Financialization has created
kind of a billionaire class.
And then all the rest of us
and the middle class has really gotten
eviscerated in the process.
I mean, the interest rate
is the price of money.
The price of money determines
how capital is allocated.
If the society correctly allocates
its capital, everybody gets better off.
I think the top 1% of the country owns
92% of the wealth today.
I mean, this is just incredibly absurd.
I mean, you guys know this.
It all starts with the money.
If we had sound money,
things would be a lot better
across a lot of dimensions.
If you understand Bitcoin.
It means you've got
a clear understanding of,
you know,
what a fair monetary protocol
looks like
and ought to be the notion
that mankind might have solved
that problem
by creating a form of money
that cannot be subject to tomfoolery
because it's mathematically driven.
That is a big, big, big deal.
Larry welcome back to the Bitcoin
Infinity Show.
Thank you.
Thanks, guys.
It's,
I've really enjoyed
our past conversations.
I'm looking forward to this one.
Note and look yeah. Us two, of course.
I think the last one was in Madera,
wasn't it?
It was.
It was for a soccer stadium,
which was a lot of fun.
I had a great time over there.
Yeah, yeah,
we we had this great big wall behind us
with meat on it.
You remember that?
I don't remember that now.
Yeah, yeah, I'm.
It must be.
And Ronaldo and all those guys.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
No, that was fantastic.
And a lot has happened
since in our lives.
And a lot has happened on the island,
and a lot has happened in your life
and all. True. Yeah.
And I guess the third of those three
is what we're here to talk about. So.
So what's been going on
with Larry Langford
since we last saw each other in Madera?
What is it now?
One nine, 1st March, I think. Right.
Yeah. So, yeah.
Let me give you the timeline.
I'll take people through the timeline.
So sometime
after that, I want to say in
April or May,
I was watching,
a political show on TV, just,
you know, something on CNN or whatever,
which I try to avoid watching.
But somehow I got to watching it,
and I was watching
blue people and red people
screaming at each other
and criticize each other
and argue with each other.
And I,
I came away just incredibly frustrated
because I thought to myself,
they're all arguing
about the wrong stuff.
The things that are important,
for sure, but
but when the underlying issue
really is that the money is broken and,
you know, and that was never discussed.
They weren't talking about deficits,
they weren't talking about inflation.
They weren't care about, hey, that's
what I believe
are kind of the core issues
that are driving the difficulty
in our society today.
And and it really angered me.
I think
somebody has got to tell this story
of what's going on
and try to re-orient these people
to think about, you
know, this core issue. And,
and then I thought, well, okay,
but some people have done it
and I, you know,
I give them a ton of credit
because they've done a great job of it.
And that borrowed heavily in my book.
I mean, I use a lot of their stuff.
And those would be, you know,
saving animals with a Bitcoin star
or a fabulous book
and then all the broken money,
other fabulous pork chop booths with,
you know, the price of tomorrow
and, you know, the families way
and, and,
you know, a
lot of other macro analysts
that I've relied on, you know,
to, to gather information,
I thought to myself,
somebody's got to put this in a form
that's easy for everybody to understand.
It's not a textbook.
It's more of a story
because people like to read stories
and narratives,
and people don't really read
textbooks and,
and explain,
you know, why things are so messed up
and then how to fix it.
And,
so that was really kind of
the genesis of the idea.
And I didn't know if I could do it.
And then
I, I as time went by,
I got more and more confident
I could do it.
And I've done the best I can with it,
and we'll see if it's any good.
But, you know, the
I felt like I probably fit
in kind of a unique position
because I've been at sound money
for a long time before Bitcoin even.
And this is don't get me wrong,
this is a Bitcoin bought.
This supports Bitcoin massively.
But but pre Bitcoin
you know gold is our only choice.
And I'm a gold guy.
And I've been at this battle
for a long long time.
Support of Ron Paul and so forth.
And been a very strong advocate
of ending the fed.
And you know,
I just thought
I've got, you know,
and I made a lot of great Bitcoin
and many of them were very young.
And, you know, they weren't even around
when a lot of these older events
were going on that I saw take place
that are all messed up.
And I thought well you know
so I've got kind of
institutional memory, right?
I can say,
hey, I remember when that happened
and I remember how we react to it.
So, so I kind of took all those,
I put them in a book and
I made it a story.
And, you know, like with any story,
they're, they're good guys
and they're heroes and villains.
You know,
the villains are the central bankers.
The heroes, in my view,
are the sound money crew.
And, you know,
I just kind of try to tell a story and,
make it readable
and make it enjoyable, but
but also make it educational
because I think that
most people really don't
think about this very much.
They don't understand
the issue of sound money.
They don't understand
why Keynes was wrong.
They don't understand why
deflation is a good thing.
They don't understand
that interest in savings
have to balance each other out,
and that the interest rate
is the price of money.
I mean, all those things,
the most, most people in the world
just have no clue on those topics.
And yet those topics are what inform,
you know, societal well-being, right?
I mean, the interest rate
is the price of money.
The price of money determines
how capital is allocated
and the way that if we
if if the society
correctly allocates its capital,
everybody gets better off.
And that's what we want.
We want more prosperity
for everybody, top,
bottom, middle, all of it.
And that happens
when interest rates currently set.
And it doesn't happen
when you have a pull up bureau
like organization like the fed
setting the interest rate,
you know they go to zero, they go to 20.
They you know, they're all over the place
and they just nobody can plan.
You know, business
people get hurt, individuals
get hurt on the bubbles burst.
And so you know, so that's
that's kind of the, the thesis
and the genesis of the book and, and,
you know, I've
just I've kind of told a story
that I'm hoping,
you know, anyone with,
you know, people
without a financial background.
And I tested it
and, you know,
I tested a lot of people
that financial backers
got a lot of feedback.
I mean, perfect examples.
Early on in the book, somebody said,
what's the Federal Reserve?
So I put in a footnote and said, well,
you know,
we all know what the Federal Reserve
is, but, you know,
the average person may not.
So explain that,
and I took suggestions
and my wife had a great suggestion,
and she said,
you need to sharpen your own skepticism
because everybody's skeptical of this,
and you got to explain why they
shouldn't be.
So, you know,
that's how that chapter came about. So,
so here it is.
It's, it's almost done.
As you guys know,
we're all working to get it and press
ready for form.
And, hopefully within a few weeks,
you know, it'll you can buy it.
Well, you can buy it now
as a Kindle book boss preorder.
But but I mean, you'll be able to read it
in a few weeks.
Of course.
Mr.. Hello there.
And here's how to use code infinity
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Bitcoin advisor.com.
And make sure to like subscribe
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and all that for the Bitcoin infinity.com
and get some stuff and some books.
Great to have you here.
Now, skepticism
is what brought me to Bitcoin
in the first place.
Absolutely.
Like I was a
I was a skeptic towards fiat money.
I didn't really
yeah, it
didn't make sense to me
that everything
would have to go up in price.
And, well,
I think I put this in one of the books
that the Federal Reserve
is the Galactic Empire.
We in caps are the,
rebellion and Bitcoin
is the photon
torpedoes fired at the Death Star's
a thermal exhaust pipe,
and it just about to blow up.
I mean, I think that's a
that's a pretty good model
for what's going on here.
And and by the way, we're winning.
I mean, the fed is really in a
lot of trouble, you know.
So so
in that respect, the
book is kind of timely.
I mean, I'm hopping on a trend
that we're we're already the train
as the is running down
the track pretty hard and it's.
Yeah.
And it's a it's
this is a really timely issue
that in my opinion
is going to explode onto everybody's
radar screen.
You know, with the next big problem.
So,
you know thus, thus the book.
Yeah.
And that's the name of the book,
by the way, the, the big print. Right.
And we've had the opportunity.
Look, and I have
had the opportunity to read it early
and help you out a bit with it,
which we're really super proud.
To help on it.
Yeah, I really appreciate that.
And, I mean, I,
I read through a early draft
and I loved it.
And, Luke has read
a more updated version
and is working on it right now,
and he loves it, too.
I know, and like,
we're so looking forward to this launch
because this is great.
This is
this is not only Bitcoin for boomers.
This is this is something else like.
Yeah everybody this is
this is it's a broad societal movement.
And that's
you know, I've been talking to people,
but what will you measure?
Book success as and I look like
we'll sell some books to bitcoiners.
No doubt about that.
That's not the market.
I mean, it is the market,
but that's not the real market.
Here
is everybody else who's asleep
and doesn't understand
why they're getting screwed,
and doesn't understand
how the central banks
have done it to us and doesn't,
you know, can't see all the corruption.
And they're just all they know
is that their groceries
are getting more expensive.
And it's hard.
And they
they're afraid,
you know, they're afraid about,
you know,
the monetary situation
and understandably so.
And so many people in this country
are hurting as a result of it.
And,
you know, the book is,
is, is a call to action
on how we can change this
and make it better and stop that pain.
You know,
that's, and so,
so in my view, it will be successful
if we can cross the chasm,
so to speak, of, you know. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
Hardcore Bitcoin is a love the book.
