Bitcoin fixes this, right? There's a way to solve this problem. I'm going to protect myself,
and then I'm going to spread the word and try and get as many other people to protect themselves,
and we're going to break this crooked system that they've got. The fiat currency, the dollar,
is the Titanic, and it's sinking. And I bought seats on the lifeboat, and they were cheaper when
I bought them. Do you want a seat on the lifeboat, or do you want to stay on the Titanic? I think
this cycle takes us to kind of 200, 250 in Bitcoin. I'm quite certain that Bitcoin will be a million
dollars. What I'm not certain of is how much will a gallon of gasoline cost when Bitcoin's a million
dollars. Something really breaks and you know what they're going to do. They're going to bring out
the monetary monetary fire hoses. And man, when that happens, just look out. And this is how
currencies fail. Once everyone realizes that it's part of the policy and they can never stop,
the currency is doomed. Sadly, you know, this is how hyperinflations occur. It could go to zero.
larry it is good to see you my friend um i think this show great to see you as well this show is
uh is coming at a perfect time while i was prepping for it i felt like a lot of the stuff
that i've been being told for the last however many years started falling into place a little
bit so i'm hoping that's true we'll find out but um i think we've got to start on the fed
they obviously had their meeting earlier this week and decided to cut 25 basis points what do you
think of their reaction to this? Do you think 25 was enough? Well, to me, it's all kind of
kabuki theater because the right interest rate is the one the market should determine.
And we're so far from that. I mean, it almost doesn't matter. I mean, I think Powell played
it straight up the middle. He said a couple of interesting things. I mean, he said he thought
the risk to inflation had increased and inflation has not hit his target. He admitted that.
But he also said he thought the unemployment mandate, the risk there had increased as well.
And I think maybe driven by the revisions in the prior employment reports, you know, he wanted to lean towards the sides of being more careful.
And I think he viewed the policy as being somewhat restrictive and he wanted to be somewhat less restrictive.
But recognizing that, you know, both risks are there.
Several times he said, well, if inflation really becomes a risk, we've got the tools, we'll solve it.
So, you know, he's still trying to bluff that they do have the tools they don't.
I mean, what he kind of said in code is we're trapped, but he obviously couldn't say that.
I thought one of the more interesting developments of the meeting was that the newest appointed Fed governor, Stephen Moran, a young gentleman who runs a Council of Economic Advisors for Trump, voted against it.
he dissented. The prior two dissenters fell back in line, which, of course, I'm sure fits with,
you know, trying to keep their boss happy. And, you know, Moran's dissent makes sense,
right? Because Trump has called for cutting 300 basis points, and Moran wanted them to cut 50.
You know, there's some other interesting things that we were discussing before the show that have
gone on with respect to Moran. There's a recent, it was a Marty Bent tweet, a summary of an AI
of Moran's comments. I haven't had time to go back and look at the original comments,
but in summary, what Moran said was something along the lines of, you know, perhaps the Treasury
and the Fed will have to work together to coordinate to keep long-term interest rates
in a certain level. And anyone who knows anything about history knows that that's yield curve
control. That's saying we're not going to let rates rise as a result of lack of faith in our
debt. And that's fine. You can do that. But the way that one does that is one prints the money
to buy the bonds. And so the money supply grows more rapidly. And, you know, in so doing, I went
back, I was recently reading some things on the old yield curve control example. Most people don't
realize this, but we, well, we had yield curve control, obviously, to some degree when we had QE,
but there's another example of it. Post-World War II, you know, we had a lot of debt because
we fought the war in one and we had to, we had to take on that debt. It was existential. And,
you know, in order to control inflation, they had rationing and everything else. And,
And coming out of that period in 46, they were in yield curve control starting in 42.
They put the short rate at three-eighths, and they put the longer rates at 2.5%, and they just stood ready to buy whatever bonds were sold.
And so they did that all the way into the early 50s, and there were periods.
I think there was one month in 1947 when inflation was year-over-year 18%.
There was a year in early 1950 when, or month in 1950 when inflation year over year was 21%.
I mean, those are face ripping, you know, rates of inflation.
And the reason is that they were suppressing the bond yield to get the debt control, to
be controllable.
And the only way they could do that was to grow M2.
And so if we go back to that, there's just no doubt in my mind that we are going to have
a lot of inflation.
And so, you know, a lot of people say, well, how, when is the dollar going to fail?
I don't know. I mean, it depends on a lot of things like policy choices. But what I do know
is that we are in an inflationary cycle and it's not over yet. I believe that very strongly.
So I do definitely want to talk about the inflation side of this. But I also read
Marty's piece for TFTC. I'll make sure there's a link in the show notes because it's a really
good piece. But maybe it's worth getting into yield curve control because what I don't necessarily...
So basically, that is them just putting a backstop on the sale of bonds and they'll buy them at a
fixed price. So Japan did this. Correct. It's QE. It's QE as well. I mean, they go into the market.
And by the way, they're kind of doing a little bit of it today. I mean, one of the things they've
done is they've shifted a lot of the issuance into the shorter rates, which are lower than the
longer rates. We have a normal year curve, not inverted. And so it's cheaper to sell short-term
debt. And then Basant has used some of that money that he got selling the short-term debt, and he's
bought the long-term debt. And again, to keep those long-term rates anchored. And so it's a
little bit, Bernanke did this back in the day, it's called Operation Twist, where you sell short
and you buy long and you're holding the rates down. And yes, I mean, what all this ties into,
Danny, fundamentally is that the bondholder is the screwy in this whole cycle, right? I mean,
in an inflationary cycle where you got too much debt, we know because after Doge failed,
and it really did fail.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
They probably cut some bad programs,
but, you know,
Elon's saying $2 trillion and $1 trillion.
I mean, that's all a joke, right?
None of that happened.
If you look at the expenditures,
they continue to grow
and our deficit this year
will be as large as last year,
perhaps a tad larger.
Depends on this month of September.
But, you know, when Doge failed
and then they had, you know,
Liberation Day created the panic
in the stock and bond markets,
you know, Bacent kind of pivoted
and said, well, you know,
we're not focusing on that stuff as much anymore.
We're really going to,
what we're going to focus is on growing the economy.
And I heard that and I fell out of my chair.
That's code for,
we're going to inflate the shit out of this thing
and run it hot, right?
And so, and then you've soon thereafter,
you heard President Trump say,
you know, and he went on his attack against Powell,
which was well-deserved.
But, you know, I mean,
you've never seen a president behave so aggressively,
you know, regarding a Fed chair.
although there was some of that back in the 60s with, you know, beating up on Burns and stuff.
But and, you know, Trump said rates should be down 300 percent or three.
Yeah. 300 basis points. So three percent. So, you know, the Fed funds rate should be one percent.
Well, you want to get inflation going again. You want to get a revancing cycle.
You want to get a debt growth cycle going again. You know, go back to almost ZERP.
And boy, it's sure it's surely going to happen.
and so the thing is you know as you and i both know that in may powell's term is up and powell's
going to appoint somebody who's or i mean trump is going to appoint somebody's going to be very
very dovish and so you know you can kind of i think what's going on is the market sees that
the market's like all right i know it's coming you know they're going to print like crazy
you know and and markets look ahead right markets aren't pricing for today's conditions they're
pricing where are we going to be in six months a year year and a half and so you know how far out
as may what is it eight months or something i mean it's not that far away so the markets can see it
and in the first market to see it as we'll talk about is is the gold market right because
gold has just literally been on fire you know it's it's i mean i was listening to luke roman
the other night and he said yeah gold goes up on every day that ends and why it's been just
relentless for the last year like it's i just thought that was a great way of putting it right
totally um on the yield curve control so let me just make sure i've got this right so obviously
the Fed sets the short-term rate. The problem is they can't control the long-term, but this is a
way of getting that in check as well. So it kind of just removes any free market dynamic. Is that
right? Pretty much. I mean, and to be fair, I mean, if you really get technical about it, the Fed is
not printing money when it buys those bonds. It's creating reserves for the bank. It's buying
the bonds back and, you know, and then putting a reserve asset on the bank's balance sheet. But
be absolutely certain it's just one step removed from printing money because now that the bank has
bigger reserves on its balance sheet and it's a fractional reserve lender, it can lend more and
it will lend more. So, you know, unless they're isolated as they were, you know, after the great
financial crisis, I mean, the Fed changed the rules as they always do when they want to screw
people and decided they started playing interest on excess reserves. And that kept the inflation
in check somewhat at a consumer level. Although at an asset level, everything went kind of,
you know, that's how we got into this everything bubble was all that free money.
