Speaker 1: Is the banking collapse being used to usher in central
Speaker 1: bank digital currencies. Well, that's a big problem, that's a
Speaker 1: big threat. A lot of people are speculating that central
Speaker 1: bank digital currencies will be used in this banking crisis
Speaker 1: that's leading to this consolidation and the inevitable push. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be sitting down today with Bruce Fenton. We're gonna
Speaker 1: discuss this. We're gonna talk about freedom from a broad perspective.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about freedom states in the state of
Speaker 1: New Hampshire. We're gonna then move into kind of the
Speaker 1: politics side. What he learned running for US Senate, Get
Speaker 1: inside the belly of the beast, go through the banking system,
Speaker 1: the eventual push to central bank digital currencies, of course,
Speaker 1: the big risk that that poses, and as well, how
Speaker 1: we can push back and how we can fight this.
Speaker 1: It was a great conversation with Bruce, one that I enjoyed.
Speaker 1: You're gonna enjoy it too. So let's go ahead. Just
Speaker 1: jump right in, all right, Bruce, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me. A little bit of technical difficulties on your
Speaker 1: end last week, am I in. But here we are, man,
Speaker 1: You've been around a long time. You've done a lot
Speaker 1: of different things. There's a lot of things I want
Speaker 1: to dig into here, but let's start a little bit
Speaker 1: just kind of setting the stage with with with your background. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I know you've done a lot of things
Speaker 1: in the technology space, you know, bitcoin space, financial space,
Speaker 1: but also dipping your toe into politics. I think you
Speaker 1: were running for a Senate seat, is that right? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: over the summer I ran for I ran for US
Speaker 1: Senate representing New Hampshire. So, um, just about a year ago.
Speaker 1: I was in that process and I you know, I
Speaker 1: announced about a year ago and I was you know,
Speaker 1: I ran through November. Um, and I didn't win the primary,
Speaker 1: but it was a great experience. I was kind of
Speaker 1: a long shot. I jumped in late and I had
Speaker 1: never had much experience with politics, and so it was
Speaker 1: sort of a long shot, but it was a great
Speaker 1: way to get my ideas out there. I got to
Speaker 1: be in the national debates with the other candidates, and
Speaker 1: you know, really kind of got a PhD in politics
Speaker 1: over the over the summer. So so I'm glad I did.
Speaker 1: What are some of the takeaways of your PhD in politics?
Speaker 1: What'd you find out your ideas don't really matter, um
Speaker 1: you know you and really even who you are, if
Speaker 1: you're a good speaker, bad speaker, charismatic, not arithmatic. That
Speaker 1: stuff is all, you know, a far, far, far distant
Speaker 1: second to how much money you raise. You know, the
Speaker 1: politics is a multideck, a billion dollar business with a
Speaker 1: lot of very motivated people to you know, perpetuate this
Speaker 1: status quo. There's a lot of people making high six
Speaker 1: figures even seven figure salaries, consultants and media experts and
Speaker 1: all of these other people that are in this political system.
Speaker 1: And it's very, very very competitive, with high stakes and
Speaker 1: a lot of money. So it's become a commodity. It's
Speaker 1: like if you want to if you want to have
Speaker 1: a new soda, you know, you want to compete against
Speaker 1: Coca Cola or something, the smart vcs will tell you
Speaker 1: that's almost impossible. You know, you just have to spend
Speaker 1: a fortune on marketing. Nobody really cares if your soda
Speaker 1: tastes a little bit better than the other person's soda.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of the way it is with politics.
Speaker 1: Nobody really cares that much about your ideas. It comes
Speaker 1: down voters are just you know, basically driven by how
Speaker 1: much you spend and they have it almost down to
Speaker 1: the penny. You know, it costs you know, fifteen dollars
Speaker 1: twenty two cents a vote in this district or that district. Um,
Speaker 1: So that's that's kind of unfortunate, you know, I know
Speaker 1: that's a reality of it. I wish it was different,
Speaker 1: you know, I wish people would care more about the issues.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's one reality of it. But you
Speaker 1: know politics is as very much dominated by money. Is
Speaker 1: that because of the repetition where they just need to
Speaker 1: see your name over and over and over. So when
Speaker 1: they go to vote, they don't really know who they're
Speaker 1: voting for, but they recognize the name. So there's happened
Speaker 1: to vote for the name they recognize. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: there's a lot to it. For one thing, not that
Speaker 1: many people vote. Um, the average voter here in New
Speaker 1: Hampshire is seventy years old. Um. You know, it's only
Speaker 1: a small especially in primaries. You know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a fraction of a fraction. You know, most people just
Speaker 1: don't vote, don't bother. Um. So the ones that do,
Speaker 1: it's a very predictable set of metrics, Like you know,
Speaker 1: they know exactly how many times you have to have
Speaker 1: name recognition, you know, have your um, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of touched these voters with with mail or television or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it really is the name of the game, you know,
Speaker 1: your ideas, you know, don't don't or nearly as much
Speaker 1: as just you know, repeating and getting that that kind
Speaker 1: of name recognition out there, unless unless somebody like Elon
Speaker 1: ran for office, or in Trump's case, when Trump ran,
Speaker 1: you know, he was already very famous. Well, they've already
Speaker 1: got the name recognition, they've already got the brand. Uh,
Speaker 1: why why would you want to subject yourself to that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you said you jumped in last minute, so
Speaker 1: it wasn't something that was like pre pre planned and meditated.
Speaker 1: So what made you judcide? Do you want to jump
Speaker 1: into that? Yeah? You know, I mean part part of
Speaker 1: the reason I lost, frankly, is because I probably, um,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say I didn't try. I tried.
Speaker 1: I tried, but I did it my own way. I
Speaker 1: didn't play a lot of the political games, and partly
Speaker 1: because I didn't really want the job, you know, Frankly,
Speaker 1: like I don't really want to go down there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't an exciting thing to go down there. It
Speaker 1: was sort of like a duty, you know, like like
Speaker 1: serving in the military or something. I viewed it as
Speaker 1: almost like a deployment, you know. If I would have won,
Speaker 1: I would have dreaded it, you know. And and my
Speaker 1: my youngest son, the night that I lost the primary,
Speaker 1: he said, to be honest, Dad, I'm kind of glad
Speaker 1: you you didn't win. And then, you know, I totally
Speaker 1: agree with that. I mean, i'd be I'd be miserable
Speaker 1: in DC. And I've thought about that many times since January,
Speaker 1: which is where I would have been sworn in, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it would be an absolute miserable, miserable. But
Speaker 1: our country needs it. Our country's in trouble. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of serious stuff going on. And if I could
Speaker 1: help in some small way, which is really all a
Speaker 1: senator can do. Senators can't help in a big way,
Speaker 1: they could help in a small way, then I think
Speaker 1: that would be worth it, if I could help our country.
Speaker 1: So I would have done it, and I would have served,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't psyched about it for sure. So what
Speaker 1: are some of those big things that are happening that
Speaker 1: that caught you so concerned, do you want to jump in? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, big picture, we're in a fourth turning, you know,
Speaker 1: where this time of epic change, you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of times that you only see every century or so,
Speaker 1: where you know, money systems change, borders change, and you
Speaker 1: know clearly you know this is this is a you know,
Speaker 1: there's a book called The Fourth Turning which came out
Speaker 1: in the nineties which talks about this, but they're not
Speaker 1: the only ones. Historians and other others have talked about.
Speaker 1: You know, how the world is cyclical and things change,
Speaker 1: and empires rise and die, and power structures rise and fall.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're going through right now, a very
Speaker 1: epic time in human history, and we're either going to
Speaker 1: go down a path of more tyranny or a path
Speaker 1: of more freedom. You know, I like the path of decentralization, liberty,
Speaker 1: human freedom, those kind of ideals. But there is a
Speaker 1: very very significant movement in our government and globally down
Speaker 1: the opposite path, a path of tyranny and controls CBDCs,
Speaker 1: you know, central bank digital currencies, money that the government
Speaker 1: can control, controlling aspects of health, controlling you know, telling
Speaker 1: you to wear a mask or locking down businesses. These
Speaker 1: kind of things wouldn't have been possible with governments in
Speaker 1: and throughout most of American history, wouldn't have been possible.
