Jekyll Island, The Federal Reserve, & The End of Fiat - Julian Figueroa & Peruvian Bull (THE Bitcoin Podcast) - THE Bitcoin Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
So with this cycle of lowering interest rates into a recession and increasing them into

(00:04):
a boom, they just keep allowing more and more bad debt to accumulate, accumulate, accumulate,
accumulate until we get to the point where we're at 80% private debt to GDP and 130%
public debt to GDP in the US.
And there's so much debt that the system starts to fall apart when every time we hike.
And that's where the Fed has to cut.

(00:24):
You know, we have a Fed meeting today.
They're cutting again.
They just cut 25 basis points.
Why?
We're not in a recession.
You know, we're not, there's no banking panic that they're talking about.
We're lowering because the system cannot handle this, right?
The Treasury itself is straining.
And so this is just, it's just their game.
And the problem is that this game is terminal because it eventually means that the system
is so indebted that nothing can save it except for QE infinity.

(00:47):
When you have a monetary system that has no limits on how much can be printed, the only
way to really establish long term security for yourself and other generations is just
hoard as many assets as possible, as many real assets, whether they're cash flow producing
or whether they have like, you know, just good speculative value, just accrue as many
of them as possible.

(01:09):
So they set up a world where greed is the only way to essentially make it.
You have to be greedy.
You can't be selfless because if you're selfless, you're going to be poor.
And so what they turn money into, they turn money into a drug essentially that you have
to acquire at all costs.
And there's never too much of it.
You have to keep accumulating more because if you sit once you're satisfied with your,

(01:31):
you know, a couple million cash, guess what?
After a couple of years, your purchasing power is eradicated.
I've come to the conclusion that, you know, there is no way to fix it within, you know,
within the system because it's humans and human incentives and human desires that ultimately
shape the system.
That's why Bitcoin is so brilliant is because it removes humans from the monetary system

(01:52):
for the first time in all history.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast.
The Bitcoin time chain is 875347 and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

(02:13):
Today's episode is Bitcoin talk where I talk with my guests about Bitcoin and whatever
else comes up.
And today, those guests are Julian Figueroa and Peruvian Bull.
Julian and Peruvian have a documentary coming out on December 23rd about Jekyll Island and
the creation of the Federal Reserve, which they worked on with Isabella Santos and Ian

(02:35):
Carroll.
This was a fascinating discussion and we go deep, deep down into the dark history of
the Federal Reserve's creation on Jekyll Island, the immediate aftermath and the Fed's
historical track record, the damage that the Fed has done from wars to inflation, booms
and busts, inequality and a whole lot more.

(02:55):
We also get into countries adopting a Bitcoin strategic reserve, what that means for fiat
currencies down the line and why individuals need to understand Bitcoin now more than ever.
I saw an early cut of the film and it is awesome.
Head to the show notes to grab links to watch the film on GetBasedTV when it comes out.

(03:15):
Before we dive in, do me a favor and subscribe to the Bitcoin podcast wherever you're watching
or listening, but I personally recommend you listen on fountain.fm because not only can
you send Bitcoin your favorite podcasters to give value for value, but you can earn
Bitcoin just for listening to podcasts.
Check out bitcoinpodcast.net for episodes and additional resources.
Head to the show notes to grab discount links for my sponsor, Bitbox, or go directly to

(03:39):
bitbox.swiss-walker and use promo code Walker for 5% off the fully open source Bitcoin only
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And if you find the show valuable, consider giving value back by giving it a zap on Noster

(04:00):
or a boost on fountain.
I truly appreciate it.
Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Julian and Peruvian.
Good to be here with you guys.
Thanks for having us.
It's my pleasure.
You know, this is the hack of Bitcoin podcasting is like I really just did this because I wanted

(04:26):
a chance to shoot the shit with Bitcoiners and have an excuse to do that.
And so it works out pretty well in that regard.
Right.
And we are, yep, we are good to go now.
And look at that.
You know what I love about Noster is that like that we're on, it's a random Wednesday afternoon,
got like 20 some people in here already.
Hello to all of you who joined.

(04:47):
It's a, it's a beautiful thing.
People just coming and hanging out.
But we have some fun topics to discuss today.
Actually, I don't know if that, well, they're fun in like a sort of a morbid way.
I suppose like it's like fun in the way that like a car crash is fun, I guess, if you're
not in it.

(05:08):
But this is kind of like a giant car crash that we're all in and only some people are
paying attention to.
So I'm pretty excited to dig into this with you guys.
You're just for everyone's knowledge.
The documentary, the film that you guys created is coming out when for like official release.
I'm really aiming for December 23rd.

(05:28):
We're waiting on one more party to, you know, with the edit.
But if it's not December 23rd, it'll be very soon after.
So in the next week, hopefully.
Okay.
Well, I'm stoked.
I think it's coming at a good time.
I mean, it's a perfect bit of light viewing to do with your family around the Christmas
tree, you know what I mean?
Learn about the Jekyll Island and the Federal Reserve.

(05:49):
Like what could make the holidays any better than that?
It's the hundredth and eleventh birthday of the Federal Reserve on December 23rd this
year.
Man, happy birthday.
I live by that, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That would make sense.
1913 to 2024.
Yeah.
Fuck.
You know what's, okay.

(06:10):
I'm trying to figure out like where even to start with this because there's a lot.
Maybe a good place to start is just with you guys.
How did you guys end up making a documentary together also with Isabella and Ian Carroll
and you had some other folks contributing as well, but you decided to make a documentary

(06:32):
about Jekyll Island and the Federal Reserve and actually go to Jekyll Island for this?
Like how did you guys all get together and decide, yeah, we should just like, fuck it,
we'll just go do this?
I've always like, I've known the story and a lot of big winners know the story and it's
one of those things where there's a couple of books in the Bitcoin space where you just

(06:53):
say the name and people kind of just take your word and then they read the book.
Like everyone says, oh, if you have a problem understanding, you know, Bitcoin, you know,
block stuff, go read like the block size wars.
I'm like, yeah, what does that mean?
And it's the same with like, if you want to understand the Fed, read the creature from
Jekyll Island and like, yeah, but like, what does that mean?
Like, why do they call that book that?
And the book is amazing, but it's very, very long.

