Kind: captions
Language: en
There are very weird things going on in
the world that I think you have a unique
lens on. So over your shoulder I see
Anne Rand
>> and we just had a socialist get elected
as the mayor of New York City. So as a
sovereignty guy, as somebody who thinks
about money and wealth from cause and
effect ground up, how do you feel about
that? Oh
>> yeah. Well, um first of all, I don't
follow politics closely. I have heard of
this individual being elected. I found
it very concerning.
People were reposting him tweeting
Marx's infamous line from each according
to their ability to each according to
their need. And like if you've been a
student of history,
you will know that those words have,
[snorts] you know, underpinned the
murder of millions, hundreds of millions
potentially. This idea that we can just
come together in brotherly love and
organize an economy, like it doesn't
work, right? People move based on
incentives. And so, you know, as Mises
proved in his crowning achievement of uh
the Austrian business cycle theory, like
socialism/communism
does not produce prices. Therefore,
there is not data propagating throughout
the market space. So, you end up with
just the government being the arbiter of
all goods and services. You end up with
a lot of shortages, a lot of surpluses,
uh, and a lot of coercion and
confiscation basically. So it's d like
it may sound you know benign. Oh this
idea of all all of us coming together
and ignoring money and ignoring market
incentives and ignoring economics and
we'll just you know from each according
to their ability to each according to
their need has such a romantic tone to
it. But the reality couldn't be further
opposite almost like it is an actual
murderous ideology. So to see it coming
back I think is very concerning. Now, my
deeper conspiracy theorist hat
thinks because this guy is uh he's
Iranian. Is that right? Middle Eastern.
>> Uh he's from Uganda.
>> Uganda. Okay. My mistake then. I thought
he was Middle Eastern
>> by he might be I actually don't know his
uh ethnicity. His nationality is he was
born in Uganda,
>> right? And he's socialist. He's also
been accused of being an anti-Semite, at
least by his critics online. I don't
know if that's accurate or not.
>> He certainly he won't condemn the phrase
globalize the antifat. So I would not
say that he is a friend of Israel to be
sure.
>> Yes. Okay. And so yeah, my deeper
conspiracy theory hat thinks maybe you
let a guy like that get elected so that
you can justify more atrocities in the
Middle East. you get you fment
Americans,
you know, associating Middle Eastern
with socialist with uh anti-Israel and
then if he does a bunch of bad things in
New York, then that justifies atrocities
abroad.
>> Who now I'm curious. All right, I put my
conspiracy hat on. Who who would be
driving that agenda?
>> The term that people like to use is the
deep state. I have no idea who that is.
And again, this is just a speculation. I
have nothing to back it up. But
>> I think politics is a complete sham.
Utter complete sham. Uh Javier Malay,
for instance, the libertarian candidate,
right, that's been elected in Argentina.
>> Um he's not libertarian at all, right?
They the chainsaw he was going to take
to the state, which was a platform he
ran on, uh the central bank he was going
to abolish. Like they're still expanding
the money supply. Uh, Safetina Moose has
done a lot of good work on this,
especially on Twitter, just showing how
oxymoronic it is for this guy to even
call himself a libertarian. He's just a
closet statist basically. But he's
putting all this lipstick on the pig
saying he's implementing these
libertarian policies and it's just
>> do you think he would institute the
policies if um he was able like they're
already behind the eightball? So is it
possible that coming in and just being
sort of LZ a fair it just there's so
much momentum going in a negative
direction or do you think that no no
he's just another guy that wants control
wants to see the state wield power and
he's doing whatever he needs to do to
wield that power.
>> I think he is another puppet. I think
all these politicians are puppets for
deeper power structures. I think nation
states are front organizations.
um when we even think in terms of like
what is the United States doing, what is
China doing, it's like you're not you're
not mapping your your mental model onto
the resolution of reality, right?
Reality is composed of individuals that
act. We form cohorts and coalitions and
we struggle for power amongst ourselves.
We don't move as one indivisible unit
called the United States, right? There
are mil millions of power structures
inside the United States vying for
control. And it's not just political,
it's often economic as well. So I think
the world is basically [sighs]
a bunch of gangs and nation states are
you know the biggest gangs but when you
get people thinking in those terms you
can distract them from the other games
>> that those terms what do you mean what
are they
>> in terms of the nation states themselves
right like US foreign policy you know
Chinese trade policy like these things
do have effects but it it opposite
skates the reality of who's in actual
control. [snorts] For instance, the
shareholders of the Federal Reserve in
the United States, right? This is an
undisclosed set of shareholders. They
have a lot more power than any
politician that's ever in office, but
you never hear that discussed in media.
You never
>> You do if you listen to my channel cuz I
talk about honestly.
>> Thank God for decentralized media.
>> Yeah. Okay. That's very interesting.