So even if it's not technically money printing, the actual outcome of it is exactly the same.
Exactly. It's just one step removed. Yeah. I mean, and to be fair, I mean,
even the Fed has said, you know, we've got a tool called the printing press. I mean,
it really is money printing, so we might as well just call it that.
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forward slash wbd when we spoke it was probably six months ago in bedford and we were talking
about the big print and you were saying like the big print is coming but you weren't sure exactly
what form it was going to come in like i think we we said that we we didn't think it would be
like qe again it would be something different is this it is this the big print
Well, it's kind of the beginning of it. But yes, you're right. I mean, they know they don't want to have to go to QE. They don't want to have to go to ZERP, although Trump probably does. They can do the big print via the banks. I mean, just by changing, you know, there's all these technical plumbing, monetary plumbing things that, you know, even sometimes my head spins when I try and understand them.
I mean, I think Luke and Lynn get them a little better than I do, but they can change the rules.
And effectively, the banks are what keep the whole thing going because the banks can create money.
The banks can buy the bonds by creating money.
And as long as they can get a positive spread, and my guess is the Fed will make it such that they do, because we already know.
I mean, the Fed's running huge deficits, and that's based on the spread, right?
And so, you know, they're basically giving the banks an enormous subsidy.
In fact, as some of these people attack the Fed, they've been attacking them for that.
And it's not only they give an enormous subsidy, but like 40% of that subsidy goes to foreign banks.
So it's kind of like, hang on a second, why is our monetary authority subsidizing foreign banks?
Well, the answer is to keep the whole financial system from blowing apart.
But yeah, so yes, they're very good at trying to rebrand and change and hide the peas and shells.
I mean, you know, I mean, the great we've talked about this, but I'll just mention it again because I think it's so important.
You know, Dodd-Frank outlawed bank bailouts, period.
You know, Dodd-Frank was a reaction to 2008, said, you know, everyone's rip shit pissed that we bailed out all those banks.
It was wrong. It was unfair. Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the rest of us, lose our houses and stuff.
So Dodd-Frank was like, you're not going to bail out the banks anymore.
The banks screw up. You know, they're going to have to take the hit.
The shareholders, the depositors, et cetera.
Well, along comes Silicon Valley Bank, which is so ironic, it got itself in trouble because of ZERP.
And they bought all these safe government bonds, which in theory had no default risk, but they bought them so cheap and with so much duration that when Powell started raising rates, you know, Silicon Valley Bank went tits up.
And, you know, the rule should have said, OK, depositor of Silicon Valley Bank, you take a 20 percent haircut.
That's what should have happened.
But guess what?
The depositors of Silicon Valley Bank were rich venture capitalists and Bill Ackman and
a lot of people who had a lot of political sway.
And so they got in there and they said, oh, no, no, you can't have that happen.
If you have that happen, the whole banking system is going to go down.
The FDIC won't be able to cover all the deposits.
And so they undusted off another rule, which was kind of the systematic, you know, failure
exemption.
And they bailed them out, you know, just broke the Dodd-Frank law.
So, you know, this is a pattern that we just know will be repeated over and over again.
It's frustrating.
It's unfair.
You know, it just, I mean, people have read my book.
They say, God, the first half of the thing was so depressing.
I'm like, yeah, I know.
That's the point.
That's the world we live in.
The point, you know, I would never have written the first half if I didn't know the second half, which is, you know, Bitcoin fixes this, right?
There's a way to solve this problem.
And while you might get depressed with the first half, I'm hoping that depression leads you to resolve.
And your resolve is, OK, I'm going to, you know, we're going to break this thing and I'm going to I'm going to save, you know, I'm going to protect myself.
And then I'm going to spread the word and try and get as many other people to protect themselves.
And we're going to break this crooked system that they've got.
So so that's, you know, that's I guess that's a little long winded answer to your question.
No, that was great. So it's really like a semantic thing.
It's not it's not if the big print will happen, it's how.
Well, I think that's right. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. It's happening. It's kind of happening, but it could get bigger, right?
I mean, I think this is going to get exponentially bigger forever until it blows up. But on the yield curve control thing, the question I would have is, like, how much does this lead to inflation? Because Japan have had yield curve control for, I don't know, a decade or something like that. And they've not had inflation. But I know they're a very different market. So what would it mean in the US?
Well, they're starting to have inflation. They are starting to have inflation because they import their energy and they were having trouble paying for their oil, you know, in dollars because the dollar was weakened. Yeah, and Japan's a slightly different case. I mean, their budget is in much more balance. They run a trade surplus, not a deficit. And they're a nation of savers. So it's not exactly apples to apples with us on the inflation front.
You know, and they also tend to be kind of a trusting people, I think, in general, the government and their systems.
I mean, inflation, one of the things I think people forget about inflation is that it's not just all these numbers on a page.
Inflation is also a psychological phenomena.
If you believe that inflation exists, it kind of comes, you can bring it into being.
Let me give you an example.
You know, when the COVID inflation came out and, you know, the price of everything went up 30, 40 percent, you know, the longshoremen and the airline pilots and a lot of unions realized, holy shit, we're getting screwed.
Our money's not buying as much.
We know it exists.
We believe it exists.
We're going to demand higher wages.
And they did.
And they got them.
I mean, the longshoremen got like 10 percent a year for six years.
That's a lot bigger than 2 percent.
And, you know, the airline pilots, a similar deal.
And the point is that inflation flows through a system and everybody notices it's hitting them and then they demand theirs, right?
And so this is why, you know, people say, well, in a technical Austrian sense, you know, tariffs are a tax and therefore they're not inflationary.
They're actually deflationary because they increase demand by taxing and using it on something like the government.
And there's some truth in that.
But the flip of that is, well, yes, that's true, except that if the producer passes it on to the user, the user sees a higher price.
That user thinks the higher price is inflation, which to him it is.
It's a higher price for the same thing.
And then he turns around to his employer and says, hey, my money's not going as far.
You've got to pay me more.
So, you know, it's a self-reinforcing cycle.
And I know about it a lot because I was young when it happened.
But the 70s was the last time this really happened in a big way.
And there were three big waves of inflation.
And we're in that cycle. And to break that cycle, you've got to convince people that inflation is totally under control. And Volcker did it in 80 by taking rates to 20 percent, almost bankrupted my father. But that's a side effect. But it's great. I mean, some farmer drove to the Eccles building in D.C. in 1980 with a shotgun intent on killing Volcker because basically the interest rates were killing him.
And you know so I mean you got this I mean how can you have an authority that charged with setting the rate of interest that can have the interest rate somewhere between 20 and zero I mean it both are extremes and it just tells you how out of control the whole goddamn thing is
I mean, they'd be better off just to set it at 4% and leave it, you know, and then I mean it.
Right.
I mean, it's just it's like we're swinging from one extreme to the other.
So I don't know.
That's just kind of a tangent.
But I do think that idea of inflation being a psychological phenomenon is really interesting because like I really had no real idea of what inflation was until I found Bitcoin.
And I think like if you ask my friendship group, people my age, until COVID happened, they wouldn't have been very well aware of what inflation was and how it impacted them.
But my parents, who would probably be a similar generation to you, like absolutely know what it is because they lived through the 70s.
And so everyone waking up to this is, I mean, it's kind of scary in one sense, but incredibly bullish for things like Bitcoin and things like gold.
Oh, yeah. It's insanely bullish for what we've got.
And we're still, you know, I still think if this is a nine inning baseball game, we're in somewhere between the second and the third inning.
I mean, it's early days.
And I spent a lot of my time talking to investors, wealthy people or my clients and others.
And, you know, so many of them are, you know, they're backward looking.
They're like, well, they'll get it under control.
And gosh, you know, gold's gone up a lot.
Bitcoin's gone up a lot.
Don't we sell it now?
And I'm kind of like, well, no, you really don't because it's going to get worse, not better.