But does,
you know,
does an average person
who doesn't know anything
about monetary policy
read it and get it and go,
oh wow, I know, I really get it.
You know, that's that's the goal.
That was the goal of the book.
You know what
I think the
the general population
is sort of primed for this stuff
because like the Overton window
has shifted with
melee melee in Argentina and,
Brooklyn and Salvador.
And now
the second coming of Trump here
with Elon and Ron
Paul as some kind of advisor
and stuff like, like the, the,
the topics of discussion are different
now than, than last time
he was in office.
And like
there is no question and you know,
there are all kinds of signs.
I mean, the deck
stuff was getting louder.
Yeah.
The, you know, books
like Chris Leonard's book,
you know, The Lords of Easy Money.
I mean, here's a
mainstream New York Times
reporter wrote a book
really critical of the fed.
And by the way, you got plugged.
They it was applauded
by The Wall Street Journal,
Financial Times, etc..
I mean,
you know,
the Overton Window is clearly shifting.
I mean, I think, yeah,
the problem,
you know, the problem
that we're all going to resolve
in this fourth
turning is, is what,
you know, Robert Breedlove
coined is what is money.
And, you know,
and what kind of central bank
should we have, if any.
And what
what kind of fractional reserve banking
should we have.
And those problems
are going to get resolved
in this fourth turning and crisis.
And that's and it's becoming
more and more clear
to more and more people
that that's really the issue, you.
Know, and I mean,
there are so many other signs,
like in other
parts of the,
the internet, that Mark Zuckerberg,
for instance,
now coming out with
how much pressure
he was under to censor stuff
during Covid and all of this.
It's like the whole
I don't know if he's truly changed
or if he needs to do that to, to
to speak to the new audience, which.
Might be covering his.
But because he's worried about him
coming up. Yeah.
You know,
but either way, it's
telling you
something
about the general discussion going on
and how much people, you know.
There's no there's no doubt that,
you know,
we lived in a centralized world.
There's even got a chapter,
you know, on that.
The title of the chapter is,
you know Why rule be saved?
Decentralization. Yeah.
And decentralization.
It's just a, you know, technology's
just it's
finally come around to save us here
because it's such a great trend.
Now, the.
You know.
The revolution will not be centralized.
And it's
I mean, that's some
think of what the internet's done
to information sharing
and to the legacy networks and stuff.
And, you know,
just the ability to source,
you know, more information.
And it's been fantastic.
No.
And once you grok what this
what this implies that,
that we've lived
under false money for 5000 years
and that we've
finally got a way to get out of it.
And it doesn't have to be this way
like that.
That's to me, that's why
I'm doing what I'm doing today.
And, it just blew my mind.
And I kind of instantly knew that
this is what I have
to devote my life to now, like, because.
I think, well, and that's, I mean,
and that's why you wrote a great book,
you know, infinity divided by 21 million.
I mean, it's
once you understand this
and you realize
just how big it is, it's like,
I don't know, it's like, you know,
you've discovered fire or the wheel or,
you know, the printing press
or air flight or.
I mean, it's just,
you know,
the notion of money
that doesn't the base over time.
I mean, we've spent
thousands of years, man
has never had this before.
And so, you know, okay.
Never had it before of,
wow, that that means things are going
to be significantly different.
And that was actually part of the book.
I talk about that.
You know,
some people say it's a little hyperbolic.
I don't think so.
I mean,
I think finance will someday
be looked at before
Bitcoin and after Bitcoin.
You know, absolutely.
Because it just changes a lot.
You know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.
The Federal Reserve is Blockbuster Video.
We're just waiting.
That's a great comparison
right there.
You streaming services.
Yeah yeah.
Yeah.
So okay
let's let's get into the book
because like as you say, this is not a,
it's not a book for boomers
and it's not a book for Bitcoin.
It's a book for everyone.
And the first, it's divided into parts.
And the first thing it does
is that it describes the problem.
So so can you go a little.
Into the let's talk. For a minute.
So,
you know,
if a lot of people
look at like the GFC and the bailouts
and more recently the
you know, what I consider
this fourth turning
and everyone thinks
this is the beginning of the problem.
But,
well, first of all, as you alluded to,
the book is very clearly decided
into two sections
the problem and the solution.
And they're about equal in length.
And I obviously,
I don't think
you can address the solution
until you fully understand the problem.
So so I've tried to start off
with laying out the problem,
the wealth inequality,
the consistent inflation.
You know, how much worse it got
when we went off the gold standard in 71,
the financialization of the economy,
etc., etc..
And, and so I,
you know,
I kind of take people
through a quick history.
You know, I
summarize a lot of what's contained
in, you know, Richard from Jekyll Island.
But I take people through a quick history
of how governments have abused
the monetary power,
really through, through,
you know, millennia.
But more particularly, I'm
looking at the United States from 1789
and, you know, I what you a lot of things
when I as a research
the book I learned a lot actually I mean,
you know, they started debasing the money
to pay for the War of 1812, you know,
and they suspended specie reduction,
and then they did it again,
and the Civil War,
and then they did it again
in World War One.
And what is just come to see
is that wars are extremely expensive,
and governments
generally can't pay for them
through taxation
because nobody will
put up with the taxes.
So they print the money to pay for
what they do.
Which is why,
you know, if we go to a sound
money standard, one could argue that then
we're on to wars. But,
so I kind of walk everybody
through the history.
And actually those are
those chapters of tough sledding.
Some people may not want to read them.
And but I start off
with a quick summary of the problem
and how basically,
you know, the elites and the bankers
and the
the government,
the bankers have made a deal
with each other
that kind of gives them
benefits over the rest of us.
And they they in a sense,
that's why we're getting screwed.
Because wealthy people know
how to make inflation
work in their advantage.
They actually get wealthier
with inflation.
They like it
because they can borrow cheap.
They can buy assets that
give them a yield.
And it's what,
you know,
we all describe as millionaires.
So that's
that's really
the heart of the problem that the
the monetary system is rigged
by the wealthy in government.
And they're in
they're in cahoots with each other.
The government likes it
because it gets all their wars
and all their programs paid for.
And the wealthy like it
because they're not a game
it and get wealthier.
And the rest of us
pay higher prices for groceries.
So because we don't have
we don't have the advantage.
We don't have either
those advantages the government has.
Right.
And so so that's
kind of the fundamental thesis.
And then like so
but how do we get to that being the case
where, you know,
now there's a chart in there
which I love, which shows that,
you know,
I think the top 1% of the country owns
92% of the wealth today.
I mean, this is just incredibly absurd.
And again, part of the reason I wrote
the book was
I, I remember growing up in the 70s
and there was a big, broad middle class.
I was a part of it.
And, you know, and, you know,
the guy who ran Ford Motor is,
you know,
he lived down the street from us.
But, you know,
he probably made 3 or 4 times
what my dad made.
Not that 500 times what my dad made.
And, you know,
and I played with his kids.
And so, you know, it's,
you know, it's that's gone away.
I mean, financialization has created,
you know, a kind of a billionaire class.
And then all the rest of us
and the middle class
has really gotten
eviscerated in the process.
And but but again, there's there was a,
you know,
there were many, many steps, right?
I mean, there was,
you know, I mean, the 1800s,
some smaller steps.
But the,
the biggest ones really started
with the fed in 1913, Roosevelt in 1933,
and then Nixon
and 71 taking us off the gold standard.
But even since that, even
even since that, it's got worse.
I mean, it, you know,
Greenspan decided he wanted to manage
to push the stock market up.
So he printed a lot of money.
Well, Bernanke's
said, you know, hold my beer.
I can print more than you.
And, and, you know, 2008
came along
and it brought in
enormous amount of money.
And then he lied to Ron Paul about it
and said he's going to reduce
the balance sheet.
Of course, he knew he couldn't do
that, would never do that.
And and he said it was a it was A14.
And he said it was going to take it back
down to the 800
that it was before the GFC.
And of course the fed balance sheet,
they is 7 trillion.
Right.
And so,
you know
and but with each step
you know,
they took actions to enhance their wealth
and protect themselves
at the expense of all the rest of us.
We all pay for the higher prices.
And and yet,
you know, if you're in that system
and you know how to game it,
you know, you're worth
hundreds of millions of dollars.
I mean, these guys and I was one of them
in my earlier part of my career.
And I actually
that had some lens
of credibility in the book.
I mean, I, I sat at some of these tables.
I know who some of these people are.
They know me, I know them.
And, you know, throughout my career,
I eventually kind of made a choice
to go on a different direction
because I just
I didn't like what was going on there.
I mean, you could just see a broken
this whole thing was so,
Yeah.
So it's,
I don't know, I,
I think I've gotten off your question
a little bit,
but but that's, that's the problem.
So I kind of lay out
the problem in spades.
And I,
I don't think
we're going to have a hard time
convincing the average person
that something's wrong.
I mean,
I think I think the average person's
intrinsically sense
is that something's wrong.
And they see these bubbles, they see,
you know, inflation
and they see how hard it is to get by.
They worry about their kids
buying a house.
They worry about where the retirement.
