1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,120 Hey, welcome back everybody. So Lucas and I today are moving on in the Satoshi Papers, Reflections on Political Economy After Bitcoin, edited by Natalie Smolenski. 2 00:00:12,660 --> 00:00:17,000 We've read the introduction and the first two chapters, and now we're moving on to chapter three. 3 00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:40,960 Each of these chapters is a discrete standalone essay organized around a specific topic related to both Bitcoin and, as we saw in the introduction, the idea of Bitcoin as possibly constituting a sort of refounding of the United States, a reorienting of the project of the United States towards the principles our nation was originally founded on. 4 00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:52,460 And here we get such a reorientation. This essay is called Easy Money, Easy Wars, The Evolution of War Finance, Forever Wars, and the Prospects of a Bitcoin Peace. 5 00:00:52,460 --> 00:00:58,860 The author is Sarah Kreps, who is a kind of long – like all authors here has a very long and distinguished bio. 6 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:05,620 But in short, she is a professor at Cornell University and a former active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force. 7 00:01:05,740 --> 00:01:13,680 She's also the author of a book called Taxing Wars, The American Way of War Finance and the Decline of Democracy. 8 00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:21,660 And this essay I think probably gives a fair summary of what that – one of the ideas that's in that book. 9 00:01:22,320 --> 00:01:23,880 Easy Money, Easy Wars. 10 00:01:24,420 --> 00:01:29,800 So this is a shorter, a slightly shorter essay than, for example, the one last week. 11 00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:35,780 And it's also, the one last week we read was Natalie Smolenski's contribution towards an anthropological theory of money. 12 00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:45,240 Very interesting, very kind of exploring a broad conceptual space of what anthropology has to say about money. 13 00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:57,360 This essay, I think, is tighter in the sense that we get a very specific idea about how Bitcoin might impact the prosecution of wars by specifically the United States. 14 00:01:57,780 --> 00:02:03,040 When I go through this, I'll give a, like I usually do, a short summary here, and then Lucas and I will discuss it. 15 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:13,420 And as I give this summary, just note that I'm going to leave out some of the historical data and anecdote, which gives the essay kind of richness and foundation. 16 00:02:13,420 --> 00:02:18,680 But what I want to do is just get the kind of the core ideas and concepts on the table so we know what it's about. 17 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:22,340 Limitless money is the sinews of war. 18 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:23,320 That's Cicero. 19 00:02:23,860 --> 00:02:39,780 The key point of this article is that borrowing is our current method for paying for war, which has tended to distance the cost of war from the public who is sponsoring war. 20 00:02:39,780 --> 00:02:48,460 This has made people less likely to oppose war, which has in turn led to an increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of war in the modern era. 21 00:02:49,240 --> 00:03:02,700 But if Bitcoin was used as our reserve standard, then this would impose restraint on war spending because Bitcoin is absolutely finite and is easily auditable on a public blockchain. 22 00:03:03,580 --> 00:03:09,940 So this article kind of starts laying out a history of ways that have been used to finance wars. 23 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:15,560 First was seniorage, minting or printing of money. 24 00:03:15,980 --> 00:03:23,340 So that's kind of the difference in the cost to create the money between how much you will get when you put that money into circulation, the face value. 25 00:03:23,340 --> 00:03:28,320 That it costs one cent to print a dollar bill and you get a dollar's worth. 26 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:30,260 That's the difference in that as a seniorage. 27 00:03:30,260 --> 00:03:45,940 This concept also includes debasement, where base metals were used as a substitute for precious metals and coins so that Romans could finance foreign wars abroad by making the coins less and less pure over time. 28 00:03:46,300 --> 00:03:59,960 So signorage, very used in the past. Now it's not the preferred method because it can lead to kind of rapid loss in confidence in government, and foreign merchants will not accept money as it becomes more and more debased. 29 00:04:00,260 --> 00:04:05,400 Another way to kind of finance war was conscription and impressment. 30 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:14,320 That means just kind of drafting people against their will, forcing them into the war, including impressment, which is literally kind of forcing people into the war without pay. 31 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:23,360 That's also now not the preferred method to finance a war because, one, people feel the cost of that, so it makes people oppose the war. 32 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:28,600 And also we're kind of now normatively opposed to things that kind of seem like slavery. 33 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:42,160 Third is coalition building. That's when you augment military capacity through alliances, some parties to the alliance, then sponsor other parties and you get kind of that financial contribution from other nations. 34 00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:57,760 Also, that's also not the preferred method now to finance a war because it takes lots of time to do all that diplomacy beforehand to get everybody in line and countries really aren't disposed to want to hand over a check to the United States to pay for a war in some other country. 35 00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:18,460 The fourth way was conquest. So a country could finance wars by resource extraction, by conquering a people and converting them into a tax base. That's also now currently not the preferred method because similarly to conscription and impressment, it's just kind of normatively condemned a war of conquest nowadays. 36 00:05:18,460 --> 00:05:33,120 That brings us to the last method of financing wars, which is kind of the center of this essay, taxation and borrowing, and really the distinction between those two. So taxation, like a direct tax on the people that pay for the war effort. 37 00:05:33,120 --> 00:05:44,820 Krebs quotes thinkers as diverse as Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, and Keynes, who all urge that taxation is the appropriate method to finance war. 38 00:05:45,180 --> 00:05:50,900 And historically, some wars have been financed through kind of a direct mode of taxation. 39 00:05:50,900 --> 00:06:02,560 The Korean War and an example that Kreps describes in a little more detail, the Second World War, where there was a – we begin the war with like 5% of the populace subject to an income tax. 40 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:06,180 We end the war with like 60% subject to an income tax. 41 00:06:06,180 --> 00:06:33,620 So this during the war incited widespread debate about this increase in taxation, but ultimately it was a popular war. It was considered almost an existential war. And so the public in full consciousness of the cost of war endorsed the taxation. The taxes were levied and the war was won. That's kind of the ideal for what taxation can look like when it's when it is used to pay for a popular war. 42 00:06:33,620 --> 00:06:52,640 But for this very reason, governments have moved away from taxation. Wars are not usually popular, especially the ones that our governments kind of want to fight. In Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson postponed taxation as long as possible, exactly to prevent deeper questioning of our involvement there. 