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Not only did he not let the aid come in, he shot a hundred people that day.

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I saw somebody get shot and never get back up. He died.

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The government just had no checks and balances.

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And then he would basically say, well, what are you going to do about it?

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And nobody did anything about it.

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We need to create owners of things.

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We need to give people agency to own stuff.

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What I think is beautiful about Bitcoin is that it's digital property.

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You can buy a dollar worth of Bitcoin, $10 worth of Bitcoin.

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My life is Bitcoin and I love Bitcoin.

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and my other passion obviously is Venezuela.

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We are now in a rules-based country.

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What I will not tolerate is we might stumble, we might fall,

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but we're gonna get back up and we're gonna keep walking.

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The regime is petrified of people losing the fear.

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F around, find out.

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Greetings and salutations my fellow plebs.

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My name is Walker, and this is the Bitcoin podcast.

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Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes.

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The value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

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And if you're listening to this right now, remember, you are still early.

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If you're not already, go ahead and subscribe to this show wherever you're watching or listening

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and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.

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If you want to follow me in the show on Noster and X, just head to the show notes to grab

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the links.

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If you're enjoying The Bitcoin Podcast and want to support it by becoming a paid subscriber,

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you can download the Fountain app, search for The Bitcoin Podcast,

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and subscribe by paying with Bitcoin via Lightning or fiat via card.

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You'll get access to ad-free episodes and early releases of select content,

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plus you'll help support this show.

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Head to the show notes for product discount links,

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go to walkeramerica.substack.com to get episodes emailed to you,

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and head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else.

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Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk.

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It's one of those things where a lot of people, I think,

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just recently you saw all this stuff on X where Nikita Beer, I think it is,

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who's the guy who is basically running product,

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he basically admitted like oh yeah anything that's like bitcoin crypto related we are uh

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you know we're we're just de-boosting essentially and and it was like a lot of people were like oh

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shit well i guess you know maybe uh maybe noster is uh not such a bad thing maybe this is actually

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a nice nice idea and it's like well yeah no shit if only there was a plan b where all the bitcoiners

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are i know if only there was a place where you could go full of bitcoiners uh where people talk

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about Bitcoin. Well, okay. Nostar has, we have, we have more topics over there now. You know,

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it's a, it's not just exclusively Bitcoin, but there is obviously a massive Bitcoin cohort there,

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which isn't a bad thing. You know what I mean? Like you need power users to be able to actually

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bootstrap any sort of network, right? Absolutely. You got to start with a very targeted group.

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And I think that's like, that's like a very important principle when you're building anything

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and you're trying to launch anything. If you try to bite off way too much from day one,

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you're just not relevant enough to any specific group of people and so you need to start with fans

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and then fans get you customers and clients but at the beginning you know you you and the more

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focus the more narrow the better generally i guess it's my experience and an impression but

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i think it's a good strategy it's it's it's a long-term strategy because like you know they're

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not um vc back they're not paying people for clicks they're not paying people to sign up

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And so it's the grassroots, you know, long way, but easy come, easy goes, right?

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Like when you build stuff slow and steady, it's very hard to break it.

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The foundation is very solid.

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We've seen this with many other, you know, what was it?

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Mastodon and a few of these others that came out guns blazing and then just nostrils just

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like this one.

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It's like that thing that doesn't go away.

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It just keeps growing and growing and growing like a weed.

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and no one's throwing money at it

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in the way that they're throwing money

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at these other companies.

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So it's super interesting.

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I'm hopeful.

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I'm hopeful.

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Yeah, it's cool too.

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I mean, all of this stuff around like Nostra

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and I've been talking to a lot of people about this

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that are Nostra devs

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and they're building things that are okay.

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They're utilizing Nostra

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as just the communication protocol

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because right now it's like the initial implementation

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is let's use it for social media, right?

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Let's build what people know.

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let's build the short form blogging clients that like look like X kind of,

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but there's all these other uses for it.

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Like you see with a bit chat that Jack Dorsey built on iOS, you know,

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just like a weekend vibe, you know, I don't know.

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I don't know if it was vibe coding or regular coding.

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He obviously can real code, not just vibe code. You know,

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there's a lot of evidence of that, but, but he built bit chat.

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And then Cali poured it over to Android and it utilizes Noster just kind of

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like in the background as another communication layer to be able to relay

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some of these messages around when you do have internet.

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Like obviously it works without internet,

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but I'm curious, honestly,

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if just BitChat downloads have been starting to spike

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in Venezuela just amidst everything going on there.

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I don't have any data on it,

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but I would have to imagine we saw huge spikes in Uganda.

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They just had their elections today.

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We'll see what the results of those are,

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but they had like massive download influxes

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because it turns out the regime shut down the internet.

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And it's like, oh, well, this is the cool thing though,

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We're at this time where like, we're living in this digital age where all of our communication primarily is digital.

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And so that makes it actually really easy for dictators to shut off access to our communication.

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But then something like BitChat comes along where it's like, well, we'll just communicate without the Internet.

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You don't need it. It's peer to peer.

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And I feel like this just like it changes the power dynamics in such a beautiful way.

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It's like it's very exciting.

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I completely agree with you.

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two interesting points to to pull on that thread that you just did so one of our engineers at

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let and actually runs i think it's the largest nostril relay um he he's deep deep and he's he's

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uh i think he's not i think his relay is one of the biggest ones i don't want to i don't want to

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dox him because i want to talk to him first but he uh i know for a fact we have very very big fans

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and contributors of nostril at let and within our team um and the other thing i'll mention which is

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interesting around the Venezuela case. So you're right. Dictators shut off access to information.

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They don't want you to see the truth. They want you to see their version of the truth. They don't

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even want you to listen to debate because debate might fill your head with ideas and arguments and

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facts. And so they kind of stop that. They nip it as fast as they can. And Venezuela, as many

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countries, had Twitter banned. X was banned in Venezuela for many years. But funny enough,

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literally yesterday

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access to X was restored to Venezuelans

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and so again

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after you

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extract a

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murderous dictator

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amazing pro-freedom things can happen

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and so

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what I actually think is

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Venezuela had seen a gradual

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depletion of its

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liberties

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freedom of speech being a big one of them

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and we're starting

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to slowly regain some of those liberties.

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Interestingly, there's been...

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So one of the biggest things

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that the regime is trying to control right now

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is they were very successful

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at injecting fear into the population,

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particularly after the 2014 election,

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where they went out

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and straight up murdered 100 protesters.

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I think it was

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I think the day that Trump

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not Trump

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Richard Branson did that concert

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with Shakira

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I don't know if you remember it back

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I think it was

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I think it was Trump's first term

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if I remember correctly

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there was a big push

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to get aid into Venezuela

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because people were starving

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and dying

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without medicine and food

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and so there were literally

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containers of food and medicine

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parked outside Colombia

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and there was this massive concert

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Shakira

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Richard Branson sponsored it

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trying to basically get Maduro

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to allow aid, not even like, you know, accept democracy or elections, just allow aid for

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free to come into the country.

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And not only did he not let the aid come in, he shot 100 people that day.

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I have to get the actual, I mean, obviously, it's there's no government facts around this.

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These these deaths are reported by NGOs and other sort of independent reporting bodies.

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but uh there were many deaths many deaths and people basically associated that no keep in mind

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these shootings were already starting in 2014 i was in a protest where i i've mentioned this

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oftentimes i saw i i've i heard real bullets at the protest protest and i saw somebody get shot

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and never get back up he died and i knew i wasn't he wasn't like my best friend but i knew the guy

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OK, and that when you see that you just there's when your life's at stake and you have an ounce of.

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Desire to build and be free and live a life and not not waste your life in a completely in a fight where the the power is tilted completely out of your hands.

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If you're a protester going up against a murderous regime that's acting with impunity, because don't forget, up until 12 days ago, Maduro's government just had no checks and balances.

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Nobody went in to say, hey, you're being a criminal or you will be deemed a criminal.

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And he'd turn around and say, oh, so what?

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What are you going to do?

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Come and get me?

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Yeah, come and get me.

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And he would say it.

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He would say, come and get me.

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Don't be a coward.

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as he was turning around basically killing innocent people people would turn around and be

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like you're a dictator and then he would basically say well what are you going to do about it and

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nobody did anything about it and so they you as a Venezuelan when you went when you're going

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through this when you go through years and years of him coming around cleaning house with people

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around you basically killing people and you're turning around and you're saying no the international

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community will never allow this. Surely there will be some type of action.

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Oh, the actions from one or two countries being like, we condemn the death of so-and-so people.

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Please stop shooting them, Mr. Dictator. And Mr. Dictator says, okay, cool tweet, man.

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I'm just going to go dig my heels a little deeper now. And so bringing it back to your question,

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the what's happening in venezuela is actually um uh the opposite like the we are now at the point

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where we're starting to regain some of those liberties and i i feel like it's it's in the

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process of losing some of those liberties that you find things like nostor that you find things

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like bid chad right because the as the wind as the doors close you start looking for windows

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right and and so you know you'll find the window but you know you can be looking out through the

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window, but then the big doors start opening up again. And you say, oh, wow, okay, there's a world

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of information here that I wasn't able to access. Think about Venezuela as not being able to access

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X. You know, X is the number one news site across most of the globe where really you can have sort

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of open debate. And whichever side of the fence you sit on, you know, Twitter is the closest thing

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to allowing open discourse out there that where you can when you can have a debate and express

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opinions that may be counter to you know counter to the sort of the narrative and it's beautiful

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to see it right like oftentimes I would send tweets to my friends I have group chats with

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my friends from high school and you know elementary and all that stuff and I would send them tweets

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and they would turn around and tell me,

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hey, we can't open them.

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We can't access your tweets.

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And so I'd have to take screenshots

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and I would try to get them to come into Nostra.

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Not every one of them is like a Bitcoin air.

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So a lot of them just kind of gravitated to Instagram.

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But just to show you how some of the fear

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is still around today,

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the regime is stopping people in Checkpoint

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and opening their phones and checking their Instagram

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and checking their WhatsApp.

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And they're searching things like Trump

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Maduro like they want to see what you've

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what you've sent in terms of messages

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00:13:00,580 --> 00:13:02,660
around those topics or what you've

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liked what you've engaged with on Instagram

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and it's not I mean

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00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:08,480
we've all heard the horror stories of places

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like the UK and such where they knock on your door

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because you tweeted something and then somebody

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will be recording it and oh what do you do

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oh well and they'll take them in and they'll have like this

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trial and so you can

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see this sort of process in Venezuela

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if they catch you with a message or a tweet you just

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vanish

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literally vanish and no due course no if you god forbid you dare record the transaction or

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the interaction you'd get you know you and the person recording will get popped so so that's

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still happening but even within that what i the biggest fear of the venezuela regime right now is they spent 20 years trying to condition the population to not dare speak up against the regime not dare tweet against the regime even like a photo of something that alludes

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to happy for democracy or anything in support of what recently happened, which if you look at the

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Polls, people inside, outside, anywhere you're polling people, everybody is feeling optimistic about what just happened.

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But the government's biggest fear is that now that Maduro is gone and now that people in Venezuela feel that there is finally some accountability and someone that's not going to let criminals run loose with impunity.

235
00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:39,900
venezuelans are starting to wake up and you're starting to see these protests particularly

236
00:14:39,900 --> 00:14:45,020
around the release of the political prisoners so venezuela has thousands of political prisoners

237
00:14:45,020 --> 00:14:53,040
and so surprisingly or coincidentally a lot of these started getting released right after the

238
00:14:53,040 --> 00:15:00,900
maduro's capture and a lot of people locally have started gathering and and especially um

239
00:15:00,900 --> 00:15:09,520
uh student uh student government and universities which in venezuela historically uh revolutions and

240
00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:15,360
sort of all sort of marches and protests have been led by these student council groups in these bigger

241
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:18,900
in these big universities so the big universities in caracas have these like government bodies

242
00:15:18,900 --> 00:15:26,260
that act basically as like the student the student body government and they are starting to come out

243
00:15:26,260 --> 00:15:30,220
increasingly in making public statements in Venezuela,

244
00:15:31,020 --> 00:15:33,740
demanding that the political prisoners be released.

245
00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:36,900
I can't tell you how proud I am of those kids.

246
00:15:37,380 --> 00:15:40,680
I can't tell you how much courage it takes to do what they're doing.

247
00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:47,580
And it makes me increasingly more hopeful that Venezuela,

248
00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:49,200
the free Venezuela that I remember,

249
00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:52,200
the good, honest, hardworking Venezuela

250
00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:55,920
that just wanted a chance to live a life with a little bit of freedom,

251
00:15:56,260 --> 00:15:58,260
they're still there.

252
00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:00,740
And you're waking, and they're waking up.

253
00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:05,700
And I think, you know, I'm just generally so happy

254
00:16:05,700 --> 00:16:11,720
about the prospect of being able to build something back in the country.

255
00:16:12,560 --> 00:16:15,780
And it's exciting, but I'll tell you,

256
00:16:15,780 --> 00:16:20,800
the regime is petrified of people losing the fear.

