1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,840
Welcome to the Free Cities podcast.

2
00:00:13,620 --> 00:00:19,020
My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation.

3
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:37,660
Hello and welcome to this episode number 141 of the Free Cities podcast brought to you by

4
00:00:37,660 --> 00:00:43,680
Veritas Villages. That's right, more on that later. Did you notice there's an S after the village?

5
00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:49,980
I used to say Veritas Village all the time. Not anymore. Anyway, before we go on to that,

6
00:00:49,980 --> 00:00:57,660
another announcement. Did you know it's now just 90 days to go until the Free Cities Conference

7
00:00:57,660 --> 00:01:04,740
since 2025. You know what, this year we're heading back to one of our all-time favourite cities,

8
00:01:04,860 --> 00:01:10,560
that's right, Prague. And if you've never been before, well let's just say I think you're missing

9
00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:15,440
out. And I'm not even talking about the conference here, I'm talking about Prague. Prague's an

10
00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:21,540
incredible place. It's not just where we host our conference, but it's a city packed with incredible

11
00:01:21,540 --> 00:01:29,120
history and architecture and what i would call a vibe that perfectly matches the spirit and the

12
00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:35,040
freedom of what the free cities foundation is all about prague's actually home to some quite

13
00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:41,800
incredible landmarks you may not know this but it houses the world's oldest continuously operating

14
00:01:41,800 --> 00:01:47,620
astronomical clock it has some of europe's most iconic examples of gothic architecture

15
00:01:47,620 --> 00:02:00,940
One of my favorites is St. Vitus Cathedral, but they also have some more modern sites that I'm sure listeners to this podcast will appreciate, such as Parallelnypolis.

16
00:02:01,380 --> 00:02:08,900
If you look back in the archive of this show, you will see interviews with a couple of the founders of Parallelnypolis.

17
00:02:08,900 --> 00:02:13,260
It was the first Bitcoin-only cafe in the world, as far as I know.

18
00:02:13,260 --> 00:02:20,460
they started selling coffee for bitcoin back in 2014 can you believe it and if you were one of

19
00:02:20,460 --> 00:02:26,880
those people that bought coffee at parallel nipolis back in 2014 well thanks to the beauty

20
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:35,680
of ai i just worked out how much that coffee cost you take a guess i used a bitcoin price of 600

21
00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:44,300
per bitcoin it fluctuated between 300 and a thousand and a coffee price of two euros 50

22
00:02:44,300 --> 00:02:52,280
that's right folks you paid 650 for each of your coffees back in 2014 if you paid with bitcoin

23
00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:57,560
i hope they were tasty in fact i know they were tasty i've had coffee at paralelipolis

24
00:02:57,560 --> 00:03:04,560
it's great coffee anyway there's also some notable sites in prague tied to the country's darker

25
00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:13,220
chapters like the Prague metronome built on the site of a towering Stalin statue that stood until

26
00:03:13,220 --> 00:03:22,660
the 1960s and something that I would recommend everyone see the Museum of Communism that's right

27
00:03:22,660 --> 00:03:28,300
folks sounds terrible but actually offers a sobering yet highly insightful look into the

28
00:03:28,300 --> 00:03:36,040
country's totalitarian past. Now if that's not enough to entice you to come to Prague

29
00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:41,780
for our conference, what about the food? The food's phenomenal and very reasonably priced.

30
00:03:42,300 --> 00:03:48,720
At our welcome drinks for example, we'll meet at Fuse Bar. You'll get a sample of some of Prague's

31
00:03:48,720 --> 00:03:56,120
heartiest and most warming Central European dishes, including beef beer goulash with dumplings,

32
00:03:56,120 --> 00:04:02,200
fried hermeline, that's Czech cheese, with cranberry sauce and the national classic

33
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:09,660
Zvičova, marinated beef sirloin in a creamy root vegetable sauce. You're definitely thinking

34
00:04:09,660 --> 00:04:15,080
about coming now, aren't you? Of course, the real reason to come is the conference itself,

35
00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:21,400
where you'll hear about brand new Free Cities projects this year coming in from Latin America,

36
00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:28,500
Southeast Europe and West Africa, some of which are being announced publicly for the first time

37
00:04:28,500 --> 00:04:33,540
at our conference. People do seem to wait for our Prague gathering to announce things.

38
00:04:33,960 --> 00:04:39,060
If you've been watching from the sidelines for the past few years, why don't you make this year

39
00:04:39,060 --> 00:04:45,540
the year that you finally make the leap and join the movement in person. We've secured special

40
00:04:45,540 --> 00:04:51,940
deals at three fantastic hotels all within walking distance of the venue but be quick

41
00:04:51,940 --> 00:04:58,280
Prague gets very busy in October and the rooms won't last check the show notes for our Prague

42
00:04:58,280 --> 00:05:06,660
guide and conference tickets of course and we'll see you there free cities conference.com that's

43
00:05:06,660 --> 00:05:17,240
free citiesconference.com quick update also on our fantastic sponsor Veritas Villages they will

44
00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:23,500
be at the conference this year and also note that I no longer say Veritas Village I say Veritas

45
00:05:23,500 --> 00:05:30,080
Villages that's because they have a number of projects on the go right now here are the top ones

46
00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:36,920
in panama veritas village coronado the one i normally talk about prime location 10 minutes

47
00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:43,240
from coronado town and the pacific beaches ideal elevation for year-round gardening another one in

48
00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:50,740
panama veritas village chirokee just launched june 2025 near volcan and boquette solar powered

49
00:05:50,740 --> 00:05:58,040
community with riverfront home sites then in nicaragua you have playa pacifica beachfront

50
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:04,960
living with community amenities and lifestyle. This is also the closest beach community to the

51
00:06:04,960 --> 00:06:12,400
international airport. And this one's hot off the presses. Veritas Village Atenas. That's in Costa

52
00:06:12,400 --> 00:06:19,800
Rica. This is a brand new land acquisition in beautiful Atenas known as one of the best

53
00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:26,000
climates in the world. If you're interested in any of these projects, Patrick, the founder of

54
00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:33,900
Veritas Villages publishes his own podcast called Freedom Lovers Life and I was on it this week.

55
00:06:34,840 --> 00:06:39,920
Check out the link in the show notes. We talk a lot about the current state of the UK

56
00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:47,080
and why so many people are choosing to up sticks and move. Did you know the UK government just

57
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:53,360
introduced an online safety bill? You know something's not right when the government

58
00:06:53,360 --> 00:07:00,640
starts using the word safety. I looked it up. It's horrendous. The stated reason for the UK's

59
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:07,680
online safety bill is to, quote, make the UK the safest place in the world to be online,

60
00:07:08,220 --> 00:07:15,140
especially for children. Look, if you want my two sets, if your children need safety from porn,

61
00:07:15,940 --> 00:07:20,920
that's obviously your responsibility. They're parents. Nothing to do with the government.

62
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:27,740
you just bring up thoughtful critically thinking internet savvy kids who can work this stuff out

63
00:07:27,740 --> 00:07:34,260
for themselves you basically play a massive part in their lives you don't palm them off to faceless

64
00:07:34,260 --> 00:07:41,900
bureaucrats who don't give a excuse my language shit about you kids these days well they'll sure

65
00:07:41,900 --> 00:07:48,300
as hell know how to circumnavigate these things anyway if they really want to and if they're too

66
00:07:48,300 --> 00:07:54,020
young to understand, you just protect them yourself. It's very easy. You tell them not to

67
00:07:54,020 --> 00:08:01,900
go on these sites. Rant over. It's just so tiresome sometimes. Right, today's show, well,

68
00:08:02,440 --> 00:08:08,460
it's about protecting yourself in a way. Protecting yourself from the ravages of

69
00:08:08,460 --> 00:08:15,520
reckless government spending and the destructive force of inflation. I'm speaking with Jason

70
00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:24,520
Cousins. He's the CEO of Glint, which is a company that allows its clients to spend their own gold

71
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:32,460
over electronic payment rails. In other words, you can use gold as money. See, I do get gold

72
00:08:32,460 --> 00:08:39,320
bugs on the show. Anyway, we discuss gold as a store of value, medium of exchange,

73
00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:46,180
fiat currency and government control constitutional gold currency in the u.s monetary choice

74
00:08:46,180 --> 00:08:53,580
the role of government comparison of gold and bitcoin and economic equality and the solutions

75
00:08:53,580 --> 00:09:00,300
this one is for you if like me you're very disillusioned with what you see around you

76
00:09:00,300 --> 00:09:08,240
and are somewhat struggling to comprehend the rising costs of what i would call a very simple

77
00:09:08,240 --> 00:09:15,920
way of life. Anyway, Jason's offering a solution that we seldom hear about and reveals some highly

78
00:09:15,920 --> 00:09:31,721
important developments happening right now in the US that might pave way for the resurgence in the use of gold as money Obviously gold has been money for a very long time and is money it just some people don

79
00:09:31,721 --> 00:09:40,201
understand that or know it. By the way, the Wizard of Oz gold analogy that Jason mentions in this

80
00:09:40,201 --> 00:09:46,921
discussion, I'd never heard that one before, I checked it out, it's legit. The Wizard of Oz

81
00:09:46,921 --> 00:09:53,941
is often interpreted as an allegory for late 19th century American politics,

82
00:09:54,541 --> 00:10:00,361
particularly relating to monetary policy and the gold standard. This interpretation was

83
00:10:00,361 --> 00:10:09,421
popularized by economist Henry Littlefield in the 1960s. Just so you know, Yellow Brick Road was the

84
00:10:09,421 --> 00:10:15,381
gold standard. The silver shoes, which they were in the book, they became red shoes in the film

85
00:10:15,381 --> 00:10:21,961
because they had colour, they're free silver. Dorothy is the American people. The Emerald City

86
00:10:21,961 --> 00:10:30,981
is fiat money or Washington DC. The wizard is the president or a political leader. The scarecrow,

87
00:10:31,461 --> 00:10:38,601
American farmers, the tin man, industrial workers and the cowardly lion is, well, he's a guy called

88
00:10:38,601 --> 00:10:45,161
William Jennings Bryan who was a populist leader but I think it represents any cowardly politician

89
00:10:45,161 --> 00:10:47,001
who really doesn't stand for much.

90
00:10:47,181 --> 00:10:48,121
Well, how about that anyway?

91
00:10:49,001 --> 00:10:51,761
See, you learn a new thing every day.

92
00:10:51,881 --> 00:10:54,441
Right, I've been speaking for too long.

93
00:10:54,601 --> 00:10:56,281
I can feel my voice going actually.

94
00:10:56,781 --> 00:10:58,401
Time for the Alpha, grab a chair.

95
00:10:59,401 --> 00:11:01,321
And this week, why don't you lock yourself away

96
00:11:01,321 --> 00:11:04,181
in that secret vault you have under the house?

97
00:11:04,181 --> 00:11:05,701
You know, the one full of gold bars?

98
00:11:06,601 --> 00:11:08,261
And while you're down there, join me

99
00:11:08,261 --> 00:11:10,121
for the next couple of hours

100
00:11:10,121 --> 00:11:12,861
as we both sit back, relax

101
00:11:12,861 --> 00:11:17,821
and enjoy my conversation with Jason Cousins.

102
00:11:32,881 --> 00:11:36,401
I watched the whole film industry change over a period.

103
00:11:36,541 --> 00:11:37,901
I started when it was pretty analog.

104
00:11:37,901 --> 00:11:45,581
yeah and by the time i finished um everything even drone technology you know historically we

105
00:11:45,581 --> 00:11:51,841
used to use something called a like basically you had to employ an op a guy to fly a helicopter

106
00:11:51,841 --> 00:11:55,321
with a camera on the front of it and there was only a few of them around the world we used to

107
00:11:55,321 --> 00:11:59,641
use a guy in south africa you had to fly him in you had to fly his special camera in that he

108
00:11:59,641 --> 00:12:05,461
attached the thing you know and all those kind of things have suddenly you can make a kick-ass film

109
00:12:05,461 --> 00:12:13,781
with hardly any money and hardly any equipment and podcasting is the same now i i basically an ai

110
00:12:13,781 --> 00:12:20,381
does 50 of it now and it won't be long before i can instruct it to do everything except the

111
00:12:20,381 --> 00:12:25,801
conversation which is what you want yes that's the best part but even then i think there's someone's

112
00:12:25,801 --> 00:12:32,221
a google or facebook or someone's brought out a podcast um tool where they just you'd give it the

113
00:12:32,221 --> 00:12:36,941
subject and it creates two people and they end up talking to each other well you can you can do that

114
00:12:36,941 --> 00:12:42,881
and actually i've done it a couple of times out of fun but once again i think that's one of those

115
00:12:42,881 --> 00:12:48,621
things that ai has a moment sorry can you pass me that again let's get that out about that yeah um

116
00:12:48,621 --> 00:12:55,981
everyone looks at that and goes oh that's fun it's created a podcast but then you don't now no one

117
00:12:55,981 --> 00:13:01,541
wants to listen to that podcast because they know it's an ai generated one and i think we talk about

118
00:13:01,541 --> 00:13:05,461
this a lot on this podcast yeah you know what are the jobs of the future going to be who's

119
00:13:05,461 --> 00:13:11,261
safeguarded what you know and and it appears that as long as you can put a premium on being a human

120
00:13:11,261 --> 00:13:18,321
being yeah in some shape or form you're okay and in podcasting hopefully people won't want to listen

121
00:13:18,321 --> 00:13:23,341
to you and me in ai form talking i'm not sure they'll know otherwise though that's the thing

122
00:13:23,341 --> 00:13:29,001
i know but we'll be able to you will be able to prove authenticity with you'd have cryptography

123
00:13:29,001 --> 00:13:33,281
I mean, I think what could really, a great thing to happen.

124
00:13:33,421 --> 00:13:37,241
I mean, if you read, for instance, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

125
00:13:37,341 --> 00:13:37,581
Yes.

126
00:13:37,981 --> 00:13:44,201
You know, the guy who plays the guitar or something is paid as much as everybody else, if not more,

127
00:13:44,281 --> 00:13:48,221
because this is when they get to Eden, you know, when they get to Galt's Gulch.

128
00:13:48,281 --> 00:13:48,401
Yeah.

129
00:13:48,521 --> 00:13:50,821
And if I remember rightly anyway.

130
00:13:51,321 --> 00:13:58,041
And, of course, that should be the way the world is maybe.

131
00:13:58,041 --> 00:14:04,801
And I think maybe what this AI does is, as you said, where you really value human interaction.

132
00:14:05,141 --> 00:14:07,941
That could be a waiter who's looking after you.

