Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to another episode of The Mark Moss
Speaker 1: Show where we talk about bitcoin. We talk about the
Speaker 1: decentralized revolution that is happening right now. And you know,
Speaker 1: each and every week I'm trying to bring to you
Speaker 1: the latest information, the latest education, and some of the
Speaker 1: best and brightest people in the space, so you can
Speaker 1: understand exactly what is going on now. Hang on, hang on,
Speaker 1: hang on, hang on now. Don't dismiss it so easily.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest problems that I see with people
Speaker 1: today in bitcoin is that they think they understand it
Speaker 1: too quickly, or some people say they don't understand it
Speaker 1: it's too too difficult, and um, neither one of those
Speaker 1: are true. So bitcoin is a lot of things. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and it's so new, it's so
Speaker 1: revolutionary that we don't even understand all the things it
Speaker 1: will become it is today, will become and the impact
Speaker 1: that it will make in the future. Imagine a few
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, sitting around table and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we had just seen the invention of electricity, and what
Speaker 1: would how to do as humans as we try to
Speaker 1: understand what is this? What is this new technology? And
Speaker 1: so we try to Um, compare it to something that
Speaker 1: we know, so we can try to understand what it is.
Speaker 1: We might have said electricity was what is that. It's
Speaker 1: like a digital candle, right, it produced light. Previous before electricity,
Speaker 1: all light for all of humanity had come from fire,
Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, we electricity. So what
Speaker 1: is electricity? I don't know what it is. Well, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a digital candle, right, um. And people
Speaker 1: might say, well, why do we need that? That doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Like a candle's way better. Look a
Speaker 1: candle is easy and I can pick it up, I
Speaker 1: can move it. It's portable, and look, I don't need
Speaker 1: all these wires and all this other stuff, right, like
Speaker 1: a candle's way better. Electricity stupid. It's a waste of
Speaker 1: it's a waste of time. It's a waste of money.
Speaker 1: Candles are better. Um. And you know, maybe that was
Speaker 1: true at that point, But what was electricity? While that
Speaker 1: might have been an application of the technology to produce light,
Speaker 1: the technology itself was so much more, and it became
Speaker 1: so much more. The fact that you're listening to me
Speaker 1: today right now is because that's what electricity is doing.
Speaker 1: So while the application of providing light at the time
Speaker 1: was the best application of electricity. That wasn't what defined electricity.
Speaker 1: Electricity was a new technology that has given us so
Speaker 1: much more. It has the light on me right now,
Speaker 1: and it's powering this microphone that I'm talking to you on,
Speaker 1: and it's powering the computers that are plugged in the
Speaker 1: walls that are sitting this transmission across time and space.
Speaker 1: And so electricity has multiple there's multiple applications of electricity,
Speaker 1: and I would think about the same about bitcoin. So
Speaker 1: we're trying to understand what bitcoin is as a new technology,
Speaker 1: as a technological revolution, and right now, maybe the best
Speaker 1: application for that is money, digital cash, right, store of value,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But that that technology, Bitcoin is a technological revolution.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin as a decentralized network can have lots of other applications.
Speaker 1: Let's let's look at another example. So like the Internet.
Speaker 1: For example, when the Internet first came out, the killer
Speaker 1: application for Internet was email, electronic mail, electronic messages. And
Speaker 1: at the time, what is this Internet thing. Well, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a way we can communicate across. These
Speaker 1: message boards become messages up, we can send these electronic
Speaker 1: messages and it was it was that that was the
Speaker 1: that was an unapplication, a killer application for Internet. But
Speaker 1: of course Internet is so much more. The Internet technology,
Speaker 1: the Internet network has now allowed us to again do
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. I'm using the Internet to broadcast this
Speaker 1: um it allows you know, the differences of my personal
Speaker 1: website or Facebook personal website, by the way, is one
Speaker 1: Mark Moss dot com. But the website or Facebook or Netflix,
Speaker 1: which are all different applications using the Internet technology. All right,
Speaker 1: And so when bitcoin, what is it? It's a new network.
Speaker 1: It's a new network that transfers values. So the Internet
Speaker 1: transfers info, the Bitcoin network transfers value. And what what
Speaker 1: does that mean? What's the what's the application? Where the
Speaker 1: application is money storing value, et cetera. But it can
Speaker 1: become so much more. So that's why it's hard to understand.
Speaker 1: Now if we just look at money on its own,
Speaker 1: if it can if it can give us a better
Speaker 1: form of money, what does that even mean? Do we
Speaker 1: even have a problem with money? And so we have
Speaker 1: to even just dig into that piece. And so I
Speaker 1: guess what I'm trying to highlight to you is that
Speaker 1: there are some deep, deep, deep rabbit holes that we
Speaker 1: can dig into to try to understand what bitcoin is
Speaker 1: and ultimately try to understand where it's going, how it
Speaker 1: will impact our lives. And it's important for you to
Speaker 1: understand because this is the biggest revolution that we will
Speaker 1: ever see. It's the biggest opportunity that you'll ever see.
