WEBVTT - Fiat Ruins Everything w/ Jimmy Song 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.760 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Mark Moss Show, 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:05.720 where we're always talking about the decentralized revolution, how the 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.640 world is changing as we look at it through the 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:11.039 lens of politics, finance, and technology. Of course, that technology 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.680 is bitcoin, the decentralized technology that is changing the world. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:16.599 And you know, I like to bring to you some 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:19.960 interesting thought pieces, some latest breaking news, and of course 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:21.840 some interesting guests so you don't have to listen to 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:22.439 me all the time. 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:23.560 And that's what we have today. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.799 I'm bringing in my friend Jimmy Song. He doesn't need 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:28.520 much of an introduction. You probably know who he is. 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:31.680 He's written several books on bitcoin, from how to Program 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.839 on Bitcoin, Thank God for Bitcoin one of my favorites, 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:37.960 and his latest book, which is Fiat Ruins Everything, Our 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.879 financial system is rigged and how Bitcoin fixes it. I'm 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.040 excited to dig in Jimmy. Thanks for joining me today. 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.680 Well, thanks for having me in, Mark. It's always a pleasure. 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:47.880 Yeah, We've lately got to spend quite a bit of 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:49.680 time together. We got to hang out and have dinner 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.040 together in la We got to hang out in Amsterdam together. 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.400 That was pretty fun. So I've enjoyed hanging out with you. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.320 I got a signed copy of your book, but I 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:01.880 haven't really got to read through the whole thing. But 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.520 let's discuss it anyway. First of all, how many books 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:07.040 have you written? 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:07.280 Now? 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.920 This is number five, mark, although three of them have 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.839 been with other people, so like this is my second 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:14.560 solo effort. 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:16.520 Before we dig into that, I do want to just 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.440 ask you about because you actually motivated me. You did 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.080 a book sprint that you documented the process. There was 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.000 like an article written. I think about that, and it 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.720 motivated me to do a book sprint. Alex Sveetski and 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.759 I wrote our book, The Uncommnist Manifesto. In that way, 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.440 I think it was brilliant. It sort of changed the 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:39.720 way that I look at big project work overall, like 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.240 just kind of planning these sprints. Let's just talk about 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.480 that for a second. So what is your process for 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.080 writing a book since now that you seem to almost 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.000 have it, like in this autopilot where you can pump 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:51.760 out five books? 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:56.360 Yeah, so depending on how I, you know, organized the book, 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.520 so like Thank God for a Bitcoin, for example, was 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:05.120 collaboration with seven other people. So it depends on exactly 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.040 who's going to be writing it and sort of the 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.360 bounds around that. But what I found is that you know, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.160 generally you want to begin with the end in line. 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:18.840 So one of the first exercises I do before writing 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.520 a single word is identifying who exactly I'm writing to, 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.680 so you know, if it's a collaborative effort, I have 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:30.880 everyone write down like a very specific portrait of the audience. 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.239 So it might be, you know, thirty year old men 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.800 that want to date more, I don't know, whatever, whatever 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.160 it is that you want to write about, you need 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.200 to have a specific audience member in mind. So for 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.560 this book in particular, the audience member I came up 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.200 with was some you know, sort of young male bitcoinner 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.240 that's been in the space for a little while, but 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.079 you know, it doesn't know sort of like the all 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.520 of the ins and outs of Fiat money and how 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.080 it affect everything. So that that was my target audience. 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:07.880 And then after that I have everyone write sort of 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.840 the Amazon book review that they want to see from 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.560 that audience member after they've read the book, So like, 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.240 just give yourself the benefit of the doubt all the 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.440 you know, the book does exactly what you wanted to do, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.240 and afterwards, what do you want them to write on 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:26.480 the Amazon review, and I have them write it out, 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.639 so we have sort of like a north star and 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.240 a good way to sort of measure whether or not 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:36.320 something will do what you wanted to do, because otherwise, 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:39.080 especially when you're collaborating, a lot of things come down 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.280 to stuff like ego, where a lot of people will 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:46.880 sort of like jockey and you know, want things in 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.400 there just because it's theirs, instead of focusing on the audiences, 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.440 which is what you need to do. And then it's 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.080 a lot of brainstorming on ideas to get them to 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.160 the point where they'll write that review, and then organizing 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:04.240 those ideas to chapters, which then becomes your table off contents, 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.880 and then getting to work on sort of fleshing out 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.680 the ideas that you had before. So yeah, that's more 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.600 or less the entire process I discribe. 