133
00:14:08,001 --> 00:14:08,361
Barista.

134
00:14:08,441 --> 00:14:11,821
Or a cook, a barista, a musician, an artist.

135
00:14:12,481 --> 00:14:20,081
And then the people who really don't add that much value, like bankers, people in finance.

136
00:14:20,081 --> 00:14:20,981
A lot of bankers listen to this podcast.

137
00:14:21,581 --> 00:14:27,681
And it's like, well, actually, if the AI can do a lot of that work, then actually it's the wage disparity.

138
00:14:27,681 --> 00:14:32,341
is the problem a banker does a great job you know fine serve a useful purpose in society but

139
00:14:32,341 --> 00:14:37,281
it's the wage disparity the fact that you know the cantaloupe effect and all that and how people move

140
00:14:37,281 --> 00:14:43,321
how those close to money supply benefit disproportionately from everybody else

141
00:14:43,321 --> 00:14:48,241
and i think that's the potential leveling field for me which i i kind of look forward to do you

142
00:14:48,241 --> 00:14:53,081
know what though that already started happening before ai even was a thing if you think about

143
00:14:53,081 --> 00:14:59,481
trades people and i remember like i used to work in london i used to work for the independent in

144
00:14:59,481 --> 00:15:04,041
london the newspaper i don't even remember it yes right i was a job in photographer at the

145
00:15:04,041 --> 00:15:09,341
independent when i started out and i was on about i think i was on about 295 a day or something which

146
00:15:09,341 --> 00:15:13,321
for me was just like phenomenal every day i couldn't believe it you know someone was paying

147
00:15:13,321 --> 00:15:21,741
me to go and take photos but my if i am if i employed a sparky he was probably about 110 125

148
00:15:21,741 --> 00:15:30,401
maybe yeah or maybe a hundred back then the sparky is now 300 a day at least and the job i used to

149
00:15:30,401 --> 00:15:35,281
have which doesn't exist anymore obviously um but there are still people that do that kind of job

150
00:15:35,281 --> 00:15:43,261
i think they're they're paid probably 200 or less so you know obviously i suppose ai in a way did

151
00:15:43,261 --> 00:15:48,921
get rid of my job it was more like the internet and technology in itself but certainly you know

152
00:15:48,921 --> 00:15:52,041
I know a lot of people now who are advising their children to,

153
00:15:52,541 --> 00:15:52,821
you know,

154
00:15:52,821 --> 00:15:54,861
think long and hard about what they want to do in life.

155
00:15:54,861 --> 00:15:55,941
And at the end of the day,

156
00:15:56,001 --> 00:15:57,361
nothing wrong with being a trades person.

157
00:15:57,561 --> 00:15:57,721
You know,

158
00:15:57,761 --> 00:15:58,241
it used to be,

159
00:15:58,341 --> 00:15:59,421
everyone should be white collar.

160
00:15:59,521 --> 00:16:00,041
Now it's like,

161
00:16:00,441 --> 00:16:00,801
do you know what?

162
00:16:00,841 --> 00:16:03,001
The blue collar people are sitting pretty.

163
00:16:03,101 --> 00:16:04,161
They've all got nice houses.

164
00:16:04,161 --> 00:16:07,441
They're driving around in big cars and they've got a lot of workflow.

165
00:16:07,561 --> 00:16:08,001
They're turning,

166
00:16:08,201 --> 00:16:08,921
turning work down,

167
00:16:09,041 --> 00:16:09,161
you know?

168
00:16:09,201 --> 00:16:09,321
Yeah,

169
00:16:09,361 --> 00:16:09,741
for sure.

170
00:16:10,161 --> 00:16:11,041
So I don't know.

171
00:16:11,201 --> 00:16:11,661
I don't know.

172
00:16:11,721 --> 00:16:11,941
My,

173
00:16:13,421 --> 00:16:18,321
I hope podcasting is safe because it's a massive human element to it.

174
00:16:18,321 --> 00:16:23,521
your business is probably safe if you think about it i mean you could streamline it i suppose can

175
00:16:23,521 --> 00:16:28,061
you well i think yeah i mean i think that glint could be one of the first fintechs that gets to

176
00:16:28,061 --> 00:16:33,781
scale to millions of users and still only has 35 people working in it um in other words the

177
00:16:33,781 --> 00:16:37,881
efficiencies around the business are there but at the end of the day there's still logistics

178
00:16:37,881 --> 00:16:42,781
there's still physical metal that needs to be moved from one cage to another the back end and

179
00:16:42,781 --> 00:16:47,901
things like that we better better um better say what you do let me let me say what i think it is

180
00:16:47,901 --> 00:16:55,021
and you tell me if i'm right because i you basically you've created a gold backed kind of

181
00:16:55,021 --> 00:17:00,701
a way of paying sort of storing some gold in a in a reserve somewhere and then paying

182
00:17:00,701 --> 00:17:06,861
in normal life through is it the visa network master code i mean i think simply put it's it

183
00:17:06,861 --> 00:17:09,841
Glint is a gold-based electronic gold currency.

184
00:17:10,821 --> 00:17:13,361
It's a, yeah, Glint is an electronic gold currency.

185
00:17:13,361 --> 00:17:16,381
So you choose to buy X amount of gold,

186
00:17:16,721 --> 00:17:22,141
which hopefully preserves your purchasing power over time.

187
00:17:22,441 --> 00:17:25,161
And as you spend, it's chipping bits of the gold off.

188
00:17:25,461 --> 00:17:29,141
Yeah, I mean, it's democratized access to it.

189
00:17:29,221 --> 00:17:32,761
So people can buy pennies worth of gold, literally,

190
00:17:32,761 --> 00:17:37,061
or as one of our clients have $100 million worth of gold.

191
00:17:38,901 --> 00:17:41,281
And, you know, this is money, hard money,

192
00:17:41,421 --> 00:17:44,581
and that is something you should be able to save and spend.

193
00:17:45,081 --> 00:17:46,941
And so we allow you to do both.

194
00:17:46,941 --> 00:17:52,081
And spending can be done either through the incumbent financial system

195
00:17:52,081 --> 00:17:54,621
using, you know, a Glint MasterCard.

196
00:17:55,481 --> 00:17:57,521
Almost anywhere in the world where this is accepted,

197
00:17:57,881 --> 00:17:58,981
you can spend your gold.

198
00:17:59,401 --> 00:18:02,001
That's as in where a MasterCard is accepted, yeah.

199
00:18:02,941 --> 00:18:07,461
Or with the app, you can do it peer-to-peer to other people too

200
00:18:07,461 --> 00:18:08,381
who have got a Glint account.

201
00:18:08,801 --> 00:18:09,641
And is it true?

202
00:18:09,741 --> 00:18:10,841
No one's ever done this before?

203
00:18:12,461 --> 00:18:14,761
Is that something you could do before?

204
00:18:14,981 --> 00:18:18,001
I mean, I know you can buy gold ETFs and you can buy paper gold

205
00:18:18,001 --> 00:18:18,961
and you can do all this kind of stuff.

206
00:18:18,961 --> 00:18:22,081
We're the first company in the world to enable physical gold

207
00:18:22,081 --> 00:18:25,321
to be able to spend in real time at the point of sale.

208
00:18:26,021 --> 00:18:29,241
So there were a couple of systems or people attempted to do things

209
00:18:29,241 --> 00:18:34,281
where you could buy gold like you can and could on any of these gold exchanges

210
00:18:34,701 --> 00:18:52,982
and be able to then sell it quick sell it transfer the funds into a digital wallet and then be able to spend those funds But of course what you doing there is you just selling your gold transferring it to a digital wallet which could be transferring to your bank that process can take time and whilst it sat in that wallet it it not got the

211
00:18:52,982 --> 00:18:59,602
qualities of gold which is outside the banking system and you know uh free from destructive

212
00:18:59,602 --> 00:19:05,922
effects of inflation or at least insulated from them so yeah we we i spent a long long time trying

213
00:19:05,922 --> 00:19:13,263
to get that right so you could do it all in real time i mean i like the way you say gold is money

214
00:19:13,263 --> 00:19:19,222
because i'm a i'm a bitcoiner so i i i think bitcoin's money and i think obviously there's a

215
00:19:19,222 --> 00:19:26,202
massive amount of connect of you know similarities between the two but you know gold's problems i

216
00:19:26,202 --> 00:19:32,502
suppose are the port is the portability which is hopefully resolved i mean how does it work when

217
00:19:32,502 --> 00:19:37,722
you buy some gold? Have you got reserves somewhere or do you have a...

218
00:19:37,722 --> 00:19:41,902
We don't want to take risk and there's no need for us to do that. Gold is one of the

219
00:19:41,902 --> 00:19:47,063
biggest markets and it's one of the most liquid markets in the world. It's as big as the S&P

220
00:19:47,063 --> 00:19:53,942
500 or just thereabouts depending what year or decade you're in. Central banks are always buying

221
00:19:53,942 --> 00:20:00,942
and selling it as well as other institutions and individuals all over the world. So there's no

222
00:20:00,942 --> 00:20:09,063
problem with liquidity and um so yeah you can buy any amount and you can it sometimes that's net off

223
00:20:09,063 --> 00:20:13,783
with the with the people on our platform which happens you know instantly we don't have to have

224
00:20:13,783 --> 00:20:21,122
any more gold coming into the vaults or it is ordered through often to the market and the gold

225
00:20:21,122 --> 00:20:25,523
moves from the cages that belong to the liquidity providers and into the cages that belong to our

226
00:20:25,523 --> 00:20:31,803
clients but it's probably a world that not many people know much about the way gold functions and

227
00:20:31,803 --> 00:20:38,283
even what's going on in the world of gold because it's for such a is the biggest asset by market cap

228
00:20:38,283 --> 00:20:45,982
in the world right yeah and um most people don't really have much contact with it yet what's

229
00:20:45,982 --> 00:20:51,602
happening in gold is really super important geopolitically right i mean 100 like the you

230
00:20:51,602 --> 00:20:58,622
know since whatever we came off the gold standard i suppose it's what do you like what is going on

231
00:20:58,622 --> 00:21:03,242
in gold at the moment i know that a lot of people are buying gold especially old institutions they

232
00:21:03,242 --> 00:21:09,222
appear to realize that in this chaotic period of history we're going through one of the things you

233
00:21:09,222 --> 00:21:14,523
can do to sort of insulate yourself is to buy gold right well i think i think i'd like to go

234
00:21:14,523 --> 00:21:21,862
back to the basics you know basically gold has been money for 3 000 years and it it became money

235
00:21:21,862 --> 00:21:27,942
or was decided to be used as money by different civilizations separated by time and space and ocean

236
00:21:27,942 --> 00:21:33,283
you know which is quite incredible so it's kind of been through that evolution of tally sticks and

237
00:21:33,283 --> 00:21:39,063
boulders and shells and things like that that people were using as money because of course

238
00:21:39,063 --> 00:21:45,322
that barter didn't work too well because I might want to buy some eggs off you. Sorry,

239
00:21:45,742 --> 00:21:50,023
I might want to buy something off you with my eggs, but soon you might be sick of the amount

240
00:21:50,023 --> 00:21:56,242
of eggs I was giving you and that type of thing. So gold eventually became, very quickly became,

241
00:21:56,242 --> 00:22:03,822
the store of value and medium of exchange on the planet. And that, as I said, across time and space,

242
00:22:04,523 --> 00:22:07,382
you know, people in different parts of the world came up with the same conclusion.

243
00:22:07,382 --> 00:22:16,783
and of course they brought in what I call inferior metals like silver and copper and and so on to to

244
00:22:16,783 --> 00:22:21,902
deal with de minimis payments because this gold as it was a finite source you know became quite

245
00:22:21,902 --> 00:22:29,362
valuable and how do you deal with small payments and so you had that but um it's it's it's it's

246
00:22:29,362 --> 00:22:35,902
today it's as you say it's it's the it if you look at all the central banks they hold dollars

247
00:22:35,902 --> 00:22:40,462
and they hold gold. Gold's overtaken the euro as the second reserve currency on the planet.

248
00:22:40,462 --> 00:22:45,462
And, you know, it's...

249
00:22:45,462 --> 00:23:02,722
What about the fact that, well, I mean, I'm thinking about 1971 here. When 1971 happens,

250
00:23:02,722 --> 00:23:06,982
it was basically one country saying to all the others hey do you know all that gold that we're

251
00:23:06,982 --> 00:23:13,063
holding uh it's ours now you can't have it back kind of thing like well i think i think what was

252
00:23:13,063 --> 00:23:17,642
happening is after world war ii and the breton woods agreements the world wanted to go onto a

253
00:23:17,642 --> 00:23:22,582
gold standard and so they had to decide how that was going to happen the u.s already had the most

254
00:23:22,582 --> 00:23:28,543
gold of any of the nations and so they said look okay we'll we'll effectively the u.s dollar backed

255
00:23:28,543 --> 00:23:33,222
by gold will become the reserve currency of the world and you'll all be connected to the u.s dollar

256
00:23:33,222 --> 00:23:40,922
okay so that the gold the world is on a gold standard and everything's going okay until

257
00:23:40,922 --> 00:23:49,563
1970 you know 1969 1970 you know the u.s is fighting an unsustainable war in vietnam it

258
00:23:49,563 --> 00:23:54,622
can't afford the rising costs of that war because of course back then you couldn't they couldn't

259
00:23:54,622 --> 00:23:59,142
print money it was backed by gold and they're supposed to have a certain amount of gold to back

260
00:23:59,142 --> 00:24:06,142
the dollar and um i think it was de gaulle called out the u.s you can see on youtube there's a video

261
00:24:06,142 --> 00:24:11,582
of de gaulle talking to the united nations i think and he's saying i don't trust you americans

262
00:24:11,582 --> 00:24:15,962
you know what are you doing you i think maybe you're printing money that you don't have gold to

263
00:24:15,962 --> 00:24:21,882
back and so actually for those two years as i understand it the way the story goes the french

264
00:24:21,882 --> 00:24:29,982
navy was being used to you know ship take us dollars into new york harbor and ask for the

265
00:24:29,982 --> 00:24:34,002
gold in return they wanted the gold they were redeeming their dollars for gold which countries

266
00:24:34,002 --> 00:24:39,982
could do of course most people don't know even in america that actually gold was illegal to hold

267
00:24:39,982 --> 00:24:45,702
in america as an individual between the 1930s and the 1970s so it was only the governments who

268
00:24:45,702 --> 00:24:51,442
who could redeem this uh these dollars for gold and of course you can imagine what was happening

269
00:24:51,442 --> 00:24:54,462
the gold was being depleted at Fort Knox

270
00:24:54,462 --> 00:24:57,043
which is probably why

271
00:24:57,043 --> 00:25:00,402
Trump and Musk have been saying recently

272
00:25:00,402 --> 00:25:02,502
we wonder if the gold's really there or not

273
00:25:02,502 --> 00:25:05,502
and so Nixon and his team went off

274
00:25:05,502 --> 00:25:08,662
and then came back and decided that they were going to temporarily

275
00:25:08,662 --> 00:25:10,642
come off the gold standard

276
00:25:10,642 --> 00:25:14,722
so it wasn't that some people mistake the fact it came off the gold standard

277
00:25:14,722 --> 00:25:17,402
because it obviously wasn't working, it wasn't very good

278
00:25:17,402 --> 00:25:20,502
well it wasn't working for those who wanted to cheat

279
00:25:20,502 --> 00:25:23,922
and wanted to be able to pay for unsustainable things that they couldn't afford.

