1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,440
Bitcoin is amazing because it has demonstrated to people that you don't need the state to issue money.

2
00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:09,880
Fiat is in its death throes. The great Keynesian experiment is coming to an end.

3
00:00:10,060 --> 00:00:13,700
I cannot believe we are here today. It blows my mind.

4
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:19,400
We have nation state involvement. We have almost every large financial institution participating.

5
00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:24,180
Yeah, I knew we would get here. I just didn't think we would get here this quick.

6
00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:26,740
AI things came out and they really started getting good.

7
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:29,700
Major companies stopped hiring entry level positions.

8
00:00:29,700 --> 00:00:33,720
robots like that. I mean, they're going to be rivaling nation states. I know a lot of people

9
00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:38,560
who lost a lot of money because they believe in that progression theorem and it held them back

10
00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:47,420
from buying Bitcoin. It was real tragic. All right. Welcome, everybody, to Episode 2 of the

11
00:00:47,420 --> 00:00:54,120
Bitcoin Boomers. Today's special guest is Dr. Robert Murphy. I've had the pleasure of knowing

12
00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:58,740
Bob for, I think, Bob, maybe like five years. We've known each other. We've kind of had a

13
00:00:58,740 --> 00:01:08,100
a weird intersection of life insurance, Bitcoin and economics and kind of that Venn diagram

14
00:01:08,100 --> 00:01:16,520
drew us together. For those not familiar with Bob, he has a resume that is way longer than I could

15
00:01:16,520 --> 00:01:23,840
ever do justice for. But Bob always leads with that. He's a Christian. I respect that and admire

16
00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:29,380
that. And I think that you'll see as you learn about Bob that it kind of weaves its way through

17
00:01:29,380 --> 00:01:38,280
everything that he does. Bob has a PhD in economics from NYU. He's a senior fellow at both the

18
00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:43,800
Fraser Institute and the Mises Institute, which if you're not familiar with the world of economics,

19
00:01:44,020 --> 00:01:50,940
that's about as good as you can do. He's the chief economist at an organization called

20
00:01:50,940 --> 00:01:58,700
uh infinio uh he's an author podcaster i've had the pleasure of being on his show um the bob murphy

21
00:01:58,700 --> 00:02:05,020
show but he also has the human action podcast um has an old show uh contra krugman which was

22
00:02:05,020 --> 00:02:11,060
absolutely phenomenal maybe we'll touch on uh some of that at some point so welcome bob thank you for

23
00:02:11,060 --> 00:02:16,120
coming well thanks for having me guys and i should clarify i'm not officially a boomer but sometimes

24
00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:18,720
when I'm in the park with my youngest son, people assume I'm his grandfather.

25
00:02:19,060 --> 00:02:19,720
So I do have that.

26
00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:21,400
I should have clarified that.

27
00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:22,420
You're an honorary boomer.

28
00:02:22,520 --> 00:02:23,780
Yes, I should have clarified that.

29
00:02:23,820 --> 00:02:30,900
Bob is not a boomer, and not all our guests will be boomers, but I think he certainly

30
00:02:30,900 --> 00:02:35,520
knows a lot of boomers and understands a lot of things about the world that we can all

31
00:02:35,520 --> 00:02:36,460
learn from.

32
00:02:37,180 --> 00:02:44,680
You know, Bob, I thought maybe a place to start for folks is I think the world of economics

33
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:53,100
itself is somewhat of a mystery. And so I'll let you expand on this, but it's maybe one of the few

34
00:02:53,100 --> 00:02:58,600
disciplines where you have radically different schools of thought, and you're an Austrian,

35
00:02:58,980 --> 00:03:03,420
and I guess I didn't mention this, also a libertarian, which is another, I think,

36
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:10,320
important perspective for people to understand about you. But maybe kind of given over you,

37
00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:12,780
But why do these different schools of thought exist?

38
00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:18,860
The MMTers, the Keynesians, the Austrians, which and why are the Austrians right?

39
00:03:20,020 --> 00:03:24,700
OK, so for the first one in terms of like, why are there schools of thought and economics, period?

40
00:03:25,260 --> 00:03:26,500
And that's not the only discipline.

41
00:03:26,500 --> 00:03:32,780
So if you look around like for psychiatry, like there are Freudians or like post Freudians, things like that.

42
00:03:32,860 --> 00:03:40,180
And you can see even like in something like literature or history, there's different schools of thought in the I think that the dividing line is like in the.

43
00:03:40,180 --> 00:03:44,600
social sciences right whereas in among like chemists and physicists and stuff it's not like

44
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:49,320
there's broad schools but even to the extent that there is like in physics some people believe in

45
00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:54,640
string theory and some don't and so when you say well how can this schism persist it's because and

46
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:58,800
they'll say well because we don't have the equipment yet to test the you know the theories

47
00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:02,660
right it's just all math right now so i think that's ultimately the thing is that in the hard

48
00:04:02,660 --> 00:04:08,340
sciences there's experimental verification and so like it's pretty they have a pretty clear metric

49
00:04:08,340 --> 00:04:10,980
in terms of who's right and who's wrong, at least in principle.

50
00:04:10,980 --> 00:04:14,840
Whereas in economics, you know, I can be arguing with Paul Krugman

51
00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:18,840
about what caused the Great Depression, and no one can ever be proven right

52
00:04:18,840 --> 00:04:23,560
because we would have to go back in time to 1929 and do different government policies

53
00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:25,740
and then run the tape and then compare that to what happened.

54
00:04:25,740 --> 00:04:28,000
Yeah, against irreparable conditions, right?

55
00:04:28,220 --> 00:04:32,860
Right, you're always arguing the counterfactual or like the Obama stimulus package or whatever, right?

56
00:04:32,940 --> 00:04:35,740
So that's, I think, you know, to answer quite, and then of course too,

57
00:04:35,840 --> 00:04:38,140
it's so ideological and there's so much at stake.

58
00:04:38,340 --> 00:04:42,360
Like in the grand scheme, a lot of people don't care one way or the other whether string theory is true or not.

59
00:04:42,380 --> 00:04:46,240
So that's not like this cutting social issue that's keeping people up at night.

60
00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:49,540
But people do care a lot about, you know, should there be UBI or whatever?

61
00:04:49,780 --> 00:04:54,820
Or, you know, should the government give more support to higher education or things like that or SNAP benefits?

62
00:04:55,140 --> 00:04:56,700
Right. That people really care about that.

63
00:04:57,160 --> 00:05:07,780
And so then I guess what I'm saying is economics is rigorous in the sense that the models or the methods you use to explain your position have to be coherent and internally consistent and stuff like that.

64
00:05:07,780 --> 00:05:12,740
but you can, there's like a lot of free variables, if you will. You can, you know,

65
00:05:12,740 --> 00:05:18,420
you can point to the data and tell some story that justifies your ideology if you're clever.

66
00:05:18,420 --> 00:05:22,380
And then, and I think that's kind of explains what happens. I don't want to say people are

67
00:05:22,380 --> 00:05:30,540
consciously lying, but I'm just saying when you go in with your, but I'm saying you need not be

68
00:05:30,540 --> 00:05:33,440
lying. In other words, you can just say, no, I know what I, and you can just come up with a story

69
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:37,440
to fit the, and that's what they would say that, you know, that my friends and I do, right? So

70
00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:39,400
That's the accusations that would go back and forth.

71
00:05:40,140 --> 00:05:40,580
You know what?

72
00:05:40,600 --> 00:05:42,120
I appreciate about your answer, Bob.

73
00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:49,140
But I think if we ask the same question to some other economists, they would answer it differently.

74
00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:59,940
And part of it is, I think we see it when we see economists frequently that are quoted, and we'll use, like, say, a Krugman.

75
00:05:59,940 --> 00:06:10,100
they they often present it with this confidence whatever their position is this confidence that

76
00:06:10,100 --> 00:06:15,800
and and uh the mmt-ers which maybe you could even explain that world for a little bit like they

77
00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:20,900
they believe they've mathematically proven a whole bunch of things at least that's my

78
00:06:20,900 --> 00:06:28,480
perspective of it you may you may view it differently yeah yeah sure so uh and also to

79
00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:31,520
to circle because you had asked me a two-part question the one was like why are there schools

80
00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:37,040
why is yours right um and so yeah i i don't want to give the impression and you know lawrence of

81
00:06:37,040 --> 00:06:41,600
course i agree with you that a lot of these guys are not honest players that was one of the you

82
00:06:41,600 --> 00:06:46,560
know underpinnings of our that uh podcast contra crewman bob that you alluded to in the intro there

83
00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:50,400
is that we every week we would just take his pot his article in the new york times and just go

84
00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:56,000
through and show why he was mislead or whatever even though yeah he had this you know this patent

85
00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:57,740
of scientific irrefutability.

86
00:06:57,840 --> 00:07:00,140
No, I'm just doing math here when, no, there's a lot of assumptions.

87
00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,040
So just to give a quick example of, so I, for example,

88
00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:06,720
did not favor the Obama stimulus package.

89
00:07:06,860 --> 00:07:10,020
And just to give an example of what I mean to illustrate this ability

90
00:07:10,020 --> 00:07:13,400
that it's like non-falsifiable, but yet I think my camp is right,

91
00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:17,520
is, so remember, there was the financial crisis in 2008.

92
00:07:18,140 --> 00:07:22,300
Obama gets elected in that election, so he gets sworn in in January 2009,

93
00:07:22,300 --> 00:07:25,920
and they had the so-called Obama stimulus package that was going up

94
00:07:25,920 --> 00:07:27,580
hey, we're going to the economy's in free fall.

95
00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:32,340
And the chair of the economic advisors for him, Christina Romer,

96
00:07:32,440 --> 00:07:35,120
and then the vice chair was Jared Bernstein.

97
00:07:35,340 --> 00:07:38,300
They had this analysis to try to explain to legislators

98
00:07:38,300 --> 00:07:41,660
why you should vote for this package, the Economic Recovery Act,

99
00:07:41,700 --> 00:07:42,340
or whatever they called it.

100
00:07:42,420 --> 00:07:44,560
But what we think of as the Obama stimulus package.

101
00:07:45,080 --> 00:07:47,380
And they said, and I don't have the exact numbers off the top of my head,

102
00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:49,720
but the structure of their argument was,

103
00:07:50,220 --> 00:07:52,440
they said right now unemployment is 7% and change.

104
00:07:52,500 --> 00:07:53,780
Again, this was January of 2009.

105
00:07:53,780 --> 00:07:59,680
And they said, if we go ahead and do this stimulus package, unemployment is still going to go up.

106
00:07:59,740 --> 00:08:00,200
Don't misunderstand.

107
00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:01,800
But we'll contain it.

108
00:08:01,900 --> 00:08:05,480
Like unemployment will only go up to eight point something if we do this package.

109
00:08:05,740 --> 00:08:10,680
However, if we just sit back and let the free market rip, unemployment might go up to nine something.

110
00:08:11,260 --> 00:08:12,400
So that's why we should do this.

111
00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:12,880
Right, everybody.

112
00:08:13,240 --> 00:08:14,940
So they went ahead and did the Obama package.

113
00:08:15,060 --> 00:08:17,340
And unemployment went up above 10 percent.

114
00:08:17,980 --> 00:08:18,380
Right.

115
00:08:18,380 --> 00:08:23,600
And so you would think what more could happen to show that they were wrong and the critics were right.

116
00:08:23,780 --> 00:08:30,800
Well, no, the Keynesians just all ran victory laps saying, wow, it's a good thing we passed that stimulus package because the economy was in worse shape than we realized.

117
00:08:31,360 --> 00:08:37,940
Right. So that's how they handled it. So, you know, to us, of course, as Austrian libertarian guys, that sounded like, you know, special pleading and crazy.

118
00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:48,860
But I mean, you know, you could come up with an analogy in medicine or something where some patient's sick and they, you know, the doctor says, well, we recommend this treatment and because otherwise this could happen.

119
00:08:48,860 --> 00:08:50,760
and they go ahead and do the treatment and the patient dies,

120
00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:54,520
that one anecdote doesn't prove that the treatment is bad.

121
00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:56,600
There could be 19 million things going on, right?

122
00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,480
So that's kind of what happens here within economics.

123
00:08:59,660 --> 00:09:02,540
There's already 15 million things going on,

124
00:09:02,680 --> 00:09:04,820
so you can't do like a controlled experiment.

125
00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:08,780
As far as the MMTers, they're a little bit different than the Keynesians.

126
00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:13,800
And the way the MMTers work is, and that stands for Modern Monetary Theory, MMT,

127
00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:21,500
they rest a lot of their rhetorical weight on accounting tautologies and so they'll say just

128
00:09:21,500 --> 00:09:25,220
give you one example that's my favorite so stephanie kelton who's like the leader of their

129
00:09:25,220 --> 00:09:31,500
movement now um she was an advisor of bernie sanders campaign and so on she posted a chart

130
00:09:31,500 --> 00:09:38,900
on twitter a while ago that showed a graph of the u.s federal budget deficit and then overlaid that

131
00:09:38,900 --> 00:09:44,200
with what they called like the net private surplus or financial surplus to the private sector. And it

132
00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:48,020
was like, they were almost mirror images that whenever the government was, you know, had red

133
00:09:48,020 --> 00:09:53,920
bars, the private sector had a financial surplus, almost offsetting mirror image. And so she, you

134
00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:58,700
know, she said, uh, all this fretting about the government debt, but the only way the financial

135
00:09:58,700 --> 00:10:04,980
sector can accumulate net financial assets is if the public sector has a deficit, their red ink

136
00:10:04,980 --> 00:10:09,860
makes our black ink possible. Right. And so, you know, it's just so clearly rhetorically,

137
00:10:09,860 --> 00:10:14,300
what she's trying to say is all you fiscal hawks wanting to cut spending and, you know,

138
00:10:14,300 --> 00:10:18,420
get the deficit under control and we're, you know, impoverishing our grandchildren.

139
00:10:18,700 --> 00:10:22,120
You guys are all idiots. What you don't understand when it comes to public finances,

140
00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:26,800
as opposed to like a household deficits are actually responsible because that, you know,

141
00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:32,540
provides the means by which the private sector can accumulate assets. So not to go down a rabbit

142
00:10:32,540 --> 00:10:37,420
hole here. There is a sense in which what she's saying, she could point to some accounting by which

143
00:10:37,420 --> 00:10:44,120
that's true. But the trick is that the way they do these numbers, like the net, the private sector

144
00:10:44,120 --> 00:10:49,120
as a whole, the financial assets net to zero necessarily, right? Like if you have a corporate

145
00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:53,160
bond, that's an asset to you, but it's a liability to the corporation, right? So that's a sense.

