{ "episodeId": "SLP357", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "of_equity_management_associates": { "name": "of Equity Management Associates", "role": "guest", "tag": "OF" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.55, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, sure about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. For episode three hundred and fifty-seven, my guest is Lawrence Lepard. He is an investment manager and also an Austrian economist of Equity Management Associates. And so we're talking about the burning house of fiat. So we talk about what's changing in the world today, why so many took it for granted, and what are the implications of this new insecure- Security around property rights, and we speak a little bit around Lawrence's experience in the contrast between holding paper assets versus physical assets, as well as the change in the monetary order that we are undergoing. So this show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Swan is the easy way to accumulate Bitcoin while also learning about Bitcoin. There are various free resources made available to customers, and you can get this over at swanbitcoin dot com slash freebook to get a copy of Jan Pritzkir's Inventing Bitcoin. This is a great short intro It only takes you a couple hours to read and you learn some knowledge about how Bitcoin works without going too deep into technical details for beginners. Now with Swan, you can set up your automated sat stacking plan, a savings plan, or you can also smash buy. So to sign up, go to swan dot com. Do you have Bitcoin but you need some fiat liquidity without selling? Lend at Hoddle Hoddle is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin-backed lending platform where you can lend or borrow globally and anonymously, so you can just sign up in thirty seconds and Borrow without verification. Now, the users control collateral through that whole deal and the interest is paid at the end. 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Now there are different options, you can A second hand machine that may actually be online faster. So there's different choices available, and there's also a range of content available over on the site. That website is compassmining dot io. And now onto the show with Lawrence. Lawrence, welcome to the show. Or Larry, do you prefer?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "02:46", "start": 166.23, "text": "Larry's for friend, either one works. Thank you very much. Very nice to be with you. Big admirer of yours." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:52", "start": 172.03, "text": "Fantastic. Well, yeah, I've, seen some of your commentary, and I thought it was, really interesting, what you've Probably in terms of the economics of things, and what's going on with currency and money, and as I seen on your profile, you're also interested in Austrian economics, so I'm definitely keen to chat about that also. do you wanna just tell us a little bit about yourself and, you know, your, where you're coming from from an economic perspective?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "03:20", "start": 200.34, "text": "So briefly, my back-- very briefly, my background. I've always been an investor. I was a venture capital investor for the first and largest part of my career, all the way through two thousand. Then I, I kind of semi-retired and was managing my own money, and then the GFC happened, and, I became radicalized for sound money, I like to say, when I saw how much they printed as a, as an Austrian economist, and I, uh-oh, this isn't good. You know, we're not-- our savings, my savings aren't gonna take And so I pivoted and started investing in SoundMoney, the best SoundMoney stocks, which are gold and silver mining stocks at the time. You have to remember, Bitcoin was just getting launched, so that wasn't an alternative at the time. I believed we were gonna have massive inflation coming out of two thousand and eight, we certainly had a lot, but then they got it under control. And so the best place to be in an inflationary environment, and before Bitcoin, was, oil and gas and gold and silver. I didn't understand the oil and gas market, it was tricky, a lot" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "04:20", "start": 260.04, "text": "I now run a fund that focuses on those, but as I've watched, I, I bought my first Bitcoin in twenty thirteen, you know, skeptical, small position, but, over time I've become more and more orange pilled, and, Bitcoin's now a meaningful part of what we do, but I, I haven't given up on the gold and silver because, they both have a role, they're different, I, I think Bitcoin wins longer term, but, gold's not going away tomorrow, so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:44", "start": 283.75, "text": "Fantastic. Okay, so we, we And so I think maybe it's, I guess, important to situate things because we've been in this environment where people have, up until recently, just treated it like the US dollar is the world reserve currency, US, Treasuries are risk-free assets, and you can, you can take that to the bank. And now what's changing?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "05:12", "start": 311.95, "text": "Well, you know what's changing, I do too. I mean, it's, what do they say, \"They're, they're weeks when decades happen,\" right? I mean, it, it-- what happened here in the last three-- Three, four weeks is really monumental. I mean, I kind of akin, akin to when we went off the gold standard in '71. I mean, what, you know, so three big things, I think. One, you know, it's a small thing, but it actually is a bigger thing. The Canadian truckers protested and the, you know, the premier of Canada viewed that he had the right to freeze people's money, when, when they did something that he politically disagreed with. No due process, no courts, no rule of law, nothing, just Wow, what an earthquake that is. What an argument for Bitcoin and gold that is. so that was kind of step one. I think step two, followed up by something even bigger obviously, was, you know, Mr. Putin decided to create a war in the Ukraine. And, our response to that, which was huge and, and, an illegal war, but very much the same way Iraq war was illegal as well. And, our response to it was to freeze him out of SWIFT, fine, but also to seize his sovereign reserves that were in our Which is really, you know, an act of financial war or, or an act of theft. I mean, kind of a possession is nine tenths sort of thing as a counterpoint to what he did, you know, on the, he did it kinetically, we did it financially, right? And, so suddenly the message just got sent to every country in the world that if you have financial reserves in the United States or the US or Western banking system and you do something that really pisses them off, they can be frozen, they can be taken away from you. So India saw this and And Brazil saw, everybody saw it, and it's huge, and the implications for the dollar are, are quite obvious and, and I think gonna be very, very severe over time, and that is that the dollar as a reserve currency is gonna be replaced, and even, you know, Chairman Powell himself said that there's a chance we might have more than one reserve currency, and I think that's a certainty. we've also seen since that event, a lot more talk about, you know, people trading in their own currencies for things they want, you know, just- Recently, we just saw that, that, you know, China was gonna use yuan and the Saudis were gonna accept yuan to, to pay for oil. Well, that's an earthquake, right? I mean, part of what's held the dollar together in terms of its relative strength and its overall strength is it was a petrodollar. It was, you know, the, the, the Middle Eastern oil producers would only accept the dollar for oil, so there was naturally a bid for the dollar. And, you know, that's gonna be undermined. So, I mean, these are really, really" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "07:50", "start": 470.02, "text": "It's not at, you know, a hundred thousand yet. Well, you know, markets breathe, right? I mean, it, it, they, they did run up quite a bit and, you know, and they're breathing and coming back in. And it wouldn't surprise me at all. I think, Dirk Ferguson, Craig Hemke pointed this out yest-last night in his podcast, I was listening to it. You know, it wouldn't surprise me at all if, if the US government is, printing paper oil right now and printing a lot of paper Last, but my view is they're not gonna be successful. I mean, oil's come off thirty dollars, but, you know, oil's not going back to seventy, in my opinion. Oil's going to two hundred eventually, and, and, you know, gold's going north of two thousand and Bitcoin's going north of sixty-nine thousand. So, but, you know, markets breathe, right? They go up, they go down, and, and they were, they were all pretty overbought. So-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:40", "start": 520.09, "text": "I love that saying, \"Markets breathe.