The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The CBP - Rich Dias - Canadian Risks and Global Trends

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES This week we welcome Rich Dias of The Loonie Hour for a discussion on what Canadians should be watching, Canada's place in the global economy, as well as risks and opportunities going forward. Of course, we'll also sprinkle in some BTC talk along the way. Rich is a CFA with a great deal of knowledge about the current state of affairs, so we're looking forward to the chat. Follow Rich on X: Richard Dias (@RichardDias_CFA) / X (twitter.com) The Loonie Hour Podcast: https://thelooniehour.ca/ From a couple of Canucks who like to talk about how Bitcoin will impact Canada. As always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com ⁠Discord: https://discord.com/invite/YgPJVbGCZX A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetwork This show is sponsored by: easyDNS - ⁠⁠https://easydns.com/⁠⁠ (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?even...) EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠ (https://www.youtube.com/redirect?even...) The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. With their new kyc-free options, there's never been a quicker, simpler, more private and (most importantly) cheaper way to acquire private Bitcoin. Use the link above for $20 bones, and take advantage of all Bull Bitcoin has to offer.

The Canadian Bitcoiners podcast is just two guys and maybe a guest or two discussing Bitcoin, Bitcoin equities, and the related macroeconomic space. It's not meant to be financial advice, so please, if you're doing any investing, after listening to our program, do your own research, do your own due diligence, and understand that any money you invest can be lost. The show is meant for entertainment purposes only, and we hope you enjoy the program. Friends and enemies, welcome back to another, not lonely, it's never a lonely Tuesday night or Wednesday night rip when it's interview night. My name is Joey, here tonight with Rich Diaz, you guys know from the Looney Hour, a podcast that has become very popular, one that Len and I both listen to and recommend.

And many of you guys listen to as well. I can see in the chat here, people talking about the Looney Hour. We have to convert them to Bitcoin. We will get that done at some point. I know we've had Steve and Keith on in the last 12 or so months. Steve, a Bitcoiner for sure. Keith, like many market mercenaries, doesn't hate anything, but only likes things at the right price. And we'll see what Rich's thoughts on that are along with a million other things, a lot going on in the Canadian economy. And we are finding, I think more and more every day that the place that many Canadians thought our country occupied in the global market is not quite as stable or quite as status quo. Let's say it's not quite chalk these days as it was before, but we'll get into all that. Like I

mentioned first, of course, the sponsors, EasyDNS, the best place for you to buy any kind of domain or VPS service. Guys, Mark has been around for a long time. He's your friendly neighborhood registrar, like he always says. And we use his website. Yeah, we use his service for our website, CanadianBitcoiners.com. You can head there, find out what we're up to,

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privacy focused, PGP and GPG email, big time, big time importance these days. We saw ProtonMail obviously leaking tons of user data in the name of some kind of investigation not long ago, but the announcement came today, earlier today. So yeah, you want a registrar who will work with you and keep you private. And of course, as we always talk about all the time, Mark doesn't like to brag, but you're not going to get taken down. Mark is not worried about cancel culture. Mark is mission focused and realizes that free speech has a place in a functioning democracy. And so all that stuff said, you can go over to EZDNS, use our code CBPMEDIA, or just tell them we sent you. Mark is thrilled with the business we've been giving him. And we're thrilled with the partnership, both because if I run into a hiccup with a guest,

I can just call him and see if he's got half an hour to come shoot the shit. And also because he's been a great partner and he's a great Bitcoiner. He's become a friend of ours over the years. So we're happy to be continuing to work with him. Second sponsor, Bull Bitcoin. I think today is the last day. Is it today or tomorrow? We talked about this last night and I still don't remember, but today or tomorrow, the last day for you to buy KYC free Bitcoin at the post office for now. You can go there with your QR code,

scan it, post office guy will look at you a little bit puzzled, but it's not your problem. Hand over the cash and by the time you get home, the cat will be in your Bitcoin account. You can buy it. It's non-custodial. So you don't ever have to worry about the great rug pull that we talk about all the time. Anytime you have a custodian involved, you run the risk of law enforcement issues or compliance issues or shotgun KYC or whatever. Well, Bitcoin, don't have to worry about any of that stuff. You can also just do e-transfer if you want, which I use sometimes. I got to be honest. I'll level with you. I use e-transfer some of my buys if I don't feel like it, or I need a quick dopamine hit on a price drop, I just send a couple hundred bucks there. And same story, piece of cake, it's there in a few minutes

and in your Bitcoin wallet a couple hours later. CoinJoin, by default, everything is private. Of course, that's under attack these days in a lot of places, but they're still doing it, which is outstanding. And if you want to sell your Bitcoin, you can. I don't recommend it, but you can do that. And pay your bills. You want to pay your cell phone bill, property tax, mortgage, university tuition, residence, whatever. They got a list of payees that are longer than the Old Testament. And every single one of them, without knowing probably, will accept your payment from Bull Bitcoin vis-a-vis your Bitcoin balance, which is great. So we like that. Use our promo code. I don't know what it is, but the website is Iwantbitcoin.ca if you want to use our promo code, if you haven't signed up already for some

bizarre reason. And on your account, you get $21. Help support the show. We like that. You like that. Without further ado, Rich Diaz. We're talking before the show uh i'm a big fan of whiteboards i don't know i that whiteboard so hard to make out what's there the place i work which i won't share with the listeners what we've taken to in the last little while is ordering these like uh i guess whiteboard marker friendly office windows do you guys have any of those over there or what no that'd be amazing sadly that's a great idea. Maybe next office, I'll definitely do that for sure. Although I don't know if I want, I don't know if I like that. I like, I think I'm more of a traditionalist. I think I like the white ones just fine. Thanks.

I like it. I like it. So I want to thank you for coming on the show. We've been trying to sort this out for a couple of weeks now, but this was actually all, all said, you know, rather simple guest booking. rich like i said in the intro a lot of people listen to your show but i know there's a lot of bitcoiners who listen to our podcast who don't listen to your show so maybe tell people a bit about two things one who you are and two uh the loony hour talk to me a little bit about that sure so um i guess um i'm a montrealer born and raised and that's the most important thing for an evening like tonight because we just got the fifth overall draft pick,

and thankfully Chicago did not get Macklin, Calabrini, or Celebrini, whatever. So I'm very happy about that. I was on tender hooks right before we connected. I'm what you would call a sell-side strategist, although I've spent most of my career on the buy side. I cut my teeth at a company called BCA Research in 2008. So I graduated from McGill June or whatever, May of 2008.