43 00:06:52,640 --> 00:07:11,320 We also have the kind of what are referred to as the forever wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, which were not financed through taxation. Instead, borrowing has been the modern way to finance wars and has led to these quote unquote forever wars, $4 trillion in Iraq, $6 trillion in Afghanistan. 44 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:21,560 It would be hard to get that directly from the people through taxation without having widespread disagreement and protest of the war. 45 00:07:21,820 --> 00:07:25,760 That brings us to the title of the essay, Easy Money, Easy Wars. 46 00:07:26,320 --> 00:07:33,940 Wars typically have monetary and moral costs, and when you reduce those, you get more war. 47 00:07:34,060 --> 00:07:36,940 The moral cost is body bags, right? 48 00:07:37,500 --> 00:07:40,160 People dying in war, all the destruction and damage. 49 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:47,140 But this has been lessened with we have an all-volunteer army, so people are kind of, wow, they're accepting the risk of going to war. 50 00:07:47,260 --> 00:07:50,760 But even more so, we have remote drone-based warfare. 51 00:07:51,180 --> 00:07:59,280 We have an excellent Navy and Air Force, and most of our – we do our wars overseas, so we don't even see the moral impact. 52 00:08:00,180 --> 00:08:03,740 The monetary cost is negated with borrowing. 53 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:07,520 People do not, as they would with taxation, feel the effects immediately. 54 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:15,540 We have routine debt financing of wars, which means there's no meaningful connection between public opinion and the conduct of war. 55 00:08:16,060 --> 00:08:18,160 So easy money, easy wars. 56 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:25,640 When there is no moral or monetary cost in the public's mind, there is no sacrifice and there is no questioning. 57 00:08:26,580 --> 00:08:28,180 What then can Bitcoin do? 58 00:08:28,340 --> 00:08:35,320 The short answer is that it can reimpose a monetary restraint if it is adopted as a reserve asset. 59 00:08:36,140 --> 00:08:40,600 That last part, as a reserve asset, there's a great distinction here that Krebs gives. 60 00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:49,880 I love it a lot because I like when we get conceptual distinctions, kind of the defining of what terms mean in a ways that clarifies our thinking. 61 00:08:50,060 --> 00:08:55,840 And so this helps clarify our thinking about what Bitcoin realistically could be in the near term future. 62 00:08:55,840 --> 00:09:12,200 So generally, so the distinction, a monetary standard is the currency that is used as the primary medium of exchange, what you use to pay for your milk and eggs, and the unit of account, how we denominate the value of things. 63 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:20,580 The reserve standard, on the other hand, is a safe and liquid store of value that is widely accepted as collateral. 64 00:09:20,580 --> 00:09:29,480 So the example would be when the U.S. was on the gold standard, the gold was the reserve standard, the dollar was still the medium of exchange and the unit of account. 65 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:40,820 And so Kreps realistically believes that Bitcoin, at least in its early stages, could best serve as a reserve standard like gold, a store of value in a form of pristine collateral. 66 00:09:40,820 --> 00:09:53,260 To quote Kreps, in the near term, moving toward a system in which Bitcoin is held as a sovereign reserve asset is more plausible than replacing the U.S. dollar as the monetary standard on balance sheets and in transactions. 67 00:09:53,740 --> 00:09:54,980 Sounds plausible to me. 68 00:09:55,860 --> 00:10:07,580 So if Bitcoin was made into a reserve, if we had a Bitcoin reserve standard, this could act as a restraint on war in three ways in Kreps' estimation. 69 00:10:08,100 --> 00:10:13,580 First, there's the public transparency of the transactions that occur on the blockchain. 70 00:10:13,900 --> 00:10:18,140 When Bitcoin is moved around, all of the transactions are added into blocks. 71 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:20,360 We can see them, monitor them, see where things go. 72 00:10:20,920 --> 00:10:24,680 There are, of course, this is kind of limited here because there are ways to do off-chain, 73 00:10:24,800 --> 00:10:27,180 but there is at least that initial public transparency. 74 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:34,540 Second, there is the possibility of decentralized ownership by the people themselves of the reserve 75 00:10:34,540 --> 00:10:35,060 asset. 76 00:10:35,060 --> 00:10:59,360 Krebs doesn't go into detail on why this might be restraint on war, but just drawing from the underlying theme with the Satoshi Papers, when you have a nation of sovereign citizens who are, in this case, holding the reserve asset themselves, I think you do have a people who are less willing to blindly delegate power to a government, including to prosecute an unpopular war. 77 00:11:00,040 --> 00:11:02,220 Third is the one that's kind of the most important. 78 00:11:02,720 --> 00:11:07,060 Bitcoin has a finite supply and cannot be debased. 79 00:11:07,660 --> 00:11:15,680 The protocol is as it is, and people are not incentivized to want to change the protocol 80 00:11:15,680 --> 00:11:18,540 because then their Bitcoin are worth less. 81 00:11:19,540 --> 00:11:27,340 So this finiteness, absolute scarcity of Bitcoin means the public and investors would keep 82 00:11:27,340 --> 00:11:31,500 a closer eye on government expenditures if it was the reserve standard. 83 00:11:31,620 --> 00:11:35,900 We'd be less inclined to want to get rid of it because we know, hey, well, all this Bitcoin 84 00:11:35,900 --> 00:11:38,800 they're spending on war is not, it's a zero-sum thing. 85 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:40,580 You know, we don't want to lose it. 86 00:11:40,580 --> 00:11:45,220 People would be more sensitive to the economic costs of war abroad because we're spending 87 00:11:45,220 --> 00:11:46,360 a finite asset. 88 00:11:47,320 --> 00:11:55,700 In conclusion to this essay, Krebs confronts or notes a critique that people have. 89 00:11:55,700 --> 00:12:02,860 borrowing to finance wars has seemingly been effective as a weapon the state is a form of 90 00:12:02,860 --> 00:12:11,120 technology borrowing is also a military technology it allows you know the the a great amount of 91 00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:17,780 spending to be done to prosecute a war are we then unilaterally disarming by giving up borrowing 92 00:12:17,780 --> 00:12:24,460 on a fiat standard and Krebs responds that restraint is not the same as disarmament quote 93 00:12:24,460 --> 00:12:31,880 restraint in war making is a key element of wise statecraft. And I hope to go into that more, 94 00:12:32,020 --> 00:12:37,540 what that might mean, has been Lucas's and I's discussion, but I'll just return to the key point 95 00:12:37,540 --> 00:12:41,500 and then we'll go into discussion here. The key point again is that borrowing is our current 96 00:12:41,500 --> 00:12:47,920 primary method for paying for war. That has tended to establish a distance between the public paying 97 00:12:47,920 --> 00:12:54,420 for the war and the prosecution of the war such that people are less likely to oppose the war. 98 00:12:54,460 --> 00:12:59,540 which has led to an increase in the frequency, duration, and intensity of wars. 99 00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:04,200 But if Bitcoin, a finite asset, is used as a reserve standard, 100 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:09,140 then maybe potentially it would impose restraint on war spending 101 00:13:09,140 --> 00:13:13,460 because, again, being absolutely finite and easily publicly auditable, 102 00:13:14,100 --> 00:13:19,480 the people will know they're losing a finite asset for every bullet that is shot, 103 00:13:19,560 --> 00:13:20,900 for every bomb that is dropped. 