← The Wolf Of All Streets
Loading summary
Transcript101 lines
- [00:04]
Dave
Well, good morning, everyone. It is time for Macro Monday. Scott is in a hotel room with two sick kids. And so today we are joined by Peter Cheer. But let's get right to it. Bitcoin's in a trading range. Not a whole lot happening as far as market movement goes, but there's a lot of stories underneath the surface for us to unpack. Let's do.
- [00:36]
Mike
Let'S go.
- [00:38]
Dave
Well, good morning, everyone. So today you notice we have Mike and James, we have Peter as our special guest. Scott is off. Ish, wanted to be on, but couldn't figure out how to take care of sick kids at the same time as doing the show. So here we are. So, as usual, Mike, why don't we start with your Bloomberg morning meeting. And can you do me a favor? When you, when you talk about it, did anyone mention the move in the pound, which seems hard to fathom given what's going on there, but it seems to be, you know, I don't know if anyone's talking about how the pound is broken to the upside. It seems weird to me. I mean, given what a dysfunction in that government. I'm curious if anyone's talking about that.
- [01:20]
Mike
No one in our morning meeting did, but our regular FX strategist, Audrey Chilford Friedman, was off. We had someone else today usually talks about emerging markets. The key thing I don't want to start with is first of all, kudos to Scott. There's one thing that those of us, certainly you and I, Dave, who are nearing major adult children is you don't get those days back with your kids. And so anytime, sometime, it's true. I mean, if there's anything I can ever go back and do is just spend some time with my kids when they were kids. So kudos to you, Scott. Markets will always be there. Take care of those kids. So first we had Chris Collins filling in for Anna Wong. As point out, obviously the data, the unemployment was a little bit stronger. Most of it was from state and local government hiring, expects employment to continue to move higher the end of by 2h and expects the Fed to cut only once in December. To me, that's a substantial statement because if you cut the last month in the year, you know, the tilt's not good for next year, but that's what they're thinking. Gina Martin Adams was hitting pretty hard. She says stocks are in extremely elevated valuations despite slowing growth prospects. Her model, the market Mania model, is quite extreme and says the last time it was this stream was beginning of this year before we had the decent Little downdraft and she doesn't see how we're going to really see higher equities without a decent amount of federal reserves. So Ira Jersey, our fx, our interest rate strategist came on and pointed out that expects obviously a lot of bull bill supply as we got through the big beautiful bill giving some leew to the deficit spending and he doesn't think the Fed is going to even cut in September. He thinks about when they do cut they're going to be aggressive which I fit with. Being an ex Fed bond trader. Fit with that pretty well. I pointed out some of the unique things are happening in crude oil and corn. Crude oil is a pretty significant bear market had its bounce, it's heading lower. I checked. Hedge fund positions are still long, way long for a typical rally. So it could go lower. Corn similar but they're short. And then I pointed out some of the significant ratios that are really unique this year. For instance, how different commodities are. If you look at just the amount of the barrels of crude oil per 1 ounce of gold right now it's about 50 barrels of WTI crude oil. We go back 100 years in this data and the highest end of the year ever was 39 in 1933 and about the same in 2020. So here we are. Where are we going to be by then the year can something pressure go lower? I don't know what it'll take other than the stock market just blasting off and bitcoin blasting off. And can something crush your crude oil higher? I don't know what it's going to take other than the supply shock. So that's how unusual things are similar. I pointed out how unusual when we got to that 20 ratio and the amount of ounces of silver per 1 ounce of gold. It was a couple months ago at 105. Right now it's about 91. That's still the highest ever from 1991. It's just a question of how much we can stay there. And another key thing is can we stay there by the end of the year? As I point out, the price of copper to me is one of the key markets I think is a potential hammer, a nail to Beta's hammer along with bitcoin if Beta goes down. Because if we close here right now it'll be the highest year end close ever for copper trade on the lme. Now the CME is already distorted by tariffs which leads me to believe that the stock market has to go up or we're gonna just do what we normally do revert lower what you know me, I'm from a commodity guy I'm always worried about auto correlation when people prices get really expensive. Back to you Dave.
- [04:55]
Dave
So before I don't want to degenerate into our beta this beta that you know he said she said conversation we all know I think anyone who watches the show knows what I think but Peter, you guys get we're out with a note this morning that describes and talks about the and I swear I'm hoping this is the last time I ever have to mention these three words. Big beautiful bill but you know effectively this year's budget which you know the tone of for those who follow it the tone of Academy's note was my tldr. Peter, tell me if this is right is most of the tax cuts are extension of what we have today. Most of what is additional are for you know, basically goosing spending things like no tax on tips, et cetera. So it's pro growth in the short run and all the histrionics about what it's adding to the budget deficit and of course, of course Peter drops because it wouldn't be a day without glitching. But most of the changes to the budget deficit are predicated upon the prestidigitation of Washington, which is well, we were going to see these tax cuts expire and now we're not kind of thing as opposed to changes to what we currently have today. And that's the thing that drives everyone crazy. If you talk to people on the street and I was surveying a few Democrats who were complaining about the bill and I said, oh, you are aware that north of 90%, actually north of 90 of the tax cuts that you're complaining about are exactly the law today and have been since 2017. They go, no, it's not. And I said maybe you should read instead of listening to the talking points of your heroes. And they go that can't be. I'm like, well just read it and if you want to get mad at me after you've read it, that's fine. So anyway Peter, now that you're back, before you drop again, you know, why don't you elaborate on what you guys are seeing? Because it seemed to me that your idea is considering where we're at, it's modestly pro growth and front loaded which by the way would dovetail with Mike's statement that the Fed is unlikely to ease even in September. And I got the same tone from you. So what have you.
- [07:09]
Peter Cheer
Yeah, and I think we come to similar conclusions, different approaches. I Didn't even bother reading this, but I don't think reading it's that important. I think the big bulk of this is extension of what's already going on. So that was important. But to me, it's the most important thing is we actually had the House, the Senate agree on something. It got signed into an actual law, and that's the first thing under the Trump administration that hasn't been executive order. So whether you like it or not, exactly what's gone on. We now can start planning. And we've been living in such an era of uncertainty that I just think something getting done, Trump being able to corral people, push something through, we can all argue what's right, what's wrong about the bill. I don't care that much right now. I think it's going to be slightly pro growth in the near term. And to me, just the fact that we actually have some actual law passed by this administration, we can take some degree of certainty, we can work around these things. Companies can start planning on their spending given the tax cuts. So I think animal spirits, so to speak, have been way ahead of the mark in the market side. The markets have been taking off and the economy is still sluggish. I think this is a step in the right direction that people in CEO suites can sit there and say, hey, here's what we now know. How do we take advantage of this? I think tariffs is the last big thing that's blocking it. I'm reasonably comfortable. This is good. And then you hear all this talk about the deficit, this deficit that, and I will not disagree that there's a chance that this does increase the deficit over time. But one, the CBO projections, it's for the next seven, 10 years, whatever, they're wrong all the time. Who knew we'd have Covid five years ago? There's a lot of reasons not to trust some of those projections. And whether we like it or not, and I'm kind of anti tariff, I think we're kind of at about the maximum sustainable level of terrorists before it really starts hitting the economy hard. We are generating tariff revenue. I think it was almost 40 billion last month, which is roughly the monthly deficit over time that would be added during this bill. So I think people have been carried away on the fear side of things. And if you just look through it, big positive is we actually got something organized, people can work with that and stop overestimating what the deficit is. And let's see how this plays out over the coming months. Because right now, I think it's actually going to be positive for growth and maybe not deficit adding.
