BTC219 - The Big Print w/ Lawrence Lepard

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary: BTC219 - The Big Print with Lawrence Lepard

Podcast Information:

• Title: We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network
• Host/Author: The Investor's Podcast Network
• Episode: BTC219 - The Big Print w/ Lawrence Lepard
• Release Date: January 29, 2025
• Hosts: Stig Brodersen, Preston Pysh, William Green, Clay Finck, Kyle Grieve

Guests:

• Lawrence Lepard: Author of a new book on macroeconomics and Bitcoin as a solution to global financial issues.

---

Introduction

[00:00 - 00:43]
Preston Pysh welcomes listeners to the episode of Bitcoin Fundamentals, introducing Lawrence Lepard as a seasoned sound money advocate. Pysh highlights Lepard's new book, which delves into macroeconomics and proposes Bitcoin as a solution to many of the world's financial problems.

Quote:

"This book is exemplary. It is so good, truly." — Preston Pysh [00:02]

---

Book Overview and Purpose

[01:02 - 03:37]
Lepard and Pysh discuss the organization and intent behind Lepard's new book. Lepard emphasizes that his book is designed for the average American, aiming to educate those unfamiliar with complex economic theories by presenting the problem of fiat currency and inflation in an accessible manner. He acknowledges the contributions of other financial thinkers and stresses that his talent lies in simplifying intricate concepts for broader understanding.

Key Points:

• Target Audience: Individuals without prior knowledge of economics or Bitcoin.
• Objective: To clearly outline the problems with fiat currency and present Bitcoin as a viable solution.
• Methodology: Using real-world examples, charts, and simplified explanations to engage readers.

Quote:

"The average American can pick up and read and say, oh yeah, I get it, I get what's wrong." — Lawrence Lepard [02:03]

---

Personal Insights and Challenges

[03:37 - 07:40]
Lepard shares personal experiences while writing the book, including the impact on his family life. He notes that his wife, who is not versed in monetary issues, served as a test case for making the content understandable. Lepard recounts an incident involving a Harvard Business School event, where his candidness led to awkward interactions with high-level individuals, illustrating his commitment to speaking truth to power.

Key Points:

• Family Involvement: His wife’s feedback was instrumental in shaping the book’s content.
• Event Anecdote: An awkward reaction at an HBS event underscores the controversial nature of his perspectives.

Quote:

"If you can take the time to read this, I think it'll help explain my point of view and why I think bitcoin..." — Preston Pysh [04:43]

Notable Interaction:

"Larry was speaking truth to power." — Preston Pysh [07:29]

---

Understanding Inflation and Its Implications

[07:45 - 15:21]
The conversation shifts to the core issue of inflation. Lepard criticizes the Federal Reserve's handling of inflation, arguing that official figures mask the true extent of price increases. He attributes the erosion of the middle class to persistent undervaluation of inflation metrics and the government's policies, which favor the elite.

Key Points:

• Inflation Misreporting: Use of tools like hedonic adjustments to understate real inflation.
• Impact on Middle Class: Rising costs in essential services disproportionately affect average Americans.
• Historical Context: Comparison to the 1970s and 1980s to illustrate long-term trends in monetary policy and wealth disparity.

Quote:

"The leading cause of ruin in our nation is this idea of inflation." — Preston Pysh [10:02]

Lawrence’s Insights:

"This technology stuff is really going to give us a solution, which is fantastic." — Lawrence Lepard [05:59]

---

Gresham’s Law and Bitcoin’s Role

[21:59 - 24:16]
Lepard explains Gresham’s Law, which posits that "bad money drives out good." In the context of fiat currencies, this means people spend debased money while hoarding valuable assets like gold or Bitcoin. Lepard asserts that Bitcoin is emerging as the solution to the inefficiencies and inequities of the current monetary system.

Key Points:

• Gresham’s Law: Fiat currency, being debased, is used preferentially, leading to the hoarding of non-debased assets.
• Bitcoin’s Advantage: Fixed supply and resistance to dilution make Bitcoin superior to traditional currencies.
• Sovereign Debt Crisis: Lepard presents evidence of a looming crisis exacerbated by excessive debt and money printing.

Quote:

"The law is the bad money drives out good, which is you spend the bad money and you save the good money." — Lawrence Lepard [22:07]

---

Challenges in Adopting Bitcoin

[24:16 - 33:35]
Lepard addresses skepticism surrounding Bitcoin, particularly the perception of it as an "imaginary coin." He outlines strategies to educate and persuade the public, emphasizing the importance of long-term investment and dollar-cost averaging despite Bitcoin’s volatility. Lepard underscores the moral imperative of adopting sound money policies to create a fairer economic system.

Key Points:

• Public Skepticism: Overcoming the belief that Bitcoin lacks tangible value.
• Investment Strategy: Advocating for dollar-cost averaging and patience to navigate price volatility.
• Moral Imperative: Sound money is framed as a moral issue to promote fairness and reduce wealth inequality.

Quote:

"The only wrong allocation is zero." — Lawrence Lepard [28:29]

Lawrence’s Strategies:

"Don't think about buy it today. Buy what you can at 100,000 and honestly hope it goes down." — Lawrence Lepard [32:37]

---

The Future of Money and Central Banks

[33:35 - 44:17]
Lepard and Pysh delve into the future of money, predicting the decline of central banks and the shift towards decentralized financial systems enabled by Bitcoin. Lepard advocates for the elimination of financial derivatives and greater transparency in Bitcoin reserves to prevent manipulation by powerful entities.

Key Points:

• Central Bank Decline: Anticipated reduction in central banks’ influence as Bitcoin gains prominence.
• Regulation and Transparency: Calls for banning financial derivatives and implementing proof of reserves for Bitcoin entities.
• Geopolitical Implications: Middle Eastern countries' interest in Bitcoin as part of their strategic reserves highlights the global shift.

Quote:

"If you can just compound an asset at 10% a year, if you're a young person, you can compound an asset at 10% a year for decades, there's just no way you don't end up silly rich." — Lawrence Lepard [30:41]

Systemic Critique:

"The misbehavior of the billionaires is just... absolutely outrageous." — Lawrence Lepard [35:44]

---

Message of Hope and Conclusion

[50:39 - 58:13]
In the closing segment, Lepard conveys a message of optimism. He believes that despite imminent financial turmoil, Bitcoin will ultimately restore fairness and reduce the propensity for war by eliminating the ability to debase money. Lepard envisions a future where decentralized systems create a more just and peaceful world.

Key Points:

• Hope for the Future: Bitcoin is seen as a catalyst for positive change, leading to decentralized governance and economic fairness.
• Moral Victory: Emphasizes the moral necessity of adopting sound money to prevent misuse by powerful elites.
• Global Impact: Anticipates a reduction in conflicts and greater economic stability through Bitcoin adoption.

Quote:

"The good news is there's a solution emerging. It's going to get fixed." — Lawrence Lepard [51:07]

Final Thoughts:

"Bitcoin is making things fair again, which is what America is all about." — Lawrence Lepard [50:53]

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Preston Pysh [00:02]: "This book is exemplary. It is so good, truly."
• Lawrence Lepard [02:03]: "The average American can pick up and read and say, oh yeah, I get it, I get what's wrong."
• Preston Pysh [10:02]: "The leading cause of ruin in our nation is this idea of inflation."
• Lawrence Lepard [22:07]: "The law is the bad money drives out good, which is you spend the bad money and you save the good money."
• Lawrence Lepard [28:29]: "The only wrong allocation is zero."
• Lawrence Lepard [32:37]: "Don't think about buy it today. Buy what you can at 100,000 and honestly hope it goes down."
• Lawrence Lepard [35:44]: "The misbehavior of the billionaires is just... absolutely outrageous."
• Lawrence Lepard [50:53]: "Bitcoin is making things fair again, which is what America is all about."
• Lawrence Lepard [51:07]: "The good news is there's a solution emerging. It's going to get fixed."