This is not uh the mental model that I
thought you had of the world. Okay. So,
let's go with Javier Malay. Um, I think
a lot of people have been broadsided by
Trump and Secretary Bessant um, doing
the whatever they call it, the currency
swap where they're essentially bailing
them out. I think a lot of people were
surprised by that. Um, hey, if these
systems are so good and these policies
work so well, why do you suddenly need a
bailout? So, you think that there's
something more, and I I'm putting a word
in your mouth, but nefarious. there is a
power structure that um people are
trying to hide from us and this is a way
for us to see the real movements of that
underlying power structure. Now, if you
don't know specifically who they are, um
help me understand how you map what goes
on and um how you interface with the
real world if like that's an unknowable
sort of again you're not using the word
evil, but I will paint that brush.
>> Yeah. Um so it's I mean the term that I
use is the shareholders of central
banks, right? I've identified in my
opinion central banking is the most
problematic institution in the world.
You know it controls the money supply
controls the interest rate which is the
price of time or the price of money.
This is the most important price in the
world. That price is being centrally
planned rather than discovered like all
other market prices. So that itself is
very problematic. It's an anti-
capitalistic institution that underpins
all economies worldwide. even the, you
know, so-called capitalist ones.
>> So, as I've said before on your show, if
money is one half of every transaction
and the money itself is Marxist, and I'm
not, this isn't an opinion. This is 1848
Marxist manifesto to the Communist
Party. Measure number five, the state
has to have a central monopoly on cash
and credit in order to be communist.
Right? It's a pillar of communism. So we
have a pillar of communism here in the
US and in every nation state worldwide
that we have central banks. So if money
is one half of every transaction and the
money is Marxist then how could we even
call our begin to call ourselves free
market capitalist right? We are at best
50% capitalist and at best 50 50%
Marxist. And so this is like when I you
know that's what I try to focus on. I'm
not looking for the who done it like who
are these individuals who are the bad
guys because I don't believe that's very
useful. I think it's that people
ultimately are incentive responsive
creatures and that you have to reform
the incentive landscape itself. That's
how you change human behavior or human
action over time. Fair. It's not useful
to just vote harder or even have a
revolution and you know uninstall this
guy and install your new guy. Like that
never works. That's just that just leads
to the endless cycle of bloody
revolutions.
>> Interesting. I I will reject the idea
that it doesn't work. It isn't stable.
It works for a while. I think part of
the problem that we have right now is
that it worked for so long here in the
US that we're forgetting that you have
to earn a functioning government, you
have to earn a functioning economy, you
have to be prepared to be hardcore,
disciplined, etc., etc. But I want to
get back to this. So, okay, you world is
gangs. The worst gang of all is the
central bank. Um, I'm going to try to
find the perfect way to ask this
question, but if I don't nail it, I'm
going to keep going until I get there.
What I'm trying to figure out is
whenever you have a philosophy,
um, take, uh, physics. If you put
forward a philosophy of physics, you
your philosophy must accurately describe
the world that we see. Otherwise, I know
it's false because I see the world, I'm
interacting with it. So
when you think about the philosophy of
what drives governments, what incentives
the gangs or anybody else are following,
>> um it's going to have to describe the
world that I see, nation states. Um that
you can create stability in some
countries. America's been great. The
West has been great for a long time. Um,
so if half of the money is at least half
of the economic exchange is Marxist,
>> um, does it need to be like why does
that rise up?
>> Why does that emerge
>> consistently? Yeah, we will get right
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>> I think humans are opportunistic.
So if there's the possibility of
monopolizing and controlling the money
supply then a if any if that's available
to any set of human beings and they're
going to embrace that opportunity.
There's this great clip of a I think
it's a New Zealand central banker and he
says it very succinctly. He says central
banking is a great business. We print
money and people believe it.
That sums up pretty nicely what this
institution does. It's a currency
counterfeiting cartel.
And the reason it is it emerges I think
is because of opportunism.
Um you could get we could go into a bit
deeper of a discussion. It's like okay
gold is actual free market money right
this is something that emerged on the
market. It did not require any
government intervention to become money
unlike fiat currency. Fiat currency
requires anti-competitive [snorts]
um laws. It requires legal tender laws.
It requires legal coercion to exist.
Basically, that's not true for gold.
What's the problem with gold is that
it's heavy and it's physical and you
can't move it across a telecommunication
network very easily. So, as the world
modernizes from gold standard to
telecommunications,
our information systems started to
outrun our monetary system, right? We're
transmitting promises to gold, not
actual gold. And in that accumulation of
promises, you get a lot of counterparty
risk. And when that counterparty risk
accumulates at large, you get what's
called systemic risk, right? A lot of
people owe a lot of people money, but
not it's all deferred settlement. There
hasn't been any final settlement to
occur yet. So, you get all of this uh
tension, right? And Jeff Booth on the
show a long time ago said this,
summarized this well. He said, "Currency
wars lead to trade wars lead to real
wars, right? Right? Or as Bastiad said a
long time ago, if goods don't cross
borders, soldiers will. So the
opportunism of individuals to control
the money supply and have a business
that basically produces perpetual
profits, right? It's impossible to be
unprofitable when you print money out of
thin air, right? So your shareholders
are enriched at infinite item. You can
then use the purchasing power stolen
through that money printing to fabricate
false academic narratives like Keynesian
economics, fake news, propaganda, right,
to convince the victims that 2%
inflation is really good and healthy for
you and you need it for a growing
economy. Even the term inflation itself
is a euphemism. The money is
depreciating. That's what's actually
happening. It's not nothing's inflating.