- [09:20]
Dave
So, James, obviously, you know, I've seen some of your posts over the, you know, etc. Is the train going to stop?
- [09:31]
James
Sorry, I'm having Internet issues here. We've got people doing a lot of work around our houses, so our neighbors, so I think they keep knocking out the power lines so well. Hey, Peter, good to see you live. We've interacted a few times on Twitter. I think that's about it.
- [09:49]
Peter Cheer
Yeah, you too.
- [09:51]
James
So. Well, the deficit, I mean, the first. Let's, let's unpack the cbo.
- [09:55]
Mike
Right.
- [09:56]
James
The Congressional Budget Office. The issue with the CBO is that every single time we get some sort of estimate from them, we, you know, you peel back the layers and you realize that they don't include any recessions in their estimates. So if you look out 10 years and assume there's no recessions, that's kind of ridiculous. That's number one. Number two, they don't, they use a very attractive low interest rate over a long period of time. So that impacts our interest expense. Now, that used to not be that big of a deal. It's a pretty big deal now when you, when you're spending over a trillion dollars of interest every single year and it's become the second largest budget item behind Social Security, that, that, that's a big deal. It's even larger than defense. So the, the, the, we have a saying. You know, obviously a lot of people have this saying in different kind of industries, but in, in Wall street, you're looking at models and you say whatever the model is, garbage in, garbage out. And the CBO is pretty much garbage in and you're getting garbage out. And the estimate of the, of the debt to gdp, even as extreme as it is, is still extremely optimistic. And so that's just long term. The real, the, the, the real issue is, like Dave just said is, you know, as we all quote Lynn, Lynn Alden, is that nothing stops this train. It's just math. The, the, the spending is going to continue. Fiscal defits are going to continue. And that's just reality. I love that that Doge Commission was trying to do the best they could to, to curtail unnecessary and illicit spending. But there's only so much you can do when the math is extraordinarily against you.
- [11:51]
Dave
Well, on that topic, there's obviously a lot to talk about. I don't know, you know, how macro it is, but I think it's important. So Congressman Davidson, who has been on crypto town hall and has been a big supporter of our industry and is, you know, I wouldn't, I don't know who leads who, but in terms of small government Republicans, he's certainly one of the more outspoken. You know, he's been piling on to Elon Musk's comments recently, saying that the reason that Doge couldn't succeed is because there are Republicans who are in on the grift of getting the pipeline of federal funding and Trump wasn't able or willing, probably able to push them into line. And so there was a limit to what they could actually accomplish. And anyone who's watched this show, go back, dial back to January, February, you will hear a certain person who wears an orange shirt a lot, namely me. I said exactly the same thing would happen. Now, you don't need to be Nostradamus to make that prediction. This, this required an IQ of basically 100, which is, you know, bog standard, you know, bog average. You know, mine may be higher, lower, whatever. But the fact is, it was damn obvious that that was going to be the case. There was no way, if anyone listened to Mike Benz or anybody else understanding how the whole NGO stuff has been, you know, spun up over the last 30 years. It was both parties. It's always been both parties. And so, yeah, the Democrats, yeah, there's more, you know, there are more NGOs that lean left than lean right. So, okay, but, you know, there's what, six votes swings the House. You know, there's no way it wasn't a third or more of the Republicans. So, you know, there was never. So every time Mike would say, well, Doge is going to, you know, cut spending and do all this stuff and get it back. And I would make my frowny face and say, you know, my version, you know, of, you know, Mike, don't be a dumbass. And obviously he's not a dumbass, he's a smart guy. But I would make those sort of faces. It was because I knew there was no that way they were going to be able to do anything other than things that were targeted. And, and that's where we are. So here we are today. We have. Spending is unchanged. And the ultimate irony of the bill, and I won't say any, use those three words, the ultimate irony of the bill is the criticisms on both sides are large. The criticism on the Republican side is it doesn't cut spending enough. The criticism on the Democrat side are it cuts spending too much. Think about that for a second. Neither side, neither side, you know, you know, it looks at this as, as well, you know, government spending, structural spending needs to come down. There's no, no talk about it. No one's even talking about entitlements. The only thing that people talk about is, you know, if you look every Republican that talks as well, we didn't make, we didn't cut enough spending and every Democrat, you cut spending too much. That is literally what you hear on this bill. So when you hear that and you know that barring a major sea change in politics, this isn't going to change. We have structural deficits now as far as the eye could see is there. The only way you get around this is if we get to GDP growth of what, 6%? I mean, is that the number? You tell me what's the number, James?
- [15:06]
James
Oh, it's higher than that. And then you know, the problem is even if you do that, you're talking about nominal gdp. You're just talking about nominal gdp, which is expansion of the money supply, expansion of credit, expansion of liquidity. That's, that's what we're talking about here. You know, there's no way to get that productivity up that much without, with, with, without it being nominal. That's unless Mike, unless you've got some sort of path to that that I'm not seeing, you know. And you know, I just, I just can't make that math work. I would love a productivity miracle, but I just don't, I just don't see it happening.
- [15:48]
Mike
Well, what's the remember thing thing about productivity, you don't really, it's really hard to measure until benefit of hindsight. You have to really look back five years sometimes to really measure the productivity of the advent of PCs and the phone. And now AI kicked in.
- [16:03]
James
Yeah, yeah.