(07:14):
It's about three, 400 pages.
It's super, super dense, but essentially the idea is that the inception of the Federal
Reserve started because of a meeting on this island in Southern Georgia called Jekyll Island.
And I always thought like, why that specific place?
Like what, why like, you know, it's an interesting name because if you know about Jekyll and

(07:37):
Hyde and even though that's actually has nothing to do with the naming of the island,
you know, you think, oh, that's kind of like a sanctimonious place to have such a meeting
with such dire consequences for the rest of the world.
And so I thought, well, like, could I learn anything more about the origin of the Fed
by just going there?
That was kind of this like grand experiment I had.
And then I kind of thought this whole creation of the Fed was sort of a joint effort between

(08:02):
multiple parties.
And I thought, well, the best way to probably explore the origins of the Federal Reserve
wouldn't be for me to just go there on my own or maybe just me and Isabella would be
to try and get some other perspectives on this too and kind of round out our crew.
And so it started with us first messaging Ian to be a part of this.
If you don't know Ian Carroll, he does a lot of these great conspiracy breakdowns,

(08:23):
but he gets in really deep to the links between, you know, pharmaceutical companies and advertising
and what's going on with P Diddy and all this stuff.
And he's just super analytical in the way that he breaks these things down.
He's got like a nice touch of sarcasm to it.
So I reached out to him and said, you know, you should come join us.
And then Peruvian Bull is actually, I believe like you're pretty close with Ian.

(08:45):
And so he, I guess, told you that he was doing this and you reached out to me.
And I was actually familiar with your work because you've done some excellent deep dives
into the Fed.
And I was like, absolutely got to have you.
And then we even had a fifth person tag along named Mark who had met Isabella at a previous
event and he was super well informed about the Fed as well.
So he's part of this.
And what came together is basically this group of five of us, six of us, if you include

(09:08):
my girlfriend, Makiko, who did a lot of the cinematography, just walking around the island
taking in the ambiance, learning some interesting things about the history of the island and
how it all connects basically to the origins of the most criminal enterprise on planet earth.
What an intro.

(09:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You guys, so I thought going in, I've watched now this, the rough cut you sent me twice
now just because the first time like I was just like watching it to just to experience
it, you know, in the second time, I'm like watching it to try and kind of prep for this,
this discussion.
And I learned a number of things.

(09:49):
Like I thought I was fairly well informed about the Fed, about the whole Jekyll Island
thing, everything, you know, I, there were some nuances and some, well, not so fun facts
that I just had like no idea about.
And I think this, again, this film is coming at a really nice time.
There's a, there's a Fed, an FOMC press conference today, I believe it might be happening right

(10:13):
now actually as we're recording this, I believe.
So I mean, that's, that's perfect time and Fed's birthday coming up and people all over
the country and all over the world feeling the pain of inflation more and more year after
year after year.
And so, you know, maybe a place to kind of kick this off a little bit is just like, how

(10:36):
did you guys approach the topic of telling this story about the Fed?
Because there is a lot to get into.
There's a lot like just with Jekyll Island, but you guys kind of went broader than that.
You talked more about the other downstream impacts of the Fed.
How did you figure out like how to, how to really structure this so that it would be
an effective kind of educational tool?

(10:57):
But of course it has to be entertaining too, right?
Like otherwise let's be real people, people's attention spans are like goldfish and they
just will tune right out.
I'll, I'll try not to take up all the air time here and pass it to Peruvian, but essentially
for me it was like there's three, there's three acts to the film.
It's like, how did this, why did this Fed form in the first place and what do you need

(11:20):
to know about central banking in general?
Because the Federal Reserve is not the first central bank.
You know, what was the immediate aftermath?
How could we tell what the impact of the Fed was?
And you can just see it throughout history.
And then like, what does it mean for the average person?
And yeah, I know, you know, Peruvian brings like a ton to the table on this.
I'll just pass it to you as in terms of, I guess, figuring out like how did we figure

(11:42):
out what to talk about here?
Yeah, I mean, this was the, the challenge, right?
Because the story is so complex and you can literally, you could talk about the Fed for
probably 10 hours and still not fully grasp the entire story.
And because I came kind of later on, it was, I mean, I had to kind of get myself up to
speed.

(12:03):
I had known Ian Carroll for like last year and a half or so, even before he blew up,
just because he lives in my area and we're both content creators.
And so we'd linked up a few times and, and chat it.
And he had reached out to me and said, you know, hey, I'm doing the documentary.
This is going to be really cool.
It's right after the Bitcoin conference.
I was already going to the conference to talk and so, so I was like, you know, I'm going

(12:25):
to let me tag along.
Like do you guys need some more economic analysis and economic history to add onto this?
And Julian was kind enough to absolutely agree with that.
And you know, we wanted to, when we were thinking about how to, how to like set the stage, we
wanted to give a little bit of the backdrop of the story of why the Fed was founded, go

(12:46):
into the actual history of the founding, you know, how these people, how these men, you
know, drove, well, basically got into this train car in, in Northern, Northeastern the
U.S. and then secretly made it their way down to, to Jekyll Island and had this, this meeting
on this like nondescript island.
And immediately what, you know, what I wanted to, to touch on was, you know, the, the issues

(13:12):
with the banking system pre, you know, 1913, like the 1907 banking panic, the 1893 banking
panic.
And then, you know, the rationale and the arguments that these, you know, economic actors, right,
the Paul Warburgs and the J.P. Morgan's were able to use to further their cause.
Because when you look into this, right, like when you're trying to convince a, you know,

(13:35):
large section of Congress for basically any, you know, any policy, you need usually to
have intelligent arguments on your side.
You know, money and lobbying will go a certain way, but at a certain point you want to convince
the general public.
And so you need to have arguments.
And so what they did was ingenious, you know, these people funded, they funded institutes

(13:58):
and research programs to produce papers that argued for the existence of a Federal Reserve.
And the Federal Reserve, you know, they changed their structure several times until they got
to their final structure in 1913.
And even then, you know, as we're, we're talking, right, we're coming up on the anniversary
when they actually passed the bill for the creation of the Federal Reserve in December,

(14:21):
1913, they did so with a third of the Senate and about a quarter of the House gone because
of holidays.
So they still had to scrape it, scrape it through by the skin of their teeth.
And you know, once they've created this, this entity, right, all it's done is grown in power
and influence for the past, you know, 100 plus years.