And a month later, I was watching the S&P 500 drop, I think all told about 40, whatever, 50%, you know, big vol days on, on the treasury, and on the yield curve inverting, watching Ben Bernanke shake his handshake as he as he sort of tried to convince and, you know, and to warn the lawmakers that they needed to act. And for the last, Jesus, now 15 or so years, I've been looking at financial markets and global capital markets from a top-down lens. And what that means is sort of from a 60,000 or bird's eye view, 60,000 foot or bird's eye view look of the world. So looking at things like, of course, monetary policy,

but things like inflation and money supply, labor markets and demographics, earnings, let's say from the equity side and sector themes and rotations and margins and pricing power, et cetera. And then of course, there's a little bit of a political tinge to it, but I think that's generally overstated. But, yeah, I look at, obviously, business cycle, CapEx and productivity, and credit cycle is really important. So, like, all those different things and trying to sort of make sense of it for institutional investors. And like I said, I spend most of my time on the buy side,

and I've had a little bit of experience on the sell side too. So I sort of know both sides of the street and the challenges and constraints that each of them has to deal with. That's a great intro. And do you want to tell people a bit about the Looney Hour, the podcast for which you have become, is famous the right word? It might be, buddy. I don't know know definitely not i call my friends ask i say that i'm a minor internet celebrity and that's i'm happy to that's uh that to me is exactly i think where we belong hopefully one day you know i'll get some joe rogan bucks but for now i'm happy to to be part of the looney hour so we're a triumvirate um and i think we work together well number one because i think we're all quite, even though we have quite strong views, we don't take ourselves too seriously.

We take the subject matter quite seriously, but we have fun. And obviously you guys, and for people who don't know, it's Steve Sretzky and Keith Dicker. Keith is a portfolio manager with IceCap. And Steve is an independent real estate broker. And I guess we strive to educate, entertain, and inform Canadians about the global economy, capital markets, and real estate, but always with a view to Canada, Canadians, Canadian investors, and the impact on the Canadian economy, equity market, bond market, currency, and of course, monetary policy, and sort of, yeah, really

sort of taking, distilling what's going on, what we're seeing in our everyday lives, our day-to-day jobs, and then why it's important to Canadians, how it affects them, identifying some risks and opportunities. But we don't sell anything, and we sure don't want to run afoul of the regulators, and so we don't recommend any stocks. But I think if you pay close attention to us, I think you'll know sort of what we're in favor of or what we're interested in and what we think is appealing and certainly where to sort of avoid some of the pitfalls

there are in capital markets because there are many. Yeah, that's a good place to start. We may as well say, you know, there's a disclaimer on the front of the show all the time. Nothing I say is financial advice because I'm a fucking moron. Rich is not a fucking moron. Nothing he says is financial advice either. Okay, so don't get any ideas. Don't get excited.

If you buy anything and lose everything, don't come knocking. Okay, I'm not answering the door nor am I answering any of my DMs. So Rich, why don't we start with this? I think it's sort of important to put a little bit of context around where we are now in Canada. It's a country that I think is in a little bit of trouble in a lot of ways, but has some opportunities in other ways. And there's some positives and negatives we can discuss.

But I think what a lot of Canadians my age, your age, we're around the same age, I'm 37 this year. You know, how many people our age remember what a healthy Canadian economy looked like? And maybe when the last time the Canadian economy was healthy and vibrant? And, you know, in your view, if you don't mind, when do you think that was? And what defines, you know, what defined a healthy Canadian economy at that time? So I'll answer the second part first, because that's a really tricky question. What defines a healthier, strong Canadian economy? I don't know what that answer is. I think I can answer in some sort of generalities, which is sort of, you know, low unemployment, relatively low inflation, improving per capita GDP, or, you know,

and improving productivity. So GDP is a gross domestic product. So, you know, in broad strokes, how wealthy individuals are in your economy? Is that growing? Is it steadily growing? A relatively healthy investment environment. Are you seeing capital expenditure or gross fixed capital formation rising? Do you see low credit spreads? Is the credit market and the banking sector relatively healthy? So that's how I would define that more generally. The last time I think that that happened for Canada, which is a much trickier

question to answer, I guess probably, you know, it is cyclical, right? So there's, I mean, part of being in a free market, well, as much as a free market as we can these days, is that it does, you do get swings and roundabouts i would say it's probably happened you know towards um in the after the depression that people call the great recession so probably in the 2010 11 12 era when we're sort of coming out of that and then and before that it was probably um you know 2005 6 7 8 in the run-up to the Great Recession or Depression. And then probably, you know, and then before COVID, I mean, we had a couple of good decent years. But again, for Canada, there's been some real dislocations that I think have hurt

the underlying. And I think a lot of what we saw as far as top line growth was fool's gold, if that makes any sense. It does. And so this is a good segue into my next question. I'm curious about your thoughts on, how do we get here, Rich? When I look around, I see a lot of people my age earning a pretty decent wage,

if not a wage that would have been upper middle class seven, eight years ago, maybe before the pandemic, now struggling to make ends meet. I'm thinking specifically of them not being able to afford housing, lower family formation, no savings or asset holdings, whether it's equities or other fixed assets. How did we get here? You said there was some displacement there and there's some fool's gold. What were the mistakes in your view between, I don't know, let's say 20... I don't want to say 2016, but maybe I will say 2016 and now that landed us in the hot water

we find ourselves in? Yeah. So I think there like two things going on there. One is the mistake. And I think the main mistake is that the Central Bank of Canada kept interest rates too low for too long. And that is, in my view, a mistake that's apolitical. Make no mistake, we'll get to all the political mistakes. And there are numerous political mistakes, obvious ones, stupid ones. But one of the key, key things that I think we sort of sort of forget is how do we get here? And I think that the real schism or issue or pain point that we've had is really our reaction to the biggest contraction economic activity since the Great Depression. So the US, we forget, you know, had a, I mean, some of us forget, I would recommend you guys watch the big short is a really good job explaining sort of how the US got into its financial shitstorm, I don't know, problem,

whatever you want to call it. Basically, there was a massive, massive run up in household debt to GDP. I mean, it started that the GDP was basically stable in the 90s at 60% to GDP, and it ran up all the way to about, I don't know, 100, 102, 103, depending on your sort of source. That obviously, I'm not going to relitigate the whole financial crash, but the point is, there was a huge, obviously, run up. There was then there was debt bubble and then that deflated and then that deflation. Now, the U.S. spent a lot of money, tried desperately to recapitalize its bust banks. And the mistake really comes in sort of the reactions that other countries did or didn't do. The U.S. kept interest rates very, very, very low. And Canada and its infinite wisdom, in my view, now there are many smart people who disagree with this assessment, but this is my view,

is that once Canada sort of, once we sort of got out of that situation, the Bank of Canada kept interest rates far too low. And really, in technical terms, it was the real rate of inflation, so the interest rate, sorry, the real rate of interest rates, interest rates adjusted for inflation were effectively negative. And they were negative for a very, very long time. And you say, Rich, why is that important? Because what it did was it disincentivized one thing, and it really juiced what I think every Canadian will recognize is a problem is it really juiced the housing market and it disincentivized allocating capital to other parts of your economy. And you'll say, why that? Because effectively, when you have

real negative, real interest rates, you are in theory and sometimes in practice, effectively paid to borrow, which makes sense. An interest rate is when you pay to borrow. And if it's a negative, that means you are basically getting paid to own and hold that liability. And what that does is it basically, it forces, doesn't force, I should say, it incentivizes people to take on increasingly high leverage to, and why not? Because you're getting paid to hold that asset. And so what that does is it reinforces, you know, the speculative fervor, which then encourages people to take on more debt, which really forces the speculative fervor. And around and around we go and we see different examples of this. A negative real interest rate, you could argue, is what caused the housing bubble in Spain and in Ireland. In Canada, I think it's absolutely partly and partly to blame.