- [16:04]
Mike
So the key thing I want to bring in into the debt argument is what really matters. I enjoyed posting something I wrote a few months ago on Exodus week. And it's a stock market cap to debt that is near that peak from 2021 it was almost two times. Right now it's 1.82. That's a stock market capitalization to debt. It shows you how high the stock market debt. It's the elephant in the room when you talk about things like debt. What's been pushing up the stock market for all this deficit spending. Before it was very easy monetary policy. Now that's shifted and we've seen examples from countries when they do have high debt, what they do, they buy their debt, they buy off the run bonds and they do whatever they can to make that debt Lower. Now we have a government focus on that here. So I think that's what gold is figuring out and that's what I think underperforming Bitcoin and cryptos are figuring out that this is the end game. The Fed can ease and we're all pointing out if they do ease, they're going to do what they did last year. Probably they spike risk assets too much, create inflation and just add fuel to the spec speculators. It's not a good idea. So to me what's indicative of that happening is gold being up 30% down the year despite the S&P 500 still up 7%. Now if it can end up the year 10, 10%, that's wonderful. But just match in the world, if it ends up down 5% a normal backup with tariffs and everything, that's the Bloomberg Galaxy index telling you the risk, it's down 10% a year. So to me the risks are that we tilt towards this deflation hedge, that yes, maybe it's wonderful if the stock market stays lofty, but it's so much has to in this argument about debt to me is now it's, I'm looking right now at cnbc, Bloomberg and cnbcn, it's top of the headline now we're talking about it non stop. That's usually when it reaches an apex. Now I'm not saying so you're going to fix it right away but it means what it means for markets. First of all, tariffs. They're going to be completely emboldened in tariffs partly because the stock market's going up. There's only one factor that created that 98 day pause because we are down almost 20% which by the way is about $13 trillion, which by the way was about 5, 40% in GDP, the most in history for about a 20% correction. So here's where I think we're going to now is the only thing that's going to stop tariffs being at least 15% or more in the rest of the world if the stock market, if the stock market goes down and pushes that backwards, debt is becoming somewhat insignificant because it's a potential recession. That's the risk. And I can point out that the elephant in the room is how the stock market has to stay lofty to keep this game going. And to me that's what the deflating crypto market is figuring out.
- [18:39]
Dave
So the funny thing about that is there's causality and there's correlation. And I always point out that whenever James talks about the whole nominal thing in terms of gdp, et cetera. Let's go to first principles for a second. Does any of the three of you think that the government isn't interested in creating monetary inflation for assets? Is there anybody who thinks that the government's goal isn't to see asset prices go up, whether that be bonds or stocks? Mike, you always talk about stocks and James always talk about bonds.
- [19:16]
James
So that's interesting. It's interesting to say that you say that because like going back to the, you know, you have to go back another step to get to that first principle and the first principle of our government, which controls its spending. So we could talk about the treasury, we can talk to the cbo, we can talk about. It's Congress that controls the spending. Right. So they have to pass bills. They pass bills to gain the confidence and votes from their constituents. So if you go to the first principle of all first principles, it's what do I need to do to get reelected? That's it.
- [19:48]
Mike
That's it.
- [19:49]
James
That's the only first principle we have. What do I have to do get reelected. I don't care about anything else. I just want to be reelected, period. Full stop. To quote Dave, Full stop. That's all they care about. And so when we start talking about, you know, term limits and the, the reality that some of these people can finally get kicked the out of D.C. then you have something to really talk about. But until then, the only thing that matters is what do I got to do to get reelected? That's why you hear this nonsense out of Elizabeth Warren 24, 7, 24, 7, 365. Because all she cares about is spewing whatever she needs to spew to get whatever's going on in Massachusetts to get her reelected. That's it. That's all that matters. So what's going to get them reelected? Spending. That's it. Spending on their constituents. And that means that if they have pharmaceuticals that donate to their campaigns, they're going to, they're going to spend pharmaceutical money. And if they have manufacturing, that's going to get them reelected. They're going to spend manufacturing money. If they have, if they have technology, it's going to get them reelected, or new technology or clean energy. That's what they're going to do, period. That's all that matters. So that's the first principle, Dave. And until we fix that, you know, and this is not a politics show, but it's a reality. That's, that's the only thing that's going to work.
- [21:11]
Peter Cheer
So, I mean, and this is what's.
- [21:14]
James
So funny about this is I wrote my senior thesis at Yale as a political science major back in 1993 that we need term limits. And here we are still not really talking about it.
- [21:27]
Peter Cheer
And I would just pile on there like, the debt ceiling is the gift that keeps on giving. They all get to talk about, oh, the debt ceiling. Oh, blah, blah, blah. And it's just a money grab, right? Both sides get to spend more, run up the debt ceiling. If the debt scene was actually anything real, they would not be allowed to pass a law that is projected to it push us above the debt ceiling anytime. But that's not how it works. It's this ongoing thing. Every few years it comes up, everyone gets to make their nice talking points, and then both sides reach into the piggy bank and spend more. I think you're exactly right. It's like become bread and circus. Why would you not spend more if it gets reelected and there's nothing to stop you from spending more? It's kind of insane.
- [22:03]
James
But that ceiling is what was described by Dr. Jeff Ross one time on a show. He said, it's kind of like the clouds that the plane passes through on the way. Getting to altitude. Yeah, Sorry, Mike.
- [22:19]
Mike
I think that the premise of the question is exact spot on for a macro Monday's program. It's absolutely the complete to get reelected. It's a complete focus of the parties in power to keep the Ponzi scheme, you could call it to keep risk assets elevated. The difference with this very clever current administration is they figured out if they focus on cryptos, it can help get them elected. Now they have a vested interest in the crypto market going up, not just bitcoin, yet it's going down. I mean, it's down 10% in the year. Now the stock market has to keep going up. That's the major thing that really matters. But the point is, have we reached the end game? And to me, that's been my point since Trump's been elected is, yes, you're right, absolutely. They have to keep the Ponzi going. But at some point, when you tilt over to the wrong asset for the wrong reasons, with unlimited supply, you might be at elevated risk. And this is where history is starting to kick in. That's why I still stick with the day that Bitcoin reached 100,000. That was a sell signal for broad cryptos, partly because people are tilting over to the digital version of gold, although they're missing the fact that it does have unlimited competition and it tilting over to analog gold. Like there was a headline in FT this week and I enjoyed reading that said. Now what was the headline? Central Gold over tank zero as a global reserve asset. So I stick with gold as the main thing that's going to benefit in this space. And when we do find, which I think we're at the end game of creating wealth for everybody. I mean, the housing market's the most expensive ever in this country. The stock market's Most expensive in 100 years versus GDP in the rest of the world. I think we're reaching that end game. That's why I'm tilting towards gold. And then I look at all my analysis, I see this rock. It's beating stocks almost four years now. That kind of sucks. I don't like that, but it is. It's so expensive versus T bonds. That's why I keep tilting over to. Gosh, I hope I'm wrong. I don't get this deflation. But all the lessons of history point that we've reached the end game. There's way too much optimism for this administration, which we all know that happens. You only get that in the beginning. Administration towards the end, you always get a blip at least maybe we'll just only get a blip and then you have things tilt lower certainly for the polls for current administration. And we get to what's been the way overdue recession, which now there's a good catalyst with tariffs. I mean, what do tariffs do? They hit the corporate earnings and make things expensive for consumers. That to me is the next big trade I'm still sticking with. And gold to me is pointed out and things like gold silver ratios rallying and things like the US bond yields being like 200 base points above the average of assumer bond yields in the rest of the world. Signs of where's the value? Where's the next big trade? I still think it's not bitcoin. It's, it's not stocks. It's Ben Gold. And it might still be what James loves T bonds.
