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- [00:07]
Gary Broda
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.
- [00:11]
Marty Bent
If you talk about a Fed just.
- [00:12]
Gary Broda
Gone nuts, all, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.
- [00:29]
Marty Bent
I mean, that's part of the bull case for bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.
- [00:34]
Gary Broda
Probably should be. Probably should be.
- [00:37]
Marty Bent
Gary Broda, it's great to have you on TFTC finally. We've done a couple episodes in years past on the Last Trade podcast, but this is your first time on tftc. Welcome to tftc.
- [00:48]
Gary Broda
Thanks, Marty. I appreciate you having me.
- [00:50]
Marty Bent
Like I said, I'm very happy that you're on the show today considering everything that is going on in markets, bond yields blowing out in Europe and Japan, equities markets falling here in the United States. And like I said, I only had a minute to check. I imagine they're down everywhere. And you just wrote a piece last night talking about this expression that's become more popular over the last couple months, which is they're going to crash the stock market to save the bond market. And that has been a growing narrative. And it seems like it's at least today, last two days, it hasn't been playing out that way.
- [01:26]
Gary Broda
Yeah, that's definitely happening. And you're right, it's an expression a lot of people are using. But what I'm finding is a lot of people who aren't professional investors, they're sort of nodding along, but they don't really know what it means. And I think it's worth it to explain to people that there are two things that have happened that they should be aware of. One is all of last year there was a lot of focus on government interest payments, which last year crossed a trillion dollars. Now, our interest payments are roughly the size of our defense budget, if that you a sense. And it's also worth pointing out that, and this is, you know, my pro Bitcoin, anti fiat piece here, but we are in a situation right now where we are printing dollars today to pay the interest on dollars we printed last year. That is the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
- [02:13]
Interjecting Commentator
Right?
- [02:13]
Gary Broda
I mean, that's where we are. The second thing that contributed to the problem was Janet Yellen, who I think was a terrible Secretary of the treasury, decided to make a political play with the duration of our Treasury Securities. And that's just a fancy finance way of saying that what she did was when she refinanced our debt, that was maturing over the last year, she went with shorter durations. So 10 year securities or five year securities got refinanced for six months or one year. And that leads to a couple of problems, right? One is if you refinance 10 year paper with 10 year paper, then that money only needs to be refinanced once every decade. But if you do it with one year paper, then you have to refinance it 10 times in the decade. And what that did was it led to larger and larger treasury auctions. And we had really large tails last year. Again, just a fancy way of saying the demand was much lower than what market rates would, would have suggested. And so the reason Yellen did this is by issuing fewer five and 10 year securities, what she wanted to do was decrease the supply of that. That increases the price, which in turn lowers the yield. And what she was trying to do, which you'd want to do if your party were running for reelection, would be reduce the costs of corporate borrowing and mortgage borrowing. Now, it didn't work because everybody understood that we were in Ponzi scheme territory and it was hugely ineffective. But here's the problem that we have, and we were just working on this yesterday. One of our new interns, Cash and Crow, did a terrific graph yesterday showing that, you know, we've got $28 trillion of treasury securities outstanding, 5 trillion of that has to be refinanced in the next six months, 7 trillion in the next 12 months. So new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessonnet has a gigantic problem. How do we refinance all of that? And if he tries to do that all at once, we're going to have a problem because that interest expense is going to overwhelm us. And there's a not so crazy path to us having 1.5, $1.6 trillion of interest expense by year end. And that would be a gigantic problem for the budget.
- [04:35]
Interjecting Commentator
Right?
- [04:35]
Gary Broda
I mean, that's, you know, we're now talking about increases in interest expense and in line with good optimistic projections of what Doge could cut. And so we'd have a budget problem and that leads to more inflation. And so what the administration is trying to do right now is they're desperately trying to reduce bond yields and they don't care. They will crash the stock market to push money out of high risk equities and toward the perceived safe haven of bonds. And I don't think U.S. treasury securities are a safe haven because inflation will eat away the purchasing power that you're going to be paid back in of the currency you're going to be paid back in. But they need to get the yields down. And so what we're seeing is they're trying to push people out of the equity markets and into the bond market. More demand for bonds means lower yields for bonds means better financing costs for the U.S. government. And the thing that I think is really interesting, it is in his first term, President Trump used the stock market as a kind of a report card to say, look, I've done a great job managing the economy. The stock market is up to give you a sense of the level of urgency here. They're taking actions that they know are going to make stocks go down.
- [05:50]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [05:50]
Gary Broda
And for a guy who really likes to use the stock market as a report card, President Trump is basically saying, you know, send it down right now.
- [05:59]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [06:00]
Gary Broda
Kill stocks, crash stocks right now, we'll deal with the rest later. But we need to refinance this. So I think that's a big chunk of what we've seen, you know, through all of this week. And it also is, I think, one of the reasons why the communication on tariffs has been so chaotic.
- [06:19]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [06:20]
Gary Broda
That the, the fact that the tariff talks change on a daily basis.
- [06:24]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [06:25]
Gary Broda
We're going to tariff Canada and Mexico, we're going to delay for a month, we're going to tariff Canada and Mexico. Maybe we'll give a break on some things, maybe not other things. Right. There's all of this uncertainty and the stock market hates uncertainty. The bond market loves it. So I think that's part of what's going on.
- [06:40]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [06:40]
Gary Broda
They're trying to push money from, from one set of instruments to another because it's a desperate situation, it really is.
- [06:47]
Marty Bent
And they've had some success. Obviously the 10 year yield has come down, I believe about 20 basis points for the last six weeks or so, wasn't it?
- [06:57]
Gary Broda
Yeah, it was 4.8, just like a month or two, I think, two months ago. And it's now down under 4.3. So that's a meaningful decrease.
- [07:07]
Marty Bent
Yeah. And to your point about Trump's first administration really using the stock market as a KPI, it was. I don't know if you picked up on this during the State of the Union address, but I was pretty shocked and I didn't see too many people commenting on it. Maybe he said something outside of the State of the Union that made it so it wasn't worth commenting on, but it was the first time I've heard him sort of choreographing a disturbance in the market. He was talking about tariffs in the context of tariffs and he said, there may be a little disturbance in the markets because of this, but we'll get through it. It was the first time I've ever seen him publicly admit to economic weakness on the horizon in America while he's president.
