PBD Podcast - Michael Saylor SLAMS The FED For Trying To Destroy The Crypto Market | PBD Podcast | Ep. 267 | Part 1

Episode Date: May 10, 2023

In this episode, Patrick Bet-David and Michael Saylor will discuss: FED trying to destroy the crypto market Low-Income Earners Being Priced Out of New Car Market Warren Buffet's Steps To Success IRS Wanting To Obtain People's Bank Records Why Crypto Is The Future FaceTime or Ask Patrick any questions on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://minnect.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Want to get clear on your next 5 business moves? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://valuetainment.com/academy/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the channel to get exclusive access to perks:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3Q9rSQL⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

30 seconds. Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweetest theory. I know this life meant for me. Yeah, why would you plan on delay when we got fed David? Value payment, giving values, contagiousness, world of entrepreneurs, we can't no value that hated. Howdy running home, you look what I've become.

I'm the entrepreneur. I got to tell you guys are funny in the chat. Going back in for what the nicknames about the podcast starting on time. Anyways, today we're starting without Michael Saler and Adam because they're stuck in traffic coming up from Miami. Apparently there's a bunch of accidents, but Tom, it's you and I until they come in at any point they can come in.

Good morning. So when they do come in, here's what we want to talk about. We want to talk about the fact that Michael Saler and Microstrategy spent $179 million on Bitcoin last quarter. Michael Saler says banking crisis is driving Bitcoin adoption. We'll talk about finance. We'll talk about worst in 2008.

How Ethereum co-founder says Bitcoin and crypto now braced for a $540 billion crisis. We'll talk about our- Fun, fun, fun, fun. We'll talk about crypto price warning. China, Biden, and the Fed could be about to destroy all value of Bitcoin. This is a Forbes story and a Biden is pushing a huge tax on crypto.

It could backfire spectacularly, Washington Examiner. But before those guys come in, Tom, two stories Rob found here that I really like. First one, Warren Buffett, formula for success. One good decision every five years. What a great way to manage decision-making process, right? This is a guy that's been added with his company for 58 years and he credits roughly 12 decisions. So here we go. Warren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders

reflects that in the last 58 years of investing and identifies only a dozen good decisions they've made. Average in one every five years as a source of Berkshire or Hathaway's, 3,784,464% return over that period. Buffett believes that fewer than 20 decisions made a difference for him. And it's not about getting every decision right, but getting the important decisions phenomenally

right. His successful investment strategy involved investing in insensibly priced opportunities at big companies with honest people, competitive advantage and understandable enduring and mouth watering economics and partnering with the right people such as Charlie Munger and Ajit Jaint. Tom, what do you have to say about this? Well, I think if you look back at it, this kind of goes to, and folks could Google this. And the S&P 500, the longer you look at it, the harder it is to beat, right? You've been in financial services for a long time. The longer you look at it, like five years, 10 years, 15 years, you make a little chart.

The harder the S&P is to beat. And if you look deeper into that, you can find these stories that tell you that there were 30 days in the history of the S&P, that if you miss those 30 days, you really miss something. Like the 2009 had two days, whether it's like these 5% bounce turnarounds.

Remember that? You know, 2009, everybody said, what's going on in 2009? I'll send five percent one day, another 5% one day, and all of a sudden you're 10% for the year. And so what Warren Buffett is coming back and basically saying is,

hey, we've made 12 good decisions. And we can probably... You're saying that, let me do what I just found. According to Hartford Fund, Hey, we've made 12 good decisions. And we can probably, you're saying that, let me do what I just found. According to Hartford Fund, if you missed the market's 10 best days over the last 30 years, this is SMP 500,

your returns would be cut in half. There it is, that's it. And that's why the SMP 500 index, like a cash index held for a long time, is usually a good idea. And that's why a lot&P 500 index, like a cash index held for a long time, is usually a good idea. And that's why a lot of the life insurance products, like PHP sold. You built this monstrous life insurance agency on a nationwide basis, and a lot of those IUL index universal life were tied to S&P indexes.

So it showed that something that's stable like life insurance. So back to Buffett, you asked me about Buffett. I think if we decode this, we're gonna find Buffett is saying, like the day I invested it, the day I went all in on Coke, the day Coca-Cola, the day I went all in on Geico. I'd be willing to bet that his 12 big decisions is probably those days, because remember, there were days where Buffett decided to go all in on some

companies that have come back for him in spectacular fashion. So it sounds to me like he's saying the same thing, like the story you just read and what the common knowledge among the investment community has been about long term buy and hold on the S&P 500 don't miss those days. Yeah, and by the way Tom, if there are certain decisions like when you think about creating wealth, right? Too many people put this pressure on themselves, I believe, of getting it right every single time, right? It's a different story with investments and and you know things you invest into specifically than it is with you with other things you do in your life.

With investments, if you get one thing right, that could make you a household name. You could have failed in 18 different businesses, none of them worked that in, and all of a sudden, boom, one thing you get right, you sell it for 50 million, you sell it for a couple hundred million, you sell it for a billion dollars, Now everybody goes back and talks about that one success story, right? So, it buff its story, validates, and hopefully encourages a lot of people to be a little bit more patient. He's selling long-term thinking with how to make your investment decisions. And I think it's a great philosophy, especially to a long-term guy like him.

