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and we're live philip pilkington welcome to the thank god for bitcoin podcast

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thanks for having me jordan good to be here i realize i'm sure this i mean did you ever imagine

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you'd be on a podcast called thank god for bitcoin i'm sure it was on your butt your bucket list

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uh and so we can knock one off today uh so for those for those who aren't familiar with your

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with your work, Philip, why don't you just kind of give an overview of who you are and what you do?

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Well, I guess by training, I'm an economist. I know you sent me a picture of my old book,

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which is kind of creepy. That was a long time ago now. That was 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago,

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I wrote that book. And so I was involved in the kind of, how would you put it, like the

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critical economics movement after 2008,

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rethinking economic theory and stuff like that.

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And then after that, I went into finance, investment finance,

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and I was there for nearly a decade working as basically a macro strategist

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on a portfolio.

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I lived in America for a while, in Boston and in London.

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And since the past few years, I've been basically working in

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interim policy.

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I'm currently working in foreign affairs in Hungary.

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I'm working for an international institute, so working on kind of geopolitical matters and so on.

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But I've always been interested in philosophy and stuff like that.

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It's always been a big interest of mine.

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It doesn't pay the bills, unfortunately, most of the time.

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Wait, wait, you're tilling minutes for the first time?

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So, exactly.

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So, yeah, I wrote this book, Collapse of Global Liberalism.

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And it's, you know, there's economics in there as well, but there's a bit of political philosophy and stuff like that.

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Been involved with the post-liberal thing for quite a while.

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When American Affairs, the journal started, if you know it, Julius Krine and Gladden Papin started in 2016.

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I was a pretty early contributor.

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And, you know, I kind of hung around that circle, what developed into the post-liberal circle.

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So I kind of like, I'm a bit of a known quantity, I'd say, you know, from the inception, but I only really started publishing under my own name on these issues the past couple of years, really.

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Yeah. And so, okay, so this is your background, you know, you study, you're an economist, you kind of start working, you know, in all these different places in those capacities as an economist.

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So what was kind of the impetus for the book on the Reformation and economics?

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I know, I believe I remember you're, are you Roman Catholic?

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yeah yeah yeah so i mean again i don't know if you meant to invoke the the reformation uh but

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yeah i mean it was the first thing that having as someone who's thought about a lot about these

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topics uh i was interested just from that basis so was that a little tongue-in-cheek or was that

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totally accidental i probably wasn't as roman catholic when i wrote the book but i knew enough

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about theological politics to think it was clever um i'd say protestants will actually

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really appreciate the analysis. I mean, the idea was basically that the economics profession

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was what the church was like when the Reformation happened, right? And I think even Roman Catholics

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are allowed to admit that the church was in a pretty sorry state around the time of Luther

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and Calvin and so on. And, you know, it was kind of, I actually don't agree with this

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now, but it was, the Protestants made the claim that it was very intellectually flobby,

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that it was just justifying things for no reason.

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You know, it was justifying really corrupt practices in the church

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and giving these, you know, really abstract theological reasons

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for things that were obviously what we call grift nowadays.

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And it seemed to me that the economics profession were doing that too,

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especially after 2008.

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I mean, basically what happened with me was

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I was in college studying economics in Dublin,

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and on the weekends I was showing houses, property.

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My mother worked as a real estate agent,

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as you guys say in America.

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We call them auctioneers and all that.

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And so I was in college studying economics

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and they were telling us there was no housing bubble.

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Of course, in Ireland,

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there was the biggest housing bubble in world history.

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And I was showing houses on the weekend

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and I was like, this is clearly a,

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like, I don't even know I'm a stupid 18 or 19 year old,

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but I can tell this is a bubble

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or there's something weird going on.

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So when it all crashed,

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I just thought this is complete nonsense.

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How could these economists be teaching me all this rubbish

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and then me seeing and being a stupid 18 or 19-year-old

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not knowing anything about the world

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and just saying like something's fake here.

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So yeah, I mean, I was involved in some of the,

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I went and did a master's in very heterodox economics

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in a very obscure department in the UK,

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in Kingston University.

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I thought it was great.

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I learned kind of all the Austrian and the Marxist

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and the post-Cangestian and the mainstream stuff too.

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And the combination of it all really was, I suppose, that book,

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which is now obviously heretical from a perspective.

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No, I'm kidding.

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But I think most of it's still pretty valid.

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I was pretty young when I wrote it,

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so maybe there's a couple of regrets.

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But I haven't detoned it and I haven't changed my name.

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Yeah.

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How old were you when you wrote the book?

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25.

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Young.

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Whoa, okay.

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And so you self-published.

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I mean, dude, just good on you for that.

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I know it's Palgrave.

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Okay, no, you're right.

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I'm sorry, Palgrave.

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You're so right.

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I saw it was the, what is it?

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It was just the citation in the beginning that you have.

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Yeah, it's just you.

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It says the author, 2016.

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But yeah, no.

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So congratulations on getting that done as a 25-year-old.

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That's impressive.

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Yeah, I would have published when I was 27, I think.

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Okay, but you wrote it when you were 25.

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Okay, so why don't you just kind of give a brief introduction to the book

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and then how I would love to know your evaluation of it here.

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What are we like nine years on from it?

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I know you said most of it stands.

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Like are there things that you disagree with on it

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after you give kind of the intro to what was the project of the book?

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Yeah, I think, I mean, the rhetorical tone, I think,

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might have been a little different if I wrote it now.

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But, you know, the analogy is apt.

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Unless you're taking a very strong theological position on the Reformation,

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the analogy is apt.

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I mean, that's what the economics profession became.

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Effectively, what struck me about economics was two things, basically.

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And they really sounded like the things that some of the reformers were criticizing the church for back in the Reformation period.

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The first one was that the actual foundations of the theology that they were putting forward, the economics abstract theory, the actual foundations were very poorly understood by the economists themselves.

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And this was basically because back in the 30s and 40s and 50s and maybe even into the 60s, the economists that were writing, putting down the foundations for what would become neoclassical economics, were quite broadly literate, you know.

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They had an understanding at least of basic philosophy or basic social science methodology.

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Maybe they wouldn't know much about philosophy, but some of them did.

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But definitely going back to the earlier economists back at the turn of the 20th century and in the 1930s especially, they'd be very philosophically informed.

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I mean, John Maynard Keynes came out of the British idealist tradition of G.E. Moore and so on.

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So that literally was his circles.

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And his students came out of the kind of Wittgenstein era and everything like that.

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So they were very philosophically informed.

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even in the 40s, 50s, 60s, I think they all would have had to be at least like reasonably aware of

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methodological debates in social science. And what struck me with the neoclassicals,

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the baby boomer generation in neoclassicals and younger, is that they had no idea of the

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foundation. So they had these highly abstract theories, like general equilibrium theory,

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dynamic stochastic general equilibrium modeling, tons of stuff, even simpler models, ISLM,

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I know I sound like a complete nerd here, but all these things, like these are abstract mathematical models.

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And I didn't think they even understood the foundations of these models.

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I knew for a fact they had not read the literature on which these models were based.

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And so you had this profession that spoke in these very abstract terms.

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But once you kind of dug in, read like what those models were actually all about, what the authors intended with them,

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you realized it was completely different to what these guys were talking about.

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And this obviously is exactly what the reformers were saying about the church.

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They said, we've gone back to the church fathers,

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and we found that you guys are wrong with it.

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So the analogy is pretty perfect.

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And then the second point is that they were using this ideology

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to cover up what was a rotten economy.

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A rotten economy that had gone through two bubbles at that stage.

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It went through the dot-com bubble.

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and then it well it actually went through the savings and loan bubble before that in the 80s

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but at least the dot-com bubble and then the 2008 bubble and it was here and now evil see no evil

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you know and they didn't want to change any of their models they came up with post-hoc

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rationalizations of why these events took place and so i think the analogy the basic analogy

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basically stood and the book was basically about like what is with economic theory what is it is it

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Is it fit for purpose?

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What are the foundations of it?

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Are there alternative theories?

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And yeah, I think overall it was pretty successful.

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I could probably think about it and find some stuff that I kind of regret.

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Well, not regret, but I could probably improve on or something.

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But I don't really intend on writing an economic theory book like that again.

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I've just finished a book with a demographer on the economics of demographic change.

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But that's, I mean, there's some economic theory in it for sure,

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But it's not a big T theory book in the way that Reformation was.

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So I don't know.

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I haven't really thought about it that much.

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I occasionally write pretty concrete economics theory articles.

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I wrote one on consumption for American affairs recently and so on.

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So I still kind of do do it.

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But I haven't really thought about the book in a couple of years

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until people started pulling it off the bookshelf recently,

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which is kind of interesting.

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oh and just one more thing it inspired a bunch of people who this is really interesting just

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i just came from me now it inspired a bunch of people i know this for a fact i won't name who

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it is but that are currently working on on trade pulse the trouble ministries so that's really

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interesting a bunch of um post kind of post-liberal types cottoned onto that book back about eight

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years ago it didn't sell very well i mean it's an academic book it's from an academic publisher

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but um i did have people come up to me and were like yeah i read that book like it was a big

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thing whatever so i think maybe it had a bit of an underground influence but if you look at it on

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face or you i think it got reviewed in the ft like badly or something but if you look at it on

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its face um it didn't seem to have it didn't work and the economics um reform movement in general

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after today's night was a miserable failure yeah yeah and this is this is one of these things where

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I mean, yeah, I mean, there's so much that you just said, but you could go back to, I mean, yeah, central banking, right?

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The promise of central banking is we're not going to have any booms and busts anymore.

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You know, this is great, great news.

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We're not going to have these kind of –

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Exactly.

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So now, again, so somebody – so our audience, we have a lot of people who are Austrian-influenced.

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And so there's a lot of people who will hear you criticize central banking, and they'll go, oh, great.

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He's not a fan of Keynesianism, right?

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And then you read the intro and it's more complicated than that.

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So can you kind of talk about your relationship with Keynes and his line of thinking?

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I'm a Keynesian economist.

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Like 100% I'm a Keynesian economist.

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And I know the Austrian monetary theory very well.

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I think I know it better than some Austrians.

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I'm not that sorry, but I do.

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I know the Austrian monetary theory very well.

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And I think it's a reasonably okay theory.

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It's a little bit literalistic.

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Austrian business cycle theory.

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I don't have a...

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But it's better than neoclassical theory.

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I mean, it certainly is describing

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credit boom and bust cycles

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that are driven by lax monetary arrangements.

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But I mean,

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Hyman Minsky is a Keynesian economist

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and he has a similar...

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There's some Austrian theory

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in Hyman Minsky as well.

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I mean, I just...

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I don't really think of these schools

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as necessarily competing.

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her medically concealed or medically sealed things yeah no and i think there's ideologies

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have been attached to the schools like post-keynesian economics which i think i am a post-keynesian

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economist has been associated with marxism of some sort and a lot of post-keynesians are marxist

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i'm not yeah professor was a marxist but it i'm not a marxist so it's not and then the austrian

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stuff has become tied up with libertarianism. But I don't think you, I actually know people I used to

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work with in finance who were Austrians, but in theory, but they were actually like labor voters

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in the UK. So like, I don't think, I think that tying these schools to political ideologies

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is just not a good idea at all. And I include neoclassical economics in that and everything.

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I think the alternative schools, Austrians, post-Keynesianism, and Marxism to a certain extent, the thing that they oppose is actually this technocratic scientism in the neoclassical doctrine.

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And that's what's really important to me.

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Yeah. Yeah. And this is something that we talk about a lot.

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So the very first quote in the introduction is kind of where a lot of our audience and me, myself, where I have some objections to some of these things.

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So I'm just going to read it for us. It's from Johan Georg Heyman. For this prolepsis of being equal to God had blazed the trail for all philosophical knowledge and legislative justice. This forceful seizing was the first lie of the first attempt to displace our senses from simplicity and words and to oversalt the peace of God on earth to the debauched taste of reason.

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And so this idea of men trying to be God, I think this is one of the big critiques that I would have and I think a lot of our audience would have with the project of central banking.

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And so I think like the, one of the, one of the questions, I think that getting to the philosophical roots of a lot of these things, I think it's much something I'm much more interested in, which again, it's not going to pay the bills necessarily, but like just getting at the root of, I think like one of the, the, the conclusions that I came to, or the realizations that I had was like so much of, of all of these systems and your idea of what makes a good system or what makes a bad system is rooted in your understanding of what it means to be human.

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and of like how, what level of control you think that humans are supposed to, like it would be good.

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Like, first of all, that it is possible for humans to have.

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And then also that it would be good for humans to have over, you know,

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over these different elements of their life, including economics.

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And so I would love to kind of get like, how do you think about,

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what are your grounding principles for thinking about economics?

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Maybe we'll start there.

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Well, I mean, that kind of touches on it, right?

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The neoclassicals all assume omniscient knowledge on behalf of something or other.

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It's not even clear.

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I say it in the book over and over again.

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These are theological doctrine.

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They're weird.

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Secular theology is a lot of these equilibrium principles.

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I wrote a paper later on.

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You might be able to track it down in an inference review called The Miracle of General Equilibrium.

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equilibrium. I actually did a mathematical calculation on how probable it would be to

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achieve a general equilibrium. I think it's the first time it's ever been done. I still don't

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think I got credit for it. But anyway, whatever. I guess economics theories debate isn't actually

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interesting anymore or something, even though everybody uses it. But the point is, I called

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it the miracle of general equilibrium quite purposefully. It was miracle-like probabilities,

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you know? It was like some completely impossible number that was like a million times the

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number of seconds since the big bang or something. It was not stuff. And that's basically the whole

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thing. You have this again, similarly in the Hayekian tradition and the Keynesian tradition,

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a notion of uncertainty and limited knowledge, that both of those hold to it. And that's why

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I think these ideological divisions are largely fake. Keynes writes about limitations on knowledge.

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He writes a book on probability before he writes any famous economic works, before he even writes

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the economic consequences of the peace, which makes him famous. He writes a book on probability

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that was very well received by the Cambridge philosophers like Bertrand Russell and so on.

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Not that I have a huge amount of time for Bertrand Russell, but I mean, you know, he's a real guy,

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I guess, and he was a good mathematician. And Keynes writes a book on probabilities

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that's still widely ignored. And it's a really interesting book on actual capacity to apply

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probabilities. We don't have to get into statistical arguments. I'm fascinated by them,

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econometrics, all that. But the foundations of statistical science are based on probabilities.

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And that is not just economics and econometrics and pretty much all social science. It's also

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medicine. It's also epidemiological studies are based on this. I think we came to realize that

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over the year 2020, 2021 about some of these statistical issues. But, you know, I'm actually

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pretty good at that kind of thing. And I know the foundations of it probably better than most who

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are in it, who, again, like these guys in economics, I think often they just haven't

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thought about the philosophical basis of what they're doing, epistemological basis of what

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they're doing. But it's hard to get knowledge of the world. I mean, that's the kind of key takeaway.

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It's very, very hard to get knowledge of the world. I mean, getting knowledge of the world

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controlled in a scientific manner requires repeatable controlled experiments as I talk about in Reformation And in that you even still dealing with a probability Sometimes you can run an experiment five times

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and you can be like, okay, well, we've proved it. And then the sixth time it doesn't work.

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I mean, that's actual science. Statistical inference is different. I'm not saying it's

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unscientific, but it's something different. And I think people in financial markets are most

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tuned to this and even in Bitcoin markets because you lose when you get it wrong. And so when you've

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had your ass kicked a couple of times in a market, you're like, I'm not going to be so certain before.

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I remember just an anecdotal story. When I first went into finance, I was in kind of a quantitative

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driven firm and I was working with all the quantum stuff and I put together this really good

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recession model that I could backfit and it would tell me about market downturns and all sorts of

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things. And it was all very sophisticated and everything like that. And I showed it to my boss

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who'd been in the game for about 15 years. And he just laughed at me and he said, that's not

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going to work. But I said, hang on a minute, look, it's backtested. I ran a T-stat on it.

