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Speaker 1: What's up, everybody.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to financial Heresy, where we talk about how many

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Speaker 2: works so that you can make more, keep more, and

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Speaker 2: give more. Today, I have a guest that I'm probably

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Speaker 2: the most excited about since this podcast started. We're looking

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Speaker 2: at an inside look of what it looks like to

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Speaker 2: live through hyperinflation. And this is a guest that I've

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Speaker 2: spoken about a few times on my YouTube channel, but

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Speaker 2: I've never had had him on for a direct interview.

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Speaker 1: So very excited.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Luke, thank you so much for joining us today,

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Speaker 2: and let's start off with your story. Where are you

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Speaker 2: and what was it like when you first got there?

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Speaker 3: Sure?

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Speaker 4: Thanks, Joe, really appreciate Manson. Honored to be here on

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Speaker 4: your podcast as well. So living in the Middle East

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Speaker 4: in Lebanon with my family, we've been there for almost

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Speaker 4: three years now and it has been a wild three years.

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Speaker 4: As I know, a lot of parts of the world

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Speaker 4: have been wild with COVID. Lebanon in particular, where we live,

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Speaker 4: has been especially wild because the country has been going

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Speaker 4: through economic crisis in addition to many other things over

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Speaker 4: the last three years. Where As you mentioned, hyperinflation, which

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Speaker 4: has led to a lot of other things that have

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Speaker 4: been going wrong in the.

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Speaker 2: Country, all right, And so you got there fall twenty twenty,

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Speaker 2: Fall twenty twenty, So that was the height of COVID.

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Speaker 1: Oh you moved there.

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Speaker 4: Masts the entire flights Transatlantic flights not fun, especially when

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Speaker 4: your four year old daughter is being lambasted by the

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Speaker 4: flight attendant to keep putting their mass back on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds rough.

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Speaker 2: And so they were experiencing some troubles there in Lebanon

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Speaker 2: before you got there. Yeah, that's kind of when everything

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Speaker 2: really started to accelerate.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So brief history of Lebanon has been kind of

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Speaker 4: a people call it the Paris of the Middle East.

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Speaker 4: Over the last couple of decades, it's been a safe

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Speaker 4: haven for a lot of financial things because they've tried

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Speaker 4: to build their economy, as I understand it, off of

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Speaker 4: people investing money in the banking system in the country,

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Speaker 4: promising exorbitant amounts of interest to try to recruit money

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Speaker 4: to come to this country. And then Lebanese people have

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Speaker 4: been living high living really good job, making good salaries,

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Speaker 4: just really living as princes and princesses off of their salaries.

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Speaker 4: Compared to a lot of other Middle Eastern countries. That

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Speaker 4: were starting to suffer over the last couple of decades. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 4: a lot of it was built on like a Ponzi

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Speaker 4: scheme type thing. Yeah, that eventually started to crumble in

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Speaker 4: about twenty nineteen. Towards the end of it, the revolution started,

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Speaker 4: and that was in October twenty nineteen, and that's when

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Speaker 4: the government was already starting to see that things were

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Speaker 4: not going so well and so started to try to

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Speaker 4: make pivots and things like that, and the people weren't

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Speaker 4: having it, and so they went to the streets and

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Speaker 4: that's when the wheels kind of fell off of the currency.

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Speaker 4: And yeah, history over the last twenty plus years, the

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Speaker 4: Lebanese lira, which is their currency, was pegged to the

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Speaker 4: US dollar. It was pegged at one thousand, five hundred

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Speaker 4: of lira, which was like one bill is like a thousand,

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Speaker 4: so the smallest bill, so one thousand, five hundred and

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Speaker 4: one half of those equaled one US dollar. So that

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Speaker 4: was in October twenty nineteen. It started to shift and

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Speaker 4: slide and so a year later when we arrived, it

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Speaker 4: was at seven thousand, five hundred. The day after we

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Speaker 4: arrived at exchange at seven thousand, five hundred to the dollar,

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Speaker 4: which is a crazy decline to think about it, today

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Speaker 4: it's at ninety three thousand to the dollar.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, that's just in a couple of years.

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Speaker 2: So that's just I mean for people who don't do

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Speaker 2: a lot of or it's the exchanging or a lot

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Speaker 2: of traveling, it's basically like you know, in relative to

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Speaker 2: their money, the dollar hasn't lost much of its value

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Speaker 2: or relative it's like it hasn't lost any So imagine

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Speaker 2: you're buying something and it takes you it used to

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Speaker 2: take you one dollar to get it, now it takes

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Speaker 2: you ninety three.

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Speaker 1: Dollars to get it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, basically, so if you were going to buy a

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Speaker 2: house went from one hundred thousand to nine point three million.

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Speaker 3: There you go. Yep.

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Speaker 4: I was trying to explain it to some kids the

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Speaker 4: other day of like, let's say you could buy a

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Speaker 4: candy bar for a dollar. Now it takes ninety three

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Speaker 4: dollars to buy that same candy bar because your your

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Speaker 4: bank account number hasn't changed. Yeah, it's not like as

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Speaker 4: the currency was sliding, they would keep your bank account

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Speaker 4: number going up and up. No, the bank account of

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Speaker 4: the lira stayed the same. It's just the buying power

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Speaker 4: just was dissolving over those last couple of years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, an old used Toyota Corolla goes from ten thousand

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Speaker 2: dollars to ninety three thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. No, one thousand dollars.

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Speaker 2: More than that, ye, yeah, thousand dollars in ninety three

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, man, so it'd.

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Speaker 2: Be if it was ten thousand, I'd go to nine

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Speaker 2: hundred and thirty thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: So, oh my gosh, that's crazy.

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Speaker 2: It's it's like mind boggling, especially like here in the

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Speaker 2: State or even in like the UK, they've got you know,

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Speaker 2: historically high inflation for you know, for the UK and

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Speaker 2: the US since like the seventies, and but in comparison,

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Speaker 2: it's like our prices in comparison haven't changed. Yeah, And

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Speaker 2: that's what hyperinflation is actually is actually like it's like

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Speaker 2: so there's like basically every day prices are changing, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's stabilized a little bit more these days. Okay,

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Speaker 4: at this you know, crazy terrible amount. Yeah, but there

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Speaker 4: was a stretch there where I was nervous to exchange

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Speaker 4: more than I don't know, fifty dollars at a time

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Speaker 4: because the peaks, you know, the.

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Speaker 3: Shifts were pretty wild.

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Speaker 4: It would kind of go a little bit at a time,

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Speaker 4: but then when a significant event would happen in the country,

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Speaker 4: it would go from fifteen to thirty, or it'd go

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Speaker 4: from thirty to fifty, or it'd go The worst stretch

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Speaker 4: was man six months ago or so, when it went.

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Speaker 3: From fifty to one hundred and forty in a couple.

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Speaker 4: Of days, and then it like reversed back down to

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Speaker 4: about one hundred and hovered around one hundred and slowly

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Speaker 4: been chipping away down in ninety three. But I don't

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Speaker 4: think anyone's under the illusion that's going to go back

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Speaker 4: to one thousand, five hundred any time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Okay, So I want to kind of go

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Speaker 2: through this in a little bit of a chronological order

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Speaker 2: if we can, I know, we'll have to skip around

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Speaker 2: a little bit. But so when you first got there

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Speaker 2: was when things were really starting to kind of unravel.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting to me that you talk about how it

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Speaker 2: prior to what was October twenty nineteen, Yes when okay,

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Speaker 2: so prior to that, people were living like high luxurious lifestyles.

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Speaker 1: Locals.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're buying like I think you said at

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Speaker 2: one point, like driving Mercedes and Girccy handbags and like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: everybody's living a rich lifestyle. And so a year later,

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Speaker 2: everybody's in like poverty and the country's collapsing, but they

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Speaker 2: still have some of these like expensive luxuries, right, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Well, the so I saw a video describing kind of

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Speaker 4: some of the situation. It was like someone on a

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Speaker 4: teacher's salary could buy a house and own two cars

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Speaker 4: in Lebanon, which if you're any teachers listening to this podcast,

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Speaker 4: you know it's probably not the case here in the

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Speaker 4: US on a teacher salary, but eleven on that was

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Speaker 4: kind of like a picture of how people were living

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Speaker 4: back then. Now teachers as recently are making as little

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Speaker 4: as five six hundred dollars a month. I mean that's

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Speaker 4: and that's like people are doing well wow nowadays. And

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Speaker 4: so I think the tragic part about this is that

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Speaker 4: the thing to slowly adjust is the salaries of people.