- [07:52]
Gary Broda
Yeah, I agree with that. And this is something he mentioned very early in his first week or two when he started talking about tariffs. He did say, you should expect there's gonna be some short term pain here. And he's right. And I'm actually glad to hear him speaking honestly and preparing people for what's going to come. The other thing is, look, I think I've seen some really good honest arguments both for and against tariffs. The thing that I don't like is a lot of people talking about this stuff are very myopic, right? They only want to make their point, which I understand, but they should acknowledge the complexity of the issue. So, you know, for example, all the people who are saying, you know, look, this is effectively a tax increase, this is going to lead to more inflation, they have valid points. But look at what's happened in the last week, right? We've seen announcements of $500 billion of, of PP&E being built by Apple, more than $100 billion by Taiwan Semiconductor. I forget who it was. One of the automakers just moved production from Mexico to the U.S. you know, that's a lot of jobs, that's a lot of economic growth, that's a lot of fixing. Something that has crushed our middle class and our blue collar workers for decades as so much of this work has been outsourced. And these are also things that will increase domestic supply, you know, and so that's one of the reasons why, you know, the first time around with tariffs, we didn't necessarily see a huge amount of inflation. Now there were other things going on at the time and a lot of the tariffs weren't fully implemented and didn't, you know, there was a lot going on. But the point of all this is I'd like to see people acknowledge the complexity of it. And if you want to talk about how tariffs are, you know, another tax, how they'll lead to more inflation, fine, those are valid points. But then also acknowledge that we're going to be looking at more jobs and an increase in domestic supply that will alleviate some of that price pressure. So I just think it's more complicated than a lot of the pundits are making it seem because they're more talking their book than trying to explain what's happening. And, and I give President Trump credit for saying that these, I believe these tariffs will improve the economy and I want to reshore manufacturing, but he's flat out saying we're going to take some short term pain. And at least he's being honest about it.
- [10:17]
Marty Bent
I love that too. And I said this before he was inaugurated, looking at the rhetoric on the campaign trail, particularly around tariffs, his favorite word. It's going to be your favorite word, tariffs, I think I wrote a newsletter about it in December. I hope that he is extra communicative with the market about there is going to be some short term pain and very happy to see him following through on that. And on the topic of tariffs, not only people thinking myopically about potential inflationary pressures, which as you mentioned, are certainly there, but you have to take the whole picture into frame here. And not only the reshoring of jobs, but I think the most startling thing to me was learning about how much other countries are already tariffing our goods. And it's sort of a reciprocal reaction to what countries in Europe and Canada and all over the world have done to US Goods. It was something I was unaware of up until this administration.
- [11:22]
Gary Broda
Marty, I'm so glad you brought that up because I think it's a really important point. A lot of people are mistakenly saying, well, he's just raising tariffs or saying these tariffs hurt us. And people are understandably responding, okay, wait a minute. But these other countries are tariffing us and you know, the response is, well, if they're doing something stupid, we don't have to do anything stupid either. And it's kind of like, you know, when you were 6, your mom said if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do that too? Except like you were pointing out, reality is much more complicated and much more nuanced. So if we use a hypothetical example where, you know, one country has 20% tariffs on our goods and we have no tariffs on theirs, and then we do, as you said, implement reciprocal tariffs and we say, okay, now we're going to put 20% tariffs on your goods, that incentivizes them to say, well, what if we cut our tariffs? Oh, then we can cut ours. And if they say, what if we cut further, then we can cut ours further. And so, you know, you end up in a bad situation when you let other people dictate the terms and have one sided non reciprocal relationships by forcing Reciprocal relationships. People are saying, oh my God, now there are going to be more tariffs. Not necessarily by using reciprocal tariffs and indicating you raise yours, we're going to raise you lower, we'll lower with you. We're giving these other countries an incentive to say, well, wait a minute, we don't like that you're going to have tariffs on us. If we lower ours, okay, we'll lower too. And so there is a path to everybody de escalating and putting the US In a relatively better position than we were in before these policies were pursued.
- [13:00]
Marty Bent
And all the people throwing their hands in the air and complaining about this, particularly about the way Trump is approaching these tariff negotiations. It's almost as if nobody understands he wrote the book Art of the Deal and they don't understand the way he approaches negotiation generally when he was a businessman in the private sector. Now, as President of the United States, the fact that people haven't picked up on his whole shtick, which is, I'm just going to anchor, I'm going to come out of the gate and anchor it something so extreme that it sounds insane and everybody throws their hands up and inevitably, like you're saying, people get to the table, they have a negotiation, and they meet at a spot that was likely exactly where Trump wanted to be in the first place. And the fact that I can't, you can't really rely on the media pundits to be truthful about this tactic and try to present an accurate picture to the American people, but I think broadly, the American populace needs to begin to really internalize that this is a tactic that he literally wrote a book about.
- [14:07]
Gary Broda
Yeah, I think your point is phenomenal.
- [14:10]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [14:11]
Gary Broda
Using the dire, extreme rhetoric and threats to get to, you know, to get people to panic into being where he wants them to be. The other thing is, about a month ago, I wrote a series of articles on how to interpret Trump's tariff talks. And one of the things that I wrote over and over and over again is he frequently doesn't want tariffs. He wants to use the threat of tariffs to get cooperation on non economic issues.
- [14:41]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [14:41]
Gary Broda
And so, you know, one of the things I wrote a month ago is he's talking about tariffs on Europe. Now, reciprocal tariffs are fine. They should not have tariffs on their allies where we don't. We should have a level playing field with them. But more than that, I think he uses the threat of tariffs with Europe to push them to pay their NATO defense bill. And they have been underspending on defense because we've had their backs for forever. It's been a long, long term problem. And so, you know, we're in a situation like why are German bonds dropping this week?
- [15:19]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [15:19]
Gary Broda
The reason German bonds are dropping is because the German government came out and they said we're going to exclude increases in defense spending from our budget process. They're basically saying we're going to spend more on defense and not count it, you know, under our budget cap. And what that tells you is they've been underspending on defense and, and overspending on social welfare programs and we've effectively been footing the bill for that. So for President Trump to use the threat of tariffs to get Europe to live up to their agreements, you know, I think is, is really good gamesmanship and people are getting upset about it. But why?
- [15:58]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [15:58]
Gary Broda
If, you know, they're saying why, why is he taking sides against our allies? My question is why are our allies not living up to their agreements with us?
- [16:07]
Marty Bent
Yeah, it's a big mask off moment. To your point, the way our allies have treated us over the course of decades. To your point, people are reacting to what's going on now and not questioning how we got to this position in the first place. It's viewed and portrayed by the media as the United States getting really hyper aggressive and combative with their allies. And it's perceived as America trying to be the bully. But it's like, no, actually we've been somewhat getting bullied for decades and we're just trying to really settle the score in the schoolyard right now, get back to even and begin driving accountability. As we look at how high our national debt has gotten, how high our defense spending is, our interest expense on the debt is saying this is unsustainable for us. It's time for you all to get your act together and stop depending on the American atm.