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Like it's very improbable that this isn't fitted properly, blah, blah, blah. And he just kind of

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snickered at me and he said, okay, well, keep an eye on it. Of course, it completely failed. Of

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course, it completely failed. But by statistical standards, it was a well-fit model, blah, blah,

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blah blah blah so the thing is like i had a sense of it even before i went into finance i got much

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more of a sense of it when i was in finance um it's really hard to get knowledge of the world

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it's really really difficult unless you have a controlled experimental environment which is

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almost impossible to achieve outside of like physics and chemistry to a certain extent biology

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biology is not even as hard a science as some people think it is um medicine isn't uh you know

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it's hard to gain knowledge of the world and so people who think that they have a knowledge of a

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system like an economy down to a t i'm not sure i'm not sure about your claims yeah it's insane

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to be honest with like and this is it's a similar there's like similar problems or a related issue

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would be uh there's been people who've talked about the difficulty of of police work in the

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age of csi because like everyone thinks about like forensic evidence and they're like oh this is the

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strongest evidence and they act like even this forensic, like this is evidence that's beyond

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interpretation. If we have this level of evidence, we know for certain that these things. And so,

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and then it tends to, it's tended to like denigrate things like circumstantial evidence.

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You know, people, people don't appreciate and value it as much. And so if you don't have the

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silver bullet, you know, if you can't see it when it happened or, you know, this level of evidence,

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then you can't have the degree of certainty. And so it's really just like, it's, it's,

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it's the elevation of things like science or like the, the doc, the discipline of science

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over the discipline of something like history, right? Like these have two different evidentiary

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standards that are both really important and both really valid, but they're just very different.

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Uh, and so there you have to your point, you have people who have come to appreciate one at the

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expense of the other. And they don't, they don't realize that you need, these are, these are two

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hands on the same body. You need both of them. Uh, you, you can't just say one is more important

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than the other, like they, they do different things. And so we really do need, uh, you know,

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both of them. And so, yeah, I think that, I think that we've been very ill served throughout the

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last, you know, uh, I don't know, you could, whatever time period you want to put on a hundred

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years over like the secularization, uh, there's this idea that real religion and some of these

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theological questions are things that we can just laugh off and, you know, just throw into the dust

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bit of history rather than, you know, there to quote, there's a, um, there's a guy, a pastor

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named Douglas Wilson, who basically says it's never whether but which in terms of your theology,

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in terms of your theological presuppositions, like we can't evade them. Like we're going to

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have theological presuppositions that manifest themselves in how we look at the world and how

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we think about it. The question is, who is the identity of our deity at the center of our system?

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And so this is kind of what I would be getting at in terms of, I mean, just I would love to get

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the grounding for your critique. So my question is this, are governments fit to have the type of

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conversations that, you know, to be able to control the economy? Or do you just look at this like,

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hey, this is just, it's going to happen. And so we have to make the best of it. Because like,

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I look at this and I'm like, you know, if the government tried to, if a government tried to

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force a tax on oxygen, like it's theoretically possible that a government could be so hubristic

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that they could try to do something like that.

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But you'd get to the question very quickly

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of the authority.

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Like by what authority do you have

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to try to control and tax this kind of thing?

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I honestly think like a government

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could try this today

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and actually get away with it to a degree

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because the average person is so out of touch,

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so out of touch with the basic questions

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of governance of like,

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what is government for?

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Like, what are the limits?

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Is it just a matter of getting a law passed

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to define limit?

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Like what are our laws just the result

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of, is it just positivism or is there some sort of natural law? Like, I think the average person

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cannot answer those questions whatsoever. So we'd kind of love to hear your thoughts on some of

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those things. Well, the first thing about, just to get back to the, I know we're starting at a

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very basic level here, but the statistical, the probabilistic thing. So what you just said,

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that everybody wants to base things based on science and they ignore things like history,

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or you might say law. I think law is a really nice example a lot of the time. That's kind of

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what you're talking about with criminal investigations. And they're ultimately presented

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before a court of law. Just two quick things on that. First of all, Keynes' book on probability,

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I'd really encourage people to read it. It's about treating probability about the probability of

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statements, not about the probability of facts, about the probability of statements.

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And that's really interesting to me because that is what a judge does. They treat the probability

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of statements. That's what a historian does. They treat the probability of statements,

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especially the longer you go back in history, the more you have to look into the probability

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of statements. I think this is a really compelling question. I think it's one of the most compelling

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questions for people, in a sense. You can even go so far as to say every time that you do a

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repeatable controlled experiment, you're ultimately dealing in some sense with a statement. Okay,

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maybe it's a little bit far. But barring that, I think you're basically dealing with statements.

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The second thing is even the more scientific or scientific version of probability theory.

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So the most popular today is called Bayesian theory, right?

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And I read an essay a year and a half ago for post-liberal order.

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And I pointed out that I don't think anyone knows this.

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Bayesian theory was come up with by a guy, a British clergyman, an Anglican clergyman called Thomas Bayes, right?

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But not just that. This isn't just the like, oh, the priests can do science too. No, no, no. He came up with it to prove Christian miracles against David Hume.

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like he thinks they didn't the bayesian formula so if anyone works in any sort of scientific field

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they'll have used the bayesian formula before the bayesian formula is created by thomas bayes and

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then published by richard price who was his um who was his uh student or his mentor or whatever

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um and it was to prove that the humean critique of miracles i.e that miracles can't happen within

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the scientific framework. False. I mean, people should go back and look at those Richard Price

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papers. It's nuts to me. The whole thing's being turned on its head. It's completely strange. But

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that's just the point, that these theories aren't what they're deployed for anymore.

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And it's very, very odd to me. I think the original people looking at aspects of probability,

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which forms into all of these inferential sciences and economics and theories of government,

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they would be aware of the discussion that we're having now.

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And it's the people who have taken their ideas in a reified form, you might say, in the equation form,

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that have jettisoned all the presuppositions of what these theories were all about.

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So, I mean, in terms of the issue then of government and so on,

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This is where the post-Keynesians and the Austrians depart,

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and it's a very interesting point of departure

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because the Austrians tend to say, what you've just said,

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that since we have this limited amount of knowledge,

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this uncertainty of the future, call it whatever you will say,

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some sort of limits on human knowledge,

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they say, well, you're best leaving decision-making decentralized.

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because if you centralize decision-making, you'll always make mistakes.

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It's effectively the TLDR version of it.

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The post-Keynesians push the uncertainty argument further,

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and they say, no, no, no, no, you don't get it.

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The uncertainty aspect, the lack of knowledge and foresight and all,

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actually means that disaggregated or decentralized decision-making

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will lead to unstable outcomes, chaotic outcomes,

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and that actually what this means is you need collective decision making,

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you need collective consensus decision making.

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Now, there's no hard and fast principles for what that is.

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You could be a more limited government post-Keynesian.

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You could be a socialist. I mean, some of them are socialist.

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So there's no hard and fast rules on that.

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Some of them don't think markets work at all, basically.

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I think markets mostly work.

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They're pretty okay.

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They're an okay way of distributing resources.

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I don't think they're very good for allocating capital all the time.

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So there's two readings on the uncertainty thing.

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One reading is a downtrend on me reading,

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which is like governments can never have enough information to solve a problem.

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The other is a more radical one.

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People don't have enough information,

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and they actually need to make collective decisions for that reason.

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I'd say, I mean, not to be snarky,

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but I'd say human history is on the side of the latter interpretation.

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Societies do tend to be organized.

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They do tend to lay down laws.

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And they do tend to create shared consensus about ethical principles and so on.

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And this would tend to suggest that the natural state or natural law, whatever you want to call it, is a consensus formation.

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I don't think any of this says anything hard and fast to say about, for example, whether Jerome Pell is a good central banker.

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I think you can have reasonable opinions on that either way.

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But I'm just pointing out that the epistemological aspect common to these two traditions actually can lead in two different directions.

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Yeah. Yeah. And this, I mean, I look at, I go back to, I mean, you look at, again, at least if the stories can be believed about like the formation of central banking, the formation of the Federal Reserve, you know, like some of these things.

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And there's all kinds of, you know, details of this, the shady, the smoky room on Jekyll Island, you know, all this kind of stuff.

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I mean, at the end of the day, you have you have like a partnership between private entities and, you know, government officials that is done to I mean, arguably to to, you know, basically ward off competition from from wildcat banking.

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So there's some of this where I'm just like, I look at this and I'm like, I look at this

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from the standpoint of somebody who was a philosophy major and then worked in ministry

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as a missionary and pastor.

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And I'm like, oh, look, the love of money is still a root of all kinds of evil.

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I just look at the power, the drive for more power and more money.

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This seems like a pretty good way to explain the rise of central banking.

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Obviously, it's couched in all kinds of things that end up being false and ridiculous, like

424
00:30:41,403 --> 00:30:41,803
we mentioned.

425
00:30:41,803 --> 00:30:44,083
Like this is going to do away with the boom bus cycle.

426
00:30:44,083 --> 00:30:45,123
And really it causes more.

427
00:30:45,123 --> 00:30:50,163
And so it's like, all right, well, if a system is what it does, then like maybe, maybe the

428
00:30:50,163 --> 00:30:53,163
actual point of this was not to actually serve people.

429
00:30:53,163 --> 00:30:57,623
Maybe it was just to serve these, this limited interest, both in a governmental and, you

430
00:30:57,623 --> 00:31:02,243
know, private, private banking, you know, um, from that standpoint, it's like, that

431
00:31:02,243 --> 00:31:03,963
seems like a much better explanation.

432
00:31:04,103 --> 00:31:09,163
And then, and then just looking at this, uh, yeah, it just, I look at this and I, and I

433
00:31:09,163 --> 00:31:15,723
look at the last hundred years that we've had this system, 112, whatever it is. And I don't think

434
00:31:15,723 --> 00:31:21,063
that we're, I mean, you can say, are we better off? Like, that's a, it's like, by what metric

435
00:31:21,063 --> 00:31:26,303
are we doing this? Are we talking about like, are we evaluating this on a moral level? But even then

436
00:31:26,303 --> 00:31:31,183
there's all kinds of questions. So I don't know. It's just not as clear to me. Like I understand

437
00:31:31,183 --> 00:31:37,843
the project and I understand like the desire for mankind to exercise control. And obviously I would

438
00:31:37,843 --> 00:31:42,923
look at it from a biblical standpoint and we look at, we go to like Genesis three or Genesis one and

439
00:31:42,923 --> 00:31:48,403
two, and God basically tells mankind to exercise dominion. And so like, there's clearly, you know,

440
00:31:48,443 --> 00:31:53,163
the question is, what is, what does that look like? And so I think that there's been people

441
00:31:53,163 --> 00:31:58,083
who would align themselves with a more Keynesian idea of the world. And they would say, Hey, look,

442
00:31:58,083 --> 00:32:04,123
we're just trying to be good dominionists. We're trying to, you know, basically harness the world

443
00:32:04,123 --> 00:32:09,823
and channel it for good, which again, in the abstract, I would agree with. I think this is a

444
00:32:09,823 --> 00:32:15,723
good thing. I think it just comes down to where do we draw these lines? I mean, that would be a

445
00:32:15,723 --> 00:32:19,023
question. And then beyond that, I think the thing that I'd want to go back to, and I think that you'd

446
00:32:19,023 --> 00:32:24,223
agree with me on, is just like, this is at bottom, this is the theological question. Like, we can't

447
00:32:24,223 --> 00:32:30,103
just keep continuing this fiction that these are not deeply theological questions because, I mean,

448
00:32:30,123 --> 00:32:33,003
at the end of the day, this is what they are. Like, we're talking about what does it mean to be human?

449
00:32:33,003 --> 00:32:57,583
We're talking about what is the like, where does authority come from? What are the limits on governmental authority? You know, and so I think like we've been able to kind of in the name of for the last hundred years or like at least 75 years in the name of like economic expediency, we've been able to not talk about philosophy at the highest levels of policy and politics.

450
00:32:57,583 --> 00:32:59,603
and I think in the end,

451
00:32:59,663 --> 00:33:00,723
maybe this would be a good bridge

452
00:33:00,723 --> 00:33:02,883
over to the collapse of global liberalism.

453
00:33:03,223 --> 00:33:05,763
Like I think that that's part of the collapse

454
00:33:05,763 --> 00:33:09,103
is we've reached the end of just being able

455
00:33:09,103 --> 00:33:12,763
to kind of push these conversations to the background.

456
00:33:13,063 --> 00:33:15,043
Like they're coming back with a vengeance.

457
00:33:15,683 --> 00:33:18,423
So I would love to kind of get your thoughts on that as well.

458
00:33:18,543 --> 00:33:20,103
Like what are your thoughts there?

459
00:33:20,483 --> 00:33:22,503
And then maybe we can move into the new book.

460
00:33:22,503 --> 00:33:26,843
I think what we're seeing today especially

461
00:33:26,843 --> 00:33:34,303
is that increased technocracy does not lead to better outcomes in anything at all.

462
00:33:34,503 --> 00:33:37,343
I mean, there was a kind of a golden period of technocracy

463
00:33:37,343 --> 00:33:41,823
between, in America at least, between the 1930s New Deal

464
00:33:41,823 --> 00:33:44,223
and I'd say maybe the 1960s.

465
00:33:44,243 --> 00:33:46,123
And I don't mean into the 1960s.

466
00:33:46,123 --> 00:33:50,683
I think the fascination with technocracy was up until about 1960, 1965,

467
00:33:51,343 --> 00:33:55,383
at which point libertine ideas start to take over

468
00:33:55,383 --> 00:33:56,643
and it becomes a completely different thing.

469
00:33:56,843 --> 00:34:09,303
But between the 50s and the 30s, well, 40s obviously was the war, but the 30s and the 50s were these periods where there was a lot of optimism about managing society through technocracy in the United States.

470
00:34:09,463 --> 00:34:14,963
And I think basically this is the foundation of the contemporary United States government.

471
00:34:15,223 --> 00:34:24,123
I'm definitely adherent to this idea that there hasn't been one republic in the United States, so it's been at least four and perhaps five.

472
00:34:24,123 --> 00:34:30,023
And I think one of them was put in place by FDR in the New Deal.

473
00:34:30,643 --> 00:34:35,123
And that came to an end, Chris Caldwell says, with the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.

474
00:34:35,143 --> 00:34:36,083
I think that's probably true.

475
00:34:36,183 --> 00:34:37,043
I think that's accurate.

476
00:34:38,243 --> 00:34:43,763
Bruce, real quick, can you name the five, what did you say, the five, what was the word you used?

477
00:34:43,763 --> 00:34:44,503
Republics.

478
00:34:44,683 --> 00:34:53,643
So the idea behind this theory of America is that people will know that France is currently on its fourth republic, I think.

479
00:34:53,643 --> 00:35:02,583
So there's actually any time they have a constitutional change, like there's a fundamental change in their way of government, they announce it and they say we have a new republic.

480
00:35:03,403 --> 00:35:12,923
And it's not a criticism, but one reading of American history is that they've actually been through a couple of republics and they haven't named it and they've pretended that they have constitutional continuity.

481
00:35:13,263 --> 00:35:19,563
The British did the same thing with the glorious revolution and the beheading of Charles and so on.

482
00:35:19,563 --> 00:35:22,843
Britain has a bunch of revolutions in its history, and it claims to have none.

483
00:35:23,003 --> 00:35:24,923
And it's a strange thing.

484
00:35:25,123 --> 00:35:27,283
So can I name all the American?

485
00:35:27,383 --> 00:35:28,943
I mean, I feel like I'm being put on the spot now.

486
00:35:29,043 --> 00:35:37,643
American Revolution, Civil War, FDR, the controversial one is Civil Rights, and I'm missing one there.

487
00:35:38,303 --> 00:35:39,383
Maybe it's Jackson.

488
00:35:39,803 --> 00:35:40,503
I think it's Jackson.

489
00:35:41,823 --> 00:35:44,523
So basically that these are fundamentally different systems.

490
00:35:44,523 --> 00:35:55,283
And the one that existed between the New Deal period, the hard New Deal period, 1930s until the 1960s, was one of technocracy.

491
00:35:55,443 --> 00:36:04,763
And it's the one in which what they called the blob or the bureaucracy or the swamp or whatever you want to call it in D.C., the permanent government grew up.

492
00:36:04,843 --> 00:36:06,023
That was when that grew up.