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Speaker 4: You know, prices are adjusting for commodities, but people's salaries

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Speaker 4: are slow to just if they even adjust at all,

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Speaker 4: People are really slow to Employers have been slow to

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Speaker 4: you know, increase the salaries of their employees. However, the

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Speaker 4: people who are unscathed are those who have been working

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Speaker 4: for companies outside of Lebanon and getting paid in dollars.

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Speaker 4: Those are the people that still and so one of

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Speaker 4: the most confounding things as a foreigner living in Lebanon

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Speaker 4: is watching seeing all the hungry port people on the

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Speaker 4: streets and then also seeing these high, super nice malls

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Speaker 4: that sell things at sell imported goods at twice or

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Speaker 4: three times the price that you could get them here

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Speaker 4: in the States, and people still buy them because people

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Speaker 4: still there are still a rich demographic in Lebanon. Uh

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Speaker 4: And it's just it's mind boggling.

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Speaker 1: To see that that disparity and that gap.

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Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, there's really maybe it'll come back eventually, but

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Speaker 4: there's not really a middle class.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's the haves and have nots.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, that's uh So the people with the south obviously,

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Speaker 2: the ones who are getting paid in dollars, you know,

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Speaker 2: they're not a they're not as much affected, although their

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Speaker 2: lifestyles I'm sure living in Levitton, you know, we'll get

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Speaker 2: into that, like you know how some of the other

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Speaker 2: things change, but I would imagine you can tell me

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Speaker 2: if this is correct or not. I would imagine that

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Speaker 2: the people working for the government have would have the

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Speaker 2: slowest salary adjustments because they're still trying to pretend that

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Speaker 2: the lira is worth the old value before the exchange

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Speaker 2: rate reaches you know, the parallel market, versus people who

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Speaker 2: are surviving solely based off of like they're a solopreneur,

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Speaker 2: like they're just buying and selling things and they're like

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Speaker 2: training goods under the table black market that they'd be

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Speaker 2: able to change their prices immediately as needed.

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Speaker 1: Is that accurate or yeah?

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Speaker 2: Or no?

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Speaker 4: Well, I probably shouldn't get into all who is you know,

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Speaker 4: who is responsible for this crisis and you know, all

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Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. That wouldn't be wise on my

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Speaker 4: part to do that. You can research it yourself if

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Speaker 4: you want different opinions about who's responsible. But certain government

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Speaker 4: employees have been fine and other people are the ones

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Speaker 4: who are suffering lower level riffing government employees and all that. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: and I'd say yes, in a lot of ways, it's

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Speaker 4: the public service people who have been getting the shaft

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Speaker 4: in a lot of ways because they at one point

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Speaker 4: a couple of months ago, there were I think five

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Speaker 4: different official or unofficial exchange rates. Wow, So there was

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Speaker 4: the still locked in one five hundred rate at the bank.

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Speaker 1: As of five months ago that still existed.

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Speaker 4: I don't know if it's exactly five months ago, but

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Speaker 4: it was it was recent like maybe the last year. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And then they had a second rate that was like

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Speaker 4: eight thousand, and they had a third rate that was

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Speaker 4: about twenty thousand, and then there were like two kind.

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Speaker 3: Of parallel market rates as well.

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Speaker 1: Parallel market would mean like kind of.

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Speaker 4: Black market, kind of like a black market, but is

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Speaker 4: it a real or well, it's weird in Lebanon to

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Speaker 4: call it the black market because I actually don't know

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Speaker 4: the legality of it. But you can go into a

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Speaker 4: store without being worried and change this parallel market rate.

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Speaker 4: And so there's like an official, unofficial, official parallel market

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Speaker 4: rate that all of the money exchangers would have around

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Speaker 4: the same rate.

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Speaker 3: So that's why I don't know the legality of it.

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Speaker 4: But it's not just like going to a back alley

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Speaker 4: and trying to exchange money with this random guy.

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Speaker 3: It's very formal.

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Speaker 4: People do it all around that adjusts, but the bank

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Speaker 4: has their own parallel market rate that they do that's

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Speaker 4: about ten thousand less than the unofficial parallel market rate

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Speaker 4: that probably use. And it's just mind boggling because certain

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Speaker 4: taxes are using this rate.

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Speaker 3: If you try to.

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Speaker 4: Pull your Lebanese lira out of the bank, it's going

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Speaker 4: to be a different rate, and if you try to

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Speaker 4: do something else, it's going to be at this rate,

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Speaker 4: and it's just confusing and confounding.

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Speaker 1: And that official rate would benefit.

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Speaker 2: In my mind, it would seem like if money was

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Speaker 2: coming through the official channels, it would have to go

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Speaker 2: through the official rate. So that would be to like

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Speaker 2: maybe be an attempt to try and refill the coffers

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Speaker 2: at the central bank to try and eventually fix.

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Speaker 4: Things well possibly, So my understanding of it is that

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Speaker 4: there were lots of debts taking out out at the

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Speaker 4: official rate, got it, And so if the central bank

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Speaker 4: was to just all of a sudden change the rate

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Speaker 4: from one thousand, five hundred to fifteen thousand, or to

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Speaker 4: forty five thousand or to one hundred thousand, for instance,

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Speaker 4: they'd be owning the loss of those debts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the letter that's screwed in that case exactly.

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Speaker 4: And so they don't want to own the loss because

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Speaker 4: depending on whose perspective you are listening to. It's not

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Speaker 4: their fault, you know, or maybe it is their fault,

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Speaker 4: depends on who you talk to, you listen to and so,

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Speaker 4: but they're not going to own the complete version of that.

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Speaker 4: So again, the sad thing is that the people who

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Speaker 4: are suffering the most are the people whose money is

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Speaker 4: held in the bank that they can't access at the

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Speaker 4: parallel market rate.

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Speaker 3: So they're the ones that are suffering the most.

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Speaker 2: Now it goes beyond that too, or at least it

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Speaker 2: did at one point, because I remember you telling me

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Speaker 2: at one point, people were literally robbing banks in order

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Speaker 2: to you just get their deposit. That so not only

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Speaker 2: can you not get it at the official rate, you

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Speaker 2: couldn't even get it at all up to the amount

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Speaker 2: that you wanted. And so people, you know, it's called Robbie,

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Speaker 2: I guess they're robbing banks, but it's their money.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I like to call my friends that would call

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Speaker 4: it dramatic withdrawals because a lot of these people weren't

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Speaker 4: even actually armed, but they'd go into some of them were,

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Speaker 4: or some of them were like toy guns.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 4: And again, the crazy thing about it is that the

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Speaker 4: bank employees aren't the bad guys in this situation, and

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Speaker 4: so a lot of times many of them would even

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Speaker 4: want to help the depositor out, and so it would

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Speaker 4: be dramatic though because to my knowledge, no one actually

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Speaker 4: got hurt in this process. It would be people who

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Speaker 4: would make a big scene about it. Maybe they would

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Speaker 4: have a gun, maybe they wouldn't have a gun, and

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Speaker 4: would demand their money and pretty much always so unlike

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Speaker 4: I think the way we think about bank robberies here

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Speaker 4: in the US, where it's like someone who's it's the

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Speaker 4: movie bank robbery of the person who's just greedy and

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Speaker 4: just wants to get more money for themselves. These people

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Speaker 4: a lot of times are coming in as you said,

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Speaker 4: it's their own money in the account. They're just trying

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Speaker 4: to pull it out at the previous value, what it

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Speaker 4: used to be valued at. And they want to do

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Speaker 4: it because their dad is in the hospital and has

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Speaker 4: this surgery that needs to happen, but it costs fifteen

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars and the money they have at home is

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Speaker 4: only worth five hundred dollars, and so they but they

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Speaker 4: used to have, Like I know a guy who used

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Speaker 4: to have one hundred thousand dollars saved up and now

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Speaker 4: that one hundred thousand dollars is worth less than ten

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars, and that's buying powers we talked about, you know,

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Speaker 4: And so the people couldn't withdraw their money at the

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Speaker 4: parallel market value. Apologies, this is too confusing, all these

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Speaker 4: different terminologies. They couldn't use the buying power money at

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Speaker 4: that rate, so they'd go in and make a as

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Speaker 4: I call it, dramatic withdrawal to do it. And it

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Speaker 4: was at one point where it was happening multiple times

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Speaker 4: a day. They were kind of organizing this. A group

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Speaker 4: of they called it the Depositors Association, was going around

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Speaker 4: and organizing the four banks at a time all across

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Speaker 4: the country where it was happening at and again, pretty

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Speaker 4: much always it was in a non violent manner. Maybe

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Speaker 4: it was dramatic with some fire or something like that

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Speaker 4: that they're using, but it was just people and usually

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Speaker 4: the bank tellers were sympathetic towards them, and rarely did

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Speaker 4: anyone come away with the entire amount, but a lot

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Speaker 4: of times people actually did get half the amount they

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Speaker 4: requested or a certain amount, And that was one of

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Speaker 4: the really intriguing things about this that was confusing to

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Speaker 4: me again as a foreigner still trying to learn culture, etc.

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Speaker 3: Of the air world.

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Speaker 4: But if you'd want to discourage this from continue to happen,

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Speaker 4: you should probably do something to not let them get

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Speaker 4: their money or whatnot. But then if the leaders did that,

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Speaker 4: they would probably incite an even bigger revolt. And so

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Speaker 4: they're trying to delicately Okay, let's give them some but

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Speaker 4: not all of it. And here we are still happen

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Speaker 4: from time to time.

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Speaker 2: Well, this is all I mean, this is all like

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Speaker 2: really fascinating to me because I spend a lot of

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Speaker 2: time explaining the mechanics of these kind of things like

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Speaker 2: and then also looking from like a historical perspective. So

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Speaker 2: the extreme examples of hyperinflation history are like the Weimar

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Speaker 2: Republican Germany and most recently like Venezuela and Zimbabwe and stuff. Now,

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Speaker 2: or at least at a certain point in the last

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Speaker 2: couple of years, Lebanon was at number one in the

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Speaker 2: world in terms of the inflation. Right, So I spent

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Speaker 2: a lot of times, a lot of time trying to

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Speaker 2: explain the mechanics of how these things happen and what

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Speaker 2: that what are the downstream effects of that? Because it's

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Speaker 2: not just that prices get you know, things get more expensive. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's like the surface level symptom. And there's a million

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Speaker 2: downstream effects of that that that I kind of like

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Speaker 2: to get into here. So can you talk about the

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Speaker 2: like the the the energy situation, Like before, we talked

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Speaker 2: about like gasoline and food and electricity things like that,

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Speaker 2: and you may not think that those are you know,

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Speaker 2: related to the inflation, but when you track them all together,

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Speaker 2: it's like now these are feedback loops that feed in

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Speaker 2: on each other. Yeah, so can you talk about the

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Speaker 2: energy situation?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so think about if you're so.

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Speaker 4: Lebanon has natural beauty tourism is a big industry in Lebanon. However,

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Speaker 4: they don't have a bunch of natural resources that they

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Speaker 4: can access for their own energy. So a lot of

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Speaker 4: times they're bringing in oil to be able to supply

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Speaker 4: energy and gas for their own country. So think of

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Speaker 4: yourself if you're another country and you are formally getting

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Speaker 4: paid in lyrics that was pegged to the dollar, but

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Speaker 4: now all of a sudden you're like, no, I don't

351
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Speaker 4: want lira anymore, I want dollars. And then but these

352
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Speaker 4: companies are like, but we have lira, and it's quickly

353
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Speaker 4: losing value. So the trickle down effect, as you were saying,

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Speaker 4: our first some of their summer of twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 4: we went through an electricity crisis and a gas petrol

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Speaker 4: crisis for vehicles, among other things. And the trickle down

357
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Speaker 4: effect is that the electricity and situation elevenon is pretty

358
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Speaker 4: broken in the sense that they're reliant on a lot

359
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Speaker 4: of private generators for neighborhoods to run. And so listener,

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Speaker 4: imagine with me if you can living in an apartment

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Speaker 4: as we do, but only having fifteen amps at a

362
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Speaker 4: time of electricity, which fifteen amps is like we can

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00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:29,040
Speaker 4: run one big ac and maybe the microwave at the

364
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Speaker 4: same time. A lot of times, if we're trying to

365
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Speaker 4: heat the water, which takes about seven amps at a time,

366
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Speaker 4: we can't just keep our hot water on all the time,

367
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Speaker 4: so we tried in the morning, we'll turn it on

368
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Speaker 4: for about two or three hours, so that takes about

369
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:44,160
Speaker 4: seven am pairs of electricity, and then you'd run your

370
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Speaker 4: washing machine, which at the hot cycle would get up

371
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Speaker 4: to about eight or nine amps as well. I'd have

372
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Speaker 4: to turn the hot water off because it would shut

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Speaker 4: the whole apartment down. And if we run, if we're

374
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Speaker 4: running the big ac in our living room, we can't

375
00:18:56,640 --> 00:18:59,280
Speaker 4: also have the hot water heating at a time. So

376
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Speaker 4: you got to pick and shu which appliances you're using.

377
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Speaker 4: And we're like, we're in the top five percent of

378
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Speaker 4: people in the country. Most of the people are that

379
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Speaker 4: a lot of people are only have about five amps

380
00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:15,600
Speaker 4: at a time, so you can't even have one of

381
00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:18,040
Speaker 4: the most people have fridges that take more than five

382
00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:20,960
Speaker 4: amps at least to kick on. Yeah, because the newer

383
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:23,280
Speaker 4: ones are better, but the older ones are not so much,

384
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Speaker 4: so they don't have a working fridge. They only have

385
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:27,919
Speaker 4: fans and lights and like outlets to charge their phones.

386
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Speaker 4: Is basically what a lot of people in the country

387
00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:31,399
Speaker 4: have actually, and they still have to pay one hundred

388
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,920
Speaker 4: dollars a month for those five amps that aren't even

389
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Speaker 4: on all day, it's only on sixteen.

390
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Speaker 3: Hours a day or so.

391
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Speaker 4: A sidebar back to summer of twenty twenty one, these

392
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Speaker 4: private generators were in that loop of their buying power

393
00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:50,960
Speaker 4: was lessening, so therefore they didn't have enough money to

394
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Speaker 4: buy the buy the oh Man the English word is

395
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Speaker 4: family me. Now by buying the type of guess that

396
00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,879
Speaker 4: is mazoa is what we say in Arabic, but it's diesel. Diesel, Yes,

397
00:20:05,359 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 4: buy the diesel for their generators. So they didn't have

398
00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:09,159
Speaker 4: enough money to buy the diesel for their generator. So

399
00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:11,720
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, the amount of electricity they could

400
00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 4: provide is greatly reduced. So we went a couple of

401
00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:18,080
Speaker 4: months of only having electricity about fifteen hours a day.

402
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:21,840
Speaker 4: So and the craziest part, and a lot of people

403
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:23,920
Speaker 4: still live that way. Now we were able to because

404
00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:25,199
Speaker 4: we have some means. We were able to get some

405
00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:28,200
Speaker 4: systems to help give a couple of amps at least,

406
00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:29,640
Speaker 4: so we can have electricity all day.

407
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Speaker 3: But so you'd have.

408
00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 4: To plan when you charge your devices and hope that

409
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Speaker 4: you weren't caught in the three hours stretched in the

410
00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:39,639
Speaker 4: middle of the afternoon from twelve to three where you

411
00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:43,840
Speaker 4: didn't have electricity. Where oops, I forgot to charge my phone.

412
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Speaker 3: Now it's dead.

413
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:46,880
Speaker 4: I can't do anything about that because I know electricity

414
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:49,120
Speaker 4: again till three o'clock and then it's on for two hours,

415
00:20:49,160 --> 00:20:50,760
Speaker 4: then it's off again for two hours, then it's back

416
00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:54,440
Speaker 4: one And so that was a pretty stressful time for

417
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Speaker 4: all the country.

418
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Speaker 3: People that were going through that kind of thing.

419
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Speaker 4: So that was the electricity crisis, and it took a

420
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,640
Speaker 4: while for them to catch up, and eventually the generator

421
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:05,400
Speaker 4: owners just started to say, pay us in dollars because

422
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Speaker 4: we don't want to get paid in lira anymore because

423
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Speaker 4: of the fluctuation.

424
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Speaker 3: And so then that happens.

425
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Speaker 1: Where do you get the dollars from now?

426
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Speaker 4: Then? Yeah, that's a great question, that's great, and that

427
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:15,879
Speaker 4: was a big that was a big issue back in

428
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:17,480
Speaker 4: the day of how could we get the dollars because

429
00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:21,879
Speaker 4: banks weren't providing dollars. The dollars and still in the

430
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:24,280
Speaker 4: country today, the dollars come from tourists who come.

431
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Speaker 3: I saw most of them, most of them yep.

432
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Speaker 4: So I saw recently that they're projecting a one point

433
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:32,840
Speaker 4: eight million tourists in eleven on this summer, which is

434
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 4: the highest it's been ever since the pre COVID times.