(14:41):
And so I wanted to set the stage and tell that story, but also really focus on the second
and third order impacts of the existence of a Federal Reserve because, especially in finance,
which is my field, right, like people understand why it exists, but I don't think not enough
people understand the effects of, you know, what the Fed has done and how this has affected

(15:01):
financial markets, wealth gap, right, inequality, and just the broader, right, geopolitical
landscape.
And not to mention the funding of forever wars that would likely not be possible without
the infinite money printer.
And it is, it's, it gets like, I'm glad Bitcoin exists because if it was only this, if there

(15:23):
was just this vacuum and there was the Fed, I think a lot of us would be pretty depressed.
So glad, glad that Bitcoin is here to at least bring some hope to the future because
things look pretty dark when you realize the extent to which this centralization of control
of money, of the market for money affects everything else.
Like we can't have a free market when the market for money itself is not free.

(15:48):
And I think that people really don't, don't grasp that.
And I want to get into a lot of these kind of downstream impacts.
I think that's really going to hit home for folks, but for maybe for people who are not
familiar with this story, with the players that went into the creation of the Federal
Reserve, they just, they think, okay, it's, yep, it's our central bank.
Yeah, whatever.
It's been around for a while.
It's just kind of always been there, right?

(16:10):
Can you talk a little bit about what led up, you mentioned, you know, the, the banking
crisis prior, some other events, but, you know, how did we get to this meeting at Jekyll
Island and who were these people involved?
And I guess what, what gave these guys the right to decide they were going to be the
ones who got to control the money forever?

(16:30):
Well, I mean, you know, we can really trace, you know, the origins of this back.
First of all, to the Fraction Reserve banking system that existed in the 1800s.
You know, because of the, the structure of the decentralized banking system, there were
always banking panics that had a contagion effect, almost like a virus, right?

(16:51):
Because the issue came where, you know, obviously the, the banks loan out, loan out funds that
they do not have.
That's how banks work.
And then they only back those, those loans, which are liabilities to them or assets to
them, but, you know, liabilities to the people who owe those loans.
They only back those with a fraction of the gold that they have on hand.

(17:12):
And so if there's ever a run, that bank immediately faces insolvency where they cannot get enough
liquidity and where, where the banking system started to get more and more dangerous in
the late 1800s was where they started to use what were called reserve city banks.
And so, you know, let's say you're a rural bank in, you know, Pennsylvania and you have

(17:33):
a certain amount of, you know, gold reserves on hand and cash deposits on hand, you want
to, you know, have, earn interest on that as well.
And so what they would do is they would take that gold or take that, you know, physical
U.S. dollar cash and deposit, deposit in the bank of a major city, so like Philadelphia.
The problem was those banks started to become central spokes of the system where now you

(17:55):
have a reserve city bank that has the deposits of other banks.
And so if enough of their what are called correspondent banks fail, these smaller rural
banks, now that bigger bank will be in trouble because they'll have all these deposits that
they are holding for their, their client banks pulled out of their, out of their vaults,
right, because of bankruptcy.

(18:15):
And so that creates this contagion effect where a bank run would not only affect a small
bank in a rural city, it would start to kind of balloon out into bigger and bigger cities
and it would move to Philadelphia and New York and Boston and the major money centers that
provided finance for, you know, post, post civil war America.

(18:36):
And in 1907, this came to a head where there was a, there was a, there was a trust company
called Nicarbaca Trust, which was a, you know, you could kind of think of as like a shadow
bank.
And so this entity was, you know, pooling deposits and lending them out in the form
of stock loans to speculators and two of the speculators, Franz Heinz and, I'm forgetting

(19:03):
this thing guy's name, but they, they were speculating on the shares of a copper mining
company and that copper mining company, the price raised up, they thought they could corner
the market and then finally it collapsed and they got called on their margin loans.
This Nicarbaca Trust, which was a shadow bank, which only had 5% of their deposits secured,
went under and again, this trust had liabilities with all these major banks.

(19:25):
All these major banks started to get called on, the bank runs started to move throughout
New York City and before you know it, by late October of 1907, the entire banking system
of New York City is collapsing and J.P. Morgan is able to basically strong arm the leaders
of the major banks to put up their own personal capital to recapitalize the New York Stock
Exchange itself as well as some of these banks and basically let some of these trust companies

(19:50):
die because the trust companies obviously were much more levered because they only had
5% deposits or you could call it a gold to deposit ratio versus the banks which had around
20%.
So they, they had to like let this system kind of implode in some form and take some
losses but they were able, luckily, to save the system in its majority and then the question

(20:14):
became what happens if we don't have a J.P. Morgan around to organize a quasi bailout,
private bailout of the banking system and so immediately they started funding, there's
the National Monetary Committee that was already funded by Congress that was doing research
into what the existence of a central bank would look like in the U.S. and Paul Warburg

(20:36):
actually was a German banker who came over and he was actually initially writing papers
for the National Monetary Commission and putting out research showing like this is, this is
why we need a central bank, this is how this system will implode without it and again instead
of thinking of how do we stop this fractional reserve banking system or how do we solve
these fundamental problems, their goal is to paper it over and to create even more centralization

(20:59):
and more control and so by the time we get to 1910 there's enough momentum to push the
first attempt of an act through Congress. The issue was that Democrats in the House
along with Teddy Roosevelt were very anti-trust and anti-banker and so they opposed the Federal

(21:22):
Reserve Act and it was actually called I think the National Reserve Act with the first attempt
and so they shot that down and then after they shot that down the bankers had to reconvene
and kind of reassess the situation and try again and they changed a few key things like
changing the name to Federal Reserve to make it sound more in control of the government.