Speaker 1: And if you don't understand it, if you if you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I get, it's kind of like digital cash. I don't
Speaker 1: need digital cast. It's cash. It's worthless. It's not worth
Speaker 1: my time anymore. You're gonna be missing out. You're gonna
Speaker 1: be missing out really big. And I see a lot
Speaker 1: of people make that mistake where they think they understand
Speaker 1: it and then they dismiss it. I get, it's like
Speaker 1: digital cash. I don't care about digital cash. We don't
Speaker 1: need digital cash. Visa works good, Venmo works good. What
Speaker 1: do we need it for? Right. It's a very US
Speaker 1: centric frame of mind, by the way, um, and so
Speaker 1: people are easily to dismiss it, or the opposite. People say,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's too complicated, I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: And so it can be simple where let's just understand
Speaker 1: this one application today and then you can just kind
Speaker 1: of keep you in the back of your mind that
Speaker 1: there may be other applications in the future. Now, the
Speaker 1: killer app on bitcoin today is of course money, and
Speaker 1: most people don't even know what money is, which sounds
Speaker 1: kind of crazy, right, Um, do you know what money is?
Speaker 1: Think about that? I think about that question. Do you
Speaker 1: know what money is? Do you know what makes a
Speaker 1: good money a bad money? Most people probably never stopped
Speaker 1: to even think about that. So um, and if you
Speaker 1: don't understand what money is, then you don't understand how
Speaker 1: different types of money affect different things, and how manipulating
Speaker 1: the money call, there's other manipulations that may warrant or
Speaker 1: may produce unintended consequences. Now, what the heck am I
Speaker 1: even saying? Am I spinning in circles here? Well? Not really?
Speaker 1: So today I should say This week, um, depend on
Speaker 1: when you're listening to it. This week we saw the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve, the government of the United States, the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Labor Statistics, the BLS put out a report on
Speaker 1: the CPI, which is the Consumer Price Index. And basically
Speaker 1: the Consumer Press Index is it measures inflation. And when
Speaker 1: they're measuring inflation, what they're trying to measure is what
Speaker 1: the prices of goods and services are. And so basically
Speaker 1: what they would do is if you went to the shop,
Speaker 1: if you went to the grocery store. Um, let's say
Speaker 1: in the eighties, so whatever, forty years ago, you went
Speaker 1: to the grocery store and you bought a basket of goods.
Speaker 1: So you put some steak in there, you put some
Speaker 1: milk in there, you put some cheese and some eggs,
Speaker 1: and you put some bread, and you put some whatever. Right,
Speaker 1: you bought that basket of goods, and then you went
Speaker 1: and checked out, and your receipt came out to a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks whatever, um. And then over time, how much
Speaker 1: does that that basket of good change? And so over time, uh,
Speaker 1: the price of steak and milk and cheese and eggs
Speaker 1: and bread all went up. And so they try to
Speaker 1: measure inflation based off of that basket of goods. That's
Speaker 1: CPI consumer price indexes. Now, some people try to make
Speaker 1: this a very academic argument, and they might tell you that,
Speaker 1: you know, we haven't had any inflation since two thoight,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, really, because all the stock indexes and
Speaker 1: gold and real estate are all up. Oh, well, Mark,
Speaker 1: you're talking about asset price inflation. I'm talking about consumer
Speaker 1: price inflation, and so they try to kind of get
Speaker 1: it very difficult for you to understand. Um. And that's ridiculous. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm a consumer. I bought a house. If the price
Speaker 1: of the houses went up, you're calling that asset price inflation.
Speaker 1: I call the consumer price inflation. It's pretty ridiculous. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we have this CPI basket. The BLS puts out and
Speaker 1: like I said, just this week they put out the
Speaker 1: new report and it is a record breaker, and and
Speaker 1: it broke the previous record that we had set last
Speaker 1: time it came around. So the previous cp I we
Speaker 1: call it a print. The CPI numbers were seven percent interest,
Speaker 1: which was a four decade long record that had been
Speaker 1: standing seven and we just broke it to seven point five.
Speaker 1: That's a big increase, a really big increase. Now, just
Speaker 1: to put this into perspective, they're saying that prices are
Speaker 1: going up by seven point five percent. What they're really saying, though,
Speaker 1: is not that prices are going up by seven point
Speaker 1: five percent. What they're really saying is that your dollar,
Speaker 1: the purchasing power of your money, has lost seven and
Speaker 1: a half percent of its purchasing power. So if you
Speaker 1: if you think about that, that means over two years
Speaker 1: you've lost fifteen percent. Over four years, you've lost over
Speaker 1: thirty percent of your purchase in power. So that means,
Speaker 1: you know, a dollar still worth a dollar, right, Well,
Speaker 1: a dollar is still worth a dollar, but that dollar
Speaker 1: doesn't buy you as many goods and services. So if
Speaker 1: you had a thousand dollars in the bank today, in
Speaker 1: four years from now, it only buys you about six
Speaker 1: or seven hundred dollars worth of goods that you could
Speaker 1: buy today. That's what that means. And so what that
Speaker 1: means is that when that inflation number goes up, your
Speaker 1: money literally has been stolen from you because you can't
Speaker 1: buy as many goods and services as you could have
Speaker 1: bought before. So homes, the value of my home went up, No,
Speaker 1: the value of your home didn't go up. The value
Speaker 1: of the dollar, the purchasing power of the dollar went down,
Speaker 1: and it just takes more dollars to buy that home today.
Speaker 1: And that's illustrated in this cp I report that happened.
Speaker 1: And like I said, it's a massive blowout report, seven
Speaker 1: and a half percent versus what the Fed was hoping
Speaker 1: and expecting of only being two percent. But what does
Speaker 1: that really mean to us? What does this mean to bitcoin?
Speaker 1: Why am I even talking about this on a Bitcoin conversation? Uh?
