Robert Gwiazdowski, a lawyer, economist by passion and wannabe politician, enjoys considerable popularity among cryptocurrency fans. Now he has strongly criticized (again!) our national pension system. Maybe his new Twitter post will provoke more people to save for their own retirement and not count on the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS)? Is a Bitcoin pension a good idea?
“Germans will have to work until they are 70, or even longer. Otherwise, the pension system will collapse,” the Bundesbank argues. And we, on the other hand, will work until they are 62.5 (years old) on average, and ours will not collapse. Because the Germans will work for our reparations. That’s how it will be!”
– he mocks Twitter Starowski.
Retirement in Bitcoins
“Maybe we will die faster patriotically” – one of the Twitter users responds to Gwiazdowski with black humor. However, if someone does not plan to leave this vale of tears and despair prematurely, maybe it is worth starting to save for the autumn of your life?
The idea of retirement in Bitcoins is put into practice by the creator of the Bitfilar blog.
Everyone probably knows how it is with the future retirement in Poland. There is little chance of anything sensible that would allow you to spend your old age with dignity. Especially if you ran a business. Looking for an alternative, we come across various solutions. The third pillar, the fourth pillar, IKE, investment funds or other financial instruments, on which mainly managers earn. Or maybe a bank deposit? For 3% per year? Funny, right 🙂 One of my many areas of interest is cryptocurrencies. There is a good chance that you have heard of Bitcoin. (…) For the needs of my retirement, it is enough to know that cryptocurrencies work like cash in a modern version. They have their value (they are listed on stock exchanges, have their own exchange rate), they can be stored safely, sent immediately to any distance practically without fees and – with a little effort – they are anonymous. And they are currently at an early stage of development. Anyone who touches them is still an early adopter, which means that – with a high probability – a long-term investment in cryptocurrencies will be very profitable.
– the creator of the blog explains the idea behind his experiment on a living organism (his own, at that!)
As he presents on his blog, he has chosen four cryptocurrencies for his “retirement basket” and given them percentage values indicating their presence in the basket. He invests almost half (45%) of his saved funds in BTC, 30% in LTC, 15% in DASH and 10% in DOGE. Looking at the development of the market, there is a lack of ETH or other younger cryptocurrencies, but this is an individual decision of the saver.
“How much do I save? I didn’t want to set a fixed amount. Because, you know, inflation, fluctuations in financial markets, etc. So I decided that the value of the monthly investment will depend on the minimum wage in Poland. In 2019, this is PLN 2,250. And I invest 10% of this amount every month, i.e. PLN 225”
– he describes further. As you can see from the amount, it is not a shocking scale and practically every one of us could afford a similar investment (especially people who receive e.g. 500 plus).
According to his calculations, which can be followed on the website, our blogger saved PLN 10,320 in this way. After 52 months, however, he already had PLN 60.25, which translates into a 482.6% rate of return.
So maybe a Bitcoin retirement isn’t as crazy an idea as you might think at first glance? Of course, if you decide to take this step, remember to store your cryptocurrencies safely so that no one steals your savings.
Gwiazdowski attacks ZUS
Robert Gwiazdowski himself has been attacking ZUS for years. He became famous for often repeating in the media that as a member of the ZUS supervisory board, he confirmed that “there is no money in ZUS”. With these words – perhaps shocking for someone who does not understand how the pension system works in Poland – he explained how the current system, which is supposed to provide us with decent pensions in the future, works. In short – there is little chance that it will provide…
Demographics are inexorable. Fewer and fewer children are being born in our country, while statistically we are all living longer and longer. What will be the consequences of this phenomenon? They are not difficult to imagine. Fewer and fewer people will work in the future to support an increasing number of retirees.
What will be the further result of this? Politicians are increasingly mumbling about the need to introduce a civic pension. Will this completely solve the problem? Doubtful…
Gwiazdowski himself has already criticized the recent plans to reform the pension system introduced by the United Right government, concerning Employee Capital Plans.
“Mateusz Morawiecki may miscalculate that three-quarters of Poles will remain in the new pension system voluntarily”
– he said on Money.pl in the fall of 2017 and added, speaking about the minimum pension:
“The citizen’s pension introduces itself. In a dozen or so years, three quarters of those who will retire will not be entitled to a pension higher than the minimum. It will happen by itself, but the problem with Employee Capital Plans is that they still concern wages, which means they increase labor costs. Fortunately, this is not supposed to be mandatory.”
Polish Fair Play Leader on Cryptocurrencies
It is worth mentioning the failed political project of Robert Gwiazdowski. Polska Fair Play was supposed to be a new liberal, free-market party on the Polish scene. Unfortunately, it was completely lost at the stage of the elections to the European Parliament in May 2019. People involved in the project failed to register candidate lists in all constituencies, which immediately doomed Polska Fair Play to failure. The effect was not surprising. No candidate became an MEP, and the electoral committee itself achieved a result in the elections that was a statistical error.
However, during the election campaign, we managed to ask Gwiazdowski himself for a comment on cryptocurrencies. We received a fairly extensive response, which shows that digital currencies fit perfectly into liberal economic thought.
“We must begin with the fact that money is a medium of exchange. As Hayek wrote in his book Denationalization of Money denationalization of money would be useful. The traditional monetary system, in which the state has a monopoly on the issue of money, does not provide society with a stable medium of exchange, the supply of which cannot be manipulated. In order to ensure “good” money, it is necessary to abolish the state monopoly on the issue of money and introduce competition on the currency market.
The state monopoly on issuing money has no economic justification. The only reason it exists is historical. The privilege of the ruler consisting of the exclusive right to mint money dates back to the times of the Roman emperors and was strengthened in the Middle Ages.
The role of the modern state in monetary affairs should be limited to providing a legal framework in which society will spontaneously choose the best or several best monetary means. In this way, a specific monetary catallaxyi.e. the state of “spontaneous order” on the money market.
I don’t know about Bitcoin, but cryptocurrencies can be a great way to implement Hayek’s theory.”