104 00:13:21,700 --> 00:13:23,260 So, Lucas, does that sound plausible? 105 00:13:23,260 --> 00:13:30,320 Are you on board with this thesis that Bitcoin is a specific technology in this sense? 106 00:13:33,380 --> 00:13:34,220 Yeah. 107 00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:58,853 I think it takes us to a place where we can really think about the difference and really see the difference between a bearer asset and a non asset and given that we used to have bearer assets so when we operated on a metallic standard 108 00:13:59,993 --> 00:14:03,733 when people held their own gold, when they held their own silver, 109 00:14:04,553 --> 00:14:08,693 government was seen as much more of a service, 110 00:14:09,493 --> 00:14:13,653 taking us back to the feudal lordships, 111 00:14:13,693 --> 00:14:16,173 which would change all the time. 112 00:14:16,173 --> 00:14:25,153 You might be in Belgium and have a French king that was providing you the services of government. 113 00:14:25,793 --> 00:14:30,833 We'll protect your borders. We'll protect your people. 114 00:14:31,973 --> 00:14:34,973 And in return, you'll give us a certain tribute. 115 00:14:35,293 --> 00:14:38,793 You'll give us a certain amount of taxes in order to pay for that. 116 00:14:38,793 --> 00:14:43,893 and when those taxes would become too egregious, 117 00:14:44,893 --> 00:14:47,233 another, a change would occur. 118 00:14:47,653 --> 00:14:49,813 A different lordship would take over 119 00:14:49,813 --> 00:14:53,153 and this actually was, 120 00:14:54,533 --> 00:14:57,213 in the terms of thinking about this as a market, 121 00:14:57,453 --> 00:15:00,113 thinking about government as a service that has a market, 122 00:15:00,113 --> 00:15:03,773 it created a much more efficient market. 123 00:15:04,113 --> 00:15:06,353 Yes, governments changed more often. 124 00:15:06,353 --> 00:15:20,153 If you look at a time-lapse map of what countries and nations, states, borders used to look like, it changed very – there was a time when it was always changing very rapidly. 125 00:15:20,153 --> 00:15:32,393 and now we've settled into this somewhat, it's not static, but much more static than it was previously, 126 00:15:33,213 --> 00:15:41,133 where we have consolidation instead of change from one feudal lordship to another. 127 00:15:41,133 --> 00:15:50,553 and it gets us into this idea of understanding something that people used to I think implicitly 128 00:15:50,553 --> 00:15:58,073 understand which was that when governments spend money it's not the government's money and 129 00:15:58,073 --> 00:16:06,473 I think one of the things that has been kind of a great illusion perpetrated upon people is that 130 00:16:06,473 --> 00:16:11,333 government money is somehow a different type of money. 131 00:16:12,033 --> 00:16:17,213 Government money is always and will always be the people's money. 132 00:16:19,933 --> 00:16:29,813 But it is, I guess, easily, it is much more easy to sustain that when you say, 133 00:16:29,933 --> 00:16:35,753 oh, it's the government borrowing, it's the government that's taking this on, it's not me. 134 00:16:36,473 --> 00:16:41,373 I'm not directly feeling this, even though you're indirectly feeling it. 135 00:16:41,373 --> 00:16:52,933 You're indirectly feeling it because every dollar that the government creates in order to finance something is a dollar that makes all the dollars that you hold worth less. 136 00:16:53,013 --> 00:16:53,953 And it's power. 137 00:16:53,953 --> 00:17:01,673 this is a i think this is an interesting um thing where we consider where we're at as a society 138 00:17:01,673 --> 00:17:08,733 today with all of the mental um mental fatigue and and mental problems that people have 139 00:17:08,733 --> 00:17:15,133 one of the ways that people break out of that is to recognize that it is their power that 140 00:17:15,133 --> 00:17:25,053 you cannot take power from me. You cannot, by your negative words and your own actions, 141 00:17:25,053 --> 00:17:34,073 you can't take power from me. I can only give power to you. And if I blame you for my place 142 00:17:34,073 --> 00:17:42,253 in life, if I blame you and act as a victim, then I'm giving you power. And there is, I think, 143 00:17:42,253 --> 00:17:49,773 a similarity to draw there where we, since we don't directly feel like we're giving up 144 00:17:49,773 --> 00:17:53,493 money, we also don't directly feel like we're giving power. 145 00:17:53,493 --> 00:18:01,933 But there is this mechanism, this fiat mechanism that allows governments through seniorage 146 00:18:01,933 --> 00:18:10,733 to create something out of nothing that something is the people's power. 147 00:18:10,733 --> 00:18:16,493 and they are able to take the people's power without asking for it. 148 00:18:16,813 --> 00:18:21,193 And they're able to take the people's future earning power 149 00:18:21,193 --> 00:18:22,893 and bring it into the present 150 00:18:22,893 --> 00:18:26,653 and use that in order to hit other people with it 151 00:18:26,653 --> 00:18:29,533 as though you're reaching into the future, 152 00:18:30,513 --> 00:18:31,953 stealing purchasing power 153 00:18:31,953 --> 00:18:34,813 and turning it into bombs and bullets and weapons. 154 00:18:38,093 --> 00:18:40,133 Go ahead. 155 00:18:40,133 --> 00:18:55,013 I was just going to say, what you highlight about the perception that money is the creation of the sovereign and then how that robs this individual sovereignty and power of the populace. 156 00:18:56,353 --> 00:19:09,933 Krebs notes in here that there's an interesting intersection between this debate and modern monetary theory, which is the kind of predominant paradigm of the way we conceptualize money, the way that the chattering class does, rather. 157 00:19:10,133 --> 00:19:27,933 I'll quote that passage here. She says, while some, like the proponents of modern monetary theory, argue that endless borrowing in terms of a currency, that the sovereign itself issues appears to have no downside, others realize that easy money has led to the fundamental misperception that war is essentially costless. 158 00:19:27,933 --> 00:19:34,913 so i i like this as i mean you'll sometimes see on twitter debates like mmt people jumping in and 159 00:19:34,913 --> 00:19:38,853 trying like who do we owe the debt to you know like it's just it's to ourselves all these types 160 00:19:38,853 --> 00:19:43,153 of things as if there's no negative externalities to having to sovereign whip up value out of 161 00:19:43,153 --> 00:19:48,533 nothingness um but then you can point to both like at least the perception that things are 162 00:19:48,533 --> 00:19:54,613 costless including war and we get endless forever wars so like what more persuasive argument is there 163 00:19:54,613 --> 00:19:59,173 against a modern monetary theorist and saying, do you like all these wars we're having? 164 00:19:59,173 --> 00:20:11,433 And do you like the fact that this is inherently anti-democratic in that the costlessness of the thing is exactly divorcing from the people, 165 00:20:11,773 --> 00:20:14,813 their own perception of the costs that it actually has. 166 00:20:14,853 --> 00:20:17,173 And so leading to people like to not oppose wars. 167 00:20:17,173 --> 00:20:31,353 So I think that this in itself is like an excellent nutshell argument against why MMT is ridiculous without even getting into like circular argumentation about what debt is or something like that. 168 00:20:31,713 --> 00:20:32,313 Yeah. 169 00:20:34,153 --> 00:20:43,733 If you're able to think about it in terms of, look, it's our money. 