(21:46):
They changed the governor and the chairman so that they would be appointed by the executive
branch and they also made some changes to how the appointments and dismissal of different
officers would go and they wanted to make this seem like it's a government entity where

(22:08):
in reality it was really a creation of the bankers and for the bankers. Like 9 out of
12 of every board of governors in Federal Reserve banks across the nation had to be appointed
or recommended by the banking industry itself so they were guaranteed a permanent majority
on every board of governors on every Federal Reserve bank district and even the existence

(22:34):
of the districts was another attempt at feigning decentralization because they were trying
to show look this isn't a single central bank it's 12 central banks that are all decentralized
and each one has an independent board of governors and they're all going to independently issue
money and they're all going to independently set interest rates but as you can imagine
it's pretty easy to create a new charter that says all the banks will coordinate interest

(23:00):
rates and all the banks will follow the New York Fed or follow the Washington DC Fed board
of governors and so once they pass this it was kind of like a trojan horse and I think
Julian mentioned this earlier but the naming of it having this happen on Jekyll Island
is it's just so perfect because Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the story about this doctor

(23:26):
who turns into a monster at night and then turns back into a human and slowly he starts
to turn more and more into a monster and he cannot control it which is exactly essentially
what the Fed has become it's more and more of a monster in financial markets and has
distorted price mechanisms across the board.
As you were talking about the kind of decentralized and name only nature of the Fed like yeah

(23:50):
we've got all these member banks it's okay it's totally decentralized it just reminds
me of shitcoins too.
It's totally proof of stake.
It's so absurd too and again great marketing on their part on the creators of the Federal
Reserve to call it federal.

(24:11):
It's the brilliant part like oh well it's the Federal Reserve of course like then it
must be fine it's just the government right.
It's like well no it's kind of a cartel of private bankers but yeah Julian I'm not sure
there's anything you wanted to add to that kind of that lead up there before I dig into
a little bit of the meeting itself because I do want to talk about the fact that they

(24:33):
had this meeting in secrecy like and that should tell you so much but is there anything
else you want to toss on top of that first?
No that was a perfect backdrop to it.
The documentary touches upon what I find really interesting is that central banking was something
that the American public was very aware of throughout the I believe the 19th century.

(24:55):
So in the 1800s like I gotta get my presidents right I'm a Canadian so excuse me for this
but it was Andrew Jackson was one of the biggest opponents to central banking and he fought
like tooth and nail to keep them out of the United States and there were attempts throughout
the 1800s to do this but they had limited charters so there were a couple central banks
in the United States that would only you know they had these timelines where they would

(25:16):
only be there for 20 years and then they'd be shut down and they kept these things on
guardrails because I think they saw what happened in Europe and they saw the impact of the Rothschilds
and the endless wars there that were happening as a result of you know the banking decisions
made and the American public really did not want central banking so again like you know
we discussed it had to be the only way it was going to come to America was one by taking

(25:39):
advantage of a crisis and by two kind of passing it under the the shade of night.
Yeah I mean all the if you actually look into the story right like all the bankers Paul
Warburg JP Morgan they got on a train in New Jersey and they all gave fake names and the
name of the car which you know in olden times wealthy people would have their own train cars

(26:00):
and would usually name it after their own last name or a relative they changed the name
of the car so even the servants wouldn't realize that this was JP Morgan and Paul Warburg
you know other industrialists that were coming at you know at night literally sneaking away
to Jekyll Island and Jekyll Island itself is a very you know reclusive place it's a
almost like a you know golf, golf slash like you know fishing resort for wealthy people

(26:28):
on this island it's it's not very well populated it's you know almost like an exclusive country
club and it's hard to get there I mean now there's a bridge but in the past you had to
take boats.
There is a yeah it's a moment in the in the dog I don't want to give too much weight
because people should watch it but basically we're talking about like islands are a great

(26:49):
way to get or a great place to get away with stuff you know like it's like what happens
on the island stays in the island but I just I find it to be such a so ridiculous that
this plan was literally hatched in secret nobody that is there is any sort of elected
representative of the people right the correct me if I'm wrong but nobody who was attending

(27:11):
that initial meeting was in any way an elected representative at that point or there was a
senator Nelson Aldrich which was yeah okay Aldrich yeah okay so you did have one representative
of the people clearly doing exactly what the people wanted right but okay so they they're
on Jekyll Island and they are doing it they're in secret they're like what basically how do

(27:35):
they how do they go from that I mean I know they renamed it you know to the Federal Reserve
right and they did all these other things but I mean do you think that they actually
had any decent motivations out of this was there any part of this that actually they
thought well you know maybe this will benefit the people we will increase stability we will

(27:56):
or do you think this is truly just a play for control a play for power a play for centralization
which JP Morgan obviously already had wanted to do that's I mean that's that's kind of
like the biggest question that I've had and it's it's kind of impossible to know there's
some evidence that you know this this decision was made out of kind of like a malevolence

(28:18):
and like you know self-interest and not not done selflessly but you know there's seven
different participants and there's varying levels to which we can kind of like guess
you know who came up with what idea here but I'll I'll pass to you proving like what do
you what do you think about it because I I I don't think that they could have seen what

(28:38):
this would become but I think there was obviously an insight that this would become an increasingly
larger part of the you know the fiscal decision-making that power would like gradually accrue to this
Federal Reserve over time yeah absolutely I mean I think you know again I think even

(28:58):
the most you know benevolent and kind-hearted spirit to the meeting knew that this would
centralize the banking system and I mean it's even written into the Federal Reserve
Act itself there's a stipulation that once they created the Federal Reserve right so
once they created these 12 district banks which by the way they haven't updated the
banks since 1913 that's why there's only you know one bank on the west coast in San Francisco

(29:21):
and most of them are centered in the eastern or Midwestern US there's a stipulation that
all the banks in the region were required by law to buy into the share capital of the
local Federal Reserve Bank so it was not an optional system that's another thing that
people misunderstand they think you know oh you know the Federal Reserve was like this

