Do We Need a Recession to Fix the Economy? | Nick Nemeth

Summary

The Mark Moss Show – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Do We Need a Recession to Fix the Economy?
Guest: Nick Nemeth (aka Wyatt)
Date: June 9, 2026
Podcast Host: Mark Moss
Podcast Network: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview of the Episode

This episode of The Mark Moss Show is an unfiltered and high-energy conversation that dives deep into the flaws and mechanics of the modern economic system, the implications of Bitcoin adoption, and whether America (and the world) needs a recession to restore balance and opportunity. Mark Moss, a well-known Bitcoin advocate and entrepreneur, is joined by macro researcher and investor Nick Nemeth (Wyatt), for a rich, sprawling debate on everything from monetary policy and asset bubbles to taxation and generational wealth.

With both guests holding strong views—sometimes clashing, sometimes aligning—the discussion challenges mainstream economic thinking, explores the unintended consequences of Federal Reserve intervention, critiques the old money system, and weighs radical ideas for reform.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bias, Media, and Economic Anxiety

• Opening Remarks (02:05): The hosts share skepticism about mainstream media and its divisive “rage bait” tactics.
• Bias Admission (02:19, 52:45):
  • Wyatt: “I think you have biases.”
  • Mark Moss: “I for sure have biases.”

2. Bitcoin vs. Traditional Assets

• Why Bitcoin Is Different (03:41–06:47):

  • Bitcoin is discussed not as a "stock" or business (as with Nvidia or Facebook), but as a consensus-based, non-industrial, monetary protocol.
  • Mark Moss: "What real estate allows me to do is not pay taxes." (03:35)
  • Wyatt: “That’s the problem—that’s creating a perverse incentive." (03:41)

• Monetary Premiums and Speculation (06:14–08:56):

  • Mark critiques how speculation and lack of sound money push up prices in homes and stocks artificially.
  • The ideal: Bitcoin siphoning "monetary premium" out of utility assets (like homes) to restore affordability and fair value.

• Future Valuations for Bitcoin (09:49–14:16):

  • Mark lays out projections for Bitcoin’s value ($1M by 2030, $14M by 2040) based on the total store-of-value market growing to quadrillions, and Bitcoin taking a growing share.
  • Mark Moss: “If Uber and Airbnb took 10% of their market in under 10 years, why can’t Bitcoin take 1% or even 8% of the store-of-value market in the next 15–20 years?” (12:13–13:32)

3. Macro Shifts and U.S. Political Alignments with Bitcoin

• From Opposition to Embrace (14:16–17:12):
  • Mark reviews the shift from government hostility (Operation Choke Point, Elizabeth Warren) to the Trump administration’s vocal endorsements and bipartisan moves in Congress (ARMA, Lummis bills) to enshrine Bitcoin.
  • Bitcoin’s legitimacy and protection in law are explored as critical for its “asymmetric” investment case.

4. Power Concentration in Bitcoin and MicroStrategy

• Is a Recession Needed? (56:42 onward):

  • Wyatt provokes: “I think we need a good crash, though.”
  • Mark pushes back, raising who would benefit and at what human cost (56:55–59:06).
  • They debate whether a sharp recession “resets” opportunity, even acknowledging Austrian economic logic, versus the risks of perpetual asset inflation (“crash up”).

• MicroStrategy’s Influence (31:34–38:34):

  • Wyatt worries about Bitcoin concentration: “If MicroStrategy owns 5%... that’s 5% of all value. No company, not even Nvidia, has that.”
  • Mark disputes the fear: “Bitcoin isn’t a company. Owning tokens gives no vote, unlike proof-of-stake coins or public companies. Power is diluted—network effect remains king.”

• Protocol Defense (The “Fork Wars” Story, 36:41–38:34):

  • Mark describes how past attempts by big holders (Roger Ver, Jihan Wu) to “take over” Bitcoin failed due to network effects, consensus, and market choice.

5. Quantum Computing Threats

• Satoshi’s Warning and Realistic Assessments (40:25–44:53):
  • Mark summarizes that the real threat is limited to very old, unmoved coins (like Satoshi’s) and that most users can simply move coins to quantum-resistant wallets.
  • “If Quantum can break it, then that’s their bounty for getting it.” (43:44)

6. Tax Policy, Wealth, and Asset Inequality

• Tax Loopholes, Real Estate, and Fairness (84:46–104:27):

  • Spirited debate on rental real estate, leveraged returns, depreciation, and the ethics of tax avoidance.
  • Wyatt: “I think you should pay taxes on assets, not income.”
  • Mark: “Income tax is only one of—lots of taxes... most of the code describes incentives.”
  • Both agree double taxation (earned income and asset gains) is wrong, but where and how to tax is a matter of sharp debate.

• Generational Wealth Gaps (79:17–83:33):

  • Wyatt points out that boomers benefited massively from asset inflation and Fed policy.
  • Mark counters: “It doesn’t benefit boomers. It benefits asset owners. Half of boomers have no savings.”

7. AI, Technology, and the Future of Jobs

• Will AI Shrink or Grow Opportunities? (68:21–76:21):
  • Wyatt: AI enables one person to do the work of 10 or 100, leading to winner-take-all market effects.
  • Mark: Every industrial revolution brings more new jobs in unexpected fields—technology will open new markets, not just shrink old ones.
  • Mark Moss: “Wealth is not a zero sum game.” (72:46)

8. Credit Collapse and the Next Big Crisis

• Risks in the Credit Market and Private Debt (105:57–113:52):
  • Wyatt warns about shadow credit risks in the insurance sector (especially Bermuda-registered vehicles) and how a synchronized crash could expose the limits of government bailouts.
  • Mark: The main lesson for listeners is to “question who's managing your (pension) money—the majority are idiots for sure.” (115:22)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

On Bitcoin’s Unique Role:

• “Bitcoin was never coming for gold. Bitcoin’s coming for the bond market. That’s the biggest market in the world.”
  — Mark Moss (27:18)

On Government Attitudes:

• "It got there in spite of the government attacking it...and now you have the leader of the free world pushing for bitcoin to lead."
  — Mark Moss (15:00)

On Asset Inflation versus Crash:

• “Kicking the can down the road just makes the problem bigger in the future.”
  — Mark Moss (58:01)
• “If we just keep crashing up, you don’t get that [reset] chance. And that’s why I say it’s more dangerous.”
  — Mark Moss (58:30)

On Real Estate and Taxes:

• “What real estate allows me to do is not pay taxes.”
  — Mark Moss (88:09)
• “That is the problem—that’s creating a perverse incentive…”
  — Wyatt (88:21)

On AI and the Future of Work:

• "Wealth is not a zero sum game."
  — Mark Moss (72:46)
• “There’s only so many people that are going to ride Uber in San Clemente.”
  — Mark Moss (74:55)
• “But there’s infinite divisions of those three markets.”
  — Mark Moss (76:35)

On the Risk of a Recession:

• “Why can’t we have a recession? Why are people so scared of a recession and some of the leverage getting stripped out?”
  — Wyatt (57:02)
• "Would people rather have all their assets cut in half across the board, or gas prices go up by 10%?"
  — Mark Moss (59:06)

On Bailouts and Credit Market Risks:

• “Why do we need to bail everything out? So the anti-bailout pitch, that’s what I would like to focus on.”
  — Wyatt (110:18–112:41)

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Important Timestamps for Key Segments

• Bitcoin's unique value and future projections: 09:49–14:16
• Bipartisan Bitcoin support in U.S.: 14:16–17:12
• MicroStrategy and concentration concerns: 31:34–38:34
• Quantum computing and security: 40:25–44:53
• Is a crash needed to restore opportunity? 56:42–59:06
• Tax and real estate debate: 84:46–104:27
• AI and future of jobs: 68:21–76:21
• Credit markets and coming crises: 105:57–113:52
• Closing thoughts and guest resources: 118:31–119:08

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Memorable Moments

• Fiery debates about generational equity, the unintended consequences of monetary expansion, and “cheat codes” in tax law.
• A deep dive into the “fork wars” as proof of Bitcoin’s resilience—not merely code, but a network enforced by consensus.
• Candid admissions of both hosts’ biases—and the encouragement to “test your ideas and be open to change.”
• Practical advice for listeners: be skeptical of money managers, understand your real risk exposure, and learn the true incentives behind tax law and monetary policy.

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Resources & Further Exploration

• Wyandanch Library – List of key resources to improve investment IQ, as plugged by Wyatt (118:31).
• Past Mark Moss debates, especially on gold vs. Bitcoin and the 1971 monetary shift.
• WTF Happened in 1971 – Charts showing post-1971 monetary effects, referenced by Mark (53:25).

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Tone and Style

The conversation is unscripted, bold, and occasionally combative but always rooted in a genuine desire to unpack systemic problems and chart a path to a freer, fairer financial future. Both hosts use clear, sometimes irreverent language and reference personal experience—making complex macroeconomic issues relatable.

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Conclusion

This episode is a masterclass in critical finance and macro discussion, blending real-world war stories with rigorous debate on everything from Bitcoin to government policy and the next potential economic crisis. The bottom line: understand incentives, expect volatility, and don’t wait for crises to take control of your financial destiny.

Transcript

[Mark Moss]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.

[Wyatt]

I turned off news altogether.

[Mark Moss]

I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait.

[Wyatt]

It feels like it's trying to divide people.

[Mark Moss]

We got clear facts. Maybe we could calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the Facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News reporting for America.

[Announcer]

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[Mark Moss]

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[Wyatt]

Do you worry about that? Why don't you worry about that? In a decentralized system for one party that can be manipulated to have so much control.

[Mark Moss]

Because like a lot of people, like Michael Saylor. But what if he manipulates the price? Or what if blackrock. So look back to incentives.

[Wyatt]

I think you have biases.

[Mark Moss]

I for sure have biases.

[Wyatt]

I think we need a good crash though.

[Mark Moss]

Be good for who?

[Wyatt]

I mean, I'm not saying that I want people to like starve, but isn't that what happened? Yeah, but I think in the grand scheme of things, what's the alternative?

[Mark Moss]

So what real estate allows me to do is not pay taxes.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, well, that's, that's another problem.

[Mark Moss]

Why is that a problem?

[Wyatt]

That is the problem that's creating a perverse incentive. Right.

[Mark Moss]

What's your single biggest expense that you pay?

[Wyatt]

Rents.

[Mark Moss]

No taxes.

[Wyatt]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mark Moss]

We didn't even get to talk about any of the stuff that we were going to talk about.

[Wyatt]

What was, what was the list that we were supposed to talk about?

[Mark Moss]

Well, you know, I've talked about this openly many times where, you know, in my own hindsight, looking backwards, where I went wrong, I never sold any. Never. But I didn't buy it.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So in 2018, when it was cheap, I didn't go, shoot, let's back up the truck and go. I was like, why didn't I sell? What did I do wrong? Well, let's see what happens. Right?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

And so let's just.

[Wyatt]

That's better than selling.

[Mark Moss]

Sure, sure. Selling. Right.

[Wyatt]

But better than selling at 17,000.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So it's like, let's see what happens. And then, and then, and then we ride it back up and then it drops up, you know, 16, 18, 20,000. It drops back down to three. Oh, why did I sell? You know, I mean, and, and every time. And so it's really hard to buy the dips.

[Wyatt]

Yeah. I mean, personally, that's. I think, you know, I'm not, I'm not fomoing. You know, it's weird, though, that bitcoin is something that, like a currency, it gets justified as people put their money into it. Stocks are not that way.

[Mark Moss]

What do you mean?

[Wyatt]

Like the store of value, the consensus of that. If every company in the world puts a million dollars into bitcoin, the value fundamentally, not just the price, goes up because then it's a consensus. Okay. This is the consensus store of value.

[Mark Moss]

I think the price is, I mean, it's kind of the same thing, Right? The price is the consensus.

[Wyatt]

No, because if you buy a stock like, like if everyone, everyone in the world buys a million dollar stock, it doesn't mean that the stock gets better. Right. It doesn't mean the business gets better.

[Mark Moss]

I suppose. Yeah, I suppose what you're saying. So, so the market valuation, the market, the market value of the company goes up, Facebook stock goes up, but Facebook itself is not a better company.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

And what you're saying, if bitcoin price goes up, Bitcoin's better?

[Wyatt]

Yeah, it's. It's a, it's a better consensus on that being a premier store of value.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So what it does when more people

[Wyatt]

buy Things true of the dollar, like you know, if everyone decided to buy Japanese yen again, then the Japanese yen would have true, better store value like it did in the 90s or whatever.

[Mark Moss]

So I think, you know, you would liken it probably a. Sure. Like a currency. But like the thing, the thing with new technologies is in order for us to try to understand them, we try to compare them to something that we know. Because the human brain is like a comparing mechanism. Right. So it's like, well, it's sort of digital gold. It's sort of like a new currency, but it could also be something completely different. It can be all those things at the same time. Right, sure. Maybe like gold, where in a sense where it's like most of gold's premium is monetary. Right. And if nobody values it, jewelry, if nobody values it, then there's no value.

[Wyatt]

Right, right. If people decide to stop liking gold.

[Mark Moss]

So that's the consensus that you're talking about, Right?

[Wyatt]

Exactly.

[Mark Moss]

So it's, it's different than an industrial use commodity where like silver, you know, 80% of silver is used in manufacturing.

[Wyatt]

Right.

[Mark Moss]

And we need it for manufacturing, whereas gold is just a monetary premium. Homes have a, have a real utility, but a good chunk of the home market is actually monetary premium. Right. People buy investments.

[Wyatt]

Investments and I hate. Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Which is why as a bitcoiner, you know, we think that a non monetary commodity is the best form of money because you don't want to artificially drive up demand on assets that you need for utility, like homes.

[Wyatt]

Right, right, right, right, right.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

And so it's a good off source of like. Yeah, if you want to store value, don't do it in homes that somebody needs. That makes sense.

[Mark Moss]

And you really shouldn't even store it in companies either. Right. Because now you've pushed up, you know, mag seven up to 30, 40, 50 PE ratios. And there's, there's, there's no, there's no way to justify that value. Right.

[Wyatt]

On the risk free rate and the growth rate that we see now. Yeah, I agree.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, well, no, but I mean if you, you know, if you use like a Warren Buffett value lens, right. Where it's like I'm buying a company. Like if you and I were sitting down and like you're pitching me on your company and you made $1 million last year and you're like Mark, invest, you know, 10%, 100 grand, I would look at you and go, well, what is the company and what's the market value? And I would evaluate it like a real investment. What's my do I think I'll get money back?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Warren Buffett says I never buy stocks. I buy, I buy companies. They happen to be public. So if I was, if you and I were doing a private deal, I'd actually look at the business.