I heard a statement, it's really short, and it's this. If you're gonna invest, remember, it's a cornfield, not a sports book. You go into sports book, oh, maybe I'll bet on this Laker game, and then 10 minutes, 20 minutes later, there's another game starting. Maybe I'll bet on this one. So if you're bouncing in and out,

if you get a Robin Hood account, you're bouncing in and out, that's a recipe for, you know, you never beat the sports book. You may get a one big hit once in a while. Maybe the Super Professional Gamblers get it, but the average guy going into a sports book, round the Super Bowl or March Madness, they never get it. We see that. Whereas you treat it like a corn field, what do you do once a year?

You harvest some corn, and you have patience in between. I agree. Very good lesson there from Buffett. Here's another one. New cars. Once part lesson there from Buffett. Here's another one. New cars. Once part of the American dream, now add a reach for many. This is a Washington post story. Lone income earners, earners in America

are being priced out of new cars, market while high earners are buying more than ever before spending on new cars. By the lowest 20% of earners reach, it's the lowest in 11 years while spending by the top 20% reached its highest on the record according to 2021 consumer expenditure survey. So by the way, what they're saying is the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poor, which I'll have my point on this one here in a minute.

The average price of a new car in the US hit $48,000 in March, up 30% from March of 2020, and the demand for cheaper models have been shrinking for years. The problem preventing many Americans from buying new cars are twofold. One, rising interest rates have made car loans far more expensive with the average monthly payment, reaching 7.30 in April of 2022. The supply of cheaper cars have been shrinking as manufacturers focus on more expensive high end models. The global chip shortage caused by the pandemic has forced automakers to ration their components, reserving them from more profitable vehicles.

Tom, what are your thoughts on this? I got some thoughts, but I want to hear from you first. Well, this is what's, you know, when money is no longer free and you can no longer get, you know, that two-year lease with those teaser rates, you know, and let's face it, a lot of people are aspirational about their cars. What I mean by that is they run to the payment that they think they can afford

to get the glitzier vehicle. Very few people are thinking like Dave Ramsey and other people that says, hey, be very practical about your personal budget in the car you get. Think about safety, think about what you can get. But right now what I see, I see this. Friend of mine, turns in Mercedes GL SUV.

Now remember, this is, we're not talking a G wagon, just Mercedes GL. And he had it on a three year lease in the name of his company He goes into the dealer and he says what's my buyout on this because the vehicles are expensive. I'm just gonna buy the vehicle And says give me the number and they said we'll give you two numbers Here's the buyout number that's in your contract and here's $15,000 He said what's a $15,000? We will buy that vehicle from you right now for $15,000. He said, what's a $15,000? We will buy that vehicle from you right now for $15,000.

And he said, yeah, but if I walk back in the door to get another new one on the lease, what's that gonna be? And so the economics didn't add up. And so he paid about $48,000, bought out the Mercedes GL, had very low miles on it after three years and then it's like oh my gosh the high-end cars the demand is there to the point that that was a local Mercedes dealership point

to do that. Yeah, there's person can't do that though. No the average person can't do that but that's the point they're making about what's happening in the high-end., on the low end, what's happening is the American public has been a payment-based public, right? The average person is payment-based. Oh, I can afford that payment, so I can get something a little... Financing everything. Financing everything. And they do the payment to lifestyle. I can afford that payment, so I want to step up so I can get the lifestyle out of it. And what's happening is the interest rates are up and the little mini lease and the cheap lease two year, three years lease, parties over. And now they're having to go in and look at,

wow, that's $48,000 plus 10% and everything. So it's 53 out the door and I'll put five grand down if they've got that. So 45,000 over five years, bingo, 700 bucks. And there's the pinch point. And I think the pinch point is the reality, and the average American doesn't want to go in and get the base model, you know, Toyota Corolla.

That's not what they want. You don't have a choice though, but here's what I will tell you. Here's what I will tell you. To the people who talk about the rich, get rich on the poor, get get poor and they complain about it. You have to realize every one of these things that you're seeing happen, that's destroying middle America, folks.

The concept of, well, you see, what about the middle American income? They can't afford a car like this. Well, let's talk about what's causing this? What is causing this to destroy middle America that they can't afford something like this? Because the guys in the middle that are working their tails off for 22 bucks an hour, 28 bucks an hour, trying to do what they can for their kids, their families,

you know, they're saying, I cannot get a new car. I can't get a new car. I have to go finance the use one, and it's backfiring on me. Bad policies have consequences. Many policies seem noble. Today I'm reading a book. It's called Toxic Charity.

I don't know if you've read this book, Toxic Charity, and I'm going through it. And he starts off the book, Tom, by saying the following. He says, I have to read this. He says, man, I gotta find this to tell you there it is. Okay, he says, over a trillion dollars of charity was given to Africa. Do you know what percentage of the money

that was given to Africa was actually used and went to the people? 15%. 85% of the trillion dollars that was given to Africa, to help everybody was like, we're gonna help Africa. We are the world, we are the children. Every other, this is what a great cause. Let's keep raising money.

Did only 150 billion out of the trillion dollars went to the people. What happened to you at the 85 trillion dollars? And any continues, talks about, never do for the poor, what they're capable of doing for themselves. This is a guy that's been doing charity for 40 years and he says, I'm here to tell you,

more churches and charities are destroying communities coming from a good place, but they're hurting them. Some listen to this recording, has nothing to do with politics. All he's doing is calling out churches and his call out charities. And I said, I'm like, what is this guy's point? You know, look at that subtitle right there, Tom. How the church hurts those, they help and how to reverse it.