---

Conclusion

In BTC219 - The Big Print, Lawrence Lepard provides a comprehensive examination of the flaws in the current fiat monetary system and posits Bitcoin as the ultimate solution to these systemic issues. Through personal anecdotes, historical context, and economic analysis, Lepard makes a compelling case for the adoption of sound money principles. The conversation underscores the moral imperative of financial fairness and the transformative potential of decentralized currencies like Bitcoin.

Listeners are encouraged to read Lepard’s forthcoming book to gain deeper insights and practical strategies for navigating the impending financial upheaval. The episode serves as both a warning and a beacon of hope, advocating for a future where economic systems are equitable and resistant to manipulation by elite interests.

For Further Information:

• Book Release Date: February 14, 2025 (available for Kindle pre-order)
• Where to Find the Book: Amazon, Kindle Store

Support the Podcast:

• Become a Premium Member: Investor’s Podcast Network Support
• Subscribe to the Free Daily Newsletter: theinvestorspodcast.com

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This summary captures the essence of the conversation between Preston Pysh and Lawrence Lepard, highlighting the critical discussion points, personal insights, and overarching themes presented in the episode.

Transcript

[Tip]

You are listening to Tip.

[Preston Pysh]

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this Wednesday's release of the Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast. On today's show, I have the one and only Lawrence Lepard, who's a deeply experienced, sound money advocate. That is some exciting news about a new book he's released about macroeconomics and the solution to many of the world's problems, which, of course, is bitcoin. This was really fun to talk to Larry because he's been working on this book nonstop for the past year. And I'll tell you guys, this book is exemplary. It is so good, truly. So I hope you enjoyed this candid conversation between the two of us on what it took and what he learned by going through this journey of writing his new book. So with that, here's my chat with Larry.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Celebrating 10 years. You are listening to Bitcoin Fundamentals by the Investors Podcast Network now for your host, Preston Pysh.

[Preston Pysh]

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm here with the one and only Larry Lepard. I told Larry, as soon as this connected, I said, larry, we're not going to have any admin. We're jumping straight into this because this book is so good.

[Lawrence Lepard]

A chance to look through it.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, Larry, I'm blown away. This is so good, like the organization of it and like, I can tell you have put your heart and soul into this thing.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Thank you.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, it is really, really good. Larry.

[Lawrence Lepard]

You're being very kind. I mean, I did the best I could and I left it all in the field. Right. What else can you do?

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah. And you know what? The layout. We have a problem. Here is the problem definition. I guess as an engineer, this is why I like it so much. You start off, you can't even begin to discuss the solution until the reader deeply understands the problem. And I mean, you go by the numbers, you lay out every single chart. I love all the charts that you were using in this and it really helps illustrate it. But honestly, good Lord, man. This is.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Before you go on too much, let me just say, because I really want to say this as a disclaimer because this is a group sourced book. There's so many people contributed to this. And I'm reliant upon so much intellectual work that's been done before me. And I mean, I got to highlight Safe and his book, Lynn and her book, you and your work, Saylor and his work. The list goes on and on. I can't list them all here, but what I've done, what I think my talent is, Preston I mean, everyone who has the highest and best use in life, I think mine is kind of figuring stuff out and trying to explain it in a way that every man can understand. And that's really what I tried. I mean, the goal of this book, I wrote it because I was sitting around one day last spring watching some blue team argue with some red team, and they were fighting about all this nonsense, just complete and total nonsense. And I was like, you guys are missing the one underlying fundamental issue. And somebody got to say something about that. And, well, you know, Safe did a good job of talking about it and Lynn did a good job of talking about it, but kind of textbooky. And the average American looking to get on an airplane flight in an airport isn't going to pick up their book and read it. Yeah. And what I'm hoping, what I tried to accomplish with this book is a book that the average American can pick up and read and say, oh yeah, I get it, I get what's wrong. And furthermore, there's a hopeful solution. I get how we can solve this whole thing. So, yeah, if I did that, then I'll view it as a success. I mean, I think bitcoiners are going to love the book. Right. It's not really the audience. The audience is somebody who doesn't think about this stuff and doesn't know about this stuff. So that's just background.

[Preston Pysh]

Did your wife think that you were crazy taking on this? Because this is absolutely.

[Lawrence Lepard]

But she made enormous contributions because I used her as the test case. Right. I mean, she's not into monetary stuff at all. She was a writer and an ad exec. And so, you know, I'd run it by her, say, do you understand this? And she's like, no, there's a footnote in there that says, what is the Federal Reserve? Right. I mean, you've got to remember there are people in this country who don't know what the Federal Reserve is. She recommended, there's a chapter in there called Skepticism. She said, you know, look, you know that all these other technologies have been introduced and everyone was skeptical in the beginning. Why don't you talk about that? Right? And so that whole chapter grew out of her comments. So. But yeah, I mean, look, she's been long suffering with me in the sound money trade because it's been up and down as I talk about in the book. And furthermore, I started this in May, June, and it's done. We're just trying to get it laid out, which is driving me nuts. So in six months I did nothing but this book, and that caused a little bit of friction. You know, she likes to spend time with me. We like to do things together. And some of those got kind of canceled. But anyway, here it is, it's done. And I'll go back to my regular life after this thing's over.

[Preston Pysh]

So let me just say for people listening, this is the. If you want to get a book that you can hand to somebody and say, this is the stuff I'm always. Because as bitcoiners, we're always having these conversations with families and friends. Right. I look at your book as. I'm literally going to buy 20 of these and just kind of keep them in the house. And the next time I'm having a discussion with a family member or whoever, and they're just like, yeah, I don't know. And they come up with some weird argument that, like, they think is dispelling. I'm just going to grab this book. I'm just going to hand it to them. Just kind of like, if you can take the time to read this, I think it'll help explain my point of view and why I think bitcoin, that's kind of.

[Lawrence Lepard]

You say, because if that's what it does, it will been a success. I mean, I really want to orange pill the world, and I really want to try and protect the average citizen, because as you and I both know, we've talked about for so long, they're just getting screwed left and right. And I see it all the time. And many people who are doing quite well don't really see it or focus on it, but I do. And, you know, my sister lives in a community that's more rural, and she sees it and she tells me about it, and it's just. It's tragic what's going on. We got to fix it. The good news is, as the book talks about, it's getting fixed.

[Preston Pysh]

It's getting fixed.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah. This technology stuff is really going to give us a solution, which is fantastic. So there's a lot of good news, but there's some bad news in there, too, as you and I both know. This thing's really broken.

[Preston Pysh]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very, very broken. I want to start off here because this story, and I hate to ruin this story because I love.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah. Oh, you're talking about the HBS event.

[Preston Pysh]

Yes, yes. Is that okay out there?

[Lawrence Lepard]

We can, I guess, people buy it anyway. If you want to do it, you can. But I've tried to hold that back because I want. Right. Well, let's put it. I Don't care. No, no, no.