[Wyatt]

Right.

[Mark Moss]

But when I buy Nvidia stock or Tesla stock, I'm just buying the stock.

[Wyatt]

You're buying the.

[Mark Moss]

I think the difference, I'm not saying legally, I'm saying when most people think about Alex, they speculate. Right.

[Wyatt]

It's speculation. The majority of the stock market today is speculation. And if you buy something at 30 pens, that's like 3% yield if it doesn't grow. Right. And the 10 years, 5%, that's not attractive to me. I speculate. But when a business gets 10 on what I can sort of model out as next year's earnings or the year after that with a good growth rate, then I'm like, I'm an investor. But I agree with you that the majority of that is just people pouring into Nvidia, Google, whatever.

[Mark Moss]

Right. And, and a lot of it is because of the monetary premium that's gets assigned to it was the point that I was making. Right. So like, because we don't have a good store of value historically then you know, monetary premiums get put into houses, they get put into companies where it shouldn't really have that. Right. It exceeds the utility valuation of that.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Right. So if you have an asset like gold or an asset like Bitcoin that can suck that monetary premium out of those other assets, I think, I think it's beneficial for society overall. Right?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Like homes can become affordable again. Right. And I started, as I told you, my career in real estate. I own hundreds of rentals. All my rentals are gone.

[Wyatt]

Bitcoin has to go to 20 trillion for you to even make a debt.

[Mark Moss]

Sure, right. But, but I'm saying for me personally it's anecdotal, but for me personally, and I know lots of people like me, I've sold all my rental properties you're buying and I just buy bitcoin.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

I still own real estate.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

I own a ranch in Texas, I own a beach house. Like I stone real estate, but not like rental properties. Cuz they're growing, they're making 3 to 5% and Bitcoin's doing 50. But yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever number you want to assign to it. Right. Obviously it depends on when you measure it. Right.

[Wyatt]

But 6 cap is like not interesting.

[Mark Moss]

A 6 cap isn't interesting when you factor in, you know, to your point, where's the treasury at?

[Wyatt]

Right.

[Mark Moss]

Where's the risk free rate? And so a 6 cap is an interesting when you think about the maintenance and the issues and all those things, right. Like obviously you can use debt, so there's leverage there. But I just think to me personally, Bitcoin is my hurdle rate and I've been pegging that at 50. I could argue it, maybe it's at 30, but that's the risk free rate for me.

[Wyatt]

What do you think that model's out to? Like long run. Right. So where's bitcoin going is the question. What is the utility?

[Mark Moss]

I think it's going to a million in the next four to seven years. I think it's going to 14 million by 2040 and I think it's going to 50 million by 2050.

[Wyatt]

What's 100 trillion? 14 million?

[Mark Moss]

100 trillion would be, I mean divided by 21 million. Right. So I'm not that good at math. See I got a calculator.

[Wyatt]

21 million I guess.

[Mark Moss]

So what do you say? 14 trillion?

[Wyatt]

Yeah. Like 100 trillion is like corporate debt.

[Mark Moss]

So so the way, the way I, the way I come to those numbers because I have a venture fund as, so I, I approach it from like a value from a venture venture frame which is how big is the market? What percentage can we take from the market thing, right. So if you look at the market of just store of value goods, so where people park money, right? So bonds, bonds, 350 bonds.

[Wyatt]

That's interesting.

[Mark Moss]

Real estate about bonds and real estate are about the same size. They're both over 300 trillion equities.

[Wyatt]

Equities is like 120 or something. Fiat's 120.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. Cash, gold, 20 something collectibles, fine art. Right. Those types of things. So if you look at just that basket in 2010 it was like 300 trillion. By 2020 it was about 700 trillion. Today it's over a quadrillion. And you know the cbo, Congressional Budget Office projects out the budget, the deficit, the debt, right. Till 20 for 30 years. Right. So if you look at the rate that they project the money supply to continue increasing and then sort of take that past trajectory with the money supply and sort of and then extrapolate that forward then the money, then the store value basket should be 1.6 quadrillion by 2030, 3.5 quadrillion by 2040 and like 8 1/2 quadrillion by 2050. The CBO projects so far. So then the Question is, okay, if it's eight, eight and a half quadrille, 8.5 quadrillion, what percentage of that basket do we think Bitcoin could get to? Right, so Uber and Airbnb both captured 10% of their market in less than 10 years. And doesn't mean taxis or hotels are gone, just Uber and Airbnb exist. Right. So can Mark, can, can Bitcoin take, can it take 10%? Can it take 1%? Can't take 1%.

[Wyatt]

1% is 85 trillion. But that's going to be worth what, what do you think the inflation is going to be?

[Mark Moss]

Well, that, that's, that's including the inflation. Right. So that, that's how I got the cbo.

[Wyatt]

The CBO budget accounts for inflation on total debt.

[Mark Moss]

It doesn't. Well, I consider inflation. I'm like old school Austrian. Right. So inflation is the money supply.

[Wyatt]

Supply.

[Mark Moss]

Right. So that's why I'm taking the money supply growth. I'm not taking whatever CPI is or whatever now that's going to change it to PCE minus whatever.

[Wyatt]

Like, okay, so you, but in that you're modeling out, just going to 1%, what is it at today? Like 10th of a percent.

[Mark Moss]

I said to get to, to get to 1 million dollar Bitcoin by 2030 would take 1% of that basket.

[Wyatt]

Okay. And then that basket just grows.

[Mark Moss]

So the basket grows, but also we get a bigger share. So can we go from 1% to 8%?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So the basket's growing and our percentage that we're capturing of the basket continues to grow.

[Wyatt]

So 10 million would be 10% of that basket.

[Mark Moss]

10 trillion. Oh, $10 million. Bitcoin. Bitcoin, yeah. Yeah. So if we can get to 8% by 2040, that'd be 14 million per Bitcoin.

[Wyatt]

Okay. Yeah. And anywhere.

[Mark Moss]

And when I look at, when I look at other tech companies like Uber, Airbnb, to get to 8% over, you know, three decades seems super reasonable to me, especially when you look at the fundamentals behind it. Right. So you look at, you know, what's going on just in the United States. Right. So you would typically think like most people thought. And now for whatever a decade I've been, you know, talking about Bitcoin and the number one objection is but the government's going to make it illegal. But that's been the number one objection, right. Since day one. Because why would the, why would the U.S. government, why would the dollar, why would that want to try better for the dollar? All this? And to your point, they could Try. They could make it illegal. They could say, we'll kill people, whatever. Right?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

They can't.

[Wyatt]

It, they can't stop it.

[Mark Moss]

They can't stop it, but they could, you know, threaten to kill people, put people in jail, whatever. Right. And then you would think that, you know, seeing El Salvador adopt bitcoin makes sense because, like, El Salvador doesn't have their own currency and like, they're like one of the smallest countries in the world and, like, why not? Right? They're not really influential. Nobody's like, really following their lead. A few small countries maybe, and you would. I, I always assumed that the US Would be the last to move because the US has the most to lose. Right. We have the, you have the reserve currency of the world, but the US Is leading the charters.

[Wyatt]

It's a hedge. Why not?

[Mark Moss]

But it's not, it's not just a hedge. Right. Trump posted on Truth Social yesterday or day before again, or, you know, a dozen times. It was just yesterday before he posted, you know, you know, the US Will lead the world in crypto. The US Will lead it. Right. Scott Besant, Kevin Warsh, the new Fed chair, was just on tv was two days ago. I posted the clip on Bloomberg, I think it was, and he said, bitcoin is the new gold for people under 40 years old. Scott Besant. So, so you have the entire Trump administration, Lutnick, Besant and Warsh now, and Trump himself, all pushing bitcoin specifically. And so that went from bitcoin getting to $2 trillion asset in spite of the government attacking it. Right? So like Elizabeth Warren ran on the anti crypto campaign, right. Her and Gary Gensler. Right. Operation choke point 1.0, 2.0. So it got there in spite of that. And now you have the leader of the free world, the man who, and this is, you know, my view, but the man who's reshaping the entire global economy as we speak right now, pushing for bitcoin to lead. So I think getting to 8% of that basket is pretty realistic.

[Wyatt]

Yeah. The question is, what happens if the Democrats win and who leads them?

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, so that's a good question. So the executive orders that get put into place could get repealed, most likely. Always happen.

[Wyatt]

And if they lose the midterms, can they get anything through? The genius was hard enough.

[Mark Moss]

Sure. So those are all good questions to ask.

[Wyatt]

But it's asymmetric.

[Mark Moss]

Like, it's asymmetric. But what I'd say is, so executive orders are always in threat of being reversed. Right. A lot of times we See that happen. There's multiple bills going through both the Senate and the House right now. Multiple bills, multiple tracks right now that are different versions of codifying bitcoin into law, strategic Bitcoin reserve, things like that. Senator Lummis has one. There's a new one that's going through called ARMA right now and it's a bipartisan bill and if those get written in, they don't get repealed. So the executive orders are at risk of that. But these bills, if they get passed their law, so there's no way to really get that repealed. So to your point. Yes. Will they get passed? We'll see. There's multiple bills, multiple tracks. The way that I sort of view it is like they don't typically go through the first time, but they keep trying until it finally goes through. And so this is multiple attempts now for the last couple of years.

[Wyatt]

It could be a bipartisan thing even

[Mark Moss]

if the Republic, it already has bipartisan support.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, yeah. There's the Democrats ran on anti crypto again with Kamala.

[Mark Moss]

With, with Kamala and obviously Elizabeth Warren is still running on that. But on this new bill, this ARMA bill, you have Republicans and Democrats both 17 co sponsors. 17. It's not small. So you know, will it go through? We don't know, but I'm guessing there will be another one behind it. You know what happens if the, if, if the, if the, if the Republicans lose, lose the midterms? We'll see. I don't think that's going to happen. It looks like there's pretty much no way they could lose. So you know, but we'll see. But bitcoin, the House.

[Wyatt]

The House or the Senate either. You think that they're going to win the House?

[Mark Moss]

They're going to smoke it. Yeah, for sure. I mean look, look what's happening. I mean they're like the Republicans have never been stronger and, and, and really I think what handed it to them, which was the Supreme Court ruling. Right. So the Supreme Court passed or struck down the race based redistricting. Right.

[Wyatt]

So that's in California. Did that go through?

[Mark Moss]

Well, it's gone through in three states, but it's going to sweep the whole country. So like that's, and then, and then Trump's going to get voter ID laws through. Like that's going in. Godamn. It's going.

[Wyatt]

Should have done that already.

[Mark Moss]

88% of the people freaking want it, dude.

[Wyatt]

Like he should, he should have done that in 2020.

[Mark Moss]

Well, I mean, sure, but it's like you Know, I'm not a big fan of presidents using executive orders. I, I think it's a little bit of abusive. And so he's trying to get it through the right way. But that's what happened in Texas. Right. Thune is. Was trying to get corn in place. Right. And. But he's using this like, save act the voter ID as, like that, that sort of wedge. Right. But I think, I think the Trump admin has multiple ways they can get it through and by executive order if they have to. But I think he's trying to get it through without executive order because again, those get reversed. Right. So it's like we want to get it through in law. Like, come on, dude.

[Wyatt]

I feel like the order of every.

[Mark Moss]

Everybody wants voter IDs.

[Wyatt]

I know. I feel like the order of operations January of last year onward should have been like, not tariffs because then that kind of fragmented and it should have been like, let's get everything through. And I, I like believe in the core, maybe not the strategy of tariffs, but that's contentious. This is something that should already be through in my opinion. Hope it goes through as well.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

I do think it's a good thing to run on, and that's why I'm concerned about the Republicans, because it's like the Democrats just love running on abortion. Like, they love running on issues instead of solving them.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So, yeah, the problem for the Democrats is right after they lost the last election, you have Gavin Newsom starting his podcast and they're going around asking, he had Charlie Kirk on that.

[Wyatt]

Do you think he's going to be the nominee? He's not going to win.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So anyway, so he. I'll come back to that. But he said that, you know, he had Charlie Kirk on. He had a bunch of people and he was like, what is it about our messaging? We need to get better at our messaging. We need to understand we have to, we have to get our message out to the people better. Nobody wants their message. There is, you know, you got to

[Wyatt]

change your message and also your face.

[Mark Moss]

Well, it's, and it's not just newsome. It's like the, the, the, the, the majority of Americans are not going to be voting for child transitioning without parents consent. Like, they're just. No one wants that. Like, nobody wants the dei. Like, nobody wants it. I don't want to say nobody. But the, but, but the majority don't want those things. And so, like the majority don't want 30 million illegals coming into the country. The majority don't want 68% of welfare recipients being illegal immigrants. The majority doesn't want that. And so there's no way to better package that. And so to your point, they could run on those things, but nobody wants it. Here's a question I get asked almost more than any other question mark. How much bitcoin should I actually own? Not should I own it, but how much? Now almost nobody can answer that with a real number. The retirement system was built for an era of it's gone. Meanwhile, they're printing away your purchasing power while your 6040 portfolio, it limps along trying to keep up. Now that's exactly where Unchained comes in. Now if you want, you can book a free 30 minute session which is a one on one call with one of their specialists and they'll walk you through the retirement calculator, all live. They'll model, you know, the bitcoin strategy side by side with a traditional 6040 portfolio over the next 20 years. You'll also see what your balance sheet will could look like at retirement, how much bitcoin you could be holding and what different tax structures do to the outcome. At the end of the call you're going to walk away knowing exactly what your number is and they'll send you a complete personalized link where you can keep it, you can revisit it, you could share it with your friends, your family, whoever else needs to see it. So book your free session@ Unchained.com MarkMoss

[Wyatt]

Just before on strategy, what do you think about strategy?

[Mark Moss]

Microstrategy. Yeah.

[Wyatt]

What it's done to bitcoin.

[Mark Moss]

So what do I think about the company or what do I think about what it's done to bitcoin?

[Wyatt]

Both.

[Mark Moss]

Both.

[Wyatt]

I think they're different questions.