280
00:25:25,283 --> 00:25:32,783
And of course, since then, we've had this meteoric exponential growth in the money supply.

281
00:25:34,023 --> 00:25:36,502
And again, you say a lot of people don't understand gold.

282
00:25:36,563 --> 00:25:40,303
I don't think most people understand how our fiat currency is made, our paper money.

283
00:25:41,582 --> 00:25:45,582
And I certainly didn't, you know, back in the day.

284
00:25:45,582 --> 00:25:54,803
It wasn't until 2008 that I, during the global financial crisis, that some of the listeners of this podcast won't even remember.

285
00:25:54,922 --> 00:25:58,342
If you're 35 plus, you kind of are a teenager, didn't really care.

286
00:25:59,023 --> 00:26:03,303
But we really came to the edge of total collapse in our financial system.

287
00:26:03,382 --> 00:26:04,322
I mean, hours away.

288
00:26:04,563 --> 00:26:08,582
If you're a British listener, Alistair Darling was the treasurer at the time.

289
00:26:08,602 --> 00:26:11,303
And he's come out quite publicly and explained what was going on.

290
00:26:11,822 --> 00:26:14,803
Hours away from the whole financial payment system collapsing.

291
00:26:15,582 --> 00:26:22,922
And it was then the first time that I realized that money in the bank isn't there.

292
00:26:23,482 --> 00:26:26,543
A fractional reserve system means that there isn't any money there

293
00:26:26,543 --> 00:26:31,263
and that money depreciates in ways completely outside of our control

294
00:26:31,263 --> 00:26:35,102
because governments are able to print as money.

295
00:26:35,102 --> 00:26:37,422
Money is printed at extraordinary levels.

296
00:26:37,422 --> 00:26:42,902
I think in COVID, 20% of all US dollars were printed in one year.

297
00:26:42,902 --> 00:26:50,222
of course when you print money it it it devalues it debases it gosh there's so much to talk about

298
00:26:50,222 --> 00:26:57,082
on this isn't there i mean um where do you begin so well i've got a question then because

299
00:26:57,082 --> 00:27:04,263
um like you say um governments will always government and when they see an opportunity

300
00:27:04,263 --> 00:27:11,702
to cheat which they did in 1971 they will and i suppose herein lies the problem with gold

301
00:27:11,702 --> 00:27:16,882
is unless you're unless it's a bearer asset unless you and me are actually swapping a piece of gold

302
00:27:16,882 --> 00:27:24,342
with us now it kind of happens in the ether and isn't it isn't it likely that whatever happens

303
00:27:24,342 --> 00:27:32,222
the system might always trend towards the people in power saying right let's let's have an eye we

304
00:27:32,222 --> 00:27:37,202
can't ship tons of gold around because it's too heavy and you need like armored vehicles and guards

305
00:27:37,202 --> 00:27:42,283
and stuff so let's let's write a piece of paper it represents this bit of gold i'll send that

306
00:27:42,283 --> 00:27:47,362
or a digital note now i suppose and when it pops up the other end we know we're good but we don't

307
00:27:47,362 --> 00:27:53,482
have to move the gold and i would guess probably that's always going to happen isn't it well i

308
00:27:53,482 --> 00:27:57,482
think it always happens when you're trusting governments to be able to manage your money

309
00:27:57,482 --> 00:28:17,784
correct and uh you know that happened in roman times when the oreos was you know their way of debasing the gold currency was to drill a hole through the middle of the coin and take that gold out and create another coin with it and pretend that coin was worth the same before the hole was drilled Sorry since the hole was drilled But I think what

310
00:28:17,784 --> 00:28:23,844
Glint's a private company and people have a contract with us and it means they own their

311
00:28:23,844 --> 00:28:29,424
gold. That is their gold, it's not ours. It's not like a government that's issuing a fiat currency

312
00:28:29,424 --> 00:28:32,044
that may or may not be backed by something.

313
00:28:32,944 --> 00:28:34,084
That's not what it is.

314
00:28:34,344 --> 00:28:35,184
This is your gold.

315
00:28:35,444 --> 00:28:36,164
That's not our gold.

316
00:28:36,224 --> 00:28:37,044
It's not Glint's gold.

317
00:28:37,164 --> 00:28:38,564
That's Glint customer gold.

318
00:28:38,704 --> 00:28:39,584
If Glint goes bust,

319
00:28:39,784 --> 00:28:42,144
it remains the property of the customer.

320
00:28:42,304 --> 00:28:43,824
It can't even be touched in a bankruptcy.

321
00:28:44,624 --> 00:28:47,284
So it's very, very different to a fiat currency.

322
00:28:48,004 --> 00:28:49,784
And of course, the gold doesn't ever move.

323
00:28:49,844 --> 00:28:51,704
This idea that it has to move all the time.

324
00:28:51,784 --> 00:28:52,984
Most of the gold doesn't move.

325
00:28:53,544 --> 00:28:54,084
Very often.

326
00:28:54,764 --> 00:28:55,844
Sometimes it does.

327
00:28:56,404 --> 00:28:58,404
But it doesn't create an incumbents

328
00:28:58,404 --> 00:29:00,564
on the ability for it to be used electronically.

329
00:29:00,764 --> 00:29:02,824
The ownership of that gold can move instantly

330
00:29:02,824 --> 00:29:05,304
from one person to another through electronic instruction,

331
00:29:05,524 --> 00:29:08,444
just in the same way that a token can as well.

332
00:29:09,784 --> 00:29:12,944
We were talking earlier in the lift, actually,

333
00:29:13,084 --> 00:29:18,844
about London and places on the up and places on the down and stuff.

334
00:29:18,944 --> 00:29:21,224
And people know this.

335
00:29:21,364 --> 00:29:23,184
I do think of England and London in general

336
00:29:23,184 --> 00:29:25,224
as a bit of a downward spiral at the moment.

337
00:29:25,224 --> 00:29:27,664
And one of the ways we see that is the government

338
00:29:27,664 --> 00:29:35,284
appears to be slowly looting everyone of as much money as they can through taxes through whatever

339
00:29:35,284 --> 00:29:42,144
yeah um and the ultimate tax is this 6102 isn't that what it's called where they just take away

340
00:29:42,144 --> 00:29:48,584
your stuff which is i think you mentioned just earlier was that from 1930 to it was in the u.s

341
00:29:48,584 --> 00:29:55,084
from 1930s 1970s they banned personal ownership of gold it was confiscation of gold but at the time

342
00:29:55,084 --> 00:29:57,444
I think people don't understand necessarily the context.

343
00:29:57,724 --> 00:30:00,704
At the time, until 1971, the gold price,

344
00:30:01,264 --> 00:30:03,324
there was a fixed price between the gold and gold.

345
00:30:03,524 --> 00:30:05,444
Dollar was gold, so to speak, kind of thing.

346
00:30:05,984 --> 00:30:08,384
And so when the nation, when they came out and they said,

347
00:30:08,464 --> 00:30:11,984
we need your gold, it's kind of your duty to give us your gold, we need it.

348
00:30:12,864 --> 00:30:15,624
Then people really didn't feel that they were going to be losing out

349
00:30:15,624 --> 00:30:18,264
because you were given the equivalent amount of dollars

350
00:30:18,264 --> 00:30:19,864
and the gold price never changed.

351
00:30:20,444 --> 00:30:21,304
But then it didn't double.

352
00:30:21,564 --> 00:30:24,844
Of course, when they unleashed it.

353
00:30:24,844 --> 00:30:27,824
And as a free market, then, of course, that's exactly what happened.

354
00:30:28,404 --> 00:30:33,144
But I think that therefore I just because we're already in that situation, I don't think that could happen again.

355
00:30:34,344 --> 00:30:34,844
You don't?

356
00:30:35,444 --> 00:30:41,684
I don't. I hope not. I mean, look, I think I think some of the society's filled with all kinds of challenges.

357
00:30:41,684 --> 00:30:45,424
I was just actually thinking about writing a tweet or writing an article about this.

358
00:30:46,644 --> 00:30:53,444
I listened to a podcast about Gary Stevenson, the podcaster, you know, this morning.

359
00:30:53,444 --> 00:30:56,524
I thought, well, I agree with some of the things, but not all of them.

360
00:30:56,524 --> 00:30:56,684
Who's that?

361
00:30:56,804 --> 00:30:57,444
Who's Gary Stephenson?

362
00:30:57,444 --> 00:31:03,524
He's a blogger, podcaster who, you know, he's apparently a trader who's now talking quite…

363
00:31:03,524 --> 00:31:05,104
Oh, not Gary's economics.

364
00:31:05,144 --> 00:31:05,604
Yeah, Gary.

365
00:31:05,704 --> 00:31:06,424
He's talking a lot.

366
00:31:06,424 --> 00:31:08,284
Oh, my God, that guy is so annoying.

367
00:31:08,424 --> 00:31:09,664
He's talking about a lot of things.

368
00:31:09,744 --> 00:31:10,904
And his solution, though…

369
00:31:10,904 --> 00:31:11,524
Is the state.

370
00:31:11,644 --> 00:31:13,044
His solution is tax harder.

371
00:31:13,044 --> 00:31:13,944
Is the state and taxation, yeah.

372
00:31:14,744 --> 00:31:17,144
But actually, let's look at the…

373
00:31:17,144 --> 00:31:22,184
I think actually in there, in this conversation, you know, the problems, the situations, the

374
00:31:22,184 --> 00:31:28,184
symptoms are all quite real and actually the the conclusion and what you do about it is the hard

375
00:31:28,184 --> 00:31:34,524
bit i think that people don't understand but i think what people see and what people have to deal

376
00:31:34,524 --> 00:31:39,784
with on the face of it are these rising prices the rising prices of housing for instance is one of

377
00:31:39,784 --> 00:31:45,344
the biggest ones that really comes through although you know inflation food this month in the uk is

378
00:31:45,344 --> 00:31:51,524
four and a half percent so that's really hits those who are least well off and you know i was

379
00:31:51,524 --> 00:31:57,044
born in Sunderland which is you know one of the cities most furthest away from the money supply

380
00:31:57,044 --> 00:32:04,344
where it's created in London and I feel like all through my life no matter how hard I've worked

381
00:32:04,344 --> 00:32:10,444
it's always felt like I'm swimming against the tide because no matter how much you save

382
00:32:10,444 --> 00:32:17,004
as you save the things you're saving for become further out of reach and that's maybe that's a

383
00:32:17,004 --> 00:32:21,864
good idea of good pivot into explaining this you know how how is money made or it's money it's made

384
00:32:21,864 --> 00:32:29,484
in two different ways one banks have the ability to just literally create out of thinner ex nihilo

385
00:32:29,484 --> 00:32:35,464
is the latin term of it out of nothing and yes they have some constraints around the ratios of

386
00:32:35,464 --> 00:32:40,244
how much they can create out of nothing it's it is linked tenuously to the amount of deposits we

387
00:32:40,244 --> 00:32:46,104
all put into the bank but i think most people think that you know today that the way that you

388
00:32:46,104 --> 00:32:50,564
borrow money is you're borrowing money that other people have put into the bank no you're not you're

389
00:32:50,564 --> 00:32:56,384
borrowing money that they create out of thin air you know they maybe they can they can print five

390
00:32:56,384 --> 00:33:05,184
times as much on that keyboard out of thin air than they actually have deposits and um of course

391
00:33:05,184 --> 00:33:09,764
there is another way which is that central banks themselves can print money out of thin air and

392
00:33:09,764 --> 00:33:13,664
give that to governments to buy their bonds when no one else wants to buy them so when the government

393
00:33:13,664 --> 00:33:18,624
wants to pay for things that are unsustainable and wants to increase its debt etc and no one

394
00:33:18,624 --> 00:33:22,844
else wants to buy it the government will step in and do that as quantitative easing this fancy word

395
00:33:22,844 --> 00:33:29,664
which i first came across during the 2008 financial crisis don't worry the bbc said the government is

396
00:33:29,664 --> 00:33:35,224
implementing a plan of quantitative easing i'm not sure that everybody felt as comfortable if

397
00:33:35,224 --> 00:33:39,224
they'd said don't worry the government's going to get you out of this problem by printing a

398
00:33:39,224 --> 00:33:44,384
beep load of money you know my nana would have understood what that meant that meant down the

399
00:33:44,384 --> 00:33:49,724
road it's going to lose its value and she wasn't particularly financially literate

400
00:33:49,724 --> 00:33:55,444
but if we go back to the bank can printing out money when we let when we borrow it of course

401
00:33:55,444 --> 00:34:01,464
who can borrow that money well as a young man in Sunderland I could not borrow money you know I

402
00:34:01,464 --> 00:34:06,324
didn't have any and you have to have money to borrow money um and the more money you have the

403
00:34:06,324 --> 00:34:12,564
more you can borrow. So of course, and the way the mortgage market works and property and assets,

404
00:34:12,564 --> 00:34:20,184
of course, I can take £100 and I can borrow £500. Or if I have 20, let's put it into mortgage terms,

405
00:34:20,264 --> 00:34:27,284
I have £20,000, I can get a mortgage for £100,000. But if I've got £100,000, I can get a mortgage for

406
00:34:27,284 --> 00:34:33,944
£500,000. And this is, so the more you have, the more you can borrow. And of course, this is why

407
00:34:33,944 --> 00:34:40,744
five men in America own more than 50% of the whole United States of America. That's because

408
00:34:40,744 --> 00:34:46,464
they've been able to borrow increasingly larger and larger and larger amounts of money to the

409
00:34:46,464 --> 00:34:51,364
point where it's in the absolute billions of dollars. And they go out and they buy all these

410
00:34:51,364 --> 00:34:57,444
assets. Meanwhile, the young man from Sunderland is trying to save up for his mortgage. And those