257
00:16:20,800 --> 00:16:27,700
and the day that you see hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets of venezuela

258
00:16:27,700 --> 00:16:34,720
chanting that day will come it hasn't happened yet because the death squads are still running

259
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:41,980
uh the the people that are left are still making open and public threats to not celebrate to don't

260
00:16:41,980 --> 00:16:46,860
don't you dare celebrate don't you dare like post or tweet something in support of what happened

261
00:16:46,860 --> 00:16:48,760
or we'll come for you.

262
00:16:48,940 --> 00:16:50,800
And there's this big tension right now

263
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:52,900
because Chavismo,

264
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:54,320
the Chavismo in Venezuela

265
00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:57,720
has this, you know,

266
00:16:57,820 --> 00:16:59,520
double rhetoric, right?

267
00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:00,340
On the one hand,

268
00:17:00,540 --> 00:17:02,120
Delcey's having to go on these calls

269
00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:03,160
with Donald Trump and saying,

270
00:17:03,680 --> 00:17:04,260
yes, Mr. Trump.

271
00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:04,920
Yes, Mr. Trump.

272
00:17:05,020 --> 00:17:05,560
Yes, yes.

273
00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:06,760
Whatever you say, yes.

274
00:17:07,300 --> 00:17:08,320
And on the other side,

275
00:17:08,480 --> 00:17:09,880
they have the other spokespeople,

276
00:17:10,420 --> 00:17:11,020
her brother,

277
00:17:12,460 --> 00:17:14,620
who runs the National Assembly,

278
00:17:15,240 --> 00:17:16,220
funny enough.

279
00:17:16,860 --> 00:17:25,920
And then Diosdado Cabello, who is the muscle, the thug, the guy that controls the thugs, they're still out there running loose, threatening people.

280
00:17:26,560 --> 00:17:31,380
And so Delce, on the one hand, is saying, yes, yes, yes, Mr. Trump, don't worry, we'll release the prisoners.

281
00:17:31,740 --> 00:17:33,920
We'll protect your American oil company when they come here.

282
00:17:33,980 --> 00:17:36,300
We'll reform all the laws that you need reformed.

283
00:17:37,780 --> 00:17:41,360
And then on the other hand, you have these other guys saying, we're not listening to America.

284
00:17:41,840 --> 00:17:43,240
You're still under our thumb.

285
00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:46,320
Our boot is still on your neck.

286
00:17:46,860 --> 00:17:49,160
move an inch or will squash you, right?

287
00:17:49,220 --> 00:17:52,520
And so people are like trying to assess,

288
00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:57,280
you know, how far they can push the line, right?

289
00:17:57,380 --> 00:17:59,920
Because on the one hand,

290
00:17:59,980 --> 00:18:02,300
you want to believe that America

291
00:18:02,300 --> 00:18:07,060
or, you know, the, yeah,

292
00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:08,760
the group that helped us extract Maduro

293
00:18:08,760 --> 00:18:13,160
is going to basically not kind of forget about it

294
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:14,900
and say, we took this guy out,

295
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:16,120
but we have a plan, right?

296
00:18:16,120 --> 00:18:18,760
Like we need to keep going with this plan.

297
00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:21,340
We didn't just go in to take this guy out, right?

298
00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:22,720
We want actual change.

299
00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:25,000
So that's what you want to believe.

300
00:18:25,580 --> 00:18:28,720
But on the other hand, there's guns pointed at you.

301
00:18:29,380 --> 00:18:32,660
And so it's hard.

302
00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:34,200
It's really hard.

303
00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:38,600
And I understand, you know, at the beginning I was frustrated

304
00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:41,720
because I wasn't seeing as many demonstrations in the country.

305
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,400
And I spoke to so many of my friends.

306
00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:47,900
and I heard like you can hear the fear in their voice.

307
00:18:50,020 --> 00:18:52,440
I was like, why aren't you going out there?

308
00:18:52,540 --> 00:18:53,140
Why aren't you tweeting?

309
00:18:53,280 --> 00:18:54,040
Why aren't you saying something?

310
00:18:54,160 --> 00:18:55,300
And they're basically telling me,

311
00:18:55,360 --> 00:18:56,840
man, that's easy for you to say.

312
00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:00,580
Like your door's not gonna get knocked on.

313
00:19:01,920 --> 00:19:03,880
You know, you're not the one that's gonna go missing.

314
00:19:04,060 --> 00:19:04,800
How am I gonna explain?

315
00:19:04,940 --> 00:19:06,000
What am I gonna tell my kids

316
00:19:06,000 --> 00:19:09,160
if they come knocking for daddy, right?

317
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:10,540
And it's real, man.

318
00:19:10,660 --> 00:19:11,840
Like it's real.

319
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:13,380
I have relatives

320
00:19:13,380 --> 00:19:15,700
to give you some examples

321
00:19:15,700 --> 00:19:18,160
back in the 2024

322
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:20,300
presidential election, Maria Corina Machal

323
00:19:20,300 --> 00:19:22,320
who won, we all know

324
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:24,220
Maria Corina, she's in the White House right now

325
00:19:24,220 --> 00:19:24,920
talking to Trump

326
00:19:24,920 --> 00:19:26,400
she

327
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:30,480
got disbarred of course because the regime

328
00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:31,820
would never let

329
00:19:31,820 --> 00:19:34,200
someone that's actually popular run

330
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:36,320
against it, but she was very

331
00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:38,420
clever and she set up this other guy

332
00:19:38,420 --> 00:19:40,120
she knew she was going to get disbarred

333
00:19:40,120 --> 00:19:50,640
So she sets up this person called Edmundo Gonzalez so that whenever she gets the spark, she goes to her following and says, don't worry, I knew this was going to happen.

334
00:19:51,180 --> 00:19:53,900
Edmundo is going to run on my behalf. Vote Edmundo. Right.

335
00:19:53,900 --> 00:20:03,120
And she picked like a guy that had basically no like no criminal record, like no nothing.

336
00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:09,520
not that she had one but i'm saying this guy had like no uh way of them trying to put up an argument

337
00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:15,160
to to say this guy's a bad person like he this guy was like a like straight arrow never did

338
00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:21,020
anything wrong always ticked all the boxes so anyway as maria corina is campaigning through

339
00:20:21,020 --> 00:20:27,200
the country they're making her life impossible okay so they're setting up checkpoints wherever

340
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:32,300
she's headed and they try to block the highway so she can't get there in time uh if she's flying

341
00:20:32,300 --> 00:20:38,880
into a particular city to do a rally that that city's airport just went under maintenance the

342
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:45,340
day her rally was was supposed to happen uh they've blocked highways she's had to cross rivers with

343
00:20:45,340 --> 00:20:49,340
like people in like boats i don't know if you've seen the images but she's gone on like chalanas

344
00:20:49,340 --> 00:20:55,380
which are a very uh rural venezuelan boat she's crossed rivers on chalanas because the army was

345
00:20:55,380 --> 00:21:01,600
blocking the bridge she had to get through to get to her rally so anyway there it was it was this big

346
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:06,320
story about her getting to these places and the government putting these hurdles and her just

347
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:11,760
jumping over these hurdles heroically every single time and when when it was time to do

348
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:18,920
her rally in the andes region around merida or san cristobal i have relatives that live in that

349
00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:25,980
area and of course my family is very pro-freedom so we uh we wanted to help her campaign as any

350
00:21:25,980 --> 00:21:32,680
way we could so one of my uncles actually uh lent her uh i think it was a few uh a few of his cars

351
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:36,680
or trucks or pickups to just move things for the rally and prepare things for the rally

352
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:47,260
and uh they jailed my uncle uh they literally they took him in for helping her and uh and so

353
00:21:47,260 --> 00:21:52,460
you know if she would take a photo her or her staffers if any of them would take a photo eating

354
00:21:52,460 --> 00:21:55,720
at a restaurant anybody would come in and there was a video of somebody saying hi to

355
00:21:55,720 --> 00:22:01,640
maria corina in a restaurant and hugging them that restaurant will be shut down it was crazy

356
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:09,460
it still is um and so so what's happening right now and this is all to induce fear like don't

357
00:22:09,460 --> 00:22:16,860
you dare help maria corina don't you dare tweet in her support but now it's all changing it's it's

358
00:22:16,860 --> 00:22:22,100
so people are starting to test the boundaries they're like well mind you these kids that are

359
00:22:22,100 --> 00:22:27,600
coming out right now asking for the release of the political prisoners before january 3rd if they

360
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:32,340
went and did that not only would you not see them they would be gone they would be disappeared

361
00:22:32,340 --> 00:22:36,900
uh if they publicly went out and said mr government you have political prisoners

362
00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:40,460
release them and the government will be like they're not political prisoners

363
00:22:40,460 --> 00:22:45,520
they're that's very different these people are criminals and blah blah blah and anyway um

364
00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:53,220
and end of rant for now no i i love it man i mean i i love the rant i don't love uh this what's

365
00:22:53,220 --> 00:22:56,800
happening you know still happening there and i think that's the difficult thing for for people

366
00:22:56,800 --> 00:23:02,040
to grasp especially people who do not have the uh still the family or the the friends there you

367
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,660
know you're hearing these things from them firsthand you have obviously like you are

368
00:23:05,660 --> 00:23:09,700
venezuelan so like you you have a much deeper connection to all of this versus somebody who's

369
00:23:09,700 --> 00:23:14,460
just kind of casually reading about it on the news because people may have the false assumption that

370
00:23:14,460 --> 00:23:17,580
okay, Maduro is gone from power, right?

371
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:18,000
He's removed.

372
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:20,260
Okay, everything, just snap your fingers

373
00:23:20,260 --> 00:23:21,820
and it's better now, it's fixed.

374
00:23:22,260 --> 00:23:23,040
But it's not the case.

375
00:23:23,380 --> 00:23:25,340
I mean, it seems to me from everything you're saying

376
00:23:25,340 --> 00:23:26,740
and from everything that I've been reading

377
00:23:26,740 --> 00:23:29,660
that it's a weird limbo state right now.

378
00:23:30,120 --> 00:23:33,300
It's like, yeah, Maduro was taken out of power

379
00:23:33,300 --> 00:23:36,180
and the regime is understandably

380
00:23:36,180 --> 00:23:37,600
probably a little bit freaked out that,

381
00:23:37,700 --> 00:23:39,420
hey, if they step too far out of line,

382
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:41,740
will Trump take them out as well?

383
00:23:42,100 --> 00:23:43,620
You know, like, okay, there's that.

384
00:23:43,620 --> 00:23:49,360
But at the same time, they clearly know that they can still keep doing a lot of the stuff that they were doing before.

385
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:51,320
Maybe they covered a little bit better.

386
00:23:51,420 --> 00:23:53,200
Maybe they obscured a little bit better.

387
00:23:53,900 --> 00:24:04,020
But they're kind of pushing their – as much as the people are pushing the boundaries to see what can we kind of get away with under the regime, it seems to me the regime is pushing the boundaries to see what can we get away with under Trump.

388
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,920
Is that a fair kind of analysis of sort of the duality of that?

389
00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:11,240
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Yes, 100%.

424
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And obviously there's a lot of, there's some anxiety or anticipation that, you know, the U.S.

425
00:27:22,900 --> 00:27:27,200
What I will say is that what's become really, really clear

426
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:34,520
is that the regime is saying a lot of verbiage

427
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:35,680
coming out of their mouth.

428
00:27:35,980 --> 00:27:37,940
But when you look at what they're doing,

429
00:27:39,180 --> 00:27:53,080
from an institutional perspective right Like they are reforming they reopened the U embassy Okay so it takes quite a bit of mental gymnastics to say oh they just bombed us and took our president

430
00:27:53,600 --> 00:28:00,020
But we're going to reopen their embassy because we think that it's doesn't matter what you insert here.

431
00:28:00,140 --> 00:28:04,000
Everybody knows you're lying. Everybody knows you're doing it because they told you to.

432
00:28:04,380 --> 00:28:08,000
Right. So they can say whatever they want. And this is why people are starting to lose fear,

433
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:14,160
because there's inconsistencies now between the message and what they're doing right like in the

434
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:20,960
past it was if you protest we're going to shoot you you protest they shot you and you said okay

435
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:26,500
they are doing what they're saying they're doing right they would say they would get pressured to

436
00:28:26,500 --> 00:28:30,500
release political prisoners and they would be like they're not political prisoners we're not

437
00:28:30,500 --> 00:28:37,840
releasing anybody thanks right now it's it's flipped because now it's saying there's so many

438
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:46,460
videos and for example there there's many videos of u.s of venezuelan government officials saying

439
00:28:46,460 --> 00:28:53,320
on national television we will not sell one drop of oil to the u.s if they ever put a finger on us

440
00:28:53,320 --> 00:29:00,940
not one drop and people were like many many of these such videos okay and the same guy okay

441
00:29:00,940 --> 00:29:08,060
had to go on national television after they bombed Caracas and took away Maduro to say,

442
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:14,360
well, you know, we've always sold oil to Chevron. If Chevron wants to come and take, you know,

443
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,740
and take our oil and pay us dollars, we're going to do it. It's a commercial transaction.

444
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:23,900
So they've had to really walk back and eat it. And you can see it in their eyes. They're just

445
00:29:23,900 --> 00:29:32,540
seething. And again, it's about pushing. It's about pushing. Both sides are pushing, right?

