In a deep dive with Seb Bunney, author of “The Hidden Cost of Money,” we explore the intricate impact of monetary systems on society. From historical interventions shaping finance to money’s influence on mental health and politics, Bunney challenges mainstream views on capitalism and regulation, revealing how money shapes our world. Tune in for a thought-provoking journey through economic realities.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
– Discover how historical interventions have drastically shaped our current financial system.
– Learn about the hidden costs of monetary intervention, including its impact on purchasing power.
– Understand the ‘Four Stages of Economic Ruin’ and see real-world examples of each stage.
– Explore how our monetary system influences individual and collective behavior and the concept of monetary sovereignty.
– Gain insight into the connection between economic instability and mental health and how a stable monetary system can improve mental health outcomes.
– Uncover the societal consequences of monetary choices, focusing on inequality and social cohesion.
– Learn about the extent of the monetary system’s influence on government policy and political behavior and the ways to address money’s corruption in politics.
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▶️ RELATED EPISODES:
– Broken Money w/ Lyn Alden: https://youtu.be/EMbvgJnG_-s
– Personal AI Models and Bitcoin w/ Jeff Booth: https://youtu.be/iXIiS_k-Gic
– How the IMF and World Bank Sell Exploitation As Development w/ Alex Gladstein: https://youtu.be/PM_XRlszu44
– Michael Saylor’s Deep-Dive on Bitcoin Energy Misconceptions: https://youtu.be/BYk1Id2j7_8
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🖊️ Access the transcript and learn more about the guest here: https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/bitcoin-fundamentals/the-hidden-cost-of-money-seb-bunney
📖 BOOKS MENTIONED:
– The Hidden Cost of Money by Seb Bunney: https://amzn.to/3RP0SJb
– The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth: https://amzn.to/48clekP
– Broken Money by Lyn Alden: https://amzn.to/3OZQv2r
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(00:00) when money is losing value from one day to the next are we incentivized to save no we’re not we’re incentivized to consume because our purchasing power is worth the most in this present moment in the future it’s going to be worth less and so naturally over time
We’re actually incentivized to spend our money in the present moment as opposed to thinking about the future whereas if you had to flip that on his head with something like Bitcoin all of a sudden our purchasing power is increasing over (00:24) time we start to see our cost of living
Declining as opposed to Rising so all of a sudden we’re actually incentivized to save over consume and so our time preference shifts we start thinking longterm I’m here with Seb Bunny and we’re going to be talking about his new book The Hidden cost of money uh Seb welcome to the
Show ah man honestly it it means a well to be on the show uh I think you’ve truly influenced me on my along my journey and it’s one of those things I actually thinking back to it (00:56) it’s been such a pleasure watching your own personal Journey from kind of the
Start of the podcast being more value focused to seeing that that Intrigue of Bitcoin and then that flow through to now kind of Bitcoin kind of grasping a lot of your attention so it’s yeah I really appreciate it Preston it’s an embarrassing journey to have with people watching
All the mistakes you make through the years and and whatnot but yes uh it’s been it’s been quite an interesting Road and I appreciate you (01:25) saying that this very kind of you um Seb
We met probably I don’t know two years ago ago a year and a half ago and I just have to tell you I was just thoroughly impressed of of your critical thinking and like how you approach things and so
When I heard you were coming out with a book um I mean you can you can uh verify this I reached out to you because I was just very anxious to read uh how how you kind of uh put your I
Guess how you think about Bitcoin and how you look think about it in a broader context and (01:59) um just very excited to dive into this so this is this is how I’m going to summarize your book for people listening there was a there was a recent uh advertisement that came out from
Coinbase and it is being shared like crazy online because for people that haven’t seen it I I might not be doing it justice with how like how spoton they nailed this ad but the ad
Was I worked so hard my whole life I was told that if I worked hard enough I could get into a great College I get into a great college and then I be I get so in debt up to my
(02:37) eyeballs I can’t afford to buy a house I continue to not be buy a house and like it just like kind of progresses and it kind of lays out this world that I would argue people
That are 40 years and younger are dealing with which is they’re so in debt and they can’t do anything they have no disposable income but yet they were promised all these things that they worked really hard and and did these things and they did work hard and they did all those things
And they still don’t have anything is really (03:05) kind of the premise of it and reading through your book and I know this is taken me a really long time to get to the first question but reading through your book it’s almost as if it’s the response to that commercial as
To why why are people feeling this way why are people dealing with this and you literally lay it out by the numbers in such an organized and thoughtful kind of way that um just to start off huge kudos to you because if people are looking for an answer to what I just like
Briefly described in that commercial this is it (03:41) this is this is the book to get you you go by the numbers and there’s no stone left unturned as to how why and and why and where people have found themselves in this precarious situation right now I’m
Curious is that what you were kind of going for is that was that what you were trying to answer with this book or was there something else that you were trying to really kind of Define with the book no it’s it’s interesting because I think you’ve laid it out perfectly
And it’s almost as if the journey that I (04:14) took to get through writing the book actually mirrors that coinbase uh the coinbase ad and for me for those of you that are listening that probably don’t know who I am I was basically I was a back country man and
By instructor for over a decade and I Absolut absolutely loved my job but I would say when I first started my job going into my teens into my late teens I started to realize that I was
Working six days a week like seven eight hours a day absolutely destroying my body I was looking at some of my Idols that I grew up watching in (04:46) the manab bike films like these guys you would think like they’re world-class athletes and many of them are up to their eyeballs in
Debt they’re struggling to get by most of them do not own any form of assets and so I started to realize if I want to lead my best life I’ve got to do something different like the world
At which we’re living in doesn’t allow us to kind of get by with that kind of the American dream of the 60s where you can have a single earner who can work relatively hard and afford
(05:13) a house and so I started to realize I had to get into investing and that kind of led me down the real estate route and then that led me down the value investing route which is actually where I started uh kind of came across you Preston yeah and then of course when
You start going down the value investing route then you start looking at the monetary system and you start looking at the Financial system and that led me to gold and then ultimately to bitcoin and along this whole journey what I really started to realize is that the system
(05:38) when I first started investing and I’ve I’ve heard you talk about this as well when I first started investing I was looking through the lens of a capitalist free market but I realized every single time that I started to take positions those positions weren’t playing out
And I’m just like why are these positions I don’t understand this it doesn’t seem rational and you start to realize the system is not functioning rationally because people continually intervene and so ultimately I felt as if there needed to (06:04) be a book that kind of looked at money
More holistically I feel like you can find books that go very deep into uh economics or you can find books that go very deep into I don’t know Bitcoin and the functionality of Bitcoin and whatnot but there wasn’t a book that was very much more holistic and Broad
That looked at what is the history of money how does money then weave its influence into our social spheres our environmental spheres our political spheres our business spheres and then what is if we were to kind of Imagine a (06:32) new system what would that system look
Like and one of the things I’ve really tried to do and I kind of took this from Jeff Boo’s book the price of Tomorrow is I didn’t want the focus to be on bitcoin because ultimately I think if
You bring up Bitcoin very early on people have a lot of people have an aversion to bitcoin and so instead I wanted to just look at things as objectively as possible obviously through my own lens as objectively as possible without the jargon and bring it down into a social
(06:58) level about how it impacts us and uh try to kind of portray what we’re facing and what we’re going to continue to face if we continue on the path at which we are uh kind of trending along well it’s interesting you say that so you you start bringing up a solution to
All the problems that you define from the first 11 chapters in the book and then you start addressing this in chapter 12 and I love this because uh part of the issue that I personally face when talking to family friends or whatever is they want (07:28) to talk about Bitcoin but they don’t
Really want to like Truly Deeply understand the problem that it’s solving they just want to talk about the speculative like trade if you will and it’s just like no stop like that’s the last thing I want to talk about is the speculative like where’s the where’s the
Price going in the next two months is like a common question you get and you just you just want to bang your head against the wall because this is so much deeper and profound than that um (07:57) something uh a quote that you have in the introduction of the book you say everything
