Less is More

THE CHALLENGE

The financial system is built to extract. Opaque contracts, hidden fees, and debt traps erode savings, while banks, corporations, and governments use finance for surveillance and control. Speculative products add risk, and even basics like mortgages and pensions are loaded with terms favouring providers. What should offer security has become a maze designed to drain value.

We play into this by being far too driven by status consumption - buying things we do not need, and which make us no happier.

Finance as Extraction and Control

Credit cards, loans, and buy now, pay later schemes normalise debt while hiding high interest and fees. Mortgages, pensions, and insurance bury penalties in dense contracts, and banks profit from overdrafts and repayment traps. Consumers often do not understand the relationship between time, interest and the amount they ultimately pay to borrow. Meanwhile, tracking and cashless policies extend control, with data harvested, accounts frozen, and access to money increasingly confined to approved channels.

Investing Turned Into a Minefield

Markets are crowded with speculative products – complex derivatives, unstable digital assets – promising quick returns but risking heavy losses. The most easily available products are often the most expensive precisely because they are heavily advertised. Even basic tools like mortgages, pensions, and savings plans hide fees and terms skewed to providers. Instead of security, households bear the risk while banks, wealth managers, and funds collect steady income regardless of performance. Over-complex rules - such as AML law - add cost and suppress performance.

CORE SOLUTIONS FOR FINANCE

Purchase Power

Use purchase power to starve the worst players and / or change their behaviour.

Favour cash for everyday spending and keep only a simple current account. Avoid credit and minimise card use and overdrafts. Move savings to building societies or customer-owned banks with real branches.

Reward institutions that shun surveillance finance, and refuse centralised digital currencies or any tool expanding state or corporate control.

REMINDER: CORE SOLUTIONS EXPLAINED

SPECIFIC FINANCE SOLUTIONS

Taking Back Control of Money

Before all else, ask yourself: do I really need this item?

Use cash where possible on transactions $50 / £50 or less, keep accounts limited, and avoid services that track spending for convenience. Cut extra credit lines, reject buy now, pay later, and avoid products built on revolving debt. Exercise Purchase Power by backing providers with clear terms and boycotting those hiding fees or selling data. Cryptocurrencies - lower fees, faster transfers, no intermediaries, global access, privacy, user control, borderless payments, transparent records, inflation resistance - may be an alternative. Legal and political action is needed to resist compulsory digital currencies and defend the right to manage money freely.

Investment in Education; Education in Investment

Education is the best investment most people can make. Understanding value, risk, compound growth, tax implications and time protects against speculation and fraud. Understanding bankruptcy rules (UK, USA) and credit scores is valuable. The aim is steady accumulation. Learn the basics before chasing returns: what you buy, why you buy it, and what could go wrong. Good investors study before they act, review what they hold, and know that the greatest cost in finance is ignorance, not fees. And they refrain from showy acts of consumption.