146
00:10:53,580 --> 00:10:58,880
And so all they're saying with that, you know, insight is the only way that the private sector

147
00:10:58,880 --> 00:11:04,360
as a whole can be owed dollars by something that's not just a wash is if some outside entity owes

148
00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:08,960
them dollars well who could that be well it could be foreigners or it could be the government and so

149
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:14,600
yeah that's not a false statement but it doesn't you know the private sector the fact that the

150
00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:21,240
government owes us 37 trillion dollars because that's their debt or 38 38 if they snap their

151
00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:25,040
fingers tomorrow and that debt just disappear all those treasuries disappeared it's not that the

152
00:11:25,040 --> 00:11:30,040
private sector as a collective would be that much worse off because how was the government going to

153
00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:35,180
pay the interest in the principal they were going to tax us borrow it you know just roll it over or

154
00:11:35,180 --> 00:11:39,480
print money and so you can see that that's a different thing that a household old but you know

155
00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:43,500
if if foreigners owed us that 37 trillion that would mean something that would make americans

156
00:11:43,500 --> 00:11:46,840
genuinely wealthier because the only way foreigners are going to come up with that is to make cars and

157
00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:51,460
stuff and send them to us but to say the government owns the private sector 37 trillion so that's

158
00:11:51,460 --> 00:11:57,040
net assets to us is kind of goofy when you think through how does the government pay us it's like

159
00:11:57,040 --> 00:12:00,740
if some if some guy owes you a thousand dollars and he sticks a gun in your belly

160
00:12:00,740 --> 00:12:04,480
you give him a thousand dollars because he mugs you and then he pays you right back and says there

161
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:09,760
you go we're square was his iou you know was that really an asset the same you know i mean so it's

162
00:12:09,760 --> 00:12:13,860
kind of like that so again that's the thing with mmt years is they'll make some statements that

163
00:12:13,860 --> 00:12:20,360
are technically not false but they're extremely misleading i agree with that i was covered in my

164
00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:26,980
book, you know, the fantasy that they live under is that they can continue to print money to cover

165
00:12:26,980 --> 00:12:32,760
deficits and that there won't be any impact of that printing. And they concede that inflation

166
00:12:32,760 --> 00:12:39,000
is a potential risk, but they also believe that they can control that inflation through taxation

167
00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:43,740
and government policies. And anybody who believes the government can control anything effectively or

168
00:12:43,740 --> 00:12:49,960
knows how and when to do the right thing is delusional in my view. And the first experiment

169
00:12:49,960 --> 00:13:00,080
with MMT was 1921 through 23, and it was called chartalism back then. And there was a guy named

170
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:03,920
Knapp who came up with the notion that the government could never run out of money,

171
00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:07,580
and that all money was a creation of the government, not a creation of the marketplace,

172
00:13:07,580 --> 00:13:14,200
which was just totally false. And it ended up with the hyperinflation in Weimar Germany. So

173
00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:19,000
it's funny, because when I asked her, Stephanie, about that on Twitter, I got blocked.

174
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:26,780
yeah i don't know how that shit happens right yeah we know warren moser blocked me which is

175
00:13:26,780 --> 00:13:30,060
weird because i've had him on my show it was curdy i don't even know like he sometimes there's like

176
00:13:30,060 --> 00:13:33,680
lists that go around and people just automatically like defer to someone else's judgment block these

177
00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:39,680
accounts yeah when i yeah when i went after suddenly i had all of mmt world coming after

178
00:13:39,680 --> 00:13:47,400
me and i just had a total blockathon i i x'd out hundreds of people within days yeah well that so

179
00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:52,120
Lawrence, you make a good point there, too. I've seen that, too, where it's again, Stephanie

180
00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:56,880
Collins, she's not dumb. Right. So in her book, like if people just say like, oh, you know,

181
00:13:56,920 --> 00:14:01,440
money printer, go burr, you MMTers, you just think print money. And the MMTers can, you know,

182
00:14:01,460 --> 00:14:06,000
get righteously indignant and say, no, Stephanie says several times in her book, you know, that

183
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,240
there's real resource constraints. And if the government runs the printing press too much,

184
00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:15,960
then that will make prices right. And yes, she does say that. But again, like there's never a

185
00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,460
time when they say the government should stop printing it like there's clips of her on cnbc

186
00:14:19,460 --> 00:14:23,400
there's no mechanism for it yeah she said multiple times she's like cash cards she said we can never

187
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:27,000
run out of money you know we've got an unlimited amount of money just like there's an unlimited

188
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:32,280
amount of cash in the federal reserve i mean she is just an outright complete and utter fraud i mean

189
00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:36,920
she's a liar and she's full of shit and she knows she's full of shit but she's kissing up to the

190
00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:42,420
state you know and she went to that great college stony brook and got you know got a phd there and

191
00:14:42,420 --> 00:14:44,060
I mean, she's just dumb as fuck.

192
00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:45,680
I mean, it's just...

193
00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:47,020
She is.

194
00:14:47,180 --> 00:14:47,760
I mean, it's just...

195
00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:49,060
Well, tell us like it is, Bob.

196
00:14:49,300 --> 00:14:50,520
Larry, tell us like it is.

197
00:14:50,740 --> 00:14:51,440
No, it's just...

198
00:14:51,440 --> 00:14:51,960
It's true.

199
00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:53,100
I mean, I read her book.

200
00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:54,720
I mean, it was such trash.

201
00:14:55,260 --> 00:14:58,200
I just couldn't believe anybody reads and believes that crap.

202
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:00,300
I mean, it's like, what the fuck, lady?

203
00:15:00,320 --> 00:15:02,000
This makes no sense whatsoever.

204
00:15:02,820 --> 00:15:05,520
I mean, it was just horrible.

205
00:15:05,520 --> 00:15:09,140
I mean, I had to read it because I was writing mine, and I had to cover MMT.

206
00:15:09,140 --> 00:15:12,920
so i had to sit down actually read the whole goddamn book which i never would have done

207
00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:17,440
otherwise and i was just appalled at what i read i mean it's just a piece of shit

208
00:15:17,440 --> 00:15:23,120
you know why anyone buys it i just don't understand i don't know if i'm old enough

209
00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:29,620
for this podcast you may not bob you may not be cranky enough i mean we should become the cranky

210
00:15:29,620 --> 00:15:33,220
old man bob yeah we should have should have warned you about when larry gets rolling

211
00:15:33,220 --> 00:15:39,320
our last guest might have surpassed me we had a guy on um who's a good friend of ours george

212
00:15:39,320 --> 00:15:43,520
bodine and he's probably right there with me but yeah bob and gary are much more polite than i am

213
00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:48,960
i think that's set to scale for us yeah i'm kind of i'm kind of at that point where i'm just so

214
00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:54,660
pissed off and and i got nothing to lose i just don't give a fuck and so you know i'm just gonna

215
00:15:54,660 --> 00:16:00,120
kind of call it as i see and i think but i think that's what i think it it i think that's a really

216
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:06,460
sage point because i think at some point you just had enough right and you know like yeah we're well

217
00:16:06,460 --> 00:16:11,880
in our you know well over 60 years old and i know you're not you're not there yet uh even close bob

218
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:16,720
but like there's a point at which you just say i'm i'm just so tired of this crap and this bullshit

219
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:22,840
you also realize like you have a clock yourself like you want to see stuff righted before you pass

220
00:16:22,840 --> 00:16:30,600
on right and and so it it gets frustrating and i i think kind of back to that whole thing of how the

221
00:16:30,600 --> 00:16:34,760
different schools of thought the way i look at it and you know correct me if you feel differently

222
00:16:34,760 --> 00:16:41,120
bob but i think we're really talking about a whole bunch of schools of thought that think

223
00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:49,200
an economy can be managed that a central authority can can somehow pull the levers and make it all

224
00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:54,000
right versus the Austrian school saying, no, it, it, it,

225
00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:57,840
you don't want to screw with it. Like let it,

226
00:16:57,980 --> 00:17:01,320
let it run its course and it will be much better off than if you tried to play

227
00:17:01,320 --> 00:17:01,680
with it.

228
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:05,500
Yeah, I think that for sure that's true. And then I,

229
00:17:05,560 --> 00:17:09,000
I got more of a glimpse in the psychology and understand how it works when I

230
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:13,380
went to NYU to get my degree. And there, you know,

231
00:17:13,380 --> 00:17:15,840
there were some of the professors there. So at the time I went,

232
00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:19,320
It was probably like a top 15 economics program in the world.

233
00:17:19,580 --> 00:17:20,900
So it was a pretty rigorous program.

234
00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:22,740
They had an Austrian fellowship.

235
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:28,400
That's why I went there because it was like I got the mainstream education, but my dissertation could be Austrian and they supported me.

236
00:17:29,820 --> 00:17:32,040
And, you know, so those guys were sharp.

237
00:17:32,100 --> 00:17:35,300
You know, they were very good at math and everything, but they just they didn't.

238
00:17:35,300 --> 00:17:37,560
In my view, they didn't really understand how the economy worked.

239
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:45,160
And then also it wasn't just like a side point because they were so intelligent or because Paul Krugman is so smart.

240
00:17:45,160 --> 00:17:50,100
that's why he thinks oh i have the ability i could run things better than what these clowns

241
00:17:50,100 --> 00:17:54,260
are doing you know what i mean so this arrogance kind of fuels it and that's there was a guy in my

242
00:17:54,260 --> 00:17:58,700
program i was somehow the socialist calculation debate came up so this is a famous debate that

243
00:17:58,700 --> 00:18:04,320
raged in the 20s and 30s between like mises and hayek and socialists and mises was saying that

244
00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:09,780
yeah you need market prices central planners don't have the ability even after the fact to

245
00:18:09,780 --> 00:18:13,420
say whether resources have been allocated efficiently that's why you need you know

246
00:18:13,420 --> 00:18:18,120
decentralized ownership money prices just so entrepreneurs can do profit and loss calculation

247
00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:22,540
that's how it works in a market economy you don't have the analog in a socialist one so they they

248
00:18:22,540 --> 00:18:25,800
have no idea he said they'd be groping in the dark they have no idea what they're doing

249
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:30,900
it's and my buddy in this program you know going through the program with me and he was a sharp

250
00:18:30,900 --> 00:18:35,560
guy a nice guy and he was just like no i mean clearly the socialist won because whatever the

251
00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:40,620
market economy does the socialist could just mimic that allocation but if they didn't like it they

252
00:18:40,620 --> 00:18:44,300
could just tweak it so like and why was he thinking because in his mind it's just a little

253
00:18:44,300 --> 00:18:48,680
model that we just learned in our first year class at nyu like that's what the economy is it's just a

254
00:18:48,680 --> 00:18:54,060
bunch of equations not realizing like to say oh just tell the central planners just start out you

255
00:18:54,060 --> 00:18:57,640
know basically mimic what the market would have done this year and then if you see some things

256
00:18:57,640 --> 00:19:02,220
you don't like like inequality it's ironic because we've got thousands of years of history that shows

257
00:19:02,220 --> 00:19:07,120
that you know the freer markets are the better the outcomes that they provide and yet you know

258
00:19:07,120 --> 00:19:11,560
all these Keynesians and socialists just ignore that. And that's because they want to be in power.

259
00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:15,220
And what you're saying, Bob, kind of reminds me of a conversation that

260
00:19:15,220 --> 00:19:20,260
Ryan Lundin had with Alan Greenspan, where he after he left the Fed, and, you know, he was a

261
00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:25,140
gold bug. Originally, he was, you know, an Ayn Rand accolade. And he said, Well, you know, when we

262
00:19:25,140 --> 00:19:28,760
were running the Fed, we were really just trying to mimic the gold standard. And I just wanted to

263
00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:34,400
throw, you know, spit up my coffee. I mean, it's just like, no, you weren't, you know, you very

264
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:39,400
clearly you know blew an enormous bubble and and you were managing to an outcome which was higher

265
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:43,560
stock prices because you knew that if asset prices went up you know there wouldn't be a revolution

266
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:48,860
and so we engineered a system where asset prices have to go up continually the only way to have

267
00:19:48,860 --> 00:19:53,020
asset prices go up continually is to feed them with newly printed money and that's what we've

268
00:19:53,020 --> 00:19:58,340
been doing now for 50 plus years and the whole experiment's about to blow the fuck up and it

269
00:19:58,340 --> 00:20:05,420
deserves to blow the fuck up you know and um it's it's just disgusting you know how stupid these

270
00:20:05,420 --> 00:20:10,720
people are and the stuff that they've they've tried to shove down people's throats and that's

271
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:14,640
why i wrote the book i mean i wanted to just try and educate people that you know you've been lied

272
00:20:14,640 --> 00:20:20,700
to about all this stuff yeah just to elaborate on that um green i don't remember off the top of my

273
00:20:20,700 --> 00:20:25,840
head what it was but i saw like after he stepped down and was no longer on the fed and then you

274
00:20:25,840 --> 00:20:29,940
know he's you know this revered man or whatever at conferences and people are asking him he wrote

275
00:20:29,940 --> 00:20:34,760
some things and once again like the stuff he wrote was pretty reasonable and like pretty you know

276
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:48,717
sound money perspective right when he wasn when he was so it was like before he had the power he was real good such that you know ayn Rand puts him in a chapter in a book on you know the virtues of gold And then after he out of power again like his economics intuition is good

277
00:20:49,077 --> 00:20:51,277
It's just funny when that guy, though, is well charged.

278
00:20:51,277 --> 00:20:53,377
And I can I can offer a clue on that again.

279
00:20:53,517 --> 00:20:59,377
He was asked by Brian Lundin at the New Orleans conference where I just spoke to to come down and present after he left.

280
00:20:59,597 --> 00:21:04,517
And Brian gets to have dinner and supper with all the speakers, you know, when they're down there.

281
00:21:04,517 --> 00:21:06,257
and he told me in private,

282
00:21:06,357 --> 00:21:08,197
but I think he would be okay with me sharing.

283
00:21:08,337 --> 00:21:09,937
And he said, I was asking Alan,

284
00:21:09,997 --> 00:21:12,637
I said, Alan, how did it feel to be a central banker

285
00:21:12,637 --> 00:21:14,697
for all these years, to be the maestro, to be this?

286
00:21:15,337 --> 00:21:16,997
And he said, Alan kind of turned to me

287
00:21:16,997 --> 00:21:18,437
and with a sly look said,

288
00:21:18,497 --> 00:21:20,337
it was intoxicating.

289
00:21:20,497 --> 00:21:22,857
It was just absolutely intoxicating.

290
00:21:23,097 --> 00:21:26,197
I thought to myself, there you go, right?

291
00:21:26,417 --> 00:21:27,057
I mean, it's just-

292
00:21:27,057 --> 00:21:28,177
It's a very honest answer.

293
00:21:28,857 --> 00:21:29,757
Yeah, right?

294
00:21:30,297 --> 00:21:32,577
I mean, it's all ego and bullshit.

295
00:21:32,577 --> 00:21:36,777
it you know yeah there was some memory when i did my book on the great depression i came across some

296
00:21:36,777 --> 00:21:42,097
stuff about like the in the visit office the diary or whatever memoirs of some of the guys that were

297
00:21:42,097 --> 00:21:46,317
like in roosevelt's inner circle yeah and the one guy i forget his name now he was telling us

298
00:21:46,317 --> 00:21:51,157
like when they went off gold or you know 33 they go you know gold was locked in and then they they

299
00:21:51,157 --> 00:21:54,977
went off gold temporarily and then you know revalued it but there was a period where it was

300
00:21:54,977 --> 00:22:00,137
like every day roosevelt was just making up what the price of gold was going to be that day and like

301
00:22:00,137 --> 00:22:04,017
And he was doing stuff like saying, you know, like, oh, yeah, that sounds like a nice number.

302
00:22:04,217 --> 00:22:05,717
You know, it wasn't any kind of scientific.

