Oh reader, have you ever considered everything about my journey to financial independence is a conspiracy? That’s why I put the title in all caps. Capitalizing every word (and adding several exclamation points) is the surefire way to make you take this seriously.

I promise you, I did not start out on this journey as a willing participant in this web of lies. Once I realized the financial independence movement is nothing more than a farce, I’ve been utterly devastated. No one had enlightened me on the harmful evils I had been spouting for the past 1.3 years. I’ve cried so much over this. Words cannot express my shame. Now I’m trying to right my wrongs by confirming that financial independence is, indeed, a conspiracy of the most insidious order.

This conspiracy is not to be confused with some of my most favorite conspiracies – my top 3 most beloved go over how birds aren’t real, stone mesas are actually old tree stumps, and Finland doesn’t actually exist. But this isn’t a blog about flora, fauna, and world geography, no – it’s about fat stacks o’ cash and I need to focus on that. So instead of debating the efficacy of my favorite conspiracies and why numbers 4-10 are ranked as such (yes, there is a list) let’s discuss the most appropriate here:

FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE IS A CONSPIRACY. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

Well, “heard here first” in the sense of a finance writer finally acknowledging it. You’ve heard of financial independence (FI) being a cult before, but a conspiracy?

The Acronym is the First Clue

I’m still unraveling the many layers to this financial independence conspiracy, but some of the clues should have been obvious from the beginning. Have you ever looked – and I mean, really looked – at the financial independence movement acronym?

It’s F I R E. That supposedly stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early” according to several sites seen strewn through the web. But that phrasing doesn’t quite make sense in the English language. All the other common acronyms make grammatical sense, after all. BRB stands for Be Right Back. WTF equals Why The Face. CIA means Central Intelligence Agency.

See how they all make grammatical sense? That’s what makes them easy to use as replacements in sentences.

“I forgot something at home, be right back!” The last three words are easily replaced with “BRB”.

“The investigators got into my files before I could get rid of them and you’re smirking, why the face!” Replacing the last three words with “WTF” still makes sense given the context.

“The Central Intelligence Agency is onto me for blackmailing the ruler of Genovia” is easily replaced with “The CIA” instead.*

But in what sentence does it make grammatical sense to say “Financial Independence, Retire Early”? None that I can think of in my severely limited capacity for imagination. In light of this, I’ve come to realize the financial independence movement must have intricate ties to the Illuminati for its symbolism within the name FIRE.

Why FIRE?

Because fire is one of the most destructive forces on the planet. It injures thousands, perhaps billions, of people around the world every year. Not to mention obliterates entire regions of wildlife in weird places like Australia and California. Why would a “movement” about “freedom” name itself after something that causes so much devastation worldwide?

Not because the leaders find it funny, no. It’s because the FIRE movement was founded for the specific goal of destroying society and installing a new world order in its place.

FI Sucks Money from the Consumerist Economy and Hurts Billionaires

At first when I began researching this heinous truth, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I’ve happened to follow the basic financial teachings and have over $200,000 to my name. That’s a lot of money. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

Well, my saving all of that money is a very bad thing when I’m supposed to be spending it all. In the United States alone, over 240 billion dollars was spent on advertising goods and services in 2019. That’s a LOT of money, money that could have otherwise gone towards boosting employee bonuses (especially CEO bonuses, those poor dears). Or by hiring more people. Or buying more real estate for better business. But no – instead it’s eaten up by telling you to buy, buy, buy. It’s a free market economy. They wouldn’t do that unless they had good reason to.

And then you have all these FIRE bloggers who urge you to do things that hurt your feelings and make you feel poopy, like sticking to a budget and investing in index funds. They don’t even recommend doing something sexy with your investing like putting it all into GameStop stock at the peak and entrusting your twitchy-eyed distant uncle with the rest. Why do you think all these people keep touting these unexciting practices? At first I thought they were doing so to “help” people, until I learned the horrible truth. What they really want to do is cripple the US economy by making people actually think through what they’re purchasing. Meaning less national economic power, meaning destabilization of your country’s standing in the world. And all so you can, what, have more money in your bank account???

