{ "episodeId": "SLP432", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "stephan_livera": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "guest", "tag": "STEPHAN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.53, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Today's episode is about the great debt spiral of companies and governments around the world. Now, message for the sponsors of the show, are you still using a plain old block explorer? Mempool.space is the best Bitcoin block explorer. Explorer and it shows you multiple layers of the Bitcoin ecosystem. So this shows you Bitcoin on chain, it can show you the Lightning Network, you can see the Biscuit markets on there also. It's a really comprehensive Bitcoin explorer, you can see things from the mempool to the blockchain to second layer networks. Now with mempool dot space, it's free and open source for the community to use and operate. You can even host it for yourself, and this might be something you use to give yourself some more privacy rather than looking up on a public instance. Now, if you are an enterprise, Mempool dot space offers customized mempool instances with your company's branding. So if you're interested to learn more, you can find out at mempool dot space slash enterprise. Now, a common phenomenon I've heard of in the space is people who have bought some Bitcoin, but they leave it on an exchange or with a custodian. Unchained Capital can help you take those coins off the exchange into your own multi-signature vault. Now, why is this useful? With a multi-signature vault, you are removing single points of failure. And done correctly, you still hold the keys in such a way that you can spend without having to trust anybody else. Unchained Capital can help you with this, they've got a concierge onboarding program. You pay upfront, they send you the hardware if you need it, and you have a call to walk you through this process, so they make it easy for you even if you've never held your own private keys before. So if you are interested in this service, go to unchained dot com slash concierge, use the code lavera for a discount there. Now, when it comes to" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:00", "start": 120.02, "text": "to go. They have a range of products, most notably the Coldcard MK4. This is a little device, it looks like a calculator, but actually it can store your Bitcoin private keys. You can initialize this device completely offline, it will generate those private keys for you, and then you can use it to sign Bitcoin transactions. Now, the cool part is you can do this with an air gap, meaning your Coldcard doesn't have to touch the computer. You can use a micro SD card to move things back and forth, or if it's a lower security setup, you could even use the NFC feature function, which is available on wallets such as Nunchuk. So if you're interested to get your coldcard or TapSino or SatCard and some other, gear, go and find that over at coinkite dot com. Use code Livera for a discount on your cold cards. Now today's episode is with James Lavish. He's the author of The Informationist, he writes an awesome newsletter, and I thought it would be great to get him on to have a chat about his views on the world of macro. James," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "02:57", "start": 177.04, "text": "welcome to the show. thank you for having me on, Stefan. It's, I'm a big fan and, and happy to be here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:03", "start": 182.76, "text": "Yeah, James, I'm a fan of your work. I've been, loving some of your work that you're putting out on the Informationist, which is your newsletter. So listeners, make sure you check out James's newsletter, as well as some of your commentary. So, wanted to, you know, have a chat with you just, you know, broadly about what's going on," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:27", "start": 206.62, "text": "So, wait, you" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "03:27", "start": 207.42, "text": "think" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:28", "start": 207.92, "text": "there's," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "03:28", "start": 208.18, "text": "there's something going on? Is there, is there anything going on in the macro world? Oh, well, we, we better check." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:34", "start": 213.82, "text": "But I mean, I think probably the, you know, the big two items recently are the Fed and the BOE, which both have raised rates by seventy-five bips. So maybe let's start there. What's, your initial reaction there with, central banks raising rates? With each of those? Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "03:50", "start": 229.71, "text": "Well, you know, first of all, I'm not surprised at all" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "03:56", "start": 236.26, "text": "I had some conflicting data and, and nothing that really stands out enough for them to, to come out to say that they may pause, you know? the, the thing is, they, they, they've got these, they, they've got a few, readings that they're looking at, obviously the CPI, and that's been super hot. unemployment's been, it's been super low, it's, it's at near all-time lows, and, And, y-you know, they're, they're watching these indicators, unfortunately they, they are lagging, we all know that, and, we can talk about that in a bit, but the, the Fed has, the, you know, they have two mandates, and that's, maintaining price stability and, and trying to maintain full employment. So, but the first one is, is primary, and so they've got to get inflation down, they know this, and they also, they're not stupid, they know that this is a little bit of a supply issue, Inflation down by crushing demand, they'll do it, and that's kind of what, what their mandate is right now. So I think, reading from what, what, what I heard yesterday And we'll get into all this with the Treasury and bonds and the issue with the, you know, the, the debt spiral that we're, we're all currently in. But, the issue with the Fed is they have to raise rates super fast and, and pretty high, and, and then pause. We know they have to do this because of the debt, and we can get into that in a minute, but what I think they're going to do is they're gonna raise fast, hard and fast, as quickly as they can. We're gonna get another fifty basis points in, in December, and we could get another fifty basis points in January, and then they're, they'll step off, step back, and see where we're at. The only thing that would change that is either we get a, a huge change, a reversal in the CPI or employment numbers, okay? Or, In the Treasury market. Now, the Treasury market has been a little bit problematic lately. It hasn't broken, it hasn't been, you know, disorderly quite yet, but we are starting to see signs that, that, that I think is causing the Fed to take a, a second look and, and his comments yesterday, kind of feed into what we're-- what I'm thinking. Now, Stephan, everything I say is- Is my opinion, unless I, I give you a fact of, of numbers or, or, you know, but we get a lot of people out there who say, \"This is what they're gonna do,\" you know, \"This is my opinion.\" And that goes, yeah, yeah. And I, yeah. And so I think from the commentary yesterday, we heard, we heard Powell say, \"Look, we have, our danger is not raising fast enough and letting inflation get entrenched and out of control. That's the danger.\" And so he's looking at that and thinking, \"Well I've got the tools, and he even said it. He said, \"If I over-tighten, I've got the tools to fix that. But if I don't tighten enough, I don't have the tools to fix it if it spirals out of control.