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.720 So if you start with you start with the who 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:17.840 the avatar? Who do I want to write to? Who 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:19.479 are they? Where are they at? Sort of a thing, 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.760 and then you write the review, which I think is genius. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:24.920 I've never heard about that from a book writing perspective, 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:27.520 but that's like a typical or not maybe typical, but 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.040 it's something that in personal development, they would say to like, 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.800 write your own obituary, what would people say about you. 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:33.320 At your death? 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:34.840 And then you kind of live your life that way. 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.400 So you're writing, you're saying what would they say about 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:38.640 the book? And then you want to write the book 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.480 that way. But you didn't talk about maybe the journey 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:43.760 that you're trying to take that avatar on. So do 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:45.880 you think about, Okay, here's the avatar, here's who I'm 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:47.920 writing to, and I want to get them from here 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:48.280 to here? 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:49.719 Do you think about that journey? 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:50.320 Yeah? 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.520 Yeah, So first, like you have to get down all 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.400 the ideas right, like you know where there are when 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.680 they begin the book, and you know where you want 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:00.159 them to be at the end of the books. So 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.640 there's a point A and a point B. And what 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.120 what I like to do is write down one idea 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.880 per like post it note, just like what do they 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:12.800 need to know to get there? 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:13.040 Right? 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:15.920 What are the various topics that they're going to need 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.600 to know about or various ideas that you need to 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.320 convey to them, And you just like brainstorm for you know, 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:24.599 thirty minutes to an hour or something like that, and 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.400 just write down every single thing that you can think of, 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.480 and then you stick them on a wall so that 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.840 you have some you know, semblance of organization. And then 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.320 you organize them based on sort of like broad categories 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.839 and so on, ideas that are similar to each other 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.800 and so on. And then once you have these clumps 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.400 and you go ahead and label them and those become 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.039 your chapters. And then once you have the chapters and 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.960 you think about, okay, what makes the most sense to 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:54.240 take them on this journey? This is the journey part 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.840 that you're talking about, where okay, we have these overall 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:00.400 large ideas that you need to take them from A 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:04.920 to B. Okay, what like what's the sequencing that makes 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.719 sense so that they'll be able to get it and 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.760 arrive at the place that that you want them to. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.479 You don't necessarily want to start, for example, with something 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.440 very complicated that's maybe a later chapter, but something that 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.080 gets them in, you know, puts them through that journey 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:23.760 where they can sort of end where you want them 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:24.000 to go. 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.640 Yeah, so you kind of figure out where you're taking 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.560 them after you've sort of done the brain dump and 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.320 put everything there, rather than doing that first. 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.880 Yeah, And because in a sense, the book sort of 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.279 emerges out of the ideas that you need to convey. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.640 And you know, if you if you try to sort 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.680 of like program it too much, and I don't know, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.479 maybe maybe that that sort of thing works much better 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:53.440 in fiction or something like that. But at least for 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.120 you know, the specific goal that you have, you know, 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.719 some some level of thinking about like what what sort 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.839 of journey are they going to take? Does come into play, 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:07.440 you know, during the process, and you can you can 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.280 adjust certain things. So for example, when we were doing 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:13.160 Thank God for Bitcoin, the the journey that we wanted 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.400 them to go on is sort of like the Chrystal 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.400 Christological sort of journey, right, Like there's the corruption that 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:29.320 first happens, and then the the corruption. Uh uh, there's 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:33.520 the corruption, the creation, corruption, and redemption. It's a it's 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.400 a it's the entire redemption arc. That made sense because 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.240 of all the ideas that we wanted to put in there. 