- [25:10]
James
Yeah. So Dave, I'm going to let you unpack the bitcoin thing because you, I know you're chomping the bit on that. So they're just. Yeah, but you know, just to talk about the bonds for a second, Mike, what happens if and when we do get a liquidity melt up and this stock market doesn't stop here? What happens if we go 20, 30, 40, 50 higher or even more because we did. No, what happens if we do it again? Okay, this has not been a Melt up. This has been a, this has been a titan. This has been an escalator up. What if, elevator up. Okay. And then what happens to interest rates at that point?
- [25:49]
Mike
So that's a hypothetical. I love the hypothetical, James. But we, did I just point out we're at the most expensive versus the rest of the world, even versus debt, where still stocks are very expensive and people say that's high. Well, how about stocks versus debt? My point is, why do you think you're missing what we did? We did that on the back of the biggest money pump in history. We still haven't had that normal reverse. China's getting it. We haven't had it yet.
- [26:14]
James
Well, why do you, what do you attach. And this is where maybe you and I differ on this. What do you attach? The reason for our interest rates on our long bonds being 150 to 200 basis points higher than the average developed country.
- [26:30]
Mike
Well, number one reason is from a true market standpoint is inflation. Inflation expectations, debt's part of it. But you look at the reality history for the world's global reserve currency, inflation is 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, what really matters for bond yields. And then you look over at the most indebted countries in the world, China and Japan, they have the lowest yields. So I do love that argument. I think you are going to go there. But yes, that's a problem. But I compare it to versus the market cap and stock market cap of US Stock market cap. It's actually very low.
- [27:00]
James
Right. So there's also the component of, you know, the, you, you're talking about duration risk, you're talking about interest rate risk. There could be an issue with the amount of debt that we're going to have to pile on in long term 10 to 30 year yields.
- [27:21]
Dave
Right.
- [27:22]
James
Because we have been, we've been kicking this can down the road for so long now that We've got almost $10 trillion of t bill debt that's going to be refinanced between now and, and a year from now, plus all of the additional deficit spending. So we're going to have 12, $13 trillion of debt. Where are we going to put that? Are we going to just continue to float T bills ad nauseam or are we going to actually move out on the yield curve? And you can't move out on the yield curve as a, as the Treasury.
- [27:57]
Mike
Right.
- [27:58]
James
Because remember, the treasury is just doing Congress's bidding. They're just enabling Congress to spend, you know, endlessly. So how are they going to get, how are they going to spread this out or we just going to continue to finance all of our deficits with T bills? Because that is an extraordinarily dangerous game to play for longer than we've already played.
- [28:23]
Mike
So we've been doing that for a long time. We see like I mentioned in other countries doing the same, much worse than us. So then how do you explain the fact that the US government 10, you know, it's 4.36 this year despite ending the year at 4.56. It's lower despite. We all know the deficit's going higher and Doge, I guess you can say wasn't cutting. Well, I know a lot of people lost their jobs, so I think it's cutting. Stock market's up, inflation's up. Why are 10 year notes yields lower? Because the rest of the world's collapsing.
- [28:52]
James
Why are 10 year old years lower from when? What point are you talking about?
- [28:57]
Mike
End of last year.
- [28:59]
James
Yeah but they started out at 3.5% when we started cutting rates and then they went up to 4.5%.
- [29:07]
Mike
Agree. That was, we all agreed on that. When the Fed cut rates and yields went and bond, that was, that was the bond meals bond market telling the Fed stop easing. You're wrong. Stock markets to elevate. You're creating too much speculative excess. You're adding fuel to the punch bowl. It was the wrong thing to do and they're still saying it. But right now, now it's the tilt. It's been almost a year and I'm just pointing out we still have the stock market up 7%. It was only down a little bit in the year. What happened to yields? Everything was down beginning here. That's my point is you will be right as long as stock market stays elevated at 2 times GDP and there's only 2 times in history of any market reaching that 19, 1929 US and 1989 in Japan.
- [29:47]
James
And I will also be right when the, when, if, if and when the stock market does collapse. All right, because the Fed remains stubborn and keeps rates elevated too long and we do have some sort of credit event. If that does happen. And we've seen spikes in the, the repo rate and the, and repo usage recently, not the rate repo usage recently. And so if that does happen, we're what, what is the market going to expect? Massive printing again a la, you know Covid great financial crisis. And so rates will spike higher again. And so either way you're getting to a point where the mark. This is, this is the whole, this is the point of the first principles. There's. The incentive is to keep spending. The incentive is to keep nominal GDP high. The incentive is to keep the stock market high. Because we are so financialized as a system, we need the stock market to keep going, which means we need liquidity. It's. This is, this is like trying to take a patient, you know, off a ventilator, you know, or trying to like you. Are you going to. Are you gonna. Are you gonna stop giving the patient the drug? It needs to stay alive.
- [31:06]
Mike
So here's the oxymoron with that statement to expect the stock market to go down and rates to go up. Good luck.
- [31:14]
James
No, I expect rates to go down first and then to explode higher. When we print, you know, the, the fate when we do have a face melting print which is larger than the print we had in 2020-21, well, you're.
- [31:28]
Mike
Trading the last big trade. We've already had it. We learned the lessons of deflation. My point is when inflation. Inflation. My point is when that happens, the next time it's time to start printing, there'll be major pushback and it'll be much more delayed. And I'm just talking about a really good trade, which means probably a decent correction of risk assets, at least 50% in things like Bitcoin and maybe a 50% drawdown. US stock market way overdue happen to the.
- [31:52]
James
What do you think would happen to the constituents if that. If we do allow for a 50%.
- [31:56]
Mike
Drawdown, it's not so much allowing. What are you going to do about it?
- [32:01]
James
You're gonna print.
- [32:03]
Mike
Exactly. So my point is. But, but it, but we've done that. We've learned the lesson. So we can go on from this. The point is.
- [32:09]
James
I know, but Mike, here's where you and I differ is you think that we've learned a lesson. I think that there's. There's no way to learn that lesson. It's, It's. We're way past it.
- [32:17]
Mike
It's over inflation.
- [32:19]
James
And that's why. And that's why Lynn Alden says every single day nothing stops his train because there is no lesson to be learned. It's suicide for us to do that.
- [32:30]
Dave
Well, let's, let's understand this different.