411
00:34:57,444 --> 00:35:01,904
assets that are being bought up by the rich are going up in price because there's a relatively

412
00:35:01,904 --> 00:35:07,924
fixed amount of them of course it takes time to build new houses as various governments try and

413
00:35:07,924 --> 00:35:12,784
stimulate that it doesn't really have an effect because the effect of the money printing is much

414
00:35:12,784 --> 00:35:18,664
greater and that's why we have this you know if you're if you're a lower class don't have much

415
00:35:18,664 --> 00:35:24,044
money well nothing much changes for you but the middle class has been eroded away they they have

416
00:35:24,044 --> 00:35:29,324
at least a chance of trying to buy a property and meanwhile the rich are just getting richer and

417
00:35:29,324 --> 00:35:35,084
richer which is why we have this 0.1 percent of people only most of the country and i think if

418
00:35:35,084 --> 00:35:40,124
people really understood that i so that that's the first of all people don't understand why things

419
00:35:40,124 --> 00:35:45,444
are going up in price you know i remember when inflation started to hit rishi sunak came out

420
00:35:45,444 --> 00:35:51,924
in parliament and said yes inflation being caused by the rising prices of food and the war in ukraine

421
00:35:51,924 --> 00:35:57,824
well the war in ukraine had only just happened started and the rising prices of food are not

422
00:35:57,824 --> 00:36:02,684
the reason we have inflation the bbc does the same thing always you know we have a rising price

423
00:36:02,684 --> 00:36:09,304
inflation now at 4.5 because food prices are going up no that is the consequences of inflation or that

424
00:36:09,304 --> 00:36:14,464
greedy people are charging more yeah which is also ridiculous yeah absolutely no one in the right

425
00:36:14,464 --> 00:36:20,624
mind you're trying to be competitive my my my wife she's she's she's got a business and it's in

426
00:36:20,624 --> 00:36:25,364
it's in fashion retail and they're absolutely being demolished because their margins are getting

427
00:36:25,364 --> 00:36:31,604
squeezed and nobody wants to do that but if people understood how money's made and how this benefits

428
00:36:31,604 --> 00:36:36,504
the rich then maybe we can start to look at what the real solutions would be but nobody seems to

429
00:36:36,504 --> 00:36:41,164
want to talk about that of course the richest in society who are often the most influential don't

430
00:36:41,164 --> 00:36:47,164
want to talk about it because it suits them um and i'm not sure anybody in government even

431
00:36:47,164 --> 00:36:54,984
understands how this happens so you know apparently one day i heard that somebody noticed that uh

432
00:36:54,984 --> 00:37:00,344
One of the chancellors at the time was sat there in parliament reading a book called How Money is Made.

433
00:37:01,884 --> 00:37:03,364
You can't make this stuff up.

434
00:37:03,524 --> 00:37:05,564
So I don't think many people understand it.

435
00:37:05,584 --> 00:37:07,364
I don't think any politicians understand it.

436
00:37:07,424 --> 00:37:09,744
So then how can we even get to the solution?

437
00:37:09,904 --> 00:37:14,704
Of course, you can understand why Gary is saying we need to redistribute the wealth.

438
00:37:14,784 --> 00:37:20,904
At the end of the day, the system is benefiting those disproportionately from those further away from the money supply.

439
00:37:21,704 --> 00:37:23,384
So maybe it's a good idea.

440
00:37:23,384 --> 00:37:25,204
Why don't we just redistribute it?

441
00:37:25,384 --> 00:37:27,884
Yeah, that seems maybe a good idea to a lot of people,

442
00:37:27,964 --> 00:37:29,704
especially those ones who are really struggling.

443
00:37:30,005 --> 00:37:43,725
And I'm sure a lot of people will vote for that. But the problem, of course, is that you get, in the same way, the existing monetary system benefits people disproportionately and has unintended consequences.

444
00:37:43,725 --> 00:37:50,865
redistributing wealth and letting a government decide how that is done also creates distortions

445
00:37:50,865 --> 00:37:57,045
in the economy misallocation of resources who gets that and could end an even worse situation

446
00:37:57,045 --> 00:38:03,425
which we have seen in previous socialist communist type scenarios which don't obviously work

447
00:38:03,425 --> 00:38:08,745
i'm not saying i know what the solution is some might say we need to move to a sound money

448
00:38:08,745 --> 00:38:17,085
world, that of course is something which I think is very difficult for the world to turn to.

449
00:38:17,585 --> 00:38:22,545
Because all governments are using the same monetary system. Gary himself in his podcast

450
00:38:22,545 --> 00:38:27,505
this morning said something about your rising house of prices isn't just an English thing.

451
00:38:27,505 --> 00:38:32,285
It's not just a London thing. You can't blame the mayor for it. It's happening all over the

452
00:38:32,285 --> 00:38:37,565
country. In fact, it's happening in every country in the world. So I'm not sure that everyone's

453
00:38:37,565 --> 00:38:43,285
going to agree at the same time to come off you know a fiat currency system or a fractional reserve

454
00:38:43,285 --> 00:38:49,525
banking system and i and so i thought to myself well why don't we just enable our own bottom-up

455
00:38:49,525 --> 00:38:56,805
return to sound money why don't we uh why don't i help find a way to make gold which is you know

456
00:38:56,805 --> 00:39:01,805
created when two neutron stars collide as being money and still is money uh across different

457
00:39:01,805 --> 00:39:06,785
countries and different cultures used by central banks these biggest institutions why don't we just

458
00:39:06,785 --> 00:39:13,365
enable that as you know money that everyone can use at the same time of course back then someone

459
00:39:13,365 --> 00:39:18,145
called satoshi was also thinking of something using the electronic means and of course we've

460
00:39:18,145 --> 00:39:25,105
gone down slightly different routes but yeah i mean for me um i'm hoping that we can we've

461
00:39:25,105 --> 00:39:29,905
democratized it so you can buy just a as i said a cent's worth a penny's worth or millions of

462
00:39:29,905 --> 00:39:34,625
dollars if that's what you want are capable of doing because i believe everyone should have an

463
00:39:34,625 --> 00:39:41,925
equal opportunity to prosper. What you've just alluded to in the two big problems was at the

464
00:39:41,925 --> 00:39:49,865
heart of both of them was the government. Right. Which is true. And I agree with that. I agree that

465
00:39:49,865 --> 00:39:56,065
centrally planning anything that big is not possible. The market will make way better

466
00:39:56,065 --> 00:40:02,525
decisions that have millions and millions of individual people choosing. But the problem with

467
00:40:02,525 --> 00:40:08,205
the government is the government won't do what you tell them to do if it diminishes them that's

468
00:40:08,205 --> 00:40:14,685
the thing this is why i like bitcoin for example because bitcoin as a hard money standard if it's

469
00:40:14,685 --> 00:40:23,065
adopted does actually defund the government and arguably gold would as well but you're relying on

470
00:40:23,065 --> 00:40:28,185
the government to kind of protect the rights of gold owners though that's the problem if you see

471
00:40:28,185 --> 00:40:36,065
what I mean? Like with Bitcoin, with digital, you know, decentralized money, you don't need anyone

472
00:40:36,065 --> 00:40:41,465
to protect it other than the people who are mining Bitcoin and causing the network to be the strongest

473
00:40:41,465 --> 00:40:48,605
sort of digital network. And once you join, and if governments start getting in on Bitcoin and

474
00:40:48,605 --> 00:40:53,405
deciding, right, it's a reserve asset for us as well. And if it ever becomes peer-to-peer cash in

475
00:40:53,405 --> 00:41:01,565
a meaningful way, they're stuck. Because unless they can convince you and me to use paper Bitcoin,

476
00:41:01,565 --> 00:41:08,365
they can't keep doing their former thing. And the good thing about Bitcoin, which is where I think

477
00:41:08,365 --> 00:41:16,445
it differs to gold in one respect, is you can identify real Bitcoin very easily and cheaply.

478
00:41:16,445 --> 00:41:22,205
You don't, you know, which is, you know, the reason why I would always choose real Bitcoin

479
00:41:22,205 --> 00:41:26,885
rather than paper bitcoin because it's like don't give me the the vaporware i want the real stuff

480
00:41:26,885 --> 00:41:30,565
it's just as easy do you mean what exchanges sometimes sell you and things like that well

481
00:41:30,565 --> 00:41:37,205
just any any abstraction of bitcoin you know an etf or a or basically like the government

482
00:41:37,205 --> 00:41:42,505
unless you're holding your own key you don't really own you of course yeah and and really if

483
00:41:42,505 --> 00:41:48,545
if the government what what would probably happen almost certainly is at some point because i think

484
00:41:48,545 --> 00:41:53,485
most people, like you say, they don't understand money, especially in government. And as a result,

485
00:41:53,545 --> 00:41:58,505
they don't really understand the threat of something like Bitcoin. And when it becomes

486
00:41:58,505 --> 00:42:04,225
too late, which it already is, as far as I'm concerned, you know, albeit I revolve in circles

487
00:42:04,225 --> 00:42:11,765
where things like gold and Bitcoin are much more prevalent. So, you know, it's not the real world.

488
00:42:12,025 --> 00:42:15,985
It's a small number of people, but potentially it's the real world because everyone that

489
00:42:15,985 --> 00:42:19,645
realizes it doesn't really go but I'm gonna know when anyone go back and say

490
00:42:19,645 --> 00:42:24,105
actually yeah that that system's better you know but they will try and create

491
00:42:24,105 --> 00:42:28,645
sorry they will try and create a paper version of everything because that's the

492
00:42:28,645 --> 00:42:32,545
only way so they say right this is government Bitcoin we hold the Bitcoin

493
00:42:32,545 --> 00:42:36,585
in reserve but we issue you with the thing that's difficult with Bitcoin

494
00:42:36,585 --> 00:42:40,285
because it's so easy to get the actual thing whereas with gold yeah I can see

495
00:42:40,285 --> 00:42:45,165
you know I I'm not gonna carry gold bars or gold coins around in my pocket so the

496
00:42:45,165 --> 00:42:47,825
The paper version of it is much more important.

497
00:42:48,545 --> 00:42:52,705
Well, I mean, look, I think there's lots of similarities between the two.

498
00:42:53,485 --> 00:43:01,045
You know, people do and should, I think, hold gold, some gold coins and some gold bars and keep them in a safe somewhere or put them in a safety deposit box.

499
00:43:01,145 --> 00:43:03,945
I think, you know, some people say if you don't hold it, you don't own it.

500
00:43:04,305 --> 00:43:07,525
Look, I think everyone should have some physical gold with them.

501
00:43:08,265 --> 00:43:13,685
At the same time, you can have a product like Glint, which allows you and looks after your gold in your vault.

502
00:43:13,685 --> 00:43:18,425
And of course, the government could have gold and they do have gold and the two systems could participate.

503
00:43:18,605 --> 00:43:26,865
You can have, I mean, I'm expecting that one day Glint is a foundation of a global gold based financial services ecosystem and payment system.

504
00:43:26,985 --> 00:43:30,105
Call it GoldFi, you know, maybe instead of DeFi.

505
00:43:31,985 --> 00:43:40,685
But, you know, I think regulation, you know, we do live in a regulated world, increasingly regulated with government overreach.

506
00:43:40,685 --> 00:43:45,625
overreach and you can already see with bitcoin and other currencies that that is being regulated

507
00:43:45,625 --> 00:43:51,065
you know we have the genius act coming in now and we have uh what's the other one coming soon um

508
00:43:51,065 --> 00:43:56,805
what in the big bill or in the no we in the u.s they've got the in the u.s they've got this um

509
00:43:56,805 --> 00:44:02,485
genius act that allows you know it explains how bitcoin can be used and then they've got

510
00:44:02,485 --> 00:44:06,405
another one which is coming in i can't remember what it's called clarity or something like that

511
00:44:06,405 --> 00:44:07,945
which is all other crypto assets.

512
00:44:08,505 --> 00:44:09,485
And that was a stable coin.

513
00:44:09,565 --> 00:44:13,045
It was to do a stable coin and back by the US dollar.

514
00:44:14,065 --> 00:44:17,945
But already, you know, you can see what's happening with the Bitcoin ecosystem.

515
00:44:18,245 --> 00:44:23,365
You know, people holding their own coins are increasingly regulated away from being able to do that

516
00:44:23,365 --> 00:44:28,805
because, you know, government wants KYC and they want anti-money laundering and all those types of things.

517
00:44:28,845 --> 00:44:33,225
And if you've got your own coin, oh, you know, we can't trace that as well and as easily as that.

518
00:44:33,225 --> 00:44:36,705
and you can see all the big exchanges

519
00:44:36,705 --> 00:44:38,665
it's very similar to Glint

520
00:44:38,665 --> 00:44:40,845
well actually I don't know

521
00:44:40,845 --> 00:44:43,125
I'd have to look into the terms and conditions of those exchanges

522
00:44:43,125 --> 00:44:45,565
I don't know if you really do own that gold

523
00:44:45,565 --> 00:44:46,845
that bitcoin

524
00:44:46,845 --> 00:44:49,665
and in some British exchanges

525
00:44:49,665 --> 00:44:52,445
effectively you're exposed to the price of gold

526
00:44:52,445 --> 00:44:55,665
but actually the underlying asset is actually owned by the exchange

527
00:44:55,665 --> 00:44:56,665
which for me is like

528
00:44:56,665 --> 00:44:58,585
well you're not really owning it at all

529
00:44:58,585 --> 00:45:02,045
so what am I trying to say

530
00:45:02,045 --> 00:45:06,345
well you can physically own it, you can own it through a custodian that's outside of government

531
00:45:06,345 --> 00:45:07,985
and of course government could do their own thing.

532
00:45:08,125 --> 00:45:14,765
So I do believe that you could have a gold system that the government is using

533
00:45:14,765 --> 00:45:17,665
but you can still have control over your own gold and your own money.

534
00:45:17,945 --> 00:45:22,305
I suppose my question is then why would the government give up the fiat system?

535
00:45:22,825 --> 00:45:24,965
It's literally the best thing that's ever happened to the government.

536
00:45:25,125 --> 00:45:30,785
I don't think it will because as you say there's lots of reasons why they want to be able to do that

537
00:45:30,785 --> 00:45:32,025
including printing their own money.

538
00:45:32,105 --> 00:45:36,445
I mean, the US has had the ultimate privilege since 1971,

539
00:45:37,025 --> 00:45:39,745
an exorbitant privilege of being able to print

540
00:45:39,745 --> 00:45:42,005
because it could print as much money as it wanted.

541
00:45:43,105 --> 00:45:45,865
And because they effectively moved off a gold standard

542
00:45:45,865 --> 00:45:47,065
to a petrodollar standard.