Speaker 1: And more importantly, what's the real number? Because I'm here
Speaker 1: to tell you that this is not cp I, It's
Speaker 1: more like cp LIE. It's a CPLI, it's a government
Speaker 1: manipulated statistics. I'm about a breakdown. What's really in this number,
Speaker 1: what's really driving it, Why the Fed isn't able to
Speaker 1: stop this, and of course, how Bitcoin fixes this, fix
Speaker 1: the money, fix the world. You're listening to the Mark
Speaker 1: mos Show. We're talking about bitcoin. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: decentralized revolution. We're talking about the CPI numbers that just
Speaker 1: came out, breaking all records, and how bitcoin can fix this.
Speaker 1: We're back with more. All right, welcome back. You are
Speaker 1: listening to the Mark mo Show. We're talking about bitcoin.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the decentralized revolution that is happening. You know,
Speaker 1: it's Uh, in my opinion, it's changing a lot of
Speaker 1: things in the world. Of course, I highlighted that in
Speaker 1: the first UM segment. Hopefully you did miss it. If
Speaker 1: you did, don't ever let that happen again, if you're
Speaker 1: not driving, pull your phone out right now. Put a
Speaker 1: reminder to join me on this channel at this time
Speaker 1: each every week, where I promise it will be the
Speaker 1: most important, the most educational, and the most profitable part
Speaker 1: of your week. Now, before the segment, I was talking
Speaker 1: about the c p I, the consumer price index number,
Speaker 1: the blowout number that just was released, breaking records again
Speaker 1: again and again and again. We broke a record at
Speaker 1: seven percent inflation. Now where it's seven and a half
Speaker 1: percent inflation. Food inflation is seven point three percent. It's
Speaker 1: the highest sense, which is amazing. Why is it doing that? Uh?
Speaker 1: And more importantly, what does it mean? And what does
Speaker 1: what does you have to do with bitcoin? Right? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess a couple of things. So the first thing
Speaker 1: is that um, First of all, trying to put a
Speaker 1: single number onto inflation like seven percent is ridiculous. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely ridiculous. You could not measure the volume of water
Speaker 1: in a bathtub with simple arithmetic. You can't measure the
Speaker 1: wind drag coefficient of a jet plane with simple arithmetic,
Speaker 1: nor can you measure the inflation of the economy with
Speaker 1: a seeing number or arithmetic. I mean, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, there's seven and a half billion people approximately
Speaker 1: in the world, hundreds of millions of people in the
Speaker 1: United States. There's trillions of inputs that go into prices,
Speaker 1: trillions of inputs that go into prices, and so they
Speaker 1: they're all different. What inflation really is is the increase
Speaker 1: in the money supply. So when the Federal Reserved, the
Speaker 1: Central Bank, the central banks of the world create more money,
Speaker 1: they increase, they inflate the monetary supply. Like a balloon.
Speaker 1: If I was going to have a balloon, and I
Speaker 1: would inflate a balloon, right, I would inflate it by
Speaker 1: putting more air into the balloon, increasing the volume of
Speaker 1: the air that inflates the balloon, and the same with
Speaker 1: the money monetor supply. Inflation is putting more money into
Speaker 1: the balloon, putting more money, inflating the volume of the money.
Speaker 1: That's what inflation is. The prices is the result of that.
Speaker 1: When I increase the monetary supply, the prices go all
Speaker 1: over the place. Now home on the lakefront Lake Travis
Speaker 1: outside of Austin in Texas. I have a buddy that
Speaker 1: bought a home for ten million dollars a year ago.
Speaker 1: Just hold it for five million dollars. That's a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty percent increase in real estate there, but nationally
Speaker 1: it went up about thirty five percent, so average a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty percent there. In some areas it probably
Speaker 1: went up ten percent or fifteen percent. So inflation is
Speaker 1: different to different people depending on where you're buying a home.
Speaker 1: If I'm trying to send my kids to college and
Speaker 1: by a home on Lake Travis, inflation is hitting me very,
Speaker 1: very hard. And if you live in your parents basement
Speaker 1: and you watch Netflix and eat Cheetos, you don't even
Speaker 1: notice inflation. Well maybe Netflix went up by a buck, right,
Speaker 1: you don't even notice it. And so inflation means a
Speaker 1: lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Speaker 1: You can't put a single number on it. But what
Speaker 1: you can put a single number on is the money supply.
Speaker 1: As they increase the monetary supply. And we know that
Speaker 1: the Central Bank of the United States, the Federal Reserve,
Speaker 1: increased the monetary supply by approximately thirty five percent in
Speaker 1: the last two years, and so if the monetary supply
Speaker 1: increased by then, it kind of makes sense why the
Speaker 1: average home price went up by thirty five percent and
Speaker 1: use cars are up by and steak is up and etcetera. Right,
Speaker 1: things like that, And what does this have to do
Speaker 1: with inflation, Well, that is the inflation. They're measuring consumer
Speaker 1: price inflation, which is the result, it's the outcome of
Speaker 1: printing all that money. And so the Federal Reserve now
Speaker 1: is saying they're going to combat They're going to fight inflation.