\" And entrenched inflation is something that it's very difficult to get out of, out of the system, right? So he's thinking, \"Well, if I raise really fast, really hard, and it looks like we're heading into a recession or we're, we are in a recession, well, I can always print more money," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "07:22", "start": 441.7, "text": "I can stimulate the economy pretty, pretty quickly if I do that. And we saw them do that in March of twenty twenty, we saw them do it in two thousand and eight. It, it is, it is a very, effective approach. The problem is, it's also a very expensive approach. And so we're, we're seeing now, we're getting into the spot where, I mean, we're at near QE infinity, and, you know, one or two more cycles, and we're just gonna have to print to oblivion. So that's kind of how- I'm seeing it right now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:53", "start": 472.68, "text": "Yeah, yeah. And so when you say we're at one or two more cycles and we're gonna have to print to infinity, are you referring to, like, the broader cycles when you say that, or you mean like a short term cycle?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "08:03", "start": 483.05, "text": "Well, no, I'm talking about the broader cycles, but those, those broader cycles are getting-- The, the, the interim is getting shorter and shorter, right? Yeah. So, you know, two thousand eight-- Yeah, nineteen ninety-eight to two thousand, actually, two thousand, two thousand one to two thousand eight 2020 and now here we are. Wh-When's the next cycle going to be? So it's hard to tell, but they're getting shorter. And the reason for that is the, the amount of, the sheer amount of debt that's on all these balance sheets. So back in 2008, we had the, the financial crisis, which was a commercial banking pr-crisis and, and a mortgage banking crisis, right? So what did we do? We, we stabilized those companies by printing and, and- And rescuing them, right? And so we kicked that debt up to the sovereign level, and now we, here we are in the sovereigns, and basically every G7 that, every G7 is now carrying debt to GDP over a hundred percent, except for Germany. And there, they have their own issue because they're part of the EU and the Eurozone, and, you know, you and I had, chatted briefly on, on, DM about target two, and yeah, that's gonna be a problem. Because they have, they have structural issues there. So going, going back to what you were saying about the UK, well, and they just raised rates this morning, seventy-five basis points, well, they're still way behind, the US, you know, a full percentage point behind, right now the US, and they've got inflation that's above the US. It's, it's over ten percent, and they're expecting to come in at eleven percent, yet, yet, their, the Bank of England is saying, you know, don't-- We think that the- The market is overestimating the, the number of hikes that we're going to do and the terminal rate, the, the highest rate that we get to in this hiking cycle. And so you're seeing then, instead of, you know, yesterday we raised rates at-- in the US, and then the UK raises rates, well, that should kind of balance out, right? So you should see in the currency, in the British pound, that should balance out, but the pound was down-- is down today. Against a dollar, and the reason is because of exactly that, is the, the Bank of England is saying, \"Well, we're not gonna raise as much as the Fed is gonna raise, basically.\" And so then you get into forward interest rate parity, and basically the, the bottom line is if, if interest rates are higher in the US than they are in the UK, well, there, there's gotta, there's gotta be a balancing factor there, and that balancing factor is the currency. And we can get into that if you want, but don't wanna over- Well, your, your listeners, but yeah, sure," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:53", "start": 653.07, "text": "sure. So I think the broader context as well is, as you mentioned, this debt spiral, right? This is just the broader, if we zoom out, that's the fundamental problem that a lot of these governments have so much debt, and it's over a hundred percent in many cases, except for Germany, as you said, and they're getting into a situation where they are going to have to pay a lot of money for that debt, aren't they?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "11:15", "start": 674.56, "text": "Yeah, and so, you know, what, what, what I think is going to Has a problem, it's called the Treasury, and the Treasury has issued so much debt. We have thirty-one trillion dollars of debt here in the United States, right? So the problem with that is, is that we're operating at a deficit. So if you, we, the, so the Congressional Budget Office, and they, they come up with a budget, and you can see it online, and, and they tell you exactly what they expect, and it's kind of a rosy picture for, for what we have. And even then, they're looking through rosy- Rose-colored glasses, let's put it that way, and the picture isn't, isn't even rosy. And so the problem is that we're operating in a deficit. And so as we continue to operate in a deficit, we have to continue to issue more debt to meet the margin between our tax base and our spending. So to, to make it easy for your listeners, basically, you know, you're, if you're, if you're a company and you aren't covering your debt Debt payments, right? So your, your interest payments, you're, you're using, you're, you're, you're generating revenues, and off those revenues, you've got your spending, and, one of your major line items is your debt, your, your interest on your debt, if you're, a, you know, a typical company. And, and if you're not covering that, that interest with your earnings, then you have to borrow more, and you're known as a zombie company, right? So you're basically just Holding your house up with stilts and hoping that you can eventually grow fast enough and generate enough income to monetize, to pay down that debt. But it's very difficult to get out of that situation as a zombie company. Well, we have the same exact situation in the sovereigns. And so, like we were talking about with the G7s, all the G7s are operating as, as, as zombies except for Germany. But Germany again has their own issue because, A lot of Europe is operating as zombies and that is on their collective balance sheet in the ECB. So, but, so for the US, as we're printing more money to, to monetize, to, to, to close that gap basically, what we're doing is we're issuing debt, right? And we're issuing more and more debt in order to make up that margin, right? But the problem is right now, interest rates are going higher So as we issue more debt, the interest payments on the totality of our debt is going up, and as we enter this recession and the stock market is, has completely rolled over, the bond market has rolled over, well, the problem is that our tax base is also rolling over, right? So the, the Congressional Budget Office estimated this year that they would take in about four point eight trillion dollars of taxes, right? But we know that that's a high estimate because that was all The balances back in the spring that they would expect those, those, capital gains taxes, the corporate, taxes, the, the individual taxes, those are all coming down, so we know that. And at the same time, spending is going up, right? We just had a three hundred billion dollars some odd, student loan forgiveness package. Who's gonna pay for that? Well, the, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna issue debt in order to do that, in order to, to, to meet that That, that deficit. So you've got three point seven trillion dollars of spending on mandatory programs, so security, Medicare, Medicaid, right? So these are, these are programs that are, that are signed into legislation that can't be changed, and you've got about eight hundred billion dollars worth of defense spending. So you do the math out, four point eight trillion