170 00:20:44,093 --> 00:20:46,053 There is no such thing as government money. 171 00:20:46,053 --> 00:21:03,793 There is just money. And when the government unilaterally, when the government on their own chooses to feed themselves, to feed themselves this money that they create out of nothing. 172 00:21:04,493 --> 00:21:10,893 And it is something. The something is that it's the future debt of the people that have to pay it back. 173 00:21:10,893 --> 00:21:16,953 to think about it in those terms it's very understandable then to 174 00:21:16,953 --> 00:21:24,693 to look back and see all of these warnings from people that thomas jefferson was one of them who 175 00:21:24,693 --> 00:21:31,733 talked about that the government should never be allowed to print money and was very specific 176 00:21:31,733 --> 00:21:37,173 in saying printing coining money is different when you coin money then you actually have to 177 00:21:37,173 --> 00:21:43,853 have you have a physical limitation and I think this is interesting you mentioned briefly like 178 00:21:43,853 --> 00:21:49,393 coin clipping and debasement of metallic currency so this was something that started 179 00:21:49,393 --> 00:21:56,793 to our knowledge it started in Rome where they would clip the edges off of coins in order to 180 00:21:56,793 --> 00:22:04,053 make them slightly hardly noticeably smaller but then remelt that in order to create so you think 181 00:22:04,053 --> 00:22:08,173 about it. You take 10 coins and you clip them each and now you can have 11. So you've just 182 00:22:08,173 --> 00:22:13,913 increased your monetary base by 10% out of nothing. You put that money back into circulation. 183 00:22:14,093 --> 00:22:20,833 People don't know it. They don't know it. This, by the way, is why our coins have ridges on the 184 00:22:20,833 --> 00:22:26,693 outer part of them. That ridge was a mechanism that was put into place in order to try and 185 00:22:26,693 --> 00:22:33,473 limit the ability of people to coin money. And then we go on to printing money. And when it 186 00:22:33,473 --> 00:22:38,973 comes to printing money, governments are literally only limited by how much paper and how much ink 187 00:22:38,973 --> 00:22:48,413 they can get. The stat that I've seen was that it takes 77 cents of cost in order to print a $100 188 00:22:48,413 --> 00:22:57,813 bill. So that means when the government makes a $100 bill, they're effectively stealing $99.23 189 00:22:57,813 --> 00:23:06,153 cents of future earning power from individuals. And that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad because 190 00:23:06,153 --> 00:23:16,333 that system led to 90 to 95% decrease in purchasing power of money. But then it goes 191 00:23:16,333 --> 00:23:22,673 to a point that just literally cannot be calculated where we can create 5 trillion, 192 00:23:22,673 --> 00:23:29,673 10 trillion 100 trillion limitless trillions quintillions quadrillions of dollars for nothing 193 00:23:29,673 --> 00:23:36,453 like just changing a number in a spreadsheet and so there's no limit and um 194 00:23:36,453 --> 00:23:47,873 if the government was an addict and money was their drug and there was no limit then they would 195 00:23:47,873 --> 00:23:52,973 simply overdose over and over and over and over. And that's, I think, what we see now with the 196 00:23:52,973 --> 00:24:00,413 explosion of debt going from, the United States had a surplus 25, 28 years ago, and now we're 197 00:24:00,413 --> 00:24:05,633 $37 trillion in debt. And a trillion is just a number that cannot be comprehended by the mind. 198 00:24:05,833 --> 00:24:10,113 So a million can't be complimented. A thousand can barely be complimented. 199 00:24:10,113 --> 00:24:12,453 Over a hundred escapes me, to be honest with you. 200 00:24:12,913 --> 00:24:15,773 Yeah, yeah. Anything past, you know, my dad always said- 201 00:24:15,773 --> 00:24:17,553 Ten digits here, ten fingers. 202 00:24:17,553 --> 00:24:23,753 The kind of guy that can't count past 21 with his shoes on and his pants zipped. 203 00:24:25,253 --> 00:24:35,713 It makes it so clear, but we've never considered this because we've never been asked to consider it. 204 00:24:35,853 --> 00:24:41,193 But when it gets to this point where it's too far gone, now we're forced to. 205 00:24:41,233 --> 00:24:44,053 Now we're forced to think about, well, how do we limit this? 206 00:24:44,053 --> 00:24:46,433 because clearly it's a problem. 207 00:24:46,653 --> 00:24:48,373 Clearly this is an issue. 208 00:24:48,653 --> 00:24:52,913 And the modern monetary theorist is just, it's hilarious. 209 00:24:53,253 --> 00:24:57,353 It's this, oh, we can just abracadabra all the money we want out of nothing. 210 00:24:57,793 --> 00:24:59,433 There will be no consequences. 211 00:24:59,673 --> 00:25:00,413 It'll be fine. 212 00:25:01,173 --> 00:25:03,073 But now we're seeing those consequences. 213 00:25:03,073 --> 00:25:05,073 We're seeing countries de-dollarized. 214 00:25:05,193 --> 00:25:07,173 We're seeing countries take on Bitcoin. 215 00:25:07,173 --> 00:25:16,613 They were seeing the implosion of the bond market where worldwide government treasuries are not desirable. 216 00:25:16,613 --> 00:25:18,173 And why are they not desirable? 217 00:25:18,173 --> 00:25:39,873 Well, people have finally started to figure out that if the money is decreasing in purchasing power by 7 to 10 to 15, 20% per year, and what you get in return for holding that money is 2 to 3 to 4 or 0%, then why would you ever do that? 218 00:25:39,873 --> 00:25:59,633 And when you see governments that are trending towards backing their money, backing their money with something solid, be it gold or be it Bitcoin, then there there is no reason why you wouldn't just want to under want to hold the underlying commodity. 219 00:25:59,633 --> 00:26:04,513 Why would I go and own this bond, which is backed by Bitcoin? 220 00:26:05,393 --> 00:26:08,253 Why would I go and own this bond, which is backed by gold? 221 00:26:09,873 --> 00:26:28,413 If I can simply bypass that mechanism and own the gold, own the Bitcoin, because what the government is telling you when they back their money with a commodity like gold or like Bitcoin, what they're telling you is that this thing is not worth anything without the commodity. 222 00:26:29,233 --> 00:26:33,913 And so with the commodity, why would you just not bypass that product? 223 00:26:33,913 --> 00:26:42,353 I think it's great, by the way. I think it's great. I think it's going to limit governments and force them into competing as a service. 224 00:26:42,693 --> 00:26:47,993 Limit, but not completely end. I mean, there will still be government borrowing, and Krebs says this. 225 00:26:48,033 --> 00:26:52,733 You can still issue bonds and then make them payable in future increases in Bitcoin. 226 00:26:53,013 --> 00:26:55,633 They'll just have to pay a proper amount. 227 00:26:55,753 --> 00:27:01,613 Right, and to the extent that you believe that the sovereign is creditworthy, you're like, yeah, they're good for it. 228 00:27:01,613 --> 00:27:03,653 And you make people may believe that about the United States. 229 00:27:03,733 --> 00:27:05,073 They can look at the productive capacity. 230 00:27:05,273 --> 00:27:09,473 They can look at all sorts of things and they can, you know, take on a bit of risk and do 231 00:27:09,473 --> 00:27:11,993 a Bitcoin bond rather than just holding the underlying assets. 232 00:27:11,993 --> 00:27:17,173 So, I mean, I still there will still be a place for the issuance of bonds in Bitcoin, 233 00:27:17,393 --> 00:27:20,433 all sorts of borrowing denominated in Bitcoin or whatever. 