- [17:10]
Gary Broda
Yeah, I think that's important. And there are a lot of people making the argument that, you know, we should have closed up NATO in, you know, 35 years ago, a little under that when the Berlin Wall came down. And that's not a bad argument, right, that the NATO was established to prevent Soviet expansion into Western Europe. But you know, once they gave that up, it's not clear to me what we're trying to accomplish right now.
- [17:41]
Marty Bent
No, not at all. The, and I think it's been, it's been a crazy first six weeks in office, the meeting with Zelensky and Trump and Vance. Obviously it's very famous right now and the posturing that was going on there and that's Another, I think, shocking moment for the American media and broader populace who sort of fallen prey to the propaganda that we've been subjected to for many years, literally being aghast at the prospect of a president and a vice president standing up and saying, you're not going to bully us in the Oval Office. Please come back when you're. When you're down to negotiate like a legitimate adult. And then, obviously, with what's going on with Russia and Ukraine, it's extremely polarizing and triggering for people. But I think any objective observer who's seen what's going on over there over the last three years has to recognize that there's no good end to this unless you try to get both parties to the table to negotiate on something.
- [18:49]
Gary Broda
Well, and that's one of the things that concerns me, because every time President Trump says, look, I want to sit down with Vladimir Putin and talk this out, people get hysterical and they say, oh, he's courting dictators. All right, well, here's the deal. There's a war going on. How are you going to stop that war without talking to the other side?
- [19:10]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [19:11]
Gary Broda
It doesn't mean he's courting dictators or that he's saying, the US And Russia are gonna be best friends and, you know, we're going to eject NATO, and that's. That's not what's happening. But if you want to stop a war, and I think this war needs to stop, I don't know how extending it benefits anybody. How do you do that without talking to the other side, without sitting down and saying, where do we have areas of agreement? Where do we have areas of overlap? How do we come to a point where we can have people stop killing each other and US Funding it? There's no part of this that's good for anybody.
- [19:51]
Marty Bent
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- [22:58]
Gary Broda
Yeah, it's I mean, it is interesting that people are hysterically screaming that President Trump wants to sit down and talk to Putin, and they're saying he's courting dictators, but they're supporting, as our allies, people who are jailing their citizens for sharing memes on social media. Like, you know, listen, I get why you don't like what these people are saying or writing or posting, but stopping them from doing that and putting people in jail over social media posts, that's the kind of thing dictators do. That's not what you expect from a Western liberal democracy. And so, as you just pointed out, they're pursuing policies that are not consistent with those of Western liberal democracies. And it's not just the memes on social media. It's not just Europe.
- [23:50]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [23:51]
Gary Broda
A couple years ago, we saw what Trudeau did with the Canadian truckers, right? These were people who were protesting for bodily autonomy. And for the people listening to this, maybe you were pro vax, maybe you were anti vaxx, maybe you took it, maybe you didn't. But these people didn't want to, and they didn't want to be forced to, and they don't want to lose their jobs. And that, to me, seems like a sensible choice that people should be allowed to make for themselves. It is a personal choice, whether you wanted to take that shot or not. And what was very concerning is they had a peaceful protest and the government froze their bank accounts. And so when people have said, well, why do we need Bitcoin? Because the government can't freeze your Bitcoin account because you own that, you own those assets. And so what we're really seeing are examples of creeping tyranny through tons and tons of these Western liberal democracies. And what I'm seeing on the other side of that is an increasing push toward capitalism in Asia and toward individual freedom in South America.
- [25:01]
Interjecting Commentator
Right?
- [25:01]
Gary Broda
So we're seeing in places like Argentina and El Salvador, you know, in South America, these are people who are saying, we want more freedom, we want more economics autonomy. And they're getting it. And their crime rate in some of these places are dropping. The inflation rate is dropping. You see what's happening to the places that are pursuing autocratic policies, which is what we had referred to as our first world allies in Western liberal democracies and other parts of the world, which we had viewed as maybe banana republics or formerly communist countries, they're embracing freedom in a way that Europe should be completely agree.
- [25:51]
Marty Bent
And bringing this back to American economic policy, I think it's been pretty clear to people, or at least I'm running with the assumption that Trump was handed a flaming bag of trash. And to manufacture the quote, unquote, soft landing that's been talked about for many years, maybe you have to recognize, number one, that it won't be a soft landing as Trump has been sort of choreographing over the last couple of months. And on top of that, you got to thread the needle domestically with your economic policy and what you're doing with tariffs. But you have all these external variables at play. Like as we were mentioning before we hit record, you have UK bond market hitting levels we haven't seen since Liz Truss was in office for a couple of weeks. You have the Japanese yield curve exploding as well. How thinking from an American perspective, how do we navigate what we're trying to do here as all this is happening externally? And on top of all that, we've seen an incredible amount of gold flood into the US Borders as well.
- [27:04]
Gary Broda
Yeah.
- [27:04]
Marty Bent
So these landmines or these what the ultimate goal of our policies is, in a way.
- [27:11]
Gary Broda
Yeah. So by the way, in addition to having huge bitcoin positions, I own a lot of gold as well. And you know, we're certainly seeing that. I. Here's the lens that I'm using to think about this. I think it's really important. I've been talking for a couple of years about us being in a bifurcated economy. So for a small part of the population, this economy is working great. For a large part of the population, inflation is just eroding their standard of living. And so I think it's really important to separate the real economy from the fake economy. And I can send you a chart on this. We put this in last week's Five Things to Know, but government increase in debt last quarter exceeded the increase in gdp. And that was the case for the quarter before that and the quarter before that. And so what that tells you is that our GDP growth is not real. It is based on increases in government spending. It's all debt fueled. It's a Potemkin economy. We have created the illusion of a good economy simply by pouring fiat dollars at the issue and dealing with the inflation on the other end of it. And so there's an old Keynesian, or mmt, which stands for modern monetary theory, saw that you can create economic stimulus by we'll put grab a group of people, we'll pay them $1 trillion to dig holes. We'll pay these people $1 trillion to fill in holes. We've created Nothing of value. But we have $2 trillion of stimulus for the economy. Isn't that great? And jobs, Right. And that's how Washington D.C. thinks about things. That's how Keynesians think about things. You know, I think, tell me if it was Paul Krugman who was talking about, well, we could just pay people to spit at the moon, right? Like stimulus is stimulus. And my point on all of this is no. We have a Potemkin economy. And if the increase in government debt is greater than the increase in your gdp, what that means is that your productive private sector is shrinking while government waste, theft, money laundering and other malfeasance is increasing. And you know, what we're finding out is that the levels of fraud and theft are off the charts high beyond what even small government advocates like myself even thought. It's worse than even I thought. And I've been pessimistic on this for decades. And so here's what's going to happen, Marty. Let's say Doge has some success, right? They're not going to get to $2 trillion a year. That's not going to happen. But could they get to half a trillion, a trillion dollars over the next few years? I don't know. Maybe. And so on one hand, what people are saying is, wait a minute, that's going to have two effects. We're going to crash gdp, which is true, the accounting for GDP will decrease. But I will remind everybody, nobody's losing goods and services as a result of that government theft or paying people to dig ditches and paying other people to fill in ditches. Wasteful spending, money laundering does not produce economic activity. It's simply inflation causing stimulus that gives us the illusion of GDP growth. This is like the economic version of Spinal Taps ours. Go to 11.