The nominal prices of assets denominated
in the depreciating money are inflating.
So that euphemism of people like, "Yeah,
growth sounds better. I'd rather have
inflation than deflation." That term
alone, I think, is a purposefully
implanted euphemism to get people
thinking in terms of inflation being a
good, necessary, and healthy thing.
>> Okay. So, I want to
>> So, what we need to do is remove the
opportunity. And that gets us into the
Bitcoin conversation.
>> Remove the opportunity. Okay. We'll get
to that in a second. Uh the mile markers
that I'm picking up here in terms of
your worldview are uh there is something
in the human psyche that longs for
control.
>> Uh if it needs to be coercive control,
it will be coercive control.
>> I don't think it's control. I don't
think it's control. I just think it's
pursuit of profits.
>> Just pursuit of profits.
>> That that isn't uh that is not my
understanding of what you just walked
through. So if it were just pursuit of
profits then um it wouldn't naturally
follow that you would get central banks
but we do get central banks and so when
I look at the world and I say whatever
philosophy comes up it's got to describe
that and given that central banks as far
as I can tell are everywhere
>> uh then whatever the philosophy is has
to account for the fact that it becomes
everywhere also you said that basically
even nation states are just gangs so
that tells me that gangs rise up. Uh,
very easy to understand why that is.
Weak men need to congregate in order to
protect themselves from strong men. I
don't think that's bad, though. I'm sure
the use of the word weak makes it sound
like I think it's bad.
>> I don't. I can certainly understand how
if your um your tribe is constantly
being raided and the cost is you dead
wife raped.
>> Uh, then I get why people real fast go,
I'm going to start banding together with
a bunch of people. We're going to come
up with ways to protect our stuff. Um,
so I understand that. But there is
something that's driving people that if
they can get more and more control, they
will seek it out. Which is why um you
get the central banks because it it's
you're not entering into a world where
people can't profit and you create a
central bank. America didn't have a
central bank until 1913. In fact, our
best years of growth were before the
central bank.
>> So there is something else in the human
psyche that leads people. Well, I feel
like you've already answered it, which
is
>> But why why were why were the best years
prior to the implementation of the Fed
>> uh because you have creative destruction
and you don't calcify in terms of uh
creating a cast system where people
can't lose. So when you have like if you
believe as I believe that innovation is
almost all that matters
>> that freedom is necessary for innovation
that people will do well for a while but
then they'll burn away and that the
collective cares not at all whether Elon
Musk is the greatest thing for 20 years
and then falls off the face of the earth
and ceases to be interesting at all. And
so if people can create regulatory modes
or otherwise or like with central banks
where and this is one of those things it
hides in plain sight and I don't have
simpler words to say it but inflation is
stealing from everyone and only giving
well I probably got some a lot of the
stuff from you when I first discovered
you.
>> Well when I we first spoke you thanked
me for saying inflation is stuff cuz you
said you thought inflation had been like
given you
>> I thought it was a natural law. Yeah,
>> I just thought it happened.
>> And now to hear you when I see your
clips of you saying inflation
>> Yeah. Listen, man. You've been This is
why I sit across [laughter] from you
whenever I get the chance. Uh so if
inflation is stealing from everybody and
only giving back to the rich, then and
you're willing to do it when a bank
fails or whatever, uh what you're doing
is creating a permanent cast system
because
>> once you're at the top, you're building
the network, you're building the policy
to make sure that you can never fall.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. So if I'm right that uh that is
eventually going to hurt innovation
because you're not getting rid of the
people that did dumb things. You're
propping them up. And so now the true
innovator has undue hurdles that they
have to overcome in order to actually
aggregate aggregate the capital to
innovate. Now the whole world begins to
suffer from that. So, um, I get why
people that get to the top want to yank
the ladder up, but nonetheless, it has
all these horrific ramifications for
>> a society as a whole.
>> 100%. It's well said. Um,
>> so there's two things I want to talk
about here. One is the genesis of gold.
I think this will answer your question.
How did we get how do we get central
banks? How do they emerge
from otherwise free market activities?
Right. So we mentioned that gold is
physical, right? It doesn't work in a
world running on telecommunications,
meaning that you can only transmit
promises to gold. It's very slow and
expensive to send actual physical gold.