(29:42):
alternative system that banks could use as a lender of last resort they could put the
reserves there right they could earn interest on the reserves and then you know if ever
they needed a bailout they could ask for a short-term loan and again the loan would
be paid back in time so it was just it wasn't an issue of actually a permanent bailout
for the banks it was just a temporary solvency or liquidity you know facility but what it

(30:05):
really was was a forced mandate for all the private banks to buy into this local Fed Bank
and then they were obviously granted a 6% dividend on the banks shares so that they
would profit from it so they would have a vested interest in continuing to perpetuate
the system and they also had the ability obviously to appoint governors to their local Federal

(30:28):
Reserve Bank and so I think you know it was very it's very hard to make the case that
this wasn't structured in a way that made it into it that that wasn't they weren't thinking
of a you know centralization of control and power of the banking system now could they
have thought that this was overall beneficial they thought hey look I'm gonna profit from

(30:50):
this but this is also better for the system as a whole I think that that they probably
did think that and I don't think that they probably anticipated the size and the you
know just the pure nefariousness of what they created they probably there's no way they
could have anticipated that but yeah I think to say that they were completely unaware of

(31:10):
the centralizing force that this would become is naive I think they knew that and I think
they wanted that to be a fact because they were worried about the decentralized nature
of the banking system itself because of these reserve city banks that already existed and
again they made this structure you know they kind of modeled it after what already existed
so they're trying to like shove that they're trying to convince the banks like if you read

(31:33):
some of the transcripts of like Paul Warburg's discussions at the National Monetary Committee
or him talking to bankers you know in New York or in Philadelphia or in or in Chicago he
was telling them he's like look like these banks like these Federal Reserve banks are
exactly what you know it's exactly the same as what already exists you already are a

(31:53):
rural bank and you already put your reserves in these in these what you call reserve cities
which are the major money centers right Philly Boston New York Chicago and you already do
this so he's like why not just do it with the federal government you know handshake
on your back and this bank that can print infinite reserves why not do that and so it

(32:14):
was a very easy sell for them well and I mean obviously the players at this meeting to being
already involved in the financial system they stood to benefit greatly from this is that
fair to say massive gone absolutely yeah that it just seems a little bit like you know like
obviously this sounds like a good idea to them they're going to make ungodly amounts of money

(32:36):
because of this new system right like there's there was no way for them to lose essentially
if the Federal Reserve was created is that a fair statement yeah yeah absolutely sorry
I wanted to respond but I don't want to think about that a little bit more but what's the

(32:58):
result we're still talking about JP Morgan today it's the biggest bank in America and
you know get a hand in crafting that so and and thank goodness they exist otherwise how
would Jeffrey Epstein have been banked you know I'm so glad that JP Morgan is still
exist as a banks that they can bank people like Epstein just truly impressive the best
part about Bitcoin is that you don't need bankers or central bankers Bitcoin allows

(33:22):
you to be your own bank when you hold your own keys and the best way to do that is to
go to bitbox.swiss slash Walker and use the promo code Walker for 5% off the fully open
source easy to use Bitcoin only bitboxo to hardware wallet then get your Bitcoin off
the exchange and into your own self-custody we all know Bitcoin is ripping and soon your

(33:46):
stack will be worth a heck of a lot more in fiat value than it is today so now is the
perfect time to make sure you have your security locked down tight for the long haul with Bitbox
plus and I cannot emphasize this enough but the bitboxo too is just easy as hell to use
whether you're brand new to Bitcoin it's your first time setting up a hardware wallet
so you're a little bit nervous or you are a well-seasoned psychopath again it's Bitcoin

(34:10):
only and it's fully open source head to their GitHub and verify that for yourself no need
to trust me or Bitbox when you go to bitbox.swiss slash Walker and use promo code Walker not
only do you get 5% off a great piece of open source Bitcoin only hardware but you also
help support this podcast so thank you but you know I okay and boy there's like a whole

(34:33):
another rabbit hole that maybe we can go down a little bit later about JP Morgan and some
events leading up to this meeting and certain large ships crashing I don't want to derail
us with anything like that just yet because but maybe that's where we get into get into
a little bit later but you know there's that there's that quote by I think it's like a

(34:55):
Stafford beer or some of it but it's the the purpose of a system is what it does right
it's like a general heuristic for systems thinking and it's like if you look at what
the Federal Reserve does what the result is some of the things you mentioned earlier
proven whether it be you know decreasing purchasing power through inflation increasing

(35:16):
wealth gaps massive forever wars all of these negative externalities all these downstream
effects like that's that's what the system does thereby that is the purpose of this system
and I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about kind of in the years following the
creation of the Federal Reserve some of the historically significant events that happen

(35:39):
obviously you have World War one and then you know another decade and a half or another
yeah decade and a half down the line you have the Great Depression which people like to
think just kind of like came out of nowhere and like it was just because of all these
speculators but it's like well why were all these people speculating why was there so
much liquidity floating around and then around that same time I think it was 1927 you had

(36:03):
the McFadden Act which if I'm not mistaken is the act that actually granted the Federal
Reserve a charter in perpetuity but can can we talk a little bit about those post 1913
years and kind of what was the results of the feds creation in terms of like what actually
happened in the world what hand did the Fed have in it yeah I think I think World War

(36:26):
one is probably a good place to start with all this because that was like pretty pretty
soon after around the time that the Federal Reserve was established and again like to
me the evidence is pretty clear that the length and the magnitude of that war was enabled
by central banking just the sheer amount of like debt and role that not only like the

(36:50):
Federal Reserve played in that but the European central banks and the interaction between
the central bank of America the Federal Reserve and the European central banks you know cross
collateralizing using leaning on each other for resources and the US dollar kind of the
US dollar was not a standard correct me if I'm wrong I don't believe it was like a very

(37:11):
standard unit of account before the Fed like it was there was a US dollar but like there
were all sorts of different Commonwealth you know dollars around the US they made it one
solid thing across the country after the Federal Reserve it says on the bottom of each note
Federal Reserve note after World War one that note started to expand outside American borders
basically the Fed enabled the US dollar essentially to travel outside of the US in a way that