Speaker 1: So we've had a radical departure from our history and
Speaker 1: the way that, in my opinion, things are supposed to
Speaker 1: work down this experiment of socialism and wokeism and kind
Speaker 1: of uh, you know, identity politics and things like that,
Speaker 1: which I think are very destructive and antithetical to our
Speaker 1: values as as a nation and our constitution. So it's
Speaker 1: serious times, you know, and it's getting more serious now.
Speaker 1: You know. There's a good chance of some sort of
Speaker 1: global war or major global conflict. There's a good chance
Speaker 1: of major economic meltdown. You know. These kind of things
Speaker 1: are things I talked about last summer, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'll have to pull up some of the those speeches
Speaker 1: because a lot of it has come, you know, unfortunately
Speaker 1: come true, some of my concerns about inflation and economics
Speaker 1: and other things. Yeah, you know, as you said, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's all a lot of work that's been done
Speaker 1: in cycles. I've done a lot of work in the
Speaker 1: cycles as well, the eighty year cycle. There's a book
Speaker 1: written called the pendulum and talks about how the pendulum
Speaker 1: swings back and forth on an eighty year cycle three
Speaker 1: times eighty four eecles is two hundred fifty year cycle,
Speaker 1: which is then this like big political revolution cycle. So
Speaker 1: two unfreto years ago the American French Revolution two and
Speaker 1: freto years before that was a Protestant Reformation. And it's
Speaker 1: sort of like we just uh, sort of I mean cycles, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like you go too far one way and
Speaker 1: then you swing back the other way like a pen.
Speaker 1: And so it swings between like centralization where we give
Speaker 1: more and more and more and more to the governments
Speaker 1: in the state, and then we've given so much, we
Speaker 1: see how bad it is, and then we swing all
Speaker 1: the way back to the other side, right, and we
Speaker 1: probably go too far that way. And so I think
Speaker 1: I've kind of talked about it. Like in markets, you
Speaker 1: have like this blowoff top, right, where like markets keep
Speaker 1: going up up up, like real estate boom. It's sucking
Speaker 1: more and more people in and eventually because there's no
Speaker 1: more buyers or you know bitcoin in twenty seventeen or
Speaker 1: crypto in twenty seventeen, you know, it sucked all the
Speaker 1: people in and then no more buyers and then it
Speaker 1: blows off and so sort of like that, like we've
Speaker 1: we've given more and more to the government, and just
Speaker 1: take care of my retirement, take care of my education,
Speaker 1: take care of my health care, and like eventually there's
Speaker 1: nothing else to give them, Like they've gotten as big
Speaker 1: and centralized as they can. We've seen how bad it is.
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that that we're at that blowoff top moment
Speaker 1: and the pendulum is starting to swing back. It seems
Speaker 1: like we're seeing signs of it all over right. I
Speaker 1: mean that the global homogene is breaking apart. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at what's going on in France just today, all
Speaker 1: those big riots and things that are happening. So it's
Speaker 1: like that's what's happening. But it's it's certainly a volatile time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I hope we're I hope we're swinging the
Speaker 1: other way. You know, we've had a lot of tyranny,
Speaker 1: uh you know, kind of things that were unrecognizable and
Speaker 1: this is sort of a twenty year um you know
Speaker 1: thing I think I think we go back twenty years
Speaker 1: is where this has been headed. You know, more and
Speaker 1: more government control, you know, after nine to eleven that
Speaker 1: created the Department of Homeland Security didn't even exist before.
Speaker 1: Now it's like three hundred. It's the domestic standing army
Speaker 1: that our founders warned about, you know, three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people, you know, and they're they're doing like uh,
Speaker 1: honor guards at the parades and the football games. And
Speaker 1: think that they paid the NFL five million dollars to
Speaker 1: have these TSA honor guards come out. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just sort of bizarre. You know, the the this sort
Speaker 1: of ever expanding state, and um we saw that manifested
Speaker 1: most clearly in the last few years with with these
Speaker 1: um you know, insane uh COVID policies. You know, the
Speaker 1: idea that the government can tell you to lock down
Speaker 1: in your home or stay home, or you have to
Speaker 1: close your small business and somebody else can keep their
Speaker 1: large business open. You know, these things are just you know,
Speaker 1: totally unworkable. You know, they're exports, especially in the COVID
Speaker 1: policy case. You know, they're direct exports from China. You know,
Speaker 1: China influenced the who and the who influenced the United States.
Speaker 1: But they're terrible ideas, you know, And we have the
Speaker 1: same thing with censorship. You know, you have the government
Speaker 1: involving themselves with things that you would have never seen. Um.
Speaker 1: You know when I was growing up or even even
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. You know, you wouldn't the idea that
Speaker 1: the government would go and tell a private organization what
Speaker 1: to say or not say, or censor or kick these
Speaker 1: people off your platform. You know, these are very new
Speaker 1: and dangerous ideas that are you know, totally against the constitution,
Speaker 1: against everything that we stand for as a nation. So
Speaker 1: hopefully people will finally get fed up and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the ship sort of rights itself. You know, I
Speaker 1: think freedom is a good thing. You know, central planning
Speaker 1: and central control doesn't work. Communism is a bad idea.
Speaker 1: China will fail in my opinion, because it's bad economics.
Speaker 1: It's a stupid idea. And uh, you know you can
Speaker 1: you can live on fumes for quite a while if
Speaker 1: you steal enough money from enough people and you enslave
Speaker 1: enough people. I mean, look at the pharaohs of of
Speaker 1: of old Um, you know, and people who ran slaves
Speaker 1: and everything else. You know, you can you can prop
Speaker 1: it up quite a bit on an artificial economy based
Speaker 1: on theft and violence and cohersion. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I believe that the you know, free
Speaker 1: markets and freedom is what made America great, and I
Speaker 1: think that that's what we'll we'll come back again hopefully. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well that goes back to kind of the as you
Speaker 1: were referencing the fourth turning, right, And so it's like
Speaker 1: that generational theory where the hard times create the strong
Speaker 1: men and then the good The strong men create great times,
Speaker 1: great times, great weak men weak man create great bad times.
Speaker 1: And so it's like those weak men creating bad times
Speaker 1: are living off the fumes, as you said, right, So
Speaker 1: the strong men create those good times and it carries
Speaker 1: them on for a while. I mean, we can see
Speaker 1: examples of that all over. I mean I like to
Speaker 1: think about like Weimar Republic of Germany. Right, they went bankrupt.
Speaker 1: They this massive, massive hyperinflation, they had to pay back
Speaker 1: all these war reparations. I mean, the country was completely demolished,
Speaker 1: really really really hard times, and Germany became the economic engine,
Speaker 1: the powerhouse of Europe. Right, those extremely hard times made
Speaker 1: them the strongest, most profitable country. But now look where
Speaker 1: they are now. They've lost all reality, They've shut off
Speaker 1: all their energy. Now they're deindustrializing now they've created really really,
Speaker 1: really bad times for themselves. Yeah, we're totally seeing that,
Speaker 1: and we see it with generations too, I mean, right
Speaker 1: before our eyes. You know, there's a big difference between uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the Bob Hope generation, the Baby Boomers,
Speaker 1: my generation Generation X, and then the millennials are very
Speaker 1: distinct and then Gen Z. And my hope is that
Speaker 1: you know, unfortunately, I think the millennials have it the worst,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people kind of agree that's, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the generations with a lot of challenges and frankly,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a high percentage of the authoritarians and
Speaker 1: status and people with these you know, bad ideas about
Speaker 1: you know, identity politics and economics and socialism and everything.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are millennials. But it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: my kids are gen Z, you know, the real young kids.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are very, very skeptical of politicians.