There's other reasons, of course, to why, I think it's absolutely partly and partly to blame. There's other reasons, of course, to why, but that's definitely part. And the more recent example is when it happened in Germany more recently. Germany's basically had flat housing prices for 30 years. And then in order to deal with COVID and a bunch of other stuff, they kept interest rates really low. And what did people do? They piled into real estate and homes in Berlin basically doubled over two years. And so there's lots of stuff going on, and I'll pass it over to you. But to me, how we got here was really the negative real interest rates at a time. So basically the wrong policy prescription for a country who didn't have the debt deflation and the bust banks that the US did. So what is the relationship, in your view, between this sort of apolitical policy of interest rates and the bust banks that the U.S. did. So what is the relationship in your view between

this sort of apolitical policy of interest rates and the political response? Ideally, I think, although it's maybe not sort of in stone tablets anywhere, I think there's a little push and pull between central banks and the political bodies in these countries where one can get carried away and cause damage uh without the other checking it in some way or shape or form so what where was the political response why why the lack of political response or the wrong political response um give me some um give me some details there what was the issue so you know carrying on our history lesson i promise i won't bore you too badly with that which is listen... Listen, Bitcoiners love this stuff, Rich. This is all our book. So many countries delevered after 2008. The US's household debt to GDP is now at 73%.

Spain's household debt to GDP, if I can remember, peaked at like 90% and is now 48%. Ireland, if you can believe, peaked at about 118 is now 48 percent uh ireland if you can believe peaked at about 118 or whatever percent of gdp and its household debt is now at 26 percent of gdp don't get me wrong these were painful internal and in some cases external evaluations um but the point is so canada in that um you know we just carried on and our household debt started continued to rise now you know that there was some decent, and so this is, in my view, purely a function of that speculation around housing. And can you blame people? I mean, we had, there was no dislocation, like as we watched American

house prices collapse, whether it was in Las Vegas or, or, you know, in California, New York, whatever, you know, house prices in Canada just kept on going. And it became, in effect, sort of the only real way to generate that, any kind of wealth, and to transfer it to your kids and whatever. That housing bubble has a lot of issues because it soaked up an incredible amount of capital away from other industries. So when you look at GDP, you have your government consumption, you have your household consumption,

and then you have your investment. And within your investment, under that umbrella, you have residential investment and non-fixed capital formation or non-resi investment. And you can see in Canada's case, we just never corrected like the US. So the US peaked and then started to correct the people asset allocated money away from residential and into the non-resi space. Canada just kept on going.

And why not? House prices kept on going. This led to a couple of our jurisdictions being some of the most expensive house prices in the world. So Demographia, which is a source you can look up online, has a great website and they rank literally hundreds of cities all over North America and Europe and Asia and whatever. And I think Vancouver and Toronto are at the top of this very, very extensive table. And so then fast forward, so that's where we sort of were. And then you get into a situation where COVID happens. Now, I don't really, really don't want to relitigate the sense of whether or not we should have locked down children in order to save old people. I have like PTSD from COVID. So I really try to stay away from it. But I will highlight one huge, huge, huge mistake that the Central Bank of Canada did. And although they will never

admit it, I would say privately, they probably really admit it was when number one, they monetized all of the debt that was issued in the first. I can't remember exactly how many, but let's say two years. So what does monetizing mean? So when the central bank, when the central government issues debt, the government, the Bank of Canada basically printed money. Yes, they printed money and absorbed all of the debt. Now, if you follow me on Twitter, which is, sorry, a shameless plug, Joey, so forgive me, but it's at Richard Diaz. This is your pinned tweet. Yeah, this is my pinned tweet.

That's exactly right. And that's why I'm clicking it. basically in the end of 2021, you know, the government of Canada issued something like $400 billion of debt, which is whatever, neither here nor there. And you can agree or disagree on whether or not that was well spent. That to me is less important than my next point, which is the Bank of Canada absorbed all of that debt. And so that's mistake number one, because it basically said to, it gave the signal to the bank of Canada, to the government of Canada, excuse me, that deficits don't matter and that there's no consequences with respect to interest rates and crowding out another investment. That's mistake number one. And mistake number two is that Tiff

Macklin said to everybody that interest rates would be low for, and I quote US during their bubble time. After we know that housing valuations are totally stratospheric compared to every other major economy in the world. At that point, in his infinite wisdom, he told Canadians effectively, we're not going to raise interest rates. And what, you know, after you train this hamster to run on this wheel, what do you say? You use, you know, you stick just yet another piece of cheese. And so we went into absolute overcharge over, over, um, we went overdrive. And so Canadians borrowed even more money, sending our household debt to GDP to sort

of an all time high of 110 or whatever percent, and basically dumping in all that money into housing. Now, the problem is, sorry, Joe, I'm going on and on, forgive me. This is good. The problem is that those Canadians listening to their central bankers did a lot of this stuff on variable mortgages. Now, do you remember the whole fiasco about how inflation was going to be transitory and how much of a fantastic lie that was?

I thank God I have the receipts on Twitter, and I wrote about it at the time. It was never going to be transitory. You can't spend that much money. You can't have the central banks print as much money or monetize it or quantitative easing or whatever fancy words you want to use. And have massive, massive supply shocks all at the same time and think that that's just going to dissipate.