Is Downstream of money and it and it gets to what you were just saying but kind of compa like really kind of give people a little bit more behind this you say this was a a moment for you that you kind
Of like came to this aha moment you’re like my gosh like this is my core thesis now is everything is Downstream of money so Define that more for us so I would say like there’s many different
Lenses at which to look at money I know that um (08:31) sailor talks about money as like time and whatnot or a battery and I mentioned that a little bit in the book but one of the ways that
I like to look at it is money is simply just a medium of expression uh like language and if we take language for a second with anything it can be censored so with language we can have
Our ability to express ourselves censored and so let’s just take a look at that for a second if when we’re a child our parents didn’t allow us to express certain emotions will say certain words well that can impede us as (09:03) an adult because what is depression
Depression is the depressed thing of emotions it’s as a child if we weren’t able to feel anger if we weren’t able to feel sadness as an adult we don’t know how to express those things and it shows itself in the form of illness depression anxiety and whatnot it’s the same thing with
Money money is a form of expression it’s how we express to the world what it is that we value so you can see if you look at someone let’s say you walk into a grocery store and you see someone (09:28) buying grass-fed beef raw milk and then you see someone else buying cigarettes
And microwave meals you can immediately see what it is that they value just through how they’re transacting and so I think when you have a society that starts censoring or impeding how we express ourselves monetarily you start to see all of these byproducts and so for instance if
When you start I don’t know debasing the currency so our money is worth less over time well guess what you’re no longer incentivized to save (09:55) you’re incentivized to consume so we start seeing this consumption based economy that is decim meting our environment or you start to
See when the political sphere is able to spend beyond their means they’re able to basically function uh without offering value because they can simply print at will then you start to see people basically not necessarily the political Sphere not necessarily representing
The needs or the will of the people and so you start to see when money starts breaking down we see all of these by products these (10:24) symptoms so I would argue throughout the book that a lot of the issues we face in society as you say our Downstream of money
It’s because we’ve intervened on a monetary level we’ve impeded our ability to express ourselves monetarily which has led to a lot of the issues which we face love that um in the first chapter you do a brief history of money in your exploration of this in in preparing for the book
And and writing the chapter what was something that was most surprising uh with respect to this (10:57) history of money that you found I would say when I started going deep down like the value hole value investing hole and big into the financial markets there used to be this
Guy that used to follow called Lacy hunt and a lot of people in the uh investing sphere have probably heard of lacy hunt he’s a phenomenal Bond Trader and one of the things that he talks about is there’s the four factors of production which are land labor capital and Enterprise and
So when we look at these four factors they basically make up our economy they make (11:29) up our GDP how productive we are because we have land that is all of our resources we have oil we have Lumber all of the mining from minerals and whatnot we then have Labor that
Is obviously our worker working capacity that is our demographics if we have an elderly population we’re not going to be as efficient as if we have a young population we then have Enterprise which is our entrepreneurship our Ingenuity our ability to be able to combine land and labor to be able to
Create productive assets and and and whatnot (11:58) and then finally we have capital and capital is basically the lubricant which lubricates the Enterprise the land and the labor and what I realized is when we look at land labor and Enterprise these are all kind
Of if you want to create change in economy they take a long time to kind of create change so the government can come out and they can say okay we want to go try and find a bunch more
Resources but the reality is that a lot of our world has been kind of stripped bare or there is a bunch of Regulation that impedes us from (12:29) obtaining resources so it’s really hard for us to create change by pulling the the land uh lever you could then look at the world through
The lens of like demographics and labor well guess what at the moment we have a declining we have a declining Workforce in terms of or an aging population if you look at say China China’s population is meant to half over the next kind of 30 years us has had the slowest
Birth or growth rate in terms of population in the last 100 years and Canada is meant to see what is (12:57) it we are 60 people that are 60 and above are meant to see a 60% increase over
The next 10 years as opposed to 10% increase in in 60 and below and so what we’re seeing is we’re seeing this aging population which is a huge burden to society and so you start to realize that it’s really really hard to create change when it comes to land labor and Enterprise
When I should say Enterprise as well technology we can bet on technology but we don’t know when that technology is actually going to create (13:23) change it’s still a bit of a hope and so the quickest way to create change in an economy is through pulling the monetary lever
And the capital lever and so what happens is the governments over time have become a product of the system the system is incentivized them pulling the capital lever because it’s the quickest way to create change in an economy and we see this our money has slowly transitioned from being
Backed by gold to them being partially backed by gold to them going to the Fiat standard and (13:50) each time it’s usually during these events where the governments just they need to intervene or they don’t need to they feel they want to intervene and the only way they can intervene
They can’t intervene on a land level on a labor level on an Enterprise level the quickest way to create change is through the capital lever and so we’re basically seeing over time this transition from money being this thing that stores value to money being purely this thing that is used
As an interventionism familiar with Bitcoin or (14:23) many of the arguments that we hear in in the Bitcoin space they would argue well if the government wasn’t stepping in and playing with this Capital lever to stabilize markets like 2008 then we would have had a an economic
Disaster on our hands if they didn’t step in so how do you respond to that person to to lay out uh maybe the the bigger context of of what the effect is sure so it’s actually interesting you
Say that I was just I was back in the UK and uh I have kind of like seven siblings that I was (14:59) hanging out with and one of them is she’s dating a guy that’s just studied
Economics and he wants to go and work for the bank of England and he came up with this well we kind of started along this discussion and one of his push backs was the reason why we’re seeing a lot of Nations fail throughout history is because they
Have not had the tools or the capacity to intervene to the extent to which they need to and I just find it such a hard like such a misguided approach because I think sometimes we look at immediate effects but we (15:32) never look at the second and third and
Fourth order effects and actually if you step back when it when you look at intervention many of the issues we Face stem from Intervention in the first place so I would argue that many of these nations whether we’re talking about the Romans or whether we’re talking about the
British pound losing its uh uh World Reserve currency status and whatnot I would I would say that the reason why these situations came about is because government started stepping in initially these countries rise into (15:59) Power because they’re offering
Immense value to society but then almost that immense value creates this this ego and that ego believes hey you know what I think we can create change we can do something different they start intervening and that intervention then starts to distort Market signals and
That Distortion of Market signals results in Greater intervention and so it’s almost as if intervention begets intervention yes and I would actually say there’s a there’s a chapter in the book uh I believe it’s the third chapter (16:29) where I basically talk about the four
Stages of economic ruin and this is I would say how intervention kind of plays its hand is first when you start intervening you become misaligned to reality and I’ll give an example Jeff Booth talks a lot about in his book the price of Tomorrow how we live in a deflationary
World technology is always trying to get more for less like you just need to take a look at say Blockbuster Blockbuster we used to have to spend gas driving down to Blockbuster spend half an hour in the store finally (16:59) find a movie spend our eight bucks
Or whatever renting the movie drive all the way home drive back to Blockbuster drop off the movie drive back home the amount of energy uh that we had to kind of consume to be able to Simply watch one movie and now you’ve got Netflix for the same price as one movie and
So technology is always trying to drive down prices because it’s always trying to get more for less but we have a monetary system that is inflationary so if prices are trying to fall but our monetary system is a debt based system (17:25) where prices are rising we have a
Misalignment to reality and so you have a misalignment to reality that leads to stage two and stage two is the death of created destruction which is if you’ve got these debt based systems and deflation is trying to drive down prices well that means your debt is