This is a guy that's a Christian guy that's been raising money for 40 years. And he's saying this, the more you read the book, the premise is, you think you're helping people by giving them money, you're actually not, you're hurting these people. So when these guys were talking about, let's send money to people. Let's do another trillion dollars. Let's do another trillion dollars.

Let's take care of these people. Let's do what's Andrew Yang's plan about a thousand dollars every month being given to people. What did he call that? UBI, universal basic income. That's sent people money. We can afford it. We can afford it.

We can afford it. We'll get more money. They need a living wage. Wait. Who determines what the living wage is? Exactly. And the government starts turning the dial on what a living wage should be a Ford pickup. So I'm going to turn the dial up.

Oh, is it election year? We're giving everybody a truck now. They send them the money. And then all of a sudden, you know what they did? Would all this money they sent to help the poor? You know what they really helped? The rich. Because what they don't realize, poor people's problems is their habits. Listen, when I was broke and if it was $50 of my bank account, all I knew what to do with the $50 was what, to spend it. If I had $500, guys, let's go out, it's on me. If I had $400, I had such a poor broke mentality with money

until that change, nothing was going to change. So rather than trying to help these folks with the money you sent to them that they don't know what to do with it. First thing we got to do is teach them about how money works, but nobody wants to teach people how money works. It's all the other stuff that people want to talk about. This book, Psycho Cybernetics, this guy Tom, who becomes a surgeon. He does cosmetic surgery for 15-20 years.

They ask him, they said, why did you become a cosmetic surgeon? He says, because I wanted to make people happy. And he says, every time I would do surgery, this book sold by the way, 35, 40 million copies, he said, every time we would do surgery, I would look at their faces. They were so happy. I'm like, man, I made somebody happy today. Brust augmentation or face or whatever he was doing. He says, you know what happened six months later? They went back to the same depressed miserable people they were. He says, I realize after doing this for 15, 20 years,

you can't make people happy from the inside, from the outside, you can only make them happy from the inside. So he went and got away from that business and started becoming a psychologist, working with people on the mindset, writes a book called Psycho-Sybernetic, sells 35 million copies.

What we're trying to solve all these poor people's problems from the outside by sending money to them? Why don't we work from the brain? Why don't we work from teaching them mentally on how to deal with their finances and other areas of their lives? So the next time it comes to vote for sending more free money to people, just remember this.

The more free money you send to the market, all you're doing is making the rich richer and The rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poor because your policies That's not noble on the outside actually destroys middle America Tom. I completely agree and Pat You know where my charitable heart is but you also know that my charitable heart changed about 12 years ago Because I was I was part of American changed about 12 years ago. Because I was part of American mega churches, and I was a person attending there,

but then I would look around and say, no, wait a minute. You know, where can the church have the highest impact during a disaster? Karina, there's not people down there. It didn't rain for foot of water, and then Lake Pancat train flood because of their habits. It's because of Hurricane Katrina.

And you can go down and provide relief. And you can meet certain basic needs. You and I both know of a church in Dallas where we used to go. And they operated a medical clinic for people who did not have medical insurance. But they didn't come in there to get a gift. They came in there to get an antibiotic when they had bronchitis and they had no medical

insurance or it was a single mom that had an adequate insurance. That is where charities can stand in the gap where 90% of that dollar is providing a bridge on something that is not lifestyle-related. And what you're talking about, there are organizations out there and they hate them. You remember with the auto industry thought of JD Power, the first time they were putting out those awards, they were like, who is this SOB that's doing this? And they hated it because the lists were real.

And they couldn't just put $1 million marketing around the list. Sorry, dude, your SUV's not reliable, and therefore you don't get the JD Power Quality Award. Now people, that kind of forced them. What's happening in charities, is there organizations out there that are looking at the two taxes.

Tax number one, you give a dollar to a charity, how much of that dollar gets used up by the local administration, the people in America collecting the dollar, operating the office. And if it's more than about eight to 12%, that's an inefficient charity. The second is how much of the dollars,

so now let's just say 10%. Now we have 90 cents. Oh, or 90 cents, we're going to feed the children in Africa. Okay, how much gets to them and what was it doing? And then you find out that there's a government tax in there that the government actually snatched 50% of that, or that you do the most terrible thing is you buy commodity like flower and things like this.

That's a tradable commodity. Guess who takes it? Half of it can be taken by the government. And the government then sells it. So the average American doesn't know. I gave a dollar, Winemail. A dime went to these guys' administration in the US and then the rest got to Africa.

That's exactly what he's talking about. This guy, let me tell you what he says. He's so right about toxic charity. Here's what he talks about in the book. He says, he says. He's so right about toxic charity. Here's what he talks about in the book. He says, he says, Lupton's oath offers six basic guidelines. Never do for the poor what they can do for themselves. And to limit one way, giving to emergencies.

Yes. Empower the poor through employment, lending and investing using grants, sparingly to reinforce, reinforce achievements, for subordinate self interest to the needs of those being served, five, listen closely to those you seek to help, and in particular, listen to what is not said, be apparently felt, and above them all do no harm.

And then he talks about the five cycle, okay? This is very powerful. The ever descending life cycle of charity one way charity Give once and you listen give once and you elicit appreciation Give twice and you create anticipation. You're gonna give it to me again I anticipate three times and you create expectation. Where's my money? Give four times and it becomes entitlement Give five times and you establish dependency

Okay, very interesting when you think about this give once you elicit appreciation four times and it becomes entitlement, give five times and establish dependency. Okay? Very interesting when you think about this. Give once you elicit appreciation, give twice you create anticipation, give three times you create expectation, give four times it becomes entitlement, and give five times you establish dependence. Well, you know what this means?

