WEBVTT - Will Deflation Crush Markets and Stop Progress | Dr Wolf Von Laer 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.880 Doctor wolf in law. You're an academic somewhat, but you're 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:09.680 an academic that teaches and has studied and learned and 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.120 taught on real world things. So I think there's a disconnect. Right. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:16.880 There's the saying, which I'm sure academics don't like, or 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.200 professors that those who can do those who can't teach. 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:24.279 And what I see a lot of is people in 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:29.560 academia in politics seem to have like no real world grounding. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.040 They have a lot of theory, but like you've never 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.760 balanced a checkbook, you've never ran a business, Like what 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:36.199 do you know? 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:37.800 And you can tell by. 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.000 The policies that they do, right, I mean, have you 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:42.680 seen that? Would you agree with with that for a 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:43.839 lot of a lot of cases? 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:45.200 One hundred percent? 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:45.479 Ok? 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:46.560 Yeah, one hundred percent. 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.800 I And that's the reason why I'm not in academia anymore. 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.080 At some point I made I was getting my PhD. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.840 And I was reading, writing, thinking and teaching, and I 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.480 was asking myself the question like, hmm, do we want 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:01.040 to do the same thing ten years from now? And 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.640 the answer was no, because realistically, as somebody with my 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.600 ideas cl'sicalliberal libertarian ideas, what would realistically happen to me. 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:10.440 Even if I'm very good, like I would end up 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.440 in the middle of nowhere, someone in Utah are teaching 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.039 like one hundred kids that don't give it. Yeah right, yeah, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.160 And so that that is not really something that was 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.040 aspiring to do. And now I'm a CEO of a 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.959 nonprofit where we have impact in over one hundred three countries, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:25.640 ninety staff members we're paying actually twenty of them are 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.240 being paid in bitcoin regularly. And so I have all 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.840 kinds of different business challenges in the organizing events all 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:32.720 across the world. And that's that's so much more interesting 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:34.520 and I have so much more impact than compared to 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.160 it if I were staying in academia. 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.080 Yeah, so you you're an entrepreneur, you're a business owner. 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:40.920 I mean, it's a nonprofit, but it's a business, yes, 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.000 And so now you have to deal with rural challenges 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.680 as you're talking about when you made the jump from 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.040 academia into business, was it sort of like all these 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:51.640 things you had kind of studied and learned, and now 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:53.080 of a sudden you're having to deal with it, and 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:54.920 it it kind of gave you like a new revelation 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:56.880 and you kind of realized. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:57.160 It was different. 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:02.000 Like if if I watch UFC on TV all the time, 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:03.160 I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna go be a fighter, and 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.200 then I jump in the ring, like I'm not prepared 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:06.560 to be in the ring just because I watched a 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.280 bunch of UFC something like that. 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:09.640 I think there's definitely truth to that. 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.360 Academia teaches you a few things, but I think for 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.560 most people it's not necessary to go into that. I've 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:20.080 learned to grind as you're writing a PhD. So you 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:21.880 have to write like every day and probably like over 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:23.640 seventy percent of everything that you're writing is going to 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:26.880 be thrown out. So dealing with frustrations, dealing with motivating 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.840 yourself every single day, that sort of thing is being taught, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.360 but it comes at a high cost, not only financially, 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:35.160 but also the opportunity costs. So I would say most 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:37.040 of the skills that I'm using right now in business 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:40.320 is why I'm in the business that I'm in right now, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.200 because I'm a product of the organization. So Students for 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:46.440 Liberty is empowering volunteers to spread the ideas of liberty 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.000 all across the world while focusing on like giving them 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.320 aunts of leadership skills. So when I got out of 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.560 that program as a young twenty year old, I've raised 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.960 fifty thousand years as a young person. I've started a 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:01.200 whole training program. I probably interviewed like one hundred to 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.800 one hundred and fifty people, and those gave me like 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.720 real world skills that I'm employing right now. But that's 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.440 not the average experience that you have. Like university was 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.320 more to vehicle for my volunteer experience than the vehicle 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:13.880 for the ideas that made. 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:15.600 Me a more effective leader. Does that make sense? 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.840 Yeah, So now you've started this student for liberty. This 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.400 is your works life or your life's work. This is 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:26.600 like your passion. So I was asked this question yesterday 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:28.640 on a panel I was speaking at it that I 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.760 thank God for bitcoin. What is freedom? Then maybe I'll 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.400 ask you what is liberty? And our freedom and liberty 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:37.560 the same. 