The other point is that Mount Everest is transitory. Like in 400 million years from now, Mount Everest will be a molehill. And so it's asinine to tell working class people that we're going to have 10% or 15% of inflation, but don't worry, it's temporary. That's the political element. The point we're trying to get to today is how do we get to the situation where you have consumer confidence of young people at basically all-time lows. You have per capita GDP growth shrinking for seven years. You have, you know, real retail sales adjusted for the number of people flat over X amount of time. It's because we basically are dealing with the tide now going out. And, you know, a different way of saying that is we are effectively dealing with a balance sheet

recession. So inevitably, that higher inflation, which was not transitory, which was sticky for, in my view, very obvious reasons, namely shelter. Once that proved to the powers that be that it was in fact not transitory, they were compelled to raise interest rates. And the key thing is that they have to stay up there in order to destroy demand sufficient to lower inflation to at or below their target, which is their mandate. Now you can question the wisdom of that mandate, that's a different subject for a different day, but that is sort of where we're at. So now we are dealing with a balance sheet recession. For some people who don't know what a balance sheet recession, and you'll forgive me a type of economic recession that occurs when high levels

of private sector debt cause individuals or companies to collectively focus on saving by paying down their debt rather than spending or investing. And I would pause it, Joey, that that sounds very familiar. That's a great explanation. And to your first time guest, I appreciate when the guests roll downhill. It's when we get the best content and I am not a triumvirate. And so as much as I enjoy listening to the Looney Hour, oftentimes you don't get uninterrupted 15 minutes like that. It was great. Now, a couple of questions for you about some of the stuff you've talked about there. Number one, this idea that Canadians receive guidance from Tiff Macklem and famously, the interest rates were at historic lows. Glenn and everyone's heard these comments and whatnot

over the years. In your view, central banks have a role to play in terms of guidance, but the guidance is meant to be intentionally vague to prevent extraordinary risks from being taken, et cetera, et cetera. Is there a time when central bank guidance of that kind has been a positive for an economy? I can't think of one. And I don't know if you can. I'd be curious to hear if you can think of an example. I can. I can, actually.

I think that Mario Draghi, I think, is a perfect example of how that can be really good. Draghi was ECB, right? So Mario Draghi was the ECB president during the Euro area crisis. And for as much as I, for as much disdain as I have for central bankers generally, I would say he's probably one of the few exceptions to prove the rule. Because what he was doing, in a a sense was basically fighting against speculators. And what he needed to do was convince whether it's, excuse me, speculators or the market or whatever,

that he had infinite, he had the infinity bazooka, Huey infinity. And him saying that he was going to do whatever it takes to, to, to support the Euro is one way of sort of quelling the sort of either risk or speculation or worries or whatever it is, or bank runs or, you know, whatever it is on financial assets, which are key to, you know, the general functioning of our financial and capital markets.

Now, the mistake that I think that a lot of people did in COVID was they compared to me, they made, they treated COVID and the policy and the financial, everything like the U.S. in 2008. The U.S. banks were bust. The U.S. had to recapitalize all of its banking system. Now, you say it's fair or unfair that they did that. That was the reality. And they were dealing with a banking sector sort of basically being disintegrated and a severe banking balance sheet recession. That is not what we were dealing with in COVID. COVID was a supply shock. It was an acute dislocation in demand. And what they should have done, in my view, and I think a lot of smarter people would mean to set this, was just simply provide liquidity. But they went above and beyond just simply providing liquidity. So what

does liquidity mean? It means just providing infinity money at a discount window. And there's a difference between a solvency issue, which is what 2008 was, which is when you're insolvent and they need to recapitalize your entire banking system and a liquidity issue, which is what I think 2008 was. And so they went full on. They just used the playbook of a banking sector solvency problem which is also what happened in in the in 2010 11 12 or whatever in in in europe but they and they but they they treat the liquidity issue with the solvency sort of pill and a solvent solvency um you know remedy and i think that that's why you've had all the problems that we have. And bringing it back to Canada, you know, you eventually, a speculative bubble will

burst. Now, it may take a lot longer than expected. I was totally wrong about Canada's housing market. I thought it was going to collapse under its own weight years ago. Had you asked me 10 years ago if a housing bubble would have, you know, lasted 10 years? No, I would have., I was spectacularly wrong. Going forward now, I think you're starting to see all the real strains on the economy. And it's because I said to you before, which is housing with individuals and companies,

after having accumulated incredible amounts of debt, when interest rates rise, they now have to reallocate that disposable income. Instead of investing or saving, they allocate it to reallocate that disposable income instead of investing or saving, they allocate it to servicing the debt. And we didn't even talk about the population piece, but that adds complexity to what is already kind of a screwed up situation. We should talk about it. I think one of the threads that a lot of people have trouble connecting is the linkage between

Canadian economic health, we'll call it, this is sort of a blanket term, but there's no better term for the moment, and housing prices. There seems to be an unwillingness on the part of both politicians and central banks, as you mentioned, there seems to be an unwillingness to raise rates in a time where maybe they probably still should be or could be over here. And this idea that housing prices need to become more affordable, but no one ever really talks about how they want to truly decrease the value of your home by 20 or 30 or more percent. Why is that, Rich? What is the linkage as far as a central banker is concerned or a government is concerned here in Canada

between home values and the broader Canadian economic picture? So I think there's like three points there, if I may. One is central bankers and what's their job. So I would submit to you that the central banker's job is not to worry about house prices, unless they're absolutely forced to. Are they there now? I think so, personally,

although I think that's probably a minority view. The central bank's job in Canada and the U.S., the US, the US has a dual mandate, which is full employment, which is a nebulous term and inflation. In Canada, we have a single mandate. In the UK, it's a single mandate, whatever. So that's the first thing. And the central bank also has a macro prudential duty. It's not necessarily a mandate. I would say it's a different word. You pick whatever word you want, responsibility, job. It's not necessarily a mandate. I would say it's a different word. You pick whatever word you want. Responsibility, job. It's not a specific mandate. You know what I'm saying? Their job is to sort of keep an eye on things. And when things hit the fan, they should step in, which I think is very sensible. So for example, if the six banks in Canada collapse, then their

job is, I think, as a central banker, come in and make sure everything goes okay. The housing affordability piece, I think it is a lie to say that politicians want affordable housing. And now the reason I think I use that language is because what is affordable housing? Affordable housing means, as you said, is a collapse in prices of what? 10 to 20, 30, 50%? I think it's 50, yeah. Yeah, depending on where you are. And we know, as a state, we know, because everybody's told this on Twitter,

it's on the central bank website itself, that house prices relative to income or relative to rents are either at all-time highs, equivalent to some of the bubble territories that we know of in Ireland, Spain, US, whatever. Household prices to rent are off the charts, again, really, really high. And so we know that there must be a recalibration. And a recalibration is house prices relative to some denominator now the denominator could be rent the denominator can be income yeah but in any way you shape before it means that the prices of your house either the income needs to go up by a lot

or the rents need to go up by a lot or the house prices need to fall and i don't think that that's a vote winner i think that if tomorrow house prices i mean just as a stupid example justin trudeau is massively behind in the polls um if house prices fell tomorrow by 50 and housing was affordable in canada do you think that would help him or hurt him in the polls the answer i hate this i hate to say it there's an awful lot of people who would support that i don't know whether it's true though. Like I think, you know, I don't know. I mean, this is, we only have an hour, but I think that, you know, you'd be talking about, no, no, don't apologize. I just want to

