Nothing Can Stop This Train: Our Financial Predicament From a Systems Perspective with Lyn Alden
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 550 Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2025
⏱️ 100 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Money, debt, and finance shape the lives of everyone globally, including through the policies and actions of national central banks – yet even those who are well-versed in these subjects often miss the full scope of these intricate relationships. For the average person, headlines about mounting government debt and surging interest rates often feel like a confusing and concerning trend. What can we learn from historical cycles, global energy dynamics, and the differing fiscal strategies of nations about the trajectory of the world economy?
In today's episode, Nate is joined once more by Lyn Alden for a deeper exploration of the intricate relationships between fiscal dominance, rising levels of debt, and the role of energy in shaping our current financial realities. Lyn explains how a historical analysis shines light on the gaps in economic theories like Keynesianism and Modern Monetary Theory, and what the implications are for our present situation. Using this perspective, they discuss recent trends in Bitcoin, Stablecoins, and Artificial Intelligence – and what further developments in these areas might mean for average people in developed and developing countries alike.
How can a deeper understanding of these dynamics prepare us for the economic challenges ahead? What lessons can we draw from past instances when public debt reached unsustainable levels? And as governments attempt to navigate familiar problems with new approaches, how might individuals prepare for the acceleration of this unstoppable train as we head into an increasingly uncertain future?
(Conversation recorded on May 28th, 2025)
About Lyn Alden:
Lyn Alden is an independent analyst and founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy with a background in engineering management. Her work provides institutional-level research in plain English, so that both institutional investors and retail investors can benefit from it. Lyn also serves as an independent director on the board of Swan.com and as a general partner at the venture capital firm Ego Death Capital. She is the author of the 2023 best-selling book Broken Money about the past, present, and future of money through the lens of technology. Lyn has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in engineering management, with a focus on engineering economics, systems engineering, and financial modeling. She worked for over a decade as an electrical engineer at the Federal Aviation Administration's William J. Hughes Technical Center.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | money is a ledger that people use. And that could be a ledger that relies on nature like gold. |
| 0:05.5 | It could be a leisure that relies on shared society like basically central banking. |
| 0:10.2 | So money is just the circulation mechanism, how we price things and how we store liquid value. |
| 0:16.5 | When it is broken, it makes things way less efficient and it makes us more likely to do things that |
| 0:22.0 | are malinvestment as we're trying to arbitrarily store value with different levels of sophistication |
| 0:27.6 | based on what we know to try to protect ourselves from that. The government can kind of push |
| 0:32.1 | a scale on something and say, hey, we want to build this new capital. By the way, we're going to |
| 0:36.0 | devalue all of your wages to do it. And everyone's trying to scramble to kind of get their share back up to how it used to be. |
| 0:44.8 | You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Higgins. On this show, we describe how |
| 0:50.5 | energy, the economy, the environment and human behavior all fit together and what it might |
| 0:56.3 | mean for our future. By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire |
| 1:02.4 | more humans to play emergent roles in the coming great simplification. |
| 1:18.2 | Today I'm pleased to welcome back to the podcast, investor and bestselling author Lynn Alden, to provide an update on the monetary situation of the United States and the world. |
| 1:24.9 | Lynn is an independent analyst and founder of Lynn Alden Investment Strategy. |
| 1:30.0 | She also serves as an independent director on the board of swan.com and as a general partner |
| 1:35.8 | at the venture capital firm Ego Death Capital. Lin is the author of the 2023 bestselling book |
| 1:42.2 | Broken Money about the past, present, and future of money |
| 1:46.8 | through the lens of technology. In this episode, Lynn and I explore a broad range of topics, |
| 1:53.1 | including fiscal dominance, the historical context of economic downturns, the role of energy |
| 2:00.0 | in shaping financial systems, the significance |
| 2:03.0 | of cryptocurrencies, and ultimately the importance of understanding these dynamics to navigate |
| 2:09.0 | future economic challenges and better prepare for the future. I invited Lim back because she is |
... |
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