303
00:22:06,257 --> 00:22:09,957
And the guy, so the guy writing, again, it was a memoir or diary or something, said something like,

304
00:22:10,037 --> 00:22:14,397
if the public knew the method by which we were determining the gold prices, they would have been horrified or something like that.

305
00:22:14,397 --> 00:22:14,637
Yeah.

306
00:22:16,777 --> 00:22:23,137
Blockstream Jade is your easy to use Bitcoin only cold storage solution made for both experts and beginners alike.

307
00:22:23,557 --> 00:22:28,897
Its simple, clean interface makes it a great gift to friends and family just starting down their Bitcoin journey.

308
00:22:28,897 --> 00:22:34,677
The open source hardware of the Jade combined with the open source software of the Blockstream app means full transparency.

309
00:22:35,217 --> 00:22:38,597
Like Bitcoin itself, you never have to trust and can always verify.

310
00:22:39,117 --> 00:22:43,617
And at an affordable price, the Blockstream Jade allows you to safeguard your future without breaking the bank.

311
00:22:44,117 --> 00:22:48,897
Buy two, three or four Jade classics together and get up to 25% off this holiday season.

312
00:22:49,197 --> 00:22:52,037
Plus get 10% off any Jade with the code BOOMERS.

313
00:22:52,457 --> 00:22:55,137
Open source, transparent, Bitcoin only.

314
00:22:56,257 --> 00:22:56,857
Blockstream.

315
00:22:57,277 --> 00:22:58,317
Peace of mind.

316
00:22:58,897 --> 00:22:59,737
without compromise.

317
00:23:00,737 --> 00:23:02,457
The more your Bitcoin holdings grow,

318
00:23:02,597 --> 00:23:04,477
the more complex your challenges become.

319
00:23:05,077 --> 00:23:06,837
What started as simple self-custody

320
00:23:06,837 --> 00:23:08,757
now involves family legacy planning,

321
00:23:08,937 --> 00:23:10,377
sophisticated security decisions,

322
00:23:10,517 --> 00:23:12,837
and navigating situations where a single mistake

323
00:23:12,837 --> 00:23:14,817
could cost generations of wealth.

324
00:23:15,517 --> 00:23:16,837
Standard services weren't built

325
00:23:16,837 --> 00:23:18,037
for these high-stakes realities.

326
00:23:18,537 --> 00:23:21,617
That's why long-term investors choose Unchained Signature,

327
00:23:21,957 --> 00:23:23,597
a premium private client service

328
00:23:23,597 --> 00:23:26,577
for serious Bitcoin holders who want expert guidance,

329
00:23:27,037 --> 00:23:27,897
resilient custody,

330
00:23:27,897 --> 00:23:29,317
and an enduring partnership.

331
00:23:29,917 --> 00:23:32,497
With Signature, you're paired with your own dedicated account manager,

332
00:23:32,837 --> 00:23:35,657
someone who understands your goals and helps you every step of the way.

333
00:23:36,197 --> 00:23:38,977
You get white glove onboarding, same-day emergency support,

334
00:23:39,197 --> 00:23:41,197
personalized education, reduced trading fees,

335
00:23:41,297 --> 00:23:43,757
and priority access to exclusive events and features.

336
00:23:44,257 --> 00:23:46,577
And Unchain's collaborative custody model is designed to provide

337
00:23:46,577 --> 00:23:49,797
the same security posture as the world's biggest Bitcoin custodians,

338
00:23:50,177 --> 00:23:52,057
but for those who prefer to hold their own keys.

339
00:23:52,057 --> 00:23:56,577
Learn more about Unchain's signature at unchained.com slash btcboomers.

340
00:23:56,577 --> 00:24:00,117
Use code Groomers10 at checkout to get 10% off your first year.

341
00:24:00,437 --> 00:24:03,217
Because Bitcoin isn't just for life, it's for generations.

342
00:24:04,757 --> 00:24:05,197
Yeah.

343
00:24:05,917 --> 00:24:10,817
Well, you know, maybe this is maybe a slight change in subject,

344
00:24:10,937 --> 00:24:15,917
but I think related, you know, we're kind of in a difficult state.

345
00:24:16,017 --> 00:24:18,837
I think we can see the Mamdami election in New York,

346
00:24:18,877 --> 00:24:22,577
I think is, you know, great evidence of there's a lot of people struggling,

347
00:24:22,757 --> 00:24:25,237
especially the younger generations are really struggling.

348
00:24:25,237 --> 00:24:34,197
and one of the things that the three of us face bob is a lot of angst um about our generation

349
00:24:34,197 --> 00:24:42,357
people will say you know it's the boomers fault that we are here and and uh without prejudicing

350
00:24:42,357 --> 00:24:48,857
your your answer further and it's okay to say they're they're right um but i'm curious how you

351
00:24:48,857 --> 00:24:54,317
view that what what how would you respond to something like that so i've seen that too i mean

352
00:24:54,317 --> 00:24:58,277
it's tough. Cause like, I, I get along with my parents who are boomers and the,

353
00:24:58,317 --> 00:25:00,537
and they retired to Florida and they did very boomer.

354
00:25:00,577 --> 00:25:02,477
And my dad calls probably five days a week and stuff.

355
00:25:02,477 --> 00:25:06,097
So they're definitely like in that box. And I like my parents,

356
00:25:06,097 --> 00:25:07,817
I have no animosity towards them.

357
00:25:07,877 --> 00:25:10,717
They were very nice to me and they have been. So it's, you know,

358
00:25:10,717 --> 00:25:12,517
I think maybe in some of these things,

359
00:25:12,517 --> 00:25:15,457
like somebody might have a personal thing that then they project.

360
00:25:15,717 --> 00:25:16,357
So, I mean,

361
00:25:16,357 --> 00:25:18,957
the critique where it's coming from that I've seen in terms of like to

362
00:25:18,957 --> 00:25:21,057
operationalize it's like, well, what do you have in mind?

363
00:25:21,057 --> 00:25:25,737
And I know there's a thing where like rising home prices is a good example.

364
00:25:25,977 --> 00:25:28,537
So like, geez, like you're some young guy coming.

365
00:25:28,657 --> 00:25:30,297
How are you if you're 25 right now?

366
00:25:30,717 --> 00:25:33,817
How are you supposed to get married and go buy a house or something with home prices,

367
00:25:33,917 --> 00:25:34,357
what they are?

368
00:25:34,417 --> 00:25:38,377
And then now that AI is making it like right now, entry level jobs are tough.

369
00:25:38,697 --> 00:25:39,097
Right.

370
00:25:39,137 --> 00:25:40,677
And so that kind of critique.

371
00:25:40,677 --> 00:25:46,137
And so then against the mindset of like a lot of people saying like, oh, we can't deregulate

372
00:25:46,137 --> 00:25:50,337
and have more, you know, like to take away zoning regulations to allow more homes to be

373
00:25:50,337 --> 00:25:53,997
constructed well no because that's going to hurt my property value you know and that's my number

374
00:25:53,997 --> 00:25:58,337
one asset for retirement is my house so that's the kind of type of thing when people can be

375
00:25:58,337 --> 00:26:02,797
specific about what is it that they have in mind when they say the older boomers don't understand

376
00:26:02,797 --> 00:26:07,457
they're like you know pulling the ladder up after them and now we're screwed yeah that's the kind of

377
00:26:07,457 --> 00:26:13,257
thing they mean i can sure i understand i understand the situation like for instance i i bought my

378
00:26:13,257 --> 00:26:27,137
first home in 1986 or 87 for $62,000 with a 3% down FHA loan, right? So I put, what is that like

379
00:26:27,137 --> 00:26:35,837
$1,950 down or something like that was my down payment. And, and, but I, I guess I would love

380
00:26:35,837 --> 00:26:39,337
for it because I have kids, I don't even have grandkids and I would love for them to have that

381
00:26:39,337 --> 00:26:46,337
same opportunity but i don't blame my generation for it i think it i think it's rooted in some of

382
00:26:46,337 --> 00:26:52,897
the things we're talking about earlier the the the way inflation has has happened the way assets have

383
00:26:52,897 --> 00:27:03,477
have um appreciated um um i'm a sound money guy too you know what nixon did in 71 and certainly

384
00:27:03,477 --> 00:27:09,037
the precursors to all i i believe those are more the issues and by the way the people that made

385
00:27:09,037 --> 00:27:15,057
most of those decisions weren't boomers they were generations before that right yeah so what you just

386
00:27:15,057 --> 00:27:19,097
did i think is the nail like there's a sense in which if something's screwed up with the world

387
00:27:19,097 --> 00:27:23,077
and young people coming up into it it's the old people's fault like there's like it's tautology

388
00:27:23,077 --> 00:27:26,637
in a sense but when you really want to break it down and say what are the institutional

389
00:27:26,637 --> 00:27:32,117
factors that change and why is it that you know inflation so much worse now than it was in

390
00:27:32,117 --> 00:27:37,757
you know the 1920s or something yes those you can point the specific policies and it's not

391
00:27:37,757 --> 00:27:40,457
technically boomers that were in charge of those fateful decisions.

392
00:27:40,457 --> 00:27:42,497
So I agree with, with all that.

393
00:27:42,497 --> 00:27:44,957
And then yeah, given that you're now in the environment where you are,

394
00:27:45,637 --> 00:27:48,197
of course your house is going to be your primary asset.

395
00:27:48,197 --> 00:27:50,597
If you're just like a middle-class person, like what, what else would it be?

396
00:27:50,597 --> 00:27:55,097
And so I get that if you banked on that and then they come in and tweak things

397
00:27:55,097 --> 00:27:58,337
so that now all of a sudden your, your home price collapses, well,

398
00:27:58,337 --> 00:27:59,737
that's going to impact you as well.

399
00:27:59,737 --> 00:28:01,717
So it is, you know, it is what it is.

400
00:28:02,177 --> 00:28:04,257
I think this has been going on a while though.

401
00:28:04,617 --> 00:28:07,517
I mean, my parents bought our house, our first house.

402
00:28:07,757 --> 00:28:18,917
in 63 for $20,000. Then in 83, I bought my first house for $100,000. And it wasn't a great house.

403
00:28:18,977 --> 00:28:22,237
I'm glad we don't live there now. But my parents were having a heart attack going,

404
00:28:22,377 --> 00:28:27,237
how are you going to afford this? Oh my gosh. And I said, well, we're going to make it work.

405
00:28:27,237 --> 00:28:34,297
You know, so it's not like it's something new. That's a, what, a five fold in 20 years.

406
00:28:34,297 --> 00:28:38,437
you know so i don't know what the average house is now and it wasn't that great of a house

407
00:28:38,437 --> 00:28:43,757
well right yeah so i mean even there they're like nixon going off gold in 71 you know the big

408
00:28:43,757 --> 00:28:48,337
inflation so that's what i'm saying i think it was the 70s that really destroyed the and bob you

409
00:28:48,337 --> 00:28:53,697
know this like from the life insurance world that it used to be the case that and mises and some of

410
00:28:53,697 --> 00:28:58,277
the older austrian works you know as a matter of fact we say that people save through like you know

411
00:28:58,277 --> 00:29:03,597
bank savings accounts and maybe some you know safe uh bonds and then life insurance whereas

412
00:29:03,597 --> 00:29:07,297
nowadays that the idea of people like saving in their life insurance is still kind of this quaint

413
00:29:07,297 --> 00:29:12,177
thing that's making a comeback because in the 70s that just seemed to be stupid that you know with

414
00:29:12,177 --> 00:29:18,137
what inflation was doing so i anyway i and also too like there was like the rise of no load mutual

415
00:29:18,137 --> 00:29:23,577
funds and things like it it is i think the 70s is really what pushed a lot of people such that the

416
00:29:23,577 --> 00:29:29,497
average american household thought okay yeah i need to be in the stock market and you know i i

417
00:29:29,497 --> 00:29:31,557
I need my house to go up over time.

418
00:29:31,657 --> 00:29:33,397
Otherwise, how am I going to, you know,

419
00:29:33,677 --> 00:29:35,237
have something at the end to give to my kids?

420
00:29:37,337 --> 00:29:48,357
Yeah, I think that the human tendency

421
00:29:48,357 --> 00:29:51,297
to want to be able to blame somebody

422
00:29:51,297 --> 00:29:55,077
is maybe, you know, at root cause here.

423
00:29:55,357 --> 00:29:57,877
And also just we don't educate people, right?

424
00:29:57,877 --> 00:30:06,777
So, I mean, to the degree I have knowledge in the spaces that we're talking about, it's all been self-education.

425
00:30:07,377 --> 00:30:14,437
You know, even though I actually studied economics in college, like everything I've learned is I've had to seek myself.

426
00:30:15,037 --> 00:30:19,577
And, you know, I think we live in a world where I think it's harder and harder.

427
00:30:19,977 --> 00:30:23,937
You've obviously published a lot of books, Bob, trying to help and educate people.

428
00:30:23,937 --> 00:30:27,077
Larry's book, which is, I think, Alvarez is right, called The Big Print.

429
00:30:27,877 --> 00:30:30,297
What was that release? Maybe six, seven months ago.

430
00:30:30,597 --> 00:30:31,537
February. Yeah.

431
00:30:32,477 --> 00:30:38,657
You know, I mean, there's attempts and we're doing these kind of podcasts, but it's really hard for people, I think, to get information.

432
00:30:38,657 --> 00:30:42,137
And when I look at like the Mamdami election.

433
00:30:43,177 --> 00:30:52,777
I mean, I just I cringe because I think the people that voted for him, I understand why they voted for him.

434
00:30:52,777 --> 00:31:01,757
But I but I I feel sorry for them because I don't think they understand how unlikely it is that this will be successful.

435
00:31:02,177 --> 00:31:08,877
Oh, yeah, I agree with all that. And also, too, like on the right, the big populist upsurge with Trump and so on like it.

436
00:31:09,057 --> 00:31:16,437
It used to be standard among right wing conservative to like fans of Rush Limbaugh, let's say that like, oh, yeah, free trade is the default position.

437
00:31:16,437 --> 00:31:22,097
low taxes and then you know tucker carlson and guys like that pap you can and challenging that

438
00:31:22,097 --> 00:31:27,597
and saying no this is why all the jobs are going overseas so i'm saying that yes for sure when

439
00:31:27,597 --> 00:31:32,357
every everybody is acknowledging something is screwed up with the american economy since you

440
00:31:32,357 --> 00:31:37,417
know the 90s at least like it just keeps getting more and more screwed up and that tends to hurt

441
00:31:37,417 --> 00:31:41,397
you know the economically vulnerable more so young people who have no assets or anything they're the

442
00:31:41,397 --> 00:31:45,937
ones that are going to be the most ones bearing the brunt of that and then yeah the the right has

443
00:31:45,937 --> 00:31:50,657
it's prescriptions and the left has theirs. And to the extent that I would say they're not,

444
00:31:50,657 --> 00:31:54,517
you know, correctly diagnosing exactly what went wrong, then yeah, those, those things are going

445
00:31:54,517 --> 00:31:57,937
to blow up in their face. But unfortunately, again, going back to what we said right at the top,

446
00:31:57,977 --> 00:32:02,037
it's hard, even after the fact, looking backwards to say, why did that not work?