Speaker 1: They're skeptical a lot of this identity politics and other
Speaker 1: nonsense that's being crammed down their throats. And unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: do fear that we're going to have hard times, and
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of them are going to
Speaker 1: grow up in a very different, uh, you know, type
Speaker 1: of job market. You know, when I was a teenager
Speaker 1: and in my early twenties, jar market was radically different,
Speaker 1: radically different. You had adults doing unpaid internships, you had
Speaker 1: commission only sales jobs were very very common. You know,
Speaker 1: people would you know, sixty people would fight for one position,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, the dot com bubble and other things,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of changed that and made it much
Speaker 1: more of an employee's market. But you have a lot
Speaker 1: of employees that just don't produce. So I think you
Speaker 1: could have, you know, again, the pendulum swing back the
Speaker 1: other way, and unfortunately for gen Z, I think they're
Speaker 1: going to get hit it hard by it. I think
Speaker 1: that more of gen Z is not going to have
Speaker 1: the kind of uh you know, the idea that you
Speaker 1: just graduate from school and you know, the world is
Speaker 1: handed to you. I think it'll be much more like
Speaker 1: workers in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, where I mean
Speaker 1: you might have to work for free for two years,
Speaker 1: you might have to do an internship or an unpaid
Speaker 1: internship or an apprenticeship, or you may have to work
Speaker 1: commission only. My first job was commissioned only. They paid me, um,
Speaker 1: basically minimum wage. Uh for some of the hours I worked.
Speaker 1: And you know, and this is at Morgan Stanley. You know,
Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley had jobs that were you know, if you
Speaker 1: worked at Morgan Stanley in the before my time, especially
Speaker 1: in the eighties, most of the people didn't get paid
Speaker 1: believe it or not. You know, one of the biggest banks,
Speaker 1: you know it was, it was a big bank back then. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd you'd go in and it's like you
Speaker 1: eat what you kill. If you if you make money
Speaker 1: and you earn revenue, you can you can get a
Speaker 1: bonus and commissions. Otherwise uh, you know you're out. Um. So,
Speaker 1: so I think you'll probably have that and that you know,
Speaker 1: I have high hop help for gen Z. You know,
Speaker 1: they're really smart and creative and they're able to learn,
Speaker 1: and they're embracing technology and everything. So you know, my
Speaker 1: hope is that they are the new strong generation. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not a bad model. I mean, you can go
Speaker 1: work for free and learn a valuable skill that you
Speaker 1: can go then use to make money the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. Or you can pay to go to an
Speaker 1: overpriced college and learn nothing and come out come out
Speaker 1: with no skills that are worth anything in the marketplace
Speaker 1: and an entitled attitude. So maybe that wasn't such a
Speaker 1: bad bad model back in the day. Maybe we kind
Speaker 1: of need to go back to something like that. I'm
Speaker 1: curious coming from New Hampshire where you're part of the
Speaker 1: Free State Project that was there. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 1: an active member. My wife's on the board. I signed
Speaker 1: this Free State Pledge, we both did, I don't know,
Speaker 1: a decade and a half ago or something, and there's
Speaker 1: a non binding pledge that said you're gonna try and
Speaker 1: get twenty thousand people to move to New Hampshire and
Speaker 1: pursue the maximum role of government being the protection of life, liberty,
Speaker 1: and property. So it's not necessarily libertarian, it could be.
Speaker 1: You know. Originally we're saying kind of nonpartisan Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 1: You know, Unfortunately, I think the Democrats have gone so
Speaker 1: far the other way. I don't think there's probably a
Speaker 1: lot of Democrats they are members. Although originally it was
Speaker 1: just kind of nonpartisan, like, hey, let's all pursue less government.
Speaker 1: Because at the time when the Free State Project was created, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Democrats had an interest in reducing war, reducing
Speaker 1: domestic spying, surveillance, uh, the NSA. You know, these kind
Speaker 1: of issues that were we were talking about twenty years ago. Um,
Speaker 1: were things that Democrats had a lot in common with libertarians.
Speaker 1: But as politics changed, you know, it turned out they
Speaker 1: they didn't really care as much about those issues as
Speaker 1: they did about the alphabet letter next to their name. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's so it tends to be you know more
Speaker 1: you know, certainly liberty liberty, libertarian oriented, but it's not
Speaker 1: you know, a nonpartisan group, um and very diverse because
Speaker 1: there is uh, you know, so many people and a
Speaker 1: lot of them are kind of not joiners or not
Speaker 1: followers by nature. You know, a lot of even me,
Speaker 1: you know, although I identify, you know, I don't necessally
Speaker 1: like being put in a box or associated with other
Speaker 1: people who may have different ideas than made. But there
Speaker 1: is a good strong liberty community, a good number of people,
Speaker 1: good annual events. There's a few annual events. Porkfest is
Speaker 1: the big one coming up in the summer where people
Speaker 1: just you know get together and share these ideas and
Speaker 1: it's it's attracted a lot of people. And I think
Speaker 1: we had the record number of movers over the last
Speaker 1: three years because there was a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were on the fence who signed the pledge or whatever.
Speaker 1: But if they were in a place like California or
Speaker 1: New York where they had especially high tieranny, a lot
Speaker 1: of the you know, thousands of those people ended up
Speaker 1: moving to New Hampshire. So New Hampshire, you know, New
Speaker 1: York and California both lost, and I think Texas and
Speaker 1: Florida new Hampshire gained. New Hampshire was a smaller gainer
Speaker 1: as a smaller state, but you know, we definitely gained
Speaker 1: from you know, people who just want to get out
Speaker 1: of oppressive regimes. You know, I left Massachusetts. You know,
Speaker 1: I immediately got a fifteen percent raise by moving sixty
Speaker 1: miles north because I don't have state tax. Now I
Speaker 1: used to have income tax, and I don't. It was
Speaker 1: really weird. The first year We're like, well, how do
Speaker 1: we file, and they're like, you don't file. You just
Speaker 1: pay your federal and that's it. There is no state tax.
Speaker 1: And that was very strange for us having lived in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts all our life, where we got to pay a
Speaker 1: small fortune to Massachusetts. And then what you notice is
Speaker 1: what what do you get for it. In Massachusetts, I
Speaker 1: had a bunch of busybody bureaucrats up in my business
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven. You come up here and it's
Speaker 1: just you know, less people, less government involvement, less heavy
Speaker 1: handed bureaucracy, less you know, police state kind of things.
Speaker 1: It's just more of a of a free place. So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people are seeing that movement.
Speaker 1: But what about the roads, so Bruce, what about the roads? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Who built the roads? I don't know. We don't have
Speaker 1: roads up here. Nobody would ever figure out. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny right outside my house, the road that basically
Speaker 1: it's like turns into my driveway. That road has been
Speaker 1: there since at least sixteen twenty probably maybe even a
Speaker 1: hundred years before that. So the before these people, yeah,
Speaker 1: before the United States even existed, when there was a
Speaker 1: tiny number of settlers. Somehow these people figured out how
Speaker 1: to you know, follow a path that was used by
Speaker 1: deer and make a road out of it. I don't
Speaker 1: know how they did it without politicians, but they man.
Speaker 1: So you still have roads without without government taxes, without
Speaker 1: state taxes. We do amazing we do. And it's like
Speaker 1: point two percent of the budget or something. Is it
Speaker 1: Is it like a community though, like you've all kind
Speaker 1: of moved to one area of the state or is
Speaker 1: it just that you just a bunch of you in
Speaker 1: the state and then you kind of get together like
Speaker 1: kind of more free. Yeah, it's it's it's in the state.
Speaker 1: Not everybody even gets together. There's people who are very inactive.
Speaker 1: They just kind of signed the pledge and do their
Speaker 1: own things, you know very much that leave me alone
Speaker 1: ast sort of people. Some people don't. So it's not
Speaker 1: like not like a big libertarian community or something. Not really.
Speaker 1: There are some pockets of it where friends will come
Speaker 1: in and tell a few other friends and you know,
Speaker 1: so you do end up with some towns like Keane
Speaker 1: and Manchester and a couple other places where you have
Speaker 1: these you know, p gets where you know, fifteen friends
Speaker 1: will you know, live within a mile of each other
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Um, you know. But there isn't any
Speaker 1: like and there's places that are more libertarian than other
Speaker 1: Keen is one of them, um you know, but but
Speaker 1: there's not really any you know, sort of official place
Speaker 1: that they go. I get a lot of people who
Speaker 1: ask me, uh, you know, almost every week, somebody will
Speaker 1: email me and say, hey, I you know Free state,
Speaker 1: so you ran, can give me some advice on where
Speaker 1: to um where to move If if I'm looking at
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, where would I look for houses? And I'm
Speaker 1: a great person I ask because when I ran for Senate,
Speaker 1: I've visited every single town in the state. UM and
Speaker 1: I you know, I usually say it depends on you know,
Speaker 1: there's places you can go up north where it's very
Speaker 1: very very cheap. There's cities, there's towns. I like the
Speaker 1: Sea Coast area because you've got the ocean and you've
Speaker 1: got these cutesy tourist towns and night nice little cities.