I mean, there's
there's a lot of evidence
that unless you're in the,
you know, up for 20%,
you know, life is life is tough.
And it shouldn't
necessarily have to be this way.
And and some of us,
that's the other thing
I got to point out.
I can remember when it wasn't this way.
I remember the 70s and 80s.
There were great,
you know, and
and that's, you know,
I feel sad for people
born into this world
who don't
couldn't see
and don't remember what it was like
in those days when the money was sounder.
So and then, of course, part
two of the book is how do we fix this?
Okay, great.
You know, you've described a problem
that's no fun,
you know, and we all know it's there,
but what's the solution?
And so, you know, we
I kind of walk through that
and we know all,
you know, Bitcoiners
know where I'm going with this,
but what other people don't.
And so I try to again
at a first principles
basis, take people into Bitcoin
and try and try and help Warren's bill.
And then,
you know,
in a very understandable way, not,
you know,
not trying to make anything complicated.
In fact,
I try to make it as simple as possible.
So
now and yeah,
I mean, I remember when,
when Obama took over after Bush. Right.
And, that's
when it was an eye opener for me
when both sides were just pro
bailing out the banks.
And that's when
some kind of penny dropped for me, even I
even though I was watching it
from a distance,
it's like I had something that.
Actually might try and reform the system.
And then he
then he appointed Larry
Summers and Robert Rubin the position.
Oh, shit. Here we go. Again.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
I mean,
the expression is kicking
the can down the road, down the road,
but I view it
more as like rolling the snowball
further down the hill
because like, oh, it's a good one too.
They both work. It's the same idea.
Yeah, but the snowball gets bigger.
The cow, it's just a can like.
A good point.
Yeah. So.
So the snowball, it snowballs.
And you have the,
the the
the longer you let it go, the bigger
the crash. Right, right.
And as one of the chapters in the book
is named, as you know,
2 or 2 important
chapters are signs law that,
you know, something cannot go on forever.
It will end.
And then the chapter right after
that was
taken with her permission
from Lynn Alden,
which is nothing stops this time,
which is to say that, you know, we're
we're just we're in a
we're in a fiscal mess that, you know,
I mean, something's going to break here.
And, you know,
in a, in a sense,
we're going to have to go through
a monetary reset,
a restructuring of some kind.
It's just a matter
of whether it's controlled
or uncontrolled,
and it's only a matter of time
before it happens,
but it appears to be
getting pretty close.
So.
So this this might be, a tough question.
Did we do this to ourselves in your mind?
Like by letting
letting them have us use their money?
Like, did we do it to ourselves, though?
Or.
I'm not only speaking for like,
the population
or everyone in a fiat system.
Did we do it to ourselves or not?
Well, I mean, look, I you know, if 71,
you know,
I mean, I was 13,
so I wasn't even voting for Nixon.
So, yeah.
You know this.
Yeah, to a degree.
I mean, you know,
I mean, some people, I mean,
you know, we've
we voted for politicians
who spend more than, you know,
they should. And that's great.
That's made the problems worse.
And, you know,
everybody kind of
wants something for nothing.
So there's certainly been,
you know, an element
to which we've
all kind of done it to ourselves.
But but also and, and we've,
you know, we've distracted ourselves.
And,
you know, I mean,
I think that
a lot of the Founding Fathers wrote about
and said how,
you know, in order
to keep a democracy
in a republic operating
properly, citizenry
has to be self
informed and smart and,
and demand
that the people
you know
in positions of power
behave in a responsible fashion.
You know, when everybody's
watching reality TV and football,
they're not paying attention.
All this,
it's pretty easy for the government
to just kind of slip
all these bad policies in place.
And, you know, I mean, we bitch, but
there's not much you can do about
I mean, take the 2008 example,
you know, when they were going for Tarp,
right after the banks
spill and also went up,
you know,
like Nancy Pelosi to
give them $700 billion?
You know,
there were everyone wrote that
a lot of people wrote to congressmen,
call their congressmen, you know, no way.
Do not bail these guys out.
They failed. Let them fail.
And so the first vote on Tarp was no.
It was a resounding no.
And then,
you know, the market went down
12% very quickly.
And the bankers went back
to the congressmen and said, look,
if you guys don't do this,
the entire economy is going to implode.
And, you know,
which is what the bankers always do,
they hold a gun to your head and say,
you know,
give me the money,
or else I'm going to blow
your economy away. Right.
And so Congress voted for Tarp.
And, I mean,
I remember the polls at the time
where like 95% of the country opposed it.
You know, don't bail those people out.
You know, they did it to themselves.
They'd done it to all of us.
Let them fail.
And I mean, actually, in the book,
if there's a policy prescription
where I say I would love
to have
been the guy negotiating
on behalf of the government,
you know what I mean?
Okay, banks.
Yeah, we'll bail you out.
We don't want any proposals to fail.
We'll use the Fed's balance sheet
to give them all the money they need.
But guess what?
We get a five year
clawback on all your salaries
and bonuses.
You resign, you're banned
from working in the financial business.
And we're going to bring
in small town bankers
from all over America
to clean up this mess.
You know, people that are honest, I mean,
and that would have
been the right solution, because
when I say, you know,
the 2008 was a crime,
a lot of people say to me, well,
you know, what else could they have done?
They had to do it.
Yeah, it's a bailout.
Yeah, it's unfair, but they had not.
They didn't.
Oh they didn't.
They could have,
you know,
they could have punished the wrongdoers.
I mean
a good example of prior
and this is talked about in the book
and the prior example,
you know, the SNL crisis
in the early 90s,
you know, 800 people went to jail.
I mean, it was it was the same thing.
It was kind of a credit bubble.
And there were a lot of banks, you know,
I mean, they're making bad loans.
They knew what they were
paying themselves, huge salaries.
There was all kinds of excess.
And, you know,
they brought in a guy to clean it up
and they sent people to jail,
you know, and that didn't happen.
And, you know, so,
you know, and
that's because the bankers,
you know, have a lot of political power.
And they were able to
exercise that power
to protect themselves.
I mean, they have a
they have a no lose game
where, you know, heads
has they win and tails we lose.
You know,
they made a ton of money,
and, and
and and then they throw it in your face.
I mean, in the year when they failed
and were bailed out,
they paid out $20 billion of bonuses
to senior executives,
$20 billion the year they failed.
That was all just taxpayer money
that we all wrote.
And and you,
we actually had like, well,
you know, they had to same
and it's not that painful.
Well but that explains
why the price of gasoline is high.
That explains
why the price of food is high.
You know,
the creating those monetary units
we all pay for,
we you know, we pay in a different way.
We don't pay in terms of taxation.
We pay in terms of higher prices.
You know, all of us pay it.
Yeah.
So, so like in this is not a US
only problem for our
it's like everywhere in the world.
Right. Absolutely.
So, so in
your mind is democracy itself
like a system
that is so flawed
that inevitably
at some point leads to corruption.
Like if you just let it play
out over a century or something,
will it inevitably lead to corruption?
Is that what we're seeing
now, like everywhere?
I don't know,
I haven't
you know, I'm not a political theorist
and I haven't thought all that through.
I mean, I think that the
I think the founding documents
were pretty damn good.
And, you know, I think sadly,
you know, we've gotten away from them.
But maybe with some reforms
we can go back and reset it
and try again.
I mean, I think that,
you know, term limits would help.
And and there are other things, but
I don't know, I look, I'm
not really a political theorist
and so I'm not going to comment.
I mean, I you know,
I generally support dictatorships, but
you know, I
think I think a republic, an intelligent,
you know, well-managed republic.
I mean, it's
probably the most important thing
that the America's got to return to
is where, you know,
citizen responsibility returns
and people actually pay attention
and care about their civic life,
recognizing that it's important,
you know, I mean, that,
that, that they,
you know, who they vote for,
what the, you know,
and they
and they make noise
when they see things that are wrong.
You know, because that's how we right
the wrongs that are out there. So,
and by the way, it's easier to do that
when you have sound money
and you have savings
and you have the time
to figure things out.
I mean,
I think one of these one of the reasons
why a lot of people are hurting,
you know, and don't,
you know, aren't civically involved
just now
they're working three jobs,
trying to
trying to put food on the table.
I mean, price writing
their congressmen is not something
that they're going to take the
time to do. Right. And so,
it's it also,
I mean, you guys know this,
it all starts with the money.
It really does.
It all starts with the money.
If we had sound money,
things would be a lot better
across a lot of dimensions.
Yeah,
it would be way harder to rig systems and
and rig them against people.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean that's.
Yeah, I mean that's yeah,
there's so many rabbit holes to go down
that it's not.
No. But it's, it's really super easy.
Like with Bitcoin
you can, you can have an enormous stack.
You can be a sailor or someone
and have like 2% of the supply.
It doesn't matter.
The only thing you can do with them
is spend them on other people
and therefore they will
they will like trickle, trickle down,
sooner or later,
even if it takes a generation,
it doesn't matter.
You can't leverage the system.
That's the point.
That is the point.
And and,
and and more importantly,
I and you've said this many times,
this is your whole theme.