446
00:29:32,580 --> 00:29:43,140
I think the government knows it's up against the wall, right? I think the scale is slightly more

447
00:29:43,140 --> 00:29:49,060
tilted to the people's side at the moment because the people have, A, they're in the right side of

448
00:29:49,060 --> 00:29:56,060
history that that's that's number one and number two they now have the backing of the biggest

449
00:29:56,060 --> 00:30:05,580
army in the world right and they're they're just like emboldened by this support and i think that

450
00:30:05,580 --> 00:30:14,280
i i don't believe we're gonna walk back our path to freedom i think we're gonna keep walking

451
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:20,800
forward. It's going to be slow. It's going to be rocky. We might stumble. We might fall.

452
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,380
But we're going to get back up and we're going to keep walking.

453
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:34,080
Because I think that right now, the trend that this has started is irreversible.

454
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,000
So I'm hopeful that we're going to continue walking towards freedom.

455
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:46,600
it's it's obviously very uh it's very tricky because at this stage it's like again people

456
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:51,180
have this they want to believe it like ah you know if people who let's say on the u.s side were like

457
00:30:51,180 --> 00:30:55,200
very happy to see there's obviously mixed reactions in the u.s between people who are like

458
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,320
how could trump do this this is you know uh unconstitutional he didn't have the right

459
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:04,040
other people saying good you know he he did this look at the venezuelan people they're you know

460
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:07,360
they're celebrating the Venezuelan diaspora around the world is celebrating.

461
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:09,360
This is a good thing. Okay. It's good that he did it.

462
00:31:09,700 --> 00:31:13,040
But the real question becomes like what happens next and what is the follow

463
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:13,280
up?

464
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:18,120
How much involvement does the U S have and what is actually done to ensure

465
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:23,340
that it doesn't just become more of the regime faithfuls staying in power

466
00:31:23,340 --> 00:31:27,460
because they have sort of a tacit agreement with the U S how do you make

467
00:31:27,460 --> 00:31:31,280
sure that Venezuela actually moves away from what is also like the,

468
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:36,640
the problem, which is the socialist, communist, totalitarian government there, that is ultimately

469
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:41,320
what is repressing the people of Venezuela. That's what's stopping the entrepreneurs like yourself

470
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:46,700
from building in Venezuela. It's what's stopping the people who are still there from being able to

471
00:31:46,700 --> 00:31:51,340
meaningfully get ahead. It's what has been contributing to the massive currency devaluations

472
00:31:51,340 --> 00:31:55,980
that happened under these socialist regimes, which just eat away people. Everything people have worked

473
00:31:55,980 --> 00:32:01,080
for, it eats it away year after year after year after year through hyperinflation. So I'm curious,

474
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:06,880
do you think, I mean, do you see a path forward for Venezuela, like a successful path forward

475
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:12,720
where the government is still able to remain, quote, socialist? Or do you think that that

476
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:18,300
has to be one of the things in order for Venezuela to actually move further along this path, not to

477
00:32:18,300 --> 00:32:21,540
either move back or stay there, but to move forward towards where you would like to see

478
00:32:21,540 --> 00:32:27,920
your country, your home country go to, do you think that necessarily means getting rid of that

479
00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:32,840
socialist structure and how feasible even is that? You know what I mean? Because that's

480
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:39,900
entrenched. That's deeply entrenched. Yeah. So let me walk you through why I'm hopeful and why I think

481
00:32:39,900 --> 00:32:45,840
this has to reach a resolution, a resolution that will probably get rid of a lot of these draconian

482
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:55,020
communist rules that exist in Venezuela. And it's a simple answer. The simple answer is that

483
00:32:55,020 --> 00:33:01,880
if we play this out and say america wants access to strategic access to venezuelan oil

484
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:07,020
like let's just let's just start at that because i think every venezuelan you ask will tell you

485
00:33:07,020 --> 00:33:12,220
yeah we know they want the oil and we're perfectly fine with having someone help us extract it because

486
00:33:12,220 --> 00:33:16,320
first of all these guys were not even playing for our they're not even playing for the home team

487
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:19,920
they're playing for the away team already they were giving the oil away to russia and cuba

488
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:27,480
in China and we're getting nothing for it, right? Because all these other countries that we used to

489
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:34,600
partner with were enablers of our regime because ideologically it rhymes with theirs, right? So

490
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:40,260
China didn't have an issue kind of being in cahoots with the regime and helping the regime

491
00:33:40,260 --> 00:33:45,720
at the expense of the people because from a strategic perspective, they had an ally in a

492
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,720
continent that where there was really nothing else other than cuba and same thing with russia

493
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:55,880
cuba loved it because cuba is a starving island they produce nothing because they've decimated

494
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:59,000
the productive apparatus the same way every other communist country has

495
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:07,360
but in venezuela they found a lifeline venezuela was a buddy now that would exchange oil for

496
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:13,080
intelligence uh staff and protection so i don't know if people know this but talk about an invasion

497
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:20,780
talk about invading national sovereignty, Maduro's first ring of security, Maduro's security detail,

498
00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:26,180
the Venezuelan president's security detail was 32 Cuban Secret Service officers.

499
00:34:27,060 --> 00:34:32,420
32 of them. All of them taken out by the Delta Force when they came in.

500
00:34:32,500 --> 00:34:40,120
But there was 32 presidential guards, Cuban presidential guards, guarding Maduro.

501
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:48,620
maduro didn't even trust venezuelans enough to guard him so that that's that's just to put it

502
00:34:48,620 --> 00:34:55,340
out there but going i did not know that yeah no that's wild most people don't so this is this is

503
00:34:55,340 --> 00:35:02,800
and don't believe me google it in fact cuba broke the news about its deceased uh officers before

504
00:35:02,800 --> 00:35:08,780
venezuela ever reported any information around the the casualties in venezuela so they kind of

505
00:35:08,780 --> 00:35:15,200
their hand was forced they were forced to admit that 32 cubans have been killed because cuba had

506
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:21,760
to go out and explain to the cuban population why 32 of its elite forces were basically missing

507
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:27,820
and and so this basically forced the hand of the venezuelan regime and then they had to say yeah

508
00:35:27,820 --> 00:35:31,300
no there were some cubans that died they didn't really say how many they tried to kind of brush

509
00:35:31,300 --> 00:35:41,300
it off. But Maduro's security ring was all Cuban. So to go back to the question around

510
00:35:41,300 --> 00:35:50,200
which side will win, how do we ensure that Venezuela doesn't just have a bad government

511
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,860
that just cuts a deal with America and continues to be bad, right? Here's where I don't think that

512
00:35:54,860 --> 00:36:03,160
that's possible, right? It's clear, I believe that there's strategic importance to the Venezuelan oil

513
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:10,540
industry, right? Whether it's extraction, whether it's from an extraction basis and like an ongoing

514
00:36:10,540 --> 00:36:16,900
supply basis or from a strategic reserves point of view, okay? If that's true, and we've seen the

515
00:36:16,900 --> 00:36:21,540
press conferences with Chevron and ExxonMobil and a bunch of other companies now in America,

516
00:36:21,540 --> 00:36:30,120
and and trump was very clear that they're going to retake chevron's assets that were expropriated

517
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:36,180
by chavez so chavez to give people context around some of this why trump says venezuela stole our

518
00:36:36,180 --> 00:36:43,020
oil venezuela stole our this or that is because chavez did in fact expropriate a lot of facilities

519
00:36:43,020 --> 00:36:49,460
and infrastructure from chevron and several other u.s companies when he basically dismantled the

520
00:36:49,460 --> 00:36:51,440
the Venezuelan oil industry.

521
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:58,100
So there are assets there that Chevron is going to try to reclaim and that other companies

522
00:36:58,100 --> 00:37:01,420
are going to try to reclaim, and they're going to try to re-spark production.

523
00:37:02,220 --> 00:37:05,860
And Venezuela is right now, I think, at around 900 to a million barrels of oil per day.

524
00:37:06,500 --> 00:37:07,680
I've heard rumors.

525
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:13,180
I don't have any sort of evidence or proof, but the sort of running rumor in Venezuela

526
00:37:13,180 --> 00:37:18,640
is that the U.S. is trying to get Venezuela up to 3 million barrels a day in 18 months.

527
00:37:19,460 --> 00:37:22,620
and north of 3.5 million barrels per day in 24 months.

528
00:37:23,180 --> 00:37:27,560
From my friends, other people that I know in the oil industry,

529
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,980
that sounds like an incredibly ambitious goal,

530
00:37:31,140 --> 00:37:34,480
just based on how long it takes to get this production online.

531
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,900
But to keep playing down that thread,

532
00:37:39,780 --> 00:37:42,240
oil production, you heard it from the Chevron CEO himself.

533
00:37:42,580 --> 00:37:44,640
These are multi-decade investments.

534
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:48,340
These companies are private.

535
00:37:49,460 --> 00:38:06,740
They will not, and they made it very clear in the statement from Trump or in the press conference with Trump, we cannot invest a dime in this country unless we have certainty that we will be protected and we will to realize the return on that investment, which may take decades.

536
00:38:06,740 --> 00:38:15,160
he explicitly said you need to reform labor law you need to reform uh environmental law

537
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,020
you need to reform oil production law and like basically supply chain management law

538
00:38:20,020 --> 00:38:26,960
and literally the next day there was a motion in the national venezolanan assembly to

539
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:32,320
basically overhaul the entire rule set of corporate law environmental law every check

540
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,360
box that chevron asked for was basically like we're reforming this and that and this and that

541
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,500
And it just happens to be because this is the right time.

542
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:52,840
Obviously, the U.S. has given the regime a laundry list of bare minimum things that it needs to go and complete.

543
00:38:53,300 --> 00:38:56,480
And it seems to be well on its way to complete that.

544
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,640
Many things can happen, obviously.

545
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,780
but my view is that

546
00:39:01,780 --> 00:39:04,960
because of the nature of the oil industry

547
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,080
this needs to be a sustained change

548
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:09,460
this cannot be optical

549
00:39:09,460 --> 00:39:15,360
you cannot try to get American level productivity

550
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:19,840
and give comfort to an American company

551
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:22,020
on a completely outdated

552
00:39:22,020 --> 00:39:24,180
and communist set of labor laws

553
00:39:24,180 --> 00:39:26,960
like in Venezuela you cannot fire a person

554
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:36,380
like it's it's it's like technically you can't but practically it's impossible okay and so no

555
00:39:36,380 --> 00:39:43,280
company's going to go higher under those uh under those rules right uh there there's many like

556
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:49,900
contract law the environmental rule set is insane in venezuela uh labor laws don't even get me

557
00:39:49,900 --> 00:39:57,000
started. So a lot of those things have to get reformed to get those people in. And the other

558
00:39:57,000 --> 00:40:02,600
piece is that I don't know how many Chevron executives are going to feel comfortable living

559
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:08,980
in Venezuela when there's roaming death squads still around, right? And they're under threat

560
00:40:08,980 --> 00:40:13,740
and America's the enemy and people are going to go on and protest and burn American flags.

561
00:40:13,740 --> 00:40:17,640
Like nobody wants to be in that country.

562
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:26,280
So I just think that what America wants to get out of it necessitates long lasting change.

563
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:42,020
And so because of that, I'm hopeful that it'll it'll drive to a sustained improvement rather than just, oh, we'll cut a deal and let Chevron come in and we'll just do like a little handshake on the back.

564
00:40:42,020 --> 00:40:52,920
And like these types of deals aren't really done on a handshake, at least with American companies that might have flown with with Russian and Chinese companies likely won't fly with American companies.

565
00:40:53,760 --> 00:41:03,260
So that's another interesting piece, too. And I forget I saw just this was some random video of a Venezuelan like right after Maduro had been taken out.

566
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:09,880
And some reporter was asking them, you know, like, oh, how do you think about like America, you know, coming in and trying to take over your country?

567
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:15,180
and and i'm paraphrasing here but basically he was like what do you think china and russia have

568
00:41:15,180 --> 00:41:19,260
been doing this entire time like what do you what do you think that like i would and he basically

569
00:41:19,260 --> 00:41:24,060
said like i would rather have america here than china and russia uh was the was the effect of it

570
00:41:24,060 --> 00:41:29,560
and so because that's kind of the the interesting thing and not that venezuela is should be some

571
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:34,640
like geopolitical football to be you know thrown back and forth or anything like that but it's just

572
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:47,520
to like the reality of the situation is is that it kind of like in this world that we live in right now smaller countries are either going to align with the United States the Western powers or they going to align with China and Russia

573
00:41:47,520 --> 00:42:03,540
This is just like the reality of it. And it seems that China and Russia had a vested interest in making sure Venezuela stayed dysfunctional, stayed as a socialist state, stayed under the control of the Maduro regime because it allowed them to get what they want.

574
00:42:03,540 --> 00:42:07,320
If they would have wanted something different, they would have probably overthrown Maduro themselves.

575
00:42:07,540 --> 00:42:09,700
Right. But clearly they liked the status quo.

576
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:10,500
Is that fair to say?

577
00:42:11,060 --> 00:42:11,880
That is fair to say.

578
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:18,960
And Venezuela is like this rich communist kid that keeps giving money away to his communist friends.