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.080 Yeah, that's an interesting debate right there. I would say, 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:45.160 just to define libertine freedom and I often use them interchangeably, 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.240 since it's like liberty in the name, I'm using that more. 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.800 I would say it's I would you can define it 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:53.600 like negatively or positively. There's like negative freedom and there's 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:56.920 positive freedom, which I don't think is like liberty at all. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.320 Negative freedom means it's like you are just there's the 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:05.320 absence of violence against you, you are protected, your property 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.280 is protected. So that's like negative lity. 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:08.960 So freedom from. 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:13.120 Exactly freedom from something instead of freedom for something. Because 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:14.960 most of the progressive and even I would say, like 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.320 conservatives would say like, oh no, no, no, you should 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:20.040 have like you can only live like a free life if. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:22.520 You have like health care and education and all of 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.800 these things, and that only enables you to become like 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:25.440 a fully. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:26.880 So you can't be free. 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.440 So they would argue Bernie Sanders would probably argue that 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:32.479 if you're broke, you can't be free because now you 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:33.720 can't go do things that you want. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.680 Correct, And like his ideology goes way deeper. That has 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.680 really permeated the whole society because they're thinking socialist. That 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.480 is generally that people are being exploited by the capitalist 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.279 system because whoever the entrepreneur is on top of it. 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.279 So like your workers right now that are helping us 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.440 setting up this beautiful conversation, right, they're being exploited because 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.719 you're on top and you are abusing them there's like 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.520 surplus value that they're producing, but you're taking money out 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.440 of them. And that comes from the ideas back back 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.240 then with factories and that you have like one person 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:08.000 in charge, and so they think it's innately unfair. Therefore 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.920 you have to redistribute. And there's so many other ideas 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.440 like vocism that fits within that right now that you 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:13.840 say like. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.760 Okay, maybe we need markets. 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.320 However we need to really tame them with like the 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:20.960 wide ideology, and we have to have like mix of 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:23.359 people in there, and it cannot be just like yeah, whomever. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:24.920 There's so much to unpack right there. 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.200 You know, I wrote this book last year, the Uncommunist Manifesto. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:29.880 We kind of broke that down. So there's a lot 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:30.359 to unpack there. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.320 But going back to the freedom thing, So freedom from yep, 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:40.000 so freedom from having my private property taken, freedom of speech, 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:42.359 freedom from being censored of my speech right, so be 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.680 freedom So almost like freedom is like is not a 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.120 it's like an ad adjective or whatever, so it has 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.880 to be freedom from or so, but what about freedom 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:54.320 and liberty? 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.359 The distinction between freedom and liberty, it's an interesting just 0:05:58.480 --> 0:05:59.239 interesting question. 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:02.800 Or just what is liberty? 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:03.000 Then? 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:05.960 Yeah, I would just say, like a state where you 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.120 have these constraints lifted from you, and it's always like gradual, right, 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:13.599 we are not never perfectly free, and it's always like 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.839 a gradual thing because there's always constraints on us, and 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:17.960 some constraints are good and someone's very it makes sense, 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.200 like I mean, some people would say, like it's again 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.680 like the freedom towards something like you should have at 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.919 least like a like a UBI, like a universal basic income, 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.000 because then it's the only way that you can flourish. 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:30.880 No like you need to you need to make like 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.000 a living, You need to produce value in the world 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.200 for others, and that's what the free market system allows 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.640 you to do through and it's just like a beautiful thing. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.760 You have voluntary exchange. You are like let's say we 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.320 do a trade. I give you my coffee, you give 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.880 me like three dollars. I value your three dollars more, 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.200 you value the coffee more. We're doing that exchange and 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:51.800 we both say thank you at the end of the day, 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.040 and if we don't, then no deal exactly exactly. So 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.040 that's that that is really voluntary and it's mutually beneficial 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.920 and most economists especially like leftist. 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.400 Really don't get that anymore. And that's that's sweety. It's 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:05.080 quite something. 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:05.799 Yeah. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.279 So we were talking about the Austrian school of economics, 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.360 which I want to get into with you obviously, Well 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.560 you're you're you're master's. 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:15.480 In it or yeah, I go to Mass's and it, 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:16.480 so you know way more than I do. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.480 I kind of think of ludlove on Misis as kind 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.080 of the father I think maybe you might say Manger, yeah, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:23.760 Minger whatever. 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:25.200 Anyway, and then f. A. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.320 Hyek Is is kind of a big figure for me 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.120 in that. And and he wrote several good books. The 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:32.720 Road to served him, I think as a must read 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.800 for everybody. But he I believe it was. His last 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.480 book was the Constitution of. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:42.920 Liberty Constitution of Society, and he defined it as liberty 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.040 being free of freedom, freedom free of coercion. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:51.720 Mm hm, so coercion being I'm given the illusion of choice, 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:55.640 take the job or lose your job. It's my choice, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.000 but either choice leads me to your ends versus I 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.080 want freedom of coersion, that I can make a choice 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.440 that leaves me to my own ends. That's kind of 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:04.160 how I think about it. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.080 That's a very good way of thinking about it, and 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.280 there's a lot of richness, just like within the Austin 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.720 tradition generally, and like many of the things that also 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:15.240 like witcoiners believe come from that. For instance, like the 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.760 power of spontaneous order. People always use it and are joking. 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:20.400 You can see this that this conference is say're like, oh, 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:21.960 that's like a line forming in front of the bufet 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.840 and people are a spontaneous order. No, it's like much deeper. 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:32.840 It is spontaneously governing institutions that nobody willed by decree, 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.160 but came about by human action, not by human. 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.320 Design, human action, not by human design. 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.920 And that is such a rich insight that Hayek helped proliferate. 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.440 And that means, for instance, not only money, but also 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.520 law and language. Nobody invented the English language, nobody invented 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.559 common law. That just came about through hundreds and hundreds 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.360 and sometimes thousands of years of people interacting with one another. 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.360 And once you understand that, which is like a deeply 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.680 Austrian insight or classical liberal generally, once you understand that, 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.400 that gives you some sort of humility as to what 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:12.960 you can command in society and what politicians can accomplish. However, 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:14.400 that sort of humility. 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.120 I find strangely absence from most ideologies. 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:17.760 That's one of. 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:22.920 Elect the lack of humility Hubris Ubis, I would say, yes, absolutely, 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.040 I would say it's classical liberals. 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.480 And I like that term better than libertarians because that 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.520 term has so many negative connotations to it, and classical 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.040 liberalism has like a little bit more of the weight 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.280 of the history, and like Locke and Adam Smith and 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.960 even like the Salamanca School in Spain, and like many 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.760 other thinkers that contributed to it, versus libertarianism, which is 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:43.959 a very new word which only originated in the nineteen 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.400 sixty s in the United States, and many great thinkers 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.640 behind it, like Rothbart And I'm a fan of thinkers 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.000 like that, But like I'm using that term because it 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.040 conveys like a little bit more of the depth and 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.760 the sophistication of the ideas that gives you really an epistemic, 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:00.800 like how do you look at the world aumidity, Like 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:02.840 you don't know how we all should live here in 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:04.640 this womb, and like what are the best choices for 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.920 a life? Often we don't know from one day to another, 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.600 what's the best choice for our life and then to 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.040 say like, hey, we have like somebody in charge right 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.199 now who's like ancient, who can make decisions for like 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:22.280 thirty million people exactly. That's mind boggling. I mean, there's 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.120 many reasons for that, but it's really astonishing if you 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:24.640 think about it. 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:28.480 Yeah, so you had this Austrian school of economics and 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.600 this is a big question, but let's let's see if 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:33.240 we can if we can go surface on that, just 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.079 to kind of frame up this conversation. So for a 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.000 lot of people probably have never heard of Austrian economics 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.080 we were talking about before we're recording that. I have 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.480 many people that I know that have gotten degrees some 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.920 level of degrees in economics from American universities and have 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:50.280 never even heard of Austrian economics. So you kind of 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.679 said it in a second ago, Austrian economics kind of 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.040 worked on human action. So kind of frame up maybe 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.160 as best as you can in a simple frame of 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.160 what Austrian economics is good. 