And I'm gonna make enemies here, but I'm gonna upset some people. So, those of you that are Christian churches preaching from the pulpit about what is welfare done? Look how welfare is messed up our city. They've created the dependency of these people. Look in the mirror because some of the stuff you're doing is causing the same thing. Yeah, and it's happening. I mean, you know, and by the way, I learned this the hard way in my third year in business. I was 24, 25 years old, 26 years old, I opened my own sales office and had a good friend of

mine who was one of my sales guys and he starts making money but he starts dating this girl and he buys her like a $3,000, $4,000 ring. Then he takes her on this place and he's spending all this money and he says, I can't afford to pay rent this month. And he says, but you make money off me. So give me a break for one month. I said, no prom. Give me a break for a second month, me. So give me a break for one month. I said, no problem. Give me a break for second month, no problem.

Give me a break for third month, no problem. You know what happened by the fourth month? By the fourth month, it was expected that he doesn't need to pay rent. By the eight month when I asked for rent of the previous eight months that I was paying myself, he became an enemy. Relationship changed from that day on.

So as much as you're thinking, you're doing good, you're hurting them when you go out of your way. By the way, we got the great Michael sailor in that house. Justin I 95 is broken free. They let Adam and Michael sailor in. What's up? Adam? Michael sailor. How are you, sir? How you doing? Don't get. Awesome. Good to see you, man. Good timing. We got 90 minutes to get as much we can out of your brain as possible. Michael, they say great minds. Think alike. So you and I to get as much we can out of your brain as possible. Michael, they say great minds think alike.

So you and I arrive at the same time. It's how bad was it, but I've bust been pretty bad. It was very bad. It was very, it was horrible in Miami and even worse in Fort Lauderdale. What do you think, Michael? I think people aren't working from home anymore.

There we go. And by the way, at least not in Florida. Well said, Michael, well said. Although it is the way, at least not in Florida. Well said, Mike. Well said. Although it is the first week of May, and it's supposed to be now that over the last three weeks, from Easter and May 1, the snowbirds were supposed to driven north.

So we used to see these Canadian license plates, these New York and Pennsylvania license plates. I've seen fewer of them, and you would think that we would have a little traffic brake as the snowbirds migrate back north. Well, thank you for that update weather update. Yeah, I'm really happy about that weather update. Time's up. Weather's going to be okay. That's what Tom is trying to say.

Michael, I got a handful of things I want to go with you. My goal is to try to get it done in 90 minutes. There's this guy in this street he lives on, what's the street called, Pennsylvania. And he lives in the city, 16, 16, 16, 16. He lives in the city, DC, and he's a pretty important guy. Now, they just call him Joe, but he's a pretty important guy. And there's a few things that's formulating that I kind of want to run by.

This is a Forbes article, okay. Crypto price warning, China, Biden, and the Fed could be about to destroy all value of Bitcoin, okay? So let's see if this is just a propaganda if there's any credibility to this story with CBDC. Bitcoin price has doubled since November, reaching around 30,000 hours per Bitcoin. Despite criticism and negative declarations, Texas Senator Ted Cruz has warned that central bank digital currencies, inspired by Bitcoin and digital currencies,

could destroy all value of Bitcoin and undermine its anonymity and decentralization, China is currently leading the way with the digital one, which some see as giving governments unprecedented power to surveil and control citizens. Crews introduced legislation to prevent the creation of a digital dollar, saying the US government has no authority to unilaterally establish a central bank currency.

He added that those who want a CBDC dislike cash because it is not subjected to centralized control and constant surveillance, which is a key feature of digital currencies, despite its concerns about CBDC cruise remains incredibly bullish on Bitcoin calling it, clearly the alpha in the current crypto sphere. Are you just as concerned about this as Senator Cruises? Every time a politician wants to ban guns, there's an explosion in demand to buy guns.

And so talk about CBDCs really is a marketing event that causes everyone to think about a world where they don't own their own money. And that makes them think, well, what kind of money could I acquire that I would own? And the most censorship, resistant, monetary network in the world is Bitcoin. So interest in CBDCs is just going

to drive more feverish interest in Bitcoin. It's actually driving awareness. and Bitcoin is growing as people become more aware that they need something which is non-sovereign store of value nation-state resistant. So, and if there's hyperinflation, people want Bitcoin. That's why they are thinking about Bitcoin in Argentina or in Nigeria or anywhere in Africa right now. If there's moderate inflation, people that are sensitive to it will go for Bitcoin and then the people that think the inflation

will go away will look at it as an oddity. But money is, it's a store of value, a unit of account, a unit of account, a medium of exchange, and then there's a fourth characteristic that we don't talk about. It's the thing that's not said. It's a system of control. So certain monies are easier to control than others.