579
00:42:19,620 --> 00:42:27,060
Right. So the problem with Venezuela is that Venezuela is the rich communist kid that kept Cuba from collapsing.

580
00:42:28,060 --> 00:42:35,620
Venezuela was the rich communist kid that financed left-wing political campaigns across all of Latin America.

581
00:42:35,620 --> 00:42:41,620
I don't know how closely people listening follow Latin America modern history,

582
00:42:42,180 --> 00:42:51,620
but there were members of the Chavista regime that were caught with briefcases of cash flying into Argentina to support Kirchner,

583
00:42:51,620 --> 00:43:00,000
which was the the the party that eventually won uh and took and basically broke argentina which

584
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:06,980
which led to milay um which led to basically the the snap boat back to restore balance and freedom

585
00:43:06,980 --> 00:43:17,720
chavez financed uh correa's campaign in el sabedor evo morales in bolivia um uh lula in brazil later

586
00:43:17,720 --> 00:43:27,560
Dilma in Brazil. And he just did this like on and on and on. And he would buy votes at these

587
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:34,660
international organizations. So Chavez learned very quickly that when you're at the OAS or the UN,

588
00:43:35,500 --> 00:43:40,980
the vote of St. Vincent Granadine is worth as much as the vote of the United States.

589
00:43:41,700 --> 00:43:47,100
So there's a reason the second largest airport in Haiti is called the Hugo Chavez Airport.

590
00:43:47,720 --> 00:43:51,980
So Chavez would go around donating infrastructure to these Caribbean islands.

591
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:54,380
He also created this thing called Petro Caribe.

592
00:43:54,900 --> 00:44:06,300
So Petro Caribe was like a Venezuelan funded oil piggy bank or oil piñata rather that basically little countries in the Caribbean can come and hit to get some oil.

593
00:44:06,740 --> 00:44:11,720
And then in exchange for obviously votes and applause and supporting Chavez's resolutions.

594
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:14,220
And so Petro Caribe, this is called.

595
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:16,040
Anyone listening can go Google Petro Caribe.

596
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:18,560
and Petro Caribe is just that

597
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:20,680
it's basically like a grant foundation

598
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:23,440
started by Chavez to push his ideology

599
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,580
and so of course

600
00:44:25,580 --> 00:44:26,960
if you needed a new airport

601
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:28,720
and Chavez was willing to give it to you

602
00:44:28,720 --> 00:44:31,060
and all he wanted was for you to say this or that

603
00:44:31,060 --> 00:44:32,220
or paint the airport red

604
00:44:32,220 --> 00:44:35,180
and show the greatness of the Chavismo

605
00:44:35,180 --> 00:44:37,180
power changing America

606
00:44:37,180 --> 00:44:38,840
or changing LATAM for the better

607
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:44,080
he was very good at driving narrative

608
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:59,800
And so, of course, if you are in an ideological battle, right, if you're Russia or China and you're basically having you have this ideology, number one, why would I think it serves them?

609
00:44:59,800 --> 00:45:04,760
Well, number one, it keeps the ideology alive in the continental Americas.

610
00:45:05,260 --> 00:45:12,420
And not only through Venezuela, but through Cuba and Nicaragua and a few of the other bodies who don't have any money.

611
00:45:12,740 --> 00:45:17,380
They've all gone broke because they've been communists for much longer than Venezuela, sadly, as that might be.

612
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,820
But Venezuela has this black thing that comes out of the ground.

613
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:24,940
And no matter how incompetent or corrupt you are, it still oozes out.

614
00:45:25,020 --> 00:45:26,120
You just can't stop it.

615
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:33,460
And so they have this, they can just basically do all the wrong things and they still get paid.

616
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:39,540
And they're going out and financing their other buddies because nobody wants to be alone, right?

617
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:41,720
Like you want to have people to talk to.

618
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,140
And so they're doing this.

619
00:45:44,300 --> 00:45:46,360
So on the one end, it keeps the ideology alive.

620
00:45:46,360 --> 00:46:01,620
On the other end, it keeps pumping migration to the West, which wrecks havoc in places like the U.S., a lot of the rest of the Latam countries, some Europe.

621
00:46:03,100 --> 00:46:05,960
The hit to Europe is not as bad, but it's still bad.

622
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:10,160
And so it helps in more than one way.

623
00:46:10,540 --> 00:46:13,820
And the other thing is you can now have military bases.

624
00:46:13,820 --> 00:46:22,360
You can have military assets in your enemy's backyard, right?

625
00:46:22,580 --> 00:46:37,160
And so there's a lot of strategic reasons why you would want an oil-producing country to remain in a particular ideology at the expense of its people, right?

626
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:47,340
so you know that that's the real you know these guys were already using venezuela as a piñata

627
00:46:47,340 --> 00:46:53,880
right and venezuelans were seeing none of it so now and this is why you see so many venezuelas

628
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:59,660
kind of laugh i don't know if you caught the trend that venezuela after the after october 3rd

629
00:46:59,660 --> 00:47:04,680
many americans or many reactions in media where they want our oil you know venezuela they're going

630
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:10,380
to take all of Venezuela's oil. And Venezuela basically started this meme movement back,

631
00:47:10,980 --> 00:47:16,600
basically making the point, making these outrageous comments about oil to make the point that we never

632
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:23,820
had the oil. So like they basically were saying, you know, some of the jokes were, oh, you know,

633
00:47:24,060 --> 00:47:28,720
I'm out of milk this morning. I'll just throw some oil in my coffee. Just taste a little better.

634
00:47:28,720 --> 00:47:33,520
It's like, oh, the water's out. I guess I just have to go bathe myself with the oil that I have

635
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:39,360
saved outside right um and so they'll be like look my mom dressed up the oil barrel for christmas

636
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:43,740
and it was like an oil barrel with like christmas ornaments being like our house we always dress up

637
00:47:43,740 --> 00:47:49,500
the oil barrel for christmas so it's this this complete sort of uh like none of us had access

638
00:47:49,500 --> 00:47:55,840
to any of this oil never none of us saw a dime of this oil money and it was basically being used to

639
00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:00,860
buy guns to hurt us so when people when you hear venezuelans say yeah we know they want the oil

640
00:48:00,860 --> 00:48:02,840
all the other guys wanted it too

641
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:03,620
it's

642
00:48:03,620 --> 00:48:07,120
yeah it's basically

643
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:08,500
like saying you know

644
00:48:08,500 --> 00:48:10,620
oh Venezuelans

645
00:48:10,620 --> 00:48:13,320
you know when a Venezuelan

646
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:15,120
hears oh somebody wants Venezuela for their

647
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:16,260
oh Venezuela for their oil

648
00:48:16,260 --> 00:48:19,000
Venezuelans are like yeah we know right

649
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:20,540
it's like saying oh you know

650
00:48:20,540 --> 00:48:22,580
a certain producer wants to cast

651
00:48:22,580 --> 00:48:24,900
Sidney Sweeney for a movie because

652
00:48:24,900 --> 00:48:26,360
she's a great actress

653
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:28,620
does that make sense like

654
00:48:28,620 --> 00:48:29,540
people

655
00:48:29,540 --> 00:48:32,860
I'm not saying she's not a good actress, but I'm saying like,

656
00:48:32,940 --> 00:48:34,400
no, no, I got, yeah, I got you.

657
00:48:35,220 --> 00:48:36,100
People get it.

658
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:37,480
Like we're not dumb, right?

659
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:37,840
Like.

660
00:48:39,240 --> 00:48:39,640
Yeah.

661
00:48:39,780 --> 00:48:40,980
Well, it's, it's funny too.

662
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:45,920
I think your point about the fact that the reason that kind of socialism in

663
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:50,560
Venezuela, like was able to sustain itself for so long,

664
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:53,060
isn't because they like figured out the socialist model.

665
00:48:53,100 --> 00:48:55,260
Like it wasn't working, was not working for the people of Venezuela.

666
00:48:55,260 --> 00:48:56,040
It never works.

667
00:48:56,300 --> 00:48:57,180
Socialism never works.

668
00:48:57,180 --> 00:49:24,180
But the point is that they Venezuela had something that a lot of other countries don't, which is massive, massive amounts of liquid black gold, like you said, oozing up out of the ground. And so you can sort of paper over. But the irony, of course, is like that wasn't used for the for the betterment of the, you know, the social, the socialist ideals in Venezuela that was just used to enrich the people at the top, which is what happens every single time in every single one of these communist countries.

669
00:49:24,180 --> 00:49:27,980
You know, hey, we're all equal. We're all equal. Right. Except for, you know, some of us are more equal than others.

670
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:35,800
Everyone at the top gets ridiculously wealthy. It's the same thing across across, you know, all the different, you know, Eastern European communist countries as well.

671
00:49:36,220 --> 00:49:44,360
It's the exact same playbook. The people at the top get super rich by basically extracting anything of value from the country that is supposed to be shared with the people.

672
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:49,240
Right. Like that's the whole point of your socialist communist ideas. But of course, it never is.

673
00:49:49,240 --> 00:49:59,380
And it's like this now I think where we're at in in the arc of history now is like you have all these people who think that socialism can somehow still work.

674
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:09,980
That even despite 100 plus years and hundreds of millions of people dying because of socialist and communist ideas, despite all of that, they think, well, we'll just get it right this time.

675
00:50:09,980 --> 00:50:17,360
And they have these little socialist experiments. And especially it's like in the in the US or in any any so-called developed or Western countries, whatever you want to say.

676
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:23,820
the only reason that socialism appears to work for any length of time is because it's standing

677
00:50:23,820 --> 00:50:28,020
on the back of capitalism. It's standing on the back of a country that's already rich.

678
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:33,440
Socialism and communism has never made a country more prosperous. It's never done that. Capitalism

679
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:38,560
has made the whole world more prosperous, and it's allowed us to, for some academics, to basically

680
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:44,800
say, see, look, socialism is working here in, insert country. It's like, it's only, quote,

681
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:50,260
working because you're on the back of capitalism. But people don't want to admit that, right? They

682
00:50:50,260 --> 00:50:54,200
don't want to admit that their precious little experiment is just, it's just cosplay, right? It's

683
00:50:54,200 --> 00:51:00,920
just acting. I wholeheartedly agree with that idea. And I also think that even, listen, look at

684
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:06,020
Venezuela's example. Even with an infinity money supply connected into the back of the model,

685
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:14,000
it still bankrupted the country. And I think for me, the lesson of this whole thing is that

686
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:24,120
You can only build prosperity when everybody is gaining something from the transaction, from this activity of participating in society.

687
00:51:24,820 --> 00:51:26,280
And what do I mean by that?

688
00:51:26,940 --> 00:51:32,100
I mean, if you take the sort of two factors of an economy, right?

689
00:51:32,140 --> 00:51:34,720
You take capital and you take labor, okay?

690
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:40,000
Let's take production and then the working class or capital and labor.

691
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,500
Maybe that's the best way to frame it, right?

692
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:51,540
So you cannot, an economy necessitates to engage both capital and labor, right?

693
00:51:51,580 --> 00:51:53,420
Both people need to win.

694
00:51:53,620 --> 00:51:55,740
This transaction needs to be mutually beneficial.

695
00:51:56,460 --> 00:51:57,880
Like capital needs to benefit.

696
00:51:58,280 --> 00:51:59,700
Labor needs to benefit, right?

697
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:02,240
It's very similar.

698
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:05,620
And I draw this analogy because I spend so much time in the loan world.

699
00:52:05,940 --> 00:52:07,700
A loan has two clients, right?

700
00:52:07,700 --> 00:52:12,540
So if we play this analogy out, the lender in this side would play the capital and the

701
00:52:12,540 --> 00:52:19,880
borrower in this side would play the working class or the labor, right? When I'm building a

702
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:26,480
loan product, I have to make sure that whatever structure I land on benefits both the capital

703
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:31,300
provider, the lender, and the person borrowing it, call it the worker or whatever it is in this

704
00:52:31,300 --> 00:52:39,140
capitalism example. So if I go out and I build a loan product that's built only to the specs of

705
00:52:39,140 --> 00:52:44,880
the capital, the borrower won't play. They'll say, I don't want to hit those terms. Those terms

706
00:52:44,880 --> 00:52:51,380
don't work for me. If I build a loan product strictly on the terms of the borrower or the

707
00:52:51,380 --> 00:52:56,500
labor, then capital won't play. They'll say, I can't reach those terms. Those terms don't work

708
00:52:56,500 --> 00:53:03,560
for me. I can go elsewhere and do this in a more beneficial way. So you have to strike a balance

709
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,440
because if you don't strike a balance, you don't have a business.

710
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:12,820
In the labor and capital analogy, if you try to reform labor laws

711
00:53:12,820 --> 00:53:17,640
such that it protects workers from basically doing no evil,

712
00:53:17,940 --> 00:53:20,700
like they can never get fired, nothing bad could ever happen to them,

713
00:53:20,780 --> 00:53:25,560
their pensions are through the roof, it's a great deal if you're over here.

714
00:53:26,580 --> 00:53:28,240
Capital won't work.

715
00:53:28,980 --> 00:53:33,080
We won't be able to make our business work under these terms.