So your physical final settlement lags
yourformational settlement, trade,
communication, right? That produces a
gap um that creates systemic risk and
whatnot. Now it might be useful here to
define money. Uh one very useful
definition of it is that money is a tool
for moving purchasing power across space
and time. And [snorts] the purchasing
power is simply what the money can buy
you. The goods and services that that
amount of money can acquire in the
marketplace. So gold because it has a
relatively inflexible supply, right? No
one can counterfeit it. It does a really
good job at holding purchasing power
over time. It functions as a really good
means of savings for people. However, as
we just covered with the the gap between
gold and telecommunications, it does not
move purchasing power across space very
easily. It's very expensive. It's slow.
It requires a lot of security. There's a
lot of risk associated with it. So,
human beings being the innovative
ingenious animals that we are, we
innovated around this shortcoming of
gold, right? gold as money really good
at transmitting purchasing power across
time but not space. So what do we do? We
put all the gold in one vault and we
trust this originally these were called
money warehouses.
we trust this warehouse operator to
issue warehouse receipts, right? Paper
IUS saying, "Hey, I've got this much
gold on deposit with the warehouse." And
then people could go and trade these
paper receipts with one another as if
they were as good as gold because indeed
they were for a long time.
>> And those then then you have solved the
space problem, right? All of a sudden,
gold can move really, really easily
across space or much more easily when
it's in paper form. Even more easily
when it's abstracted into electronic
form, right, or digital form. These
promises can move at the speed of light.
And then so long as the warehouse
operator is honest, you can always go
and redeem the gold from the warehouse
operator. Now, looking at the incentives
of the warehouse operator, what do they
face? they face the
incentive to run what's called a
fractional reserve. Okay, a full reserve
warehouse is one in which all of the
assets match all of the liabilities. So
all of the the paper certificates that
are in circulation that say someone is
old owed gold is matched one to one with
the gold actually in the warehouse.
Right? That's a full reserve
non-fraudulent legitimate money
warehousing operation. What is a
fractional reserve? A fractional reserve
is when you issue more paper, more
liabilities, then you have assets to
back. Once you do that, you're engaged
in an insolvent, fraudulent practice,
right?
>> Known as modern banking,
>> known as all of modern banking. But the
is the thing is from the warehouse
operator's perspective, that's pure
profit. As long as everyone doesn't do a
run on the bank, right? As long as not
more than whatever the percentage of
people is. If I've if I'm running a 50%
fractional reserve, then as long as 50%
of my clients don't come and redeem at
the same time, then we're good. I can
loan these these other paper
certificates into existence as if they
were as good as gold. The market will
not detect this error [snorts] unless
there is a run on my bank. I can earn
interest on this printed money out of
thin air and so goes the scheme. Right?
Now, this can sort of work if you have
competition among money warehouses,
right? So that the bad actors would get
exposed and go out of business and good
actors with good reputations would be
promoted and preserved. However, once
the government intervenes in this game
and says, you know what, we really like
that money printing business you got
there, that fractional reserve bank, and
you know what, we're going to war, so we
need a good spigot of money. I think
we're going to take that fractional
reserve bank and make that our own. Now,
that's how you get this. You go from
genesis of gold as money to paper
certificates, warehouse receipts,
augmenting the portability of gold to
make it more useful for moving it across
space to creating this opportunity for
warehouse operators to run a fractional
reserve to creating this source, this
limitless profit center for governments
to intervene and basically confiscate,
right? And so that's how that's the
centralizing tendency that gives rise to
the central bank. And you know there's
the Bank of Antworp, Bank of England,
like this is not an American thing,
right? This has been going on for about
600 years, I think. Um, and the American
nation was founded largely in response
and in rebellion to not only taxation,
which we always hear about the Boston
Tea Party, right? 2% tax. Was it 2% 4%?
>> Something like that.
>> Throw the tea in the harbor and, you
know, start killing red coats kind of
thing. Well, we were also rebelling and
escaping from the Bank of England, which
had tyrannized people for a really long
time. The US Constitution was written in
a way so that we would not have a
central bank. Um, and indeed we resisted
one implementation of it. We had one for
25 years. The charter expired and then
we got the third attempt in 1913.
You know, obviously read the book at the
Creature from Jackal Island if you want
the story on that, but that one was
successful and we've had a central bank
now for 113 years or whatever it is. So
that I hope answers at least bridges
from how we get to gold to central
banking. And the other thing I wanted to
say I think
>> the only thing that I'll say that's left
out of that and and I really am trying
to bring my audience along in this is if
it were just profit motive as you put it
forward. You can sort of forgive it.
It's a product and hey isn't that
wonderful? But either the people that do
it are completely ignorant to the
following or they are sinister and I put
them in the sinister camp.
>> Yeah.
>> Is that when you issue additional paper
Yeah.