Becoming more burdensome and so corporations are going to start failing so if corporations start failing governments start intervening and so as governments start intervening what happens is you now distort natural supply and demand in (17:53) the market you distort creative
Destruction because you’re not allowing companies that are not offering value to to well sorry you’re allowing companies that are not offering value to survive and so you’re now destroying in society if you’ve got a company who is offering value they now have to compete against entities
That shouldn’t exist so they’re now using Capital simply to compete when that traditionally or in a free market wouldn’t happen so then that leads to Capital flow Distortion you start to see (18:21) buyers people who are spending their money their money isn’t necessarily going to
Where they want to direct it or if you’re looking at government intervening and they’re bailing out a lot of these major corporations that money isn’t money doesn’t come out of it’s not printed out of thin air purchasing power has to come from somewhere and it’s coming from the currency
Holders and so ultimately currency holders are not choosing where their purchasing power is going ultimately it’s a government who’s (18:44) choosing where their purchasing power is going so then you start to see a capital flow Distortion because money is not flowing to where
It wants to flow in society it’s not flowing to where value is being created it’s actually flowing to where value is being destroyed and so ultimately those first three stages so the alignment to reality the death of creative destruction then the capital flow Distortion
Leads to decision- making impairment because if we can’t see what the free and unimpeded Market (19:08) kind of deems valuable if we’re not able to see which companies should and should not exist if we’re not actually able to see what the actual risks in society are because these companies are
Still alive that should be dead then ultimately how can we make accurate decisions as to how to move forward in a society how can the government the central planners make these decisions that are supposedly meant to impact everyone to build a prosperous Society if we don’t even
Know what it is that people value what should (19:34) be thriving and what shouldn’t what people deem a value and what people don’t so I ultimately I think when it comes to intervention it completely muddies water as to how we need to act in order to create change how we need
To act in order to add value to society sorry that was a long-winded answer no no it was a it was an amazing answer and uh you in your book in kind of near the back of the book I
Forget Which chapter this was in but you had a you had a chart of uh banking consolidation like the equity of Banks and how it’s getting (20:05) Consolidated and for people that look at government intervention and they see oh yeah well they saved us in 2008 but they don’t talk
About well what was the cost of them saving us and there’s many costs but like one of the ones that I think is is rarely discussed is that consolidation of equity into fewer and fewer hands or fewer and fewer controllers and what that’s doing over over an extended period
Of time is making the overall system less and less stable right like it it was it made it more stable for those few years as they (20:39) rescued in and saved the banks but as we look at like the Silicon Valley Bank uh situation that happened here at the beginning
Of 2023 the the amount of stimulus that they provided to rescue Silicon Valley Bank was on par of the 20082 2009 crisis just for that one event and I think if you went around and ask people in society about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse that happened in 2023 I think
Very few people that even know it happened were that there was this massive amount of stimulus that was directed at just Banks now right and so (21:15) if they let Silicon Valley Bank fail it was going to be Financial Armageddon right then and there but they didn’t and and it’s getting
So um it’s getting out of the purview of the of the general public that um as we go as we continue to March Along on this timeline the person that’s very myopic and is just looking at a five-year time frame or a 10year time frame and said they saved our bacon yes they
Did but they’re leading to this much much bigger failure systemic failure because of it over time (21:49) um you did a fantastic job just kind of laying out like like the the four pieces there that you said of the economic ruin I think is something that people need to study
More I know I’m personally going to adopt a lot of that into my own talking points when people ask me and you do a phenomenal I think this is in chapter three you do a phenomenal job
At laying this out uh for for people to kind of really dig in and learn more about that that idea in itself well one thing I wanted to add just kind of the point you made and it’s interesting (22:22) because we’ve just got for those are not familiar you’ve probably seen what’s happening
In Argentina and I can’t pronounce his name I think it’s mle m is just come in and I think this is fascinating because for arguably a long long time we’re starting to see someone who is a lot more libertarian free market focused that actually wants to break down central banks kind
Of coming into power and I’m curious to see how this pans out because the problem with a socialist interventionist system is (22:51) socialism begets socialism because ultimately as you start intervening if someone was to come into power and say hey I don’t want
To intervene I actually want to go through a period of austerity and try to bring ourselves back up into a free market the majority of people in society under a socialist system are suffering like in the US we have onethird of the population is below the poverty line half of
The population or something like 60% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck so they’re always going to vote for any form of (23:17) short-term immediate pain relief and so you end up in this system whereby if we were to go into austerity you have to go through a period
Of living within our means when we’ve been living well well beyond our means for so long and so the thing that I find really challenging is because people are very shortsighted they’re going to see living within our means as well this is a problem with uh having a free market this is a
Problem with not being able to intervene and the reality is it’s the opposite and so the (23:46) challenge I think with our current system is that whether you vote Republican or Democrat conservative or labor right or left the political kind of affiliations don’t really matter because
Everyone is actually incentivized to continue to intervene and that’s why I think until we actually change the system and realign the incentives we’ll continue down this path of sucess and when I say change the system I think you need to change that base layer which is the money
Because if you then realign the incentives the (24:13) politicians are actually incentivized to act in the best interest of their populace and for instance like we talk obviously a lot about Bitcoin but if you were to remove the money printer from government immediately
Government has to compete in a free market uh just like every other business it has to offer value to the populist because if it doesn’t it’s going to collapse and another party that is able to offer value is able to rise up but at the moment the government doesn’t
Have to offer value because it’s got a money (24:38) printer it can go at complete opposition to its populace and still fund operations and that’s where I think people sometimes we get so swayed as to who we’re voting for when in reality it we’re going to continue down this path until we
Actually change the monetary system and I think that is that’s where I’m now just a single-issue voter whereby I’m going to vote for whoever ever is pro Bitcoin because I think Bitcoin is going to shift the incentives yes couldn’t agree with you more on that um there’s a there’s a
(25:07) chapter in your book and I’m really glad you covered this because a lot of books that I’ve read particularly on on bitcoin don’t cover this and it’s the mental health uh impact the psychological cost of economic instability uh talk to us about like some of your findings what you
Were really trying to accomplish with this uh with this chapter so I would say and this this goes back to that that one comment that you kind of brought up at the start which is where everything is Downstream of money and we are a product of our (25:42) environment and so naturally our
Environment shapes who we are and how we act and one of those ways is through behavior and so I talk about kind of three main things I talk about time preference which Bitcoin is uh usually quite intimately familiar with that is whether or not we favor kind of short-term
Needs or whether we’re able to look to the Future for stability and security then I talk about compassion and altruism how when we are threatened we start looking out for ourselves and that talks a lot about maso’s hierarchy (26:11) of needs like people have probably
Heard of maso’s hierarchy needs where it’s basically this this pyramid where at the top you’ve kind of got self-actualization but in order to find self-actualization you’ve got to move through you got to have your base needs met that is like shelter and food and then
You got to have relationships and then you got to have aspirations and whatnot and so if we have a society where we are struggling to get by our cost of living is constantly Rising um we’re not able to commit time to our (26:38) relationships we’re not able to commit
Time to growing and learning then we are we’re at that very low level whereby we lose that ability to be compassionate and uh altruistic and give back to society because we’re trying to just simply look out for ourselves and then the final one I talk about is meaningless and apathy and
That’s where in a free market system you reap what you sow if you dedicate time to something if you invest energy into something you’re naturally going to benefit from that and that is hugely (27:07) motivating it motivates us to go out there and create value it motivates us because we’re
Rewarded and if you look throughout the animal kingdom it’s exactly the same the more energy you put into something if you’re benefiting from the work at which you were doing you’re going to be motivated to continue to improve and grow whereas when we have a system where you’re