[Mark Moss]

So let's just start with the company. I think, I think what strategy is doing is so big and so revolutionary that even the people that are paying attention don't really understand what's going on. I think it's that big and I'll break it down for you if you want. I think it'll probably be the most valuable company in the world in the next decade, maybe two. So that's what I think about it. So I think it's going to change the entire finance global financial system as we know it. And I think it'll be the most valuable company in the world. What I think about it. What is, and feel free to ask me about that. What do I think is doing to bitcoin? I mean it's put a constant bid under it, it's created a ton of demand for it. It's, it's, it's changing why it's so big and transformative. It's changing everything we finance today. The entire financial system is being rewritten. That's why nobody can understand what's going on. So I think it's probably the most transformative company to the, the finance system and to bitcoin specifically. Like I said, it's created massive demand. Every other crypto token out there in the world has to artificially try to fake demand. Bitcoin has demand. Bitcoin is a store of value. People want it.

[Wyatt]

Maybe Solana, XRP definitely.

[Mark Moss]

But I feel like XRP, XRP, XRP was 100% pre mined. The founders sell the tokens every single month. They're not buying it. Bitcoin has people, not just Michael Saylor, hundreds of people now setting up public vehicles to acquire bitcoin. Governments are racing to acquire bitcoin. No other tokens have that. So there's no other token tokenomics like that. So what, what companies do is they fake tokenomics. Right. So they'll create, hey, stake the token and we'll give you a yield if you stake it. So they're trying to artificially create scarcity or hoarding, but then how do they pay the yield? Through inflation. Right. So bitcoin has an art, a natural built base.

[Wyatt]

Fees.

[Mark Moss]

Huh? Fees, trading fees, fees. It's all inflation.

[Wyatt]

Solana's not capped and hyper liquids capped for.

[Mark Moss]

I got my start in for four years. I wrote a, I think arguably the top cryptocurrency research newsletter. I published a thousand pages of research on every crypto token from 2016 to 2019. In 2019 I just figured it's all smoke and mirrors and I'm going to focus on bitcoin. So I'll be honest, if you go on coin market cap today I think there's 19 and a half million tokens and I don't know the ins and outs of every single one anymore. So I don't, I, you know, everyone's trying to compare against bitcoin but Solana is completely buterin laid out. The trilemma. Right. And the trilemma is to get like a dilemma, to get more of one, you give up another. Right. And so you have security, decentralization and speed. Right. And so because bitcoin is the most decentralized, everybody else has to be something different.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So, but, but that, but, but it, but it fails to then, it fails to then recognize how value is created. In the world. Right. So the way that value is created is by solving problems. Right. So if you solve bigger problems for more people, you create more value, make more money. Right. So if you're Bill Gates and you make computers for everybody in the world, you make a lot of money for it. And so you have to solve problems. So the problem that the world has, globally, maybe the biggest problem in the world, probably the oldest problem in the world, is how do I keep my property in a way that can't be stolen from? That's probably like number one. We have massive problems in the monetary system where the governments just print more money at whim. We also have a big problem with, with censorship and immutability. So those problems need to be solved. The world didn't need faster money. That's not going to solve anything. Right. So when you get off decentralization and you give up the problems, that, that solves the, the, the nobody having control. Right. Taking away control from anybody. So permissionless censorship, resistance, immutability. When you take those things away, you have things, but you're solving problems that don't need to be solved. And there's not a lot of value to be created there.

[Wyatt]

I think if your basket of is correct. Right. The real estate and not just the gold, the, you know, credit, that is the biggest tam.

[Mark Moss]

Of course.

[Wyatt]

Right. But there's still huge markets.

[Mark Moss]

Sure.

[Wyatt]

In crypto.

[Mark Moss]

Sure.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

And of course. Right.

[Wyatt]

And.

[Mark Moss]

And so there's a lot of ways that money can be made. I just think what bitcoin is doing and where bitcoin fits into the way the world will move forward is doing something that no one else is doing. I just did a YouTube video a week or two ago and I said how, you know, most people compare bitcoin to digital gold? Bitcoin was never coming for gold. Bitcoin's coming for the bond market.

[Wyatt]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So that's the biggest market in the world.

[Wyatt]

The reason why Hyper Liquid is extremely interesting is it's going after the financial system, the trading. Right.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

The thing is that you can look at the TAM of it, but then there's a buyback that's happening off of trading fees. So maybe it only goes to a certain market cap.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

But the share count's going down.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. And it can make money. And so the way I think that you. The way that I look at cryptocurrencies, if you want to call it that. So Solana or Hyper Liquid, they're tech companies.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Right.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So they're, they're solving A need in the market and they're going to generate revenue. And, and it could be a really, it could be a really transformative, it could make a lot of money as a tech company. But I look at them as tech companies. Bitcoin is just a protocol, right? It's just a protocol. It's just tcp IP code. Just code. Right. So it's just, it's just completely different. Yeah, but I, I also then believe the next piece of my thesis is, you know, starting my career on, in the Internet. Told you. I built up and sold a couple tech companies.

[Wyatt]

What, what were they though?

[Mark Moss]

So I had, I had two companies. One was a Internet company which I started in. Well, I started one in 1999 at the height of the dot com bubble. And I went through two rounds of raising money that failed because then the market crashed. In 2001, I started an E commerce company. Which sounds like old school, but back then there was like no way to start an e commerce company. And I built that and sold that. And then I also started a high tech medical equipment company. We did digital X rays, paperless offices, digital cameras and things like that. And I sold that to the largest company in the medical space, Henry Schein. So certainly not blockchain companies, but you know, in the, in the tech field.

[Wyatt]

What was, what was the e Commerce focus in 2001?

[Mark Moss]

Action sports.

[Wyatt]

What, what is action sports?

[Mark Moss]

Motocross, snowboarding, surfing.

[Wyatt]

So it's content delivery.

[Mark Moss]

It was no E commerce.

[Wyatt]

What are you selling? The goods.

[Mark Moss]

Hard goods. Oh, e commerce.

[Wyatt]

Like merchandise.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, yeah, E commerce, yeah, but back then it was, it was content and goods. Right. So like there was no, like new sites, there was no, none of that. So it was E commerce. E commerce is one of merchandise goods, hard goods, physical goods. Right. So shipping, warehousing and shipping. But anyway, so going back to the point in the, in the, in the early days of the Internet, right. So far you want to trace that? Back in the 80s, the first WWE went public in 1990, 1995, the first IPO. And by 1997, 98 after the first IPO, everyone was moving in. So you had all these Internet companies, right? Dot com bubble was blowing up, but you had all the big companies, the Fortune 500 companies that were like, we can't, we can't use the open Internet. We can't do that. We're going to build our own private intranets. And billions of dollars were spent building intranets. Aol there, even aol, these were private network companies. Right. And they've all Been completely replaced and they're all just built onto the open Internet. And so when I look at. And it's a big generalization because there's 19 and a half million crypto tokens now listed, but most of those are intranets and they're being, they're building in, in walled gardens and eventually everyone's going to move into the global Internet, not intranet.

[Wyatt]

That's interesting. That applies to AI, the open versus closed model, potentially. That's just what I'm thinking.

[Mark Moss]

Well, I think when I, when I think of AIs, I think about a little bit differently. So I think the, the big LLMs are like, they're like base layers and then you have like wrappers on top of it. So those are the applications. Right. So I would think of them more like iOS versus Android. So iOS and Android are like sort of like base layers on top of the open Internet and then applications are built on top of those base layers. So sort of like you have an LLM, so Anthropic or chatgpt built on top of the Internet, you have an LLM base layer, but then I have like different applications of it, you know, video editing, photo editing, you know, content writing or whatever. So like, you know what I mean? So that's kind of how I would look at that. But I don't know, could be wrong.

[Wyatt]

Back to MicroStrategy, do you think that it's so like, let's say, you know, Bitcoin goes to

[Mark Moss]

whatever, right?

[Wyatt]

Yeah. No, but at a certain point, you know, let's say MicroStrategy goes to a million Bitcoin or 10 million.

[Mark Moss]

Oh, MicroStrategy gets a million Bitcoin. Yeah. Which they'll have by, by the end of the year.

[Wyatt]

What do they have, 700 now?

[Mark Moss]

840 or something like that? Okay, so they're on, they're on pace to have it by September.

[Wyatt]

It's almost there. Okay. Do you worry about that?

[Mark Moss]

No.

[Wyatt]

Why? Why? Why don't you worry about that? In a decentralized system for one party that can be manipulated like the US government to have so much control.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, because of the architecture of the system. Right. So you have multiple layers in bitcoin. Right. So you have bitcoin, the network which includes both the mining and the nodes. So those are two different things that make up. So that's the decentralization of the network.

[Wyatt]

The mining side I get. But what about the power and society of the microstrategy entity going forward and modeling out.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, are we talking about society Are we talking about Bitcoin itself?

[Wyatt]

No, I'm talking about.

[Mark Moss]

When you talk about the danger, I think you're asking me, do I worry about a potential danger? And I'm trying to. Danger of what? Danger of bitcoin itself.

[Wyatt]

The tech. The tech, you know, the quantum stuff.

[Mark Moss]

How dangerous is a rich person?

[Wyatt]

I'm worried about the societal utility of bitcoin going forward. If you have so much concentration. And I've personally.

[Mark Moss]

But there's not any concentration.

[Wyatt]

That's 5% of all value.

[Mark Moss]

Sure.

[Wyatt]

Nobody has that. No company. Nvidia even, Right.

[Mark Moss]

You do financial research. Three companies own, what, 90% of all equities.

[Wyatt]

The stock market, though. But we're going after big. We're going after all assets.

[Mark Moss]

You know, we're not going after all assets. I, as I.

[Wyatt]

Almost all assets.

[Mark Moss]

Well, as I gave him my projection, I think bitcoin will grow to be a piece of that basket today. It's not even a blip. So I think.

[Wyatt]

Oh, I see, I see. It's only 10% of that. And Microsoft saying Bitcoin could get to

[Mark Moss]

10% of the store value basket.

[Wyatt]

Okay. But if you still see it being by far the biggest company in the world, because Nvidia is like probably the cap of what one business can be in terms of percent of assets, it's killing it. It might still go up, but.

[Mark Moss]

Well, I don't know if we've seen a cap, but I, I would look at it differently because again. So bitcoin isn't a company. Right? Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a commodity like gold.

[Wyatt]

But Michael Saylor has power today, right?

[Mark Moss]

What power?

[Wyatt]

He has the power to go and influence minds and cross society and make people go into.

[Mark Moss]

So does Peter Thiel and so does Donald Trump and so does Elon Musk.

[Wyatt]

But what if. What if the next Michael Saylor, the successor to microstrategy, has perverse ideas and incentives that you don't agree with? And nobody like, let's just say they're bad. You know, that's subjective.

[Mark Moss]

Like, a lot of people hate Elon Musk when he joined Doge.

[Wyatt]

Right? Right.

[Mark Moss]

What does that have to do with anything, though? The fat Tesla cars still work the same. Right?

[Wyatt]

Right. But the fact that that person is going to be orders of magnitude more powerful in the scenario outlined.

[Mark Moss]

But what scenario? What power does he have? Elon Musk or, Or Michael Saylor? So let me break not down now. This will help answer the question. So the thing with bitcoin, unlike Solana or Ethereum, so when I have Ethereum or Solana or XRP or Cardano or whatever. If I have more of those Ethereum, I stake it and then I get votes I have, there's consensus, right? So the more tokens I have staked, the more vote I get. So now if I'm, if I'm very wealthy, If I have 2%, 5% of the network, I have massive say in that. Like a public company, Right, Like a public company. So Michael Saylor does have basically the control of the vote in the public company, right? So that's how public companies work. That's how most cryptocurrencies work. More tokens I have, the more save, more votes I get in the network. Bitcoin ain't friggin got no votes, dude. There's no consensus, Right.

[Wyatt]

Miners, huh? Miners do.

[Mark Moss]

No, no they don't. So on the protocol, no. So, so, so bitcoin has no votes. So by owning 1%, 2%, 10% of the Bitcoin, the tokens, it gives me no say at all in the network, the protocol, or any of that. I have no control, no vote. There's. There, there is no vote. So cryptocurrency is rules and rulers. So the rulers have the token staked and they make the votes. But bitcoin has no rules. Rulers, there's a set of rules, but there's no one that makes the rules.

[Wyatt]

But the miners with 51% consensus can change the code. That's completely. No, it's done five times.

[Mark Moss]

They can't. So, so you have, you have the, you have the, the miners which process transactions, and then you have the nodes that actually run the database themselves. So the nodes run the databases, and the databases have to achieve consensus, the miners only process the transactions to the nodes of the database.

[Wyatt]

But don't the miners have the votes on the nodes?

[Mark Moss]

No. No.

[Wyatt]

So how do you fork it?

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, so anyone can fork it. I could fork it right now.

[Wyatt]

No, but how do you fork it on consensus?

[Mark Moss]

That's, that's the problem. You don't. So what you would do what you do. So for anybody, I guess we'll probably air this. Well, since we're recording for so long, there's a book written in. It was about the 2017 four cores, right? And it's called, I think the book's called the Four Cores and because in 2017, Bitcoin. Jesus. Roger Ver. And so one of the largest bitcoin holders at the time, and the Jihan Wu who had the largest mining at the time, conspired Together to do exactly what you're saying. So we have more bitcoin than anybody and we have more mining power than anybody. And we're going to change bitcoin. And they forked it and so they created bitcoin cash. Right? And so you had a huge chunk of mining power move over to bitcoin cash. And Roger ver and both of them were actively shorting, selling bitcoin into the market to depress the bitcoin price, Trying to pump bitcoin cash and trying to attract everybody over. And it failed. They failed. So the point is, is I could make a copy of Twitter or X today and I can call it Mark's, Mark's X or whatever. Right. But how do I get people to use it? Right. So that's network effects. And so anybody could fork it. And two of the most powerful people in the space that had the most tokens and the most mining power tried and they failed. So what happens is you have two running in parallel and a free market chooses which one they want to go with.

[Wyatt]

So, you know, on.

[Mark Moss]

But, but owning bitcoin gives you no control over the mining. And even if I have control over the mining, I have no control over the. Over the nodes. And so that's, that's the defense mechanism here. And then what happens is, on top of it is Charlie Munger would say, show me the incentives, I show you the outcome. Right. And so you make a lot more money in bitcoin by playing with the consensus rules. If you try to fight it, you put your money at risk and most likely you lose.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So Roger versus He lost. Lost big. Yeah, he'd be, he'd be super rich right now. And now he's broke, running from the government. Right. Writing books about why he's angry, why bitcoin got taken over. And so you make more money just going with the consensus rules than trying to fight it. And so understanding. And then as those three, the mining has gotten bigger and more powerful, the nodes have gotten bigger and more powerful. And so it's way harder, it would be much harder to try and do it today than it was even back then. They couldn't even pull it off back then. Okay. So I gotta tell you what I've been doing with my money lately. I moved my cash over to river. And before you ask, yes, I still pay all my bills and dollars. Everything works the same. But here's the real difference. You see, river pays me 3.3% on my cash and they pay it in bitcoin. So my money that was just sitting there doing nothing at all. In the bank. It's now stacking bitcoin while I sleep. And I started thinking, like, my bank takes my deposits, they loan those deposits, deposits out, they make 12, 17, 24%, and they pay me 0.04%. I mean, honestly, that's kind of a shakedown when you think about it. Now, Rivers, FDIC insured, they use full reserve. They charge no fees. So I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. So click the link down below and get $100 in Bitcoin just for getting started.

[Wyatt]

What about on SHA256? Like, let's. It's a popular bear case.

[Mark Moss]

Like Quantum.

[Wyatt]

Yeah. So if you need it, like, I think the idea that there's just going to be quantum computing that's going to be decryption and not encryption is dumb. Right. Offense and defense. Right. If there's quantum computers that are trying to break code, there's going to be quantum computers that are making code. Right. But how would you switch the protocol on Bitcoin in order to account for that end state?

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So I'm not a computer scientist.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So per the research, the conversations, the interviews I've done around it, here's sort of where I'm at with it. And again, I'm not a computer scientist. Number one, before Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared, one of the last messages he left is a warning. Like, hey, Quantum's coming. We should think about protecting ourselves from it.

[Wyatt]

Really?

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. That's like one of the last messages he left. So the bitcoin developers, the bitcoin coders, people building the bitcoin ecosystem, have been aware that one day Quantum could be here and there's a problem. So they've been working on solutions and fixes since day one. Number one, to the point that you made, if we have it as an attacker, we can probably also have it as a defender. Number two. But what I'd say is what we know as of today, and it's a little bit hypothetical, which is why it's. Sometimes it's a tough conversation for me because we don't have Quantum.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. And most people say it's a win, not an if, but it's an if, too.

[Wyatt]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

It's an if and a win.

[Wyatt]

No, I agree. That's it.

[Mark Moss]

And so without it, it's like aliens could come attack the Earth. How should we defend ourselves? How. How will they come? Like, how would we defend ourselves against aliens?

[Wyatt]

And the alternative is.

[Mark Moss]

But you see What I'm saying. So like I was watching, actually it was I think yesterday, Joe Rogan and someone on there talking about how these aliens and how they use time and they're traveling around. We don't even, we, we don't know how to defend ourselves against aliens because like will they come by spaceship like

[Wyatt]

a movie or you want to prepare for the alien invasion, but how, we

[Mark Moss]

don't even know how they'll come, right? And so that's kind of how I feel about Quantum, because we don't have it, we don't really know. So we're making a bunch of hypotheticals. But, but what we do know is where, where, where Bitcoin would be vulnerable is, is in the encryption of the wallets for sure. So that, so that's where it's vulnerable. And since the inception there's been multiple versions of the encryption on the wallets, the schemes, right? And so today if I move my Bitcoin to a new wallet and I don't spend from that wallet because what happens, you have a public and a private key. When I spend from the wallet, my, my key, my public key gets exposed. But if I don't, no one sees it. So without that, Quantum can't attack that. So what happens is right now, today, anyone who could move their Bitcoin to a fresh wallet could protect themselves. So what's really vulnerable right now is the original Bitcoin Satoshi's coins that have never moved. And so the debate in the Bitcoin ecosystem isn't about how do we protect ourselves against Quantum. That's, that's, that's already decided for the most part. The debate really is what happens to Satoshi coins that can't be moved to a Quantum resistant wallet. That's really the whole debate. So no one's debating if the, if the network's going to be destroyed. No one's debating. It's just like what happens to those, those, those coins. And sort of where the debate is, is like some of the developers, like we could lock those coins up so Quantum could never take them. How? There's multiple ways they could do that. Some ways they're talking about put into like a time lock where like, you know, you can only pull out 1% over like, you know, but if you

[Wyatt]

can do that to Satoshi's coins, can you do that to everyone?

[Mark Moss]

These are hypotheticals. And so, so there's, they're talking about ways that they could do some things that sort of lock those up. And, and then some people like me agree that, like, no, you shouldn't do anything like that. And if Quantum can get it, then that's their bounty for getting it.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, good job. I agree.

[Mark Moss]

Right, That's.

[Wyatt]

That's the free market.

[Mark Moss]

That's the free market. Right. And what I think is like, the other thing I think is important. I think it's important to think through these things a little bit deeper because like, a lot of people, like Michael Saylor, but what if he manipulates the price? Or what if blackrock. So, like, back to incentives. So first of all, who's gonna have Quantum? Probably Google. Not. Not some indie hacker in her mom's basement in Missouri.

[Wyatt]

Could be China, though.

[Mark Moss]

It could be China. Right, but it's probably going to be like a Google or some. If the US wins some big company like that, right? So like, so number one. So it's not like some indie hacker in his mom's basement. It's like probably a Google most likely. Okay, number one. So I don't, I don't see Google going around and being a terrorist.

[Wyatt]

But what if it proliferates? What if quantum computing or the next.

[Mark Moss]

I told you, what if. I mean, we can just move the coins and like.

[Wyatt]

But that's the way technology always goes. It just. It. It.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, but to the point that I made. So we can, we can protect the coins. We'll use it to defend itself, just like it's used to be attacked and only those original coins are at risk. And the free market can take those if they can get them. And good job.

[Wyatt]

And all lost coins. Correct. When was this switch over?

[Mark Moss]

Well, there would be all the coins, I think pre2010. So there's.

[Wyatt]

Oh, that's not that many.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, well, I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. But what is it? But, but, but, but in. But, but. And then let's just play this out, right? So then let's say, let's say what if. Okay, so what if. What if a hacker gets it? What if a hacker gets all those coins? Well. Well, they're gonna dump them on the market and crash the price. Why? Why would they do that? So they've gone through all this work to get Quantum and they got billions and billions of dollars, and then they're going to destroy all the value. Why? Why would they do that? Why would they go through the work of getting billions and then lighting it

[Wyatt]

on fire, but as soon as they move it, everyone's gonna know.

[Mark Moss]

Maybe. Maybe. Right. Maybe they move it small, incrementally. Maybe people think Satoshi Came back up and he's moving his coins. Whatever it does, it doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters, in my opinion, and I think most people in the bitcoin space would agree, as long as bitcoin stays decentralized and secure. So if something were to happen where it breaks the security of bitcoin, that's a problem, it's over. As long as it stays decentralized and secure, then everything's fine. So if they get into a wallet and take some bitcoin, which happens, okay, whatever.

[Wyatt]

Even if they sell a million tokens, like you're, you're a buyer at a thousand bucks, right?

[Mark Moss]

So, so I just think that even if someone was able to steal those coins and people like, what about BlackRock, they're going to manipulate the price. So BlackRock makes money from selling their Bitcoin ETF and people only buy the ETF if Bitcoin's price goes up. If BlackRock were to destroy the price, then no one buys their ETF and they don't make any money. Why would they do that? Right. Like if you just think through those things like that, that's kind of think about a hacker also what I, what I would say, and a lot of people would say as well, if you had this hacker with Quantum, there's hundreds of higher value targets to go after than bitcoin today. Sure.

[Wyatt]

But not modeling it out based on where you think it's going.

[Mark Moss]

But even like I said, you know, I think it takes a percentage of those store value at bath of that store value basket.

[Wyatt]

Now but that percentage would be the

[Mark Moss]

biggest bounty maybe if we go out, I mean the dod,

[Wyatt]

what's the dodge defense.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, but what all the secrets, all the friggin nuclear codes, all the like quantum physics, like all that, like there's probably, that's probably worth a lot of money, right? The treasury, the nyse, the stock market, like all the central banks of the world, like there's a lot of high value targets they could go after. They're probably way lower hanging fruit.

[Wyatt]

But the, the, the Fed is a $6.5 trillion balance sheet and it's all bonds.

[Mark Moss]

Okay, so if so that's what, that's four times bigger than bitcoin today.

[Wyatt]

Sure, but, but you don't think the

[Mark Moss]

Fed's going to grow over the next 20 years? Because I said bitcoin would grow based off of where, as a percentage of where the money supply goes.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, but the Fed's balance sheet is like 3% of your total addressable market right now or 1%.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, I don't, I don't want to argue with you because I do believe Bitcoin become the most valuable asset in the world. So I do believe that. So I don't want to argue against myself in that, in that regard.

[Wyatt]

No, no, I'm just saying like, as, as in terms of like total bounty and like the importance of protecting that. It becomes, I think if you play it out, And I think 1 to 10%, I mean, you know, 10 to 100 trillion, based on what it solves is reasonable. It's not a certainty to me, but I think it's reasonable. And then I think about like, if that's the case though, what do you have to worry about today? And one of those things that I would worry about today is like, with the power of J.P. morgan and Blackrock, do you have any view on Larry Fink's influence over society over the past 10 years as the biggest asset owner?

[Mark Moss]

Certainly. I think though, so. And I've done many videos talking about the influence Larry Fink or BlackRock, let's just say has. And, and it's not speculation. We can see how they've been activist investors. And I mean, they got Exxon to stop drilling oil. Yeah, like, come on. Right, like, so we can see that as an activist investor, they've been very dangerous in the past. Right. I mean, obviously if you hate oil and hate energy and want to live in the dark, you think it's a good move. I think it was bad. So we can see that taking place. And I think, you know, and that's actually what I was saying earlier. When you think about Bitcoin being concentrated with microstrategy having Potentially up to 5%, three companies, BlackRock, Vanguard and State street have like 90% of the equity of the stocks.

[Wyatt]

I agree. Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So like, so, so one company getting to 5% is like not even anywhere even worth a discussion. When three companies have 90% and then you would say, well, they don't really own them. They hold those stocks on behalf of their customers. Yeah, but they get the votes.

[Wyatt]

No, that, that's, it's a good point. When you break it down in terms of controlling the companies that do essentially control society.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

A house is a bigger asset class. Residential housing is bigger asset class than equities.

[Mark Moss]

Sure. Real estate's way bigger three times.

[Wyatt]

But a house doesn't employ people that then, you know, can go through society and influence it.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

So, so the, the percentage that.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, so BlackRock being an activist investor, they've done a lot of things that I think are in my opinion would be default in their fiduciary duty. For sure. They've done things like with Exxon example, where that's detrimental to the company.

[Wyatt]

State Street Vanguard, all of them.

[Mark Moss]

Sure. So, so that's, that's a problem. So I guess the question you're asking is do I think they could do that to bitcoin?

[Wyatt]

No, it's kind of the strategy thing. But I'm definitely more on the side of. I would still like to see it be broken up at some point because I think you have 2,500,000 bitcoin companies or 4,250,000. I'm less concerned with it on just an influencer.

[Mark Moss]

Let's see what broken up though.

[Wyatt]

BlackRock, State street, microstrategies, Bitcoin holdings. I think you could run that same credit strategy. Four different companies.

[Mark Moss]

You're going to have. You're going to have a thousand companies running that strategy. You have 10,000.

[Wyatt]

One of them is going to have more than all the others.

[Mark Moss]

So what. How is all the gold in the world concentrated? Who owns how much of the gold is.

[Wyatt]

The Federal Reserve has the most amount of gold.

[Mark Moss]

Well, China probably has more. But on, on book for the world going council, the US has it. Central banks hold. I think it's like 30. No, no, no. I want to say it's like 65 or 70% of all the gold in the world is held by central banks. So talk about concentration. So 5% is like, it's so minimal. Like what are we even talking about?

[Wyatt]

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, I, it's a good, you know, perspective.

[Mark Moss]

It's such a small amount. It's like what, like why are we even having a conversation about 5%? Like how much of the oil is controlled by three companies? You know, it's like we could talk about things of real consequential value. Like oil, for example. Right. Or like that, that are way more concentrated. Like, like not just way more like 20, 30, 40 times more concentrated, you know, that are more consequential to society.

[Wyatt]

And like you said in the beginning, it's kind of an offshoot of value. It is not something people need to live. Bitcoin.

[Mark Moss]

Right.

[Wyatt]

It's not something you eat. So if you control energy, people will starve. Yeah, you control bitcoin, you control bitcoin. That's interesting. I think you have biases.

[Mark Moss]

I for sure have biases.

[Wyatt]

I'm speaking not towards you, but I do as well. Yeah, everyone has biases. It's good to test them for sure. I like the idea of bitcoin. I've had just these pondering concerns, like, do bitcoiners want the system to fail? Because that means bitcoin goes up. And I've been communicating that a little bit. Like, hey guys, I love bitcoiners. Or skeptical crowd.

[Mark Moss]

Like, you know, Yeah, I would, I would just.

[Wyatt]

Don't hope the world burns so your bitcoin goes up.

[Mark Moss]

I would, I would argue that that's not what the majority of bitcoiners want. It's what gold people want.

[Wyatt]

It's gold. Yeah, that's. That's what I'm looking at.

[Mark Moss]

And like, so I speak at one of the biggest gold conferences in the world every January. I've been there four years in a row now. And the entire gold message is the dollar has to die and the bond market has to die, and we'll live in some Mad Max world where gold will go back to being money again. Right? Bitcoin is about the future. Actually, I did a debate with Peter Schiff a few months ago and I said on Zero Hedge and I said, peter, all you talk about is the past 5,000 years of history. Bitcoin is the future. So I envision a futuristic, a hopeful world and bitcoin is that future. Bitcoin is prosperity. Bitcoin, it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not crashing the system now, we might say. And maybe where the nuances is like a lot of societal problems are caused by inflation, right? Like the number one cause of divorce is probably arguing over money. Incarceration is not having money. And so if you look at, you know, I don't know if you ever seen the website WTF happened 1971. You ever seen that? So it's a website WTF happened 1971? And it's basically just, I don't know, a hundred charts. Just charts. Every chart is, has a line at 1971 on it. And every chart is flat and a hockey stick. And it's, you know, the income inequality and it's the obesity rate and it's the divorce rate and it's the unwed mother rate. And it's all of those things that in 1971, it's a hockey stick. And so, you know, we do believe that. I agree. That, you know, the Cantillon effect, right. Having seniors at the top is unfair, creates an income inequality divide. I think that the American dream getting stripped out because it. The cost of living is going up Faster than the rate of, of of income. I think all the efficiency gains that we've gotten from technology have been stolen by printing money. And so I do think that if we got rid of that system, it'd be much more fair, equal for people, and people could have an easier time to survive. So kind of seeing that system end, to have a much more prosperous world in the future, I think is a good thing. But I think most people would probably agree, like, you can't have that crash and burn overnight. That'd be terrible. You wouldn't put all your money in one stock. So why have your whole life in one single country? Now, if you've thought about another passport, Italy and bitizenship might just be what you've been looking for. Italy has one of the most underrated golden visas in all of Europe. Just a €250,000 investment threshold. And with bitizenship, you can make that investment into bitcoin, not some risky business venture or real estate that you don't actually want. Approval times are usually about three to six months, and you don't put any money in until your visa is approved. Plus, with the golden visa, there's no physical residency that's required. You can get full Schengen access from day one, and it's renewable forever. Now, Italy puts you at the heart of Europe, and with Schengen access, it gives you flexibility across 29 countries. If you want another passport and you want your investment to have bitcoin exposure like me, then bitizenship may be the answer you're looking for. So go to bitizenship.com markmoss to check it out.

[Wyatt]

I think we need a good crash, though.

[Mark Moss]

You think so?

[Wyatt]

Yeah. Assets. Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

So what do you mean, like a 2008 crash?

[Wyatt]

Yes, I think it would be good for where we are right now, because.

[Mark Moss]

Good for who?

[Wyatt]

Society.

[Mark Moss]

Society, not the rich. So you're like Thanos from Avengers, like, we got to kill 75 of the people.

[Wyatt]

No, but why can't we have a recession? Like, why are people so scared of a recession and some of the leverage getting stripped out of the system? I mean, I'm not saying that I want people to starve or go home and tell their wives, hey, can't buy you anything for your birthday.

[Mark Moss]

But isn't that what happens? What now? What happens, though?

[Wyatt]

Yeah, but I think in the grand scheme of things, what's the alternative? If I'm saying that on this pays, there is going to be continuous wealth inequality. And the alternative would be a distribution event. And that's what natural economics is, Austrian economics. Then avoiding that and shooting yourself up with steroids when you have a flu. It's like, you know, we have a federal policy for everything, right? Federal Reserve or fiscal. Avoiding the pain is causing a lot of the issues as well.

[Mark Moss]

Kicking the can down the road just makes the problem bigger in the future.

[Wyatt]

Right. So I do think, you know, a good, good bear market might not be so bad.

[Mark Moss]

So while I agree with you, there's so much nuance to unpack. Right. So number one, I made, I've made a couple of videos and one that got millions of views where I talked about how then this, this coming crash is way worse than 2008.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, but the longer we wait, the worse it is.

[Mark Moss]

The reason why I said that though is because I'm predicting a crash up and not a crash down.

[Wyatt]

That's.

[Mark Moss]

And the reason why it's more dangerous because on a crash down there's a reset and there's a chance for people to get back in. People that were left behind, they get another chance. But if we just keep crashing up, you don't get that chance. And that's why I say it's more dangerous. So I kind of agree with you, but.

[Wyatt]

No, I, I agree with you there. That's why I'm saying let's crash down.

[Mark Moss]

But the, but the, but the problem is that if you asked people, and even if you didn't ask them, if you think about it, would, would people rather have all their assets cut in half across the board?

[Wyatt]

No, but it might be the best thing for them.

[Mark Moss]

Or gas prices going up by 10%.

[Wyatt]

Gas prices going up by 10%. Worse.

[Mark Moss]

We'd all rather prices go up by 10% than have my assets cut down by 50.

[Wyatt]

Even if it was 50 and 50 or, you know, but it's same numbers.

[Mark Moss]

That's not how it works. It's not 50 and 50.

[Wyatt]

Why?

[Mark Moss]

Because, because under, under Kinsey economics, right, we're adding debt and that debt has a multiplier. Right. So typically you'd want a dollar and a half of growth of, on a 50 cents of debt. And right now we're getting like 0.8. Right. So you're not going to get. That's not how that ratio would work. Right. So for example, right back to 2008, what, the S P 500 was cut down by 60%. Gold dropped what, 30 or 40%. And then, but what, where was inflation at, you know, previous to that? 3 or 4%. So 5% or 60% drop in your assets.

[Wyatt]

But money supply went up 40% after.

[Mark Moss]

Right. So from 20. 2011.

[Wyatt]

Right. So all of 2008 was the next 15 years of money printing. And it was a switch where all of a sudden that was so bad we can't do. We can't experience pain anymore.

[Mark Moss]

Which is why before we started, I told you that I think all modern monetary starts at 2008. I agree with you because everything's changed since then. And you're right, we can't. We can't allow. It's kind of like if I was carrying two books in my hand, it's pretty easy. But if I have a hundred books. Right. And so now we have so much leverage in the system. 2008 was the last time. If you go back to, you know, the 70s or the 2000s, they allowed the system to deleverage.

[Wyatt]

They allowed it. Yeah. And that I think is a problem.

[Mark Moss]

After 2008, they tried to allow it and it got so bad they didn't know.

[Wyatt]

They didn't.

[Mark Moss]

Well, I mean, they did it.

[Wyatt]

They started qe. Well, actually for like six months. Yeah, yeah. And.

[Mark Moss]

And well, even longer than that. Right. So if you go back and study the trigger, because I was knee deep in it back then.

[Wyatt]

March 08, what's the deal?

[Mark Moss]

06. So housing starts were down 30%. And so when you look at the US economy, one of the biggest drivers of the US economy is the, is the building and, you know, construction jobs, etc. So housing starts, that's a leading indicator. The permits were down 30%. Wow, that's a big alarm bell. From that time we saw that problem was happening. So obviously if you're not pulling permits, there's no jobs. Right from the time that happened. It was 30 months before we got to any type of a bailout talk.

[Wyatt]

But when would you say the pain started? I think that.

[Mark Moss]

So the pain started, I guess, you know, when Bear Stearns collapse. I guess.

[Wyatt]

Right. Yeah. But then it was fine for the whole summer.

[Mark Moss]

Well, it also depends on what segment of the market you were in. So like here in Orange county, you know, most of my friends were in the mortgage and real estate industry. I was in real estate. So we got crushed. But if you were in other types of businesses, maybe it wasn't so bad. But. But if we look at the market, we're just looking at the market. Right. The s and P500 dropped 60% and it took. Was it seven years. Get back to a new. Get back to where it was previous to the crash. Seven years. And how many retirees had to go back to work at Walmart.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, but. So the recovery was awful economically. And the stock market, I mean, the only comparison was, I mean, 29.

[Mark Moss]

I know, but when you, when you talk about society. So right now we have the baby boomer generation, largest segment of the population. What are 11, 000 people per day retiring. Right. So per Arisa, that was put into, into act in the 70s. Right. They've been saving in their 401ks retirement pensions. They have to sell now. Right. So they're all four sellers right now at all times.

[Wyatt]

But they are the richest generation who've had.

[Mark Moss]

I get it, I get it. But so these people. Well, they are, except for 50% of baby boomers, have no savings. Half.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, it's, it's. But the top 10%.

[Mark Moss]

Okay, but, but what you said society overall. So I'm thinking we're talking the masses, not the top 10%. But let's just. But so, so if we have the largest segment of the population are retiring right now, they're selling down their assets to live. If those assets drop by 60%, they don't have the Runway. How are they going to live? We saw in 2008, they had to go back to work at Walmart and most of them are still working today.

[Wyatt]

But what do you think the half, the bottom half of millennials are doing right now?

[Mark Moss]

That's a bigger problem. That's a bigger problem, but it's a different problem.

[Wyatt]

Okay. No families, no next generation. Right.

[Mark Moss]

And that's, and that goes back to what I said society overall would benefit from no inflation. And as I said, you know those charts, 1970, you can see the unwed mother rate, the incarcerate all went up because sure, as it gets more expensive, people have less hope. And sure, they don't have families, they don't get married, et cetera.

[Wyatt]

If you juxtapose the bottom 50% of boomers who absol. Right.

[Mark Moss]

The, the pro. The problem in it is really, really what we want to be focused on is purchasing power at the end of the day, because like let's say S&P 500 dropped 60%. Gold went down by 30%, but the purchasing power of gold went up. If the US dollar value of gold went down, but the purchasing power, how much homes it would buy you went up. How much gas would buy you. So the problem is that if we think about a reset like you're talking about, and then maybe it's. So it's better for the millennials or whatever, right? Yeah, except we don't have a job anymore. So, sure, home prices are down, but you can't afford it anymore.

[Wyatt]

I think, I think that modern monetary theory is overemphasizes the unemployment rate because everyone can be employed and poor. You agree, right?

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, sure.

[Wyatt]

So that's the bigger issue. Right. And if you're choosing between helping people retire, how much unemployment at a dollar

[Mark Moss]

an hour does you no good.

[Wyatt]

Exactly.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

But if you're, if the choices help the seniors that are in the bottom 50% or help the millennials in the bottom 50%, what's better for society.

[Mark Moss]

What's better for society is to not have a government meddling in these types of complex government has been.

[Wyatt]

Right, right, as you've said, for 15 years. And that's benefited what generation?

[Mark Moss]

Well, it, it, it's not a generation. And that's what I was going to explain to you. The problem with the millennials is something completely different. It's not, it's not, it's not just about that. The problem with millennials is completely different than the money supply. The problem with the Millennials is that part of this government spending has pushed. A couple things have happened. College used to mean good college degree, got you a good job, got you good pay, but that's because it was for a small minority of the population. College was never intended for the masses. Right. So what happened is part of after 2008 and the money the government printing, now we're, let's pay for everyone to go to college. Now everyone's going to college. And those college degrees are not getting college people money. And so what you have is you have this industrial era school system that's taught people this industrial era lens that gave people industrial era tools, and they come out of college and there's no way for them to make money today. And so the paradox, as I call it. I was on PBD's podcast and I explained this. The paradox is that today, it's never been harder for millennials to get by. Today, 30% of people under 30 are not using their college degrees. But the paradox, it's never been easier to make money than it is today. That's the paradox. And so why is that difference? So it's not because millennials are in an inflationary monetary system with inflated assets. That's not it. It's that they have the wrong toolkit and the wrong worldview and they don't know how to go make money. So what do I mean by that? My nephew has been spending the last 30 days building up. Actually, let Me give you a different story. My daughter, 17, a boy that she knows I was. I told, I told him, just spend all your time on AI. Last month he built up these AI agents and he's doing like a automation for brick and mortar business. He made six grand last month.

[Wyatt]

I think that ends just like, you know, when you're onboarding people to the Internet. I have no problem with my financial trajectory and playing the game.

[Mark Moss]

But my point is, is that college grads can't get a job and here's a 17 year old kid that's making six grand a month, right?

[Wyatt]

No, I agree, but the same thing in 2000, right? There were people that made a lot of money that were young.

[Mark Moss]

It's not that, because in 2000 it was the dot com boom was a speculative boom, right? And so in the dot com boom, what happened is it was speculative boom because we built technology that didn't have a market by, by the year 2000. We had webvan.com, pets.com, but no one could buy anything online. The Internet was too slow. There was no, there was no scale there. What's happening today is there's real demand. Anybody listening right now? If you can come into my office and run my AI agents and Hermes and openclaw, I'll give you five grand a month if you come in once a month. Open, open right now. Because there's massive demand and no one can fill it. So you have all these college kids that came out with a, you know, sociological degree or underwater basket weaving as we might say in the old days. But like the demand's over here, but you have to have high agency. You have to like, I have to watch YouTube videos and figure how to use it on my own. I have to figure that out without getting paid for it. And then people will pay me for that massive demand.

[Wyatt]

But the thing is though, when I learn how to do that and I spend the time, the 80 to 100 hours a week and I have the aptitude, I can distribute that value at a level that is far superior than any white collar work prior, right. You know, I can have more hedge fund clients than a typical consultant, right. If I'm doing, you know, something from someone else, I can port over. It used to be you just take an Excel template and you would move it over. Now I have entire context engineering that I can put into new work and perform higher and get paid more and service more people. So the total amount of jobs I think are going to be lower. Even though the value add's going to be higher and their productivity is going to be higher because I'm not doing like 10%, you know, 10% higher than what I could have done. It is 10x, right.

[Mark Moss]

I would argue the opposite of that.

[Wyatt]

So you think that there's going to be more use cases that are just going to be invented.

[Mark Moss]

Okay, so what happens is analysts think of things typically in a vacuum, right? So like we, we started earlier and what we were going to talk about with some of your research reports, we haven't even got to that part. But like talking about like the credit markets blowing up, for example, or some analysts that I really respect and follow, you know, when the Iran situation happened, they're like 45 days, if the streets don't open, the whole thing's collapsing. It's like, well, here we are three months later, nothing's happened. Right. And what happens is a lot of times you think of things in a vacuum, but you don't understand how things can be managed. Right? And so, like, what happens is it's easy to go to the point that you're making, like, I could do the work of five guys. So what are those five guys going to do? Right. In the one thing I study and I talk a lot about is technological revolutions. They happen about every 50 years. There's been six of them over the last 300 years, and every single one does the same thing. So in the Industrial Revolution, all of a sudden you had a machine that could do the work of 500 men in a field or 5,000 men in a field. But what happens is it creates a lot of jobs that weren't there previously. And so when we think about them in a vacuum. And so, so number one, that. But number two, this is the bigger thing for me. What analysts don't understand, because they're analysts, is they don't understand an entrepreneur or a creator mind. So like a Warren Buffet, most people, most people think the dream is to go to school, get good grades, save for retirement, and one day they could, they could retire. Right? And that, that dream's sort of been taken away. That's sort of like the main dream for people, right? Would you agree?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Okay.

[Wyatt]

That's the boom, the 50s.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, but, but here's why that is. That's why most people can't understand what's happening. Why do you think all billionaires still work today?

[Wyatt]

Because they like it and they find value in it.

[Mark Moss]

So what happens is.

[Wyatt]

But they're also billionaires, and billionaires have a different mindset.

[Mark Moss]

I know, but so what Happens is creators, they just create. That's why Warren Buffett worked till he's 93 years old every day in his office. Right. Creators just create. That's what they do. Consumers, they don't understand a creator mind. And so what happens is when I see this mountain, I just, I feel this urge to go climb it. And I don't know why, I just want to do it right. So what happens is I start, I start businesses. I got a lot of business, I got more businesses going than I should probably have going because I just want to keep going, going, going. So what happens is if sitting here, my, my studio manager over here, I've given him this roadmap yesterday of like how he can start using AI to get more work done. And I said, I'll pay you more as you do this. Right, but you could shave down, let's say, 30% of your hours if you use these AI workflows. Right?

[Wyatt]

Certainly.

[Mark Moss]

Okay, but what the, what, what the analyst says, if I could, if I could cut all my hours down by 50%, I can lay off half my staff. What the entrepreneur says is if I can cut my time down by 50%, I can finally have them go do all these projects that have been on my back burner. Because entrepreneur, business owner's goal is to take ground.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, take ground.

[Mark Moss]

I never recede ground. So if I can free up 10% of your time, you're going to do 20% more. I don't recede, we don't pull back. And I think that's the big misconception.

[Wyatt]

Yeah. When I think of that, it's how much more can I take? And you know, the thing is, I'm taking it from someone.

[Mark Moss]

No, you're not taking it. No, no.

[Wyatt]

Abundant in finance. Yes, you are. Well, because, well, but that's status is

[Mark Moss]

a zero sum game. Wealth is not a zero sum game.

[Wyatt]

No, I think that the ability for the system to, to process and analyze information about the markets is a attention that is defined and it can grow, but it is defined. So I think about market share, Right. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs do.

[Mark Moss]

It's just explain that to me because I'm not sure I'm tracking.

[Wyatt]

So when you're talking about a credit system, there's policies that influence that credit system. I think that my narrative based, in fact is better than blackrock, Blackstone's Aries narrative that is based in, I wouldn't say delusion, but opacity. Right. And I think that I have tools, speed, and the facts at my side and that allows me to compete on narrative about what the policy choices should be against trillion dollar asset managers. That scale is that, I mean, that's. We're not even talking 10x. We're not talking 100x. That is tens of thousands of X more influence that I can have with assisted by AI tools. Otherwise they would just throw too much on my plate and they would drown me out with $2,500 lawyers. But because they are actually moving slower, because they still have to go to the lawyers, the lawyers want to make like $2,500 for that hour to tell them, hey, you know, we'll do some work and bill you for three more hours and tell you tomorrow I can move faster and quicker. Yeah, but that whole share of the narrative, there's only so much that the politicians, the regulators, everything can pay attention to. There's only so much hours on social media where people can be influenced to then, you know, put their two cents in and join, you know, the news. Like the new view of what is happening and what should happen. And that seems like a market share that's not infinite.

[Mark Moss]

Sure. No market's infinite. There's only so many people are going to ride Uber here in San Clemente.

[Wyatt]

Right.

[Mark Moss]

There's only so many people that are going to eat meat and there's only so many people that are going to drink. Like every market, every market has a, has a tam. Right, but every market taps out.

[Wyatt]

Do you think a new. If. If I came to you with a new rideshare app, what would you say?

[Mark Moss]

I'd say I don't. I mean, unless you had an IDEA that was 100 times better than was out there, I'd say your improvement offers don't gain market share. So I'd say you're probably not going to be able to get enough market share.

[Wyatt]

Okay, what if you applied that logic to people trying to get employed in Gen Z? Right? Because if, if, if you have to compete with me as Gen Z in order to get a job, I'm not going to let you in. Right. Uber's not going to let you in. So how do you shape that with the productivity boom from AI that is multiples more than okay, I know, but we build a railroad.

[Mark Moss]

You just, you just compared one finite thing to infinite. So what you said was if, if, is there room for another Uber? And I said, if it's 100x better, yes. If it's not, then there's not. Not here. But then you said, but the entire job market. No, but dude, there's like 10 million, 100 million, 100 trillion types of different jobs that could be in a job market.

[Wyatt]

But there's all tams to all those markets that are finite.

[Mark Moss]

Sure. So it's not infinite, but there's infinite markets.

[Wyatt]

How are there infinite markets?

[Mark Moss]

There's only three markets. Actually everything in the world could be boiled down to three markets.

[Wyatt]

Entertainment, production, health, wealth and relationships.

[Mark Moss]

Those are the only three markets in the world.

[Wyatt]

The relationship side is where I think that sales and entertainment have immutable, you know.

[Mark Moss]

I know, but my point is there's only three markets in the whole world, but there's infinite divisions of those three markets.

[Wyatt]

I don't think so. I think there's only infinite divisions in one of those three markets and one of those three. So relationships by that.

[Mark Moss]

What about the finance industry?

[Wyatt]

Totally or wealth? Wealth, I should say Totally finite.

[Mark Moss]

Totally finite.

[Wyatt]

Totally finite. Unless more value is created. I mean these things can grow, but we're not like just like markets can grow.

[Mark Moss]

Well, so okay, so, so inside wealth then you have wealth creation, wealth management,

[Wyatt]

but you have to.

[Mark Moss]

Right. And so then like inside wealth, like I could start a business that teaches people how to protect their assets and you could teach people how to grow their assets. I could. You could teach people how to grow their assets using stocks. I could teach people how to use grow their wealth with stock options and someone else could teach them how to create wealth using stock options with an AI assisted system. And then I could create wealth using defi and tech.

[Wyatt]

You know, it's like, yeah, but then people get sick of hearing about people telling them they're new course move on the next one. Right. And I'm giving credit to the fact that technology will continue to invent markets that I won't think about. I just think that if a new market comes around, I'm going to be the one to go after it and get it, not the Gen Z kid. And you said the college degree thing. I didn't get a college degree. I've suffered tremendously from that. It's still a stamp of approval. Gen Z, probably not. And they shouldn't be going to college at all because it's not even going to hurt you like it used to be. It used to help you, then it was. It just didn't hurt you. Nobody's going to care. Right. But in the shape of where things are going, I'll bring it back to we're choosing to make policy choices about people's retirements. If this was hunter and gatherer time, you wouldn't sacrifice the old for the young. And I think that we continue to do that.

[Mark Moss]

How do we do that?

[Wyatt]

No tax on Social Security driving up asset prices continually. Which generation has the most assets?

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, but I don't. So no tax on Social Security. That's a policy decision driving up, not just most recently. Yeah, but that's not a huge one.

[Wyatt]

But you're still talking about.

[Mark Moss]

But what you said is driving asset prices up higher.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, everything the Federal Reserve does.

[Mark Moss]

But that's not being done for seniors. That's being done to protect the government. And of course I agree that seniors shouldn't be running. Of course they shouldn't be running $2 trillion deficits.

[Wyatt]

Boomers by far benefit the most. You know, and like Gen X is never going to have a president. Like, it's very clear that the boomers have outsized power based on any generation in the history of humanity. And that is because of the Federal Reserve. It might not have been the reason why they did it, but it is a direct result. And the remedy, in my opinion, is not being afraid of unemployment. They'll point towards unemployment. Oh, young people are going to be 3% more unemployed. Right. But the trajectory and result, okay, boomers are going to retire. 50% of them are going to wind it down. The government apparently is going to help them do that. Now, the rich boomers, they're eventually going to pass on. And what are they going to do? Pass it on to their kids?

[Mark Moss]

I think what you're doing is you're mislabeling it though. So what you're really saying, if I, if I parse what you're saying, correct me if I'm not understanding this correctly, what you're saying is that the government's printing money for any number of reasons. They're printing money for all the different programs that they have. And that, and to what you said is that adversely or, or more benefits the boomers. Right, okay, where I want to break that down just a little bit. Unpack. That is. It doesn't benefit boomers. It benefits asset owners.

[Wyatt]

But boomers were.

[Mark Moss]

It benefits asset owners.

[Wyatt]

Agree, agree.

[Mark Moss]

But the time boomers, because half of, we already established, half of boomers today have no money at all. So it doesn't, it doesn't, doesn't help boomers, it helps asset owners.

[Wyatt]

Right, but who were the highest earning people when they started?

[Mark Moss]

Okay, so what generation then? So then what you're saying is, well, because they've had the benefit of inflation for 30 or 40 years, they've gotten more benefit than Me, because I'm, I'm a millennial. I've only had the benefit of five years. Right. So they've had 30.

[Wyatt]

Or speaking for my generation, again, benefit

[Mark Moss]

for 30 or 40 years. What I would say is in 30 or 40 years, when you look backwards, people are going to be like, you've had the benefit for 30 or 40 years.

[Wyatt]

Why?

[Mark Moss]

Because you're going to get even more inflation for the next 30 or 40 years?

[Wyatt]

No, because I'm buying. You already talked about this. You don't buy mega caps. Right. You don't like mega caps at 30p. Right. You're not buying real estate. The boomers had those assets at low prices and drives it up to high prices.

[Mark Moss]

You don't think real estate is going to keep going up in value.

[Wyatt]

Maybe, but there's no fundamental, there's, there's no compounding effect of real estate. You're just keeping up with inflation and you're paying more.

[Mark Moss]

That's not true at all. Not sure. At all.

[Wyatt]

If you look at the median wage, right. To the average home price that is actually expanded, that would be the equivalent, in my view, to price, price, earnings, or any multiple that you.

[Mark Moss]

But the problem with that. But that pro. But. Okay, go ahead.

[Wyatt]

So if I buy a house today and the government keeps on doing what it's doing, I don't get the convex acceleration in a new change in government policy, no generation will ever have what the boomers have.

[Mark Moss]

Why? If, if, if.

[Wyatt]

Let's say unless we go back to.

[Mark Moss]

No, no, no, no, no. Okay, so I, I flip the chart. I use it many times. If you look at maybe the US M2 money spy, or look, look at the Fed balance sheet. You, you know, you know they go like this, right? It's not, it's not a linear line. It goes like this. So if you look at lines over time, it gets steeper. Steeper, Steeper. Right. So the, the amount of base money, M2 money, Fed balance sheet, it's been going up at a faster and faster rate, right?

[Wyatt]

Yeah. So it's not the same exponential curve.

[Mark Moss]

I know, but the money supply has gone up. The money over the last five years. The, the money, global money supply is going to buy about 10 a year, which is almost double what it was going up 20 years ago.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Which means that it's pushing up assets higher now than it used to be. So, for example, in the last five or say six years, home prices have gone up by 50%. Home prices weren't going up 50% 30 years ago.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, but the thing is that if you go from going up, 5% per year is compound and exponential growth. Right. 10% per year is a higher compound exponential growth. So if it goes to 25% per year, then maybe 30 years from now the younger generations will.

[Mark Moss]

A percent's a percent, man.

[Wyatt]

But it's but a percent. You're right. A percent is compounding exponential growth no matter what it is.

[Mark Moss]

Right.

[Wyatt]

So if, if, but we're talking about. So if the acceleration of the acceleration

[Mark Moss]

house going up at 10 a year and you have a house going up at 5% a year, who makes more money?

[Wyatt]

The thing is that the money is not worth more. Right? If the money supply goes up by 5% or 10%, the house goes up by 5% or 10%. Not now. It's a home, right?

[Mark Moss]

Yes, but it's always been that way, number one. But number two, this is where the big misunderstanding I think is. So most. I think that's a super basic elementary to look at home. But that misunderstands.

[Wyatt]

I think it's important I say it because you're right, that people invest in it and that affects the prices.

[Mark Moss]

I know, but it misunderstands the investment altogether because wealthy people don't buy it for what you're saying.

[Wyatt]

Well, that's because the home prices have been jacked up so much. It's not a good return on investment.

[Mark Moss]

That's not why.

[Wyatt]

But if I told you, if I told you today that the money, Bitcoin does not exist, the money supply was like there was no alternative investment. Right? The money supply is going to accelerate to 25% per year. The market's pricing in 10% increase today. You would buy a home or start

[Mark Moss]

a business or buy a business or

[Wyatt]

buy land or just isolating that, that variable. You would buy a home and I would buy a home. By the way, I'm not buying a home right now. I think there's much better if, if we continue on this trajectory of 10%, I can make way more money than on real estate today. But if I knew the government was going to kick into a new quantitative easing that was actually going to be 25% per year, I would lever up on a home for sure. And then in two years I would take another mortgage, probably lower rate.

[Mark Moss]

Take, take the. So what you're saying is you don't believe that they're going to continue this money supply increase?

[Wyatt]

I do. And I think 10%'s a problem. Right? So if 10%'s a problem, I know the scale inflation is 100% per year. I know how to make money. The average person does it.

[Mark Moss]

Let me tell you what you're missing. So with your calculation, so a couple things. Number one, you mentioned the pay to the price of the home equation.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Nobody buys the price of the home. They buy a monthly payment. That's, that's, that's number one. Right. No one's paying 200,000 or 400,000.

[Wyatt]

Unless you're an investor.

[Mark Moss]

Even investors don't pay.

[Wyatt]

I think, I think real estate investors that do that, you know, they don't.

[Mark Moss]

Nobody does. Nobody does.

[Wyatt]

That's why I think real estate investing is dumb right now.

[Mark Moss]

They don't. So, so no one, no one pays for the home. They pay for the payment. So they use leverage. What happens is thankfully in the United States, other countries, but they're still thinking about the exit. Let me, let me, let me break down the four ways because you're looking at one return, there's four returns that real estate investors get. So number one, you're talking about just the total cost of the home divided by the month by their income. But again, nobody, nobody pays for the price of the home. We use leverage. So in the United states, we have 30 year fixed loans. The rest of the world doesn't have that. Right. We have a 30 year fixed loan. You know what a speculative attack is, right? You know, Hugo Stin is from Weimar Republic. Everyone studied him. A speculative attack is you borrow in a failing. You know what the Japan carry trade is?

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

The yen carry trade.

[Wyatt]

Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Right. You borrow in at 1% yen and you invest in the USFI. I do it right. Okay. So a yen carry trade is what we're talking about. Speculative attack. You borrow in a failing currency and you go into a higher asset. So if, if the U.S. government will give me a 6% mortgage for 30 years fixed, when the rate of monetary debasement is 10%, I have a 4% positive carry, number one.

[Wyatt]

Not on cash flow though.

[Mark Moss]

And then I get the leverage. So they'll allow me to control a million dollar asset for $100,000?

[Wyatt]

Sure. That's leverage into the appreciation of the home.

[Mark Moss]

So Now I have $1 million asset going up by 10% a year, but I'm only paying 6% on 100,000.

[Wyatt]

No, I, I agree, but you're okay.

[Mark Moss]

And then, and then what happens is then the tenant of that property can make the payments for me. Then what happens is because the government, the US government, the nations don't have this, because the US government now gave me a 30 year fixed at 6% interest or whatever it is. My payment of whatever, $3,000 today is not the same as 3,000 in 10 years from now or 3,020 years from now. Okay, and then, and then what's your single biggest expense that you pay?

[Wyatt]

Rents.

[Mark Moss]

No. Taxes.

[Wyatt]

Oh, yeah, Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

I mean, it's not even close.

[Wyatt]

It's not even close.

[Mark Moss]

Half of your money?

[Wyatt]

Yeah, half.

[Mark Moss]

So what real estate allows me to do is not pay tax.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, well, that's, that's another problem.

[Mark Moss]

Why is that a problem?

[Wyatt]

Why is it not a problem? Because I don't think that you should be able to use leverage which ready. Has perverse incentives and creates bubbles in order to not pay taxes, which obviously. Listen, you could talk about what the government does, but if somebody like Grant Cardone is levering up for a billion dollars of real estate and not paying $50 million of taxes per year and I have to pay 500 grand. Right. That's annoying.

[Mark Moss]

You misunderstand it.

[Wyatt]

And that's something that only asset holders can do. Right. And that's another system that's manipulated by asset owners.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So what happens is like governments have. China, the U.S. japan. Every government has a set of policies they're trying to enact. Right. So in China, I was in Hong. I was in Beijing about six, seven months ago, and it was my first time in China. I don't know if you've ever been to China. I'm very afraid of communism. I hate communism. I wrote a book called the Uncommonist Manifesto. Like the, the, like communist China. Like, I'm so afraid, like, whatever. So I went and my initial reaction, besides cameras everywhere, which is kind of pretty scary, I mean, dude, it seems like you're just running around freaking California. Like everyone's like dressed nice and driving nice cars and people start businesses every day and they buy this business, sell this business. And as a finance guy, let me learn about the tax code. And the tax code is pretty identical to the US Tax code.

[Wyatt]

It's probably.

[Mark Moss]

It's a progressive tax system.

[Wyatt]

It's less than Europe for sure.

[Mark Moss]

And the tax code does the same thing that the US tax code does. So you see most people look at the tax code as penalties, but I think it's over 90% of the tax code is actually descriptive or prescriptive, I should say. So what happens is the government, China, the US the government is trying to enact initiatives. So China is trying to beat the US in a tech race. So in China, in communist China, if, if you as a citizen of China, Invests into tech companies, they give you tax incentives. They're trying to incentivize people.

[Wyatt]

Same thing with oil, right?

[Mark Moss]

Same thing in the U.S. so what happens is the U.S. and China, every country they need, they need places for people to live. So if you, if you buy a building and you rent it out, they're going to allow you to put money aside to rebuild that building over time. If you, they need oil.

[Wyatt]

Buying a building is not equal to making a tech company. If you build the building, sure. But the idea that you hoard real estate, use leverage based on dollars earned in a prior period and therefore you're taking the building off the market and then you're renting it out, you're providing value is not true. It's okay to buy a building.

[Mark Moss]

And I think, I think you're misunderstanding it because what happens is the, the land goes up in value because of

[Wyatt]

scarcity, but the building, we are incentivizing higher oil prices. Just like you said that China's incentivizing, building out water dams and tech companies. That's the problem. That's, that's literally the problem on allowing wealthy people to not pay taxes by owning real estate and other carried interest loopholes. That is the problem. That's creating a perverse incentive. Right. If you take that away, wealthy people are still wealthy. Right? But they just pay more taxes for what their income is now.

[Mark Moss]

But, but before you move on, you have to understand the way it works. So what happens is when I buy a house, I buy an apartment building to rent it out to people, the land goes up in value over time because of scarcity, but the building itself falls apart. The roof has to be replaced, the windows have to be replaced, the carpet has to be replaced.

[Wyatt]

Fine. With depreciation not paying for the purchase price, but that's completely different.

[Mark Moss]

I know. So what happens is when you, when you buy a piece of property, you have to do what's called like a cost segregation study. You can only depreciate the value of the building, not the land. So they say, you know, in California, my little beach house right here is worth millions of dollars, but the house itself is hardly worth anything. It's all in land.

[Wyatt]

Obviously you can't accelerate a depreciation in real estate. I'm not a real estate. I, you know.

[Mark Moss]

I know. So that's why, that's why I'm trying to explain this to you. So what happens is if I buy a piece of real estate, the government says the land is the land, but the building, because you're going to have to replace it. We're going to say, okay, so let's just say 50. 50. The, it's a million dollar property, but 50500 grand is the land, 500, 000 is the building. Okay? So what happens is that building is going to have to be replaced. You're going to have to replace the roof, the windows, the gun. So over 27 and a half years we're going to say that the building, not the land, the building is going to need to be replaced in 27 and a half years, 30 years. That's the life shelf. What they say is not the land, just the building. We're going to say again not the million but the 500,000 because that's how much you replace it in 30 years you're going to have to rebuild that. So we're going to allow you to do is every year you can take a little bit of that and write it off against your taxes and so that by the time you're done you have the money to pay to rebuild it. Like if you're, if you're an airplane, if you, if you fly an airplane, for example, on an airplane you have to rebuild on hours, right? And so what happens is as you run the airplane, you're putting money into a kitty because when you have to rebuild the motor, it's like 300 grand, right? So every hour you operate you put the money aside. So when you do it. So that's kind of what the home is, right? What happens is over 27 and a half years I get to write that home off. And so what happens is every year I take 1 27th and I get to write that against my income because I have to pay that. Now if, let's say that I, let's say that I write off a bunch of money and then I sell the building. I could have to pay that tax back.

[Wyatt]

Or you could roll it into another property.

[Mark Moss]

I could roll into another one.

[Wyatt]

So, so what do you agree with that part? That you can just shift between assets and potentially in a trust and never pay taxes on price, price appreciate appreciation at least in your lifetime.

[Mark Moss]

Well, that's not true. What happens is you can roll it into the next investment. So what happens is, let's say for

[Wyatt]

example you can also roll it into a trust, right?

[Mark Moss]

What happens is if I buy, let's say I buy a hundred thousand dollar property and then it goes up to 200,000, I have a hundred thousand of cap gains, right? And if I sell that property, I have to pay Tax on that hundred thousand of gain. Right. Which, by the way, I would argue that's a problem because I already paid tax on the income to buy it in the first place. So why do I want to pay tax again if I make money?

[Wyatt]

I don't think you should pay taxes on income.

[Mark Moss]

Okay. And I would agree. So anyway, so I paid tax on the income, then I buy a property, and then I gotta pay tax again when it goes up. But whatever, I gotta pay the tax on the gain of that. Right. But. So I bought it for 100, I sold it for 200. If I roll that whole 200, I don't take a penny out. The whole thing gets rolled into another property. I don't have to pay tax on it.

[Wyatt]

Can I do that with stocks, though?

[Mark Moss]

No, because they're not like kind of. They're not like hyen. Right.

[Wyatt]

Why not? They're both stocks. Home. Home is not the same as another home.

[Mark Moss]

I mean, I don't want to argue that because I think we should get rid of capital gains tax, so I think we should get rid of it. What I'm. All I'm saying is you're misunderstanding what tax depreciation is.

[Wyatt]

Is it not accelerated in the first five years?

[Mark Moss]

Well, under this one big, beautiful bill. It's not accelerated in the first five years under the one big beautiful bill, yes, we do have what's called tax accelerated depreciation or bonus depreciation, and I can bring it forward. So, for example, I can buy a car and I could take all the depreciation of the car right now in year one. But let's say that I do that. So I buy the g wagon, right? 150 grand. I put whatever, 30 grand down. I get to take 150,000 depreciation. But let's say I drive it for two years and I sell it. I gotta pay all that money back. It's not like a free lunch.

[Wyatt]

Yep. The thing is, though, the depreciation is one thing. How you spread that out is, you know, it's.

[Mark Moss]

Well, do you take. I don't really care years or five years?

[Wyatt]

I don't. I don't really care. It is when you are writing off the cost of debt, Right. When you're writing off interest. Interest, yes.

[Mark Moss]

You should be able to write off interest.

[Wyatt]

You should not be able to write off interest.

[Mark Moss]

So we shouldn't pay income tax, but you should pay tax on interest?

[Wyatt]

Well, then you wouldn't pay. Then you wouldn't pay tax on interest?

[Mark Moss]

Yes. So you just want to get Rid of all taxes. Well I agree with you.

[Wyatt]

What would there be to write off if there's no income tax? I think you should lots of taxes.

[Mark Moss]

Income tax is only one of you

[Wyatt]

should pay taxes on assets, not income.

[Mark Moss]

So what does that mean?

[Wyatt]

Would you give that up? Would you give up your income tax and be like fine, I'll pay the, I'll move it up to 20% on capital gains. You might probably already be 20%.

[Mark Moss]

So take income tax away but only have cap gains tax.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, yeah sure. It's a better incentive for sure. Yeah.

[Mark Moss]

Or, or consumption tax. Just get rid of income tax altogether.

[Wyatt]

Consumption tax. There's no way for that to be not non regressive but assets.

[Mark Moss]

Why is that?

[Wyatt]

Why is that?

[Mark Moss]

You don't think Bill Gates spends more money or Jeff Bezos as a percent of consumption than you?

[Wyatt]

I, he definitely does. He has a big ass boat. But that big ass about is like a cup of coffee for me.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, but I think the problem is like, and I know you're smarter than this so you, I, I, let me have you understand explain how much, how

[Wyatt]

much is he worth and how much do you think he spends per year?

[Mark Moss]

But the problem is that what, what and again I, I, I don't maybe, maybe when I see Night Eye because you're making like this Elizabeth Warren argument which is like no, it's like no, it's fine. But I'm also saying income taxes, Elon Musk net worth is the companies that he owns. That's not money in his bank account.

[Wyatt]

But that's fine. But, but what about, what about when

[Mark Moss]

you say yeah but how much does he spend as a percentage of all the companies that he has interest in?

[Wyatt]

It's like I'm not talking about unrealized. Go sell all those, I'm not talking about unrealized gains. But if you look at Jensen, Jensen Huang, right. He each year makes probably $300 million on, on dividends and as like probably nothing as CEO. But he also sells each year Nvidia stock as a percentage of what cash comes in the door. He pays less than me for sure. Like it's not even a question, right?

[Mark Moss]

As a percentage.

[Wyatt]

As a percentage because he's paying tax

[Mark Moss]

on distributions and you're paying tax on earned income.

[Wyatt]

Okay, Ignore the, well you can't ignore

[Mark Moss]

that because different types of income get taxed at different rates. So what happens is and, and, and the one thing I would just say is I feel like, I feel like it's a worldview. So like I look at Hard times and difficulties as things that happen for me, not to me. And so what happens is, I feel like the way that you're positioning this is like this system is rigged against the small guy. The taxes adversely hurt the small guy. What you said in your own words, is that it benefits owners. And so. Yeah, so the tax code taxes passive income lower than earned income. It does.

[Wyatt]

Why is that so? And, and if we're thinking about incentives,

[Mark Moss]

I'll tell you why. But, but rather than going burn it all down, that's problem. Like, why don't I just try to move my income to as much passive income as I can?

[Wyatt]

That's like saying, why don't you just try to make more money?

[Mark Moss]

No, it's not. It's not. It's like I need to learn how to shift the income that I make. And the reason why it's taxed differently.

[Wyatt]

But that's what I'm doing.

[Mark Moss]

But the reason why it's taxed differently is what we've already discovered. The passive income comes from earned income I've already made. So for example, I earned income I made, I made, I made a million. I gave 500,000 in taxes. I have 500,000 left. Then I invest that 500,000 I have left after I already pay taxes, and then it earns me a yield. But that new yield is taxed less than the earned income that I made originally.

[Wyatt]

But what if you inherit $10 million and I'm working for $1 million, I'm getting taxed at 50%, they're getting 10%, 15%.

[Mark Moss]

So you want to get rid of inheritance? No, no, but that's one of the ten points of communism. Get rid of inheritance.

[Wyatt]

No, no, no, that's, that's okay. But apply, apply the same logic, right? So do you think that the tax on income should be higher than the tax on passive, or should it just be even? Well, that I would be fine with. I think I would be fine with.

[Mark Moss]

I think we already agreed we should get rid of the passive tax altogether.

[Wyatt]

We should tax people once. Yeah, we both agree on that. Yeah, I think it would be better to tax people when they have assets already, which only affects people that can pay their rent. Right? You're not going to have assets if you, if you, you're struggling to pay rent. That is what I'm saying.

[Mark Moss]

I believe, you know, the bottom 50% of taxpayers only pay 3% of the tax.

[Wyatt]

I've been saying that for years.

[Mark Moss]

So, I mean, it sounds like this is like this big injustice. The bottom 50% of the taxpayers, hard

[Wyatt]

to pay anything but at the margin I'm not. But it doesn't affect the balance sheet. And whether or not they feel it on a day to day basis is not a completely different question. It's like, what is, you know, 500 grand. If I pay 500 grand in taxes this year, does the government notice?

[Mark Moss]

Right?

[Wyatt]

They don't.

[Mark Moss]

They're spending $2 trillion.

[Wyatt]

No, they don't.

[Mark Moss]

What do they need the tax? What do you need income tax for?

[Wyatt]

But that the quarterlies. It's a gut punch because I'm also thinking if I put this into my best idea. What was my best idea two quarters ago? Okay, well that's gonna suck ass when in two quarters this gets crystallized on the yearly. And I'm like, well, that sucks. So the front end. All I'm saying, we can have no taxes, we can just print money, but we should not have higher taxes on income than capital gains. They can be the same. It shouldn't be 50% and 15% because otherwise I could compound just like real estate investors.

[Mark Moss]

If I unravel what you're. We both agree that our taxes are inconsequential to the overall budget in the first place.

[Wyatt]

The whole taxes. Yes.

[Mark Moss]

So. So number one, abolished altogether. I think number two, we shouldn't be double taxed. So get rid of the income tax and charge me passive or get rid of the passive and just charge me on the income but don't double tax me.

[Wyatt]

Yes.

[Mark Moss]

What you're saying is so we agree, we agree on those things. And what you're saying is maybe we should tax the passive but not tax the income.

[Wyatt]

And the reason why that would square the fairness completely is not because I want to get rid of inheritance, I want to give my kids inheritance. But then there's not this like back door, right. If you're assets is the end game.

[Mark Moss]

I know, but it's not a backdoor because like they're going to pay 20 cap gains. 20 I'm paying.

[Wyatt]

Excuse my language, but 50 taxes, tax bracket.

[Mark Moss]

But you're talking about the marginal guy. You're talking about the marginal guy who's paying almost no, no effective tax rate.

[Wyatt]

But compare me to a trust fund kid. Right? Nothing. Wrong. Friends, trust fund kids. Right. But I should have those assets. If we're being frank, if we're talking about a meritocratic system because I can, on my own merits, without a college degree, make a lot of money for my age and my generation. Right. And I get taxed at 50% and they get taxed at 15%. That's where it doesn't square from a personal aspect. And I agree with you that we shouldn't be double taxed.

[Mark Moss]

But the rub is, the same rub I have. Why didn't my grandfather and my father work way harder to make give me.

[Wyatt]

So no, no, I was born with a leg up. Just not, just not a trust fund.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. And that's an envious position. That's like a socialist view, you know.

[Wyatt]

It's not, it's not. So if we have to pick taxes

[Mark Moss]

it is because, because to the point that we agree on about not being paid not, not double, not paying double tax. Right. So it's like I had to pay the tax when I earned the money and then I put it at risk.

[Wyatt]

That's a sun cost. That's a sunk cost though. That's a sunk cost fallacy. Because going forward in 100 years, if we made a decision today in order to just tax capital gains and I don't think it should be 40%, I don't think it should be 30%. I think 15 to 20% as it is is fine now.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

If we run a federal deficit above

[Mark Moss]

again, again like you think that's better

[Wyatt]

than what we have?

[Mark Moss]

Sure. Okay. Yeah. I mean I'd say I'm with you. Abolish taxes.

[Wyatt]

I'm not saying that.

[Mark Moss]

Certainly don't double tax trust funds should

[Wyatt]

be taxed more than.

[Mark Moss]

And would it if, if we, if we got rid of income tax, would I be okay paying a higher cap gains tax?

[Wyatt]

Sure.

[Mark Moss]

Because now it's like, I think that's

[Wyatt]

the way it needs to go.

[Mark Moss]

But the one, the one problem that we have is back to the incentives. Show me the outcome. If you look at communist China, one of the reasons why I believe at least and a lot of people agree with me that you don't have the innovation that we have in the United States is because China penalizes you for that. So it's such a progressive system that there's no, no different than actually. And if you go to like Europe, people don't want to work full time because the tax is so much higher that they want to stay at part time work. Right. But in China if you get to like a Jack Ma level, they disappear you. Right. And so it takes away that, that

[Wyatt]

if you say it, it's only if you go to Jack Ma and you say some things that they don't like

[Mark Moss]

whatever, whatever you want to call it. But anyway, man, we, we didn't even get to talk about any of the stuff that we were going to talk about. We talked about a lot of stuff.

[Wyatt]

What was, what was the list that we were supposed to talk about?

[Mark Moss]

Well, I want to talk about the credit market. We talked about that a little bit. Like when, before we started going, you know, we're gonna talk about that. Some of the, some of the research that you did. But I mean, I think it's been a pretty fun conversation.

[Wyatt]

No, it's all right. I would just say that, you know, on that turning of the next credit event, just go back to the earlier the conversation. I think we should not be too afraid of a recession and I, and you know, everything we're talking about, you know, what is the bigger pain? I think we agree on the change of the way that the Fed has come in since the last real big pain and we shouldn't be.

[Mark Moss]

So what if we can, what if we can have a soft landing?

[Wyatt]

We can have a soft landing, but we need to increase growth drastically. Right. And in order to increase growth drastically, we need to decrease regulations. We need to do a lot of things that are going to open up in order so that America can take

[Mark Moss]

the boot off the deck so creators can create.

[Wyatt]

Agree, yeah, agree. And that's the only way to de lever. And what the administration has said on that is true. I think we've built up so much leverage in the, the system that people don't realize how high that hurdle is. It's not just 6% deficit, it is.

[Mark Moss]

We've increased the hurdle rate that people need to be to keep above the rate of inflation.

[Wyatt]

For soft landing, that's a different hurdle. No, for a soft landing as we've built the money supply growth and if you said it, it multiplies with leverage, right. So I think that when you look at, it's not just private credit, right. Asset backed lending is big again. All of the leverage built into real estate, it's all gone up. The most perverse thing that I've focused on is private debt, right? And the way that it's landed in the Bermudas and the insurance. But I think that's where people are wrong. They're looking at private credit on the banking balance sheets instead of, well, it's an insurance, it's all in BERMUDA. That's a $10 trillion balance sheet. And by the way, it's not just going to be a private credit credit event. It never happens like that in credit. So if we experience that, you're going to see asset backed lending, you know, everything, mortgages, everything commercial, real Estate as well as credit card debt because maybe there's unemployment too. And at that point in time, Treasuries, corporates, everything, all credit comes down at the same time. At that point in time, we're going to have a decision, right? Do we do exactly what we did in 2008 or you know, do we do nothing? Probably we don't do nothing either. But we need to, on balance, think about the pain that's been caused that hasn't been seen over the past 15 years because of quantitative easing, the inflation, which is a tax, also the wealth disparity that's been a tax and come to the table. That's not just all the people that want to get bailed out and instead say, well, don't they kind of deserve the pain that they're now saying is going to be the unemployment rates always like, I think that's a false flag. When they're like, oh, but unemployment rate's going to go to 10%. It's like, okay, but like also you're going to get bailed out. So maybe I shouldn't listen to you 100% on this issue, right? In that communicate conversation that I think may come, if we have growth in policy, that we can beat that hurdle. That's one thing we can de lever through equity values going up, right? You know, home equity, it's really the business equity is what I focus on. And if you think about private equity versus private credit, it's the same business, right? If the equity goes up, the credit's fine. So you can de lever that way on a balance sheet. If it's an American balance sheet, if it's a home balance sheet, whatever it is. The hurdle though, I think is extremely high and undervalued. And if it doesn't happen, the scenario that I think we need to have a bigger emphasis on what actually happened in the past 20 years, which you talk about, bitcoiners talk about all the time for a policy decision that's like we can experience some pain. Americans are strong. We've been through recessions, we've been through wars, we've been through everything, right? We can do a recession for two years. Why is it every single time that there's some panic and a repo market breaks because some hedge funds levered and the Saudis are levered into the hedge fund. Do we need to bail everything out? So the anti bailout pitch, you know, that's really what I would like to focus on because I think that's adjacent to the conversation we've had, do you?

[Mark Moss]

So, so that's still like the bigger societal level impact. And I certainly agree with a lot of points in there. I remember when the tarp bell out was announced in 2008 and I'm like, no, you can't do that. You know, now it's that, that's like a drop in the bucket. But what, why would the individual investor listening to this conversation care about that?

[Wyatt]

Because you buy a home at three times median wage.

[Mark Moss]

Not, not if, if the societal impact changes. And how does that materially change one person in society? But like if I'm an investor and I have money in the market right now and I'm 40, 50, 60, 70 years old, why do I care about the credit bubble that you're talking about right now?

[Wyatt]

Well, bailout or the bubble?

[Mark Moss]

Well, it's not the bailout of the bubble, it's the potential explosion of the bubble. Right.

[Wyatt]

Okay. Why do you care? Because asset prices are either going to be, have to be matched by a bailout on the order of four or five times bigger than 2008 or your assets are going to crash. And it may not be effective because, you know, we've seen through financial history, things work, things work, things work. Japanese were able to pump it up for a long time. All of a sudden they lost efficacy. You can look at the yen, right. They used to defend the yen, defend the yen, defend the yen. Now when they defend the yen, it doesn't work. What people think the Federal Reserve is capable of? Infinite money printing? Sure. But infinite job boning? I would say no. So if they come in with a $2 trillion TARP, only half of the prior TARP or 60% of the prior tarp was actually pulled from. They always do too much in order to soothe the market. But what if the 2 trillion comes in and again, the credit system that we're talking about is what, $200 trillion? Corporates, mortgages, whatever. What if that's not enough to jawbone that? And then you see continuous deleveraging and then it has to be 10 trillion continuous delivering, that has to be 50, whatever. Like we're talking about numbers that are so big it's impossible to understand.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

Then you see the hyperinflation blow up that you're talking about. Absolutely. Worse. So if we can choose resetting and maybe coming off the steroids for two years or weaning off of the Xanax and whatever, you know, drugs that, that are in what our financial system is now.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

Then it's a better outcome.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

And it Might not be. It might not be, you know, this continuous pain. It might be acute. We might have an unemployment and maybe we shouldn't do nothing. Laissez faire. But I would lean towards do less than do more.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, I would agree 100%. I mean, I'm, I'm all for Austrian economics, if we could get back to that over some period of time. But let me just try to say. So what you're talking about, when you talk about the bubble in the private credit and the dangers that are there, the insurance companies, and there's a lot of danger there for why you care or why the average person should care is more about like, hey, this is a problem. You should be aware of it. Maybe you should talk to your, you know, policymakers about this rather than personally being interested, because, shoot, maybe I should get my money out of those sectors or this. I don't think these investments could be at risk.

[Wyatt]

I don't think. I don't think they should be putting their money there. But that's not why I care. Right. Like, people can lose money. Capitalism, free markets. You know, I think people should. I think that we should have freer loss as. And freer gains. Like, I think that would be a better.

[Mark Moss]

We need to allow a way up and a way back down.

[Wyatt]

Right. Not socialized losses. You know, But I think the real problem is considering the turning of it. Okay. And getting out in front of that. Okay. You know, let's try to analyze what's happened over the past 15 years and think about if this scenario does happen, what does that mean for the. Like, society. Like society is a broad term, but you can imagine, like, what if there's qe, you know, a new. What if there's a. Think about how much it's changed since 2008. Right. What if there's another 2027, 2028 decision that the government makes where all of a sudden this is. It's like Covid. All of a sudden the government's leaning in for that. So I'm trying to put, like, the anaphylaxis in it.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

Because the average person listening to anything can't change the way that these guys underwrite or the way insurance, like, is putting risk together.

[Mark Moss]

No, but the reason why is. I mean, sure, we should all want the greater good, and I certainly do, but we're also, like, selfish.

[Wyatt]

We should just play play.

[Mark Moss]

But humans are selfish. So I guess the, the question I'm trying to get to is just like, so when I look at this information, I read your reports like, is this like a fire alarm? Like hey, I should probably call my pension fund manager and see what exposure I have or is it like I should just know about this and these are things that should guide my like policy choices moving forward.

[Wyatt]

I think people should really question who's managing their money and the majority of time they're idiots for sure. 100%.

[Mark Moss]

I would agree with you on that.

[Wyatt]

Right.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah.

[Wyatt]

And I think having cash is always, you know, rainy day fun. Great. You know, that's, that's all I can say on financial matters. Yes. There's certainly asset class that I would

[Mark Moss]

suggest you're not predicting that if, or more likely when this blows up, it brings the whole system down.

[Wyatt]

Don't, don't. Well, yeah, I mean, okay, if stocks are down 50%, don't sell like, you know, it's pushing away from panic, honestly addressing what I see as a major issue. But I would say, you know, just consider the range of outcomes and then if it actually happens, lean in instead of run away. Right. Lean in on, on the discussion as well as where you're positioning your money. Not in fear as you know, I think.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. So it sounds like then you should be pretty bullish on the new Fed chair coming in. I mean he's been very outspoken and critical of Q.

[Wyatt]

Do you think he's going to take the balance sheet out?

[Mark Moss]

Well, that's a different story. I don't know if the balance sheet should come down. That's a whole different discussion. But he's been very critical of QE talking about not wanting qe. You know him, he's part of the triangle. Stanley Druckenmiller and Bessant. Besent has handpicked them. They're very pro growth, very anti regulation and he's very anti qe. He's so from somebody who doesn't want to see more qe, I would think you would, you would like that on that.

[Wyatt]

But I, I don't know what he said which is what's going to be reality. Jerome Powell said a bunch of stuff. So is a read and react there. I'm fine with lower interest rates.

[Mark Moss]

No, I think the difference with Jerome Powell is he's an attorney and Warsh and Besant are two of the most savage financial investors this world has ever seen. I mean Stanley Druckenmiller is the goat, right?

[Wyatt]

Well, Bessant legitimately is one of the best and Druckenmiller legitimately is one of the best. Worship's, you know, he's in the camp. He, he Will listen to them and that's important.

[Mark Moss]

Well, he's, he's. He's from their, their. The band. Right. He's from the band. He's not the lead singer, but he. No, he played in the band.

[Wyatt]

He's. He's definitely not Besant or.

[Mark Moss]

No, he's not drunk, but he was

[Wyatt]

in the band in terms of understanding

[Mark Moss]

and Bessant hand picked him.

[Wyatt]

Well, because. Yeah, I would have picked Reader personally.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah. But to your point. Percent and. Or we're agreeing a percent and I'm hopeful.

[Wyatt]

I'm hopeful as. As you have to be. Some of the things that he said are well diagnosed and I think that would. It's like most of the things he says are on target. I, I just like, I, I question what is going to be reality and.

[Mark Moss]

Yeah, well. And at the end of the day, I mean the Fed board governors put him up and then they got, they got to select from a, from a short list. So it's not like they just pulled anybody they wanted. Right.

[Wyatt]

So.

[Mark Moss]

Well, shoot. When we went long, this was not the conversation I was expecting, but. But it was a fun conversation. Hopefully audience likes it. Let's wrap it up. But tell people about. I know you have a website that you track a lot of this stuff on your writing. You got a YouTube channel like Shout out your stuff so people can follow more on that.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, honestly, one thing that I want to plug is wyandanch library.com and it's just 36 sources of what I think would improve an investment IQ. I think that's probably most useful for people. Mark, the fantasies on the private equity

[Mark Moss]

and credit stuff, that's the one I looked at.

[Wyatt]

Yeah, it's cool. But in terms of how to. And what is this guy talking about? If it was too esoteric, Wyandanch Library, I hope to build it. If there's more hits on there, I'll definitely be more incentivized.

[Mark Moss]

We'll link that down below. Okay, cool.

[Wyatt]

We'll.

[Mark Moss]

We'll link that. Hopefully more people will like it. At the end of the day, you know, it's certainly about having the education, the perspective, trying to see both sides of it. As you said, we both have biases. We all have biases. So yeah, hopefully, hopefully they go check it out. All right.

[Wyatt]

Thanks, Mark. Thanks.

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