note that like, and I think you probably share this view if I, if I pressed you on it. Yeah. The odds that some, some policy like that are a significant decrease in home prices would be harmful for him in the polls i'm not a thousand percent sure would you bet would you bet would you bet your life on that i don't think i would no i think you make a really good point which is we are we are at such an uh okay so okay so you're you're right actually i'll take it back i'll take it back so maybe what if i may just as i as i tap dance a little bit here, what I'll say is under normal circumstances, a politician does not want to be on the watch, responsible for a house price decline of such a magnitude. I think

that that's fair to say. And so just as a rule, and I think that that's a really important thing that we sort of have to sort of wrap our heads around. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not that cynical. I think how there are situations where you, a politician, can make concrete, active, positive contributions to making housing more affordable. For example, even though I'm not a big fan of the previous prime minister of New Zealand for her COVID stance, they changed a bunch of zoning rules and a bunch of other stuff that's too smart for me. But the reality is they made an active decision at the federal level, and it absolutely helped with supply and has basically taken the edge off of what was an extremely, extremely hot housing market in New Zealand. At the more local level, we know that Austin, Texas

has had declining rents in one of the highest, the fastest growing cities in America. Rents are either if they're not declining, they're basically very low and stable. And you say how could one of the richest, fastest growing cities in America, super geared up to tech,

have low and not very low or reasonable rent growth. It's because there was sensible local government that changed supply rules and zoning rules and et cetera, et cetera. So it is possible. And I think you're right. And I was wrong in the sense that it's not clearly always one way or the other. I would say though, just to really round out the Canadian piece, if I may, which is our dear leader did the exact opposite, which is they by running budget deficits. That's obviously inflationary, especially when it's above GDP growth. And two, they increase population growth to the highest level in 45 years 95 of which is immigration and then once that people like me highlighted that hey maybe that like immigration's number

is ridiculous and totally totally off the scale you know they squawked and said people like me who by the way my father is an immigrant to this country, who also happens to be African, is racist for pointing that out. It took them two years and getting destroyed in the polls before they finally sort of realized that you cannot increase your population by immigration to this degree with no subsequent housing starts and not have massive, impacts on rent which leads into inflation and then housing prices which you know hurts to pull them in the polls and consumer confidence etc etc this is like it's become such a huge problem i'm curious about your thoughts on like and this is a debate i've had a little you know in my personal life here this idea that zoning can make a big difference. When I think about the way we do zoning as far as single family, multifamily apartments and condo style

stuff here, and I'm in Dundas near Hamilton and in the GTA. And one of the things I think is no one is really speculating that much on stuff like condos around here. But the single family dwellings, they're astronomically priced, completely out of whack, in need of recalibration, like you mentioned. The zoning more for multifamily really help with that? I don't know. And I'm kind of just talking into the ether here because I'm not sure if it makes a difference in the single family home thing, which would solve a lot of our problems. The population growth thing, you know, I don't know what to say about that. And maybe we can shift gears to narrative here. I, you know, I've been following you for some time and for some time. And I, I appreciate that you guys speak not only about data,

but also about some of the more intangible elements of government. I was going to say control rich rich but it's not control it's influence okay it's influence um the levers that usually work for convincing an electorate that certain policies are working or not working or maybe working better than they actually are or not quite as bad as they actually are they seem to be failing in a lot of ways and because of shows like yours and i think shows like mine and other shows that are doing sort of independent research, looking at data that's publicly available, there's a problem now with narrative control.

And I want to point out to people something I mentioned on the show a while ago and something you guys, I think, honestly didn't give enough credence to on Looney Hour. There's ministers, federal ministers, deciding that the best use of their time is meeting with Sretzky to discuss what's... Am I crazy that that's not maybe the most effective use of time without going after the merits of that idea on the ground floor? About slamming my colleague?

Yeah, but I like Steve. He's fine. But like, why, you know, like you really have time to meet with Sretzky about policy positions and communication. Why not just come up with better policy? Tell me a bit about your view on narrative control for modern governments.

We can stay in Canada if you want. You can go anywhere you like. I think this is a big story that if you're not in the millennial age group or younger, you don't even appreciate how important this is as far as garnering support in anyone under 40. I mean, okay. So yeah, there's lots to unpack there. First of all, I love Steve. Steve, a guest on this show once upon a time. I listen to him every week. I should be so lucky to spend time with him. And anything he says about real estate is great.

No, I mean, the zoning thing, I would never. That's totally outside of my space. The reason I brought up the New Zealand piece is just because it's very, very clear. They had a huge housing bubble, huge debt, they changed zoning laws, and then all that stuff changed. And so and it's a recent example. It's a small open economy like ours. It's a, you know, Anglo Saxon, there's lots of the same kind of laws, you know what I mean? There's like loads and loads of comparables, which is why I think it is possible you can have it. But But in general, I don't know anything about zoning. And so maybe I should sort of stick to my netting.

The narrative piece, I think that's a fascinating sort of conversation. I think that, man, I don't know. I'm trying not to get in trouble. I think, and I don't want to fucking talk about COVID. But I think COVID, I think covid plus the internet plus you're right shows like yours and maybe i wouldn't give us that much credit but maybe shows like mine i think it it changed something in people it broke something in people's brains and i think that they have the mainstream media and i hate using that term, have only themselves to blame. Because when, you know,

their job, as they always tell us, is to speak truth to power. And I think that they're derelict in two very consequential and important duties. And I think one of the most, there was a recent article and an op-ed by this guy who used to be one of the senior editors at npr and i would just suggest people go and google it of how newsrooms in general have been co-opted by certain political ideologies and this whole diversity you know fell short of the diversity of thought and then you you throw in sort of you know the real in my view hard disagreements about covid policy plus as you say you know finding this on other mainstream media but the real thing is that once people understood that the media was wrong about very

very important topics let's just stick to economics so that i don't get in trouble like things like transitory inflation being transitory you know the government said inflation was going to is going to be transitory and no one in the media thought to say well what if you're wrong like what if it's not transitory or first of all what the hell does transitory even mean that doesn't mean anything and can you please explain to us and what if you're wrong and i think i think that you're right the narrative and the willing the ability to control that narrative i think has slipped out of their grasp and i think that that's why there's some there's there's laws in the books in scotland ireland the uk certainly australia Ireland, the UK, certainly Australia, and Canada with Bill C-63 that's trying desperately to outlaw