For example, we talk about gold as money, but you ever try to carry a gold bar through an airport? Very heavy. Try it next time. They won't let you through, right? In fact, if you tried to carry a hundred thousand hours of gold through an airport, not only would you not get through, but the assumption would be you're a criminal, you stole the gold,

and they would just take it and keep it without a court order. Now, try to carry a hundred thousand hours of cash through the airport. You ever try that? Put it in a bag and just, you can put it in a bag and as you're walking through the TSA check or the X-ray machine, just nonchalantly say to the officer, yeah, I'm carrying $100,000 of money onto the airplane, right? You won't get through. Now, not when you're not get through,

they'll just take your money, right? They'll just take it and the assumption will be you stole it, okay? So cash is a unit control. Now, put $100,000 in a bank and try to wire it to someone or just take it out and they're going to ask you why. Tell them it's none of their business. Try to send it to someone privately. Tell them you just want to send it to a numbered Swiss bank

account, right? See how that works. That won't work, right? That's a system of control. A couple of stable coins are beginning shutdown. Paxos is BUSD, got a Wells notice, they got shutdown, and Kastodia tried to launch a bank, and they wanted to issue avids.

Avids were digital dollars, and they were digital dollars that were going to circulate on crypto networks. And the regulators denied that banking license. And it's about a 70-page denial letter, very articulate, and I read it all. I read thousands, I read all of the crypto legislation and all of the crypto litigation. So if you dig into that denial letter, which is very well written and articulate, what is very clear is the regulator say, we're not going to allow the bank to form because

we don't want to issue some of the issue digital dollars that will circulate on crypto networks non-KYC, evading our anti-money laundering rules, our anti-terrorism rules, or know your customer rules. So it's clear that the regulators reject with prejudice the idea that you can circulate large sums of dollars without reporting that. Now that's a political football, right? Because a lot of people in this country think that you should own your own money

and you should have financial privacy and you ought to be able to do what you want with your money. There's another group of people that don't agree, right? Ted Cruz is on the side of freedom. You ought to own your own money. Now, it turns out that if your money's in a bank, you're not going to be able to circulate it freely.

It's controlled. And on the other hand, Bitcoin is the one network you can't control. You know, Ted Cruz's famous line is, I like Bitcoin, for the same reason the Chinese don't like it. They can't control it. Nobody can control Bitcoin. So if you're insecure about being able to own your own money, do you own it? And can you actually use it without asking somebody's permission? Then the solution

is not gold, is not silver coins, is not stacks of cash, it's not money in a bank in the US. It's certainly not money in a bank in Lebanon, Argentina, anywhere in Africa. Those banks won't let you, they won't let you take your money out of the bank. Go look at Nigeria. $42 a day, that's how much you can take out of the bank. They're keeping your money. So the one network that you have that gives you a decent chance of owning your own money and then being able to spend it the way you want, is Bitcoin. So I'm not worried about Bitcoin. I do think that there'll be a massive political fight

over CBDCs. There's a technical challenge. Our government doesn't know how to issue a CBDC. We don't know how to issue digital currency. The people that are issuing digital dollars are the cryptocurrency people. Paxos knows how to issue a digital dollar, right? And the regulators, Senator Mowell's note is saying shut down.

So the private market knows how to issue digital dollars. The government doesn't, the EU doesn't, the feds don't. And so even if they wanted to, they can't technically right now without somebody else's help. But as long as Congress is split, right, it seems to be quite clear, there's a large faction. By the way, on the Democratic and the Republican side, I mean, Robert F. Kennedy, I don't think is in favor of a CBDC, nor is Ron DeSantis in favor of a CBDC. So there are a lot of free thinking politicians in both parties that are adamantly against

having a system of control where the government can decide how you, you know, it used to be $10,000 was the cutoff of the report, right? It used to be, you had to report when you wired $10,000 and that was back when $10,000 was the cutoff of the report, right? It used to be you had to report when you wired $10,000, and that was back when $10,000 was worth something, right? It used to be, I think it dates back what, 30, 50 years or something. So it used to be $10,000 was a lot of money, and then they kept the $10,000 limit,

and inflation creeped up, and pretty soon $10,000 limit and inflation creped up and pretty soon $10,000 is not nearly so much money. And what we're seeing is an encroachment of that. We're now people are starting to lobby for the government to get a report on everything spent more than $600. And they lower the number. Who is supportive of that? I mean, right now, if you look at Federal Reserve, here's a tweet from Ron DeSantis you were talking about.

April 7th, the Federal Reserve has made no decision on issuing a central bank digital currency and would not do so without clear support from Congress and executive branch, ideally, in a form of a specific authorizing law. Law, a CBDC would not replace cash or other payment options. And then DeSantis at the top says, it is not merely ideal that major changes in policy

receive specific authorization from Congress. It is constitutionally required. Unaccountable institutions cannot impose a CBC on Americans. They will tell CBC won't be abused, but we are wise enough to know better this wolf comes as a wolf. Michael, the question I'm asking is, this whole thing with 600.

Forget about the politicians that want it. We understand why they would want it. You can control and see what people are doing. What average voter wants to vote for this? Who, who, the average American that would say, I'm okay with this? I'm sure the overwhelming majority of the population is adamantly against it.

And I would say a decent majority of the population is adamantly against it. And I would say a decent majority of politicians are against it, but there is a fringe wing that wants to impose control over everybody and they don't trust anybody. And, you know, heck, at some point they would probably like to see how you spend 50 bucks. And that's the control freaks in the political sphere. You know, politicians have shown themselves quite capable of interfering in your private affairs, and the last three years have shown anything they've shown that people can come up with some justification to tell you how many people can sit at your dinner table on Thanksgiving. Right? And so there will be some of them.