Speaker 1: But it's more expensive. If you go up north, you
Speaker 1: can you can get you know, absolute steel. The further
Speaker 1: you are willing to go from Boston and airports, you know,
Speaker 1: the cheaper you can get. So it really depends on
Speaker 1: who you are and what you're interested in. And New
Speaker 1: Hampshire is also very spread out, you know, when one
Speaker 1: one of the only drawbacks is, uh, it's just like
Speaker 1: I have this wonderful farm or beautiful place I'd love
Speaker 1: to have like a weekly get together and just like
Speaker 1: hang out. But it's just kind of logistically hard, Like
Speaker 1: I don't have enough friends locally that you know, there's
Speaker 1: no critical mass um to you know, to kind of
Speaker 1: to kind of do that. So I do like a
Speaker 1: like I do a big cookout in the summer, and
Speaker 1: you have a couple other events or anything. But it's
Speaker 1: not like a city where you can just you know,
Speaker 1: like Dubai, where you know, you can easily get fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty people together with a couple of texts. You know. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I don't know a lot about it, so
Speaker 1: I appreciate you sharing that. Let's let's jump gears and
Speaker 1: let's talk about we kind of started talking about like
Speaker 1: all these problems that we have in the world today.
Speaker 1: The big fire alarm that's going off right now is
Speaker 1: like this pending banking collapse that's going on right now. Um,
Speaker 1: And it seems like and tell me how you how
Speaker 1: you kind of see it. But going back to this
Speaker 1: growing state that just continues to get bigger and bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger and more authoritarianism, etc. A lot of that
Speaker 1: seems to come from I frame it up as like
Speaker 1: their power, the source of their power comes from the
Speaker 1: money printer, the ability to continue to print money for
Speaker 1: all these bureaucrats and all these organizations to build out,
Speaker 1: as you said, the DHS, private army, et cetera. Comes
Speaker 1: from the ability to kind of continue to print money.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it seems like we're witnessing
Speaker 1: the collapse of that monetary system. The banking system is
Speaker 1: on fire. The FED now is saying they're going to
Speaker 1: back you know whatever, seventeen eighteen trillion dollars of deposits.
Speaker 1: Kind of what's your take on that the banking system collapse?
Speaker 1: Are we coming to the end of that system? What
Speaker 1: do you see in there? Yeah? I think you're right.
Speaker 1: You know. It comes back to the question that I
Speaker 1: urge a lot of people to ask. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: such a very very basic question, but very few people ask.
Speaker 1: And I've gone, you know, other places, especially outside bitcoin circles,
Speaker 1: I say, what is money? You know, that's a very
Speaker 1: very good question. We all work, everybody cares about money
Speaker 1: to some degree. Uh, for most of us, it drives
Speaker 1: a good chunk of you know, maybe a third of
Speaker 1: our lives is focused on money. And it's can be
Speaker 1: stressful and everything else. But very few people actually stop
Speaker 1: even me, I was in finance for twenty years, probably
Speaker 1: before I ever even asked this question. You know, what
Speaker 1: is money? And you can google that. You can google
Speaker 1: properties of money and you'll and you'll get an answer
Speaker 1: that has been around since long before bitcoin. It'll say that,
Speaker 1: you know, typically throughout human history, money has been something
Speaker 1: that is you know, widely accepted. It's got to be fungible.
Speaker 1: So you know, my dollar is the same as your dollar. Um,
Speaker 1: it's got to be scarce, limited in supply. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and there's other fact you know, other other properties that
Speaker 1: make money money, and so asking uh, you know that
Speaker 1: question is a is a key. Um, you know part
Speaker 1: of this answer because once you figure that out, you know,
Speaker 1: part of it being the limited supply. We don't have
Speaker 1: that with this US dollar or fiat in general. That's
Speaker 1: just something that people print from thin air and call
Speaker 1: all it money, and you can't do that. You can't.
Speaker 1: You can again, just just like you can kick the
Speaker 1: can down the road and you can be a tyrant
Speaker 1: and you can temporarily have a jump in your economy
Speaker 1: like China, But at the end of the day, if
Speaker 1: you print something from thin air and call it money,
Speaker 1: it's ultimately not money. It's not going to meet those
Speaker 1: properties of what makes good money good and that human
Speaker 1: humans have always gravitated towards the best form of money.
Speaker 1: They're just naturally going to They're going to go to
Speaker 1: something that's you know, more scarce, more acceptable, Uh, you know, divisible,
Speaker 1: easy to move, all of this other stuff. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know, our money is less and less money. You know,
Speaker 1: the US dollar is just not meeting that definition. It's
Speaker 1: running on fumes from you know, really fifty years ago
Speaker 1: when it was backed by gold, it was backed by
Speaker 1: a sound form of money. And it's not backed by gold,
Speaker 1: it's not backed by anything. It's just backed by politicians
Speaker 1: saying that this is valuable. And they are doing that,
Speaker 1: of course, like you said, um, to prop up their cronies.
Speaker 1: You know. There it's a very very very powerful thing
Speaker 1: to be able to print money from from thin air.
Speaker 1: If you if you asked us a six year old
Speaker 1: what magic power they would have if they had a
Speaker 1: magic wand you know, they might say, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to have free money forever, you know, And that's basically
Speaker 1: what Janet Yellen and the other politicians are doing. They
Speaker 1: have free money that they can just give to their
Speaker 1: cronies and give to black Rock and give to their
Speaker 1: banks and give to others, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: not real money. So so so yeah, it's broken. It's
Speaker 1: a broken system, and it's it's corrupt, and it's it's
Speaker 1: really unsustainable. You can't just keep printing money from thin
Speaker 1: air and having at work. If you could, Zimbabwe would
Speaker 1: be the richest country in the world because they printed
Speaker 1: their money like crazy. I have Zimbabwe notes kicking around
Speaker 1: my office here somewhere. There's like a trillion dollar notes
Speaker 1: that you had many people who have seen these, you know,
Speaker 1: from Zimbabwe when they printed. You know, politicians printed their
Speaker 1: money out of thin air, just just like our politicians
Speaker 1: are doing now. Yeah. Yeah, I mean everybody became a
Speaker 1: billionaire in Zimbabwe, but it was three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: billion for one single egg. So uh that win. The
Speaker 1: Zimbabwe dollar, I believe, was one to one with the dollar.
Speaker 1: And that's how how fast and how far it went.
Speaker 1: They I think they reset the currency like four different
Speaker 1: times and the continue to just have hyperinflation every single time.
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, you have to
Speaker 1: kind of realize that we don't want money, we want
Speaker 1: the things that money buys us the goods and services,
Speaker 1: and so then you basically take all the money divided
Speaker 1: by all the goods and services, right, and if you
Speaker 1: just increase the money, then the cost of the goods
Speaker 1: and services go up. It's like a pretty simple math
Speaker 1: if they would just teach it that way. But yeah,
Speaker 1: most people haven't really taken the time to think about that,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we're kind of at the at
Speaker 1: the end. I was, I was on a Swan signal
Speaker 1: before this, and we started getting into the kind of
Speaker 1: banking situation. I said, you know, before we even do that,
Speaker 1: let me just kind of frame this up a little bit, like,
Speaker 1: none of this would even be a conversation. We wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to have the FED considering if they're going to
Speaker 1: back deposits. If the banks just had the money, If
Speaker 1: the banks just had the deposits, none of this would
Speaker 1: even be a problem. But the fact is they don't
Speaker 1: have the deposits. You know, they've put them in you know,
Speaker 1: with FTX, they took you know, depositors money and put
Speaker 1: them into risky tokens that lost value. In the banks case,
Speaker 1: they took dollars and put them into risky assets. That
Speaker 1: were US treasuries and they lost money, and so we're
Speaker 1: kind of witnessing this whole thing come down. But it's
Speaker 1: like now the FED is like basically, you know, we've
Speaker 1: been seeing them kind of the walls closing in this
Speaker 1: rock in the hard place kind of a thing, and
Speaker 1: like they have basically created this fire alarm or this
Speaker 1: fire the arsonist trying to bring inflation down, but inflation
Speaker 1: is not coming down, and now they're kind of stuck
Speaker 1: like having to kind of reinflate again. I mean, is
Speaker 1: that how you see it? Yeah, And you know, ironically,
Speaker 1: you know, the banks don't have the money because the
Speaker 1: government won't let them have the money. You know, Caitlin
Speaker 1: Long with Avante wanted to create a bank with one
Speaker 1: to one reserves where they didn't do any of this
Speaker 1: crazy shenanigans, and they wouldn't approve her charter. They go
Speaker 1: into the banks, The FDIC goes into the banks and
Speaker 1: forces them to make loans, and they forced them to
Speaker 1: do this stuff, and they've done it again and again.