\" I think that" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:50", "start": 530.04, "text": "Goldman and obviously any, a lot of serious gold people have very strong thoughts around the concept of paper gold and using the paper market to suppress, let's say, the physical, and the, the asset itself. So you mentioned there this idea of paper oil also. So could you just-- for listeners who aren't clear how that idea works, could you just explain a little bit what's, what's the mechanic there?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "09:14", "start": 554.37, "text": "Yeah, let me talk about a little bit. I mean, yeah, years ago, you know, the, the plunge protection team was set up you know, basically, Chairman Greenspan got it going post nineteen eighty seven, if you really read into all the papers very carefully, and they created something called the Exchange Stabilization Fund, which the New York Fed runs. And so the New York Fed has the ability to intervene in markets when they think prices are doing things that are gonna disturb the markets or provide, you know, pr-um, cause damage to the US financial system. And obviously, you know, massively spike Making oil prices massively spike and gold prices, you know, just as, just as when the, you know, when the bonds collapsed and, and went no bid in March of twenty twenty, you know, they, they were in there trying to prevent that from becoming a problem and ultimately, you know, Jay Powell came over the top with, you know, huge, \"We're gonna do whatever it takes,\" he im-imitated Draghi. So, you know, I mean, they, they, they see all these things, right? They have accounts in the Cayman Islands. audited, and they can do things that, that we can't see and we don't know that are happening. So to some extent, none of these markets are truly free, free markets with absolute price discovery. You know, they're all, they're all markets with a, with a, with an overlay of manipulation. And in the gold area, which is what I've been in for so long, and I've done all the studying, and, you know, Gada and a lot of other people have done fabulous forensic work, you know, you can just see the footprints everywhere that run hard, that they would have a serious problem with the, the trust and credibility of their, of their currency. I mean, gold is a fire alarm. I mean, just like, and, and actually Luke Cromartie coined this phrase, just like Bitcoin is a fire alarm. Bitcoin's probably the only fire alarm that still works. You know, a-and so, I mean, when, when, you know, when Bitcoin went from five or six thousand up to fifty, fifty plus thousand on that last run, boy, you can bet the alarm bells were going off at the ESF. Right? And, and they, you know, there are Bitcoin derivatives, Bitcoin futures, but they're not nearly as large and as suppressive as the gold stuff. I mean, in the gold area, we, we think that they're between fifty and, and perhaps as many as a thousand ounces of paper gold for every one ounce of gold that really exists in the world. So, so they're running, yeah, right, I know it's, your eyes light up, right? They're running a fractional reserve gold system where if everybody said, \"Please give me the gold that, you know, I And not at these prices anyway, and so there's a chance for a very high, very high and rapid reset in gold, which is what, part of what's kept me in gold and not just to go 100%" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:55", "start": 714.68, "text": "right. and so I, I think the other aspect that really stuck out to me from what you were saying there was around just this idea of seizing foreign reserves, like just seizing somebody else's assets now, and it's like, well, that's," }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "12:09", "start": 729.45, "text": "no, I mean, it's huge. I mean, look, why is the West great? I mean, Law of law. Do you know what I mean? It was laws not men. I mean, it was always somewhat corrupt and there were things wrong, but, you know, coming out of World War II, I mean, there was a, there was a peaceful system that we set up, and it wasn't perfect But, you know, what I, what I see, the most troubling trend I see is this rule of law breaking down. You know, if we go back to a rule of the jungle, that's not gonna be good. I mean, people are gonna get hurt. A lot of people are gonna get hurt. You know, I mean, imagine if we had a nuclear exchange. I mean, you know, sane people think there's absolutely-- I used to think there's absolutely no way we could ever have a nuclear exchange because of MAD, right? Who would ever think to start something like that? But" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "12:57", "start": 776.66, "text": "You know, they might actually do something that's stupid. I mean, what's, you know, what's ten, twenty, fifty million dead people to them if it's not them? I mean, I'm not suggesting that's gonna happen, but frankly, it has become more of a concern given, you know, this whole rule of law thing breaking down. It's a slippery slope, tit for tat, right? Okay, you, you seized my foreign reserves, you know, well, therefore, I've got the right to do this. Oh, well, you didn't do this. Okay, Further, and then it's just back and forth. And I mean, you see people now in the US calling for a no-fly zone. We doing no-fly zone, we might as well declare World War III. So, you know, and, and that's a, that's to me a very, very dangerous prospect. And, you know, all these people at the top, Putin included, ought to step back from the ledge and start trying to figure out a way to talk to each other in a sensible manner and to listen to the other side and what they're, you know, because in some cases And, you know, the only way to, to solve grievances is to talk them through. but unfortunately, you know, you don't see a lot of that going on right now, and it, it is concerning, hon- you know, honestly." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:08", "start": 848.1, "text": "And how much of the financial system and the world as we know it reliant, how much is it reliant on people being able to trust in property rights, being able to trust in that they, their wealth isn't going to just be arbitrarily seized? And especially in the case of foreign reserves, who's even are they, right? Like if it's not necessarily the government or it's not necessarily Putin's reserves, if it's relating to as-- like somebody else's assets or some citizen's assets?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "14:38", "start": 878.1, "text": "Well, that's right. I mean, it's, like, you know, like I say, you, you get to the rule of the jungle. I mean, if, you know, if it comes down to who's the strongest, does that mean the, the, the strong are gonna have food to eat and the weak are gonna die? 'Cause, I mean, it's just, you know, you, you've got to decide what set of rules you're gonna live by. And unfortunately, you know, the trend in this direction, in this area isn't good. I mean, it hasn't completely broken down yet, you know, but it's, but it's again, it's a slippery slope. And so, yes, I mean, I think one of the things I think you're going toward is just how, how bulletproof Bitcoin is. I mean, you know, I love Jason Lowery and all his talks about, I mean, you know, here you are, you've got a, you've got a mathematical system that replaces armies because people You know, if you've got the twelve words, they can't steal it, you know, and, and that's-- I think that's one thing a lot of people, a lot of newbies into the Bitcoin space don't understand just how important that is, that ultimately this thing's gonna outlast these governments, a-and that's a thing of beauty. But, you know, because I, I know one of my great concerns when I first got into it is, oh my God, this really threatens fiat currency. government's gonna shut this shit down. I mean, they're not stupid, they're gonna figure out a way to shut it down, and, and obviously China's tried to do it and others have. But, you know, I don't think they can. And, you know, twelve words and I'm self-sovereign, I love it. And I think that's, I think that's how all hardcore Bitcoiners So, you know, it, it, having said all of that, you know, gosh, there's gonna be a lot of bumps, in the next few years, right? I mean, I'm sure you see that, we all see it. It's concerning, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:17", "start": 976.61, "text": "And I think for those people who are newer, maybe they're just leaving their coins on a platform or they haven't really thought through their security, their backups, all of these aspects, and using their Bitcoin under more adversarial conditions, let's say. I mean, these are things that everyone has to Because as an example, if you don't, it can be easily seized and taken, even the Bitcoin can be seized if you aren't securing it correctly." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "16:43", "start": 1003.19, "text": "Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and there's been a lot written and said about this. I don't wanna, you know, 'cause the government's listening, I don't necessarily wanna go into, you know, how important that is and what I've done, but I'm just, yeah, you know, not your, not your keys, not your coins, right? And, you know, I mean, I think, didn't" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "17:06", "start": 1026.24, "text": "Sad to see that happen. I mean, what the, you know, they're not Bitcoiners, but they, they were like freezing some, some of their customers who had Russian ties, and I was like, really? You know, what, what's that all about? So once again, I mean, it, it's, as we go towards the rule of the jungle, possession will be nine tenths, right? And so, yeah, you wanna make sure you got your keys." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:27", "start": 1046.87, "text": "And in this environment, we are seeing it almost like an animal threatened can be very, very dangerous. And so if governments are pushed into a corner, backed into a corner, what kinds of actions could they take? I mean, I, I mean, these are, I guess, questions that we're all thinking now." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "17:46", "start": 1066.42, "text": "Yeah, no, it's a great question. I mean, so Roosevelt does Executive Order sixty-one-oh-two and he grabs all the gold in nineteen thirty-three, right? I mean, you know, this-- I mean, one thing we know about governments is that their job is to perpetuate themselves, and they will change the rules. You know, they will lie, cheat, and steal, and, and they will break the rules. I mean, the fact that Roosevelt grabbed people's individual property in nineteen thirty-three and that the Supreme Court backed him up, it's just shocking to me. I mean Falled by that, just how, how bad that was. I mean, that's not what the Constitution says. You can't take people's shit, you know? I mean, and, and, and since then there's been just a long list of these things, right? I mean, you know, I was short the financial stocks in September of twenty, two thousand eight, they outlawed that, cost me a huge amount of money. I mean, look at what just happened with Nickel, right? Nickel does a game stop, goes, you know, no offer, straight up. Well" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "18:46", "start": 1126.42, "text": "It at the Hunt brothers in 1980. I mean, one thing I think we all can be sure of, and one thing I think we shouldn't underestimate, is the lengths that these governments will go to to try to, maintain their privilege, so to speak. And, and you know, this is historically the case as well. I just tweeted out recently, I reread this weekend, Andrew, Dixon White's, Fiat Money Inflation in France, which is the assignat story from, you know, post-1789. I mean Didn't report it. So, you know, I mean, it's right, I mean, they were going to the guillotine. So, you know, the, it's governments can get to be-- I'm not suggesting that we're as primitive as that, you know, a couple hundred years later, but, I mean, I think it's, you know, I think it's safe to say that the people in power in governments, are going to do, they're gonna take the moves and do the things that they can to try to hang onto the privilege that they have. And You can be self-sovereign, and we can wait these things out. I mean, ultimately, when the entire fiat currency system collapses, which I believe it will, the only issue is the timing. Ultimately, when it all collapses, a new government will come in, and, you know, Suarez, the government, or the, you know, the mayor of Miami is gonna be this, he's gonna be president, right? I mean, we're gonna have bitcoiners running the government, but, you know, that's, that's definitely ten years out or something before that happens. So in the themselves to be prepared and to not be naive about what these guys can do, 'cause they can do a lot of stuff." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:22", "start": 1221.73, "text": "Yeah. And so even on things like predicting the downfall of fiat, I think I'm also wary as well. Obviously, being into Austrian economics, I think there isn't obviously a fundamental issue with fiat money, but at the same time, there are critiques I can, I can appreciate and understand. People might say, \"Look, you Austrians, you're always too bearish, always calling, the end of, everything.\" And there have been Aust And unfortunately got them wrong even during the GFC times." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "20:51", "start": 1250.75, "text": "Oh, I've been, I've been one of them. I've been dead-ass, yeah, I've been dead-ass. Look, here's the problem. It's really hard to time a once in a hundred year event, right? And that's kind of what this is. I mean, you know, we had a, we had a smaller version of this in the nineteen twenties and thirties, and, you know, the US chose deflation and, you know, Russia and Britain and France chose inflation, but when you, when" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "21:16", "start": 1276.48, "text": "The mathematics are there, so it has to. Now, you know, we can all look like idiots, and I have looked like an idiot in the past, and I've been wrong plenty of times. I mean, I thought in two thousand and eight it was all over. It was so obvious to me that Fiat was gonna fail that I went and pivoted, put, you know, a hundred percent of my fund into silver and gold. It worked great for a few years, and I was, I was like, and I was really confident, you know, overly confident, obviously, because from And, you know, I watched half my net worth, you know, melt away. So, you know, what we gotta understand is the other side is crafty and they're, you know, and they've got tools and they control the narrative. So anyone who thinks it's gonna be an easy fight is, is, you know, mistaken. You gotta be-- You gotta be ready for a long, hard battle here. But having said that, I think, I think history and math are on our side. And, and I can't actually imagine that it's gonna take more than another ten years for Basically dead. I mean, it's what is it, twenty, twenty-two? Yeah, by twenty thirty-two, it'll be over by then. I think it'll be over a lot sooner than that, but I, but I don't know the exact timing. Nobody really does, 'cause nobody knows what the other side's moves will be. You know, I mean, look, if they go to full MMT, fiat could be dead in three years. You know, I mean, if they, if they start printing money like crazy, which, you know, who knows? I mean, with I mean, it's, you know, the, the pain here is starting to get pretty significant, right? From gas and food prices, and it's gonna be a real issue." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:54", "start": 1373.93, "text": "Yeah, absolutely. And so as you're saying, it's, the difficulty is, is that there are so many variables up in the air at the same time. It depends on what one person, what side, one side does or one person, one organization, and then the response from the other. And I'm curious then, if we were to try and game out some of those responses, what would some of the likely Currencies might be, a, a very likely-" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "23:20", "start": 1399.85, "text": "Absolutely, you're very smart to point that out. I agree. I think, I think that's, they're trying to go there, that's where they want to go. I mean, I, to get a little more micro and a little more dialed in on the US, I mean, I think that, I think that, you know, Powell's gonna probably today, he's gonna raise rates, he signaled twenty-five bips, I think he might surprise and go higher, who knows?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "23:42", "start": 1421.98, "text": "but they In print doesn't really make a difference, but, you know, but I think eventually, you know, the stock market is gonna go down, and then I think we're already starting to see the ten-year bond market, you know, the price of those bonds going down, yield going up, you know, it's broken out into some new high territory we haven't seen since early 2019. And, you know, I think eventually they're gonna be forced into yield curve control, where they have to buy the bond market because- The US with five percent interest rates, everybody's bankrupt, it doesn't work, everyone's so levered that, you know, and it's all based on this, you know, and what they did was just enormously distorting this whole zerk, zero interest rate policy. It's just distorted the financial system beyond measure And getting out of it is gonna be so hard, if not impossible. And so, you know, I think they'll go to yield curve control, and that, when they do that, that means their balance sheet grows more. So that's the ultimate pivot. And, you know, the, the event, people have said to me, \"Well, okay, Larry, you've been saying hyperinflation forever, you've been wrong, ad- admittedly.