493
00:36:06,143 --> 00:36:10,443
And some of the goals of that were changed in the post-civil rights era.

494
00:36:10,543 --> 00:36:11,443
There's no doubt about that.

495
00:36:11,443 --> 00:36:15,063
but the fundamental structure of it is from the FDR period.

496
00:36:16,183 --> 00:36:20,603
And basically, the idea there was that you could technocratically manage a society.

497
00:36:21,283 --> 00:36:26,103
And I think what we're getting at as global liberalism and liberalism itself starts to collapse

498
00:36:26,103 --> 00:36:30,523
is that, well, first of all, we've known for a while that probably doesn't work.

499
00:36:30,683 --> 00:36:33,343
But beyond the fact it just doesn't work,

500
00:36:33,723 --> 00:36:37,143
it's not even that these are particularly important aspects.

501
00:36:37,143 --> 00:36:41,043
The neglect of what I call natural law principles,

502
00:36:41,043 --> 00:36:45,983
but you could talk about, you know, broad ethical principles, social norms, so on.

503
00:36:46,263 --> 00:36:52,743
Like these are clearly, or at least I think, these are clearly more important for the functional running of a society

504
00:36:52,743 --> 00:36:57,343
than any sort of clever whiz-bang technocratic management.

505
00:36:57,503 --> 00:37:00,903
I mean, I have a very keen sense of this because I grew up in Ireland,

506
00:37:01,123 --> 00:37:03,983
and I grew up in Ireland at an amazingly interesting time.

507
00:37:03,983 --> 00:37:08,383
When I was eight years old, divorce was still illegal in Ireland.

508
00:37:08,383 --> 00:37:11,483
in 1995, it was still illegal to divorce somebody.

509
00:37:11,483 --> 00:37:12,483
Based, based.

510
00:37:12,483 --> 00:37:18,983
I make no comment. I make no comment. It was illegal to do. I remember it. I remember

511
00:37:18,983 --> 00:37:22,183
when people couldn't get divorced. I literally remember because even for a couple of years

512
00:37:22,183 --> 00:37:41,806
after it was made legal it was super controversial And basically Ireland would not have aspired to being anything resembling technocracy or anything like that And now it become a modern technocratic state where if you go into government you talk like you know a civil servant bureaucrat interest rates all this gobbledygook

513
00:37:41,806 --> 00:37:44,526
And has Ireland become more or less stable?

514
00:37:44,746 --> 00:37:46,686
A hundred percent less stable.

515
00:37:47,126 --> 00:37:49,146
I mean, a hundred percent less stable.

516
00:37:49,266 --> 00:37:52,026
The country is not what it was.

517
00:37:52,026 --> 00:37:56,706
it's a very kind of strange, murky, people don't really know what they want. They don't know what

518
00:37:56,706 --> 00:38:01,246
they believe. The birth rates are collapsing. Migration's gone absolutely nuts. People hate it.

519
00:38:01,466 --> 00:38:06,446
There's political instability. The authorities are afraid of, you know, the usual stuff,

520
00:38:06,506 --> 00:38:11,446
the stuff that's all over the West right now. And I just look at that and I go, yeah. And just

521
00:38:11,446 --> 00:38:16,106
comparing that to like this society that didn't really care about any of those issues and just

522
00:38:16,106 --> 00:38:21,826
kind of focused on like how to live your life. Like you should have a family and like you should

523
00:38:21,826 --> 00:38:26,906
behave in this way and blah blah blah and it's shocking and as well another thing like murder

524
00:38:26,906 --> 00:38:30,926
rate went through the roof in ireland after this the suicide rate went through the roof

525
00:38:30,926 --> 00:38:35,526
um i published a paper on this on the danube institute of annual as a statistical overview

526
00:38:35,526 --> 00:38:43,346
of how ireland improved after it adopted basically liberalism it deteriorated on every metric except

527
00:38:43,346 --> 00:38:49,706
gdp gdp was the only thing that improved on apart from gdp everything declined political stability

528
00:38:49,706 --> 00:38:56,266
suicide murder drug addiction alcoholism everything went up so it seems that this focus

529
00:38:56,266 --> 00:39:02,806
on like technocracy and a lack of focus on what people have been focusing on since you know adam

530
00:39:02,806 --> 00:39:07,786
basically um yeah seems to lead to social collapse it's kind of funny it's kind of weird

531
00:39:07,786 --> 00:39:13,546
and and so i look at that and i'm like is this feature or bug like because like i look at you

532
00:39:13,546 --> 00:39:17,846
look at like if the goal i mean you could look at the the breakdown of the household right when

533
00:39:17,846 --> 00:39:23,866
the women's liberation movement where like women are out in the workplace. So our GDP goes up,

534
00:39:23,866 --> 00:39:29,266
but our families collapse. So the outcomes of people is much worse off. And so like it is,

535
00:39:29,326 --> 00:39:36,526
it's like when you, if you're defining success by these economic measurables, then, and not in

536
00:39:36,526 --> 00:39:42,806
these intangible, like if you're, I guess I would say it this way. If your denominator for success

537
00:39:42,806 --> 00:39:47,266
is dollars, then you're going to take a very different course of action than if your denominator

538
00:39:47,266 --> 00:39:52,526
for success is people. And so, and so like, this is where, I mean, I look at, you mentioned like

539
00:39:52,526 --> 00:39:57,626
the, the, the shift to technocracy, you said like thirties to the fifties. And so it's like,

540
00:39:57,686 --> 00:40:01,746
I look at this and I'm like, none of that's even possible. Like the only reason why that change was

541
00:40:01,746 --> 00:40:07,286
even possible to the same degree is once you introduce like state created money, like, right.

542
00:40:07,286 --> 00:40:11,186
Like because state created money, that's effectively just arbitrarily created. Like

543
00:40:11,186 --> 00:40:16,186
you can have unlimited quantity of it. Like that gives governments so much more control

544
00:40:16,186 --> 00:40:21,186
over so much more of society through just, I mean, you don't get what you want, you get what

545
00:40:21,186 --> 00:40:25,846
you subsidize. So we have all kinds of things that have been subsidized. And again, there's a limit

546
00:40:25,846 --> 00:40:31,626
to these, to what you can do. But like it is, I mean, you could look at like the LBGT, like that

547
00:40:31,626 --> 00:40:35,706
movement and its ability, the way that it's spread across the world, like trans ideology,

548
00:40:36,066 --> 00:40:40,066
like a lot of this stuff is not stuff that's being demanded by markets. It's stuff that's

549
00:40:40,066 --> 00:40:44,606
being subsidized by nonprofit organizations who are getting money from the government.

550
00:40:45,226 --> 00:40:47,526
And so there is this partnership there.

551
00:40:48,246 --> 00:40:50,566
I mean, again, at the risk of oversimplicity,

552
00:40:51,146 --> 00:40:53,426
in the Bitcoin world, there's people who say,

553
00:40:53,546 --> 00:40:55,146
if you fix the money, you fix the world.

554
00:40:55,606 --> 00:40:57,206
Obviously, that's an oversimplification,

555
00:40:57,446 --> 00:40:59,506
but it's not as far of an oversimplification

556
00:40:59,506 --> 00:41:00,906
as a lot of people would think

557
00:41:00,906 --> 00:41:02,586
just because of the nature of incentives

558
00:41:02,586 --> 00:41:06,306
and the nature of the way that money works in society.

559
00:41:06,546 --> 00:41:07,266
So I don't know.

560
00:41:07,406 --> 00:41:10,046
I would love to kind of hear your thoughts on that.

561
00:41:10,686 --> 00:41:13,166
I think people get too obsessed with money and making money.

562
00:41:13,166 --> 00:41:18,166
I think economic growth itself, this metric of economic growth has gone gangbusters.

563
00:41:18,866 --> 00:41:20,326
You just gave an example, right?

564
00:41:20,386 --> 00:41:26,926
I wrote an article about this called The Overlooked Contradiction of Capitalism for American Affairs about two years ago or something.

565
00:41:27,226 --> 00:41:32,486
And I pointed out that to maximize GDP growth, you have to maximize production and consumption, right?

566
00:41:32,766 --> 00:41:36,006
So you have to go to work as much as possible and you have to consume as much as possible.

567
00:41:36,486 --> 00:41:38,346
So what type of person is that?

568
00:41:38,606 --> 00:41:39,766
That's not someone with a family.

569
00:41:40,066 --> 00:41:40,886
That's not someone with a family.

570
00:41:40,886 --> 00:41:41,986
But here's the problem.

571
00:41:42,366 --> 00:41:47,926
GDP growth rests on two things, labor force growth and productivity growth, right?

572
00:41:48,166 --> 00:41:49,966
Abstract productivity growth, that's difficult.

573
00:41:50,146 --> 00:41:51,466
We don't know really what to do with that.

574
00:41:51,526 --> 00:41:52,766
We don't even really know what it is.

575
00:41:53,146 --> 00:41:54,026
It's just a statistic.

576
00:41:54,346 --> 00:41:55,586
We know what labor force growth is.

577
00:41:55,626 --> 00:41:56,126
It's people.

578
00:41:56,646 --> 00:42:02,266
So the short-term incentives of capitalism to make you, and any system that tries to maximize

579
00:42:02,266 --> 00:42:07,426
GDP growth, which could be communist as well, make you go to work, make you consume as much

580
00:42:07,426 --> 00:42:07,986
as possible.

581
00:42:07,986 --> 00:42:13,326
But then the next generational cycle, GDP will decline because there won't be as many people.

582
00:42:13,646 --> 00:42:15,686
And you have all these problems in your economy.

583
00:42:15,926 --> 00:42:20,226
This will be a very post-Keynesian uncertainty critique, which you say, well, there you go.

584
00:42:20,306 --> 00:42:21,766
There is a decentralized system.

585
00:42:22,206 --> 00:42:29,306
But we all agree to maximize capital output or GDP or transactions.

586
00:42:29,726 --> 00:42:30,986
GDP is just transactions.

587
00:42:31,086 --> 00:42:33,186
It's just passing money from one hand to another.

588
00:42:34,286 --> 00:42:35,866
We agree to maximize that.

589
00:42:35,866 --> 00:42:36,566
And look at this.

590
00:42:36,566 --> 00:42:40,946
you generate all these contradictions in terms of your long-term planning. So I think we just

591
00:42:40,946 --> 00:42:48,046
shouldn't be, I don't know why we're so obsessed. Look, obsessing about GDP is bad for society as

592
00:42:48,046 --> 00:42:53,366
far as I can tell, but it doesn't actually get the GDP to go up either. The GDP is stagnant at

593
00:42:53,366 --> 00:42:58,906
the moment. It's just the wrong measure. We're just chasing the wrong things. And this complete

594
00:42:58,906 --> 00:43:05,066
obsession with production and consumption is crazy to me. I'll give you one example, right? So

595
00:43:05,066 --> 00:43:12,446
in Hungary right now, the government here gets a lot of flack because it subsidizes churches and

596
00:43:12,446 --> 00:43:18,766
pubs in small Hungarian villages, right? And people say this is the most wasteful money you

597
00:43:18,766 --> 00:43:23,626
could have. So some people just say it's a waste. And some people say it creates economic inefficiencies

598
00:43:23,626 --> 00:43:28,846
or whatever. So they're giving money to restore little churches in small little villages in Hungary.

599
00:43:29,026 --> 00:43:33,246
And they're also putting money effectively behind the bar and a pub because these pubs can't stay

600
00:43:33,246 --> 00:43:37,446
open they're not competitive and what you understand what you realize if you go to one

601
00:43:37,446 --> 00:43:41,746
of these villages is that the pub and the church are the center of the entire life of the town

602
00:43:41,746 --> 00:43:47,946
and i'm just like as people you know a lot of americans a lot of american conservatives go

603
00:43:47,946 --> 00:43:53,046
that's you can't do that and that's a way that's a that you're propping up an inefficient business

604
00:43:53,046 --> 00:43:57,726
and i'm like what are you talking about inefficient business and and by the way and then i have to

605
00:43:57,726 --> 00:44:01,906
point out to them that the birth traits in these villages are substantially higher than in the

606
00:44:01,906 --> 00:44:07,166
cities. And I said, well, there's a natalist element to this as well. But it just shows like

607
00:44:07,166 --> 00:44:12,946
we've completely, we've kind of missed the boat on this whole of what we're judging metrics by.

608
00:44:13,066 --> 00:44:17,946
Like, I think if your homicide rate is going up, that's probably one of the worst, this homicide

609
00:44:17,946 --> 00:44:23,546
and suicide rates are two of the worst statistics you can see deteriorate to my mind. Drug addiction

610
00:44:23,546 --> 00:44:28,106
is pretty bad too. And, you know, back in the day, people would have known this. Like,

611
00:44:28,106 --> 00:44:33,086
Durkheim wrote a book on suicide. He said, if suicide's going up, you've got a society that's

612
00:44:33,086 --> 00:44:37,626
kind of falling apart. You could say something similar about homicide rates. And we've just lost

613
00:44:37,626 --> 00:44:44,966
sight of this. Like, you hear every single quarter about what GDP growth is. But like,

614
00:44:45,006 --> 00:44:49,746
it's only kind of, you know, people are interested that know where the suicide rate went or the

615
00:44:49,746 --> 00:44:56,946
homicide rate went. Like, why is that? Yeah. Yeah, you've got that. And then, I mean, you look at,

616
00:44:56,946 --> 00:44:59,726
again, just to further describe the problem,

617
00:45:00,086 --> 00:45:01,646
I mean, you've got people who are excited

618
00:45:01,646 --> 00:45:03,906
with the stock market price going up.

619
00:45:04,426 --> 00:45:06,326
When in reality, like if you just look at,

620
00:45:06,646 --> 00:45:08,306
like you look at like the growth,

621
00:45:08,426 --> 00:45:10,726
like so much of it is just the new money.

622
00:45:10,926 --> 00:45:12,366
Like it's just a way to keep track

623
00:45:12,366 --> 00:45:13,966
of how much money has entered the system.

624
00:45:14,286 --> 00:45:15,906
Like there's the, broadly speaking,

625
00:45:16,026 --> 00:45:17,906
the growth actually isn't there anymore

626
00:45:17,906 --> 00:45:19,306
to the point that we're being,

627
00:45:19,386 --> 00:45:21,426
like the US economy is being propped up

628
00:45:21,426 --> 00:45:25,206
by like insanely valued AI companies.

629
00:45:25,206 --> 00:45:30,666
like if not for these AI companies, the market's in shambles. And so like, so I look at this and,

630
00:45:30,746 --> 00:45:34,046
and, and I'm like, and a lot of us look at this in the Bitcoin world. And we're like,

631
00:45:34,046 --> 00:45:38,426
this is just like, your denominator is broken. And so like, it doesn't matter. Like these are,

632
00:45:38,546 --> 00:45:43,986
I would be in favor. I think the, the policy of favor of giving money to these towns, you know,

633
00:45:43,986 --> 00:45:49,186
like insofar as it's so far as there's a good, according to a good thing to give money to like,

634
00:45:49,206 --> 00:45:52,786
yeah, I'll take that over, you know, these other things any day of the week, but it's still,

635
00:45:52,786 --> 00:45:55,546
is like, if you look for the longer time horizon,

636
00:45:55,926 --> 00:45:57,166
it's like, you're not gonna be able

637
00:45:57,166 --> 00:45:58,926
to outpace a broken denominator.

638
00:45:59,306 --> 00:46:00,066
So the question is like,

639
00:46:00,146 --> 00:46:03,506
how do you fix the monetary denominator?

640
00:46:03,766 --> 00:46:06,506
That's the metric by which people are doing business.

641
00:46:06,646 --> 00:46:09,966
How do you outpace if that is just losing value perpetually?

642
00:46:10,586 --> 00:46:12,726
And like, I don't see a way that you can do it.

643
00:46:12,986 --> 00:46:14,366
The only thing I can see is like,

644
00:46:14,606 --> 00:46:16,046
you need something that's going to get,

645
00:46:16,206 --> 00:46:17,166
you need a currency unit

646
00:46:17,166 --> 00:46:19,046
that's gonna get more valuable over time.

