Marius

Commenting on world politics and markets from a German perspective

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

This is Elon telling you the future.

A mass driver is basically a giant electromagnetic catapult. You build a track on the Moon, run current through superconducting coils, and yeet payloads into space at 5,300 mph. No fuel. No rocket engines. Just electricity.

Gerard O'Neill built the first working prototype at MIT in 1976. The tech is 50 years old. The economics are what changed.

Here's the math:

Falcon 9 costs $2,720/kg to low Earth orbit. Starship targets $100/kg once fully reusable. A lunar mass driver, powered by solar and running continuously with zero propellant? The Space Studies Institute estimated $1 per pound back in 1979. Updated for modern superconductors and solar efficiency, we're talking single digits per kilogram.

The Moon has over 1 million metric tons of helium-3 (worth $2,000 to $20 million per kg on Earth). Titanium. Aluminum. Iron. Silicon. Rare earths. Water ice at the poles.

So what's the timeline?

Artemis III lands astronauts at the lunar south pole around 2027-2028. SpaceX wants a permanent base by early 2030s. NASA has plans for a 100-kilowatt nuclear reactor on the surface by 2030. China is racing to build their own lunar station by 2035.

Once you have power and people, a mass driver is just construction. O'Neill's original designs called for a track a few kilometers long. A 160-meter track can reach escape velocity at high g-forces. Modern estimates suggest 12 tons of equipment landed over 20 years could bootstrap a self-expanding lunar industry.

The realistic timeline? First operational mass driver by 2045-2050. Maybe faster if the space race with China heats up.

And here's the part nobody's pricing:

A functioning lunar mass driver can throw 600,000 tons of material per year into cislunar space at near-zero marginal cost. That's O'Neill's 1979 estimate with conservative tech.

At that point, the supply curve for critical resources inverts. You stop asking "how much does it cost to lift this from Earth?" You start asking "can we mine it on the Moon?"

Mining on the Moon, with 1/6th gravity and no atmosphere, gets cheaper every year as robotics and AI improve. Launching from the Moon gets cheaper as solar panels improve. The cost curves only go one direction.

Elon's "money becomes irrelevant" framing sounds crazy until you think about what happens when energy and raw materials both approach zero marginal cost. Every economic system ever built assumes scarcity of stuff. A mass driver breaks that assumption for anything you can make from lunar regolith.

This is why Starship matters as a bootstrap mechanism. You need cheap Earth-to-Moon transport to build the infrastructure that eventually makes rockets obsolete for bulk cargo.

Rockets get you to the Moon. The Moon gets you everywhere else.

And Elon just told you that's the plan.

[Marius @mmariusio]

👉 Instead of paying into a collapsing pay-as-you-go scheme, the average German could retire with ~€1.6 million in real assets—if contributions were invested in global equities.

#germany #merz #pension #retirement

[Marius @mmariusio]

Germany’s public pension is a pay-as-you-go pyramid: today’s workers finance today’s retirees, but with fewer young people every year, the math collapses.
If pension contributions had been invested in the global stock market instead, the average German would retire a millionaire

[Marius @mmariusio]

Sample Calculation (simple, realistic)

Assumptions:
•Average gross salary: €45,000
•Statutory pension contribution: 18.6% → €8,370/year (employee + employer)
•Investment: MSCI World–like index, 7% real annual return
•Contribution period: 40 years

[Marius @mmariusio]

Everyone’s watching the new Ukraine “peace plan”, but almost no one talks about the root cause behind endless conflicts: a money system that makes war cheap.
As long as governments can print debt-financed fiat, peace is just a pause, not a solution.