I don't think that politically it's going to fly in the near term. And the next two to four years, I don't see consensus at the political level to impose a CBDC, but I think, so I think it's like that persistent boogie man where people say, oh, it's coming and the result is more interest in the antidote to it. So I don't think it's bad for Bitcoin. I think it's good for Bitcoin. I do think we ought to be concerned about money being used as a system of control is very disturbing.

I think you bring a interesting point there in Rob. I just flipped you something. Can you grab that? Speaking of systems of control i want you to look at this picture of uh... the two diplomats from india and russia and i think you know what i'm talking about uh... it went down in the last twenty four hours i just sent you the uh...

the link to it rob take a look at that the russian guys on the left the ind Indian guys here, Russia has got billions of dollars trapped in India that is in rupees and India is saying you can't move them. But if you want to use them to pay for labor to build things, we're happy to do things. What do you need built? And so this is a system of control here. This is two governments together and India. Look at the posture of the guy from India and look at the posture of the guy from Russia. So when we talk about systems of control, and look at the posture of the guy from Russia.

So when we talk about systems of control, this goes all the way up to the way governments control each other. This is India sitting on billions of dollars and won't let Russia take back. India, bully, and Russia. What would you have thought that would happen? That just doesn't make any sense.

What's good for them? Good for the India. I have a question from Michael, just on the heels of basically what Pat read about the DeSantis. I have a question from Michael, just on the heels of basically what Pat read about the DeSantis. There's a story here. I think it's SB7054. It's a question basically regarding Florida.

We're here in Miami. We don't want the traffic. DeSantis, the CFO of Florida's Jimmy Petronis. He had some very harsh words on CBDC. He called it government surveillance. He said it could lead to financial slavery and political tyranny. So you said that if they were going to have some agenda to push through CBDCs, they would have to essentially have some sort of public-private partnership,

right? The government's not going to do it on their own. Who would lead that charge? And how would they sell that to the people? Is it Gary Gensler of the SEC in partnership with certain Congress people like walk me through, how would, would even happen and get approved via Congress? Well, I don't, I mean, to be clear, I don't expect it to happen. I don't think that there is consensus

in the Democratic Party or the Republican Party to implement a CBDC. I don't think they know how to do it. I think there's resistance to it. I think that what's going on right now is there's a regulatory crackdown on crypto. And so what is happening is the administration is cracking down on crypto exchanges. It's cracking down on crypto securities. It's cracking down on some of the crypto tokens and it's cracking down on cryptocurrencies

and by currency, I mean a stable coin, like a dollar circulating. And I think that that's creating quite a lot of sound and fury and friction and anxiety in the industry. I think it'll continue. There is no coherent digital asset framework that's been offered by any regulator. There isn't any coherent digital assets framework offered by any legislator. We're nowhere near, like there's not a bill we're debating that if it gets voted on, we'll solve the problem.

There is no bill. Okay, and so the talk about CBDCs gets people, quite spun up rightfully so, but I think the story here is CBDCs are gonna be a non-starter in the free world. And even in the place that's closest to it is China, I suppose. And so I really think that it's a Chinese concept. And I don't really think in the free world we want to be like the Chinese.

And I think ultimately both sides of the aisle will agree on that. They won't agree on other things. They won't agree on private money, like for example, probably the Republicans and the conservatives would be in favor of private companies issuing digital currency and letting it circulate. And on the other side of the aisle, they're a bit more conservative. And they would say, well, we only want banks to issue currency that report to us on every material transaction.

But none of the banks were able to issue a stable coin. Either signature bank was unable to issue a stable coin. Silvergate bank was unable to issue a stable coin. Silvergate bank was unable to issue a stable coin, and Castodi wanted to be an FDIC approved bank, they were unable to issue a stable coin. And when you ask those banking executives, they said, well, the regulars wouldn't let us.

So, so. You sound very confident though, with saying that, this is confident about what. Confident about the fact that the regulators won't let you Confident about what? Confident about the fact that the regulators won't let you issue a stable coin? Confident about the fact that, you know, both sides are gonna agree on not wanting to do anything with CBDC.

I mean, you're talking about a direction we're going where over regulation is a popular thing. Censorship is being sold as a, no, that makes sense. I understand what they're doing. They should be silenced in that person he shouldn't be saying anything to the point where a guy named Elon Musk who was on track for being a trillionaire if he would have just driven Tesla he decides to go out and take money and buy a nonprofit organization at the time that he called it an organization called Whittorl right and this story comes out supreme court to

decide if IRS can secretly obtain bank records, okay? This is CPA practice advisor. Again, this is not Congress. This is Supreme Court to decide if IRS can secretly obtain bank records. They're set to decide Paul Sully versus Iris, whatever the IRS,

whether the IRS can obtain bank records from taxpayers' relatives, without notice to help the agency tax collection, whatever the IRS, whether the IRS can obtain bank records from taxpayers' relatives, without notice to help the agency tax collection, agency's tax collection efforts and its decision is expected early this summer. The case raises questions about taxpayer privacy and IRS authority amid the agency's $80 billion on funding over the next decade. And I can continue, in this case, re-multiple Paul Sully owed more than $2 million in taxes to the IRS.

And the agency issued summons to his wife's bank and two other banks where Paul Sully's law firm had accounts without notifying his wife or firm that the IRS was trying to obtain the banking information, his wife, and the law firm argued that the IRS should have to notify them if they're going to send a summons for their information for the banks. The point here is, they're more and more and more figuring out ways to control the decisions people are making. And the way they sell it is in the following way,

saying, look, to the average person, do you want to see these guys that are money laundering through Bitcoin? Do you know what's happening with all the pedophilia, the fear of all the things that Bitcoin and crypto is used for? This is one way for us to prevent from illegal purchase of weapons or money laundering.