716
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:45,120
Similarly, if you do the reforms and you basically put no protections on labor and everybody can get fired and there's no security, no sort of assurances or guarantees, then labor will probably move and go work somewhere else.

717
00:53:45,660 --> 00:53:49,820
So no economy works when you take it too far into either extreme.

718
00:53:49,820 --> 00:53:57,800
right like so this is why it's important to have these these these balance the balance sort of

719
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:03,860
frameworks where you can win they can win and you both feel that you're walking out of the deal with

720
00:54:03,860 --> 00:54:09,660
something to gain right when you go too far at any side of the spectrum it doesn't matter how much

721
00:54:09,660 --> 00:54:14,360
oil you have coming in or how much external funding you have on the other side there's no organic

722
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:20,100
engagement between the two parts of your economy. And so this is where I think things break,

723
00:54:20,460 --> 00:54:25,140
right? Every so often we have political waves that move us a little bit here. They bring us a little

724
00:54:25,140 --> 00:54:30,320
bit back. And every so often you have this radical, you know, event that pushes you here and you never

725
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:34,840
can come back out of this. This is what happened to Cuba, what happened to Venezuela, North Korea.

726
00:54:35,580 --> 00:54:39,960
You know, you can go on and on down the list, right? The pendulum stopped swinging. It just went

727
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,040
and it just stayed.

728
00:54:42,620 --> 00:54:45,280
But I think it's important to have a balance

729
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:48,540
because capital needs labor, labor needs capital.

730
00:54:49,060 --> 00:54:52,320
And so the second either one isolates the other, it breaks.

731
00:54:54,080 --> 00:54:56,020
The interesting thing to me is that

732
00:54:56,020 --> 00:54:59,000
despite all of these examples that we have,

733
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,420
whether it be Venezuela or North Korea or Eastern Europe

734
00:55:02,420 --> 00:55:05,760
or anywhere, pick any socialist communist country you want,

735
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:07,660
despite all of these,

736
00:55:07,660 --> 00:55:15,020
you still have like privileged Western elites like, you know, Zoran Mamdami in New York coming

737
00:55:15,020 --> 00:55:20,720
in and just giving you every like, I mean like extreme communist, like he's a democratic

738
00:55:20,720 --> 00:55:24,420
socialist, but like I said this the other day, but like democratic socialists are just communists

739
00:55:24,420 --> 00:55:27,560
who don't have control of the guns yet. Right. Like, it's just like, it's gonna, it's gonna

740
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:33,080
happen. I mean, but like, it just, it just, it blows my mind that despite all

741
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:38,500
of the evidence to the contrary despite none of these policies ever working despite all of these

742
00:55:38,500 --> 00:55:44,520
communist policies always ending in people ending up poor in people ending up less free in people

743
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:49,680
ending up less happy because they are under the yoke of an oppressive government despite all of

744
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:54,380
that evidence you still have fucking idiots like this who come in and say we're good but we're

745
00:55:54,380 --> 00:55:59,400
gonna do it right in new york city and it's like uh and the sad thing is he'll be able to limp it

746
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:03,640
along for a little while, because again, it's sitting on the back of communism or of capitalism,

747
00:56:03,860 --> 00:56:08,220
right? He's going to be able to paper over it a little bit for a little while, maybe trick more

748
00:56:08,220 --> 00:56:12,660
people into saying, see, look, I don't know what those crazy, those greedy capitalists were saying.

749
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:17,820
Socialism can work just fine. It worked here in New York. Of course, you go five, 10 years in the

750
00:56:17,820 --> 00:56:21,640
future, and you're going to see the long term results of this, which are going to be ultimately

751
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:28,000
destructive. But it's like, I wish I wish we could for once like learn from history, but it appears

752
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:29,720
we are always doomed to repeat it.

753
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:33,660
You know, I find that surprising

754
00:56:33,660 --> 00:56:35,620
when I see stuff like that

755
00:56:35,620 --> 00:56:40,040
in countries like the US, frankly.

756
00:56:40,900 --> 00:56:47,300
But again, that's the challenge

757
00:56:47,300 --> 00:56:53,600
when you have the gap between the wealthy

758
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:57,940
and the working class is large.

759
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:05,480
right it it's almost like it's like i think i think it was elon who who tweeted about this

760
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:12,400
this difference between uh poverty and and and envy which is poverty is just like there's a

761
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:17,700
difference between the the poverty and envy right like poverty as in meeting basic needs

762
00:57:17,700 --> 00:57:22,400
can can and probably is very close to being resolved through technology right like a place

763
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:27,500
to sleep a place to eat a place to work some basic access to health care some access to a basic

764
00:57:27,500 --> 00:57:32,240
education like those things can be solved for with technology what can't be solved for with

765
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:38,060
technology is billy my neighbor just bought a second range rover right and all i have is this

766
00:57:38,060 --> 00:57:45,920
fiat this fiat car right like hmm i wonder what billy's doing right like billy's probably billy's

767
00:57:45,920 --> 00:57:52,320
making so much money that you know let's just say billy's a a banker oh no these bankers man like

768
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:55,840
they're just making way too much money they should not be making much money they should be paying me

769
00:57:55,840 --> 00:58:03,600
more money because billy has two range rovers and i only have a uh one car right like i think

770
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:11,780
some of that i think more of the of the sort of demand and fervor for these equalizing policies

771
00:58:11,780 --> 00:58:21,480
comes from that versus i you know i i really you know my my daughter's starving right because i

772
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:26,980
can't get food for her right i i don't know i mean i'm not i'm not here trying to tell you that

773
00:58:26,980 --> 00:58:31,320
there's poverty in the states and there are no issues and blah blah blah but i'm saying broadly

774
00:58:31,320 --> 00:58:37,760
speaking um i think it comes more from a place of those people are making way too much money

775
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:43,900
than from a place of i don't have enough right uh maybe maybe it is maybe they maybe they don't

776
00:58:43,900 --> 00:58:49,500
have enough but but i think some of it is actually subjective right like uh i i people in africa

777
00:58:49,500 --> 00:58:55,440
would kill to have a suburban, you know, Bronx or Queens or whatever it is that you live in

778
00:58:55,440 --> 00:59:01,540
lifestyle, whether as challenged as you think it might be, right? A Venezuelan, Venezuelans risk

779
00:59:01,540 --> 00:59:09,720
their lives trying to get to America to be whatever they can be, janitors, whatever they get,

780
00:59:10,040 --> 00:59:15,700
right? And live wherever they can. People in Cuba risk their lives to get to that. People in Venezuela

781
00:59:15,700 --> 00:59:18,880
that risked their lives to get to that, to cross the Dariang, to get to America.

782
00:59:19,820 --> 00:59:24,920
And, you know, some people are in America, arguably, in better conditions than a recently

783
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:27,100
arrived immigrant, but they just want to be better.

784
00:59:27,460 --> 00:59:30,280
They want to be like the other guy, right?

785
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:42,440
And so, the other part is that it's a good narrative.

786
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:44,460
It comes from a place of good intentions.

787
00:59:44,780 --> 00:59:45,340
Does that make sense?

788
00:59:45,340 --> 00:59:56,880
It's like, who's going to, who's, you have to be a monster to, to get up and openly say, no, you, nobody should have access to, we should all, we should not all have access to healthcare.

789
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:01,520
That sounds very unpalatable, right?

790
01:00:01,620 --> 01:00:07,760
And some of that, it forces you to go out and almost have to say that or take that position to go against the position.

791
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:10,420
And then you sound like a lunatic, right?

792
01:00:10,420 --> 01:00:11,500
Does that make sense?

793
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:15,900
Because, oh, my God, why would he ever be against everybody having access to health care?

794
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:20,600
That sounds like a noble thing to say, right?

795
01:00:20,900 --> 01:00:22,800
And why not?

796
01:00:23,740 --> 01:00:30,300
You as a human, you want your other fellow humans to be healthy and to never be in a position where they can't, you know.

797
01:00:30,920 --> 01:00:34,060
But then you go to the reality of, like, go run the hospital.

798
01:00:34,740 --> 01:00:37,040
You go run that hospital, right?

799
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:38,640
And that's the thing.

800
01:00:38,640 --> 01:00:45,220
those of us who have operated those who have who have run businesses listen i'm all for everybody

801
01:00:45,220 --> 01:00:50,680
being healthy and having everything they need i just my i think the thing that many people are

802
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:55,800
saying is we just have to have a plan because nothing in this world is free this this this

803
01:00:55,800 --> 01:01:01,020
money that they're giving us it's coming from someone else right and if we start demanding more

804
01:01:01,020 --> 01:01:05,480
and more and more money from them they might say it's not worth it for them to be here right like

805
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:06,560
Look at what happened in the UK.

806
01:01:06,900 --> 01:01:09,260
Oh, we're going to increase the wealthy tax.

807
01:01:09,460 --> 01:01:10,220
It's going to be great.

808
01:01:10,300 --> 01:01:11,360
We're going to double the revenue.

809
01:01:11,980 --> 01:01:12,660
They went, they left.

810
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:14,940
They left.

811
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:16,840
Because that's the thing.

812
01:01:18,060 --> 01:01:22,060
And that's also the challenge when you're a government,

813
01:01:22,180 --> 01:01:23,960
you're trying to balance these two tensions, right?

814
01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:29,300
Like capital has a lot more mobility than labor.

815
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:30,740
Does that make sense?

816
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:34,660
Like if capital is a lot more mobile than labor,

817
01:01:34,660 --> 01:01:41,100
Like if you don't set the right, I don't know, the right foundation.

818
01:01:41,380 --> 01:01:43,280
Yeah, the right conditions for capital to be there.

819
01:01:43,420 --> 01:01:45,440
Capital has other options.

820
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:49,060
And capital very quickly can move easier than a person.

821
01:01:49,160 --> 01:01:51,640
If you want to move a person, you got to get a visa.

822
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:52,600
You got to get a work permit.

823
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:53,380
You got to get a passport.

824
01:01:53,740 --> 01:01:55,040
You got to sell your house.

825
01:01:55,120 --> 01:01:55,860
You got to sell your car.

826
01:01:55,920 --> 01:01:56,600
You got to rent the place.

827
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:57,740
You got to find school for your kids.

828
01:01:58,760 --> 01:01:59,940
Very hard to move a person.

829
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:04,580
Moving capital, it's like, where do you want the wire?

830
01:02:04,660 --> 01:02:11,100
right like yeah and so that's the that's the other challenge right and and that's also what

831
01:02:11,100 --> 01:02:18,040
happened in venezuela capital gradually left capital was the first to flee but then it got

832
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:21,380
to the point where even though all of our skilled workers started leaving because there was no

833
01:02:21,380 --> 01:02:25,840
opportunity so it capital leaves first but that doesn't mean qualified labor doesn't leave

834
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:32,420
qualified labor needs capital so the the the the the horrible thing about brain drain is that

835
01:02:32,420 --> 01:02:39,700
happens from the top down the first every the people that leave the first are the guys with the

836
01:02:39,700 --> 01:02:44,260
most wealth the most opportunity the most options and then it's just going down the pipe down the

837
01:02:44,260 --> 01:02:49,160
list down the list till you get to basically the bottom when it becomes a migration crisis

838
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:54,120
there was a saying or there is a saying that says you know the first the first immigrants

839
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:59,940
uh leave by plane right like you you pick a plane you go out you get you get you land you

840
01:02:59,940 --> 01:03:04,500
have a work permit you have a visa you have money you can relocate no problem the second wave of

841
01:03:04,500 --> 01:03:09,700
immigrants leaves on train or bus right there oh well we got i got a friend there relative over

842
01:03:09,700 --> 01:03:16,540
here he got me a gig over there the third wave by the time the third wave comes nobody wants to

843
01:03:16,540 --> 01:03:22,080
accept them because the the first guys came with a lot of money the same the second guys came with

844
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:27,020
some skill the third guys are just coming to save their ass right like they're they're coming with

845
01:03:27,020 --> 01:03:32,820
like pants pots and pants and whatever they're wearing because the regime has just taken everything

846
01:03:32,820 --> 01:03:40,020
from them right as a nation i and this is the reality every every nation wanted us when we were

847
01:03:40,020 --> 01:03:44,280
the plane guys i remember this because there were no visa restrictions everybody was like oh yeah

848
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:49,120
venezuelans come oh great talent coming from venezuela do you know anybody that's like we're

849
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:54,760
happy to hire and then the second wave was like okay well you you have great qualifications we

850
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:58,840
can pay you less than when we're paying these professionals and you have the same qualifications.

851
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:04,480
Oh yeah, for sure. Get over here. Then the third guys are coming in. A lot of them without

852
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:10,520
a passport. Many of them weren't able to make it to university or they went to some, the

853
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:21,648
only thing they could afford was some regime indoctrination university And that degree is as good as toilet paper And so they have very really fortifications

854
01:04:21,928 --> 01:04:22,328
And of course,

855
01:04:22,448 --> 01:04:24,428
when those guys start coming in,

856
01:04:24,448 --> 01:04:25,228
all the governments were like,

857
01:04:25,468 --> 01:04:27,408
we have a migration crisis in our hands.

858
01:04:27,968 --> 01:04:29,528
This is horrible.

