Latest / Simply Bitcoin / Lawrence Lepard & Steven Lubka Interview - Simply Bitcoin IRL

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Lawrence Lepard & Steven Lubka Interview - Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:19
  Yo welcome to another simply Bitcoin.
• 0:22
  Interview series is the second one we did.
• 0:25
  We have some awesome guests today.
• 0:27
  We're going to talk a lot about a lot of things first.
• 0:30
  Let's do some introductions. Ins.
• 0:31
  How you doing? Lawrence I'm good.
• 0:33
  Thank you, thanks for having me on your show.
• 0:35
  Very, very excited is going to be a great show and of course,
• 0:39
  Steven, what's up? Great to be here.
• 0:42
  Great to be with you guys. Yeah, it's going to be a great
• 0:46
  show. So guys, first of all, because a
• 0:48
  lot of other Bitcoin podcast, they go straight to the point,
• 0:51
  but I'm going to, I'm going to ask some a little bit of
• 0:54
  different questions, right? So first, I'm going to start
• 0:56
  with Lawrence Lawrence. When did you get into Bitcoin
• 1:01
  and what interested you into getting into Bitcoin?
• 1:05
  Yeah, sure. So 2013 I bought my first
• 1:08
  Bitcoin not very many of them. I was I was quite fortunate.
• 1:11
  I was trying to buy I was never in the paper wallet stage.
• 1:15
  You know before the exchange is really kind of get going and I
• 1:19
  was trying to get an account open at Mount gox and I was
• 1:23
  really lucky. They failed like I was in the
• 1:25
  process, I had the papers and that was probably close to
• 1:28
  wiring money so I didn't they Old coinbase came along and I
• 1:33
  bought my first coins through coinbase in 2013.
• 1:36
  And I would say, didn't really know what I was buying.
• 1:38
  I mean, I understood the general idea.
• 1:40
  I'd read the white paper, I thought it was pretty
• 1:42
  interesting, the notion of private money, but I was very
• 1:45
  skeptical about the technology and whether or not it was going
• 1:48
  to, you know, be bulletproof. And last, and I kind of came at
• 1:53
  computers from a, you know, a non-computer guy's point of
• 1:57
  view, which is, you know, how be using my IBM PC and go Blue.
• 2:01
  Screen on me. So you know, I kind of thought.
• 2:03
  Well, anything is done. Computer has the potential to
• 2:05
  fail. So let's not go crazy on buying
• 2:08
  these things by bought some and you know, because I thought I'd
• 2:11
  put my foot in the water and I'd learn more about it.
• 2:13
  So that's that's how I got started.
• 2:15
  So what what finally convinced you write like?
• 2:18
  Well, you take the last leap. Yes.
• 2:20
  Well, so it's over time, I mean I you know I'm fully orange
• 2:23
  build now I believe Bitcoins going to win or replace gold all
• 2:26
  that stuff. But having said that, you know I
• 2:29
  didn't get there instantly, right.
• 2:30
  I mean And I was buying kind of consistently from 2013 to 2017.
• 2:36
  I bought right into the big rush in 2017.
• 2:39
  I paid, you know, Seventeen eighteen thousand bucks
• 2:41
  Thanksgiving. And everyone's talking about it,
• 2:43
  of course. And I watched it fall to 10 the
• 2:45
  next year, and 3500 a year after I doubled down at 10.
• 2:48
  I told about 3,500 and I just kept and then I went to a show a
• 2:52
  Bitcoin show, small show, not a lot of people out in Santa
• 2:56
  Monica, or, I mean Palo Alto area.
• 3:00
  And, you know, It, it always seemed like a small subculture,
• 3:04
  but it, but it struck me as interesting and it made a lot of
• 3:07
  sense and just, you know, walk wars came along and with every
• 3:11
  step I got more and more convinced that, you know, it was
• 3:14
  real and with the problems were whatever problems existed were
• 3:18
  solvable. I mean, I went to a conference
• 3:20
  at MIT sat next to a core developer.
• 3:23
  I gave me a lot of confidence and also kind of shook me up a
• 3:26
  little bit to those. You said well every now and then
• 3:28
  I go home having made a change. I wonder if I blow up the whole
• 3:30
  network and I Oh shit. You know, I mean and so I always
• 3:35
  use is a very interesting project but I just wasn't clear.
• 3:38
  How much, how much Capital can I risk in this thing?
• 3:41
  That's still got, you know, technical risk.
• 3:43
  And I think even the people in it would say, I mean, I been to
• 3:47
  shows to talk to people were early developers.
• 3:49
  I had 10,000 coins in mind on their own and even they say,
• 3:52
  well, we're not completely sure. This thing's going to work and
• 3:55
  when I got to a dollar or two dollars a coin, a lot of them
• 3:58
  said, well I need a car. I'm going to sell my 10,000
• 4:00
  coins. So I'd by 20,000 Car.
• 4:02
  And, you know, of course, they regret that now, but none of us
• 4:04
  knew, right? We couldn't be certain what was
• 4:06
  going to happen. I mean that's why I give Max
• 4:09
  Keiser so much credit for having the vision believing.
• 4:12
  Just absolutely convinced that it was going to work.
• 4:15
  He's been right. Yeah he's been absolutely right.
• 4:19
  Max Max's Stacy, both of them Absolute Legends.
• 4:22
  They were actually a very big inspiration for us the format of
• 4:26
  the show. You guys do the interview the
• 4:27
  format of the show is totally different and a big inspiration.
• 4:31
  Us for us was the the Keiser report, the original one now you
• 4:36
  know now they went full Bitcoin show which is amazing the Max
• 4:40
  and Stacy report. So Stephen, same question for
• 4:43
  you. You came out of nowhere.
• 4:45
  Cory told me he's like, this guy is arising Legend.
• 4:49
  He everyone's going to know him. So Steven, where do you come
• 4:52
  from? When did you get into Bitcoin?
• 4:55
  Where were you? Yeah, I appreciate I appreciate
• 4:58
  that. That's High, Praise coming from
• 4:59
  Corey, so thanks for that. I'll try to try to live up to
• 5:03
  it, so I got into Bitcoin in basically the beginning of 2017.
• 5:10
  So I was fortunate that I discovered it when it was around
• 5:13
  1,000 a coin. So my, you know, my conviction
• 5:16
  was very quickly rewarded. You feel like a genius, right?
• 5:20
  Like oh wow. Okay this thing and it just does
• 5:21
  nothing but go up for a year but you know, we all know the other
• 5:26
  side to that story. So I got in then I didn't buy as
• 5:28
  much as I should have or I wish I had.
• 5:31
  And then you know obviously you know held through the downturn
• 5:34
  and the bear market and the winter and I came from a bit of
• 5:39
  a like like ass more of a software more of a technology
• 5:43
  background. At first I had like worked
• 5:46
  especially later on managing like a software development
• 5:49
  agency more just like traditional stuff and I got
• 5:53
  really interested in Bitcoin and I first kind of understood it
• 5:56
  from the technology angle and my first kind of wave of Bitcoin
• 6:00
  was like hey This is a really interesting technology, its this
• 6:03
  payment network but at that point I didn't understand as
• 6:07
  much about money as I do today and it was actually only later
• 6:10
  on that I came to understand Bitcoin as money.
• 6:14
  And at that point it was like a second kind of aha moment where
• 6:18
  it's like, oh, this isn't just this payment Network.
• 6:21
  This isn't just this technology. This is actually a problem,
• 6:24
  Society has this problem. And the problem is all of our
• 6:29
  stores of value. Our buckets with Holes in them,
• 6:32
  like they're leaky, they have issues in their ability to store
• 6:35
  value and you know and obviously for people to own the asset to
• 6:39
  transfer the asset to do all the various stuff that you know, we
• 6:42
  all know we're all into this individually.
• 6:46
  So I got, you know, my conviction grew over time, you
• 6:49
  know I like a lot of people in 2017, you know, I did the shit
• 6:53
  corn, horseshit Queen horseshoe but then you know 2018 I
• 6:58
  realized like okay Bitcoin is really like The right design
• 7:03
  choice, right? Like I think everything else
• 7:05
  just compromises on these design choices and introduces just
• 7:09
  trade-offs and vulnerabilities. I thought Bitcoin is really not
• 7:13
  just like the right design but also it's tackling the most
• 7:16
  substantial problem and the most meaningful problem that is
• 7:19
  money, like it really, is this thing that we don't usually
• 7:23
  think about, but it is incredibly important to the
• 7:26
  functioning of society. So you know I got got really
• 7:30
  into it, I worked as a consultant.
• 7:31
  Tent for high, net worth investors for years, helping
• 7:34
  them navigate Bitcoin. And then, you know, I joined up
• 7:38
  with Swan and 2020 and 2021, and I've run, I run the Private
• 7:42
  Client team. So I do high-net-worth investors
• 7:47
  services and concierge for Swan. Yes, one private.
• 7:50
  Pretty awesome. I've used the service myself
• 7:53
  now. I haven't used the service
• 7:54
  myself. I'm Still Holding Out Cory.
• 7:56
  Cory almost has me, but no, I do recommend Swan private.
• 8:01
  Two people that I want them to have a good experience entering
• 8:05
  Bitcoin and I get them on one of the Unchained either the unchain
• 8:10
  or the casa multisig setup. And then, you know, I recommend
• 8:14
  Swan private. I think you guys do, it's more
• 8:16
  of an OTC type of thing. You know, you have your own
• 8:19
  personal person, you text them. It's a good experience, overall.
• 8:22
  Anyways, Stephen at the end of the day, this is simply Bitcoin.
• 8:25
  This is a pleb show. So we have to address the
• 8:28
  elephant in the room. There was a miscommunication.
• 8:31
  And let me pull the Tweet up so you guys can see what I'm
• 8:34
  talking about. You tweeted this out says
• 8:36
  bitcoiners have been tricked into defending a caricature of
• 8:39
  themselves, the Bitcoin Maxi is described by critics, barely
• 8:43
  exists outside of point one percent of Twitter accounts.
• 8:46
  However this deception causes people to be afraid to The Verge
• 8:49
  from the caricature in public for fear of ostracize your a lot
• 8:54
  of vocabulary. And in other words, a trick has
• 8:57
  been played on us by those who would not want to see us
• 9:00
  succeed. We Dismantle it dismantled the
• 9:03
  strawman caricature not Bitcoin maximalism / Bitcoin.
• 9:06
  Only. So, yeah, when this came out, it
• 9:09
  was originally just this tweet and you had a bunch of plebs,
• 9:12
  pylon, sure. What did you mean by that?
• 9:15
  And what do you what is the? What is the caricature?
• 9:18
  What's going on? Yeah, so what I was trying to
• 9:20
  get out there and I learned a good lesson in wording, things a
• 9:23
  little more. Clearly, I'm not used to as many
• 9:26
  people paying attention to everything I say.
• 9:30
  So, What I'm trying to get at is there is currently basically an
• 9:34
  attack on bitcoin that is going on on Twitter and like the
• 9:38
  vector of this attack is you have these critics and in order
• 9:43
  to do the attack they have to equate everyone that is Bitcoin
• 9:47
  only so they don't do, they don't do shit coins.
• 9:49
  They don't invest in crypto, they don't do tokens.
• 9:51
  They don't do block change and they have to equate them with.
• 9:55
  Let's just call it like the point, one percent of most
• 9:58
  aggressive like bitcoiners and it's not a criticism.
• 10:01
  ISM of those people. Like this is not a criticism,
• 10:04
  but it's saying if they can say that all Bitcoin, only people
• 10:08
  are like these people that are the most aggressive to you on
• 10:12
  Twitter. Then all they have to do is
• 10:15
  like, critique that one method of operating and say, look,
• 10:19
  we've invalidated every Bitcoin her everyone who cares about
• 10:22
  Bitcoin and the secret. There is it then implies that if
• 10:26
  you aren't like that, that you should do crypto right?
• 10:30
  That the only people All who don't do crypto are like 99th
• 10:34
  percentile most disagreeable. And I have a problem with that
• 10:38
  just because it's not true and like, in, you know, in my job, I
• 10:43
  am 4 years. Like, I've met bitcoiners that
• 10:46
  are Bitcoin only like that are plumbers electricians and
• 10:49
  Farmers to Wall Street. Exacts, accountants and lawyers
• 10:53
  people on the left people on the right men, women disagreeable
• 10:56
  people you know very very kind and you know patient people and
• 11:01
  I You know it takes all types, right?
• 11:03
  And I think by like kind of making it very narrow it's
• 11:07
  easier for critics of Bitcoin to attack Bitcoin.
• 11:11
  It's easier for them to do this really cheap kind of debate
• 11:14
  tactic and this cheap criticism and like invalidate.
• 11:18
  All of the people that only work on bitcoin that don't don't do
• 11:22
  crypto that don't do all these things and I think it's so
• 11:26
  that's what the Tweet was about. Gotcha.
• 11:31
  Okay. Yeah, it was.
• 11:34
  It was so it was I think you were telling me in private, DM,
• 11:37
  right? Like, I'm not used to this much
• 11:39
  attention and then I think I told you was like, welcome to
• 11:42
  Twitter. So yeah, but I'm glad that you
• 11:45
  clarified it. I'm glad that you're on our side
• 11:48
  so just to make sure because I'm going to get some plebs asking
• 11:51
  this question. You do support Bitcoin
• 11:53
  maximalism. Absolutely.
• 11:54
  And you do understand and see its utility.
• 11:57
  Absolutely. No.
• 11:58
  And like, none of that is a critique.
• 11:59
  Peak of Bitcoin maximalism. Right?
• 12:02
  I fully support Bitcoin maximalism.
• 12:05
  I'm Bitcoin. Only like I only work on bitcoin
• 12:09
  and I think there's like an important like defensive role,
• 12:12
  right? Like there's a white blood cell
• 12:14
  sort of thing that you know I think there's a very valid
• 12:16
  argument to be made for but I think that like, when we engage
• 12:21
  right, when those criticisms are made and I think like if we
• 12:26
  engage by then just like defending their A narrow
• 12:30
  definition of Bitcoin maximalism, we then like
• 12:33
  validate it and now we're playing on their footing, right?
• 12:36
  Like they've defined the terms of the debate instead of being
• 12:39
  like yeah, that's interesting. Some bitcoiners are like that
• 12:43
  but not all what's your criticism of Bitcoin, right?