It's just
it's a mathematically driven system.
It's actually scientific in nature
as opposed to, you know, touch and feel.
You know,
what what some central
banker is saying today.
I mean, I just it's hilarious.
These guys came out last week
and I was Waller said, well,
we think we're making good progress
towards the 2%,
so we're going to be able to cut rates.
I mean,
while the PPI is going up at a
very sharp rate and inflation
seems to be coming back in some areas.
I mean,
yeah,
look that it's
just no way to run a railroad.
You know, we need to
we need to have a free market here in in
the cost of money. No,
it's it's, I mean.
Bitcoin's the ultimate
mathematically driven free market.
I guess the point I'd like to make,
which you guys agree with, right.
Absolutely.
Like, the
I came to this from a skeptic is true
skeptics perspective.
Like, I'm
trying to spread,
a skeptics version of the gospels here,
I guess,
because to me,
to me, Bitcoin is the only type of money
that does not require faith in
in something you can't prove.
Like right on every dollar bill that's in
God we trust the yeah
written on it.
And I just can't help thinking
well in Bitcoin
we don't trust we will verify like yeah.
So that's exactly right I mean it's
yeah I mean the faith
I mean I think if Satoshi even wrote it
I mean
there's a lot of evidence of governments
abusing the faith
that they're supposed to have no courage.
It's just too much.
It's just too tempting to easy to do.
And so what happens?
I mean, this is a
there's a long, sad tale
the book talks about that.
I got a lot of great quotes.
I mean, it's it's interesting.
I mean, Voltaire knew it.
You know, fiat
money always goes to
with some of value zero.
But there are also,
you know, a lot of U.S. presidents.
No, like,
I mean, Garfield,
I got a great quote on Garfield
that I dragged out of Trudy
Charlton's book.
And I mean, you know, he understood that.
I mean, Daniel Webster understood it.
Jefferson understood it.
I mean,
you know, monetary shenanigans
have been around for a long, long time.
I mean, it's in the Bible,
honest weights and measures,
which means there were
people trying to cheat,
you know, hey, this is an ounce
when it wasn't really an ounce.
And so they're trying to shortchange you
on whatever you were buying or selling.
And, you know, it's monetary tomfoolery
as a long and checkered history.
And, the notion
that mankind might have solved
that problem by creating a form of money
that cannot be subject to tomfoolery
because it's mathematically driven,
that is a big, big, big deal.
And, I think we're just starting
to come to grips with it.
I mean, those of us who see it
and believe in it,
we've kind of come to grips with.
And that's why we're so excited about it.
And I think the rest of the world
is going to come to grips with it
over the next 20 years
or so,
very much in the same way,
the internet is a big, big deal.
I got involved in the internet 93,
and I was just because somebody said,
here's some
something on my internet address. And,
I said, what's that?
And I said, well, you have Novell, right?
Which is
basically it was a
there was a mini internet for,
within a building or within an office.
You could send email messages.
Well, imagine
you had Novell for the whole world.
You send an email message
anywhere in the world for free.
I was like, really?
I said, yeah,
you know, the government developed
that DARPA developed in 68
nine CCP okay, I wasn't Holy shit.
That's a really powerful idea, you know?
And, I mean, I don't
I still don't think we've seen all the,
the full impact of the internet.
I mean,
you know,
we've seen the big networks
get disintermediated by Joe
Rogan and Tucker Carlson.
I mean, there's there's a lot of
which is beautiful.
And by guys like you, I mean, it's,
you know, here, here
we are on other side,
opposite sides of the world,
telling a story, communicating
something to people
who are willing to listen
that they can't find anywhere else.
They're not going to find a conversation
like this on CBS, you know, or CNN
right now.
I think we're
we're similar here because, like,
and you were,
like when I discovered the internet,
like I was in my teens or late
teens, some the 90s.
I'm born in 76.
So, like, see,
the internet took off for like,
95 or something
where it's really started to.
Really start going. Yeah. Yeah.
And, and I quite early on realized
how big that was, but I didn't act on it.
I didn't become like,
a computer programmer
or or, network expert or anything.
I became a C man instead.
Well, which in hindsight
seems kind of stupid,
but this this is part of why I.
Why I started
giving is so much attention to Bitcoin.
Because I
didn't want to make that mistake again.
When I saw something
and I saw that other people
didn't see it,
I knew I had to like,
oh, there's pattern.
Recognition on your part.
You'd seen this model
and you knew it was going to happen.
And that's exactly what happened to me.
Exactly.
And and this model changes all investing.
And there's a chapter in the book
that shows this how.
I mean, so I was taught to invest
based on price earnings
ratios and price to cash flow and growth
and all those kinds of things.
Here's the thing that's happened,
guys, that never happened before.
You know, the internet
and before network models,
there were never any investments
that went up thousands of percent
in 20 years or less.
They just didn't exist. Okay.
I mean,
Ford Motor
probably went up thousands of percent,
but over, of course, of 80 years
or something.
I mean,
and here you are,
you know, Amazon, Google, Facebook,
I mean, these are all
these are all companies that increased
in value,
thousands of percent
in less than 20 years.
And that's the power of Metcalf's
law and the power of networking
and the power of network investing.
And so
here we have a world wide
monetary network
that, in my opinion,
could go up thousands of percent.
And so
and we're
you know, we're not in the beginning.
I mean, we're not Max Kaiser
buying a dollar or for a smile
or watching at $0.25.
But, you know, we're not
we're not at the end.
We're still at a very
low penetration rate. I mean,
Jesse Meyer's chart, I love
shows, you know,
$2 trillion of of internet market cap
or I'm sorry,
Bitcoin market
cap, over $900 trillion of total
industrial assets, 0.2%.
And you know, so Bitcoin
if you go to $1 million of a coin
and it was only me 2%
and this is the best form of money
that mankind has ever seen.
So, you know, I just
I don't think people are prepared
for how quickly
and how high this thing is going to go.
And, and again,
that's the book
I'm trying to say, people
trying to help people,
you know, try to help
the person
that just can't seem to get ahead
because they're getting,
you know, their savings get inflated.
Right now.
And this is something
I talked to Jeff a lot about, like the
the inability of people's
people's inability to,
to see exponentials, like to, to
to really understand exponentials
because they're, they're,
they are weird
and they're hard to get
their head around.
Yeah. Come on.
It's like the seventh
wonder of the world, right?
You know what, Einstein?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Compound entrance
to this, the eighth wonder of the,
But the the thing is,
I mean,
after, let's say
we're hyper bitcoin ized, that in my mind
that means that productivity
per year goes up.
It can only continue to be exponential
because the,
the free market is so much more
well oiled and
free of interventionism at that point.
So like the example,
it feels like I give it on every show.
Now look like with the apple tree
farmer where, you know,
it's year
one, he can buy one apple tree a year
or two, two apple trees, year three, four
and year five, eight
and so on and so forth.
Because he can, I guess if he
if he gets some.
Billions of apple trees a lot.
Faster. Yeah.
And he gets to feed,
feed a lot of people,
but if it's taxed, that's 50%.
Or if there's inflation,
he never gets to the second tree.
So like we're
we're depriving ourselves
of all of these exponential effects
that could just enhance.
But when you have bitcoin. Yeah.
And you have this
dream scenario
that we're all working towards,
then every effort
of every
single human being
is of benefit
to every other single human being,
which is just
absolute, totally bonkers
and absolutely mind blowing.
And we can't just it's impossible
to wrap your head around
how good that is.
Well, it sounds utopian,
but I I'd say when they call us a cult,
I'd say
we're the only ones
that are not in a cult.
We're the ones breaking
free from the cult of this fiat banking
is Satanists, right?
Yeah, I would agree with you.
And I would also say that, you know,
just capital, proper capital allocation
would just stop people
from wasting money on stupid shit.
And, and, you know, and that's
and that's just, I mean, like,
I mean, a good example,
one of the ones I use
and actually look, Roman,
the nice job with Preston recently
on a podcast talking about this.
And we pissed away $8 trillion
in the Middle East,
I mean, the last 20 years and, you know,
want to secure Afghanistan,
to give it back and to secure Iraq
so that China could buy all their oil.
I mean.
That's just we might as well just wash.
The money down the toilet,
you know what I mean?
I mean, imagine if that 8 trillion
had been spent
on infrastructure or productivity,
you know, nuclear power,
you know, a lot of things that would have
made the well-being
of our citizens better as opposed to,
you know, building
tanks and guns and things that want to,
you know, the rusting now in Afghanistan.
I mean, it's,
and, and
I would
contend, I
think most Bitcoiners would contend that,
you know, if you
if you take the money,
the power to print money away
from the state,
state's going to have a really hard time
conducting big wars.
And,
and that's a good thing
because war is incredibly destructive,
to, you know, both people who suffer
from the
injuries and deaths,
but also just to the overall economy
because just it's a
it doesn't produce anything.
It just it
it sucks resources and destroys them.
So there's nothing more destructive,
I would say
exactly what wants to be more destructive
than that. Right.
And then
yeah. Go on.
No that's it.
I mean that's that's my point.
Yeah.