543
00:45:47,225 --> 00:45:49,125
So one of the questions people might ask is,

544
00:45:49,205 --> 00:45:51,605
well, when the dollar came off the gold standard,

545
00:45:51,605 --> 00:45:53,565
why would anybody in the world use the dollar?

546
00:45:53,705 --> 00:45:54,965
Why would they carry on doing it?

547
00:45:55,745 --> 00:45:58,545
And the answer is, is because they flew to the Middle East,

548
00:45:58,585 --> 00:46:00,445
as some of your listeners will already know,

549
00:46:00,445 --> 00:46:10,625
And they did a deal with the Saudis and said, look, if you carry on insisting on accepting dollars for your oil, we will protect you militarily.

550
00:46:10,885 --> 00:46:13,385
And so it went from a gold dollar to a petrodollar.

551
00:46:13,385 --> 00:46:25,645
Of course, what we've seen just recently, maybe the last 10 years with COVID and with the war in Ukraine, etc., as the dollar was weaponized again for the next time.

552
00:46:25,905 --> 00:46:29,805
It's been weaponized a lot of times, but it was weaponized again against the Russians.

553
00:46:30,445 --> 00:46:34,085
is this demise of the US dollar, especially in the East.

554
00:46:34,585 --> 00:46:42,325
And so now, you know, people are paying for oil in all kinds of different currencies, including gold.

555
00:46:42,585 --> 00:47:00,400
So whether it rubles or whether it renminbi or whether it the Chinese yuan or whether it gold they now using other currencies And so that tie has been broken And so there definitely an erosion should I say in confidence in the US dollar

556
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:04,320
But it's still, at the end of the day, the main medium exchange on the planet.

557
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:07,240
And I think it's going to be a long time before that's broken.

558
00:47:07,240 --> 00:47:11,300
And I think central banks in America certainly believe that.

559
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,100
But it's interesting to see what's happening at the state level.

560
00:47:16,100 --> 00:47:22,220
so i don't know if you know anything about constitutional gold currency is that a u.s thing

561
00:47:22,220 --> 00:47:29,200
yeah so about two years ago i heard that um glint had been mentioned at the texas senate

562
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:33,920
and i i didn't quite know what this was about it was something to do with this thing called

563
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:40,280
constitutional gold currency and they said look if we pass this legislation we are um we're going

564
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:44,900
to need a platform like glint so i got in touch with the people and said what's all this about

565
00:47:44,900 --> 00:47:58,320
And it turned out there were six different states thinking about using their existing constitutional right to make gold and silver an authorized currency in America.

566
00:47:59,140 --> 00:48:01,560
Actually, not necessarily the physical gold.

567
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:08,160
Well, maybe I'll tell the story like why they're doing this first.

568
00:48:08,160 --> 00:48:15,220
So the states are here worried about $37 trillion of debt.

569
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:16,420
I mean, that's a big number.

570
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:17,960
Is that the US debt?

571
00:48:17,980 --> 00:48:20,880
A trillion is a big number.

572
00:48:21,220 --> 00:48:26,880
A trillion seconds ago was 36,600 and something years ago.

573
00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:28,180
A trillion.

574
00:48:28,700 --> 00:48:30,960
And there's $37 trillion of debt.

575
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:32,820
How did they build up so much debt?

576
00:48:33,020 --> 00:48:35,700
Well, you know, because the British government can't do that.

577
00:48:35,700 --> 00:48:45,600
We saw how Liz Truss, how long she lasted in government before, you know, before getting chucked out just by simply, you know, suggesting they might be borrowing some money.

578
00:48:46,240 --> 00:48:49,1000
The U.S. had this huge debt because they could print, you know, everyone needed the dollar.

579
00:48:50,940 --> 00:49:03,020
And the U.S. Senate actually, bipartisans declared that that $37 trillion worth of debt, it was $36 trillion just a few months ago, you know, now it's $37 trillion,

580
00:49:03,020 --> 00:49:06,040
was a matter of national security.

581
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:08,260
And everybody knows it.

582
00:49:08,540 --> 00:49:12,340
And the US states certainly feel it and think about it.

583
00:49:13,100 --> 00:49:15,080
They're worried about CBDCs.

584
00:49:15,140 --> 00:49:16,100
They're worried about inflation.

585
00:49:16,480 --> 00:49:19,540
All of these things coming from a fiat currency system,

586
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:20,340
the US dollar.

587
00:49:20,460 --> 00:49:21,640
But what can they do about it?

588
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:26,460
Because the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 10,

589
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:30,420
Clause 1, specifically says that no state

590
00:49:30,420 --> 00:49:31,780
may make its own currency.

591
00:49:33,020 --> 00:49:35,840
except gold and silver.

592
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:41,620
As in backed or you're allowed to spend gold.

593
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:45,900
But like a certificate of ownership for gold is considered gold.

594
00:49:46,140 --> 00:49:46,400
Right.

595
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:49,540
It's been tested at the Supreme Court numerous times.

596
00:49:50,100 --> 00:49:53,860
But effectively gold ownership, gold, can be used in the payment of debts.

597
00:49:54,820 --> 00:49:56,820
Yeah, five states, only five states.

598
00:49:56,820 --> 00:50:00,640
Well, this was six states when I first met them two years ago.

599
00:50:00,1000 --> 00:50:02,580
And they hadn't passed the legislation there.

600
00:50:02,580 --> 00:50:07,780
They were thinking about it. Texas had already built it, went on to build its own gold depository.

601
00:50:08,100 --> 00:50:11,220
But they only meet every two years to do legislation.

602
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:17,700
And the second time, I think, they got themselves into a mess because they tried to impeach their treasurer or something like that.

603
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,1000
So they went from being first mover to being not the first mover.

604
00:50:21,1000 --> 00:50:30,580
This year, 22 US states have been considering, drafting or even passing laws to do with constitutional gold.

605
00:50:30,580 --> 00:50:44,440
As of today, just over the last few months, we see that Utah was the first to pass legislation with bipartisan support, nearly in every state bipartisan support, because the Democrats see this as an economic justice issue.

606
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,600
You know, the Republicans see it as a freedom issue.

607
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:53,300
And but unfortunately, in Utah, the governor vetoed the bill.

608
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:55,580
So not sure why.

609
00:50:55,580 --> 00:51:02,420
His excuse, I think, was that he didn't think that technology existed, although he'd had a committee looking into this.

610
00:51:03,020 --> 00:51:04,400
And I'll come back to that in a second.

611
00:51:04,500 --> 00:51:05,820
It's quite interesting who was on the committee.

612
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:07,580
Do you know who the governor was?

613
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:10,140
Yeah, Cox is the governor.

614
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:12,880
What's his track record previously?

615
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:14,100
I'm not too sure.

616
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:25,560
I've learned a lot about US politics as I've gone state to state and helped some of these amazing people with their arguments.

617
00:51:25,580 --> 00:51:29,280
because one of the challenges, of course, is that people go,

618
00:51:29,420 --> 00:51:31,380
what are you talking about making gold and silver currency?

619
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,920
Are you expected of going around and chipping a bit of gold off at the Starbucks?

620
00:51:35,420 --> 00:51:39,420
So I've been able to go into capital buildings and show legislators,

621
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:41,340
look, it's really easy, you can do this already.

622
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:42,700
Wait a minute, before you go on,

623
00:51:43,540 --> 00:51:46,140
what's the difference between that, though, and what you're doing?

624
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:48,980
Because you don't even need constitutional gold, do you?

625
00:51:48,980 --> 00:51:50,100
Well, we'll come on to that.

626
00:51:50,140 --> 00:51:52,180
Let me just name the states that have done this.

627
00:51:52,180 --> 00:52:10,520
So actually, as of today, Florida, one of the biggest states, Texas, the other big state, Louisiana, Missouri, and Arkansas have all put into law that this is now gold and silver are now authorized currencies of the United States of America.

628
00:52:10,860 --> 00:52:11,820
That like legal tender?

629
00:52:11,1000 --> 00:52:12,900
Is that the same thing?

630
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:13,640
Yes, yes.

631
00:52:13,720 --> 00:52:14,400
It's part of it.

632
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:18,280
But they're saying now transactional gold, right?

633
00:52:18,380 --> 00:52:21,820
Gold that can be used in transactions electronically through electronic instructions.

634
00:52:21,820 --> 00:52:29,120
And does that mean I can now go into my local council offices in Texas and insist on paying in gold? Is that right?

635
00:52:29,460 --> 00:52:40,320
Well, we'll come up. Let me break it all down a bit. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. You can already do this with Clint. So what's the reasons you would, the state would want to do this?

636
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:56,600
Well, the group actually who I met who were driving a lot of this and helping and facilitating a lot of this grassroots activism, because for once, actually, this wasn't a movement that was across America being driven by billionaires, which is often the case with legislation.

637
00:52:57,220 --> 00:53:01,780
This was mainly a grassroots activism movement.

638
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:04,560
And they're called the Economic War Room.

639
00:53:04,900 --> 00:53:10,040
A guy there, Kevin Freeman, Russell and Mike at the Economic Forum in Dallas.

640
00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:12,460
and they believe in various developments

641
00:53:12,460 --> 00:53:13,960
that are going to make America great again.

642
00:53:14,020 --> 00:53:15,620
And this was their main emphasis

643
00:53:15,620 --> 00:53:18,360
and has been for the last couple of years.

644
00:53:19,740 --> 00:53:22,280
And they came up with three Ts,

645
00:53:22,460 --> 00:53:25,100
the three Ts of why state governments

646
00:53:25,100 --> 00:53:25,880
need to get involved.

647
00:53:25,1000 --> 00:53:29,420
The first one is trust.

648
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:30,720
The second one is taking.

649
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:31,960
And the third one is taxes.

650
00:53:32,960 --> 00:53:35,900
So obviously I'd say the one difference

651
00:53:35,900 --> 00:53:38,140
between Bitcoin and gold

652
00:53:38,140 --> 00:53:39,580
that I think is meaningful

653
00:53:39,580 --> 00:53:42,400
is knowing whether the value is really there.

654
00:53:42,620 --> 00:53:44,700
So is there really the gold in the vault?

655
00:53:45,400 --> 00:53:46,960
And of course, with Bitcoin, you know that

656
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:49,860
because it's computationally proven to be there.

657
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:52,260
And I think that's one of the biggest differences

658
00:53:52,260 --> 00:53:52,980
between the two.

659
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:54,400
And I think a lot of the other differences

660
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,220
that the Bitcoin community and the gold community

661
00:53:56,220 --> 00:53:57,800
argue about are non-existent

662
00:53:57,800 --> 00:53:59,940
because you can make anything

663
00:53:59,940 --> 00:54:01,920
an electronic ledger in relation to it.

664
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:04,820
The underlying value, is it really there?

665
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:06,300
The value, of course, in the Bitcoin

666
00:54:06,300 --> 00:54:07,600
determined by the algorithms,

667
00:54:07,740 --> 00:54:09,540
the value of the gold because it's intrinsic

668
00:54:09,540 --> 00:54:16,100
in the vault and of course the state government can make sure that they audit that for the citizens

669
00:54:16,100 --> 00:54:20,400
you know and government closer to the people is better government than it further away i know

670
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:28,540
we might think it even even we want even really far away yeah but anyway um uh so they can check

671
00:54:28,540 --> 00:54:32,940
and do the audits on the gold that's trust and and that the the state getting behind it should

672
00:54:32,940 --> 00:54:37,560
create a lot of trust for the residents in the across america because you know anybody in america

673
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:43,019
You'll be able to use Florida gold currency, even if you're up in Ohio or somewhere.

674
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:45,540
Second one is taking.

675
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:51,280
We said before, between 1930s and 1970s, it was illegal to hold gold as a citizen.

676
00:54:51,940 --> 00:55:00,340
And of course, now through this initiative, it means that because it's a state authorized currency, the federal government can't come in and just confiscate it.

677
00:55:00,340 --> 00:55:02,960
And they do have this incredible system in America.

678
00:55:03,259 --> 00:55:06,900
The states are supposed to be able to keep the federal government in balance and vice versa.

679
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:12,180
And one might say that the federal government's got stronger over the last 100 years and so on.

680
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:13,700
But this is the states pushing back.

681
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:18,620
We saw it with Texas kind of pushing forward their rights to be able to defend their border, etc.

682
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,420
And now we're seeing this with constitutional gold currency.

683
00:55:21,979 --> 00:55:23,320
And the third one is taxes.

684
00:55:24,019 --> 00:55:28,580
So at the moment, gold is taxed as a collectible.

685
00:55:28,999 --> 00:55:36,900
So back in 2011, Utah, for instance, was one of the first states to make gold coins legal tender.

686
00:55:36,900 --> 00:55:43,620
They actually said that, you know, the gold eagles, which were minted by the Fed, we're making them legal tender using our constitutional right.

687
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:48,739
But the IRS came out and said, yes, I see what you're trying to do.

688
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:53,239
But actually, our interpretation of the Constitution is that this was meant to be for functional money.

689
00:55:54,320 --> 00:56:04,040
And, you know, your gold coins, you can't tell me you're going to pop into Starbucks and pay for your Starbucks with a gold eagle, which is currently worth, what, $3,400 or something like that.

690
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:04,280
That's an ounce.

691
00:56:04,540 --> 00:56:04,900
Yeah.

692
00:56:04,900 --> 00:56:05,219
Yeah.

693
00:56:05,219 --> 00:56:25,074
And so actually we going to rather than letting you take the tax away on this legal tender you just made we actually going to increase it It going to be going to classify as a collectible You now pay 28 tax on this Now that a very interesting position that they put in place

694
00:56:25,074 --> 00:56:29,214
And actually, not that long ago, the federal government under the Biden administration came

695
00:56:29,214 --> 00:56:34,174
out and clarified it again and said, look, for something to be proper legal tender, it

696
00:56:34,174 --> 00:56:39,494
needs to be, well, for something to be authorized currency in America and not be taxed, it needs

697
00:56:39,494 --> 00:56:45,594
to be both legal tender and functional money. And I think they were positioning this because

698
00:56:45,594 --> 00:56:49,614
in relation to CBDCs and the movement and enthusiasm around cryptocurrency,

699
00:56:50,614 --> 00:56:56,154
because they were trying to say, look, it has to be both functional money and legal tender.

700
00:56:56,154 --> 00:57:01,034
Now they're saying cryptocurrency might very much be functional money, but it's not legal tender.

701
00:57:01,234 --> 00:57:05,054
And no one can make it legal tender, federal government or the state.