dollars of taxes Minus three point seven trillion dollars of entitlements, minus eight hundred billion dollars of defense, and you're left with three hundred billion dollars. Well, the problem is they're also estimating that our, our, our interest payments are four hundred billion dollars. So you're a hundred billion dollars in the hole. You're, you're literally a, a zombie Company, if you, you know, as a, as a zombie go-government, yeah. So exactly. But at the same time, we just talked about the, the tax base is coming down, and the, the CBO just put out a, a report that said that they expect that the, the Treasury expects to issue more debt this, this quarter, and instead of Five hundred and some odd trillion, it's seven hundred, billion, it's seven hundred billion. So the, the number is just rising quickly, and we are in a debt spiral. So the, the obvious question is, well Hold on, does that mean that we're gonna collapse? Is the currency going to collapse? Is the treasury gonna collapse? And the answer is no. The, the US Treasury is the base, it's the base asset of the, the world, right? Of, it's a global reserve asset. So It needs to maintain liquidity, it needs to be in a healthy, healthy market, or else the entire world, the financial world, collapses. So they'll do what they need to do to make sure that it, that it maintains credibility. That's number one. Number two, what about all the other countries? Well, if you are in a country that, that you-- your debt is denominated in your own currency, well, you can just print more money to, in order to make sure that you can issue more debt, 'cause you could just buy your debt. Look at Japan, for instance. They, they have two hundred and fifty percent debt to GDP. So this is a long answer, and I'm sorry, I'm just dumping a lot of information. So, but" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:17", "start": 1037.48, "text": "yeah, sure, sure. So let's, let me, let me take a second and just summarize some of the key points and In simple terms, as, as I understand it. So if we think of the government just like you would a normal budget, they've got money that they take in, tax revenue generally, and money they're paying out, as you said, these mandatory programs, whether it's welfare state, warfare state, you name it. And on top of that, they're paying interest out. Now, there's this entity in the US called the CBO, Congressional Budget Office, they are estimating that, hey, we're gonna take in four point eight trillion in tax, but on their outgoing side, and as you And, if prices are coming down, there may not be that many capital gains value taxes that, the government is gonna push or put onto people. And so it basically, we're telling a story here where the government is getting squeezed in a way, its margins are getting squeezed and eventually they're going negative because they're just simply, quite simply, spending more than they're earning. That's just like in very simple terms." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "18:14", "start": 1093.74, "text": "Yeah. So what's the choice? So what do you do? You can either, you can either have austerity, right? So spend less. Well, we only Law. Like these are mandatory payments, right? But there's a lot of other stuff in, that, that they're paying for that are, you know, discretionary spending, right? Outside of, outside of the military. So we're over a trillion dollars in deficit, right? So you can either cut spending, or, which is obviously that's, that's not politically, you know, favorable. Nobody likes to have their programs cut. So you, that, that's, no politician wants to do that, number one. Number two You can, raise taxes. Also, not typically, favorable. Not a popular thing. But, right, not a popular thing unless you only tax the one percent. But, but the other thing is that, that, that actually impacts productivity long term, right? So it winds up your, your GDP goes down long term if you raise taxes. I-, it then your tax base goes lower and it doesn't really, it's not really effective. And then, so the third thing is just issue more debt. That's the other, that's the other option. And that's the easiest option, and that's the one that we choose every single time. So, of course, there's a fourth option, which is default, but they're not going to do that. You know, we have, again, we, we, our, our debt is, is based in our currency, so we can just issue more debt, and if we need to, we can buy it. It's just, it's as simple as that. Monetize your own debt." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:43", "start": 1182.78, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, I know, as simple as that, right? And of course, what Let's say they're in the, yeah, they're in the EU as an example, or but the US obviously has this, this privilege, and I guess the other factor longer term though, is if you are a country doing that, the locals are gonna eventually decide, you know what, I'm gonna start storing my value somewhere else, or I'm gonna-- We get this, monetary hot potatoes phenomenon, because people decide, okay, I've earned my money and I, I understand, in Argentina, this is a common thing, where people earn their money and then they straight Prices are going up, it, it, very, very soon. So it's like hot potatoes, you just buy things and quickly, you know, and I think the broader question as well as to why that kind of scenario sustains or keeps going is maybe, yes, there are expectations about a certain level of welfare state or a certain size of the government, and if people aren't willing to accept a smaller size of the government, then they end up having social disorder and things happen like this, and maybe they get forced, maybe you can either choose austerity And take the pain now when it's less bad or wait till it gets really bad and it's forced on you." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "20:57", "start": 1257.15, "text": "That's right, that's exactly right. So, and, you know, we're-- And it's kind of what we're seeing in Europe right now, right? So in Europe, they're, they have an energy crisis. They don't, they don't have their own energy, they're not energy independent. So the, the cost of inputs, the, they're, they're rising, they've risen rapidly this year, and so they have massive inflation out there and in the Area. so the problem is, what do they do? Do they, do, do they, institute austerity and, or do they put limits on, on how much power you can use? do they put price limits on, on goods? I mean, that, that, these things don't work, you know this. Anybody who's, who studied Austrian economics know, know that these things don't work. And so the other choice is to obviously print money. I mean They're, they're going to have to go back to the printer. So what they're doing in, in, in, Europe right now, and, you know, with the TARGET II, to circle back to that, look, the, the TARGET II is, it's a, it's, it's basically a settlement, a system, it's a payment system between the Eurozone at central banks, and they, they settle their cross border payments, right? At the end of each business day, all the claims and liabilities are cleared and the, and they're, and they're They're put on the, on what's known as a target two balance sheet, right? And so each national central bank, like Italy central bank or Germany central bank or Greek central bank, they'll have a, you know, a debit or a credit on that target two balance sheet, right? but the other thing is that The, the Target 2 also settles all of the ECB monetary operations, right? So their, their policy, procedures. So, I mean, we have a similar system here in, in the US for our, our Fed branches. It's, it's, I think it's called the interdistrict settlement account, but the, the difference is the balances between the reserve banks here are, are resolved. They're, they're actually settled, regularly. But in Target 2, there's, there's no mechanism for settlement. Between the Eurozone central banks, and so they're just calculated and, and noted. So if you, if you look at a chart, and I, and I wrote a newsletter all about this You can see that the target, the target two balances for Germany are, you know, they're, they're owed, over a trillion dollars from the other banks, and there, there, there's a couple that are in positive territory, but there's nobody near Germany, right? And Italy, they actually, they, they have a negative balance of, of over six hundred billion dollars, right? So The problem is, there's nothing there to, to force this settlement, and it's just growing and growing and growing. And then you've got, you know, Christine Lagarde comes out, the ECB, head, she comes out and says, \"Oh, we've got these, these new tools that we're going to use to make sure that as we raise interest rates, that the, you know, the weaker economies aren't negatively impacted to the point of failure, right? So Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, like...