[Preston Pysh]

Here's what we'll do for the audience because you're right, I don't want to spoil this story because for me personally, Larry, when I was reading this, and because we're friends and I know you, I'm reading this and I can see exactly where this is going with. I was like, oh, please tell me he's not going to stand up and say something.

[Lawrence Lepard]

You knew I would, right?

[Preston Pysh]

And I knew you would. And you start telling the story in the book and I'm. I got this giant smirk on my face because I'm just like, of course Larry is going to take the opportunity to people these highfalutin individuals.

[Lawrence Lepard]

And I. And I gotta tell you, I was the turd in the punch bowl, man. It went over like a lead balloon. I mean, I thought that too. This is probably not going to invite me to any more events, I can tell you that.

[Preston Pysh]

I'm telling you, when I was done reading, I was like, I can only imagine how awkward all that was at the end.

[Lawrence Lepard]

It was extremely awkward. Yeah, extremely. I mean, I got some real dirty looks from pretty high level people too.

[Preston Pysh]

Oh, is that funny? Let's just say for the folks. Listen, I'm sorry we're talking around this. I do want to kind of keep it for the readers of the.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah, hold it. Awesome. It's a good story, right?

[Preston Pysh]

Let's just say Larry was speaking truth to power.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I had it. Yeah. Truth to power. I had it buried in the book and I had a couple of people read it and they were like, oh, no, no, no, no. This. You got to lead off the book.

[Preston Pysh]

Yes, yes. Yeah. It captures your attention right out of the gate. You're like, oh, dear God.

[Lawrence Lepard]

And that. See? And by the way, that's a part of what I tried to do here. I mean, people watch movies and people read stories and people care about people. People don't read economic textbooks. That explain why Keynesianism's wrong. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So. So I tried to bring all the Larry Isms into it because it makes it more interesting, right? I mean, how about the carrier landing story with George? Right? I'm sure as a former aviator and pilot serving in a war zone flying helicopters, you could relate to that. Right? I mean, it's just, you know, I've never served in the military, but I've flown planes. The moments of sheer terror. We all know about it, right? I just, I figure those kinds of things are what will hopefully keep people reading, right? Yeah, yeah, that's the idea.

[Preston Pysh]

I have to laugh it. So we're talking about George. He's a artist in the space and he recently tweeted out. I saw. Yeah, I have. I have more takeoffs than landings. And for anybody in aviation, they know what that means.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Well, yeah, so I didn't put it in there. Sometimes you got to get him to tell the story of how he ejected out of a jet during Top Gun and the jet was lost. And it was quite an inquiry. The flaps have gone bad on him. And so he had the right to do it, but he said it was no fun going through all the process defending himself. Right. And. Yeah. And he says the ejection was probably under 100ft above the ground.

[Preston Pysh]

Wow. I didn't know that part of it.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Wow. So he does have more takeoffs and landings. Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

Not to mention for anybody that's actually ejected out of a jet, probably one of the. Not that I have, but I've heard is one of the most painful things. The amount of GS you pull getting shot out thing is just absurdly painful. But anyway, let's go ahead and dive into this. Sorry for all the side chatter for people listening in the beginning. So you lay it out. Here's the problem, here's the solution is pretty much the two compartments of the book at that beginning. The thing that I find so frustrating when I talk to people about this topic and about the problem is they say, well, Larry, inflation is just. Since COVID like, inflation was not even 2%. And they just kind of waved their hand and the whole CPI and all these things that we've been taught as far as what is inflation is heavily masked. You talk about this idea, you talk about that. It's the leading cause. Here's the quote. The leading cause of ruin in our nation is this idea of inflation. What is being missed? How are they able to dupe everybody into thinking that this isn't real?

[Lawrence Lepard]

First of all, there's just normalcy bias. I mean, it's kind of. Everyone's gotten used to inflation and, you know, and by the way, real estate investors, I mean, they think they're geniuses, but really it's inflation that's making them look good. Right? Yeah. There's a section in the book talks about John Williams and shadow government stats, which I'm sure you saw. And they figured. And there are four or five tools they've used to basically mask the real inflation, the hedonic adjustments, et cetera. And frankly, I think they just outright lie. I don't think there's anybody who thinks that inflation is what the reported inflation numbers are. I mean, my auto insurance up 30%, homeowner's insurance was up 100% last year. Try to go to a veterinarian or pay a medical bill. It's insane what's going on. And this is why everyone's hurting so bad. This is why the middle class is just getting eviscerated and lower classes as well. And. But the thing that frustrates me the most about it is this whole notion that this is normal and we need these animal spirits to keep the economy running, you know, and that 2% is somehow price stability. I mean, that one just stuns me. And originally the mandate was price stability. And of course, in 78 they amended the law to, well, to say price stability and full employment. And then price stability came to be fined as 2%, which was frankly just theft. So I don't know, Preston, I think what's going on, and this is the other reason I wrote the book, is I was the kid in the 70s and the early 80s. It was a great time. Country had problems. We were in the Vietnam War. That was a mess, but it was a really great time. There was a middle class, there was a different America. There was a kinder, gentler America, in my opinion, than there is today. It wasn't all just a big money grab. The middle class was robust. I went to school with kids whose dads worked on the assembly line, Ford, and they did about the same as my dad did, and he was just a retailer. And all that's changed. And I think it changed. The biggest change came in 71, obviously when it abandoned gold. And you can see that in the chart right beginning of the book. But then it just kind of progressively got worse. And we're now at the stage where it's just so terribly broken. You can't miss it. Everybody knows it, everybody sees it. And yet we got these political people saying it's the greedy corporations, and that's not really what it is. I mean, it's not the greedy corporations, it's the Federal Reserve, the government, the elites and the policies they pursued, full stop. So you want to solve it, you return to sound money. And gold tried to do that, but gold was broken and flawed and couldn't do it because the government's figured out work arounds and change the laws. But fortunately, as Von Mises said, bitcoin is that sly, roundabout way, and they're all going to have to come to terms with it. And it's really fun Kind of watching them all come to terms with it slowly but surely. I tweeted out recently, I think Ray Dalio said something along the lines of, we've got a sovereign debt crisis. It doesn't appear that it can be derailed, which is Lyn's no train stopping. And then he further said, and gold and bitcoin are the solution. I think it was the first time I've heard him say something positive about bitcoin. Yeah, yeah, right. I mean, this is very recently.

[Preston Pysh]

This is just in the past couple weeks.

[Lawrence Lepard]

December. Yeah, yeah, I tweeted it out. Yeah, it's going in our favor, and that's a good thing. And my view is it can't come fast enough because a lot of people are hurting on the existing system.

[Preston Pysh]

You know, for people that hear you talk about back in the 70s and 80s and how it wasn't perfect, but now it's just way worse. Is this a function of. Because I think any bitcoiner would look at this and say the real debasement rate in the US is around 7 to 8% based on the M2 money supply growth. When we look at that, we do a compound annual growth rate. That's kind of the number that a lot of people are using in bitcoin these days. And I agree with that. And so are we at the tail end of just decades of this debasement just eroding and gutting the middle class? And that's why it feels so much worse now versus then? Because I guess the argument would be nothing has changed. It's just we've endured this erosion, and now at the end of it, it just feels so much worse than it felt back then. But were we dealing with the same exact problems even back then?