- [30:49]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [30:50]
Gary Broda
What is it that matters? Your actual, like the sound that you're getting or how you label that sound.
- [30:56]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [30:56]
Gary Broda
The economy that you have or how you label it. And so if Doge manages to cut government spending by a meaningful amount, realize that even though we're cutting wasteful programs, even though we're cutting things that produce no economic benefit for Americans, the way we account for that in GDP will crash. The other thing that will happen is we will see a gigantic increase in unemployment claims and an increase in the unemployment rate. And we're starting to see that right in D.C. have you seen, Marty, have you seen those charts with the number of homes for sale? And then combine that with the number of people who are googling the increase. Yeah, and extradition.
- [31:44]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [31:45]
Gary Broda
Like if you're selling your home and googling criminal defense, extradition and, you know.
- [31:51]
Marty Bent
Sure, offshore money funds or whatever, maybe.
- [31:55]
Gary Broda
This is stuff we should be cutting. Right. Like these are, is that, is that economic analysis? No, but, you know, maybe we should be thinking about if this is the reaction, maybe we're poking in the right place. So, you know, here's the question, Marty. Would you take action if it meant we cut government theft, wasteful spending, not actual money going to veterans or, you know, Medicare, Medicaid, not the actual real government services. If we cut waste, but doing so led to a lower GDP print and a higher unemployment print, even though those jobs didn't have economic value for American citizens. Would you do that? I would. President Trump has made it clear he would. But people should be aware that the numbers coming out the way we're like, it's, again, it's our Rs go to 11 moment. The way we keep score on these things is going to look really bad when all of this gets implemented.
- [32:58]
Marty Bent
Yes, I agree with you. I would, I would take it as well. And I would argue this is the most incredible thing that could happen to, I think, individuals like ourselves who have a particular view on the world, particularly post 2008. Is that the QE and the stimulus that we've seen over the last 17 years now at this point, many people have been beating the drum, we need to stop doing this. It's creating these asset bubbles, enabling a wealth transfer. There has to come a point where we take the hard medicine and reset the economy, which will come with some economic turmoil and maybe stock markets decline. Correct. Maybe something happens in the bond market. And for the longest time, the. There's been an inability to do that because it's somewhat socially or psychologically untenable for some reason or another. But now with Doge and the incredible amount of, of overt fraud that is being unearthed, I think you have a catalyst and an environment where people are throwing their hands up, like, screw it, destroy the system. I don't care if GDP is down 3% for 3 quarters in a row. I get, actually, I feel like it's never something I've been hoping would happen over the last 15 years. We finally have again, a catalyst to effectuate that type of necessary resetting of the system and taking our hard medicine.
- [34:29]
Gary Broda
Yeah. And honestly, like, you know, is our economy. We might have a bad GDP print, but can we survive cutting off Social Security payments for people who are more than 150 years old?
- [34:41]
Marty Bent
I would think so.
- [34:42]
Gary Broda
I mean, you know, maybe we can manage that. You know, it's, this is theft. And there were systems in place to ensure that nobody questioned it, you know, that nobody got marked as dead. This stuff, we can fix that without actual damage to the economy. And going to this issue, I think it's really important explaining to people the difference between this is reality and this is how we keep score. On a personal note, I had something happen a number of years back where I was refinancing the mortgage on my house and the bank came to me and they said, we can't refinance you. I said, why? They said your income was negative. I said, no, it wasn't. Well, it turns out what had happened was I was running a hedge fund at the time and I had invested a huge amount of my own capital in the hedge fund. So when I got my K1, it shows investing inflows into a private partnership right, as negative cash flow for me. And I said, guys, that, that's not negative income. That was me investing. And they said, well, but it shows up as negative income. I said, so what do I need to do? They said, well, if you were to withdraw the money and recognize that value, then, then we would qualify you. I said, let me get this straight. I took a huge amount of money and instead of spending it, I invested in it. I invested it. And that makes you think that I'm a credit risk. But if I were to withdraw that money and spend it on private air travel and candy, you would then view me as a more attractive credit and you would give me a mortgage. Then they say, yeah.
- [36:32]
Marty Bent
It'S always, I don't make the rules. I know it sounds insane, but yeah, this is just the way it works.
- [36:38]
Gary Broda
No, no, they didn't even do the. Yeah, I know it sounds, sounds insane. Like they're like, no, these are the rules, this is how it works. And, and I had to point out to them, so you're going to punish me for not spending and investing and you would reward me for not investing and spending. And again, you know, I can't emphasize this enough. This is why Bitcoin is important. These kinds of incentives in traditional finance. And by the way, this is where the world is going with CBDCs, right? Central bank, digital currencies. They're trying to push people to spend money. They're trying to push people to not invest. They're trying to push everybody into a debt fueled consumption servitude, right? And it's, it's horrible. And the incentives to invest are bad. And they're, you know they would get worse if they tell you your money is going to expire.
- [37:35]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [37:35]
Gary Broda
Use it or lose it. And this is horrible stuff. And the thing that's really great about Bitcoin is it encourages people to take a longer view, a longer time horizon. And I think that's really important for society and for actual economic growth. There are huge advantages to hard money over programmed money.
- [37:54]
Marty Bent
Sup freaks? Bitcoin is the ultimate scarce asset. Join Bitcoin macro expert Nick Bhatia at a live online event on March 17th. For death taxes and 21 million. Learn how to shield your wealth, leverage tax advantaged accounts and secure your Bitcoin for future generations. Your financial advisor, accountant or attorney might not be up to speed on Bitcoin, so invite them. Join too. Register now@ Unchained.com TFTC that's Unchained.com TFTC March 17th. Be there. And before we dive into your views on Bitcoin moving forward as it reacts to everything going on in the world, staying on this necessity for the broader public to recognize that GDP going down is actually a good thing because you're eliminating this waste and fraud that exists within the government in the United States. Yes, unemployment may go up, GDP may go down. What are sort of metrics, indicators, sectors that people should be paying attention to that you believe would signal that things are getting back on the right path? Maybe as GDP is going down, unemployment's going up. What are the KPIs that maybe the government or the media will not service that you think people should be looking at to gauge whether or not taking the hard medicine is actually successful in some way?