Losing say 40 50 60% of your the money you’ve earned to taxes and then you’re losing another large amount to inflation and and whatnot and (27:35) then you’re losing a l rather large amount through financial repression and whatnot all of a sudden we’ve got this
System where meaningless starts to set in like where I live here in Whistler I’ve just been completely blown away like I’ve been living here since 2008 and when I moved here I would say the average house was 800 to 1. (27:55) 2 million $800,000 to 1.2 million
Canadian dollars and now the average house is four and a half million and it’s just people can’t afford that people cannot no one can afford that and so this is where we start to have this Society where people simply cannot get by they cannot even put a roof over their head
Because intervention is constantly impeding our ability to kind of reap what we sow intervention is impacting our ability to be compassionate and give back to society intervention is Shifting our time preference and I mentioned it very (28:26) briefly but going back to time
Preference when money is losing value from one day to the next are we incentivized to save no we’re not we’re incentivized to consume because our purchasing power is worth the most in this present moment in the future it’s going to be worth less and so naturally over time we’re
Actually incentivized to spend our money in the present moment as opposed to thinking about the future whereas if you to flip that on his head with something like Bitcoin when you have a fixed supply of currency and all (28:53) of a sudden you’ve got this deflation
Where you’ve got technology driving down prices all all of a sudden our purchasing power is increasing over time so it’s the reverse we start to see a cost of living declining as opposed to Rising so all of a sudden we’re actually incentivized to save over consume and so our
Time preference shifts we start thinking longterm and so I think Society is going to be a much healthier society when we’re thinking long-term rather than this short-term impulsive behavior (29:18) where we’ve lack we’re lacking compassion we find meaningless in life and this is where I
Think tying Behavior back to money is really important because ultimately everything I truly believe is Downstream with money just as a funny note to kind of emphasize your point you’re making uh I love the meme that you see on Twitter with like the person that’s living
On a mattress on the floor and all they have is a TV and there’s like this Michael sailor video playing on the TV like every time I see (29:48) this and they’re living like this because they want to Stack more Bitcoin because of time preference right I know it’s
Just a meme but every time time I see this I just laugh my tail off because I’m just like they’re nailing it because everybody I’ve met in this community when I go to various Live Events is they’re saving they’re not they’re not buying the newest gwiz widget or car or whatever
They’re truly just trying to compound their savings uh by by living uh I’m going to use the (30:21) word appropriately and I don’t know if that’s the the the the correct word to use but they’re just living within their means and just um not having to have the next Consumer
Item right and people who are dealing with especially and what your point that you make is when the debasement of Fiat is accelerating like we saw 8% prints here in the US I can’t even imagine what some of the prints are in other countries that incentive for them to consume more
And get that money out the door right now is just (30:56) accelerating right like it’s you’re just just amplifying it um but anyway sorry to to kind of go off on a a little bit of a my own tangent
There but I all some of the things I see funny that really just kind of uh maybe a simpler way to to uh see exactly what you’re talking about in memes of course um okay so in your book I
Love that you that you give this some sometime in your book and it’s the environmental destruction and how monetary policy is simplifying uh environmental destruction uh because boy the the (31:33) messaging from the traditional Legacy uh media is uh is quite the opposite that that’s the
Root cause so lay this out for us and don’t leave any Stones unturned yeah man it’s environmental destruction I think first it’s really important to separate environmental destruction from climate change because they’re two very different things I think when we have a consumer Society we’re
Leading to immense environmental destruction which can lead to kind of it can impact climate change but ultimately I think it’s important (32:07) first to just talk about uh environmental destruction and now first off I think it’s also important to mention the paradoxical
Nature of GDP like growth targeting and talking about environmental destruction because GDP 68% of GDP is consumption so when the central bank is coming out and they’re saying we need 2 to 3% GDP growth that’s what they’re targeting what they’re really saying it’s just a call
For greater consumption that is all it is and so when they’re coming out trying to (32:37) supposedly save the planet and put regulation in place trying and save the planet all they really could do is actually slow GDP growth but they don’t really want to do that
They don’t want to do that because we have a debt based system and if you slow growth in a debt based system the system starts to collapse in on itself and so we have this system that again
It’s misaligned reality and so going going back to the consumption as a result of um declining purchasing power so let’s first lay out (33:04) how kind of money impacts our environment basically when money is worth less when governments continually intervene
Our purchasing power declines and so as our purchasing power declines we’re now our time preference is Shifting we’re incentivized to consume in the present as opposed to save for the future so if we’re consuming in the present well all of these things we’re consuming they
Naturally they they they consume resources so we’re paging our nation our world our planet of all of its resources simply to try and uh (33:35) simply try to fulfill this GDP growth simply to try and fulfill this consumption habit that we’ve created through the debasement of
Currency and so as we start to kind of ramp up consumption basically where are these resources going to come from and this is where when we talk about something like Bitcoin Bitcoin flips us on its head because again we’re incentivized to save over consum consum so if we’re incentivized to
Save over consume then now we have the reverse people are actually they’re rewarded for storing (34:04) their their their purchasing power in the currency and so then people are a lot more conscious about how they save and it goes back to your point actually which is you’re kind of unsure
About the word to use as to where people should be directing their Capital but what I think is interesting about today’s world is we’ve created this world where we believe happiness and joy are these things that are only fulfilled externally whereas I would say that there are countless
Religions or countless practices whether we’re (34:31) looking at Buddhism and whatnot that they would say the exact opposite happiness and joy are very much internal they’re an internal State we have to love for ourselves we have to care for ourselves and only then
Are we going to find happiness we can try and use consumption as a coping strategy but it’s not going to work and we know that the purchasing of goods and services are only fleeting
And so I think when you look at say a Bitcoin standard when you look at a a world built upon something like Bitcoin all of a sudden we flip (35:02) everything on its head because people start to realize that it’s not through consumption actually through saving and building uh a life at
Which aligns with someone’s authentic self where they’re able to listen to themselves that’s where they’re going to find happiness and joy it’s not through consumption and so this starts to align more with our natural environment because if we’re saving and we’re putting that money
Into trying to build a more prosperous future for ourselves if we’re saving and (35:27) thinking a lot more intimately about how we can direct capital to build the life at which we want we’re a lot more conscious about our spending so if we’re a lot more conscious
About our spending then businesses if there’s a lot less demand for goods then this increases competition so businesses that are not offering value and naturally going to wither away and so you start to see it you already see it on a micro level in the uh outdoor industry so I’ve
Worked in the outdoor industry for uh over a (35:52) decade and you start to see a lot of companies that are trying to Source a lot more sustainable products are trying to use a lot less chemicals in their in their manufacturing procedures and whatnot and this
Is phenomenal to see because it’s coming about because consumers are demanding it and so this is where I am I tend to be against regulation because regulation impedes the flow of capital in society I do believe that naturally if you allow a free market to exist quality of
Products will slowly increase over time because (36:24) you’re going to get supply and demand uh flow toward demand flow to where value is created and the other thing to also talk about quickly this is a long-winded approaches it’s the thing that’s really challenging is the
Book is so broad to consolidate these things down into like really small little bite-sized pieces of information is challenging but the the other one thing to note is that when we have an interventionist system naturally what ends up happening is governments
Usually tend to suppress interest rates (36:51) so if debt becomes easy to obtain or if Capital becomes easy to obtain through debt we start to see Supply supp chain expansion and so this one is huge and so the average product by the time it lands on our front door has touched
Six different countries today and that’s because of these long Supply chains and so we have seen like during covid when you’ve got these huge long Supply chains that are a result of intervention that are result of the suppression of interest rates uh and artificial