(37:37):
I don't think it could have before that yeah I mean what's so what's interesting about
right this story is that there was obviously central banks in Europe even before the existence
of the Fed and there was a massive pressure from European bankers for the Fed itself to
exist and then once the Fed did exist there was much more openness from these bankers

(37:59):
to extend credit and to do business with American banks and again they hide under the auspices
of banking security they say well you know we only want to do business with a nation
that had a central bank and so we know that any bank we do business with can be bailed
out and so our contracts are more secure but if you look at the actual history of central

(38:23):
banking you've seen almost a you know retaliatory nature when it comes to central bankers or
banking in general to nations that do not have central banks you know in 1836 I believe
or 1837 and rejection failed to renew the the charter for the second national bank in
the US which was again our second central bank and you know that bank was much different

(38:46):
from the Fed and that it was not you know did not have this large decentralized system
it did not force people to buy in and it also was barred from buying government bonds at
least initially and even though you know that was the case it was a very limited central
bank when they when Andrew Jackson decided not to renew the charter and veto the the
Senate vote to renew it bankers in England and France stopped providing credit to the

(39:11):
United States and so that caused a banking panic and a deep recession immediately for
several years after he decided to do this and again they put out propaganda leaflets
in the US saying hey look you're in a recession that's because of Andrew Jackson and that's
because he didn't let you guys have a central bank where whereas they were knowingly and
willingly deciding not to extend credit so that that pressure has existed for a long

(39:33):
time and you know that I agree like a great place to start is World War one where you
know you have the major nations of Europe enter into this war where it very quickly turns
into a stalemate and it becomes a battle of attrition it just becomes you know how many
men how many how much equipment supplies dollars can you just throw at this into this you know

(39:57):
meat grinder and see who comes out the other side and so you know the existence of any
nation like the existence of any nation on a gold standard would prevent that and so that's
why Britain France Germany you know all the major nations involved had to go off a gold
standard very quickly and when they tried to go back on the gold standard in post World

(40:20):
War one era they all did it in different ways Germany just decided to hyperinflate because
their their liabilities were way too great France posted at a at like a you know as like
a par value those 20% above where the value was and so they experienced massive inflation
you know after four years of 30% inflation they did another 20% 20% inflation and Britain

(40:44):
decided to try to go back at the pre-war parity of gold to pounds and that was not tenable
because now you have four times the amount of pounds in existence as before and you're
trying to peg back to the pre-war parity and so Britain experienced a great depression
even before the US did but what what really happened is you know as you see through this

(41:05):
this process is that the Fed was able to and central banks in general were able to slowly
incrementally increase their power increase their influence and increase their centralization
you know if you go to the Great Depression I mean for example it's it's really easy the
you know the the Fed's district banks were all independent in the sense that they all

(41:25):
issued their own notes so like if you actually went to you know the Federal Reserve Bank
of Richmond or the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in that region you would actually
get a Federal Reserve note a bank note that wouldn't say Federal Reserve it would say
Federal Reserve of San Francisco and so it was like a note that was valid in your district
and so that was part of the decentralization in 1933 with the Great Depression they centralized

(41:48):
all that into the single Federal Reserve and they also centralized control of all the interest
rates because again all these banks supposedly at least most of the time were able to set
their own interest rates and so you could have a 5% interest rate in San Francisco and
a you know 7% interest rate in Chicago but with these with these further acts that amended

(42:09):
their charter they changed this to become a single interest rate set by the Board of
Governors in Washington DC and just centralized continually centralizing centralizing centralizing
on what a system that was already being centralized even before they existed.
And to me the the sad irony of so much this stuff like you look at the Great Depression

(42:29):
and it's like oh no this horrible thing happened because of the animal spirits of the market
like we don't know how it's people who are speculating too much I guess all these animal
spirits flying around you know we should probably have more control and by the way we need our
charter to never expire we need that charter to be guaranteed in perpetuity which it was

(42:50):
after that I don't remember if it was the maybe maybe you know proven if it was the
Fadden Act in 27 or the one of the acts that came out in 1933 that guaranteed the charter
in perpetuity do you know which one it was?
I think it was the McFadden Act I'd have to go back and read.
That feels right but either way it's like you're using these crises that presumably come out

(43:12):
of nowhere like who knows why the market got so frothy but it's like well no it's you're
literally the ones controlling the money you're the ones that are setting these interest rates
you're the ones deciding how much to print the market is goes through these boom and
bust cycles because they're orchestrated by your monetary policy and then the only antidote

(43:33):
to that there's never any sort of reflection to say you know what maybe we actually don't
have this whole market thing figured out too well they're just like nope we just we should
probably just have more power like that's that's the obvious solution this like it's
just it's just kind of mind-blowing like I don't know.
I didn't even have a question there I was just sometimes I'm just dumbfounded by it.

(43:55):
You're right and actually so one of my early pieces again I'm like a macro econ writer
and one of my early pieces that went really viral on Twitter was when I called the financial
gravity and the Fed's dilemma and I kind of like juxtaposed the existence of the Fed and
their their lowering and brazing of interest rates to financial gravity and I was saying

(44:16):
you know look despite the traditional orthodoxy that believes that you know the Fed is preventing
the business cycle from overheating right what their goal was you know they've known
that for centuries the business cycle has existed because the business cycle is just
human it's just human psychology right people start to you know get together they start

(44:37):
to buy a bunch of houses the house prices start to go up then they start to speculate
and then the house prices rise too high and then there's too much debt and then it starts
to roll over and then you have a recession and so recessions were commonplace I mean
you can trace them from every you know in every developed economy for the last 500 years
there every eight years there's a mild recession and that's just kind of how this system works

(44:58):
the problem that the Fed had was they had the arrogance of believing that they could kill
that that business cycle they believed that they could quash it and what they would do
is they would lower rates into a recession and then they'd you know increase rates you
know into a boom so that they would stop the economy from quote unquote overheating and
their goal which was you know pounded into my head when I took economics courses at

(45:22):
university was you know they wanted they had this line of GDP potential and instead of having
us go up and down and up and down and you know have a boom and then have a bust and
have a boom and have a bust and again these recessions were normal they've happened for
thousands of years yes it's painful for a few years 18 months but usually it works itself
out the leverage cleans itself out of the system they wanted to just have it be a straight