- [39:21]
Gary Broda
Yeah, I think if you take government spending out of gdp, it's not perfect, but it does give you a decent proxy for what the private market economy is doing. And that's the productive part of the economy. That's where we produce goods and services. So I think that's an interesting way to do it. You know, you can look at non government payroll like one thing that's really important. Over the last four years we've seen all of these really positive employment prints. Except you know, Marty, there's been zero growth in full time employment since 2019.
- [40:04]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [40:04]
Gary Broda
And so those employment metrics, you know, they double count part time jobs. So if somebody had a full time job and they lose that full time job and then they get two or three part time jobs, that counts as two or three employment numbers. And so when you look at that, you have to figure, wait a minute, are people employed more? Do we have more people employed or the same people just working more to make ends meet. And so I think if you look at full time employment, private market employment, like since 2019, the only growth we've had has been in government and sectors of employment that are largely funded by government, like health care, right? It's all government spending that's doing this. And so I think if you look at, you know, gdp, less government spending, if you look at employment, less government employment, again, not perfect numbers, but they'll give you directional proxies for the performance of the private market economy. And the thing that I would do if I were the Trump administration is I would be out in front of this explaining it to people. And it's really difficult to explain, but what I would do is say, hey, you know, here's the United States, here's our fiscal situation. And then I would literally have a slide with a guy dressed like the Hamburglar, right, holding the bag with money and the mask, right, and the striped shirt and the hat, and say, if we give this guy a trillion dollars and he steals it, under the current system, you will, you American people, you will pay for that trillion dollars through inflation. And we, the government, will record a trillion dollars of GDP increase. Now, if we get rid of our Hamburglar thieving guy, if we just get rid of him and get rid of that trillion dollars of theft, you won't have to pay for that. It will reduce future inflation. But hey, everyone, I just want you to know you're going to see in that hypothetical example, $1 trillion decrease in GDP. Now, I'm going to ask you, someone tell me, if we put a stop to people stealing from us, is our economy in worse shape? And I was like, no, no, of course not. Okay, great. So when you see the decrease in gdp, nobody panic. Now, will Wall street go along with that? Probably not. But I don't think that's the constituency he needs to talk to here. I think he needs to talk to the American people and say, some of the pain you're going to experience is real and temporary, hopefully. And some of what you're going to see are hysterical newspaper headlines telling you the economy is horrible. Here's how to interpret it. We're going to give you our way of looking at it and then just compare our analysis with the analysis that you see in the mainstream media and then decide for your who has it right.
- [43:05]
Marty Bent
Again, being extra communicative is going to be crucial to threading this needle. And you brought up Wall Street. Wall street will be very interesting to follow throughout all this, because of course, they've been major benefactors of this theft, this expansion of the debt, this expansion of the monetary base. And how does Wall street adjust to this tectonic shift in policy if the Trump administration stays true to it?
- [43:33]
Gary Broda
You know, Marty, one of the things we're going to be talking about at Deep Knowledge Investing, we're going to be starting a new weekly show called DKI Foundations. And we're going to be talking to people about investing basics and also for young people, helping them understand career paths and finance things to do. And one of the episodes where we haven't recorded it yet, but we're really excited to record is I want to explain to young people how the policies that they've typically supported actually don't help them, but end up helping wealthy, established people. And I want them to see how, like in my case, you know, I made inflation work for me. I refinanced my mortgage in November of 2021. That timing was not a mistake, right? And I leveraged, I got the biggest mortgage I could possibly get and I locked it in for 30 years, 10 years, interest only. So every month I pay the bank the same amount. But here's my question for you, Marty. What happens to the purchasing power of that same check I write every month, increasing it goes down, right? What do you think? Like the money that I pay them, that fixed amount that I'm going to pay them 25 years from now, 24 years from now, what's it worth? And what are they going to buy with that? A candy bar, a loaf of bread, pack of gum?
- [44:51]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [44:52]
Gary Broda
They're not going to be able to buy one bitcoin for it. And so, you know, I was able to take that money leverage into property, which has done really well. Own stocks, own bitcoin, own gold. Hey, I have a credit score that starts with an 8. So I took on debt that's denominated in debased fiat, constantly in fiat dollars that are declining in purchasing power every month. And I bought hard assets. That works for me. But now look at what happens to people who don't have those kinds of resources, right? People got their stimmies and they were really excited. Who doesn't like getting a sixteen hundred dollar check from the government? But then what we saw were people, their monthly expenses went up by $100 or $200. So would you take $1600 today in exchange for like $2000 of annual increase in your costs? Like, of course you wouldn't do it. And so people got excited like free money. The government loves us. No, you're paying for your stimmies. You're just paying for them at higher prices at the fuel pump or when you have to buy a car or you know, get, buy a house or groceries. You know, these are your electric bill. Like this is where these things are, are playing out. And a lot of people don't understand that. And so we're going to film a whole episode explaining to people how these inflationary policies, how these free money giveaways end up hurting the people they are supposedly designed to help and end up being great for the millionaires and billionaires that we're all told are horrible people and shouldn't benefit from anything like all of these policies. I saw something the other day. Someone said we can reliably count on Washington D.C. whatever they name a bill or a program, the program will do the opposite of what it says it's going to do.
- [46:52]
Marty Bent
The Inflation Reduction Act.
- [46:54]
Gary Broda
That's maybe the best I was thinking about.
- [46:56]
Marty Bent
Yeah, it's like between that or the Patriot act, it's.
- [46:58]
Gary Broda
Yeah, right, Yeah. I mean, so we're going to, we're going to print money, hand out free money and that's going to reduce inflation. No, it will do the opposite.
- [47:09]
Marty Bent
Yeah, it's, that's the other thing. Is there enough momentum right now to get us to the other side where people are able to look back with clear eyes, open mind, open heart and say that was wrong. We need to, we're going to do this phase shift, this tectonic shift in policy and understanding how the economy works and stick with it. Or is this an ephemeral one? Admin. Adjustment that gets readjusted if four years from now.
- [47:41]
Gary Broda
Unfortunately, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think we're just buying ourselves time. I mean, even, Even going back 250 years ago, the founders of the United States understood the danger of populism. They intentionally set up a system to try to prevent for as long as possible the ability of people to vote for more benefits from others. And you know, somebody might say, oh, you know, you're so mean spirited, you hate the poor. No, I don't. The policies that we have that supposedly help the poor, don't they hurt the poor, they help the wealthy.