447
00:32:02,377 --> 00:32:06,597
You can always come up with a story that's consistent with the observations. And so they'll

448
00:32:06,597 --> 00:32:10,317
say, oh, we didn't do socialism hard enough. That's what happened. Or it's those greedy,

449
00:32:10,417 --> 00:32:14,137
rich people that they all, they all moved out of New York city. So now we can't tax them.

450
00:32:14,137 --> 00:32:15,037
Otherwise, it would have worked.

451
00:32:15,137 --> 00:32:16,337
You know, they're going to say stuff like that.

452
00:32:16,757 --> 00:32:19,257
They're not going to say, wait, maybe capitalism is great.

453
00:32:19,817 --> 00:32:21,957
Anyone who voted for Mondain is not going to say that.

454
00:32:22,657 --> 00:32:23,897
No matter what happens.

455
00:32:24,037 --> 00:32:24,337
Right.

456
00:32:24,997 --> 00:32:29,957
Hey, Bob, I got a question which is changing, maybe not changing that much the subject.

457
00:32:31,157 --> 00:32:39,177
With the AI going like it is and the amount of jobs that are predicted to be lost over the next 10, 20 years or whatever,

458
00:32:39,177 --> 00:32:42,297
do you think that they will come out with UBI?

459
00:32:42,297 --> 00:32:46,757
and if so, how would that affect the market?

460
00:32:46,937 --> 00:32:48,477
I could just see them going for that

461
00:32:48,477 --> 00:32:49,557
with all these people out of work.

462
00:32:49,637 --> 00:32:50,837
We discussed this last week.

463
00:32:51,457 --> 00:32:53,197
I think people would be rioting in the street

464
00:32:53,197 --> 00:32:54,417
if there's no jobs at all.

465
00:32:56,157 --> 00:32:57,577
Right, so if you're asking me,

466
00:32:57,657 --> 00:32:59,877
what's my prediction about what's actually going to happen?

467
00:33:00,137 --> 00:33:00,357
Yes.

468
00:33:00,437 --> 00:33:02,257
Yeah, I think there's going to be some kind of UBI.

469
00:33:02,417 --> 00:33:03,857
Maybe they'll call it something else

470
00:33:03,857 --> 00:33:05,517
to make it go down smoother.

471
00:33:05,517 --> 00:33:09,557
But yeah, I think that that's what's going to happen.

472
00:33:09,557 --> 00:33:14,597
And so as a, you know, market fundamentals kind of guy, I don't think that would need to be the case.

473
00:33:14,677 --> 00:33:18,377
In other words, we just had a society that, you know, voluntary contracts and things like that.

474
00:33:18,377 --> 00:33:24,197
And there was no big welfare state. I don't think AI would spell doom for 50 percent of humanity.

475
00:33:24,197 --> 00:33:27,997
It's like to me, no, that that's kind of like how you get to live in the George Jetson kind of world.

476
00:33:27,997 --> 00:33:34,157
Like, that's what that looks like. But it is true that right now, I mean, there's lots of statistics.

477
00:33:34,157 --> 00:33:39,877
you can go and look and see that it's hard to disentangle because the Fed started raising rates

478
00:33:39,877 --> 00:33:45,117
too when ChatGPT came out with, I forget which model it was, in 2022. So some of this stuff,

479
00:33:45,237 --> 00:33:49,817
it's hard. But if somebody wants to make the case that right when these AI things came out and they

480
00:33:49,817 --> 00:33:54,617
really started getting good, major companies stopped hiring entry-level positions, you can

481
00:33:54,617 --> 00:33:59,857
show a lot of graphs that seem to back that up. And that's also the advice. I know people who

482
00:33:59,857 --> 00:34:05,857
specialize in consulting with companies about how can you use these large language models

483
00:34:05,857 --> 00:34:09,157
to integrate in your workflow to get efficiencies.

484
00:34:09,457 --> 00:34:10,777
And that's what they're doing.

485
00:34:10,837 --> 00:34:13,897
They're saying, how can you do what you're doing now without having to hire new people?

486
00:34:14,317 --> 00:34:19,757
And they're not going to be laying off the 20-year-old manager, meaning 20 years experience

487
00:34:19,757 --> 00:34:20,177
manager.

488
00:34:20,397 --> 00:34:21,737
It's going to be the entry-level things.

489
00:34:21,737 --> 00:34:26,157
That's the easiest thing to get rid of first, just to have the established person using AI

490
00:34:26,157 --> 00:34:29,997
to do the jobs that normally they would have hired four new people to do.

491
00:34:30,377 --> 00:34:31,857
So that's all happening.

492
00:34:32,257 --> 00:34:35,857
And again, in the long run, I think normally the market would have adjusted

493
00:34:35,857 --> 00:34:37,217
and those people can find new things.

494
00:34:37,217 --> 00:34:41,657
The cliche, we don't need as many people growing food as we did in 1800.

495
00:34:42,177 --> 00:34:44,057
So they just went and did something else.

496
00:34:44,237 --> 00:34:46,237
But in the short term, that is painful.

497
00:34:46,937 --> 00:34:47,877
And I think it's going to be easy.

498
00:34:47,997 --> 00:34:53,757
And plus too, with all these big companies getting trillion dollar plus market caps

499
00:34:53,757 --> 00:34:59,937
because of AI, then it's going to be so obvious to say, oh, we'll tax them in order to fund,

500
00:35:00,057 --> 00:35:04,337
you know, these support payments to the people that are displaced. And so I don't, I don't see

501
00:35:04,337 --> 00:35:07,597
politically how you could possibly stop that given that both the left and the right now

502
00:35:07,597 --> 00:35:11,757
are kind of populist and like looking out for the little guy and these, against these fat cats.

503
00:35:13,437 --> 00:35:19,857
And so what, isn't that going to really kind of just add tons of money to the deficit?

504
00:35:19,857 --> 00:35:28,377
oh yeah sure so it's again it's tricky though because um i think peter teal made this point

505
00:35:28,377 --> 00:35:31,837
recently on an interview that somebody was asking you know they're asking all kinds of stuff

506
00:35:31,837 --> 00:35:35,737
it was the one he got really weird and was talking about the antichrist if you saw that

507
00:35:35,737 --> 00:35:40,677
but anyway i did one of the points that yeah that was not you know too out there that i thought was

508
00:35:40,677 --> 00:35:44,597
good is they're asking about elon musk and he said well it's weird because on the one hand elon

509
00:35:44,597 --> 00:35:49,317
is warning about you know the deficit cliff and how the big beautiful bill is going to destroy the

510
00:35:49,317 --> 00:35:53,577
country and everything but on the other hand he says by and i forget what he was like by 2035

511
00:35:53,577 --> 00:36:00,117
we're gonna have 50 million robots working and you know doing mid-level jobs and so he's saying

512
00:36:00,117 --> 00:36:05,717
so which one is it so in other words he was saying there's a sense in which you know if this predicted

513
00:36:05,717 --> 00:36:10,217
thing that some people and i'm i think this is very plausible that yeah there's a sense in which

514
00:36:10,217 --> 00:36:14,117
it'd be like a bunch of aliens showed up millions who can do all these jobs and everything and

515
00:36:14,117 --> 00:36:19,157
they're willing to do it for a dollar an hour like in that kind of framework if the

516
00:36:19,157 --> 00:36:23,057
government can just figure out a way to tax them just even a little bit they're gonna have tons of

517
00:36:23,057 --> 00:36:27,677
money flowing in and that again that's what would make it so hard to deny people who say well then

518
00:36:27,677 --> 00:36:31,817
why don't you give some of it to these you know humans now who can't find work it's gonna be a

519
00:36:31,817 --> 00:36:38,137
hard problem I I um I made a tweet about a week week and a half ago and one of the things I said

520
00:36:38,137 --> 00:36:48,217
was um it's my advice to basically any developed nation in the world to radically shut the door on

521
00:36:48,217 --> 00:36:56,837
immigration. I'm not saying 100%, but and plan for a labor shortage in the short term,

522
00:36:56,977 --> 00:37:08,297
like just deal with it. Because we have no idea what the effect of the AI, the robotics, the drones,

523
00:37:08,777 --> 00:37:13,177
the self-driving vehicles, like all these sorts of things I think are going to have a radical impact.

524
00:37:13,177 --> 00:37:22,017
And the last thing you want is a massive amount of new people coming into the nation, especially unskilled ones.

525
00:37:22,117 --> 00:37:31,697
I think what Trump's doing to flush out a lot of the illegal immigration is a very positive thing because I don't really know.

526
00:37:31,697 --> 00:37:37,097
And I think all of us understand AI as a technologist.

527
00:37:37,257 --> 00:37:42,657
I look at it and I see improvements that are exponential.

528
00:37:43,177 --> 00:37:51,857
Like even compared to a year ago in my own life, I can see radical change in my efficiency because of it.

529
00:37:52,197 --> 00:37:55,217
And so, you know, that really worries me.

530
00:37:55,397 --> 00:37:57,637
Like how do we do all this?

531
00:37:57,637 --> 00:38:01,477
And I guess I'll – I love your comments on that, Bob.

532
00:38:01,477 --> 00:38:17,197
But the second thing I'll say and let you expand on it is Gary asked about UBI, but then you mentioned things like, oh, we'll tax the organizations that are winning, essentially, right?

533
00:38:17,277 --> 00:38:20,557
The NVIDIAs of the world or the Teslas or whoever is winning.

534
00:38:20,557 --> 00:38:27,297
um do you how do you see that happening and and and like do you see

535
00:38:27,297 --> 00:38:38,117
things like uh tax on uh unrealized gains being a something that that maybe gets chased in the

536
00:38:38,117 --> 00:38:44,917
not too distant future especially in western worlds uh yes everything you just said i agree

537
00:38:44,917 --> 00:38:50,857
with all that that it's um and the immigration stuff i i'm agnostic in the sense that i i want

538
00:38:50,857 --> 00:38:56,577
to decentralize everything like i i think that in the long run like like in the u.s context i've

539
00:38:56,577 --> 00:39:00,517
written in favor of texas seceding and things like that because i just don't see how at the

540
00:39:00,517 --> 00:39:04,597
national level this stuff can work right so anyway i'm just saying that's you know what my yeah crazy

541
00:39:04,597 --> 00:39:10,057
views on that stuff in terms of the like making the decision making instead of people in washington

542
00:39:10,057 --> 00:39:15,457
deciding the immigration policy for the whole thing instead like you know breaking it down

543
00:39:15,457 --> 00:39:21,897
and letting more local people like decisions about that area but in any event um yeah i i just in my

544
00:39:21,897 --> 00:39:28,677
own work it's the stuff it's incredible we happen to use claude at infinio and you know if i need to

545
00:39:28,677 --> 00:39:32,957
do so especially something that involves like some quantitative modeling and things like that

546
00:39:32,957 --> 00:39:38,597
whereas before i would have needed to like try to get some grad students somewhere to do it and it

547
00:39:38,597 --> 00:39:40,897
would have taken a week to make the arrangements,

548
00:39:41,017 --> 00:39:42,857
to send him the thing, to get the feedback.

549
00:39:42,937 --> 00:39:44,217
And then we would have had to pay him a bunch of money

550
00:39:44,217 --> 00:39:45,857
because he's got opportunity costs with his time.

551
00:39:46,137 --> 00:39:49,457
And I can do it in a one-hour setting with Claude

552
00:39:49,457 --> 00:39:50,597
and get results.

553
00:39:51,197 --> 00:39:52,417
And yeah, and it's not perfect.

554
00:39:52,537 --> 00:39:53,737
And sometimes they'll give me nonsense,

555
00:39:53,997 --> 00:39:54,757
but I'll just say,

556
00:39:55,237 --> 00:39:56,497
hey, what you just said that doesn't make sense

557
00:39:56,497 --> 00:39:57,177
because of this, right?

558
00:39:57,197 --> 00:39:58,417
And they'll say, oh, yes, my apologies.

559
00:39:58,557 --> 00:39:59,977
Here, and they'll go ahead and do it.

560
00:40:00,197 --> 00:40:00,477
Phenomenal.

561
00:40:00,557 --> 00:40:01,717
And it's crazy.

562
00:40:01,717 --> 00:40:05,217
So fortunately, I'm not worried about Claude

563
00:40:05,217 --> 00:40:06,417
taking away my job.

564
00:40:06,417 --> 00:40:08,817
In other words, they need me at the helm.

565
00:40:09,137 --> 00:40:11,577
Again, also assessing whether or not that output's nonsense.

566
00:40:11,717 --> 00:40:12,557
That's not what I asked for.

567
00:40:12,937 --> 00:40:17,797
But in terms of, you know, would that make us less likely to hire a bunch of interns or something?

568
00:40:17,897 --> 00:40:18,117
You know what I mean?

569
00:40:18,437 --> 00:40:19,037
You know what I mean?

570
00:40:19,317 --> 00:40:19,897
Yeah, entry-level.

571
00:40:20,277 --> 00:40:20,917
Analysts and things.

572
00:40:21,857 --> 00:40:23,137
Yeah, at least for right now.

573
00:40:23,217 --> 00:40:30,497
And that's kind of what I'm saying to other businesses, too, is just if you don't see the potential of this thing, just look at your workflow and what your employees currently do and just see.

574
00:40:30,717 --> 00:40:35,437
So a lot of this stuff, it's more like you can do things that you otherwise wouldn't have done.

575
00:40:35,437 --> 00:40:45,957
So I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit there where it's more just that companies are going to be able to do so much more than they otherwise would have because the AI is doing a bunch of stuff that it wouldn't have made sense to hire somebody to do.

576
00:40:46,057 --> 00:40:47,137
So there is that element.

577
00:40:48,097 --> 00:40:56,757
But yeah, I think for plenty of places, and again, you're seeing this with Amazon and so on, a lot of places are just saying, yep, we're either laying off or a lot are just have a hiring freeze.

578
00:40:57,577 --> 00:41:00,817
And the thing that's – I hate to use the term game changer.

579
00:41:00,817 --> 00:41:03,157
I can't stand that term, but I think the thing that's really going to be

580
00:41:03,577 --> 00:41:06,577
the inflection point, I'll use another buzz term, is when they

581
00:41:06,817 --> 00:41:09,017
because the robotic technology keeps getting better.

582
00:41:09,017 --> 00:41:11,697
I don't you guys like watch these things from these conferences and stuff

583
00:41:11,977 --> 00:41:12,817
where the robots are.

584
00:41:12,817 --> 00:41:16,517
I mean, it's gotten to the point where I have to look and see, is this a parody?

585
00:41:16,517 --> 00:41:19,357
Is that really a human inside of suit or is that really a robot?

586
00:41:19,477 --> 00:41:40,595
Because it it was just yesterday I mean we recording this on November 7th for November 7th for those listening later on But Tesla just had a conference yesterday and the optimist which is their robot was doing exactly what you said was dancing and doing it in a really elegant way

587
00:41:41,394 --> 00:41:45,075
And the dexterity of this thing is amazing.