Speaker 1: What's funny because they're the ones that created it in
Speaker 1: the first place. They created the inflation. Now they're gonna
Speaker 1: fight it. And so they're gonna do that by doing
Speaker 1: two things, one injecting less money into the system and
Speaker 1: also to to um start sucking money out by raising
Speaker 1: interest rates. Supposedly that's what they're gonna do. Um. We
Speaker 1: don't know if they're actually gonna do that. I kind
Speaker 1: of think that it probably won't happen. Um, but they
Speaker 1: got to do something because inflation is raging and we
Speaker 1: are going into a election cycle this year for mid terms,
Speaker 1: and the uh, the incumbent party, which is the Democrat
Speaker 1: party right now. It doesn't matter if it was Republicans
Speaker 1: or Democrats, whoever, the incumbent party is, UH, we'll typically
Speaker 1: lose when we're in an economic environment like we have,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't matter which side it was holding power
Speaker 1: at the time, that side is pretty much guaranteed to losing.
Speaker 1: The Democrats know this, and if they don't do something
Speaker 1: to fight inflation, it's going to be game over for them.
Speaker 1: The problem is the way to stop inflation is the
Speaker 1: opposite of creating inflation, which means stop pumping the markets
Speaker 1: full of money. The problem with that is that if
Speaker 1: they do that, the next thing you know, it creates recession.
Speaker 1: You start, you put the money in, and it increases
Speaker 1: the economy. I can now take out loans for really cheap.
Speaker 1: I can buy more houses. I go buy ten houses.
Speaker 1: Now there's ten houses for home builders, and then there's
Speaker 1: ten companies to make home windows and floors and cabinets.
Speaker 1: And then I need landscapers. And those landscapers now have
Speaker 1: a new business, so they go buy new trucks. So
Speaker 1: now forwards making new trucks for those landscapers. And all
Speaker 1: that was created because they pumped in more money. But
Speaker 1: when they suck the money out, the opposite happens. I
Speaker 1: don't buy two ten homes. Now ten homebuilders don't have work.
Speaker 1: Those window manufacturers, flooring manufacturers, cabinet manufacturers don't have work.
Speaker 1: That landscaping company just bought all those new trucks now
Speaker 1: has no jobs to send those trucks on, and that
Speaker 1: leads to recession. So why am I talking about this
Speaker 1: on a bitcoin podcast Because all of these booms and
Speaker 1: bus are because the central banks put money in and
Speaker 1: then they take money out. They put money in and
Speaker 1: they take money out, and bitcoin takes away their ability.
Speaker 1: It takes away anybody's ability to create more money. So
Speaker 1: people think, well, the problem is that we just you know,
Speaker 1: the guys that run the central bank, and you know,
Speaker 1: if we if we replace the politicians, like let's just
Speaker 1: get rid of Trump and put in Biden. Let's just
Speaker 1: get rid of Biden and put in whoever. If we
Speaker 1: get better people, we won't have this problem anymore. But
Speaker 1: they're misunderstanding the problem. The problem is not the people
Speaker 1: who are there. The problem is people in general. It's
Speaker 1: humans in general. Since the beginning of time, humans have
Speaker 1: tried to get something for nothing. Since the beginning of time,
Speaker 1: people have tried to create gold from metal, it's called
Speaker 1: a right alchemy. Since the beginning of time, they've tried
Speaker 1: to figure out how to produce money from nothing. And now,
Speaker 1: of course the central banks have to have figured out
Speaker 1: a way to do that. It doesn't matter who is
Speaker 1: controlling that, they are going to do that. The only
Speaker 1: way to fix this problem is too As one of
Speaker 1: my favorite economists, F. A. Hyak, he famously said in
Speaker 1: eight there shall never be a sound money again, a
Speaker 1: sound money meeting something that can't just be inflated or
Speaker 1: created at will. There shall never be a sound money
Speaker 1: again until the thing is taken from the hands of
Speaker 1: the government. But it cannot be done by force, but
Speaker 1: rather by a sly roundabout way introducing something that cannot
Speaker 1: be stopped. And he said that in of course, it
Speaker 1: was prophetically talking about something like bitcoin, which takes away
Speaker 1: the ability not of the Biden administration, not of the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve, but from anybody being able to create money.
Speaker 1: And if you take away is ability to create money,
Speaker 1: then you can end inflation. And why do we want
Speaker 1: to end inflation? Because inflation is stealing your wealth. Remember,
Speaker 1: your thousand dollars in the bank only buys you six
Speaker 1: or seven dollars worth of goods and services in a
Speaker 1: couple of years from now. They stole your purchasing power
Speaker 1: by enriching themselves and anyway, that's it man seven and
Speaker 1: a half percent inflation number, record breaking blowout. It continues
Speaker 1: to go higher, and that's that's a manipulated number. The
Speaker 1: reality is the money supply was increased by about thirty
Speaker 1: So that's the real number. And so that means that
Speaker 1: you need to make about thirty five percent more money
Speaker 1: this year to be in the same place you were
Speaker 1: last year. Did you get a thirty five percent raise?
Speaker 1: Because I hope you did. When we come back, I
Speaker 1: want to bring on somebody who's actually running in politics
Speaker 1: trying to bring some change with bitcoin to this um.