[Lawrence Lepard]

I think you're right. We were dealing with the problems back then. I mean, there was a lot of inflation, the 70s, for sure, very inflationary decade. Volcker kind of tamed it and put it back in the can. And we had kind of a. They were able to hide it for a number of years. And keep in mind, as Jeff has pointed out so brilliantly, the deflation in technology and all the other stuff is fighting against the inflation. So the world. It's funny, the world's gotten better because of all the deflation of the technology, but the monetary side has gotten worse because they just took these little steps, right? They modernized the futures, the commodity futures markets. And Enron happened. And Phil Graham was corrupt and he was part of pushing for that, and his wife was on the Enron board. Making millions of dollars. They got rid of Glass, Steagall, and then they, in 08 they went to ZIRP. I mean, we had never had ZIRP in the United States. Briefly, they had it during the Depression, but very briefly. And then QE came in and with each step it got worse. And the other thing that I think describes what you're talking about is, is the way that numbers compound and that any mathematician or engineer, if you start compounding numbers and put it on a chart, eventually the line almost goes vertical. Y. Right. And that's kind of what's happening. I think the problem is getting progressively worse, which is why we're now in what I call a sovereign debt crisis. And really the math, as we all say in bitcoin land, it's just the math. I mean, it's irrefutable. This isn't an opinion, it's a mathematical fact that if you grow the debt faster than you grow the underlying ability to support it, which is the gdp, eventually the divergence creates a crisis. I mean, that's history for thousands of years and unlikely to be overturned, in my view.

[Preston Pysh]

I like this point about the deflation of technology being a compounding force. And then you have the compounding inflation of the Fiat that is happening and like the diversion of that is maybe why it's seeming so obvious today versus think about it, if we've had.

[Lawrence Lepard]

That's right, yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

If we've had deflation or if we've had technological deflation that is exponentially going. Right. And then over here we have the inflation of the Fiat that's going at a whatever pace, call it 8%. The version of these two has gotten so profound. I mean, look at AI, Larry. Like, right? I know, it's totally nuts. Like if we showed somebody in the 70s we were capable of doing it completely.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I mean, I. My partner has a new Tesla and I took a ride in it the other day. Four or five years ago I took a ride in Tesla and I watched the self driving feature and I was like, ah, this is years away, never going to happen. I got my partner's car in Wellesley, Mass. And he said, drive us to Harvard Business School. And without touching the wheel, we got there. I was blown away. Yeah, right. That's insane. I was blown away. Absolutely blown away. I mean, and you see these robots and what they're doing. I mean this stuff is just coming at us so fast. And yes, I think you're right. It makes the problem more obvious, observable and acute.

[Preston Pysh]

Yes, yeah, yeah. And for Folks that are wanting to do a deep dive on this idea of technological deflation. Jeff Booth is really kind of. He has a book called the Price of Tomorrow. It's phenomenal. I know that was a huge instrumental puzzle piece that clicked in the place.

[Lawrence Lepard]

It's a big part of the book. I mean, I've got a whole chapter on that topic and he opened my eyes on that. Yeah, yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

Anything else that you discovered by writing the book on that particular topic?

[Lawrence Lepard]

A lot of things. I mean, yeah. I hadn't been into the deep history of the United States. I mean, I didn't realize that we financed the War of 1812 with debt and we suspended species payment and that it began right then and there. You know, this, this sound money argument has been going on for a long, long time. I mean, Jefferson understood it. Right. You know, Andrew Jackson understood it. Yeah. Garfield understood it.

[Preston Pysh]

They were young when they understood it. Right. That was.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I know, right. Lincoln. Lincoln understood it, but he took the wrong side of it, you know, and point. Printed greenbacks. I mean. Yeah, yeah. So I. Doing the history deep dive was very interesting and I learned a lot in doing that. And this problem is as old as time, which is why bitcoin is so unbelievably unique, as you would say. Here you have a form of money that can't def. You know, there are a fixed number of monetary units. Right. I mean, getting your head around that is so hard. And understanding that because of that, everything will look different. Just absolutely everything will look different. And that's why Saylor can credibly make a claim that this will be 13 million a coin. Because there's a fixed supply and productivity is growing and technology is improving. And eventually we're going to get to the point where the dollar really isn't going to be the newer error. So my kids.

[Preston Pysh]

What is that point? Larry? What is that point?

[Lawrence Lepard]

When is that point?

[Preston Pysh]

I don't know in dollar terms. So is that $5 million a co think?

[Lawrence Lepard]

Who knows? I mean, that's, that's the and then suddenly part. And I, I don't think we. I just don't think we know. I, I really don't. Look, I love Samson and I hope we go to 1 million this year, but honestly, I just don't know, Preston. I use the power law as my base worst case model because I think we'll easily do that because we've done that historically. There's 97% correlation, but I think we'll break that to the upside very clearly. As you know, the gresham's Law piece of it kicks in. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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[Lawrence Lepard]

All right, back to the show.

[Preston Pysh]

Let's so you talk about Gresham's Law a bit in the book. Describe this for people who might not be familiar with it and how you see that kind of taking place.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah, yeah, sure. I think most of your listeners are going to know it, but I'll just do it quickly. The general idea is that if there are a couple of forms of money that exist in a society and one of them is being debased, that is printed. And people know that it's being debased and it won't hold its value. They save the money that they know is not being debased or good money, and they spend the money that they know will be debased because they know that it won't spend as well in the future. And so the phrase the law is the bad money drives out good, which is you spend the bad money and you save the good money. And of course before bitcoin this was all thought of in terms of gold and silver. And so if there were fiat currencies pre bitcoin, people would spend the fiat because they knew it wouldn't buy as much in the future and they would hoard their gold and silver. So that's the general thesis of Gresham's Law. And frankly we see that going on right now. I mean I sent to you previous show some charts that showed that I believe the sovereign debt crisis has started. And the reason I say that is that in bitcoin and gold terms, the US treasury bond, which used to be the base layer of risk free collateral, has depreciated markedly since 2020. It's down 200% compared to gold. It's down 2000% compared to Bitcoin. So in my book the sovereign debt crisis has already started and those charts are what show it. But we're still probably in the gradually phase and when and how the suddenly phase unfolds, I don't know. But as you And I have talked about in many, many conferences. We know it's coming. I mean, the other part I really like about the book, and I think it was one of my. I think it was my book agent who pulled it out because I used the term is I just think the big print is so descriptive of what's about to happen.

[Preston Pysh]

Right.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I think. I think you and I have had this conversation before. We just. I might have actually gotten that idea from you. I don't know. We both talked about how they're going to print until their eyes bleed or else the system collapses.

[Preston Pysh]

Well, another point that I would. That I would put in there as well, Larry, is not only are they going to have to print, but a lot of the printing, in my humble opinion, I'm curious if you would agree, has already happened. It's just manifested itself like it's bid fixed income to levels that none of us thought could even happen. And so the unwinding of that is going to be the floodgates. But the printing already happened. Not all of it. Majority of this printing has already happened. And it's just sitting there in this fixed income that's just going to continue to unwind itself.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Completely and totally agree. I mean, it's already there. And it's there in the stock market, too. I mean, look at the bubble valuation of all these stocks. And it's there in the real estate market. And bitcoin is going to demonetize all of these things. Absolutely. All of them. It still blows my mind that Jesse meyer's chart shows $900 trillion of assets, of financial assets. If you include real estate, throw out real estate, it's half that. And Bitcoin's what, 2 trillion? 2. 10 of 1%. Good Lord. And this is the best form of money ever invented. It's hard because I think you've probably encountered this. I have too, and I've tried to deal with it in the book a little bit. It's so hard because I have a lot of friends who know I bought in much cheaper. And they're just, how can I pay a hundred thousand dollars for this thing? You know?