• 12:46
  But they get away with being able to just like like all of
• 12:50
  the tweets are just attacking Bitcoin Maxis, it's nothing
• 12:53
  constructive about Bitcoin, but the takeaway that I think people
• 12:57
  on the outside get is like, oh, Dave and validated like this
• 13:01
  group of people that focus on bitcoin.
• 13:04
  Gotcha. Okay, interesting.
• 13:08
  Okay. So pivot a little bit.
• 13:10
  Thank you for clearing that up. Stephen, I was going to get
• 13:12
  ripped a new one if I didn't ask you, so now I have.
• 13:16
  Okay, so Lawrence you tweeted this out that you actually have
• 13:20
  this pinned, let me pull it up. So this blue line, generates
• 13:25
  income to pay interest on Red Line, see the problem and for
• 13:29
  all Dear listeners, the blue line, right?
• 13:31
  Is the gross domestic product, I'm assuming of the United
• 13:34
  States and then all sectors, debt, Securities, loans,
• 13:37
  liability, and level, and for audio listeners.
• 13:40
  The red line is literally going parabolic and the blue line is
• 13:44
  going up. But it's not even coming close
• 13:46
  to keeping up with the red line. So obviously there's a
• 13:49
  disconnect and just a little observation you know a little
• 13:53
  pleb observation if you zoom in it looks like that disconnect
• 13:57
  started very close to Are our famous state and Bitcoin 1971
• 14:03
  which is when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard and
• 14:06
  actually that was yesterday, August 15 1971.
• 14:10
  So it's not the birthday because it's August 16 but it is really
• 14:13
  close. Anyways, Lawrence, what do you
• 14:15
  mean by this? And then also next question
• 14:18
  after this is you tag Weimer right?
• 14:21
  Then you tag the fourth turning and then you then you tag got
• 14:24
  gold. So what's going on there?
• 14:26
  Lawrence well, so I mean everyone listening understanding
• 14:29
  Kansas. I mean, the issue we've got is
• 14:31
  the system's broken is broken because we're running a
• 14:33
  Keynesian model, which says that we have to continually grow the
• 14:37
  economy, not make the economy more efficient and as a result
• 14:41
  of that we focused on the wrong thing, which is growth, and
• 14:45
  we've used debt to create growth and we built an enormous credit
• 14:49
  structure similar to what they did in 1929 before that crash.
• 14:53
  And, you know, if your debt continues to compound and grow
• 14:58
  at a rate in excess of the Relying productivity of the, of
• 15:02
  the economy which is what the GDP represents, you know.
• 15:05
  Eventually you're going to come to a debt crisis, a sovereign
• 15:08
  debt crisis, which is really where we're at right now.
• 15:10
  Last one we had was an early 1900s and now we're having
• 15:13
  another one. And and that's why most people
• 15:15
  don't really understand what's going on.
• 15:16
  I mean, you know, everyone who's invested in last, certainly it's
• 15:19
  09 and arguably even for the last 40 years, you know, his
• 15:23
  thought that what we've got is going to be able to continue and
• 15:27
  what we're seeing is that we're ending, we're I'm near the end
• 15:30
  of the road, you know, Fiat is about to fail, and it's about to
• 15:34
  fail because of this math and that's why it's so easy and
• 15:38
  obvious for plebs and everybody else who's in this trade to
• 15:41
  understand that, you know, they can't continue to print at the
• 15:45
  rates, they've been printing at and yet they have to, or else
• 15:48
  the whole thing will collapse. I mean, they re not there in a
• 15:50
  trap which is what Richard Russell used to calling flate or
• 15:53
  die. And so, you know, if they don't,
• 15:56
  if they don't continue to create credit and add new money into
• 15:59
  the system, And Luke, the value of the existing money.
• 16:01
  The system is going to implode, but if they do and they do it
• 16:05
  higher and higher rates, the money is going to become
• 16:07
  worthless. So they're really in a really
• 16:10
  have a Hobson's choice and, you know, unfortunately, they're not
• 16:14
  even aware of it or to the degree that they are aware.
• 16:17
  That they're being disingenuous about, which is probably more
• 16:19
  likely and they're kind of whipping us back and forth.
• 16:22
  And as I used the term in the past, you know, we're kind of
• 16:25
  going through this pattern of economic Whiplash, you know
• 16:28
  where money. Incredibly easy because of covid
• 16:31
  and stimulus and all the stuff we need to keep the economy
• 16:34
  running. And then suddenly know, we got
• 16:37
  an inflation problem. Money is incredibly tight in
• 16:40
  theory. Although it's not as tight as
• 16:42
  they say, it is because the Cutie hasn't been going as
• 16:44
  quickly as they announce. But the point is that, you know,
• 16:48
  and you look at what this does to prices, I mean, nobody knows
• 16:51
  what the real prices of anything these days because the money is
• 16:54
  broken. And so, you know, if you go I
• 16:57
  mean, I a good example is, if you look at a chart of the Price
• 16:59
  of lumber for the last six or seven years.
• 17:02
  I mean it just it looks like a complete zigzag you know?
• 17:04
  I mean it goes shooting up that comes plunging down that go
• 17:08
  shooting up, that comes plunging down.
• 17:09
  I mean, you know, six months ago, they were bidding wars on
• 17:13
  every new house for sale in my area, you know, right now
• 17:17
  there's nobody making any bids on houses and the bids are all
• 17:20
  coming down from where they were.
• 17:22
  And so this is, this is a broken monetary system that we're
• 17:26
  living within right now. And, you know, it To be fixed
• 17:30
  and needs to be fixed with some money and Bitcoin is the
• 17:33
  ultimate form of sound money. So, you know, it'll fix it.
• 17:36
  But, you know, unfortunately between here and there, there's
• 17:38
  going to be a lot gonna be a lot more of these zigzags, right?
• 17:41
  It says, speaking of zigzags, right?
• 17:44
  The recent CPI numbers came out, it was at 8.5 percent and to
• 17:52
  play Devil's, Advocate. I don't believe this personally,
• 17:54
  but to play Devil's Advocate. If we are to quote, the bided
• 17:59
  Raishin currently in office and power the Democrats.
• 18:04
  They said that zero percent inflation this last month that's
• 18:09
  to quote them. So they weren't wrong in the
• 18:12
  sense that month on month. It was zero percent year over
• 18:15
  year. It was your 8 plus number.
• 18:19
  And you know, these numbers are going to be noisy and there and
• 18:22
  they're all wrong to begin with. I mean, Shadow government staff.
• 18:24
  Shows it at 18%, you know, rents are up 20 percent year-on-year.
• 18:29
  Is over 100 percent year-on-year so it depends on how you wait
• 18:32
  it. So all these numbers are just
• 18:34
  bullshit then the same way that the employment figure they just
• 18:36
  had I mean they just claim the created five hundred thousand
• 18:39
  new jobs. I mean that's just a complete
• 18:41
  fiction. I mean, you know, they look you
• 18:43
  can't I mean this we live in an orwellian, you know, narrative
• 18:47
  driven Society, where, you know, Biden and this Administration
• 18:51
  right now their major concern is to try and hold everything
• 18:53
  together until the election so that they don't get completely
• 18:56
  wiped out in the election. And so, you know, They're going
• 19:00
  to they're going to try to pretend that we are creating
• 19:03
  jobs are going to provide it. Try to pretend inflation under
• 19:05
  control. They're gonna you know they're
• 19:06
  going to lie about a lot of things.
• 19:08
  Right. And you know we just um we got
• 19:11
  to look through those lies and eventually those lies will be
• 19:13
  shown to be lies but it takes time.
• 19:16
  Yeah, speaking of Lies, the recent act that was passed
• 19:21
  through. Congress was literally called
• 19:23
  the inflation reduction Act, Right?
• 19:27
  The Hired we're gonna go spend a bunch of money.
• 19:29
  Called the inflation reduction. Well and and I mean again
• 19:32
  orwellian suddenly two quarters of negative.
• 19:35
  GDP growth is no longer recession.
• 19:37
  I mean for for all of my business career, two quarters of
• 19:40
  GDP decline. That's the definition of a
• 19:44
  recession, you know, the 210 spread is never been so inverted
• 19:47
  or is inverted as it has ever been.
• 19:49
  It's kind of a tie, but the fact of the matter is, we are, you
• 19:53
  know, we are going into a serious economic downturn, and,
• 19:57
  you know, you see a lot of places in New York Empire,
• 20:00
  manufacturing survey came out yesterday and it was expected B.
• 20:03
  Plus 5 is minus 31, you know, I mean, there's a lot of data
• 20:07
  points, right? That you see all the big
• 20:09
  companies are starting to talk about layoffs or hiring freezes.
• 20:13
  But having said that, there is a lot of momentum in this economy.
• 20:17
  I mean, all that free money got out there and, you know, I was
• 20:21
  thinking, we're going to go instantly right into a big
• 20:23
  depression and may not. We may not, I mean, there's a,
• 20:26
  they're competing forces here and there's an argument that
• 20:28
  says, you know, me Regularly, as you look with the stock market's
• 20:31
  doing was kind of amazing me that stock markets have held up
• 20:33
  the way it has. You know, that people are
• 20:36
  looking through piles, tough talk, thinking he's going to
• 20:38
  Pivot at some point and we're kind of going to more of a
• 20:43
  crack-up. Boom, you know, kind of going
• 20:45
  forward. I think that's certainly, one of
• 20:47
  the cases you have to consider. So could you define real quick
• 20:51
  and then pass it on to Steven? What is I've heard?
• 20:54
  Ron Paul talked about, I think I saw his video, but what is it
• 20:57
  crackle, boom forever for anybody that?
• 20:59
  Does it understand and what is the difference between that and
• 21:03
  the normal depression / recession that you were
• 21:06
  expecting? Yeah, so a crackle boom is when
• 21:09
  the money when people start to realize that the money is bad
• 21:12
  and that everything is going to cost more in the future and that
• 21:16
  whatever money they have they should spend because they want
• 21:21
  to take advantage of prices today because they're gonna have
• 21:24
  to pay more in the future. Everyone rushes to spend and
• 21:27
  borrow and they shoved, you know, they Get a bigger
• 21:30
  inflation problem because they're, you know, they don't
• 21:33
  want to hold the Hot Potato called the dollar, and to the
• 21:36
  degree that they're able to, you know, borrow and by real assets.
• 21:39
  I mean, part of the reason why it wasn't like in the last year
• 21:42
  and a half, you saw the housing prices.
• 21:43
  Go up a lot, right? That wasn't, because housing
• 21:45
  suddenly become more valuable as a great houses of God.
• 21:48
  We got to have. No, that was because people were
• 21:50
  smart. They're saying themselves.
• 21:51
  Hang us. Like we have a ton of inflation
• 21:53
  and governmental lend me. 80% of the value of this asset for 3%
• 21:58
  30-year mortgage at the time. It's higher now and, you know,
• 22:01
  and it's going to go up in value, you know, that's a,
• 22:03
  that's a piece of cake, right? I mean, that's a, that's the
• 22:06
  Hugo stennis inflation trade. And, you know, I'm going to make
• 22:09
  that all day long. So, you know, that's a crack-up.
• 22:14
  Boom. Really is when people come to
• 22:15
  read, this is what this is, what the definition of hyperinflation
• 22:18
  is, by the way, when people all come to realize that there is no
• 22:22
  going back and that the government can never stop
• 22:25
  printing money and that in fact, it's the policy to print money.
• 22:28
  And in fact, it's going to get even Worse.
• 22:31
  Then you get to the point where people will take every dollar
• 22:33
  they have in every dollar they borrow and go and spend it in
• 22:37
  order to try to defend themselves against depreciating
• 22:41
  value of the currency. So that's that's a crack-up
• 22:43
  home. Gotcha.
• 22:45
  Okay, so I'm going to go back to that but pass it on to Steven.
• 22:48
  Steven do you, do you see, are we out of the woods yet and do
• 22:52
  you see this as a recovery? Or do you believe that this is
• 22:56
  just a relief rally and the recession hasn't even started
• 22:59
  yet? Yet.
• 23:00
  Yes. So I mean part of the system,
• 23:03
  right? Like it needs inflation, like
• 23:06
  the government needs inflation, it's the only way out of like
• 23:09
  the debt situation they need to debase the currency, and they
• 23:12
  also need the asset assets to continue to rise to drive tax,
• 23:17
  receipts to drive spending, so much of the US economy at this
• 23:21
  point is just, you know, it's just capital gains rotating into
• 23:26
  spending, right? So much of the money that gets
• 23:29
  spent in the economy. Is a set of appreciation like
• 23:32
  like inflation is the primary export of the u.s. it's their
• 23:38
  primary product. When I say inflation I don't
• 23:40
  just mean like Goods going up. I mean asset inflation and I
• 23:43
  mean printing money like that's what the US does really well.
• 23:47
  And so, you know, Unless something really changes, right
• 23:53
  like the BET, right? Like the status quo is assets,
• 23:57
  go up, right? Like that's that's what things
• 23:59
  do in America and money is the monetary base has expanded, I'm
• 24:05
  inclined. And right, this is all
• 24:07
  probabilistic, like, I'm not making a super firm call on the
• 24:10
  future, but I I'm inclined to say the lows are in, maybe we
• 24:15
  have a leg down again. Do we go below 17 and less.
• 24:20
  S&P 500 falls off a cliff and is down 25-30 percent.
• 24:24
  I'm inclined to say I'm inclined to say no.
• 24:27
  And part of the other thinking there is, I'm pretty much on the
• 24:32
  side that the FED is near its limit.
• 24:34
  I'm I do not believe that the that the FED that the government
• 24:39
  that the economy can tolerate a five or a six percent federal
• 24:43
  funds rate, it's going to drive tax receipts off a cliff and the
• 24:47
  FEDS going to need to finance the deficit because we still
• 24:50
  need. Need to pay for defense.
• 24:51
  We still need to pay for entitlements.
• 24:53
  We still need to pay her interest on our, on our debt.
• 24:56
  And like if that if that Federal fund rate gets too high then it
• 25:00
  can't do it. Like we can't do it.
• 25:02
  So when I look at it and I see you know, let's say September we
• 25:06
  come into September. Let's just say they hiked 75
• 25:08
  basis points were at about 3%, how much higher can they really
• 25:12
  go? And that's what I think we're
• 25:14
  looking at, is the market is kind of seeing that we're closer
• 25:18
  to the end of where they're going to get rates.