FI Removes Talented, Efficient People from the Workforce

That’s not it, either. As if destabilizing the economy wasn’t bad enough, the financial independence conspiracy has to ensure as few competent people as possible are around to deal with the fallout. Good luck getting back on your feet when the people most able to help are off sipping mojitos on the beach.

You only have to look at the most popular “FIREd people” in the space to see what I mean:

Mr. Money Mustache – engineer until his retirement several years ago. (Note: for being called Mr. Mustache, he hasn’t actually had one in – get this – several years. Perhaps he was trying to prematurely warn us of the conspiracy without tipping off his overlords?)

Our Next Life – this couple had quit their jobs as a strategist and a pollster, according to their About page. We could really use some STRATEGY backed by INFORMED STATISTICS in the event of an economic collapse, huh?

Millennial Revolution – both engineers who also retired early. They’re Canadian and not American, proving destabilizing America’s economy is just the first step until they start crossing borders.

A Purple Life – she openly admits on her blog that she used to be an advertiser before switching to being a marketing consultant. Most insidious, as she knew how important advertising is to keeping the economic engine chugging and took herself out anyway. Possibly big strategist in financial independence conspiracy. I’m saddened I ever recommended her.

If you don’t have capable and clever people in power, you’re not going to get much done. Yet FI is all about giving people an “out” from the widely accepted career paths spanning practically all of their adult lives.

FI Tangentially Pumps Money to Foreign Powers, Further Destabilizing America

Tell me: what’s the most common desire amongst FIRE adherents? They don’t actually save all this money so they can convert it to gold and hoard the supply like bloated dragons. That would be too cool of them. Far from it. There is one major desire that so many pawns in the financial independence conspiracy lust after, all summarized in one acronym-free word:

TRAVEL.

Instead of these people spending money in the US of A they’re spending it in exotic, and therefore scary, places. The pandemic has slowed that quite a bit, but that still hasn’t stopped people from making grand plans to go elsewhere once they can.

And trust me, this is all according to their plan. How can wealthy countries hold onto their wealth when it’s being slowly drained to other places?

They can’t, that’s how.

Don’t even think for a minute the people behind the financial independence conspiracy care about these early retiree travelers. For one, they don’t know how to navigate the European healthcare systems. How would they know how to pay their bills? For another, people in other places speak foreign, and therefore suspicious, languages. What if they meet someone who doesn’t speak English? How will they manage to navigate, or get something to eat?

By typing that out the plan becomes clearer and clearer to me: these early retirees are naught but pawns in this global tug-of-war for dominance. Dangle the thought of perpetual travel in front of the most competent, have them accomplish that goal, and abandon them in some backwater place that doesn’t even have a McDonald’s. Good luck trying to get back to America from that, bucko.

FI is Funded by Radicals Hoping to Change Our Ways of Life

They make it no secret that FIRE-minded people are again our very culture and ways of life. The financial independence conspiracy is patently un-American, eschewing the culture of consumerism and capitalism in favor of evil ideals. It’s too much for me to write about here so I’m only to vaguely allude to the dangers and risks and pretend like you should already know them. Because you must. That’s how I get to avoid too much critical questioning and live in my comfortable bubbled echo chamber.

Please, I beg of you all, don’t fall prey to the financial independence conspiracy. Join me in denouncing this. They are interested only in setting FIRE to everything we hold dear and what keeps us safe. No I will not elaborate. Just trust me: this stuff is Big Bad News. Reprehensible. Inconceivable. And other big words that mean bad things.

(And in case you haven’t gotten this through your thick noggin yet, this entire post is a MASSIVE April Fool’s. Hope you enjoyed my false equivalencies and strawman arguments!)

Cover image credit: Markus Winkler via Unsplash

*Please note these examples are in no way my admitting culpability in any current or pending criminal investigations, international or otherwise. Please reach out to my lawyer, Anna Turney Esq., at her firm at 505-503-4455 for any requests for comment.