[Preston Pysh]

And so let's cover that question because I don't necessarily know how to answer this for a lot of people. And they're looking at. And they're saying, okay, it's a hundred thousand dollars for this imaginary coin. Right. In their mind. Right.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I'm just trying to put it imaginary, you know that. Yeah, but in their mind.

[Preston Pysh]

But in their mind they're saying imaginary coin that we don't know who even invented this. And it's some software that I got to trust. The software works. And I've got to pay $100,000 for one of these imaginary coins. And you bought it at 200? Well, of course you love it or whatever. Right. What is the appropriate response to this type of person? Because if I have to try to be objective with myself and put myself in their shoes, it's kind of a crazy question.

[Lawrence Lepard]

It is hard. It's really hard. It's really hard for them to get their arms around. And you know, I use various different models. One model think is a good one is the burning theater model. The fiat currency is on fire in a theater. And yeah, I mean, I've already got out the exit door because I bought some cheap. Yeah, and maybe it costs a little more for you to get out the exit door, but does, does that mean you don't want to get out the exit door? You know what I mean? If what you hold is going to burn and this is going to go up forever, then you really want to get out the exit door, no matter when it occurs. And so you have to kind of, you know, I sometimes I use the Weimar example. It's like, yes, somebody who paid more for gold a couple years in than the first person that bought gold. But at the end of the day, if the alternative, which was German marks became worthless, you were glad you had the gold. And so I try to use that. The problem with that is that's a scary prospect for people that the whole currency is going to fail. The other model I try to use is just, I just say look at the performance. And sometimes I draw this comparison. I say, okay, great, yes, I get it. You know, I bought some at 10,000, that's at 100. So I've got a 10 bagger. But let me just ask you this. You look at what it's doing, you look at how it got here, you look at how it's been compounding, you look at what it is, and then you ask yourself if in six years it's at a million, are you going to experience regret that you didn't buy it at a hundred thousand? And my guess is the answer is yes. Because anything that does 10x in 6 years, and I think it will do that. You don't want to miss it. So I'm not necessarily suggesting you have to take all your money and plow into it. But I also in the book tried to talk about just asymmetry and how as an investor in my career, I was a venture investor before I got into this area. How just asymmetry is how all great fortunes are made. You buy things that have unlimited upside. Look, any investment, you can lose your money. Trust me, I figured that out and I've done it. And lost money. I mean big money in a couple of cases. But the beauty of this business, as my old boss told me, is when it works, you don't just make 2x, you make 5x or 10x or 15 or 20x. And I love Saylor's comment. It's going up forever, Laura. I mean it's, you've got a form of money. I mean this is a thousand, this is a multi, this is a millennium year old problem. I mean thousands and thousands of years we have never had a form of money that could not be diluted, full stop. And here you have a form of money that cannot be diluted. What do you think is going to happen? It's going to, you know, there's not enough of it to go around and it's going to go to numbers that are going to blow people away. And 20 years from now it's going to be very obvious who owned bitcoin and who didn't. So what I try to emphasize to my clients is just the only wrong allocation is zero. I get it if you're afraid of it. I get it if you don't understand it. But look at people in my category. A lot of these people are fairly well to do and like they buy a car that costs over a hundred thousand bucks, I'm like, you know, look, you can afford to buy one of these things, you really can and you should. And they're like, nah, I don't know, it's a bubble, you paid less, blah blah, blah. You know how it is, right?

[Preston Pysh]

I think the nominal value at this point is actually causing this challenge for people because they're looking at it and saying 100,000 now is a really large amount of money. I mean it's a third of a house or a fourth of a house. For many people, if they have a house, that's three or four hundred thousand dollars. I also think that the nominal value, this hundred thousand number is also so in your face that for most people they're saying, clearly I'm missing something because there's no way people would be out there spending a hundred thousand dollars on an imaginary coin if there wasn't something there. So this dichotomy is really quite strange where we're at right now. And I'm curious if, if, when we get to 500,000 and let's say we get to a million a coin. Is it that much more obvious? Because it's like, okay, clearly I'm missing something because there's no way people would be paying a million dollars for an imaginary coin. It gets so obvious at that point. Do you think that that's coming?

[Lawrence Lepard]

I think that's coming and I think that's right. I mean, it's. Yeah. That is a dichotomy, though. And some people dig in and just think, no, you're crazier than ever and it's going to fall back down and other people don't. Look. I know. I remember when I was watching it, I watched it at a dollar and two dollars and I didn't buy it because I thought it was like digicash or E Gold or E Cash. I'd watched a bunch of these things. They all failed. This isn't going to work. I'm not buying it. Right.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Lawrence Lepard]

You know, I went to 100. I was like, oh, hang on a second, it's kind of working. I still didn't buy it. Then it eventually went to a thousand, and I said, all right, there's got to be something here. And it corrected back to 300 and I bought it. And so I think that as we continue to make higher highs and higher lows, more and more people come to see what it is and come to understand it. It's like any form of technology adoption. And as you know, in the book, there's some good technology adoption charts. People in the beginning who don't believe, they just don't believe. But then eventually it just becomes obvious and accepted wisdom that this is better money than any other form of money out there and one of the best investments that anyone can make. The difficulty, as you know, and we're all. It's incumbent upon all of us to help people through this is for people to understand the volatility. Because the one way people do get hurt, and I tried in the book to make this extremely clear, is that they don't know what they're buying. They buy in on the excitement and the price run up.

[Preston Pysh]

Classic.

[Lawrence Lepard]

It corrects and then they freak out and they sell. I've seen people do that, and it just breaks my heart. And that's why dollar cost averaging and there's a lot of. There are a lot of books and articles you can read about. Dollar cost average is so important and having a long time frame and a long time preference. I mean, as you and I both know, anyone who's been in it for four years is ahead. But there were some times, I mean, I was buying at 17,000 at Thanksgiving of 2017, convinced it was going to change the world, and a year later it was at 10, and two years later it was at four and a half. I was looking at myself, thinking, Jesus, maybe that wasn't so smart to do that. Then I revisited it all, did all my work. But that was what I learned about difficulty, adjustment, and some of the technology behind. Boy, this thing's ingenious. And so I doubled down. And so, look, everybody has their own path to doing it, but I think it will become more and more obvious. And I think there really isn't a wrong price to pay for it if it's time. I mean, there's another thing. I didn't talk. Put this in the book, but I. I read an article recently, talked really, it was a great thing. And I know you'd appreciate this because you respect them a lot. It's not just timing the market. It's time in the market. It showed how much money Buffett made. Yes. From the time when he was 65 to 85, being in something that's growing consistently for long periods of time. Sit down with a financial calculator and do the compounding right on an asset. If you can just compound an asset at 10% a year, if you're a young person, you can compound an asset at 10% a year for decades, there's just no way you don't end up silly rich. And I think this thing's going much more than 10% a year. And I think it's going to run for more than decades. I think it's going to become the base layer of money. So I try to, when I'm talking to people about that, just say, hey, look, don't think about buy it today. Buy what you can at 100,000 and honestly hope it goes down. Hope it corrects 50% and you've got some dry powder to buy to double down on. And if it goes to 200, don't sell it. Be happy you've got it. And if you get some more free cash, buy it at 200.