So so this
I don't know if you heard this,
but like it resonates.
What you're saying resonates
so deeply with me because like
and I think this had a lot to do
with why I became a bit coiner.
And it's a saying from my grandfathers,
like from my grandfather,
I never met
my grandfather
who died before I was born,
like my grandfather on my father's side.
But but his saying,
like trinkle
trickled down the generations
and down to me.
And I've been pondering it ever since.
First I heard it, and it's a saying,
that which
you can do without your own.
It's as simple as that.
So if, if, if you can, if you can resist
the urge to own something,
you already own the thing.
Like if you can
truly, psychologically do that
and I think like that is.
Yeah, I get it.
Like that's it.
And some things you actually do need
and you actually do want them
and you can't, you can't do without them.
But if you can, like, for instance,
I don't crave any Lambo.
So in, in, in effect, I own
all the lambos, I own the urge, like,
and there's so much depth to
to that saying.
So I just think you kind of rounded up.
It's a fascinating thought.
I mean, it
it's very stoic
and it's also very long term preference,
which is, you know, a big.
Yeah, coin thing. Marina.
Yeah.
No, I was about the only thing
that was
I had lunch yesterday with George.
Boating is a good friend of mine.
He's also written up in the book.
You know,
the only thing
I'm kind of locked in on is,
I want to be able to eat steaks.
I really do.
Like, steak is my equivalent of Lambo.
Yeah. Same here.
I mean.
They're not cheap, you know?
But but, you know,
I think it's really good.
That I know
some things you really can't do without.
But. But it's more.
But I like the whole thing
because it's
sort of to me that that is exactly
what Bitcoin represents.
Like get rid of all
the stupid consumerism
and people buying frivolous shit
they don't need, right?
Margaritaville mixer
with a, seltzer dispenser.
Let's just pour
your favorite salts on the top
when it comes out in the bottom.
Like, we don't need that kind of stuff.
Like you.
All right, so
so I think that
it perfectly encapsulates like,
what Bitcoin is to me.
Like it's
the people think it is
about getting rich fast,
but it's about not getting poorer slow
like it's about. That's right.
Yeah that's right.
Well it gives you.
It gives you back your time,
your freedom and your optimism.
I mean, you know, I if, I mean, I think
one of the great tragedies of Fiat world
are these people.
And my father was one of them.
And I'm sure
everyone knows people
like those who retire
with what they kind of
thought at one point
in time was enough money.
And then,
of course, inflation
just relentlessly eats away at it
and costs of everything they do.
By the time,
you know,
if they happen
to live longer than expected
or even normal lifespan,
they they find that
what they thought was enough
really is enough
because of the inflation
that's eaten away at their savings.
And so
and it leads to,
you know,
a lot of people just can't even retire.
You know,
they just kind of
have to be able to work until they drop,
which is really sad
because we ought to be able to everyone,
every human
being ought to be able
to produce enough excess value
that, you know, at the tail
end of their life as their faculties
start to slip that they can,
you know, enjoy themselves and not be,
you know,
not have to be a greeter at Walmart.
You know what I mean?
To, to pay the bills. And,
you know, that that has
as one of the things that Fiat
has taken away,
I think from, from this country,
it's very sad
is there's so much
there's so many sad stories.
I mean, but,
you know,
the flip of those sad stories
is there's a very bright future
if we can get it going
in the right direction, as you point out.
I mean, that's,
and that's why I'm
the book is very much a balance
of pessimism and optimism.
I mean,
you know, let's let's,
you know, let's call
what the system is
was be pessimistic
and aggressively pessimistic about
a broken
it is and how corrupt these people are
and how they put us in this position.
But let's be extremely optimistic
about the fact
that we've got the courage to win.
You know, we got them outnumbered.
We got a better tool,
you know, and we are winning.
I mean, and we're going to
we're ultimately going to win because
humankind always finds its way forward
in spite of,
you know,
what could be some tough transitions?
I mean, a lot of people said to me,
what you're describing means
there might be a really
tough transition point. And that's true.
I mean, I, I can't I can't deny that.
I mean, if you really want to get scared,
go read the mandibles.
Right.
That's
that's a,
you know,
that's a dystopian
view of the transition.
I don't think it has to be like that.
I think
I think we can make this transition with,
you know, in, in a fair way.
With, with minimal hurt.
And I and I,
and I look forward to doing it
sooner rather than later because,
you know,
we all have limited time spans here.
And I'd like to see it
happen in my lifetime.
I also am concerned
very much about my kids,
who are all in their 20s and thriving.
But, you know,
they think I'm not going to buy a house,
you know,
how am I going to get the down payment?
I mean, they're,
you know,
they're they're suffering from a
from the inflation
just like everybody else's.
So, no,
I, I absolutely agree
that we want the transition
as soon as possible.
Like and here many bitcoins disagreement
because they are
they're afraid of this
violent transition.
But the way I see it like without Bitcoin
there wouldn't be a transition at all.
What it would just be dark like and and
and also that the it
getting orange pilled
and becoming a Bitcoin
is getting away from the violence.
It is the peaceful solution.
So so it it it already takes a
takes away
the the theft and the threats
thereof like it
may is already gives you
this lens to view the world
to where you can see
that all prices are falling
into their marginal cost of production.
As Jeff likes to point out, like this.
Is, I think what's happening.
Yeah.
And only by, by like
starting pricing things in sets
can you actually experience that.
And it's a it's a fantastic thing to do.
Right. Absolutely everyone.
Yeah that's the thing.
I mean the
the sense of peace that you get once
you really fully understand this
and you come to embrace it,
it's it's pretty undescribable.
I mean, like, because I was
I've been fighting this monster
for a lot of years
before Bitcoin even existed.
All right.
You know, in 2015,
I was close to thinking about giving up.
I was just kind of like,
I just can't take this anymore.
It's brutal.
We're never going to win.
But I, you know,
I became aware of Bitcoin in 2013 or 14.
WhatsApp.
And and
you know, I started attending conferences
and I got really,
really hopeful
because let's say you wrote this book
and, you know, suddenly
a whole generation
of young people understood
Austrian economics
and understood the flaws
in Keynesian economics.
And I'm going to these conferences
I'm meeting 20 year
olds were quoting von
Mises, and I'm like, Holy shit,
this is different. You know,
I got,
you know, I'm
this old gold bug,
and I got all these young reinforcements
and they got a
they got a better spear,
you know, they got they got gunpowder.
And I'm fine with the spear. So,
you know, it's,
it's really been super,
super exciting and encouraging for me to
to watch it and be a part of it and,
and to watch Luke's generation.
And I like,
you know, you're kind of in between.
But to watch Luke's generation,
like Jack Milo's generation,
you know, pick up the,
you know,
pick up the weapon and say,
okay, guys, you know,
don't worry about gold, guys.
We got, you know, we got you covered.
We're going to we're going to
we're going to slay this beast,
you know,
because we got, you know, this this is
we got the right tool
and we're going to slay it.
You know,
as, I
said, what
does that sneaky roundabout way.
Yeah.
Well,
the guy who created
it, Satoshi, created
something that cannot stop,
which is a thing of beauty.
So. Absolutely.
I mean, oh.
This,
malus is such a such an eloquent speaker.
Oh, I love that speech he gave him.
I recorded it in the book.
That speech he gave in Miami in 21
when he was,
talking about El Salvador going, Yeah,
he was on fire.
Yeah, he was on fire.
And he said, I'll die on this hill.
I mean, you know.
Yeah, all of us were driven to tears
or moved to tears on that shit.
It was great.
No, it was superb.
And, yeah.
So back, back into the book.
I mean,
it's, it's it's
so fun to to go off on tangents with you.
Yeah. Right.
And help myself, but, but like, the,
the writing process, like,
how is that for you
and how do you enjoy it? Like, how.
Did you know? It was pretty interesting.
It really.
I mean, I felt like a higher power
was talking to me a lot of times.
I mean, I'm not.
I mean, I'm a little spiritual, but,
I mean, it was it just flew out of me.
I mean, I just once it
once I got the message,
you know, once
I knew what the message was.
And I
was actually a woman
who was just credited to kind of,
try and got me started
on writing the book.
And she proposed ghost writing.
And I decided not to go with
a ghostwriter,
but she said something to me
that was very, very profound.
She said, you know, Larry,
she said that, you know,
two things about a book writing a book.
One, it becomes your legacy
for your relatives,
you know, generations later,
and two books can change the world.
And she said,
they really can change the world.
And I thought about that.
Wow.
That's you know,
I don't know
if I've got the skill to do that, but
but that's that's kind of what drove me.
And I thought, you know, what can I,
I, I see this thing.
I'm in a unique position to see it.
I don't think anyone sees it
quite the way I do.
You know, maybe, just maybe,
I can write a book
that might change the world. And so.
So it actually just flew out of me.
It was like I.
And what had happened,
like my general pattern
was I go to bed at ten
and I would wake up at 3 a.m.
with a great idea.
And so I would write from 3 to 4,
and then I would go back
to sleep at four,
and then I wake up at six,
and then I write some more.