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:03.760 Let's put a contrast on like mainstream economics right now. 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:09.079 Their methodology how they try to find truth is by 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:15.000 creating models, often very very niche models, and then those 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.679 models make predictions and if those predictions adhere to the 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:20.040 data that they see in the world, then that is 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.600 a good theory. It's completely void of like a deeper 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:29.239 like theoretical framework whereby the Austrians looked at human behavior 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:33.200 and just deduced a network of like really straightforward assumptions 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:36.240 about that human behavior and use that as a framework 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:42.160 to analyze complex interactions within society. It doesn't have to 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:43.760 be just economically, it doesn't have to be just in 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:45.959 the marketplace, but just how human beings behave for one another, 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.120 because you can have all kinds of different forms of 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.840 like non monetary trade. So what does that mean so 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.640 human beings act? That's like one assumption at the beginning. 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.600 What can you all pass out of that? Meaning action 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:01.360 means has to come through time because action needs to 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:02.800 be through time, Like if it's in the past, you 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:03.800 cannot take action in future. 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:05.080 You can't. You can only do planning. 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.040 So you have time, and then like why would we 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.719 take action because there's some sort of uneasiness, Like if 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.560 we were perfectly happy right now, like completely in bliss, 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:15.800 there would be nothing that we need to do. 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.600 However, like you have goals, you want to get more 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:20.040 people to listen to this. 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.280 You want to make more money, more sponsorships, you want 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.520 your wife to be happier, family, all of these goals 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.560 are there, and we need to work towards that. If 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.920 everything was perfect, we didn't need to act. Okay, that 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.600 means there's not like abundance, there's actually scarcity. Right, So 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.120 you have the principles of time, you have scarcity, you 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:36.880 have like human action, and you can go through that 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.680 list and it's just a really beautiful edifice of ideas 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.040 that you can then take and look at the world 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.000 and then the really cool things like the Austin business 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.160 cycle theory comes out of that, which is, for instance, 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.520 the idea, and then we can make it practical. Okay, 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.439 the wall of time. How do we adjudicate the value 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.040 of time? Because something like a coffee right now is 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.400 worth more to you than a coffee to more right. 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.240 And my first coffee this morning was worth more to 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:04.480 me than my second cup of coffee. 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.760 Very good, diminishing marginal returns right there, right, But like 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.320 in terms of time, that means, okay, if you want 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.679 to have a coffee right now, you are willing to 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.800 pay like a quote unquote premium compared to tomorrow. Meaning 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.040 if you lend somebody also money means that you won't 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.440 get more money in return, which then the interest rates 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.319 is allocating that. Right, So if you're the price of 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:31.280 really just time, time, present and future demand of that. 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.200 And so if you have more people that are affluent 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.040 that have produced more value, which means more goods and services, 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.319 more shairs, generable things, that means they can lend out 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.479 more money. That stands for all of these goods and services, 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:44.760 and other people can use these goods and services to 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.160 invest in the economy. And so if you have like 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:49.480 a society imagine like one hundred people and all of 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.040 them are just like gamblers and drinkers and like I 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.600 don't know, just like don't care about anything, they would 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:57.520 not save a lot, meaning you would not have a 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.440 lot of resources to invest, So the interest rate would 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.520 be high. The cost of that of those resources would 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.800 be high. Now, if you have like a prudent society 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.600 of people at saving, then the interestrate would be low. However, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:09.920 now we're living in a society where the interest rates 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:15.320 is determined by people sitting at a central bank, just 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.280 thousands of economists that think that they can set the 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:22.840 right price of what the cost of for future savings 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:26.160 should be right, And that's mind boggling really, and that 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.000 has led to all kinds of differ manipulations. 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:29.400 And that's the last thing I would say here. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.280 If you think about it, if you ask any kind 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.840 of economists, would you know how to set the price 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.720 of milk or the price of X to more? Or 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:40.760 would you be would there be negative consequences if you 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:41.720 set it too low or too high? 