>> that you are uh robbing the purchasing
power of all the people that hold that
paper.
>> Yeah.
>> And then in a modern banking sense you
um reward anybody who holds assets.
>> Yeah. Now, while anyone can hold assets,
10% of Americans hold 93% of the assets.
And I'm going to guess even that 10%
falls on a power scale. So now you're
going to have some ridiculously small
number of people that benefit from the
fact that inflation is happening. But if
people do not understand that second
part, which is that as you inflate the
currency that you are enriching asset
holders and this is the flywheel that
makes the rich richer and the poor
poorer.
>> Then you have to begin to say, well,
hold on a second. Are they completely
naive to that effect or is that exactly
why they're doing it? And I will put
forward that that's exactly why they're
doing it.
>> The shareholders
>> uh the shareholders of the bank asset
holders are now incentivized. Like
technically I'm incentivized for
inflation to happen because I own a ton
of assets.
>> So the more that the money supply is
inflated, the wealthier I get. We'll be
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I would argue that in a zero sum game
perspective, yes, as the currency is
depreciated, the assets that you own as
a larger percentage of your portfolio
will be bid up more than the currency
will be depreciated, right? So, people
living on fixed income, paycheck to
paycheck, pensioners, they're the ones
getting robbed. Y
>> and asset owners are getting rewarded.
But here's the tricky thing is
this. It all comes back to private
property, right? That the the existence
of the central bank [snorts] is premised
on the violation of private property of
savers through money printing, right?
Savers put purchasing power in money.
They expect it to be preserved or
ideally grow across time. The central
bank intervene. That's where we get
gold, right? The market selects gold as
money for that very reason. But then
through state intervention, opportunism,
whatever you want to call this, the
profitability of coercion, and this is
an important thing to disentangle,
right? Because profitabil, there's
nothing wrong with profit in and of
itself, right? That's a signal that
we've we've solved the problem
basically, right? If I'm if I'm
delivering a good or service into the
market space, into a market space, I'm
solving consumer wants better, faster,
cheaper than anyone else, right? That's
that's basically what the profit says.
That profit also induces competitors to
enter, right? They want to come in and
they want to get a piece of that margin,
thereby uh competing prices down and
quality up, right? Which all benefits
the consumer. Profitability is great.
It's a very important signaling
mechanism. It's what coordinates
economics, right? You know, prices,
profits, um all these things denominated
in money. But when you talk about
profiting from coercion like the
violation of private property that
you're profiting by stealing from
someone else
what you are doing in aggregate is you
are reducing total productivity
and this happens in two ways. One,
if I steal something from you,
that is time, effort, and energy I spent
in the nonproductive activity of
confiscation, right? I [clears throat]
didn't produce any good or service. I
actually produced a I didn't produce a
good, I produced a bad, right? A bad for
you, namely, right? Like, I had a table,
you stole my table. What happened? Now I
got to go buy another table. Okay? So,
um,
when you do that,
my time, effort, and energy that could
have otherwise been allocated towards
some productive activity, building a
business, building an asset, labor,
whatever it is, was instead spent
extracting from you. Right? So, that's
one way in which the violation of
private property reduces productivity.
But now look at it from your
perspective. [snorts] If say I sold 20%
of your assets, right, and you acquired
all of these assets through consensual
work and trade, well then you now have a
20% reduced incentive for any further
production. You're like, well, the last
time I produced 100% of the fruits of my
labor, 20% of them got stolen. So my
incentive to work has just gone down
20%. So it's this this is the problem.
This is why the integrity of private
property, as Mises said, right? the the
history of civilization and the history
of private property are in inexorably
linked I think is how we put it. They
that's the whole purpose of civilization
is so that people can own things and
specialize in things and trust that
other people will own and specialize in
things and we can all trade and we can
all enjoy the fruits of one another's
highly specialized labor in this modern
lap of luxury we call 2025.
uh despite all of the anti-market and
anti- capitalistic forces that we're
also dealing with like nation states,
like central banks, like politicians.
So, um it's a matter of do we reward
productive peaceful cooperation?
That would be the profitability of
consent, consensual activity. Or do we
reward non-productive, coercive, and
violent activity, which would be that's
how the central bank is profiting.
That's how nation states are profiting,
right? They engage in these activities
for their own profit, but it comes at
the expense of others. So this economics
game is positive sum, right? It's
win-win,
>> right? When you and I trade something
consensually, we both do that because we
believe that we will leave the trade
better off than we were before. So both
of us walk away with what's called
psychic profit, right? We both at least
think we're better off. We could be
wrong, of course, but we did it
consensually because we both believed it
was in our best interest, right? So,
we've generated value on both sides of
the trade. Once you violate that
principle of consent, by definition,
it's one person's gain at someone else's
loss, right? Your psychic profit at if I
steal your table, your psychic profits
gone down. You've lost one table that
you had before, whereas mine has gone
up, right? I gained a table. But then we
have all those issues related to to
productivity that I described. So the
integrity of private property this is
and it basically it some people get
caught up in that it maybe is a bit
abstract but it's just a prohibition on
killing and stealing and coercing.