Speaker 1: So you know, typically the government causes a lot of
Speaker 1: these problems that they're trying to fix or say that
Speaker 1: they're trying to fix, and you know, whatever they do
Speaker 1: with inflation and everything else, none of that's going to work.
Speaker 1: Government typically makes just about every problem worse, you know,
Speaker 1: everything that they YEA. So she tried to launch a
Speaker 1: bank that was a full reserve bank, I meaning she
Speaker 1: would keep all the deposits, no novel idea that they
Speaker 1: would keep all the deposits and then if you need
Speaker 1: your money you could get them. There was another bank
Speaker 1: I believe called Narrow Bank that tried to do the
Speaker 1: same thing, and they the FED basically approves the bank charters,
Speaker 1: and they denied these banks. Now it seems the speculation
Speaker 1: seems to be pretty clear the FED doesn't want those
Speaker 1: They've obviously denied them, even though Caitlyn Long's bank passed
Speaker 1: all the other tests apparently, and so it would almost
Speaker 1: seem like they don't want that because if there was
Speaker 1: a bank that would actually hold your money, people would
Speaker 1: probably want that, and then all the money from the
Speaker 1: banking system would go over to that. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you see this as sort of like a basically a
Speaker 1: way to force people to stay in the financial system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, status are going to state. You know, people
Speaker 1: who think that the government is a solution, are you know,
Speaker 1: they're going to view view it as, uh, it's a
Speaker 1: nanny state, you know that, oh, we can't allow this,
Speaker 1: or that we can't prove Caitlin, We've got to do
Speaker 1: it our way, you know. Um, they think that that
Speaker 1: it's a legitimate role of government to sit there and
Speaker 1: tell you know, banks what they can do, which is absurd.
Speaker 1: You know, the government shouldn't the FDIC shouldn't even exist really,
Speaker 1: I mean, the entire thing should be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: completely upended because politicians. And this is the crazy thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm always amazed that there's so um, there'sn't
Speaker 1: a lot more libertarians or people who have these kind
Speaker 1: of ideas because nobody really trust politicians. Doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: you're Democrat or Republican or independent. You know, if I say,
Speaker 1: if if I said to you, you know, would you
Speaker 1: trust the United States government to feed your dog? No way,
Speaker 1: No way? Would a lot of people department or something.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of things you wouldn't you
Speaker 1: wouldn't trust these people to do. Politicians don't do things well.
Speaker 1: There's very very few things that they can do well,
Speaker 1: and even fewer that they can do better than the
Speaker 1: private sector. One of the only things they can do
Speaker 1: is they can kill very very efficient efficiently, which could
Speaker 1: be useful if we're invaded by a foreign power. You
Speaker 1: definitely it could be very useful to have a military
Speaker 1: who can fight back. But other than that, there's really
Speaker 1: not much that they're good at. So you know, they
Speaker 1: tend to go in there. I mean the idea that
Speaker 1: these clowns in fancy offices paid for with money that
Speaker 1: they stole from people, can sit lording over people in
Speaker 1: their marble and ivory towers saying like, well, we know
Speaker 1: what the economy would do, and let's do this and
Speaker 1: change interest rates here, and deny this charter and approve
Speaker 1: this one, and let this let Sam come in and
Speaker 1: get special access to regulators. They don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They're clowns, and they're corrupt, and even the best of them,
Speaker 1: even if they really did know what they're doing, central
Speaker 1: control is not the place to do that. If somebody
Speaker 1: really really was competent, they should go and be private
Speaker 1: industry and become the next Steve Jobs, you know, but
Speaker 1: that's not what you see with politicians. It's not our
Speaker 1: best and brightest, and they usually don't know what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and they almost always mess it up to a great cost,
Speaker 1: great cost of human life and globally, you know, you're
Speaker 1: talking about a lot of lives lost and a lot
Speaker 1: of treasure lost because of you know, these Nanni state
Speaker 1: politicians who think that they know better than the citizens
Speaker 1: that they rule over. The crux of the matter goes
Speaker 1: back to what you said, it's the central planning, and
Speaker 1: so these people certainly have no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's apparent to anybody who's paying attention, but
Speaker 1: nobody would have an idea what they're doing because it's
Speaker 1: a complex system and nobody has enough information to manage
Speaker 1: that properly. Right, the market has to set that policy.
Speaker 1: And so yes, they're completely incompetent, but everyone else would
Speaker 1: be as well. Maybe maybe they'd be a little bit
Speaker 1: more competent. Leave it, leave it alone a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I guess it might be a better option, But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it just shouldn't be managed.
Speaker 1: I think it's the big thing. I'm curious what your
Speaker 1: take is. It seems like yesterday there was all this
Speaker 1: stuff going on on Twitter, Ben Hunt, absolute theories going
Speaker 1: on and on and on telling people how dare you? Bitcoin?
Speaker 1: People tell tell people that there's a lifeboat you can
Speaker 1: get onto. How dare you If you tell people to
Speaker 1: get on a lifeboat, you're gonna cause the the ship
Speaker 1: to go down even faster apparently. And then you have
Speaker 1: like Bology is making this bet this you know, million
Speaker 1: dollars a bit on bitcoin and now people are calling
Speaker 1: him out. How dare you? You're just gonna You're just
Speaker 1: gonna cause a banking collapse. You're causing a banking crisis.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that? I mean, how could someone
Speaker 1: even say that, like by talking about a banking crisis,
Speaker 1: that creates a banking crisis. Yeah, I mean tweets. It's
Speaker 1: just like the binance FTX thing. People said that that
Speaker 1: you know, CZ caused the FTX collapse. It's like, No,
Speaker 1: a tweet can't create uh, you know, theft A tweet
Speaker 1: can't make balances disappear. The problem with the banking is
Speaker 1: meddling status to regulators and bad regulations that they have
Speaker 1: pushed on the banking industry and ultimately the public, which
Speaker 1: are unsustainable and don't work. That's the problem, you know,
Speaker 1: Otherwise there's no amount of tweets, no amount of tweet.
Speaker 1: If the money is there, then no amount of tweets
Speaker 1: or fud can can affect it. But if the money's
Speaker 1: not there, then all the pr and marketing in the
Speaker 1: world will eventually be useless and ultimately reality will catch
Speaker 1: up and people will figure it out and call out
Speaker 1: the scamp. So so yeah, I mean, I'm a man
Speaker 1: team Balaji with that one. I hope he's right about
Speaker 1: the million dollars. I don't think so. He said it's
Speaker 1: bitcoining might hit a million in ninety days, but you
Speaker 1: know broader, and I think he's making that more of
Speaker 1: a as a hyperbolic point. Um, you know, to say,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, there's some serious problems in the system
Speaker 1: and here's an alternative. But you know, those concerned about
Speaker 1: it should show off their balance sheets. If you're concerned
Speaker 1: about banking being affected by tweets, then you know, maybe
Speaker 1: have better banks. Do you think this is something that
Speaker 1: could continue to happen? I mean if the banking system
Speaker 1: financial system continues to deteriorate. Um, I mean, do you
Speaker 1: think there will be more angst anger directed at bitcoiners?