\" They're, they're making sure that their bonds don't, the, the interest rates on those bonds don't rise too fast. Well, how do they do that? They buy those bonds to keep those interest rates low. It's what we're seeing in Japan right now, right? But how do they do that? Well, they use the, that target two balance sheet and they basically borrow from Germany in order to do this, and they've been doing it relentlessly. And even the ECB itself owes Germany over three hundred billion dollars. Right? Just think about that. That's just, that's kind of perverse, right? That's insane. So, yeah, it's insane. And so that's just gonna-- and that just continues on until it doesn't. And, you know, we, we have a saying, on Wall Street, and it, it kind of goes like this: If you owe the bank a hundred thousand dollars, that's your problem. But if you owe the bank a hundred million dollars, well, that's the bank's problem, right? So, you know, in, in, you know, looking at this right now, Germany has a problem, right? So bank-- the Germany has the problem. They've- They have, they've, they've lent over trillion dollars to these other countries, and that's, that's going to double rapidly and then triple. And eventually, I think, honestly, Stefan, I think they just get fed up with it and they realize they're never gonna be paid back, you know? And they're the only one or one of the only ones who is running a, a, a, you know, current Surplus and everybody else is running a deficit that they're, they're just gonna, they're gonna walk away, eventually just gonna cut their losses and walk away. So, yeah. I don't know when that happens, but, yeah. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:00", "start": 1560.29, "text": "It reminds me of, let's say you're, you're a bank and, somebody hasn't made their loan repayments to you, and then you, the bank, you may have a collections team or, you know, some team who has to assess, okay, is this guy gonna pay me back or not? And eventually Politically, you just, you can't just keep lending to them, you have to cut them off at some point. Yeah, yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "26:23", "start": 1582.55, "text": "you just cut, cut the line of credit." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:24", "start": 1584.37, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, and so that's- Yeah, it's an open, it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "26:26", "start": 1586.45, "text": "an, it's an open line of credit," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:28", "start": 1587.95, "text": "right? So if you're the" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "26:29", "start": 1588.81, "text": "bank, what would you do?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:30", "start": 1590.49, "text": "Yeah. Right? Exactly. And so Germany right now, and I'm sure as many Germans are unfortunately going through, their industry is struggling with the energy crisis that they're going through, politically it must be getting harder" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:48", "start": 1608.22, "text": "You know, like, and, and maybe that's a good question for people who are in Germany in terms of what's the political climate there. Like, are Germans okay with just funding the rest of the EU? Like, do they even feel a sense of European, ness, right? Because I can understand where maybe in some cases where maybe there's like a national identity, maybe there's a national pride, and they're sort of saying, \"Yes, you know, we'll fund them because they're our countrymen.\" But eventually that breaks down too, right? Because Peep, there are people inside Italy who don't even wanna be in the same country with each other, or, you know, let alone Germany, not necessarily feeling, you know, Germans who may not feel like they wanna subsidize the rest of Europe." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "27:27", "start": 1646.93, "text": "Yeah, yeah, and that's, that's exactly right. So eventually, it, it, it breaks up. They, eventually, they just get tired of it. And, you know, we'll have to see what happens with, with winter this year and how, how much that the energy crisis impacts them. Maybe they skate year. But as this, the, it just, the debt isn't getting any better, right? I mean, they're, they're going to, they're gonna continue to raise rates and, and eventually the, and you know what, that happens, it, is, it, it, it, it lowers your productivity, it lowers your GDP, so it lowers your tax base. But they're already operating, collectively above a hundred percent You know, debt to GDP, so that's only going to grow. It's very difficult to pay down debt once you're above a hundred percent. And, Lynn Alden talks about this, and, you know, and she explains it very well in that, look, you, you're crowding out balance sheets, right? So who's going to buy that? When you have a hundred plus percent debt to GDP, who is big enough? Like, what companies, what countries are big enough to buy that debt? That and swallow it all, and that's, that's the problem, is that you start crowding out a lot of balance sheets that just can't take on any more." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:53", "start": 1733.13, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "28:53", "start": 1733.41, "text": "And which is exactly what we're seeing in the United States right now, which is why, you know, Janet, Yellen is, she's, she's come out and said, \"We're looking at ways to be sure that the Treasury market remains orderly.\" Yeah. And what she means by that is it remains liquid." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:11", "start": 1750.75, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Now, the lead sponsor of the show One Bitcoin. If you are listening to shows about Bitcoin but you haven't taken that first step, or perhaps you have a friend or a family member who hasn't taken that first step, swan dot com slash lavera is the site to go. You will get a free ten dollars for signing up. 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So one key is held on your device, another is held on Blockstream servers, protecting your wallet with two-factor authentication. Now, additionally, there is a time lock or a third backup key to ensure that you always retain full ownership of your funds. Now, multi-signature is an option, you can choose to use it in single-signature mode if you wish. Also, Blockstream Green is It's integrated with hardware wallets such as Blockstream, Jade, Ledger, or Trezor devices, so you get the best of both worlds. You can have cold storage with your private keys combined with Blockstream's suite of features and security. So it's available for iOS, Android, or desktop. Go to blockstream.com/green. And now back to the show with James. Right, as in there are enough, bagholders willing to buy and hold the bonds of that government. And I noticed one other thing that comes through in some of your news- Letter posts is this notion that in some cases, sadly, there are people who get forced to become a bagholder. So in some cases, pension funds, in some case, everyday individuals who have no idea what that pension fund is doing with their retirement savings, it's actually invested in government bonds, and so the government is able to, let's say, either forcibly or do it in a way where maybe they're not forced, but they don't really understand that that's the default policy, that's the default, and so a lot of people end up being bagholders. Without knowing it or without a choice." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "31:47", "start": 1906.59, "text": "Yeah, and that's, you know, that's the thing is that people say, \"Well, who is buying these bonds? Who would buy bonds when they're at one percent or in Germany, you know, or in Europe when they're at-- when they're running negative yields, you know? Who would buy those?\" Well, just exactly what you just said, there are mandates in these funds that, hey, look, if you're a bond fund, you have to own bonds, you have to own a certain amount of government bonds, sovereign That's just it's in your investment mandate. Then if you're a pension fund, you know, it's been the sixty forty portfolio, it's been, it's been very effective over, decades in order to meet that, your, your liabilities. So when you think about a pension fund, it's, it's basically, i-i-it's a fund that's set up to make payments to its members when they retire, right? So it becomes a, a, a stream team of, of liabilities, future liabilities. So when you're, when you're a pension fund, you have to plan for that. Well, it's worked for many years until this year when everything went upside down and all of a sudden these, these bonds are worth far less than they were. They're down thirty plus percent this year, on average, in the United States. And so, you know, these pension funds are trying, they're struggling to figure out what to do. And so we saw what happened in the UK Okay. And that's, and that's a function of, the UK pension crisis is a function of all this indebtedness. You know, if you just go down the line of what, what happened, like we're saying, the, the, the pension fund needs to make these future payments, and they have to plan for that. Well, they only have certain assets that they can invest in, right? So they're not, they're not investing in NFTs, right? So they're investing in, they're investing in real estate and, and, and equities and, Bonds and, but they've got a certain amount that they, of risk they can take on, and they've got a certain amount of, of volatility they can take on, and for many years, the lowest volatility and lowest risk instrument ha-has been bonds, right? Especially sovereigns. And so they bought those, but the, the interest rates have been manipulated so low, and held so low by central banks for so long that they couldn't generate enough growth and income To meet those future liabilities. So what did they do? Well, they used what's called liability driven instruments to, to meet that margin. And those-- So, you know, Stephan, those aren't bad in and of its-- in and of themselves. They're just swaps. And swaps can be great because they can help you hedge out certain risks. If you have a floating rate interest, risk in one of your investments, for instance, okay? So say you have a, a real estate investment that's floated, it's a floating rate. Well, what-- you, you can hedge that out with a, with a fixed interest rate that you know you can plan around, okay? Using one of these swaps, these liability-driven, instruments. Or if you have a currency, exposure, you can hedge that- That out, right? So that's good, but it opens the door, being a swap, it opens the door that you only have to put down so much collateral to own that swap, right? And, you know, when I was, when I was running, my hedge fund and, and doing swaps for, risk arbitrage, we could put down five, six percent on, on those and lever up twenty to one on those if we wanted to. And just think about that, right? So you're levered twenty to one and you've got this, this only five percent collateral. Well, I won't get into the math 'cause it's, I don't wanna get too complicated here, but the bottom line is, in the UK A few weeks ago, when, the new finance minister came out with this, this unfunded tax plan, this huge tax reduction that was unfunded, like it, it shocked the market. And so investors, looked at that and said, \"Well, these, these bonds, the only way they're going to be able to pay for that is by issuing a whole bunch of new debt, like massive amounts of debt, and these bonds that I own are gonna be worth way less. So I'm going to sell these, right?\" So Investors started selling gilts. Well, what happened was you had these, pension funds who were using these LDIs and then leveraging them up in order to get a better return, right? So if you get, instead of getting a one point five percent return, if you levered it up Three to one, four to one, five to one, you can get a seven, eight, ten percent return on that, right? So, well, net out your cost of the, the leverage, but suffice to say, you can get a better return, and that's what they were doing to try to meet those future liabilities. But as these-- as investors sold those gilts, they went down, they went be-- beyond that s-- that point that would trigger a margin call for the UK pensions, and then those pensions got a margin call and had to sell the gilts. So it kind of snowballed, right? And the Bank of England stepped in because the pension funds basically went to the Bank of England and said, \"Hey, look, if you don't, if you don't step in, we're literally going to default, we're gonna be bankrupt this afternoon.\" And so they did, they stepped in and bought gilts in order to hold that price at a certain point. Yeah. It's madness. At the same time that there's, that they're raising rates and trying to sell the, the gilts themselves off their own balance sheet. So" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:33", "start": 2253.14, "text": "yeah It is kind of crazy, and I think, let's say the parallel from the, Bitcoin or crypto world is, I'm sure people are familiar with platforms like BitMEX, and people joke about, \"Oh, you got wrecked on leverage on BitMEX,\" but now we're kind of in this weird situation where these big pension funds are effectively getting wrecked on leverage, and they need someone to step in and bail them out, and maybe it's not a direct bailout, but it's more like an indirect form, but it's quite an unfortunate, It's, it's people wanted a certain level of stability, right? They just wanted this idea of, oh, I just put this money away, the pension fund will just give me that eight percent return, and by the time I'm ready to retire, oh, the money's there for me. And they've got either an annuity for me, or they have, right, the value of my policy or my plan has risen to the level that now I can retire on it. And so it's like society just bet on that idea, right? Like they just bet on this idea that they could just" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:34", "start": 2314.12, "text": "Not even thinking about inflation here. In perpetuity, right? Yeah. Right? Yeah. And they just kind of thought, \"Well, yeah, you know what? We can do that.\" But at the same time, right? That's one side of it. And then at the same time, you have these central banks who are playing this kind of up and down game where, you know, historically, people-- When in the time of Benanke, they used to call it the Benanke put, right? There, there was this idea that, \"Oh, see, Benanke will save me," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:04", "start": 2344.36, "text": "And the financial market just traded things." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "39:07", "start": 2346.52, "text": "And now it's, everybody's expecting it. That's the, that's the problem, is that they've conditioned the markets, all, all of these major developed markets, they've conditioned them to expect the put. And so the equity markets are, are, you can see them, they're, they're, they're like buying ahead of every, every word that Powell says or Lagarde says, they're like, \"Is, is the, is the put coming? \" Because they want to get ahead of it, because they know once that put comes, they As long as it gets into the broader money supply, it's inflationary, and asset prices go up, they know that. So that's the problem they've conditioned it. But going back to what you're saying is, you know, yeah, it's, it's sick, Stephan, it's sick that the, these, you know, these pensioners, and hey, God bless you, if you have a pension, man, what a deal. Like I don't, Gen X doesn't have a pension from, by and large, and, you know, my kids aren't gonna have You know, you bought into, you trusted, you, you believed this. Well, it almost got blown up, number one. Number two, it is getting blown up because it doesn't matter, you're, you're going to get, get paid back these, these pension dollars that aren't going to be worth anything near what you thought they were going to be. So if you thought that you could retire on half a million or, you know, a million dollars worth of future pension payments, probably not, because the, the, there's so the, the infla- Inflation is, i-is happening so rapidly. I mean, I put out a post the other day, it's like, if I remember the numbers correctly, it was in five years with five percent inflation, if you don't get a raise, you either need a twenty-eight percent pay raise or you need to work an extra forty hours a week. So if you work forty hours a week and there's five percent inflation for five years, you need to work a whole extra week every month. It's crazy. So it's nuts, like, that's just, it's so wrong Which is why you and I and others are, are so vocal about the fact that we have to fix this problem. And the o-the one thing that we see, the one, the one light, the shining light that we see that could fix so many of these issues. Will it fix them all? No, there are always bad actors everywhere, but Bitcoin can fix these, you know? And if we could just somehow get on that parallel path of using Bitcoin as a reserve asset, you know, I think, I think that a lot of these problems Problems can be fixed, the indebtedness can be, you know, we can bring that way down. So it's hope, anyways. Right, right. So all this, all this turmoil, all this turmoil we're talking about, at least it's hope." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:46", "start": 2506.08, "text": "Yeah. And I think we're, we're still extremely early in the journey because even people who hold Bitcoin, they may be seeing it more like, \"Oh, I'll just put a, you know, a small speculative sort of punt into Bitcoin,\" when we haven't seen it, the paradigm shift enough to where people are actually pricing in At least at scale, right? There are small pockets or examples I could give you where people literally price in Bitcoin and not just like fiat convert at the time, like actually price the service in Bitcoin. Like that's a very, very small- Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "42:17", "start": 2537.1, "text": "It's kind of like, it's kind of like when you, when you learn a new language, are you thinking in that new language or are you thinking your language, translating it and then translating it back, right? So yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:27", "start": 2547.31, "text": "that's" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "42:27", "start": 2547.49, "text": "the same kind of concept, yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:29", "start": 2549.15, "text": "Exactly. And I think that's actually something, you know, if you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:34", "start": 2554.24, "text": "For you and I and people like that to actually try at least to think in Bitcoin terms, right? So if you're spending, and so what I might do is I'll look at the sats per dollar price and say, okay, if sats per dollar is five thousand, I'm buying, you know, and you're buying a three dollar coffee, okay, it's fifteen thousand sats, you know. And so over time, you slowly, you can start to try at least shift your thinking and, it's almost like front running or just trying to get ahead of where we Things in sats, but certainly I think it's fair to say people who valued their net worth in Satoshi terms or in Bitcoin terms over the years have done so well, right? Like if you look back historically, people paid maybe twenty Bitcoin for a, like an iPhone, you know, fi- years and years ago, whereas nowadays you can buy m- many iPhones for one Bitcoin. So it is improving over time, but it's, it's obviously it's a slow process. But I think as, you know, we're talking about government debt and there's, you know, basically this debt spiral that Living in. I guess one other area that I, I'd be curious to get your thoughts as well. There is a school of thought amongst some macro commentators, and so probably notably people like Jeff Snyder, as an example, where they argue central banks don't really matter and actually it's, you know, a shortage in, let's say, the euro dollar market or things like this. I'm curious to hear if you, do you agree, disagree with that view? Because it kind of runs counter to this idea that the central banks are in charge in a way that thesis is sort of saying the central banks" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "44:04", "start": 2644.34, "text": "Well, I mean, the euro dollar market is so big and unwieldy, it's hard to really imagine, right? And it really all comes down to the, the US dollar and, the need for them, right? So there is a structural, there is a structural problem there for many countries, and you can see it that as, as the US dollar becomes stronger and stronger, and for these countries that don't denominate their debt in their own, currency, they, they have to use dollar Based currency, it, it, it crushes them. So that's where it goes into the dollar milkshake theory, Brent Johnson, from Santiago Capital. and for your, for your listeners who don't know what that is, it's, it's basically it just says that it comes from, oil drilling, right? Where you buy a piece of land next to somebody who you know has a great oil field, and then you drill a long hole to dip into their land and suck some of that oil out. That's the straw, right? So, and, analogy there is, look, the, the US dollar is, is sucking, other currencies into it because they're-- the, the straw itself is that, that US dollar-denominated debt and liabilities and, cross-border payments, and so they need to buy US dollars, and that, and eventually the dollar just swallows them. And so that's kind of the, the dollar milkshake theory. The milkshake is- The other currency, the straw is all the US dollar-denominated debt and liability, and the, the drinker is, is the dollar, US dollar. So, yeah, it, it pro- it produces many structural issues. And so the question is, then, well, how does the Fed impact that? Right? Well, there is-- there, there's no doubt about it that there's, there's a, Interest rate parity issue between central banks. So we're seeing it in Japan, for instance, right now, like we're watching it real time in Japan. The, they, the Bank of Japan has diverged from the US Fed, right? So the US Fed is raising rates, the Bank of Japan is doubling down on QE, and they're holding their rates at a certain percentage. Their ten-year, they're holding at point two five percent, and their short term, they're holding at even Even