That's all it is. Right? This is
biblical ethics encoded legally. Right?
Encoded as a social institution we call
private property. But this is the most
important social institution in the
world. This is what coheres
civilization. This is what allows us.
You know, Hapa makes the point that it's
even presupposed when we have a
conversation.
You are presupposing by listening to me
right now that I have freedom of choice,
that I control myself, that I have
something that you could possibly learn.
And then if you didn't do that, you
just, you know, thought there's nothing
you could learn from me and you know
everything. Well, then all of a sudden
we're not having a conversation, right?
It's something more like I don't know
what it is at that point, but it's not a
conversation. So for to have this free
exchange, we have to presuppose that
each of us individually owns ourselves.
>> Yes, all of that makes sense. Uh the
thing that I want to drag into the light
for people is that if you um let this
get philosophical, you're going to miss
that it's nefarious. And the reason that
I brought all of this up in the context
of mom donnie is that I think that there
is a very bad thing that is happening
that has very knowable cause and effect
and people's failure to accurately
understand the cause and effect is what
makes them elect the person who is
absolutely the worst for them.
>> Yeah.
>> So once you understand that uh the
government can steal your money if
there's a central bank the government
can steal your money by as you said
counterfeit money print. will come under
a much nicer name,
>> but it's counterfeiting your money. When
the money is counterfeited, then your
dollar no longer buys a dollar's worth
of stuff. It buys 90 cents, 80 cents, 70
cents, on down to nothing.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and then people get into this where I
can't make ends meet. They start feeling
very anxious. That anxiety needs to get
transmuted into something that feels far
more powerful. That tends to be anger.
You go into a populous moment. And great
irony of ironies is you end up voting
for the guy that is really just trying
to get elected. So he promises you free
stuff.
>> The second they promise you free stuff,
what they are promising you is that
they're going to money print. As we just
covered, they're going to counterfeit
money, take from you, but in a way that
you may think you're psychically
profiting, but in reality, you're being
stolen from. And the inability to track
that, yes, is how we end up voting for
these problems. Now one these problems
being very clearly socialism. Now one
thing that I want you to explain why why
does socialism so consistently so
necessarily become murderous. [snorts]
Well let's start with some definitions.
Um
I think I've I've shared this with you
before but I really like the spectrum.
Again this is inspired by the
libertarian philosopher Hapa.
And on one end he has capitalism which
is the universal respect for private
property and the trade of private
property via contract right via consent
basically. So not only can we own things
but we can also trade things
consensually right the rule of law legal
coercion exists only to preserve that.
Right? That's an ideal capitalistic
world. The opposite end of this spectrum
would be communism or Marxism, right?
Which as Markx himself said could be
summed up in one sentence. The abolition
of private property. No one owns
anything. The state owns everything and
tells you what to do. Right? That's the
opposite of capitalism.
Socialism is the gradient between.
It's just what you know, you tell me
what percentage your effective tax rate
is and I tell you what percentage
socialist your society is and what
percentage of slave you are. Right?
Again, if 100% of the fruits of your
labor are being stolen, that's the
definition of a slave, right? You keep
nothing of your work. And if you keep
100% of the fruits of your labor, then
you are sovereign, right? You're not
subject to anyone, right? You are a
fully actualized sovereign agent
basically. And so socialism is the
spectrum between. Uh there's a lot of
different flavors of it, but again, if
we're looking at it through the lens of
private property, it's just at what rate
are we violating private property. And
Hopped takes this further and says that
okay, the percentage,
the rate at which you're violating
private property is the same rate at
which you are incentivizing
those nonproductive,
coercive, violent activities. Right? If
it's profitable to go and get elected to
public office and benefit from tax
dollars and printed money, no matter
what promises you have to make, people,
there are individuals that will take
that opportunity, right, as we're seeing
in New York City today. But if those
opportunities don't exist and we're just
rewarding people
profits from consensual activity, right,
in this domain of pure capitalism over
here, then we're only rewarding prudence
and trade and pragmatism and problem
solving, right? We're not rewarding
problem making, right? You almost call
coercion problem making, right? Like it
is making a problem by definition for
the person being coerced. Otherwise, it
wouldn't be coercion. Again, if it was
consensual, they wouldn't they're at
least leaving. They may have real
problems to deal with because their
psychic evaluation of the situation
wasn't right, but at least their psychic
profit, their belief is that they are
better off after the trade. But once
that principle of consent is violated,
you start sliding from the world of
ideal capitalism into the spectrum of
socialism and then it typically
degenerates ultimately into communism or
Marxism. So it is this like [ __ ] in the
integrity of civilization I think where
um the darker side of human nature can
fester and I think that's why socialism
has emerged in that um you know
>> but why does it become murderous? It
becomes murder I think it has a very
clear mechanism. Okay.