\" What, what's the trigger event? Well, from the books I've read and everything I've studied, the trigger event for hyperin Print forever, and they're gonna have to print more and more forever. Now, I think five percent of the population, you and me, other people, Austrians, we realize that, but it's gotta get to the point where like thirty or forty or fifty percent of the population realizes that, and they're like, \"Holy shit, we're in this burning fiat house, our money is gonna get wiped out. Sell all my stocks, sell all my bonds, gimme gold, gimme Bitcoin.\" And at that point, those two assets, the prices just go up infinitely against fiat, and there is Everyone knows it won't buy you anything, and it'll buy you less in the future. So it's the-- but it's the psychological recognition of the, that creates a tipping point, right? That, that, that enough people come to that, and there's, there's a law for this. I mean, Gresham's Law, you can Google it, right? I mean, he's a guy from 1500s in, in Britain. It's the good money drives out bad. I mean, people have to realize that the government monetary system is programmed to debase and" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "25:58", "start": 1557.9, "text": "And so, you know, people just dump the money. They don't want the money anymore. They know it's, they, you know, they'll buy anything, they'll buy toilet paper, they'll buy food, they'll buy houses. I mean, you've seen this already to an extent. US housing prices are up twenty percent year on year. I mean, that's the greatest, that's the hugo stinnes trade going on right there. I mean, people are saying to themselves, \"Hey, I can buy this asset, you know, and I can use leverage at three per Some of that, that's a no-brainer, right? So, so it's coming, it's definitely coming, but the issue, you know, with, with each of these waves, more people figure it out, right? So" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:39", "start": 1599.19, "text": "back to the show in a moment. Have you thought about upgrading your Bitcoin security to multi-signature? Unchained Capital can help here. With Unchained Capital, you can bring two hardware wallets and they will do the third key. They'll be the third key co-signer in that scenario, and you can then geographically distribute your keys, giving yourself some more Now, you can set up for free on the website and do it yourself, or they've also got a concierge onboarding program where you can pay upfront, have some hardware wallets shipped to you if you need them, and also have a call to set you up even if you've never held your private keys before. Unchained take that ongoing education seriously also, and there's some ongoing support. So go to unchained dot com, select the concierge onboarding program, use the code Lepard for a discount. And in the world of Bitcoin hardware security, you can't go past CoinK They are specialists and focusing a lot on Bitcoin hardware these days, and they've got their flagship product, the Coldcard. So they've got the MK3 out, and the MK4 is coming soon, which is the new version. Now, there's all sorts of features available on the Coldcard. You can use it in a single signature setup, you can use it as part of a multi-signature setup, you can also use it air-gapped using a, an SD card to move that information back and forth. Although if you're a beginner, you can just directly plug it into your computer and use" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:58", "start": 1677.86, "text": "Wallet or others. Now, with the Coldcard, you can also use all sorts of features like an address explorer to make sure that you actually control that address. So to buy your Coldcard and associated gear, go to coinkite dot com. And in the world of Bitcoin mining, Brains is a Bitcoin mining company through and through. They are providing a range of products and services. They have Brains OS Plus, which is firmware for your ASIC machine. You can install this to stack more sat and help with auto-tuning, which gives you some optimization on your machine. Miner performance giving you more hash rate for your electricity bill, and also with Brains OS Plus, you are helping support adoption of Stratum v2, which is an upgraded Bitcoin mining protocol. Brains also operate Slush Pool, which is the first Bitcoin mining pool that've mined over a million bitcoins, and with them, if you use Brains OS Plus and point your machine to Slush Pool rather, you will receive zero percent pool fees, which is a really cool benefit. So go to brains dot com, that's brains with two i's, and now back To the show with Lawrence. I think that's right, and what we're starting to see is some of the personal finance content creators, whether they're on YouTube or TikTok, I've seen some of them now, and very mainstream ones, we're talking guys with over a million followers or subscribers, and he's saying, \"Yeah, I went out and took out this massive loan because otherwise I didn't wanna just be a, a sitting duck in the burning house of fiat, as you say.\" And so he's saying, \"Oh yeah, I went out and took out a loan, I didn't To buy a property. So I bought a property with, with this loan, as you were saying, because he can access cheap credit. Then it will become a real-- and again, this isn't nice to, I guess, to think about, but really it's going to become a game of haves and have-nots. He who can access very cheap credit will win, and he who cannot will suffer." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "29:45", "start": 1785.23, "text": "That's exactly right, which is just so tragic. I mean, the whole-- This whole damn thing is so tragic. But it just, look, I didn't, I didn't create the" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "29:58", "start": 1797.76, "text": "Seeing it and understanding it, you know, what I've tried to do is just educate people and, you know, help them to understand what they can do to protect themselves, because, you know, the-- and, and, and as, as tragic as it is, I also wanna try and be optimistic, 'cause I think Bitcoiners really are optimistic, and that's one of the fabulous things about them, is that, you know, Bitcoin does fix this. When we get to the other side of this, things are gonna be a lot better. They really are. And in fact, if" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "30:28", "start": 1828.1, "text": "When they do reset to a sound currency, things come back really fast. I mean, people are smart, people are industrious, and if we can do it without killing fifty million people like we did in World War Two, you know, if, if we can do it without kinetic war and death, you know, what really happens is just the wealth shifts hands. It goes from the people who had bonds, you know, they don't-- those bonds are now worthless, to the people who have real assets, and they're much better off relatively, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:53", "start": 1853.14, "text": "Yeah. And so I guess along those lines of Inflation environment are so typically taking out loans because you can borrow the chi- you know, you can borrow the bad money to buy something that's going up. And so I, I think if you look at other examples, and I've done episodes on the show also, so listeners, you can check some of those out, looking at things like, or examples, let's say Zimbabwe, where, in, in a high inflation environment, you're- we're seeing people take out loans to buy things," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:24", "start": 1884.4, "text": "we see, people, you know, event- like, and People are earning money and then as soon as they earn that money, they run and buy things in the store because otherwise, the value just disappears or it, prices are going" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "31:35", "start": 1894.58, "text": "up, prices are going up, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:36", "start": 1896.07, "text": "Yeah. And so in that scenario, I guess part of it is also thinking about what are the likely governmental responses, because eventually at some point, let's say credit markets may tighten up, you may not be able to access cheap credit, or maybe you might be an entrepreneur on, on the premise of, oh, look, I'll be able to roll that loan over to keep my" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:58", "start": 1917.76, "text": "Stacking more houses, if I'm a property entrepreneur, let's say, trying to be a property mogul or whatever. But then what happens is if credit seizes up and they can't get that next loan, then they're in trouble." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "32:08", "start": 1927.89, "text": "Well, that's right, that's right. And, and that's-- and that points to a risk that I would point out of, of getting too over leveraged. You don't wanna get too far out of your skis, right? I mean, if, if suddenly, you know, okay, so you're, you're leveraging properties, you're You got to be careful with the Hugo Stennis trade. I mean, you, you got to make sure you're not gonna lose the assets. I mean, I saw it on Bitcoin, you know, some of the people were, they were following the Plan B model and they were absolutely convinced we were gonna be at a hundred fifty thousand by now, and so they levered up their Bitcoin, you know, and then Huapo, we had another big drawdown, and we all know it's volatile, and they got blown out, you know, and it, it, it's, it's, it Wage and price controls, and he had a, you know, we all wore buttons that said, \"Whip inflation now.\" And, you know, it was kind of stupid, but, but, you know, I mean, and wage and price controls, we all know how that's gonna work. Okay, fine, you know, you, you put in, you put in controls, you're not gonna get anything. You're gonna have shortages, you're gonna have black markets. I mean, this is-- They had wage and price controls in World War II, and, and basically they had to long term sense. I mean, the, the solution is for the government to reset right now, you know? But, I mean, look at our government. I mean, you know, you know, so half of them are drunk. I mean You know, you saw, you saw that Twitter clip from, one of the, one of the representatives speaking the other day. I mean, you know, they, they don't understand what's going on, and they, and they have, they have very little ability, you know, to, to think through what, what the correct solution would be, which would be to reset the currency. and, and that would be the fairest way to get to the other side, but I think that's unlikely." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:04", "start": 2043.96, "text": "Right. And so they can just keep trying to point the finger and blame somebody else for their own problems. And I think this also points to-- I think this is an interesting point, and I'd love for you to touch on this idea, is that we actually need to study economics not just for some kind of theoretical intellectual hobby, but also to perceive the world in a better light and to understand a little bit more about what's going on. I'll give you this example of, as, as I'm sure you're seeing it, and I'm sure listeners are seeing it, is that apparently a bunch of TikTok influencers were given a briefing from the White House on how to basically blame Putin for the gas prices and for inflation. And so this is just an example, but at the same time, if you actually study Austrian economics and you actually try to understand a little bit more about what's going on in the world in a macro sense, from an interest rates point of view, from a monetary point of view, you can actually- We see through that lie a little bit better, wouldn't you say?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "35:01", "start": 2100.6, "text": "Oh, absolutely. I'm, I'm shocked. I wasn't aware of that fact. That's, that's just so, so fitting and so, you know, so descriptive of our times, right? I mean, it's, let's give these people online a way to push our false narrative, right? And, you know, more recently, we've also seen the false narrative, a couple of different government officials came out, Marty Bette had a great tweet about it, you know, that, that government, The inflation problem, which is just a blatant lie and, and, and an attempt to gaslight us. I mean, because the government spending increases the deficit, the increased deficit's not funded because we don't have buyers of our bonds. Therefore, the Fed has to fund it. Therefore, the Fed, Fed has to print the money, and ultimately, ultimately, inflation comes down to the excess money. I mean, the reason we're enduring the inflation we're enduring is because the Fed, you know, created forty-six percent of the money supply, historical money supply, in under two years. I mean, just as a result, you know, in reaction to the COVID thing. So, and, you know, while they've slowed that down, I don't think it's-- I don't think the markets are gonna hold together long before they're gonna be forced to going back to that. And that pivot, when that pivot comes, I think that will be a big building block in the earlier argument we were talking about of when everyone realizes they can never stop, right? I mean, the Fed's like, okay, we had COVID. I mean, and it's convenient. I mean Because it's like, you know, okay, now, now Putin gets to say that, you know, the Ukrainian dog ate my homework, right? I mean, it's not, you know, it's not my stuff that's inflation. It's not the fact that we're running a two or a three billion dollar or trillion dollar deficit that's creating the infla-- and, and monetizing it. That's not what's creating the inflation. Putin did it, you know? And it's just, it's extremely annoying. And, you know, yes, as more and more people become educated, People are, are talking about it. I mean, I did get picked up in Barron's this past weekend, and, and we-- there have been some articles in the Wall Street Journal talking about the dollar losing its reserve currency status. And I have, I will say this, I manage a fund in the gold and silver space. I've never had the, the amount of outreach from mainstream institutional asset managers that I've seen in the last few weeks. I mean, I think that, I think that a, a light really, really, when, when this whole thing came down and we sanctioned the, you know, the, the Russian reserves and, I, you know, I, I think a light went off in an awful lot of the money management community, a big part of the money management community said, \"Oh my God, this is serious. We, we, you know, this inflation issue is serious. It's Persistent and, and the world is changing, and we can't just assume that keeping score in the dollar makes sense anymore because the dollar is going to be debased. It's already been debased, but it's-- and, and so, you know, between there and what we need next, Stefan, is we need the world to realize not only is it gonna be debased, but it's gonna be debased, it can never stop, and that debasement is accelerating. When those three beliefs become wide stream, it's all over. At that point, hyperinflation, 'cause there'll be, there'll be a rush for the exits. I mean, I, you know, I, I did a tweet on, a, a tweet thread on this. I mean, I think, you know, we could wake up some morning and there's, you know, there's no bid in the bond market. You know, and, and, the Fed will be forced to step in and buy those bonds. and, you know, maybe they'll do it quietly, surreptitiously, but I suspect some of it will have to be announced. And when that announcement gets made, that's just another block, another building block that says, \"Okay, here we go, they can't stop.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:42", "start": 2321.75, "text": "So as you were saying, I think a big part of it comes down to government debt being cheap and accessible, and obviously the bond market is an important part of that. And so as you were just" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:53", "start": 2332.92, "text": "Money managers reach out to you and talk about this, in a more of an honest sense, because let's say they can't necessarily benchmark against the US dollar or use that as part of the how they index or benchmark their performance, as an example. And so I think in a similar way, we're seeing a lot of people who just by default, they just do the sixty forty stocks and bonds. But what happens when people wake up and realize, \"Wow, forty percent allocation to government bonds that are just guaranteed to go down?\" Do you think we see a change in that? That behavior, the typical sixty forty stocks and bonds." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "39:27", "start": 2366.74, "text": "I think so. I mean, I think so. I'm not, you know, I'm not really close to the Susie Orman crowd, you know, kind of the day to day people, but I, but I do know some stockbrokers, and I think that, the, you know, they, they all-- I mean, I think their clients are becoming aware of the fact that something's not right, you know, the bonds. I mean, if you've been in a bond, you've been losing money the last year or Destructive year. I mean, the only things that are up this year are natural resources, commodities, oil and gas, and gold stocks. I mean, all the major US stock indices, you know, the Dow, the S&P, the Triple Qs, they're all down. And that's, that's, and, and of course, I know what's going on right now. Everybody's buying the dip, you know, because the typical stock investor post two thousand and eight, the right answer has always been to buy the dip, right? And, and I, and, you know, Lawrence, I was dead ass wrong, but the point is, one of these dips, you're not gonna wanna buy. You know, it's not gonna come back. I happen to think this is the one, but I've thought that before and I've been wrong, so I, I'll caution, you know, don't follow my advice on stocks. But, I mean, one thing's for sure, you know, if we go, if we go to a higher interest rate environment, that's gonna slow down the economy. And also, a higher interest rate environment means that the PE multiples that But I think stocks are in trouble too. And so, you know, when people start getting their statements and they see their statements getting smaller, you know, they call up and they ask questions, right? Well, why am I in this? Why isn't it working? Well, and I know, I know, 'cause I've talked to them, I know what the average financial advisor is saying, \"Oh, this has happened before, be calm, you're okay,\" you know, da da da da. You know, we gotta buy the dip, we gotta hold tight, don't sell in a panic, you know. And, and every single time in the past, they've been right. I mean, I was advising some people to sell stocks in March of twenty twenty. That was a dead-ass wrong move, 'cause they brought it back again. And they may bring this one back again. I mean, it's possible when Powell does this pivot, which he'll be forced into doing, and, you know, they talk about, you know, I mean, one of the things I think they're gonna probably have to do at some point, I think they might actually, they might, they might do yield curve control or they buy the bond market, they might also buy the stock market. I" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "41:53", "start": 2513.12, "text": "You know, it'd be pretty easy to get it. I mean, it's not legally today, the Fed isn't allowed to buy the, the stock market, but wouldn't it be easy? The stock market's down a lot, everybody's IRA is hurting, everyone's clamoring for some, you know, to, to make it go away, make things get better, and so the, you know, Congress passes the, you know, protect the, protect the US IRA act, we are now giving the Federal Reserve the authority to buy the stock market. Okay, fair enough. Stock market would go up, no doubt about it. But in turn, you know, what would they buy the stock market with money that they printed, right? And so the money would continue to get debased. And, you know, I think if they were to take that move, the bond market wouldn't like it at all. So, you know, look, they've got a big bubble based on printing money and low cost money and mispriced money based on ZERPA. There's just no, I mean, there's no, you can't taper that, you just can't. You know, it's either gonna implode or you're gonna print like crazy. And, and by the way, the other reason I think we're closer to the end game is that every time they print, it has to be more, right? Look at the '08 example. You know, from, from '08 to whatever, '11, '12, '13, you know, they printed three trillion, it took 'em a bunch of years" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "43:09", "start": 2589.41, "text": "to print three trillion Out of the gate, you know, so, and, and, and my sense is the next one will be bigger still. I mean, the Fed balance sheet was at eight, now, I mean, my gut is it, it's going to fifteen or twenty on the next one You know, so it's because, you know, think about it as, it's like a balloon. You gotta keep putting air in this bubble, or else the thing's gonna deflate. That's, that's, you know, that's the analysis that I use as I model it. But, you know, when they do each of these things, that's the tough part. We don't know what they'll do when, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:42", "start": 2621.84, "text": "Absolutely. And so as you rightly point out, each time they've gotta do even more, and each time they've gotta print more, bail out more, that just" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:54", "start": 2634.41, "text": "Tumbling down, and this is all a game of how long can they keep the party going, how long can they just keep kicking the can, and, you know, thinking back, and as you were pointing out, that it's almost unjust that, that, you know, they've got the excuse or they're using COVID as an excuse, let's say, or of other things going on in and around the world. I, I wonder how much of the history of some of these big crises really is, it does come down to inflation, and then we're just pointing at something, but really Of that was the monetary mispractice, malfeasance going on." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "44:28", "start": 2668.41, "text": "Well, as, as you're an Austrian economist, so you know it well. I mean, it's a fat pitch for me to hit. I mean, look, monetary mischief has caused a lot of the problems in the world, and that's why, you know, my Twitter handle is fix the money, fix the world. I mean, you know, you-- if you study it carefully, I think you can see that inflation and credit growth and, and, you know, misguided monetary policy has created enormous problems over the years. I 1913, we didn't have a Federal Reserve and gold was money. And, you know, there were problems, there were various crashes, and, you know, companies got into trouble and so on and so forth. But having said that, from 1789 to 1913 was probably the greatest increase in human prosperity in the history of the world ever. And, you know, we did it without a Federal Reserve, we did it without a federal income tax, and, You know, it was when politicians and powerful interests got involved. I mean, remember the Federal Reserve isn't really part of the government, it's a private organization that works for the banks, and so it does what is in the bank's best interest, full stop. So these things, I mean, it, it, it was what was used, it was used to finance the World War One. I mean, they, they founded it in nineteen thirteen, they said, \"Oh yeah, we're only gonna discount bills at, you know, at sound credit at high rates of interest, right?\" Three years later, they broke that. Three years, and they broke it, and they printed a lot of money to create World War One, which then led to the bubble, it led up to twenty, then led to a bigger bubble, it was twenty-nine. So, you know, this is, it's bad stuff. It's not-- and that's the beauty of Bitcoin, right? The beauty of Bitcoin is, you know, human beings by our very nature, we're all flawed, and everyone will, you know, at the margin, cheat. Math doesn't cheat, right? If you have a, if you have a formulaic" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "46:15", "start": 2775.15, "text": "That's the best monetary system ever, completely for sure. It's better than gold. We don't know, we don't even know how much gold we have. I mean, we say, we claim we have eighty-three hundred tons, but, you know, Fort Knox hasn't been audited since the fifties. I mean, I don't think it's there. Ron told-- Ron Paul told me he doesn't think it's there. So it's, it's a mess, it's a mess. This, this monetary stuff is a mess, and, it's gotta get fixed" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "46:45", "start": 2805.11, "text": "Blow up, but fortunately because it'll then lead to it getting fixed, you know, our kids and grandkids won't have to deal with this problem, they'll have some other problem to deal with. I mean, global warming or, you know, whatever it might be at the time, but it's not gonna be this one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:56", "start": 2816.24, "text": "So going into this idea that- We are moving into a multi-currency world, right? So even Jerome Powell, Powell has come out saying the US dollar may not be the only reserve currency. It's implying there's this sort of multi-polar world, or we're seeing, as you, as you said, we're seeing, Saudi Arabia looking to sell China oil denominated in, yuan, and we've seen, I believe, India looking to boost non-dollar trade with Russia also. So we're starting to see the beginning signs of that. Do you have any thoughts on? On what a multi-currency world looks like, and obviously, where do you see Bitcoin playing into that over that medium term?