Speaker 1: You listen to the Mark ma Show. I'll be back
Speaker 1: with more in a second. Uh, talking about how we
Speaker 1: can fix this. So don't go away, all right, welcome back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Mark mo Show. We're talking
Speaker 1: about bitcoin. We're talking about the decentralized revolution that is happening.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of things going on. One
Speaker 1: of the big things that I hear about bitcoin and
Speaker 1: cryptocurrencies a lot. One of the biggest objections I hear,
Speaker 1: and of course I did a whole series breaking down
Speaker 1: all these objections, but one of the big objections I
Speaker 1: hear is that, Ah, the government's are just gonna make
Speaker 1: it illegal. And I've talked about that at length. One
Speaker 1: of the things I've said, well, there's two things I
Speaker 1: would say that. One, I would say that I've made
Speaker 1: videos on I don't think they would do it even
Speaker 1: if they could, and I've explained why, financially and for
Speaker 1: the system, etcetera. But then I've also said that I
Speaker 1: think even if they wanted to, it would be very
Speaker 1: difficult for them because the level of entrenchment that's been
Speaker 1: made both in the financial system, the financial system being
Speaker 1: lobbies of the government, Um, they don't want to see that,
Speaker 1: but also the level of entrenchment of people inside the
Speaker 1: government that have seen the need for a bitcoin, have
Speaker 1: adopted it and so forth, and so UM. Joining me
Speaker 1: in the studio today, I have Erica Rhodes. She is
Speaker 1: running for Congress and the U. S. House of Representatives
Speaker 1: in California on the thirty second district, and Um, she's
Speaker 1: made a big splash, I would say for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One is that she's trying to unseat an incumbent, which
Speaker 1: is Brad Sherman. And Brad Sherman is someone that I've
Speaker 1: talked about at length. Um, he is a major opponent
Speaker 1: on your freedom to choose what you want as money,
Speaker 1: specifically on what you want to choose as the money
Speaker 1: being cryptocurrencies. UM. And also Erica is running one to
Speaker 1: unseat him, but to also on kind of like a
Speaker 1: pro bitcoin platform. So, Erica, thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: me today. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to talk with you. So. You know, I've been catching
Speaker 1: quite a bit of the content you've been doing. I
Speaker 1: was on the Twitter space as you did the other
Speaker 1: night with Jack Dorsey and and others. That was pretty cool. Um.
Speaker 1: I'd like just a little bit of your story. UM.
Speaker 1: I know you're a teacher, you can tell us about that,
Speaker 1: but more specifically being a teacher, Uh, what's your involvement
Speaker 1: with politics? Why do you decided to get into this,
Speaker 1: and why have you decided to make bitcoin a piece
Speaker 1: of that? Yes, So, UM, again, thank you for having me. So,
Speaker 1: I been teaching for ten years. I never wanted to
Speaker 1: enter politics. UM. I never had any aspirations to run
Speaker 1: for a public office. But once Trump got elected, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to be more politically active. And
Speaker 1: it's not because I have a thing against Republicans or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It's more so the rhetoric in which
Speaker 1: he projected. And I just felt like there was great
Speaker 1: division um merging in our country. And so I ended
Speaker 1: up getting politically active. And then after the Democratic primary,
Speaker 1: we saw so much civic unrest, We saw a lack
Speaker 1: of thoughtful policies being implemented. You know, I feel like
Speaker 1: there needs to be changed on both sides of the
Speaker 1: political aisle. And so my dad was like, Erica, you
Speaker 1: should you should run. And so when I was building
Speaker 1: my platform, it was specifically going to be community service driven.
Speaker 1: It was about to bring everyone together. It was about
Speaker 1: to model a different way of governance, in a different
Speaker 1: way of campaigning and really being data and solution oriented
Speaker 1: because I think that is exactly what we need. And
Speaker 1: so um, and then once we built our platform, it
Speaker 1: was like myself and another teacher and UM, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I put it out there, I like announced
Speaker 1: my candidacy and there were some like young kids that
Speaker 1: were like, you know, you should put bitcoin on your platform,
Speaker 1: and I was like what what They're like, you know,
Speaker 1: we really care about this and we think that that's
Speaker 1: something that you should add to your platform. And Initially
Speaker 1: I kind of like dismissed it because of the FEC
Speaker 1: violations and like counting, and I wasn't really sure how
Speaker 1: it would work. And then um, later on I was
Speaker 1: approached by the bitcoin community after a hearing that Brad did,
Speaker 1: and then we just looked more deeply into it, and
Speaker 1: then we decided that was absolutely something that needs to
Speaker 1: be protected, the technology behind it, the Lightning network, and
Speaker 1: so that is why we had made the decision to
Speaker 1: go ahead and add it to our platform. Interesting, now,
Speaker 1: you started out talking about out um you know, after
Speaker 1: the last election cycle you got more involved and um,
Speaker 1: you were kind of more on the democrat or or
Speaker 1: left side. Um. You know, my show focuses on bitcoin,
Speaker 1: which I believe is the intersection of politics, finance, and
Speaker 1: technology to kind of together. Um. I think that, UM,
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: there's a lot lost in words today and we don't
Speaker 1: know what things mean anymore. Um. And so even left
Speaker 1: versus right, what does that even mean? Republican versus democrat,
Speaker 1: what does that even mean? People might say that socialism
Speaker 1: is on the left and fascism is on the right, um,
Speaker 1: which doesn't make any sense. To me, I look at
Speaker 1: things as the individual versus the collective. So I look
Speaker 1: at it as like, I want freedom to choose, freedom
Speaker 1: from being coerced to make choices I don't want to
Speaker 1: make UM and so Bitcoin, I believe, gives me that
Speaker 1: best choice to be an individual because now I can
Speaker 1: control my money without being forced. And one of the
Speaker 1: reason why I don't like Brad Sherman is because he
Speaker 1: wants to take away my ability to be free to
Speaker 1: choose what I want to store my wealth in. UM.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious. I mean, you said you're on the left,
Speaker 1: but would you also think that that's a proper framing
Speaker 1: that really it's actually um Maybe we could get rid
Speaker 1: of some of those labels and look at like the
Speaker 1: difference of like individual freedom versus like the collective or
Speaker 1: the central planning model that tries to like control every
Speaker 1: aspect of our life. Yeah, I think we do have
Speaker 1: to get rid of the labels. I get called all
Speaker 1: kinds of things that I feel like don't represent me
Speaker 1: because I'm like very rational and reasonable and I just
Speaker 1: want whatever the best idea is, that's what we need
Speaker 1: to go with. It doesn't matter which your whatever your
Speaker 1: political affiliation is if it's going, if it makes sense,
Speaker 1: it's and we can implement it and it helps people.