hate crimes and online hate speech. And in my view, it is a very sort of thinly veiled swipe at people who don't, Joey, speak the right narrative, don't say the right things at the right time and support the narrative. I don't know what you think about that. I'm curious about your thoughts. I have a number of thoughts. Some of them I'll share with you now, sir. My big concern has always been, and Rich, operating in the Bitcoin space, the barrage is nonstop, buddy. Everything I do is akin to money laundering, terrorist financing, child trafficking, you name it. Everything that I appreciate about Bitcoin as an asset and as a monetary ethos should be outlawed, banned, and I should be hung in the

public square for supporting it or speaking about it. And speaking about it is important. The same way that speaking about transitory inflation is important. The same way that speaking about COVID policy is important. No one is saying that these decisions are easy, but that necessitates debate. And the problem we have here in Canada, and I think in the countries you mentioned, some of them worse than others, more severe than others, notably prison colony Australia, and a few other places in the world. The issue is that there's a certainty among the legacy media that they are correct and their sources are infallible, and they need those sources to continue feeding them information because there's a sort of parasitic relationship between

information access and narrative. And this has caused problems for us in Canada. Many people have talked about and noted this support, a kind term in my view, the CBC receives from the taxpayer, papers like the Toronto Star, whose stock, if it was any lower, would be in Beelzebub's living room. People don't actually support these things with their dollars or their attention, and yet they are fed to us constantly on the back of the insanely high taxes we pay in this country. That's one problem I have. The other problem I have is that, as you mentioned there, thinly veil the tax on what I think are ultimately free speech principles. You know what I mean?

Ultimately free speech principles. Rich, how long is it going to be until we see inflation? This is a hypothetical, okay? But it sounds like you and I agree that inflation may not go away anytime soon. Some of these things are going to become larger problems. Under the veil of societal unity, am I going to be allowed to suggest that people exit the cat in favor of Bitcoin? Or is that going to be something that causes a fracture and someone's going to come to

my door or take down my channel or whatever and tell me I can't say that? Are you going to be allowed to suggest that perhaps, uh, some of the policies from the central bank were inflammatory on the inflation side and And there was people in the room who knew what they were saying was untrue and they said it anyways, and then went back on it, you know, you know, blighting millions of Canadian homeowners, millions of Canadians who own small businesses, work for small businesses. Is that going to be allowed or is it going to be, uh, you know, is there going to be a focused effort to collapse that subsection of doubting society in favor of,

you know, like I said, unity among the citizenry. I'm not convinced, Rich, given what happened over the last four years, that these things are impossible. And anything that's a non-zero chance deserves consideration and caution. There needs to be a cautious eye paid to these things. You guys have had Michael Geist on your show. I would love to talk to him at some point about this stuff. But that's be a cautious eye paid to these things. You guys have had Michael Geist on your show.

I would love to talk to him at some point about this stuff. But that's a good voice to follow on these things. He's very balanced. He's a legal professional, a lawyer by trade. And there's a lot of people who are smarter than you and I on those topics. But for us to be coming at this from a different angle than those guys and see the same problems is telling, I think. Not enough Canadians know about this stuff,

and they're not paying enough attention to it so on the on the canadian buying or selling anything i why i will won't touch that with a temple pole i will tell you that tiff macklin is a is is one of my least favorite people and and i think the reason he is is because he should have known better yeah and i think that he should should have been fired basically um he you know one mistake is enough hoovering up all the debt that's one mistake the second mistake was telling people interest rates are going to be low for a long time unusually clear unusually clear in the middle of a speculative bubble. And the third reason why you should, I know it's difficult. I shouldn't ask for people to lose their jobs and certainly you shouldn't do it in such a public forum.

But I believe it and I'm sorry. And the whole transitory thing. One of those things would have been bad enough to do all three is, I think, a fireable offense. I will give him credit, though, that since that cock-up, he's been quite, quite, I think he's held the line. I think he had a come-to-Jesus moment as a central banker and has held the line because I can tell you, every single central bank press conference, everyone's constantly asking him to cut rates, and he hasn't done.

So maybe, you know, he can be changed. That's on that piece. You know, who knows what knows what happened on the narrative thing i think you're right i mean i'd rather ascribe stupidity rather than malice i think you know a lot can be explained really rather stupidity and cowardice and i think a lot of what you discussed really is sort of cowardice from the from the the from whether it's from the mainstream media or or people who should know better um and so whether it's you know a concerted concentrated effort by a bunch of very organized people i'm always quite reluctant to to give them that credit and maybe that's my arrogance and and me thinking they're smart i'm smarter than. But I will say to you that I think Canadians do

need to talk about this. And I would say that back to your original questions, like, what do you think is going to happen? Or is it too late or whatever? I don't think it's too late. I think that's sort of the cat's out of the bag. I think that people have realized that they've been lied to and the people who were supposed to stand up for them and speak truth to power and challenge the narratives i think have sold them out on a numerous numerous number of subjects some i dare not not mention now again let's stick to the political let's stick to the stuff i do know about the energy transition oil's not going away the viability of renewable energy virtually all totally bogus in my view nuclear power as a substitute why are we building wind farms when we could build nuclear power

um you know i mean the transitory thing uh i mean there's loads of economic ones that also again try to stick to my lane these narratives that i think are just are evs as as like an appropriate substitute don't get me wrong i think in 150 years evs as as like an appropriate substitute don't get me wrong i think in 150 years from now there probably won't be any internal combustion engines running around banning them by 2032 is insane so um and so i think you're right and i think the issue is you've got just a one last piece on this narrative thing i think you have the the laptop class which i can't remember who I heard that. I love that.

I love that term. I love that. They are in charge of the media. You know, if you only go into journalism, if your parents are basically rich and you know, you're, you're from a big city and,

and I think what happened is along, you know, along the lines, again, not to be too political, but left wing used to be working class and used to espouse working class values. And it used to be the people who led the working class, I think, were from unions or they were engineers or they were coal miners and they were salt of

the earth, working class people who understood that fighting crime is important, that, you know, education and success comes through hard work and individual responsibility. Those are not right wing ideals. Those are left wing, almost Trotskyite types of ideals. Do you know what I mean? And somewhere along the line, whether it's because interest rates were kept too low for too long, you know, the media has abdicated its responsibility to fight for those type of people. And instead of being sort of voices or megaphones for the downtrodden, they are now, instead of sort of receiving the message and projecting it outward, they are now projecting downwards as to what they think is the right way society should be organized. And their view, ultimately, is that they're smarter than we are and that their decisions are better or more thoughtful and whatever. And I think that that schism, in my view, has been permanently – maybe that's hopeful.