702
00:57:05,054 --> 00:57:14,074
but um it and but cbdc's for instance would could be legal tender but not sorry why can't someone

703
00:57:14,074 --> 00:57:19,874
make what why is it forbidden to make say bitcoin legal tender in the u.s is that in the constitution

704
00:57:19,874 --> 00:57:25,854
in the constitution the constitution actually says that nothing can be money except gold and

705
00:57:25,854 --> 00:57:30,874
silver so their whole fiat currency system in 1971 is you could argue is legal right

706
00:57:30,874 --> 00:57:33,494
so while the paper was backing

707
00:57:33,494 --> 00:57:35,594
by the way just a clause

708
00:57:35,594 --> 00:57:37,834
I'm not a constitutional expert and there are other people

709
00:57:37,834 --> 00:57:39,694
know this state much better than me

710
00:57:39,694 --> 00:57:41,574
but as I understand it the constitution

711
00:57:41,574 --> 00:57:43,694
even says that you know it should be gold

712
00:57:43,694 --> 00:57:45,394
and silver and of course

713
00:57:45,394 --> 00:57:47,674
it was until 1971 when they

714
00:57:47,674 --> 00:57:49,374
temporarily came off maybe we're still

715
00:57:49,374 --> 00:57:50,554
temporarily off

716
00:57:50,554 --> 00:57:52,794
yeah they could probably say that couldn't they

717
00:57:52,794 --> 00:57:54,014
but of course

718
00:57:54,014 --> 00:57:57,654
by having the IRS explain it this way

719
00:57:57,654 --> 00:57:59,694
by having the federal government

720
00:57:59,694 --> 00:58:05,334
explain it this way they're actually confirming what the states can now do the states maybe they

721
00:58:05,334 --> 00:58:09,354
maybe they forgot maybe they weren't cognizant about the facts the other body in america that

722
00:58:09,354 --> 00:58:14,014
can make something legal tender is a state and so yeah the states can make it legal tender and

723
00:58:14,014 --> 00:58:20,214
this of course using technology like glint is is is functional money another question they keep

724
00:58:20,214 --> 00:58:27,354
popping up so the constitution says nothing can be money except gold or silver but a state

725
00:58:27,354 --> 00:58:34,294
can still override that no estate can't make nothing but gold and silver a currency and

726
00:58:34,294 --> 00:58:39,454
i see what you mean so and so it's a technicality that people aren't using gold and silver at the

727
00:58:39,454 --> 00:58:45,214
moment because really when paper when when paper money was backed by gold they were using gold

728
00:58:45,214 --> 00:58:51,154
yes and it kind of just got lost in the ether that little rule nixon did this magic trick right

729
00:58:51,154 --> 00:58:57,034
exactly but but why didn't anyone bring up the constitution then i don't know maybe they did um

730
00:58:57,034 --> 00:58:59,734
It was probably national security.

731
00:58:59,954 --> 00:59:04,534
There's always been discussions in America about this.

732
00:59:04,634 --> 00:59:07,574
Even The Wizard of Oz is an allegory about money.

733
00:59:07,814 --> 00:59:09,934
The greenbacks is Oz.

734
00:59:10,374 --> 00:59:11,734
The yellow brick road is gold.

735
00:59:12,334 --> 00:59:14,474
Dorothy's shoes originally were silver,

736
00:59:15,094 --> 00:59:16,954
but because it was Technicolor, they came out,

737
00:59:16,994 --> 00:59:18,394
they decided to make them ruby.

738
00:59:19,014 --> 00:59:21,914
The monkeys represent a bunch of people, I think.

739
00:59:22,814 --> 00:59:24,554
I'd have to check this.

740
00:59:24,554 --> 00:59:25,314
I've never heard that one.

741
00:59:25,314 --> 00:59:27,014
Yeah, you should check it out.

742
00:59:27,154 --> 00:59:27,754
You should check it out.

743
00:59:28,034 --> 00:59:30,614
The Wizard of Oz is an allegory for the monetary system

744
00:59:30,614 --> 00:59:34,814
and the arguments at the time that were going on about gold and silver as money.

745
00:59:36,334 --> 00:59:39,334
But going back to what we were saying, it means then,

746
00:59:39,614 --> 00:59:42,494
so the three Ts, trust, taking, and taxes,

747
00:59:43,134 --> 00:59:46,554
it should mean that capital gains tax should fall away

748
00:59:46,554 --> 00:59:53,334
on gold and silver used as an authorized transactional platform of a state.

749
00:59:53,334 --> 01:00:00,994
and I think the movement for this is really hoping that that will happen sooner rather than later.

750
01:00:01,094 --> 01:00:05,554
So in other words, the path is now open for that capital gains tax to fall away,

751
01:00:06,134 --> 01:00:09,874
which it arguably couldn't do on a crypto or Bitcoin currency.

752
01:00:10,854 --> 01:00:14,074
And we'll see what happens.

753
01:00:14,154 --> 01:00:15,494
There are various ways that could happen.

754
01:00:15,494 --> 01:00:20,314
The IRS could volunteer to just do it or they might need Congress.

755
01:00:20,314 --> 01:00:25,294
And I think probably the easiest way is for an executive order from the president.

756
01:00:25,554 --> 01:00:27,974
We'll have to see what happens over the next few months.

757
01:00:29,274 --> 01:00:30,634
Gold is money.

758
01:00:30,854 --> 01:00:37,214
That's the, I mean, this is what annoys me about the way Bitcoin is treated, because Bitcoin is money.

759
01:00:37,514 --> 01:00:43,854
And if you're an economist or a scientist, Bitcoin really is money, just like gold really is money.

760
01:00:44,374 --> 01:00:48,274
You know, when you look at the different factors that make something a money.

761
01:00:48,274 --> 01:00:50,274
Yeah, it's a private.

762
01:00:50,314 --> 01:00:51,214
Definitely created money.

763
01:00:51,554 --> 01:00:51,934
Right.

764
01:00:52,814 --> 01:00:58,794
But that's what annoys me about people saying, oh, you know, we talked about this on this pod the other day.

765
01:00:58,954 --> 01:01:05,434
Farage came out at the Bitcoin conference and said, oh, I'm going to slash capital gains taxed on Bitcoin to 10%.

766
01:01:05,434 --> 01:01:08,734
And my first thought was, well, you're still taxing it, though.

767
01:01:08,754 --> 01:01:09,214
It's money.

768
01:01:09,934 --> 01:01:11,014
Why are you taxing money?

769
01:01:11,014 --> 01:01:20,154
Money is a, it really, Bitcoin, in my eyes at least, is a great money because it doesn't have other uses in the same way that gold does.

770
01:01:20,314 --> 01:01:25,094
It's a great money. It really is a money that I can store my value in in an exchange with you.

771
01:01:27,174 --> 01:01:41,054
Look, I don't disagree. I mean, I'm kind of pretty frustrated by some of the arguments that go on between the Bitcoin community and the gold communities in some areas where they seem to be having a battle with each other.

772
01:01:41,194 --> 01:01:47,554
Look, they're both. I'm delighted that we have some cousins who are working on the same problem.

773
01:01:47,554 --> 01:01:49,594
At the end of the day, we've both got the same problem.

774
01:01:49,914 --> 01:01:52,134
We're both trying to find solutions to the same issue.

775
01:01:52,574 --> 01:01:56,334
And of course, this is what our enemies want, is to fight amongst ourselves.

776
01:01:56,994 --> 01:02:03,614
And actually, I just think gold is just another answer to the private ownership of gold.

777
01:02:03,834 --> 01:02:08,194
Being able to be able to transact electronically, a bottom-up return to sound money through gold,

778
01:02:08,594 --> 01:02:11,814
is really one of the solutions that we've got there.

779
01:02:11,894 --> 01:02:16,594
And I know lots of people who own cryptocurrency that like gold as well.

780
01:02:17,334 --> 01:02:25,654
And what really Glint's looking forward to is clarity on cryptocurrency laws and regulations.

781
01:02:26,054 --> 01:02:28,034
I think it's being led in the United States.

782
01:02:28,254 --> 01:02:33,474
I think it'll end up going the same way whichever way the States does in Europe and in the UK as well.

783
01:02:34,354 --> 01:02:40,414
And once that clarity is in place, then I'd love there to be a bridge between Glint and the cryptocurrency world.

784
01:02:40,414 --> 01:02:43,414
And that's what we're planning on doing as soon as that clarity comes through.

785
01:02:43,414 --> 01:02:50,434
I think in my case, I don't care about the kind of debate.

786
01:02:51,354 --> 01:02:53,174
It's whether or not it works for me.

787
01:02:53,434 --> 01:02:53,694
Yeah, really.

788
01:02:53,854 --> 01:02:54,374
It's all it is.

789
01:02:54,674 --> 01:02:55,374
It's all it is.

790
01:02:55,414 --> 01:02:55,494
Yeah.

791
01:02:55,854 --> 01:03:04,754
If gold holds my, you know, preserves my wealth well and I can transact in it easily, I'll use it in a glint card or whatever, you know.

792
01:03:04,874 --> 01:03:05,014
Yeah.

793
01:03:05,074 --> 01:03:05,734
Same with Bitcoin.

794
01:03:05,994 --> 01:03:07,794
I really don't care about the politics of it.

795
01:03:07,814 --> 01:03:08,954
I have no interest in that at all.

796
01:03:08,994 --> 01:03:11,014
It's purely like, does it work or not?

797
01:03:11,014 --> 01:03:14,374
And we've seen that they do behave slightly differently.

798
01:03:14,634 --> 01:03:18,454
So Bitcoin is still a risk-on asset, a form of money.

799
01:03:18,974 --> 01:03:22,954
Gold is still risk-off, although that's changed recently.

800
01:03:23,314 --> 01:03:26,474
What do I mean by risk-on in case people don't understand that?

801
01:03:26,534 --> 01:03:30,554
Well, obviously, when the stock market tends to go up,

802
01:03:30,614 --> 01:03:31,434
Bitcoin tends to go up.

803
01:03:31,434 --> 01:03:33,854
When the stock market tends to crash, Bitcoin tends to go down.

804
01:03:34,134 --> 01:03:36,694
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Bitcoin went down.

805
01:03:37,274 --> 01:03:39,294
Gold normally works the other way around.

806
01:03:39,294 --> 01:03:41,654
when the stock market's working well,

807
01:03:41,834 --> 01:03:43,154
gold's not doing so good.

808
01:03:43,294 --> 01:03:45,174
When the stock market is going down

809
01:03:45,174 --> 01:03:47,254
or Russia invades Ukraine, it flies.

810
01:03:48,014 --> 01:03:50,374
But of course, we've seen a dislocation in that recently

811
01:03:50,374 --> 01:03:52,154
and gold's just going up no matter what's happening.

812
01:03:52,314 --> 01:03:53,874
And of course, that is to do with

813
01:03:53,874 --> 01:03:57,074
an increasing lack of confidence in the US dollar.

814
01:03:58,274 --> 01:03:59,234
But I mean, going back to the,

815
01:03:59,274 --> 01:04:01,274
remember I said that there was a group of people

816
01:04:01,274 --> 01:04:03,254
that put together a committee, so to speak,

817
01:04:03,254 --> 01:04:05,234
in Utah to look into this whole thing

818
01:04:05,234 --> 01:04:06,794
about constitutional gold currency

819
01:04:06,794 --> 01:04:07,834
and whether it would work.

820
01:04:07,834 --> 01:04:14,994
there were some really interesting people on that committee because you know one of the things i

821
01:04:14,994 --> 01:04:19,294
often get heard is that you'll it'll never happen i mean when i was trying to set glint up i was told

822
01:04:19,294 --> 01:04:24,714
you wouldn't be able to do it technically or you wouldn't be allowed to do it and i still get this

823
01:04:24,714 --> 01:04:29,994
now even though these u.s states are passing these laws i get people saying to me yeah but they're not

824
01:04:29,994 --> 01:04:35,434
going to let that happen i'm like hang on a second florida this is the trump mafia down there

825
01:04:35,434 --> 01:04:42,674
DeSantis didn't just, the law just wasn't passed unanimously, nearly unanimously across both parties.

826
01:04:42,974 --> 01:04:45,834
He came out and did a full on press release about it.

827
01:04:45,834 --> 01:04:49,414
This is the whole Trump land down there.

828
01:04:49,694 --> 01:04:56,754
You know, the AG, the Attorney General, the Patronus, the CFO of Florida.

829
01:04:56,894 --> 01:04:59,554
These are people running the country, really.

830
01:04:59,714 --> 01:05:00,954
They're all part of that group.

831
01:05:00,954 --> 01:05:19,454
And on this committee in Utah, they had Wall Street titans like Gary Crittenden, who was the CFO of American Express. And you had Randy Corrales, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve.

832
01:05:19,454 --> 01:05:23,454
And his view is, look, people should have choice. He's definitely a libertarian.

833
01:05:23,454 --> 01:05:31,454
He said people should have choice. If they want to be able to store their value in gold, they should be able to do so.

834
01:05:31,454 --> 01:05:43,969
But I think that he and the people running the country believe that the dollar is still going to be the medium of exchange even if its store of value is diminishing its position as a store of value is diminishing

835
01:05:44,449 --> 01:05:51,189
But of course, they're shoring up that store of value position by passing all this legislation around stable coins.

836
01:05:51,389 --> 01:05:57,689
And of course, Tether is one of the biggest buyers of US treasuries because it's offshore and it's not audited.

837
01:05:57,689 --> 01:06:05,349
We never know quite how much, but if it's involved in 80% of all Bitcoin transactions, then you know it's going to be quite a lot.

838
01:06:06,989 --> 01:06:11,509
Well, monetary choice is the final boss of everything, I think, when it actually comes to it.

839
01:06:12,629 --> 01:06:18,829
And I personally don't think that will happen through a decision made by someone.

840
01:06:19,009 --> 01:06:23,029
I think people will be forced into that predicament.

841
01:06:23,029 --> 01:06:39,489
And that's why I veered to the Bitcoin side, because I see it as a Trojan horse that will basically, by the time it's too late, the only way to, as most Bitcoiners know, the only way to play Bitcoin is to join in.

842
01:06:40,109 --> 01:06:43,909
And once you join in, the rules are very strict and you can't break them.

843
01:06:44,149 --> 01:06:47,449
And governments join in in the end and they can't break them.

844
01:06:47,449 --> 01:06:55,469
But the only thing the governments can do, we've seen this time and time again, of course, is that they can make things illegal.

845
01:06:55,749 --> 01:06:55,969
Yes.

846
01:06:56,189 --> 01:07:04,689
And, you know, holding Bitcoin or gold, we've both seen how they've been made, they have been made illegal, I think, in some countries or some situations.