- [32:32]
Peter Cheer
This time is Yellen clearly had no concept of markets. I don't think whatsoever really was the only person in the entire country who didn't decide to borrow long when yields were incredibly low. Right. Corporate America did. Individuals did. I do think Besson. And for all Lutnick's Potential issues on some things. Understanding and moving bond markets is something he actually does understand. So I think there will be a much more concerted effort to keep a lid on bonds. I think they will do things we haven't seen. We'll probably kick and scream and say, this is crazy. Why are they doing this? But I do think this administration will work the bond market probably better than Yellen ever did or could. You know, this is best. So that's one thing. I think you're probably right, but it might take longer to get there as I think this group will be better at hiding the bubbles and things like that. And for example, called it last time. I'll say it again, I think for coming to these auctions, I am sure they are calling foreign governments that are friendly to us and saying buy as many bonds as you can because everyone's watching to see the indirect bids and if the indirect bids are low, we're going to sell off. So I, I think this is also.
- [33:39]
James
Why they're changing the SLR rules.
- [33:41]
Dave
Right.
- [33:41]
Peter Cheer
So they are trying to do all these things to suppress it. And probably like everything else, one if the longer they try and suppress it, the worse it becomes at the back end. I just think they might be better and more successful at suppressing it for a period of time that's kind of slightly.
- [33:56]
James
Yeah, absolutely.
- [33:57]
Dave
So let's make one point of control.
- [34:00]
James
And its additional liquidity.
- [34:01]
Dave
Exactly. Yeah. I was going to tee you up for that, James, and I still will because I want people to understand what you mean by slr. We'll do that. But just the reason I framed the question the way I did to start this was the government wants certain things. They want to go back to decades of policy, which is explicitly to promote to funnel monetary inflation into assets and away from consumers. And the way you do that is there's a few things. The first thing you hope for more productivity, more technology, which with AI is actually happening. The second thing you do is you don't do things. Which was the one don't from the greatest money pump in history. Mike says, yeah, there was a big money pump, but there was also monumentally stupid behavior which is giving stimmy checks to people. So now you guaranteed consumer inflation and that was massively inflationary. And the other monumentally stupid thing they did was not address supply chain issues. In fact, they, they made them way, way worse, especially at the state level with the idiotic Democrat response in many places. I mean, we laugh about it now, but you know, I'm never going to ever Ever forget the fact that to get a year of my life back, I had to move to Florida? Right. But what did that mean? You know, the quote, essential workers were delivering stuff, not manufacturing stuff. And so our supply chains were crushed. So what we learned out of the pandemic, the only thing the economists that, you know, writ large have learned is don't give money, put it in the hands of the people anymore, and don't up supply chains. And that's why they backtrack so fast on tariffs. And by the way, this past weekend, they backtracked again. Instead of July 9, it's like, well, it's really August 1. I mean, you know, honestly, you know, in foreign policy, this administration is smart enough to know that a red line is a red line. In economic policy, it seems like all their lines are very, very fuzzy. And honestly, it's because it's all negotiations and these things are for the press. They're not for anything else. But I think it really does matter because the SLR is a perfect example of how this, this government understands what they need to control. And that's why I said they want assets to go up and they understand that they're going to create monetary inflation. And there's one more point I'll make, but I'd rather. James, you really should explain to people what the SLR is and why it matters.
- [36:22]
James
Yeah. The supplemental leverage ratio is, it's a ratio that the Fed puts on the banks to make sure that they don't have too much leverage on their balance sheets and they, they remain low risk.
- [36:36]
Mike
Right.
- [36:37]
James
So for our major banks, one of the issues is, and this is why isda, the International, the, the international, what is it? The Settlements Derivatives Association, Popular association is done. And, and they, and they, they wrote a letter basically to the Fed saying, hey, look, you ought to scrap Treasuries from the leverage ratio, allow banks to own as many Treasuries as they want. So the Fed turned around and looked at that and, and decided, okay, well, we're not going to take them completely out, but we're going to lower the, the, the ratios to allow for banks to, to, to hold more Treasuries. You know, going to change the ratios to allow them to hold more Treasuries. And why would they do that? They'll do that because, you know, Treasuries are supposed to be risk free. We talk about this all the time. What's the risk free rate with the U.S. you know, the U.S. treasury rate? Well, it's not risk free if it's including a risk ratio. And so it does. Doesn't fit fit any narrative that they're talking about. But the, the real re. The real problem is they need banks to buy more Treasuries. The banks are like we're kind of full up. We can, we, you know, we, you gotta, you gotta give us some room here so we can buy more. And then they're gonna buy them, they're gonna, it allows them to expand their balance sheet, it allows for more liquidity and that's, that's basically what what the whole, the purpose of it is. So they're going to change the ratio to allow the treasure.
- [38:05]
Mike
The.
- [38:05]
James
The banks to hold more U S Treasuries. And so that gives them more liquidity, allows for them, it prevents disruption in treasury markets because it allows not, you know, the, the non participating dealers to even buy more Treasuries. And so that's.
- [38:23]
Peter Cheer
Yeah, I, I partly agree. I think that's their vision. You know, I've been a market maker for a long time, market maker in credit products and what I think this tends to do is in normal markets it reduces volatility.
- [38:35]
Mike
Right?
- [38:35]
Peter Cheer
Okay, I buy 100 million, someone else has 100 million, so I'll buy that 100 million. Then finally someone comes around and wants to sell 100 million. Right. So you can trade around. But what it does is, tends to create much larger moves when stuff starts breaking because instead of just owning a billion of 10 year treasuries, you now own 2 billion and it's going the wrong direction. And management tops you on the shoulder because you know, SLR and you know, capital ratio is important. Your P and L is far more important. And I think there's always this vision, oh, if I just, you know, you give the dealers more liquidity, they can have bigger balance sheets, they just make more money and it's easy. And I, I think that tends to you know, de amplify small moves because they can step up a little bit more. But when things break, it tends to break uglier and faster because everyone's now limit long. Everyone's looking for the door at the same time. So I, I feel like that's one of those things that on paper sounds perfect. I see what they're, I think they actually increase that sort of tail risk and that sort of day, you know, where we have some sort of, you know, jump move in Treasuries to either higher or lower yields when all of a sudden the entire street is running much bigger inventories than their P L really Lets them get stopped out one way or the other.
- [39:44]
Dave
Right?
- [39:45]
Mike
Yeah.
- [39:46]
James
Yeah. That's the, and that's, that's, that's the issue. And that's their, that's their, that's their drive that you know, the motivation. And again, it's the first principle. It's simple.