Speaker 1: You know, we've seen even the Christine Laguard you know
Speaker 1: from the imath now at the ECB um she said
Speaker 1: that this innovation is a threat to financial stability, right,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, do you think do you think a
Speaker 1: lot of these people could build up this angst and
Speaker 1: kind of use like these these lifeboats, these ability to
Speaker 1: escape with something like bitcoin us as like almost pointing
Speaker 1: the blame over there. Yeah, I mean, the the status powers,
Speaker 1: the laguards of the world will certainly try and blame
Speaker 1: this crisis that they created on us who are fixing it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we believe in sound money. Bitcoiners believe in
Speaker 1: real money, sound money limited in supply that is controlled
Speaker 1: by math and code, rather than by people in fancy offices,
Speaker 1: you know, living on money that they stole from the citizens.
Speaker 1: So it's a radically different view. The people living off
Speaker 1: of money that they stole from the citizens through taxes
Speaker 1: or inflation of you know, printing money from thin air.
Speaker 1: They love that system. They want to see that system perpetueum.
Speaker 1: So you know, there's their system is going to die
Speaker 1: either way. It's just completely unsustainable when you keep printing
Speaker 1: money from thin air and giving it to cronies and
Speaker 1: calling it money. Eventually it's not money and every single time,
Speaker 1: Warmar Republic, the you know hungry um, Zimbabwe, uh, you know, Russia, Argentina,
Speaker 1: you know, again and again we you know, this is
Speaker 1: a lesson in humanity. Um that that doesn't work. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it will collapse, and there's a good chance when it collapses,
Speaker 1: people will use bitcoin as an on ramp. I think
Speaker 1: they already are because well Tailor said today on the
Speaker 1: you know, Michael Sailor said today, you know where else
Speaker 1: are you going to put it? You know? I think,
Speaker 1: and I've said this before, you know, I think bitcoin
Speaker 1: is honestly kind of a stupid idea. It's just less
Speaker 1: stupid than everything else. I mean, people sitting in a
Speaker 1: fancy office in Washington, DC, Now that's a really stupid idea. Um,
Speaker 1: this whole geek money that I've loved and been involved
Speaker 1: with for a decade now, it's kind of a crazy idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's just as crazy as I
Speaker 1: did ten years ago. I'm like, what on earth is
Speaker 1: this weird nerd money? But I just don't know of
Speaker 1: anything better. I'm in the finance business. I've looked at
Speaker 1: every kind of asset. I just don't know anything better
Speaker 1: than this crazy nerd money. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people like me who are going to use this. You know,
Speaker 1: they're going to offload onto from Fiat and go on
Speaker 1: to bitcoin, and you could see bitcoint rise radically radical inflows.
Speaker 1: If you look historically at these other times where you've
Speaker 1: had hyperinflation, it's crazy. And some of them are recent,
Speaker 1: you know, two thousand and eight, you know recent history
Speaker 1: where you know, you have inflation in some of these places.
Speaker 1: Why my Republic is obviously earlier, but you know, one
Speaker 1: hundred percent a day, you know, and I mean Russia,
Speaker 1: Russia had you know, people were wanted to get paid
Speaker 1: in the morning because they knew by the afternoon, if
Speaker 1: they got paid in the afternoon, the money be worthless.
Speaker 1: And so that that happens, and it probably will happen,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are going to hopefully have
Speaker 1: bitcoin as a lifeboat. So of course the tyrant powers
Speaker 1: who caused this mess in the first place, who love
Speaker 1: their broken money, are going to blame it on us,
Speaker 1: and as a last hurrah, they may try and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, outlaw bitcoin or fight us. You know, that's
Speaker 1: that's the ultimate boss fight. But that you know, may
Speaker 1: happen when you already have hyper bitcoinization, and the dollar
Speaker 1: has already collapsed, and everybody's moving into this you know,
Speaker 1: new form of sound. But think about it like the
Speaker 1: way I kind of look at it though, too is
Speaker 1: you know, so then the final boss fight, as you said, right,
Speaker 1: like okay with the tack on bitcoin or whatever. But
Speaker 1: like I don't think I would. I would guess the
Speaker 1: majority of people know that they shouldn't store their wealth
Speaker 1: in dollars or fiat, which is why people buy stocks
Speaker 1: and bonds, and they buy real estate and they buy gold,
Speaker 1: and they buy private equity and venture capital, and like
Speaker 1: nobody's trying to build wealth by saving money in FIAT.
Speaker 1: So we're already everyone's already exiting FIAT to go into
Speaker 1: real estate, stocks, etc. Right, and so out of all
Speaker 1: these reserve assets that we have, debt and whatever, bitcoin
Speaker 1: is just one more thing, right if you look at
Speaker 1: it that way. Yeah, but you know they're when you
Speaker 1: say all the people you, it's all the people you
Speaker 1: and I hang around with, all the smart people you know,
Speaker 1: your followers, your listeners and stuff that they know that
Speaker 1: FIAT isn't a place, but your average American does not.
Speaker 1: You know, a third of the money in the country
Speaker 1: roughly is in just plain old fiat. You know, you
Speaker 1: go into your I used to be a retail financial planner,
Speaker 1: so I'd call up and uh, you know, do financial
Speaker 1: plans for retirees. And it's a massive number of people
Speaker 1: that they've just always trusted the bank and always do
Speaker 1: trust the bank, and their idea of doing something innovative
Speaker 1: is to buy some T bills or some CDs and
Speaker 1: maybe maybe maybe some really good salesperson from Merrill Lynch
Speaker 1: convince them to buy a couple of stock mutual funds
Speaker 1: with sometimes as little as ten or twenty percent of
Speaker 1: their money. Now that changes demographically and stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: younger people do tend to buy stocks and stuff. But
Speaker 1: you know, also a lot of younger people don't have
Speaker 1: as much money. You know, the most most of the
Speaker 1: wealth is with the retirees and awful lot of people
Speaker 1: that you know, they do see the banks and they
Speaker 1: do see feaut as crazy as that sounds to you
Speaker 1: and I, they do see that as a as a
Speaker 1: place to put their money. Um. So there's a big,
Speaker 1: big learning curve, uh, you know from those people. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and then even people with brokerages, you know
Speaker 1: you you you know, your companies like robin Hood have
Speaker 1: relatively small balances compared to companies like Merrill Lynch. But
Speaker 1: if you look at places like Merrill Lynch, even a
Speaker 1: huge percentage of those people are in things like CDs,
Speaker 1: T bills, municipal bombs. Um. You know that does seem
Speaker 1: crazy to me as as a bitcoiner and a financial person.
Speaker 1: You know, I hang out with a lot of vcs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But but it's true. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a massive amount of wealth in the United States
Speaker 1: and globally that are in these instruments which are negative
Speaker 1: yield when you count account inflation. You know, they're they're
Speaker 1: losing their purchasing power as they speak. And um, a
Speaker 1: lot of people just won't realize it. You know, if
Speaker 1: we do have hyper bitchonization or uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: full real hyper inflation, uh, you can collapse. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who just won't even know that it
Speaker 1: happened until it's too late. You know, they just won't
Speaker 1: even know. They'll be the ones sitting on the you know,
Speaker 1: every time there's a banking collapse, you see people sitting
Speaker 1: outside the bank. That's the that's the photo the reporters want,
Speaker 1: and that's probably going to happen in the US, and
Speaker 1: people will be sitting outside the bank crying because they've
Speaker 1: lost their their life savings, which is horrible, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who just you know, they're not
Speaker 1: going to get it until they get it. I love
Speaker 1: the book When Money Dies, and they it basically documents,
Speaker 1: you know, the Weimar Republic hyper hyper inflation. And the
Speaker 1: part that sticks out to me about the book is
Speaker 1: that they were it was kind of like this biography.
Speaker 1: They're kind of interviewing people that kind of lived through that,
Speaker 1: and all of these people saw the rapid increase in
Speaker 1: prices of their gold and their real estate and all
Speaker 1: their assets, but they all thought it was a bubble
Speaker 1: and that they should sell those assets at the top
Speaker 1: of the market. So they sold their gold, they sold
Speaker 1: their real estate, whatever it was they owned at the
Speaker 1: top before it crashed back down. And then they ended
Speaker 1: up holding a bunch of worthless paper, and they had
Speaker 1: no assets, and the paper game so worth worth so
Speaker 1: little that they eventually just burned the paper because it
Speaker 1: was worth less than even the wood, was right, And
Speaker 1: so I kind of think about it like that, where
Speaker 1: like to your point, right, people see these rising prices,
Speaker 1: real estate rising super fast. Gold now is pumping bitcoin
Speaker 1: obviously all these things, stocks, equities, et cetera. And some
Speaker 1: of them are like, oh, that's a bubble, I don't
Speaker 1: want to buy, or oh I should sell before it crashes,
Speaker 1: without maybe really to your point, understanding what's going on here.