234 00:27:21,253 --> 00:27:26,813 I think it would seem likely it's just, you know, the risk assessment becomes different 235 00:27:26,813 --> 00:27:28,233 for both parties, for sure. 236 00:27:28,233 --> 00:27:54,206 What do you think about the productive capacity of the United States Do you think that it is significant When I look at the productive capacity of the United States I see something like it like 30 of it is financial services which is basically an extractive economy where it populated by middlemen who are just gatekeepers to resources or gatekeepers to institutional knowledge 237 00:27:54,206 --> 00:28:01,786 So a gatekeeper to resource would be like, I have to go through my financial advisor in order to buy stocks. 238 00:28:01,906 --> 00:28:04,206 I have to go through him in order to buy bonds. 239 00:28:04,946 --> 00:28:08,066 I have to go through a real estate agent in order to buy real estate. 240 00:28:08,066 --> 00:28:16,066 I have to go through an accountant in order to navigate the very difficult taxation process. 241 00:28:16,966 --> 00:28:21,846 But that all gets eliminated with blockchain and AI. 242 00:28:22,306 --> 00:28:24,046 That all becomes direct. 243 00:28:24,446 --> 00:28:24,986 It's done all that. 244 00:28:25,026 --> 00:28:26,166 So there's two things about that. 245 00:28:26,706 --> 00:28:29,226 First, what do I think about the productive capacity of the United States? 246 00:28:29,586 --> 00:28:32,126 Very, very super bullish for two reasons. 247 00:28:32,206 --> 00:28:34,666 One, you mentioned it's kind of the brain drain going into finance. 248 00:28:35,166 --> 00:28:37,606 So finance is super lucrative right now. 249 00:28:37,606 --> 00:28:40,606 It's good that there's people who are really smart going into that. 250 00:28:40,686 --> 00:28:42,666 That shows that incentives are working or whatever. 251 00:28:43,066 --> 00:28:48,406 As finance diminishes or gets redirected into better finance with Bitcoin, the brain drain will move around. 252 00:28:48,626 --> 00:28:56,106 I feel good about the liquid capacity of thinking people to find and retrain and go into whatever. 253 00:28:56,426 --> 00:28:58,246 So I'm not concerned about the brain drain. 254 00:28:58,746 --> 00:29:01,726 We will redrain that swamp or reallocate or whatever. 255 00:29:01,726 --> 00:29:08,406 The other thing you mentioned, like the fact that there's processes for a lot of it is you have to go to the middleman to do this thing. 256 00:29:08,486 --> 00:29:09,346 You have to get approval. 257 00:29:10,426 --> 00:29:12,506 Another one thing about that's not all bad. 258 00:29:12,666 --> 00:29:15,566 So when I hear that, I think due process of law. 259 00:29:15,726 --> 00:29:30,126 One of the things that – one of the reasons people like the U.S. dollar, I think, and U.S. bonds is there's a perception that the U.S. court system, that U.S. norms regarding the enforcement of property rights are very strong. 260 00:29:30,126 --> 00:29:41,806 We're based in the common law. You know, it's this why I really don't fear China. People like adopting the yuan or whatever, like widely, because I think people don't trust the United States 100 percent. 261 00:29:41,906 --> 00:29:50,226 But I think you're even less inclined to trust a country with that has communist ideology and so doesn't respect property rights, etc. 262 00:29:50,226 --> 00:30:14,146 I think that one of the things the United States has going for it is we have strong due process, right? We have like federal courts command the president to do or not do a thing, right? And to a certain extent, like that's good because people see that, holy cow, in the United States, like due process is so strong that even the, like the figure of sovereign power themselves is constrained by the law. 263 00:30:14,146 --> 00:30:18,046 And I think that is good in a sense. 264 00:30:18,226 --> 00:30:24,886 And so maybe this is just me being a lawyer talking and defending my future worth against AI or whatever. 265 00:30:24,966 --> 00:30:32,406 But I do think that due process is something that you should never underestimate the dollar value of it. 266 00:30:32,606 --> 00:30:39,886 Property rights are strong because we do have the common law heritage we do and the power to enforce it, et cetera, et cetera. 267 00:30:40,026 --> 00:30:42,106 So bullish on the United States, I guess. 268 00:30:42,106 --> 00:30:52,506 You bring up a good point when you talk about like if you are backing your currency with Bitcoin, are you unilaterally disarming? 269 00:30:52,506 --> 00:31:08,906 And this has been one of the things that I do look at as it is kind of a danger in that if the United States, let's just, you know, be like Elon, let's think to the limit. 270 00:31:08,906 --> 00:31:13,466 And let's just say, what if the United States went full with a Bitcoin-backed currency? 271 00:31:13,466 --> 00:31:15,466 Not just E-law. I think a lot of people do that. 272 00:31:15,466 --> 00:31:21,546 But anybody who chooses to think in this manner, think to the limit. 273 00:31:22,446 --> 00:31:29,566 And let's just say they went completely in on a hard money standard, and meanwhile the rest of the world stayed on an easy money standard. 274 00:31:29,566 --> 00:31:38,026 there would be a intermediary period where the countries that are still able to create 275 00:31:38,026 --> 00:31:42,686 money out of nothing would have a distinct advantage. And you can think of it like, 276 00:31:43,386 --> 00:31:48,106 just think about like being on a basketball court and playing a basketball game. And it's like one 277 00:31:48,106 --> 00:31:53,386 team is like, oh, there's rules. And we're going to follow the rules. We're going to dribble. 278 00:31:53,786 --> 00:31:58,766 We're going to not foul. We're going to do these things. And the other side is just like, oh, 279 00:31:58,766 --> 00:32:06,046 there are no rules. And for a while, they are going to dominate. They're going to break arms. 280 00:32:06,186 --> 00:32:11,086 They're going to kick people. They're going to set landmines at the free throw line, et cetera, 281 00:32:11,186 --> 00:32:17,866 et cetera. Eventually, you'll move to a different court. As Jason Lowry talks about, you'll move to 282 00:32:17,866 --> 00:32:22,706 a different domain and you'll compete in that domain. And the one that you leave will eventually 283 00:32:22,706 --> 00:32:29,366 dry up because no one wants to play with someone who won't follow any rules. 284 00:32:30,086 --> 00:32:35,946 But there is that intermediary period where it is kind of scary, where, you know, let's 285 00:32:35,946 --> 00:32:43,386 say the U.S. and China are at odds and China, due to its incredible productive capacity 286 00:32:43,386 --> 00:32:50,866 right now and the giant economic engine that they've built that feeds a huge portion of 287 00:32:50,866 --> 00:32:51,166 the world. 288 00:32:51,166 --> 00:32:54,526 They trade with like twice as many countries as the United States does. 289 00:32:55,226 --> 00:33:15,126 If they're able to draw upon those dependent states, those vassal states, and use their economies, use their future and borrow against that, then they will be able to draw more power from the future into the present and become for a while much more powerful. 290 00:33:15,126 --> 00:33:22,106 So there is, even think about a relationship, man. 291 00:33:22,266 --> 00:33:26,786 Like think about like in order for a relationship to work, you have to be vulnerable. 292 00:33:27,186 --> 00:33:31,946 You have to put your heart out on the line and you have to like say, here it is. 293 00:33:32,106 --> 00:33:33,106 Here's my heart. 294 00:33:33,306 --> 00:33:34,266 I pull it out. 295 00:33:34,346 --> 00:33:34,806 It's beating. 296 00:33:35,646 --> 00:33:39,006 I offer it to you and I hope that you don't destroy it. 297 00:33:39,566 --> 00:33:43,546 And you have to hope that the other person won't destroy it. 298 00:33:45,126 --> 00:33:58,966 I don't know if that's going to be a great scenario for governments, but in order to be virtuous, in order to grow, you do have to do that in order to gain coalition and build. 