You know, now there'll come a time when they've gone up a lot and monetary reform is being talked about and they're going to eventually address all these issues and solve this problem.
And at that point in time, you know, it'll be time to sell this and move back into productive businesses, which, you know, perhaps will be selling at five times earnings instead of 50 times earnings.
But we're a long way away from that right now.
I mean, we're only just getting started.
You know, people should think about this as we are early in the inflation game, not late.
I think that's an important distinction to make.
Um, you know, I've used the price price, um, fixating on a price is a, is a very human emotion.
If something like gold was a thousand dollars a bunch of years ago or $2,000 a year and a half ago,
it's 36. Now it's very easy to think that 36 is expensive. 3,600 is expensive,
but in fact, you know, to balance the entire debt burden, all the money that's been created
with the gold that we hold, if you compare it to the seventies model, you know, it'd have to be
$90,000 an ounce. So if that's really the case and we're at 3,600, you know, it's kind of cheap,
right? And, you know, the model I've been using, I've been touting recently, it's just, I think
it's a good metaphor is, you know, fiat currency is the, I mean, because the thing, here's what's
going on. I'm encountering a lot of people says, yeah, I can't buy that because you bought it
much cheaper. And I'm happy for you that you made all this money, but now it's high in price. I can't
buy it. I mean, it's not a good investment to buy it this high. And I'm like, no, you don't
understand. You got the model wrong. The model is that the fiat currency, the dollar is the Titanic
and it's sinking. And I bought seats on the lifeboat and they were cheaper when I bought them,
but they're, and they're more expensive to you. And I'm sorry for that, but you didn't buy them
when I did. But you know, the question to you and you've got to address is, do you want to
seat on the lifeboat or do you want to stay on the Titanic? Because you know, the, the, the Bitcoin
seed is now 117 and the you know the gold seed is now you know 3 600 your choice right and and how
good a lifeboat you want to get on you want to get on bitcoin because because if gold has to be
i think bitcoin's a better it's a better lifeboat than gold but they're both don't get me wrong
they're both going to work danny i mean it's you know they're both going to work bitcoin much in a
much better way but you know i can completely buy that but if gold should be 90 000 an ounce like i
want to know what the bitcoin price is that i can't do the math but millions of dollars no i mean it's
It's $10 million.
I mean, it's, yeah.
And, you know, to be honest with you, all these numbers kind of get hard to deal with and become a little irrelevant when you really are in a currency failure.
Because, you know, I'm quite certain that Bitcoin will be a million dollars.
What I'm not certain of is how much will a gallon of gasoline cost when Bitcoin's a million dollars.
Do you know what I mean?
And because, you know, it will be there in part because we've had massive inflation.
And, you know, that will hit everything.
So, you know, it's the purchasing power you really care about.
And we measure nominally with dollars at the base.
I mean, as I said in the book, and as you and I've talked about, I mean, I'm pretty sure my kids and grandkids will quote prices and satoshis.
And the dollar will be kind of this historical remnant of our old broken monetary system.
So a car will be, I don't know, 20 satoshis and a sandwich will be, you know, one 100th of satoshi.
I mean, I don't know, you know, who knows what it'll be.
But the point is, we'll have a difference.
The numeraire will be a different thing.
That's the world I want to live in.
We'll get there.
I'm sure we will.
You said that you think inflation is coming back.
Like one of the things that I've struggled with, with this Fed decision, they've obviously
cut rates, but inflation is not at their target.
It's just under 3%, I think.
No, not even close.
And those are the quick numbers, by the way, right?
Of course, yeah.
I mean, the numbers aren't right.
But I want to know, like, who are they doing this for?
Are they doing this because they think it's the right decision for the economy?
Or are they doing it because they're worried about their interest payments?
Because they have that dual mandate at the moment.
Maybe it becomes a triple mandate.
But it's stable prices and jobs.
And it seems like jobs are really struggling and they've not got stable prices under control.
So what on earth do they do?
Well, that's the thing.
They're trapped, as we all know.
They're painted into a corner.
I mean, I thought, you know, as I listened to Powell.
It's funny, I was coming back from a trade show in Denver focused on gold mining companies.
So I was with another guy and we were in the car and they had Sirius XM radio.
It was perfect.
I'm driving for an hour and I got to listen to Powell.
I don't know.
I don't like the guy, but I actually kind of felt sorry for him in the sense that, you know, he said, well, you know, we're not at our inflation target.
And frankly, their inflation risk is getting worse.
But in turn, you know, we've been trying to be restrictive.
And, you know, we're seeing the labor data is really starting to get soft, as we all know, there were huge downward revisions.
And so we feel like, you know, he almost said, like, we're kind of pulling this out of our ass, but we kind of feel like we ought to lean towards the labor side.
If I were, you know, if you were just kind of summarizing what he said, but he said he did say, look, we're in a particularly challenging position.
But a few people pushed him on the inflation.
And, of course, he did the old threat.
No, we think we can get it under control.
And if we need to, we've got the tools and we'll do whatever we have to do.
which implies they would raise rates. But of course, I don't think they will. I mean,
I got to believe what Powell is doing is he's literally just counting the days
until he can retire and say, I did my job, you know, system's still in one piece,
you know, whatever it might be. I mean, and all he's got to do is make it into May of next year.
And I'm pretty sure he's counting the days because he knows he's in a very, very tough spot. And who
knows, he may make it out. I mean, if there's any karma in the world, I kind of think there is.
I actually don't think he's going to make it. I think something's going to break between now and
May and he's going to be forced to pivot and do Zerp and QE and all that other stuff. But we'll
see. I could be wrong. They're pretty good at can kicking and they could just kick it down the
road until May. And then at that point, Muran will be chairman or somebody else will be chairman
and they'll drop rates aggressively and it'll keep the economy kind of going.
But, you know, inflation will get into another wave of inflation.
And this one won't stop at nine.
It'll go to 15, you know.
So that's kind of what I could see happening.
And whoever comes in is likely just to be a kind of Trump stooge
and it blurs the lines between.
Gotta be.
Yeah.
Gotta be.
I mean, he's not going to blow this.
I mean, he knows that, you know, keeping the economy going
And what he's going to hope is that that initial surge from the new guy coming in and printing money won't show up in the CPI data for a little bit of time.
So you'll have an economy that's running strong.
Everybody will have jobs.
Inflation hasn't really gotten going yet.
And that'll lead to, you know, President Vance.
That's kind of what he's hoping.
um you know the the flip side of that possibility is that the inflation shows up good and hard and
fast and the economy slows down anyway and then the dems come in and say well you know we need
ubi and you know wealth taxes and you know blah blah blah blah and and they win and you know look
out because we're you know it's all going in the other direction very quickly which would be terrible
But, you know, I assume we're in a fourth turning.
The typical fourth turning model is that you see this real political, you know, people are dissatisfied with politics.
And so one side wins and then they kick those bums out.
And then the other side wins and they kick those bums out.
And I mean, just back and forth, back and forth.
I mean, that's definitely happening.
And that's one of the areas where I wonder if the UK is sort of ahead down that path.
I think you are.
I think that's exactly what you guys are doing.
And obviously, I mean, we don't need to get into the politics, but now there's this new party that, while I agree with a lot of the stuff they say, are certainly very populist and who knows what happens.
I think the fourth turning meme is, well, it's not a meme.
It's life at the moment.
Yeah, no, that theory, it's playing out in real time.
It's pretty amazing.
I mean, all the horrific stuff that happened in our country last week with that shooting.
I mean, I got to tell you, it just broke my heart.
It's just so sad.
It's funny.
I was talking to a couple of people offline about that.
And I quite like Charlie Kirk.
I didn't listen to a lot of the stuff he did.
But I saw him, you know, like if I was scrolling, I'd see his clips every now and again.
And I thought he always seemed like a really genuine, like decent person, I thought.
Totally agree.
I mean, I have to admit, I'm kind of culturally deaf and I don't listen to a lot of that stuff.
So I didn't know much about him actually before it occurred.
But gosh, it's just heartbreaking, just tragic, really.
And really kind of a turning point maybe for our country.
I mean, I just was like, wow.
You know, I knew things were bad in America.
I knew they were getting worse.
And I guess I shouldn't have been surprised because we've had school shootings.