647
00:46:19,626 --> 00:46:21,046
Like that's, and then like that will be,

648
00:46:21,186 --> 00:46:22,566
and so you can look at home prices.

649
00:46:22,566 --> 00:46:27,066
This is another thing. Like you, you look at home prices and the way that I described this,

650
00:46:27,126 --> 00:46:34,226
I have described this is it's like a family where if, if the father, if the father abandons the

651
00:46:34,226 --> 00:46:40,106
family, then somebody else is going to have to fill the vacuum that he is, that he was supposed

652
00:46:40,106 --> 00:46:44,486
to fill. And so if it's the mother, then she's going to suffer because she's trying to do two

653
00:46:44,486 --> 00:46:47,466
people's jobs. If it's a grandparent, they're going to suffer because they can't just be a

654
00:46:47,466 --> 00:46:52,486
grandparent. If it's going to be an uncle, whatever it is. And so similarly, like the function of,

655
00:46:52,486 --> 00:46:58,266
money in the society, like if you stop having a scarce money, then something else is going to have

656
00:46:58,266 --> 00:47:03,686
to take on these monetary, these monetary properties. And the problem was when, and so

657
00:47:03,686 --> 00:47:07,706
one of the things that's happened in the world is that real estate has taken on much more of

658
00:47:07,706 --> 00:47:12,766
these properties. And the problem is that real estate is, makes poor money for a number of,

659
00:47:13,026 --> 00:47:20,066
in a number of metrics. And then it also just increases the price of, of, of real estate over

660
00:47:20,066 --> 00:47:24,846
time to create some of these problems where younger people aren't able to afford real estate.

661
00:47:24,846 --> 00:47:31,926
So I don't see any way the big problems get fixed without a return to money being money

662
00:47:31,926 --> 00:47:36,166
to allow all these other things, including real estate, including some of these other things,

663
00:47:36,486 --> 00:47:40,786
to be what they are and not ask them to be what they are and also be money,

664
00:47:41,006 --> 00:47:45,226
or monetary units, if that makes sense, to carry a monetary premium.

665
00:47:45,506 --> 00:47:47,226
I think the problem goes a lot deeper.

666
00:47:47,226 --> 00:47:57,866
The addiction to what I call the Wall Street model or the rent-y model in America is because of fundamental structural changes to the economy that have taken place.

667
00:47:58,326 --> 00:48:01,166
I mean, they're a long time, but I mean, back to the 80s at least.

668
00:48:01,766 --> 00:48:06,526
And this is offshoring manufacturing and propping the whole thing up with King Dollar.

669
00:48:06,766 --> 00:48:08,706
Like, that's what created this.

670
00:48:08,946 --> 00:48:11,786
And then it formed a massive lobby around Wall Street.

671
00:48:11,786 --> 00:48:18,506
The pinnacle of that was Greenspan, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, these guys in the Clinton era.

672
00:48:19,006 --> 00:48:22,186
But, you know, there were holdovers as well into the Bush era and so on.

673
00:48:22,206 --> 00:48:26,126
And then it fell apart in 2008 and everyone's been confused about what to do since, basically.

674
00:48:26,666 --> 00:48:29,026
But the Wall Street model, that's what it was.

675
00:48:29,166 --> 00:48:38,566
And as the Wall Street model deteriorates, it used to just be, you know, chasing dot coms, pets dot coms, all this kind of stuff up the ladder or whatever.

676
00:48:38,706 --> 00:48:40,306
And people could say it's kind of harmless.

677
00:48:40,306 --> 00:48:42,546
and now the excess capital,

678
00:48:42,686 --> 00:48:44,566
the excess cash is just flowing into everything.

679
00:48:44,646 --> 00:48:45,866
Housing markets, as he said,

680
00:48:45,926 --> 00:48:47,466
I don't believe the EMB stuff.

681
00:48:47,626 --> 00:48:48,706
It's credit-driven.

682
00:48:49,286 --> 00:48:51,526
I mean, I can show that in multiple different markets.

683
00:48:51,666 --> 00:48:52,266
It's credit-driven.

684
00:48:52,906 --> 00:48:54,826
But it's not even credit-driven at this stage.

685
00:48:54,906 --> 00:48:57,286
It's being driven by quote-unquote shadow banks,

686
00:48:57,606 --> 00:48:59,046
private equity funds and hedge funds.

687
00:48:59,326 --> 00:49:01,146
And these are taking money out of the pension funds.

688
00:49:01,206 --> 00:49:02,626
And by the way, the whole thing's going to blow up

689
00:49:02,626 --> 00:49:04,286
and it's going to be an absolute nightmare

690
00:49:04,286 --> 00:49:06,586
and people are going to worry where their pension went

691
00:49:06,586 --> 00:49:08,026
and then we're going to have to bail out the pensions.

692
00:49:08,106 --> 00:49:08,906
We could talk about that.

693
00:49:08,906 --> 00:49:10,286
That is going to be an enormous scandal.

694
00:49:10,506 --> 00:49:12,646
It's going to make 2008 look like a complete joke

695
00:49:12,646 --> 00:49:15,086
because 2008 was confined to the banks.

696
00:49:15,546 --> 00:49:18,046
This stuff is being lent out of the pension funds

697
00:49:18,046 --> 00:49:19,146
and no one will admit it.

698
00:49:19,506 --> 00:49:21,206
It's absolutely shocking what's going on.

699
00:49:21,286 --> 00:49:23,286
But the point is that everybody,

700
00:49:23,986 --> 00:49:27,166
like what happened to America

701
00:49:27,166 --> 00:49:28,726
and to the West more broadly,

702
00:49:28,826 --> 00:49:31,346
but mainly to America and the United Kingdom

703
00:49:31,346 --> 00:49:33,266
and Ireland's being touched by this as well

704
00:49:33,266 --> 00:49:34,986
because it's kind of in the same bracket

705
00:49:34,986 --> 00:49:36,986
and actually Australia too and Canada.

706
00:49:36,986 --> 00:49:48,886
So it's really the Anglosphere this has happened to. And what's happened is that America became de-industrialized, not as bad as Britain, not as bad as Britain, but it had a substantial amount of de-industrialization.

707
00:49:48,886 --> 00:49:55,886
and what we did was we we some of these kind of more libertarian policies that were pursued from

708
00:49:55,886 --> 00:50:01,346
the reagan era up until whenever today i guess the trump administration's still doing them they're not

709
00:50:01,346 --> 00:50:08,246
actually opening up like making it easier for small shops or something to open up in towns which

710
00:50:08,246 --> 00:50:13,786
i'm in favor of fine i don't want too much regulations or taxes on small businesses like

711
00:50:13,786 --> 00:50:19,286
obviously but that's not really what's happened what what's happened is that they've deregulated

712
00:50:19,286 --> 00:50:24,486
all these sectors where this like parasite capital goes in i mean i saw recently it's one of my

713
00:50:24,486 --> 00:50:33,446
favorite current examples that um the price of um uh um rv parks of uh um camp campgrounds has

714
00:50:33,446 --> 00:50:38,566
gone through the roof now some of this is due to an increase of use uh after the pandemic but not

715
00:50:38,566 --> 00:50:45,106
all of it. The private equity industry is buying up all these campgrounds and it's destroying.

716
00:50:45,666 --> 00:50:53,986
This is not even like standard economics 101 does not say that when a big private equity fund comes

717
00:50:53,986 --> 00:51:01,826
in with the wealth of 5% of the nation's pension funds or something behind it and starts scooping

718
00:51:01,826 --> 00:51:08,866
up all these campgrounds and merging them into some big oligarchy or monopoly or something and

719
00:51:08,866 --> 00:51:14,806
jacking the prices and making the services suck. And like that is, sorry, that is not what is meant

720
00:51:14,806 --> 00:51:21,566
by like market competition or whatever. But we don't even know how to deal with it. The entire

721
00:51:21,566 --> 00:51:28,426
late liberal capitalist system seems to be turning into this giant like rentier grift.

722
00:51:28,426 --> 00:51:36,446
and like everything's a grift and everything's like how do i utilize money capital to like corner

723
00:51:36,446 --> 00:51:42,646
a market or to extract more rent out of somebody or to get somebody addicted to a gambling app or a

724
00:51:42,646 --> 00:51:47,766
dating app or whatever and maybe it's destroying their lives i don't care because i'm just extracting

725
00:51:47,766 --> 00:51:52,606
the rent but the point is and here's where i diverge from you i think that's a much deeper

726
00:51:52,606 --> 00:51:57,526
problem than just the problem of credit creation of money i think that you could do that with

727
00:51:57,526 --> 00:52:02,766
Bitcoin, you could do that on a gold standard system. This is a serious problem with the way

728
00:52:02,766 --> 00:52:08,866
that we're structuring our societies. And I don't really have a hard and fast rule about it. Where

729
00:52:08,866 --> 00:52:16,886
I would start is looking at the worst aspects of this. And I think currently America is about to

730
00:52:16,886 --> 00:52:20,806
have an enormous explosion of gambling problems because of these gambling apps that are incredibly

731
00:52:20,806 --> 00:52:26,906
addictive. And actually realize we had gambling laws in place for a reason. And with these

732
00:52:26,906 --> 00:52:33,346
addictive apps like 10 times we need them um same what like i don't know that's easy enough with like

733
00:52:33,346 --> 00:52:37,926
vice products and i think that's where we should start but when you get i don't have a hard and

734
00:52:37,926 --> 00:52:42,566
fast answer for like how do you prevent private equity buying up all the campgrounds and buying

735
00:52:42,566 --> 00:52:48,466
up all these family homes in texas i don't have a hard and fast rule for that but we need to be

736
00:52:48,466 --> 00:52:54,506
more nuanced and i think this is where i diverge from the the money um uh reform people that i don't

737
00:52:54,506 --> 00:52:59,106
money reform is going to get you there. And I think that a lot of these guys who are making

738
00:52:59,106 --> 00:53:04,566
money out of this are perfectly happy for people to be focused on monetary reform and not talking

739
00:53:04,566 --> 00:53:10,006
about, for example, like the gambling app that's like ruining one in five people's lives.

740
00:53:10,166 --> 00:53:16,446
Correct. And let me clarify, like, I don't think Bitcoin in itself is going to do it because I'm

741
00:53:16,446 --> 00:53:23,106
100% with you. The analogies that I've used, like the examples that I think are relevant are

742
00:53:23,106 --> 00:53:28,146
you've got Luther, right? Like Luther, he's pointing out problems with the church. He's

743
00:53:28,146 --> 00:53:32,266
pointing out hypocrisy, pointing out grift, all this kind of stuff. And obviously there was,

744
00:53:32,426 --> 00:53:37,726
again, there's other interests in there. There were people interested in funding his dissenting

745
00:53:37,726 --> 00:53:44,286
opinions. So that's definitely the case as well. But so that was going on, but he was aided,

746
00:53:44,646 --> 00:53:49,426
okay, his more or less righteous cause, okay, we can debate, you know, he never wanted to leave

747
00:53:49,426 --> 00:53:55,986
Catholic Church, but his righteous critiques were enabled and furthered because of this

748
00:53:55,986 --> 00:54:02,006
technological innovation in the printing press. This enabled him to expand these, spread them

749
00:54:02,006 --> 00:54:06,666
farther wide, other countries, which caught on there and helped produce what it produced.

750
00:54:07,086 --> 00:54:10,766
Another example of this that doesn't have the technological aspect is Wilberforce.

751
00:54:11,726 --> 00:54:17,166
Wilberforce, he's making moral critiques. He's trying to awaken the moral consciences

752
00:54:17,166 --> 00:54:20,346
of this more or less Christian nation

753
00:54:20,346 --> 00:54:21,986
to alert them to basically,

754
00:54:22,106 --> 00:54:24,306
hey, yes, you are personally enriching yourselves.

755
00:54:24,706 --> 00:54:26,306
Your nation is being personally enriched

756
00:54:26,306 --> 00:54:28,846
on the back of injustice of slavery.

757
00:54:29,426 --> 00:54:31,366
And so he actually was able to,

758
00:54:31,506 --> 00:54:33,586
by virtue of making religious arguments,

759
00:54:33,906 --> 00:54:37,146
was able to basically help the British people

760
00:54:37,146 --> 00:54:40,026
end up taking steps that would be arguably

761
00:54:40,026 --> 00:54:42,106
against their economic interest

762
00:54:42,106 --> 00:54:44,566
by ending the slave trade.

763
00:54:45,306 --> 00:54:46,006
So that happens.

764
00:54:46,006 --> 00:55:11,146
And so that's more like those two situations are more akin to where I see, I don't think Bitcoin, I think like there are moral arguments that need to be made and that we need like Christians on whatever level that they find themselves in to begin having these conversations and critiquing, not just on pragmatic basis, but on moral grounds and on, again, just loving your neighbor grounds.

765
00:55:11,626 --> 00:55:17,726
And so, again, it's going to be complicated because of this whole discourse of separation of church and state and all this kind of stuff.

766
00:55:17,726 --> 00:55:22,546
Like for a lot of people, they've just been one-shotted by this whole idea of the separation of church and state.

767
00:55:22,666 --> 00:55:31,086
And they can't even fathom what this would look like and the legitimacy of having things like vice laws, you know, like vice by whose standard.

768
00:55:31,226 --> 00:55:32,746
Like it's going to be a complicated thing.

769
00:55:32,746 --> 00:55:42,926
At the same time, I do agree with you that things have gotten so bad and I think are going to continue to get worse that we are kind of rediscovering why vice laws exist.

770
00:55:43,086 --> 00:55:58,926
We are kind of rediscovering why some of the indecency laws exist when you look at issues like pornography and the pornification of everything and just the way that that has transformed society for the worse and the outcomes of that.

771
00:55:58,926 --> 00:56:20,888
I think we it been easy the story been easy to drink down oh this was just the fuddy These are just these people who just wanted to control everything That why these laws existed And I think we going to discover through a lot of pain that no actually there was something something far more real grounding all these things So yeah want to clarify

772
00:56:21,069 --> 00:56:25,249
I 100% agree with you. Bitcoin is not this panacea that's going to fix everything. But I do think

773
00:56:25,249 --> 00:56:31,249
that, you know, like a return to scarce money is one tool, one part that does have extended

774
00:56:31,249 --> 00:56:38,269
consequences. But it's not a substitute for, again, this is a personal, this is a people problem.

775
00:56:38,269 --> 00:56:52,088
Like this is if our denominator, if our functional denominator that we ought to, that God would call us to use and that is going to produce the best outcomes is doing what is in the best interest of the people of a nation, then yes, it's going to revolve.

776
00:56:52,169 --> 00:56:53,328
It's not just going to be simple.

777
00:56:53,648 --> 00:56:56,529
We just fixed a couple levers and then we can fix this thing.

778
00:56:56,529 --> 00:57:08,269
It's going to require people to be courageous and people to step up and do what people have done to further human flourishing for thousands of years.

779
00:57:08,749 --> 00:57:16,209
Look, you're always going to have regulations, pretty strong ones, on economic relations.

780
00:57:16,328 --> 00:57:17,669
I'll give you one example, right?

781
00:57:18,029 --> 00:57:18,848
Contract killing.

782
00:57:19,428 --> 00:57:21,769
Contract killing is a market transaction.

783
00:57:22,569 --> 00:57:25,408
But we're like, okay, well, you can't contract kill people.

784
00:57:25,408 --> 00:57:26,408
Like, that's illegal.

785
00:57:26,529 --> 00:57:35,428
okay so like start there human trafficking illegal okay what's happened now what's happened

786
00:57:35,428 --> 00:57:41,588
now this is actually what's happening as global liberalism collapses is that these these really

787
00:57:41,588 --> 00:57:46,908
disgusting money-making activities that have gone on since probably since the beginning of time but

788
00:57:46,908 --> 00:57:55,569
were vastly uh expanded when modern economies trade economies and monetary economies grew up

789
00:57:55,569 --> 00:57:58,769
in the 17th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

790
00:57:59,569 --> 00:58:03,388
These really repulsive things were then,

791
00:58:03,948 --> 00:58:05,148
they were outside.

792
00:58:05,388 --> 00:58:07,448
They were projected onto the rest of the world.

793
00:58:07,888 --> 00:58:10,468
I mean, one of the most dramatic is the opium wars.