Speaker 1: If if you don't zoom out and look at the
Speaker 1: big picture. Yeah, you got to look at the big picture.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people say Charlie Shrem had
Speaker 1: a funny line. Somebody said, Oh, I wish I would
Speaker 1: have bought bitcoin at ten cents, he says, he said,
Speaker 1: you would have sold it at twenty cents. You know, people,
Speaker 1: you've got to internalize what is money and why this
Speaker 1: makes sense. Otherwise people will make that mistake. And there's
Speaker 1: men many who've made it over the last ten years
Speaker 1: where they view this as a trade. They view bitcoin
Speaker 1: as a way to get more FIA. So they bought
Speaker 1: it at one hundred and were psyched because they sold
Speaker 1: it at one hundred and ten. You know the famous
Speaker 1: bitcoin transaction, the pizzas that were bought for ten thousand bitcoin.
Speaker 1: That bitcoin was at roughly well it was like one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty bucks or something like that for the
Speaker 1: ten thousand coins, so he got two pizzas, and then
Speaker 1: when bitcoin hit ten cents, he sold those coins and
Speaker 1: bought a laptop. I think. So he's like, whoo, I
Speaker 1: turned five one hundred and fifty bucks into a thousand bucks, suckers.
Speaker 1: You know, well, you know he would have ten thousand
Speaker 1: bitcoin if he had held them, so you know, you know,
Speaker 1: and I've had panic both ways. You know, sometimes I've
Speaker 1: worried about market falling, but a couple of times I've
Speaker 1: panicked the other way. I worry about FIAT falling. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a time a while ago where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just gotta get in. I gotta get more bitcoin
Speaker 1: before this whole thing crashes. So thinking about those kind
Speaker 1: of things and internalizing them and getting into the right
Speaker 1: assets and stuff is key. But that's not an easy game.
Speaker 1: You know, professionals get it wrong all the time. You're
Speaker 1: better off just kind of get you know, having some
Speaker 1: sound money, maybe even some gold, but you know, I
Speaker 1: like bitcoin, uh, and kind of setting it in forgetting
Speaker 1: it just so you have this head against who knows
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. We are in crazy times right now. Well,
Speaker 1: I gave a talk. I went to a Bitcoin ski
Speaker 1: week in Jackson Whole a couple weeks ago, and I
Speaker 1: gave this talk. I called it the predictable Future. They
Speaker 1: want me to talk about the uncertainty of the financial system,
Speaker 1: but I was like, no, no no, no, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the certainty of it. The predictable future. And if you
Speaker 1: look out and you see what's happening, you know, you
Speaker 1: look at the US Treasury's budget, you look at their
Speaker 1: now declining tax receipts, and they're increasing payments on the interest.
Speaker 1: You know, even then, even the Treasure of themselves put
Speaker 1: out a paper in twenty twenty one that it was
Speaker 1: an unsustainable path. And when you take a look at
Speaker 1: all this information, you see that there's no way out
Speaker 1: but to keep printing. It's the only option. And so
Speaker 1: if you we don't we don't know what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: over the next couple months. I mean, the volatility. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can talk about that, the volatility, what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: over the next couple of months, But like over the
Speaker 1: next five years or ten years, like we know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen like there's just no way out but
Speaker 1: to print trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. And
Speaker 1: so when they do that, that makes a sad prices
Speaker 1: go up, and so you should probably want to do
Speaker 1: that and you want to kind of just stay zoomed
Speaker 1: out and ride that long trend um. How have you
Speaker 1: manage to state? Uh, in it for so long with
Speaker 1: the volatility that you've had to deal with. You know,
Speaker 1: I M being in the financial business for so long
Speaker 1: really helped me a lot. You know, I avoided trading.
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't. I've probably done I don't know,
Speaker 1: a couple dozen trades in ten years. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't trade. Um. You know, I very very rarely will
Speaker 1: kind of speculate on you know, what's it going to do?
Speaker 1: You know, by day or by week or by month.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm more looking at long term. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I try and keep very conservative. Surviving is a big
Speaker 1: thing both right now and in crypto and you know,
Speaker 1: most likely going forward in the future. You know, you
Speaker 1: always always want to make sure that you have enough
Speaker 1: financial stability to you know, at the very basic level,
Speaker 1: pay for a few months expenses, pay for food and
Speaker 1: rent and things like that. If you lose your job
Speaker 1: or lose your wealth. Uh, you know, have some diversification.
Speaker 1: As you get more you know, more wealth or a
Speaker 1: more complex situation, you can look at things like you know,
Speaker 1: owning some hard assets like real estate, having you know,
Speaker 1: bitcoin backup plans, uh, you know, planning for contingencies. You know,
Speaker 1: I just try and you know, survive and and and
Speaker 1: be cautious and prudent um. And that served me well
Speaker 1: so far. Play the long game, Yeah, the long game.
Speaker 1: What about and so what's your take on the CBDCs? Right, So,
Speaker 1: like now it seems like all these banks collapsing are
Speaker 1: leading this to this like bank consolidation. Now. The FEDS
Speaker 1: saying they're rolling out this FED now, which is sort
Speaker 1: of like a digital payment system, maybe not directly a CBDC.
Speaker 1: Of course we know China's rollers out. Of course they
Speaker 1: did because they're communists. Um. You know, Europe's trying to
Speaker 1: push their through pretty quickly. Um. You know, I've kind
Speaker 1: of thought in the United States that maybe we wouldn't
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be rushing into it because you know, we
Speaker 1: still have that pesky document called the Constitution kind of
Speaker 1: limits the powers of the fed um. Of course they
Speaker 1: try to get around that whenever they can. Maybe also
Speaker 1: the pushback that that might happen in the United States.
Speaker 1: What's your take on the CBDC coming in. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: central bank digital currencies are a big, big danger that
Speaker 1: everybody should be aware of because in a digital world,
Speaker 1: the world that we are in now, a central bank
Speaker 1: digital currency has the ability, you know, will will have
Speaker 1: a mechanism of control by the issue or which is
Speaker 1: a central bank, which is the government, basically which is politicians.
Speaker 1: And so basically you're giving politicians control of your money,
Speaker 1: not just how they print it and how they inflate
Speaker 1: it and give it to their cronies, which they already do,
Speaker 1: but your specific money right down to probably your own wallet,
Speaker 1: and the ability for politicians to have even the potential
Speaker 1: of being able to freeze your money is unacceptable. It
Speaker 1: is a power you cannot have them have in a
Speaker 1: digital world. I mean, it is way too great of
Speaker 1: a power and too ripe for abuse because very simply
Speaker 1: if they shut you off, they in a digital world,
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of options if they if
Speaker 1: they can shut your money off, and your money literally
Speaker 1: isn't any good anymore. Your money doesn't work. My money works,
Speaker 1: and yours doesn't. You're at a tremendous disadvantage. You can't
Speaker 1: really do anything. I mean, you probably can't even barely
Speaker 1: survive for three days, you know, three four days maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, depending how much food you have if you're
Speaker 1: a prepper, maybe six months or something. But it'd be
Speaker 1: extremely difficult. I mean, even as a prepper, I need
Speaker 1: fuel if I can't get if they had a CBDC
Speaker 1: and I said something they don't like, you know, or Trudeau.
Speaker 1: You know, Trudeau tried to shut off there, or he
Speaker 1: did shut off the visa and the MasterCard and the
Speaker 1: PayPal of these truckers. If he could shut off their
Speaker 1: money at the at the route, so their money just
Speaker 1: didn't work anymore, he could eliminate his political opponents, you know,
Speaker 1: and he could do for any reason, and you never
Speaker 1: even hear from them because they wouldn't have internet connection.
Speaker 1: He can't you know, you can't get on the internet.