299 00:33:58,966 --> 00:34:05,626 So there is certainly – it's not all green pastures going forward. 300 00:34:06,706 --> 00:34:14,226 If you are the first person to go play by the rules, then that means that you are unilaterally choosing to limit yourself in ways that other people are not. 301 00:34:14,226 --> 00:34:38,246 Yeah. Yep. That was one of the questions I was going to ask you is how, like, realistic did you or how satisfying did you find Krebs' argument that this unilateral restraint would not be a bad thing, given that total war in the past seemingly has been won by those who could suck all the resources out of the populace or whatever. 302 00:34:38,246 --> 00:35:06,026 Yeah. But, you know, there's another aspect of this, which I think maybe speaks to this topic. So we are a democracy. There is, I think, a strength to that. So one of the key parts of this essay is so taxation is necessary for the public to truly see the cost and be able to truly give its consent to the war. That's the way that a democracy works. 303 00:35:06,026 --> 00:35:25,846 There is this idea, a theory in political science called democratic peace theory. I was a poli-sci philosophy dual major, and I recall the democratic peace theory being like taught almost as an iron law of politics. And there's not many iron laws in the social sciences, right, because things don't operate that way. 304 00:35:25,846 --> 00:35:43,726 But this idea is that democracies don't fight other democracies. Empirically, there's not wars between democracies. Now, Krebs notes it hasn't been the case that democracies against non-democracies, that has not been less violent. 305 00:35:43,726 --> 00:35:50,726 In fact, there's been more wars in that sense, but democratic peace theory at least has held true that democracies haven't fought other democracies. 306 00:35:51,446 --> 00:36:09,486 There's something in when you can establish a democratic linkage between the public and the sacrifice the public is going to have to make, and then when the public has some say in the matter, it does tend towards peace. 307 00:36:09,486 --> 00:36:31,206 Is that a unilateral thing? Maybe not if there's a lot of democracies. And it also, as we see in the World War II, like what happened in World War II, if you piss off a democracy and they see the threat as existential, I mean, they do mobilize, I think, with even more fury than a non-democracy. 308 00:36:31,206 --> 00:36:42,866 You can only whip a thrall, a slave, a peon so much and get so much out of them, but try to take something from a free man and you're going to get like much more fury. 309 00:36:43,426 --> 00:36:56,986 And so I do see – I mean like democratic peace holds, but also don't touch a democracy because, again, free people when their freedom is threatened are some of the most terrifying things on this earth I think. 310 00:36:56,986 --> 00:37:19,406 Yeah, you wake the sleeping giant. And that's that is kind of the interesting thing about a democracy. And I think I think let's be honest, like we're not a true democracy. You know, we're a representative republic. And we we have we have people that are supposed to be voting for our best interests that may or may not. 311 00:37:19,406 --> 00:37:33,406 You know, one of the things that when you get a lot of education traveling around the world about what the United States is like, and you see kind of the other side of it. 312 00:37:33,406 --> 00:37:53,006 And yes, very much we have these freedoms and what we have in exchange for those freedoms is we have a big weapon that we occasionally mobilize and in recent times almost perpetually mobilize. 313 00:37:53,006 --> 00:38:09,206 You mentioned the forever wars and how we've just continued to – there's a case to be made that we've been at war constantly since World War II, that there literally has not been a time when there has been peace. 314 00:38:09,206 --> 00:38:18,446 And we have been, as many people say, enforcing democracy at the point of a gun across the world. 315 00:38:19,126 --> 00:38:20,686 But you are very right. 316 00:38:20,686 --> 00:38:31,566 And I found this like when I came to Malaysia, like a lot of the things that I am used to as an American, I did not get to experience when I came here. 317 00:38:31,566 --> 00:38:41,426 Like, you know, just people, people showing up on time, giving their best effort, acting as though they have something to lose. 318 00:38:41,566 --> 00:38:44,006 If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. 319 00:38:44,146 --> 00:38:45,906 And so what is your incentive? 320 00:38:46,066 --> 00:38:49,386 What's your skin in the game in order to produce? 321 00:38:49,386 --> 00:39:11,406 And so it does offend someone who comes from a background of a great deal of freedom. It does kind of offend that person in their soul when they see examples that do not abide by that. And it does enrage and spark action. 322 00:39:11,406 --> 00:39:16,286 I'm of the belief that that's very good. 323 00:39:17,186 --> 00:39:21,006 I do believe that there are no choices. 324 00:39:21,286 --> 00:39:22,746 There are only trade-offs. 325 00:39:22,866 --> 00:39:26,846 We do trade off a lot of things when we have a democracy. 326 00:39:27,106 --> 00:39:29,646 One of those things is that we don't move fast. 327 00:39:30,386 --> 00:39:34,646 We typically grind and grind and grind and grind and grind. 328 00:39:34,646 --> 00:39:43,146 And then when something becomes important to everyone, then we all move in the same direction. 329 00:39:43,306 --> 00:39:46,646 But until that point, it's just opposing forces, opposing forces. 330 00:39:46,906 --> 00:39:51,386 And then finally we split off into a vector and we do wake that sleeping giant. 331 00:39:53,046 --> 00:39:54,706 And I think that's fantastic. 332 00:39:54,926 --> 00:40:03,446 I think that it is the thing that, regardless of all the faults, has served to create something that is beautiful, that is unique. 333 00:40:03,446 --> 00:40:12,786 and hopefully will continue to exist in an even more pure form. 334 00:40:14,146 --> 00:40:16,386 And I think divorcing the money from the government 335 00:40:16,386 --> 00:40:21,806 or at the very least marrying the money to the government 336 00:40:21,806 --> 00:40:27,926 in a way that imposes restraint is beneficial to all. 337 00:40:28,106 --> 00:40:29,546 I think it's beneficial to the government. 338 00:40:30,746 --> 00:40:32,186 Actually, I shouldn't say to all. 339 00:40:32,186 --> 00:40:35,586 It's obviously not beneficial to the military industrial complex. 340 00:40:35,906 --> 00:40:37,086 That is very true. 341 00:40:38,106 --> 00:40:40,586 It's definitely not beneficial to that. 342 00:40:40,586 --> 00:40:49,686 And I don't think that that is something that most people are going to be upset to see go away, 343 00:40:49,826 --> 00:40:53,266 other than those who directly benefit from it. 344 00:40:53,486 --> 00:40:58,026 So, yeah, I guess that's very true. 345 00:40:58,026 --> 00:41:10,206 And one thing I do want to point out, like the taxation thing, like I think it is very important for people to view borrowing by the government as taxation. 346 00:41:10,446 --> 00:41:13,066 That is absolutely what it is. 347 00:41:13,186 --> 00:41:17,746 You are taxing the people without their consent. 348 00:41:18,926 --> 00:41:25,866 In a very real sense, borrowing by the government is taxation without representation. 349 00:41:25,866 --> 00:41:32,686 or at the best it's probably taxation with sort of like clouded representation. 350 00:41:34,406 --> 00:41:53,879 And so we do need to start understanding that whether we give the government money out of our pocket or they simply take it out of our future by debasing the money that we currently own those really aren different 351 00:41:53,879 --> 00:41:55,639 It is taxation. 352 00:41:55,639 --> 00:42:08,799 And so viewing that in that light, it is much more honest and honorable for people to choose to be taxed. 