Capital all of a sudden when you have something (37:20) like the pandemic come about and you see one Cog in that Supply Chain break down the whole world kind of ceases and so this is where I think it’s important for people to realize again intervention has created these artificially long
Systems that are very prone to breakdown and I think that if we were to see a true uh a true rate of capital let’s I would say interest rates going to be a hell of a lot higher than what they
Are right now all of a sudden you start to see the nationalizing of Supply chains you start (37:50) to see more domestic consumption and again this is so much better on our environment it is far less heavy in terms of resources in terms of oil for transportation in terms of uh just the
Products the Mana consumption that we’ll see and this is where I think by changing the system we change the incentives by changing the incentives we actually change the structure of our supply chains we change the structure of our Behavior how we act we change the uh the impact which we have
On our planet and this is where I just think it’s (38:20) really important to think about how money influences our our behavior in terms of consumption and our planet and whatnot yeah when you just look at the currency alone and you look at how strong the dollar is
Relative to all these other uh subordinate I’ll call them subordinate currencies but that’s not the right way to really frame it from an Arbitrage standpoint you’re incentivized to to build things uh and have it span seven different countries because of all the currency
Arbitrage opportunities that exist for maybe the (38:52) the owner of said company at the top right um when we think about the most efficient way to do something uh on a sound money Global sound
Money system I don’t think it’s going to work like that at all I think it’s not gonna work that way at all and the only reason that it it has been incentivized to be constructed that way is to
All the points that you were just making which is there’s opportunities because of the capital going back to your Lacy hunt uh example to play with the the capital dial uh in order to make it the most (39:27) efficient for that environmental setting of manipulated money but yeah it’s
Going to be interesting to see how you know a transition to maybe a Bitcoin standard is going to change and re-engineer all of these Supply chains so that they’re more robust not as fragile not dependent on you know this almost linear and serial way of building things
And they’re going to be much more in parallel to building things and it’s it’s interesting as well because I used to work for this manad and bik manufacturer and when I work one of our (39:58) main competitors it was really fascinating because at the time I was just like this just
Seems insane how is this possible but basically they were making carbon handlebars for Mad bikes and it was cheaper for them to send they were made for them here in Vancouver and it was cheaper for them to send that carbon handlebar to get the sticker put on in China and sent
Back than it was to do it locally and I’m just like how is this possible how is this possible yeah and and this is really it’s interesting (40:28) because you have these kind of touch points throughout your life which I I believe they get you to start questioning the system they get
You to start questioning why is this happening and it’s interesting actually going back to very early on I would say when I was about n years old uh and I mentioned this at the end of the book when I was
About n years old I’d save for this scooter I’d wanted this I saw it at the toy store and I was like oh man I want this scooter it was just like it just looked amazing I could imagine myself
(40:54) having it so I’d save for the scooter and it took me about three or four months of saving diligently and we walked into the toy store and I walked in with my dad and my two
Brothers and when we went up to the to to go pay my dad was like man I feel bad that you’re getting a scooter in your brother’s armed so I’m going to buy them a scooter as well but I had
To pay for mine out of my savings and they they managed to get this for free and I remember just being like Oh my God the world is just like so (41:19) unfair but what I realize now is that
This is almost on a family level the canell effect it’s those close to the monetary spigot benefit disproportionately and so it’s these little events throughout our life that start us questioning and I remember just being like how does this happen but it’s also interesting because my other two
Brothers are very socialist they’re trying to get what they can for this system whereas I tend to lean more free market Libertarians and so I’m just like people are a product of their (41:47) environment I love that story that’s that is brutal that is brutal but what a lesson right
Look how it’s influenced oh yeah um you know that that’s one thing I would tell the audience and you can agree or disagree I I look at every setback that I’ve ever had in my life through this lens
Of all right I’m Preston you’re supposed to learn something here and you’re being taught a lesson it might be a painful lesson but what you do with the lesson and how you kind of react to it and looking at it through a positive (42:21) favorable lens is the biggest
Opportunity that you can harness if you choose CH to to take advantage of it that way right and it’s very easy to say that it’s very hard an application and it’s very hard especially in the moment to kind of look at any type of setback or unfair scenario and say seriously I’ll sit
There and be like all right so like what the hell was I supposed to learn from this right now because this is brutal like what the heck is this um like no honestly I couldn’t agree more I
(42:51) I think the world is always trying to give us what we need in order maybe this is a slightly more spiritual approach but I believe the world is always giving us what we need to grow as an individual and I think it’s also at all times reflecting some of the issues or
The challenges at which we’re facing and so for instance if I don’t know you’ve had a few strings of a loss of money in business uh dealings then maybe that is maybe that’s pushing you to set boundaries more you know what I mean (43:18) like I think ultimately all of these
Issues that which we Face these challenges which we Face are just highlighting actually the areas at which we are not respecting ourselves or maybe areas which we can grow yes yes all right uh in your book you talk about Mass formation uh talk to us what you about this
Idea and what you’re trying to uh teach the reader so this this is a tough one I nearly left out these chapters because I think that it can be a little more controversial um I tend to
Think that our monetary system so we discuss kind (43:55) of the the four stages kind of economic breakdown and so just kind of reiterate those stages like we are first looking at like a misalignment to reality so we naturally have a deflationary world yet we have an inflationary
Monetary system then that leads to the death of creative destruction because the government continually intervenes to prop up these failing businesses and then that leads to Capital flow Distortion because money’s not flowing to where it should do in society because we have
All of these businesses shouldn’t exist and (44:21) then finally we also see the death of uh uh what decision- making impairment where basically because we cannot see what’s actually happening in the world how are we supposed to make decisions that are meant to benefit us how
Are we meant to look forward into the future and make accurate decisions and so ultimately when a system starts breaking down we start to face challenges and this is where I think politically in this situation we start to see politicians and kind of leaders in position of
Power they have to continually intervene and (44:54) manipulate in order to avert class and those interventions increase in frequency and we see it and so I would say that we tend to look at totalitarian or authoritarian a lot of these kind of like very big controlling structures
We tend to look at them the traditional ones like Maly dong of China or we look at Kim ilang and Kim Jong-il or we look at Hitler and Stalin and whatnot but the reality is that today many of those similar traits and characteristics are showing themselves in society
And I I referenced a book by a guy called (45:30) mattius Desma and he’s basically a professor of psychology gent University and he wrote a book called the psychology of totalitarianism and it talks about how these systems actually come about and I
Would I would say well first off I would say what he says so there’s four conditions the first condition is loneliness when Society gets a widespread feeling of loneliness then people naturally we start to see people breaking down there’s mental health issues and whatnot why
Can loneliness come about can come about (45:58) because people are having to work because they’re not able to be able invest time into their relationships and then condition two meaninglessness we’ve already talked about meaninglessness when our monetary system
Starts breaking down when we’re not reaping what we seow when we’re having to work and we’re not seeing the benefits meaninglessness can start to sit in condition three widespread free floating anxiety when people can’t understand why life is hard when people can’t understand why is it
(46:22) that I’m working soft and I cannot afford a house I’m struggling to support my kids I’m struggling to like get by naturally you start to get this free floating anxiety and when I say free floating it’s because we can’t attach it to anything I’m not anxious
Because I’m about to get fired I don’t even know why I’m anxious it’s because I just I can’t understand why life is so hard and then that leads to aggression and frustration and people want an outlet and there’s a (46:44) and I’ll read a slightly quote
Which is basically Professor the professor mat assessment says if under the aforementioned circumstances a suggestive story have spread through the mass media that indicat Ates an object to attach to this anxiety Then This is where we start to see Mass formation which is
Basically you can see it like mod mentality people start banding together because they have a way an outlet they have a reason for their anxiety it doesn’t matter if that is the actual reason now he describes him as (47:14) these four conditions loneliness