Speaker 1: That's what we should be able to do. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I'm very attracted to bitcoin because
Speaker 1: I think personally it is my personal opinion. I don't
Speaker 1: think it should be a partisan issue. I think anybody
Speaker 1: that wants the whole bitcoin should be able to. Anybody
Speaker 1: that wants to use that as a way to acquire
Speaker 1: wealth should be able to and I think that they
Speaker 1: should have absolute freedom in order to do that. And
Speaker 1: so something that worries me is that it does get
Speaker 1: politic sized that you can't be a Democrat and hold
Speaker 1: and I think that that's unfair because I know a
Speaker 1: lot of Democrats, a lot of my coworkers, we all
Speaker 1: have hold bitcoin, right, So I think anybody that wants
Speaker 1: to have it should absolutely be able to have it.
Speaker 1: That's my personal opinion. I also think that Brad Sherman's
Speaker 1: getting you're you're so radical, You're so radical with that opinion.
Speaker 1: How dare people be allowed to store their wealth and
Speaker 1: whatever they choose? But but you know, almost I would
Speaker 1: say a lot of people I know hold bitcoin. That's
Speaker 1: just This is just my experience. And I have not
Speaker 1: met any person in the thirty second district that doesn't
Speaker 1: have some type of either bitcoin or a form of crypto.
Speaker 1: And I have not met anyone that does that want
Speaker 1: to see a band even if they don't have any
Speaker 1: I've never met anyone that's like, no, it should be banned.
Speaker 1: I think people should have the right to invest in
Speaker 1: whatever they want. And that's where Brad's getting it wrong.
Speaker 1: And I think also that's where members of Congress are
Speaker 1: getting wrong, you know. And I think there's a lack
Speaker 1: of education. I think if people really take the time
Speaker 1: to understand what it is, the future of it, they'll
Speaker 1: be like, Okay, that's why so many people are making
Speaker 1: this choice and wanting it, you know. And I think
Speaker 1: for me, I'm always learning. I don't ever proclaim to
Speaker 1: know it all. I you know, I spent a good
Speaker 1: deal of my you know week reading or watching, listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast, talking with people just to learn. Like
Speaker 1: right now, I'm in the in the process of really
Speaker 1: really becoming a very knowledgeable about lighting, because I think
Speaker 1: that that's a very important technology that we need to
Speaker 1: build upon and support. That's my personal opinion and Um.
Speaker 1: For me also to um, if you're a Democrat, don't
Speaker 1: say that you're for ending poverty and helping people and
Speaker 1: being against this because it absolutely is something that can
Speaker 1: leverage people out of poverty. I know so many people personally, like,
Speaker 1: personally met that it's been advantageous for Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of a lot of wealth has been made.
Speaker 1: And um, I love how you keep saying in your opinion, um,
Speaker 1: and so you know you have obviously opinions about things,
Speaker 1: but I think some things well, I mean it's hard,
Speaker 1: they're they're not disputable, Like it's your opinion that you
Speaker 1: know lightning is could could be very advantageous to be
Speaker 1: used for the world. I would agree. My opinion is
Speaker 1: the same. Right, I share that, But it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: controversial or have to be your opinion that people should
Speaker 1: have the right to store their wealth and whatever they want. Right.
Speaker 1: Rich people might store their wealth in cars or art,
Speaker 1: some people buy houses, Um something right, I mean I
Speaker 1: want to buy gold, I want to buy bitcoin. What
Speaker 1: differences that make? You know? And so? But the other
Speaker 1: thing too is that you can enter I whatever your
Speaker 1: financial situation is, Like you don't need x amount of
Speaker 1: dollars to hold bitcoin, Like if you only have five dollars,
Speaker 1: you can start with five dollars and then say, you know,
Speaker 1: every paycheck, I'm gonna put ten dollars into it. And
Speaker 1: you don't have to wait to have like a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to be able to, you know, get in to
Speaker 1: the market. So I think that's that's important. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great that's a great point. Um, you're listening to
Speaker 1: the Mark mos Show. We're talking about bitcoin and the
Speaker 1: decentralized revolution that's happening. I am. I'm joining the studio
Speaker 1: right now with Erica Rhodes. She's running for Congress, the U. S.
Speaker 1: House of Representatives in California for the thirty second district.