859
01:04:30,088 --> 01:04:30,388
I'm like,

860
01:04:30,508 --> 01:04:32,108
why weren't you ringing the alarms

861
01:04:32,108 --> 01:04:32,968
when the people,

862
01:04:33,188 --> 01:04:34,208
when the first guys were coming in

863
01:04:34,208 --> 01:04:34,908
and buying homes

864
01:04:34,908 --> 01:04:36,308
and sending their kids to private school?

865
01:04:36,988 --> 01:04:37,208
Right?

866
01:04:37,268 --> 01:04:37,608
Like, no,

867
01:04:37,728 --> 01:04:38,728
they ring the alarms

868
01:04:38,728 --> 01:04:40,608
when the last guys show up.

869
01:04:40,608 --> 01:04:42,888
and anyway

870
01:04:42,888 --> 01:04:43,768
that's just

871
01:04:43,768 --> 01:04:46,908
another added challenge to how to rebuild

872
01:04:46,908 --> 01:04:48,928
a country, right? Your best people leave

873
01:04:48,928 --> 01:04:50,968
first and those

874
01:04:50,968 --> 01:04:52,948
guys, funny enough, have the highest chances

875
01:04:52,948 --> 01:04:54,108
of making it abroad

876
01:04:54,108 --> 01:04:56,528
and even if you turn things around

877
01:04:56,528 --> 01:04:59,088
if you left Venezuela

878
01:04:59,088 --> 01:05:00,828
you did very well for yourself abroad

879
01:05:00,828 --> 01:05:02,748
and now Venezuela's free again

880
01:05:02,748 --> 01:05:07,228
you would really have to think hard

881
01:05:07,228 --> 01:05:09,328
if that's what you want your kids to go back to

882
01:05:09,328 --> 01:05:10,588
after everything you've lived through

883
01:05:10,588 --> 01:05:17,628
And again, the sort of PTSD that you had from having somebody knock on your door and threaten you.

884
01:05:18,208 --> 01:05:21,828
Right. And so it'll take time to rebuild it.

885
01:05:21,888 --> 01:05:23,108
But I'm confident that we will.

886
01:05:23,568 --> 01:05:25,008
I'm confident that we will.

887
01:05:25,948 --> 01:05:29,928
Because Venezuela just has way too much going for it.

888
01:05:30,368 --> 01:05:33,868
It's got a great.

889
01:05:34,648 --> 01:05:37,028
I think of oil as a blessing and a curse, frankly.

890
01:05:38,168 --> 01:05:39,468
It's a blessing in some ways.

891
01:05:39,468 --> 01:05:40,808
It's a big curse in other ways.

892
01:05:41,928 --> 01:05:44,588
But for better or worse, we have it.

893
01:05:45,088 --> 01:05:47,508
And in the right hands, it can really help the country.

894
01:05:48,728 --> 01:05:53,568
We have incredible, just everything, geopolitical location, weather,

895
01:05:55,268 --> 01:05:56,708
potential for tourism.

896
01:05:59,488 --> 01:06:02,508
And we have great human capital.

897
01:06:02,768 --> 01:06:04,548
It's just that a lot of it is no longer in Venezuela.

898
01:06:05,448 --> 01:06:07,328
But I think we can get it back.

899
01:06:07,548 --> 01:06:08,608
I think we can get us back.

900
01:06:08,608 --> 01:06:13,388
I'll include myself in there because I would love nothing but to help rebuild the country.

901
01:06:14,228 --> 01:06:23,128
Let me ask you, because obviously we have an example of a country that seemed like it was too far over the edge to come back in El Salvador.

902
01:06:24,108 --> 01:06:28,848
We've now with also a massive diaspora of people who left El Salvador.

903
01:06:29,168 --> 01:06:36,188
Different circumstances than Venezuela, but murder capital of the world for a very long time.

904
01:06:36,188 --> 01:06:39,948
And Bukele obviously changed that paradigm.

905
01:06:40,708 --> 01:06:47,088
And now I know personally multiple people who moved to the States from El Salvador years ago.

906
01:06:47,128 --> 01:06:47,708
Their families came.

907
01:06:48,128 --> 01:06:49,308
And now they're moving back.

908
01:06:49,528 --> 01:06:50,888
They're bringing their families back.

909
01:06:51,268 --> 01:06:52,608
That says a lot.

910
01:06:52,608 --> 01:07:00,948
It says a lot when people who fled a country for America, for the American dream, decide to leave and go back home.

911
01:07:00,948 --> 01:07:06,628
what do you think it takes to get Venezuela back to like,

912
01:07:06,628 --> 01:07:09,468
to get it to that level where El Salvador is at,

913
01:07:09,548 --> 01:07:11,928
where obviously El Salvador is still, is still building, right?

914
01:07:11,948 --> 01:07:14,808
It's still developing. It's not saying it's free of problems,

915
01:07:14,808 --> 01:07:18,148
but from all of the friends that I have there, all the people I know,

916
01:07:18,728 --> 01:07:21,668
I'm happy to be able to say there's like a lot of them now.

917
01:07:21,728 --> 01:07:26,328
I've met a lot of, you know, El Salvadorans both here and in the U S and there,

918
01:07:26,328 --> 01:07:32,528
but it's like it's an amazing story to watch because whatever whatever whatever you think

919
01:07:32,528 --> 01:07:39,028
like you cannot deny the reality of people who left their country and now are willing to come

920
01:07:39,028 --> 01:07:42,468
back to it and excited to come back to it and to try and build something and have that pride

921
01:07:42,468 --> 01:07:47,948
what do you think that takes for Venezuela I mean maybe a better question what would that take for

922
01:07:47,948 --> 01:07:55,868
you great question and and this actually gets into an interesting point around El Salvador

923
01:07:55,868 --> 01:08:04,308
which is the biggest thing you can do is so i have a family right like i have kids and i'm married

924
01:08:04,308 --> 01:08:13,188
okay and i my first the first thing i think about was once you have kids right like is

925
01:08:13,188 --> 01:08:22,408
are my kids going to be safe that's that's my number one priority before bitcoin before you

926
01:08:22,408 --> 01:08:30,608
know business before labor law whether i look at security safety right it's one of the things i love

927
01:08:30,608 --> 01:08:34,688
about being where i am which is the cayman islands is one of the safest places in the world

928
01:08:34,688 --> 01:08:45,828
venezuelans like listen i can accept imperfect crypto regulation i can live with imperfect

929
01:08:45,828 --> 01:08:50,028
crypto regulation in fact we've been living with it since crypto started right there's never been

930
01:08:50,028 --> 01:08:57,368
such thing as perfect regulations so i can accept that i can accept you know i don't mean this isn't

931
01:08:57,368 --> 01:09:02,088
the case in venezuela but i can accept crappy weather or the seasons of crappy seasons of

932
01:09:02,088 --> 01:09:13,268
weather like i can tolerate that um what i will not tolerate is the the my my physical safety the

933
01:09:13,268 --> 01:09:18,928
physical safety of myself and my children or the perception of of risk for myself and my family

934
01:09:18,928 --> 01:09:23,208
I think what Bukele has done best in El Salvador

935
01:09:23,208 --> 01:09:26,748
the biggest change to the lives of the people in El Salvador

936
01:09:26,748 --> 01:09:28,368
has not come from Bitcoin

937
01:09:28,368 --> 01:09:32,228
it has come from the fact that he cleaned up the streets

938
01:09:32,228 --> 01:09:34,688
I know that for many people listening

939
01:09:34,688 --> 01:09:36,188
they might not have the full context

940
01:09:36,188 --> 01:09:40,628
but to be able to be in a country in Central America

941
01:09:40,628 --> 01:09:43,328
walk through downtown

942
01:09:43,328 --> 01:09:45,488
with your iPhone out

943
01:09:45,488 --> 01:09:49,448
recording yourself at night

944
01:09:49,448 --> 01:09:53,948
when people in LATAM see that

945
01:09:53,948 --> 01:09:56,488
this is why Bukele is a rock star in LATAM

946
01:09:56,488 --> 01:10:00,088
because none of us can do that anywhere else in LATAM

947
01:10:00,088 --> 01:10:02,368
as trivial as that may be

948
01:10:02,368 --> 01:10:05,568
try to go and do that in Nicaragua

949
01:10:05,568 --> 01:10:09,348
go try to do that in Honduras

950
01:10:09,348 --> 01:10:12,868
go ahead, go try to do it in Guatemala

951
01:10:12,868 --> 01:10:14,788
or Venezuela

952
01:10:14,788 --> 01:10:16,288
or Colombia

953
01:10:16,288 --> 01:10:17,208
anywhere you go

954
01:10:17,208 --> 01:10:18,168
just try it

955
01:10:18,168 --> 01:10:19,028
try it

956
01:10:19,028 --> 01:10:19,988
you won't dare

957
01:10:19,988 --> 01:10:21,648
you'll have people

958
01:10:21,648 --> 01:10:22,428
walking right by you

959
01:10:22,428 --> 01:10:22,748
be like

960
01:10:22,748 --> 01:10:24,208
hijo guarde eso

961
01:10:24,208 --> 01:10:24,828
like

962
01:10:24,828 --> 01:10:25,628
son

963
01:10:25,628 --> 01:10:26,048
son

964
01:10:26,048 --> 01:10:26,868
put that away

965
01:10:26,868 --> 01:10:27,768
put that away son

966
01:10:27,768 --> 01:10:28,148
like people

967
01:10:28,148 --> 01:10:29,348
good Samaritans

968
01:10:29,348 --> 01:10:31,508
will come and tell you

969
01:10:31,508 --> 01:10:31,768
right

970
01:10:31,768 --> 01:10:33,648
anywhere

971
01:10:33,648 --> 01:10:34,308
so

972
01:10:34,308 --> 01:10:35,688
what really

973
01:10:35,688 --> 01:10:36,588
and I spoke

974
01:10:36,588 --> 01:10:38,208
I've spoken to many El Salvadorians

975
01:10:38,208 --> 01:10:39,188
I go at least once a year

976
01:10:39,188 --> 01:10:39,968
I'm heading there

977
01:10:39,968 --> 01:10:40,508
in a few weeks

978
01:10:40,508 --> 01:10:41,008
for plan B

979
01:10:41,008 --> 01:10:42,128
so shout out to anyone

980
01:10:42,128 --> 01:10:42,908
I'm listening to you be there.

981
01:10:43,008 --> 01:10:43,308
See you.

982
01:10:43,428 --> 01:10:44,148
See you in El Salvador.

983
01:10:46,548 --> 01:10:48,528
Ask any Salvadorian,

984
01:10:49,128 --> 01:10:51,568
what has been the biggest difference for you since Bukele came in?

985
01:10:51,828 --> 01:10:52,668
And they'll tell you.

986
01:10:54,128 --> 01:10:55,808
I've been with taxi drivers that said,

987
01:10:56,448 --> 01:10:58,548
sir, Bukele actually makes me make more money

988
01:10:58,548 --> 01:11:02,588
because in the past I used to have to park my car at 6 p.m.

989
01:11:02,588 --> 01:11:03,928
It was too dangerous to drive at night.

990
01:11:04,828 --> 01:11:07,748
Now I can drive all throughout the night.

991
01:11:08,248 --> 01:11:10,628
I can drive all throughout 3 a.m., 4 a.m.

992
01:11:10,628 --> 01:11:11,488
taking people to the airport,

993
01:11:11,488 --> 01:11:12,728
and I'm making a lot more money.

994
01:11:13,188 --> 01:11:14,688
And it's great and it's safer.

995
01:11:15,688 --> 01:11:17,348
The part of town where I used to live,

996
01:11:17,428 --> 01:11:20,028
I would never let my kids out of the house after 5 p.m.

997
01:11:20,368 --> 01:11:23,568
Now my kids can go out and play and run and kick the ball.

998
01:11:28,428 --> 01:11:30,088
Like feeling that way,

999
01:11:30,428 --> 01:11:33,208
like being empowered to feel physically safe

1000
01:11:33,208 --> 01:11:36,488
is the number one motivator for you to go out

1001
01:11:36,488 --> 01:11:38,308
and do something productive.

1002
01:11:38,828 --> 01:11:41,108
Like it is very hard.

1003
01:11:41,108 --> 01:11:48,508
I'll tell you from experience, it is very hard to focus on anything productive when you're always

1004
01:11:48,508 --> 01:11:55,228
checking, oh, lock your windows, thing to thing, be back by seven, be back by seven, dude, don't

1005
01:11:55,228 --> 01:12:00,548
dare stay by seven, there's so-and-so, I heard gunshots at so-and-so, or they'll call you and

1006
01:12:00,548 --> 01:12:05,948
they'll say, oh, so-and-so's kid just got kidnapped, be careful, right, we got to take two cars, this

1007
01:12:05,948 --> 01:12:10,348
is another common one growing up, it's like, take two cars, take two cars, don't you dare go there

1008
01:12:10,348 --> 01:12:17,948
in one car because god forbid your tire goes flat at 10 p.m you get a flat tire in a minnesota

1009
01:12:17,948 --> 01:12:26,608
highway at 10 p.m man good luck um so again going back to what i think it'll take

1010
01:12:26,608 --> 01:12:32,748
i think it'll take cleaning up the death squats i think it'll take

1011
01:12:32,748 --> 01:12:42,728
knowing that the rule of law has come back i think it'll take some uh some very public

1012
01:12:42,728 --> 01:12:49,368
trials and processes so that people can witness that justice is back does that make sense

1013
01:12:49,368 --> 01:13:05,056
like you need to make almost like a like an emblematic case to show or go after a particular gang right like go crush those gangs don stop until they done Jail all of them Make it very public right So that everybody gets the message

1014
01:13:06,776 --> 01:13:10,076
F around, find out, right?