794
00:58:10,689 --> 00:58:11,948
Just look into the opium wars.

795
00:58:12,049 --> 00:58:12,908
It's crazy.

796
00:58:12,908 --> 00:58:16,828
These guys getting the entire of China addicted to opium,

797
00:58:17,249 --> 00:58:19,789
and then when they refused to buy the opium

798
00:58:19,789 --> 00:58:21,169
because it was the strongest society,

799
00:58:21,289 --> 00:58:22,448
they went to war with them.

800
00:58:22,948 --> 00:58:24,408
With private Navy,

801
00:58:24,408 --> 00:58:31,368
vet like it's not stuff and that we did that over there and people like wilberforce or whatever said

802
00:58:31,368 --> 00:58:38,608
this is not this is not right right now what's happened is those practices have come back to the

803
00:58:38,608 --> 00:58:43,888
mainland like that's what's happening you look at like the opioid crisis and trace it back to the

804
00:58:43,888 --> 00:58:50,128
Sackler family like that's an opium war thing and okay they didn't use gunboats they used lobbying

805
00:58:50,128 --> 00:58:56,148
in dc that's what they did and like we all know what happened there now so this is happening at

806
00:58:56,148 --> 00:59:03,269
like multiple levels if i don't think making money in and of itself is illegal or immoral but i think

807
00:59:03,269 --> 00:59:08,749
there's a lot of immoral ways to make money like a lot and they're very very tempting because

808
00:59:08,749 --> 00:59:15,249
there's only a certain amount of moral ways to make money and there probably isn't there probably

809
00:59:15,249 --> 00:59:21,549
isn't enough to go around if you see what i mean so like only and if everyone's acting morally

810
00:59:21,549 --> 00:59:27,088
less people are going to make fortunes but if everyone's allowed to act immorally more people

811
00:59:27,088 --> 00:59:32,508
are going to make fortunes not everybody but more people yes this this is a hundred percent the case

812
00:59:32,508 --> 00:59:36,608
this is why again i i can't prove this but one of the thoughts that i've had since thinking more

813
00:59:36,608 --> 00:59:43,588
about economics i read this story in the scriptures of uh of the disciples being mystified that a uh

814
00:59:43,588 --> 00:59:48,729
the rich, like it'd be hard for the rich to inherit the kingdom. And like, if you think about,

815
00:59:48,829 --> 00:59:53,428
if you think about it in like a scarce money context, the only way to get rich, well, the only

816
00:59:53,428 --> 00:59:59,309
legitimate way to get rich is to serve the needs and interests of a lot of people. And so like,

817
00:59:59,309 --> 01:00:03,348
if you're thinking about this, like if you're, if you're operating with this mindset, that the way

818
01:00:03,348 --> 01:00:07,968
that you get rich is by loving and serving your neighbor, then somebody who's rich has served and

819
01:00:07,968 --> 01:00:11,189
loved lots of people. And so then it would make sense that you'd be confused about how somebody

820
01:00:11,189 --> 01:00:15,368
who served and loved lots of people would find it difficult to get into the kingdom. And so it

821
01:00:15,368 --> 01:00:20,908
seems that Jesus has a much more real understanding of, of the nature of capital, you know, capital,

822
01:00:20,908 --> 01:00:27,189
uh, creation and capital accumulation. Uh, and so, yeah, I do, I do think this is a huge issue

823
01:00:27,189 --> 01:00:33,769
is it's going to be, it's going to blow people's minds when like a healthier society looks like

824
01:00:33,769 --> 01:00:39,488
GDP going down for at least a period of time. But I think you're absolutely right. They're like,

825
01:00:39,488 --> 01:00:41,988
That's what's needed. It's going to need to happen.

826
01:00:42,508 --> 01:00:51,628
My recent American Affairs article is saying that we should measure the GDP differently and we should actually exclude these activities.

827
01:00:52,128 --> 01:00:58,829
Just really quickly on the biblical view of making money, a lot of it has to do with the time period.

828
01:00:59,809 --> 01:01:06,448
If you're living in the time of the New Testament, who has money?

829
01:01:06,448 --> 01:01:09,289
Well, the king has money. The government has money.

830
01:01:09,488 --> 01:01:11,209
Yes, because they can levy taxes.

831
01:01:11,809 --> 01:01:14,689
But beyond some merchants, some merchants, legitimate merchants

832
01:01:14,689 --> 01:01:17,928
who are doing trade across the Middle East,

833
01:01:18,008 --> 01:01:19,029
or what we call the Middle East now.

834
01:01:19,689 --> 01:01:23,568
How do most people make money if they aren't rich

835
01:01:23,568 --> 01:01:24,669
and they want to get rich?

836
01:01:25,189 --> 01:01:27,128
Debt or tax collection.

837
01:01:27,128 --> 01:01:32,289
Those were basically, for 95% or 98% of people,

838
01:01:32,648 --> 01:01:35,508
if you really wanted to get rich in that time period,

839
01:01:35,648 --> 01:01:38,549
those were your two options.

840
01:01:38,549 --> 01:01:45,008
And of course, as everybody, I hope, tax collection back then was not the IRS, whatever you think of the IRS.

841
01:01:45,408 --> 01:01:47,169
But it was not even the IRS.

842
01:01:47,529 --> 01:01:49,568
It was mafia stuff.

843
01:01:49,689 --> 01:01:50,848
It was Shakespeare in our history.

844
01:01:51,388 --> 01:01:53,648
You'd break people's knuckles and stuff.

845
01:01:54,128 --> 01:02:03,229
And loaning money was not going down to the local bank and taking out a mortgage to buy a house for your white picket fence wife and three kids.

846
01:02:03,608 --> 01:02:05,549
No, it was human slavery.

847
01:02:06,309 --> 01:02:07,128
That's what it was.

848
01:02:07,128 --> 01:02:09,348
for the most part, money lending back then,

849
01:02:09,669 --> 01:02:11,848
ended up in human slavery of some sort.

850
01:02:12,488 --> 01:02:15,189
So that's why that view was taken in the Bible.

851
01:02:15,348 --> 01:02:18,689
Now, during the Reformation period,

852
01:02:18,809 --> 01:02:21,948
and especially if you read the very interesting

853
01:02:21,948 --> 01:02:24,868
counter-reformers, the Salamanca school,

854
01:02:24,988 --> 01:02:28,068
who are the first real, in my opinion, modern economists,

855
01:02:29,348 --> 01:02:35,209
what they realize is that some of the older laws

856
01:02:35,209 --> 01:02:37,309
that were put in place in the medieval period

857
01:02:37,309 --> 01:02:39,669
were not really working

858
01:02:39,669 --> 01:02:42,348
as merchantile trade developed in Europe.

859
01:02:42,948 --> 01:02:44,249
And they said, okay, what worked,

860
01:02:44,368 --> 01:02:46,068
basically they wouldn't have had this language,

861
01:02:46,249 --> 01:02:47,068
but what worked,

862
01:02:47,408 --> 01:02:49,888
what the rules were under feudalism

863
01:02:49,888 --> 01:02:51,488
made sense under feudalism.

864
01:02:51,848 --> 01:02:54,408
And now as merchantile capital's developing,

865
01:02:54,689 --> 01:02:56,508
we have to have a more nuanced view

866
01:02:56,508 --> 01:02:58,148
on, for example, money lending

867
01:02:58,148 --> 01:03:01,049
because we need lines of commercial credit

868
01:03:01,049 --> 01:03:02,648
for merchantile vessels and so on.

869
01:03:02,928 --> 01:03:04,029
And they were fine with that.

870
01:03:04,029 --> 01:03:05,829
That kind of sorted itself out.

871
01:03:06,148 --> 01:03:10,088
But the overcorrection there is there shouldn't be any rules.

872
01:03:10,628 --> 01:03:11,388
No, no, no, no, no.

873
01:03:11,709 --> 01:03:17,529
And now what we're getting out of, I would say, 40 years of free market rhetoric,

874
01:03:17,529 --> 01:03:20,329
which is not going to small businesses competing with you.

875
01:03:20,408 --> 01:03:22,348
We have more monopoly after this.

876
01:03:22,408 --> 01:03:23,809
We have more awful stuff.

877
01:03:24,049 --> 01:03:28,008
But what we're seeing is we're going back to that kind of New Testament era.

878
01:03:28,008 --> 01:03:40,068
The if because so much is already done, because there's so many shops, because there's so many pet clinics, because you have all the services you need at your fingertips.

879
01:03:40,068 --> 01:03:46,068
This is kind of what my essay is about, the last one for American Affairs, on what I call consumption deepening.

880
01:03:46,068 --> 01:03:52,689
because you have all these things at your fingertips the only places to make money anymore

881
01:03:52,689 --> 01:03:58,948
if you're an upstart i'm not saying the only but a lot of the only places are vice stuff

882
01:03:58,948 --> 01:04:04,309
and that's what we're seeing i i saw just to give an example in britain britain's really falling

883
01:04:04,309 --> 01:04:08,249
apart we could spend a whole hour talking about it's an emerge it's so bad what's happening there

884
01:04:08,249 --> 01:04:13,789
but yeah maybe it's so depressing and people in britain i used i lived there for most of my life

885
01:04:13,789 --> 01:04:15,029
and people in Britain complain to me

886
01:04:15,029 --> 01:04:16,088
because I think I'm bashing the country.

887
01:04:16,169 --> 01:04:16,669
I'm not, guys.

888
01:04:16,769 --> 01:04:17,868
Like, you just got to recognize

889
01:04:17,868 --> 01:04:19,848
this keep calm and carry on thing

890
01:04:19,848 --> 01:04:20,789
is not working anymore.

891
01:04:20,848 --> 01:04:21,669
Your country's falling apart.

892
01:04:21,948 --> 01:04:27,408
But the Financial Times,

893
01:04:27,508 --> 01:04:29,368
which is the equivalent of the Wall Street Journal in Europe,

894
01:04:29,888 --> 01:04:32,628
is usually has this very high prestige thing,

895
01:04:32,709 --> 01:04:33,928
which is lunch with the FT.

896
01:04:34,148 --> 01:04:36,348
And lunch with the FT is for business leaders

897
01:04:36,348 --> 01:04:37,608
and blah, blah, blah.

898
01:04:37,809 --> 01:04:40,189
And they're the only fans CEO on.

899
01:04:40,888 --> 01:04:42,368
And I just said that is,

900
01:04:42,368 --> 01:04:46,729
that's what's happening there. And what's happening is that the economy is collapsing

901
01:04:46,729 --> 01:04:51,789
in on itself in a way that's more dramatic than in America, but America's facing down some serious

902
01:04:51,789 --> 01:04:57,829
problems too. Britain's facing them down times three or four. And it's coming up on them a lot

903
01:04:57,829 --> 01:05:03,148
quicker than it's happening in the United States. And what's happening is that the vultures are

904
01:05:03,148 --> 01:05:08,749
moving in and that they're normalizing stuff. They're normalizing like, here's a community

905
01:05:08,749 --> 01:05:16,148
leader the ceo of only fans and you're like are you crazy are you gonna have the ceo of human

906
01:05:16,148 --> 01:05:21,588
trafficking on you know their human trafficking department on next week like you guys don't you

907
01:05:21,588 --> 01:05:27,368
let this stuff out and you will report whirlwind like it will not work out like you're thinking

908
01:05:27,368 --> 01:05:32,888
it's going to completely demolish your society humiliate your people you're going to be turned

909
01:05:32,888 --> 01:05:38,729
into like a joke um really sad stuff's going to happen and it's going to be very very generationally

910
01:05:38,729 --> 01:05:46,448
hard to come back from that kind of decline. But as both we have saturation of consumption,

911
01:05:46,608 --> 01:05:52,669
so we have all our goods met, and then we have what I think is coming, a contraction in living

912
01:05:52,669 --> 01:05:59,908
standards in much of the West, the temptation is to open skid row everywhere. And that, I think,

913
01:05:59,968 --> 01:06:04,648
is the most pressing problem right now. It really is, because we're not going to sort out this

914
01:06:04,648 --> 01:06:09,968
economic situation that we've got ourselves in this is 30 40 years of bad policy now we're not

915
01:06:09,968 --> 01:06:15,448
going to sort it out overnight but we need to contain some of the worst that's coming down the

916
01:06:15,448 --> 01:06:20,769
pipeline and i think that i think as you say we need to look back to this kind of like we need to

917
01:06:20,769 --> 01:06:25,568
put some moral judgments on on what business is allowed and what business isn't and not just in

918
01:06:25,568 --> 01:06:32,249
in vice stuff lending credit cards gambling we need to start really thinking about this now

919
01:06:32,249 --> 01:06:37,829
yeah and like this is i mean the the lending we could bring it up i mean the the thing with lending

920
01:06:37,829 --> 01:06:42,948
of i mean just when i was reading your book and uh and i was i got to one point where i was talking

921
01:06:42,948 --> 01:06:47,988
about i think like uh they have to have like at least 10 percent reserves like at the time of

922
01:06:47,988 --> 01:06:51,529
writing like they had to have at least 10 percent reserves in the banks and then like when covid hit

923
01:06:51,529 --> 01:06:57,588
it was zero percent reserves so now it's just like totally i mean just lending out just willy-nilly

924
01:06:57,588 --> 01:07:02,029
and so it's just like this is totally predictable like this is always i mean it was 100 then it

925
01:07:02,029 --> 01:07:06,048
went down from there, went to 90. And then it just over time just whittles down. And again,

926
01:07:06,128 --> 01:07:11,729
the critique, the pushback from this, this town who's partnering with only fans is, well, listen,

927
01:07:11,789 --> 01:07:16,088
if we don't take their money, then where's the money going to come from? You know? And so again,

928
01:07:16,088 --> 01:07:19,868
it gets back. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here, but like it, at some point, like

929
01:07:19,868 --> 01:07:25,209
there are multiple, there's multiple things that need to change. Like that, that's what I'm saying.

930
01:07:25,209 --> 01:07:29,029
And the money is one of them. You can't like, whatever these other changes are, it can't be

931
01:07:29,029 --> 01:07:33,529
done separately from changing whatever the money is because like that drives so many of the

932
01:07:33,529 --> 01:07:39,829
incentives. And so like, I mean, we look at this with our, so TGFB has been operating as a, or is

933
01:07:39,829 --> 01:07:45,189
like a for-profit enterprise. And so we, you know, we're a media company, we do podcasts, we do

934
01:07:45,189 --> 01:07:50,229
conferences and stuff like that. And so as we've had people reach out to us from these dubious

935
01:07:50,229 --> 01:07:56,488
crypto projects who want to give us lots of money in order to sponsor our conferences and this kind

936
01:07:56,488 --> 01:08:02,608
stuff. And I tell them to kick rocks regularly because like, I'm not interested in them farming

937
01:08:02,608 --> 01:08:07,968
out and like prostituting my audience for the sake of their garbage crypto project. But there's

938
01:08:07,968 --> 01:08:12,508
plenty of people who are, who are totally willing to do that and throw up their hands and do the

939
01:08:12,508 --> 01:08:16,329
free market thing. And just basically say, Hey, who am I to just not take their money? This,

940
01:08:16,448 --> 01:08:21,028
this project could be good at some point in the future. And it's just like it, you get these

941
01:08:21,028 --> 01:08:29,229
people who are desperate and these businesses who prioritize their existence over the good of their

942
01:08:29,229 --> 01:08:38,048
customers, over the medium to long-term. And this really is the crisis that we're facing.

943
01:08:38,548 --> 01:08:43,809
And to put this in biblical parlance, it's like Christ calls us to die to ourselves.

944
01:08:44,689 --> 01:08:50,608
And there's a lot of people who are not comfortable with that level of death. They're not content to

945
01:08:50,608 --> 01:08:55,469
do that. And so again, that's understandable to a degree, but also there comes a certain point where

946
01:08:55,469 --> 01:09:02,849
you have to have a North Star moral guiding system that is guiding you by something other than

947
01:09:02,849 --> 01:09:08,929
I need to make money. And so like until we get in, like these lines are already drawn. We already

948
01:09:08,929 --> 01:09:13,988
have these lines drawn. You mentioned contract killing. You mentioned prostitution. You mentioned

949
01:09:13,988 --> 01:09:19,329
some of these other things. We do draw these lines. They were drawn during an age of, you know,

950
01:09:19,329 --> 01:09:22,409
an age where we knew a lot more of the reasons behind what we were doing.