below, zero, right? So, but looking at the ten year, which is kind of the, that's the benchmark, Treasury, right? So if you look at the US ten year and you lo- and, and you take the spread between the US ten year and the, and the Japanese ten year and you plot it, you-- and then you plot the, the yen against it, you can see that it, it, it has followed perfectly what the dollar has, what the, that spread has done over this past year. And why is that? Well, it's interest rate parity. If you can get a better interest rate in the US than you can in, in, in, in Japan, then you're going to sell that Japanese-denominated security You're gonna receive yen, you're gonna sell those yen, you're gonna receive dollars, and you're either gonna stay in dollars or you're gonna, you're going to buy, US Treasuries, right? So either way you-- any way you look at it There, there's pressure on the, on that Bank of Japan Treasury, those JGBs, right? So Japanese government bonds. But the release valve is the currency, because there, there, there is pressure built up, and there's gotta be some place for it to go, and that's it, and that's what's happening. So it's not that, in that situation, it's not really a shortage of dollars, it's, that's just the parity. So I think there, there is some truth to what he's saying, and there's no doubt about it. There's a shortage All those euro dollars we're talking about, that US do-dollar denominated debt, and we don't even know how much is out there, right? So like if you borrowed a hundred bucks from me, right? We're out to dinner, I pay for it, you, I'll pay you back. Okay, cool. Well, that's a, that's an asset for me and a liability for you, right? But nobody else in the world knows that, but that's what's happened, and that's kind of what other banks are doing around the world, and that's," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:27", "start": 2906.97, "text": "and that's Is that debt I have to you isn't really something that you would go and trade about liquidly at par, because it's, it's not really a reci- it's not a liquid receivable, it's just a hundred dollars owed from Stephan, right? Like, but, you're good for it though. You're good for it. Yeah, yeah, I'm good for it, I'm good for it. so, you know, value me at, at par, guys. but I think what the whole euro dollar phenomenon is also this idea that if And I think maybe that's where it's going. But I think to kind of bring it back to the Bitcoin idea, it's, it's just that Bitcoin off-offers another thing that you can hold, it's another thing that you can store your value into. So at least that's how I'm seeing it. So whether you are an individual or whether you are a company, you know, some of these people or in-- companies are currently holding US treasuries, or even non-American companies do this because they might wanna be, you know, holding some amount of bonds. And so from my perspective Option is more and more people taking the orange pill and realizing, instead of holding government bonds, I'm better off holding Bitcoin. Whether you're a business or an individual, a country, I think that is actually this process. Now of course, eventually as we get later stage, people will price in satoshis and, and, you know, use it all as a day-to-day currency. We can use the Lightning Network, and, you know, I'm all about that too. But I think fundamentally that's the process, is more people holding Bitcoin and saving with Bitcoin. That's how I So I'm curious, any reactions you have or agree, disagree, or how, how are you seeing that?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "50:04", "start": 3003.76, "text": "Yeah, no, I totally agree. I, I think that's where it goes. You know, we, we run a parallel system with US Treasuries, maybe some gold, but also Bitcoin and as a, as a reserve asset for people and for institutions and for, and for sovereigns. And so, but, you know, from my world, from my point of view coming from the institutional investing world, I mean, I can see how, how these How institutions will eventually start treating Bitcoin in particular as a separate asset class. And so we're starting to hear, you know, institutions figuring this out, whether it's Fidelity or BlackRock, you know? But if you, if you think about it, there's, the-- last year there was seven hundred trillion dollars of, of investable assets. It's, it's, it's closer to s-- is six hundred now. But just using those, those numbers, you know, if you look at this and- And you think about, you know, if you're looking at this as a separate asset class, and you're an asset allocator, you're, you're an institution, right? I mean, there's-- and we, I, I've said this, recently, but there's five-- there's five asset managers that control thirty trillion dollars of that six hundred trillion dollars of assets. You know, you've got BlackRock, Vanguard, UBS, Fidelity, and State Street, and then there are some that are really close, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Allianz So much of the money, right? And they're sniffing around, they're, they're, they're putting in place, they're putting in place, ways for not just their customers and not just, you know, their investors, but their actual portfolios to own this as a separate asset class. But once they determine that this is what you, like you say, a store of value, which will take time, but once they start doing that, then they put One percent of their funds into this, well, everybody's gonna have to follow. You can't not follow Fidelity and BlackRock and Vanguard, like these are, the, you know, Fidelity and Vanguard, they manage a, a, a massive amount of retirement accounts, right? So, and, and individual accounts. So once you have that, just one percent, just a one percent allocation from those guys is three hundred thousand dollar Bitcoin, you know? And as it grows, it gets to three percent, you're- You're nearing a, a million dollar Bitcoin on just today's assets, but we know those, those dollars are, are inflating, and so it's hard to really talk in those terms, like you said, when you talk in Bitcoin terms, you know? but eventually, I think what happens is it just starts taking some of that asset allocation from bonds, it's already taking some from, from equities, it takes some from real estate and from art and collectibles and from gold, because individuals can buy Any amount. So I get this question sometimes, \"W-Why do you say that it's good to buy gold or Bitcoin as a store of value?\" Well, Bitcoin's the, the-- my, in my opinion, the hardest money out there. you know, I don't believe in anything 100%. I'm a risk manager, so I can't, I, I can't help that. But, they ask me, \"Why don't you believe in real estate?\" There are a lot of reasons, but one of the, one of the, reasons that" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "53:30", "start": 3209.9, "text": "Bitcoin for people is you can buy a hundred dollars worth. Then where can you buy a hundred dollars of real estate, you know? You" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:36", "start": 3215.8, "text": "have to buy some REIT or something, and even then maybe that's not accessible to everybody. You have to be able to access a brokerage account or something similar." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "53:43", "start": 3222.6, "text": "Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, and I agree, but that's-- I think that's how it happens, and it happens gradually over the course of the next five to seven years that, you know, these, these companies come around, these asset allocators come around, and they figure it You know, and, and that's, and that's kind of stifling things. So." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:04", "start": 3243.84, "text": "Right, and, and, and in fairness, Bitcoin has been through cycles before, and I expect more cycles to come. you know, I don't think, you know, the next bull cycle is the final cycle. I think there's gonna be a few of these to go, and there will just be that process of people, institutions, even governments, just getting comfortable with the idea of holding, using Bitcoin. Obviously, some people will get it before others do. Obviously, people like Michael Saylor Elvador are gonna be very publicly some of the first in their, let's say, category or bracket, but it'll take time, and I think people have to sort of see Bitcoin weather some of these cycles before they get comfortable. And, you know, the way I'm seeing it is that for a lot of people, you have to go through a bear cycle and have it sort of extended in a, in a, either sideways or bear for a while, and then see it come back again before you sort of put your own confidence in it. And maybe that's, you know, we I think there are different conversations we see, so some people say, \"Oh, see, it's regulatory clarity, we need regulatory clarity, and that's gonna bring people in.\" And of course, I, as a libertarian, I wanna try to minimize regulation, minimize taxes as much as possible. I would rather not, I'd rather people just build up their own confidence over time. But it seems that for some people, that is gonna be the hurdle in their mind. I don't wish it was that way, but it seems to them that's the hurdle." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "55:23", "start": 3322.85, "text": "Yeah, I think for institutions that" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "55:30", "start": 3330.22, "text": "Right? You, you, you need, you need to be sure that you're not stepping into something that you don't fully understand, from a regulatory standpoint. And so that it's just, it's really a risk mitigation for them. And but once they get that, you know, I think that that, that does help institutions. Do we need institutions for Bitcoin to be widely adopted? Well, the-- We don't need them to lead it, you know, but eventually they'll have it or they'll, they'll go away, right? So- Right. Either way. So, do we need them for it to, for it to be adopted? I don't think so, but it really would help drive it much faster, in my opinion. I see. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:11", "start": 3371.24, "text": "And I can imagine the conversation that, let's say, a professional finance, finance professional might have with, say, a family office, even, even a high net worth or ultra high net worth family office. To some of those people, unless the high net worth individual himself is into Bitcoin, it's gonna be a hard sell for that. That family office to then say, \"Oh, hey, this guy presented Bitcoin to me, let's, you know, let's go for that.\" And, you know, I think part of that in a way is a, is a reward for people who are open-minded. I think you have to be a little bit, at least a little bit open-minded to get into Bitcoin today. And so I think that's one factor. And I think honestly, for some people, it's just technological, either apathy or laggardness, right? So even in the fiat world, there are people today Hard enough to get them into the fiat banking system, like imagine how much more it's gonna be to get them into Bitcoin and use Bitcoin wallets and all of this. So I think the fundamental point I see is, yeah, you have to be open-minded, but we also have to be patient, that it's just gonna take time. And I think maybe we get overly exuberant in the bull cycles and then overly bearish in the bear cycles, and, you know, it's not as useful. Whereas if you are sort of staying on brand, staying on message, that's the way. Just" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "57:27", "start": 3446.55, "text": "dollar Yeah. Yeah. And it does, it ta- it's gonna take a long time, but I'm with you, I think that, you know, that eventually we just get the confidence through these cycles, more and more people have hold it through the cycle and understand it and see it or regret not holding it through the cycle and see, it didn't, it didn't go to zero, you know? Yeah. Well, they see their" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:49", "start": 3468.67, "text": "friend who did it well, who did well in it, and now they're jealous, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "57:56", "start": 3475.73, "text": "Right. Yeah, exactly, exactly," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:59", "start": 3478.72, "text": "exactly. So, I guess one other question, people are thinking now, maybe it's fair or unfair, but there seems to be this idea that a lot of people are kind of waiting for the big Fed pivot, right? That's kind of like this, narrative out there. Now, of course, as I've mentioned before, and I think in general, as Bitcoiners, we would rather believe that Bitcoin marches to the beat of its own drum, but maybe that's not the reality. I'm curious your thought on this idea of a so-called, you know, pivot. Do you believe it has to" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "58:31", "start": 3511.04, "text": "The problem is that the, the Fed can't keep rate, rates high like they did, like, the-- We're not going to have, Powell, Powell's not gonna have a Volcker moment, you know? He's not gonna be able to raise rates above ten percent, twelve percent, fifteen percent, twenty percent, you know? It's not, it's not mathematically possible without completely bankrupting, destroying the, the Treasury. You, you can't do it. We talked about it. You know, think about ten percent interest rates on thirty-one trillion dollars. Y-y-you know, your, your largest line item obviously would be your debt, your, your debt payments, your interest payments, it's just ridiculous. So that's not going to happen. so but because we know that they can't keep rates high for long because of that debt, then they have to pause and they have to pivot. They have to- To bring those rates back down. And really, the, the, the real game here, Stefan, in my mind, is that the Fed, they, they declare victory on, on inflation because they say that it's reversed. Okay? It's reversed, it's under six percent, but they let it run hot between four and five percent for a while, and that allows them to generate a higher GDP for the, for the Treasury. In order to have a larger tax base in order to pay down some of that debt or at least decrease the amount that they're borrowing in the future and just kick that can down the road, you know, that, that's, that makes the most sense to me mathematically and financially for them to do is to just let inflation run a little bit hot, not so hot that you realize that you're being boiled, but Just turn up the heat a little bit, and people don't realize that five percent will impact them massively, but it'll help the Treasury, it, it, it, it'll help them pay down some of that or, or, keep that debt under control for a little while. Then that's the game, that's the game they're gonna play." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:43", "start": 3643.76, "text": "Yeah, I think it's an interesting way of summarizing and clarifying things. So, probably a good spot to finish up here, James, but, listeners make sure you follow James. You can find him on Substack dot com. So James, great to chat with you, and thank you for joining me." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "01:01:00", "start": 3660.39, "text": "Yeah, awesome to, talk with you. As always, Stephane, look forward to seeing you in the next time, next conference." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:05", "start": 3665.99, "text": "Fantastic. I hope you're enjoying the show, and if you are, please help me out, make sure you retweet, share the show with your family and friends, share it out on LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever, whatever you need to do, get it out to them, and of course, get the show notes over at stephanel" } ] }