Since the liberty dollar raid/confiscation, the following analogy occurred to me:

0th law of thermodynamics: There is a game -----------> US dollars = fiat currency.

1st law of thermodynamics: You can't win the game ----> Inflation will devalue your savings.

2nd law of thermodynamics: You can't tie the game ----> If you were to keep your savings in, say, gold rather than US dollars, you'll be taxed on "capital gains" associated with the increasing cost (in US dollars) of the gold you have on hand.

3rd law of thermodynamics: You can't leave the game --> Alternative currency is illegal.

Do you pay capital gains on changing values in other currencies?

Some people are winning the game pretty handily. You don't need to think of it in any complicated way. It is just theft. Every dollar that is printed or created however and doesn't go directly to you is stealing money out of your pocket and putting it into the pocket of whoever gets it. It's fraud it's theft it's evil.

Done.

I thought it underscored the air-tight futility of working within the current system in a rather novel way.

But it doesn't quite address the fact that people are actively stealing from you and don't want you to think of another way. This isn't a natural process like entropy people are choosing to [censored] you over in order to make their lives better. They want you to think that it just happen and that inflation is just one of those things that occurs in nature that we can have some effect on but we can't do to much with it. Inflation isn't naturally occuring it's manmade and it's manmade with the aim of taking your money.

I have never done it myself, but it seems obvious that you'd end up paying capital gains taxes on money made via currency trading. Else it would violate the 2nd law. QED

Isn't this the content of the 3rd law? You're basically forced into the losing game at gunpoint.