Voima Weekly #50 – Winter Is Not a Matter of Opinion – Why Do I Write the Weekly?

At the VAULT Conference in Las Vegas in September 2026. The future looks bright for those who recognize change early, take responsibility, and position themselves accordingly.

The Weekly’s readership has grown to more than 4,000 subscribers. If you are joining us halfway through the story, you may quite reasonably ask: What exactly is this letter? Why do I write it? What are we ultimately trying to achieve?

So, for a moment, I want to return to the beginning.

In previous editions of the Weekly, I have written about Finland’s economy, rising sovereign debt, persistent fiscal deficits, the expanding money supply, taxation, saving, wealth management, and the role of gold in all of this. These subjects may appear separate, but they are connected by one central question:

How can an individual, family, company, family enterprise, foundation, or institution preserve and grow its real purchasing power in a world where the foundations of the economy are shifting?

That is the core of the Weekly.

The Economic Weather Is Changing

We are entering a later and increasingly unstable phase of the debt-driven fiat monetary system.¹

The system’s internal pressures increase when debt, money, and political promises are created continuously faster than the real output underpinning them. In practice, this is partly a transfer of purchasing power: from those holding cash and nominal savings to those who gain access to newly created money and credit first.

Some might describe the present stage as the final rhythm of the fiat system. By this, I do not mean that the euro, the dollar, or the entire system will “collapse” tomorrow. I mean that the system’s internal tensions are increasing and its behaviour is becoming more unstable and less predictable than before.

Debt levels are higher, and deficits have long been shifting from temporary exceptions into a permanent feature of economic policy across the West. The money supply continues to expand over the long term, although not in a straight line. At the same time, policymakers’ room for manoeuvre is narrowing.² When a debt-laden system encounters another recession, crisis, or political promise, the available options are unpleasant: cut spending, raise taxes, take on more debt, or allow the purchasing power of money to decline. Governments often try a little of everything, but the last option tends to be the easiest: reducing the real burden of debt at the expense of money’s purchasing power.

In the years ahead, this may appear as greater volatility across equity, bond, currency, and commodity markets. In everyday life, it may mean higher taxes, weaker public services, and the gradual erosion of savings. When you pay more, receive less, and your savings buy less with each passing year, this is no longer merely an economic issue—it is the gradual narrowing of your freedom and security.

Finland is observing these developments from a particularly difficult position. We face weak employment growth, persistently negative public finances, rising debt, and an already exceptionally heavy tax burden. Our economy is suffering not only from the current economic cycle but also from structural problems that we have failed to reform quickly enough.

There Is a Way Out

There is a way out of this situation. Governments can bring spending back into balance with revenues, eliminate inefficiency, remove barriers to growth, and rebuild the incentives to work, build businesses, invest, and create prosperity for families. Welfare traps can be dismantled so that accepting work and building one’s own life always pays better than remaining dependent on benefits.

In the corporate world, this would be called restructuring. The question would no longer be what sounds good or who might be upset by change. Instead, the facts would be examined without sentiment: what creates value, what consumes it, and what the organisation can genuinely afford. Restructuring is not a working group, a study, or another strategy paper. It is a decision to stop maintaining what cannot be afforded and does not serve the organisation’s core purpose.

Increasing revenues is also part of the solution, but continually raising taxes is not the same as healthy growth. When work, entrepreneurship, investment, and ownership are already heavily taxed, further tax increases may shrink the very foundation on which the entire system needs to be rebuilt.

So there is a way out. At present, however, I do not see a coherent economic policy, on the scale required: in France, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, or Finland that would genuinely address the fundamental problem of debt and persistent deficits.

Winter Is Not a Matter of Opinion

Here in Finland, we have four genuinely distinct seasons. Winter is neither a matter of opinion nor a prediction of the end of the world. It is a recurring fact—or, in the words of Game of Thrones: winter is coming.

We cannot decide whether winter will come. We decide how we prepare for it. We know how to dress properly, our winter tyres are among the best in the world, and the heating and insulation in our homes are in a completely different league from those found in Central Europe, for example. When choosing a car, we may value four-wheel drive. Our hobbies, our homes, and much of our everyday life are shaped around the fact that Finland is sometimes cold, dark, and slippery. We do not do this because we fear winter. We do it so that we can live well during winter too.