Meaninglessness widespread free floating anxiety aggression and frustration this is how it leads to mass formation which can then totalitarianism authoritarianism controlling structures can take advantage of but I would say there is a condition zero and that condition zero is
A misaligned or co-opted monetary system because in every single one of these situations when you go through back throughout history whether we’re talking about Hitler and the ymr hyperinflation whether we’re talking about Mary dong (47:43) all of these kind of totalitarian
Controlling structures many times not many times in every situation that I’ve looked at they have Arisen out of a broken monetary system because I would say loan and meaninglessness and free floating anxiety don’t stem when you have a sound monetary system when people
Are benefiting from the energy at which they invest into society when they’re benefiting from their productive capacity naturally how can you see meaninglessness like of course some people in society are going to have that (48:12) we’re always going to have that but
In general it is a lot harder and then the other thing that I’ll say is in a monetary system where purchasing power is declining our cost of living is rising so if our cost of living is rising we have to work more if we have to work more we have less time to
Critically think about the information we’re consuming and so you start to see as Society starts breaking down and people have to work more they have less time to critically analyze the information which they’re consuming and (48:41) so this is where I start to see these
Controlling structures take advantage of that and you see these narratives that spread throughout Society with very little basis behind them and so I would again argue that many controlling structures many authoritarian totalitarian regimes stem from a broken monetary system
As kind of that foundational layer and if we want to realign our if we want to kind of prevent these systems from or massively impede these systems you basically have to have a system that realigns the (49:10) incentives it aligns the incentives towards productive capacity it realign the
Incentives towards actually providing value as opposed to trying to constantly intervene and restrict people constantly trying to play whack-a-mole with the byproducts of intervening and so the regulations this constant regulatory environment where we see this modular system especially in the US where bills are constantly being passed trying to stop this
Behavior and legislation is being passed it’s trying to stop this Behavior ultimately all of (49:39) these behaviors are because of a broken monetary system in the first place it’s because of intervention that’s previously existed that has created this misalign Behavior we
Were talking before you responded to that one we were talking about this idea of happiness and um there was a book uh s and I read this book on the show oh my goodness I don’t know how many
Years probably eight years ago or something like that seven years ago and it’s called delivering Happiness by Tony Shay um this book was phenomenal (50:10) and uh and the the the core thing that I really remember about the book is he goes through like all of like what makes a person truly happy
And at the core of it was this idea of being able to give to other people as opposed to consuming or buying material things that make you happy for a couple months and then six months later
After you bought the new car you don’t even care about the new car um but if a person did a a good deed or gave let’s just say your energy to this other person so that they didn’t
(50:43) have to to work for it and they got an advantage from that that’s what truly brought happiness to an individual and with the response you just gave when we think about this system that’s just utterly broke and I don’t think anybody’s going to disagree with
That um most people can’t produce any type of disposable energy from their labor because it’s it’s being sucked away from them like a soul sucker because of how broke the money is and if you if you don’t have any disposable (51:16) income or energy to give you’re
Then all of these things that you just described right which is lonely you feel like you’re on a treadmill that just only gets faster regardless of how much harder you try to run and like that
Wears on the psyche like aggressively wears on the psyche um that the the irony going back to the book The the irony of the book is Tony committed Su I I think Tony committed suicide who was the
Author Tony Shay who the author he’s the founder of Zappos a billionaire um and uh the irony of the (51:56) book title and how powerful his his thesis was which I completely agree with and then for his own personal outcome is really just quite sad and it doesn’t diminish the quality of
The book or I in fact I would highly encourage people to read that book as well um but just some just some ideas that kind of sprinkle on top of the really profound point that you’re
Making with with that and I just wanted to make a point as well and again this is another and I don’t talk about this really in the book but (52:26) the medical system again is a byproduct of our monetary system like if you think if we have a society that is constantly
Trying to Target GDP growth well GDP growth if you think about it as basic form is just monetary transactions so if we want to increase growth we have to increase monetary transactions and so ultimately I think we should move away from this model of trying to Target GDP growth
Because let’s just look at the monetary uh the medical system for instance the medical system we’re not trying to fix the root of issues we’re (52:56) simply trying to like mask symptoms and so the medical system as well it doesn’t benefit when people are healthy it benefits when people
Are sick and so in Western medicine we don’t try to support people in a holistic approach a more natural approach we don’t try to help people on a psychological level move through depression instead we just give them meds and so many times we have a society that’s hooked
On riddle and we have a society that’s hooked on antidepressants we have a society that’s (53:22) hooked on opioids and all of this stuff is benefiting GDP because getting monetary transactions but we’re never actually asking the question why is this happening in the first place
How can we actually support these people from a root cause level and so that’s where I do think that when you realign incentives let’s just say if government did not have a money printer and it had
A budget which it had to stick to well how does it look at the the medical system now it looks at the medical system from the perspective of how can (53:48) our dollars go there furthest and the way
That happens is we’ve got to think longterm about building a healthy Society we’re not thinking short term about trying to just intervene and fix immediate issues and so again it flips everything on its head I I have an important clarification to what I said earlier I said that I I thought he
Committed suicide but now that the more I think about uh the the scenario that happened I think that he died uh probably two or three years ago it was a I I’m almost positive it was an (54:17) overdose um which goes exactly to the point that you’re making um yeah I it’s it’s
So important that we solve that we solve these issues uh and obviously I I think Bitcoin solves I think Seb would has no argument there I want to cover I was just gonna say one more thing quickly that I think it’s really important on the health front and this is again like
When we talk about Bitcoin when we talk about the financial World We tend to look at it purely just from the financial perspective and I think that (54:51) one of the ones like I’ve been fascinated by psychology and I’ve been fascinated by parenting for kind of 10 years I’ve read a
Lot about psychology and parenting and I’m a kind of partway through becoming a therapist and one of the things it talks about one of the things that I found really interesting is talking about the link between money and parenting and naturally this is where I think it’s
Fascinating is money is the number one cause of stress in the world there something like 74% of (55:18) Americans have major significant financial stresses and it’s also the second leading cause of divorce behind kind of adultery and so when we start thinking that money is the number
One cause of stress well how does that impact children well first off when a mom is kind of giving birth to a child when that child is inside of her naturally if she is feeling immense stress she’s going to feel stress hormones a lot of stress hormones cortisol and whatnot and those
Stress hormones acutely affect the child and (55:47) that child when that child is in its prime developmental period is naturally going to be born with a hyperactive threat response system and when I say threat response system I mean like fight flight and freeze and whatnot
And when we talk about a threat response system those are to do something that’s very important to escape threatening situations but if our threat response system is engaged all the time when we when we have our threat response system engaged it impairs our nutrient flow
It impairs our breathing it impairs blood (56:16) flow it leads to a whole host of other issues and so I would argue that given money is the number one stressor globally and we are seeing Rising rates of ADD we’re seeing Rising rates of depression we’re seeing Rising
Rates of suicide we’re seeing Rising rates of autism we’re seeing you name it any like we are just seeing Rising rates of health issues left right and center and people’s immune systems are just shot and I would say that our monetary system has a part to play in that because it is
(56:43) a number one stressor and it is acutely impacting our developmental years and then not only that but when you look at say parents when parents have less time to spend with their children because they’re having to work more and a perfect example of this is in 1970
Just before the uh kind of the transition off the gold standard we used to have twice the amount of single earner households to uh dual earner households so that means you’ve got one parent working versus two now it’s the complete reverse (57:10) we have twice the amount of dual owner