And, you know, I mean, there have been a lot of bad things going on.
I mean, you know, and I really do believe that this broken money is what's led to, you know, this dysfunctional society.
I mean, my book talks about that.
I mean, the deaths of despair and the hollowing out of the middle class.
I mean, it's just been so much.
And look, some of it, you know, couldn't have been helped.
I mean, some of it's just the technology and the changes that have occurred in our world.
And the flip side of those technologies are that, you know, we're incredibly productive.
You and I can have conversations from halfway around the world and broadcast it to thousands of people.
I mean, you know, there are a lot of positives coming out of the technology, but there were a lot of disruptions and negatives as well.
and it's you know I mean the good news is I think it's all leading us to a better place and I remain
enormously optimistic about where we will get to and the world my kids will live in but boy I mean
it's you know right now the last time I remember this country being this way and I was I was 10
years old was you know back in back in the 60s you know when the Vietnam War protests were just
raging and there was all kinds of campus dissent and you know the democratic convention in chicago
was you know it was a mess and and then then of course people started getting killed i mean jfk
earlier in 63 but you know mlk and malcolm x and bobby and all of it it was just horrible
absolutely horrible and this feels the same actually it feels kind of worse the the funny
thing about it well not funny at all but like the the interesting part about it is that how much it
bothered me like because like i say i always quite liked him but it bothered me in a in a
way deeper way than than i would have expected something like that too and i think it is the
fact that it just feels like a really pivotal moment and it's like it's right in front i mean
obviously you literally saw it you know you saw the oh it's horror the video was just horrific
yeah i mean i good god but it's really what that represents like the fact that discourse is broken
down to the point that you have to shoot someone you disagree with is just disgusting it's just
absolutely barbarian and disgusting. And after a thousand years of human progress to think that
we've come to this, it's like, what? You know, I mean, yeah, it's just, it's absolutely horrific.
So, but maybe it'll be a sober, I mean, you know, the bright side of it is perhaps a sober reminder
for everyone to tone down the rhetoric and recognize that, you know, it's one planet,
we're one people, most of us are alike. We just want to live our lives and not kill other folks.
and to the degree we have differences, we've got to talk about them and work it out, not,
you know, kill each other. And, uh, you know, there's obviously thousands of years of history
of human beings killing each other, but I'd like to think we're moving away from that. And I think
that, you know, one, one way to be, to, to increase the odds that we're moving away from
that is to keep the system fair, you know, because I'd be willing to bet that, you know,
a lot of the killing that takes place is driven by people who feel like they have nothing to lose
and the system is incredibly unfair to them. They feel it. And so they act out in a way that,
you know, is horrific, right? Yeah. It's like peak nihilism,
peak disenfranchised youth. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, there's no justification for it,
but you can kind of analyze it and see how it could occur, right?
Yeah. I mean, I was going to say onto, I mean, it's definitely less depressing news,
but it's still depressing news on the fact that the one thing that I wanted to kind of get back
to on that is, how much do you think the Fed actually matters now? Because I think the month
of August, the deficit was something like $350 billion. Can the Fed even do anything?
Well, yeah, they can print money. I mean, they do matter because they've got their hands on that
printing press. And they're going to matter in spades if Stephanie Kelton is the Fed,
is the president or treasury secretary. I mean, for anyone who doesn't know who Stephanie is,
she's the champion of MMT. MMT. Yeah. And money printing. And so, yeah, they do matter. I mean,
look, the markets matter more, but the markets follow the monetary authority. And
if the monetary authority is going to print a ton of money, guess what? The money is going to get
massively debased. And yeah, they matter. They matter a lot, really. And they matter. Now,
you know, it's possible the market is going to, I mean, the events are going to make them not
matter. Because if the currency fails, then they're not going to matter. Nobody's going to
fall for that again. We're going to be transacting in Bitcoin and silver coins, you know, but for now,
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so I was speaking to Joe Carlseri. I know you guys don't get along, but he's got some valuable
stuff. And so I was speaking to him in Vegas and he was talking about like the idea that
when it comes to this kind of debt spiral, people don't talk enough about the productivity gains
that we're going to see in the coming years from things like AI and robotics. Do you think there is
a path out of this through massive increase in productivity?
Not alone. I mean, I share his belief that productivity is going to increase a lot,
and I share his belief in AI and what it can do for the economy. But I think like most things,
you know, the AI thing has gotten a little bit ahead of itself, people a little bit too excited.
The studies I've read have said, you know, a lot of people who've done AI projects of,
you know, corporations like 90% have not seen direct benefits from it. But I mean, just at
my own personal level, I mean, writing the book, doing some research, getting information quickly,
it was massively beneficial. I have some friends, actually a relative who's a, you know, legal
profession, paralegal going on to be a lawyer. You know, she says, this is going to wipe out the
paralegal profession, because you can just do so much more so quickly. And she may be right.
I mean, you know, yes, there will be productivity increases, but, you know, at the end of the day and robotics and yes, I mean, some of the more, you know, repetitive, terrible jobs.
I mean, you look at and read about what China is doing with manufacturing cars.
You look at paint shops and how they're using robotics.
I mean, yes, robotics will definitely make things more efficient, but, you know, it's pretty hard to automate absolutely everything, you know, and it's not going to happen overnight.
I mean, it's like the self-driving cars.
I mean, they've come a long, long, long way. We're almost there, but we're not quite, you know, we're not all the way there yet. And so, you know, to me, to my way of seeing it, these and those productivity gains will benefit everybody. But, you know, the flip of that, Danny, too, is keep in mind that there are a lot of workers in the world.
OK, let's say their jobs are replaced by AI.
You know, OK, well, those workers have mortgages.
Those workers have debts.
You know, suddenly they're unemployed.
You know, how are they going to transition into something else?
Maybe the programming of AI.
I mean, it's, you know, every deflationary trend, you know, as Jeff Booth points out,
every deflationary trend is a problem for a credit-based system
that absolutely relies upon inflation and growth in credit to keep it going And so to the degree that we have deflation in jobs wages productivity driven by productivity et cetera
that all creates more problems for a system
that has to have credit growth, right?
And therefore, the only way to get credit growth
is to misprice interest and grow the money supply.
And that's inflation.
I mean, it's Jeff's point.
It's a brilliant one.
And I mean, when he came out with that book,
It was just such an insight that just we're trying to map a deflationary economy becoming more so, you know, and productivity increases are rapidly accelerating.
We're trying to map that against a old monetary system that absolutely positively has to have credit growth or else the existing system collapses.
So it's like, how do you do that?
You know, one of them has got to give.
I mean, they're completely incompatible. But while they try and keep the current monetary system alive, I assume what will happen there is just UBI. I can't really see any other way out for them if we do enter that world.
I think that's probably right. Yeah. No, I think that's probably right. I mean, I think, you know, and look, COVID was an interesting test case for all of that, right? I mean, cash, you know, money just showed up in our bank accounts, right?
you're a taxpayer they've got your you know they've got your social boom here's your you know
here's your check so they you know they they tested it they know it works they can do it
um and you know boy watch you know when inflation is raging and things are tough in three years
and vance is running against a aoc or whoever i mean heaven forbid newsom whatever but
you know the then um these kinds of things are going to be promised and there's some segment of
the voters who will go for that in a big way. I just looked up because I always think it's an
interesting stat. If you'd have put that $1,200 stimulus check into Bitcoin, it would have been
worth $21,000 now. Isn't that stunning? Wow. That's pretty cool. Incredible. That's really cool.
So we've kind of framed this interview like the book. We've done the depressing stuff. I do have
one more depressing question and then we can get onto kind of the solutions. But if we do actually
go into a world where the Fed are trying to do yield curve control, does that really blur the
between sort of monetary policy and fiscal policy? Because obviously, Lynn's been on this sort of
fiscal dominance narrative for a long time now. Where does that leave us?
Yeah, well, you nailed it. I mean, the fact is nothing stops the train. And one of the most
disingenuous things that I think Powell has done is to say, well, I don't do fiscal policy. Well,
you know, come on, dude. I mean, you're the guy who enables them to do what they're doing.