I think it becomes murderous. Again, the
way Booth put it is like you're, you
know, currency wars lead to trade wars
lead to real wars. Once you're getting,
you're earning profits from coercing
someone, stealing from them, right? That
instigates backlash, backlash.
Uh the other side of that trade is going
to seek retribution of some kind, right?
So you you're you're sparking a mimedic
cycle.
>> So basically people are going to be
pissed taking their stuff
>> and they're going to strike back, right?
And then that you get into these like
blood feud situations where like okay
whether it's social revolution, whether
it's basic petty crime, whatever it is,
people get desperate and they start to
act in more of a zero someum game
manner. Right? My win necessarily comes
at your loss, right? That's the only way
for me to succeed. and the less so from
the positive sum mentality of hey let's
trade right let's have free trade let's
act according to the same rules let's
all play pretend that we each actually
have the exclusive right rights to the
things of value we create right that's
kind of the laring that we're doing with
private property but it's very useful
laring because when we do that we play
that game of pretend we get a lot of
peace and productivity when we start to
break the rules of that game or twist
the rules of that game or violate the
rules of that game as politicians do
specifically socialist politicians
that's when it starts to degenerate and
I think you start moving along that
spectrum straight towards communism and
what we know what communism does right
you talk about murderous
uh what are the numbers how many people
did Stalin murder 60 100 million
>> um Stalin is tougher to pin down um but
there is a political scientist I'm
forgetting his name right now, but uh he
clocked the number at over 200 million
dead in the 20th century alone due to
government policy.
>> There you go. Democide, I think he
called it.
>> Yes. So, the thing we might be saying
the exact same thing but in different
ways. Um where this breaks for me is
because it doesn't work, people start
raising their hand and saying it doesn't
work. Yeah.
>> But for me, socialism is born of a very
simple idea. I know better than you.
>> Yeah. And so when you look at the
marketplace and you say rents in New
York are too high, you never stop to
think too high by what metric? What do
you mean?
>> Uh you just mean that some people can't
afford it. That's the nature of things.
>> So when somebody goes, I know better.
Then they try to control the market from
the top down and things start breaking.
Like for instance, if you tell a
landlord, you can only charge X amount
of rent, but it costs more than that to
maintain the building.
>> You're just wrong. You don't understand
capitalism. You don't understand
incentives. All of that. And so that
person raises their hand and says, "This
doesn't make any sense." And then
because they are right, uh you
ultimately have to shut them up. And
once you understand the only way to shut
somebody up is to let them vote and so
you're at risk of being voted out of
office.
>> Uh or you force them to be quiet and now
the guns have come out and hence the
murder.
>> It really is that simple. Like I don't
want people to lose sight of like this
becomes a problem because the plumbers
aren't going to work for free to repair
the building. Uh when you stain the
carpet or get mold, the people that
remove that stuff won't work for free.
>> Uh so you either have to force them to
work for free, which I think everybody
would agree is a terrible idea. But in
>> socialism, you have to because that's
the only way that you can guarantee
those outcomes. And so this is why I'm
trying to like I don't want all this
stuff to be super heady. I want people
to understand listen you won't work for
free and if you won't work for free then
I things can't be given to you for free
because somebody at some point has to
work for free for that to happen.
>> And then of course people are going to
say well Tom just tax the rich. You
could literally tax not just their
income but their wealth. And nobody
understands wealth. Wealth is fiction.
But even if you could tax their
fictional wealth, you would only get
like 2 years runway.
>> It's all gone. It's all gone. And so I'm
like, h this is so basic. This is really
simple. And if people could uh track
that you [snorts] won't work for free,
no one will work for free. And if people
don't work for free, nobody can get
anything for free. Uh, and that over and
over and over every time this is tried,
you end up having to kill a whole lot of
people because eventually somebody goes,
"Uh, hey, Ma, planting
>> uh the same crops at the same time
across a country the size of America,
>> it doesn't work. They're not going to
grow and then everybody starves to death
and so you got to shoot a bunch of
them."
>> Um,
>> it's really that basic.
>> I think we're in deep agreement
honestly. Like I may be saying it in a
much more heady way and you're saying it
in a much more accessible way. So God
bless you for that. But
>> I'm just trying to get like I think
America is racing towards a problem and
they're being stolen from. So like they
get mom Donnie is right. There is a huge
problem.
>> Mhm. All the Marxists are right
>> and the question becomes a why is there
a huge problem and what to do about it?
>> Correct. And so if you can't map out, oh
the I'm being stolen from, like if I
could just get everybody to understand
two things. Thing number one, if your
government is deficit spending, they're
stealing from you.
>> Thing two, if the government is
inflating the money supply, they're
stealing from you.
>> Like if I could get them there so that
>> that's the only way they can deficit
spend,
>> right? Yeah.