847
01:07:05,189 --> 01:07:05,529
China?

848
01:07:05,789 --> 01:07:11,749
Yeah, and overregulation as well can effectively make it less effective and stuff like that.

849
01:07:11,749 --> 01:07:22,329
And I think you're a brave person if you go against the government and do something that's illegal.

850
01:07:22,329 --> 01:07:41,509
And look, that's a world we're talking about, which I hope and pray we never get to, because it's going to be a pretty difficult, bad place, the scenario where you're having to deal with the gold and the gold coins in your secret vault at home or your Bitcoin.

851
01:07:41,749 --> 01:07:43,349
on your USB stick or whatever,

852
01:07:43,569 --> 01:07:45,529
which you've got to hide because no one can see that.

853
01:07:45,689 --> 01:07:46,569
I mean...

854
01:07:46,569 --> 01:07:48,949
I do wonder, though, during the 6102

855
01:07:48,949 --> 01:07:50,829
when they confiscated the gold,

856
01:07:51,069 --> 01:07:54,489
I wonder how many people just didn't give it in.

857
01:07:54,529 --> 01:07:55,609
It must have been a huge amount.

858
01:07:55,749 --> 01:07:58,309
Some people, but you've got to remember the context.

859
01:07:58,489 --> 01:08:00,709
Again, the dollar was fixed to gold.

860
01:08:00,709 --> 01:08:03,189
What benefit did it have for them?

861
01:08:03,709 --> 01:08:05,209
The gold price wasn't going up.

862
01:08:05,289 --> 01:08:05,909
It was staying static.

863
01:08:05,909 --> 01:08:07,729
Yeah, but if you realise what was about to ensue.

864
01:08:07,749 --> 01:08:08,149
If you did.

865
01:08:08,169 --> 01:08:10,529
If a free market versus the government market.

866
01:08:10,529 --> 01:08:14,269
There were some people, I'm sure, who hoarded their gold.

867
01:08:14,929 --> 01:08:16,109
I would have thought a lot.

868
01:08:16,409 --> 01:08:16,589
Yeah.

869
01:08:17,889 --> 01:08:21,149
What I don't understand, right, just talking about it with you now,

870
01:08:21,189 --> 01:08:23,389
is how come no one's done this before?

871
01:08:23,789 --> 01:08:25,009
It just makes a lot of sense.

872
01:08:25,009 --> 01:08:27,409
Well, you know, it does, but you needed the internet.

873
01:08:28,089 --> 01:08:29,569
And the same for Bitcoin, you know.

874
01:08:29,689 --> 01:08:31,029
And you've got to remember, it didn't happen.

875
01:08:31,189 --> 01:08:33,989
The internet, it wasn't that long ago.

876
01:08:34,009 --> 01:08:35,409
We've had credit cards for a while, haven't we?

877
01:08:35,889 --> 01:08:38,589
Why wasn't there a gold-backed credit card?

878
01:08:38,889 --> 01:08:40,129
Why didn't someone think that up?

879
01:08:40,129 --> 01:08:46,169
Is it just because we're in inflationary times, the memes out there now that people are losing their purchasing?

880
01:08:46,169 --> 01:08:47,949
Look, I think inflation's insidious.

881
01:08:48,989 --> 01:08:53,709
You know, most people don't have, up until COVID, they didn't really think about it.

882
01:08:54,089 --> 01:08:54,429
I agree.

883
01:08:54,449 --> 01:09:06,929
You know, in 1970, I get the fingers a bit wrong sometimes when I do this, but roughly, let's call it roughly, a house cost in the US $20,000 or 20,000 grams of gold.

884
01:09:07,969 --> 01:09:08,309
Okay.

885
01:09:08,309 --> 01:09:12,809
A house today maybe costs $250,000.

886
01:09:15,189 --> 01:09:19,669
And that 20,000 grams of gold buys you three houses.

887
01:09:21,609 --> 01:09:25,929
But people, it's not like it's happened fast.

888
01:09:26,309 --> 01:09:31,909
And if you're born between, you become a teenager, as I did in 19,

889
01:09:32,509 --> 01:09:34,349
so you become an adult, say 1990,

890
01:09:35,209 --> 01:09:37,409
and then you start thinking about buying a house,

891
01:09:37,409 --> 01:09:40,329
You don't really feel the inflation that much.

892
01:09:40,729 --> 01:09:41,729
It's insidious.

893
01:09:41,849 --> 01:09:43,089
You don't realize what's happening.

894
01:09:43,289 --> 01:09:46,609
And yet even their target of 2.5% is quite a lot.

895
01:09:46,749 --> 01:09:50,929
And over my lifetime, the dollar and the pound have nearly lost 90% of their purchasing power.

896
01:09:51,409 --> 01:09:51,849
90.

897
01:09:52,309 --> 01:09:53,049
Listen to that.

898
01:09:53,129 --> 01:09:54,849
They've nearly lost all of their value.

899
01:09:55,669 --> 01:09:59,949
It's the greatest unfair immoral tax that exists on the planet.

900
01:10:00,089 --> 01:10:05,469
So, of course, Nigel Farage is still going to want to time tax Bitcoin a little bit because they're going to lose their ability.

901
01:10:05,469 --> 01:10:11,809
to effectively tax you and get money for unsustainable projects through inflation.

902
01:10:12,589 --> 01:10:19,549
And so I think the psyche, most people on the street weren't cognizant about what was happening

903
01:10:19,549 --> 01:10:23,169
until, and I think that's one great thing about the Bitcoin movement,

904
01:10:23,169 --> 01:10:30,549
and a lot of young people as well, driven to despair, really, the inability to buy houses.

905
01:10:30,649 --> 01:10:34,309
And we have a whole generation of people now who are never going to feel

906
01:10:34,309 --> 01:10:35,849
that they're never going to be able to own a house.

907
01:10:35,929 --> 01:10:37,109
I remember sat in France.

908
01:10:37,329 --> 01:10:39,309
I was at one of these in this restaurant

909
01:10:39,309 --> 01:10:41,689
where they have these French style dining

910
01:10:41,689 --> 01:10:43,209
where you're sharing a table together.

911
01:10:43,529 --> 01:10:44,729
And there was this American woman

912
01:10:44,729 --> 01:10:47,529
and her daughter visiting Paris sat next to me.

913
01:10:47,729 --> 01:10:49,469
And then, yeah, we got chatting and her mom said,

914
01:10:49,529 --> 01:10:52,949
yeah, I've told her just forget the idea

915
01:10:52,949 --> 01:10:53,809
about buying a house.

916
01:10:53,869 --> 01:10:54,829
And it was absolutely shocking.

917
01:10:55,629 --> 01:10:57,669
And so I think the younger people coming through

918
01:10:57,669 --> 01:11:00,189
as being part of this Bitcoin revolution.

919
01:11:00,369 --> 01:11:02,329
But I think that's one of its challenges as well,

920
01:11:02,329 --> 01:11:07,209
of course is that there is a huge amount within the cryptocurrency which has got to get rich quick

921
01:11:07,209 --> 01:11:14,129
situation which is driven by the inequality and then you've got gary's uh you know vision being

922
01:11:14,129 --> 01:11:19,149
welcomed by a lot of people because out of desperation let's just tax the rich and move

923
01:11:19,149 --> 01:11:25,429
the money over here and that's my biggest concern and worry is that capitalism itself is getting a

924
01:11:25,429 --> 01:11:31,369
bad name because it's believed that capitalism isn't working for the people when in fact it's

925
01:11:31,369 --> 01:11:36,949
the fuel on which the capitalism is running that is the problem and if people realize that because

926
01:11:36,949 --> 01:11:42,229
actually capitalism is much better than socialism capitalism you should be rewarded for the hard

927
01:11:42,229 --> 01:11:48,249
work that you do whatever that work is and that money that you have should be solid that really

928
01:11:48,249 --> 01:11:53,549
money what it really is is the ledger of promises between us all and that really should be a

929
01:11:53,549 --> 01:12:01,629
beautiful thing but of course it people look at money in very different ways now it's it's funny

930
01:12:01,629 --> 01:12:07,869
though you say people look at money in different ways i do think that people are starting to think

931
01:12:07,869 --> 01:12:14,129
about money it's like you say since covid especially because inflation is now noticeable

932
01:12:14,129 --> 01:12:21,509
like prices have pretty much doubled yeah really doubled that's like venezuelan style inflation but

933
01:12:21,509 --> 01:12:27,169
all i know is my mum she was i was talking to her on the phone the other day and she she said i buy i

934
01:12:27,169 --> 01:12:32,469
used to buy this there's one bar of chocolate she buys it's one of those expensive dark chocolate

935
01:12:32,469 --> 01:12:39,069
ones it used to be 199 it's now 399 for the same bar because they've obviously refused to make the

936
01:12:39,069 --> 01:12:46,549
quality of the chocolate lower but that's a massive increase that's not too even at two and a half

937
01:12:46,549 --> 01:12:54,169
percent you lose you know your purchasing power quite quickly over say five ten years but at 100

938
01:12:54,169 --> 01:12:58,849
percent yeah it means out of the you know it's out of this world it's crazy and they do actually

939
01:12:58,849 --> 01:13:03,829
change the ingredients so that you know they make the bars smaller shrink inflation and i've heard

940
01:13:03,829 --> 01:13:09,589
now they're changing the recipe so instead of using a good quality sugar or honey or something

941
01:13:09,589 --> 01:13:14,389
they're now putting other things in which are lower quality of course yeah and and it's shocking

942
01:13:14,389 --> 01:13:18,329
The burger when I was born costs 55 cents.

943
01:13:19,029 --> 01:13:21,789
And then I think across most McDonald's, it's about $6.

944
01:13:22,189 --> 01:13:25,049
I went into one in New York and it was nearly $11.

945
01:13:25,889 --> 01:13:26,309
For a burger?

946
01:13:26,389 --> 01:13:26,909
For a burger.

947
01:13:27,329 --> 01:13:28,269
A McDonald's burger.

948
01:13:28,389 --> 01:13:28,609
Yeah.

949
01:13:29,149 --> 01:13:32,569
Yeah, they got the thing called the McDonald's index,

950
01:13:32,689 --> 01:13:35,649
which kind of shows inflation because the burger itself hasn't changed much

951
01:13:35,649 --> 01:13:36,769
over the last 50 years.

952
01:13:37,529 --> 01:13:39,349
Look, it's all shocking stuff.

953
01:13:39,469 --> 01:13:41,849
And I think we're at an inflection point.

954
01:13:41,849 --> 01:13:48,729
I never thought for one second governments would be getting behind gold and silver, albeit state governments.

955
01:13:48,729 --> 01:13:59,349
We've had a small country, the governor of a central bank of a small country even get in touch with us and say, please launch Glint in our country because we've got large inflation.

956
01:13:59,909 --> 01:14:01,309
I'd love to be able to do that.

957
01:14:01,389 --> 01:14:09,929
But of course, a lot of the funding for fintechs around this is all in the crypto community.

958
01:14:10,109 --> 01:14:11,749
So that's one of the things we've struggled against.

959
01:14:11,849 --> 01:14:14,569
What about, where are you based in the UK here?

960
01:14:14,569 --> 01:14:16,609
Yeah, we're founded in the UK.

961
01:14:16,889 --> 01:14:20,509
Obviously, I live in the UK, but our biggest market is actually in the US.

962
01:14:20,809 --> 01:14:28,289
I was going to say, because surely, I don't know anyone who would want to start a business here now,

963
01:14:28,649 --> 01:14:33,029
let alone one that's involved with money and finance.

964
01:14:33,189 --> 01:14:33,449
Jesus.

965
01:14:33,789 --> 01:14:39,489
I mean, for example, do you pay cap gains on gold here when you buy and sell it?

966
01:14:40,809 --> 01:14:41,249
Yes.

967
01:14:41,329 --> 01:14:41,569
Yes.

968
01:14:41,849 --> 01:14:45,509
But there's no tax, right, when you buy physical gold, isn't that right?

969
01:14:45,629 --> 01:14:46,589
No, not when you buy it.

970
01:14:46,589 --> 01:14:47,589
Yeah, there's no VAT.

971
01:14:47,789 --> 01:14:48,189
VAT, yeah.

972
01:14:48,189 --> 01:14:51,289
But there's a capital gains tax, which again, like all of us.

973
01:14:51,289 --> 01:14:55,329
So how does that work with a glint card then when you want to pay?

974
01:14:55,449 --> 01:14:55,649
Yeah.

975
01:14:56,009 --> 01:14:59,969
Does it automatically work out how much gold you've got, how much it's gone up, how much?

976
01:14:59,984 --> 01:15:06,884
spending and then what tell them well yeah i mean look it's a reality it's a real problem same with

977
01:15:06,884 --> 01:15:14,624
cryptocurrency as well so we we set up we started working with kpmg we built a platform together

978
01:15:14,624 --> 01:15:20,804
that allows effectively your anonymous data to be sent to kpmg's computer it calculates your capital

979
01:15:20,804 --> 01:15:26,384
gains tax and sends you back a report and that you know that's that can be done within seconds but um

980
01:15:26,384 --> 01:15:27,784
But still, it's being done.

981
01:15:27,984 --> 01:15:30,304
It's so annoying that gold is money.

982
01:15:31,464 --> 01:15:32,444
Like gold has been money.

983
01:15:32,804 --> 01:15:34,664
There's a proven track record of being money.

984
01:15:34,824 --> 01:15:38,064
It's not like you can say, well, gold's not really money, is it?

985
01:15:38,064 --> 01:15:38,404
No, no.

986
01:15:38,524 --> 01:15:39,784
It's like, yeah, gold's money.

987
01:15:40,004 --> 01:15:42,584
Central banks, it's a currency of last resort.

988
01:15:42,724 --> 01:15:46,924
They're not holding other currencies.

989
01:15:47,564 --> 01:15:48,944
They're holding gold and dollar.

990
01:15:49,304 --> 01:15:49,884
And they're not, you know.

991
01:15:50,704 --> 01:15:52,144
Yeah, it's money and nothing else.

992
01:15:52,164 --> 01:15:54,444
As JP Morgan said, gold is money and nothing else.