- [48:22]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [48:22]
Gary Broda
These, it's. But people, you know, they're addicted to free stuff. And the idea that you can get something for free and these things, they're very hard to control. Especially once these ideas have taken hold in a population. It's what we've seen in Argentina, for decades we would have these Peronist excesses. And then every 15 years or so the citizens of Argentina would say, you know what, we need to get serious. We have to reduce inflation, we have to get government spending under control. And they would vote in a government to change things. And as the government would start to change things and reduce the free giveaways, people say, no, no, no, we, we want you to fix the economy, but don't reduce the giveaways that come to me. Okay, well that's the problem with the economy, right? And everybody wanted the problem fixed, but nobody wanted to give up their free stimmies or their no work jobs or their unproductive jobs. So you know, these things are their issues and it's really hard to get control of it once these ideas are in a population. And you know, it was a hundred years ago Argentina was the wealthiest nation on the planet. And then 100 years of nonsense and you know, again, every 15 years they say, okay, let's clean it up, but don't take any of my stuff. You know, we saw this, by the way, in Europe last week. I saw a poll that the vast majority of Europeans thought that more should be done to help Ukraine, but the majority in every country thought that money and those resources should come from other countries, not theirs. Okay, great. But you know, it's the, the whole somebody should do something. Some, but by somebody I mean you and leave everything the same for me. That doesn't work.
- [50:17]
Marty Bent
No, accountability is important. Again, that poll explains a lot of the reaction that the Trump administration got to that Zelensky meeting last week. On this point, how do you see bitcoin playing moving forward? How do you see it reacting to all this? Obviously we've got equities dumping right now. Trump's choreographing some short term turbulence. Who knows how short term that is? Maybe it is very short term and the Fed is forced to step in print money and make it rip. We've seen it's intraday, probably not a lot of signal in it, but there was some inverse movement between the price of bitcoin and equities markets over the last day or two. Does bitcoin emerge as a perceived safe haven asset during all this? Is it already perceived that way in your mind?
- [51:16]
Gary Broda
Yeah.
- [51:17]
Marty Bent
At large enough scale?
- [51:18]
Gary Broda
Yeah. It's a really interesting question. If I were a bitcoin bear and I'm not. But let's, you know, let's flesh out the argument. Let's flesh out the argument against. Right, let's be Honest about it. If the Trump administration has any success doing what they're trying to do in terms of getting the budget deficit down, reducing or eliminating wasteful spending, all of those things make the dollar better. And that's one of the reasons why we're seeing a decrease in bond yields right now. That's why the 10 years dropped 50 basis points over the last month or two. And so those are things that would strengthen the real value of the dollar, the purchasing power of the dollar. And again, I delineate between people who talk about the dollar where they look @ Dixie, right, DXY, the dollar index, that's versus other currencies. So when people talk about a strong dollar, when traders talk about a strong dollar, they're typically talking about versus other currencies. If you're a foreign exchange trader, yeah, the dollar's strong. When I talk about a strong dollar, I'm thinking about purchasing power. And so things that reduce wasteful government spending are generally good for the purchasing power of the dollar. And that is not necessarily bullish for the dollar price of Bitcoin. With that said, acknowledging the other side of it, I've got a two part thesis on bitcoin. One is increased institutional adoption. And that is exactly what we've seen. People have forgotten that it was less than a year ago that the SEC approved the largest, the Bitcoin ETFs, the exchange traded funds which had the largest adoption, the fastest adoption in history. Those things just added billions and billions of dollars of capital within a really short time. That was less than a year ago. And people are still just starting to figure out, pension funds are starting to figure out how big a part of our portfolio should this be? We should have, you know, like, and whether, honestly, Marty, whether it's 50 basis points, 1%, 2%, does it matter? That's trillions of dollars of pension funds out there. Family offices are just starting to figure this out. You know, one of the things we looked at this is a few years back, but at the time there were 44 million US dollar millionaires in the world. Now that number would be higher today, 21 million Bitcoin with a bunch of them lost irretrievably. Literally. If every millionaire in the world wanted to own one bitcoin, they can't do it. There aren't enough. This is a level of scarcity we've never seen before. And we're at a point where millionaires won't be able to be whole coiners. So I think that's really important. We're starting to see state governments, Marty, how many state governments are voting on Bitcoin? And some, you know, the skeptics might say, yeah, but they haven't approved it yet. Okay, but you have dozens of states looking at this and looking at adding it to their pension funds. Like at some point, one of them is going to do it. The other thing is, I think the things that the Trump administration is doing are positive for the dollar, but I don't think Doge is going to cut $2 trillion. I don't think our budget deficit is going to zero. I think we're going to see continued increases in debt, maybe at a slower rate than we would have seen had Kamala Harris won the election, but it's still going to increase. And the thing that nobody wants to think about are our off balance sheet liabilities, right? Those are things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, pensions, Obamacare, all of that stuff. Those are obligations that we've incurred but haven't saved for.
- [55:17]
Interjecting Commentator
Right?
- [55:18]
Gary Broda
This is. And you know, for people who find that confusing, just imagine this for a minute. Imagine that, you know, you, your family, you have a new baby today. Congratulations. You know, assuming that you, you know, want the best for your kid, you may be thinking, wow, all right, in 18 years, I want to be able to send this kid to school, sends a kid to college. You know, what are we looking at? You know, today that could easily be a quarter of a million dollars. Eighteen years from now, it's going to be a whole lot more, right? And so do you start saving now or do you wait 18 years and say, oh, crap, what do we do? Let's start borrowing? Well, guess what? The off balance sheet liabilities of the US government are over $200 trillion. We can't borrow that. We can't create that. You know, when people talk about make the millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share, it's great rhetoric, but there's no level of taxation that gets you to $200 trillion. Add to that, what is it? What's the debt now? 37, 38 trillion. Around that the point. Add all this up, we're very close to a quarter of a quadrillion dollars in debt.
- [56:33]
Marty Bent
I think we need to be there. I think off balance sheets, like 219 trillion, last I checked. So we're there.