1015
01:13:10,096 --> 01:13:12,436
Like we are now in a rules-based country.

1016
01:13:12,996 --> 01:13:14,116
You follow the rules.

1017
01:13:14,736 --> 01:13:16,016
There's no side deals.

1018
01:13:16,476 --> 01:13:18,256
There's no handshakes.

1019
01:13:18,376 --> 01:13:21,036
There's no hit me up over here and I'll let you go.

1020
01:13:21,176 --> 01:13:21,836
That's gone.

1021
01:13:21,936 --> 01:13:23,496
That's done, right?

1022
01:13:23,496 --> 01:13:25,676
And I think Bukele has done that very well in El Salvador.

1023
01:13:25,916 --> 01:13:27,296
I hope to see the same in Venezuela.

1024
01:13:27,936 --> 01:13:31,396
And I think once that happens, you're not just going to see me.

1025
01:13:31,516 --> 01:13:36,956
You're going to see a lot of Venezuelans go back and put a toehold back in the country.

1026
01:13:37,256 --> 01:13:43,956
Whether we move, definitely, or go and start making moves to basically position ourselves.

1027
01:13:44,316 --> 01:13:47,296
But you will see a lot more activity.

1028
01:13:47,416 --> 01:13:49,096
That's what's holding many people back right now.

1029
01:13:50,456 --> 01:13:52,036
I mean, it makes total sense.

1030
01:13:52,036 --> 01:13:59,816
It reminds me of just like something that Bastiat wrote about, which is like what is the purpose of the government?

1031
01:14:00,036 --> 01:14:02,916
What is the purpose, the actual purpose of the state if you distill it down?

1032
01:14:02,996 --> 01:14:04,676
Well, it's to enforce the law.

1033
01:14:05,096 --> 01:14:06,336
Okay, what is the purpose of the law?

1034
01:14:06,736 --> 01:14:09,816
Well, that's basically just to organize for the collective defense of private property.

1035
01:14:09,956 --> 01:14:20,256
So therefore, very simply, the only purpose, the real core purpose of the government of the state is just to keep people's private property safe from plunderers.

1036
01:14:20,256 --> 01:14:25,516
the problem is this is what bastiat wrote about right and you see it coming true time and time

1037
01:14:25,516 --> 01:14:32,116
again is when the state becomes the plunderer they become the ones either they're not they're

1038
01:14:32,116 --> 01:14:36,256
one not protecting you from the plunderers from the gangs from the whatever from the people who

1039
01:14:36,256 --> 01:14:41,236
would do you harm they're not keeping your even your physical body safe which is like that is the

1040
01:14:41,236 --> 01:14:46,116
ultimate form of private property right it's like yourself this body but furthermore when they become

1041
01:14:46,116 --> 01:14:48,776
the ones who are actually doing the plundering of their citizens.

1042
01:14:48,776 --> 01:14:50,396
So now they're perverting the law.

1043
01:14:50,516 --> 01:14:52,056
And this is what you see in Venezuela.

1044
01:14:52,176 --> 01:14:56,056
This is what, I mean, every socialist and communist country devolves into is the people

1045
01:14:56,056 --> 01:15:00,556
at the top, because shocker, there are people at the top, even if in your communist utopia,

1046
01:15:00,696 --> 01:15:01,956
there are always people at the top.

1047
01:15:02,716 --> 01:15:06,916
They are taking advantage and they are using the law that they have perverted to be able

1048
01:15:06,916 --> 01:15:08,956
to plunder their own citizens.

1049
01:15:09,196 --> 01:15:13,616
And that is ultimately like, if you want to have like, that's why countries with strong

1050
01:15:13,616 --> 01:15:18,776
property rights are ones that people flee to. They don't flee to communist countries. They don't

1051
01:15:18,776 --> 01:15:24,456
flee to socialist countries. They flee to as close to a capitalist country as we can get. We can

1052
01:15:24,456 --> 01:15:27,536
debate whether or not we're, you know, we're even full capitalist because we got central bankers

1053
01:15:27,536 --> 01:15:33,156
controlling our money. That's a different story. Point being, if places people want to go or places

1054
01:15:33,156 --> 01:15:37,776
they know their property is going to be respected, because if not, you cannot, you cannot build

1055
01:15:37,776 --> 01:15:41,216
anything. Fundamentally, you're not going to build a business. You're not going to build a family.

1056
01:15:41,216 --> 01:15:45,436
You're not going to buy a house if you don't think you can actually keep that house.

1057
01:15:45,776 --> 01:15:51,896
You're not going to buy a business if you're afraid that the state like Venezuela did will come and commandeer your business and expropriate it.

1058
01:15:52,216 --> 01:15:53,496
You're not going to do any of those things.

1059
01:15:53,736 --> 01:15:54,296
Why would you?

1060
01:15:54,336 --> 01:15:58,816
Why would you build anything if the government can just take it away immediately, right?

1061
01:15:59,456 --> 01:16:00,616
No one's going to do that.

1062
01:16:01,376 --> 01:16:04,756
No, and this is why I think that's spot on.

1063
01:16:04,756 --> 01:16:10,116
And so many of the problems in societies start happening.

1064
01:16:10,116 --> 01:16:17,696
So I can't remember who said this, but it stuck with me because I thought it was really funny and pointed, which is capitalism is only fun when you have capital.

1065
01:16:18,436 --> 01:16:21,376
Right. Like capitalism without capital isn't very fun.

1066
01:16:21,376 --> 01:16:29,236
Right. And so pulling from that thread, property rights are really important if you have property.

1067
01:16:30,176 --> 01:16:33,976
A lot of people don't have any property. Right.

1068
01:16:33,976 --> 01:16:46,356
And so this is why the, when the balance of property holders and non-property holders breaks, you start basically always going at the beck and call of the non-property.

1069
01:16:46,356 --> 01:16:49,416
Because again, just in the standard distribution, right?

1070
01:16:49,456 --> 01:16:56,156
Like on average, I would want to believe that 50% plus of the population owns something.

1071
01:16:56,516 --> 01:17:01,896
You know, your house, some stock, whatever, Bitcoin, you know, whatever you want to own, but you own something.

1072
01:17:01,896 --> 01:17:07,836
so much of the population is paycheck to paycheck they don't own anything they in fact have negative

1073
01:17:07,836 --> 01:17:13,596
property they have they have debt does that make sense like they've already used other people's

1074
01:17:13,596 --> 01:17:18,316
property they need to give it back so they have basically like no property they have negative

1075
01:17:18,316 --> 01:17:24,196
property right and on the other side you have this accumulation of property and and the way things go

1076
01:17:24,196 --> 01:17:28,016
is like when you're really good at something you tend to actually like just break away and break

1077
01:17:28,016 --> 01:17:31,356
away and break away and you make more and more and more money right that's why you have these mag

1078
01:17:31,356 --> 01:17:37,596
seven and like the winners went big and and you know the people over here just they never change

1079
01:17:37,596 --> 01:17:43,516
so you you always have these increasingly more more concentrated capital and and unfortunately

1080
01:17:43,516 --> 01:17:48,696
fewer hands which is something that you know we can argue here whether it's it's a sustainable

1081
01:17:48,696 --> 01:17:53,356
thing or not but i think naturally speaking without guardrails that's what typically happens

1082
01:17:53,356 --> 01:17:58,916
and so you get to a point where you have the property you know people with property are like

1083
01:17:58,916 --> 01:18:01,956
property rights, property rights are important. Like, this is why we did all this. Like, we,

1084
01:18:02,056 --> 01:18:05,956
we create all these jobs, we build all these things. Like, I don't want us to get taken away.

1085
01:18:06,016 --> 01:18:09,796
It's my life's work, right? But on the other hand, you have these other people saying,

1086
01:18:10,016 --> 01:18:16,076
well, those property rights do nothing for me, right? Like, I want labor rights. I want, I want

1087
01:18:16,076 --> 01:18:21,956
you to basically say, you know, you got all that money from me, right? Like, I was the one putting

1088
01:18:21,956 --> 01:18:26,676
in the hours. I was the one putting in the sweat. I need some of your money. And there's more of us

1089
01:18:26,676 --> 01:18:33,596
than there are of you so let's organize ourselves and put our boy here up on the helm and our boy is

1090
01:18:33,596 --> 01:18:39,596
going to redistribute all that wealth right and so for me that's why i hound so hard around we need

1091
01:18:39,596 --> 01:18:48,476
to create owners of things we need to give people agency to own stuff because only once you own stuff

1092
01:18:48,476 --> 01:18:57,496
you value property rights right before you own stuff or even if you owe stuff you don't even

1093
01:18:57,496 --> 01:19:01,796
care so much about property rights in fact you want negative property rights because you have

1094
01:19:01,796 --> 01:19:09,296
negative property does that make sense and so 100 for me i've always harped on this idea that

1095
01:19:09,296 --> 01:19:17,096
we need people to own assets whether that's real estate or bitcoin or gold or some asset just own

1096
01:19:17,096 --> 01:19:24,316
an asset because opening an asset gives you agency, gives you and ensures that we're always

1097
01:19:24,316 --> 01:19:31,156
going to want to seek a balance, right? Between property rights and labor rights. And again,

1098
01:19:31,336 --> 01:19:35,596
it's not about one side is right and the other side is wrong. It's about balance and being

1099
01:19:35,596 --> 01:19:41,736
mutually respectful. Yeah. And I think the, because you've made a bunch of good points there.

1100
01:19:41,736 --> 01:19:53,116
And I think the, one of the key things is that people, the, the mistake that people make, it's reasonable to say, Hey, this economy, whatever, isn't working out for me.

1101
01:19:53,136 --> 01:19:54,076
The rich keep getting richer.

1102
01:19:54,196 --> 01:19:55,136
The poor keep getting poor.

1103
01:19:55,256 --> 01:19:56,516
What's something's broken here, right?

1104
01:19:56,916 --> 01:20:03,396
The problem is that people identify, it's easy to identify like the, the symptoms of the problem, right?

1105
01:20:03,396 --> 01:20:04,716
It's easy to identify those symptoms.

1106
01:20:05,136 --> 01:20:07,636
It's difficult for people to get at the underlying cause.

1107
01:20:07,716 --> 01:20:09,456
What's the actual disease, right?

1108
01:20:09,496 --> 01:20:11,676
And so they think they try to treat the symptoms.

1109
01:20:11,736 --> 01:20:18,256
And it's like, and if you're, it's like, if you're sick with, with cancer, but you have a scratch on your arm, it's like putting a bandaid on isn't going to, isn't going to fix your cancer.

1110
01:20:18,256 --> 01:20:18,616
Right.

1111
01:20:18,696 --> 01:20:23,176
Or like somebody, you know, like you try, you know, anything like you need to get to the disease underneath.

1112
01:20:23,936 --> 01:20:28,316
And the problem is that people tend to say, well, we have all this inequality.

1113
01:20:28,316 --> 01:20:29,116
So what can we do?

1114
01:20:29,176 --> 01:20:33,196
Well, we need to give the government more power and the government will then fix it.

1115
01:20:33,196 --> 01:20:33,336
Right.

1116
01:20:33,356 --> 01:20:36,236
But that's always the solution is let's give the government more power.

1117
01:20:36,236 --> 01:20:46,896
When in reality, so much of the distortions that we see in the market are caused by market distortions caused by interventionism by the state, right?

1118
01:20:47,376 --> 01:20:52,416
And then that's not to say that there can't ever be like some, maybe some forms of like good intervention.

1119
01:20:52,416 --> 01:21:02,436
But it's tough to pinpoint them because ultimately anything that a centralized group does, they have to assume that they are smarter than the free market of people making choices.

1120
01:21:03,256 --> 01:21:07,236
Disparities naturally exist in societies, in nature.

1121
01:21:07,656 --> 01:21:08,936
Inequalities naturally exist.

1122
01:21:09,616 --> 01:21:13,356
Oftentimes, I mean, government subsidies exacerbate those things, right?

1123
01:21:13,496 --> 01:21:17,376
Like that's one of the huge problems with subsidies is that they distort the free market.

1124
01:21:17,956 --> 01:21:20,276
And so that's the difficult thing is trying to convince people that like,

1125
01:21:21,136 --> 01:21:25,116
look, the answer to this isn't that we need to give a couple of guys in power

1126
01:21:25,116 --> 01:21:27,996
that are saying words you like a bunch more power,

1127
01:21:27,996 --> 01:21:29,036
and they're going to fix everything.

1128
01:21:29,116 --> 01:21:29,896
That's all going to be great.