[Preston Pysh]

I mean, he's saying 200,000, folks.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah, you know that's what I meant. So, you know, it's. It's a hard financial beast to understand. And in the book, I tried to really point that out, that there's just never really been anything like this before. And so, you know, it'd be like trying to describe to people who were Getting on their first airline flight in the 1930s, 30s, some propeller plane to take them from one city to another, that in a bunch of years they were going to be able to fly to London on a Concorde in three hours. Just they couldn't conceive of it. You know what I mean? And that's what's going to happen here. I mean, this is going to be the base layer of all money in the world, in my opinion, in the future. And SAT is going to be worth, I don't know, a $10. Who knows what it's going to be worth? But in terms of today's purchasing, we won't really measure things in purchasing power, but obviously all prices will be SAT based. And that, that's, in my opinion, that's where we're going. The slope of that curve. Gosh, we can debate that forever.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, yeah. In the book you argue that sound money is a moral issue.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

And I agree with this. I'm just hesitant to. I guess at the end of the day, I'm looking at the incentives and I'm saying the incentives for fiat, the incentives for what has happened historically. Because I think bitcoin's the very first technology ever to exist to truly give us sound money ever.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Right, I agree.

[Preston Pysh]

And I'm just saying I agree it's a moral issue, but there just hasn't been the discovery of a way to make it happen, to bring this forth.

[Lawrence Lepard]

No, that's, that's right. I mean, gold was a broken alternative. It was the best thing we had before bitcoin, you know, and, and I say it's moral just because I think that it's very obvious that in any financial system there has to be a level playing field. And there's not a level playing field in the fiat system. Because as we all know, the continuum Access money printer and you know, in a ZURP environment, they can borrow at 0% interest and they can buy yielding assets. You and I could do that. We'd be billionaires too. And I point that out in the book. The misbehavior of the billionaires is just. It's outrageous. It's absolutely outrageous. The wealth inequality that we're all experiencing. I mean, 92% of the wealth is controlled by the top 1%. That's not what the founding fathers had in mind. And capitalism doesn't have to devolve in that way. You know, what's happened is we've got crony capitalism, we've got broken capitalism, and, and that's what's so sad because a lot of people think that it's capitalism that's broken, but really have capitalism. We've got a fake capitalist system. But yes, I mean, I think you would agree, we would all agree. If you're playing football, you're playing any game. The rules of the game have to be fair and they have to apply to everyone in the same way. And that's the basis of all morality and that's the basis of all religions. And so, yes, having sound money in my view is very strongly a moral issue. And by the way, this is not some new thought. Right. The authors of the Bible were talking about honest weights and measures and how not using them was an abomination to God. And the way that people cheated financially in the was they had a dishonest weighing scale and so they could skim something off the top. Right? Yeah. This problem's been around for a long time because of human nature. And what I love about it is that mathematically we've got a solution to human nature. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors.

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[Lawrence Lepard]

All right, back to the show.

[Preston Pysh]

I know that I've seen some of these conversations online with. As far as bitcoin being impacted in a similar way that gold was compromised with the derivatives market. Cash settled derivatives market, the centralization and control of gold. How do you view bitcoin? And if you were going to audit it today based off of some kind of standard of. It's been completely compromised. It hasn't been compromised at all. Where do you think it stands?

[Lawrence Lepard]

That's a great question. I know there's some smart people who worry about paper bitcoin and honestly I worry a little bit about paper bitcoin too. I mean, Sam Bank Freed had paper bitcoin on his balance sheet, right? I mean, yes, there are bad actors. So there are a couple things I would watch. I mean, I. The book actually calls for a ban of derivatives because I think we should do that. I also think that we should have proof of stake so that if somebody is running a proof of reserves. You mean person reserves? Yeah, somebody's running an etf, they should be able to. They should show their addresses. So everyone should know it's really There. But yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly paper bitcoin is a risk. I mean, on the scale of things today compared to gold, which has been 100% compromised, Bitcoin's kind of like at the 5% level. And I say that because I look at kind of the derivatives around it, futures, options, et cetera, and they're pretty small compared to the trading volume and the total number of units outstanding. So I don't think we do have much paper bitcoin today. Furthermore, I think that people who would play with paper bitcoin today are taking great risk. Gold never went up 5x in six months. So they could manipulate gold in the paper markets knowing that when it came back down they could cover their shorts or they could print the money they needed, channel it through the Cayman Islands in order to keep bis solvent. You get short bitcoin and it goes up 5x. I mean, you're going to have to print a lot of money to cover that. You're going to get wrecked. In my opinion, it's going to be harder to manipulate bitcoin with paper. But I think it is a risk. Risk. I don't disagree with the possibility that humans are humans and they'll try and figure out ways to game it. But again, I think the way that we solve that is we push it for as much transparency as possible, as much proof of reserves as possible. And I would actually call for an outright ban on financial derivatives because I think financial derivatives are nothing but a machine or a game that allow the biggest player at the poker table to screw the other players because they can outback the other players. And that's really what the central banks do in the gold market, because they can print the money they need to just cover their shorts on the wrong side.

[Preston Pysh]

Just as an example to piggyback on what you're saying there, for people that don't necessarily understand this concept, if you've ever played poker and you've played with somebody who's extremely wealthy, that person, if they're playing with you, all they want to do is just have unlimited buy ins. So if they're losing, they want to be able to buy in with more chips and just keep playing the game. And if you're playing with a billionaire and maybe your net worth is $10,000, you're going to lose that game. If they're more persistent and want to stay on that table as long as they can.

[Lawrence Lepard]

So could, yeah, they can make a bet that you can't call. That's right.

[Preston Pysh]

That's Right.

[Lawrence Lepard]

And that's. And that's what. That's really what the derivative market is. And that's what. And that's what the central banks have done because they've got the printing press. Yeah. So they're the biggest player at the table. They can rig the game. Yeah. But the book calls for the elimination of central banks. So we eliminate central banks. It'll be a better world.

[Preston Pysh]

How do you see that process unraveling? I mean. Or are you just saying this, this should happen in an idealistic kind of setup, but in practicality or in application, how would that go down?

[Lawrence Lepard]

Well, I mean, look, Ron Paul's been fighting this battle and I think probably politically it's going to be really hard to eliminate the central banks, although their powers are slipping. I mean. And this book by Chris Leonard, I'm sure you've read it, the Lords of Easy Money. Good book. Central banks are losing their grip. People are becoming aware of it. And that book was well reviewed by some very substantial publications like the Journal and the ft, et cetera. So I think the central banks are in trouble. How's it all going to unfold? Well, I hope it's not going to unfold the way it did in the mandibles. I think that as a practical matter, what will happen is we will have a lot of inflation because we have to. The inflation problem will become very painful to so many people and so obvious that it's based upon broken money, as Lyn coined the term, that we get politicians who actually understand that we need to do a reset and return to a sound money standard.

[Preston Pysh]

It seems like that's playing out, by the way.