- [56:40]
Gary Broda
So a quarter of a quadrillion dollars, there is no level of taxation that like our economy can't produce that. What's our economy right now? Like 30 trillion a year. I mean, you know, we'd have to have nobody Consume anything for, you know, what is that, nine years? Yeah, eight. Nine years to get that again. That's it. So nobody gets to consume anything. No food? No. Like, you got to be kidding me. This is not possible. And so, you know, I think we are unfortunately in full blown Ponzi. I think the things that, that President Trump and Elon Musk are doing will have positive effects if they succeed, and I hope they do in cutting wasteful spending. But I just think long term, there's a reason every fiat currency in history has gone to zero. For the recent bitcoin white paper that we put out, the re release, we had taken a look. There's 775 fiat currencies in history. They've all gone to zero. And someone might say, well, wait a minute, you know, what about the British pound? That's been around for 350 years. Yeah. And it's lost more than 99% of its value in that time. Like, at what point do we call it a failure? You know, the US dollar, it's been around for almost 250 years and it's lost 96, 97% of its value since 1800 and most of that since the establishment of the Federal reserve just over 100 years ago. Right. That's that. If we were to invest in equities and lose 19 out of $20 or 24 out of $25 we'd invested, we'd call it a failure. So as long as there's just more of this going on, there's a reason bitcoin's my largest position.
- [58:33]
Marty Bent
Yeah, it is. Overall. And it's funny, in the moment I've caught myself doing this, get very excited about Doge and like the intentions and the actions are admirable and we should be eliminating waste and overt theft as much as possible, despite the overarching debt situation that exists. But you have to, like you said, a quarter of a quadrillion dollars in on balance sheet and off balance sheet debt that the US owes to future Americans. It is.
- [59:09]
Gary Broda
Yeah.
- [59:10]
Marty Bent
It's not going to happen. That's something. Recognizing this inevitable outcome, which is the complete debasement of the dollar where I sit as a bitcoiner, not only personally investing in it, but running a venture fund trying to fund companies that can help fix this problem as we transition to a new monetary standard. I, I think there's a high likelihood it could be Bitcoin at some point in the next couple decades. How do you bridge the gap and lessen the blow of this inevitable blow? Up, and that's one thing I'm interested to get your thoughts on is this idea of beginning. The problem that exists not only at the government level, but even in the private sector is that you have a bunch of debt, particularly shitty debt with bad collateral and so beginning to inject Bitcoin into the credit system. Start with the private credit system. Obviously US government's talking about a bitcoin strategic reserve. So you get it into the public sector there, but literally creating products. We have a company in the portfolio called Battery and they just did their first underwriting of a big commercial real estate property in Philadelphia where they provided them dollars via loan to refinance their 10 year commercial real estate loan. Took some of the proceeds to pay off that mortgage, some to do some renovations on the building, and then some put in bitcoin that's held in the loan structure. And the borrower and the lender, based off of how long the borrower stays in the loan, share on the upside appreciation of the bitcoin. So I think point of this long winded rant by me is really to put it out there for bitcoiners and anybody who's looking at this problem and feeling extremely overwhelmed. It is a massive problem. It is an objective Ponzi scheme that should be recognized by everybody. But you should begin to think creatively of how you recapitalize the system with assets like bitcoin, particularly refinancing bad debt and injecting bitcoin as collateral.
- [61:26]
Gary Broda
Yeah, they're going to need to do something and they really have two options. One is the stealth default where we just have. Once the baby boomers retire, they're going to be a huge drain on the Social Security system. And they can say, well, we worked for years, we paid into the system, okay, great, but the money isn't there. So, you know, it's not a matter of deserve or need. It's a matter of, you know, like, like the example I always use, Marty. You know, let's say you and I place a bet on a basketball game today, right? And we bet a billion dollars and you win the bet.
- [62:11]
Interjecting Commentator
Right?
- [62:11]
Gary Broda
You're right, I'm wrong. You win. Here's my question. Are you a billionaire? No, because I can't pay it. And you could go to court and you could say we had a contract, I won. And the court could say we agree with you, Marty. Okay. Gary, pay him. I don't have it. Like, there's no universe where you're a billionaire because your claim is on an entity that can't deliver on the promises that were made. And so that's where we are right now. And so we've got two options. One is the stealth default where we just print so many dollars that people are paid what they're owed, but they're paid in dollars that are worthless.
- [62:57]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [62:57]
Gary Broda
We basically inflate our way not only of the national debt, but out of our off balance sheet liabilities. And you know, imagine, you know, getting a Social Security payment and you know, saying, okay, well great, you can buy a pack of gum now. You know, that would be the stealth default, the overt default, which would be politically very hard. Somebody would have to agree to be, you know, all of Congress would have to agree. They're one term and it would be a one term president. But basically what we need to do is restructure our social safety net. There's just no universe where the math works right now. And if you think about it, the original purpose of Social Security as people would retire at 62 and they would typically live for one or two years. So they paid into the system for about 40 or 50 years. About 40 years, sorry. They paid in the system for about 40 years and then they lived off of it for one or two. And that math worked, especially when you had a growing workforce. But now here's where we are. People are largely unproductive for the first quarter century of their lives. Well, okay, we can't expect a 5 year old to be productive or a 10 year old. And you know, do we want all the 18 year olds out in the world? Well, you know, some of them probably should go to school if we want. Doctors and engineers, right. And then, you know, they graduate from school and they get a good job. But it takes a little while to become productive. Like, okay, I see that it's not crazy to expect somebody to get through a quarter century before being effective or productive. All right, that makes sense. But the problem we have is, is on the other end, people now want to retire at, you know, say 62, but they're living to 85 or 87 or 90. And now there's another quarter century on the other side of that. And so, you know, it's really easy for people to say, well, you know, tax the rich, okay, great. But there is no math where a society, where it works for a society to pay people, or where you have people who are unproductive for half a century of their lives, that math doesn't work. And so we need to rethink our social safety net. And again, people will Say that I'm mean, I'm cruel, I want. No, that's not it. The system we have is unstable. It is unsustainable. If we want these programs to exist, we cannot count on the system to support people for half a century of being unproductive. We just can't do that. That math doesn't work. And so if you want these programs, if you care about these people, if you want these programs to be solvent and sustainable, we need to rethink it. And a program that was originally designed to support people for a year or two is now being used for two to three plus decades. And that, that we just, we need to figure out something to do with that. But that would be an overt default now, not a bond market default. I'm not saying that we're going to default on Treasuries and you know, tell everybody, no, you're not getting your money. I'm not talking about like an Argentina or Greece style default. I'm talking about going to the, our own citizens where we have obligations to them and saying, listen, we cannot meet these obligations. We need to restructure. Just like, you know, at Marty, have you dealt with bankruptcy? Like you go to your creditors and you say you can try to enforce this, but I don't have the money. We need to restructure.
- [66:29]
Marty Bent
This is why I love speaking with you, Gary, because I think the way you articulate things is very easy to understand. Just that whole explanation of Social Security, 50 years of unproductive living, half of that being financed via these social media spending programs. When you lay it out like that, I hope it would be obvious to anybody with more than two brain cells that it sort of adds up. The math simply doesn't work. I agree. I'm not, I have empathy and for, for a lot of people in these situations. But at some point you have to recognize this, this is completely unsustainable and it's going to collapse unless you have a restructuring. And a lot of people don't want to have that conversation. But it's have it or have it forced on you by being surprised one day by waking up and just not getting your check.