• 25:20
  Then the beginning, at least that's my bias.
• 25:24
  And so unless something changes radically right?
• 25:28
  I don't you know, it's very difficult for me to see us going
• 25:31
  to, you know, 15 or something. Gotcha?
• 25:34
  Okay, interesting, interesting. So it's funny because you're
• 25:39
  thinking about it from the Bitcoin perspective because I
• 25:42
  think about it the same way, right?
• 25:44
  And Bitcoin is Acting like a risk on asset, right?
• 25:49
  And it is closely following, you know, the SMP and the NASDAQ,
• 25:53
  right? And that's just the reality
• 25:55
  right now, you know, as much as you say, oh, you know, Bitcoin
• 25:58
  is a hedge against inflation. Which of course if you're
• 26:00
  denominating your wealth and Bitcoin, you don't care.
• 26:03
  It's all about growing your Bitcoin stack.
• 26:05
  But you know, that's one of the narratives that the naysayers
• 26:09
  are like, no, it's not doing that.
• 26:10
  Anyways, so back to Lawrence because what you were saying was
• 26:13
  really interesting, right. Do you think The United States
• 26:17
  hyperinflation is possible. And is it inevitable from your
• 26:21
  perspective? That's a great question.
• 26:24
  I mean it's anything is possible, right?
• 26:26
  I mean it's maybe it's a five percent case but probability
• 26:29
  case. Is it a novel?
• 26:31
  It's unclear. It depends on how things unfold.
• 26:35
  I think it's likely to be inevitable on a long enough time
• 26:38
  scale but I think they're pretty good at kicking the can and
• 26:42
  holding things together and so they tend to I kind of walk back
• 26:46
  from the edge but we keep getting closer and closer to
• 26:51
  that edge and it's a, you know, the reason I can't answer the
• 26:55
  question with any kind of definity is.
• 26:56
  It's a psychological issue it has to do with when that
• 27:00
  confidence is lost. I mean, I think the feds
• 27:03
  credibility is already been very badly damaged but there's it
• 27:06
  still has some and you know, I think it's entirely possible
• 27:10
  that the government will try. I mean, you know, from time to
• 27:15
  time to get Responsible and be more responsible recognizing the
• 27:19
  risk of hyperinflation. So I can't say, you know, with
• 27:22
  100% certainty, it's going to happen.
• 27:24
  I, you know, I don't know, hundred percent certainty, the
• 27:27
  sun's going to rise right tomorrow.
• 27:29
  But, but the point is that, you know, it's all probabilities but
• 27:32
  it's certainly the pattern where I let me say this.
• 27:36
  I think rather than absolutely going all the way to
• 27:39
  hyperinflation. I think there's a much higher
• 27:41
  probability that we have a five or a ten year period of
• 27:44
  extremely high. High inflation.
• 27:47
  Which then in and actually you know, the GDP kind of grows and
• 27:52
  the economy kind of models along and maybe the stock market
• 27:55
  doesn't fall apart and everyone is in dollar terms poorer, you
• 28:00
  know, because of all this inflation.
• 28:02
  But but we make it through and the debt becomes a more
• 28:06
  manageable number relative to the size of the economy.
• 28:10
  I mean, I think that's the optimistic case of how we get
• 28:13
  out of this. I think the more pessimistic Is,
• 28:17
  is that it just starts to all spin out of control, and I think
• 28:20
  there's a very, it's, you know, it's got to be 30 40, % chance,
• 28:24
  maybe higher that that occurs that, you know, the so that, you
• 28:28
  know, here's how it would unfold, right?
• 28:30
  The government runs bigger, deficits, you know, foreigners
• 28:34
  continue to sell or treasury bonds.
• 28:36
  I mean, I just saw today China's treasury bond Holdings are down,
• 28:40
  month-on-month this last month. I haven't for some time, the
• 28:44
  interest rates continue to go up because people 'Well you know
• 28:46
  the market no longer believes that inflation.
• 28:48
  Is coming back down. I mean, inflation swaps.
• 28:50
  All say that in place is going down to two or three percent the
• 28:52
  next few years. Which I don't think it is weird.
• 28:54
  That those days are gone. We've turned the corner.
• 28:56
  We are now an inflationary environment for the next 10, 15
• 28:59
  years in my view. And so as a result of that you
• 29:03
  know the bond market starts to sell off and rates start to go
• 29:05
  higher as Steve. So eloquently pointed out
• 29:08
  earlier government can't afford higher inflation rates are I
• 29:11
  mean higher interest rates? You get 30 billion dollars worth
• 29:13
  of debt or 30 trillion dollars worth of debt.
• 29:16
  Apply at five six. Seven percent rate is 7% on 30
• 29:19
  would be 2.1. True.
• 29:20
  I mean, that's half of what we collect and tax receipts, that's
• 29:23
  twice the defense almost twice the defense budget.
• 29:25
  So the fact of the matter is that as these rates go higher,
• 29:30
  if people lose faith in bonds, sell bonds off rates, go higher,
• 29:34
  then the government is forced to come in and start buying the
• 29:36
  bond market, right? And that's really third-world
• 29:38
  kind of stuff, right? We're running a deficit.
• 29:40
  Nobody wants our bonds. We're going to print money to
• 29:43
  pay for our bonds, right? Okay.
• 29:46
  Well, you know, and our balance sheets going to get even bigger
• 29:49
  and you see where I'm going here.
• 29:50
  Is with each of these steps more and more people come to the
• 29:54
  conclusion that, oh my God, America's like, Argentina or
• 29:58
  America's like wymer, they can't stop and they're never gonna
• 30:02
  stop, you know, get me out of this Burning thing called the
• 30:05
  dollar, you know, give me something that I know will not
• 30:09
  depreciate in value, you know, a house, you can live in it a car,
• 30:13
  you can drive it, you know, You know Commodities all kinds of
• 30:17
  things. You know, gold silver Bitcoin,
• 30:20
  anything that's not going to depreciate about anything but a
• 30:23
  bond and arguably somewhat anything but a stock, I mean the
• 30:27
  stocks will hold their value in the sense that they represent a
• 30:30
  claim on a business that earns, you know, it has earnings power
• 30:33
  that will reap rice and whatever the new currency turns out to
• 30:35
  be. But yeah, I mean, I to answer
• 30:38
  your question is hyperinflation possible?
• 30:40
  Absolutely. Is it a certainty?
• 30:41
  No, it's not a certainty. There are other paths but it's
• 30:45
  much higher. Higher probability, than it's
• 30:47
  been any time since I started in this sound money game, you know,
• 30:51
  in the 80s. I mean, it's, you know, we're
• 30:53
  well down the path. And, you know, you look at these
• 30:56
  curves on a lot of these things. I mean, look at the second
• 30:58
  derivative of this stuff, it's insane.
• 31:01
  I mean, it's, you know, right? I mean what we just saw me we
• 31:04
  just added 40 percent to them to, so, the money supply and to
• 31:06
  your time frame, I mean, that's that's never been done before.
• 31:10
  So, so we're in, we're in a huge monetary experiment, created.
• 31:16
  Aided by the idiots who, you know, Ben Bernanke who I call a
• 31:19
  modern day. John Law, who basically, you
• 31:23
  know, put us at 0% interest rates from oh wait until 2015.
• 31:27
  In order to get out of the housing bubble, which they had
• 31:30
  also created by taking rates down to low after the bursting
• 31:34
  of the.com, bubble, which they created.
• 31:36
  So, you know, it's I mean, these people are idiots and you know,
• 31:41
  the, you know, the great thing about Bitcoin is a bit hard to
• 31:44
  understand, but Corners realize it I mean, in large part, thanks
• 31:47
  to say fright saves book is changed, the world.
• 31:49
  Probably most important book written last 15 years, you know?
• 31:52
  Because it educated the Youth of this country into what that
• 31:54
  what's being done to their money.
• 31:56
  And so, you know, is that word spreads it's going to continue
• 32:00
  to spread, you know, the courts going to take over right?
• 32:04
  And you know the Boomers who believe in Gold, they'll
• 32:07
  eventually convert to bitcoin and Bitcoin will ultimately, you
• 32:10
  know, Swap and beat gold. I mean, goal is going to be
• 32:12
  around for a while though. It's not Sailors, whole view
• 32:15
  that Bitcoin is going. Just destroy gold instantly.
• 32:17
  That's not realistic. That's, it's going to be a
• 32:20
  multi-year process. Yeah, I agree.
• 32:23
  So I I'm, you know, I can't say it the way that you say it
• 32:27
  Lawrence, but I fundamentally agree with, you know, the way
• 32:31
  that you're looking at it, but I am the thing about the youth,
• 32:36
  though. What, for my experience, because
• 32:39
  I am a millennial, right? Is that most are still asleep?
• 32:43
  Most believe that. It's a political issue.
• 32:46
  Issue and the Republicans and Democrats do something really
• 32:49
  interesting. Because when the Democrats are
• 32:50
  in power as I do, it's, you know, it's the Republicans are
• 32:54
  like that's the Democrats and then when the Republicans are in
• 32:56
  power, the Democrats are like it's the Republicans if we vote
• 32:59
  them out, things will change. But and I think that a lot of
• 33:02
  the youth is still caught up in that whole, you know, divide and
• 33:06
  conquer that. The unit party does in the
• 33:08
  United States and they're still looking for a political
• 33:12
  solution, and they're blind to the fact that, hey, it's Not
• 33:17
  politics that's going to solve. This is the fact that the money
• 33:19
  is broken. If you want things to change,
• 33:23
  you got to fix the money in the first place.
• 33:25
  So I, you know, and I do dedicate my life to making
• 33:28
  content, right? So I hope you know, more people
• 33:32
  wake up, but I am, I'm not out to, I'm not optimistic about it,
• 33:36
  to be honest with you, what I see in most people that are
• 33:39
  interested in Bitcoin are in their 30s and 40s.
• 33:43
  Most people in their 20s or what What, you know, excuse my
• 33:47
  language. What?
• 33:48
  Shit coin, what dogshit coin can I buy?
• 33:50
  Look at my nft, they're not really concerned or interested
• 33:54
  in sound money and that's really unfortunate.
• 33:57
  Stephen, how do you think that could be changed?
• 34:00
  You think that people? Because what I've noticed right
• 34:03
  is that, you know I've been educating people on bitcoin for
• 34:06
  about six years now. And what I notice is people in
• 34:11
  countries that never had a historic stable Fiat that's, you
• 34:15
  know, That's funny. Historian stable fiat currency
• 34:19
  if that even exists, they understand it in a snap of a
• 34:22
  finger, but it's actually people in the west sure that are just
• 34:26
  like uses too much energy. So you think that could be
• 34:29
  changed even? Yeah.
• 34:30
  So it's actually so this is part of, I think this is evident in a
• 34:35
  lot of areas in society, right? And something I've come to think
• 34:40
  of it in this way that like our generation and, and the boomer
• 34:44
  generation like we All inherited like a like a very prosperous
• 34:49
  World from our ancestors, right? Like, you had, you know,
• 34:53
  Humanity was like, for the most part highly concerned with
• 34:56
  creating more material abundance for kind of all of human
• 34:59
  history, right? And so, you know, going back a
• 35:02
  few hundred years, the u.s. developed like tons of commodity
• 35:06
  production, tons of industrial capacity, tons of these things
• 35:10
  that make the real-world work and we inherited, I like to
• 35:13
  think of it as like we had a buffer, right?
• 35:15
  We had Great buffer. Where if like we make a bad
• 35:19
  energy decision or we make a bad industrial decision in like, you
• 35:23
  know, 1970 or 1980. Well, we have this great buffer
• 35:27
  from the abundance that our ancestors.
• 35:29
  Basically, the excess capacity, they produced and so we do
• 35:33
  something stupid in 1970 or 1980 and it eats into the buffer, but
• 35:37
  you don't immediately see like CPI inflation.
• 35:40
  Like, if we have a bad energy policy in 1980 or 1990 like the
• 35:45
  cost of Electricity doesn't shoot up 20%, right?
• 35:49
  But you know, over the decades, I feel that we have exhausted
• 35:52
  that buffer and that's one of the reasons I think as we're
• 35:54
  making energy decisions today as we're making these policy
• 35:58
  decisions. Like, that's starting to be like
• 36:01
  reflected and actual cost of living and actual like
• 36:04
  day-to-day lives. And I think part of the reason
• 36:07
  we've been able to get so narrative-driven like you know
• 36:12
  like we talked about earlier and just like so focused on like,
• 36:15
  okay, we're just To believe in narrative instead of maybe like
• 36:18
  lived experience or reality is because like we've been able to
• 36:23
  divorce these policy decisions, like they don't really impact
• 36:27
  people's lives. They're able to go and like,
• 36:29
  switch out like, you know, energy supplies and do different
• 36:33
  things and like, you don't really see it in the price, but
• 36:35
  I think that's changing and I think as we encounter these
• 36:38
  real-world constraints, right? Like like if we continue to make
• 36:43
  bad energy decisions, like the price of energy is going to get
• 36:46
  like significantly more expensive.
• 36:47
  And so I think once we have that feedback mechanism where like a
• 36:52
  political decision results in real-world consequences, fairly
• 36:57
  immediately or closer, I think people start to see.
• 37:00
  Oh my god, when they tell me like, we're just going to
• 37:03
  subsidize, you know, we're going to stop funding nuclear.
• 37:05
  We're just going to subsidize the heck out of solar and that
• 37:08
  immediately like results in your electricity bill going up like
• 37:12
  oh wow, like there's a consequence to our actions and
• 37:16
  Oh and this comes in like also commodity Supply availability of
• 37:19
  oil all these things right? And I think we're coming up
• 37:22
  against this moment where there's more of a real
• 37:26
  consequence to our policy. And this is also true in money.
• 37:29
  It's also true and economic growth, right?
• 37:32
  So I'm actually optimistic that as we face more constraints
• 37:37
  more, real challenges, it actually increases the
• 37:40
  probability that as a country we can start making good decisions,
• 37:44
  right? That we can Like actually
• 37:46
  prioritizing what we need to thrive as a civilization of
• 37:51
  which, like money is the chief coordinator energy is the master
• 37:55
  resource and you know, we go from there.
• 37:59
  Yeah, so it's actually really interesting because you're kind
• 38:02
  of touching upon what I was touching upon earlier where and
• 38:06
  this kind of goes back to the fourth turning Theory, which I'm
• 38:09
  going to about to ask Lawrence about really because he put that
• 38:13
  in his hashtag weird. Is this idea where Hard Times?