- [39:56]
Dave
I mean it's really interesting because. So that's the bond market side. Look, it is undeniable that they want lower bond yields. There's no question about it. But the real thing and the point that where I was going to push back on Mike and there's two places I want to push back on Mike. We all know bitcoin is the only asset that is a finite supply. We had yet another story this weekend about a big asteroid with so much more gold than we, you know, basically made a golden asteroid. And if you think in the next hundred years we're not going to be able to mine, you know, an asteroid successfully, then, you know, look, I used to look out over the Brooklyn Bridge, I'd be happy to sell it to you. But it's. Bitcoin is unlimited, is not unlimited. There's other crap that's out there that has nothing to do with bitcoin as a store of value. And we could litigate this a million times, but I'd get a lot of crap from all the of our, our loyal listeners if I didn't continue to point out it is limited supply. And I will give you gold is limited supply and I think gold will do well. But when you compare gold to its competitors, it's I think extremely important. And I always talk about gold versus platinum, etc, we could go down that rabbit hole, but I'd rather focus on something else. The other thing that you said that was fascinating is you said that we're coming to the end of a process of the administration. Now I maintain that I was 100% correct in what I said six months ago and I'm going to repeat it again. This administration doesn't give a crap about the economy right now compared to they give a crap a year from now. It matters a lot. And so every policy that they're putting in place is to try to goose the economy going into the midterms. And they want a peak of the economy around now, next year. So just remember that. So all the crap was going on with tariffs. If you think that there's backpedaling now and pro growth policies now, now that the budget' concerned, watch to see what they do. And I think what you're going to see is Things to goose. What people care about now, what do voters care about? Well, the middle class cares about their 401ks and their retirement accounts. They do. So if we get a pullback this year, you know, in the fall, if we get a nasty correction in the fall, which is essentially what you're calling for, Mike, the liquidity that will come into the market will be massive and markets are going to start to anticipate that. That's the interesting thing. So like in, you know, when we've had massive nasty pullbacks in the past, Bitcoin's correlation and beta was high this last time, Bitcoin's correlation was reasonable, but its beta was really low and its beta is getting lower still. So, and, and that's for a reason. It's because people are anticipating it. We know, like for example, we don't have to guess. Here's a news event that you can, that you can sell the news if you want. Powell is not going to be the Federal Reserve chairman here for from now. He won't be. There will be a new one. Right. And that new one is going to be handpicked to be bringing rates and to try to emulate Switzerland or as close as we can to whatever they can get away with with the bond market. And that's the point, right? I mean, James, am I missing something here? I mean, you know, from the, the short end to the long end, I mean it's pretty clear what they want to try to accomplish. Whether they'll be able to do so is Mike's point.
- [43:08]
Mike
It.
- [43:08]
Dave
And it isn't easy and that's why Mike's smiling. But that's what they're going to try.
- [43:13]
Mike
Yeah, go ahead.
- [43:14]
James
No, I was going to say, is that the point? And to, to reiterate, to keep a lid on yields, on long term yields, it's going to require some sort of yield curve control.
- [43:26]
Dave
That's, that's the point, right, Mike?
- [43:29]
James
And that's liquidity. That's expansion.
- [43:32]
Mike
Let me this what I'm hearing a lot and from some of you is what I have heard in the past and read about peaks that happen in pretty extended bull markets, you come up excuses for it to keep going up. Now anybody who's been in bitcoin for the last at least 10 years, certainly since 2010, when Michael Saylor discovered this bitcoin because his company was not doing well, has done very well. And then you get to certain levels, you're supposed to notice, double down, you're supposed to lighten up, like sense what Human nature typically does is what Peter mentions. You get extended at extremes. We're extending the extreme. The market's showing every sign of that by its underperformance versus gold is one good example. And by just the fact that S&P five arms up 7%. Bitcoin's up only double. That dish there should be up triple. It's signs of the end. So you have to have these things to continue. To me, this is the end game. And also it's the optimism for Mr. Trump. Great. The point is it's not going to get much better. You have to find out where things are peaking and where they're supposed to be selling when they're yelling. I still look at bitcoin at a hundred thousand as signs of a selling when they're yelling market. You see that signs in the Bloomberg Galaxy. Crypto and index down 10%. You seen that in signs of gold going up. You've seen that in many other points. Its way. It hasn't even started this. I'm coming from one of the biggest moves of my lifetime. It's barely started. So I can't expect it to be easy. But that's my point is have to be careful. What you're saying about this is a number on a screen. It's not anything. I mean at least gold tracks. It's a number. Screen attracts physical gold. You're talking about bitcoin. It has 18.3 million competitors. Now. I loved it at 10 grand. I loved it at 5 grand when there's thousands of competitors and now there's just too much. Just remember this, okay? Comp. What you call them whatever you want, but they're cryptocurrencies. Okay. And then we're getting to this space. We're getting real assets in this space. Completely advocate of and point out the technology is awesome. You're seeing that in. I call them. I call them crypto dollars. People call them stablecoins. Now we're getting things on chain like treasuries. Obviously we're getting assets and stock market on chain. What's going to happen to all these other things like dogecoin or just short bait? To me that's happened. It's already melting. It's dropped from 50 billion last year down to 25 billion. To me, this is the beginning of the end that I remember feeling very strongly. I started in business in 88 with Japanese and of course I felt that well remember what happened in 1999. So this is why it's so important to keep this elevated again. But we're at peak optimism for Mr. Trump where it peaked, strongest stock market ever. And there's been these alternatives that are doing well. So I just point out good luck. And I think the prudent investors are pointing out to good where there's value and it's certainly not in cryptos. And just I, I can see the, you know, the, you know, pylon trade in bitcoin, which to me is very scary. I love it when people hate it and I just hate assets when people love, of course, that's my commodity background.
- [46:31]
Dave
So here's the problem with, with your, what you're saying the most important piece is the crypto community. The, the holders of bitcoin as if it is a stable asset are actually have been agreeing with you for months now and they've been selling it. And you saw that although last few weeks not so much but I mean it but in general role they've been selling it and who's been buying it, new people who are coming in and saying, well wait a minute, why isn't bitcoin trading at the price of the monetary value of gold? That's where Larry Fink is. That's where lots of others are. That's where I am. And so that's the difference. And when you look at it as a mature commodity, of course you're going to have that community. So a hundred thousand, we're seeing exactly the same thing play out at 100,000. We saw play out of 10,000. We're seeing people who are saying, you know, 10,000 is people who bought it at 100 bucks is like, well wait a minute, I got life changing wealthier. Well, at 100,000 we're seeing the same thing. We'll see the same thing at a million. And, and, and that's what you're going to see. And so you're seeing, you know, when I look at the bitcoin versus gold chart, it's almost a flat line. I mean, you know, it was the bitcoin and price of gold was in 21:30. It's, it's four years. It's like a flat line. And that actually makes sense for a while until bitcoin goes on its next big, big up move. And, and you're going to see a flat line until the big up move. You're going to see little squiggles up and down, but that's what you'll see. But it's a different thing. This competitor stuff you keep saying, I mean there is a massive difference. It's called bitcoin we see it in Bitcoin dominance. There. There are two. They are both cryptos. Right. You know, if you look at Bitcoin and Ethereum, but they're very different in. Apart from a few lunatics. And yes, I will call you lunatics if you think Ethereum is going to be a store of value. And sure, Tom Lee is saying, yeah, they want to do Ethereum, treasury company. What he's basically saying is accumulate the stuff that people are going to use, not accumulate the stuff that people are going to use as the valuation metric. And those are very different things. And so it just, just is different. It's not.