I mean, if he was honorable, he would say, look, either you guys clean up your act and balance the
budget or I quit. Because, you know, you can't honestly do his job of keeping the money sound
when they're spending more than they're bringing in. You just can't do it. So to me, they're
completely and totally linked. And interestingly, that's kind of where Trump and Besant say they
want to take it. That's what Moran said in his recent comments, right, that the Fed and the
Treasury have to coordinate, you know, to keep the whole thing together. I mean, it's interesting,
you know, all countries learn from other countries. And China has been quite successful as a result of
having kind of quote-unquote industrial policy, not being a democracy, just saying this is how
we're going to do it, and we're going to move quickly and break things and make things better.
And, you know, I mean, I wouldn't want to be in the Chinese political system, but you can't really
argue with their economic success, right? And, you know, we've done it democratically, which is
messier and slower and this, that, and the other, but in turn, you know, we're starting to see us
acting more like them, like, okay, we need some industrial policy. Boom. Let's invest in MP
materials because they have rare earths and we need that shit. Boom, let's invest in intel because
chips are important to us and we just want to take a big piece of it. Moran coming out saying,
boom, let's, you know, maybe the treasury and the Fed need to be joined at the hip because we need
to have a, you know, a monetary industrial policy kind of thing. I mean, that's what they did in
World War II, you know, and they had to do it, right? I mean, it was existential, you know,
these fascist countries that attacked us or were attacking Europe and, you know, we wanted to
prevent that and stop that. So, okay, fine. You know, let's, whatever it takes, we're going to
win this thing. And it was a different country back then. Everyone got behind it. You know,
you had the hero generation and, and everyone agreed that this is wrong. We got to fight.
And, you know, I mean, I remember my grandparents telling me you couldn't get anything, you know,
you couldn't get tires, you couldn't get gasoline, you couldn't get meat, you know,
you were eating rice and crackers and, you know, but they were like, you know, we all said it was
okay because, you know, we're still alive. And once we win the war, you know, things will be good
again. And they were right. And so, you know, arguably, arguably, you know, maybe America's
going to have to go through kind of one of those, this whole generation is going to have to go
through one of those big changes where, gosh, you know what, the currency failed. Oh my,
that's a really bad thing. But I've studied a lot of currency failures, talk about it in the book,
write about it. If we can avoid getting into a war, if we can stop the nuclear exchange,
if we can stop killing each other, you know, all the assets are still there. What just happens is
just like you've kind of taken a monopoly board and you've tipped it upside down. So everyone who
owned the houses don't own them anymore. And all the math is different. People who thought they had
a lot of money don't because it was fiat and it was worthless. And people who thought they owned
magic internet money were suddenly some of the richest people in the world. I mean,
that's kind of where I think we're going, which is strange, but I see it. That's what I see.
It is so strange. And it's such like, it is the weirdest thing ever, but an incredibly
positive thing i think changing the people who have the capital is what this world needs but it's
oh my goodness yeah but it's funny you saying like in the 50s like the country is a different country
because i don't even think you need to go back that far like in my childhood i feel like it was
a different place like pre 9 11 the patriarch mass surveillance like the global financial crisis
like the world i grew up in was different to the world right now like definitely oh absolutely
Absolutely. And I just, it's just been a kind of continual, long, slow slide. And I, you know,
I was born in 57, you know, I had relatives who were in the war. I mean, you know, it's,
yeah, it's just been a long, slow slide. This is a great country. And the West was really
at its peak in 46. And sadly, we kind of pissed it away. I mean, we kind of had that winner's
curse of, well, we got it all figured out and everyone will just listen to us as they should
forever. And, you know, then some evil people got in control of the United States and they murdered
Kennedy and, you know, the military industrial complex rose up, which, you know, Eisenhower
warned us against and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, so you end up with, you know,
Dick Cheney starting a war over mass weapon, you know, mass extinction weapons, which did not exist.
But hey, he made $150 million on his Halliburton stock, worked out for him.
Do you know what I mean? You know, so he could get drunk and shoot some guy with his, you know,
with a shotgun. I mean, it's just, it's horrific. I mean, I was at this conference last week. I was
walking through this hall of, it was the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. I was walking through this
hall and they had all these photos of all the famous people who'd been there. And it was like
Kissinger and Cheney and Bush. And I'm just like, these guys are war criminals. You know,
you got them up on the wall of this hall. I'm like, these guys are war criminals. They killed
millions of people. You know, what are you doing? I mean, yeah, it's just, I don't know. The West,
we lost our way. We really lost our way. And which is not to say that the East and the Chinese have
it all figured out or the Russians have it all figured out. I mean, you know, the one thing that's
good about all these changes, it'd actually be nice to kind of get back to a multipolar world
where all of humanity could embrace the best of each culture, right? I mean, there's good parts
of all cultures and they're bad parts of all cultures. And, you know, if we can kind of, I mean,
the thing that's so great about Bitcoin, as you know, and I know, is it separates money and state,
But more importantly, it's just it's the first game I've ever seen that's completely fair.
It's absolutely completely fair.
I mean, you think almost anything else and it's kind of a might makes right situation.
And yet Bitcoin is not that way.
It's just a mathematical algorithm that's completely fair.
I think that I think the implications of that, I think we've I don't think we've even begun to scratch the surface.
I mean, I was around when the Internet came around and got started.
And, you know, did I have any idea that you and I would be talking like this, you know, 25 years later and we'd be broadcasting it to thousands of people?
No fucking way.
You know what I mean?
I mean, I remember when eBay popped up and I was like, wow, look at that.
You know, a worldwide swap meet.
I mean, everyone knows what a swap meet is, you know, or what the want ads are.
You know, I want to buy your used bicycle.
But, gosh, you could put it up on eBay and sell it to anyone anywhere in the country.
Wow, what a concept.
And, you know, the same kinds of breakthroughs are going to occur with Bitcoin.
You know, it's just, it's like, and you and I were talking before we started.
I mean, what Alex Gladstein is doing, the change he's making in the third world.
There's a part of that in the book about that, right?
The way that Bitcoin has helped in the remittances business.
I mean, here are these poor people who, you know, they send relatives overseas to work.
The relative sends money back to them.
And Western Union and the money changers, they scrape off, you know, 10 to 20%.
well, what if that were actually in the people's pockets who did the work instead of, you know,
in the middlemen? I mean, it's just, there's so many benefits to having a fairer system,
and this is a fairer system. So-
A hundred percent. We need to get rid of these-
I know I'm speaking to the choir, but I just, I get really excited when I think about all the
positive shit that's coming, but it's, you know, meanwhile, we, you know, meanwhile,
I have to sit in the car and listen to Jerome Powell.
Hopefully not for too much longer. So we've done all the kind of, uh,
depressing old system stuff let's get into some of the yeah hopeful bits um obviously you've been
a gold bug for a long time um and gold has been absolutely ripping it's crazy right it's ridiculous
i don't know like the actual figure of the amount of money gone into gold in the last 12 months but
it's outrageous it's unbelievable yeah is this just natural sort of market dynamics coming from
people reacting to this kind of um monetary system or is this the repricing of gold is this is this
driven by something else? Well, it can be both, Danny. I mean, I think it's both. And it comes
in a lot of layers, right? Look, human awareness, you know, kind of moves in waves. And, you know,
what starts off as kind of a crazy ass idea eventually becomes common sense accepted reality.
I mean, you know, Galileo says, no, no, no, you know, we're all circling the sun and everything
she's a frigging nut and the Catholic church wants to kill him, you know, and, you know,
hundreds of years later. It's just, it's obvious that's the way it works. And, and I think the same
is going on with respect to fiat money, you know? And so, you know, what you can see is that the
central banks have figured it out. Large hedge funds have figured it out. BlackRock has figured
it out. Ray Dalio, the largest hedge fund manager, very successful man, he's figured it out.
And so, you know, what, what Lynn describes as nothing stops this train and what we've seen in
terms of the behavior of the government and the trend in behavior of the government is
that they just cannot and will not stop spending.
You know, the system is constructed in a manner
which forces them to spend, to keep it going,
and to buy votes at an ever-increasing rate.
And so it's like an alcoholic has to keep drinking more
or a drug addict, you have to take more and more and more
to get the high, well, eventually you kill yourself.
And that's what's happening with the system.
It's eventually going to kill itself.