Speaker 1: She's a school teacher trying to make a difference. Um,
Speaker 1: she's running on a pro bitcoin platform, trying to unseat
Speaker 1: Brad Sherman. We're gonna be right back with more. Don't
Speaker 1: go away, all right, welcome back. You are listening to
Speaker 1: the Mark Moa Show, and we're talking about bitcoin, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the decentralized revolution. And I'm in the
Speaker 1: studio right now with Erica Rhodes. She is a school
Speaker 1: teacher running for the Congress US House of Representatives in
Speaker 1: California on the thirty second district, trying to unseat one
Speaker 1: of our opponents, Brad Sherman, opponent of the bitcoin crypto industry.
Speaker 1: I should say, um, now she is running to unseat
Speaker 1: him and h on a on a bitcoin platform. But
Speaker 1: you know, one thing that I think it is important
Speaker 1: for most people to understand is people who need to
Speaker 1: be more flexible in their thinking and understand that everything
Speaker 1: has trade off and understand there's different dimensions to all
Speaker 1: these different things. And so while Erica might be pro bitcoin,
Speaker 1: that's not the only issue that you should be thinking about. Um.
Speaker 1: We've seen in New York City, for example, the mayor
Speaker 1: there ran on a pro bitcoin platform and elis that
Speaker 1: he wants to ban bitcoin mining. That doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense to me. And so Erica, I'm sure that there's
Speaker 1: more things that you're concerned with than just bitcoin. Give
Speaker 1: us some ideas of some other things that you care about.
Speaker 1: I'm not like Eric Adams, so please so ever, I'm
Speaker 1: not you, but like people were like worried, I am
Speaker 1: definitely not him. But well, the problem the problem in
Speaker 1: that was that you know, if all you voted for
Speaker 1: him is because he said he was pro bitcoin and
Speaker 1: then you did me look at all the other things
Speaker 1: that he stood for in his track record, then you
Speaker 1: didn't catch that. And so I don't think the would
Speaker 1: necessary comparing you, but I think maybe just kind of
Speaker 1: like a warning, like, hey, what else do these people
Speaker 1: care about? So it's a good time to hear, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know something. And I mean, because I think it's
Speaker 1: connected to bit rain is campaign finance reform. I think
Speaker 1: it's something that's really important, Like Brad gets a majority
Speaker 1: of his money from big banks, check cashing, pawn shops,
Speaker 1: and to me, that's like a contradiction, like how can
Speaker 1: you say that bitcoin? You know people of color, like
Speaker 1: in the last time you are gonna be help left
Speaker 1: holding the bag when you yourself take money from people
Speaker 1: that completely keep people in poverish, right, And so I
Speaker 1: think that we need to really look at where people
Speaker 1: get their money from. I didn't really appreciate this until
Speaker 1: I was starting to run for Congress and I'm on
Speaker 1: the back end of things. So I think that's really
Speaker 1: really important. And I think it also really sets the
Speaker 1: tone of your character, right. And then the second thing
Speaker 1: I think that I would love to raise awareness on
Speaker 1: is foster care reform. You know, it's something that does
Speaker 1: not get talked about. And if we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about people being unbanked, well let's talk about kids that
Speaker 1: when they age out there left with a trash bag
Speaker 1: a sidewalk and they have no idea, no bank account,
Speaker 1: no financial literacy, nothing, and then what ends up happening
Speaker 1: is they end up staying impoverished, and then it ends
Speaker 1: up costing us more for all the services. So I
Speaker 1: think we have to really also look at preventing problems
Speaker 1: as well. And so that's something that I'm really advocating for.
Speaker 1: When you say financial literacy, um, I'm an educator. I'm
Speaker 1: an online educator that's spent the last many many years
Speaker 1: trying to educate as many people as I can, and
Speaker 1: so I would agree with that, right, education is so
Speaker 1: important you talk about financial literacy specifically, And a quote
Speaker 1: that I throw out often is that Henry Ford throughout
Speaker 1: a hundred years ago that if the American people knew
Speaker 1: how the banking system worked, there would be a revolution
Speaker 1: before the morning, he said. And that was over a
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. Imagine how much worse the banking system
Speaker 1: is today. And of course it's probably no surprise that
Speaker 1: they don't teach us anything about it. Uh, and probably
Speaker 1: either one whatever they do teach us is either maybe
Speaker 1: either mislead or you know, like I said, purposely admitted UM.
Speaker 1: And so you're absolutely right, like people have no idea
Speaker 1: how the financial system works or how to navigate within that. UM.
Speaker 1: Do you have any ideas of how you might prove
Speaker 1: financial literacy specifically one, we have to start teaching it,
Speaker 1: and I think that I can. I think it has
Speaker 1: to be I think it can absolutely be differentiated based
Speaker 1: on grade level, so would be age appropriate. And it
Speaker 1: can just start with like if you're an element to
Speaker 1: the importance of you know, saving money, like bitcoin actually
Speaker 1: teaches people how to save money and the importance of
Speaker 1: saving money. Like just an example, UM, I think that
Speaker 1: like just what retirement means, just the language that you
Speaker 1: know is around UM, personal finance and understanding what it
Speaker 1: means for a loan and interest rates and all those
Speaker 1: kind of things. Like I always use this, And there's
Speaker 1: two examples that I always use. The first one is
Speaker 1: I met with high school kids and they didn't even
Speaker 1: understand the difference between a debit or credit card and
Speaker 1: that they had to pay that back. And then second,
Speaker 1: when we talk about student loans, well, why are we
Speaker 1: letting kids take out two hundred thousand dollar art degrees
Speaker 1: and not asking, like making sure they're aware, like is
Speaker 1: this the best return on this investment? Is this profession
Speaker 1: going to be able to pay off this particular or degree.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just a little things like that, making
Speaker 1: sure that you know, one is knowledgeable. And I also
Speaker 1: think that when it comes to personal finance, you know,
Speaker 1: people end up learning the value of it through big
Speaker 1: financial mistakes and then they end up having horrendous credit
Speaker 1: scores as a result of that. And so I think
Speaker 1: again we have to be proactive and make sure that
Speaker 1: when kids are graduating from high school and entering um
Speaker 1: college or a trade school, because I think that in
Speaker 1: college is not for everyone, that they just have a
Speaker 1: really robust understanding of personal finance. And kids want that,
Speaker 1: they want things to be connected to the real world,
Speaker 1: you know, and they start making money, you typically at
Speaker 1: fifteen and sixteen years old, so it's a it's an
Speaker 1: opportunity to really make those connections. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I can't agree more, right, I have I
Speaker 1: have a teenager in high school as well, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, she has her dad is teaches financial literacy
Speaker 1: literacy online, so she's a little bit more advantage than
Speaker 1: most people. But you know, I see what she's learning,
Speaker 1: and I mean, it's just it's just absolutely ridiculous. Um.