353 00:42:09,559 --> 00:42:18,879 Because I think what people point out, they're like, well, if we had to choose to be taxed, then we wouldn't. 354 00:42:18,999 --> 00:42:20,399 It's like, yeah, probably. 355 00:42:20,759 --> 00:42:22,139 Like, that's probably true. 356 00:42:22,139 --> 00:42:25,679 And that's not necessarily a bad thing. 357 00:42:26,559 --> 00:42:28,879 We would choose to be taxed. 358 00:42:28,939 --> 00:42:36,579 We would just choose to be taxed at a rate that was determined by the market that fairly compensated those who were giving up. 359 00:42:36,839 --> 00:42:42,339 If we're borrowing instead of borrowing at 0%, it would probably be something like 12 or 15. 360 00:42:42,919 --> 00:42:47,839 Or if you're counting Bitcoin as the hurdle rate, it would probably be something like 30. 361 00:42:47,839 --> 00:43:02,439 where you're just not going to make that move unless there is a strong correlation between the benefit gained and the sacrifice that's made. 362 00:43:02,439 --> 00:43:32,419 So that was my rant. 363 00:43:32,439 --> 00:43:40,119 easy to like, you know, when the Doge group started or whatever, that agency, you know, 364 00:43:40,139 --> 00:43:46,499 they began to highlight instances of very frivolous government spending. And it's easy to sign off on 365 00:43:46,499 --> 00:43:51,439 those things when it's not like directly coming out of your pocketbook in a direct sort of way. 366 00:43:52,119 --> 00:44:01,319 So what Bitcoin could do to war, it could also do to other sorts of discretionary spending that, 367 00:44:01,319 --> 00:44:04,659 Here's a quote I think that relates to this from the essay. 368 00:44:05,599 --> 00:44:13,739 Yet the fact that most of this is borrowed money means that the electoral process, which elected officials are held accountable, effectively ignores the issue of fiscal restraint. 369 00:44:13,899 --> 00:44:25,659 With no penalties suffered at the ballot box, American elected officials feel free to spend effectively without limit on wars as well as on other initiatives, foreign and domestic. 370 00:44:25,659 --> 00:44:38,259 So again, it's just when taxation, when it's borrowing instead of taxation, the causal link is obscured in the minds of the people from the loss of purchasing power, money that they have, and the things that they're getting. 371 00:44:38,399 --> 00:44:42,279 And so we have less restraint on any sort of initiative. 372 00:44:42,279 --> 00:44:57,739 So Bitcoin potentially being a finite, absolutely scarce asset on publicly auditable blockchain could help with all sorts of frivolous government spending or at least make us like force it in front of us. 373 00:44:57,859 --> 00:44:59,479 This is what you're spending your money on. 374 00:44:59,579 --> 00:45:02,159 And so people can't plead ignorance or whatever. 375 00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:09,999 Yeah, there's a time dilation in between the action and the consequence. 376 00:45:09,999 --> 00:45:16,519 and because we don't really pay attention to that, we don't feel it immediately, 377 00:45:17,259 --> 00:45:18,739 then we think it's okay. 378 00:45:19,279 --> 00:45:24,939 This is much like a wild night on the town and you take 20 shots because you feel great 379 00:45:24,939 --> 00:45:30,459 and nobody thinks about what am I going to feel like the next two days. 380 00:45:30,459 --> 00:45:36,499 Or if every time you ate a donut you gained a pound immediately, 381 00:45:36,759 --> 00:45:38,959 then you probably wouldn't eat that donut. 382 00:45:38,959 --> 00:45:48,299 But, you know, these things take time. You know, the results that you see in three three months are a direct consequence of what you're doing today. 383 00:45:48,759 --> 00:46:01,399 And the results that we see today with the debt and the forever wars are a direct consequence of the ability for a government to just take money, just print. 384 00:46:01,399 --> 00:46:05,219 And we do get to vote and we do get to have our say. 385 00:46:05,479 --> 00:46:10,899 But realistically, in action, you know, it's the old people that vote. 386 00:46:11,079 --> 00:46:12,399 It's not the young people that vote. 387 00:46:12,499 --> 00:46:16,219 And the old people don't have to, you know, they look at it and they're like, 388 00:46:16,339 --> 00:46:19,559 my time horizon is like three to five years, maybe 10. 389 00:46:20,359 --> 00:46:24,619 So I'm not worried that Social Security is going to be bankrupt in 15 390 00:46:24,619 --> 00:46:30,059 or that the money is going to be worth 50% less in 10. 391 00:46:30,059 --> 00:46:42,179 And, you know, it's much less felt, but it's the young people who have to live with those consequences as they go down, as they're portrayed throughout history or throughout the future. 392 00:46:42,559 --> 00:46:42,819 Yeah. 393 00:46:43,319 --> 00:46:43,519 Yeah. 394 00:46:44,079 --> 00:46:44,699 It gets ugly. 395 00:46:45,139 --> 00:46:45,399 No. 396 00:46:45,399 --> 00:46:47,219 It gets really ugly really fast. 397 00:46:47,219 --> 00:47:10,299 And I think it is one of the few things that we can look at and we can say, look, if we can divorce, if we can separate, if we can limit the government's ability to create money out of nothing, then the only losers are the people who profit from war. 398 00:47:10,299 --> 00:47:19,559 and profiting from war is a it just feels bad it feels inherently immoral it feels non-virtuous 399 00:47:19,559 --> 00:47:26,419 and so um if we were to remove the ability for governments to do that then um i think most people 400 00:47:26,419 --> 00:47:32,859 would would be happy about that you know it's it's uh you know we're we're all fighting these wars 401 00:47:32,859 --> 00:47:36,339 except we're not fighting them on the battlefield. 402 00:47:36,339 --> 00:47:41,999 We're just fighting them in that we're going to have to be more and more productive. 403 00:47:41,999 --> 00:47:49,319 We're going to have to compete harder and harder in order to have the same standard of living into the future 404 00:47:49,319 --> 00:47:55,539 when the consequences of this borrowing is made known through the future replacement of money. 405 00:47:55,539 --> 00:48:00,999 And not just we, but like future generations that are not yet of voting age. 406 00:48:00,999 --> 00:48:08,859 I mean, that's another way in which borrowing is anti-democratic in that we are disenfranchising the people who are actually paying the tax. 407 00:48:09,419 --> 00:48:11,059 That's a brilliant way to think about it. 408 00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,339 They don't get – the future generations don't get a vote. 409 00:48:13,439 --> 00:48:19,279 We just vote interlaterally that you guys are going to pay for this forever war in Iraq because we think it's a brilliant sojourn. 410 00:48:19,279 --> 00:48:38,359 Yeah, nobody looks at the sonogram picture of a four-month-old fetus and says, hey, we just took away your voting power and your right to determine how to live your monetary future 30 years into the ether. 411 00:48:38,359 --> 00:48:55,039 Yeah. So anti-democratic both like anti-democratic temporally as well. And in that it like future generations disenfranchised. That's I don't know. Those are the key points I had. Is there anything else like you wanted to add or say on this very excellent essay? 412 00:48:55,039 --> 00:49:01,979 just the i really love how the author breaks down the different types of paying for war with 413 00:49:01,979 --> 00:49:08,399 the taxation as a you know direct taxation and then you've got conscription where it's like hey 414 00:49:08,399 --> 00:49:14,159 you know and this is another thing that i think is really entertaining so the united states when 415 00:49:14,159 --> 00:49:18,019 they print money they call it quantitative easing when some other country prints money we call it 416 00:49:18,019 --> 00:49:24,799 currency debasement. When the United States has conscription, we call it the draft. Like we make 417 00:49:24,799 --> 00:49:30,239 it sound like you're getting picks to do something cool. I was like the first round of the draft. 