[Lawrence Lepard]

It is. Right. We're seeing some of that. I mean. Right. So. And then eventually, eventually, you know, with enough pain, sadly, I mean, as I'm sure you're aware, I think all the listeners are aware. Politics, really. They respond to crisis and they don't do things unless there's a lot of pain or a lot of noise around it. And there's a lot of pain right now. Probably not enough to just go out and shut down the central bank and return to sound money. Sadly, I think we're going to have to endure some more pain before that happens. But I see positive trends. I see a Loomis or I see RFK Jr I see others who Massey and I see others who are aware of the issue. And there'll be more, hopefully, if we get millions of Americans to read this book. And I'm going to go to Congress and give every one of Them a free copy and make a hell of a lot of noise about it. There's going to be a groundswell, you know, what we tried to do with Ron Paul but weren't successful in doing. There's going to be a groundswell of people and voters who say the money's broken. Fix it. It. You know, that's my number one issue. And if you're not going to fix it, I'm not going to vote for you. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of what I think and hope will happen. But it's all a part of this fourth turning, which probably got another seven, eight years to play this thing out and is my guess. I don't know what your timing is. Sometimes I think it's going to happen tomorrow, but then other times I get very frustrated. I mean, Trump comes in and they create Doge. And, and Musk says that they can take $2 trillion out of the budget, which is just an absolute joke. There's no way they can do that.

[Preston Pysh]

Right.

[Lawrence Lepard]

And the stock market rallies. Yeah. It makes no sense.

[Preston Pysh]

Right, let's pull on that thread. I had a conversation with Luke Roman about this a couple of weeks back.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I saw it. It was a great conversation. Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

And this was an idea that I asked Luke, and he seems to have the exact opinion that you have, Larry, which is how in the world are you going to spend less, extract that liquidity out of this system that is completely dependent on the expansion of more fiat units into the system. As an American, I want them to be more efficient. I don't want all these programs. But the system that currently exists is reliant on the expansion and the growth of these things. So how do we, how do we get there? Yeah, how do we get there?

[Lawrence Lepard]

I'm not anti Trump and I'm not anti Doge. I want to see them succeed. I think the problem that they've got is that 80%, and this is in my quarterly letter, which will be out later this week, early next week, and I lay this out in great detail. 80% of the government spent 6.75 trillion last year. Year. 80% of that are in buckets that are very hard to touch. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense, and interest. Yeah, interest you can kind of touch. If they, if they go back to zurp, we could take the interest down a bit, but.

[Preston Pysh]

But then you can. You already have an issue where nobody wants to buy it and you're so short on the duration of issuance, you.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Lose your bond market. Right. So the answer to your question is it really is brain surgery, and it's going to be very, very hard to do. And, and I know there were a lot of people who wanted Lutnick to be Treasury Secretary, and he would have been fine. He's a big bitcoiner. But honestly, I'm actually glad he chose percent, because I think Bessent has a better sense of the markets. And I think this is brain surgery. It's going to be a tricky, tricky issue to get from here to where we want to be. I mean, I think they are going to do a strategic reserve. I spent some time speaking to Matthew Pines at that party we were at, and he led me to believe that that's. That's a done deal.

[Preston Pysh]

How are they going to go about that, Larry? According to. According to Matt, that. How does he think that they're going to execute?

[Lawrence Lepard]

I think it's an eo. I mean, I think it's an executive order. Very early on, if you think about it. Nixon did it as an eo, right? He just said, we're going off the gold standard and FDR did it as an eo in theory. Constitution says that monetary issues should be brought up by Congress. Right. But, of course, we've ignored that for a long time. And so my sense is that they know and understand. I mean, Bessette gets it. Beset has said things along the lines of, we need another Bretton woods and I want to be at the table. Table. Wow. Said things like, I like gold. My largest holding is gold. That was pretty interesting. So he gets the Triffin's Dilemma and the problem that we're in now, how they're going to navigate it is very much uncertain. Another thing I would add, though, that Pines told me, and I thought it was quite interesting, he was in the MENA conference, as was I, and he said that the discussions among the Trump people there were along the lines of they were talking with some of the Middle Eastern countries, including Saudis, Oman, and the uae, all three of whom they say are buying, accumulating, or mining Bitcoin. And those countries were kind of asking, this is Manafort specifically, he said, asking, are you guys okay with us announcing that we're adding this to our strategic reserve? And the response from the Trump side, he said, was something along the lines of, yeah, we're fine with it, but just let us go first. I thought that was interesting. We'll have to see what happens here. But if you take this whole thing up to the nation state level, Preston, it gets pretty interesting.

[Preston Pysh]

And it seems like, we're kind of of at that crossroads now.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah. We're right there on the cusp of it. So a lot of my thinking is informed by Luke, and I got to give Luke just an enormous hat. Oh, I mean, brilliant. He's brilliant. And I watched this thing, and I love the best part of his last interview with you. I just love this part where he said he went into the galactically stupid thing, which. That's one of the best scenes ever in the movies. People should get on Google Galactically stupid, A Few Best Men and watch, you know, the Lieutenant Cali rant, or whatever his name is, the rant that he has. And I mean, the notion that we spent $8 trillion and you were a part of this, you saw it. That we spent $8 trillion in the middle east to secure Afghanistan, to give it back and to secure Iraq so that they could sell all their oil to China, and then that we have a recurring liability of $325 billion a year to take care of the injured veterans that were serving there. It was just. I mean, it's criminal.

[Preston Pysh]

It's insane.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Dick Cheney should be behind bars. So should George Bush. It's absolutely criminal what we did over there. And that drove a large part of the problem that we've got, because that was kind of the kickoff to the big deficits that we've now got, and it's only worse. So it's a sad state of affairs that's brought us here. And, you know, I'm part of the boomer class. A lot of people yell at the boomers, and I get it, but all I would say is we're not all that way. There are some exceptions. And all along the way, I was opposed to these policies and opposed to this stuff. Yeah. And it is what it is. I mean, there are some of us who could see what was going wrong, and we supported guys like Ron Paul, but we weren't listened to. You know, the neocons took the field and they won at the time. But, you know, we will ultimately have our revenge because mathematically, they've painted themselves into a corner.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Lawrence Lepard]

They're in that box canyon. They don't have enough lift to get out of it, and they can't turn around. Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

Another thing that I think Luke does a really good job at describing in some of his newsletters on this idea of them having to expand the monetary units is just the tax receipts alone. Like, they can't. They can't allow these markets to sell off in any kind of meaningful way because if they do like the tax receipts, the gap that you're going to have from the lack of revenue.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Exactly. That's why I'm so convinced that we're really, really close to the suddenly part. And the end game. Yeah, we're running. You saw the first two months deficit of this fiscal year. It's up 64% year over year. Right. Running huge deficits right now in a healthy economy with a record stock market.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah.

[Lawrence Lepard]

And as we all know, in 08 and 2008 was really the last big print. Well, no, the last big print was 2020, but the market went down 40% and tax receipts drastically. And expenses go up because you've got all the unemployment expenses that run through. So we are on the cusp of a really, really messy financial situation. And I'm not trying to be a panic artist. I'm trying to be an analyst and be objective about it. But if I look at the math, I say to myself, good Lord, this is going to get really messy here sometime in the next couple of years. And that's what drove me and helped me to write the book, is just like, I got to tell people about this. This I gotta warn them, because people who I believe have invested in something that's sound are going to come out a lot better than the people who haven't. And then there's, of course, the one obvious solution which is so much better than everything else. And of course, that's. The second half of the book is talking about that. Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

We didn't really get into the solution very much in our discussion, but the.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Book, I think most people know what the solution is.

[Preston Pysh]

Everybody knows what the solution.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

But the book does an amazing job covering the solution. And thank you. Let's wrap it up right here, Larry, with. At the end of the book, you have a message of hope.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Absolutely.

[Preston Pysh]

I love this. It's fix the money, fix the world. But if you were going to. For a listener, that's maybe this is one of their first bitcoin podcasts they've ever even listened to. What is this message of hope that you have that you really want to articulate?