435
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 4: So good for the economy hopefully, because that's their main

436
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 4: source of income and that's where most of their dollars

437
00:21:42,520 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 4: come in. So same thing the private generators were going

438
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 4: through with the gas stations were going through as well,

439
00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:52,439
Speaker 4: and so we had a summer where there were super

440
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 4: long lines at gas stations, and the worst part of

441
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,200
Speaker 4: it for me was one week I spent seventeen hours

442
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:01,400
Speaker 4: waiting in line at I mean, it's like a part

443
00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,719
Speaker 4: time job, right, seventeen hours waiting in gas lines. And

444
00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 4: the most depressing part of it for me was that

445
00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:09,160
Speaker 4: half the time I was waiting because I would Usually

446
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:10,760
Speaker 4: how it would go is I'd get it at four am.

447
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:13,240
Speaker 4: I'd drive to a gas line and I'd park my

448
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:15,680
Speaker 4: car and the gas station wouldn't open till eight am,

449
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,760
Speaker 4: so I'd wait in there. I'd try to sleep some

450
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:20,480
Speaker 4: or if I had a buddy that was also waiting

451
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 4: in gas lines, we'd chat. They maybe serve some Arabic

452
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,439
Speaker 4: tea in the morning for us to drink together, and

453
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:28,880
Speaker 4: we'd wait and we would hope that the gas station

454
00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:31,160
Speaker 4: would open that day. But half the time it didn't

455
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:33,119
Speaker 4: even open because they would announce at eight am that

456
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:36,959
Speaker 4: they didn't have gas. And usually when I got there

457
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 4: at four am, I was car number seventy five to

458
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,399
Speaker 4: one hundred in line at four am, because people started

459
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,359
Speaker 4: parking their car the night before or even the afternoon before,

460
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 4: just waiting and hoping that the gas station would open,

461
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 4: and then they would either leave and just walk away

462
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 4: from it or something like that.

463
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 3: So that happened. That was the worst week of mine.

464
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,240
Speaker 4: Was seventeen hours, but for most of the summer it

465
00:22:57,280 --> 00:22:58,920
Speaker 4: was at least a couple of hours. I was waiting

466
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,720
Speaker 4: in gas lines and it was and they would rarely

467
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 4: fill your whole tank up. They would only give you

468
00:23:04,720 --> 00:23:08,439
Speaker 4: a quarter tank of gas, and that was just it

469
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:10,200
Speaker 4: was just a trickle down effect because they didn't have

470
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:15,480
Speaker 4: the dollars to be able to buy gas from the suppliers,

471
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 4: and so they would only be able to secure a

472
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 4: little bit and then they'd run through whoever was in

473
00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 4: line and lucky enough to get through before they ran out.

474
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 4: And a lot of times if they opened it eight,

475
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:26,919
Speaker 4: they'd run out by noon from by one o'clock and

476
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 4: then you were just out.

477
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:30,720
Speaker 3: Of luck if you were car number two hundred in line.

478
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:33,159
Speaker 4: And that was the most frustrating if you were car

479
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 4: number two hundred and they cut it off at you

480
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 4: were the next car in line and they were like, sorry,

481
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 4: we're out all that time, that was really frustrating. That

482
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:44,200
Speaker 4: happened to me at least once.

483
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 2: Oh man, okay, so there are three economic I don't

484
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:55,880
Speaker 2: maybe I shouldn't say laws, but principles that were woven

485
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 2: throughout what you were just talking about. Yeah, number one

486
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,200
Speaker 2: is scared city versus abundance.

487
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 1: It's like.

488
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 2: The kind of the default state that mankind has to

489
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:11,960
Speaker 2: work our way out of is scarcity and mismanagement. Mismanagement

490
00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 2: returns us from abundance to scarcity.

491
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:17,640
Speaker 1: Like obviously, if we decided to just.

492
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:20,360
Speaker 2: Eat all of our animals this year, all of them,

493
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:22,719
Speaker 2: we wouldn't have any animals left over to make the

494
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 2: next generation of animals and we'd all starve, right, So

495
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 2: mismanagement can take you from abundance just back to scarcity.

496
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 2: And the reason why that popped in my head is

497
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 2: because you were talking about waiting in line, and I

498
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 2: like had this idea of like maybe that does Maybe

499
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:39,399
Speaker 2: this doesn't happen so much anymore, but I remember maybe

500
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 2: like ten years ago, people would like camp outside of

501
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 2: Apple for the iPhone or for yeah new trick lay opening,

502
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 2: or yeah the what's the night before or after Thanksgiving?

503
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 2: Black Friday? People camp out of Best Buy and you know,

504
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 2: waiting for these deals. So people would, you know, for

505
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 2: abundance abundan's sake, would spend time, you know, doing this,

506
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 2: and it's kind of like that same thing, but it's

507
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:07,679
Speaker 2: motivated by you know, trying to you know, not be

508
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 2: in that in scarcity, it's like, ye, can I even

509
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 2: just survive?

510
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: Which is terrifying.

511
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 4: And if I can add to that as well, the

512
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:20,159
Speaker 4: scarcity mindset of can I just survive? Also, it impacts

513
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 4: it impacts your your like freedom of movement as well,

514
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 4: because all of a sudden you're saying, am I going

515
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 4: to be able to get gas?

516
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:28,680
Speaker 3: Next week?

517
00:25:28,760 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: Oh?

518
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 3: Right, therefore can I make this trip to the beach?

519
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 2: And in the end maybe it would have you could have,

520
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 2: but you decided not to. You didn't know because you

521
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 2: didn't know is because you don't have gas next week.

522
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 2: And so it's just another layer of stress that people

523
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 2: to be a living under, or more previously we're living under.

524
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 3: There's plenty of gas in the country.

525
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,679
Speaker 4: Now it's a lot more expensive, sure, because it used

526
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 4: to be subsidized by the government to make it a

527
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 4: lot cheaper. And then obviously they that was part of

528
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,399
Speaker 4: the thing that was losing money in the country and

529
00:25:58,440 --> 00:25:58,639
Speaker 4: all that.

530
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 3: So they've reverted, they've reverted and they've taken the.

531
00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 4: Cap off, and so it's it's the at costs now,

532
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 4: but then the poor people can't really afford it anymore,

533
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:09,840
Speaker 4: and so you have people that don't own cars because

534
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 4: they can't afford gas or the repairs which aren't dollars,

535
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:16,080
Speaker 4: and so they don't own it.

536
00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: Wow.

537
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 2: So okay, So that hits on the second principle then,

538
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 2: which is the short term versus long term thinking. And

539
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,439
Speaker 2: there's This idea was popular popularized by an art an

540
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:35,119
Speaker 2: artist an author named safety and Amus who writes about

541
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 2: bitcoin a lot. But he talks about the short term

542
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 2: versus long term mindset and identifies how when the thinking

543
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 2: is or when the when the money is strong and

544
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 2: when it's sound and the value of the money doesn't change,

545
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 2: that allows people to maximize their long term thinking and

546
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 2: the planning. You don't have to you don't have to

547
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,600
Speaker 2: deal with the uncertainty and the worrying about like you know,

548
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 2: focusing on what the money is going to do. Yeah,

549
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 2: it's just there as the subconscious store of value and

550
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 2: transfer of value. You can go along like planning actual life.

551
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 2: But the worse the money is, then the more you're

552
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 2: focusing attention has to be on that and it displaces

553
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 2: the actual productivity.

554
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 3: Yep, did you have something out onto that?

555
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 4: Just to speak to that man that there's not a

556
00:27:25,560 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 4: lot of long term thinking happening in Lebanon right now.

557
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 3: That the main long.

558
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 4: Term thinking that people are dreaming about. And I ask

559
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 4: people a lot, because I'm a dreamer in myself, I

560
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 4: ask people what are your dreams? What are your hopes?

561
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 4: Almost everybody to a person is going to say to

562
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 4: leave Lebanon, that's their hope. I know lots of people

563
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 4: who once they graduate college, graduate university, they are trying

564
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 4: to get jobs in Europe, trying to get jobs in

565
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 4: the golf so that they can leave and get out

566
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 4: of there, which is really sad because levin On is

567
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 4: such a beautiful country. The people are really wonderful by

568
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 4: and large to get along way a rich history. Yeah,

569
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:06,640
Speaker 4: so many good things about Lebanon.

570
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:08,400
Speaker 3: But everyone wants to leave.

571
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's another downstream effect. Have you heard the

572
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 2: term brain drain?

573
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I'm sure.

574
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 2: That that's like another like a third order effect. It's

575
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:27,199
Speaker 2: like one of the things that would at least maybe

576
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 2: help solve this problem is hard working, smart people working

577
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 2: on it. And it's like you've created conditions that get

578
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 2: rid of precisely the people you need to fix it.

579
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 2: So it's a reinforcing a negative cycle, like a downward spiral.

580
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.

581
00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 2: And the people who don't leave, by and large maybe

582
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 2: the ones who can't, which means they also don't have

583
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: the means to do anything about making the situation it's shatter.