• 38:18
  Create strong, men, starkman create good times, good times
• 38:22
  create weak, men, weak men, create bad times, and then kind
• 38:25
  of the cycle repeats itself and what I got from what you were
• 38:29
  saying, Stephen was, we had a whole lot of good times and now
• 38:33
  we're entering into this era of weak men and I'm not being
• 38:38
  specific have created bad times and then through those bad
• 38:42
  times, right? Which is I think what you were
• 38:43
  referring to the actual real life consequences of certain
• 38:48
  political decisions are creating real life pain.
• 38:52
  And perhaps through that pain, it awakens enough people for
• 38:56
  their to actually be change, right?
• 38:58
  So the fourth turning Theory, I find fascinating.
• 39:04
  So I'm going to pass it on to Lawrence.
• 39:07
  Lawrence, what is the fourth turning?
• 39:10
  Are we in one right now? What is going on?
• 39:14
  Yeah. So I'm referring to a book by
• 39:16
  how and Strauss called the fourth turning, which was
• 39:19
  written quite a while ago, is actually very prescient on terms
• 39:21
  of what's unfolded in the theory is that therefore for, you know,
• 39:25
  every 20 years you have a new generation a group, you know, it
• 39:28
  kind of that kind of controls the dialogue in society and and
• 39:33
  what the society is doing and you know, you start off with
• 39:36
  With a, with a revolution and kind of the beginning of things.
• 39:40
  And then at the end, the fourth turning is the fourth step of
• 39:43
  the evolution of society. It's when basically, it's when
• 39:48
  the system breaks the system was built on a Model that no longer
• 39:53
  accurately, reflects or solves the problems that were dealing
• 39:57
  with and two notable for attorneys prior to, this are,
• 40:01
  you know, the, the Depression and World War Two and then the
• 40:04
  one prior to, that was the Civil War and The one prior to that
• 40:07
  was the American Revolution. So they tend to come about every
• 40:11
  80 years or so. But you know, the fact of the
• 40:13
  matter is that, you know, we came out of World War Two, you
• 40:16
  know, there's a good overview of what we came out of World War
• 40:20
  Two. You know, very much on a high
• 40:24
  of, you know, we won the war and things were good and we
• 40:28
  squandered it, you know, we, you know, America misbehaved with,
• 40:32
  you know, we could have behaved in the way that our constitution
• 40:36
  suggested we Behave but you know, evil guys gotten control
• 40:39
  of things and and of course wanted more in terms of both
• 40:42
  wealth and political power. And so the CIA got heavily
• 40:45
  involved in determining what the country does and did a lot of
• 40:49
  evil shit. And, you know, the people kind
• 40:52
  of went along with it because most people are just trying to
• 40:54
  feed their family and live their lives.
• 40:55
  And so you know, they murdered our president on national TV and
• 40:59
  1963. We all just kind of looked the
• 41:01
  other way and some of us knew it was wrong but it was nothing we
• 41:04
  could really do to change the system and A very hierarchical
• 41:08
  centralized system. I mean, I've said it often
• 41:11
  started. When Henry Ford invented, the
• 41:13
  assembly line in the 20s. You put people in a factory and
• 41:16
  they can make things much more quickly and efficiently.
• 41:18
  And so centralization was good throughout most of this Society,
• 41:21
  you know, most of the century and you know, it got really
• 41:24
  good, you know in World War Two. We managed to figure out how to
• 41:26
  slaughter, 40 million people in six years.
• 41:29
  So that's really centralized. Killing and War.
• 41:30
  It was it was you know very efficient and what's happened is
• 41:34
  we've kind of reached the point where Ian no longer serves us
• 41:40
  because, you know, Hitler can grab control of a country or you
• 41:43
  can have, you know, evil people in any country and we've got our
• 41:46
  own set of evil people on both sides in my view so and they can
• 41:50
  lead you down the wrong path, you know, they can lead you down
• 41:52
  a Fiat money, pathway, Nixon did, which creates continuing
• 41:55
  Heirs of all the corrupt, people, and screws the common
• 41:58
  man? And, you know, I mean, it's
• 42:02
  obvious that this Society we've got right now, is horribly
• 42:05
  broken on a lot of different. Run metrics.
• 42:08
  I mean, that in the most notable politically 80% of the America
• 42:12
  are more wants term limits. And yet people who run the show
• 42:15
  you know what, let us have term limits.
• 42:17
  I mean, what kind of representative democracy is that
• 42:19
  it's bullshit? So, you know, and you see it
• 42:22
  everywhere. I mean, they're just there's so
• 42:24
  many signs of it in a Bitcoin points.
• 42:25
  It out, the monetary sign is the most obvious one, the way the
• 42:28
  wealth concentration and the continual inflation.
• 42:30
  And you know, the average people have been stolen from.
• 42:33
  And so as a result of that you know, eventually what happens is
• 42:36
  the The system collapses on itself.
• 42:38
  I mean the way the Soviet Union fell or you know, other other
• 42:42
  bad broken systems blow apart. This one is in the process of
• 42:47
  blowing apart and I think the subject matter for this fourth
• 42:50
  turning, the thing that's going to cause it to blow it apart as
• 42:52
  the bad money. And so, you know, in my opinion
• 42:56
  we're having a sovereign debt crisis which is very likely to
• 42:58
  lead to super high inflation, perhaps, you know,
• 43:01
  hyperinflation and guess what? That's going to wake everybody
• 43:05
  up, you know? It's going to definitely wake
• 43:08
  everybody up and your generation.
• 43:12
  The millennial generation is going to be tasked with coming
• 43:14
  in and fixing it. And you know, you will, I mean
• 43:18
  we will sew it, you know. It's it's it's sad but it's
• 43:24
  natural. It's what happens in these kinds
• 43:26
  of systems. And it's very clear to me, that
• 43:29
  that's what we're in the middle of.
• 43:30
  And they tend to last, about 20 years, I think this one started
• 43:33
  in 2008. So, you know, That would take us
• 43:38
  to 2028. It was kind of an endpoint,
• 43:41
  which seems about right to me. I mean, it could go a bit longer
• 43:43
  or shorter than me Civil War. Was a short one World War Two
• 43:47
  was kind of an extended one of your kind of include the
• 43:50
  depression and the Civil War, you know, it was more like a 15
• 43:54
  year or 20 years and it depends on when you start it.
• 43:57
  But anyway, long story short, we're in a fourth turning and I
• 44:01
  think all the rules are going to change.
• 44:03
  And so that has enormous implications for people who
• 44:05
  manage money and people who want to say, Save money and people
• 44:08
  who want to store their wealth and in my opinion you know we
• 44:12
  just had 40 Years of deflation that's over.
• 44:15
  So that's that's going to be probably the worst place to be
• 44:18
  in the next 10 or 15 years. And we're about to have a period
• 44:21
  where sound money, people are going to be enormously rewarded
• 44:24
  for seeing the issue. That's broken and placing their
• 44:28
  bets in front of what's likely to occur to support to fix the
• 44:32
  issue and and that that's why you know Bitcoin will go to a
• 44:35
  million bucks, a coin and gold is going to go to Dollars and,
• 44:38
  you know, eccentric cetera. So, you know, it's it's
• 44:43
  happening and you know, I wish you would happen a little
• 44:45
  quicker. You guys are definitely going to
• 44:47
  see it all the way through the end.
• 44:49
  I will too if I keep working on the stay healthy, but but it's,
• 44:53
  you know, it could take another 10 or 15 years.
• 44:55
  I mean, I honestly, I thought it was happening in 2008.
• 44:58
  I thought that was that the system was going to break.
• 45:01
  And I thought that, you know, we would, we would get a solution
• 45:04
  to these problems. But you know, they managed to
• 45:06
  paper doll. Over and put it back together
• 45:08
  again and and it's entirely possible to do it this time too,
• 45:12
  you know, and they'll extend this thing, I mean they you
• 45:14
  know, they do control the narrative.
• 45:16
  Right. And you know they've got they've
• 45:17
  got the airwaves and I mean I look at how stupid it slightly.
• 45:22
  Go ahead. Go ahead.
• 45:23
  Look how stupid the country was to fall for, you know, a total
• 45:27
  shutdown over the flu. And I say to myself, I'll get
• 45:31
  it. I mean, now I get how Hitler was
• 45:33
  able to come in and say, you know, it's these Jews who've
• 45:35
  done this to us, they printed all that money and why?
• 45:37
  Are we need to kill them all and, you know, a bunch of
• 45:40
  civilized Germans fell for that shit, right?
• 45:43
  I mean, and in this, in the same way we said, you know, I really
• 45:46
  was a mass psychosis, right? Oh, we got the killer virus.
• 45:49
  It's going to kill you all. If you don't take if you don't
• 45:51
  get Triple vac. So let us take control of your
• 45:53
  body. You know, you're going to die a
• 45:54
  painful death. I mean Jesus Christ what?
• 45:57
  You know and you know people fell for it.
• 46:00
  Everybody felt it was ridiculous.
• 46:03
  Totally ridiculous. So, you know, and but again in
• 46:06
  each of these turnings It's not we don't have to have a majority
• 46:10
  you know? I mean look at the American
• 46:11
  Revolution, right? I mean there were a lot of
• 46:13
  loyalists you know the revolutionaries weren't that big
• 46:16
  of a number relative to the total population.
• 46:20
  You know. And the same is true of the
• 46:21
  sound Money crew. We were pretty small right now,
• 46:24
  but we're going to grow. And when the currency, you know,
• 46:26
  when we have massive inflation and perhaps the currency
• 46:28
  collapse, we're going to get a lot bigger at that point in
• 46:31
  time, we're going to fix it. That's what happened.
• 46:35
  It's a fascinating Theory, I tend to really buy into it which
• 46:41
  is why I asked you about it right.
• 46:42
  Here's another really good graph.
• 46:44
  It goes from 1850. 1870s is 1929 1949. 2008 to 2028.
• 46:53
  Right? So spot on, I agree.
• 46:55
  I think we're really living through two things right now,
• 46:59
  the disintermediation of information, the Government is
• 47:04
  losing a monopoly on The Gatekeepers of information,
• 47:06
  which is why they're pushing so hard with the fact, checking,
• 47:10
  and the accredited sources. If it doesn't come from an
• 47:13
  accredited Source, you know, you get D platforms, right?
• 47:17
  But I am concerned and I'm going to pass it on to Steven the
• 47:21
  amount of people that they were able to convince was absolutely
• 47:27
  terrifying and I'm going to tie it up with Bitcoin, right?
• 47:31
  We already start. We're already starting to to see
• 47:33
  the political pushback on bitcoin.
• 47:35
  The the regulatory attack is being defined right in the last
• 47:39
  week what we saw was for the first time, an on individual
• 47:45
  non-government a technology specifically an open source.
• 47:49
  Software was sanctioned by the US Treasury because I cover
• 47:53
  simply Bitcoin. I've been watching them attack
• 47:57
  and this is the second time the treasury did this, the
• 48:00
  infrastructure build the must pass.
• 48:02
  Infrastructure. Bill.
• 48:03
  They snuck in an amendment basically labeling Bitcoin
• 48:07
  miners, is potential money, transmitters and Cynthia lummis,
• 48:10
  is still having trouble amending that and we know is the treasury
• 48:16
  because Cynthia, lummis in a press conference said, hey, the
• 48:19
  quote, her the treasury got a jump on us.
• 48:22
  Right? So Stephen does it worry you
• 48:25
  when the propaganda machine of a Dying nations of the dying
• 48:29
  nation? State model gets turned on.
• 48:33
  And it's Focus. Becomes Bitcoin.
• 48:36
  What, what do us plebs? Do we even have a shot to fight
• 48:39
  against that? What are your thoughts?
• 48:41
  Yeah, there's a few things there.
• 48:42
  I mean, that's, that's a rich topic, obviously.
• 48:45
  So they, you know, there's arguments on both sides, right?
• 48:48
  Like, and, you know, one thing I will say is that like as
• 48:53
  bitcoiners we need to fight against any of that privacy over
• 48:57
  each no matter where it is. Like it doesn't, it doesn't
• 48:59
  matter where it is, like we need that will turn into an attack
• 49:03
  on. A coin.
• 49:04
  So you know, in favor of like. So if I'm going to, if I'm going
• 49:07
  to argue kind of the case, like regulation isn't going to be
• 49:12
  that much of a problem. I think there's two main things
• 49:14
  I would say and like one is that we're in an era of like, really
• 49:18
  low State capacity and basically all that, like just the state is
• 49:22
  not effective. The state is not efficient.
• 49:24
  It is, it is, it is decaying. It is weak.
• 49:27
  It is like, you look at, even like you can look at the
• 49:30
  executive branch, right? Like the president can Not even
• 49:33
  choose their own like staff. Like they can't fire people who
• 49:37
  work in the White House. That's how little executive
• 49:40
  power, the executive branch has and that's like very
• 49:43
  contradictory with early American governance.
• 49:46
  Where like I mean you look at f.d.r. like the man was a
• 49:49
  dictator like like nearly right, like they're like much more
• 49:53
  similar like more in common with a dictator than what the current
• 49:56
  president has in common with the President, right?
• 49:59
  So there's been this hollowing out of the like It's right.
• 50:03
  And so, as much as like, the argument, against a lot of the
• 50:06
  government concern is like, it has become just like very
• 50:09
  ineffective. And so in that in that
• 50:13
  ineffective system, you also have a ton of senators like
• 50:17
  Senator lummis, you have other Senators.
• 50:19
  You have Representatives, you have people.
• 50:21
  And, you know, all the various departments that actually really
• 50:24
  like Bitcoin. Like there are a number of
• 50:26
  people in u.s. governance and in our power structures in our
• 50:31
  corporations. Are you know, people that have
• 50:33
  Money and power that actually really, really like Bitcoin.
• 50:35
  Bitcoin is kind of this quintessentially, American
• 50:38
  thing. I really, I really do think.
• 50:41
  And so you combine like the weak State capacity with like,
• 50:45
  actually there's a number of defenders in government and, you
• 50:48
  know, it creates a situation where it seems like a pretty big
• 50:51
  lift for the state to do something Monumental against
• 50:56
  Bitcoin, right? Like, especially given that so
• 50:58
  many people own it, there's I did this calculation.