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "47:37", "start": 2856.55, "text": "Yeah. I don't, there are people who are better at macro than me. I mean, I've always been kind of a stock picker and an investor, and I'm good at analyzing companies. I'm not a macro guy. I mean, I would point people to Luke Grohman, who I think is probably the best macro guy in the world right now. You know, I, I think that ultimately, you know, what currency gets used, I mean, Quickly. I mean, even if people like, for example, Russia was buying oil with dollars, but then the minute they got paid, you know, or selling, I'm sorry, selling the oil for, for dollars, but then the minute they got paid in dollars, they turned around and used the dollars to buy gold. They didn't hold the ga-the dollars. They got rid of all their, all their, you know, their dollar bonds and, and a fair amount of their dollar reserves. They, I guess they held onto some, they probably needed them to operate, but remember that you can There is store of value. And, you know, right now the dollar is the most liquid currency, no doubt, it's the reserve currency, but fading. You know, but there will be others. But to me, there'll be all these various currencies, you know, whether it be the rupee or the, you know, the, the won or the yen or the euro or whatever it might be, there'll be a lot of different currencies. But the one that re-what really matters to me is not what currency you're paying in, because you can quickly get paid in a currency and swap" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "48:57", "start": 2937.29, "text": "Where do you want to put your reserves? Where do you want to put your excesses, right? Are you comfortable holding dollars? Are you comfortable holding dollar bonds? Are you comfortable holding Chinese bonds? I wouldn't be, but, you know, but I tell you what, I am comfortable holding-- I am comfortable holding gold, I am comfortable holding Bitcoin, and I think more and more people- Will get and are get, are getting comfortable holding Bitcoin, and what they're gonna realize is that all of these fiat currencies are getting debased. I mean, this is, this is Brett's, you know, you know, dollar milkshake theory, and he's right. I mean, the dollar is still the best of a lot of bad fiat currencies. I don't really care which fiat currency wins. What I think is gonna slowly but surely happen is gold and Bitcoin are gonna become the savings reserve currency. Transactions might get done in lots of different- Things. But again, what do you go back to? You gotta reserve, what do you go back to? I mean, this is Saylor putting Bitcoin on his balance sheet. I think, I think you'll see gold companies putting gold on their balance sheet. You'll see, you know, saving in the thing that they believe in. You'll see Bitcoin companies putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet. And, you know, it's, it's not, you know, happening as fast as I'd like. And in the Bitcoin case, a lot of people argue against that because of the volatility. They're And on the Bitcoin volatility, it's just what we're trying to do is we're trying to, you know, we're trying to put the ocean into a swimming pool, and it's gonna, you know, it's gonna be, it's gonna be volatile, right? I mean, and, and unfortunately, I mean, and I, I think this is truly unfortunate for Bitcoiners, you know, the, the Wall Street guys have gotten involved. I mean, you know, if you look at some of these big exchanges like FTX and other guys, and they're offering enormous amounts of" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "50:45", "start": 3044.54, "text": "And there are derivatives growing up around Bitcoin. I mean, there is paper Bitcoin today, sadly. You know, there are pa- there's, it's, it's not big, it's not, I don't think it's driving the price at all, but you can, you know, people are writing Bitcoin derivatives. I mean, I think, by the way, when this whole thing collapses, I think one of the things that's important, is gonna be important, is to have a new Glass-Steagall, but also to have a, a banning of derivatives, because the minute" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "51:15", "start": 3074.54, "text": "The most money can run the world. Because when, when you can use leverage and you've got more than anyone else, it's like being playing table stakes poker. You know what table stakes poker is, right? The person-- all you can bet is what's on the table. Well, okay, if, if you're at the table and you have the biggest balance sheet, you have the biggest pile of chips, you can have a shit hand, you know, and, and play it out to the end, put everything in, and nobody's able to call you because they don't have the money to And so this is what derivatives are, right? Derivatives can be used to manipulate and shove the prices of these things around. And by the way, who has the biggest hidden balance sheet in the world? The US Fed and the BIS, right? And so, you know, they've used that to control our world They've definitely used that. I mean, that's why, that's why farmers don't make any money. You know, that's why commodity guys have suffered at the expense of financial guys. But guess what? It's changing. You know, there are cracks in the system. You know, the LSE is on its last legs. I mean, they just, basically, the LSE just said, \"You know what? We're not playing by the rules anymore.\" So again, think about everybody who's dealing with the LSE. Wow. They can, you know, they can void my contract, huh? Do I really wanna be trading there? Do I really wanna use that organization? Right? Once again, back to nine tenths." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:39", "start": 3158.96, "text": "Yeah, fascinating point." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "52:40", "start": 3160.46, "text": "So, you know, and the, and trust. I mean, all these financial institutions, it's all based on trust. And, and things are happening which are basically putting a lot of doubt in whether that trust is justified." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:52", "start": 3172.08, "text": "So the way I'm seeing it is, in a fully free market, there is a reason for derivatives to exist. It's perhaps it's just that they've become distorted and too much a part of the system in the fiat world. It's that fiat has enabled this sort of Frankenstein monster of a financial sector to, to balloon to a level beyond what it would otherwise be if we were living on- In a fully free market with fully market chosen money." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "53:19", "start": 3199.34, "text": "Maybe, maybe. I mean, I, I think I, I have to disagree a little bit. I mean, I think that the minute you allow unlimited leverage, you give power to the person with the most money. I think, and, and that in and of itself is inherently evil. I, you know, unless you want the people with the most money to rule the world and control the world and make themselves richer at our expense. you know, look, I think, I think a futures market should exist. I mean, the started to allow farmers and to allow producers to hedge, you know, the price, you know, I mean, the, the, so they know what they were gonna sell their, their product for, and, and for buyers to lock in a price of what they were gonna buy their product for. I mean, I think, I think, you know, futures in connection with legitimate commercial activity should be allowed, but to go beyond that, I think you open a real can of worms that, that has led to some of the problems. But you may be right, if we go to a sound money system," }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "54:15", "start": 3255.38, "text": "Rates, right? I mean, part of the reason why these markets have gotten so big is their carrying costs are zero. I mean, they borrow from the Fed at twenty-five basis points, you can carry an enormous position for almost no money. If you had to put up a legitimate margin and pay legitimate interest rates on that margin, then maybe the, you know, what I'm, what I've described wouldn't be so, so prevalent, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:34", "start": 3274.35, "text": "Yeah, and that's, that's, that's kind of the line of thinking I was going down as well, because it's like, there are, Is that other than derivatives, but to your point, is that, is that we would not see them to this level and to have certain players who have the kind of power that they have right now. And here's the other point, I think, that if you make the wrong bet and you lose, you would lose a lot of money, whereas today, you're, we're living in bailout culture, right? It's government bailout culture, and you can be saved from your irresponsible choices." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "55:11", "start": 3310.72, "text": "Absolutely. And we've seen it over and over again. I mean, LTCM, that blew up Wall Street, They saved all those banks. I mean, they just saved this Chinese billionaire, but we also now learned that JPMorgan held part of his bet. So, you know, Jamie Dimon just got-- The LME just helped out Jamie Dimon. No surprise, right? I mean, there was a-- Apparently, there were over a billion five of losses at JPM on the nickel bet. So, so yeah, I mean, the bailout culture, right? I mean, it's a great game, heads I win, tails you lose. I mean, you know, I've Dude, you know, you should shut up because you wouldn't even be here if the government hadn't bailed out Goldman Sachs in two thousand and eight. I mean, you basically ran a company into bankruptcy and the government bailed you out. So, you know, I'm not really very interested in what you have to say." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:01", "start": 3360.85, "text": "I love that point because it's like we are living in this age of false prophets and false heroes, right? These people become elevated because they were simply winners of the fiat casino, as opposed to genuinely skilled investors, entrepreneurs you know, pe- workers, people who are providing some kind of tangible, genuine value for the world or for the economy or for other people. Instead, we are lauding and raising and praising, these very unimpressive people." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "56:30", "start": 3389.89, "text": "I, I completely agree. I mean, I call them the fiat masters. I mean, there are, there are some people who've gotten insanely rich off of this system, and, it's sad. It, it's sad and it's wrong. it's, it's just sad. I mean, I, as an example, In my earlier days, I respected Warren Buffett as a value investor, but ultimately he really became kind of a player in the fiat system, you know, and a lot of his things were bailed out and, you know, I, look, people, and, you know, I mean, you said, you know, maybe you don't blame the player, blame the game. I mean, if, you know, if the game is set up that way, people wanna, you know, be successful, they're gonna game it, but, it" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:11", "start": 3430.58, "text": "doesn't, still don't make the Billionaires who are very reluctant to criticize China. they're very, supportive of human rights abuses or very silent on human rights abuses because it's lining their pockets and they're not-- they don't wanna rock the boat." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "57:30", "start": 3449.81, "text": "absolutely. Yeah, no, don't, don't get me started on all the narrative wars. I mean, it's-- I don't even wanna go there. I mean, it's so-- there's so much hypocrisy in the world, it's just, it's, it's, it's impossible for sane people to bear it." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "57:45", "start": 3464.86, "text": "That's how Out of the mainstream press, and I just kind of assume it's a lie. you know, somebody's pushing some narrative for some reason. You know, I mean, it's the, the, the, what is it, the Latin, cui bono? You know, who benefits? Yeah, you gotta apply that to all this stuff, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:01", "start": 3480.62, "text": "So in an age when people can't trust media or the propagandists, what comes next? Is it individual creators, is it name brand people who people start to trust? I mean, it seems that that's the shift. I mean, even people are looking at, say, Glenn Greenwald's Substack as in-- as opposed to some publication that he may have written for in the past." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "58:19", "start": 3498.77, "text": "Absolutely, absolutely. No, I think, look, people crave information, they crave the truth. I mean, I think, I think one of Because these big sclerotic organizations are failing, we're getting into a more decentralized thing, and, you know, people know bullshit when they hear it, and that's why there was a great chart that showed, you know, kind of the viewership of Joe Rogan as compared to, you know, all the networks. I mean, you know, Joe's not perfect, but, you know, he's crushing it in terms of getting alternative points of view and, and trying to get honest answers to difficult questions, which you can almost be assured that the mainstream media's not providing. So Yeah, I mean, I think, I think we're, we're heading to, and it's a beautiful thing, right? I mean, the internet started it, you know, it was the Gutenberg's printing press, and then, you know, Bitcoin's bringing it to the monetary sphere, but, you know, I think what we're heading to is a much more decentralized world where people, you know, can pretty quickly realize, are you, are you being honest or aren't you? And, and, you know, people aren't stupid, they're gonna follow the honest people and they're gonna A lot of people are trapped in the old matrix. We need to help them get out of there, you know? We need the orange pill and we need the red pill, you know? it's, it, it's frustrating to me when I hear people arguing about what's going on on TV, and I'm just like, oh god, you know, I, I don't even know where to start." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:44", "start": 3584.49, "text": "So taking that idea of, handing out the orange pills and, helping people, where do you see that we can make the most impact? Where are we going to have" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:58", "start": 3597.86, "text": "Are there certain people to try to reach first, who are more amenable to the idea?" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "01:00:03", "start": 3603.2, "text": "Yeah, well, first of all, I think the millennials as a group in general kinda get it. My kids get it. I mean, they know how they're being screwed. They can't afford to buy a house, they're not making any money, their wages aren't keeping up with inflation. You know, they see these, these greedy boomers who, you know, want all their benefits and, you know, think the existing system is great. So I think millennials are probably, and they're Orange pill, gold people, because I, I think, I think Bitcoin and gold are somewhat compatible. I mean, I think Bitcoin's superior, but I don't think gold's totally inferior. I mean, the, the notion that gold is the enemy, I, I, I dispute that. I think that, you know, fiat's the enemy. we need to drain the fiat system. and people who buy gold, they're buying it for the right reasons. I mean, they're much more aligned with Bitcoiners than most Bitcoiners realize. And so, you know, Five hundred people there and, and it was asked, somebody said, \"H-how many of you hold Bitcoin?\" And half the hands went up. So, you know, gold people are coming around. And, but you gotta remember that, you know, boomers hold a lot of the wealth, and boomers, you know, many boomers are afraid of Bitcoin, and, and, you know, when, when inflation comes, they're gonna go to gold first. And to me, gold is like the gateway drug to, you know, mainlining, mainlining Bitcoin. But, but I, I think, I don't know, I mean, I think, look, the whole, the whole nation needs to be saved, you know? I think, I think the most important thing we can do as, as individuals, assuming we wanna get this thing going as quickly as possible so that our kids and grandkids enjoy better lives, is to just everybody in our sphere of influence try and spend the time to help them see and understand and educate them that the fundamental problem isn't the base layer of money, and that if we solve this problem, things will get much better. That's what I've been trying to do, that's why I'm such a loud mouth on Twitter and why I'm active in these audio interviews and everything else. I mean, you know, I'm not, I'm not doing this for the money, I'm, I'm doing, I'm doing it because I wanna fix the system. The system's badly broken, I think it's very unfair." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:05", "start": 3725.58, "text": "Fantastic, I think you, put it perfectly just there. So, let's wrap it up here, and for listeners who wanna find you online, where can they find you" }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "01:02:20", "start": 3740.95, "text": "Of Equity Management Associates, Lawrence Lepard, Burning House, Fiat. I made two Edward Mark Alpha the number two dot com, you can download the PDFs. And then I'm, I'm really active on Twitter, as I said, I'm a loudmouth. So on Twitter, I'm at Lawrence Lepard, just, my name spelled out, and you can follow me there. And I would give a shout out to Twitter. I can't believe Twitter's free. I mean, I'm sure you feel the same way. I mean, the amount of information So I, you know, those are kind of the two, two ways to access me. And I, and I try to respond to every DM I get, and I try to respond to comments as much as possible, but I, you know, I got a day job too, so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:01", "start": 3781.24, "text": "Fantastic. Well, thank you, Lawrence." }, { "speaker": "of_equity_management_associates", "time": "01:03:02", "start": 3782.82, "text": "Oh, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed it. obviously, you're doing great stuff, and a lot of respect. So" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:08", "start": 3788.33, "text": "And if you're enjoying the show, remember you can really help me out by leaving a review on the platforms, as well as sharing it with your family and friends so they too can learn about Bitcoin. Get the show notes at stephanelivera dot com. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }