Loading summary
Joe Consorti
You've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free.
Marty Bent
If you talk about a Fed just gone nuts. All, all the central banks going nuts.
Joe Consorti
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.
Marty Bent
I mean, that's part of the bull case for bitcoin.
Joe Consorti
If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. Probably should be.
Marty Bent
Probably should be joking. Sortie. Welcome to the show, sir.
Joe Consorti
Already bent. Thank you for having me on.
Marty Bent
How, how have you been?
Joe Consorti
I've been good. My wife and I, I'm checking my whiteboard because she writes it on there. My wife and I are expecting a baby in eight weeks. So very excited about that first time dad. Gonna be a girl dad. And yeah, so that's sort of top of mind right now. But beyond that, I'm doing very well,
Marty Bent
as it should be. Congrats.
Joe Consorti
Thank you.
Marty Bent
I'm sure you've heard it. It's the old, the old head dad joke for expecting fathers. Get as much sleep as you can.
Joe Consorti
Oh, gonna miss it plenty. Yeah,
Marty Bent
no, but I think we were, I mean, we were just talking about it. Before I hit record. I was saying I've been watching your, your YouTube channel. I think the, the coverage that you've been, that you have out there, particularly on the economy and as it pertains to Bitcoin is very important because like I said, I think people are missing the forest for the trees and forgetting about Bitcoin's fundamental value prop. There's a lot of people that are bearish right now at 76,000. But I think your coverage of the state of the economy, particularly the K shaped economy that is developing as AI takes off and the haves and the have nots seem to have a wider distance between them is an important reminder of why bitcoin exists in the first place.
Joe Consorti
Absolutely. The K shaped economy is more pronounced now than I think ever before, particularly the consumer sentiment data. So my audience was quick to remind me that the consumer sentiment data from the University of Michigan is somewhat politically biased. They were saying that I have Trump derangement syndrome and which is not true. Voted for the guy. But anyway, they were saying that it's politically biased, but either way it came in at its lowest level ever, lowest level on record. But today The S&P 500, the NASDAQ, they're both ripping to all time highs. What gives why do people feel terrible even though the stock market is doing exceedingly well? You and I both understand, because we've been in this for a while, that the stock market is not the economy. But generally speaking, they're at least somewhat tethered to one another, right? Where they have this loose semi directional correlation. But over the last several years, and over the last four years in particular, since we hit 9.1% inflation in 2022, the two have diverged and now we have two completely different worlds. And in my video, I analogized it this way. I said somewhere in the country right now, and perhaps this is you viewing this show, there's a family sitting at a kitchen table trying to figure out how to pay the bills for the month, right? But then somewhere else in the country, maybe just a mile or two away from that family, there's a family who is watching CNBC playing 18 holes of golf on a Wednesday afternoon and they're checking their portfolio and it's doing exceedingly well. And all is well in the world. Two completely different worlds. And it's really enabled by money printing. The sole reason there is a disconnect between the S&P 500 and the fact that it's adult highs and consumer sentiment at all time lows is money printing. It's the fact that we have detached money from physical reality and now you can print in excess of actual physical reality. Money was created of course, to be effectively a communication mechanism, communicate value. And now that we have detached money from gold, from energy, money doesn't communicate value well anymore. And really what it is is people who hold, hold on to the paper claims, they lose. And so the bottom leg of the K is just having a terrible time. Inflation has been running above 3% for four years now, or above 2.5%, but we'll call it 3% for four years now. And as a result of that, over the last 18 months, for the first time in well over a decade, for the entire year, wages have been outpaced by price. Inflation is not good. That's actually terrible. And so really, people can call it the silent depression, people can call it the K shaped economy. It all boils down to the exact same dynamic, which is that asset holders are doing exceedingly well. And I am of the opinion they're going to continue doing well into the midterms because it's really the only card that trump has left because of the war and because of inflation. And the asset poor are not going to have a great time.
Marty Bent
Yeah, even between the haves and the have nots. I think the acceleration of this AI wave, bubble, whatever you want to call it, I'm more under the impression that it's a wave and not a bubble. It seems real to me. We're using it every day. But if you look at what's dragging the stock market higher, it's anchored to a very small subset of companies that are anchor to that particular theme. And that is like the confounding problem of that I'm focused on right now is like there's all this incredible innovation. It's making those who are high agency and willing to dip their toes and begin playing with the tools and use it towards something that's actually advantageous for them. There's a ton of companies that are just wasting money on this, but some are using it to their advantage, are seeing a lot of productivity growth and efficiency gains. But to your point about the stock market versus the common man, who's got very low sentiment right now, is battling inflation, delinquency rates rising, price at the pump is going up. I actually just saw a high school friend posting. He lives in California. I think it cost him $200 to fill up the tank of his truck. It's very clear that what's being portrayed in the mainstream is not what's happening in real life. And people still don't understand the money printing aspect. I don't think. And that's, I think, to your point, what you said earlier, we've been following this for a while and we've both been trying to educate people about Bitcoin. But what is it going to take to connect the money printer to the ills that are felt throughout the lower rung of the K. Yeah, I mean,
Joe Consorti
it sounds trotted out and played out, but it all boils down to education. People need to realize that to some degree it's mass migration and to some degree it's a lot of other things in the country that are causing what people are feeling every day, like the danger in their cities and the prices of everything going up. But the pernicious evil that actually enables all of that, all of those downstream things, is the money printer. And so basically it's just the same message that needs to be repackaged in like a hundred different ways, you know, and so, yeah, it's just more people pounding the, pounding the table on it. Right. And you bring up a, bring up a really good point about AI like it's a wonderful tool because it means like you would think about, you could basically transplant a 130 IQ individual into any household across the country for basically free at this point in time. Because Chad beat, obviously, it's not the greatest. I prefer Cloud. But, you know, you have free access to this tool that's basically a second brain that has an IQ that's higher than the median IQ of this country. And so you would think that that would raise people's awareness about this issue, about what's really at hand. But the unfortunate thing is you bring up agency. You know, you can give a. You can give just a random person the best sawzall in the world or the best hammer in the world, but if they're not a carpenter or a sculptor, it's not going to matter. In the same way, you can give just a relatively low agency individual access to this supercomputer where you could spin up a personal brand, you could spin up a second brain, you could spin up a business entirely using this tool. But they won't do it because doing that requires agency, it requires consistency, it requires focus, it requires deep thinking, it requires problem solving. And so even giving them that tool, it's not going to necessarily do much. And so bringing this back to Bitcoin, there's only so much we can do to educate folks. And I think the logical step is to package things differently, bring it to them in a format that they can understand and jive with. But there are always going to be some people who just don't get it, whether because they're just not intellectually curious or because they're led astray by crypto or any number of things. There's really sad to see. But I think the message of the fact that you just need a dollar to buy Bitcoin, Right. Just one dollar, probably get a dollar lying around. If you spend any time in a city, you could find four quarters. Right. This is the lowest barrier to entry asset in existence. Obviously now you can spin up an account on Robinhood and buy fractions of stocks, but the fact of the matter is, even with $0.01, you can be allocating to Bitcoin. So it's just a very important message to hammer.
Marty Bent
Yeah. In terms of money printing, bring it back to the core why Bitcoin exists. You mentioned the genesis block, I think, before we hit record. But Chancellor on the brigade second bailout for the banks. I think that's one of the questions that people have is as Kevin Warsh is taking the reign as Fed chairman is what's he going to do when you have yields across the globe screaming Japan, uk, France, here in the United States as well. You have inflation running pretty hot too. And many people beginning to question what we're going to do in terms of saving that lower rung of the K if another liquidity crisis arises. And obviously private credit's been a big theme over the last six to nine months and many people are wondering if that will manifest and metastasize into a more systemic crisis. Doesn't seem to have quite yet, but I think looking at delinquency rates, particularly on auto loans and student loans, and the specter of mass layoffs because of AI, whether or not it's actually because of the productivity gains or it being used as an excuse to cut bloat at some of these, some of these larger companies. I think that's, that's one question that many people are beginning, beginning to wonder is, is the Fed going to have to lower rates and stimulate the economy via something like QE if something like this manifests and Washes explicitly said that he would like to lower rates but continue on with qt? It's like, will the market let him do that?
Joe Consorti
Yeah, honestly, I don't think the market will because if you think about it this way, the bond market is clearly screaming that we need higher rates. But I actually think the bond market has it right because they're pricing in higher growth and inflation expectations by selling off. But they have it wrong in the sense that this is a type of inflation the Fed really can't do anything about. You have two different kinds of inflation. You have push inflation and pull inflation. Pull inflation would be where there's so much spending happening in the economy. Consumers are just buying, buying, buying as a result of extremely low interest rates and or monetary stimulus. So money printing, helicopter money, which I believe we're actually going to see this year. I think we're going to see stimmy checks and I'll explain why. So there's sort of that pull inflation, which the Fed can solve by raising interest rates by increasing the price of money, making it more difficult for that borrowing to occur, making it more difficult for banks to extend loans. And then inflation comes down. Right. But then you have Bush inflation, the one way to describe it, which is where the input costs are materially rising and it's not because of the level of interest rates. We're experiencing that right now. Inflation is being caused by the oil shock out of the Strait of Hormuz. Largely 20% of the oil supply globally flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Obviously being in the Middle east as well, they can export it much cheaper. Than here. And so there is a much larger price impact than just 20%. More like 40, 50, 60, 70%. We've seen that with oil trading around 100 or over $100 a barrel. We're coming up on three months now. So you have that in the background. That's what the inflation is caused by. The Fed can't really do anything as far as interest rates are concerned in order to fix that inflation. The only thing that the Fed raising its policy rates would do in my mind is destroy demand even further, which would lead us into a recession, which would lead to more stimulus out the other side. And so in my mind, the order of operations here, what needs to happen is the Fed is kind of stuck right now between a rock and a hard place. Our interest expense over the last 12 months, the rolling 12 month period, was $1.27 trillion. It's the second largest line item on the balance sheet. It's been that way for about a year and a half, two years now. If rates stay where they're at right now, within six and a half months, interest expense on the national debt will be the single largest line item on the US Government's balance sheet. That can't be allowed to happen. So what needs to happen? Well, a couple of things. And this also ties into the political incentives behind this war and why I think it's going to wrap up sooner than later and why asset prices will do well. As I mentioned a couple of moments ago during the last question, the only thing Trump has left for him in my mind is, is asset prices. He had the younger voters with low inflation and no new wars, but now asset prices are really the only thing he has going for him. And so ending the war sooner than later, making sure inflation doesn't rise too terribly throughout the summer so that asset prices do well into midterms. It's kind of the Hail Mary last card he has left. And so in my mind he's going to end it sooner than later, but that remains to be seen.
Marty Bent
Yeah, and I mean, you mentioned Stimmy is going to come in what form? In what way?
Joe Consorti
Yeah, so I think, honestly I think this happens if the war rages on past mid June. The reason I say mid June is because a lot of analysts from Goldman and JP Morgan have cited mid June as the time when the world's largest country's strategic petroleum reserves will be depleted or at critical levels. And at that point, all of the downward price pressure that them draining their petroleum reserves will have had on oil won't be in effect anymore. So you'll see extreme demand destruction. You'll likely see recession. So in my mind, before mid June, if the war rages on into July, into August, right, that is when you're going to see extreme inflationary demand destruction. Because what we're seeing right now is sort of the first wave, if you will, of the oil shock. You're seeing it at the pump. It sucks. Like, I live in Massachusetts. Normally gas is like $2.20 a gallon, nothing terrible. I just filled up yesterday for like 480. It was not fun. But I also want to make sure my wife doesn't run out of gas on the way to one of her prenatal appointments. I have to bite the bullet and do it. In California, average price is over 750, I'm pretty sure coming up on 8, which is, I don't know how they do it out there. I don't know how they survive. That's wave one. Wave two. Obviously this impacts diesel. But the second order effect of diesel prices being really high is all of a sudden farmers can't grow the food that they need. And then when farmers can't grow the food that they need, not just because of diesel prices, but because of high fertilizer prices, all of a sudden we get food shortages. And many outlets have been talking about, hey, over 40% of farmers in the southern United States say they don't have enough fertilizer for the growing season. That's not good at all. And so the second order effect of the oil shock is food shortages. So not only are you going to have food shortages and the price of the pump being extremely high, but everything is a petroleum product nowadays. So the paint on my wall behind me, this microphone, this pen, all of it is a petroleum product. My glasses, my shirt, unfortunately it's not 100% cotton. And so all of this, every single price in the US economy is going to be repriced higher if the Strait of Hormuz doesn't open up very soon. The bar that I'm setting on at the threshold is mid June. I'm no expert, but I'm listening to the experts. That's the extent that I will trust the experts as far as geopolitics are concerned. And so that's my threshold. And when I say we'll see stimmy checks, I mean this is like the last and final Hail Mary. If the war doesn't end and we are teetering on the brink of recession, then I believe the U.S. treasury, the federal Reserve will get together. Because the Reason Kevin Warsh was chosen was specifically because he's going to do Trump's bidding. He's going to do Scott Bessant's bidding. The level of interest rates matters much more than it ever has before, and keeping them low matters much more than it ever has before. And so I think in the event of an inflationary recession, rather than allowing that to occur, you're going to see preemptive action, you're going to see stimulus checks. The thing I'll say here, the last thing I'll say to justify my thinking, is that in 2008, the response time was seven months between the first bank teetering on the brink of failure and then being bailed out to the Fed actually doing something after other banks begin collapsing. In 2019, it was, I think the response was three days between the cash shortage in the repo market and the Fed's response. So it went from seven months to three days. Okay, great. March 13, 2020. The response was overnight. So major market crash, major global shutdowns. The Fed stepped in immediately, literally overnight. And then with the 2023 banking crisis, Silicon Valley bank blew up within hours. The Fed stepped in, had a brand new facility spun up for them. So the response time to crises has grown shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. What's the next logical step from here? Well, either it compresses more or we go from reacting to preparing for events like these. And so in my mind, either we get an inflationary recession and then stimulus checks, or in advance of an inflationary recession, we get stimulus checks. Right. And this is of course, assuming the war rages on throughout the summer.
Sponsor Announcer
So, freaks, this work was brought to you by our good friends at bitkey.
Sponsor Representative
Guys, things happen, things get lost, you need to replace your phone. Life happens. And bitkey has been designed with this in mind. So if you're looking for the easiest way to secure your bitcoin off the exchange, go get A bit key doesn't come with any seed phrases. There's no single point of failure. It's a two or three multisig. You have your device, you have the mobile app and block stores a key in the server.
Joe Consorti
So you have collaborative multi sig there.
Sponsor Representative
On top of that, the new bit key has a screen so you can actually see and verify what you're approving. You can look at transactions, addresses, account changes. The difference between trusting and knowing has been built into the new bit key. With the screen, they've changed code delegation in other advanced features like inheritance recovery. If you're looking to get your bitcoin off exchange you haven't done so you're looking for the easiest way to do that. Go get a bit key. You can use our code today TFTC to get 10% off the new BitKey. So go download the bit key app, use the code TFTC to get 10% off the new bit key and start your self custody journey today. This episode has been sponsored by our
Marty Bent
good friends at bitkey.
Sponsor Representative
All right, freaks, you know me, you know I don't take sponsor money from products I wouldn't use myself. So listen up. The Avon Bitcoin Visa card is one of the most interesting things I've seen in the bitcoin lending space in a long time. Here's the deal. You can get a line of credit up to $1 million backed by your Bitcoin without selling a single sat. No gains, no annual fees, no minimum draws. And your bitcoin is custody by Bitco, which is one of the most trusted names in digital asset security. Even never lends it out. There's no rehypothecation. You stay in control. And guess what? You can lock in a fixed rate for up to 10 years. That's 10 times longer than most lenders out there. Or go interest only for up to five years. Rates start at 7.99% APR. For a product that lets you keep your stack and still access liquidity, it's hard to beat. I mean the duration in the rates is the best I've seen in the market to date. You also get 2% unlimited cash back every time you use the card. Spend fiat. Keep your bitcoin the whole game. If you've been stacking for years and you need liquidity without triggering the taxable event, this is worth a serious Look. Go to aven.combitcoin that's a V N dot com Bitcoin.
Marty Bent
Check it out. Yeah, and I think that's. I just had a Luke Roman on last week and that was one of the things we discussed. Is did and is the Trump administration underestimating the leverage that Iran has and how far they're willing to dig in their feet and, and be a stick in the mud? Like, will they cooperate if Trump comes to the table and says let's end this war and they say, you know what, you started this. We're not ending it yet. And that that could be a very interesting development. And then on top of that too, another thing that Luke and I discussed, which is something I'm still very skeptical of, is even if Kevin Wash and the Fed lowers the Fed funds rates. And the assumption is that that will bring down the long end of the yield curve. I think that's a, a faulty assumption, especially after what we saw in September 24th when Powell lowered rates and the 10 year and 30 year moved inversely to that Fed funds rate cut. And so that's like a whole nother can of worms that I don't think people are really, they have amnesia. People forget what happened in September 2024. It's like, who's to say that that won't happen again? If you're just looking at the long term charts in the 10 year and the 30 year, looks like they want to go into a structural bear market in reverse. The last 40 years or 40 years
Joe Consorti
up until 2022 certainly looks like they do. And ultimately, you've spoken with Nick before, great friend of both of ours. The one thing he taught me, and it's stuck with me to this day, is that rates lead the Fed. It's not the other way around. And that's what Luke was alluding to. The Fed's job is not to set interest rates, it's to set policy interest rates in order to create a corridor to try to influence the rates in the US treasury market higher or lower. But ultimately the treasury market is ultimate control, the bond vigilantes, as they're called. And so if they view what the Fed is doing as a policy error, right, or a policy mistake, then they will move markedly in the other direction. And that's exactly what you're seeing right now. Like the, there was so much easing bias before the war in Iran. Like the year was looking up so well for asset prices, for everything. For price inflation. Well, maybe not for price inflation. It was still at like 2.6, 2.7% before the war. And all of a sudden we enter into the war and the three cuts we were going to have this year turned into two hikes. Right. I tend to think that once the war ends, and I think it'll happen sooner than later, that that reverses, the bond market gets bid up again, particularly now because equity risk premiums are deeply negative. The most negative they've been relative to the 10 year yield over a decade, I believe. And so the incentive to start bidding U.S. treasuries relative to equities is so rich right now. So I think we're going to start to see a reversal in the equity market and in the bond market. But who knows, it remains to be seen. It might get a little bit more hairy out there. And we might need to see some emergency intervention. I'm not on the yield curve control train just yet, but if we see a five and a half percent 30 year, then I just might be, who knows.
Marty Bent
What do you think this means for bitcoin? Do you think people are being lulled into a state of complacency right now with the price trading where it is?
Joe Consorti
I certainly think so. Right. I've spoken about this a few times, but the balance of risks for me are more so on the side of Bitcoin has found its bottom. Whether or not that means we continue going lower remains to be seen. I think 60k was the cycle bottom and the balance of risks favor that with everything I discussed about ending the war and the political reasons for doing so. That said, if inflation runs extremely hot, we get an inflationary recession. Every asset sells off, the bond market continues selling off into the stratosphere. Then bitcoin alongside every other asset would get sold off immensely. You'd have this huge dash for cash. At what level that happens in the bond market, I have no idea. I was 6 years old in 2007 the last time the 30 year was this high. So I have no idea what could happen or the level of demand destruction that this level of interest rates could cause on the real economy. A couple of observations. First and foremost, you mentioned it earlier. Record high credit card debt, highest level of credit card delinquencies since 2007. Record high auto loan delinquencies, record high student loan delinquencies. So all of these are not very ideal. The student loans don't matter as much because it's obviously students fresh out of college or within five or ten years of college. They're not major spenders in the US economy just yet. So student loan delinquencies, they don't matter all that much. And also they won't come after your assets if you default. They will just tender your wages for the rest of your life, which is not ideal. What really matters is credit card delinquencies, because that reigns in consumer spending significantly. You and I both know a lot of the consumer strength that we see today isn't actual strength. It's just a function of people putting stuff on credit, running up that balance, minimum monthly payments every month, take out a new credit card, rinse and repeat. But with delinquencies where they're at all time high or highest since 2007, and with rates climbing, that means credit card rates can only climb. And beyond what point does credit become so constricted from a Rates perspective that you start to see consumers actually pulling back on their spending. And so that's the main thing that I'm looking at. Really disconcerting to see that balances are at an all time high, but it's like that happens every month. They're always running up. The delinquencies is the main piece of data that concerns me. Same thing with auto loan delinquencies. And so it's not ideal and it's telling me that these really high rates in the US treasury market are beginning to be felt across the economy. The main thing for me will be at what level does this begin to weigh on public companies? That will tell me, okay, it seems like we may be entering into a bear market as a result of the war raging on and Treasuries selling off. I spoke with someone else earlier today and I was saying this time could very well be different in the sense that we have the SpaceX IPO coming up, we have the Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs coming up. And so even though rates are at 5% of the 30 year, over 4.5% on the 10 year and equity risk premium is the most negative it's ever been relative to the 10 year in over a decade, there's a mania in the market where people just do not want to miss out on those IPOs. I think that because of that and because of the AI boom, I don't think it's a bubble either. But because of investors wanting to remain allocated, I think really high rates won't have as big of an impact on public companies as they should for longer than people think. Just because people want to remain allocated. As far as Bitcoin is concerned, look, we'll have to wait and see. I think the balance of risks probabilistically is that Bitcoin has seen the bottom for this cycle. The reason I say that is because generally speaking, when you see what happened in 60k, which is extreme demand and a bounce up from the bottom, literally less than 20 minutes spent at that level, generally speaking, that is marked the capitulatory bottom. If you think back to 2022, we bottomed a few percentage points below the 2017 all time high. And so a bottom of 60k, which is a few percentage points below the 2021 all time high, that wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for me. So I have to wait and see. It all depends on the war in my mind.
Marty Bent
Yeah, I completely agree there. And then factor in all the fundamental tailwinds that exist For Bitcoin right now, inflation, which is already here and may, may increase, as you described, with the supply shocks that are, that are hitting the economy, will have a lagging effect on prices that will likely hit this fall. And then the war itself, I think what we've seen with Hermes safe and the weaponization of stablecoin rails to freeze assets held by the irgc. And again, whether you like it or not, just looking at it unemotionally, the fact that it seems like the Strait of Hormuz toll system will be using Bitcoin as a preferred currency highlights one of the fundamental value props of the network, which is permissionless access to a final settlement network with a bear asset. Digital currency.
Joe Consorti
Yeah, no, it's money for enemies. It's money for everyone, including your enemies. And it's kind of the way I view it all, and it's so fascinating to watch it all play out, is that it's like this geopolitical Bitcoin arms race. Almost what Senator Lummis was talking about a year or two ago and she said that I think she was on Bankless or something. She's like, wouldn't it be nice if we could race to accumulate Bitcoin instead? Bitcoin is proving to be of immense geopolitical importance in Iran. Whether or not any toll actually gets collected in Bitcoin, whether or not any bitcoin bitcoin backed insurance policy actually gets charged. The point of what Iran did is that it showcased to the world that in an increasingly distrustful and fractured world order, Bitcoin is the neutral reserve asset of choice. It is the preferred medium of exchange. When you cannot trust anyone, you're transacting with, whether we're talking global trade, whether we're talking a shipping route, whatever, the money that you want to be holding, transacting in is one that nobody can seize from you. Nobody can freeze, nobody can take away, nobody can dilute or devalue. And the only thing that fits that bill is bitcoin. Like initially, you just mentioned it. When Iran first talked about this toll sort of V1 of this program. They were, they were accepting yuan, stablecoins and bitcoin. Those are the three things. Well, tether froze 300 to $44 million worth of their stablecoin. So now it's just down to 2, which is yuan and bitcoin. Okay, great. But with the yuan between those two, where else are you going to transact? And also think about it from the perspective of somebody who is on one of these vessels. Let's Say they are an American shipping vessel or a European shipping vessel. They have to onboard themselves into Yuan. They have to figure out how on earth to convert their existing currency into Yuan. They have to eat that differential and it becomes a very, very difficult thing to do. Now imagine you're a ship and you can use Bitcoin over the lightning network. You can really easily swap between your US dollars or your euros or your yen or your yuan or whatever into Bitcoin. Pay the toll or buy your Bitcoin backed insurance and then convert it back. And for Iran, from Iran's perspective, this is money that can't be frozen. And so really it is the only solution. It's the only emergent financial technology that works as a neutral sediment layer in an increasingly trustless and fractured world order. And so pair that with what the United States has been talking about lately, Even setting aside the American Reserves Modernization act, which is extremely cool, you have Pete Hagseth saying that Bitcoin is of immense geopolitical importance and we need to adopt it and embrace it before China does, before Russia does. For the Everyman, the two different angles of Bitcoin here, for the Everyman, it's a hedge against perpetual fiat debasement, money printing, them stealing your time, them stealing your energy. But for sovereign nations, obviously it's a great tool for doing that exact same thing, performing that exact same function. But more importantly, it's something you need to accumulate out of geopolitical strategic importance. Think about this from the United States perspective. BRICS is a total failure, complete and total failure. The leaders in the BRICS nations are trying to kill each other. Not ideal. What do you need in that environment? Gold simply does not work as a settlement asset when you have high frequency, high volume global trade, but Bitcoin does, and you pair that with the trustlessness factor, then Bitcoin fulfills that role even better. And so all of a sudden among all of those nations, they're slowly but surely finding the currency that actually works for what they're looking to do, which is creating a sort of secondary global economy, like an Eastern global economy that isn't reliant on Western consumers. If you're the United States and you see that happening, are you going to sit idly by and let them accumulate a ton of Bitcoin and push you out of this system? Or are you going to use your world reserve currency status as the pawn in order to use your balance sheets strength, your strength as a creditor globally in order to accumulate a lot of Bitcoin before they can and make it prohibitively expensive for them to create this separate system that pushes you out of your global hegemon status.
Marty Bent
Right.
Joe Consorti
I would say the former. Right. I would print a ton of money to buy Bitcoin to prevent them from doing it before me.
Sponsor Announcer
Suffice.
Sponsor Representative
This rip is brought to you by good friends at Crowd Health. I've been a happy Crowd Health member for almost five years now. My wife and I have had two children while we've been on Crowd Health and I actually just got the Last bill for third child funded. It was $6,157. Crowd health negotiated down to $2,309 and we only paid $500. The rest was crowdfunded by the Crowd Health Network. If you're sick of health insurance premiums and having to pay deductibles and getting ripped off at the hospital, join Crowd Health. It's an alternative way to pay for your healthcare. It's not health insurance, it's crowdfunded healthcare. As you can tell, they negotiate prices for you. You pay in cash. It's much cheaper. Overall, we're much happier. They have incredible perks. Go to join CrowdHealth.com TFTC to sign up 5 years on CrowdHealth not looking back join CrowdHealth.com TFTC use the promo code TFTC Once you set up your account, you're going to get 99amonth for your subscription for the first three months.
Sponsor Announcer
Suffreaks when you take Bitcoin seriously, you start with custody. You want to control your keys, avoid single points of failure and make sure your savings cannot disappear because you or
Marty Bent
someone else screwed up.
Sponsor Announcer
That is what Unchained has been focused on since 2016. Unchained is the leader in collaborative multi sig custody and Bitcoin financial services that keep you in control. They secure over $12 billion in Bitco for more than 12,000 clients. That means about one out of every 200 Bitcoin sits inside an unchained vault. Their model is simple. You hold two keys, they hold one key and it always takes two keys to move Bitcoin, meaning their single key can't access your Bitcoin on its own, just resilient shared custody that gives you institutional grade security while keeping you sovereign. Unchain also lets you trade straight from your vault, access bitcoin backed commercial loans, open a bitcoin IRA where you hold your own keys and set up personal business, trust or retirement vaults. They even offer inheritance solutions built for long term hodlers or Opt for the highest level private client service with Unchained Signature and get a dedicated account manager, discounted trading fees, exclusive access to events and features, and much, much more. If you want a partner that helps you secure and grow your Bitcoin without giving up control, go to unchained.com and use the code TFTC10 at checkout to get 10% off your new Bitcoin multisig vault. That's TFTC tenchain.com I mean I, I
Marty Bent
think one of my favorite theories out there, I'm not saying I believe it, I think it's plausible. But that strategy is the, the strategic reserve. If you wanted to tinfoil hat geopolitical game theory game and you didn't want to tip your hat to your adversaries about your, your accumulating, your, the way in which you're accumulating Bitcoin, you have a company in the public sector, excuse me, the private sector via a public equities vehicle. Accumulate as much Bitcoin and it'd be like what, one and a half days of QE right now as it was back in, in the 2009-2015 error?
Joe Consorti
Well, I mean, hey, Tyson's corner is very close to D.C. so who knows, right?
Marty Bent
But to the point like it is, it is becoming more geopolitically important to consider Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset. The one thing I worry about with Iran and Hermu safe is if the government ofac, the law enforcement agencies associated with these supernational entities look at this and say, all right, well we can't have Iran using Bitcoin as this neutral settlement network. We need to shut down the street and they can't be doing this. And they try to find a way to freeze or prevent transactions from being included in blocks. The way Tether was able to freeze us USDT held by the Iranian regime. And I think that's, we're at that point now where it's like, in my mind it's like, are they going to try to do this? Are they going to go mining pools and say, hey, here's a list of addresses that if they're moving Bitcoin or Bitcoin is, is looking like it's going to move toward them. You cannot include them.
Joe Consorti
I think that'll be, if anything like the decentralization of hash rate as a result of AI data centers. It's perfect timing for that, right? Because that does occur, it will be less and less powerful than if it was say a couple of years ago when it was Centralized among a few big players.
Marty Bent
Agree. And I think the amount of hash rate in China that still exists, even though many will be led to believe that it's not in there. And then you look at Chinese mining pools as well. Like, I find it hard to believe that those transactions wouldn't make it through. The point being is like, I think the US Government, it's time that they recognize, like, hey, this thing isn't going away, you can't control it. And you have to get comfortable with that. And it's not only a problem for the US Government, I think it's a problem for individuals as well. It's completely anathema to what we've come to be accustomed to, which is the financial system is very, very controlled and very easily manipulated by the powers that be. And there's this whole sort of social rewiring that is still necessary. I think for many of us it's already happened, but for most people on the planet, hasn't happened yet. Which is we need to be comfortable that this neutral, peer to peer digital cast system exists. It is money for enemies. And whether you like it or not, everybody's going to use it. And how do you get people comfortable with that without the government attacking it? Because they don't like that they can't control it.
Joe Consorti
Yeah, it's going to be an interesting several years to navigate. I'd imagine you're going to see the Liz Warrens of the world blame bitcoin for the next financial crisis. If and when it does occur, that'll be her last hoorah of relevancy. I think as bitcoin grows in geopolitical importance, one thing is that maybe not from all sides of government, but a lot of government will begin pointing the finger at bitcoiners if and when a major zero to rather correlation to one event occurs where there's this huge crash and then following the crash, Bitcoin is the best performing asset. I just tend to think that the hostility toward bitcoiners is only going to increase over the next few decades as we keep winning. Denny's being the best performing asset.
Marty Bent
Lovely. Does it have to be that way? Is this the predestined path to victory is a long trodden, volatile trip up into the right over time until Bitcoin's a reserve currency, but everybody hates you on the way up. Is there a way to avoid the hate or is it just part of the territory?
Joe Consorti
I mean, I certainly think that the United States embracing it is one way. And I think Republicans maintaining control of the House and Senate in November. And then winning in 2028 is a surefire way of making sure that that's the case, that at least here in the west, bitcoin is viewed as something that is for the everyman, something that you can use to insulate yourself from the powers that be. But I think that if we lose in November, the Republicans don't win in 2028. Even though there are some people on the left that like bitcoin. It's largely a Republican phenomenon, at least as far as D.C. is concerned. I think you're going to see a lot of hostility toward bitcoiners, particularly if we get President Ocasio Cortez, which would be incredible, incredibly insane. Then that would sort of be the doomer road. You know, that meme where it's the light road and then the dark road sitting at the inflection point. I really think it all rides on whether or not the US embraces bitcoin as far as the bitcoiners journey over the next five, 10 years is concerned, whether it's positive or negative from an external perspective. And a lot of that is riding on, I think, Republican control in D.C.
Marty Bent
yeah, no, you mentioned, as I'm sure you saw the SEC video going around this weekend, it was hilarious. But it's funny thinking that we're having, just as Americans having discussions like this, worrying about who's going to be in control of the House, the Senate and the Executive at any given point in time and just thinking about how crazy some of the debates are, particularly around tax policy. It's like we've gotten so far away from what this country was founded on. Where the founding fathers were, were throwing tea into the Boston harbor because 2% tax to pay back award debt that the. The British kingdom had. Had amassed. And now we're sitting here paying 30 to 50% tax rates. And it's not enough, particularly for the left, but even for the right, I think the, the interest expense on the debt is big and obviously the unfunded liabilities that sit off balance sheet and the big looming sort of anchor that force us into this incredibly extractive tax regime, which is insane. Like even in like ancient Rome times, I don't think tax rates were this high. But it's like fish and water. We're just taking it on a chin and like, oh yeah, we'll have another conversation about raising tax rates. Yeah, thinking it's not crazy. Absolutely insane.
Joe Consorti
Yeah, you never have. And I think it's more politically palatable to have both sides Talk about raising taxes, even for Republicans. Right. Like in Florida, for example, I'm still 50, 50 on the elimination of property taxes entirely, because on the one hand, that would be wonderful to be able to actually own my stuff outright and not have it taxed. And if I fail to pay it, then it gets seized by the state. But on the other hand, it would just be another thing that allows boomers to remain in their homes forever, you know, as if the tax code and the way we have responded to every crisis hasn't been favorable enough to them. And so, you know, I think it's politically palatable to talk about taxing people more rather than cutting spending, because the former, you have a scapegoat. You get to say, oh, we're going to tax the rich if you're the left, and then if you're the right, you say, we're going to tax NGOs or whatever. Instead. It's just so unfashionable to say we're going to spend less money if you think it's not something people even do in their daily lives. And so if it's not something people do in their daily lives and the average IQ of Americans is 103 and falling, nobody can extrapolate outside themselves and conceptualize that the government is spending so much money, so no one's going to vote for it, which is unfortunate. So I guess, thank God for bitcoin.
Marty Bent
Yeah. When you mentioned, like, boomer boomers in their houses, I don't want to give them a break, but it's like, it's just fascinating to watch because I think I tweeted out last week, we just bought a new house, our forever home. First time home buyer at 34, trying to bring down the median new home buyer age. Doing my part to drop that down into the 30s from the 50s, the high 50s, where it is now. And at the time, in late February, I locked in a 6,75-percent mortgage, and I was like, oh, this is high, this is crazy. But now we're looking at mortgages, like, above 7%. And I tweeted out, like, hey, if we're gonna have structurally higher rates for longer and going up, like, maybe that was a good. A good rate to get. The point being is, like, you have two parts of this real estate price equation, which is the interest rate and then the cost of the house. They're supposed to be somewhat inversely correlated. And maybe that's beginning to manifest with home prices falling in different parts of the country, but it's still where home prices are is completely untenable for most people my age and your age who are coming up and looking to form families and buy homes. And I think one thing that bitcoiners have been very right about for many years now is that the fact that you have this monetary premium sitting in real estate. And to your point about, like, how do you. How do you solve that problem? You don't want to lower tax rates for. For boomers, but maybe we would feel more comfortable doing that if more people realize that houses aren't supposed to be piggy banks. You're supposed to have good money to save in. And to your point at the beginning of the episode, like many people don't understand that money exists as a tool to solve the double coincidence of one's problems. And you should be able to store value in that. There's the monetary premium that exists in the economy should exist in arguably money alone, but can't today because of how much has been printed and how much they will continue to print because of the nature of fiat itself.
Joe Consorti
Yeah, it's a really interesting dilemma with real estate in particular. I don't want to see a crash in prices just because my mom is coming up on retirement. She hasn't sold her home yet. But also witnessing the extreme appreciation of our house, I'll tell you and I'll tell the viewers, she bought it back in 2004 for like $300,000. 22 years later, it's worth $1,300,000. So $1,000,000 worth of appreciation. She hasn't upgraded a thing. She's had it power washed maybe every couple of years. She keeps the lawn in good shape. But a million dollars worth of appreciation better than the S&P 500 or teetering on the S&P 500 over 22 years. That's completely ridiculous. It's gotten to, like, comical levels of absurdity. And granted, like, you know, she lives in a really good Massachusetts suburb, but even then, like, a $1.3 million home for newlywed couple wants to move in so they could have their first kid. Not gonna happen. Like, in order for that to happen, you would need to be earning, gosh, like 300 grand, 350 grand a year to qualify for a mortgage with 20% down on a $1.3 million house, like, you would need to be making quite a lot of money. And even then you'd be stretched very thin. And so it's no wonder, like, it's the. The money is the root cause of obviously, you know, there's a cultural Battle. But also the cultural rot is a result of time preferences being being heightened. And you know that it all boils down to the money, right? People aren't having children because of the money. People aren't getting married because of the money. Only fans is a thing because of the money. Right? It's like the number one. One of the number one career choices. It's. It's just this, this rot that goes beyond the physical and into the spiritual. And it's just. It's really, really sad to see it
Marty Bent
is, I mean, too. And that's why I think staying on real estate, we'll get into the cultural. Because I did have one, one thing I wanted to bring up based off of what happened over the weekend, but staying on real estate, I mean, you guys, I think you guys are trying to play a part in this at Horizon, but I think to solve this real estate issue that exists where you have boomers keeping it as their piggy bank and using your mom as an example, it's like, yeah, it's hard. You don't want the, the value of that home to, to be cut in half or 75% because she's depending on that for retirement or quality of life.
Joe Consorti
It's.
Marty Bent
How do you begin to allow those homeowners to take some of that equity and put it into Bitcoin? Right? And I think that's something I've been, I've identified, I think, over the last three years is if you're looking for productive, creative, and I wouldn't say seamless, but somewhat bold ways into deflate the monetary premium while saving those homeowners who are depending on it for a retirement. It's figuring out a way to bridge Bitcoin to the, to the real estate market in unique ways. You guys are experimenting or you're doing that, or Horizon. I think bitcoin as collateral as a piece of the collateral package for mortgages is another way to do that. Or you can have bitcoin upside alongside the value of your house. So if the house doesn't increase or, God forbid, decreases in value over the time you're living in there, you still have the bitcoin kicker included as well. And I think if you're thinking creatively and boldly, this is something that I think Bill Pulte and others should seriously consider within the Trump administration is figuring out ways to rip off the regulatory red tape to make products like these more widely available.
Joe Consorti
Couldn't agree more. It's like we need to en masse, begin treating our homes as places to live rather than places to store monetary value. And with Horizon Link, the trade is very simple. People are already stretched thin with their mortgage payment. All the other payments they need to make, the upkeep, the maintenance, the property taxes, they don't have enough in the tank, generally speaking for another loan against their property to go and buy Bitcoin. But what they can do is sell a chunk of their home today in exchange for bitcoin tax free, hold the bitcoin for the period they're living in the house and then swap it back whenever they move out of the house. It's a pretty understandable trade. And I think most bitcoiners and even most people who are heavily allocated to equity indices, like they would take it. You don't need to use Bitcoin with Horizon, but the product was structured specifically around Bitcoin. So I think that's, it's one of the first steps in what I ultimately believe will be bitcoin demonetizing real estate. I would love to see that happen. I think more young people. For a very long time I said this on shows the number one desired career for young people, apart from only fans, was landlord. Like they wanted to be a landlord, which is just disgusting, you know, like, oh, I want to own property and just be a rent seeker all day long. Like that's what I want to do. And sure that's, you know, it's, it's a great career aspiration if you're in your 30s or 40s or 50s, like, yeah, I'm going to buy a couple of properties, be a landlord, right. I'm going to maintain them, whatever. But just out of college, right. It tells, it's a very telling story at how money has sort of warped the mind. And you know, we, we want money right now, today. We want to be maximally extractive instead of maximally producing. And how real estate is now viewed as a monetary asset, first place to live second. You know, like I don't want that to be the case. I want to be able to buy a home and help with my kids down payments and then all of these things. Family formation. It's so critical for the survival of this country because the mass migration experiment has just failed miserably. It's so critical for the survival of this country that home prices are attainable. The American dream is rooted in homeownership, not because it's the best financial asset, but because you want to plant roots. As an American, we have a fundamental urge to want to plant roots, to want to get married. To want to have as many children as God wills. But we cannot do that if there are no places where we can plant roots or if you have to live with roommates because it's so prohibitively expensive. Even rent on your own, you know, so homeownership is important. Getting home prices down is important. Bitcoin being a superior monetary asset to real estate helps fix that at the margin. And where it doesn't fix that, owning Bitcoin can make it easier to own a home sooner in your life.
Marty Bent
Yeah, yeah, we need to create those bridges. I think it's extremely important. And going to the cult, I mean, transitioning to the cultural route, which I think the inability to form a family right now due to, many people will say, I think the economic reality of modernity is certainly contributing factor. Others will point at the emergence of cell phones and smartphones specifically and say that the addiction to the screens is pushing or reducing the amount of natural interactions people have in the wild with the opposite sex. And that's contributing to it. But I think economic plays a big role in it. And the other one is culturally, I think if you have a fiat based, high velocity trash economy, it's going to be reflected in, in the culture, which will ultimately result in less people engaging in the low time preference activity of finding a wife or a husband that they plan on spending the rest of their life with and building, building a family. So these things begin to permeate into the culture and manifest in many different ways. Obviously, OnlyFans dating app culture is a big one. Streaming culture, gambling addiction. And I said I wanted to bring it up. There's another whole nother sort of aspect of this too, which I think is this self absorbed optimizer thing, which I saw that you responded to the tweet I sent out over the weekend, quote, tweeting the, the podcast host of what is it, we study billionaires or we study millionaires?
Joe Consorti
Oh, no, that's Preston Bish's shot. The Diary of CEO.
Marty Bent
Diary of CEO. Yes.
Joe Consorti
Which I had never heard about until like a couple of months ago. And apparently he's the second largest podcaster in the world. Really strange.
Marty Bent
But he was, I mean, he was talking with Chris Williams, who I've actually met and I liked my interaction with Chris, but. And he's famously been an optimizer and has not settled down and is always tinkering with, with parts of his daily routine to optimize his health and longevity. And I guess the Diary of a CEO host was saying that he, he stopped drinking, which I think many people saw that tweet and say, hey, don't hate on people for not drinking. It's like, hey, I wasn't hating on him for not drinking, but in the. He was saying that he had three glasses of wine and couldn't podcast for three days. And it was like, okay. Talking about the manifestation of this cultural rot stemming from the fiat system, I think a lot of that optimizing culture is very vain and sort of singularly focused on the individual in a way that's like, how could you ever take the time to start a family if you're focused on checking your whoop in whoop band on an hour to hour basis? Yeah, I'm not describing it well, but it's very self absorbed in a way.
Joe Consorti
No, no, it's true.
Marty Bent
It's.
Joe Consorti
It, it all boils down to vanity and pride. And it's. Obviously, it's fiat, but it's also, it's godlessness. And it's a. It's sort of what social media has done to our brains. Because in a way, we're not necessarily serving a creator higher than ourselves. We're serving ourselves. We want the Instagram page to look great, we want to have X amount of followers, we want to be able to have a high body count or whatever. As disgusting as it sounds, it's like those are the things that we're optimizing for. And in a world where you are living for the weekend, you are living between Netflix episodes, you're living between clubbing, why on earth would you seek something higher than yourself if you're worshiping yourself, if vanity is all you are, why on earth would you start a family that detracts from vanity? And it's almost like in the same way that a lot of the boomer cohort not to rag on all boomers, we love Larry Lepard and Gary Leland and others. But largely, the boomer cohort is sort of the first generation in American history that wants their children to be worse off than they are. If that is the case for boomers, then for Gen Z, I would say it's the first generation, largely, unfortunately, even millennials who aren't even concerned about having children. They simply want to live a good life, to live it for Instagram, regardless of whether or not they're alone at their deathbed. And it's just devastating to see. And all of it's downstream from fiat money, cultural rot, spiritual rotation. Yeah, it's tough to see. It is.
Marty Bent
It makes you wonder like we're. Are we just gonna Go back to destiny. Are we just destined to be this bridge generation, maybe millennials, Gen Z that goes through the, the hard times, if you will, like to that point. Like when, when does the, the pendulum swing back towards and getting back to virtue and sound money and low time preference. And it's, and it's funny, I think that was very good response to the cultural ride. It's like, yes, there are a ton of godless people that are living for themselves. And it's funny how everything seems connected with particularly like sound money, time preference and doing something because it's for, for God and not yourself or for something that's bigger than yourself. Amen.
Joe Consorti
I mean, it's, it's all connected, it's all interconnected. And like we are particularly as Christians, right, Like, you know, we are called to live for Christ and in all that we do, like we are, we are called to reject our flesh. And you know, it's one of the reasons, like not to get, not to get into this. But it's like, it's one of the very few reasons why, you know, Christianity is the only true religion, like the only true religion, because every other religion promises that, hey, if you follow our tenants in the afterlife, you're going to get all of your fleshly desires. You're going to get 70 wives, or you're going to get your own planet with 70 wives or whatever crazy thing they promise you. But with Christianity, it says, like, you need to reject yourself every day of your life and then in exchange, you get eternity with God. That's it. You don't get all of your carnal desires. After putting all of your carnal desires off, you get eternity with God. And so when you have that mental reframe all of a sudden, like, it doesn't matter. Playing video games doesn't interest me and gambling doesn't interest me. Like building something that lasts beyond myself interests me. Planting that tree outside that I'm never going to get to put a tire swing on interests me. You know, and like the great men of civilization understood that like the, the of, of civilizations past, they understood that, that the only way to live was living a life to glorify something higher than yourself, to glorify God. And we've lost that completely. And it's, it's upstream of everything we're experiencing now.
Marty Bent
What do you think about this? I mean, he had, I think, New York Times, maybe not New York Times, the New Yorker, I think, was writing about it. It seems to be, I don't want to call it a Fad. But it seems to be in vogue to, to be converting to Christianity. Catholicism, I think, is having a pretty, pretty significant rise in conversions. And I worry that, I think a lot of it, most of it is genuine, but you can see that there is some sort of cultural bandwagoning going on too, where people are definitely are, are doing it because it seems to be the cool thing to do, which would be probably the most disgusting way to.
Joe Consorti
Yeah, it's very, it's very Calvinist, right? Like the, the school of Christianity that basically says, like, oh, you know, I'm saved by Christ, I don't need to do anything, right? Like he's. I already have eternity because Jesus died for my sins, therefore I can live however I want. I'm going to wear Christianity as a skin suit. I'm going to get baptized and put it on Instagram, you know, like, ultimately, I would wager that there is a decent amount of that. But the optimist in me, like the same version of me that knows for a fact bitcoin's going to succeed one way or another, wants to believe that hopefully the lion's share of the younger people like myself that are converting and expressing that they're born again Christians are being genuine about it because ultimately, like the wheat will be separated from the chaff, right? Like when you arrive at the pearly gates, you'll have to explain to Jesus, like, he'll have all of the receipts. So it's very, very important that people be earnest. But I think as with any major cultural shift, there are definitely people doing it just, just for appearances sake.
Marty Bent
Yeah, no, and I think, I mean as like a, as a cradle Catholic who strayed in my late teens, early 20s. I think Covid, I mean, for me personally, like, made it very clear, like, oh, like I, this is. I've got to submit myself to Christ again or not again, but recommit myself to that because there is evil in this world. I think a lot of people, I mean, I know for a fact having had conversations with people who were completely non religious, secular, even overtly atheists, who sort of woke up to the fact that evil exists. And maybe it's time to, maybe it's time to look into this, this Jesus thing.
Joe Consorti
Yeah, there's a, there's a funny, not a funny quote, but I think it was a tweet from like 2016. There's a tweet for everything. But I think the, the way that what you just said is summed up was, you know, like someone saying, I've Never been a religious man. Like I've never been Christian, but if the opposite is, you know, evil, demonic people who want to castrate my children and turn my kid gay and all this other stuff, then maybe God isn't so bad, you know?
Marty Bent
Yeah, it's the stranger things, guys lifting weights and smoking a cigarette. That meme. Yeah. I didn't know we were going to end it here, but I'm happy we did. Yeah. What, what should people be on the lookout for? Obviously in the next couple of weeks, hopefully an end to the, to the war in Iran and if not, prepare for some fireworks on the back end of the year.
Joe Consorti
It's a good way of putting it. Yeah. No, in the next couple of weeks, be on the lookout for an actual peace deal, not just a Sunday night. Hey, we're preparing one. So markets open green on Monday because if a peace deal is signed, if we actually get a ceasefire and price inflated, then price inflation likely stands to come down. As a result, bitcoin likely won't make another leg lower, it's likely putting its cycle low and then in that case the bull market will have started all the way back in February, early February, when we bottomed at 60k. However, if the war rages on throughout the summer, be prepared. Right. That said, on the other end of that, if we do wind up getting inflationary recession, you and I both know huge monetary response will come as a result. Massive monetary response. So I believe 12 months from now, bitcoin is much higher than it is currently. I think bitcoin easily has an all time high. The is between now and then will we see a demand destruction event and a dash to cash and a massive sell off across everything first. And that question will be answered based on whether or not the war ends over the next six weeks. So that's what I would, that's what I would leave viewers with.
Marty Bent
Awesome. And where can those who are so motivated to find out more about what you're doing on a day to day basis?
Joe Consorti
Absolutely. So if this is a collaboration, you click right down there, click Joe Consortium, hit subscribe. Or if it's not, you can search Joe Consorti right up there in the search bar. If you're watching on YouTube or just on X, Google Joe Consortium. I'm all over the place.
Marty Bent
Sweet. This will be a collaboration, so we'll make it easy for you freaks.
Joe Consorti
Perfect. Thanks Marty.
Marty Bent
Peace of love.
Sponsor Representative
Thank you for listening to this episode of tftc. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show. And if you can, leave a rating on the podcasting platforms, that goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and ad free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app and you can go to Fountain FM to find that $5 a month gets you every episode a day early ad free helps. The show gives you incredible value, so please consider subscribing via Fountain as well. Thank you for your time and until next time.
Host: Marty Bent
Guest: Joe Consorti
Date: May 27, 2026
This episode dives into the current economic landscape and explores the persistent K-shaped recovery, rising inflation, and geopolitical developments—focusing especially on the anticipated return of “stimmy checks” (stimulus payments), the rising prominence of Bitcoin as both an individual and sovereign safe haven, and the deep cultural shifts tied to fiat debasement. Marty and Joe unpack the disconnect between markets and real-world sentiment, the mechanics of money printing, and why Bitcoin’s design and permissionless monetary properties are proving crucial both nationally and internationally.
[00:07 – 05:03]
[10:05 – 19:37]
Inflation Types & Limits of Fed Power:
Joe distinguishes between pull (demand) and push (supply) inflation and warns the current supply-driven inflation, driven by geopolitical oil shocks, is something the Fed cannot fix with rates alone.
Impending Crisis Response:
With US interest expense ballooning and the risk of an inflationary recession, Joe predicts stimulus checks will return preemptively if the war in Iran drags on into summer.
Oil Shocks & Food Shortages:
If the war continues and oil prices keep surging, other goods (like food, dependent on diesel and fertilizer) will spike as well, possibly triggering stimulus even before recession hits.
[29:31 – 39:14]
[45:39 – 54:30]
[54:30 – 63:41]
[65:21 – 66:27]
Marty and Joe paint a sobering but clear picture: America’s economy is increasingly detached from reality for many, with monetary inflation, asset bubbles, and AI accelerating the gaps. Bitcoin stands out as a uniquely permissionless, sovereign hedge—for average savers and nations alike. But “orange-pilling” the masses remains a tough educational battle, especially with a fiat-driven culture in decay. The geopolitical chessboard, war in Iran, and rate policy will determine the next big moves, but—win or lose in the short term—Bitcoin’s fundamental case only grows stronger.