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.800 So we wanted to uh inform everyone about like inflation, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.520 the federal reserve and like the immorality of money and 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.480 things like that, and but also like how it corrupts 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.000 all of these things at a societal level, at an 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.720 individual level, even at church level. And then finally bring 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.200 in the redemption element, which is the last two chapters 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.480 about bitcoin, and that arc worked out, and that's sort 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.640 of like a template. I don't know if you've heard 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.320 of like the story with Many Faces or something like that. 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:12.440 There's only like, you know, eleven or twelve arc types 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.160 of stories in the world or something like that, and 0:08:15.280 --> 0:08:17.800 every book can more or less be fit into one 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.640 of those. So you can sort of fit that in 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:26.040 after you've you know, got the material and take readers 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:27.440 sort of on that same journey. 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:28.800 It's interesting. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:30.960 I like that. And do you follow that same approach 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:32.960 whether you're writing on your own or with a group. 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:34.640 Are you still you would do it on your own 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.120 or then you have the group sort of do it 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:37.480 and then you kind of you bring it together. 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.040 Yeah. For the group one, it has to be more structured, 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:43.880 just because you're having to coordinate a lot more people 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.960 and having them do certain things, and they need very 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.520 specific instructions so that you come out having sort of 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.559 like a coherent voice. Individually, it's a little bit looser, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:59.719 and I found myself actually like having trouble with that 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:03.360 art or how to present this material in a coherent way. 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.760 And I, at least for this particular book, I had 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.760 to go change the structure like two or three times 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.280 before I finally found one that I really liked. 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:16.720 And I got to cut you off there, Jimmy, we 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.199 got to take a very short break. If you're just 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:19.960 tune in, you're listening to the Mark Mass Show, I'm 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.640 sitting down with Jimmy Song. He wrote a new book 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.480 called How FIAT Ruins Everything, How our Financial System is rigged, 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:27.880 and how Bitcoin fixes It. We're gonna come back and 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.520 after a very short break and find out exactly how 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:32.880 FIAT ruins everything, what is it ruining, how it's doing that, 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:33.920 and so much more. 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.120 Don't go hey, We'll be right back, all right, Welcome back. 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:38.640 If you're just tune in, you're listening to the Mark 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.400 Mass Show, I'm sitting down with Jimmy Song, and we 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.120 are talking about his brand new book, Fiat Ruins Everything, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.920 How our Financial System is rigged, and how Bitcoin fixes it. 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.600 We were talking about his book writing process. He's written 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.680 five books, and so I just was curious about that 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:53.920 as someone who's written my own book and want to 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:55.240 write more, and maybe this might. 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:55.880 Inspire you as well. 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.439 But Jimmy, let's just dig into that Fiat ruins everything. 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:05.400 It's a pretty big statement. So what is it ruining 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:06.480 and how is it ruining it? 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:11.160 Yeah, so it's ruining things at all different levels of society. 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.760 I would say it at the individual level, it impedes 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.520 our ability to save, and that changes sort of the 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.640 incentives all at the individual level, because we don't have 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.160 very good savings vehicles. So, for example, a lot more 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.200 money goes into stocks and real estate than would in 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.040 a free market, just because people don't want to be 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.560 losing money at a rapid clip as their currency debasis. 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.880 So that that's one small way, but many other ways 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.240 as well. At the next level, up at the company level, 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.960 we have giant corporations instead of I guess more human 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:53.240 sized enterprises. There's something called Dunbar's number where you can't 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.920 really know more than about one hundred and fifty people 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.000 before you know, your brain kind of can't handle it. 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.760 But most organizations are way past that one hundred and 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:10.400 fifty mark, and most organizations are very inefficient as a result. So, 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.840 you know, I explore in the book about why it 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.960 is that we have these very large corporations like City Bank, 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.680 I think is like fifty thousand people or something ridiculous 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.439 that works, like even yeah, IBM's even bigger, it's like 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.120 three hundred thousand or something like that. There's what are 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:30.240 all these people doing? How do they even you know, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.280 keep up with what they're doing and so on. So 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.839 the incentives at the corporate level, you know, especially with 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:42.200 respect to entrepreneurship and inventiveness and stuff, are all skewed 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.040 as a result of the money. And of course, at 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:50.280 the government level, there's all kinds of weird incentives at play, 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.560 mostly around the government being able to print their own moneies, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.840 which is essentially stealth taxation, so they can essentially do 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.800 a lot of things to stay empower a regimes in 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:06.160 the past that not and that's ultimately meant a loss 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.280 of a lot of freedom, a loss of a lot 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.600 of property, and so on. And finally, at the global level, 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:18.679 you have essentially the dollar hegemony, meaning that there's the 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.680 world is dominated by the US and the Federal Reserve, 0:12:21.760 --> 0:12:25.320 and there's a lot of global policy that gets set 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.560 at that level as a result of the power of 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:28.000 the dollar. 