- [48:27]
James
And there's a reason. There's a reason that there's $135 billion in SPOT Bitcoin ETFs. You don't get me. They're not in, you know, the, the 10,000 other cryptos.
- [48:38]
Dave
And oh, by the way, by the way, not only is it not in other cryptos, but these, this money is new money and it is the most profitable. It is literally BlackRock's most profitable product. You just remember some of us when, when Galaxy came out and said that they would be 6, 15 billion in the first six months and we might get, I think they said, as high as 50 billion, you know, in the first 18 months or whenever it was, and we're at more than double that. Some of us were saying, yeah, it could easily be larger. And others said, no, no, it's not possible.
- [49:11]
Mike
It's just there's one big number I, we have. It's so important. We need to disagree for our viewers in our audience. But one thing that I, and I do like, when you point out one thing I'll say and push back, and there's one key thing you said, Dave, that might go in my book someday, is you said when, because coin reits, a million, not if.
- [49:30]
Peter Cheer
And I will say one thing, I just want to push back a little bit on Dave. And again, we're looking at crypto. I think it's a much better regulatory environment. What scares me is these treasury companies, the fact that you can effectively mint free money by creating a Treasury company. Right? That's what I think Tom Lee is trying to do with. An Ethereum treasury company has nothing to do with where the value is. It's somehow right now you can milk yourself mint free money. And I think that has to get squeezed out. It's very hard to tell too, how many people are, say, short some of these treasury companies versus owning the cryptocurrency under, you know, Bitcoin, whether ETF form or not, trying to capture some of that arb to see if that goes away. And the fact that more and more of these treasury companies are coming out, it reminds me a lot of kind of what was happening at the end of subprime in 2007, 8, where I don't say we're going to have anything. Once these things start cracking and that premium goes away, I think it drags those stocks way down. It probably drags crypto down a little bit from there because people have to unwind those kind of attempts at arbitrage. And then I think you have a much firmer base. Right. I think so long as people can pop up every day or week creating some new treasury company and minting billions and billions of dollars for themselves, they're going to keep doing it and the market's going to get tired of it. They're going to see it, and you're going to start seeing an erosion in that premium as it comes back. I think, to me, I don't see any way it just comes back without bitcoin coming down a little bit. And that, to me would be when I would get really, really pounding the table. This is now the right time because you've taken out this kind of bubbly mentality. And I don't think the bubble is in the crypto itself. I think the bubble is in these treasury companies because you should not be able to mint free money. And it's become too easy, I think, and everyone's kind of riding that thing. And, you know, Tom Lee's going to create an ethereum treasury company specifically because it's free money.
- [51:15]
Dave
So. I agree. James, go ahead.
- [51:17]
James
Yeah, look, we, we invest in these companies and you know, in my hedge fund, the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. And so I, I want to be clear. I don't think these things are going up forever, but I think we're nowhere near nirvana for them. And so will they. Will there be a big bubble? I believe there will be in that you'll have companies that are probably printing this money that you're talking about, meaning they're, they're basically just, they're using the, the, the security markets to financially engineer their balance sheets in order to buy Bitcoin. And some of them shouldn't be doing that and that, and that is where they'll get tripped up and you'll have like this watershed moment. But we're, I, I believe we're nowhere near that yet, that we're still going to have this, you know, we're going to have lift off for that. But I want to be clear, I don't think this happens forever. There is going to be a moment where it, where it does turn and you know, so we're careful about that. But there are two different types of companies, right? There's the companies that are financial engineering with leverage and companies that are doing it without leverage. And the ones that are doing without leverage are going to, going to be just fine in my personal opinion.
- [52:38]
Dave
And it will be almost all companies at some point until there is proof that the, that putting money in, you know, leaving money on that, that is cash. The real question is what has a higher, you know, higher expected value, higher performance, buying back your own stock, putting money in, you know you're going to lose it because it can't keep up with inflation asset like Treasuries or putting it in a potential future reserve asset. I mean never forget when you had the United States. And by the way, this is the other argument on that I wanted to make before, before I tee you off Mike, because I knew that was going to get you.
- [53:19]
James
Returns, negative real returns.
- [53:21]
Dave
Is, is remember when every time you talk about competitors, the administration did denote Bitcoin and Bitcoin alone as a strategic asset and they did so for a reason. And that phrasing is exactly what gets what I'm talking about. And so yes, that's why it's a Treasury asset for it just is a Treasury asset for companies to consider just like it's an asset in portfolio. So we haven't even talked about the RIA stuff that we were talking about last week which is a very big deal in terms of asset allocation. So it's that rotation is what's going on from the older crypto guys who might have mined stuff on old laptops at, at a dollar a bitcoin and they're selling it now to become fabulously wealthy so they can buy stuff right to the others which are newer entrants into the market that clients whatever. So anyway Mike, I have teed you up. Here you go. Volleyball is now up above the net.
- [54:24]
Mike
You did intentionally. And maybe I'll just get it spiked into my head or spike it back but just give you the facts of history we have a pile on for everybody saying the same thing that, that you and I, we really figured out in this program a long time ago. There's time to buy an asset that's becoming a global reserve currency when the world's inflating and we're adding the Most liquidity in history had Covid and all that fun stuff. And then there's a pile on trade when it's the wrong time to buy that asset for that reason of the past tense. We're at that now. I see it everywhere. I just. And when people I speak to sometimes I love some of the young people. No, recessions are not happening anymore. You have to buy this, you have to cover for that melting currency every single time you hear this in history. I mean I've been through a few cycles in my life. Only being in the markets for 40 years is when you, when you look for alternatives. And that's the cycle we are now when people can't even conceive of Bitcoin going lower. And that's just one asset. And I point out, well, okay, this is the time you're supposed to focus on what almost always happens in history. When you have what's been melting is Bloomberg Galaxy crypto answers. Cryptos are melting. Finally Doge is down to 21 billion. Once it gets down to maybe 2100 total market cap then I can't wait to get bullish this space. My point is this is just the purge getting started. But it's happening where everything's going up. You just have to. It's every time you see that pile on that oh, it's a currency melting. The point is every time in history you get these massive inflationary periods, you always get deflation. That is my point is on a global basis, the best asset right now potentially protect against normal Deflation is a U.S. treasury long bond potentially going to the same yield as in China, which is 1.64%. This has happened before. We saw it happen in Japan. I remember trading those things. Is it different this time? No, what's different is risk assets our most expensive ever and we have a U.S. government that really supported this crypto asset. But now they're at risk of potentially at peak optimism and peak in their polls. This is the time not to be jumping on that train.