588
00:41:45,075 --> 00:41:48,554
they're producing them for $20,000

589
00:41:48,554 --> 00:41:51,374
or the retail price on these is $20,000

590
00:41:51,374 --> 00:41:54,655
they're going to have a production capacity

591
00:41:54,655 --> 00:41:56,615
I believe of 10 million per year

592
00:41:56,615 --> 00:41:58,934
and the robots are building the robots

593
00:41:58,934 --> 00:42:01,694
it's mind blowing

594
00:42:01,694 --> 00:42:05,194
my vision

595
00:42:05,194 --> 00:42:07,734
because I've also said things

596
00:42:07,734 --> 00:42:10,615
that I think the US is not going to be the superpower

597
00:42:10,615 --> 00:42:11,635
in the year 2050

598
00:42:11,635 --> 00:42:13,494
not that China will be

599
00:42:13,494 --> 00:42:17,575
but just I think it'll be more multipolar world and stuff just because the relative shifting.

600
00:42:18,014 --> 00:42:21,374
And I think we're going to see just like multinational companies rising.

601
00:42:21,674 --> 00:42:31,155
Like, you know, if you have 50,000 robots like that, I mean, they're going to be rivaling nation states in terms of like just people not messing with them and doing what they, you know what I mean?

602
00:42:31,155 --> 00:42:34,374
So I think that you're going to see all this kind of stuff.

603
00:42:34,454 --> 00:42:39,414
And especially given if the U.S. government, its finances just keep getting worse.

604
00:42:39,414 --> 00:42:45,294
and yeah it's going to be more powerful than any one particular company but if you do have these

605
00:42:45,294 --> 00:42:49,494
other companies that have you know 50 trillion dollar valuations and wherever and then the u.s

606
00:42:49,494 --> 00:42:55,054
government is 60 trillion dollars in debt and we've hit the point where unlike the mmt-ers would say

607
00:42:55,054 --> 00:42:58,934
that no if we just start running the printing press the dollar is going to crash because you

608
00:42:58,934 --> 00:43:03,635
know bond investors around the world now have gotten their appetite full that's going to be a

609
00:43:03,635 --> 00:43:08,534
different thing that it's these companies people run these companies and maybe it'll be like the

610
00:43:08,534 --> 00:43:15,314
CEOs and board plus the AI engines that are, you know, GPT 9.0, helping them make decisions and

611
00:43:15,314 --> 00:43:19,774
things. So I think you're going to see a lot of that where it's not just one thing, but all these

612
00:43:19,774 --> 00:43:24,834
different trends all kind of coming together in the world 30, 40 years from now, I think it's

613
00:43:24,834 --> 00:43:28,194
going to look a lot different from today. Like just like it's hard for us to even imagine.

614
00:43:29,135 --> 00:43:33,014
Abundant Minds is an Oregon-based husband and wife-owned Bitcoin mining company,

615
00:43:33,135 --> 00:43:37,274
making Bitcoin mining accessible to investors of all ages and experience levels.

616
00:43:37,274 --> 00:43:44,754
Their fully managed white glove service allows you to own all of your own equipment and earn steady Bitcoin denominated income without lifting a finger.

617
00:43:45,354 --> 00:43:49,894
Whether you're starting with 10,000 or 10 million, Abundant Minds is your one stop shop.

618
00:43:50,314 --> 00:43:51,454
No overseas call center.

619
00:43:51,734 --> 00:43:53,075
No surprise up charges.

620
00:43:53,454 --> 00:44:02,034
With one on one onboarding, consulting and help navigating both Bitcoin and the Bitcoin mining space at every turn, you can rest easy while Bitcoin flows to you 24 seven.

621
00:44:02,575 --> 00:44:04,654
Learn more at AbundantMinds.com.

622
00:44:05,615 --> 00:44:11,054
Bitcoin Well is the best place to be buying and selling Bitcoin in Canada and the US.

623
00:44:11,054 --> 00:44:17,135
And now with Bitcoin Well Infinite, it's also the best place to be making large buys at their OTC

624
00:44:17,135 --> 00:44:24,095
desk of over $50,000. Their white glove service gives you fast transactions, no slippage, and the

625
00:44:24,095 --> 00:44:30,174
lowest fees. You can scan the QR code on the screen or simply head to bitcoinwell.com

626
00:44:30,174 --> 00:44:36,494
slash btc sessions to sign up today and you can share your own personalized referral link to earn

627
00:44:36,494 --> 00:44:48,415
commissions i i agree and you touched on something i've spoken some on myself which is

628
00:44:48,415 --> 00:44:56,615
i i predict the exact same thing which is in a lot of cases these very powerful multinational

629
00:44:56,615 --> 00:45:02,915
corporations, Tesla is probably a great candidate to be one or SpaceX, actually, or maybe the blend

630
00:45:02,915 --> 00:45:09,034
of those two gets difficult to distinguish from the nation state and maybe even one of themselves

631
00:45:09,034 --> 00:45:17,814
and the ability of traditional nation states to control them could get very difficult.

632
00:45:17,814 --> 00:45:24,694
um and so it so it like like you said kind of a kind of a mind-boggling

633
00:45:24,694 --> 00:45:30,554
thing and it and it could go could go really bad it could go

634
00:45:30,554 --> 00:45:36,274
well to it you know we could we could go toward utopia or dystopia but

635
00:45:36,274 --> 00:45:42,714
you know it's hard to uh you know the middle the middle ground is probably less likely than

636
00:45:42,714 --> 00:45:49,415
than the two ends right yeah i mean my prediction on that stuff is it'll be kind of like when you're

637
00:45:49,415 --> 00:45:55,635
watching the movie the matrix and how like it's sort of scary and dystopian on one hand but on

638
00:45:55,635 --> 00:45:58,994
the other hand like oh wow like they're flying around in a spaceship like in the real world part

639
00:45:58,994 --> 00:46:03,774
like so that's some cool technology like i think you know the the tech just like if somebody from

640
00:46:03,774 --> 00:46:10,234
the year 1950 saw the u.s today i think they would be both amazed by the technology in certain

641
00:46:10,234 --> 00:46:14,714
aspects but they would be horrified like you you let boys and girls use their bathrooms what are

642
00:46:14,714 --> 00:46:19,514
you nuts you know just some stuff that would be inconceivable to them and so i i think it'd be

643
00:46:19,514 --> 00:46:22,674
saying you know from our vantage point looking ahead that yeah there's going to be certain

644
00:46:22,674 --> 00:46:26,954
innovations and certain respects in which wow that's amazing i can't believe humanity's achieved

645
00:46:26,954 --> 00:46:31,774
that but on the other hand i think like certain social patterns and then and the most notable

646
00:46:31,774 --> 00:46:38,014
part about that as you guys both know is that if all that comes to fruition it just totally

647
00:46:38,014 --> 00:46:43,934
destroys the Keynesian credit-based financial system. Do you know what I mean? You can't,

648
00:46:44,254 --> 00:46:48,534
I mean, all these technologies are enormously deflationary. They do more with less and they're,

649
00:46:48,615 --> 00:46:54,434
they create efficiencies. And we have a monetary system where money is debt and the money supply

650
00:46:54,434 --> 00:46:59,734
and debt have to continually grow or else it collapses. And so, you know, the two just can't

651
00:46:59,734 --> 00:47:05,174
coexist. This is Jeff Booth's point with his seminal book. And, and I'm pretty sure I know

652
00:47:05,174 --> 00:47:11,394
which one's going to win. The, you know, the, the fiat world is, I mean, I think fiat is in its

653
00:47:11,394 --> 00:47:17,534
death throes right now. I mean, the, the great Keynesian experiment is coming to an end and AI

654
00:47:17,534 --> 00:47:22,274
and technology are, are helping, helping with that. I mean, it's helped already because it created the

655
00:47:22,274 --> 00:47:25,774
internet, which disintermediated the lies of the media. Yeah. I totally agree with that, that,

656
00:47:25,774 --> 00:47:30,054
you know, part of my vision there that I sketched a minute ago, that all these big, you know,

657
00:47:30,054 --> 00:47:35,834
multi-trillion dollar from our perspective corporations or whatever is what's a big thing

658
00:47:35,834 --> 00:47:40,374
that oh they'd be like mining bitcoins you know i mean like that would be a big you and that yeah

659
00:47:40,374 --> 00:47:45,434
their transactions vis-a-vis each other because in a world where the u.s dollar is no longer the

660
00:47:45,434 --> 00:47:50,654
global reserve currency which is splintered i think you will see a return to you know bitcoin

661
00:47:50,654 --> 00:47:56,194
things like that but also even like oh gold that's custodied and that you know you're it's on the

662
00:47:56,194 --> 00:48:01,254
blockchain you know on a blockchain and that's how they all keep tabs so that it's sort of you

663
00:48:01,254 --> 00:48:05,575
know in a world where there's no global authority and it's just all kind of decentralized obviously

664
00:48:05,575 --> 00:48:08,674
the type of money and financial transactions they're going to use they're going to have to

665
00:48:08,674 --> 00:48:14,654
be on things like blockchains because otherwise how are they going to trust each other yeah you

666
00:48:14,654 --> 00:48:19,994
know this may be a good transition bob you um you wrote a i don't know if it's a book booklet maybe

667
00:48:19,994 --> 00:48:29,095
we call it understanding bitcoin yeah a booklet and um it was an early book you know uh i i looked

668
00:48:29,095 --> 00:48:36,494
it up before um before we started and uh it was published in uh 2015 um and i read it several

669
00:48:36,494 --> 00:48:43,415
years ago but i i pulled it back out and um i want to just read a little something um and and

670
00:48:43,415 --> 00:48:49,514
it's on this very topic it's from very early in the book there's a a section called why do we need

671
00:48:49,514 --> 00:48:53,954
privately created money. And I'll just read a few sentences from it. But it says, we the authors of

672
00:48:53,954 --> 00:48:58,915
this guide are extremely skeptical of the modern state, consider it a threat to both civil and

673
00:48:58,915 --> 00:49:05,294
financial liberties. The most obvious pitfall of state issued money is the danger of hyperinflation.

674
00:49:06,674 --> 00:49:12,635
Moderate inflation entails the transfer of wealth from people holding the currency to the institutions

675
00:49:12,635 --> 00:49:18,714
given the power to create it. Proponents of this system sometimes argue that wages and prices

676
00:49:18,714 --> 00:49:23,415
adjust to make it all wash, but consider if someone offered you a printing press that could

677
00:49:23,415 --> 00:49:27,814
make legal tender notes, wouldn't you see how that would slant things in your favor?

678
00:49:29,554 --> 00:49:35,234
Central banks are able to spend more on both the welfare and warfare than their subjects would ever

679
00:49:35,234 --> 00:49:39,894
support through open taxation and private lending because the central banks are waiting in the wings

680
00:49:39,894 --> 00:49:45,474
to issue new money and absorb the government debt. I skipped a few parts, but I thought that,

681
00:49:45,474 --> 00:49:50,814
So this is kind of in the setup of your book, kind of to get to Bitcoin.

682
00:49:50,814 --> 00:49:56,834
And so you comment on anything in that section that I read.

683
00:49:56,954 --> 00:50:00,454
But how do you view Bitcoin?

684
00:50:01,075 --> 00:50:05,334
And you mentioned it a little bit in kind of this future state.

685
00:50:05,595 --> 00:50:10,194
And, you know, how big of a help can it be in that world?

686
00:50:11,615 --> 00:50:11,894
Well, sure.

687
00:50:11,894 --> 00:50:23,754
So in terms of like, how does it affect what I've been doing in terms of my career that, you know, I was an academic economist and then I'm now more like writing and speaking to the public, things like that.

688
00:50:24,374 --> 00:50:26,354
And I'm in the financial sector, too, of course.

689
00:50:26,874 --> 00:50:34,915
So in that respect, just from that narrow dimension, Bitcoin is amazing because it has demonstrated to people that you don't need the state to issue money.

690
00:50:34,915 --> 00:50:46,034
So to go back to what Lawrence was saying, like a big trick that the MMTers try to employ to make it look like their position is inevitable is to say like, oh, we wouldn't even have money if it weren't for the government.

691
00:50:46,134 --> 00:50:49,534
So what are you guys talking about? And this is historically, this is not true.

692
00:50:49,534 --> 00:50:55,034
right but so that's what i like and um and i think jeff dyson might have been the one that

693
00:50:55,034 --> 00:51:01,694
made this analogy but saying that uber and lyft did more to show the public like the virtues of

694
00:51:01,694 --> 00:51:07,915
decentralized private ride sharing than any you know dc think tank white paper on hey let's get

695
00:51:07,915 --> 00:51:11,674
rid of the medallion system for new york cabs or something you know what i mean he cares about the

696
00:51:11,674 --> 00:51:17,194
what but to see it and to know the difference like no i've taken rides in uber versus you know a

697
00:51:17,194 --> 00:51:21,774
yellow cab in new york and the uber's way safer and cleaner and right so that's what i think with

698
00:51:21,774 --> 00:51:26,974
with bitcoin that yeah we obviously in this austrian tradition and other economists too

699
00:51:26,974 --> 00:51:32,194
can explain the dangers of inflation why commodity money was so much better than government fiat money

700
00:51:32,194 --> 00:51:36,575
and everything but it still just seemed inevitable well yeah but there's the government's in control

701
00:51:36,575 --> 00:51:40,994
the money and what are you going to do and so now bitcoin you know gives this alternative to show

702
00:51:40,994 --> 00:51:46,394
that yeah this this could happen you don't need a state to issue money so that's i think huge just

703
00:51:46,394 --> 00:51:48,494
you know, just to show people that possibility.

704
00:51:49,254 --> 00:51:51,394
And then in terms of in practice,

705
00:51:52,654 --> 00:51:54,494
I mean, I'm sure you guys are familiar with, you know,

706
00:51:54,494 --> 00:51:57,454
the debate over the block size and things like that.

707
00:51:57,534 --> 00:51:59,674
And that, yeah, right now, Bitcoin can't,

708
00:51:59,674 --> 00:52:01,254
you can't buy cups of coffee with Bitcoin.

709
00:52:01,354 --> 00:52:02,115
That's not going to work.

710
00:52:02,174 --> 00:52:03,415
And so people are like, well, it could be like,

711
00:52:03,474 --> 00:52:06,274
you know, sort of like gold bars stored in a vault somewhere.

712
00:52:06,794 --> 00:52:09,354
So there's debates over that type of thing,

713
00:52:09,354 --> 00:52:12,894
but certainly the idea of being able to lock up value

714
00:52:12,894 --> 00:52:15,974
and transfer it to people just with an internet connection

715
00:52:15,974 --> 00:52:18,115
And I mean, that's huge.

716
00:52:18,194 --> 00:52:23,174
That's going to be the underpinning of, I think, what's going to happen with the global financial system going forward.

717
00:52:23,794 --> 00:52:26,954
Bitcoin was just the first example showing blockchain per se.

718
00:52:27,734 --> 00:52:30,534
And that's what, like at Infineo, we're putting life insurance on the blockchain, right?

719
00:52:30,534 --> 00:52:38,634
So this is not just about Bitcoin per se, but this technology really opened up a whole new arena in commerce.

720
00:52:38,754 --> 00:52:41,014
Well, and that coffee cup thing, that's coming.

721
00:52:41,174 --> 00:52:43,374
I mean, that's the lightning network and layer two.

722
00:52:43,494 --> 00:52:43,634
Right.

723
00:52:43,794 --> 00:52:43,935
Yeah.

724
00:52:44,954 --> 00:52:45,394
Yeah.

725
00:52:45,394 --> 00:52:46,554
And it's very good.

726
00:52:46,734 --> 00:52:48,974
I use it all the time.

727
00:52:49,214 --> 00:52:50,595
And I realize I'm not everybody.

728
00:52:51,754 --> 00:52:52,874
It's very good.

729
00:52:53,234 --> 00:52:54,374
It's very good.

730
00:52:54,494 --> 00:52:55,935
Gary runs a conference.

731
00:52:56,054 --> 00:52:57,254
You can see it in the BitBot Boom.

732
00:52:57,854 --> 00:53:02,354
And all through that conference, people are transacting and utilizing it.

733
00:53:05,314 --> 00:53:15,354
And I know, Bob, you have some expertise in what is money, how does money develop, all those sorts of things.

734
00:53:15,394 --> 00:53:23,615
things and it, you know, it's not, maybe the way I would phrase it is, you know,

735
00:53:23,954 --> 00:53:31,754
money is not created by the government and it has to, to be a good money, it probably has to

736
00:53:31,754 --> 00:53:36,214
be created organically, which means it has to go through a process to get to a certain point.

737
00:53:36,394 --> 00:53:43,834
Would that be consistent with the way you would think? Well, sure. So in this, if we take a moment

738
00:53:43,834 --> 00:53:48,874
as a detour here perhaps that i hope your viewers will be interested in originally there were some

739
00:53:48,874 --> 00:53:56,554
diehard austrian fans who didn't like bitcoin and the thing that was tripping them up was that

740
00:53:56,554 --> 00:53:59,435
ludwig van mises you know who's a giant the austrian tradition when he was

741
00:54:00,394 --> 00:54:04,954
pioneered a lot in terms of monetary theory and he had this thing called the regression theorem

742
00:54:04,954 --> 00:54:09,994
and so what what that i don't need to get the full blown details of it but the idea was

743
00:54:09,994 --> 00:54:15,674
to explain the purchasing power of money it involves it's kind of weird like why are you

744
00:54:15,674 --> 00:54:19,194
accepting money today to give up your car to work or something it's because oh you think it's going

745
00:54:19,194 --> 00:54:23,754
to have purchasing power tomorrow like that's ultimately why would you accept something today

746
00:54:23,754 --> 00:54:26,474
you know it's because you think it's going to purchase where they say well where'd that come

747
00:54:26,474 --> 00:54:31,514
from how do you where your expectations coming from and they'd say oh because you observed its

748
00:54:31,514 --> 00:54:36,154
recent history and so you saw a sense of oh yeah this money has a certain purchasing power so i'm

749
00:54:36,154 --> 00:54:38,374
I'm willing to give up my valuable stuff today for it.

750
00:54:38,834 --> 00:54:43,254
But then the critics said, oh, doesn't that lead to an infinite regress, right?

751
00:54:43,254 --> 00:54:46,514
That you're explaining today's purchasing power ultimately by yesterday's.

752
00:54:46,514 --> 00:54:47,954
And doesn't that just go back forever?

753
00:54:48,294 --> 00:54:49,194
You haven't really explained.

754
00:54:49,615 --> 00:54:51,115
And Mises said, no, because you can go back.

755
00:54:51,174 --> 00:55:04,794
There's a logical stopping point when these commodities, because Mises was writing at a time when it was still gold and silver, that there was a state of barter and people just liked gold and silver because they were pretty or they used them for some industrial purpose or whatever.

756
00:55:04,794 --> 00:55:10,794
and so that's why you know so in his framework he needed that just to solve this logical objection

757
00:55:10,794 --> 00:55:17,214
that he was using an infinite regress um and so and mises even went further and he said for

758
00:55:17,214 --> 00:55:22,654
something to be a medium of exchange it must have first been used as a mere commodity because

759
00:55:22,654 --> 00:55:26,674
otherwise how would anybody know what you know what what relative valuation to ascribe to it

760
00:55:26,674 --> 00:55:32,034
so he was pretty and so when bitcoin first came on the scene there were a lot of people steeped in

761
00:55:32,034 --> 00:55:38,814
that tradition who thought well you know you can't use bitcoins to make a sandwich or to you

762
00:55:38,814 --> 00:55:42,575
know build a building or so like how do we know how much it's supposed to be worth so this is crazy

763
00:55:42,575 --> 00:55:47,415
this is all but the the point i mean is kind of a technical one is once it got off the ground and

764
00:55:47,415 --> 00:55:51,854
it was worried like that objection if anything that would have stopped anyone from accepting

765
00:55:51,854 --> 00:55:55,935
the first bitcoins period but since you know given what the 10 000 for the two pizzas it's

766
00:55:55,935 --> 00:55:59,294
like well there you go now people saw that and then they have a basis for figuring it out i know

767
00:55:59,294 --> 00:56:04,174
I know a lot of people who lost a lot of money because they believed in that regression theorem

768
00:56:04,174 --> 00:56:06,054
and it held them back from buying Bitcoin.

769
00:56:06,214 --> 00:56:09,935
It was really tragic because what they should have done is gone back a couple of Austrians

770
00:56:09,935 --> 00:56:16,214
before him and consulted Menger, who basically said money is the most liquid good and all

771
00:56:16,214 --> 00:56:17,154
value is subjective.

772
00:56:18,314 --> 00:56:20,954
And in my view, it's always been money is a ledger.

773
00:56:21,095 --> 00:56:22,654
It's valued based on its qualities.

774
00:56:24,174 --> 00:56:29,154
And as long as it's scarce and immutable or scarce and defensible, I mean, gold,

775
00:56:29,294 --> 00:56:34,334
you know, doesn't tarnish and last forever. Bitcoin, you know, the network is immutable or

776
00:56:34,334 --> 00:56:39,454
basically immutable. And so, you know, it's got great monetary qualities and obviously it's

777
00:56:39,454 --> 00:56:44,514
emerging as money. My kids and grandkids are going to be transacting in Satoshi's. My guess is,

778
00:56:44,634 --> 00:56:48,954
Bob, that you would agree. But yeah, the regression theorem hurt a lot of people. I mean,

779
00:56:48,954 --> 00:56:53,814
I had several very good Austrian friends who just couldn't get to Bitcoin because of it.

780
00:56:53,814 --> 00:56:59,254
And it was too bad. Yeah. And I want to clarify. So I agree with what you said. Yeah, I think

781
00:56:59,294 --> 00:57:11,354
So in the year 2100, there's going to be lots of people holding, you know, carrying the fact that they're the ones that the blockchains point to and say that they're the ones who control those Satoshis, that that's still going to be a big deal in 2100.

782
00:57:12,714 --> 00:57:16,334
That my point was, I wasn't even saying Mises was wrong.

783
00:57:16,415 --> 00:57:22,935
What I was saying, though, is to the extent that you think that there is some issue there, it would have stopped Bitcoin from becoming a medium of exchange.

784
00:57:22,935 --> 00:57:26,254
Right. Going from medium of exchange to money is just a matter of degree.

785
00:57:26,494 --> 00:57:28,115
Right. But so that was my point.

786
00:57:28,115 --> 00:57:31,754
we know that some guy gave up two pieces for what it was 10,000 bitcoins or

787
00:57:31,754 --> 00:57:34,734
something. So there you go. Somebody, you know, in other words,

788
00:57:34,734 --> 00:57:36,394
it would have stopped him there because he would have said, well, how,

789
00:57:36,534 --> 00:57:40,694
how many, you know, should I ask for, for these pizzas? Well, he did. Okay.

790
00:57:40,754 --> 00:57:44,474
And that's what happened. So, so market got created and, you know,

791
00:57:44,494 --> 00:57:48,075
and it became a liquid good and, and the value of the pizzas was subjective.

792
00:57:48,075 --> 00:57:51,734
Now, as it turns out, you know, the guy who gave up the Bitcoin made a bad trade.

793
00:57:52,834 --> 00:57:55,554
Right. I think he did that though, several times, Bob.

794
00:57:55,654 --> 00:57:57,634
So he wasn't too upset about it, obviously.

795
00:57:58,115 --> 00:58:02,314
Well, he probably, if you can give up 10,000 Bitcoin, you probably have some others behind it would be my guess.

796
00:58:02,474 --> 00:58:03,154
I doubt it.

797
00:58:03,634 --> 00:58:05,115
And the pizza could have been good.

798
00:58:05,174 --> 00:58:06,314
We don't know how good the pizza was.

799
00:58:06,674 --> 00:58:06,954
Excellent.

800
00:58:07,474 --> 00:58:11,095
Well, and remember, too, the cost of production at that point was trivial.

801
00:58:11,935 --> 00:58:18,935
So, which at that time, it was the only acquisition method, which was to mine it, to create it.

802
00:58:18,935 --> 00:58:22,554
And it was, you know, pennies, essentially, to do so.

803
00:58:23,415 --> 00:58:25,455
If I could just be geeky for a second.

804
00:58:25,455 --> 00:58:35,714
It's just funny because I was having this thought the other day driving around of a silly short story where somebody goes back in time to the early days and then knows to just hoard Bitcoin.

805
00:58:36,354 --> 00:58:40,455
But because he did that, it never takes off because he's just hoarding it and then it's not getting out.

806
00:58:42,455 --> 00:58:50,054
It's interesting you say that because one of the things I talk a lot about, Bob, is Metcalfe's Law, which is a network.

807
00:58:50,254 --> 00:58:55,354
The value of a network is equal to the square or the number of users of the network.

808
00:58:55,455 --> 00:59:13,774
And one of the things that I harp on within the Bitcoin community is I tell people, if you just hold Bitcoin and you don't participate in using Bitcoin, you're defeating yourself because you're stealing the network effect.

809
00:59:14,575 --> 00:59:17,294
We need users of the network for the thing to propel.

810
00:59:17,294 --> 00:59:22,394
And there's secondary issues like the way the security budget is and funding the miners and all this sort of stuff.

811
00:59:22,494 --> 00:59:24,935
But fundamentally, it has to be used.

812
00:59:24,935 --> 00:59:32,595
Otherwise, we don't get the benefit of the Metcalf effect.

813
00:59:32,994 --> 00:59:35,334
My view of spend and replace, Jeff Booth feels this too.

814
00:59:35,455 --> 00:59:36,174
I've talked about it.

815
00:59:36,254 --> 00:59:38,095
Spend and replace is a very important part of it.

816
00:59:38,194 --> 00:59:39,534
It's not just digital capital.

817
00:59:39,674 --> 00:59:40,935
It's not just a store of value.

818
00:59:41,514 --> 00:59:43,514
It has to become a widely used source of money.

819
00:59:43,714 --> 00:59:48,514
And it is, but it's just we're so early days on the medium of exchange side.

820
00:59:49,054 --> 00:59:54,754
So is cashing in Bitcoin the same as spending Satoshi's as far as the effect it has?

821
00:59:54,935 --> 00:59:56,174
Say that again, Gary.

822
00:59:56,494 --> 01:00:04,874
Is cashing in Bitcoin for fiat the same as spending at Satoshi's as far as the good it does for the network?

823
01:00:04,874 --> 01:00:05,955
It is.

824
01:00:06,214 --> 01:00:11,794
I mean, and I think that's one of the things, too, is the hodl culture.

825
01:00:12,674 --> 01:00:13,774
And I'm not against hodling.

826
01:00:13,915 --> 01:00:18,354
I want people to acquire Bitcoin and grow their stack.

827
01:00:18,514 --> 01:00:24,674
However, I don't think there's anything wrong with using it.

828
01:00:24,674 --> 01:00:32,714
I don't think you use it frivolously, but if I decide Lola and I want to get a new house

829
01:00:32,714 --> 01:00:40,354
and a bigger place or a nice place and we use some to do that, it's okay. I understand what I'm

830
01:00:41,894 --> 01:00:48,894
giving up, the likely future value of that money, but hey, I'm 61 years old and I want to have some

831
01:00:48,894 --> 01:00:52,994
nice things and I want to live in this. And I think it's okay to do that on occasion.

832
01:00:52,994 --> 01:00:58,455
I think spend and replace is an important part in my view of creating wider adoption. I mean,

833
01:00:58,494 --> 01:01:03,435
I often, with waiters and waitresses at restaurants, I often ask if they know about Bitcoin and

834
01:01:03,435 --> 01:01:07,514
most don't. And then I say, okay, I'm going to give you your regular tip. And then I say,

835
01:01:07,534 --> 01:01:12,435
I'll give you a little additional tip. If you'll download this strike wallet and, um, you know,

836
01:01:12,474 --> 01:01:17,474
I'll basically flip you some Satoshis. Um, you know, I just think the more people know about it,

837
01:01:17,474 --> 01:01:22,554
the faster it gets adopted, the better it is, you know, and I, I don't, I don't miss those Satoshis.

838
01:01:22,554 --> 01:01:28,394
and I refill my bucket every couple of weeks when I need to.

839
01:01:28,874 --> 01:01:30,114
So to me-

840
01:01:30,114 --> 01:01:32,834
So I should start asking my waiters if they take Bitcoin.

841
01:01:33,134 --> 01:01:33,674
There you go.

842
01:01:33,915 --> 01:01:35,714
Well, you go stake it, stake it, and they take it.

843
01:01:35,774 --> 01:01:36,214
We know that.

844
01:01:36,294 --> 01:01:37,354
That's a big step forward.

845
01:01:37,514 --> 01:01:40,894
I mean, look, it's amazing everything that's going on in terms of adoption.

846
01:01:41,095 --> 01:01:43,114
I mean, you've got, it's just, it's stunning.

847
01:01:43,274 --> 01:01:47,034
I mean, I think if you'd ask Bob or myself or Gary, probably you too, Bob,

848
01:01:47,034 --> 01:01:53,935
A couple years ago, did you think Bitcoin would be where it is today in terms of knowledge

849
01:01:53,935 --> 01:01:56,794
and understanding and widespread acceptance?

850
01:01:56,794 --> 01:01:59,754
I mean, it's stunning.

851
01:01:59,754 --> 01:02:15,912
And what interesting though to me is that the price doesn always move linearly with that happening And everyone recrying the fact that right now the price hasn moved as much as they like even though it up like 40 year over year um and you know a lot of some of the whales are selling and they say that the reason why it

852
01:02:15,912 --> 01:02:20,392
not moving maybe that's so but you know great let's get more fully distributed you know some

853
01:02:20,392 --> 01:02:23,831
of the people invested early and have the foresight if they want to take profits on it and

854
01:02:24,552 --> 01:02:28,951
spend that somewhere else great i mean we need to have a broader base of holders and that's

855
01:02:28,951 --> 01:02:34,791
this is a natural process by which that happens. So, you know, I view this all as very, very positive stuff.

856
01:02:37,311 --> 01:02:43,152
Yeah. And just to circle back on some of those points that I guess go back to Gary's distinction there,

857
01:02:43,751 --> 01:02:49,112
I suppose that, you know, narrowly speaking that, right, if what you're trying to do, like, hey,

858
01:02:49,132 --> 01:02:53,092
I go around and, you know, I share the gospel with people and I do this and I teach them free market.

859
01:02:53,092 --> 01:02:58,311
And then also I want to do my part to kind of bolster familiarity with Bitcoin.

860
01:02:58,872 --> 01:03:02,191
What's the best way that I guess if you're going to,

861
01:03:02,271 --> 01:03:05,032
if you find merchants that would accept it,

862
01:03:05,032 --> 01:03:10,271
and then you have a preference for like buying things by sending Satoshis to somebody.