#Ukraine #PeaceTalks #Bitcoin

[Marius @mmariusio]

No downside for some means no upside for the rest
#scholz #euro

[Marius @mmariusio]

@Markus_Krall @postbank Bitcoin

[Fabio De Masi 🦩 @FabioDeMasi]

Dass die Freien Wähler in den Umfragen in Bayern zulegen, überrascht mich leider gar nicht. Wie sehr dies einige Leute schockiert, zeigt eher wie wenig das Problem des politischen Diskurses in bestimmten Kreisen verstanden wurde. Leider verspricht dies auch wenig Gutes für die Perspektive den Aufstieg der AfD zu hemmen. Selbstverständlich soll man #Aiwanger für seinen Umgang mit der Causa Flugblatt kritisieren. Ich tue das auch. Man sollte nur nicht glauben, dass man Landtagswahlen durch Debatten über Naziparolen in der Jugend gewinnt. Unabhängig davon dass sie natürlich etwas über die charakterliche Eignung für ein Amt sagen. Nur da ist Aiwanger nicht alleine mit. Und vor allem: Viele Menschen sind erschöpft von den Wellen politischer Empörung und wie wenig mediale und politische Debatten um Probleme wie die kaputte Infrastruktur oder bezahlbare Mieten kreisen. Mir ist als informierten politischen Beobachter nicht ein Thema in Erinnerung geblieben, mit dem etwa SPD und Grüne die Landesregierung politisch vor sich hertreiben. Vielleicht liegt es an mir? Aber was sollen die Leute eigentlich denken wenn ausgerechnet der CumEx Kanzler erklärt nichts dürfe vertuscht werden? Das ist doch grotesk.

[calle 🟥 @callebtc]

Stiftung @Warentest, the most reputable German consumer organization, compares the #Bitcoin electricity consumption to other areas of industry and life. Can you spot it?

Very based.

[Christian Lindner @c_lindner]

Wir haben es zu lange den Menschen schwergemacht, nach Deutschland zu kommen, die wir brauchen. Und zu lange schon machen wir es Menschen leicht zu bleiben, die eigentlich verpflichtet sind, auszureisen, weil sie irregulär eingereist sind. Das muss sich ändern. TL #HeuteJournal

[Nuseir Yassin @nasdaily]

Today, I finally understand the anger that led to the creation of Bitcoin.

Who do you trust with ur livelihood?

A “gov insured” bank that’s not actually insured?

An exchange that goes bust?

A stablecoin that depegs?

Or a currency that makes you 8% poorer every year?

[Bitcoin Magazine @BitcoinMagazine]

@maxkeiser @nayibbukele 🇸🇻 President Bukele calls out global financial institutions, Western powers & the media outlets they control for unfair criticisms only 1 year after adopting #Bitcoin as legal tender.

Featured in Bitcoin Magazine's The Orange Party Issue

📙👉 https://t.co/dQkljV31Bb

[Arsen @ relai.app @satoshibaggins]

Frederick Hayek predicts #Bitcoin in 1984

If there's one video you watch today, let it be this one.

https://t.co/KFYSIl8gRZ

[Marius @mmariusio]

According to #Handelsblatt, buying a #house becomes increasingly difficult for people with well payed job. Everyone tries to protect their wealth and save it from #inflation with real world assets https://t.co/cZnGRZdB5o

[Luke Broyles @luke_broyles]

Stocks are our proxy money anyways. They only "go up forever" because they are closest thing we have to perfect money in the ancient world (today) where we don't have perfect money.

Create perfect money -> stocks (and everything) reverts to it's natural state: deflation forever.

[Marius @mmariusio]

In #Davos the world leader are about to announce that #geopolitics is more important than #freetrade.
What has brought us more prosperity in the past decades? #Bitcoin helps building borderless economies.

[Martin Hagen @_MartinHagen]

In #Lützerath protestieren grüne Aktivisten gewaltsam gegen den Kohle-Deal grüner Minister, der notwendig ist, weil die grüne Basis auf dem Atomausstieg beharrt. Politische Schizophrenie par excellence.

[Stefan Evers @StefanEvers_Bln]

Wow. Die Zerstörung der SPD Berlin im Rezo-Style. Maischberger on 🔥.

[Marius @mmariusio]

#Riots in #Brazil are on the rise due to high inflation and unemployment. The current inflationary system is putting a strain on citizens and exacerbating social inequalities. It's important for policymakers to take notice and implement measures to combat the issues