584
00:28:57,400 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are some people that stay because they love

585
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 4: their their country or one of the really challenging things

586
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 4: also that I've witnessed friends of mine who are Lebanese

587
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 4: who are just have to make the heartbreaking decision is

588
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 4: that most of the people who can't leave are the elderly,

589
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 4: are people who you know, they because all their savings

590
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 4: were in the bank and they weren't working for global companies,

591
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 4: they were working for their local companies and their retirement

592
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 4: was banked on you know, what was happening in the

593
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 4: country at the time. And so I see people I'm

594
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 4: thirty five years old. I see people who are in

595
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 4: my same age demographic with young kids, and they're literally

596
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 4: feeling like they have to decide, and I can see

597
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 4: how they feel that way between their kids' future, which

598
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 4: they don't feel like there's a future in Lebanon for

599
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 4: their kids, or caring for their elderly parents, and it

600
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 4: is just a heart wrenching decision that they have to

601
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 4: make because the family is such an important aspect of

602
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 4: the Arab culture of caring for family, living together. Many

603
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 4: of them live in the same maybe even the same building,

604
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 4: where they're all kind of you know, in each other's

605
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 4: lives a lot, and it's just such a rich part

606
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:08,720
Speaker 4: of their culture, and they're forced to decide, do I

607
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 4: stay and care for my elderly parents, continue the tradition

608
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 4: of loving my family and sticking together, or do I

609
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 4: try to give my kids a better future and hope

610
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 4: there's actually there's certain people who have had the means

611
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 4: to do it who maybe either they saw what was

612
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 4: coming or they just wanted to give their kids more opportunities,

613
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 4: so early on in their marriage they went and lived

614
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 4: in Canada or the US or Europe, had babies over

615
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 4: there so that their kids had dual citizenship, and then

616
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 4: move back to Lebanon, always with this kind of get

617
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 4: out of jail free card in their back pockets. And

618
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,239
Speaker 4: a lot of people are using it now once they

619
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 4: get to out of like actually not of university, of

620
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 4: to go to university in Canada, or the US or Europe,

621
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 4: and they do it there because they have dual citizenship.

622
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

623
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 2: The third or I guess now we're on the fourth

624
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:07,320
Speaker 2: principle that you talked about. That that I noticed was

625
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 2: when it's called have you heard of Gresham's law?

626
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 3: I haven't known it.

627
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 1: Bad money drives out good money.

628
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 2: So when like this is I've been identified happening as

629
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 2: early as the Roman Empire, they would, you know, they

630
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 2: would say, hey, there's counterfeitters that are counterfeiting the coins,

631
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 2: so you' all have to turn in your coins. We're

632
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 2: gonna melt it down and make new coins that are

633
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 2: you know, there are going to be one ounce again,

634
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,560
Speaker 2: same as before, and that way it'll stop the counterfeitters.

635
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 2: And then what people noticed was as the new coins

636
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 2: started coming out, yes they were one ounce, but it

637
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 2: wasn't one ounce.

638
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: Of pure silver or pure gold. It was mixed with

639
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: other metals.

640
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 2: So now the government, the king, the empire, the whoever,

641
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 2: had a ton of extra purchasing power because they just

642
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 2: made you know, two million coins out of one million coins.

643
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 2: So anybody who hadn't yet turned in their old coins,

644
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 2: they save them and they hoard them because if you

645
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 2: have to, if you're face between spending the old good

646
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 2: money or the new bad money, you're going to spend

647
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 2: the old bad money, I'm sorry, the new bad money,

648
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 2: and you're going to try and keep and hold on

649
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 2: to the old money that was good. And so every

650
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 2: it's there there's this idea of like, you know, you're

651
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 2: you're going to try and get as much of a

652
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 2: good money as possible and try and get rid of

653
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 2: as much of the bad money as possible. And one

654
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 2: of the ways that pops up that I know as

655
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 2: you talking about, was people who have the ability to

656
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 2: do so moving from lira to dollars.

657
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:43,719
Speaker 1: Whenever the opportunity arose.

658
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 2: It was like, all right, well we're not We're just

659
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 2: we're not going to accept her anymore because nobody wants

660
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 2: to accept it from us, and so if we're going

661
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 2: to survive, we can't accept it from you.

662
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: And so it.

663
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 2: Drives drives people towards only wanting to take the good money,

664
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 2: and eventually its stabilized is with the whole culture of

665
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 2: the whole people starting to use the good money, or

666
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 2: I should say the harder money, the stronger money, and

667
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,280
Speaker 2: and so that That's something I noticed you talking about,

668
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 2: was that there's a there's a move to a harder

669
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 2: currency that starts at the ground level.

670
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 3: That didn't start top down.

671
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 2: That that was that's a ground level movement people starting

672
00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 2: to use dollars more.

673
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 3: Yeah.

674
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 4: Well, here's here's a tragic example of how this impacts

675
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 4: the most marginalized people in the country is that I

676
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 4: didn't realize at the time. You know that that operating

677
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 4: at least even in a mental state in multiple currencies

678
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:39,760
Speaker 4: is kind of like a privileged position to be in

679
00:33:40,160 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 4: to have the global mindset to know multiple currencies, know

680
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 4: the real value of multiple currencies, and so just.

681
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: The math just being able to do that master.

682
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,400
Speaker 3: Exactly and stay on stay on top of it.

683
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 4: So part of my work in the NGO is trying

684
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 4: to train up entrepreneurs and trying to help people start

685
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 4: their own small businesses that will help them thrive in

686
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 4: this unstable to me and so I have the privilege

687
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 4: of coaching this dynamic woman who is a seamstress, a

688
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 4: great person who's thows things. So she lives in a

689
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 4: part of the country though is not in the capital city,

690
00:34:13,120 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 4: and so it's kind of out in more of the

691
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 4: rural parts. And what I didn't realize is that when

692
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 4: she had some money and she was making some money,

693
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:25,439
Speaker 4: I tried to encourage her, hey try to change into

694
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:26,720
Speaker 4: working with dollars.

695
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 3: And this was six nine months ago.

696
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 4: So she took a twenty dollars bill for one of

697
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 4: the things that she was selling address that she'd made,

698
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 4: and when she went to a money exchanger to try

699
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 4: to exchange it back into leris that she could use

700
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 4: it to buy certain things, the money exchangers laughed at her.

701
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 4: And she's from one of the more marginalized communities, and

702
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 4: that's either one of two reasons. Either one, someone gave

703
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 4: her a counterfeit twenty dollars bill, and it never crossed

704
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:57,760
Speaker 4: my mind that maybe she hasn't dealt in US dollars

705
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 4: and wouldn't be able to identify a counter versus a

706
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 4: true twin dollar bill, or she was just discriminated against

707
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,319
Speaker 4: by the money changers who didn't want to serve her

708
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 4: and they didn't have to, like there's no legal recourse

709
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 4: for discrimination in Lebanon against marginalized communities over there, and

710
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 4: so she just her husband counselor at that point. Sadly,

711
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,319
Speaker 4: you know, don't deal with dollars, just stay with lira.

712
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 4: And she did that, and this was right before the

713
00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 4: currency dropped from fifty to one hundred, and so she

714
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 4: lost half the value of the money she had been

715
00:35:32,160 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 4: saving up because she wouldn't switch to dollars. And yet

716
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 4: as I sit here, you know, trying to think of

717
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 4: how to coach her, well, like, I mean, I'm kind

718
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 4: of a little bit Okay, what do I do? Because

719
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 4: is she going to get discriminated against, she going to

720
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 4: get counterfeit money? How do I train her to identify

721
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 4: counterfeit when she's never dealt with this in her entire life?

722
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 4: Someone like you're a me Joe. We could spot a counterfeit,

723
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 4: you know, but because they wouldn't be good counterfeits.

724
00:35:56,719 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: Probably over there.

725
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 4: But how could she learn something like that? So this

726
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 4: is one of the complex complexities of working with marginalized

727
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,360
Speaker 4: communities in Lebanon right now that I wasn't aware of before.

728
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just another just another example of how how

729
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 2: it how it negatively impacts so many people in unexpected

730
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 2: ways that like now you have to think about, hey,

731
00:36:21,680 --> 00:36:24,960
Speaker 2: we've got a big portion of the population that I mean,

732
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,399
Speaker 2: I don't know what the education system is or has

733
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 2: been like there. But but doing that math is not

734
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:33,839
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's not it's not calculus, but it's

735
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 2: not you know, it's it takes focused effort and you

736
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 2: have to have some level of math capabilities. And then yeah,

737
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 2: like you said, identifying counterfeits or things like that, that's

738
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 2: that's crazy.

739
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:46,800
Speaker 1: Okay.