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:42.840 They would say yes. 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.800 But like the price that determines the value of money, 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:49.320 that impacts every other price in society, they say, sure, 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:51.400 we have to like say what that is. 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.000 Yeah, there's countless examples of history of price fixing, which 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.080 is kind of one of the last steps that's done 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.040 as an economy is dying, and it always fails. And 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.720 so to your point, we know that empirically, I guess 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.720 you could say, however, when you set the price of money, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:07.360 that's what you're doing, and they don't seem to get 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:09.400 that connection. I want to dig more into that, but 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.720 just for a minute, so you kind of have this. 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:18.600 It's driven off of human action, which seems so normal 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.640 and so rational, and we understand that humans are irrational, 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.240 and I like coffee black, but tomorrow I might want 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:27.040 cream in my coffee. And I don't know why, I 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:32.000 just do right, And so we change if we look 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.320 at the other school thought. And so today I said, 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.120 I have friends that have gone through university and got 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.119 degrees in economics, and they have never heard about Austrian economics. 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.600 And typically it seems like most of the economic channels 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:46.400 that are being out to the air off of Kinsey 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.360 in economics, I don't know if they really call it 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:53.160 that anymore. So what is the prevailing school of economic 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:53.800 thought today? 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:55.800 Sum that up? And then I want to compare those two. 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.120 Yeah, so the most preventing schools of thoughts, and they're 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.520 blending to some extent to one another, like neoclassical economics, 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:03.520 which is for instance, like where Friedman comes from from 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.040 that tradition, and I'm a huge fan of Freedman. I 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.360 just don't agree with his methodology, but he comes to 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.360 similar conclusions with different means. And then there's of course 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.720 like Kne's in economics, and this is an interesting insight 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:19.320 toout history. Like Kanes and hyek Hiak of course. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:20.880 Being somebody that represented to the. 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.000 Austrian school, they were actually friend as times, and they 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.040 were talking quite a lot, and Haya gave interviews about 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:31.200 this and basically said, like, yeah, Kines has no knowledge 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.800 about economics because he just came up with like a 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.480 bunch of new theories. He was very creative, and he 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.240 was just like looking at his one teacher, he never 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.240 went through like history, and he didn't like know the 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.200 economic thinking even like sort of. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.680 Like they've never gone down to the first principles which 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:49.760 allows you to then formulate your own ideas off of that, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:51.480 and so he kind of grasped on maybe at a 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.000 higher level and started kind of being creatible without really 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:56.920 understanding the base layer of it absolutely. 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.000 And that was also what really upset Hyek because high 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.240 before the general Theory that Kines wrote, which was like 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.040 the book that made him like really popular and he 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.880 spoke everywhere and so forth, before that book, he wrote 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.159 like a different book. And Haiak went out and attacked 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.440 that book and took it apart, and then like a 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.800 few weeks later, Kane said, like, I'm changing, I'm changing 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:17.160 my minds. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:18.440 That's not what I believe in anymore. 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:20.879 And so one of the highest biggest regrets was that 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.800 he didn't attack that book later on the next one. 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:25.160 Yeah, the general theory. 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.119 Which then had like this huge impact, and he really 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:28.840 regretted that for the rest of his life that he 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:30.280 didn't do that because he thought like, oh, this guy 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.320 would just change his mind again. That shows you that 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.640 there was not like a really solid foundation there. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:36.800 Of course, a lot. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.080 Of people have derived theories from that, which is a 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.440 very we talked about the humility aspect. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:42.520 It's the opposite of it. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.760 It's a very engineering view of society, just like as 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:48.560 a system of cox and levers that you can just 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:49.919 like pull and twist. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.040 So that's what I wanted to ask you about that, 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:57.159 that specific piece the cogs. Yes, so it almost I've 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:01.720 been kind of working on this theory. I did a 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:03.880 podcast with the Breed Love a couple of days ago 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:05.760 and we titled it or. I was talking about the 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:13.840 crisis and confidence and basically how we have these authority figures, doctors, economists, politicians, 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:16.040 but we're starting to see that there's massive gaps in 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.960 their knowledge and so we're losing confidence in them. And 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:22.280