And so yeah,
I mean,
I wrote this book, it's two, it's 300
some pages now.
I wrote it in six months.
I started in May, June of last year.
So, and it just it just flew out of me.
And then,
you know,
I will say, you know, full,
full, full credit and confession chat.
GPT is like a game changer in terms of,
you know, research, right?
I mean, you can get
all the information off of Google.
But, you know,
I want to know about the Currency
Act of 1792 bomb.
You know, it just lays it right out. So,
yeah, I,
I pretty much enjoyed the process.
I mean, it's
I and then my brilliant,
absolutely brilliant
editor, Mel Schilling.
Oh my God, I mean,
this book would not be
half as good as it is
because I'm not that good a writer.
But she is.
And so I knew what I wanted to say.
And then Mel helped me to say it
in a way that,
you know,
is digestible and understandable
and grammatically correct.
So, you know,
I mean, I've had that's the other thing.
It's it's really not my book.
It's a crowdsourced book.
I've had so much help
from so many people.
But that's what Bitcoin really is
all about, isn't it?
I mean, you know,
I mean there's Jesse Myers,
there's Preston, there's Saylor,
there's you guys.
I mean just you know, Breedlove.
It just goes on and on and on.
And you know I every everybody you know,
you'll see him.
They're all credit in the back.
And they're lots and lots of people
who've made a contribution.
And I think what
my value added is, is
that I was able to pull together
the best of all these people
and put it in the book.
I mean, so,
you know,
I've got some of the Jekyll, I mean,
Jekyll Islands, a great book,
the Creature from Jekyll
describing this, that.
Okay, but it's 450 pages.
The average American
is not going to wade through that.
They're just not it's just way too much.
And to dance and to detail.
And it's a great accounting
of how they sneakily did it.
But you know, but
I think the average American
is interested in the,
the fundamental what happened there.
And so if I can boil it down
into four paragraphs
and kind of give you
the Reader's Digest version,
oh, I get it.
They set up a system of screw us
then, you know, then that's good. Right.
And and I did that with,
with tons of books.
I mean, I just,
I grabbed
kind of the best of all these things
and put it all into one
coherent, explainable story
so that, you know, what I've got is,
I think, a very comprehensive tool
for orange
filling people and helping people
out of the predicament,
the monetary predicament
that we all find ourselves in
in today's world.
Now,
recognize any of that look,
it sounds familiar to another writing.
You guys. Same thing.
Yeah. When you wrote.
Yeah, very. Much.
I, it's exactly the same for me.
I wake up one day and it all starts
pouring out of me, and I.
I view it nowadays.
Like,
if the the work is really people ask me,
when did you start writing the book?
And I have no clue.
Like,
I know that it wasn't
when I first pressed
the first key on the keyboard.
I think it was.
It was formulated in your mind.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and that's
a huge part of the process.
And the other thing I'd like to echo
is Mel Schilling's efforts,
like she's the unsung
heroine of, of Bitcoin books.
She's so great
and she's been with me
ever since everything divided,
and, with the, in the editing.
And she's just fantastic at it.
So, so like big shout out to her.
And I know she's done
a whole
bunch of other Bitcoin books as well.
And you know, she's just phenomenal,
you know, so so
but it's so good to hear
and it's so good to hear like that.
You've got to have this experience like.
Yeah it was an incredible experience.
I don't you know people say,
well once you've written one
you write more. I'm not so sure it was.
There were times, I mean, and my wife is
I work up pretty angry with me
at various points in time.
So I wasn't paying any attention to her.
As you know,
when you're doing these kind of things,
you just get obsessed,
you know what I mean?
I just, I know
well, and I and and two things.
One, I got obsessed and two,
I just didn't want to produce crap.
I wanted it to be my best work.
And, you know,
people might come out and say,
hey, I disagree with this, or,
hey, I don't like it, or hey,
it's not even good work.
But, I'm very comfortable
that it's my best work that I can't do.
I couldn't do it
any better than what I've done, so.
And and I'll rest on that.
Right? I mean, that's,
So I'll
it is not because, I mean, I, you know,
the, the,
the $64,000 question, guys, is how,
you know,
are the dogs going to eat the food?
When the dogs read that,
they're going to look at like, oh,
this is a really good book.
Or they go, oh God, I you know,
that was just tiresome.
I don't want to read all that.
And then one of the problems today
is, I'm sure you've a counter
to like a lot of people
don't read that much anymore.
They get all their information
from podcasts,
you know,
although, you know,
there will be an audio
version of the book,
or people ask to have me to read it
myself, I can't,
I've got too many business
commitments to do it.
I pick Walker.
America's a very good guy
with a great voice.
He's going to read it for it.
And so there will be an audible
audio version.
It'll be delayed and it won't be released
the day the paperback comes out, but be,
you know, mouth or something afterwards.
So,
for people who, you know,
I've had guest long haul
truckers DM me and say, hey,
I drive a truck.
You know, I want to
I want to read your book.
But out of time can you get
are you doing audio?
I'm like, yep, I'm doing it.
So it's all good.
No, it's it's fantastic.
I mean, Luke.
Luke, what, what do you think?
I mean, you
you've also had this experience
now with making a book
and working with Mel
and all of this, so, like. Yeah.
What's on your. Mind?
So I've gotten to to read, read it
fairly deeply at this point, and,
yeah, it's a it's a great.
Yes story of, of some stuff that I think
a lot of bitcoiners,
non bitcoiners won't be aware of.
And
so far what I'm thinking
is, is really the,
the key here of the book,
what you call the, the, the thesis.
And I don't think,
I'm not
exactly asking you
to spoil the ending or anything,
but we're, we're 45 minutes,
50 minutes into a pod here now.
So whoever is stuck along to this point,
I think has,
maybe earned
a little bit of kind of you're
thinking about this key point,
but why is the big print inevitable?
Like the whole first, first.
Part of the book
basically builds up to that, like, yeah,
why is it going to happen?
Is because of the math
of geometric compounding.
It's really it's a it's
actually a math problem.
It's not it's not a political problem.
If you compound something, I mean,
if you go to my Twitter,
account,
you'll see there's a chart that I,
it's my pin chart.
It shows that we've grown debt at a rate
in excess of the rate
that we've grown GDP
and gross
domestic product goods and services.
And so
history shows through thousands of years
that when that happens
and you get overly indebted
compared to your ability
to service the debt,
I GDP represents the ability
to service the debt,
pay it off or pay the interest.
Eventually something breaks.
Either the debt must collapse
and become unpayable, or people,
if they control the monetary system,
don't want that outcome.
And so they print the money
to pay the debt,
and effectively
the debt collapses
because you get paid back in dollars
or the currency.
But so many currency units get created.
The effectively not valuable,
you know, inflation is very, very high.
So so what really is described,
I mean,
and there are a lot of charts in the book
that show this,
and probably the best one is actually
look at the U.S.
federal government interest expense
and, you know, the views
and the growth of the US
federal government debt.
And if you can see if you look at them,
what you'll see is just describing them.
They're kind of going parabolic.
They're going straight up,
you know,
I mean, the U.S debt is $36 trillion.
We're adding $1
trillion every three months.
And that's that rate is growing.
U.S interest expenses are, you know, 400
worth 400 billion a year.
Now we're at 1.2 trillion.
And that's going up.
And so it's just a kind of a,
you know, it's
a continual mathematical compounding
of this debt
that's that's going to lead
to a day of reckoning unless,
unless somehow,
you know, x machina,
we find some magical solution.
But,
you know,
in 2000 years of recorded history, when,
when debt gets this bad,
you know,
you get a sovereign debt crisis,
you know, the currency collapses or,
you know, in biblical times,
it was actually, you know, you had it
that Jubilee or else,
you know, the whole thing fell apart. So,
so really,
really look, the answer to your question
is it's just math.
It's just it's
not a it's not an emotional view.
It's literally just math.
And it's
so it's kind of ironic,
isn't it,
that the solution to the problem
is just math too, right?
I mean, if we, you know,
the math is
what's causing
the existing system to break.
And if we go to
a, a monetary system
based on a mathematical protocol
that's inviolate and immutable
and can't be gamed,
that will solve the problem.
So, wow, I mean, it's, you know,
there's real symmetry there.
Yeah.
I mean,
I think the
the first part is, is, of the book
describing the problem is,
is going to be really fascinating for
especially our listeners
who are already quite familiar
with Bitcoin.
But I also like the
the second half of the book,
sort of systematically explaining
why Bitcoin is the solution.
And then and then
what is your view of, of
what we as Bitcoiners
need to do to help
the world become a better place?
Because I think that's a
that's a big part of the. The second.
My view is the Bitcoiners
are going to have enormous responsibility
because we're going to be silly,
rich and,
and, and,
you know,
I think it's our job
to try to help as many people
see what we see sooner rather than later.
And then it's our job to, you know,
continue the, the,
you know, to try and influence society.
And this goes back to Newt's
point about democracy and
and so on and so forth to,
you know,
to try and advocate for a fairer society
in every way, shape and form.
You know, and,
and and by the way,
I think those kinds of things
are going to happen here regardless.