Households to single owner households and that’s because parents cannot get by without both having to work you can’t afford a house without both having to work and that’s let alone most people probably can’t afford a house and so naturally parents are spending less time with their kids
And so if parents are spending less time with their kids they are that moral compass that helps that kid find its individuality and so instead kids are looking to their peers and when kids (57:34) look to their peers well peer relationships especially early aren’t
Very superficial they’re trying to Simply look the same sound the same feel the same dress the same and whatnot and so we end up with this Society of sheep and they have not individuated and this is where I think when you look back at more traditional societies communities Elders
Play such an important role parents play such an important role in help helping kids develop their moral standpoint their compass in life and so you can see this in society where kids (58:01) are not being raised by Elders people are not kids are not being raised by their
Parents they’re being raised by their peers and it’s leading to a whole host of other issues and so again the stems I I would argue this is a large large in part because of our monetary system creating a whole host of stress and impeding parents ability to direct their
Time where they’d like to direct their time s i Ram there a little bit no oh my God those are some profound and points uh I love that and completely agree um the last thing I want to talk
(58:32) about uh from the book is one of my favorite topics to cover uh Alex gladstein has done this uh extraordinary uh justice and that is uh this idea the World Bank the IMF the the global
NGO um you know people that are controlling Global Finance um and and and this is from a different section of your book but I would also like for you to kind of address this idea of why
Capitalism isn’t the problem it uh it’s something much deeper than that uh so all of those ideas lay it on us uh give us kind of your your broad (59:15) brush overview of of these Global NGO organizations and how they control Finance so first off I would say Alex gladen has just been
Immensely influential in this and so I don’t want to take any uh credit for the this chapter because I think that I’ve very much used a lot of uh the information comes from Alex and so for a more in-
Depth um kind of breakdown of this I’m sure you probably spoken to Alex on the show and there’s countless interviews with Alex so I highly highly highly recommend digging into some of Alex’s (59:49) work because it will go far deeper than I go but I wanted to more just highlight that we
Have institutions like the IMF and the World Bank and the bank of international settlements and many of these institutions are completely unelected we don’t we don’t have a democracy and whereby we’re voting these people in power and we have an understanding about what they’re doing many times
Like the bank of international settlements which would is arguably it’s named kind of the Central Bank of central banks they’re kind of (1:00:15) governing a lot of the roles the central banks are making and they’re completely in secret we don’t know many times what it is that they’re
Doing because it’s completely behind closed and so we have this kind of elite of elite that have major influence over the world and a lot of these policies we have zero understanding about what they’re doing and let’s let’s just dive into more because obviously I’m conscious at time let’s just
Dive into a little bit about kind of like the IMF (1:00:41) and the World Bank and so when you look at the IMF their whole policy is supposedly trying to help minimize poverty globally and help support
A lot of the developing countries and I would argue and I’m sure Alex would as well that this is 100% almost the opposite and so first and foremost when you lend if you want to support a developing country by lending them money think about what lending money means well a loan involves both
Principal and interest payments so at some point the loan is going to be paying back more (1:01:14) than the initial money lent and so when a lot of these big Nations and a lot of these kind of unelected organizations lend money to developing countries that developing country
Eventually is going to be paying back more so it’s actually pulling money out of the country and so since the 1970s I I if I quote it correctly for every1 dollar that has been fed into developing countries we’ve seen $24 in outflows and so this is why these developing countries
Are on their knees because they’re just being (1:01:42) absolutely decimated by these huge debt burdens and so what usually happens is the IMF will come into these countries and we say hey we see you struggling we want to support you we think you’ve got phenomenal natural resources
You’ve got phenomenal productive capacity and we want to help you realize that potential so we’re going to lend you x amount of money but the reality is what ends up happening is one they usually overestimate the productive capacity or the resources which they’ve got and that
(1:02:09) is usually intentionally because what that means is that this country is no longer able to meet their Debt Service payments and when that country no longer meets their Debt Service payments the IMF or the country that is in support through the IMF then steps in
And says okay we realize you’re not able to meet your Debt Service payments how about you give us control over your resources how about you give us political control how about you allow us to put a
Military base in your country and so this is what (1:02:32) we’re starting to see is although we have however many nations globally 200 something Nations globally most of them are under the thumb of the US or China through the belon road initiative or Russia and a lot of this has
Been the um the IMF has very much facilitated a lot of this for the US and so a lot of these nations they know no longer have autonomy they no longer have autonomy because they’ve supposedly had the IMF helped them out and supposedly had the IMF try and support them in a way
That reduces their poverty but it’s done the (1:03:05) complete opposite and this is where as well when these unelected organizations step in to try and support these countries what it does is if you have a very authoritarian controlling structure in place naturally the IMF
Actually ends up supporting those structures in a free market system if you’ve got a controlling structure in place and it no longer alers value to the society and it starts to break down you the country would default and as the country defaults you then have another party
Rise up that is able to offer value and (1:03:34) so you actually allow creative destruction to take place the IMF actually perpetuates these controlling structures by enabling these people that are not offering or not doing what is best for their populace
Instead many times they’re just trying to facilitate what uh benefits them and benefits their pockets and so I tend to be of the opinion that a lot of these unelected organizations we’re seeing that same misalignment to reality we’re seeing that same uh breakdown of
Creative destruction Distortion of capital flows (1:04:03) we’re seeing that same process play out on a global level as well as a nation state level and I tend to be massively against it because I think when you CH start to intervene byproducts start happening you you impede the free market
From kind of naturally uh allowing Capital to flow to where it’s needed so Seb uh each year I at the end of the year I try to like think of uh the best book or the best couple books that
I’ve read uh throughout the year and I try to I try to read 40 books a year is kind of (1:04:32) what I try to shoot for sometimes I miss the mark but um this year uh Lynn alden’s
Book uh broken money was uh you know up there and like what she did with her book is she covers like the evolution of like of like how the technology has inserted itself with money and she covers uh
This in just uh in a way that only Lynn can can cover a topic right and she talks about kind of Bitcoin being a solution to many of the problems that that uh broken money has has caed throughout
Time and Memorial this book uh I put on par with (1:05:11) Lynn’s book this year uh the hidden cost of money and I say that because for you you were you were much more uh granular in like
Right now what people are dealing with and you do it in such a thoughtful organized just robust manner that gets straight to the point and there’s not all this fluff I mean the points that you’re making is people can see in this interview I mean my gosh man you like crushed
This interview um the book is just like this but in so much more detail for people to dig into so (1:05:45) like I just want to I just want to put it on par with Lynn’s book this year for people
Listening like you have to go out there and you have to read this book it is is so phenomenal and going back to like how we started the show if you’ve watched the coinbase commercial and you felt like that person in that commercial this book goes into explicit detail explaining why
You might feel like that so all I can say is Bravo uh my hat’s off to you like you crushed it and I really hope that uh as many people as (1:06:20) possible can can get their hands on
This and kind of plow through it because um you have done an enormous service to to anybody that gets their hands on this to kind of really Define the reality that so many of the people out there
Are dealing with so Bravo Seb honestly it it means the world press and it it truly truly does it’s it’s one of those things that I really believe everyone has a unique take on how they’ve experienced the world because we’ve all had our own personal experiences and I think it’s so
(1:06:50) important and this is what I just love about the Bitcoin Community is people put themselves out there and I think no matter what your background is whether it’s a man and by Constructor whether it is military Air Force whether it is finance you name it you have a
Unique take on this world and I think it’s so important to share that take because you’re going to speak to a certain target audience and what I really really tried to do with this book is
Just Tred to I didn’t want to get super Niche on (1:07:16) one area of Finance I wanted to look at things more holistically because I felt that it was missing the closest thing I would say