Speaker 1: Do you do you remember when the GameStop thing happened?
Speaker 1: Do you remember that first? I made many videos about it?
Speaker 1: Sure right, So like that was a really to me,
Speaker 1: a really unique thing because at that time, two weeks part,
Speaker 1: we had my students and I just covered the stock
Speaker 1: market and then that happened and they were able to
Speaker 1: understand the brilliance of what those kids were doing on Reddit.
Speaker 1: I thought that was such a really iconic a time
Speaker 1: during when that happened. So that's just another example that
Speaker 1: kids are are eager to learn about financial literacy and
Speaker 1: how everything works. Yeah. You know, Um, one thing in
Speaker 1: regards to that, and this is what I see with
Speaker 1: my daughter in high school and her friends in high school,
Speaker 1: is that they all want to trade stocks, on trade
Speaker 1: options on robin Hood, or trade cryptocurrencies. Last month or December,
Speaker 1: we had the record amount of job quits ever, and
Speaker 1: people want to quit their jobs to trade options and
Speaker 1: trade stock and trade cryptocurrency. And I think back to
Speaker 1: a quote by Vladimir Lenin, who's not somebody I necessarily
Speaker 1: want to quote, but he said. He said that the
Speaker 1: best way to destroy a capitalist system was to debouch
Speaker 1: the currency, debase it right, inflate basically through inflation. By
Speaker 1: a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate secretly, and
Speaker 1: I'm unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.
Speaker 1: So that's what he said. So destroy the system by
Speaker 1: deep debasing, by inflating away confiscating um the currency. So
Speaker 1: when the government prints more money, it inflates it, which
Speaker 1: steals the purchasing power from you. And then the last
Speaker 1: part is what I really like here. He said. Um.
Speaker 1: He said that as the inflation proceeds and the real
Speaker 1: value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month,
Speaker 1: all permanent relations between debtors and creditors. To your point, credit,
Speaker 1: which formed the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so disordered
Speaker 1: as to be almost meaningless. Here's the best part. The
Speaker 1: process of wealth getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery. Wow.
Speaker 1: So he said that over a hundred years ago, and
Speaker 1: so by deep asen the currency. Basically, it evolves to
Speaker 1: a point where all order is broken and the best
Speaker 1: way to make money is gambling. So to your point
Speaker 1: with the game stop right now, everybody wants to gamble,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to trade options on robin Hood and uh,
Speaker 1: it is the best way to make money today. But
Speaker 1: that's a problem. And uh maybe with the right education
Speaker 1: we can change that. So anyway, I'm all for it.
Speaker 1: I love I love the idea of increasing the financial literacy.
Speaker 1: It's it's super important and so um and and I'd
Speaker 1: love to see Brad Sherman get out. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining UM again. I'm you're listening to the Mark
Speaker 1: Ma Show. I'm in the studio with Erica Rhode. She
Speaker 1: is running for Congress, the U. S. House of Representatives
Speaker 1: in California at thirty second district. What's the what's the
Speaker 1: website they can check out more there's Erica Rhodes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's Erica with two A so A A R
Speaker 1: I K A for fo R Congress dot com. And
Speaker 1: something that would be very advantageous for us is to
Speaker 1: make sure if you live in the thirty second district,
Speaker 1: which is the West San Fernando Valley, Malibu Palaceades and
Speaker 1: uh Tapana. Make sure you are registered to vote, and
Speaker 1: then the primaries on June seven, and we also have
Speaker 1: now in California mail in ballots, so if you can't
Speaker 1: make it out on that day, please please vote that day.
Speaker 1: It's really important that we win our primary. And if
Speaker 1: you can't, please donate to our campaign. We're going up
Speaker 1: against a two you know, decade incumbent, Brad Sherman, and
Speaker 1: we need every contribution we can to make sure that
Speaker 1: we can you know, win this primary, So every dollar
Speaker 1: absolutely healthy. And you can donate in bitcoin through Lightning Network,
Speaker 1: so we are very excited to have that. That's actually
Speaker 1: better to donate in bitcoin to be host. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Mark for having me, and thank you
Speaker 1: for caring about financial literacy and young people. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. All right, thanks so much. Erka, you're listening
Speaker 1: to the Mark ma Show talking about bitcoin. Thanks for listening.