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:29.720 So let's break a couple of those down. 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.640 So, first of all, it sounds like maybe the big 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.920 one is that it just sort of changes the incentive structures. 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.280 And you've sort of maybe lined out a bunch of 0:12:39.280 --> 0:12:41.800 the incentive structures that it changes sort of throughout that 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:46.200 whole process. I guess the ability to print money, fee 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.280 at money, create money, then change the incentive structure. So 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.880 you talked about on a personal level, we're not able 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.120 to save. So if we think about just that for itself, 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.160 like we want to work and we want to earn, 0:12:58.280 --> 0:12:59.680 and we want to be able to save so that 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.880 we can then use that for future consumption. But when 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:05.920 we're not able to do that, then that changes our 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:09.240 incentive structure. So what you throughout now we're going into 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.480 stocks or one into real estate, things like that. One 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.600 thing I've thought about in regards to that is that 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:16.920 really the way capitalisms work and a lot of the 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:19.640 wealth has been developed, is that we have specialization and 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.800 so I should become the best brain surgeon, and you 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:26.680 should become the best physicist or whatever. But because we 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.080 can't reliably save now, I can't just be the best 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.440 brain surgeon. Half of my time now has to become 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.800 an investor as well. Potentially we've had this massive brain 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:38.280 drain that we can't even probably calculate. 0:13:38.320 --> 0:13:40.000 But if all of if everybody. 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.200 Could have focused one hundred percent on their core specialization, maybe. 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:44.560 The world would have been better. Maybe the world would 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:46.080 have progressed faster or something like that. 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.240 Yeah, I mean it would be a lot more efficient. 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:51.560 First of all, if you didn't have to work for 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.360 your money twice. I liken it too like a treadmill 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.400 where you have to run to stay in the same place. 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.520 And this is that investment portion that you were taughtalking about. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.560 If you want to save at all, you have to 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.440 play this game, and you you were forced to invest 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.040 more or less gamble in many ways on the markets 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.520 in order to keep your money. And uh, you know, 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.640 for a lot of people, if you think about it, 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.600 at least in the past, under sound money, the wealth 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.040 accumulated to the people that provided the most value to society. 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.560 So if you made a new widget that did something 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:30.600 interesting or help people in some concrete way, then you 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.560 you got a lot of wealth allocated towards you because 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.000 you were able to sell those goods and services to 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.600 people and they would give you money, and that meant 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.960 that you're a pretty productive person in society. Nowadays, a 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.240 lot of people are rent seekers, but even if you 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.880 are very productive and you are able to, you know, 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.840 gather a lot of money as a result of providing 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.120 goods and services, well, you can't put as much energy 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.160 into that anymore. You have to put a lot of 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.400 energy into keeping your money. So we've taken a lot 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.640 of the most productive members of society and you've essentially 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:08.440 made them into investors. And I'm sure you've seen this 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:13.080 mark where you have a lot of venture capitals, for example, 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.000 that are former founders. Right, instead of creating new companies, 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.560 they end up having to invest because they don't want 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.120 to lose the money that they've made, so they're they're 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.200 continuously looking for other opportunities and so on. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:28.720 Wouldn't that be almost like a form of multiplication though, 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.520 So like they could go create one new company, but 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.080 if they become an investor, they could help fifty new 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:34.880 companies launch. 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.240 Well, I mean, I under a sound money, maybe that 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.640 that would work. On their fiat money. Most of the 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.480 money that's being invested ends up being newly printed. And 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:49.000 because there's no direct pain that you feel. So if 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.280 you're an entrepreneur, you go, you go and raise money 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:55.160 from a bunch of ecs. You're essentially spending other people's money, 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.120 and you know there's but it's. 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.720 Money that they had created previously, right, So that's I 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.680 mean all the time based investment, right, Well. 