951
01:09:22,568 --> 01:09:24,128
We're currently in like a,

952
01:09:24,128 --> 01:09:27,508
in a point where we've kind of forgotten why the why of all these things and

953
01:09:27,508 --> 01:09:30,248
we're, we're kind of rediscovering them. Um, but yeah,

954
01:09:30,248 --> 01:09:33,769
it really is one of these situations where I think things are going to get a

955
01:09:33,769 --> 01:09:36,409
lot worse before they get better. Uh, and again,

956
01:09:36,409 --> 01:09:38,429
some of the ways to cope with this, you mentioned like one,

957
01:09:38,548 --> 01:09:40,969
one way to cope is, all right, we're going to take money from only fans.

958
01:09:41,189 --> 01:09:44,748
Another way to cope with the decisions that they made is just open immigration

959
01:09:44,748 --> 01:09:49,309
where we're going to treat people like they're like people are a dime a dozen

960
01:09:49,309 --> 01:10:09,389
One person is as good as another. It doesn't matter what their beliefs are. It doesn't matter what their religious convictions are. And there's just severe underestimation of the consequences of doing that. So the example that I always go back to is in some place like Dearborn, Michigan, where you've got humongous Muslim population. Are you familiar with Dearborn?

961
01:10:09,389 --> 01:10:18,289
Okay. So yeah, me either, but humongous Muslim population. And so one of the interesting things

962
01:10:18,289 --> 01:10:23,289
is the consequences of having a large Muslim population, they start to, like their religion

963
01:10:23,289 --> 01:10:30,668
starts to affect the laws. And so this has been exposed in divorce policy. So in Islamic countries,

964
01:10:30,889 --> 01:10:35,369
largely, overwhelmingly speaking, when there is a divorce, the children go with the man.

965
01:10:36,229 --> 01:10:40,488
And so this is coming into conflict with the United, you know, with the, in the United States,

966
01:10:40,488 --> 01:10:44,008
at least at this point where again, largely speaking, the children go with the mother.

967
01:10:44,349 --> 01:10:49,829
And so you have this crisis of the crisis of law is based in a, in a crisis of religion

968
01:10:49,829 --> 01:10:52,248
and of like, who, who is right?

969
01:10:52,309 --> 01:10:53,349
How do we make these decisions?

970
01:10:53,568 --> 01:10:58,648
And so when you're getting this importation of immigrants from whether it's Muslim countries

971
01:10:58,648 --> 01:11:05,088
or Southeast Asian countries, or it's not as, it's not as, um, excuse me, it's not as

972
01:11:05,088 --> 01:11:08,969
bad when you're importing people from South American countries where they do have this

973
01:11:08,969 --> 01:11:14,128
largely Christian conception of the world. There's much more similarities than there is in some of

974
01:11:14,128 --> 01:11:23,189
the Eastern Asian context. But these are real changes. These are real differences that produce

975
01:11:23,189 --> 01:11:27,628
humongously different outcomes and powerfully different outcomes that are creating much more

976
01:11:27,628 --> 01:11:31,389
conflict, that are going to create much more conflict as time goes on. And so it's not going

977
01:11:31,389 --> 01:11:35,708
to be as simple as, oh, we just import new people and then we can pay them less. And then, you know,

978
01:11:35,729 --> 01:11:40,128
they're content paying less, uh, being paid less. And then this is just going to work. It's literally

979
01:11:40,128 --> 01:11:46,208
a bandaid on, on the gaping hole of the Titanic. This is, these things are not going to work.

980
01:11:46,208 --> 01:11:50,769
Uh, but they, they make sense from, if you're looking at a problem from a political standpoint,

981
01:11:50,769 --> 01:11:56,128
who's just trying to, somebody who's just trying to stay in office or get elected maybe for another

982
01:11:56,128 --> 01:12:01,409
four-year term like if we had a monarchy for example and this person was governing for life

983
01:12:01,409 --> 01:12:07,008
these are not the decisions that these kind of people would would be making um so the it's yeah

984
01:12:07,008 --> 01:12:11,208
this whole political question is super interesting and unfortunately i think it's going to get worse

985
01:12:11,208 --> 01:12:15,648
before it gets better because people are still thinking over five minute time horizons it is

986
01:12:15,648 --> 01:12:22,528
going to get worse and this is why i keep saying like a big hit to living standards and other things

987
01:12:22,528 --> 01:12:27,528
is probably coming by 2030 in most Western countries

988
01:12:27,528 --> 01:12:30,528
and worse than some, less bad than others,

989
01:12:30,668 --> 01:12:32,389
but it's probably coming.

990
01:12:33,088 --> 01:12:38,448
And I'm only warning that making kind of more long-term plans

991
01:12:38,448 --> 01:12:39,909
about how to dig your way out of that,

992
01:12:40,608 --> 01:12:41,568
it's another question.

993
01:12:42,028 --> 01:12:43,508
I think about it.

994
01:12:44,108 --> 01:12:45,628
I think it's possible,

995
01:12:45,849 --> 01:12:47,168
but it's going to take a while to get done.

996
01:12:47,588 --> 01:12:50,748
But there's going to be a pretty nasty period here.

997
01:12:50,748 --> 01:13:00,309
And the only thing that I can say is that to totally destroy a society, you have to kind of destroy its dignity and its culture.

998
01:13:00,909 --> 01:13:16,488
And you may not be able to solve 30 or 40 years of bad economic policy or, you know, longer than that of kind of family policy or whatever you want to call what happened over the past, I don't know, 100 years or 50 years or whatever you want to call it.

999
01:13:17,189 --> 01:13:20,009
Those things are going to take a long time to solve.

1000
01:13:20,748 --> 01:13:28,229
But what can be focused on right now from this kind of quasi-economic perspective is what we're going to let in.

1001
01:13:28,908 --> 01:13:35,068
Because, you see, if you think about this for a minute, like, right, go back to like the 1950s or something, especially in Europe.

1002
01:13:35,329 --> 01:13:38,689
Like the 1950s in Europe, a lot of countries are pretty poor.

1003
01:13:38,889 --> 01:13:43,908
I mean, Ireland would definitely have been considered a developing country in the 1950s in Europe.

1004
01:13:44,248 --> 01:13:47,068
Italy probably would have been as well, parts of France and so on.

1005
01:13:48,009 --> 01:13:49,028
Maybe not Germany.

1006
01:13:49,229 --> 01:13:50,548
It might have been a little bit wealthier.

1007
01:13:50,748 --> 01:13:52,148
England a little bit wealthier.

1008
01:13:52,349 --> 01:13:54,448
But loads of these countries would have been considered

1009
01:13:54,448 --> 01:13:56,148
what we consider developing countries.

1010
01:13:56,309 --> 01:13:59,869
Now, most of them weren't tempted to, like,

1011
01:13:59,948 --> 01:14:02,248
go down the kind of, like, complete crap hole, right?

1012
01:14:02,349 --> 01:14:07,289
And turn into complete disaster, mass societies.

1013
01:14:07,528 --> 01:14:10,729
Like, I'm thinking my model's always kind of Russian in the 1990s,

1014
01:14:10,769 --> 01:14:12,889
like, really falling apart.

1015
01:14:12,889 --> 01:14:15,488
Like, it's horrendous what happened there

1016
01:14:15,488 --> 01:14:17,488
for a period of about 10 or 15 years.

1017
01:14:17,488 --> 01:14:23,809
and you know these countries didn't naturally go there and their living standards are going to be

1018
01:14:23,809 --> 01:14:29,948
substantially lower than anything that happens in the west in the next five years or something

1019
01:14:29,948 --> 01:14:34,829
like that now there's it's difficult to compare apples to apples in that regard because if you're

1020
01:14:34,829 --> 01:14:39,208
priced out of the home market for example which many people are you know back then you might not

1021
01:14:39,208 --> 01:14:43,369
have been pressed out of the home market even if it was a hot or something like that but so it's

1022
01:14:43,369 --> 01:14:52,789
It's difficult to do apples to apples, but ultimately we'll be wealthier than the Irish person in 1955 living in a patched hut, right?

1023
01:14:52,889 --> 01:14:56,108
And working really hard on the farm all day in the rain.

1024
01:14:56,809 --> 01:14:59,889
But the problem is that it's the decline.

1025
01:14:59,931 --> 01:15:06,771
decline it's the it's the beta or the delta as they say it's the it's the decline in living

1026
01:15:06,771 --> 01:15:13,651
standards that tempts people to try and prop up their living standards doing stuff that they

1027
01:15:13,651 --> 01:15:19,171
shouldn't do and that will really destroy not only their lives but they'll destroy the the the um

1028
01:15:19,171 --> 01:15:24,551
economy the society around them and it will do so in such a way that it will take generations for

1029
01:15:24,551 --> 01:15:31,411
that society to recover and i think that it really should be the the most immediate focus right now

1030
01:15:31,411 --> 01:15:36,431
we're seeing a lot of these kind of creepy crawlies coming out from under the fridge and we're going

1031
01:15:36,431 --> 01:15:41,971
like oh that's kind of gross what's that and then we're kind of like ah you know we're always doing

1032
01:15:41,971 --> 01:15:46,891
weird stuff no no no i think it's getting to the point now where like we have to be like okay i

1033
01:15:46,891 --> 01:15:52,491
think there's a bug infestation problem and maybe we should just like really focus on making sure

1034
01:15:52,491 --> 01:15:55,891
that, okay, we may not be able to solve all our problems

1035
01:15:55,891 --> 01:15:57,531
in the economy and everything in the short term.

1036
01:15:58,151 --> 01:16:00,551
Let's just ensure that we don't go down

1037
01:16:00,551 --> 01:16:02,331
the social collapse route.

1038
01:16:02,911 --> 01:16:04,191
That's my fear at the moment.

1039
01:16:04,551 --> 01:16:08,531
The decline in living standards is going to drive people

1040
01:16:08,531 --> 01:16:12,531
to do things that lead to broader kind of social degradation

1041
01:16:12,531 --> 01:16:13,851
and potential collapse, actually.

1042
01:16:15,051 --> 01:16:16,931
Yeah. Yeah, and this is, I mean, this is what you see,

1043
01:16:17,051 --> 01:16:18,451
these like niche beliefs.

1044
01:16:18,571 --> 01:16:21,571
Like you have people who are acting like the fact that they're,

1045
01:16:21,571 --> 01:16:26,571
the fact that we don't have universal daycare or something like this is like the, the cry,

1046
01:16:26,631 --> 01:16:31,591
this is the outrage of the hour. We had no universal daycare. This is a human right. You

1047
01:16:31,591 --> 01:16:35,811
know, daycare is a human right. And you just get all these kinds of, these kinds of beliefs. You're

1048
01:16:35,811 --> 01:16:40,911
just like, you have like, this makes no sense. This is like the fact that you have this standard

1049
01:16:40,911 --> 01:16:44,791
when there's so many people around the world that, you know, who are in a hundred times worse. And

1050
01:16:44,791 --> 01:16:49,431
when you look at what is the trajectory that we're on, like, these are just laughable. Like

1051
01:16:49,431 --> 01:17:00,711
These concerns, I just think the average person has no idea just what's coming and are totally delusional, totally in denial because they're believing what politicians are telling them.

1052
01:17:01,571 --> 01:17:04,091
And I just think it's going to be bad.

1053
01:17:04,511 --> 01:17:08,251
I would love to know, so you mentioned you live in Hungary, you live in Budapest.

1054
01:17:08,411 --> 01:17:10,831
What kind of drove your decision to move to Budapest?

1055
01:17:10,911 --> 01:17:14,251
Did some of these dynamics, was that a player or did you find employment there?

1056
01:17:14,351 --> 01:17:15,631
What was a combination of the two?

1057
01:17:15,631 --> 01:17:21,531
yeah i i really do believe the west is about to collapse i'm not i'm not kidding yeah it's not a

1058
01:17:21,531 --> 01:17:25,891
it's not a joke for me i'm not selling anything well my book you're putting your money where your

1059
01:17:25,891 --> 01:17:30,951
mouth is yeah your body where my mouth is yeah i mean maybe i'm trying to sell my book but i

1060
01:17:30,951 --> 01:17:35,591
wouldn't move to a substantially different part of the world with a very obscure language just to

1061
01:17:35,591 --> 01:17:40,751
get talking points to sell my book no i i think i think something something pretty bad's uh coming

1062
01:17:40,751 --> 01:17:46,211
to Western Europe. And I think probably, well, definitely the UK is halfway through it. And

1063
01:17:46,211 --> 01:17:51,571
I think America is going to be affected in different ways, but I have some concerns there.

1064
01:17:51,571 --> 01:17:58,211
And I mean, this is the most stable country in Europe. It didn't have any migration waves.

1065
01:17:58,211 --> 01:18:05,491
Didn't happen here. It's the same as it did pre-2015. The economy, I mean, it's not doing

1066
01:18:05,491 --> 01:18:07,651
great, but it's relatively stable.

1067
01:18:08,171 --> 01:18:09,291
Society is very normal.

1068
01:18:09,511 --> 01:18:11,511
It's a very normal place to live. It reminds me of

1069
01:18:11,511 --> 01:18:13,431
Ireland when I was a kid. It's just a

1070
01:18:13,431 --> 01:18:15,431
totally normal place. Most people don't

1071
01:18:15,431 --> 01:18:17,411
think about all the strange stuff that

1072
01:18:17,411 --> 01:18:19,011
people don't think about, to be honest.

1073
01:18:19,451 --> 01:18:21,231
And they're good leadership. I mean, I

1074
01:18:21,231 --> 01:18:23,331
don't care what people say about

1075
01:18:23,331 --> 01:18:25,411
Orbán. I think Viktor Orbán's the politician

1076
01:18:25,411 --> 01:18:26,571
of the generation in Europe.

1077
01:18:27,691 --> 01:18:29,331
So, yeah, I mean, I just think it's

1078
01:18:29,331 --> 01:18:31,351
a better place to live. I mean, I'm a

1079
01:18:31,351 --> 01:18:33,211
European. I don't mind living in America

1080
01:18:33,211 --> 01:18:35,291
either, but it's kind of a

1081
01:18:35,291 --> 01:18:40,331
European place anyway. And in some sense, I know America, don't take it the wrong way. I understand.

1082
01:18:40,531 --> 01:18:45,291
No, I take it. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, it's Europe, Europeanized culture. Okay.

1083
01:18:45,611 --> 01:18:50,791
So like, but you know, I'm a European, I don't really want to live in Vietnam or whatever. I'm

1084
01:18:50,791 --> 01:18:56,251
sure it's a nice place, but I don't have any desire to do that. And so basically my, my talking point

1085
01:18:56,251 --> 01:19:01,611
is Hungary is the furthest I can go to the East while staying in the West in a sense. It really is

1086
01:19:01,611 --> 01:19:06,031
Europe, by the way, people don't get this. And actually, probably I suffer from this too. My

1087
01:19:06,031 --> 01:19:10,511
conception of Hungary maybe 10 years ago was probably that it was one of these Eastern European

1088
01:19:10,511 --> 01:19:14,031
countries, which there's nothing wrong with the Eastern European countries, don't get me wrong.

1089
01:19:14,031 --> 01:19:19,671
But they tend to be quite sterile because either they're kind of, I don't want to say fake countries,

1090
01:19:19,791 --> 01:19:24,951
but either they were created quite recently, let's just say, or they were bombed to bits in World War

1091
01:19:24,951 --> 01:19:30,511
II. And so they tend to be like the communism hit them really hard. They have the tower blocks

1092
01:19:30,511 --> 01:19:32,391
everywhere. Hungary's part of the

1093
01:19:32,391 --> 01:19:33,811
Austro-Hungarian monarchy,

1094
01:19:34,451 --> 01:19:36,191
and Budapest, I'm pretty sure, is like

1095
01:19:36,191 --> 01:19:38,211
the most beautiful city in Europe, outside of

1096
01:19:38,211 --> 01:19:39,091
maybe Rome.