So forgive me, Joe, if maybe I, maybe I'm projecting sort of some hope here into the conversation. I think that that schism has been permanently dislocated. And that's a permanent situation. care about working class people you really care about then you should be talking about you know drug crime and gun crime and good schools that focus on fundamentals and inflation rather than haughty exciting and sort of navel gazey things there's another angle which is we're we're post material world which is it's boring to talk about job security and healthcare. And what's exciting is to talk about climate change and a bunch of other sort of more philosophical debates that we're going through. But really, I think ultimately, my parents are working class people. My mother has hardly any education. My father came to this country with nothing. And so even though I'm a finance bro and I went to McGill and I worked in London, you know, I knew exactly where I come from.

I mean, my mother was a cleaning lady, you know, she was a cleaning lady for 30 years and so, or not 30 years, but a while anyways. And, you know, I know what the struggle is those people go through and I can tell you it is not what the Toronto star is writing about. That's well put. I'm always interested in hearing, you know, people who, again, like there's a lot of people, Rich, who, as you mentioned, would say like, this guy doesn't get it. He's, you know, working in finance.

He's focused on all the wrong things. But there's a growing number of people on what used to be really deep societal fault lines. You know, like you mentioned there, the kind of working man versus the laptop class. There's, there's a lot of laptop class people who appreciate that there's a problem and the working man appreciates there's a problem. And the,

you know, the, one of the things I have hope for going forward is that these kinds of unlikely bedfellows will continue to, you know, continue to bear fruit in a lot of ways. These relationships and these new communities that are forming thanks to stuff like Twitter

and podcasts and whatnot, they're going to keep coming. And I don't think Elon, for all his faults, is ever going to really shut out free speech on that platform the way his predecessor did. Now, I want to be cautious of your time here. You've been a great guest. And as I did with Keith

and as we've done in the past you know all the stuff you said first 55 minutes great but no one honestly who's listening gives a shit about any of that they want to know what you think about bitcoin and uh i i want to know what you think about bitcoin tell me what is your bitcoin view man i could tell you i am a no coiner uh so i think um and don't get me wrong i I regret that decision. One day offline, I'll tell you a story about in 2011, I bought Bitcoin to buy, let's just say... Sure, illicit substances like everyone did. I may not have smoked $70,000 worth of weed at one point in my life. So that's my claim to fame with regarding Bitcoin. I think that, I think, how about this?

I have no idea where it's going. I can tell you, I love it. And the reason I love it is because of the things that we all talk about. I'm a pure, I love free markets. I think that they are the greatest way to emancipate the working class. I think that the more and more you get involved from a government standpoint, when you're outside of your remit, I think the worse it is for price discovery and for appropriately and efficiently allocating capital and improving and creating the productive products and services that we do have to always to improve working class people. And I think what I love about Bitcoin is that it sort of gets back to sort of those root, those pure play roots. And so I cheer for it. I really, really do cheer for Bitcoin.

I want it to succeed where and although I have my doubts because of the regulatory power and the monopoly of violence that governments have, I think that the more it is regulated, it loses some of that sort of idealistic luster. However, I do think that that's how you basically make it so that it never goes away, if that makes sense. But I will say that liquidity, I think, has a real part to play in it. So, for example, if central bankers ever have a come-to-Jesus moment and they start to soak up a lot of the liquidity that they've spent the last 10 years pumping into the system. I think it'll be very, very difficult for Bitcoin that does not have the infrastructure, the way an Interact card has to maintain its value. And not value, but it's practical usage. But so I think that there's sort of two opposing forces and who will win i would say

forgive me joey i can't really answer that but you have sort of the liquidity and that i think is inevitable to come out of the system over a little while although it's taking longer than i would have guessed and sort of the use case that i think and they're both sort of fighting one so the use case where bitcoin starts to accelerate and pace and it becomes like ubiquitous and efficient, far more efficient than it is now. Because I think you would agree that Bitcoin is not exactly super efficient when buying a chocolate bar or whatever. Certainly. And then versus sort of the liquidity regulatory thing. And I think that that's what that is the fight we're watching you know like and and i know

who i'm cheering for i'm cheering for bitcoin but i'm i'm cognizant of sort of the um i'm cognizant of sort of of it's an uphill battle i would also think that the other thing i think people sorry one last thing on bitcoin i think that people you know and you might not like this but i genuinely believe it so i have to share. In 1905, there must have been like 100 car companies. And now there's, what, 20 or 10. Or really, there's only four or five in the brand. But cars have not gone away.

Cars are one of the most important transportation equipment, whatever, in the world. Planes are the the world planes is the same thing 1960s 1950s there must have been 100 plane or airlines pan am whatever it is and now there's you know a handful boeing and airbus dominate and so but planes are still useful and so i think that that's where i think maybe the negativity about around Bitcoin misses the trick. Because if you ask me in 100 years, do I think blockchain will be around? Do I think cryptocurrencies will be around and vital integral parts of our economy and our society? Absolutely. But do I think Bitcoin will be it?

Oh, no. Why? So, you know, but that's what I'm saying. So it may be Ford is still around, right? Ford, Daimler,rysler daimler's these ben's is the one who invented the diesel engine and it's still around you know i mean so bitcoin might be mercedes-benz of cryptocurrency but i think to me what i think is fascinating and what's a really really amazing contribution to humanity is sort of the technology behind bitcoin that i think is to me unstoppable there's a lot of all caps um messages in the chat here i mean it's not fair i'd like i know we i know we're running out of time but i do i do think

i do think it's fair i do think it's fair and i think there's some concern like i'd be curious i think to really decide whether or not I should bear down on you. Go for it. I want to hear it. I'm genuine in your view. I think blockchain is only good for money. It's broadly inefficient, as you mentioned. The other side of that coin is that it's censorship resistant. It's permanent. It's difficult to capture. Bitcoin works because of the link to the energy industry through the mining mechanism. So that's something I forgot to mention

and I don't know enough about that. Yeah, and I think honestly, Rich, if you knew a bit more about it, you'd maybe get closer to where we are. And I think the concerns you have, I've taken some shit on our show over the years because I do think there's legitimate concerns about this government monopoly on power violence and ultimately the banking system, you know, our sponsor, for example, if I can't use the cash to buy Bitcoin at the post office or at the ATM or via e-transfer, which by the way is the case for some places in the world already. I think the UK blocks generally most crypto-related e-transfers, Bitcoin or otherwise. It's a problem for us. Now, does it kill the network? No. And there's some game theory and some incentive stuff that

is difficult to overcome for governments. But the road to victory for Bitcoin, in a lot of Bitcoiners' eyes, is almost guaranteed. I'm not sure that it's guaranteed, but I am 100% sure that it's rocky. And we're starting to see some of that rockiness now. I don't know how much you keep up with this stuff, but there's privacy services that have been shut down, had their developers apprehended by American and foreign governments running open source software. And again, like I said earlier, there's a lack of understanding in the general public