740
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 2: So I would like to move into kind of you've

741
00:36:52,480 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 2: you've made a comment a couple of times that now

742
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 2: it seems like things are starting to stabilize a little bit,

743
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 2: maybe start to move in the right direction, and who

744
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 2: knows how long it'll last or how far it'll go.

745
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: But one of the examples that you gave.

746
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 2: Was when we were talking a few days ago, was

747
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 2: like cards being accepted again, And that's something a lot

748
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 2: of people would never think about. That you couldn't swipe

749
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 2: a credit card to buy stuff, yep. And now that's

750
00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 2: like back, it's like a modern luxury.

751
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

752
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 4: So imagine imagine you know, you're having one hundred dollars

753
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 4: bill here in the US, right, and that's depending on

754
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:35,839
Speaker 4: what your spending power is here. Maybe that's a lot,

755
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:37,680
Speaker 4: maybe it's not a lot. One hundred dollar bill is

756
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 4: still a lot to me, I feel like I can

757
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 4: do a lot one hundred dollar bill, but imagine one

758
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,839
Speaker 4: hundred dollars bill being worth basically having the spending power

759
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 4: of a one dollar bill.

760
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 3: But that's the largest currency that we have in the US.

761
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 4: I think, I don't know if we have any two

762
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:52,800
Speaker 4: hundred dollar bills, or five hundred dollar bills or a

763
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,919
Speaker 4: thousand dollar bills, not to my knowledge, But it looks

764
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 4: like you're thinking, I'm not.

765
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,319
Speaker 3: Sure if we do. I think they're just not in Oh,

766
00:37:59,320 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 3: there's sounds circular.

767
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,839
Speaker 4: They're not yet, Okay, Yeah, anyway, Levinon similarly has one

768
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 4: hundred thousand dollars lira and so, but that's worth basically

769
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 4: the spending power of a one dollar bill. So if

770
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:12,959
Speaker 4: I wanted to go to the grocery store, which has

771
00:38:13,560 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 4: shifted their prices to reflect more what a normal grocery

772
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 4: store bill would be feeding my family of five, I

773
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,360
Speaker 4: might spend one hundred dollars on groceries, you know, for

774
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 4: that week, one hundred and fifty dollars something like that.

775
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 4: So I'd literally need one hundred to one hundred and

776
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 4: fifty of each one hundred thousand dollars bill lira bills,

777
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 4: and so you're standing there at the counter and you're

778
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 4: counting out, okay, one, two, three, four, forty five, forty six,

779
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 4: sixty seven, sixty eight, eighty nine, ninety one, ninety one,

780
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 4: ninety two, you know, and then they are counting as well,

781
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 4: and so there's a line forming behind you, and it's

782
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 4: kind of embarrassing, especially if you didn't bring enough in

783
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 4: your wallet that day, and so price has changed that day,

784
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 4: price has changed that day, or maybe I just forgot

785
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 4: the bigger stack at home. I brought the smaller stack,

786
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,359
Speaker 4: and so I need to take a couple of these

787
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 4: more expensive items off. That was a very stressful part

788
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 4: of life, grocery shopping and doing that kind of thing,

789
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 4: because yeah, we couldn't use our credit card or anything.

790
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 4: So recently Lebanon has been able to accept international credit

791
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 4: cards at certain places, not everywhere, but at certain grocery stores,

792
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:21,439
Speaker 4: at certain kind of international stores and things like that,

793
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:25,600
Speaker 4: they'll accept international credit cards. So that that works for

794
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 4: people like myself, a foreigner Lebanon that.

795
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:30,800
Speaker 1: Has dollars to bring in exactly.

796
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 4: But for the locals who maybe have a Lebanese bank account,

797
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 4: they're still restricted in their spending power and a lot

798
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,239
Speaker 4: of the daily limits the daily limits exactly, and maybe

799
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 4: they have a Lebanese bank account credit card, but a

800
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 4: lot of grocery stores will only accept half the payment

801
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:50,719
Speaker 4: and local credit card and the other half has to

802
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 4: be in cash because of the different exchange rates and

803
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 4: the amount that the bank will release to the people

804
00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 4: every day, and it is just so confusing. So that

805
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 4: has lessened the stress for the haves like myself who

806
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 4: have access to dollars, which is a harder currency, but

807
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:12,240
Speaker 4: still the marginalized suffer the country.

808
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 2: I mean, that's it's a different way of it manifesting,

809
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 2: but it's the same thing that I've studied the appen

810
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 2: in Zimbabwe, Venezuela, by my republic.

811
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 1: In Germany.

812
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 2: It's like, especially in the extremes of hyperinflation, when prices

813
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 2: are changing on a daily or sometimes an hourly basis,

814
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 2: people will go try and get their daily allowance of

815
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:39,600
Speaker 2: cash from the bank, which is way less than they

816
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,360
Speaker 2: have in the bank. They go over to the grocery

817
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 2: store to buy the thing they were going to buy,

818
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 2: which is maybe a loaf of bread. They've got their

819
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 2: wheelbarrow of cash and prices changed right before they got there,

820
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,799
Speaker 2: so it's not enough. But now they've already taken out

821
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 2: their max cash for the day. Tomorrow they can go

822
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: get some more, but prices will be even higher tomorrow

823
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 2: and uh, and so it's a it's a similar, similar thing.

824
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, in today's day and age, we're we're

825
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 2: not releasing.

826
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: Wheelbarrows full of cash.

827
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, but electronically that's what's that's what's happening that like

828
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 2: you know, your ATM limit or your debit card limit

829
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 2: or or something like that.

830
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting, So.

831
00:41:26,760 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 2: This this is a bit probably a big question that

832
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 2: needs to be broken down, but well, how do how

833
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 2: are people surviving? Like I know in other countries it's

834
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,719
Speaker 2: a lot of remittances and things like that, like family members.

835
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 2: So what is the average person doing there to make

836
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,280
Speaker 2: ends meet and survive and not just die of starvation?

837
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 3: Yep, that's a great question.

838
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 4: I asked myself that question a lot because I wonder

839
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 4: also how there's a super large population of marginalized people,

840
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 4: the most poor, that don't have as much access to

841
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 4: remittances and what I say, there's two answers to that question.

842
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 4: Number one, the largest, Uh, the largest How would you

843
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 4: say this so that the highest percentage of the GDP

844
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:12,880
Speaker 4: of Lebanon is remittances. Oh wow, sixty plus percent of

845
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 4: the GDP is remittances each year.

846
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 3: Wow.

847
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 4: And so it is people in South and Latin and

848
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 4: North America, especially some in Europe that are sending cash

849
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 4: back because over the last one hundred years there's been

850
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 4: a lot of people who have left Lebanon and moved

851
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 4: to other places, started families. There are famous people who

852
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 4: have a Lebanes heritage, like Shakira samahayak yep I have

853
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 4: a Lebanese heritage, and I don't know if they're sending

854
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 4: the many back, but they have a Lebanese heritage. And

855
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:46,960
Speaker 4: by and large, Lebanese tend to be successful entrepreneurs when

856
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:48,360
Speaker 4: they move to other places.

857
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 3: The ones that.

858
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 4: Make it over there, there are a lot of successful

859
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 4: My wife, her grandfather was eleven was Lebanes, passed away

860
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 4: and his father was the one that moved to the

861
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 4: United States and started a grocery store that carried on

862
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 4: and was successful and served the community in a great

863
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:13,360
Speaker 4: way for decades. So anyway, lots of people send money

864
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,720
Speaker 4: back to Lebanon. And I'd say that's how the normal

865
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 4: Lebanese person who used to have a pretty good life

866
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 4: now is surviving. I read an article about somebody who was,

867
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 4: you know, used to make x amount of thousands of

868
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 4: dollars each month and now they make just enough to

869
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 4: cover a grocery bill of the month. But they rely

870
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 4: on remittances from their child who's living in Canada to

871
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 4: pay rent and to pay their utilities, and so that's

872
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 4: how they're surviving. And I'd say that's probably the story

873
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 4: of most Lebanese. The second way I answered that is

874
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:52,239
Speaker 4: that the Arab culture is very communal based and rely

875
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 4: on each other to survive. And so I, as someone

876
00:43:56,520 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 4: who grew up in North America, I have tended to

877
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 4: have an individualist mindset. I need to pick myself up

878
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 4: from you know, like if I fall down, and to

879
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,400
Speaker 4: pick myself up and make my own way.

880
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 3: That's not always the case. In the air world.

881
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 4: People are thinking about how can we care for each other,

882
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 4: how can we lean into each other really well? And

883
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 4: I've seen some beautiful examples of that of people who

884
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,320
Speaker 4: are in a really hard situation and then their community

885
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 4: rallies around them to help them out.

886
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 2: Is that mostly like family and extended family or even

887
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 2: bigger than that, like city town.