That I’ve found to this is kind of the coin standard but even then I think I wanted to try and simplify down a little bit more for the average individual remove the jargon and so it
It it truly truly means the world it it means a lot well having read like that book like this is just different like you are covering you are covering things from just such a unique lens that I don’t know of any other book out there (1:07:45) that that has covered it from just
The angles that you’re approaching it and I mean the charts and the research that you have done to back up all of these points points in here are are truly phenomenal and um their writing style
Is is a is extremely efficient which is what I love as well because you you uh you get right to the critical variables of each of these major issues and for me that’s really important uh to kind of really Point somebody who’s trying to learn more to to a resource that like
(1:08:15) really just gets to the point and and lays it out in such a thoughtful kind of way so Bravo man uh we’ll have a link in the show notes for people for the book um we’ll have a link to
Your Twitter I know you’re active on Twitter is there any or X or whatever we’re calling it now um is there anything else that you want to highlight or give people a handoff on Seb yeah I’d just say like um I’m also so I started writing about kind of the financial world and
Kind of macroeconomics and looking at it more (1:08:44) from the social sphere and from that stemmed uh I kind of co-founded a educational platform called Looking Glass and so if you guys are interested in just learning more about the these topics feel free to check
Out looking glass education and the other thing that I should also mention is that this book I wanted to make sure that price is not a barrier and so if for whatever reason you’re not in the
Financial position to be able to afford the book reach out to me like you can it’ll be available on Amazon it’ll be available in paperback (1:09:12) and ebook and whatnot but if you’re
Not in a position to be able to afford the book I do not want that to be a barrier and so reach out to me either on Twitter or pop to Looking Glass education and just fire us an email and
I will happily send you the ebook for free because ultimately I think that knowledge should not be uh well price should not be a barrier to knowledge and yeah we have we have a ton more content on
Our Looking Glass and then the other thing I should mention as well is in the last kind of (1:09:37) six months to a year we partner with the Bitcoin advisor and we also just help people getting Bitcoin off exchanges through collaborative custody so if you guys need any
Help with that feel free to jump on as well more than happy to help out the Looking Glass website’s free correct yep all free yeah we try and make like one of our I would say our initial
Core value kind of proposition with looking blast is to make sure that all of our content is free and accessible and so for instance like we have one of our other books beers for (1:10:05) Bitcoin where we kind of break down Bitcoin from the origins to kind of how Bitcoin
Actually works on a technical standpoint to then how to interact with Bitcoin and then the theoretical life cycle of a Bitcoin that book you can buy in physical form but again we’re just about to release it as a free course so again we try and release everything for free because
Ultimately I’m actually even though I’m very Pro free market intellectual property I tend to be I think that for society to grow we need (1:10:31) to share knowledge and to share knowledge that’s how we’re able to flourish and so I tend to be of the opinion that people that
Have the the money to be afford these books I I greatly appreciate it if you don’t don’t worry at all and we want to be able to support you in that love it all right well we’ll have links to
All of that in the show notes Seb thank you so much for making time fantastic interview and uh love the book love the book thanks a lot Preston no the value honestly the value (1:10:57) you create the value you offer through whether it’s social media through the podcast is
Truly like there’s no one else out there so I just I really value the information you’ve created it’s hugely influenced my journey and I’m sure I can speak for Millions out of thank you sir as this
Proliferates even if you’re not on it it’ll be able to infer who you are because you’re notified these things are so powerful you’re not going to be able to hide from AI no matter what you do
(1:11:25) and that’s why Bitcoin is so critical in where we’re going this is where the future is going and there is no going to be no hiding from it no matter where you are in the world
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Great interview. Great perspectives as well. Thank you both!
I really think I'm starting to understand bitcoin… It's a never ending learning curve, the more you learn the higher percentage of your portfolio is in bitcoin. You are done learning when you hit 100% lol…..
Phenomenal talk today. Thanks so much. Seb and Preston are such good humans!!! Thanks T
All prices fall against bitcoin…
If you cant afford anything today just buy some bitcoin and one day ur bitcoin will be able to buy it…
Save in bitcoin and you can buy a house way sooner than if u saved in fiat…
A house today might cost you $500,000 or 12 bitcoin but that same house might cost you 1 bitcoin in 5-10-15 years… maybe even less than one bitcoin…. 🤷🏼♂️
Bitcoin is real money its the money people always needed!!
Stack sats, save in bitcoin and you will be much more wealthier in the future than you are saving in fiat dollers!! ❤
Outstanding
This single podcast episode, fully absorbed, is more valuable than 90% of university degrees.
From 55 :10 very interesting, thank you.
Brilliant podcast tonight Preston. this is what the masses need to hear.
Usually socialism doesn't reform, it goes bankrupt, like a drug addict to the ultimate bottom, only after there is no productive persone left to plunder, it will change
The western governments for decades have played the game:regulate local bussines out of bussines, then import it from abroad, tax it on entry. Get payed for inclusion/exclusion in 'free trade agreements'
Superb
A history lesson on the emerging monetary system competing
Bitcoin had zero monetary value from January 2009 until May 2010 when Laszlo paid Jeremy Sturdivant 10,000 BTC for two
Papa John's pizzas.
Bitcoin entered the world with zero monetary value and had to slowly go through a process of spontaneous monetization.
Contrast that with altcoins with their premines (insider initial allocations) and initial value:
For example, in the Ethereum sale–
You had to exchange BTC which had real monetary value for ETH.
Nothing like this happened with Bitcoin.
Instead, a bunch of math and computer nerds fell in love with Bitcoin for its properties and ideology–
And then accidentally got rich.
Satoshi mined Bitcoin in order to secure the network–
Satoshi never profited a dime since.
Brilliant 👏 buying this book!
Great conversation. Great ideas! I just need to mention that a lot of what was discussed I've learned from Stefan Molyneux one the past 15 years. Would love to hear a conversation between Molyneux and Preston!
Bought the book yesterday. If the book is anything like this interview, then it doesn’t cost enough. Mind blown. Amazing.
And the IMF creates the money it loans out of nothing.
This book needs be an audiobook.
Outstanding interview! Rich with thoughtful content, explained clearly 👏🏼 🌟
Money is devaluing to infinity. Data storage demand is growing to infinity. Bitcoin for decentralised money. Filecoin for decentralised data storage. Both hugely important for humanity. And both very much certain to succeed in their respective areas
The most valuable interview I’ve seen over the past few years. I’m going to purchase multiple copies of this book to send to my family, friends and colleagues for Xmas.
Thank you!
Imagine Preston paying taxes for every video he exchanges information with us. He enriches us like someone exchanging an asset for fiat currency, both an exchange of information.
Algorithm 💪🏻
I feel one Of the greatest challenges that we first timers face in the ma rket is that we end up losing all we have,making it difficult to find ourselves back to our feet. My biggest advice is to always seek the services of a professional just like I did when I ventured into it for the first time. Big thanks to Alvarez Micheal. I now make huge profits by weekly through his services while still learning to stand on my own.
This discussion was Fantastic. Author is wise beyond his years.
This is such a brilliant discussion! I am always amazed by how many different areas bitcoin can be applied to or provide inner connection with. Seb's research truly brings this to the next level. I am also a practitioner of buddhism and holistic healing (Chinese medicine). The inner connection Seb talked about between bitcoin and many societal and even health or spiritual problems really struck me. I agree that Seb and Lynn are both amazing. I have Lynn's book and can't wait to read Seb's! Thanks for the great episode! I am also grateful that bitcoin bring a group of people that are first principle oriented and very truth seeking together!
Brilliant insights from Seb Bunney! Phenomenal show Preston.
Excellent interview thx..❤
We COULD tax the rich and corporations.
Regardless of how bad it gets on the economy, I still make over $15,000 every single week. Thanks to Fergus Waylen for keepin me financially Educated!
I can't find an EPUB version.
The healthcare system is ballooning because the boomers are getting older and they werent taught how to live a healthy lifestyle when they were younger.
Its also because the only thing poor people can afford to eat is 85 cent microwavable pizzas from WalMart.
Im 40 years old, been working since the day I turned 16, and I cant even afford a house. My paychecks all to to necessary bills. Ive tried looking where I can cut back, and I just cant – Im simply not making enough. If I was able to save even a tiny bit each check, Id be fine, but lower level workers just cant.
Great interview!
great guest
Absolutely love this episode. My third time watching.
holy… this conversation was amazing. never heard of Seb Bunney before, but he needs to be elevated in the bitcoin space for sure. 10/10