The same applies to the economy.

We cannot determine interest rates, the money supply, government deficits, or the future purchasing power of currencies on our own. Nor can we outsource our responsibility to a political system that is currently divided, short-sighted, and committed to defending entrenched interest groups. A privileged establishment has formed around the system—one that benefits from the status quo and resists change even when its necessity is acknowledged in ceremonial speeches.

There is much talk of responsibility, but genuine responsibility would begin only when someone is willing to say what will be discontinued, where cuts will be made, and who will give up their own privileges. At present, we see far too little leadership of that kind.

That is why we must build our own finances in a way that prevents every external change from catching us by surprise. Recognising the economic climate is not pessimism; it is an acknowledgement of reality.

This Could Be an Exceptional Opportunity

Unstable times are not automatically bad times. They can be difficult for those who do not understand what is happening, unknowingly carry the wrong kinds of risk, or wait for someone else to rescue them. For those who are properly prepared, however, this could be one of the best times to build wealth.

During periods of economic upheaval, fortunes are lost—but they are also built and transferred. The relationships between asset classes change. Something once considered safe may turn out to contain significant hidden risk. At the same time, an asset long overlooked may return to the centre of the financial system. This applies to ordinary savers, investors, companies, institutions, and central banks alike.

At heart, everyone faces the same question: in what form should future purchasing power be preserved? In my view, this is one of the most important questions of our time.

Gold is neither a religion nor the solution to every problem. A time will come when it makes sense to reduce one’s allocation to gold. Good wealth management is not about falling permanently in love with a single asset class. It is about understanding the economic environment in which we live. In today’s environment, I believe we are clearly closer to a time for increasing gold exposure than reducing it.

As debt rises, the money supply expands over the long term, and confidence in governments’ ability to balance public finances weakens, gold once again has a clear role to play.

Gold is one way to carry purchasing power through time. It is not the only way, but right now, it is an exceptionally important one.

Voima

Voima was not built because the world is ending. Voima was built because the world is changing.

The first step was a gold account backed by physical gold. We wanted to make owning gold as easy as managing money in a bank account, without losing the physical foundation that gives gold its substance.³

We are now building a broader financial-services ecosystem around the gold account, encompassing wealth management, financing, and precious-metals trading. Alongside it, we are developing the physical infrastructure required for sourcing and refining gold, as well as for secure storage, transportation, and security.

Financial services can scale, but physical infrastructure anchors them in reality. We believe that, ultimately, a financial promise is only as strong as the reality underpinning it.

Voima’s journey to this point has not been straightforward. It has included successes, difficult periods, corporate restructurings, and major strategic decisions. I will share more about them in future editions of the Weekly, as they explain why Voima has been built the way it has and what we are building next. I want to bring you along on this journey as well.

On the Right Side of Change

I believe this is an exciting time, filled with opportunity. It may be one of the best moments of our generation to build new companies, take responsibility, and create wealth that endures from one generation to the next.

That will not happen through panic, gambling, or chasing constantly changing headlines. It will happen by seeing reality clearly, building patiently, and faithfully stewarding what has been entrusted to us.

We do not know precisely what tomorrow’s economic weather will bring. But we do know that responsibility for our future cannot be left to governments, central banks, or political promises.

I publish these observations under my own name and take personal responsibility for them. But I have not built Voima alone. For nine years, we have built it together with our employees, investors, partners, and customers.

We have not predicted every market movement, nor will we do so in the future. But the fundamental conviction on which Voima was built has grown stronger with each passing year.

That is why we continue to build, humbly, but with greater conviction than ever.

In the Weekly, I openly share what I see. At Voima, we build the means to act upon it.

P.S. Follow Voima and the themes explored in the Weekly on Instagram, X, and TikTok: @voimagold and my personal account, @iamvoima.

P.P.S. The currency table will return in next week’s Weekly following a minor technical issue.

–Marko Viinikka
Founder, CEO
Voima Gold Oy

Disclaimer: Voima Weeklies are the personal writings of the undersigned. They do not necessarily represent the official view of Voima Gold Oy or any other company, nor do they constitute investment advice or a recommendation to purchase securities.