888
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 3: Yeah.

889
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 4: Well, there's actually a lot of refugees in Lebanon right now,

890
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:29,799
Speaker 4: and so I think refugees take care of each other

891
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 4: as well. People who are in situations that are just

892
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 4: not as Yeah, if they don't have families around them,

893
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 4: they lean on other people who in the same status

894
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:44,399
Speaker 4: as they are, and just doing it in a way

895
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,680
Speaker 4: that is inspiring to me. Yeah, tribal tribal type approach.

896
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:52,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, that makes sense. And again it's

897
00:44:52,160 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 2: like I was I don't know whether there was a

898
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 2: documentary I was watching or something, but it was people

899
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,479
Speaker 2: that were being interviewed in Venezuela same kind of story.

900
00:45:01,480 --> 00:45:04,360
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, the income that I make is

901
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:07,399
Speaker 2: enough for you know, groceries for one week. Yeah, and

902
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 2: you know my son or some family member is you know,

903
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: sending dollars in for the rest.

904
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: One thing I'd like to ask about that though.

905
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:23,800
Speaker 2: About the remittances is specifically in El Salvador, this is

906
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 2: big story over the last couple of years. Their GDPU

907
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 2: is you know, mostly money getting sent in. Because of

908
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 2: the way money transfers, like traditionally across borders. If I

909
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 2: send a dollar, the family member gets maybe twenty five

910
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 2: cents of that and it's like a month later, Oh wow,

911
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 2: because it has to go through so many bureaucracies and

912
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 2: borders and well, what's the Western Union and things like that,

913
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 2: and so people there have started to use bitcoin for

914
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:02,799
Speaker 2: instant transfers and no fees. Have you seen any any

915
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 2: anything like, you know, people using alternative forms of money

916
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 2: like gold or silver or bitcoin for either payments or

917
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 2: storing their savings, or receiving money from outside of the country,

918
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 2: anything like that.

919
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 4: I've heard some stories of that happening, but by and large,

920
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:21,919
Speaker 4: people I interact with are not are not the early

921
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 4: adopters or for a bitcoin I think of the they

922
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 4: call them hatiaras. They're old people, the elderly people in

923
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 4: the country. They're they're not going to be the early adoptors.

924
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 4: It's like our boomers exactly. Yeah, they're not going to

925
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:40,799
Speaker 4: jump on the bitcoin train. And so I think it

926
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:44,919
Speaker 4: is happening at a ground level, but not with most

927
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 4: people that I'm interacting with.

928
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 3: They're not. They're not doing that.

929
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 4: So I think, yeah, probably the Western Union traditional things.

930
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 4: I think it's a higher Western Union takes less than that.

931
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 4: But it's still not the most advantageous. There are better

932
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,720
Speaker 4: ways that probably will win the day eventually in Lebanon,

933
00:47:01,320 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 4: but not there yet. By and large, the younger demographic

934
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 4: i'm thinking probably does use stuff like bitcoin, but so far,

935
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 4: I mean, there's some people who are literally if they're

936
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,399
Speaker 4: crossing land borders from Lebanon to other places, they're using

937
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 4: drivers where they'll give them a wat of cash and

938
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 4: they'll take it across the border to other places that

939
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 4: are suffering as well. And yeah, I don't know if

940
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 4: that's happening as well. And people bringing in money through

941
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 4: flying in people. Sure, especially in a tourism season when

942
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 4: family members are coming to visit their parents and grandparents,

943
00:47:35,960 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 4: they're probably bringing cash with them and leaving it with

944
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 4: their family members. But money transfers definitely is a part

945
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 4: of it as well.

946
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 2: With cards now being accepted, I'm sure that that will

947
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:48,399
Speaker 2: help the situation out.

948
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: If one of the on the.

949
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 2: Ground problems is a shortage of dollars and people selling things,

950
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 2: even like the people who are most in poverty, I

951
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 2: would imagine their jobs are kind of like daily asks

952
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:02,279
Speaker 2: and it's like I'm going to do what I can

953
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:04,919
Speaker 2: or sell what i can uh, in order to try

954
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 2: and earn dollars. The more dollars can come into the country,

955
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 2: that that should help the situation out, hopefully.

956
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:12,720
Speaker 3: Hopefully.

957
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people have a lot of really

958
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 4: smart ideas about how to you know, help the situation

959
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 4: moving forward.

960
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:21,720
Speaker 3: We'll see what happens.

961
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 4: No one knows the twists and turns that are to come,

962
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 4: hopefully for the better.

963
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 2: What about like the I don't, I don't remember the

964
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:31,560
Speaker 2: word that you said, for the for the old people.

965
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, okay, it's like old mantled woman.

966
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 1: Okay, all right?

967
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 2: The was is there a big culture of saving or

968
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 2: storing your wealth in like gold or silver, like in

969
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 2: India and China that's pretty big.

970
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: Like they passed their wealth.

971
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,319
Speaker 2: Down through like jewelry and things like that. Is that

972
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 2: is that over there in Lebanon at all?

973
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:54,399
Speaker 1: Yeah?

974
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 3: I think so?

975
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 4: Okay, if people like my wife she had Arabic link

976
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 4: which tutor who Yeah, gold was her thing and it

977
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 4: was kind of a status like you have gold, jewelry,

978
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 4: you have gold, and that kind of thing. So that

979
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 4: definitely is a part of the culture. Gotcha, I don't

980
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:13,839
Speaker 4: I'm not the most observant person in the world, so

981
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily notice all the gold.

982
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,319
Speaker 1: Jewelry the women are wearing or be locked up to.

983
00:49:19,440 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 4: It could be locked up as well, actually in these days,

984
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 4: probably locked up because of how hard the situation is.

985
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, And then for the last for

986
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:33,600
Speaker 2: the last section, I'd like to hear more about what

987
00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 2: you are doing there, because I know, obviously you know

988
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 2: throughout this conversation you're there trying to help, and so

989
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,399
Speaker 2: what are what are some I don't want to say

990
00:49:45,400 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 2: the biggest needs, it's a I think that's a bad question.

991
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 2: What are some of the addressable needs that.

992
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: You're there doing?

993
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 2: And like the vision you have to see that you

994
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 2: get like you know, achievable type of things that you're

995
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:03,000
Speaker 2: there to do, and then we'll get into how anybody

996
00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 2: else might.

997
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 3: Be able to help to Yeah, thanks, Joe, I appreciate it.

998
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 4: I work with an NGO that's an American NGO, but

999
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 4: it partners through local NGOs on the ground to provide

1000
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 4: help in kind of some business, livelihoods and health and education,

1001
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:24,240
Speaker 4: different opportunities, and so for me in particular, I'm doing

1002
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:30,440
Speaker 4: social entrepreneurship trainings and also sport clinics for youth because

1003
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 4: one of the big problems is that is hopelessness and

1004
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 4: people don't have hope for the future. And unfortunately, and

1005
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 4: when you don't have hope, maybe you turn to things

1006
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 4: that aren't good, whether it's drugs, whether it's you know,

1007
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:48,080
Speaker 4: acts of violence, things like that. And so you using

1008
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 4: sports is something that I have in my background to

1009
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 4: be able to give people opportunities to get their adrenaline going,

1010
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 4: you know, get those endorphins going, give them more, they'll

1011
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 4: have more, as you said before, maybe some more.

1012
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 3: Dream for the future.

1013
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 4: So running sport clinics and then also running these social

1014
00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:08,160
Speaker 4: entrepreneurship trainings where I try to train everybody that even

1015
00:51:08,200 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 4: if you're in the most marginalized position, there's two you

1016
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 4: should have two bottom lines for your business. One is

1017
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 4: to be profitable and one is to how you can

1018
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:18,319
Speaker 4: invest in the community around you and help build up

1019
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 4: the community around you to be a blessing to the

1020
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,319
Speaker 4: people around you. And so anyone that I train, I

1021
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 4: try to help them think because i'd say something that

1022
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:30,360
Speaker 4: you've touched on this already abundance for scarcity.

1023
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 3: I think some of that is a mindset.

1024
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 4: There's obviously harsh realities, but there's also if we approach

1025
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 4: all of life with scarcity mindset, then we're just going

1026
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 4: to be greedy all the time.

1027
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're going to take take, take.

1028
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 4: But if I'm a person of faith, and if I

1029
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 4: try to lean into to my faith and I believe that, okay,

1030
00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,400
Speaker 4: there could be abundance out there. Maybe it's not always

1031
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 4: monetary abundance, but there could be an abundance of joy,

1032
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 4: or an abundance of hope, or abundance of different things.