• 51:02
  Once it was, you know, Prices were higher, but it was like, if
• 51:05
  you add up all the Bitcoin that's owned by Americans, all
• 51:08
  the Bitcoin related equities that are owned by Americans, all
• 51:11
  the funds, everything you get to something like I think.
• 51:17
  And this was after Bitcoin to come down off the high like like
• 51:20
  six or seven hundred billion dollars of total exposure to
• 51:25
  Bitcoin in America and so for the u.s. to like Nuke that right
• 51:29
  like that's a huge wealth destruction in the country.
• 51:32
  It's very politically Unpopular. So there's friction the state's
• 51:36
  relatively weak, there's Defenders and I think all of
• 51:40
  that is arguments against like some sort of huge regulatory.
• 51:43
  Crackdown on the other hand, I think the much more risky thing.
• 51:47
  The thing that worries me is kind of like the
• 51:51
  institutionalization of Bitcoin, right?
• 51:54
  I think the much larger risk is that it becomes just like Wall
• 51:58
  Street Bitcoin, right? Like it becomes and so let's be
• 52:01
  clear like this is a slippery. Slow.
• 52:03
  Like the slipper least, the slippery slope to
• 52:06
  institutionalized. Bitcoin is is lubricated by
• 52:10
  number. Go up, right?
• 52:11
  Like let's be very clear here. Like everyone getting into
• 52:15
  Bitcoin solely for Price. Appreciation is like the Avenue
• 52:20
  by which Bitcoin can kind of lose its soul and lose, its kind
• 52:23
  of general purpose and if it becomes too institutionalized if
• 52:28
  it becomes, you know, just this asset that's owned on Wall
• 52:32
  Street. Great.
• 52:33
  That's part of a portfolio that, you know, they can kind of
• 52:36
  cripple it and like, you know, we had a, we saw this Playbook,
• 52:40
  right? Like with gold right with paper
• 52:42
  gold, with all these things that happened and like I think that's
• 52:45
  the real Attack vector. And I think it's important that,
• 52:51
  you know, Bitcoin has values that it stands for Beyond just
• 52:55
  like price of price appreciation.
• 52:58
  And I believe Bitcoin does have those values.
• 53:00
  I'm not saying we don't, I'm not saying the community doesn't,
• 53:02
  but it's important. And that those are maintained,
• 53:05
  because I think that's the, that's the biggest vulnerability
• 53:08
  because there's, there's a way where, like, you know, it'll be
• 53:12
  interesting to see how much, you know, essentially, this the, the
• 53:17
  tornado situation, how much, how much they cave to Regulators,
• 53:21
  which I think is going to be a lot.
• 53:24
  And, you know, in Bitcoin, if they do comment Bitcoin on some
• 53:28
  of these privacy levels on some of these, like, like it's a
• 53:31
  fungibility question. Right.
• 53:33
  Like like of like that like tainted coins, right?
• 53:36
  Like there can't be tainted coins.
• 53:38
  We can't let that be the thing because that injects like this
• 53:41
  huge weakness. And so as a community like we
• 53:45
  need to, I think that's the main thing we need to, like, take a
• 53:48
  Firm Stance against and, you know, that's that involves a lot
• 53:52
  of people write that involves that involves plebs.
• 53:55
  That involves investors, that involves lobbyists.
• 53:57
  That's that involves like the whole, the whole gamut, but just
• 54:01
  to wrap it up into your question.
• 54:02
  Like, I'm not I'm not too worried about some sort of like
• 54:06
  big regulatory attack at this phase.
• 54:09
  But I think I think the so the Goldilocks scenario for Bitcoin
• 54:14
  I think is gradual adoption? I feel pretty strongly that like
• 54:18
  what gives Bitcoin the best chance at succeeding is gradual
• 54:23
  adoption. Not this like sudden like
• 54:26
  exponential like seventy percent of people in the country are now
• 54:29
  saving all their money and Bitcoin like that shoots the
• 54:32
  price up. Yeah.
• 54:33
  But like, that creates a real structural threat.
• 54:36
  And I think there's this like, Razors Edge where Bitcoin needs
• 54:40
  to grow and amass more Capital, get bigger, but without
• 54:46
  triggering like a full frontal assault from the state, which
• 54:49
  like I don't think would kill it.
• 54:51
  Like I'm not saying it would kill it, but it would make life
• 54:53
  difficult and I think if it can stay in this Middle Ground where
• 54:56
  it's growing, more people are using it, it's becoming more
• 54:59
  adopted, but it's not growing so fast that it Ins the like the
• 55:04
  immediate solvency of the dollar system and we can maintain that
• 55:08
  for five years. I think that's The Sweet Spot.
• 55:11
  Yeah. I you know, I've actually said
• 55:14
  that to write is the what worries me is not Bitcoin
• 55:17
  winning at the end? What worries me is the
• 55:19
  transition period? Yeah.
• 55:20
  And how many casualties will happen during the transition,
• 55:24
  right? We do have movement the to
• 55:27
  specific attacks on bitcoin right now the propaganda attacks
• 55:30
  are the mining attack the energies.
• 55:33
  They won't be successful because the mining incentives are just
• 55:36
  too big and you kind of have this game better flag Theory
• 55:39
  playing out where they banned in China.
• 55:40
  They go to Texas, they ban in Texas, they go to El Salvador so
• 55:43
  that's going to keep happening so I don't think they'll be
• 55:46
  successful there but they're going to try.
• 55:48
  But the thing that does worry me and this is what's really
• 55:50
  gearing up is the right to self custody and it's exactly what
• 55:54
  you said, Stephen right? Most people they buy Bitcoin
• 55:59
  right and they leave it where they bought it, right?
• 56:03
  Actually, that's one of the things I like about Swan to is
• 56:05
  that you guys incentivize self custody, but most exchanges,
• 56:09
  right? They don't do that.
• 56:11
  They are you bite on coinbase? Your like it's my it's on my
• 56:14
  bank account. I'm good, you know, I have
• 56:15
  nothing to worry about and I fear that if that happens is
• 56:19
  with Catelyn, long has been screaming off the rooftops.
• 56:22
  Yeah, rehypothecation rehypothecation, right?
• 56:25
  Gets enough gets captured and you start creating paper
• 56:28
  Bitcoin, right? And then that's essentially how
• 56:30
  the gold market was captured right?
• 56:32
  Same thing. So Lawrence, do you believe?
• 56:35
  Because I know, I know you like gold.
• 56:37
  Do you believe that is possible a Bitcoin?
• 56:39
  Or are you on the other side? Where, because self custody is
• 56:43
  so easy compared to Gold. It's going to be a lot harder
• 56:47
  for them to do that. No, no, it's well, it's
• 56:50
  certainly a risk. I mean, there are those who say,
• 56:53
  well, you know, we know where all the coins, are there on the
• 56:55
  chain and that sets the price, so you don't have to worry about
• 56:57
  it. Now that's, that's wrong, that's
• 56:59
  like that whole line of thought is completely wrong.
• 57:01
  I mean there are Bitcoin Derivatives as long as
• 57:04
  derivatives exist in the world, the person who's got, the
• 57:08
  biggest balance sheet, could theoretically win the derivative
• 57:10
  game. I mean ask the Hunt Brothers,
• 57:12
  or, you know, ask anybody in the gold trade.
• 57:15
  I mean, and there is no bigger, balance sheet, no bigger
• 57:18
  military, no bigger Financial entity than the US federal
• 57:20
  government and, you know, they've clearly suppress the
• 57:23
  price of gold for 40 years in order to keep Fiat alive.
• 57:26
  So, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that when in 2020,
• 57:32
  when Bitcoin, From a, the 10,000 frames up into the 50s.
• 57:35
  Very quickly, that you know, they set off alarm bells in
• 57:40
  Washington DC and in a lot of places and holy shit, this is
• 57:45
  real, this could really threaten us.
• 57:46
  Now, if you actually look at today, I mean, glass no has good
• 57:50
  numbers on what the total size of the derivative outstanding
• 57:53
  are and there is a Futures Market, that's relatively small.
• 57:56
  But you know, these numbers are modest compared to the amount of
• 58:00
  Bitcoin that's traded every day, or every week, or every Every
• 58:03
  year, whereas in the gold comparison, you know, there's
• 58:07
  literally 100 to 1000 x. The paper volume of gold trading
• 58:12
  versus physical goal partly because it's hard to settle
• 58:15
  physical. I mean, you got to put it on an
• 58:16
  airplane fly around. It's a it's it's involves.
• 58:19
  But the point is that, you know, they could create the price of
• 58:22
  Bitcoin is set by a combination of things.
• 58:24
  It's set by. What corn-based will sell it to
• 58:26
  you for but it's also said, if somebody comes into the Futures
• 58:29
  Market creates a bunch of paper Bitcoin and sells it, you know,
• 58:32
  then Absorb some of the, some of the demand period and the price
• 58:36
  will go down and so it's entirely possible.
• 58:39
  The US Federal government's going to get more aggressive and
• 58:41
  that all governments including the be is excetera are going to
• 58:45
  get more aggressive at trying to suppress the price of the record
• 58:48
  of time now. They, you know, it's going to be
• 58:50
  tougher than gold because in the gold case you never saw gold.
• 58:53
  Go up 5 x + 3 months, right? And so you know I mean, I mean
• 58:58
  this is a very volatile Beast as we all know.
• 59:01
  And as a result of it being a volatile Beast, You know,
• 59:03
  somebody, if somebody, if they're on the long side of that
• 59:05
  Futures trade, you know, they're going to get carried out but
• 59:09
  we've seen them. Get carried out in the gold
• 59:10
  trade and remember when you've got the printing press and I'm
• 59:12
  pretty sure the government runs a set of books you know off off
• 59:16
  the you know they have they have Financial accounts off.
• 59:19
  The books is the bottom line. So they let the VIS or they let
• 59:23
  JP Morgan they let others short gold and if they have a loss on
• 59:26
  those shorts that gets made up somehow and that it just doesn't
• 59:29
  get reported. Okay and it falls under there.
• 59:33
  It's legal, Scholars, have looked at it pretty carefully of
• 59:35
  seen it falls under some stuff in the in all the financial
• 59:39
  Rags. The talks about, you know,
• 59:41
  National Security and it's kind of like the nuclear codes,
• 59:44
  right? I mean, if the u.s., if the US
• 59:46
  dollar were to fail, that would threaten our national security.
• 59:50
  And so, as a result, you know, very much in the same way they
• 59:52
  figured out. Well, we got to kill Kennedy
• 59:54
  because he's a threat to the country, you know, they figured
• 59:57
  well, we got, you know, we got to suppress the price of gold
• 59:59
  because if the dollar fails, you know, we're going to it's going
• 1:00:02
  to affect our national security. Well if it looks like Bitcoin is
• 1:00:06
  going to create, you know, a national security event by
• 1:00:08
  causing the dollar to fail. Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  You can bet that there's a good chance, they'll be involved and
• 1:00:13
  somebody on the Tweet, actually matter on the threat actually
• 1:00:15
  mentioned. It's interesting and Troublesome
• 1:00:17
  to me that black rocks. Getting more heavily involved in
• 1:00:19
  this because BlackRock basically is the government as his
• 1:00:23
  JPMorgan, Etc. So my view is though that this
• 1:00:26
  thing is moving pretty quickly and that they're you know
• 1:00:29
  they're stupid and slow and so and we got you know, we Really
• 1:00:33
  sharp Spears. I mean, you know the gold guys.
• 1:00:36
  We were out there fighting with like you know swords and shit
• 1:00:39
  and you guys have come along with like machine guns and spin,
• 1:00:41
  you know, good stuff. And you know so I think we're
• 1:00:45
  going to I think we're going to get them.
• 1:00:48
  That's my view. This is moving too quickly.
• 1:00:51
  They're going to have to print too much.
• 1:00:53
  The confidence is going to be lost etc etc.
• 1:00:56
  And so I think we're going to get them on this round.
• 1:00:59
  I mean, but I've been accused of being too optimistic in the
• 1:01:02
  past. Stand.
• 1:01:04
  And so you know and and you know these are very, very dark Forces
• 1:01:08
  and their evil people. They're bad evil.
• 1:01:10
  People on the other side of the strait, there's no doubt about
• 1:01:13
  it and and we're playing the other thing to keep in mind here
• 1:01:15
  is we're playing for all the marbles.
• 1:01:17
  I mean we're playing for all the friggin marbles.
• 1:01:19
  I mean if Fiat becomes worthless Jay Paul's net worth is zero and
• 1:01:24
  please help, please have more money than Jake Pal.
• 1:01:27
  Wouldn't that be great? I mean, and it could happen, it
• 1:01:31
  could absolutely happen. And so, And they know it and so
• 1:01:37
  it's entirely possible that, you know, they're going to be more
• 1:01:41
  heavily involved and we've got to be prepared for that.
• 1:01:45
  I think there's a good chance that somewhere along the line
• 1:01:47
  here. They're going to realize how big
• 1:01:49
  a problem they have. And that there's going to be
• 1:01:51
  some kind of a monetary reset. And so as a result of that,
• 1:01:55
  they're going to, they're going to try a CBC or, you know,
• 1:01:59
  something something that's different than what we have now.
• 1:02:02
  And it's not what we want to see is a full monetary reset, but
• 1:02:06
  that goes more in that direction.
• 1:02:08
  And so, you know, and we'll have to have to deal with that when
• 1:02:12
  it comes up and wants to fight it.
• 1:02:13
  But, you know, I suspect the sound money fight is going to be
• 1:02:19
  a hell of a fight and I suspect it's going to play out over the
• 1:02:22
  next 10 years or so. So I go ahead Stephen.
• 1:02:25
  But yeah, I think you'll like this.
• 1:02:26
  So actually on what you just said.
• 1:02:29
  I like my my base case and I think you'll like this one.
• 1:02:33
  Is that what we see? Like, I we're going to see
• 1:02:37
  inflation. I think we're going to see high
• 1:02:38
  inflation for the decade. I don't, I don't think it's like
• 1:02:42
  most, I don't expect hyperinflation, but I expect
• 1:02:45
  consistent inflation. But I think what we see like the
• 1:02:49
  reset we see is I think we see the US Treasury removed as like
• 1:02:54
  reserve asset. So.