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:06.440 It could be, but it's also oftentimes debt based investment. 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.040 So a lot of the time what happens is, and 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.240 I'm sure you're you're very well aware of how these 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.760 games work. Is you say you have like a ten 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.120 million dollar asset. You have a home somewhere right like 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.280 you have. You have a ten million dollar asset, You 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.160 don't want to liquidate it because you think it's a 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.720 good investment, but you have some other opportunities that you 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.080 want to invest in. What do you do? Well, you 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.200 take out a loan against your house, right, Like you 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.480 have a ten million dollar asset, can easily get five 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.080 million dollars. You take the five million that's created out 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.360 of thin air, and you use that to go invest 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.400 in other other things. This is how FIAT investment has 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.960 been for a very long time, is that the rich 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.960 people can multiply, you know, the the leverage on whatever 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:51.520 wealth they have because they have access to loans. And 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.160 this is the money that often goes into these venture 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.520 funds and so on. I mean, this isn't you know, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.600 savings from their bank account. It's almost always like some 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.720 sort of loan or some r play based on the 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.320 assets that they already have. I mean, once in a while, 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:07.880 yeah you do, you do get cash and things like that, 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.680 but it's almost always loans. And the people that get 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:12.400 the richest are the ones that are able to most 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:17.119 effectively leverage so you know hedge funds and you know 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.479 investment banks and so on. What they do is they 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.920 get fifty sixty, one hundred x on their money through 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.880 the shadow banking system. And of course when they win 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.439 and you know, you get twelve BIPs on a trade, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.800 you know that ends up one hundred xing, so that's 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:34.200 really like ten point two percent or whatever. And they 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:34.520 do that. 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.600 Money is free. Yeah, money, the money is free. 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.879 You get you get all of these bad incentives and 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.720 you get you get entrepreneurs that don't that are focused 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.800 more on getting to sort of like the next level 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:52.080 of a company, largely like being unicorns or whatever, rather 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.600 than actually providing value. Most startups don't make any money. 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:59.880 I mean, Amazon, I think has never paid a divid 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.199 and then thirty years of history, like what does that 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:07.080 say like the entire incentive structure is off because of 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.040 this presence of newly printed money that can always come in. 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:11.680 If you're just tune in your listening to the Mark 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.320 Maus Show, I'm sitting down with Jimmy Song, the author 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.199 of the new book called FIAT Ruins Everything and how 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:17.880 our Financial System is rigged. And we're going to take 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:19.480 a very short break, but after we come back, I 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.360 want to find out how it's actually being rigged against us, 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.080 maybe some things that we can do, and how we 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:24.520 can fix it. 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.360 We're back with more a minute. Don't go away, beer back, 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:27.359 all right, welcome back. 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:28.840 If you just tune in your listening to the Mark 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.080 mass Show, we're talking with Jimmy Song, the author of 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.719 the new book FIAT Ruins Everything and How our Financial 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:36.240 System is rigged. And we were just talking about how 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:41.000 FIAT is ruining everything. It ruins incentive structures, it ruins 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.919 sort of the balance of power when we go into investments, 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.200 we're not on the even playing field. And I guess 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:49.679 that sort of then goes into the next point, Jimmy, 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.760 of your book and the title of how our Financial 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:56.080 System is Rigged, and you talked about how before the break. 0:18:56.080 --> 0:18:58.360 You were just talking about how you know a lot 0:18:58.359 --> 0:18:58.919 of these big. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.119 Vcs et cetera, These big investors are using debt, they 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:06.600 have access to capital that maybe we don't have. And 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.640 so is that what you mean, like how it's rigged? 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:14.280 Or is it because they have heavier influence I guess 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.080 the Cantalon effect they have they're closer to the money supply. 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.600 Or is it that most people just don't understand how 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.840 the financial system worked, and so if they you made 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.359 the point earlier, were forced to play. And so if 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:28.760 you're forced to play a game that you don't understand, 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:30.600 is that what you mean by being rigged? 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.280 Well, I would say it's rigged more in the former 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:38.080 sense of the Cantalan effect. So all money in central 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.040 bank back Fiat monetary system is created through loans. So 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.439 essentially one way to measure how much privilege you have 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.240 in this sort of economy is how much access do 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:52.639