863
01:03:10,471 --> 01:03:12,231
And then you say, well, yeah, but I'm trying to stack.

864
01:03:12,311 --> 01:03:14,872
But you could, again, if you get your paycheck and fiat,

865
01:03:15,412 --> 01:03:18,291
just in other words, instead of having it and you're going to your checking account

866
01:03:18,291 --> 01:03:21,592
and something you find online, you use by your conventional bank.

867
01:03:21,592 --> 01:03:28,191
if you find someone who accepts Bitcoin, then you just pay them the Bitcoin and then transfer

868
01:03:28,191 --> 01:03:33,831
from your conventional bank to replenish your stockpile. And that's a wash from your point of

869
01:03:33,831 --> 01:03:40,191
view, unless there's a price change in the interim. But I think that does more. It tells that business

870
01:03:40,191 --> 01:03:44,152
you are right to accept Bitcoin, right? Because that's a decision merchants have to make. And if

871
01:03:44,152 --> 01:03:48,471
they don't get many sales, then they might say, this is not worth it. But I think on the margin,

872
01:03:48,471 --> 01:03:51,291
If you're thinking like, hey, I want to evangelize, that helps.

873
01:03:51,471 --> 01:04:04,052
As opposed to just you selling for cash, that might just mean that, oh, somebody out there now who's looking to add more to their stack buys from you because, you know, you're selling Bitcoin for money, for dollars.

874
01:04:04,872 --> 01:04:10,132
And that, you know, that person who's already stacking on the margin, they're already a fan of Bitcoin, whereas like the merchant or something.

875
01:04:10,311 --> 01:04:13,892
Yeah, so it's funny you should mention that, Bob, because I've got a perfect example of that.

876
01:04:13,892 --> 01:04:14,912
I'm in Naples, Florida.

877
01:04:15,012 --> 01:04:16,532
I just went over to my CrossFit gym.

878
01:04:17,152 --> 01:04:19,532
And he's the guy who owns is an avid Bitcoiner.

879
01:04:19,892 --> 01:04:26,211
And he's offering a 20% discount on gym memberships and drop-ins for anybody who pays him in Bitcoin.

880
01:04:27,132 --> 01:04:28,291
And 20%.

881
01:04:28,291 --> 01:04:29,532
Wow, that's a lot.

882
01:04:29,912 --> 01:04:30,251
Right?

883
01:04:30,372 --> 01:04:31,412
Yeah, it's a good deal.

884
01:04:31,412 --> 01:04:35,892
I mean, I just signed up for a month and saved, I don't know, $30 or something, whatever it was.

885
01:04:35,951 --> 01:04:36,932
It was a big number.

886
01:04:37,311 --> 01:04:38,632
And same with drop-ins.

887
01:04:38,831 --> 01:04:40,412
And I'm going to tweet that out.

888
01:04:40,532 --> 01:04:43,872
And my guess is that Bitcoiners traveling to Naples, they're going to find this guy.

889
01:04:43,892 --> 01:04:47,971
right and uh and he and i asked him why he's doing it he said i'm just doing it because i want to see

890
01:04:47,971 --> 01:04:53,092
the thing spread and you know this is incentive for people to you know to to become smart about

891
01:04:53,092 --> 01:04:57,892
it and he's got a lot of regular people who are probably just paying him by a direct deposit but

892
01:04:57,892 --> 01:05:01,892
he's telling them they can get a 20 discount for doing this wow how many of those people do you

893
01:05:01,892 --> 01:05:06,052
think are going to figure out how to get a strike wallet and do it right yeah so i mean it's like

894
01:05:06,052 --> 01:05:11,012
bravo to the businesses that are helping out you know on this on this stuff well i need to get more

895
01:05:11,012 --> 01:05:17,331
aggressive in asking people if they take bitcoin it sounds like which i'm not well i mean a question

896
01:05:17,331 --> 01:05:22,852
for you gary i mean when you sell you know um tickets for your show or your conference i mean

897
01:05:22,852 --> 01:05:26,771
is there a bitcoin is there a bitcoin discount paying bitcoin discount versus regular payment

898
01:05:27,412 --> 01:05:33,492
no it's just regular payment yeah but worth worth something worth considering right yeah yeah it is

899
01:05:33,492 --> 01:05:40,372
worth considering as far as helping the uh economy of bitcoin now i get maybe 10 of the people paying

900
01:05:40,372 --> 01:05:46,932
in Bitcoin, but 100% of them are Bitcoiners. I get it. I get it. But again, just for those who

901
01:05:46,932 --> 01:05:51,052
aren't, it's incentive. Like I said, at this gym, there are a bunch of members who are definitely

902
01:05:51,052 --> 01:05:55,811
not Bitcoiners. If I remember a gym and I was paying a monthly fee, I don't know what it is,

903
01:05:55,811 --> 01:06:00,471
like 150 or something a month. Somebody said, you can get 20% off. I went, oh, that's interesting.

904
01:06:01,971 --> 01:06:06,592
Yeah, I hadn't even thought of that angle, Lauren, in terms of before I was thinking of it like

905
01:06:06,592 --> 01:06:09,271
businesses do it because they like Bitcoin and want to get it.

906
01:06:09,271 --> 01:06:10,412
But in a sense,

907
01:06:10,471 --> 01:06:12,291
this guy likes Bitcoin and wants to get it too.

908
01:06:12,412 --> 01:06:12,711
But I mean,

909
01:06:12,751 --> 01:06:13,512
and obviously like,

910
01:06:13,592 --> 01:06:14,132
like Bob said,

911
01:06:14,191 --> 01:06:14,932
20% is a big,

912
01:06:15,012 --> 01:06:15,152
I mean,

913
01:06:15,171 --> 01:06:16,552
that's a big economic number,

914
01:06:16,552 --> 01:06:16,852
but,

915
01:06:16,852 --> 01:06:17,552
but again,

916
01:06:17,592 --> 01:06:17,771
I think,

917
01:06:17,892 --> 01:06:20,331
but you're saying to get people to get over the hurdle.

918
01:06:21,331 --> 01:06:22,112
Cause that's the thing.

919
01:06:22,152 --> 01:06:22,372
He was like,

920
01:06:22,392 --> 01:06:22,512
yeah,

921
01:06:22,512 --> 01:06:23,251
I don't know how that works.

922
01:06:23,311 --> 01:06:23,791
I think he just,

923
01:06:23,831 --> 01:06:25,291
I think he just wants to help the network.

924
01:06:25,352 --> 01:06:25,791
And by the way,

925
01:06:25,791 --> 01:06:26,592
he probably will.

926
01:06:26,652 --> 01:06:26,731
There,

927
01:06:26,892 --> 01:06:28,751
he gets a lot of drop-ins.

928
01:06:28,831 --> 01:06:34,132
There are a lot of people who have a parent that lives in Naples and they come down to visit their parent and they're,

929
01:06:34,251 --> 01:06:34,492
they're,

930
01:06:34,552 --> 01:06:34,852
you know,

931
01:06:34,852 --> 01:06:37,271
a CrossFitter from any, I mean, I see him there all the time.

932
01:06:37,331 --> 01:06:38,512
They're from some other part of the country.

933
01:06:38,592 --> 01:06:40,492
They come down here and they come and they drop into his gym.

934
01:06:40,492 --> 01:06:42,932
Well, and there are four CrossFit gyms in Naples,

935
01:06:43,072 --> 01:06:44,552
so people have a lot of choices.

936
01:06:45,231 --> 01:06:45,932
But guess what?

937
01:06:46,951 --> 01:06:49,412
I'm going to go to the one with the Bitcoin guy running it, right?

938
01:06:51,152 --> 01:06:54,572
Bob, a little bit off of the payment side,

939
01:06:55,592 --> 01:07:00,132
you wrote this booklet 10 years ago.

940
01:07:00,132 --> 01:07:09,671
what what has surprised you the most so you you had some expectation and optimism for it obviously

941
01:07:09,671 --> 01:07:16,152
at that point what what surprised you or maybe and maybe what's disappointed you if if anything

942
01:07:16,152 --> 01:07:21,892
in that 10 years okay good yeah good question um it's hard to remember exactly what my mindset was

943
01:07:21,892 --> 01:07:30,291
back then but i think that this is true that um i think i thought back then that you were going to

944
01:07:30,291 --> 01:07:36,512
see more widespread adoption and that bitcoin was going to spread more in terms of just like

945
01:07:36,512 --> 01:07:40,532
smaller businesses accepting it and just you know more and more people especially if they already

946
01:07:40,532 --> 01:07:45,271
had like a libertarian you know bent to them just using bitcoin more and more in their daily

947
01:07:45,271 --> 01:07:50,652
transactions but i didn't think it was going to percolate up to you know major investment banks

948
01:07:50,652 --> 01:07:55,231
and stuff or certainly i couldn't imagine the president talking about it and like people wanting

949
01:07:55,231 --> 01:08:00,412
to have a bitcoin strategic reserve like that so that that's kind of what surprised me is that the

950
01:08:00,412 --> 01:08:05,092
and the one kind of explains it because the large institutional adoption i think that pushed up the

951
01:08:05,092 --> 01:08:11,032
price and then you know that made it harder you know to just justify you know in terms of uh

952
01:08:11,032 --> 01:08:16,532
day-to-day commerce but in any event that's i guess that would be my answer that it's the adopted

953
01:08:16,532 --> 01:08:19,012
how commonplace it is now.

954
01:08:19,131 --> 01:08:20,952
I can remember, I'd be on a plane

955
01:08:20,952 --> 01:08:23,032
reading a book on Bitcoin and the guy next

956
01:08:23,032 --> 01:08:25,032
to me would be like, what the heck is that? And that wasn't

957
01:08:25,032 --> 01:08:26,731
that long ago where they didn't even know what it was.

958
01:08:27,352 --> 01:08:28,631
And then now it's like

959
01:08:28,631 --> 01:08:30,611
on CNBC's website,

960
01:08:30,832 --> 01:08:33,032
they just got the crypto tab, just like you look at bonds

961
01:08:33,032 --> 01:08:34,651
and FX and S&P.

962
01:08:35,052 --> 01:08:36,872
It's just normal. Not like, oh, that's an asset class.

963
01:08:36,932 --> 01:08:39,012
What are you talking about? So that kind of surprised

964
01:08:39,012 --> 01:08:40,872
me how fast that happened. And now all of a sudden

965
01:08:40,872 --> 01:08:42,932
it's not this crazy thing. It's like, oh yeah, that's just

966
01:08:42,932 --> 01:08:44,932
normal. It's like gold and silver and

967
01:08:44,932 --> 01:08:46,631
you know, commodities and crypto.

968
01:08:47,811 --> 01:08:49,311
And do you see,

969
01:08:50,472 --> 01:08:54,332
when you look at like the valuation right now,

970
01:08:55,332 --> 01:09:01,292
do you have in your own head some way where you say,

971
01:09:02,012 --> 01:09:05,052
hey, that like two and a half trillion dollar market cap,

972
01:09:05,052 --> 01:09:06,472
that makes sense to me?

973
01:09:06,671 --> 01:09:09,852
Or like, I'm shocked it's there now,

974
01:09:09,852 --> 01:09:11,271
or it should be 20 trillion.

975
01:09:11,271 --> 01:09:15,191
or like how do you have any feelings like that?

976
01:09:16,571 --> 01:09:19,071
I mean, I've done back of the envelope calculations

977
01:09:19,071 --> 01:09:22,952
at Infineo in terms of like what long-term

978
01:09:22,952 --> 01:09:25,271
if you just got global adoption

979
01:09:25,271 --> 01:09:28,571
and then I guess really was sort of like the backup thing

980
01:09:28,571 --> 01:09:30,852
that everyone's still using their day-to-day currencies

981
01:09:30,852 --> 01:09:31,811
that their government issues,

982
01:09:31,892 --> 01:09:34,352
but like everyone now holds this as a backup kind of thing.

983
01:09:34,952 --> 01:09:37,052
And I've done things like that just to see,

984
01:09:37,151 --> 01:09:40,671
you know, what could be plausibly in terms of the,

985
01:09:40,671 --> 01:09:44,892
And I still think you can get like 15% growth for decades.

986
01:09:45,131 --> 01:09:53,191
And that's totally consistent with normal assumptions about if people just kind of got out of their own thing and got into Bitcoin.

987
01:09:54,091 --> 01:09:57,111
So it's hard for me to say like right now is a correct.

988
01:09:57,191 --> 01:09:58,611
So I'm extremely bullish.

989
01:09:58,872 --> 01:10:05,231
So in that sense, I think most of the world has not yet caught on to what to me is obvious, if that's one way of answering your question.

990
01:10:05,611 --> 01:10:08,972
But on the other hand, I think a lot of stuff and I'm looking around saying you guys are all idiots.

991
01:10:08,972 --> 01:10:12,892
Well, that's the common theme of this show.

992
01:10:13,012 --> 01:10:13,771
Everybody else is an idiot.

993
01:10:13,771 --> 01:10:15,231
That happens to me every day, Bob.

994
01:10:18,091 --> 01:10:23,271
So, I mean, again, I feel like you're saying back when I wrote that booklet, would I have guessed what the market price would be now?

995
01:10:24,171 --> 01:10:26,571
I honestly don't remember what I was thinking back then.

996
01:10:26,591 --> 01:10:31,452
I thought that this was – that's partly why my co-author, Silas Barton, I wrote that.

997
01:10:31,671 --> 01:10:34,091
And he was a guy – he understood the mechanics of it.

998
01:10:34,091 --> 01:10:37,912
Like he had built an early mining rig in his, in his coffee, you know,

999
01:10:37,912 --> 01:10:41,031
in his family room, you know, he just had the thing like back when it was,

1000
01:10:41,571 --> 01:10:44,131
you know, he had like fans going on and stuff. So it wouldn't overheat,

1001
01:10:44,171 --> 01:10:46,552
but that's how early he got into it. When it still made sense,

1002
01:10:46,552 --> 01:10:48,872
you could do it in your house. And then, you know, so,

1003
01:10:48,932 --> 01:10:51,352
so I knew the economics, the monetary theory, and he knew like,

1004
01:10:51,352 --> 01:10:52,852
this is really how, you know,

1005
01:10:52,852 --> 01:10:55,271
the cryptography and the private public keys and all that work.

1006
01:10:55,892 --> 01:10:57,452
So that was the point of us writing that.

1007
01:10:57,492 --> 01:11:00,191
But the reason we did that was because we realized, you know,

1008
01:11:00,191 --> 01:11:01,512
this is going to change the world.

1009
01:11:03,111 --> 01:11:03,752
You're right.

1010
01:11:04,091 --> 01:11:11,792
it was visionary and when you look bob at um you know you you mentioned your parents are boomers

1011
01:11:11,792 --> 01:11:16,792
and um you know one of the problems with boomer by the way is it's it's too big of a generation

1012
01:11:16,792 --> 01:11:22,531
right it's a yeah you know and i think there's this term now uh coming about where they're taking

1013
01:11:22,531 --> 01:11:27,271
the second half of the boomers and they're calling them joneses um i don't know if you guys have

1014
01:11:27,271 --> 01:11:32,811
heard that but it's kind of so my year i was born in 64 i'm the very youngest boomer but they're

1015
01:11:32,811 --> 01:11:39,352
kind of going back, I think, to 55 or 56 and saying, you know, that era is the Joneses.