- [56:19]
Dave
Can I ask you a question? Do you think that the Democrats going into the midterms are going to elevate and continue to push the Elizabeth Warren anti crypto army stuff or do you think they learned learned their lesson?
- [56:33]
Mike
I hope they learned their lesson. I think that's one thing I want to appreciate is people need to understand space. In this space is you really need a great antagonist and Elizabeth Warren is perfect. She might go down in history similar to to Aaron Burr. I mean thank you very much for pointing out the dark Side. Let's see the bright side now cryptos and Trump figured that out. Remember Mutin right before he left his treasury sector pushed way back on cryptos and finally they saw the light things we spoke spoken about but now it's, it's, it's, it's peaked. I think we've had the peak point and again exists that correlation of bitcoin to the stock market is almost the highest ever.
- [57:11]
Dave
All I could tell you is is is the one experience that I have and James has and that's the reason James and I look like sour like we had tasted sour milk. Every time you say that is because we both run companies in the crypto space so coin routes we had to to put take a four year hiatus on our business plan because essentially the administration I can say bad words on this thing. The administration us and when I explained to Democrats why it is that I hated the Biden administration and they, they after they actually listen the ones that are willing to listen are like okay, I can understand why you have this point of view. We had a literal moronic financial policy policy in the face of a new transformational technology and it matters. It was literally the opposite of Bill Clinton. And so just to understand this isn't shouldn't be a Democrat Republican thing. Bill Clinton in the face of the Internet said you know what this thing and I'm not going to do the accent because I can't but he figured it out. He said listen and he pushed and we had net neutrality and he pushed on every button he could would to enable the United States to dominate in the Internet era. That Internet era caused a bubble followed by a crash followed by a sustained grinding increase where the entire where the market cap of the world is dominated by U S Internet companies. Biden faced with exactly the same situation with crypto and digitalization of finance said listen to Elizabeth Wall. I don't know that he listened. He was eating ice ice cream and he let Elizabeth Warren talk and she was the literal dumbest person. She will go down Aaron Burr if you actually know the history there's yes, he died and you know maybe she'll be similar to that. You know I don't wish death on anybody, even her. But honestly he wasn't. She is way stupider than he was. What she was doing was on behalf of the banks basically and behalf of financial inclusion and is literally doing the exact opposite. And I can't hold any human being in more contempt than I hold her. It's almost literally impossible because what she did to everyone who runs a company was say, you can't be a broker. So think about this. A company that wanted to have and use U.S. broker dealer standards, which are the best in the world at protecting investors. She literally had the administration tell all the broker dealers that wanted to offer those services, you can't. You can't. Meaning that the only ones who could were ones who didn't have the DNA of protecting investors. Live with that for four years, don't say one year after that sort of going away, we're at peak nirvana. No, we're peak nirvana. When we actually have rules. When the stock goes off, boom. And Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs can offer full crypto trading services and they beat into down our doors at coin routes and say, okay, we need your algorithms to deliver good services to people. That hasn't happened yet. Those companies don't have those plans yet because it hasn't happened yet. So we are nowhere near peak nirvana. We still have the Federal Reserve saying they're going to pull back. But talk to Caitlin Long someday and see if in fact the banking rules have changed to be freely competitive, to have to be able to put non fractional reserve banking up against fractional reserve banking and see who wins. So we're not there yet.
- [60:33]
Peter Cheer
So two quick things. One is, I think our firm is looking at this. I think it's a much more interesting environment. We want to figure out how we can be more involved in the crypto community. And I'll come back to James. I think your first principle is people want to get elected. How Democrats have not figured out that getting the crypto community on your side might be the best source of funds there is. When I look at that, there is no other group that has immense amount of wealth spread across all these things, who, even if you're not aligned, you're all kind of aligned with one interest. Right? Everyone wants crypto to do well. It seems like that is the base of money that every politician should be striving to get. I think you're seeing it at the state and local. You obviously saw President Trump get it. I mean, if I was trying to run for office, whether I love crypto or not, that would seem to be a very good community that you want to get on your side. Because I think the amount of what wealth that's there right now is very high. The amount of passion is incredibly high. Right. It's like it's. There's a passionate community and they're all roughly the same direction. I always come back three pharmaceutical companies might want to donate money. But each might have their own agenda that's not quite aligned. I think the crypto community, it's shocking to me Democrats haven't figured that out to the extent that they do. I would think that will mean that there will be more and more crypto friendly legislation. So that part, Dave, I think we're nowhere near done on where crypto will be in terms of being ease of use and how different firms can, you know, work with it, take advantage of it, figure out how to make it part of their overall corporate strategy.
- [61:58]
Dave
James, last words. Because they're at 10:05 or about to be.
- [62:03]
James
Yeah, look I, I agree that we are nowhere near peak nirvana, Mike. I agree that we will have drawdowns, I do. I just don't think that we're in that spot right now. I think that liquidity is going to continue to expand for a while here into next year at least and, and that we're, we're going to continue to see hard assets like gold and like Bitcoin continue to benefit from it. And Bennett, you know the one, one major point of contention that I continuously have with you on this argument is that there Bitcoin does not have an 10,000 competitors. It actually has zero. There's nothing that can compete with it on the, in, in a digital asset space. There's just, there's nothing. And so we just different opinion on that. I understand that you're coming from a, a pov, a point of view of, of the retail investor that sees all these other things that they can invest in. But I don't look at Bitcoin as just as an investment. And that's why long term I'm so confident in it. And the word is not even bullish. I'm just confident in it. And I have, you know, more conviction in this asset than any asset I've ever owned in my entire investing career. And that's been over 30 years.
- [63:22]
Dave
Okay, well I think we are at a, a good point. Unless Mike, you want a quick rejoinder or are you okay with where we're at?
- [63:30]
Mike
No, I'll let it leave with extreme optimism for Bitcoin. It keeps and it instills my bearishness long term.
- [63:36]
James
Long term.
- [63:37]
Mike
No, sure. Okay. Long term. Yeah. But we've already had a lot of long term.
- [63:41]
Dave
Okay, well it's all, it always, you know there are many places we could go but it is 10:05 so we will see you all next week for macro Monday at nine o'clock on Monday morning. Peace out everybody. That's dope.