the age of abundance due to insane efficiency gains. But you won’t be able to make meaningful money by actually contributing to the economy — i.e. through dignified work or jobs.
Now it’s time for my second question: What do you do to participate in it and save yourself from economic irrelevance?
The first step toward solving a problem is to acknowledge it as a problem. You need to understand that whenever there’s an upside — i.e. profits — it goes to the top 1% (as I’ve already explained who they are). And whenever there’s a downside — i.e. losses — it gets distributed to everyone through money printing, inflation, and taxation.
The process typically follows this sequence:
- Central banks create money.
- Banks and financial institutions receive it first.
- They buy assets at current prices.
- Asset prices rise.
- Wealthy asset holders benefit.
- Inflation eventually reaches consumers.
- The middle and lower classes pay higher prices with unchanged incomes.
This entire system has given birth to extreme wealth inequality and distorted every aspect of life. This is the core reason why life feels extremely difficult — no matter what you do. Because the incentive itself is corrupt to the core and centralized — meaning a handful of people decide what needs to be done.
Politicians decide fiscal policy, bankers decide monetary policy, and crony capitalists leech off both. And these people are not selected for merit, contribution, or ingenuity — but through fraud, intimidation, and backroom power.
The legacy system is dysfunctional, corrupt, centralized, polarizing, dividing, accelerating inequality, and destabilizing the entire structure. This is the reason you cannot buy a house, send your kids to school, why inflation is sky high, why the judiciary and media are jokes, and why healthcare and education are unaffordable — because everything is owned by a tiny percentage at the top. And it’s accelerating, making you economically irrelevant.
But there’s a silver lining beneath the clouds — and I call it The Grid. It’s the answer to my second question: What do you do to save yourself from economic irrelevance?
The Grid is the most sophisticated technology humanity has ever built. It’s a layered system where energy powers compute, compute runs code, code unlocks capital, capital fuels distribution, distribution generates data, and data amplifies intelligence — all converging into sovereignty.
And guess what? Tech, AI, and crypto are the fastest-growing assets in human history. They aren’t just industries — they’re the infrastructure of a new world, the operating system of the future.
Also, The Grid is not a metaphor. It’s a hierarchy of wealth infrastructure, and every layer has a 10x to 100x potential. These are all supermassive efficiency-gain industries defining 2025 and beyond.
The Grid: The Hierarchy of Wealth Infrastructure
Layer 1 — Energy (Power): This is the foundation — nothing runs without it. Solar, nuclear, SMRs (later fusion), wind, batteries, and decentralized grids. Energy is the raw fuel of civilization, powering data centers, blockchains, AI, robotics, and everything above it. This sector holds a 10x to 100x growth potential.
Layer 2 — Compute & Hardware: Energy becomes usable through compute — chips (NVIDIA, AMD), cloud infrastructure, photonics, and quantum computing. This is the hardware layer where processing scales exponentially. This sector is easily 10x to 100x in growth potential. Within this, we also have Physical AI — i.e. robotics — which could be a 1000x opportunity!
Layer 3 — Code & Protocols: Compute runs code — i.e. blockchains, smart contracts, AI models, and open-source protocols. Trust shifts from human institutions to transparent, auditable algorithms. This is where the legacy systems — central banks, governments, fiat, and all things centralized — become increasingly irrelevant. This field holds a 100x to 1000x potential.
Layer 4 — Capital & Finance: In math we trust. Code gives birth to programmable money — crypto, DeFi, stablecoins, CBDCs, and tokenized assets. This sector represents a 1000x opportunity. As of now, crypto isn’t even 5% of the total world’s GDP, leaving massive room for expansion.
Layer 5 — Distribution & Networks: Anything without distribution dies in silence. Platforms, social media, communities, and creator-led ecosystems exist to solve that. This is how attention becomes currency. Networks become wealth engines. This sector is easily a 10x to 100x opportunity.
Layer 6 — Data & Intelligence: Distribution creates data. Data trains AI. Intelligence compounds at scale — through automation, personalization, and decision-making. This is where systems begin to self-learn and move toward AGI and singularity. This layer carries a 100x to 1000x potential.
Layer 7 — Sovereignty (Becoming Alpha): This is the top stack — the summit of the Grid. Here, individuals and communities own their data, capital, networks, and intelligence. This is where you evolve from consumer → participant → sovereign operator — the ultimate Alpha. The point where awareness turns into leverage, and leverage turns into freedom.
So, the answer lies in how well you participate in The Grid.
Your agency — i.e. your ability to participate in it, own assets, build massive distribution via content, and navigate the ecosystem — will decide where you stand in the wealth spectrum.
P.S. Your ability to protect your economic wherewithal will depend on how well you play within the Grid.
The Solution
Know the game. Own assets that are probable asymmetrical bets. Participate in the community. Do and live it in your day-to-day life as if your life depends on it — because it does. Learn as much as you can (the more you do, the more you learn). Build a personal brand and distribute yourself. Double down on everything above. Reach the wealth stratosphere. There are no limits to what you can do.
The solution in a few words — be an agency of enablers within the Grid (go back and check the Grid). That’s how you become economically relevant.
Note: Broke2Alpha explores all this in greater detail. This is just the core idea to bring it home — to my audience, to the masses, and to you!
For more in-depth discussions and the exact roadmap, please subscribe to our newsletter (it’s the ultimate guide, delivered twice a month). Follow us on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.