And it's showing up, most notably,
in the obligations, the trusted obligations of the system, long bonds, which used to be the base
of the financial system, have gotten destroyed, particularly since 2020. And the things that are
outside of the system that, you know, represent a form of money that the system can't mess with,
Bitcoin and gold, have skyrocketed. I mean, since 2020, in bond terms, gold's up, you know, 250%,
and Bitcoin's up, you know, 2,000%.
I mean, it's insane.
And so that's a signal that something is going on here.
And, you know, whether it's the people buying, you know, gold bars at Costco
or the people who are going to the coin stores and buying coins
or, you know, the blue collar workers that I've worked with, you know,
that I know who take all their savings and put it in silver coins.
I mean, it's just kind of coming from everywhere.
And, you know, this awareness is just, it's growing and growing and growing.
And yet, you know, the average person isn't really tuned into it.
And we're still, you know, as Saylor says, this is the gold rush.
We're still, you know, I don't know where we are in the Malcolm Gladwell 10% tipping point.
We all know the theory.
You hit 10% and then it's going to rapidly accelerate until you hit 90.
The same time it got from zero to 10 is the same time it goes from 10 to 90.
Well, we're 16 years into Bitcoin.
I don't think we're actually at 10 yet.
I think we're maybe at five.
but we're growing we're going there pretty quickly and uh you know to my way of seeing it
you know it's going to accelerate here in the next five or ten years and so i you know i i think i
think we're all going to be stunned i mean i i'm i know it's in the fund i manage the things i watch
it's very easy to me think well gosh this has gone up a lot and usually when you're investing
and you have something that goes up a lot i think maybe it's time to sell and um but then i i look
at the bigger picture and the construction of what's going on and i realize that no this if if
this is the fundamental shift that i think it is of growing awareness of everybody of the issue
um you know then we don't sell until everybody's aware of the issue and it's no longer an issue
and that's you know we're not there yet not even close so um you know i as you and i've talked
about in the past i mean you know i think gold's going to 10 000 i think bitcoin's going to a
million. I mean, and that's not that far out. I mean, within a five to six to seven year window.
I mean, I don't pay very much attention to gold, but on the Bitcoin side, I completely agree. And
it's not time to sell. It's time to buy more. But the thing that's crazy about throwing out
numbers like Bitcoin going to a million is when I first got into Bitcoin, people talked about a
million dollars and it always, even to Bitcoin, it's like, I think they knew it would happen
eventually, but it still seemed like a crazy thing to say. But now it's like, it feels like
it's right around the corner. I mean, I don't know if we'll get to 2030 before Bitcoin's a million
dollars. I agree. It really does. I mean, you know, it's so it grows an order of magnitude. I
mean, so it went from one to 10, 10 to 100, 100 to 1000, 1000, 10,000, 10,000 to 100,000. I mean,
it's six or seven orders of magnitude and it's been around for 15 years. So now it was more
rapid in the earlier years, but, and, and that's slowing down as, as sailors pointed out, the ARR
has come down, but you know, it's going to do, it's going to do another order of magnitude.
That's going to do another order of magnitude after that. You know, I mean, it's someday it's
going to go to 10 million, but you know, that's, that's probably quite some ways out because it,
like I say, it is slowing down, but yeah, it, it, I mean, I, I remember very clearly back in the
depths of, you know, the bull market or the bear market in gold and things were down. And I don't
know, this was 2016 or 17 or 18. And thinking to myself, boy, if this, you know, and I owned a
bunch of Bitcoin, I think I said, boy, if this ever got to 10, 20, 30,000, I'd be feeling pretty
good about life. You know, it was like at four at the time, you know, and, you know, it went up and
I got to 20. I was like, you know, if this ever got to a hundred, I'd be feeling really good about
life and, you know, and now it's at a hundred and, um, yeah, the, the, the goalposts kind of keep
moving, but it's, it's a hard, I mean, I've said this before, it's a hard thing to get your head
around. Um, and I say that, I said this in another podcast, I think it's an important point to make.
We have never had a form of money that would not be diluted in some form or fashion. There's never
been such a thing, even gold, 1.7% a year, every 45 years, the amount of gold on the planet doubles.
21 million, it's fixed. I think that fact right there explains why it can go up forever.
Because the supply is perfectly inelastic. And I think that fact right there is also why it's
really hard for people to get their heads around it. I think that's exactly right. Because it's so
simple, but then people end up getting stuck in the minutiae and don't allow themselves just to
believe that fact. Yeah. If you believe that fact, you know, if the demand just keeps on growing and
the supply is fixed. The only thing left to change is price. The only thing left to change is price.
Yeah, that's it. And that's, and by the way, and it's not, okay, so you know, you could have said
that a bunch of years ago, but you know, you would have, the volatility and everything,
am I right about it? But man, now you got 16 years of this shit. Do you know what I mean?
and no financial asset.
I mean, there's so many amazing things going on.
How can you be a financial advisor, you know, of any kind
and not be pushing Bitcoin to your investors
or not even mention or poo-poo it
when it is the best performing financial asset
in the past 16 years?
Not by a little bit, Danny, by an enormous amount.
You're just proving you're terrible at your job.
Yeah, right?
How can you do that?
I mean, you know, I get it.
If you didn't get it out earlier on, fine.
if you're skeptical fine if you're still skeptical fine but at some point the evidence you know i
mean you're lying eyes i mean the price you just can't ignore it right i was talking to eric yakes
about this recently and and he was saying the same thing and and i do understand why you might
have been skeptical in you know 2015 2016 2017 but like right now all the facts are on our side
you can't disagree with what we're saying it's just it is factually accurate no you really can't
I mean, there still is a little bit of this core protocol risk stuff.
I mean, I haven't dug deep into that.
I don't want to express a view on one side or the other.
I mean, I have some gut feelings about it.
But let me say it this way.
I remember being at Sailor's Place a long time, like in Bitcoin Miami, a couple of things ago, maybe three things ago, 22 or I don't know what year it was.
And a couple of us asked him, we said, you know, what do you worry about with respect to Bitcoin?
He said, the only thing that could screw this up is if core, you know, goes rogue and just does a bunch of stupid shit.
And he said, even that I'm not terribly worried about because of the consensus and the way that everybody votes on it.
And I don't think, you know, it'll be allowed to go in that direction.
But, you know, there's that.
I mean, and then more recently people have said, well, the quantum risk is a real risk.
And I'm not a computer scientist.
I'm not an expert on that.
All I know is what I read and listen to.
Probably the one I trust the most is Lynn, who says, you know, she doesn't see this being a risk within a five-year window.
And to the degree that it did become a risk for cracking the SHA-256, you know, eventually you'd do a hard fork with its quantum resistance.
So, you know, you set those two things aside, it feels to me, it feels pretty certain to me that it's going to continue as it has, you know, tick-tock next block, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, with the quantum stuff, there's stuff we can do to mitigate that if it ever becomes a real risk.
And with the Notts Core stuff, my opinion on it is that ideologically, I get what the Notts people are saying,
but I really don't think that this new version of Core is going to have any detrimental impact to Bitcoin.
This isn't a risk to Bitcoin.
I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I know people are on the other side of that.
I've listened to it. You know what? I'm not technical enough to figure it out myself.
So I don want to express an opinion on just some half view I just don know you know I mean I think the important part like this is a mental policy change It nothing to do with consensus We going to be absolutely fine I convinced of that
I hope you're right. That's reassuring to me, actually, because a lot of my wealth is in
Bitcoin. Again, my opinion, I'm not speaking for anyone else here, but it's not going to be a
problem for Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure. I'm glad to hear you believe that. Yeah, I hope you're right.
I do. So can we just quickly talk about the nation states that are buying gold?
because gold on the balance sheets of the central banks across the world has gone up tremendously.
Obviously, as Bitcoiners, we think that that will one day be Bitcoin. Do you think we have
an interim step where this is gold then Bitcoin? That's a really great question. Possibly.
I just don't know. I mean, I think if America is smart, and I think there are some parts of
America that are smart in our higher government echelons. I mean, an interesting thing, I don't
know if I've told you, I don't think you and I have this discussion. So I was at Bitcoin Vegas,
you know, this last one, and a guy came up to me. I can't dox him. I can't tell you who he works for.