993
01:15:54,444 --> 01:16:02,904
so do you think that it might be seen as money i mean obviously in the states it's kind of

994
01:16:02,904 --> 01:16:10,344
now i'm thinking europe do you know the states the these six states if they were pulled together

995
01:16:10,344 --> 01:16:14,364
their gdp it'd be something like the third biggest country in the world so it's massive

996
01:16:14,364 --> 01:16:19,964
what's happening in america we'll see what happens generally speaking america sneezes

997
01:16:19,964 --> 01:16:27,404
and sometime later in Europe we get a cold and I think that um I think we're already seeing I think

998
01:16:27,404 --> 01:16:33,084
Bitcoin I mean I'm not the expert on crypto but you know we're seeing changes happening aren't we

999
01:16:33,084 --> 01:16:37,904
within the crypto community um people starting talking about Britain now being able to have

1000
01:16:37,904 --> 01:16:45,044
gold bait sorry crypto based ETFs and things like that yes but um it's painful what's going

1001
01:16:45,044 --> 01:16:46,444
I don't even look anymore.

1002
01:16:47,024 --> 01:16:51,744
The UK is, I don't know, Europe as well.

1003
01:16:52,104 --> 01:16:54,084
It's like anti-innovation.

1004
01:16:54,884 --> 01:16:59,264
You get the sense that the government is way too big,

1005
01:17:00,044 --> 01:17:02,544
way too expensive, way too unproductive,

1006
01:17:02,884 --> 01:17:09,044
and the people working in there have got no interest in things,

1007
01:17:10,044 --> 01:17:13,384
people being left free to really innovate and do what they want

1008
01:17:13,384 --> 01:17:15,824
and make money for everyone and spread it around.

1009
01:17:16,704 --> 01:17:19,644
I mean, I was actually qualified as an architect

1010
01:17:19,644 --> 01:17:23,304
after working six years, studying for six years

1011
01:17:23,304 --> 01:17:26,564
and then practicing for two years in Hong Kong as an architect.

1012
01:17:26,904 --> 01:17:29,684
I decided to get out of it and I went into virtual reality

1013
01:17:29,684 --> 01:17:33,664
for a few years because I thought all this regulation,

1014
01:17:34,024 --> 01:17:35,884
no one's ever let me build what I want to build.

1015
01:17:36,324 --> 01:17:39,044
I've got to take my hat off to some architects

1016
01:17:39,044 --> 01:17:41,104
like Zaha Hadid and stuff in that practice

1017
01:17:41,104 --> 01:17:43,584
who've ended up developing that kind of organic architecture

1018
01:17:43,584 --> 01:17:46,844
that I used to love and never thought would be able to build it, you know.

1019
01:17:47,084 --> 01:17:48,544
But they're probably not building it in this country.

1020
01:17:48,544 --> 01:17:49,864
No, no, they're out in the Middle East.

1021
01:17:50,084 --> 01:17:52,904
They're building it in the Middle East or, you know, et cetera, yeah.

1022
01:17:53,244 --> 01:17:57,764
So that kind of undemocratic censorship you get with architecture,

1023
01:17:58,624 --> 01:18:00,524
I always joke with people,

1024
01:18:00,624 --> 01:18:12,758
next they be telling me what I can and can wear And I think that the You probably can already in some shape or form i bet you they can well you can wear nothing can you i don know if you went outside wearing nothing i

1025
01:18:12,758 --> 01:18:17,898
sure when i wouldn't last red underpants just red underpants do you know what though what gold ones

1026
01:18:17,898 --> 01:18:22,218
please what what is a little bit concerning and you said the same thing yourself i agree with you

1027
01:18:22,218 --> 01:18:28,498
here is the kind of gary's socialist economics type people yeah really people i know a lot of

1028
01:18:28,498 --> 01:18:34,358
people that really think he's preaching the word yeah yeah it's like but you can understand why

1029
01:18:34,358 --> 01:18:40,478
can't you well no because if you think it through no absolutely no you can see what what that what

1030
01:18:40,478 --> 01:18:48,818
it's the immediate promise you know if you take in america five people owning more than the bottom

1031
01:18:48,818 --> 01:18:57,218
50 of america that's that's hundreds of tens if not hundreds millions of people five people five

1032
01:18:57,218 --> 01:19:03,398
blokes own more than they do and they are struggling their food prices are going up four

1033
01:19:03,398 --> 01:19:08,838
and a half percent a year everything's getting difficult it's the have-nots versus the have-yots

1034
01:19:08,838 --> 01:19:16,418
why and and and all they know is that the system is benefiting those five guys then of course i can

1035
01:19:16,418 --> 01:19:23,098
see why people go yeah tax tax them it's not fair capitalism isn't working tax them and redistribute

1036
01:19:23,098 --> 01:19:28,438
the wealth. What's the solution to them? They don't necessarily understand. I mean, it took me

1037
01:19:28,438 --> 01:19:33,118
a long time to understand how this system works. I'm still learning about it every day. Even the

1038
01:19:33,118 --> 01:19:39,158
politicians don't understand. And of course, I'm worried like you are that actually what's going

1039
01:19:39,158 --> 01:19:43,678
to happen is you'll get, you end up with two situations where we end up in society where the

1040
01:19:43,678 --> 01:19:49,538
populace either votes for a hard right or a hard left. And if the hard left looks like socialism,

1041
01:19:49,538 --> 01:19:54,358
high taxation you know that type of thing hard right don't want to think about that either

1042
01:19:54,358 --> 01:20:02,458
but no one's coming up and standing up and putting forward another an alternative argument

1043
01:20:02,458 --> 01:20:06,958
to the taxation one i don't think and i think the reason they're not is because

1044
01:20:06,958 --> 01:20:15,238
the realization that the majority of people have never had or even contemplated the thought of

1045
01:20:15,238 --> 01:20:21,118
is that the government's the problem that there's this understanding this general understanding that

1046
01:20:21,118 --> 01:20:26,578
most people have which is why when gary gary's economics whenever he whenever he kind of argues

1047
01:20:26,578 --> 01:20:33,018
any point he he defaults to the government solving it without even thinking about the fact that maybe

1048
01:20:33,018 --> 01:20:36,978
there might that the government isn't the one that solves these problems that the government

1049
01:20:36,978 --> 01:20:42,118
creates these problems really and only solves them if it's in their own interest i mean i mean i think

1050
01:20:42,118 --> 01:20:48,138
I think that I would say, you know, I'd love to speak to Gary because he's, I mean, he obviously cares.

1051
01:20:48,378 --> 01:20:56,978
He thinks he cares or he seems to care about the disparity in the world and the economic situation that society is facing and the problem that causes.

1052
01:20:57,818 --> 01:20:59,778
And he's from a working class background, too.

1053
01:20:59,858 --> 01:21:05,238
He understands that he's lived in those places, you know, you know, Sunderland.

1054
01:21:05,438 --> 01:21:06,718
I mean, I don't want to name out.

1055
01:21:06,998 --> 01:21:21,051
I don want to name places but you know Cornwall everywhere anywhere basically on the fringe If you go far enough out a few hours outside of london it totally different to london i mean people who people who just been brought up in london don know what it like at other parts of the country

1056
01:21:21,051 --> 01:21:26,911
they've you know it's unbelievable it's like chalk and cheese and and this arrogance that you get with

1057
01:21:26,911 --> 01:21:33,871
some entrepreneurs who you know they believe that their entire success is down to their genius well

1058
01:21:33,871 --> 01:21:39,871
I'm sure they're very clever people, probably very driven, but they've had a hand out.

1059
01:21:39,911 --> 01:21:41,931
They've had a hose pipe of money since COVID.

1060
01:21:42,251 --> 01:21:44,271
They had a hose pipe of money pointed at them.

1061
01:21:45,091 --> 01:21:50,871
If you can't do well when you've got a hose pipe of money pointing at you, you've got to think about it.

1062
01:21:51,491 --> 01:21:55,411
Gary, you shouldn't talk about him too much, I suppose.

1063
01:21:55,991 --> 01:22:01,551
But I only need to know one thing about Gary that basically clouds my whole impression of him.

1064
01:22:01,551 --> 01:22:04,291
is he does not understand Bitcoin in the slightest.

1065
01:22:05,431 --> 01:22:10,511
And with that, he speaks very confidently about it

1066
01:22:10,511 --> 01:22:12,151
in a way that isn't true,

1067
01:22:12,251 --> 01:22:14,651
which makes me wonder about everything he says.

1068
01:22:15,011 --> 01:22:19,531
Because, you know, you have to put in thousands of hours

1069
01:22:19,531 --> 01:22:23,491
to understand Bitcoin and to understand even simple money.

1070
01:22:23,811 --> 01:22:24,451
What is money?

1071
01:22:25,051 --> 01:22:27,171
And when he talks about Bitcoin,

1072
01:22:27,291 --> 01:22:29,971
he talks about it in a very confidently wrong way.

1073
01:22:29,971 --> 01:22:36,731
and that's a really massive red flag really and obviously yeah he he's he's he thinks that

1074
01:22:36,731 --> 01:22:40,891
stealing from someone to give to someone else is the correct way to solve problems which

1075
01:22:40,891 --> 01:22:48,691
you and i obviously don't um well i all i'd say is that i think uh in a way that's what happens

1076
01:22:48,691 --> 01:22:55,231
at the moment though money is stolen off people through inflation and given to other people so it

1077
01:22:55,231 --> 01:23:01,011
is happening that way the other way around at the moment i can see why people are attracted to the

1078
01:23:01,011 --> 01:23:09,351
idea of reversing that but i think the solution is far from that but the problem is it it's i mean i

1079
01:23:09,351 --> 01:23:15,551
i'm spending my time if i could wish i could spend more time in trying to make the situation simple

1080
01:23:15,551 --> 01:23:21,851
to understand for people what um what is the result in the u.s currently then what position

1081
01:23:21,851 --> 01:23:26,991
are you at with that whole being able to call gold money?

1082
01:23:27,431 --> 01:23:30,071
Yeah, well, the law has been put into action,

1083
01:23:30,371 --> 01:23:33,851
and in some states they have instructed their CFOs

1084
01:23:34,471 --> 01:23:36,531
or their finance directors or whatever of the state

1085
01:23:36,531 --> 01:23:38,071
to make some rules around it.

1086
01:23:39,111 --> 01:23:41,451
And they're quite simple rules in America,

1087
01:23:41,571 --> 01:23:43,691
and that's not as heavy regulation as over here.

1088
01:23:44,231 --> 01:23:46,331
It's things like making sure the gold is audited.

1089
01:23:46,471 --> 01:23:48,631
I know Florida, that happens in June next year.

1090
01:23:48,631 --> 01:23:54,711
But I think in Louisiana and in Missouri, I think the legislation is a lot lighter.

1091
01:23:55,531 --> 01:23:59,031
And therefore, it might just be weeks away before we can do that.

1092
01:23:59,271 --> 01:24:01,051
Okay, quickly before we go, future.

1093
01:24:01,311 --> 01:24:04,511
What's the future hold in the world of gold?

1094
01:24:04,691 --> 01:24:08,931
Well, the world's a dark place, but there's always a glint of hope.

1095
01:24:09,851 --> 01:24:14,451
And that's why we call it glint, apart from the fact that metal always glints.

1096
01:24:14,451 --> 01:24:28,285
But I think that it a world that hasn had so much uncertainty for a long time And I don feel good about that I worry about it for my kids and their kids

1097
01:24:28,665 --> 01:24:32,645
And I think that we've got to have other solutions.

1098
01:24:32,645 --> 01:24:35,645
I think that those solutions have presented themselves.

1099
01:24:35,805 --> 01:24:41,005
Innovation, capitalism, you know, entrepreneurship has developed those solutions.

1100
01:24:41,245 --> 01:24:42,065
Glint is one of them.

1101
01:24:42,145 --> 01:24:42,985
Bitcoin is another.

1102
01:24:42,985 --> 01:24:50,785
you know um and and and so on xrp whatever it is these are all solutions to a problem that private

1103
01:24:50,785 --> 01:24:58,765
market's bringing and um so far we've seen recently although we saw a terrible reaction

1104
01:24:58,765 --> 01:25:05,205
to these private market initiatives with the former u.s initiative administration and the same in

1105
01:25:05,205 --> 01:25:12,165
in europe europe and the uk a little bit um i think things are changing at the moment i think that

1106
01:25:12,165 --> 01:25:16,625
the weather the winds are behind us a little bit but as we say

1107
01:25:16,625 --> 01:25:25,405
um i worry about the problems that society faces because of inequality and what that might mean

1108
01:25:25,405 --> 01:25:33,245
for us all when it comes to government overreach don't like leaving it on a sad note but i'm going

1109
01:25:33,245 --> 01:25:39,625
to take that as a positive one that the solutions are here yes the question i my i will always

1110
01:25:39,625 --> 01:25:47,545
say that the hardest money wins in the end and and people will always choose once they understand

1111
01:25:47,545 --> 01:25:52,665
the product they will and they will choose the one that preserves their wealth yeah the only

1112
01:25:52,665 --> 01:25:56,745
thing that might happen is they might not be allowed to and if they do i think there's geo

1113
01:25:56,745 --> 01:26:01,265
arbitrage these days you can yeah you can find another you can find another place yeah i mean um

1114
01:26:01,265 --> 01:26:05,845
you know a lot of people mention throw gresham's law at me saying no one's going to spend their

1115
01:26:05,845 --> 01:26:09,765
money they're hard money i'm like well you've obviously got too much rubbish money because

1116
01:26:09,765 --> 01:26:15,265
thea's law says that good money drives out bad and it's a much more mobile world than we used

1117
01:26:15,265 --> 01:26:20,465
to live in as you say and another good another great thing another initiative you know free

1118
01:26:20,465 --> 01:26:26,465
private cities etc is a wonderful thing it's another choice for people and uh people are

1119
01:26:26,465 --> 01:26:31,145
voting with their feet we've seen that with um i think the biggest exodus of millionaires out of

1120
01:26:31,145 --> 01:26:38,305
this country that we've ever ever seen correct well and let's hope you weren't you're not one

1121
01:26:38,305 --> 01:26:42,345
of those you might be i think i might be in about 10 years i don't know i don't know how much longer

1122
01:26:42,345 --> 01:26:46,565
i can do this but i love i love this country i mean every time i fly back into it from holiday

1123
01:26:46,565 --> 01:26:51,865
etc or traveling abroad i just look at how those green pastures and the woods yeah it's just

1124
01:26:51,865 --> 01:26:58,425
it's bountiful and it's a beautiful place and i love the people um but i'm sure we'll work it out

1125
01:26:58,425 --> 01:27:02,785
That's what makes it more painful to look at some of the things that are happening here.

1126
01:27:02,865 --> 01:27:05,465
Anyway, Jason, thanks for coming in.

1127
01:27:05,545 --> 01:27:06,085
It's been great.

1128
01:27:06,645 --> 01:27:08,585
And yeah, I'm a gold bug now.

1129
01:27:08,725 --> 01:27:09,065
So thanks.

1130
01:27:09,265 --> 01:27:09,625
Thank you.