(45:45):
upwards line so they're like we want to quash this business cycle and so the perfect example
is the 1920s right they lowered the call loan interest rate to 2% and they keep it there
for like five years and they don't start raising until like 1927 and by the time they start
raising it's way too late because the economy of the US is overheated by every single metric
there are people gambling their you know life savings on radio companies and general electric

(46:10):
and car companies and there's you know 130% margin loans on some of these stocks like it's
it's insane and you know they're there 1920s is exactly like a you know predecessor to
the 1980s almost like you know what's that movie with Jordan Belfort Wolf of Wall Street

(46:32):
where it's just mania right people calling grandma's and you know the existence of the
radio there were radio programs going on saying you need to buy you need to buy general electric
you need to buy Ford you know it's gone up 30% this year it's gonna go up another 50%
you need to buy you need to buy you need to buy and we got to this you know insane bubble
territory by 1928-1929 and the Fed started hiking and blindly hiking into into a recession

(46:57):
and then this whole you know house of cards collapsed and so once that happens of course
then they blame the market for this reaction not it's never their fault and then if they
lower rates into the recession the irony is that they don't actually allow these bad debts
to clear themselves out right they don't allow the entities that should go bankrupt they never

(47:17):
do and so the at that bad debt just accumulates and so with this cycle of lowering interest
rates into a recession and increasing them into a boom they just keep allowing more and
more bad debt to accumulate accumulate accumulate accumulate until we get to the point where
we're at 80% private debt to GDP and 130% public debt to GDP in the US and there's so much

(47:39):
debt that the system starts to fall apart when every time we hike and that's where the Fed
has to cut you know we have a Fed meeting today they're cutting again they just cut 25 basis
points why we're not in a recession you know we're not there's no banking panic that they're
talking about we're lowering because the system cannot handle this right the Treasury itself
is straining and so this is just it's just their game and the problem is that this game

(48:02):
is terminal because it eventually means that the system is so indebted that nothing can
save it except for QE infinity you know you made me aware of something really interesting
because back in the 20s there's actually a really good parable between the studio system
and how Hollywood used to package movies and how CDOs kind of worked pre 2008 so I don't

(48:22):
know if people are privy to like the old Hollywood studio way of doing things but essentially
when you wanted to contract out a new deal of movies you'd kind of have like your headliner
movie and then you'd package it with a bunch of like other crappy you know BCD films and
I was thinking like the other day I remember I think I think it was called like Metropolis
or something there was some or M there's a massive studio flick that back in the 1920s

(48:45):
cost $40 million back then to create which is almost something like a billion dollars
today that like was a massive financial flop so the studio industry I don't know how big
of a factor it was compared to the you know the subprime industry but it's the same antics
were going on back then with like priming the pump easy credit the studio systems were

(49:10):
bundling you know like B and C grade you know call it debt productions in with like A grade
debt and yeah it's just there's so many interesting parables in history there but the feds always
part of all that stuff well I mean just talking about you know like the history doesn't repeat
itself but it rhymes and in the case of the Fed it seems to rhyme very closely like as

(49:31):
you just said proven I just was just searching the side and I saw that yep the Fed the Fed
just cut again and you know what you just described happening in the leading up to the
the Great Depression is literally like what we've seen here today it's like okay they
you know they overheated the economy that that they inflation started going wild during

(49:54):
covid right I mean who could have seen that coming with all of the all of the monetary
debasement that was happening it's truly shocking and then it got hotter and hotter and hotter
and then they were like oh you know what Jerome Powell went from we're not even thinking about
thinking about raising rates to the fastest rate hike in history and now after the fastest

(50:15):
hike they're now just cutting them again and it's like we're we never learn apparently
I mean at least there's more information accessible now but it's like we're we're just we're just
doing it again and you know what you get at the end of that after they destroy countless
amounts of lives counts amounts of businesses all you get the one concession you and I get

(50:37):
is you get whoops sorry it's the same phrase Ben Bermanke Janet Yellen one day it'll be
Jerome Powell whoops we miscalculated sorry guys move on I guess right well guess what
we are finally fucking moving on and it's called Bitcoin and we're not going to take
this shit anymore for the next like few decades or ever hopefully anymore after this so yeah

(51:01):
you know I want to get into Bitcoin a little bit as well here because I think I think all
three of us might be kind of interested in Bitcoin if I had to guess just a little bit
yeah but I can't tell yeah yeah no idea you're keeping a very low profile but I did want to
talk a little bit about just kind of like these downstream effects of the Fed because

(51:24):
I think for a lot of people like the average person is just trying to go through their
day who's trying to put food in the table and keep a roof over the head of their family
and is just you know making it you know just trying to get by they they don't they you
know they're not reading the creature from Jekyll Island right hopefully they'll watch
your film because it's short and approachable and high density entertainment or I should

(51:46):
say edutainment and so I encourage anyone who ends up listening to this to please go
and watch that when it comes out but like I don't think people realize the actual extent
of the damage that the Fed has caused and they have they have a dual mandate right it's
maximum employment and price stability and if you just look at that like they've just

(52:10):
been a colossal failure first of all just just right on that dual mandate but it goes
so much deeper than that and I mean maybe you can just talk a little bit about like
what what do you think people need to understand about the damage that the Fed has done and
why and it's not some nebulous thing but it's actually something that affects them it affects

(52:30):
them in their daily lives it affects their futures and their children there it'll affect
their grandchildren too unless we end the Fed before that but like what what do you want
people understand and maybe what do you want people understand from this film as well I'll
I'll try and get my bit done quickly but essentially when you have a monetary system that has no

(52:52):
limits on how much can be printed the only way to really establish long-term security
for yourself and other generations is just hoard as many assets as possible as many real
assets whether they're cash flow producing or whether they have like you know just good
speculative value just accrue as many of them as possible so they set up a world where greed