• 1:02:56
  And I think it becomes replaced actually, they could becomes
• 1:02:58
  replaced with gold first because the central bank's already own a
• 1:03:02
  ton of gold like, They own all this gold like if they're going
• 1:03:05
  to replace the reserve asset they're not going to go
• 1:03:07
  immediately to bitcoin that's just like not the initial step I
• 1:03:10
  think so. I think US Treasury can get
• 1:03:12
  replaced by gold as this this debt bubble kind of hits it
• 1:03:17
  Zenith and then I think gold as a reserve asset is the pathway
• 1:03:22
  to bitcoin like once you're using gold as a reserve asset.
• 1:03:25
  It's only a couple steps before you realize like, hey well maybe
• 1:03:28
  we should try using this Bitcoin thing so we don't the ship the
• 1:03:32
  stuff around and Did and, you know, all this stuff but but
• 1:03:35
  that's actually kind of my like I think that's my most likely
• 1:03:39
  scenario, right? Is that like the role of US.
• 1:03:42
  Treasury as Reserve gets replaced with a neutral reserve
• 1:03:46
  and that's almost certainly going to be gold at least in the
• 1:03:50
  first few years. I don't disagree with that.
• 1:03:53
  I mean Russia is trying to push it in that direction.
• 1:03:56
  I was actually announced today talking about that in China's
• 1:03:58
  got a lot more gold and so does actually India to, so, you know,
• 1:04:02
  it's entirely possible. But it's, you know, this is all
• 1:04:06
  extremely uncertain and we don't know how it's going to play out.
• 1:04:09
  But what I do know is that holding sound money in a, you
• 1:04:13
  know, in a monetary blizzard, is the right way to go.
• 1:04:17
  And so these both of these things represent sound money,
• 1:04:19
  gold and Bitcoin. So You know, that's, I'm quite
• 1:04:25
  sure that my kids and grandkids are going to be appreciative of
• 1:04:29
  the fact that I've gone all-in on this trade.
• 1:04:32
  You never, you know, there will be multi generational wealth as
• 1:04:36
  a result of it. And I think, you know, I mean,
• 1:04:38
  having a single coin is going to is going to be enormous thing in
• 1:04:41
  the future. I mean, these are going to
• 1:04:43
  millions millions if not tens of millions of dollars per coin in
• 1:04:46
  my view, but you know, and and it's it's so obvious for me to
• 1:04:51
  see it right now. Now, I mean, you know, there's a
• 1:04:55
  fixed number of them and adoption continues, right?
• 1:04:59
  I mean, it's just the adoption as there.
• 1:05:01
  It just keeps growing. I mean this is this is the
• 1:05:03
  internet, you know? It's just it's it's just it's
• 1:05:07
  obvious. It's obvious.
• 1:05:08
  It's completely obvious. So you know we just have to sit
• 1:05:14
  back and watch it unfold, obviously, it's going to take
• 1:05:16
  time, you know, it's going to take time.
• 1:05:19
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:05:20
  I second and you buried the lead there.
• 1:05:24
  Lawrence, because what you were and I think that this really has
• 1:05:29
  to do with the growth of the administrative State.
• 1:05:32
  Some people would call it the Deep state but it's really in
• 1:05:34
  your face. So I wouldn't even call it the
• 1:05:36
  Deep State anymore. But were you were saying is
• 1:05:39
  that? It sounds like to me that
• 1:05:42
  government has grown to such a size that it's starting not to
• 1:05:48
  act in the best? Of of its citizens, but it's
• 1:05:52
  really starting to act in the best interest of itself to
• 1:05:56
  ensure its own Survival and the, you know, covering the news and
• 1:06:02
  what I've noticed, right? Is there taking or they're
• 1:06:07
  moving chess pieces to really maintain?
• 1:06:13
  This Monopoly that this Reserve currency status, right?
• 1:06:17
  And the ability that that gives the US government through
• 1:06:20
  weaponizing the dollar and you know, placing sanctions that
• 1:06:24
  don't really do their intended, you know, purpose or whatever.
• 1:06:28
  But To what length you think that this machine, because
• 1:06:34
  that's what it is to, what lengths, will they go to?
• 1:06:38
  Because I think in the last two years, whatever your political
• 1:06:42
  ideology is, they have taken off the mask.
• 1:06:46
  They don't even care before. I would say.
• 1:06:49
  Five years ago you would say deep State and someone would say
• 1:06:52
  go watch, Alex Jones, your conspiracy theories.
• 1:06:55
  Now, you say deep State and you're like, okay, I might still
• 1:06:59
  not be Your percent convinced, but there has been a lot of
• 1:07:03
  things over the last couple of years.
• 1:07:05
  That makes you question. What the hell is going on and
• 1:07:09
  that what that made that with that maze made me realize as a
• 1:07:13
  Bitcoin? ER is that that's really what
• 1:07:16
  you're up against you're up against that machine.
• 1:07:19
  And the fact is that the FED based in DC, that is That is
• 1:07:26
  what is paying for all of their salaries.
• 1:07:28
  That is what ensures that they're okay.
• 1:07:31
  And for Bitcoin to win the way that we want it to win, it's
• 1:07:34
  exactly what you said. Lawrence this is for all the
• 1:07:37
  marbles this is this is to get the particular cop.
• 1:07:41
  So what will they go through? What, what do you think?
• 1:07:44
  And, well, you look up, they'll change the rules, they'll lie,
• 1:07:48
  they cheat, they'll steal. I mean, they've, you know, I
• 1:07:50
  mean, it's me how they killed a president.
• 1:07:55
  They probably threatened a lot of the other presidents whose
• 1:07:59
  day, who's day people who are in power, the people who are behind
• 1:08:04
  the scenes, you know, pushing the buttons, you know, and it's
• 1:08:09
  a large group of, it's a large loosely held group of insiders.
• 1:08:14
  But the thing that kind of holds them all together is that
• 1:08:16
  they're all wealthy and they're all corrupt.
• 1:08:18
  And so, you know, I think we can assume that they're going to do
• 1:08:22
  a lot of bad shit. The good news is Is you know the
• 1:08:26
  internet, you know? It's made Joe Rogan more
• 1:08:29
  powerful than, you know, Network news.
• 1:08:32
  You know. It's I mean we're all, you know,
• 1:08:35
  your generation. I mean, look, I mean, you know,
• 1:08:38
  I told my father I was absolutely convinced it was
• 1:08:40
  before it passed that the CIA killed Kennedy because I've read
• 1:08:43
  everything there is to read on it and any any decent halfway
• 1:08:46
  decent analysts could have come with us that conclusions.
• 1:08:48
  So fucking obvious and my dad just couldn't bear.
• 1:08:51
  It gave served in the military couldn't bear to think of the
• 1:08:53
  possibility. We have people in our government
• 1:08:56
  was so evil. They did murder of President,
• 1:08:57
  right? Like your generation pretty much
• 1:09:00
  widely accepts that. That's what happened, you know,
• 1:09:03
  and most of the rest of the world accepts it.
• 1:09:04
  I mean, you know, once the great story somebody was trying to at
• 1:09:08
  one point in one of the conference's, somebody was
• 1:09:10
  trying to talk to Putin about poisoning guys in England and he
• 1:09:14
  kind of he kind of laughed and he turned over and he said yeah
• 1:09:16
  like like what happened in Dallas in November of 63 wasn't
• 1:09:20
  bad and what the fuck are you talking about?
• 1:09:23
  I mean, look, you know, No. And as you say Nico, I mean this
• 1:09:26
  has been going on for a long time.
• 1:09:28
  I mean, if you read, if you read American history I mean, this
• 1:09:31
  isn't like, you know, I mean, this battle has been fought from
• 1:09:34
  the early days. I mean, you had Hamilton and
• 1:09:36
  Jefferson going at it. Who's going to have the power?
• 1:09:39
  I mean and you know, America is a big powerful country.
• 1:09:43
  I mean, we stood at the top of the world after World War Two
• 1:09:47
  and isn't amazing how quickly we fucked it up, you know?
• 1:09:51
  And well. So that's it.
• 1:09:53
  That's that's kind of an interesting.
• 1:09:55
  Point. And like I kind of aligned with
• 1:09:57
  I think like Zion has like an interesting angle on this where
• 1:10:02
  he kind of flips the script on. Like whether we look at like,
• 1:10:06
  you know, we can kind of look at the last 100 years is like the
• 1:10:08
  American Century and this kind of like like era of like
• 1:10:12
  American dominance, but Zion actually makes the argument that
• 1:10:16
  it's better characterized as American sacrifice and the deals
• 1:10:20
  that we made in the industrial deals with China and the US
• 1:10:24
  dollar as As Reserve currency, like all disadvantaged, like the
• 1:10:28
  US, like, these were all things that like, we're at the US's
• 1:10:31
  detriment. We essentially sacrificed our
• 1:10:34
  economy in exchange for providing, like, Global policing
• 1:10:38
  or like Global Security, which like you can criticize all you
• 1:10:42
  want, but it did create like a level of stability.
• 1:10:45
  Right? There was like a level of like
• 1:10:47
  Japan could ship Freight around the world and like no one's
• 1:10:51
  gonna mess with that Freight, right?
• 1:10:53
  Like for all the murders. As in Coos and you know whatever
• 1:10:56
  I'm not justifying that but but and so I think that's
• 1:11:00
  interesting. I think like I thought I was the
• 1:11:02
  first time I'd heard someone put it quite like that and like you
• 1:11:05
  know there's a lot that gets discussed in these circles.
• 1:11:08
  I'm sure of like the detriments to being the reserve currency
• 1:11:11
  and the trade deficits. And like, China is buying all
• 1:11:14
  our assets with dollars. That we ship them and in the
• 1:11:17
  trade surplus like but this notion of like I think just like
• 1:11:22
  American sacrifice of these like deal.
• 1:11:25
  Eels that like just and then you look at you look at the current
• 1:11:28
  state of the country and you look at like just you know the
• 1:11:31
  economic malaise and the inequality and just like you
• 1:11:35
  know the huge stratification of like wealth.
• 1:11:38
  And it's like yeah like we hollowed out the middle of the
• 1:11:42
  country we hollowed-out industrial base and like how is
• 1:11:45
  the American sacrifice in their own best interest, right?
• 1:11:53
  I mean, Operations didn't have to go along with that, but they
• 1:11:58
  did because, you know, they were all, you know, they all have
• 1:12:01
  stock options and the CEOs, all had stock options and they
• 1:12:05
  realize that they could build shit overseas for a fraction of
• 1:12:08
  what it costs to build it here. And so they will ship the
• 1:12:12
  factories overseas and employ. All those people, the profits
• 1:12:14
  would go up the stock options would quote they'd be Jeff ml
• 1:12:17
  building a 16 million dollar house on Nantucket because you
• 1:12:20
  made 600 million dollars on his GE stock options.
• 1:12:23
  And yet G is a Is a Hulk of the former company that used to be.
• 1:12:27
  I mean, you know, these people, I mean, everybody did was in
• 1:12:31
  their self-interest, but it wasn't in the overall interest
• 1:12:35
  of the country and was just, Ross, Perot talked about this,
• 1:12:38
  it's fascinating because that resulted really in the rise of
• 1:12:42
  populism that you've seen over, you know, the last really since
• 1:12:48
  2016 2017 and seeing the establishment react to it.
• 1:12:55
  I think really opened a lot of eyes.
• 1:12:56
  It opened my eyes to it initially, but do you think that
• 1:13:02
  do? And let's kind of pull this back
• 1:13:04
  to bitcoin pass it on to you. Stephen, do you think Bitcoin
• 1:13:08
  fixes this? Do you think that's just the
• 1:13:10
  result of the u.s. being the global of the world?
• 1:13:13
  Reserve currency does Bitcoin fix this does Bitcoin bring
• 1:13:19
  America back to its former glory or are you kind of from the
• 1:13:24
  thought? Of China Rising?
• 1:13:26
  What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I'm very, I'm very Pro
• 1:13:30
  America and optimistic for for America.
• 1:13:35
  And I like, you know, I believe and I'll answer the Bitcoin
• 1:13:37
  question. But I believe you know, I don't
• 1:13:41
  look at the world and like, I don't see China as a substitute
• 1:13:45
  for America, right? Like there are like really
• 1:13:48
  strong cultural differences and like one example of like
• 1:13:53
  American culture is cool. Man, like people want to be
• 1:13:57
  American, does anybody want to be Han Chinese?
• 1:14:01
  Like no, not really and and they don't want you to be right.
• 1:14:04
  Only like, you know, I've a buddy that just stayed with me.
• 1:14:06
  That's lived in China for the last three to five years and
• 1:14:09
  like their view is like actually you can't be a Chinese only we
• 1:14:13
  can be Chinese. It's like it's not a, you know,
• 1:14:16
  whatever like but you can't really adopt our culture because
• 1:14:19
  you're not Chinese like you can't do it and that's the view
• 1:14:22
  and there's a fundamentally like non-empirical.
• 1:14:24
  Be realistic cultural streak to China that I think really flies
• 1:14:28
  under the radar. Like they do not want to
• 1:14:31
  proselytize their culture and like culture is a huge part of
• 1:14:35
  being the global superpower, right?
• 1:14:37
  And so like when I look at like the role of America in the
• 1:14:41
  coming Century, right? Like there's just what is Europe
• 1:14:45
  going to assume the position that America occupies like no?
• 1:14:48
  Like, you know, there's nobody there's not a suitable like
• 1:14:52
  hegemon, waiting in the wings. So first of all, I'm optimistic
• 1:14:56
  America. I think we need to get our act
• 1:14:57
  together but like, I don't like reliably.
• 1:15:00
  See, I think China could be a really hard economic power.
• 1:15:04
  I think they could have a lot of, like, hard power and
• 1:15:06
  economic power, but it's more than that, right?
• 1:15:09
  And there's like a soft power element to.
• 1:15:10
  But anyways, so what I think Bitcoin does what I think
• 1:15:14
  Bitcoin does. And I think, like, the most
• 1:15:15
  substantial and like legitimate argument for why Bitcoin can fix
• 1:15:21
  things and Society. Is this question of Capital Miss
• 1:15:25
  allocation which I think is like pervasive and profound.