This is why we need a CBDC because we can cash to criminals easier if we have that. And to the average person who's only got $6,000 in a bank and has got a regular job, let's just say, it's a regular person says, you know what? That does make sense. These rich people have been laundering money

for such a long time. And it's about time we find out what they're doing. And a CBDC is something we should do. Being too confident kind of gives those guys strength because they can play their manipulative games until eventually wonder you're waking up saying, shit, now we do have CBDC. Well, I mean, I agree with you. If you're a voter, you ought to not, it should be an acid test. I don't think anybody should vote for a politician in favor of a CBDC. I mean,

this is the struggle, you know, control versus freedom that's as old as time, right? And every society, you know, in the history of the human race, every society, there's always people that want to impose control on the people. And there's another group that won freedom. I've been reading Conceived in Liberty, which is Mary Rothbard's history of the American colonies before the Revolutionary War.

And it's hundreds of chapters non-stop struggle. Someone wants to control a colony. They want to tell you what to think. They want to tell you who God is. They want to define religion. They want to impose taxes. They want to seize your property. They want to tax your property. they want to tax your property,

they want to impose monopolies. And then there's another group fighting for freedom. And it was going on for hundreds of years before the Revolutionary War. I mean, there were monopolies in New York on who could bake, you know? They were tariffs on using the Hudson River to go up and down the river.

There were monopolies on who could trade with the Indians. They would give you land, they would steal your land, they would tax the land, people wouldn't pay the tax, there were rebellions. It's hundreds and hundreds of struggles. So it's been going on before the revolution, it's going on in every country in the world. Today, it's certainly going on. And if you have any political power, I think the best way to use it is to support those that trust people are in favor of freedom, because there tends to be, or seems to be,

this never-ending tendency of governmental organizations to get stronger, and as they get stronger, they raise taxes. They funnel the taxes into the police state and the control state. And pretty soon, it's illegal to bake bread. It's illegal to row up a river. It's illegal to cross the river. If you have land, you have to pay tax. If you paid tax, it has to double.

If the taxes were used, it used to be we paid tax to pay tax. If you paid tax, it has to double. The taxes were used. It used to be we paid tax to pay ministers to preach religious beliefs that you disagreed with. If you actually laughed or kissed your wife on a Sunday, they whipped you. It finds you and steers your property because you were disrespectful to the Almighty Lord. And I'd like to say it was unique and a one-time thing, but it wasn't. It's kind of the history of humanity. So it's going on today.

It's reprehensible. And you can see politicians that will articulate that message that the people cannot be trusted and the government needs to control everything. Luckily, we're in Florida, where we have a number of politicians that believe differently. I'm hopeful that we'll see a backlash to the control tendencies in the political sphere

that have Have manifested themselves of the past few years and CBDC is just one of those touchdowns. It's not the only one. It won't be the last one. It wasn't the first one So, you know, there's an article that just came out a couple days ago May 3rd saying Michael Sailor. I don't know if you know that guy now a pretty big deal of a guy We like him a lot. Michael Sailor says banking crisis is driving Bitcoin adoption. This is coin addition story. And in the story, you're talking about, you talked about this briefly earlier as well.

Micro-strikes are, Michael believes that the fiat and banking crisis is driving the adoption of Bitcoin, stating that Bitcoin adoption is being driven by the progressive global loss of confidence and fiat currencies, conventional banking competing assets. Bitcoin's recent rally has led to a significant reduction in micro-strategy's BTC impairment loss, allowing the firm to strengthen its capital structure,

a sailor indicated that micro-strategy will continue to accumulate Bitcoins as investors' confidence and fiat continues to erode stating that the real key with Bitcoin is just to be able to hold on to it and stomach the volatility. Just to be able to hold on to a stomach the volatility, which by the way, very, very hard to do. Just earlier, we read an article by Warren Buffett that they asked him what's the key to success.

He says it's making one great decision every five years. They were shown his 3.4 million percent return in the last 50 years and he says that's a byproduct of us making 12 great decisions to make what we've done today. It's hard to kind of make a decision and stick to it during good and bad times. The reason why I asked this question is the following. Gold on the other hand. There were certain markers you looked at. Hey, inflation is up. You know, hey, interest rates are going up. Hey, we're printing money. Hey, they're printing more money.

Hey, they're sending more money out. Gold would typically, there would be a reaction to it, right? Now, that is more of a reaction towards crypto and Bitcoin, where it's no longer the reaction towards gold. Why do you think that's happened to gold? I think gold's getting demonetized by Bitcoin right now. If you look at the past three years, since my microstrategy bought $250 million

worth of Bitcoin in August of 2020, since that time, Bitcoin's up about 140%. The S&P's up about 20%. NASDAQ's up 10%, gold's up 1%. Silver's down about 8%. Bonds are down 18%. Conclusion, right? If you buy debt, government debt, you're going to be bankrupt.

That's why those banks are going bankrupt. All the banks had debt when the interest rates went through the roof. The debt traded down and they all were technically insolvent. The problem with gold is, first of all, if I bought 250 million dollars worth of gold, I can't carry it around in my pocket, I can't take self-custody of it, I can't move it anywhere, I can't transfer it to a counter party, and so that means I've to put it in a bank. There's only a handful of banks in the world that custody it.