1016
01:11:39,452 --> 01:11:42,412
And then the ones before that were the actual boomers.

1017
01:11:43,071 --> 01:11:49,811
But regardless, when you look at your parents or somebody, you know, in that generation,

1018
01:11:53,711 --> 01:11:57,591
how would you talk to them about Bitcoin?

1019
01:11:57,691 --> 01:12:01,872
Do you say like, hey, you should have a little bit just in case?

1020
01:12:02,811 --> 01:12:04,972
or just, you know, ride it out.

1021
01:12:05,071 --> 01:12:06,052
You made it this far.

1022
01:12:06,111 --> 01:12:06,892
You don't need it.

1023
01:12:07,771 --> 01:12:08,492
Ride it out.

1024
01:12:08,571 --> 01:12:11,531
How do you think they, what's your advice to them?

1025
01:12:11,952 --> 01:12:13,832
I know you're not giving financial advice,

1026
01:12:13,932 --> 01:12:15,611
but maybe to your parents who are.

1027
01:12:16,052 --> 01:12:18,191
So what would you say?

1028
01:12:18,231 --> 01:12:18,811
You know, it's funny.

1029
01:12:18,972 --> 01:12:21,571
So I think, you know, I definitely have them,

1030
01:12:22,231 --> 01:12:23,912
you know, they over the years asked me

1031
01:12:23,912 --> 01:12:25,811
what I think about what they have going on and stuff.

1032
01:12:25,892 --> 01:12:27,591
And, you know, they paid their house off

1033
01:12:27,591 --> 01:12:28,731
and everything's just, you know,

1034
01:12:28,771 --> 01:12:29,992
and I explained that in terms of,

1035
01:12:30,432 --> 01:12:32,071
that's like the mortgage payment, you know,

1036
01:12:32,071 --> 01:12:37,091
it's just coming to you every month in a sense. It's like, okay. Um, and they, there's, as you

1037
01:12:37,091 --> 01:12:41,932
know, Bob, with the life insurance stuff. So they have some, you know, well-funded paid up life

1038
01:12:41,932 --> 01:12:46,571
insurance is just sitting there that they can do if they need and a big exposure to gold.

1039
01:12:47,131 --> 01:12:52,052
And so I don't remember. So the, to my knowledge, they're not sitting on a bunch of Bitcoin. And I

1040
01:12:52,052 --> 01:12:57,352
think, I can't remember if years ago I brought that up or just decided that's going to, you know,

1041
01:12:57,571 --> 01:13:00,852
that they're going to say that that's, they don't get how it works and we'll know what if we lose

1042
01:13:00,852 --> 01:13:07,372
the thing or you know that it just seems too weird so um i i don't know that i push too hard on that

1043
01:13:07,372 --> 01:13:11,811
i'm gonna see him in thanksgiving maybe i'll maybe i'll bring it up and see but but the gold they're

1044
01:13:11,811 --> 01:13:15,992
gonna say i mean the gold has done so awesome like they're thanking me yeah thanks for getting us in

1045
01:13:15,992 --> 01:13:22,552
the gold yeah so things like bitcoin so yeah what about you know for for them and this is very

1046
01:13:22,552 --> 01:13:27,691
controversial in the bitcoin world but you know do things like the like an etf like a little etf

1047
01:13:27,691 --> 01:13:33,972
exposure or something like that make is that more it was certainly yeah it was yeah so a hundred

1048
01:13:33,972 --> 01:13:38,472
percent that would definitely you know if in terms of the standard thing they have right now just to

1049
01:13:38,472 --> 01:13:42,531
say hey you know you've got like a mining stocks or why don't you just take a little allocation and

1050
01:13:42,531 --> 01:13:47,771
put it over here into this ctf in that framework sure to get some exposure and in fact yeah i

1051
01:13:47,771 --> 01:13:51,611
definitely can uh have that conversation and that's partly you know to go back to what you

1052
01:13:51,611 --> 01:13:57,052
said before about the institutional adoption like it was a fairly quick turnover from when bitcoin

1053
01:13:57,052 --> 01:14:02,091
was still this weird, crazy thing that only ideologues or like computer nerds talked about.

1054
01:14:02,611 --> 01:14:06,892
And then all of a sudden it just became like, yeah, this is normal and all, you know, BlackRock

1055
01:14:06,892 --> 01:14:10,432
and all these guys, they're all getting into this stuff and this is normal. And there's ETFs and

1056
01:14:10,432 --> 01:14:14,252
yeah, you can put it in your, you know, your IRA or whatever. If you want exposure that way,

1057
01:14:14,292 --> 01:14:20,651
it's no big deal. Yeah. I mean, to me, by the way, answering my own question from earlier, that's

1058
01:14:20,651 --> 01:14:24,591
That's even, I think Larry alluded to this too,

1059
01:14:24,852 --> 01:14:28,492
even three or four years ago, as a guy heavily involved,

1060
01:14:28,651 --> 01:14:30,872
I cannot believe we are here today.

1061
01:14:31,671 --> 01:14:36,852
It blows my mind that we have nation state involvement.

1062
01:14:36,852 --> 01:14:42,752
We have essentially almost every large financial institution participating.

1063
01:14:44,372 --> 01:14:47,332
I just, I'm blown away by that.

1064
01:14:47,332 --> 01:14:51,611
that we were facing such headwinds, such resistance,

1065
01:14:52,392 --> 01:14:56,432
both from the financial community and the political community.

1066
01:14:57,012 --> 01:15:02,111
And this flip was just amazing.

1067
01:15:02,111 --> 01:15:05,912
And it could be that that ETF was maybe the,

1068
01:15:07,171 --> 01:15:10,631
certainly an inflection point, if not the inflection point.

1069
01:15:12,131 --> 01:15:14,852
And I know it was still resistance, right?

1070
01:15:14,852 --> 01:15:19,332
Gensler was trying all he could to delay those things.

1071
01:15:20,952 --> 01:15:26,651
But if just a comment, I mean, I think, again, with all this, those counterfactuals, we don't know.

1072
01:15:26,651 --> 01:15:31,432
But I mean, that was I know there's lots of things that I don't like about the current Trump administration.

1073
01:15:31,432 --> 01:15:35,231
But I mean, that was just huge in terms of the shift in the mindset.

1074
01:15:35,432 --> 01:15:37,412
I mean, as you guys, I'm preaching the choir here.

1075
01:15:37,512 --> 01:15:44,392
But I mean, it was just like, you know, at our company, like we were thinking we were going to build stuff, you know, for foreign markets.

1076
01:15:44,852 --> 01:15:47,671
because, you know, the regulatory climate and then Trump coming.

1077
01:15:47,771 --> 01:15:49,552
It's like, oh, they want us to build here.

1078
01:15:49,752 --> 01:15:50,792
Oh, that's that's refreshing.

1079
01:15:51,012 --> 01:15:51,972
OK, maybe we will.

1080
01:15:53,832 --> 01:15:56,071
So, yeah, I knew we would get here.

1081
01:15:56,332 --> 01:15:59,271
I just didn't think we would get here this quick.

1082
01:16:00,031 --> 01:16:01,711
I mean, eventually we would.

1083
01:16:01,811 --> 01:16:05,332
But this is like overnight, really, to me, compared to what I was thinking.

1084
01:16:05,492 --> 01:16:05,711
Yeah.

1085
01:16:06,992 --> 01:16:11,711
But, you know, a certain thing we talked a little earlier about, like, exponential adoption.

1086
01:16:11,711 --> 01:16:24,591
And I think you guys all know I live through the personal computer world and we've seen the Internet and we've seen cell phones and the pace with which when things are on an exponential adoption curve.

1087
01:16:26,611 --> 01:16:28,392
That really is the phenomenon, right?

1088
01:16:28,472 --> 01:16:34,452
That old gradually then suddenly phenomenon like I saw this thing recently.

1089
01:16:34,452 --> 01:16:49,012
It said, you know, if you had a bottle and you had a bacteria in the bottle and, you know, every second the bacteria replicated, right?

1090
01:16:49,171 --> 01:16:49,651
It doubled.

1091
01:16:50,591 --> 01:16:56,012
You know, I mean, you know, let's say it takes an hour to get to the whole bottle being filled.

1092
01:16:56,332 --> 01:16:59,972
Well, one second before the hour, it's only half filled.

1093
01:17:00,252 --> 01:17:02,151
And two seconds before, it's a quarter filled.

1094
01:17:02,151 --> 01:17:18,252
And, you know, so when you're there, even two minutes before the hour, it doesn't look like anything's happening. And yet, you know, boom, you're, you know, you're there. And it's hard for us as humans to grasp, to grasp those sorts of things.

1095
01:17:18,252 --> 01:17:24,311
when I was at Gateway that was part of my job I was the chief technical officer and as a

1096
01:17:24,311 --> 01:17:29,771
technologist and I would try to find places in the world where that was happening with technology

1097
01:17:29,771 --> 01:17:40,452
and I remembered two incidents that left a mark on me one was I started hearing about this massive

1098
01:17:40,452 --> 01:17:46,852
change in the gaming market in Korea and I flew over to Korea just to observe it and what had

1099
01:17:46,852 --> 01:17:56,972
happened was Korea, this would have been like 2000, 2001. Korea gaming had gotten so popular

1100
01:17:56,972 --> 01:18:05,671
that there were now TV stations dedicated in 2000, 25 years ago, just to games. So, and they would

1101
01:18:05,671 --> 01:18:12,372
broadcast live first person shooter games. And the best players in the world and the games that

1102
01:18:12,372 --> 01:18:15,892
were popular were like the Michael Jordan. They're making millions of dollars a year.

1103
01:18:15,892 --> 01:18:22,872
every week there were weekly broadcasts they had as the games were were going on they had analysts

1104
01:18:22,872 --> 01:18:28,311
um giving just like a football game right you had a color comp a play-by-play guy and an

1105
01:18:28,311 --> 01:18:35,512
and an analyst and it was just it was fascinating and um said well you know why why is this happening

1106
01:18:35,512 --> 01:18:42,651
um and what does it mean for the rest of the world right and and what he basically found out

1107
01:18:42,651 --> 01:18:47,151
was what had happened was in Korea, because you have these really dense populations,

1108
01:18:47,932 --> 01:18:53,512
you have all these skyscrapers, and South Korea had invested in fiber. Gary just talked about

1109
01:18:53,512 --> 01:19:00,651
getting fiber here in 2025. Well, in the late 90s, they had fiber everywhere. And so what we saw was

1110
01:19:00,651 --> 01:19:08,752
the effect of high-speed internet everywhere, right? And so remember, at this time period,

1111
01:19:08,752 --> 01:19:15,131
like the xbox is basically like just being invented but they were already they were already

1112
01:19:15,131 --> 01:19:21,611
there and then um second thing occurred in the same time frame i went over to the philippines

1113
01:19:21,611 --> 01:19:30,611
because i found out that at that time the uh average filipino in the year 2000 was sending

1114
01:19:30,611 --> 01:19:38,512
over 22 text messages per day but the average america was sending one and and i i'm not

1115
01:19:38,752 --> 01:19:40,972
I thought that was weird, right?

1116
01:19:41,252 --> 01:19:48,571
But what we were foreseeing was the change of the cell phone from a calling instrument

1117
01:19:48,571 --> 01:19:52,611
to a radically different communication instrument.

1118
01:19:53,691 --> 01:20:00,491
And the reason I tell you those stories was sometimes to see the early part of the growth,

1119
01:20:00,491 --> 01:20:04,651
you've got to really go deep and navigate.

1120
01:20:04,651 --> 01:20:12,752
And if you want to get ahead of one of these curves, you want to be early in developing around them, you've got to be able to spot them at the right point.

1121
01:20:13,711 --> 01:20:16,872
And so, you know, obviously, Bitcoin's not at that point anymore.

1122
01:20:17,071 --> 01:20:19,231
We're further along the adoption curve.

1123
01:20:19,392 --> 01:20:21,151
But what could happen from here?

1124
01:20:23,332 --> 01:20:30,071
Hard to tell because the next hundred million or billion people could come in in a matter of months.

1125
01:20:30,071 --> 01:20:38,631
well um i think actually we're running up probably toward the end of our our time here um hey bob is

1126
01:20:38,631 --> 01:20:44,472
there um tell us like what you know what what are some of the things you're working on right now

1127
01:20:44,472 --> 01:20:51,872
and uh yeah so i have different hats um i would point people so the my like sort of day job is

1128
01:20:51,872 --> 01:20:57,792
chief economist for infinio as you said so our website is infinio.ai and for them right now a

1129
01:20:57,792 --> 01:21:03,912
big thing that I'm looking at is uh we're ideas of making a stable coin that's backed by the cash

1130
01:21:03,912 --> 01:21:08,771
surrender value of life insurance policies so that's uh you know a thing I'm sort of like doing

1131
01:21:08,771 --> 01:21:12,972
the theory of that and then you know we're looking at practical applications and how to implement

1132
01:21:12,972 --> 01:21:17,472
that the genius act put you know makes it a little trickier because they have to have the Treasury

1133
01:21:17,472 --> 01:21:21,972
backing but so that's one main thing I'm doing there um and then I'm the host of what's called

1134
01:21:21,972 --> 01:21:27,012
the human action podcast at the Mises Institute so for people who like just more pure Austrian

1135
01:21:27,012 --> 01:21:32,292
economics and analysis and controversies and things like that in that realm I would point

1136
01:21:32,292 --> 01:21:36,912
him to that and then at Twitter I'm at Bob Murphy econ which is kind of like the clearinghouse of

1137
01:21:36,912 --> 01:21:42,012
all the things I got going on we'll close it with that and and hope uh please please hit the like

1138
01:21:42,012 --> 01:21:47,592
button and subscribe button and all that good stuff and support us we're uh we're uh we're very

1139
01:21:47,592 --> 01:21:54,731
very grateful hey you yes you watching the Bitcoin price movements and the latest exciting news it's

1140
01:21:54,731 --> 01:21:59,352
Awesome to stay informed, but the real power of Bitcoin comes from taking control.

1141
01:21:59,952 --> 01:22:01,752
Don't just watch, take action.

1142
01:22:02,292 --> 01:22:09,131
Head over to btcsessions.ca slash learn for free step-by-step tutorials that guide you

1143
01:22:09,131 --> 01:22:11,491
through every major skill you need to know.

1144
01:22:11,832 --> 01:22:15,952
Plus, full video playlists for deeper dives on any topic you like.

1145
01:22:16,392 --> 01:22:20,892
And if you're ready for the ultimate fast track, scroll to the bottom and check out

1146
01:22:20,892 --> 01:22:29,111
BitcoinMentor.io for premium one-on-one experience with my team of Bitcoin experts to ensure you get

1147
01:22:29,111 --> 01:22:35,231
it right the first time. Don't wait. Secure your Bitcoin future today. Hit the link in the show

1148
01:22:35,231 --> 01:22:44,332
notes or scan the QR code on the screen. If you enjoyed this episode of the Bitcoin Boomers

1149
01:22:44,332 --> 01:22:48,932
podcast, please do like and subscribe and check out the previous episode with George Bodine.