• 1:15:29
  Right? Like and it's essentially just
• 1:15:31
  that when money is so cheap and you basically get paid to borrow
• 1:15:35
  money like in the beginning of the article, you talked about
• 1:15:38
  like who isn't going to borrow money for buy a house at three
• 1:15:42
  percent. When inflation is high in the
• 1:15:44
  house is going to go up. Like you take that trade all day
• 1:15:48
  because the money is so cheap because it's so inexpensive like
• 1:15:53
  it incentivized and Fleeting to. So you're losing value on it and
• 1:15:57
  so it forces and incentivizes everybody to just go Rush their
• 1:16:00
  Capital into Investments. The problem is maybe those
• 1:16:03
  aren't good Investments, right? Like maybe those aren't the
• 1:16:06
  right Investments, maybe that's not where the market would
• 1:16:09
  allocate Capital, if Capital was harder to come by.
• 1:16:13
  And was it was it was if money was more expensive.
• 1:16:15
  And and I think that's like a profound problem.
• 1:16:20
  We're facing because I like to view the economy, like the
• 1:16:23
  economic machine. Xin is like, it's like it's like
• 1:16:27
  a computer, right? It processes information and
• 1:16:30
  prices the data. And so it's able to collect all
• 1:16:34
  the intelligence from all the economic actors and all the
• 1:16:37
  humans all over the world and all in the system and it
• 1:16:39
  transmits that information in the form of price.
• 1:16:42
  And so when you distort that and you distort that by making the
• 1:16:46
  money super cheap by funding non profitable companies by forcing
• 1:16:51
  everyone to allocate their Capital, even if they don't want
• 1:16:54
  to invest in. You can't save anymore.
• 1:16:56
  It just distorts the system, right?
• 1:16:59
  And it funds, it funds non-viable Enterprises and I
• 1:17:03
  think one of the biggest things that Bitcoin does is it rains
• 1:17:07
  that in and under a Bitcoin system, it is costlier to
• 1:17:11
  invest. And that's a good thing because
• 1:17:14
  we need to be more selective with where we put our resources
• 1:17:17
  because the Crux of it is the Keynesian, think they think that
• 1:17:22
  because money is fungible You'll like a dollar is a dollar is a
• 1:17:26
  dollar and if you fund we work to the tune of eight billion
• 1:17:30
  dollars. Well that money is going to pay
• 1:17:32
  people salary and circulate through the system and it
• 1:17:35
  doesn't matter. But what they miss is that while
• 1:17:37
  money, maybe fungible people's time is not.
• 1:17:41
  If we fund, we work with eight billion dollars and we work
• 1:17:45
  hires 10 of the smartest people in the world to work on.
• 1:17:48
  We work, they're not working on building Rockets, they're not
• 1:17:52
  working on better fertilizer, they're not.
• 1:17:54
  Working on these other things. And so that's a real loss of
• 1:17:59
  society's real resources. And I think I think very
• 1:18:02
  legitimately under under a Bitcoin world or under a world
• 1:18:05
  where like we don't have this Fiat like, you know, we don't
• 1:18:09
  und like companies to hire our best talent to do bullshit,
• 1:18:15
  right? Like they go work on productive
• 1:18:17
  think Steve is making a very good point that I've made in the
• 1:18:20
  past and completely agree with, which is, you know, without
• 1:18:23
  having an accurate. It cost of capital capitalism,
• 1:18:26
  doesn't work because you spend money on bullshit, stuff like
• 1:18:29
  meme stocks and shit coins. Yeah.
• 1:18:32
  And you know if capital is correctly priced it leads people
• 1:18:38
  to put money where it's going to get his best return, which is
• 1:18:41
  what Society needs, which is what increases living standard
• 1:18:44
  for all of us. And so the reason our living
• 1:18:47
  standards have not gone up. And the reason that your
• 1:18:49
  generation is the first generation, the perhaps won't be
• 1:18:52
  as well off as your parents or won't see us.
• 1:18:54
  Much you know, Improvement in your wealth and your games as
• 1:18:57
  your parents is because the system is so hopelessly broken
• 1:19:01
  that were burning the furniture you know, to heat the house.
• 1:19:06
  And we should be out there building nuclear plants to
• 1:19:08
  figure out how to make energy more cheaply.
• 1:19:10
  Yeah, you know and that's and you just can't do that when
• 1:19:13
  capitals free. Yeah you know Capital has to be
• 1:19:16
  priced accurately and it's not and the reason for that is that
• 1:19:21
  Fiat has just become you know another chip.
• 1:19:24
  It that they play with in their game to stay in power and
• 1:19:29
  therefore, you know, it's broken.
• 1:19:31
  So you know, it's funny because I, you know, in part, I want to
• 1:19:36
  see things get, you know, better but in part I'm kind of rooting
• 1:19:40
  for their system to fail so they can get really better.
• 1:19:43
  Because, you know this this half way better just zombification
• 1:19:47
  where we keep walking along in the Fiat world.
• 1:19:50
  I'm like you know, there's a part of me that wants Stephanie
• 1:19:52
  Kelton to win and to dominate the discussion.
• 1:19:54
  For them to get everybody in Washington to go, full mmt
• 1:19:57
  because that will cause the collapse that we need to get
• 1:20:00
  reset on a sound system and we really need that reset.
• 1:20:04
  You know, it's Steven makes an excellent point about, you know,
• 1:20:07
  money has to be appropriately priced or else, you know.
• 1:20:11
  We do not get the best economic outcome it.
• 1:20:14
  The fact that money is not appropriately, priced costs, all
• 1:20:17
  of us in terms of our standard of living, give me a much higher
• 1:20:21
  standard of living if money had been properly.
• 1:20:24
  Countess. It breaks the machine and like,
• 1:20:27
  like I can't Hammer this point enough but like the, the the
• 1:20:32
  process by which markets work is like, a modern Miracle, like it
• 1:20:37
  is a miracle, the way that markets synthesized like we
• 1:20:41
  could never do it. And that I mean, that was the
• 1:20:43
  lesson of Communism is like Central planning can't work
• 1:20:47
  because the, the kind of, it's like this emergent property,
• 1:20:51
  like this thing emerges out of all of these micro interactions.
• 1:20:55
  That is so much smarter and more intelligent and more capable
• 1:20:59
  than any human, or any group of humans.
• 1:21:02
  And like but it's like a computer or it's like a mint at.
• 1:21:06
  It's like this thing that you need to feed the right
• 1:21:09
  information into and if you can get the wrong information, it
• 1:21:13
  gives you the wrong outcome and like we're giving it the wrong
• 1:21:16
  information. That's exactly right.
• 1:21:19
  So, and I think you brought up a fascinating Point Stephen and
• 1:21:23
  I'll bounce it back to you, right?
• 1:21:24
  Because I see it the same exact way, right?
• 1:21:27
  The the problem with Central planning oh my camera went off.
• 1:21:30
  I'm switching it. Don't worry.
• 1:21:32
  The problem with Central planning right is that it's a
• 1:21:36
  group of intellectual Elite that think they're the intellectual
• 1:21:39
  Elite. And they have all these
• 1:21:40
  credentials and they went to the right universities and they have
• 1:21:43
  the hubris to think. They know what's best for
• 1:21:48
  Millions upon Millions upon millions of people making their
• 1:21:52
  own decisions with their wallets and That sends signals to the
• 1:21:56
  entrepreneurs to hey, it what produce this?
• 1:22:00
  We want more of this, right? So yeah, it's absolutely insane
• 1:22:03
  and I got to the same conclusion, right?
• 1:22:07
  Is Bitcoin. The end of that mentality and
• 1:22:10
  and the sovereign individual, the book, he makes the argument
• 1:22:14
  that through the transition, into the information age, what
• 1:22:17
  we're going to see which is something that we can't even
• 1:22:20
  imagine the death of Politics as we know it today.
• 1:22:24
  And the death of the importance of Politics as we say, as we see
• 1:22:28
  it, as we see it today. But the other side of me is like
• 1:22:33
  there's a lot of people that have a lot to lose because
• 1:22:36
  there's a lot of politicians that say the right buzzwords,
• 1:22:39
  right? Whether its tax the rich, even
• 1:22:41
  though we know, for example, the rich pay the vast majority of
• 1:22:44
  the income tax in this country, but at this in sound, right?
• 1:22:47
  That doesn't sound good? That's not very Buzzy.
• 1:22:49
  That's not very catchy, right? So, there's a lot of people that
• 1:22:52
  stands a lot to lose from the death of Our do you believe with
• 1:22:57
  the theory? Do you believe in the theory
• 1:22:58
  from the sovereign individual? Stephen are we seeing is this is
• 1:23:02
  Bitcoin and the internet and the abilities that the internet
• 1:23:07
  gives you. Whether that's to communicate
• 1:23:09
  with anyone around the world to post a message and that message
• 1:23:13
  to be seen by millions of people and money.
• 1:23:16
  The E, the ability to send money and to transport money very
• 1:23:20
  easily, without fear of confiscation or debasement.
• 1:23:23
  Is this the end? Of politics that we saw in the
• 1:23:28
  21st century, that resulted in the deaths of tens of millions
• 1:23:32
  of people is Bitcoin the end to that system.
• 1:23:36
  Do you see a button or how your CEO?
• 1:23:39
  How Corey clips and see it says it, the bright orange future.
• 1:23:43
  Yeah, yeah. So, that's a really interesting
• 1:23:45
  question and so, I think that it's definitely, it is a
• 1:23:51
  fundamental alteration and I'll get like the areas where That
• 1:23:55
  really is the case. But you know as long as there's
• 1:23:57
  human beings, human beings are going to organize.
• 1:24:00
  So if we're going to Define politics as like groups of
• 1:24:03
  people, well, you're not going to get rid of groups of people.
• 1:24:05
  Like there will always be, you know, kind of groups and
• 1:24:09
  organizations. So I don't think like politics
• 1:24:12
  itself, but I think what does change is there is a
• 1:24:16
  disintermediation of control of money and control of
• 1:24:20
  information. And so, you know, we know a lot
• 1:24:23
  about money or in the Bitcoin world, there's this Great book
• 1:24:25
  called The Revolt of the public which deals with information and
• 1:24:29
  like prior to the internet, like States, controlled, like it was
• 1:24:34
  full control over information, you had nowhere to get
• 1:24:37
  information. So the internet comes out and
• 1:24:40
  the author gives us a great example of like suddenly there's
• 1:24:42
  this like media story they're trying to say that like George
• 1:24:46
  W. Bush that he liked faked his
• 1:24:48
  draft paperwork or something and like they put up this document
• 1:24:51
  on like CNN or something and some random anonymous.
• 1:24:55
  Anonymous person on the internet like figures out that the
• 1:24:58
  typeface that they used in the document didn't exist.
• 1:25:01
  During the time that the document was produced and you
• 1:25:04
  have this first instance of like a random person refuting an
• 1:25:10
  Institutional media like power structure and it just marks like
• 1:25:15
  this decline of the ability of the state to control the flows
• 1:25:20
  of information. So I think the internet and I
• 1:25:22
  think I think Bitcoin and I think a neutral neutral Reserve
• 1:25:25
  asset and neutral money, I think it separates those two classic
• 1:25:29
  functions of the state information and money and it
• 1:25:32
  takes those away and I think that alters politics, I think
• 1:25:36
  that fundamentally Alters, like, what are the mechanisms here?
• 1:25:40
  But, you know, I'm more skeptical that like, you know,
• 1:25:43
  like all the countries, just like disappear and like, you
• 1:25:47
  know, we sing Kumbaya and, like, organizing a little, like, PODS
• 1:25:50
  of dolphins, like, you know, I think, I think groups, And
• 1:25:55
  tribes and nations are very Lindy, right?
• 1:25:57
  It's a very old concept but I think but I think it does
• 1:26:01
  fundamentally alter like the political fabric.
• 1:26:05
  Yeah. And I also think, and I've made
• 1:26:07
  the case and we're running out of time, gentlemen.
• 1:26:10
  So I'll let Lauren say his bid. And what he thinks about this.
• 1:26:14
  I've always said that what really Bitcoin in the internet
• 1:26:17
  has done, is it shifted the balance of power from the state
• 1:26:22
  back? Kind of to the individual right
• 1:26:24
  now? The Or has a Fighting Chance
• 1:26:27
  where before he had absolutely no chance.
• 1:26:29
  Right? Your country becomes tyrannical.
• 1:26:32
  You could memorize 12 words, you can cross a border, you're going
• 1:26:36
  to go where you're treated best, right?
• 1:26:37
  And the also, the internet has facilitated mass communications,
• 1:26:41
  which has thrown a wrench at their ability to control the
• 1:26:45
  narrative like they did in the past.
• 1:26:47
  I saw someone on Twitter, say something.
• 1:26:49
  Fascinating what he said is it in 2003 when the US wanted to
• 1:26:54
  invade Iraq. If social media existed, that
• 1:26:57
  wouldn't be possible, Right? The New York Times, all those
• 1:27:00
  media institutions, they had a complete Monopoly on
• 1:27:03
  information. Then York Times convinced
• 1:27:05
  everybody that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when that
• 1:27:08
  was never true. Right, what happened if social
• 1:27:11
  media was around at least there would be a pushback on that
• 1:27:15
  narrative where before there was none.
• 1:27:17
  So Lawrence what are your thoughts on this conversation?
• 1:27:21
  I agree with that. I mean to me the internet.
• 1:27:24
  I mean If you look at what the printing press did to, you know,
• 1:27:28
  the Catholic Church, you know, the internet's doing to the
• 1:27:32
  government narrative today and and then Bitcoin just takes it
• 1:27:36
  The Next Step Into, You Know, full non-state money that, you
• 1:27:40
  know, as easy to move around and Cetera.
• 1:27:42
  It's, you know, it's gold. That is not yet my look,
• 1:27:45
  manipulated hopefully won't ever be seriously manipulated.
• 1:27:48
  And so, yeah, I think the internet is probably, you know,
• 1:27:51
  the most important development, you know, of the last hundred
• 1:27:54
  years, Yes, and I think probably Bitcoin is right behind it in
• 1:27:58
  terms of, you know, changing our world.
• 1:28:01
  And as a result of that, you know, people can self educate
• 1:28:05
  and get a better education, better more information faster,
• 1:28:09
  be the internet and then they can store their money in
• 1:28:12
  something that sound again via the Internet and digital medium.
• 1:28:17
  I think those two things are going to completely upset, the
• 1:28:20
  existing power structure, the existing set centralized power
• 1:28:23
  structure, and that, and You know, not not a moment too soon.
• 1:28:26
  Right? I mean, we're dying under this
• 1:28:29
  thing. I mean, it's just horrible.