And the banks re-hypothicate the gold. So that means that if you wanted to sell 250 million dollars of gold, the bank will sell your gold. If you want to buy it, they'll sell you paper. And the paper gold isn't backed by the actual gold. So you have fractional reserve banking of gold, right? That's that, you don't want to own an asset where the bank can sell 100x more of that asset than they own.

That the whole problem with fiat currency, right? If you look at the history of banking, it was, you know, gold smits, you know, goldsmiths, you know, goldsmiths have gold when gold was money and they give you a note. So you give me a million dollars of gold, they give you a million dollar note, you trade the notes back and forth, that's your paper money. The works fine as long as a one to one. But then the guy that's the goldsmith says, holy crap, I actually can give him a million dollar

note and he thinks that I've got a million dollars of goal backing it and now there's two million in the system. And then I give him a million dollars and now there's three million in the system. Now there's three times as much money. There's one stack of gold worth a million bucks. Prices go through the roof, that's inflation. And eventually you come back and you try to redeem your paper for the stack. I give you your goal back and you try to redeem and the goal's gone and you try to redeem

and the goal's gone. Okay, I'm bankrupt. Oops. Okay, so when did this idea of over-issuing paper money start? Didn't start, you know, when Nixon defaulted on the gold standard, he wasn't the first, he was just the most famous, right? People had been defaulting on paper money, probably for thousands of years. And Nixon just made it official. Yeah, so the issue is, if gold is money, and it goes into a bank,

the bankers issue 10X more paper than there is gold, you have inflation eventually, right? When the French tried to redeem their paper dollars for gold, the US basically closed the gold window. We defaulted on that obligation. And we started a cycle of inflation from 1971 on, there's been running 50 years. Now, when FTX failed, it was no different.

The issue is people put Bitcoin on FTX and then Sam turned around and issued three X as much paper obligations. And when people try to withdraw the Bitcoin, he doesn't have it. He fails. When Silicon Valley bank failed or when any of these other bank fails, they had certain amount of money, you know, and then they turned around and they invested it and their investment was in government securities, the securities traded down.

Now they were in solvents when people try to withdraw their money, they don't actually have the money to pay them off the securities traded down. Now they were in solvent when people try to withdraw their money, they don't actually have the money to pay them off, the banks fail. So when you look at this banking crisis, what's going on? What you've got is a bunch of banks everywhere in the world that have shaky assets, right? What's really shaky?

Well, if you actually hold Argentine pesos or a Nigerian niara, and then you triple the supply of them every year, the value goes to zero, right? If that's your currency base or your asset base, you're gonna be in solvent. When people put $10 billion into a bank backed by pesos, the peso goes to zero. The bank turns around

and re-lones out 20 billion dollars. Now there's 30 billion dollars circulating on 10 billion dollars in the bank. When you try to withdraw the money, the bank collapses, the entire economy collapses. That's going on everywhere in the world. It's much worse in Lebanon or Nigeria or in Argentina than it is in the US. It's bad in the US, and it's cracking on the seams with, you know, first Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank

and the like. But what do you conclude if you're an individual? If you're a company conclude if you're an individual? If you're a company, or if you're a family, or if you're an individual, and you live in Zimbabwe, what would you do? Well, you're not gonna buy gold and put it in the bank, the bank's just gonna seize your gold.

You're not even gonna buy dollars and put it in the bank. The bank is gonna seize your dollars. You're not gonna buy local and put it in the bank. The bank is gonna seize your dollars. You're not gonna buy locals in Bobway dollars. They're going to zero as you stare at them. They're gonna lose 10% of their value a month, right? They're just melting in your hand. So you gotta buy something you can custody.

So before Bitcoin, you would about bars of soap, creates a toilet paper, you would about motorcycles, you would about a humvee, you would about bars of soap, creates a toilet paper, you would about motorcycles, you would about a humvee, you would about barrels of oil, you would about anything, you would about food, you would about bullets, you would about guns, anything tangible that you can self-custody, you would have held. Now, after Bitcoin, you now have for the first time

in human history the ability to buy not a barrel of oil but $80 worth of Bitcoin and you put it on your phone and now you can go through an airport with the Bitcoin. You can't go through the airport with a barrel of oil Right and and you don't what's the big the big difference? The difference between gold and Bitcoin and the reason Bitcoin is up 140% and gold is up 1% is the middle class family can custody their own

Bitcoin and a wealthy person can either hold $10 million of Bitcoin in self-custody or if I live in Africa, I can move the 10 million dollars of Bitcoin to Monaco, Singapore, London, Paris, New York, or Miami Beach. And that is not an option you have with your gold. It's not an option you have with your dollars. When you're an Argentine citizen and you actually call up the bank and say, hey, move my million dollars out of Argentina and send it to Switzerland. They're like, I got us.

No, they have capital controls. They have banking controls. The people in Lebanon with millions of dollars in Lebanese banks, they wanted to get their money at Lebanon. It was like, well, sorry, your funds are frozen. Why? Because the bank never had the million dollars as soon as you put the million dollars in the bank in levinon they turned around and loaned to the government

it's gone the government spent the million dollars you try to get the money out the bank closes its doors right is that illegal no because the guy that runs the government passed a law declaring a bank holiday for the good of the country saying that we can't allow you to redeem your dollars.