He works for something very heavily associated with the defense and intelligence community of
the United States. One of his prior employers is NSA. So I checked him out. He's a real deal.
and I said, what's going on?
He walked up to me and he tapped me.
He said, hi, I really liked your book.
I said, oh, thank you.
He said, you know, your book is burning up the halls
of my, you know, where I work.
I said, where do you work?
He explained, I'm not going to say what it was.
And I said, why?
And I said, that's as easy as a why.
He said, well, part of our job is to kind of look
at every existential threat to the United States.
And, you know, hyperinflation is an existential threat.
And, you know, we're using your book
as kind of a textbook to examine how and why
hyperinflation is a risk and talk about
our monetary, you know, the monetary risk that exists within the United States. It's been very
helpful. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. So you take that, you combine that with Jason
Lowry's book, you combine that with, and Lowry telling my partner, David Foley, saying to him,
hey, you know, the people at the CIA, the DOD, the Pentagon, even high up in the treasury,
they get it. They understand that, you know, the monetary threat here, and they get that Bitcoin
is the solution. They're not stupid. I mean, Moran, Stephen Moran is a Bitcoiner. He said it. I mean,
he had tweets supporting Bitcoin. They get it. Now, you know, the Congress, the Senate,
the executive branch, well, this one's a little better, but, you know, they didn't get it at all.
But these people understand that this is the superior form of sound money and therefore
strategically important to the United States. So, you know, I think there's a chance, and I don't
know if Trump and Bacent will have the guts to do it before he leaves. I think some of it will
depend on whether they think they're going to win the next election or not. I think if they go into
the next election thinking, oh, no problem, you know, JD's got it locked up, there's no chance
of a loss, then they may not be forced to do it. But I think if it looks like they're losing
ground and JD isn't going to win the next election, you know, they might try a monetary
reset right then, right there and say, you know, we're going to a Bitcoin standard, you know, and
you know, which would involve a massive devaluation of the dollar, an enormous one-time
inflation across the board, but then actually a solving of the problem of sound money and forcing
the government to balance its budget. So, you know, and I mean, Basant has said things like,
you know, we need another Brent Woods and I want to be at the table when it happens. What?
You know, holy shit. You know, he kind of gets it. I mean, you know, it's not, I mean,
it's funny, these politicians, in some ways they're stupid and in some ways they're not.
And, you know, you can't really look at the $37 trillion of debt and not realize that that's a big elephant in the room, right?
So, and the executive branch, there's a history of the executive branch doing monetary resets.
I mean, you know, the monetary policy in the United States is supposed to be set by Congress because it was said so in Article 1.8 of the Constitution.
You know, only gold and silver money in the monetary policy congressional thing.
Well, fine, until, you know, Lincoln printed greenbacks, executive order, right?
You know, FDR grabbed the gold, revalued it, executive order, right?
You know, Nixon broke us off the gold standard, 71, executive order.
So, you know, there's this history that just says, you know, the president can change the monetary policy.
So, you know, what if they came out and said, guess what, guys, we're going to a Bitcoin standard.
You know, the new price of Bitcoin is a million dollars a coin.
We stand ready to buy it or sell it.
You know, the dollar obviously would depreciate enormously.
and, you know, we're going to match that with a balanced budget amendment,
and off we go.
You know, and China and India are left there with their, you know,
their thumb and their butt going, oh, fuck, now what do we do, you know?
I mean, so, I mean, that would be the smart thing to do.
Now, you know, will we do that, or will they have the political cover
or the guts to do it?
I don't know, probably not, but it's the right thing to do.
That's what we should do, you know, if you want to restore fairness
And at that point in time, you know, we could go forward in a much, much better world, you know, because all of this grift, all of this monetary nonsense would just go away.
It just would. And the currency would be sound again.
Can we play that out a little bit?
Because I'm there's one kind of element I'm not sure about, which is let's say the U.S. did that, but continue to run a trade deficit.
Would that not just end up with China having all the Bitcoin?
Do they need to also fix the trade deficit?
Well, yeah, but yes and no.
The trade deficit, by definition, would have to disappear because we couldn't afford it, right?
In other words, you know, suddenly we would have to pay in real money.
And, you know, if we didn't have the real money, I mean, their currency would appreciate massively in a way that we couldn't buy as much of their stuff and it wouldn't be cheap stuff.
I mean, the reason it's cheap stuff is that, you know, they've been willing to hold our currency and they've been, you know, they've held their currency down.
So they've been very, what's it called, mercantile in their dealings with us.
When you go to a sound currency and everybody's playing by the same sound currency rules, then, yeah, okay, they can make cheaper shit.
But we've got to have the money to really pay for it.
We can't buy it.
I mean, the way we buy it now is we issue debt to buy it.
We issue paper, which they're willing to take in order to buy it.
So we get more than our fair share of cheap shit.
And they sell more and they want to do that because they want to be a mercantile nation.
If we suddenly are back to a sound monetary unit, well, yeah, they're making cheap shit.
But we're not producing anything here that they want.
They're not going to take our dollars for it.
They'll only take Bitcoin.
Well, then guess what?
Suddenly we're going to have to actually earn and do something that the world really wants.
if we want to buy the world's shit.
So the trade deficit would disappear.
Follow what I'm saying?
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, just by definition.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it would just balance everything
so that you'd have to, I mean, you know,
and it wouldn't necessarily be good
for the United States right away,
but we'd come back and find things to do.
I mean, you know, one of the things that,
I always marveled at this when I was younger
is how much better the U.S. lived
than most of the world.
I mean, but it was because we had the reserve currency.
I mean, we could print pieces of paper,
send them overseas people would accept them even though they were somewhat worthless or had less
worth than we were attributing to them and they would send us their shit i mean that was a great
deal i mean it's absolutely insane when you say it like that that's how it works yeah i mean it's
a great deal if you can pull it off and that's why you know that's why the american lifestyle
has been as good as it's been but you know i mean sadly you know this reset is going to involve
everybody in the world is going to have to pull their own weight in terms of you know you'll eat
what you kill. I mean, if, you know, if, if there are Americans doing good stuff and adding a lot
of value and I mean, look, in some areas we're extremely competitive in technology, we're damn
competitive. I mean, Apple and other country companies, I mean, there's some things we do
extremely well and those will be rewarded. But, um, you know, there are other things that, that,
that we don't do so well and we'll have to either shape up and, or we won't live as high a lifestyle
as we can because we're not adding value there. I mean, again, that's a world I want to see.
like that that's how the world should work and hopefully it does in the future um just lastly i
know before you started you pulled up a chart that i think we should look at because one of the things
that you've said oh yeah over and over again um is that gold moves first bitcoin moves fastest
um so you think that we're about to have a bit of an explosion in bitcoin price
yeah let me just um give me a moment here let me just find it on my screen so
So this is a chart that my partner and I, David Foley, use a lot just for people watching.
So this chart just on.
So this is from 2018 to present.
It's a little out of date because gold's now over 3,500.
And this is the price of gold in gold and the price of Bitcoin in orange.
Funny I can pick that color.
But note the scales are very, very different.
You know, gold has gone from 1,000 to 3,000.
It's now 3,600.
So it'd be the upper right-hand corner,
be a little higher.
And the orange is Bitcoin.
But again, the scales are different.
It's gone from 10,000 to 117,000, right?
So Bitcoin's moved a lot farther than gold.
But that's not the point of the chart.
The point of the chart is the synchronization
to some degree.
They've kind of generally moved together.
But here's what I found most interesting.
Look at the beginning.
Look at 2018, 2019, 2020.
Look at how far.
So there was a lot of monetary debasement in 2019 and 2020 as Powell pivoted and then COVID happened.
And you could just kind of smell the money printer warming up and going again.
And look at how gold took off like a rocket, okay?
You know, and it went from, I don't know, call it 750 to, you know, almost up to 2000, right, at the peak in 2020.
And during that same time frame, look at how Bitcoin just languished along.
You know, I think on the scale here, I think it was around 10,000 about the time.
It had actually been as low as five, but it was kind of 10 in this window.
And then suddenly when the COVID thing really started to kick in, everybody figured out what Bitcoin was.
Holy shit.
Bitcoin went from 10 to 60 really fast.
So gold moved first.