1097
01:19:40,331 --> 01:19:42,351
So, it's a pretty good

1098
01:19:42,351 --> 01:19:44,311
deal. It's a pretty good deal here.

1099
01:19:45,131 --> 01:19:45,971
Living standards are

1100
01:19:45,971 --> 01:19:48,231
pretty good. I think the stocks

1101
01:19:48,231 --> 01:19:50,711
are fake, actually. I think the PPP-adjusted

1102
01:19:50,711 --> 01:19:52,431
GDP per capita stats are basically

1103
01:19:52,431 --> 01:19:54,351
fake. I think the living standards are...

1104
01:19:54,351 --> 01:19:56,191
We have loads of Americans over here.

1105
01:19:56,851 --> 01:19:58,171
I wouldn't say loads, but there's a

1106
01:19:58,171 --> 01:19:59,851
American conservative types.

1107
01:20:00,511 --> 01:20:05,011
are living here loads of friends of mine circulating in and out of dc actually two of them have gone

1108
01:20:05,011 --> 01:20:11,631
recently back to dv uh so there's a big circulation and stuff like that but i i think i think countries

1109
01:20:11,631 --> 01:20:34,621
like hungary are are probably best placed in the broader west let call it uh to whether to whether what is coming frankly i know that sounds really doomish but No I Listen I with you So in terms of just a couple of questions about Hungary are they mostly self

1110
01:20:34,821 --> 01:20:39,621
Are they producing a lot of their own stuff or is there vast import-export stuff?

1111
01:20:39,741 --> 01:20:40,681
What does that look like?

1112
01:20:40,741 --> 01:20:46,601
Because I know that the EU has exercised control over some of the things that other countries

1113
01:20:46,601 --> 01:20:49,101
are able to do in some of the economies,

1114
01:20:49,841 --> 01:20:51,081
the economic policies.

1115
01:20:51,281 --> 01:20:52,941
So what does that look like,

1116
01:20:53,021 --> 01:20:55,221
at least in your experience in Hungary?

1117
01:20:56,021 --> 01:20:57,781
Hungary are the only country in Europe

1118
01:20:57,781 --> 01:21:01,181
I'm aware of that has consciously done

1119
01:21:01,181 --> 01:21:04,481
self-sustaining in the basics, right?

1120
01:21:04,621 --> 01:21:07,121
So the kind of potential crisis management.

1121
01:21:07,241 --> 01:21:08,541
Now, I don't think things are going to get that bad.

1122
01:21:08,541 --> 01:21:11,201
I'm a mid-level doom guy.

1123
01:21:11,341 --> 01:21:13,461
I just think living standards are going to go down.

1124
01:21:14,101 --> 01:21:15,881
Paul Paltice is going to become really unstable.

1125
01:21:15,881 --> 01:21:19,241
stuff like that. I don't think we're going to be like eating out of bins or anything like that,

1126
01:21:19,401 --> 01:21:24,741
but you know, it's, it's good to have your own stuff for sure. And Hungary, I think is the only

1127
01:21:24,741 --> 01:21:30,901
country in Europe that's done that. Um, so it's, it aims for, for, for self-sufficiency in food and

1128
01:21:30,901 --> 01:21:35,981
energy and so on. And it's been, I think it's been very successful given the hand that it's

1129
01:21:35,981 --> 01:21:41,381
been given in terms of the broader economy. It's quite dependent because it's, um, I mean the main,

1130
01:21:41,381 --> 01:21:45,701
uh, it's a big manufacturing economy, which is nice. It's not a kind of fake economy,

1131
01:21:45,881 --> 01:21:57,241
But a lot of it is automotives tied to the German automotive industry, which is a major decline because the Nord Stream pipeline, which was done by sailors, drunk sailors.

1132
01:21:57,461 --> 01:21:58,001
I can't remember.

1133
01:21:58,261 --> 01:21:59,241
There was something that I thought.

1134
01:21:59,701 --> 01:22:02,681
Drunk sailors or something blew up our energy supply in Europe.

1135
01:22:02,921 --> 01:22:03,301
I don't know.

1136
01:22:03,661 --> 01:22:04,621
I can't remember.

1137
01:22:05,281 --> 01:22:07,361
But anyway, the drunk sailors.

1138
01:22:07,601 --> 01:22:08,221
No, I'm telling you.

1139
01:22:08,341 --> 01:22:09,181
We need Vaisos.

1140
01:22:09,181 --> 01:22:09,541
So ridiculous.

1141
01:22:09,541 --> 01:22:12,361
Otherwise, the sailors get drunk and they blow up energy pipelines.

1142
01:22:12,361 --> 01:22:14,361
But anyway, so the...

1143
01:22:14,361 --> 01:22:15,721
It's grim.

1144
01:22:15,721 --> 01:22:17,121
Does it stop lying politicians?

1145
01:22:17,341 --> 01:22:18,021
No, I don't think so.

1146
01:22:18,101 --> 01:22:18,421
Okay, yeah.

1147
01:22:18,581 --> 01:22:19,141
No, no, no.

1148
01:22:19,161 --> 01:22:19,921
I was a drunk sailor.

1149
01:22:20,761 --> 01:22:21,641
Poles or something, I think.

1150
01:22:21,761 --> 01:22:22,021
I can't remember.

1151
01:22:23,241 --> 01:22:25,321
Anyway, so maybe it was the Finnish.

1152
01:22:25,481 --> 01:22:25,721
I don't know.

1153
01:22:25,841 --> 01:22:27,401
So anyway, all jokes aside.

1154
01:22:28,041 --> 01:22:31,221
So the economy is not completely insulated.

1155
01:22:31,221 --> 01:22:35,981
The manufacturing jobs and so on are definitely impacted by Europe.

1156
01:22:36,341 --> 01:22:39,941
But most European countries are just kind of like on autopilot.

1157
01:22:40,121 --> 01:22:41,621
And they're just trusting the plan.

1158
01:22:41,761 --> 01:22:42,681
And there is no plan.

1159
01:22:42,841 --> 01:22:44,621
So they're just trusting a non-existing plan.

1160
01:22:44,621 --> 01:22:49,201
And Hungary is thinking very hard, like, how do we make the best of this situation?

1161
01:22:49,301 --> 01:22:51,241
And the leadership here is, I mean, I know a lot of them.

1162
01:22:51,341 --> 01:22:52,421
They're very impressive people.

1163
01:22:52,721 --> 01:22:54,581
It's a bit of a philosopher, King State.

1164
01:22:55,421 --> 01:23:00,761
The average person, they portray these guys like, I read the European press films, and

1165
01:23:00,761 --> 01:23:03,921
you think like Fidesz are full of these like football hooligans.

1166
01:23:04,141 --> 01:23:08,941
I know that there's a different term in America, but like, you know, football hooligans here,

1167
01:23:09,001 --> 01:23:11,501
which is like soccer hooligans that like go and stuff.

1168
01:23:11,741 --> 01:23:13,081
That's how they kind of portray them.

1169
01:23:13,081 --> 01:23:16,501
but like actually the average party in Fidesz, Orban's party,

1170
01:23:16,661 --> 01:23:22,101
the average like party member at a senior level is like someone who's really into like philosophy.

1171
01:23:23,181 --> 01:23:24,961
The philosophy of law.

1172
01:23:25,701 --> 01:23:32,041
Yeah, the impression that I am given, or at least from afar, is like they're like Bond villains.

1173
01:23:34,041 --> 01:23:38,821
It's like they're these diabolical figures over there in Budapest, you know.

1174
01:23:38,821 --> 01:23:44,681
maybe maybe i mean i definitely think the bond film is better than the soccer hooligan like in

1175
01:23:44,681 --> 01:23:49,861
europe we're kind of it's made out that they're like guys are gonna like with skinheads that are

1176
01:23:49,861 --> 01:23:55,521
gonna jump you in the in the parking lot you know um but they're kind of no it's kind of a bit of a

1177
01:23:55,521 --> 01:24:00,821
philosopher king place and uh it's kind of nice in that regard but they're they're very thoughtful

1178
01:24:00,821 --> 01:24:06,001
on the long-term strategy of the country in a way that i don't think any other western country is

1179
01:24:06,001 --> 01:24:07,761
And they'll go through some hard stuff.

1180
01:24:08,001 --> 01:24:11,501
I have no doubt that you can't insulate yourself from, for example,

1181
01:24:11,881 --> 01:24:14,721
the deindustrialization due to lack of energy in Europe.

1182
01:24:14,941 --> 01:24:17,721
But I think that they'll be pretty sensible.

1183
01:24:17,901 --> 01:24:19,701
There's a lot of nuclear power here as well.

1184
01:24:19,841 --> 01:24:20,821
That's very noticeable.

1185
01:24:21,221 --> 01:24:22,501
And they're very pro-nuclear power.

1186
01:24:22,621 --> 01:24:24,881
And they're building two new reactors.

1187
01:24:25,081 --> 01:24:25,381
Wow, let's go.

1188
01:24:25,921 --> 01:24:31,201
So I think by 2030, maybe we can become electricity exporters.

1189
01:24:31,301 --> 01:24:34,161
Actually, we supply a lot of the electricity to Ukraine at the moment,

1190
01:24:34,161 --> 01:24:36,461
despite them not being very nice to us.

1191
01:24:36,721 --> 01:24:38,201
But, you know, we're such a Christian.

1192
01:24:38,441 --> 01:24:39,901
We provide them electricity.

1193
01:24:40,281 --> 01:24:42,621
So all in all, I think it's a pretty good setup.

1194
01:24:42,761 --> 01:24:44,601
But the one thing I'd say is it's just like

1195
01:24:44,601 --> 01:24:47,101
there's no safer city in the West.

1196
01:24:47,601 --> 01:24:49,161
Budapest is just no crime.

1197
01:24:49,461 --> 01:24:50,261
There's no crime.

1198
01:24:50,681 --> 01:24:52,761
There's no, like, mass migration.

1199
01:24:53,541 --> 01:24:55,141
It's just a really normal place.

1200
01:24:55,381 --> 01:24:57,401
And it's, I mean, if you haven't been here,

1201
01:24:57,461 --> 01:24:58,521
look up the pictures online.

1202
01:24:58,521 --> 01:25:00,581
It's one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

1203
01:25:01,781 --> 01:25:03,641
Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with the,

1204
01:25:03,641 --> 01:25:09,101
you know, we're in like the age of the, where, where philosopher kings are, the philosopher king,

1205
01:25:09,221 --> 01:25:14,181
you know, the country, those are, those are scarce. And so part of value is scarcity. So,

1206
01:25:14,241 --> 01:25:18,461
right. So you've got, you've got Bukele in El Salvador, like he's been able to, you know,

1207
01:25:18,461 --> 01:25:23,581
just like turn things around to staggering degrees. And again, there's, there's concerns

1208
01:25:23,581 --> 01:25:29,061
there from certain people, oh, is he a dictator or whatever? But like, I mean, he's, he violated

1209
01:25:29,061 --> 01:25:33,621
the constitution technically by taking a second term, but like all the people were like overwhelmed

1210
01:25:33,621 --> 01:25:36,321
like you saved our lives, we're eternally grateful.

1211
01:25:36,321 --> 01:25:38,081
Please, please stay.

1212
01:25:38,081 --> 01:25:39,481
So you've got him, you've got Orban,

1213
01:25:39,481 --> 01:25:51,011
you got some of these other places And I just think again it gonna going to be these places that have you know that have like that are able to sensibly and quickly and decisively make decisions

1214
01:25:51,011 --> 01:25:54,571
These are going to be the places that are still going to be around and where you have a bunch of,

1215
01:25:54,571 --> 01:25:58,791
you know, you have peril, you know, decision paralysis because you've got all these institutions

1216
01:25:58,791 --> 01:26:01,831
in place. Like they're going to get there. It's just the bureaucracy is going to kill them.

1217
01:26:02,791 --> 01:26:09,351
Yeah. And the internal corruption, when you, when you don't have strong leadership,

1218
01:26:09,351 --> 01:26:11,251
people just grift and loot.

1219
01:26:11,851 --> 01:26:12,591
Yes, exactly.

1220
01:26:12,851 --> 01:26:13,031
Yep.

1221
01:26:14,091 --> 01:26:14,531
100%.

1222
01:26:14,531 --> 01:26:18,171
So I guess I'll just finish with this.

1223
01:26:18,411 --> 01:26:20,791
So, I mean, you've kind of talked around Bitcoin a little bit.

1224
01:26:20,851 --> 01:26:22,831
I've seen a number of your tweets about Bitcoin.

1225
01:26:23,151 --> 01:26:25,231
What is your overall thesis about Bitcoin?

1226
01:26:25,531 --> 01:26:27,171
How do you think about it?

1227
01:26:27,231 --> 01:26:29,171
Where do you think the future is going?

1228
01:26:29,531 --> 01:26:32,071
We don't talk about price on this podcast,

1229
01:26:32,471 --> 01:26:34,531
but broadly speaking, what do you see?

1230
01:26:34,951 --> 01:26:36,131
What are your thoughts about it?

1231
01:26:36,891 --> 01:26:37,671
Well, I'll just be honest.

1232
01:26:37,671 --> 01:26:39,711
that my concern is the Bitcoin seems to be

1233
01:26:39,711 --> 01:26:40,911
correlated to the S&P.

1234
01:26:42,091 --> 01:26:43,711
I own gold. I know

1235
01:26:43,711 --> 01:26:45,151
you don't want to hear that, but like,

1236
01:26:45,271 --> 01:26:47,631
I own gold because it's uncorrelated.

1237
01:26:48,831 --> 01:26:49,551
I have to

1238
01:26:49,551 --> 01:26:51,591
interrupt you. Like, I am

1239
01:26:51,591 --> 01:26:53,611
a gold appreciator, and

1240
01:26:53,611 --> 01:26:55,391
there's a lot more overlap and

1241
01:26:55,391 --> 01:26:57,391
appreciation between the gold people

1242
01:26:57,391 --> 01:26:59,511
and the Bitcoin people than Peter Schiff

1243
01:26:59,511 --> 01:27:01,751
would have you believe. So, I

1244
01:27:01,751 --> 01:27:03,751
will say that. And I'm not a long-term

1245
01:27:03,751 --> 01:27:05,551
gold book. I hold up my

1246
01:27:05,551 --> 01:27:09,991
hands. When I was in financial markets, we all used to laugh at Peter Schiff and Rumpel on the

1247
01:27:09,991 --> 01:27:15,351
gold thing, but things have changed. The dollar is not going to be the reserve currency for much

1248
01:27:15,351 --> 01:27:22,651
longer. And the whole point and laugh of the gold guy was premised on there's no alternative to the

1249
01:27:22,651 --> 01:27:26,531
dollar. Sorry, it's not that there's no alternatives. Complex dynamic, we could do an hour and a half

1250
01:27:26,531 --> 01:27:30,431
on what's happening with the dollar, but the dollar is on its last legs as a reserve currency.

1251
01:27:30,551 --> 01:27:34,991
Not saying it's going to collapse into hyperinflation, not saying any of that, but things are coming.

1252
01:27:34,991 --> 01:27:38,531
and the Wall Street model is not long for this world.

1253
01:27:38,951 --> 01:27:40,911
And I agree with all the Bitcoin people on that.

1254
01:27:41,531 --> 01:27:44,811
But my concern is that it's become correlated to the S&P

1255
01:27:44,811 --> 01:27:46,711
and I know why it's become correlated to the S&P

1256
01:27:46,711 --> 01:27:49,031
because it's in portfolios as a risk asset.

1257
01:27:49,031 --> 01:27:50,371
I used to work on this.

1258
01:27:50,751 --> 01:27:52,371
That doesn't mean that Bitcoin,

1259
01:27:52,931 --> 01:27:56,131
that doesn't seal Bitcoin's fate as a technology.

1260
01:27:56,431 --> 01:27:58,431
But what's happened with Bitcoin is

1261
01:27:58,431 --> 01:28:01,131
it was initially set up as a monetary instrument

1262
01:28:01,131 --> 01:28:03,111
and maybe a store of value.

1263
01:28:03,111 --> 01:28:10,511
and it became a risk on asset, speculative asset for portfolio managers.