I mean, this,
you know,
this decentralization
trend is just so strong.
And these these big
it these big governments,
these big nation states
have have outlived their usefulness.
I mean,
we don't need to have big nation
state wars anymore.
And, we don't need to have,
you know, big nation state power.
I mean, if you look at what
the federal government does,
there's nothing
they really do that we couldn't,
you know, push down to the states
except national defense.
And I think if we can get a,
you know, a global ban
on nuclear weapons,
national defense won't
become so much of an issue
in the future either. So,
you know, I
think there's
going to be a lot of responsibility
for all sorts of new,
you know, onto Bitcoiners.
Because they they will,
by definition, be fairly well-to-do and,
and which would then give them the time
and maybe
people will ask them to be involved
in the political process.
But I
can say this with high confidence, I,
I would have a lot more confidence
in any government run
by pure Bitcoiners
than I have in the existing system.
I mean, it's
that's a very low bar to jump over,
but I, you know, I
and there are some bitcoiners
I don't like.
Not very many, but
but I think your average Bitcoiners is,
is, generally speaking, a pretty,
pretty balanced
and thoughtful person
that's going to try and advocate
for a better world for everybody,
not just for themselves.
I mean,
I get angry when people point
because they say,
oh, you're just doing this
to pump this thing and get rich.
And now that's
that's not really what it's about.
I mean, that's that's a byproduct.
You know, it will be financially fine.
But to me, what it's really about, I'm
in this because I hate government
and I hate what government's done to us.
And I hate the system
that's that's killed
people and broken so many lives.
That's why I'm in this,
you know,
if I can have enough money
that I can eat steaks,
I'm a happy camper.
No, exactly.
I mean,
I think this goes
this all goes along with that.
I mean, even back to the
what you can do
without your own thing, like,
if we if we all have enough,
and don't
have to worry
about the necessities of life,
but but we we buy into this,
this new system
and put our energy into this new system.
Then it's it's going to reduce
the consumerism.
It's going to reduce the,
the need to,
stay ahead of, of the inflation.
It's it's amazing.
And I mean,
one thing you said the
that I really agree with is,
is about the,
the world becomes more fair.
The, the irony, I think, is
that that's
usually applied
in the context of the government
has to make
the world more fair
for people by redistribution.
Right, right.
But but the fairness
is getting out of the system that is,
secretly redistributing
everything unfairly that we don't see.
That's. Well.
Yeah, exactly correct.
But sadly,
that's not very causal
to the average person.
And hopefully this book will help.
And I'm I mean, look, this is just a
this is a first bought by me.
Somebody will come along
and write a better one
that'll move the needle more.
You know,
I mean I think, you know,
I think the Bitcoin standard
really moved the needle a lot.
I mean, it's probably the best economics
book of the last 100 years.
Safer way down in the history books.
You know,
I think Len's book
moved the needle further.
And this book moves the needle
in a slightly different way.
This is, I'm writing a
I wrote a populist book.
I wrote I didn't write a textbook.
I wrote a book that try to,
you know, get the
get the masses riled up and, and and,
you know, than anybody can read
and understand.
And,
you know,
we can create a mass movement here to,
return the world to sound money.
Because if we return to sound money,
it'll be a world that's
more like the world
I grew up in, which was really great.
And, and,
you know, there's so many fabulous things
that have taken place in the world.
I mean, the technologies
are just unbelievable.
I mean, you know, in spite of,
all the things that are wrong with Fiat,
I mean, look at how much technology
has made our life better.
I mean, I say our life was better
in the seventh.
Yeah, it was in a lot of ways
we had the middle class all.
But I mean, technologically it wasn't.
Yeah.
Couldn't even touch it,
you know what I mean?
I mean, I, you know, I,
I could take 12
to 24 photographs on a camera
and I had to wait,
you know, a week to get them back.
I mean,
there's so
many, so many differences
between that and that.
Now, and that's, that's like
my best counterargument
to whoever argues for inflation
being a good thing is like, well,
look at the computing world,
like where the cost of a megabyte
has consistently gone down
over 40 years and,
people are still buying more
and more computers, like,
there's nothing wrong with that.
Like,
I think,
I think that's
Jevons paradox, isn't it, Luke?
Like we wrote about that in book
and that's in Lynn's book as well,
I think, by the way.
Oh.
What's your preferred
way of reading a book is like audiobook
or like reading a physical book?
Me personally.
Yeah. Yeah.
I, my wife has gone to all Kindle.
I actually like having a physical book
because I like to be able
to hop around quickly from,
you know, and go to the bibliography.
If not, somebody go there.
I also tend to read books
with either a highlighter or pen,
and, and, and
dog your
pages and circle good quotes and try to
because I think, you know,
and that's actually that's
one of the things I think I've done with
this book is I,
you know,
I've pulled out some of the really
I mean,
you read certain things written
by other people and like, wow,
this guy just nailed it.
You know what I mean?
And it's like, okay,
I got a,
you know, full attribution, right?
I'm going to grab that quote
and stick it in here because this is
this is a brilliant explanation of this,
you know.
Yeah, I know,
I know, it's it's fantastic.
And and Luke,
we need to get Larry
a copy of Bitcoin
the universal clown world.
The the book that's you know together
that's a new one I've got. 21. Million.
Yeah I know but yeah about yeah I should
I should.
Know that I've been
I've been heads down on my book.
So I've been reading other stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
But we, we'd love to
to hear what you think about it
and we'd love to
to see some screenshots of highlights
and, and,
you know, earmarks and whatever.
So we're going to I.
Know I know it'll be good I love
I love your first book.
I just love it.
So yeah.
Thank you, thank you.
Oh, yeah. We'll get you a copy.
That you
that you can, dig into
after this book processes.
Oh, yeah.
Distractions. Till then.
Yeah.
Well,
while you have any time on your hands,
instead of.
But.
Yeah, just working on a book, like,
it takes a lot of time.
It takes up your whole day.
But you, as you say,
you want it to be the best
it can be, like, for your baby.
I mean, this
this should make sense to you.
Is we spent,
the better part of six months,
multiple hours per day together
on this last book.
And I'm sure you spent
about the equivalent. So.
Yeah, it's it's not an easy process.
If you want to produce quality
or try to produce quality.
No, but it's.
But it's worthwhile doing.
And and for me,
I had a very crystal clear
vision of what I wanted to accomplish.
And that it's easy to enjoy the process.
Right. Well, that's right.
And so I did enjoy it.
I mean, I brought something, I was like,
wow, I got it, I think I got it.
And then
I of course, I come back a week later.
I know that you got to make that better.
But,
you know, and as I say, it was amazing.
I mean, it's either
it seemed to me either 3 a.m.
or in the shower,
I'd be like, oh, my God, I got an idea,
and I
and and I have to go
jot it down quickly before I forget it.
So.
Yeah, yeah,
I know, I know exactly what you mean,
but what?
You said something before that
got me curious.
So, like,
before we wrap this thing up
and everything,
I'd like to pick your brain.
And one more thing.
And that is,
you said that
you like almost all Bitcoiners,
but maybe there's a handful
that you don't really like.
So in Larry Laporte's mind,
what is a bit coiner?
How do you define the term?
Yeah.
Well, I think I think,
you know,
and I kind of wish I hadn't said that,
I was just a
few people
who've kind of come after me,
and so I'm not very pleased with them.
But like,
I think anybody
I think generally speaking,
if you understand Bitcoin,
it means you've got a clear
in my opinion,
it means you've got a clear
thought process and a clear
understanding of,
you know, what a fair
monetary protocol
looks like and ought to be.
And you don't get to be a Bitcoin, or
until you've really kind of thought
through a lot of the fundamental issues
about how,
you know, our monetary system operates
and how our government operates
and how the Federal Reserve operates
and so on. And so forth.
And so
so if you've
if you've studied all of those things
and then you've studied Bitcoin,
and then you conclude that Bitcoin is
the solution to the problem
that makes you a Bitcoin or in my view,
and you know,
I guess what I found was
anybody who's done that
and comes to that opinion,
generally speaking
shares a
lot of the political and,
and other philosophies that I have.
I mean, I suppose
there are probably some Bitcoiners
who are just like,
they're on it for the ride
and just for a number go up, but
I, I don't
I haven't met many of those,
the ones, most of the people
I've met in the Bitcoin space
or are pretty deep and pretty thoughtful.
You know, they,
they've gone down,
they've done the time to get to
where you get to where
you really believe
that this magic internet money
is going to be
the numeraire of the world,
which we all believe.
You have to have done the homework and,
and that's
you have to read a lot of stuff.
You have to have thought it through.
You have to understand that
the difficulty adjustment
is understand what hashes and
and you know, you
just there's no shortcut.
And anybody who thinks the
rules is, is killing themselves.
But once you once you do that
as you every layer you peel away,
you know, I mean,
and I sort of skeptical.
I mean, I,
I was very afraid
I was going to blow up technically.
I mean, I saw digit cash, I saw Eagle,
I saw ash cash, you know, even,
Charlie and money.
I mean, I,
I saw a lot and none of them worked.