- [67:23]
Gary Broda
Yeah, I think that's Marty, that's the key point.
- [67:27]
Interjecting Commentator
Right?
- [67:27]
Gary Broda
We can either have this conversation now or you can be surprised tomorrow. And at some level I think Americans intuitively understand and you're very kind to say that I gave a really clear explanation and thank you for that. It is something that we strive for. Like how do we take complicated ideas and present them so they're understandable by people who don't have a finance background, who aren't reading 30 page government economic reports.
- [67:55]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [67:55]
Gary Broda
And that's really important. And thank you for that. I would also just add that on some level, Americans understand that.
- [68:03]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [68:03]
Gary Broda
And so, like, if you, I'm sure you've seen the polls before, young people are more convinced that, you know, there are UFOs and aliens flying around the planet right now than they are that Social Security will exist.
- [68:17]
Interjecting Commentator
Right.
- [68:18]
Gary Broda
I mean, right now there are more people who believe in astrology than who believe in Social Security. On some level, people do understand that this is not a sustainable issue, that changes need to be made. Because if you're at the point where, you know, I'm a Capricorn or I think there are UFOs is more meaningful in your life then, you know, your retirement plan, then people are understanding it on some visceral level.
- [68:44]
Marty Bent
Yeah. And not only coming to, coming to an understanding that this is unsustainable, but to like, have the conversation as quickly as possible. Because I think it's imperative, particularly for young people to keep as much money as possible so that they can then go out and be productive in the economy, hopefully create businesses, create value to help kickstart a recovery from this mass hysteria that we've been living under for the better part of a century with the government programs. I think it's just as important to have the conversation with the younger people about getting the money back in their pockets so they can go be productive as it is having the conversation with those in retirement about the reality of the situation.
- [69:33]
Gary Broda
Marty, in so many cases, especially when they're young people, imagine going to them and saying, hey, everyone, just so you know, these social safety net programs that we've told you about, they're all bankrupt. You can't count on them. But before you panic, before you get upset, here's, here's what to do. Like, you're early in your careers, you have decades to save and invest. And so every month take $100 and put it in, you know, an equity index, a mutual fund, Bitcoin. And, you know, they might say, well, I'm just starting out, rent is expensive. Okay, do $50 a month, you know, well, I, you know, I. Dinner out with friends. Okay, $25 a month. Just do something. Get in the habit of putting aside a certain amount of money every month. And you know, I saw something great on, on X the other day. It was something like, you know, poor people spend and then invest what's left. Wealthy people Invest and then spend what's left, you know, and it's, it's easy. Listen, it's easier for wealthy people to say, okay, well I'm going to put money aside, right, for them. It's not $25 or $50, but the point of the post was it's a way of thinking about things, right? Is your first priority to spend and then see if you have something left? Or is your first priority to put something aside and then live off of what's left? And you know, like if, if they can't do a thousand dollars a month or $100 a month or so, $25 a month, $25 a month by, by a few sets, right? Just a little bit at a time and you build it. And you know at some point they will get that first raise, that first promotion. Well, so take 50% of your raise and spend it and enjoy it and take 50% of your raise and invest that and do that every month and just dollar cost average your way into building wealth over a long period of time. Get rich slowly. It'll work.
- [71:38]
Marty Bent
And for any young listeners out there, I know our demo trends a little bit older, even older than me, but there are some gen zers out there. That's how I started $25 a month. And not only, and you mentioned it earlier, Gary, Bitcoin really changes your time preference and gets you to think long term. So you start out doing $25 a paycheck, whatever it may be. You get a raise, you do a little bit more. You sit in bitcoin long enough, you see its price appreciation, its increase in purchasing power. And then you have some sort of mindset shift in your mind where you're like, okay, I'm going to figure out how to get more of this and spend less. And you find yourself spending less and prioritizing saving for the future. So just not even the point of starting with $25 a paycheck is not even to build the savings. I think it's equally as important to do that so that you realize what it feels like, particularly when you're doing it with bitcoin, to recognize an incredible growth in the, in the purchasing power of what you're investing in. And then that does something psychologically that incentivizes you to, to save more.
- [72:50]
Gary Broda
You know, Marty, I'm so glad you framed it that way. I've got a personal story to share with you. I'm sure you've seen it. The meme that was has been all over X where, you know, like it's, it's a picture of a bit or a drawing of a bitcoin maxi at home. It's basically like a guy sitting either on the floor or one chair, right? And like there might be a tv. You know, it's like everything's gone into bitcoin, right?
- [73:17]
Marty Bent
Yeah.
- [73:17]
Gary Broda
And, and the point is I'm a bitcoin maxi and who really needs all these material things, right? And so, you know, I like, I live in Westport, Connecticut. The homes here are beautiful. It's nice where I live. But a couple years ago I went surfing in rural Nicaragua. And I mean I was in Maderas. It's the middle of nowhere, although the beach is beautiful and the waves are great. And I was staying at this place that used to be a really nice resort. And I'd seen the pictures and it looked terrific. And I was staying there for three weeks and I walked in and my room was very, very spartan. We're talking about cement floor, brick walls, like a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. There is a wooden desk and a very severe 90 degree wooden chair there. And my first thought was I was disappointed for about 10 seconds and I thought this looks like the kind of room they would give a monk in the 1500s, right? This is where I'm going to be for weeks. And I was disappointed for about 10 seconds. Then I thought to myself, wait a minute, this is fantastic. I'm going to be like a monk from the 1500s, right? And right then I said, okay, so here's what I'm going to do for the next three weeks. I'm going to go to bed early, wake up early. I'm going to read, write, work, exercise and sleep. I'm going to journal, meditate, right? I made my life very small and I lived happily there for a few weeks. And I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning. I would work till the market closed at 2. I would go surfing till 4. I would shower, I'd walk a mile to go get dinner, you know, on these dirt roads I'd work through dinner and I would come back and I would be in bed. You know, I'd meditate, I would journal.
- [75:22]
Interjecting Commentator
I'd write.
- [75:24]
Gary Broda
Maybe do a little more work. I'd be in bed by 8 o', clock, asleep by 8:30, do it all again. And it was just a very small spartan life, but I was happy. And it's just a reminder. We don't need that much.
- [75:39]
Marty Bent
You really don't care. I think that's a perfect place to end this. I don't think I can top that. Thank you so much for coming on.
- [75:47]
Gary Broda
Thanks for having me.
- [75:48]
Marty Bent
Peace and love, freaks.
- [75:49]
Gary Broda
Okay.