Speaker 1: You can't even drive, you know, you can't even go
Speaker 1: to a local rally. You know, suppose they pulled this
Speaker 1: on me, you know, I wouldn't even be able to
Speaker 1: drive to your studio. You know, because I wouldn't get gas,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's it's a it's just too
Speaker 1: great of a power to give politicians, especially in this
Speaker 1: world where they have shown themselves not to be trusted
Speaker 1: and they've abused us again and again with increased tyranny
Speaker 1: and authoritarianism. You know, we just can't allow politicians to
Speaker 1: have that, no matter what political stripe you're from, whether
Speaker 1: you're libertarian, anarchist, republican, Democrat status, you just can't. And
Speaker 1: you know, I always say, just picture your least favorite politician,
Speaker 1: whether that's Pelosi or Trump or someone else, whoever your
Speaker 1: least favorite is. You don't want them to have that power,
Speaker 1: the power to make it so that you you're just
Speaker 1: completely shut off. Your credit cards don't work, your money
Speaker 1: doesn't work, your internet won't work, you won't be able
Speaker 1: to pay your rent, your mortgage, or your taxes. Um.
Speaker 1: It's major, major trouble. And we and I mean even
Speaker 1: just errors and things like that, they could accidentally, you know,
Speaker 1: if they if they roll this out, it's only a
Speaker 1: matter of time before they're accidentally seizing people's money as well. Um,
Speaker 1: And and all you know, they'll just expand it and
Speaker 1: expand it, expand it like they do with everything else.
Speaker 1: You know, they'll say, well, what about the children, shouldn't
Speaker 1: we freeze the uh you know, the kidnappers, you know
Speaker 1: money and you know, of course, well what about terrorists? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's seize their money too well. Isn't kind of everybody
Speaker 1: at terroist? Yeah, you know, what about racists? Let's seize
Speaker 1: their money too well, isn't everybody a racist? What about Republicans?
Speaker 1: Let's just seize their money? I mean, you can, you
Speaker 1: can just keep seeing how it's very easy to expand
Speaker 1: this and the people at the brunt of it um,
Speaker 1: you know, have very little ways to fight that, you know,
Speaker 1: because you can, you can shut off their voice and
Speaker 1: shut off their ability to even survive. Uh So, no,
Speaker 1: we we've got to fight this like crazy. We you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's exhausting, but we have to. We have to
Speaker 1: fight CBDCs. We can't allow this to happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: and and we saw Ronda santist And in Florida, I
Speaker 1: think yesterday or this week was saying he's going to
Speaker 1: sign some bills where they can't at CBDCs in Florida,
Speaker 1: which doesn't really make a lot of sense. Obviously, it's
Speaker 1: a would be a federal federal thing, not in Assai
Speaker 1: state thing. Uh we see, you know Rep. Tom Emmer
Speaker 1: is doing a lot of pushback. Ted cru has been
Speaker 1: doing pushbacks. So there are are some people fighting the fight.
Speaker 1: So I guess, uh, I mean, do you think this
Speaker 1: is something that maybe won't shift? The other thing? The
Speaker 1: thing I take a little bit of solacen is is
Speaker 1: in the FED zone, the government's own incompetence, Like, how
Speaker 1: did it work for them getting an Obamacare website off
Speaker 1: the ground, right? They can't even overhaul the IRS website,
Speaker 1: So like I also kind of have a little bit
Speaker 1: of faith in their incompetence. Um, But I mean, do
Speaker 1: you think this is something that maybe you definitely see
Speaker 1: obviously in the communist countries, but me doesn't really happen
Speaker 1: in the US, or is it it's a real threat
Speaker 1: of going through and we really got to be vigilant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's a real threat. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: they may be incompetent, but never underestimate their ability to
Speaker 1: do violence. You know, there's always a meathead with an
Speaker 1: IQ of seventy who will light a match or you
Speaker 1: shoot a gun, and you know, they'll just that it
Speaker 1: is a tool of force and violence, and they can
Speaker 1: force you to They can force you to use a
Speaker 1: bad website, if they start arresting people, they can force
Speaker 1: the banks to do it. They there's a million different
Speaker 1: ways they can make this work. And you look at
Speaker 1: the level of tyranny that we saw over the last
Speaker 1: few years with these crazy policies that were based on nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, we now look back and you know, we
Speaker 1: see that you know, there was this idea of lockdowns
Speaker 1: was really there was no science saying that even their
Speaker 1: own plans with the CDC and others didn't have plans
Speaker 1: for a lockdown. That was just something people invented because
Speaker 1: they thought it sounded good and it gave them a
Speaker 1: good feeling, you know. Um so, so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't under I wouldn't underestimate the ability to push
Speaker 1: forward something even if they are incompetent. So I do
Speaker 1: worry about it quite a bit. I feel like, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's almost inevitable and we just have
Speaker 1: to hope that these other um, you know, alternatives or
Speaker 1: carve outs, you know, things like the Free State Project
Speaker 1: or what the Santis is doing, or bitcoin or you know,
Speaker 1: other things give us enough of counterbalance that we can
Speaker 1: effectively fight this or at least have an alternative to
Speaker 1: limit its power, kind of like guns, do you know, firearms, UM,
Speaker 1: you know do limit the power quite a bit of
Speaker 1: the state just to to you know, be heavy handed
Speaker 1: wholesale abuse of people. That's why you'll see, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you have um, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: groups that are more pro gun, the police tend to
Speaker 1: be lighter hands, you know, when it's when it's Occupy
Speaker 1: Wall Street, which was mostly lefties who are unarmed, and
Speaker 1: also a lot of New York where you can't be
Speaker 1: armed just mazing them and handcuffing them and abusing them.
Speaker 1: But if you see like a pro firearms rally in
Speaker 1: Connecticut or something, you know, they cops aren't just amazing
Speaker 1: people wildly, and it's not because they're worried about getting shot.
Speaker 1: It's just because you have a little bit better a
Speaker 1: balance of power. Hopefully you can do that with CBDCs
Speaker 1: where you know you have some of these regulations. We'd
Speaker 1: like to get something like that passed in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: as well. It is hard, Like you said, I looked
Speaker 1: at the legislation, and I have some friends that are
Speaker 1: state legislators. It's not easy to prevent because because state
Speaker 1: law can't supersede the FED, so it's not easy to
Speaker 1: just say, you know, no, the FED can't come in here,
Speaker 1: and nothing is welcome. You know, it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: trick your rule. If there's any lawyers out there, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a great area. If you can figure out a
Speaker 1: clever way to make it so that a state can
Speaker 1: do this, you could you know, piggyback off of Florida
Speaker 1: and apply it to places like New Hampshire, Wyoming or
Speaker 1: other places where it might be likely to be passed.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, I worry about it. I think
Speaker 1: it's something we have to be very cautious. Yeah, definitely, definitely,
Speaker 1: And we can see it playing out an other other
Speaker 1: other countries, so we kind of get a head start
Speaker 1: or a look into the future of that. But certainly
Speaker 1: it would be the final piece for their what we'd
Speaker 1: call a digital panopticon, right, like the turn us into
Speaker 1: digital surfs, right, And so we'd have to keep that
Speaker 1: from happening. I agree. Without the freedom to transact, there
Speaker 1: is no freedom. So man with that. I think we're
Speaker 1: going to wrap it up. You know, I know you
Speaker 1: have a lot of things going on. You know, Watchdog Capital,
Speaker 1: I think is kind of your big things to Toshy roundtable.
Speaker 1: Anything you want to shout out or draw attention to
Speaker 1: that we can link in the show notes. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: pursue freedom and you know, follow me on Twitter or whatever.
Speaker 1: But you know, we're all in this together. We've got
Speaker 1: to we we decide what our world is going to
Speaker 1: look like in this crazy fourth turning. And you know,
Speaker 1: just as people in centuries past, they were just normal people.
Speaker 1: Our founding fathers and others did brave things and made
Speaker 1: the world a better place. Uh, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: our duty to do that now. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we should all be aware of these things and talking
Speaker 1: about it. And you're doing a great thing by talking
Speaker 1: about these these issues so much. So, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all in this together. Let's let's make the world
Speaker 1: better and more free and more decentralized. Pursue freedom. I
Speaker 1: love it. That's the mission, all right, Bruce, thanks so much,
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Awesome, Thank you