1129
01:21:29,896 --> 01:21:37,636
that that just never works it never works and but you know the difficulty is trying to convince

1130
01:21:37,636 --> 01:21:52,164
them that no actually what we need is like less intervention or we need less you know we need uh more emphasis on you know just generally freedom right and the freedom of individuals to make their own choices That not as good of a slogan as hey here this guy with a nice smile and a nice voice

1131
01:21:52,164 --> 01:21:53,604
And he says he's going to fix everything.

1132
01:21:53,844 --> 01:21:59,724
And all we have to do is take out these people that I already am envious of and I already hate.

1133
01:21:59,724 --> 01:22:09,684
So it's like you're never – like it's an impossible argument to win to say like, no, what you need is less of that guy with the nice smile and the nice words.

1134
01:22:09,764 --> 01:22:10,644
You need less of that.

1135
01:22:10,704 --> 01:22:15,324
You need to give him no power at all actually because he's going to make this worse.

1136
01:22:15,524 --> 01:22:20,964
You may think it gets better a little bit in the short term, but in the long term, it will make it worse and worse and worse.

1137
01:22:21,024 --> 01:22:27,304
That's why you see actually like the disparities in a pseudo-capitalist society are large, right, from the richest to the poorest naturally.

1138
01:22:27,304 --> 01:22:31,284
but you get into like a communist an actual communist society it's like

1139
01:22:31,284 --> 01:22:38,024
the haves in the communist society like the inner circle they are way way way way way richer because

1140
01:22:38,024 --> 01:22:43,524
everyone else is poor there is no middle ground there is no spectrum it's everyone is poor and

1141
01:22:43,524 --> 01:22:48,544
then there's a couple people that are insanely insanely wealthy with their offshore accounts

1142
01:22:48,544 --> 01:22:54,124
with you know pillaging the pillaging the resources and the and the and the you know

1143
01:22:54,124 --> 01:22:58,364
treasures of the nation. And you see this every time. But again, it's like the difficulty,

1144
01:22:59,064 --> 01:23:04,044
Mauricio, is trying to convince somebody that's just barely scraping by that, hey,

1145
01:23:04,104 --> 01:23:08,444
the answer is actually not more government. The answer is less government intervention.

1146
01:23:08,664 --> 01:23:13,304
You're never going to win that argument. So that's why I think your point is so valuable that,

1147
01:23:13,904 --> 01:23:18,284
well, how do you then actually flip the tide? By creating more owners. And that's where,

1148
01:23:18,284 --> 01:23:26,924
You know, Bitcoin doesn't fix everything, but it at least gives everyone who decides to a way to own something.

1149
01:23:27,224 --> 01:23:29,064
You can really own Bitcoin.

1150
01:23:29,564 --> 01:23:31,404
Right. And that's like that's a powerful thing.

1151
01:23:32,464 --> 01:23:32,824
Absolutely.

1152
01:23:33,104 --> 01:23:42,404
I think one of the biggest challenges with building owners is that the the size of the quality assets, I mean, the ticket size of a quality asset is just so high.

1153
01:23:42,524 --> 01:23:46,264
Right. Like a quality asset for most people is their home.

1154
01:23:46,264 --> 01:23:52,464
that's out of reach for, I would argue, 75 to 80% of Americans and most people around the world.

1155
01:23:52,624 --> 01:23:58,064
So now you have so many people in our generation and generations after us that are saying,

1156
01:23:58,184 --> 01:24:01,844
I'll never own a house. I'm just going to go gamble my life away on Polymarket,

1157
01:24:02,184 --> 01:24:05,524
or I'm just going to go gamble my life away on some shit coins.

1158
01:24:06,944 --> 01:24:11,384
That's financial nihilism. And we've almost divorced them from the idea they'll never own anything.

1159
01:24:11,384 --> 01:24:16,664
right and what i think is beautiful about bitcoin is that you can start it's it's digital property

1160
01:24:16,664 --> 01:24:22,384
that you can start buying in pennies in pennies worth a shot of a pop right you can buy a dollar

1161
01:24:22,384 --> 01:24:28,384
worth of bitcoin ten dollars worth of bitcoin it it helps you and at the same time you know you

1162
01:24:28,384 --> 01:24:34,144
could say okay stocks are quality assets and stocks can can uh but but again stocks require

1163
01:24:34,144 --> 01:24:38,584
too much thinking how am i am i picking the right stock am i evaluating their financial statements

1164
01:24:38,584 --> 01:24:44,444
what happens if one day they go up and the ceo makes an issue so you you again you you there's

1165
01:24:44,444 --> 01:24:48,004
no real clean the beautiful thing to think about the house is you don't have to think about it

1166
01:24:48,004 --> 01:24:52,524
oh i want a roof over my head i don't want to pay rent i'd rather be paying down my mortgage oh this

1167
01:24:52,524 --> 01:24:58,104
is great i'm just gonna go live here like i need to get one anyway but a stock is like which one

1168
01:24:58,104 --> 01:25:03,264
of these hundred thousand stocks am i supposed to pick if i pick the wrong one should i just buy an

1169
01:25:03,264 --> 01:25:09,904
index what's the index unit cost and again you're just like it's not a simple asset like the reason

1170
01:25:09,904 --> 01:25:15,104
boomers did so so so so well because they went out and they bought a house because they needed

1171
01:25:15,104 --> 01:25:19,904
to buy a house and they took a mortgage on it because why not and they just banked really really

1172
01:25:19,904 --> 01:25:27,564
hard accidentally and now they're great investors right but is not staring at the same opportunity

1173
01:25:27,564 --> 01:25:35,164
said right and i think again if we need to and as more and more of the boomers are exiting society

1174
01:25:35,164 --> 01:25:39,084
and more and more of our generation is entering society we're starting to tilt the balance of

1175
01:25:39,084 --> 01:25:43,464
asset owners and non-asset owners because we're rejecting asset owners and we're replacing them

1176
01:25:43,464 --> 01:25:49,224
with 10 times the amount of non-asset owners and of course you start seeing things like mandani and

1177
01:25:49,224 --> 01:25:56,364
unfortunately you're going to continue to see that stuff and you know the the the uh the beatings

1178
01:25:56,364 --> 01:26:03,704
will continue until the morale is restored or whatever the saying goes. Yeah, it's a sad reality.

1179
01:26:03,904 --> 01:26:07,784
And, you know, I want to be conscious of your time here because I know we're butting up on it.

1180
01:26:07,924 --> 01:26:13,644
As usual, when I talk to you, we get through about, you know, 10% of things that we wanted

1181
01:26:13,644 --> 01:26:18,244
to talk about, but that's okay. That just means we'll have to do it again. So just in the interest

1182
01:26:18,244 --> 01:26:23,024
of making sure I get you out of here on time, anything you want to end with, I mean, people

1183
01:26:23,024 --> 01:26:27,824
should also make sure to follow you on Noster as well.

1184
01:26:27,944 --> 01:26:28,844
I'll make sure to link your Noster

1185
01:26:28,844 --> 01:26:30,064
so we can pump up those numbers.

1186
01:26:30,484 --> 01:26:32,604
But where do you want to send people

1187
01:26:32,604 --> 01:26:35,064
or anything else you want to leave people with?

1188
01:26:36,484 --> 01:26:38,024
No, I would say, listen,

1189
01:26:38,744 --> 01:26:42,644
just stay close to the Venezuela story.

1190
01:26:43,844 --> 01:26:44,764
Talk to Venezuelans.

1191
01:26:44,904 --> 01:26:47,924
Don't try to get the opinions of Venezuelans from media.

1192
01:26:48,044 --> 01:26:49,224
Get it from actual Venezuelans.

1193
01:26:49,324 --> 01:26:49,744
Talk to us.

1194
01:26:49,744 --> 01:26:50,724
I have the open DMs.

1195
01:26:50,984 --> 01:26:52,524
DM me, dear Javier Bastardo.

1196
01:26:52,524 --> 01:26:53,364
There's many of us.

1197
01:26:53,444 --> 01:26:57,244
Jorge, like I can connect you with a plethora of other views if you don't want to hear mine.

1198
01:26:57,604 --> 01:26:59,144
But talk to people on the ground.

1199
01:26:59,324 --> 01:27:00,764
Talk to people with connections on the ground.

1200
01:27:01,324 --> 01:27:04,564
Don't let some media outlet shape your view.

1201
01:27:05,144 --> 01:27:06,344
Talk to the real people.

1202
01:27:07,964 --> 01:27:13,404
And I would say, you know, I think we're optimistic.

1203
01:27:13,744 --> 01:27:19,304
I think, you know, for once, I mean, my life is Bitcoin and I love Bitcoin.

1204
01:27:19,304 --> 01:27:22,624
And my other passion, obviously, is Venezuela and obviously my family.

1205
01:27:22,924 --> 01:27:31,824
But I've now I had I basically had to force myself and make my like self lobotomize my brain and remove the Venezuela part of my story just to remove the pain.

1206
01:27:32,244 --> 01:27:38,544
But now it's here. And I think if you want to understand how Venezuelans feel, just reach out to us.

1207
01:27:38,544 --> 01:27:42,504
We'll be happy to chat and we'll tell you we'll tell you how we see it and why.

1208
01:27:42,764 --> 01:27:45,864
And we'd love to hear your your take. Right. Everybody's views are valid.

1209
01:27:45,864 --> 01:27:54,424
But we are the people whose families are getting impacted by this, whose lives or livelihoods are at stake, whose life's work's at stake.

1210
01:27:55,064 --> 01:27:56,724
So talk to us.

1211
01:27:56,884 --> 01:27:57,884
We're happy to chat.

1212
01:27:58,144 --> 01:27:59,604
And I'm optimistic.

1213
01:27:59,944 --> 01:28:06,104
And hopefully you and anyone listening here can one day see the beauty of Venezuela with your own two eyes.

1214
01:28:06,424 --> 01:28:11,884
And if and when this thing opens up, I'll be inviting you and everyone else I know to come down and celebrate.

1215
01:28:13,044 --> 01:28:15,124
I cannot wait for that.

1216
01:28:15,124 --> 01:28:16,304
That's, yeah.

1217
01:28:16,464 --> 01:28:20,404
I mean, Venezuela looks like just incredibly beautiful from everything that I've seen.

1218
01:28:20,484 --> 01:28:22,484
Like, obviously, I've only seen pictures and videos and whatnot.

1219
01:28:22,684 --> 01:28:27,744
But wow, it's like this beautiful, beautiful country has been, you know, hidden.

1220
01:28:27,904 --> 01:28:30,324
Well, not hidden, but, you know, sealed off from the world for so long.

1221
01:28:30,944 --> 01:28:33,784
It's good that there's a chance that it can open up.

1222
01:28:33,804 --> 01:28:37,164
Because I am sure, like in El Salvador, tourism would explode.

1223
01:28:37,224 --> 01:28:39,124
And that's a huge boon to an economy.

1224
01:28:40,004 --> 01:28:40,244
Yeah.

1225
01:28:40,404 --> 01:28:43,544
And it's beyond your expectations.

1226
01:28:43,544 --> 01:28:45,804
It will surpass your every expectation.

1227
01:28:46,964 --> 01:28:47,864
I'm sure of it.

1228
01:28:48,024 --> 01:28:50,284
So I can't wait to see you and everyone else there soon.

1229
01:28:51,504 --> 01:28:52,464
I'll hold you to that.

1230
01:28:52,504 --> 01:28:53,244
I look forward to it.

1231
01:28:53,304 --> 01:28:55,184
Mauricio, thank you so much for your time.

1232
01:28:55,244 --> 01:28:56,664
It's always great to catch up.

1233
01:28:56,784 --> 01:28:58,224
Looking forward to chatting again soon.

1234
01:28:58,324 --> 01:29:02,124
But until then, yeah, we'll be following Venezuela very closely.

1235
01:29:02,324 --> 01:29:04,624
And thanks to you for actually breaking this down for people,

1236
01:29:04,724 --> 01:29:07,004
because I think it really matters to hear from somebody

1237
01:29:07,004 --> 01:29:08,264
who actually knows what they're talking about.

1238
01:29:09,024 --> 01:29:10,084
Hey, man, my pleasure.

1239
01:29:10,324 --> 01:29:11,804
Happy to do this again any other time.

1240
01:29:11,804 --> 01:29:13,864
And I'll see you in El Salvador.

1241
01:29:14,044 --> 01:29:15,764
If not, I'll see you at the Vibes Capital chat.

1242
01:29:17,064 --> 01:29:17,624
Absolutely.

1243
01:29:41,804 --> 01:29:46,624
Primal.net slash Walker and this podcast at Primal.net slash Titcoin.

1244
01:29:47,064 --> 01:29:50,484
On X, YouTube, and Rumble, just search at Walker America

1245
01:29:50,484 --> 01:29:55,044
and find this podcast on X and Instagram at Titcoin Podcast.

1246
01:29:55,784 --> 01:29:58,024
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links.

1247
01:29:58,144 --> 01:30:02,824
Head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you

1248
01:30:02,824 --> 01:30:06,624
and head to Bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else.

1249
01:30:07,164 --> 01:30:10,744
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.

1250
01:30:10,744 --> 01:30:16,084
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to The Bitcoin Podcast.

1251
01:30:16,964 --> 01:30:19,404
Until next time, stay free.