1264
01:28:11,211 --> 01:28:13,351
And I think this is a big problem for the Bitcoin people.

1265
01:28:13,351 --> 01:28:18,671
It's not their fault because they wanted to resemble what gold actually currently is,

1266
01:28:18,831 --> 01:28:24,011
which is an uncorrelated hedge against society,

1267
01:28:24,611 --> 01:28:27,271
against the dollar system, whatever you want to call it.

1268
01:28:27,271 --> 01:28:33,491
But Bitcoin has become linked to the dollar system through this portfolio speculation.

1269
01:28:34,611 --> 01:28:36,611
And I mean, what else can I say?

1270
01:28:36,731 --> 01:28:39,811
I don't want to be long NASDAQ.

1271
01:28:40,351 --> 01:28:41,831
And right now it's correlated.

1272
01:28:42,151 --> 01:28:43,031
No, here's the question.

1273
01:28:43,191 --> 01:28:45,251
Will it always be correlated to NASDAQ?

1274
01:28:45,371 --> 01:28:53,051
No, it's correlated to NASDAQ for as long as people want to put it in the same risk basket as NASDAQ.

1275
01:28:53,051 --> 01:28:56,671
But the guys on Wall Street do have it as a risk on asset.

1276
01:28:56,671 --> 01:29:11,831
And I don't know the Bitcoin response to that, but I am telling you that is the reality because I know loads of these people who buy it on Wall Street and they see it as a risk on asset. They see it as, you know, it rallies with the AI basket and stuff. And that's the concern that I'd have.

1277
01:29:12,591 --> 01:29:20,851
Yeah. And I think that's fair. Like right now, I mean, that makes sense. But like, it's just one of these things where is that the long term? Is that where it's going to be long term?

1278
01:29:20,851 --> 01:29:22,891
And I think it makes sense.

1279
01:29:23,211 --> 01:29:24,171
I had probably not.

1280
01:29:24,371 --> 01:29:26,951
It's become caught up in the current tech bubble.

1281
01:29:27,271 --> 01:29:28,591
That is my concern.

1282
01:29:28,851 --> 01:29:31,231
And I would 100% agree.

1283
01:29:31,631 --> 01:29:40,731
I still think like, again, if you look, I mean, the things that we do and the conversations that I have with gold bugs are basically just acknowledging some of the limitations of gold.

1284
01:29:40,831 --> 01:29:47,331
So one of the examples, I was a church planter and missionary in Uruguay in South America for almost seven years.

1285
01:29:47,871 --> 01:29:50,191
And so half of our church members were Venezuelan immigrants.

1286
01:29:50,191 --> 01:29:52,831
and so gold served them no purpose

1287
01:29:52,831 --> 01:29:54,971
because a lot of these people had to flee the country

1288
01:29:54,971 --> 01:29:56,191
walking across the border.

1289
01:29:56,651 --> 01:29:59,471
There were thieves and governmentally sanctioned thieves,

1290
01:29:59,611 --> 01:30:01,591
soldiers waiting who knew that these people

1291
01:30:01,591 --> 01:30:02,511
were leaving with valuables

1292
01:30:02,511 --> 01:30:04,411
and so if they have like a bag of gold or silver,

1293
01:30:04,811 --> 01:30:05,971
like it's not gonna work for them.

1294
01:30:06,031 --> 01:30:09,051
And so there's lots of places where they don't have a way

1295
01:30:09,051 --> 01:30:11,031
to meaningfully secure gold or silver,

1296
01:30:11,251 --> 01:30:12,831
but they do have like a cell phone

1297
01:30:12,831 --> 01:30:14,171
where they can, you know, they can,

1298
01:30:14,291 --> 01:30:15,831
and nobody knows that they have the Bitcoin,

1299
01:30:15,971 --> 01:30:17,631
they can, you know, there's wallets and different things.

1300
01:30:17,991 --> 01:30:19,831
So I think that's obviously, you know,

1301
01:30:19,831 --> 01:30:25,031
that's millions of people. It's still not as big of pools of capital as these Wall Street firms and

1302
01:30:25,031 --> 01:30:29,871
as sovereign wealth funds from nations, all these kinds of things. I think it's just a matter of

1303
01:30:29,871 --> 01:30:35,711
maturity. People are doing what makes sense to them. Bitcoin takes time to understand. Gold is

1304
01:30:35,711 --> 01:30:40,731
much more straightforward. Again, gold, there's plenty of fraud that goes on with gold where it's

1305
01:30:40,731 --> 01:30:46,411
tungsten wrapped in gold. And so you have to do more work to try to guarantee that what you have

1306
01:30:46,411 --> 01:30:53,151
as actual gold. And so again, none of this is like panacea versus totally broke instruments.

1307
01:30:53,351 --> 01:30:57,851
There's trade-offs with all of these things. And so it's going to take time for the broader market

1308
01:30:57,851 --> 01:31:11,841
to understand custodying Bitcoin understand a lot of these things But I do think that one of the drivers for this for Bitcoin adoption is going to be and it actually is this is happening is with Bitcoin mining

1309
01:31:12,501 --> 01:31:20,121
Because you have, like, basically, Bitcoin mining allows you to turn stranded energy into money wherever it is.

1310
01:31:20,221 --> 01:31:29,801
So, like, where you have all these, in inland China, you have a lot of these hydroelectric dams that are too far from the large population centers to efficiently transport the energy.

1311
01:31:30,441 --> 01:31:34,101
And so what they're doing is, even despite the fact that China banned Bitcoin seven times,

1312
01:31:34,141 --> 01:31:37,641
and they've banned Bitcoin seven times and banned Bitcoin mining a number of times,

1313
01:31:38,001 --> 01:31:43,621
China still has always been inside the top five of countries in terms of where mining activity is going on

1314
01:31:43,621 --> 01:31:47,561
because they can mine Bitcoin in these far-flung regions

1315
01:31:47,561 --> 01:31:52,101
and then just transfer that Bitcoin to a regular population center.

1316
01:31:52,101 --> 01:31:55,341
And so as that continues, as people understand that more and more,

1317
01:31:55,341 --> 01:32:09,801
And people realize like, wait a second, this can actually make me more green. This can allow us to take energy that's currently being either burnt off with gas flaring or whatever. We can turn this into money to help us overcome some of our budget shortfalls.

1318
01:32:09,801 --> 01:32:15,701
And then just the potential to do this to apply Bitcoin mining to something like nuclear power.

1319
01:32:16,181 --> 01:32:20,641
Those two things people are having at some of the highest levels.

1320
01:32:20,821 --> 01:32:29,321
They're having these conversations and they're looking at Bitcoin differently than just a financial instrument as a risk-on asset.

1321
01:32:29,521 --> 01:32:31,201
And so I think it's going to take time.

1322
01:32:31,321 --> 01:32:33,321
I think that we're still super early.

1323
01:32:33,821 --> 01:32:38,761
You're talking about less than one quarter, I think, of 1% of global wealth is in Bitcoin.

1324
01:32:38,761 --> 01:32:41,281
So it still is just, it's basically a baby.

1325
01:32:41,581 --> 01:32:44,101
And so, but I still think it's going to take time.

1326
01:32:44,221 --> 01:32:45,741
But again, to your point, yeah, at this moment,

1327
01:32:45,821 --> 01:32:47,881
like there is correlation just between, you know,

1328
01:32:47,921 --> 01:32:50,781
people taking money and dumping it into Bitcoin.

1329
01:32:50,921 --> 01:32:52,401
They're looking for something to give them,

1330
01:32:52,501 --> 01:32:55,341
you know, performance in a market

1331
01:32:55,341 --> 01:32:56,741
where everything else is getting killed.

1332
01:32:56,781 --> 01:32:58,501
I'll tell you exactly what they're doing.

1333
01:32:58,641 --> 01:33:02,301
They see it as a leveraged play on the stock market.

1334
01:33:02,481 --> 01:33:04,901
So the beta on Bitcoin to the NASDAQ,

1335
01:33:04,961 --> 01:33:05,861
I don't know what it is,

1336
01:33:05,901 --> 01:33:07,701
but it's probably two or something like that.

1337
01:33:07,701 --> 01:33:11,741
So for every two points, the NASDAQ moves, Bitcoin moves four points.

1338
01:33:11,901 --> 01:33:17,641
Now, if you want to do the two times leverage on NASDAQ, you've got to pay the piper, right?

1339
01:33:17,681 --> 01:33:19,321
Because you're borrowing at the margin.

1340
01:33:19,781 --> 01:33:25,421
You can get free leveraged exposure to NASDAQ by buying coins.

1341
01:33:26,001 --> 01:33:28,921
At the moment, that's pretty much what it's being used for in trader space.

1342
01:33:29,021 --> 01:33:32,241
I know it because, I mean, I used to work in it and I know what people think.

1343
01:33:32,241 --> 01:33:38,221
so it's by the way just if you want super details on this the correlations aren't perfect so you're

1344
01:33:38,221 --> 01:33:43,641
getting the trade-off that you're trusting the beta rather than paying the piper on the margins

1345
01:33:43,641 --> 01:33:49,641
um but you know it makes it makes kind of sense i it's a pity it's been turned into that but um

1346
01:33:49,641 --> 01:33:54,181
and it won't be that forever i agree and anecdotally i hear of more and more people using it for

1347
01:33:54,181 --> 01:33:58,361
transactions and i'm beginning to understand why they would start using it for transactions yeah so

1348
01:33:58,361 --> 01:34:07,221
I'm Bitcoin curious, I guess you'd say, but I'm here clinging to my bags of gold coins and doubloons and stuff.

1349
01:34:07,781 --> 01:34:14,901
See, that language of Bitcoin curious, I will put that under vice laws going forward in my philosopher kingdom.

1350
01:34:16,221 --> 01:34:18,681
Well, Philip, I really appreciate your time, man.

1351
01:34:18,781 --> 01:34:21,961
And just, again, the conversation, I would love to have you back at some point in the future.

1352
01:34:22,061 --> 01:34:26,101
We can kind of reevaluate and maybe just get more into the newer book.

1353
01:34:26,101 --> 01:34:27,381
again we barely

1354
01:34:27,381 --> 01:34:28,061
scratched the surface

1355
01:34:28,061 --> 01:34:29,341
but grateful for you

1356
01:34:29,341 --> 01:34:29,861
tell people where

1357
01:34:29,861 --> 01:34:30,801
they can find your work

1358
01:34:30,801 --> 01:34:31,981
and just where they can

1359
01:34:31,981 --> 01:34:32,821
find you and follow you

1360
01:34:32,821 --> 01:34:33,101
online

1361
01:34:33,101 --> 01:34:34,861
I think most of it's

1362
01:34:34,861 --> 01:34:35,441
on my twitter

1363
01:34:35,441 --> 01:34:36,701
at philipilk

1364
01:34:36,701 --> 01:34:39,981
p-h-i-l-i-p-p-i-l-k

1365
01:34:39,981 --> 01:34:40,581
and I just

1366
01:34:40,581 --> 01:34:41,741
I think I post

1367
01:34:41,741 --> 01:34:42,581
pretty much everything

1368
01:34:42,581 --> 01:34:44,521
everything I do up there

1369
01:34:44,521 --> 01:34:45,361
there's a lot of finance

1370
01:34:45,361 --> 01:34:46,281
stuff not a lot of

1371
01:34:46,281 --> 01:34:46,941
bitcoin stuff

1372
01:34:46,941 --> 01:34:47,901
but if you're interested

1373
01:34:47,901 --> 01:34:49,161
in the end of dollar

1374
01:34:49,161 --> 01:34:50,281
reserve hegemony

1375
01:34:50,281 --> 01:34:51,341
and all that kind of stuff

1376
01:34:51,341 --> 01:34:52,541
like I don't want to say

1377
01:34:52,541 --> 01:34:53,481
that I have one of the

1378
01:34:53,481 --> 01:34:53,941
best accounts

1379
01:34:53,941 --> 01:34:54,741
but I think I do

1380
01:34:54,741 --> 01:34:55,881
I called the end of the

1381
01:34:55,881 --> 01:35:04,501
dollar in March 2022. So a week after the invasion of Ukraine in American affairs. So it's time

1382
01:35:04,501 --> 01:35:09,601
stamped article. And so I've been very early on the dollar reserve thing. So if people are

1383
01:35:09,601 --> 01:35:13,601
interested in developments on that, I think I follow it pretty closely. Among other stuff,

1384
01:35:13,701 --> 01:35:16,941
geopolitical stuff as well. But the dollar stuff, I'm very interested in.

1385
01:35:17,541 --> 01:35:19,921
Has anyone ever told you you look like Brent Johnson?

1386
01:35:20,481 --> 01:35:21,761
I don't know who that is.

1387
01:35:21,761 --> 01:35:24,201
Brent Johnson is the dollar milkshake guy.

1388
01:35:24,481 --> 01:35:26,481
You should look him up. He's pretty well known

1389
01:35:26,481 --> 01:35:28,281
and he's been doing the

1390
01:35:28,281 --> 01:35:30,401
he's kind of like the opposite where he's been saying, listen

1391
01:35:30,401 --> 01:35:32,381
yes, the dollar will someday

1392
01:35:32,381 --> 01:35:34,041
crash because of these stupid policies

1393
01:35:34,041 --> 01:35:36,261
but in the meantime, the dollar is going to go way

1394
01:35:36,261 --> 01:35:38,401
higher just by virtue of all the dollar

1395
01:35:38,401 --> 01:35:40,181
dominated debt that's around the world and stuff like that.

1396
01:35:40,301 --> 01:35:42,021
Oh, he's the like

1397
01:35:42,021 --> 01:35:43,661
finance commentator.

1398
01:35:43,861 --> 01:35:44,021
Yeah.

1399
01:35:44,541 --> 01:35:47,681
Brent Johnson. Yeah, you should look him up.

1400
01:35:48,261 --> 01:35:50,701
Maybe we're like

1401
01:35:50,701 --> 01:35:51,501
twins, twins,

1402
01:35:51,601 --> 01:35:52,281
Seth Rode of the Bird.

1403
01:35:52,601 --> 01:35:53,341
Twins, he's the

1404
01:35:53,341 --> 01:35:54,561
American version of you.

1405
01:35:54,701 --> 01:35:55,361
Maybe, maybe there

1406
01:35:55,361 --> 01:35:56,101
could be a history,

1407
01:35:56,361 --> 01:35:57,481
you know, uh, you're,

1408
01:35:57,561 --> 01:35:58,121
you can check out

1409
01:35:58,121 --> 01:35:59,241
your, your family

1410
01:35:59,241 --> 01:36:00,201
demographics and, you

1411
01:36:00,201 --> 01:36:01,281
know, where, maybe

1412
01:36:01,281 --> 01:36:01,841
you guys are related

1413
01:36:01,841 --> 01:36:02,281
to your fighting.

1414
01:36:02,281 --> 01:36:02,941
If we really look

1415
01:36:02,941 --> 01:36:03,481
alike, that would be

1416
01:36:03,481 --> 01:36:04,461
good if he's like pro,

1417
01:36:04,601 --> 01:36:05,621
if he's pro dollar

1418
01:36:05,621 --> 01:36:06,661
and I'm like anti or

1419
01:36:06,661 --> 01:36:07,161
whatever, that would

1420
01:36:07,161 --> 01:36:09,541
be a good, uh, that's

1421
01:36:09,541 --> 01:36:10,361
a grift, that's a

1422
01:36:10,361 --> 01:36:11,321
grift, man, there's a

1423
01:36:11,321 --> 01:36:11,941
grift for you.

1424
01:36:13,461 --> 01:36:14,381
Well, but hey, really

1425
01:36:14,381 --> 01:36:15,061
appreciate you.

1426
01:36:15,161 --> 01:36:15,661
And again, we'd love

1427
01:36:15,661 --> 01:36:16,181
to have you back at

1428
01:36:16,181 --> 01:36:16,701
some time in the

1429
01:36:16,701 --> 01:36:16,941
future.

1430
01:36:17,261 --> 01:36:17,661
All right.

1431
01:36:17,721 --> 01:36:18,261
Thanks, Jordan.

1432
01:36:20,701 --> 01:36:29,181
We Are F publishers.