thanks to probably intentionally misleading reports from legacy media about the nature of Bitcoin and the nature of the network and the nature of the asset and what it's good for and what it's not good for and what you should do and what you shouldn't do. Our prime minister famously has mentioned it in the House of Commons more than once at this point, I think. Although by the time the next election rolls around, I expect it to be six figures and there probably won't be any mention of it from him. My suggestion to people and my suggestion

to you too is engage with it in a way that makes sense to you and you'll find that it is solving some problem that you have, whether it's wealth preservation, whether it's lack of availability of a steady currency, any number of things. It's there for everyone. And that's the reason I opened the show with the sort of catchphrase, welcome friends and enemies because it's for everybody you know i may not like the way you use it um and you may not like the way i use it but uh it's ultimately it's just there you know it's tick tick tock next block as we like to say so i just want to be just clear about something i don't ascribe to any of the dumb narratives about like for example no i know it's the money laundering shit, you know, currency is the most important currency and money laundering currency. Last I checked, people were not going skiing with a rolled up Bitcoin. I'm pretty sure it's rolled up, you know, us dollars.

So let's, so that's that to me, I don't get me wrong. I don't any, any kind of disagreements we have will be centered purely on my ignorance of Bitcoin. And I think, and, and it's as profound, as deep as probably, you know, any, any, any sort of no holder out there. And so I don't want to come across as someone who's, who's doubting. I think, I think the power it is demonstrated with respect to simply the financial markets. And I, and I would submit to you, you know, like it's on the Bloomberg. It's on DataStream. You know, iShares have an ETF.

And I would tell you that if it's difficult, it might be easy to bullshit a politician. It's very difficult to bullshit millions of finance bros who are committed to trying to catch you out. Do you know what I mean? And I think that that that if anything that is now you want that might be a insult or or or a compliment i'm not sure just yet but the fact that it's survived this much scrutiny i think is one of the most important sort of um you know feathers in its cap because i don't think is there any other asset in the world that survives

this much that has this much scrutiny under it. And yet, despite this, it carries on. And I think that that's a, you know, as a markets guy who watches, thinks about behavioral economics, who looks at signals and tries to see, you know, in part where the markets are going, that is a major signal you know because if warren buffett could pay some guy two million dollars to figure out how to screw with bitcoin he would have yeah and there's a bunch of people in new york and london who would do the same and yet they haven't so it's it's interesting that from that part i think is really positive do you think uh this is the last thing i'll ask you. Do you think we're at the point with Bitcoin?

And I'll refer you to an interview I did a while ago. Do you know who Chris Irons is? Quote the Raven? No, I know who Edgar Allan Poe is. No, no, no. I mean, obviously it's same vein, but no, this guy's, he writes a finance letter and he's become fairly popular.

Oh, Quote the Raven, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah, so we had him on in December, I think, or January when he converted to, you know, went public with his Bitcoin, you know, positive thesis. And I would, I would tell you, listen to that interview because he's a guy who's a very bright guy, works in finance, worked in finance a long time and had some of the same doubts that you're espousing. And he can articulate his sort of shift in thinking better than I can articulate it. That's point number one. Point number two, we talked a bit about the sort of weakness in Canadian economy and risk is expressed through the Canadian dollar

at some point. And obviously you guys have had Brent Johnson on dollar milkshake that the US dollar will be the dirtiest or cleanest dirty shirt. But at some point, these fiat currencies are going to fail. One of the key tenets of the thesis when it comes to Bitcoin, really it's two-prong, right? One is I'm betting on the printer continuing to run. I think that's a pretty safe bet. But the other point I think that most people don't understand now, but you will understand it, is that any posturing and shrieking done by governments or banning or outlawing done by governments of Bitcoin now is more a signal of a scared animal than it is someone who's trying to protect you. That Rubicon's been crossed, right? I mean, yes, but there's another edge to that sword, which is if you're a government, let's just say, let's do a thought experiment.

I know we're running out of time, but let's just do it. If you're the government, what is one of the biggest threats to your homogeny? Whether you agree with this government or not, I'm not saying, again, not left, not right, just any government. You want to be able to control the printing press and so if someone takes that away from you you are not going to be pleased i don't care what side of the spectrum you're on and so and and to doubt their willingness and ability to impress upon you that they are in charge of the printing press i would say just i would just be mindful that they have a lot of guns and courts and they won't they have a monopoly on violence in our society for better and for worse and i think that that's a that's terrifying

um you know that's why i don't for example this is why you've heard me on my on my show and on twitter or whatever say say no to central bank digital currencies because once we give that in it's one thing to have bitcoin it's an it's one thing to regulate bitcoin it's a whole other thing to have the central bank be in charge of a central of digital currency that to me is tyranny do not pass go do not collect 200200. That is tyranny. And the other thing is, but one thing about the whole end of the dollar as the reserve currency, I would just, maybe we can leave you on this, which is you only have the end, unless I'm wrong, was the portuguese to spanish spanish to dutch dutch to french french to english english to the u.s on and on is through a major war and this changing of military might from handing over the baton from one person whether it was you know portugal to spain you know france to england in the 1800s england to the united states in the 1915 or let's say 18 or

whatever and when you have might equals right when it comes to uh currencies and i think that that's a really important factor and so people who are saying the U.S.'s reserve currency is doomed because China needs to be bloodshed before that happens. Normally. Now, again, I'm sure someone will think of an example where I'm wrong, but normally that's the way it works. You've been an outstanding guest, Rich. I hope so. You were. I'm hopeful we can do this again. And again, it's funny talking now to the three of you guys from Looney Hour in these one hour, one hour and change formats.

You really get to expand on some of the things that you are shooting out quickly on the show. And it's been a real pleasure for me to have you go deeper on some of your ideas. So I want to thank you for that. Now, before you go, as always, tell people once again where they can find you, about the show, the floor is all yours. Sure. So, um, looney hour, um, dot CA, um, you can find me on Twitter, Richard Diaz, underscore CFA. Um, and you can find us

on YouTube. If you look up Steve Sretzky, he, we were under his banner. Um, and, um, and yeah, and I look forward to a follow and a challenge to any of the views. I won't ban you if you disagree with me. And I look forward to joining you again. I promise that if you join me next time, I'll have a much, much healthier understanding of Bitcoin. How about that? That's a promise I'm willing to make. I love it.

Thanks for coming in, everyone everyone we'll talk to you soon well don't forget everybody lots of other stuff on cbp media network including two whites and a blue me joey my brother-in-law mike and our friend Will talk about all the problems millennials are having with finance, romance, and just getting by. If you like CBP, if you like the NHL 94 podcast, I guarantee you'll like that one. Search for it, Two Whites in the Blue, anywhere you get your podcasts. We look forward to seeing you.