Bitcoin crushed it when it moved.
Much, much more movement.
Okay.
So then they kind of both calmed down.
Gold dipped down.
Notice again, gold dipped first.
Bitcoin was still running.
Gold was dipping.
Whoops.
Bitcoin followed it down.
Sam Bankman-Fried played a role in that.
then notice how gold starts to level off and we got a secondary run in Bitcoin because that
whole run had been truncated by Bankman-Fried and the China thing. So it's a little bit of an
anomaly. Then gold's kind of flat. Bitcoin came down there. The correlation didn't really work
too much. I think the correlation didn't work there though, because that was like Checkmate
describes that as the scam pump because it was basically all the arbitrage, all the FTX stuff,
the 3AC stuff. I think you can almost ignore that second pump.
okay fair enough fair enough yeah i i was thinking yeah you're right ftx wasn't 2021 it was over here
you're right okay so then so then you know then they kind of moved together and actually bitcoin
led gold down a little in 2022 tighter monetary conditions okay so now bitcoin is enjoying you
know kind of the the the free money and everything when the free money gets taken away bitcoin gets
slammed hard gold got slammed not as hard but that's fitting with the you know bitcoin moves a
lot further and faster, right? But here, you know, and here, but here again, notice this in late 2022,
gold starts moving up, Bitcoin's still flat, right? Yeah, it comes up a little bit, gold moves up even
further. Okay, Bitcoin's up a little bit more. Then you get a downturn in 2023, you know, gold starts
moving down, Bitcoin's still going up, but Bitcoin follows gold down. Okay, so now gold starts moving
up again. And this time, there wasn't much of a lag, Bitcoin catches up, and Bitcoin really catches
up. Then you pause, but gold moves out of the pause again first. Then Bitcoin comes, it goes
crazy up again, right? And so my point here is just that they're correlated, but often gold
smells at first. And right now gold is cooking. We're over 3,600. We're running to 3,700.
Everybody's kind of tired. It's amazing to me, right? Everyone's frustrated that Bitcoin's at
115. I mean, if you told me back here Bitcoin was going to be at 115, I'd have said, hallelujah,
right i mean and you know or and or that micro strategy i mean i'm i'm i i howl at all these
micro strategy people who are just crying in their beer that sailor's done them wrong because
micro strategy hasn't moved for a while well just wait guys micro strategy is going to a thousand
plus um and the point is that gold smells what's coming next because it's already moving whereas
bitcoin is still lagging a little bit but there's another chart i don't have it here but it shows m2
global m2 and it continues to grow and it's starting to go up the global m2 is now growing
at about 4.8 percent a year it actually went slightly negative when powell tightened things
greatly in 2022 but we're back to growing we've hit an all-time high and all i would say is you
know bitcoin people should be just rooting for gold because it's the early indicator
and so i i fully expect that kind of in the tail end of this year probably in the next you know
three months, we're in September now. I see us at the end of the year at 140, 150 Bitcoin,
and maybe $4,000 gold. And who knows, maybe the Bitcoin overshoots and goes to 150.
Maybe we correct a little bit then. And I think this cycle takes us to kind of 200, 250 in Bitcoin.
I think this cycle maybe takes us to 5,000 in gold. I don't know. You know, it's, look,
some of this is just reading tea leaves, and it's impossible to know with great certainty what's
going to happen. But I, you know, I find I want to offer words of encouragement to the Bitcoin people.
Don't be mad that gold's running. Be happy because it's about to come to you. And I own both.
You know, I own both. So October is right around the corner. Bitcoin's going to rip.
I think it really is. I really. And as we know, you know, that's the other thing back. I won't go
back to the chart, but did you notice how the way it trades? I mean, it just does these long periods
and nothing. And then it really moves. You know, it moves with authority. And I mean, I have to say,
I'm a little puzzled when I look at all the BTC companies and the corporate buying. I'm a little
puzzled it hasn't moved. I mean, there's been a lot of Bitcoin soaked up from a lot of sources.
And I don't know, maybe it's been suppressed by some paper. I know, I do know, I used to have no
fear of paper Bitcoin. Now I look at the size of the Bitcoin futures market. It's gotten pretty
damn big. I mean, the Bitcoin perpetual futures on Binance, the last time I checked, the numbers
were quite large. And, you know, the, I don't know, 20 billion, I mean, it was billions and billions,
a lot more than it had been in the past. And so, you know, so some people are on the wrong side of
this trade, but guess what? They're going to get their faces ripped off, you know, when Bitcoin
takes out 130 with authority, because we're going to probably be at 180 faster than we realize.
And, you know, as I like to say, they're going to have a deeply religious experience. So, I mean,
I think that's what we have to look forward to.
So I, you know, but this, again, this, it makes it all very, very hard because, and I think it's very important.
You know, people sometimes say, well, what's going to happen this week, this month, next year?
You know, I've been around, I've done this for a long time.
I've been through a bunch of these cycles.
And I try to think in five-year timeframes.
As you all know, you know, in four-year timeframes, you've always come out ahead in Bitcoin.
and, you know, trying to predict the next month or week or year, a half year,
half year you can kind of do, but it's kind of a mugs game.
You just don't know.
But I'm pretty sure that, you know, in several years, you know,
and I rely actually a lot on the power law model.
I think it's a decent model.
It explains a lot going backwards on an R-squared basis.
Now, I eventually think it'll break to the upside
because I do think we'll get into hyper-Bitcoinization.
I mean, one thing is, the other thing I would say that I think is very important
point, Danny, and I want to make is that all of this is happening just in terms of kind of a small
big print. I mean, we're kind of in a big print. I mean, they're kind of doing some shadow QE.
They're kind of talking about stuff. We're anticipating lower Fed funds, you know, etc.
But this isn't really the big event yet. Okay, we're just kind of warming up. I mean, imagine
something really breaks. I mean, a la 2008 or 2020 COVID. I mean, and that's possible,
Not certain, but possible.
I think it's likely within a two or three year time frame.
Something really breaks.
And you know what they're going to do.
They're going to bring out the monetary fire hoses.
And man, when that happens, just look out.
You know, we're going to Fed balance sheet 50.
And this is how currencies fail.
You know, the next time it'll be bigger than the last time.
It'll be more aggressive.
There'll be more money printed.
And there'll be a larger segment of the population that'll say, oh my God, they can never stop printing money.
And that's the famous von Mises quote. Once everyone realizes that it's part of the policy and they can never stop, the currency is doomed. It's just literally doomed. And sadly, you know, this is how hyperinflations occur. It could go to zero. I don't wish that on America. I actually don't think that's the base case of what will happen. But it's a tail possibility if we don't get our shit together.
and so and and and i feel very comfortable leaning on the inflation side you know is this gonna is
this trade gonna make me fabulously rich who the hell knows but is this better than any other trade
out there oh yeah i'm pretty sure about that i mean this is the right you know we are on the right
side of this trade you know unless unless suddenly washington dc gets incredibly responsible and of
course whenever i say that everybody laughs because that's not it doesn't feel very likely but
But, you know, stranger shit's happened.
And if things get painful enough, maybe they will get responsible.
So we have to keep that in the back of our mind that, you know, if they get responsible,
this isn't as obvious a trade.
But, you know, as long as they're behaving the way they're behaving, I feel like we're
on the right side.
I put pretty low percentage odds on them behaving responsibly, but we will see.
Yeah, we all do.
But stranger shit's happened.
That's true.
I can't think of a better way to end the show than that, Larry.
We've got the prints happening.
The big prints coming.
Bitcoin's going to rip.
things are looking good oh you know the um i've got it here too don't hesitate to buy the book
and pass it on obviously i'm uh it's a very self-interested uh shilling statement but um
actually shilling is a negative term i mean in the most positive way possible it's a great book
can help people so yeah i think it can help people so i if you know if you care about your
friends and family pass it on because um you know the way the way we win this is we get more people
to advocate for sound money, because if we get enough, we'll get it. And if we get it,
life will be better. I really, history shows that. And I want my kids to live in a better world.
Absolutely. Me too. Well, Larry, I always love talking to you. Thank you for this.
Oh, likewise. Hopefully I'll see you around at something at some point in the near future,
but thank you. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. Thanks. All right. Cheers. Take care.
Thank you.