418 00:49:30,239 --> 00:49:38,079 That was a key pick. Yeah. When another country does it, we call it conscription or being, 419 00:49:38,259 --> 00:49:42,479 you know, basically being Shanghai. I guess Shanghai would be more of like the impressment 420 00:49:42,479 --> 00:49:49,759 thing. But one of the things to note is that those are very ineffective routes in order to get people 421 00:49:49,759 --> 00:49:55,379 to do what you want, like conscripted forces and especially impress, impressment forces. 422 00:49:56,279 --> 00:50:03,679 They don't fight hard. They don't want to be there. They have no, you know, they, 423 00:50:04,039 --> 00:50:11,319 if you're, again, let's take it back, take it back to playing a basketball game. 424 00:50:11,319 --> 00:50:17,099 you're standing there and you're you've declared yourself to be the captain solely because you're 425 00:50:17,099 --> 00:50:21,339 the only person there and there just happens to be a guy walking by and you're like hey 426 00:50:21,339 --> 00:50:27,059 you're on my team and he's like i don't want to play and you're like yeah it's not your choice 427 00:50:27,059 --> 00:50:32,719 um you're you're coming out here and they're like but i'm four feet tall i'm not good at basketball 428 00:50:32,719 --> 00:50:39,119 i'm i weigh 250 pounds and i can't run and i've only got one leg and i'm blind in one eye and 429 00:50:39,119 --> 00:50:39,919 And you're like, yeah, it's okay. 430 00:50:39,939 --> 00:50:41,039 You're the new shooting guard. 431 00:50:41,619 --> 00:50:42,259 Like, cool. 432 00:50:43,259 --> 00:50:45,379 How many threes do you think that guy's going to make? 433 00:50:45,439 --> 00:50:46,719 How often is he going to get open? 434 00:50:47,299 --> 00:50:54,999 You know, you're not optimizing for people that are going to do a good job at getting you the outcome that you want. 435 00:50:55,359 --> 00:51:01,499 And so if you're not optimizing for efficiency, then you have to optimize for quantity. 436 00:51:01,499 --> 00:51:05,699 and when you optimize for quantity, it's just, you know, we're just going to throw as many 437 00:51:05,699 --> 00:51:12,599 resources at the wall until we knock down the wall and those resources are going to splatter 438 00:51:12,599 --> 00:51:18,019 and splatter and splatter and splatter and be wasted until finally one of them breaks through. 439 00:51:19,619 --> 00:51:28,759 And so, yeah, it very much is a needless sacrifice of people's futures to use that sort of method. 440 00:51:28,759 --> 00:51:32,939 and it's good that it's politically unpopular. 441 00:51:33,159 --> 00:51:34,599 It should be politically unpopular. 442 00:51:35,199 --> 00:51:39,139 The unfortunate thing is that they found a political feasible way 443 00:51:39,139 --> 00:51:43,079 in order to accomplish the same means. 444 00:51:44,479 --> 00:51:46,239 We can pay volunteer forces. 445 00:51:46,559 --> 00:51:50,799 Honestly, we could pay every soldier a million dollars a year if we wanted to. 446 00:51:50,879 --> 00:51:52,679 We could just make it up out of nothing. 447 00:51:54,399 --> 00:51:56,599 And so that's... 448 00:51:56,599 --> 00:52:13,359 Yeah, it's not great in the end. It's not great in the end. I think we're starting to see the death throw of these sorts of methods and move back towards something that is more reasonable. 449 00:52:13,359 --> 00:52:26,039 And by the way, you do a very good job, I think, of bringing me back to me kind of talking about, oh, you know, the United States economy, it's all financial based and it's extractive and it's kind of doom and gloom. 450 00:52:26,039 --> 00:52:29,779 But you do point out, you know, there are people moving out of that. 451 00:52:30,019 --> 00:52:47,059 There are if you look at the space right now, what's growing is engineers and physicists and biologists that are going back to these hard sciences sciences and doing very valuable things with their mind that 30 years ago they would have been trading derivatives. 452 00:52:47,579 --> 00:52:52,019 20 years ago, they would have been trading mortgage backed securities. 453 00:52:52,019 --> 00:53:00,139 and Nassim Taleb is a perfect example of that where he talks about how we've lost an entire 454 00:53:00,139 --> 00:53:06,879 generation of brilliant minds to finance because that's where the incentives were and thankfully 455 00:53:06,879 --> 00:53:11,819 now the incentives have changed and they are moving in a different direction. So the trend 456 00:53:11,819 --> 00:53:18,899 is there. We are trending towards a more virtuous society by the application of minds into industries 457 00:53:18,899 --> 00:53:22,559 that are accretive instead of extractive. 458 00:53:23,499 --> 00:53:27,219 And that does give, that gives me a lot of hope for the future. 459 00:53:27,219 --> 00:53:31,119 And it makes me feel like there is better around the corner. 460 00:53:31,639 --> 00:53:31,779 Yeah. 461 00:53:31,879 --> 00:53:33,279 And I wouldn't even say loss of generation. 462 00:53:33,519 --> 00:53:39,199 I mean, some of the stuff that you mentioned is probably not net positive, maybe net negative, 463 00:53:39,399 --> 00:53:45,759 but, you know, investors, speculators will always serve a role in helping come to like 464 00:53:45,759 --> 00:53:47,779 a market equilibrium price for something. 465 00:53:47,779 --> 00:53:49,959 So there is like utility added. 466 00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:55,759 And I mean, not some of it's artificial for sure, a ton of it because of the way that the Fiat system operates. 467 00:53:55,879 --> 00:54:01,839 But I wanted to say I received the library copy of the Satoshi papers. 468 00:54:03,139 --> 00:54:05,919 Yeah, I could do some book ASMR here. 469 00:54:06,199 --> 00:54:07,079 Look at the fine. 470 00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:09,159 You got the blocks inside of it. 471 00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:10,719 They really did a fine job. 472 00:54:11,139 --> 00:54:16,799 I mean, I love when you have like a lot of care goes into creating something of beauty. 473 00:54:16,799 --> 00:54:22,239 Like a book can just be a piece of pulp and, you know, some paper between some covers and you got the content. 474 00:54:22,539 --> 00:54:23,799 But this has like the gold spine. 475 00:54:24,579 --> 00:54:28,059 It's got the red attached bookmark. 476 00:54:29,119 --> 00:54:37,019 And so it's just such a lovely that they put the effort into this and that people actually, you know, want to own a beautiful book. 477 00:54:37,099 --> 00:54:38,339 I like both of those things. 478 00:54:38,339 --> 00:54:41,019 And I would encourage get the paperback. 479 00:54:41,139 --> 00:54:46,519 If you don't have either of them, if you got the paperback, make an investment for your fireplace. 480 00:54:46,519 --> 00:54:50,119 and get the library edition of the Satoshi papers. 481 00:54:50,259 --> 00:54:57,459 It's a quality artifact and is possibly the only asset that will appreciate faster than Bitcoin, not investment advice. 482 00:54:59,399 --> 00:55:00,519 It is beautiful. 483 00:55:00,759 --> 00:55:02,979 It's a beautiful collection of essays. 484 00:55:03,779 --> 00:55:08,319 The authors have done such an incredible job, and I'm really happy that we get the chance to, 485 00:55:08,879 --> 00:55:12,819 however a limited audience is going to listen to this, be it large or small, 486 00:55:12,819 --> 00:55:18,319 that there will be some people who otherwise would not have come to appreciate this. 487 00:55:18,619 --> 00:55:25,799 So kudos again to the incredible work that these academics and authors have done on this work. 488 00:55:26,659 --> 00:55:28,879 Right on. Thanks for the call. We appreciate it. 489 00:55:29,619 --> 00:55:31,199 Fantastic. We'll see you guys next time.