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah, I want people to understand. I'd like to say that if people are feeling like they're hurting financially and money wise, they are. And that it's real. Don't deny that. Don't let the other side gaslight you into thinking that something's not wrong, because something is wrong. It's deeply wrong. It's been building for a lot of years and it's coming into crescendo. That's the bad news. The good news is there's a solution emerging. It's going to get fixed. And on the other side of this, we're going to go back to a much better world. Things are going to be very, very good and bright and your kids and grandkids and all of that. We're going to enjoy a first turning, which is going to be spectacular based on all the technology that we've got that's coming. So. So the problem that most people face, and I think people got to realize, is that we've got five years of very turbulent, choppy waters. And to get to that good other side, we've got to navigate these five years. And it's not going to be simple. And the book is designed to help people to do that. But what's on the other side, I think is really fantastic decentralized world. These big sclerotic governments aren't going to be able to slaughter millions of people. I mean, we've fortunately, World War II scared everybody and we haven't had another one of those since the then we've now got all these smaller proxy wars. But I actually think those will disappear as well. And look, bitcoin is number go up technology. Bitcoin is getting ahead financially. It's all of those things. But to me, the most optimistic part of bitcoin is making things fair again, which is what America is all about. And it's also eliminating war and making things safe again so that fewer people get killed. You know, you fought in a war zone. You know what that's all about. I never did, but I came close to, you know, the draft in Vietnam and I was concerned about it. Talked to my dad about it at the time. Time. I've watched all these wars and I just think they're tragic, absolutely tragic. And the only way the book lays this out very clearly, debasing the money, is the way that governments have funded wars since the beginning of time, full stop. So it's logical to think that if we can create a system where they cannot debase the money, they can't have wars. So imagine a world with no wars. Wouldn't that be a better world than the world we're in? I think it would. And so that's my biggest, most positive statement regarding bitcoin and why, like Jack, I'm willing to die on this hill. We got to stop these wars. So if only for that. Forget about the investment side of the book. If only for that. Read the book for that. Because it's going to make the world a better place. And the good news is this is going to happen no matter what. I mean, we got so much momentum now. It's going to have no matter what, matter what the book is written to try and make it happen faster. Because I'm not young, I want to see this happen as quickly as possible because I can't wait to see the day when Ben Bernanke is in the history books as being the John Law of our era, which is what he deserves. I'll ask you this, Preston. I mean, a couple of people who read the book said, man, you took off the gloves here and you went a little beyond the pale and your attacks on the Federal Reserve. Yeah. What's your reaction on that? I don't think I did.

[Preston Pysh]

No, I. That wasn't my take. My take was. You were just.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I'm glad to hear that. Yeah.

[Preston Pysh]

No, I mean, you're laying out.

[Lawrence Lepard]

That was my wife's take. She was like, you can't say this about these, you know, elected officials. You know, I. I hear it, I hear the point, but honestly, I think they deserve it.

[Preston Pysh]

I think from an outsider's point of view, they'd be looking at it and say, I don't think that these people were acting maliciously that were in these roles. I truly believe that they were just trying to maintain stability in a system that's all they knew. I mean, hell, Larry, we have to acknowledge this. Before bitcoin was invented, so prior to 2008, there really was no other way to do this. Right. So we could look at these people and say, oh, they're so immoral. They're so this. But, like, what other system could they have done to keep economic stability in the short term? Right?

[Lawrence Lepard]

And I say that in the book. I mean, not everybody who's fiat supporters, evil. Some of them, they just don't know better. They don't understand it.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm just as guilty as you. I mean, you've heard some of my rants through the years.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah, right. I have. Yeah. I guess I should have known. You take my side on this one?

[Preston Pysh]

Of course I'm on your side, Larry.

[Lawrence Lepard]

My wife thinks I should have toned it down a little bit. For all the bitcoiners out there, you're going to get lots of raw meat.

[Preston Pysh]

I wouldn't have believed that you wrote the book if you were.

[Lawrence Lepard]

It wouldn't have been me if I hadn't done it. Right.

[Preston Pysh]

The right. That's right. You just got to stay true to your tone. Right, sir.

[Lawrence Lepard]

You know, I've got a brand that I'm sticking with.

[Preston Pysh]

Larry, I can't thank you enough. It was truly an honor to be one of the first to read this and. Oh, stop, stop, stop it.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Honor to be in this community. It's an honor to get the information that you and Luke and Lynn and Jeff and safe and I mean, just everybody in this community has been so good to me. All I've tried to do do is just pull together the best of the best and put it in a format so that a everyday person, a layman, can read it and go, I get it.

[Preston Pysh]

Mission accomplished. Let me tell you, that was the goal. Yeah.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Thank you.

[Preston Pysh]

Very kind. This comes out. Did I see. 14th February is when this hits the street. Is that right?

[Lawrence Lepard]

That's the latest date just to bring everyone up to date. We're in the layout phase.

[Preston Pysh]

Okay.

[Lawrence Lepard]

I'm trying to make it look as good as possible. I pray that it'll be well before the 14th, but I don't know know, if I had to guess right now, I'm kind of thinking maybe February 1st, but it plus or minus. It could be a little shorter than that or a little longer than that.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah, I mean, I'm sure your wife's wanting it to be out before Valentine's Day.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Oh, absolutely. My wife wants it to be out yesterday. She's tired of this.

[Preston Pysh]

All right, Larry. Well, okay.

[Lawrence Lepard]

So really great to be with you. Enjoyed it. You're a good friend.

[Preston Pysh]

You are a good friend, too, sir. And this is going to be available on Amazon? Sure. Anywhere.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Yeah, you can. Actually, it's available now as a Kindle pre order. And by the way, if you can do that, it'll help the algorithm. It's 10 bucks. And before I put it out, I will put a tweet up that says it's coming out in five days in print.

[Preston Pysh]

Perfect.

[Lawrence Lepard]

And you go back and cancel your Kindle pre order.

[Preston Pysh]

Oh, okay.

[Lawrence Lepard]

To get the Kindle aversion. So if you don't want to read it on Kindle, but you want to support the algorithm, hey, go. Go pick one up today.

[Preston Pysh]

I love that.

[Lawrence Lepard]

Because you know how it all works. If the algorithm shows a lot of purchases, then that puts it ranks it higher and all that other good stuff.

[Preston Pysh]

So I have no doubt it's going to do very well, sir.

[Lawrence Lepard]

We'll see. I hope so. So.

[Preston Pysh]

Yeah. All right, Larry, anything else you want to highlight or are you good?

[Lawrence Lepard]

That's it. Thank you to everybody in this community who contributed to this book, and you're in there. There's a huge acknowledgment section. And I just. I owe so much to this community, and I just want to try and give it back.

[Preston Pysh]

Well, what a pleasure having you. It's a pleasure to call you a friend, Larry, and congrats. Congrats.

[Lawrence Lepard]

We'll see. Let's see how it does. I mean, it may not go over real well in the establishment. I kind of expect that to be the case. But that is what it is.

[Preston Pysh]

I mean, it can't go any worse than your Harvard, you know.

[Lawrence Lepard]

No, it can't go any worse than that. Opening scene was about as bad as it gets. Oh, boy.

[Preston Pysh]

Okay. All right, sir, thank you so much for making time and coming on. Yep. Bye. Thank you for listening to Tip.

[Lawrence Lepard]

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[Tip]

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[Lawrence Lepard]

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[Tip]

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