1033
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 4: So I want the people that I train in entrepreneurship

1034
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 4: to approach their business with that kind of mentality of

1035
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:03,439
Speaker 4: I want to run my business in such a way

1036
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 4: that there's enough for me and there's enough for my community,

1037
00:52:06,080 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 4: and so I can help provide jobs, I can help provide,

1038
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 4: you know, ways to serve the community around me in

1039
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 4: that way. And so that's that's the work that I'm

1040
00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 4: involved in right now. And Lebanon it's very very rewarding.

1041
00:52:18,160 --> 00:52:20,800
Speaker 4: Life can be really hard in Lebanon, although it's a

1042
00:52:20,800 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 4: beautiful country. So anyone Masahaman, we say and Arabic, come welcome.

1043
00:52:25,719 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 4: You're welcome to come check it out. Tourist season is

1044
00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 4: happening right now, it's a beautiful place to come and

1045
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:34,439
Speaker 4: check out. You can go skiing in the morning and

1046
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:36,799
Speaker 4: swimming in the Mediterranean in the afternoon. It's one of

1047
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:41,600
Speaker 4: their claim the touristic things. Yeah, so we're really trying

1048
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:43,839
Speaker 4: to invest in the marginalized communities to work with them,

1049
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,200
Speaker 4: to be able to help them pursue their dreams, help

1050
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 4: them pursue holistic thriving for them.

1051
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:50,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1052
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like what you said about abundance sometimes being

1053
00:52:53,920 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 2: a mindset or maybe even like a choice, because ultimately,

1054
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,080
Speaker 2: when you look at the resources on this earth and

1055
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 2: in the universe, we have like unlimited abundance, Like there's

1056
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 2: unlimited energy, there's unlimited raw resources, right, So the bottleneck

1057
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 2: is like people turning.

1058
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: It into something that's useful.

1059
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in some ways, abundance is you know,

1060
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 2: the you know, a series of choices to take from

1061
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 2: you know what right now looks like scarcity because the

1062
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,840
Speaker 2: bottleneck can turn it into into abundance.

1063
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,120
Speaker 4: So yeah, Well, if you think about a real serious

1064
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 4: problem right now in Lebanon is trauma, because there's trauma

1065
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:39,279
Speaker 4: of people that has gone unaddressed from decades ago when

1066
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:41,239
Speaker 4: there was a civil war, from nineteen seventy five to

1067
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:43,879
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety. There's there's trauma from that, and then even

1068
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:45,720
Speaker 4: more recently, there's trauma from the revolution.

1069
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:46,840
Speaker 3: There's trauma from.

1070
00:53:46,719 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: The cultural trauma, cultural trauma.

1071
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 4: There was a big explosion that happened in twenty twenty,

1072
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 4: and so there's people that literally have trauma from anytime

1073
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 4: there's fireworks going off. You know, there's a big earthquake

1074
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,520
Speaker 4: that just happened a number of months ago, that happened

1075
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:03,360
Speaker 4: up into but I was awakened at two thirty am

1076
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:07,920
Speaker 4: in my apartment to the whole apartment shaking down in Lebanon.

1077
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:10,279
Speaker 4: It was that far reaching and people were traumatized by

1078
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 4: that as well. So anyway, when people have that traumatized mindset,

1079
00:54:16,040 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 4: they often can't prioritize very well. I went through a

1080
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 4: training that talked about people are traumatized and how you

1081
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 4: can help address that, and that was insightful for me

1082
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 4: that these people who from my privileged position, I might

1083
00:54:26,640 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 4: look at them and say, why are you buying cigarettes

1084
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,279
Speaker 4: again when your kids are hungry? Because you know, lots

1085
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 4: of people smoke in Lebanon, But it's because when you're traumatized.

1086
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 4: I mean, one of the factors not the only one,

1087
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 4: of course, but one of the factors is you have

1088
00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 4: trouble prioritizing what are the most important things I should

1089
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 4: do with the little money that I have. So hopefully

1090
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 4: through our trainings, through the entrepreneurship training, through the sport clinics,

1091
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 4: that I'm trying to do holistically, So it's not just

1092
00:54:52,960 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 4: be a better basketball player, but also think of how

1093
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:57,359
Speaker 4: you can be a better person for your community, how

1094
00:54:57,360 --> 00:55:00,720
Speaker 4: you can use so goodness so hope into the people

1095
00:55:00,760 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 4: around you that it can help change that mindset. So

1096
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 4: they're prioritizing with an abundance mindset, how we can be

1097
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:10,480
Speaker 4: building up the people around us. And it's not just

1098
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:12,839
Speaker 4: looking at the facts around you, but it's how can

1099
00:55:12,920 --> 00:55:15,960
Speaker 4: you be an agent of changed for good around you,

1100
00:55:16,040 --> 00:55:17,960
Speaker 4: even if materially you don't have a lot.

1101
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 2: Now, you and I were talking before we started recording.

1102
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 2: There's something specific that your organization is trying to do

1103
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,840
Speaker 2: that will cost like ten thousand dollars a year that

1104
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 2: you're trying to get started.

1105
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:35,719
Speaker 3: What is that. It's a community center. So trying to

1106
00:55:35,719 --> 00:55:36,759
Speaker 3: do a community center.

1107
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:39,799
Speaker 4: Yeah, trying to do a small community center from which

1108
00:55:39,800 --> 00:55:43,040
Speaker 4: we can do the entrepreneurship classes, community health classes, maybe

1109
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 4: some fitness classes, art classes, to do some creative art therapy.

1110
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 2: So some of what you're doing right now plus more.

1111
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:50,960
Speaker 2: You need a center to be able to dig that

1112
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,839
Speaker 2: out of what you're just spread out right now, like.

1113
00:55:53,760 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 4: We're currently we're trying to do it in people's apartments,

1114
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:59,959
Speaker 4: got account coffee shops, things like that, because we haven't

1115
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:01,680
Speaker 4: raise the funds yet and we've been trying to get

1116
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:03,920
Speaker 4: a foot in some of the communities we're trying to

1117
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:06,840
Speaker 4: invest in, but having a center from which we could

1118
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,880
Speaker 4: run these things would give us a much more official

1119
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 4: presence in the community and I think it would be

1120
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 4: better received by the community as well. So, yeah, trying

1121
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 4: to raise somewhere around ten thousand dollars a year to

1122
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 4: be able to get this community center started.

1123
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 1: Gotcha.

1124
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 2: Do we have a link that I can put in

1125
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 2: the show notes, yep for that for anybody who'd like

1126
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:28,200
Speaker 2: to donate to that, Yep.

1127
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 4: To my Social Entrepreneurship Giving fund. People can put money

1128
00:56:32,080 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 4: in there and it can be used towards the community center.

1129
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:37,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, because one of the biggest problems that like I

1130
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:41,160
Speaker 2: think when this was when the explosion happened. I believe

1131
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 2: there's quite a lot of media attention about that that

1132
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 2: I noticed.

1133
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:50,480
Speaker 1: There was a big desire by a lot of people to.

1134
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:56,200
Speaker 2: Send money to help and there's always that like nagging

1135
00:56:56,200 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 2: idea in the back of your mind, like is this

1136
00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 2: a real organization? Did they just pop up just now

1137
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:01,320
Speaker 2: to take advantage of this and they're just going to

1138
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 2: collect the money and run, Like, how do I know

1139
00:57:03,320 --> 00:57:05,960
Speaker 2: this money is going to you know, do something that's

1140
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:09,080
Speaker 2: actually going to be helping people. So I think that's

1141
00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:12,040
Speaker 2: very helpful for anybody who wants to make sure that

1142
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 2: your money is going to doing real things, that it's

1143
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 2: not just it's not going into a dictator's pocket or

1144
00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 2: anything like that. This is helping people start businesses that

1145
00:57:21,440 --> 00:57:23,920
Speaker 2: are going to help them get themselves out of poverty

1146
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 2: and help their communities.

1147
00:57:25,560 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 3: Yep.

1148
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, be honored for you guys to consider any of

1149
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:32,080
Speaker 4: your listeners investing in what we're doing over there.

1150
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, we'll put that link in the show notes,

1151
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 2: and so if any of you guys are interested below

1152
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 2: the episode in the notes, you might not see it.

1153
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:43,440
Speaker 2: You have to click the expand button and it might

1154
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 2: not be hyper linked. You might have to copy and

1155
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 2: paste it into your browser, but it'll be there and

1156
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 2: then you can you can know that your money is

1157
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 2: going to help out people who really need it. So

1158
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 2: thank you so much, very very interesting, fascinating stuff. Sad

1159
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:00,480
Speaker 2: to hear, but there's always hope, and I'm really glad

1160
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:02,800
Speaker 2: there's people like you over there trying to help out

1161
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 2: and bring light to place with a lot of darkness.

1162
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate you, Joe. Thanks for the privilege.