>> So if I could get people to look at, oh
wait, you want to make this thing free,
that means that you're allocating
governmental budget towards that. what
are you cutting? Because we're already
deficit spending. So, if you're adding
more to the deficit, well, then that's
going to create more and more problems.
But, it's proving very difficult to get
people to uh follow said cause and
effect. So,
>> I can totally relate to that. As someone
who's been beating the what is money
drum for, I don't know, close to a
decade now, it's it can feel a little
frustrating and that you're trying to
liberate victims from their victimage.
But
>> are you just are you a Bitcoin is lifeer
raft guy?
>> Well,
private property is what we're going
for, right? The ability to own things
that are independent of the opinions of
other people. And I think to that end,
Bitcoin is the strongest form of private
property we've ever had.
um you know first of all
you know money by definition can be used
to obtain any good or service in the
marketplace right so in a way it's kind
of like a meta private property right it
it gives you access to obtain anything
the marketplace can bear any property
that anyone has well it's mostly for
sale not all of it but you know mostly
anything people can create of value it's
available through money the printing of
money is the violation of private
property of savers right people are
holding and here's a here's Just good
way to think about this.
When you go to work, for instance, and
you trade your time for money, right?
You are expending your labor producing a
good or service for someone else. You're
solving someone else's problems and
you're paid in money, right? You can
then take that money back into the
marketplace and you can give it to
someone else. So, they'll solve your
problems, right? They'll sell you a pair
of shoes or they'll fix your sink or
they'll sell you a car, whatever.
Whatever the thing is, this trading of
favors, that's another good definition
of money. The medium through which we
trade favors basically
when you do that, right? So, let's say
you just go to work and you provide
services or you render labor to provide
goods or services and then you are paid
in money and then you hold the money,
you save it. What's happened in
aggregate to the world?
You've increased the productive output
of the species, right? By rendering your
labor to produce goods and services.
You've been paid in money, but you
haven't spent it yet. You're just
holding it, right? It's just potential
goods and services in the future. So,
you've added to the productive output of
the planet, but you haven't yet
subtracted from it. So, this is like
when when it's extremely moral. It is
extremely moral to save. uh Hapa would
point out here too this starts the
process of lowering time preference
which is the rate at which we prefer
present satisfaction to later
satisfaction and he later says that
civilization itself is the um
externalization of our individual time
preference. So the lower our total
average time preference becomes the more
civilized we become. So money is this
meta private property lets you obtain
anything the marketplace can bear. uh
money is this medium through which we
trade favors and to earn money is to do
something that's very moral and useful.
Now if that money you're saving in is
now being counterfeited by the central
bank, well then the purchasing power,
right, the moral act, the reward for the
moral act you did of going to work is
now being depreciated.
Someone who's benefiting from that money
printing is stealing from you. They're
stealing your labor. They're stealing
your time, your energy, your effort.
Um, Bitcoin is money that cannot be
printed, right? It's fixed supply money.
So, it is invulnerable to the violation
of private property through currency
expansion. And that's very important,
right?
>> Now, is the goal though just to get
people off of government controlled
money?
>> Well, that obiates the need for central
banking entirely. So, if we go back to
our definition of our first definition
of money as an instrument for moving
purchasing power across space and time,
Bitcoin is like the internet and gold
had a baby, right? I've probably said
this to you before, but gold was really
good at moving purchasing power across
time because it has the inflexible
supply, but not space because it's
physical. So we augmented gold to have
gold backed currencies which are really
good for moving purchasing power across
space because it's just paper or
electronic but not across time because
it introduced the warehouse incentive
problem where there's an incentive to
run a fractional reserve which leads to
inflation of the currency and ultimately
hyperinflation.
Bitcoin threads the needle. Bitcoin is a
pure digital asset with a fixed supply.
It's the only fixed supply asset in the
history of the human race. the other one
there will ever ever be so far as I can
tell. So it is it perfects the
preservation or transmission of
purchasing power across time. Also
because it's purely digital. It's just
information. You can move it at the
speed of light.
>> Why do you think it it's the only one
that will ever be though? Like it's the
easiest thing in the world to replicate.
>> Because of game theory. We we have we
have 40 million replications of Bitcoin
right now. Right.
>> You're just saying it's the one that got
adopted. I'm saying that absolute
scarcity a fixed supply money can only
be discovered once. I think it's in this
way you have to compare it to something
like the number zero or people also
compare it to like to the wheel right
like are we gonna invent something that
disrupts the wheel like no the wheel is
very fundamental
>> the wheel is a concept I can make a
>> so is Bitcoin
>> Bitcoin is a concept made real
>> yes I don't know if this is where we
want to take the conversation but just
uh because I know people are going to
hammer in the comments on that uh this
is adoption I'm going to channel Peter
Schiff right now uh Bitcoin has no
intrinsic value w