• 1:28:31
  It's, you know, it's so horrible.
• 1:28:35
  Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, it is, it's terrible.
• 1:28:37
  But but, you know, it's in my way.
• 1:28:40
  You know. I kind of it's almost Divine.
• 1:28:44
  It really is. I mean, it's like, you know, God
• 1:28:46
  swooped in here to help us out a little bit and gave us these
• 1:28:48
  two, you know, inventions and and you know the people who are
• 1:28:52
  running the old system. I mean As you might imagine,
• 1:28:55
  they got fat lazy corrupt and, you know, it had they had, they
• 1:28:59
  been better stewards of the power they had, they wouldn't be
• 1:29:03
  so threatened, but they weren't and so they are, you know?
• 1:29:06
  Yep, good times created weak men.
• 1:29:09
  And now my generation we are treating this like it's Bitcoin
• 1:29:14
  or slavery specifically with these Central Bank digital
• 1:29:17
  currencies that are Over the Horizon and we're really truly.
• 1:29:20
  We're really treating it that way.
• 1:29:21
  It's we take it very seriously. We got I don't know.
• 1:29:25
  Don't want to live in a world where Bitcoin doesn't win.
• 1:29:27
  I mean and I mean it's it is life or death for for Humanity
• 1:29:30
  in my opinion and it's going to win.
• 1:29:32
  I mean it's that's the thing that's so great about it is that
• 1:29:36
  you know, for all that we get frustrated, that it's not
• 1:29:38
  happening more quickly, it's still happening pretty damn
• 1:29:41
  quickly and it really is happening.
• 1:29:44
  And I don't, I don't see a stop or, I mean, they're going to try
• 1:29:48
  all kinds of shit. No doubt.
• 1:29:50
  I mean, I got to tell you these people, you know, they're evil
• 1:29:52
  and they've tried and they outlawed short.
• 1:29:54
  Selling in 2008. I mean you name it and we were
• 1:29:57
  they just do the guys who were short nickel, you know, I mean,
• 1:30:00
  long nickel, and they broke. All those contracts mean,
• 1:30:03
  they'll change the rules of Break The Rules.
• 1:30:04
  They'll arrest people, really what they did the Snowden look
• 1:30:07
  at what they're doing to, you know, Assange Etc.
• 1:30:10
  These are evil fucking people period.
• 1:30:13
  But having said that, we got them outnumbered.
• 1:30:16
  I mean I love the meme where, you know, they're standing out
• 1:30:18
  on the plank and we're all standing on the other end of it,
• 1:30:21
  you know, they need us. I mean, we got them badly
• 1:30:23
  outnumbered. And so so you know, I wouldn't
• 1:30:27
  want to be them. I mean, they have a, they're
• 1:30:29
  playing a losing hand, they are and I think they know it too
• 1:30:34
  which is why I'm getting more done.
• 1:30:36
  That's why you see it. Same getting more desperate,
• 1:30:38
  some of the stuff they're doing this going.
• 1:30:40
  After this tornado Guy, this is unbelievable.
• 1:30:43
  But I mean, you know, my view is fuck.
• 1:30:44
  I mean, you know, I got I seriously, I got my 12 words,
• 1:30:48
  you know, come torture him out of me, you know, I mean, I put a
• 1:30:51
  thread out about this. I mean, you know, people say,
• 1:30:54
  you know, I'm not going to use my Bitcoin because it going to
• 1:30:57
  tax it with how you use money. I use one wall at all the time.
• 1:31:00
  And you know, what are they going to trick track me down and
• 1:31:03
  try to tax me on the cup of coffee?
• 1:31:04
  I bought. And what was the basis of that
• 1:31:06
  coins? I used to buy the coffee.
• 1:31:08
  Fuck that shit. I mean, you know, we got
• 1:31:11
  overwhelm these people and we will, you know, that's why
• 1:31:13
  they're hiring an army of 87. Yeah, but you know, we're gonna
• 1:31:18
  drive those assholes and that's two Oh by the way, why are those
• 1:31:26
  guys one of those guys need to be, you know, armed and prepared
• 1:31:29
  for deadly force. I mean right?
• 1:31:32
  I mean, because it's extortion. That's that's what what is
• 1:31:35
  really what it is? It also because they recognize
• 1:31:37
  that at some point at some point you know some large segment of
• 1:31:42
  this population is going to say you know we've had enough and
• 1:31:45
  the shootings start. Yeah you know I'm not looking
• 1:31:49
  forward to that but I'm just suggesting that there's a point
• 1:31:51
  at which the Second Amendment is actually going to become
• 1:31:54
  relevant. Yeah.
• 1:31:56
  Yeah, as an immigrant right and I'll pass it on to you Steven.
• 1:32:02
  I value the first and second amendment the most because in
• 1:32:05
  usually, when a country slips into talat arianism, you know,
• 1:32:09
  those are the first things to go, right?
• 1:32:11
  They, you know, they start censoring people for political
• 1:32:14
  speech and of course, they take everyone's guns, right?
• 1:32:17
  And the founding fathers were Geniuses enough to put those at
• 1:32:21
  the very top. And there's certain political In
• 1:32:25
  this country that absolutely drives them up the wall that
• 1:32:29
  they can't do that. Right, so Steven, what are your
• 1:32:33
  thoughts? Then we'll wrap up.
• 1:32:36
  Yeah, it's funny what I was going to say is I actually just
• 1:32:41
  got a message that in China. Sichuan has ordered all the
• 1:32:47
  factories to shut down for six days due to a power shortage.
• 1:32:52
  And I think this is going to be like Like you know this notion
• 1:32:56
  of energy, right? I talk about this a lot I think
• 1:32:58
  it's so critical. Right?
• 1:33:00
  Like the what the next couple decades are going to look like
• 1:33:03
  is going to be so heavily influenced by what relationship
• 1:33:09
  we have with energy and with power production.
• 1:33:11
  And whether we go down this road of, like energy, austerity where
• 1:33:16
  we need to use less energy, which I think is wrong.
• 1:33:19
  Like, whether you're just like your only goal is economic
• 1:33:22
  growth or your only goal is like climbing Stuff right, either
• 1:33:26
  way. Like, it's the wrong approach.
• 1:33:28
  Like, either way like the future of, you know, the future
• 1:33:32
  civilization is going to be like, built on top of us,
• 1:33:36
  becoming better masters of energy.
• 1:33:38
  Like we need to become more efficient, more reliable, we
• 1:33:41
  need new forms of energy, you mention nuclear.
• 1:33:44
  I am a huge nuclear. Proponent think it's the best of
• 1:33:46
  both worlds and we have enough uranium to go for 350,000 years.
• 1:33:52
  And so what I love about Bitcoin is not only does Bitcoin, you
• 1:33:57
  know, all the monetary elements that we talked about, but
• 1:34:01
  Bitcoin uses energy and Bitcoin creates this fundamental
• 1:34:05
  Financial incentive for better energy because the bottom line
• 1:34:09
  is Whoever has the cheapest power makes the most money
• 1:34:12
  mining Bitcoin. And so, it incentivizes and
• 1:34:15
  directs Capital to the most efficient producers of energy.
• 1:34:18
  It's a huge free market incentive for better energy
• 1:34:22
  Innovation, and I don't care. What your priorities are if you
• 1:34:26
  care at all about human civilization.
• 1:34:29
  You want us to get better at energy whether that's for the
• 1:34:31
  climate and mitigating environmental impacts or that's
• 1:34:34
  for economic growth and human prosperity.
• 1:34:36
  And so, I love that not only does Bitcoin plug into this
• 1:34:39
  monetary question, but it also plugs into this critical energy
• 1:34:44
  question, and, you know, it that's amazing.
• 1:34:48
  Like, that's phenomenal, we need that real world connection
• 1:34:51
  because that's the other thing, right?
• 1:34:53
  Like, I think, I think A lot of the issues and the tension and
• 1:34:57
  like the challenges were facing in the country, right?
• 1:35:00
  Like it has to do with this like disconnect from The Real World.
• 1:35:04
  Like I think I think what is it? What is teals thing?
• 1:35:08
  It's like like Adams not B right?
• 1:35:11
  Like Peter teal. Does this argument that like we
• 1:35:13
  need to focus on like real-world engineering and what I love
• 1:35:17
  about Bitcoin is even though it's a digital technology.
• 1:35:20
  I think it does have this very tangible connection to the real
• 1:35:23
  world of A Duran atoms and electrons and atoms already said
• 1:35:28
  that but it has this very real connection, and I think that's
• 1:35:33
  really like vital. I think that brings a lot of
• 1:35:35
  Vitality to it. I think it makes it that like
• 1:35:38
  not only can we develop this monetary system and this digital
• 1:35:41
  technology that has all the benefits of digital but it also
• 1:35:45
  it also forces us to promote Energy Engineering and research
• 1:35:50
  and Innovation and that's one of my favorite things about Bitcoin
• 1:35:54
  and it's one reason Reason. I'm so bullish proof of work and
• 1:35:57
  like the proof of stake proponents will be like, oh,
• 1:35:59
  like proof of stake doesn't use energy.
• 1:36:01
  It doesn't use energy. I'm like, that's a bad thing.
• 1:36:04
  Like not only from a security level, not only from like a
• 1:36:06
  protocol like blah, blah blah like that's been discussed but
• 1:36:10
  actually I think using energy is a good and I think we should use
• 1:36:13
  more energy and I think we should have incentives to
• 1:36:15
  produce better energy because if the future is energy, austerity
• 1:36:20
  in the human human is trying to use less and less energy that
• 1:36:24
  gets Really bad really quickly. And and I think the thing that
• 1:36:28
  people don't understand that like advocates for that is even
• 1:36:31
  if you can, convince like a generation of people to do it,
• 1:36:35
  what about the Next Generation? And what about the one after
• 1:36:38
  that? Eventually someone's just going
• 1:36:39
  to remold like, you know, it's there just going to be like life
• 1:36:43
  sucks. Like we want to use energy,
• 1:36:45
  we're a generation removed from the generation that agreed to
• 1:36:49
  not use energy like through you guys.
• 1:36:52
  This it hasn't liked the game theory.
• 1:36:53
  Doesn't work out. It doesn't have a chance of
• 1:36:55
  playing out and so, you know, it's like Bitcoin presents this,
• 1:36:59
  like like this optimistic view of the future, it's this like,
• 1:37:03
  really critical optimism for for Humanity and I we need that
• 1:37:09
  optimism like like that's the only way to run a civilized.
• 1:37:12
  Like you can't really have like a like a strong pessimistic
• 1:37:16
  civilization, it just it just doesn't work, right?
• 1:37:18
  Like we need a positive vision for the future and I think
• 1:37:21
  Bitcoin helps us get that absolutely the nihilism.
• 1:37:24
  To end your spot on about the energy.
• 1:37:27
  There's a direct correlation between human prosperity and
• 1:37:30
  energy usage. So I am bullish on humans, using
• 1:37:35
  more energy, less energy means death sickness, Despair and
• 1:37:40
  poverty. And I think that we really have
• 1:37:42
  to work hard to shake people up and wake them up to that fact.
• 1:37:46
  Anyways, gentlemen, I really had a lot of fun.
• 1:37:49
  That was a, that was a, that was a great, great podcast for me.
• 1:37:53
  This is one of the longest I've done usually there between an
• 1:37:56
  hour fifteen hour 30. So I really enjoyed it.
• 1:37:59
  Thank you so much for joining me.
• 1:38:00
  Steven, where can people find you?
• 1:38:02
  What are you working on now days?
• 1:38:04
  Yeah, yeah. Just look me up.
• 1:38:05
  Steven Luca on Twitter at some Bala huddle but easier time.
• 1:38:09
  Searching my name and I'm running.
• 1:38:12
  I run Swan private for Swan's. So we are working on creating a
• 1:38:16
  million more bitcoiners in the u.s.
• 1:38:18
  I specifically, run the high net-worth team.
• 1:38:20
  If you know anybody that's looking to do a larger Bitcoin
• 1:38:23
  purchase one, Hand-holding. Once a direct point of contact,
• 1:38:27
  we love working with people's parents.
• 1:38:29
  We love working with people that just they need that human that
• 1:38:32
  human elements. So we're building Swan private.
• 1:38:34
  We're building Swan Bitcoin and you know look me up on Twitter.
• 1:38:38
  Awesome. Yep I send I send everybody to
• 1:38:41
  Swan and I sent sort of send a handful of people to Swan
• 1:38:46
  private. What I've heard so far is
• 1:38:48
  amazing. I'm not just saying that because
• 1:38:50
  I've actually experienced it and I've actually gotten a lot of
• 1:38:53
  people off coinbase. Because I think you guys are
• 1:38:55
  doing a great job. Anyways, Lawrence, where can
• 1:38:58
  people find you, what are you working on nowadays?
• 1:39:01
  Well, I run a fund that invests in sound money stuff, gold,
• 1:39:05
  silver, gold, silver Miners and Bitcoin, Bitcoin infrastructure
• 1:39:08
  companies like Caitlyn's. So I'm on Twitter at
• 1:39:13
  Lawrenceville card and I make a lot of noise there and then and
• 1:39:19
  then I have a website, EMA to.com, which has a lot of white
• 1:39:22
  papers and quarterly reports. And Stuff.
• 1:39:25
  So if you want to read more what we're thinking, you can go to
• 1:39:28
  our website and there's a lot of free stuff there to get ahold
• 1:39:32
  of. So and I'm available for
• 1:39:34
  questions and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:39:37
  Awesome. Just so everybody knows I have
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  both their Twitters down in the video description so you can go
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  check them out. Gentlemen, I'm going to put you
• 1:39:44
  back stage for a second. I'm going to wrap up the show
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  should be two minutes. All right guys that was the
• 1:39:51
  second episode of the interview series.
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  I want to give a shout out to all our sponsors first Swan,
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  Definitely want to go check out. So cloaks guys, we love you.
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  Thank you so much for tuning in to the second episode of the
• 1:41:30
  simply Bitcoin interview series. We're going to do a whole lot
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  more. We're going to try to get the
• 1:41:35
  most interesting people in the Bitcoin.
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  Space is from plebs to CEOs, to all of them, all of them.
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  All of them are going to try to do it.
• 1:41:43
  Anyways, we will see you guys tomorrow and the simply Bitcoin
• 1:41:47
  regular episode Regular Show. So you guys later.