And then, in fact, that's scary.
And I was aware this in oh nine.
And I immediately thought,
oh, shit, here's another one.
This is going to work,
you know, and I was wrong.
I mean, I wish I'd
taken the time to study it
and realized why
it was going to work, but,
once it got going away as it started,
you know,
it went from,
you know, pennies to a dollar
and then a dollar to 100.
I was like, whoa, no, hang on a second.
Maybe some working here.
And of course.
But even then, you know what?
I put a huge piece of my net worth on it.
Now, I, you know,
I was still too early, too risky.
I mean, I,
I met with a,
I was at the MIT formal, I think 2014
next record
developer said you trust this thing.
You know, it's like every night I every.
So every night I go home,
we made some changes to it.
I'm thinking,
oh, geez, I hope I didn't croak it
well, and I was
it was a core developer, right.
And I was kind of
like I was kind of like, oh shit.
I mean, yeah,
I mean, I had some coins,
you know, handfuls. But,
I, you know, I can't put big money
in this thing
because it's still technically risky.
Right.
But but, you know, I mean, you know,
tick tock.
Next block, 16 years,
the a lot of that risk was gone away.
Yeah. And no risk.
No reward in the beginning.
That's true too.
No.
Yeah, that's true too I mean, I
you know,
I have enormous respect for Max.
I mean almost,
you know, almost like a crazy man.
He just he totally he's 18 to what,
you know.
And I ask an answer today
or to worry about the technical risk.
Yeah.
Kind of,
but I
he knew, Antonopoulos pretty well and so,
you know,
you kind of convinced me
that it was technically sound.
And so I just went with that. Yeah. No.
No. It's anything. Yeah. Right.
You know.
So, so if I, if I peel off
another layer of onion on that question.
So a person,
a person say
you have a person
that is very technical and understands
Bitcoin on a technical level,
but doesn't have the ethics
or nor understands
the practical logical foundations
or the Austrian economics angle.
Yeah.
And maybe this is why he's unethical
and he uses the protocol to, to,
spam it with Jpeg information.
Oh, ugly monkey pictures
and sells that as a scarce asset to, to,
you know, gullible morons.
Is that a Bitcoin?
No, no,
I don't like
I don't like those people at all.
And that's definitely not a bit coiner,
although I will say this, I don't
I, you know,
my view is
the system should be open and free.
And if people want to put,
you know, ordinals
or different things on the chain
and pay the cost to do it,
I mean, I, I, I don't, you know, I,
I'm not
I'm very much
a freedom maximalist
and open market maximalist.
So I mean, I,
you know, look,
I think we should have more miners
like ocean who say, hey,
we're not going to support this stuff.
We're going to go form blocks
that have that in it,
and that's the solution to that problem.
But I
you know,
I don't think we should restrict
people from want,
you know, people want to pay the money
to put something on the blockchain
that doesn't really add any value.
It's their money.
I think they have the right to do that.
Yeah.
It's just a matter of freedom.
No, I think we're on exactly
the same page here,
which is probably page 21, by the way.
So.
But anyway,
Luke, do you have a final question
for Larry before
before we start wrapping this up?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I think the, the overall
with any, with any book,
what is the the impression
you want
to leave
readers with after reading this book?
Yeah.
Well, I'd like readers to think that,
you know,
here's a thoughtful,
honest guy
who laid out his best
thoughts on the subject.
And,
and then I'd also like them
to conclude that, you know, I'm right
for obvious reasons that that, you know,
and there can be counterarguments
and I'll listen to those
and try and counter them.
But that that I am right,
that this monetary system is broken
and the Bitcoin solution
is the correct solution.
I mean, I think us
you know, I mean, this is
this is clearly a sales
pitch and an argument.
You know, and it's it's
not a pump and dump sales pitch
that I intend
to sell my clients for years.
I mean, I,
I imagine
some day
when I get old enough
that I, I'm not working,
you know,
I'll sell a couple percent of my coins
over a year to pay my bills or whatever
I need to do,
but hopefully
it'll be a very small percent
because the value have gone up a lot.
But,
but I, I'd like people to take away
the, the belief that,
you know, they learned something
that the author was
honest and open about,
you know,
strengths and weaknesses of,
you know, itself and the argument,
and therefore trustworthy.
And then and then
from there, jump into the conclusion
that,
you know, gosh,
I mean, I'm
not 100% sure,
but I think,
I think it sounds like his arguments
correct.
And, you know,
I should start buying some coins.
That's
that's really
what I'd like to have happen.
And and by the way,
you know, maybe,
maybe they get it right away.
And, you know what?
If we really do want to make this world
a better place and wars,
you know, do all the bullets.
You know, Bitcoin fixes this, right?
If we really want to do.
And that's one of the chapter names.
If we really want to do have a situation
where Bitcoin fixes those.
Gosh I got to give this to my friends
I got to recommend this book.
You know, I gotta
I gotta give this to my family members.
I gotta, you know,
let's say I mean to the real hard case
who says, oh, it's just a joke.
It's a Ponzi.
It's this, that and the other
have really read this book.
And then tell me
if you still think that way,
you know, take the time to do the work.
I mean, and they got to do the work.
I mean, one great, one other great. Sure.
I have with respect to the book,
is it just doesn't get read,
you know,
because people
just don't reach it anymore. Right?
You got to do the work, you know.
But but it's
I don't know,
I'm not sure how many hours
it's going to take to read it,
but I, you know, we'll know when
we'll have a read. But,
you know, you got to
take the time to read it.
But I give people
I let me say this,
I really hope
that it would be very hard
for somebody to read the book
and come away thinking,
that's all bullshit.
You know, and Bitcoin's bullshit.
I mean,
I think I think there's enough evidence.
And the argument is, you know, it's
the book is an argument.
I've tried to make an argument
and I'd like that argument to prevail.
I mean, it's it's very straightforward,
but I, it's not a, it's not an emotional.
Well, it's parts of it
are and the story's emotional.
But but
it's actually a,
the argument based on logic in fact,
you know,
and then the story piece has some emotion
that make it readable and interesting,
tells my story and all the ups and downs
and all that kind of crap. So,
yeah, I mean, I think the goal.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think, I think
one thing that I can,
I can say from, from reading,
reading the book so far as that
is that it's, it's a different,
it's a different angle.
And, I think, I think especially people
who are in the current system
invest their money,
do, are doing everything the,
the right way for the current system.
I think they'll get
a lot out of this book
because it really undermines.
The whole kind of rattled the world.
They'll say, Jesus,
I never even thought about it this way,
you know? Yeah, that's the idea.
But I think to our audience. Right.
Tradfri. Right.
Yeah, exactly.
But I and I think for our audience,
you're exactly right.
When you say check, check the book out,
I think it'll
give, a lot of good new,
points during these arguments
with friends and family
and whoever you know. Well.
That's the idea.
I mean, I didn't hold anything back.
That's suppose
as long as it is,
I try to marshal
every single possible argument.
And in the face of this,
because I really, I really do deeply feel
very strongly
that this thing is
what's necessary to fix the world.
And it's,
I mean, I believe that
with every bone in my body, as
I know you guys do to any, any hard parts
or our beliefs.
And, because once you see it,
you just can't go back, you know?
No.
That's a good definition of a bitcoin.
Yes.
Yeah,
that is a good definition of a bitcoin.
Yeah.
Yes I guess this
this episode is recorded about,
about a month before the book premieres.
And I think
the episode will be released
around the release of the book.
So go look up
Lawrence Leopard and the Big Print,
out now on Amazon and more importantly,
on the Bitcoin Infinity store,
where you can buy it for Bitcoin.
Yes, that's the long fun.
Yeah,
let's get those sets moving around
so that we we create more of an emoji.
Absolutely.
And you can where
you can also find
of course the aforementioned
and for some fun where.
I'm put up the first one.
It is already there.
All my old books are re-edited
and there are new, new versions of them.
I mean, they're only about right.
21 million is a fabulous book.
Fabulous. Oh, thank you for that.
And a great and a great, you know, local.
I.
Love to hear
it means a lot coming from you, Larry.
And anywhere else
you want to send our listeners,
then I on them Bitcoin infinity store.
Well.
There's,
you know, in the back of the book.
I mean, I have a lot of recommended
reading, right?
I mean, I think yeah,
I think if you read
if you read this
and you get interested,
probably your next book is safe
and then lands and then so,
you know,
I have seven other books back there.
I've tried to get the highlights.
You know,
because this isn't the
only book on the topic.
And but I
think what this will do,
hopefully, is a little whet
the interest of,
of a newbie or a non aware,
you know, person
and, and then they'll like,
gosh, there's, you know,
there's more here than I realize.
And they'll start reading
some of the other books too.
Yeah.
And I can
I can directly say
that we second all of those
recommendations too.
Of course.
So, so go check out everything.
Go follow Larry on X,
and everywhere else you can follow him
and, Yeah.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks. You guys really enjoy talking.
It's always a lot of fun.
Likewise, Larry. Thanks again.
This has been a Bitcoin Infinity Show.
Thank you for listening.