(53:13):
is the only way to essentially make it you have to be greedy you can't be selfless because
if you're selfless you're going to be poor and so what they turn money into they turn
money into a drug essentially that you have to acquire at all costs and there's never
too much of it you have to keep accumulating more because if you sit once you're satisfied
with your you know couple million cash guess what after a couple years your purchasing

(53:37):
powers eradicated so it sets up this world and Ian says it beautifully in the film it
sets up this world where you're paid to sin and those are the downstream effects it's
the only fans it's the crypto you know get rich quick scams it's the hoarding of real
estate it's the hoarding of assets it's all of these things it sets up this world where
you're paid to sin and that destroys society that destroys cultural cohesion that destroys

(54:03):
like you know morality the fabric of families like we just we can't even fathom all the
downstream effects but eventually if you look at all just kind of just ties back to that
in my opinion yeah yeah I agree I mean it's it's really complex right to to unpack all
of it and you know the first place whenever I we talk about the Federal Reserve printing
right my fellow macro enthusiasts on Twitter always have confronted me in spaces and they've

(54:28):
said Peruvian you're an idiot the Fed doesn't print money you know have you have you not
looked into the actual you know structure of the Fed and I say yes and actually they
you know to say that they don't print money is is it's like an oxymoron it's it's true
and it's not true and I'm like yeah they print reserves and it's actually more nefarious
in some ways than even just printing money outright and the reason why is because bank

(54:50):
reserves exist only in the financial system and so when the when the Fed does QE and they
create bank reserves and they swap them for assets on commercial bank balance sheets they're
increasing the size of the overall financial system because they're creating right assets
out of nothing and swapping them for other assets and growing the overall size of of

(55:11):
the balance sheets of the banking system and that means that there's more capacity to lend
there's more capacity to speculate and risk assets start to rally so the Fed does QE you
know like for example we saw this in 2008 perfectly right the bank systems falling apart stock
markets are freefall they bought them by you know March of 09 and as the Fed begins their

(55:33):
first QE program 600 billion markets start to rally and then 2011 2010-2011 comes around
it's not enough the markets are stagnant again that they announced QE too and then they grow
the balance sheet to 4 trillion and then they realized they they try to taper the balance
sheet it doesn't work they have to do QE 3 and then QE infinity which is you know COVID

(55:56):
and so at every juncture they're forced to create more and more reserves and these reserves
flowed into commercial bank balance sheets which flowed into hedge funds you know money
market funds mutual funds pension funds all these institutions get this cash they're barred
obviously from actually using this cash it functionally you cannot use it to buy real
world goods that we think of like you know beanie babies or big max you have to use it

(56:21):
to speculate on financial assets you know and so these institutions go out and they buy
the S&P 500 they go out and buy bonds they go out and buy stocks they go out and buy
even crypto and so you see this proliferation of you know risk taking all throughout the
system and the reason why this is problematic is because you know every single system in

(56:42):
existence almost every single system in existence follows what's called the Pareto distribution
so mathematically the square root of the sum of the total has around 50% of you know the
supply of goods or services so if you think about like you know Spotify the top 100 artists
on Spotify make 90% of the money if you think about the size of stars in the universe like

(57:05):
you know the amount of paintings made by people the amount of you know money made on YouTube
by YouTubers it's all Pareto distribution so it's naturally the system's naturally
unequal that's how the universe works the problem with the Fed does is it exacerbates
that to a level that was never seen before right they take these assets there's already
people who are wealthy that own let's say they own 2 million dollars in the S&P 500

(57:29):
and the majority of people obviously do not own that and if you increase the S&P by 20%
a year by running QE you make that person's wealth balloon by 400,000 a year whereas the
person who owns $10,000 of spy only makes $2,000 a year so the people who are ahead increasingly
get further and further and further ahead and we live in a system now where the top

(57:50):
10% own 83% of all listed equities so when the Fed does QE they're effectively enriching
the wealthy and that just makes you know lobbying bribing you know like you said wars like
big pharma all these things become easier because now all these already wealthy entities
have more wealth to use at their disposal as like a power tool to influence the real

(58:15):
world and it's unfair because they didn't work for this money they're just getting
it for free by just holding assets and to add insult to injury almost all the regulations
work in favor of having more if you have more capital and more collateral you're allowed
to borrow in a way with a higher leverage that poor people just can't right like your

(58:36):
your local mini Mart where you have to take like a payday loan you're paying 3-400% but
you know someone can like like Elon Musk can pledge Tesla shares at collateral and probably
borrow it at basically prime right and it's like no other person has access to those things
so again it's it's you're totally right the Pareto principle just it just goes add infinitum
because it's just you got the regulations but then you just got the math behind it that

(58:57):
just makes it just so much worse over and over and over I think it's always interesting
to like you see you see politicians you know like let's let's take our favorite Bitcoin
hater Elizabeth Warren as an example and you know she's always blaming these you know
these billionaires and these greedy corporations for prices going up and for all these things

(59:18):
and it's like there's no acknowledgement that I'm not saying that those things that they
don't happen right that there's not as you said like you know people if you have a lot
of money more money accrues to you because of this fiat system the the you know Gantel
on effect or can't he own depending on if you want to take his Irish or French ancestry

(59:39):
first name the closer you are to the money creation the more benefit you derive from
it but the point is that it's still always all of those things are downstream the billionaires
and the greedy corporations are downstream of the money creation itself whenever you
hear politicians not all Thomas Massie for example actually talks about the Fed I mean

(01:00:00):
Ron Paul has been talking about the Fed for decades but most politicians don't actually
address the giant fricking elephant in the room which is we have a central bank that
prints money creates reserves however you want to say it out of thin air and that is what
creates these massive and ever widening distortions that most negatively impact the poorest and

(01:00:25):
most vulnerable in the society while enriching anybody who owns assets and the people who
own assets while they are the wealthiest in the society and if you own a lot of them you're
definitely the wealthiest like it's just crazy it's like all of the political solutions
that are put forward seem to be like trying to put a bandaid on an axe wound like that's
okay that's nice but like I don't know if you noticed you're still have a giant gaping

(01:00:49):
axe wound in your leg like that band aids not not doing anything like you need to close
that wound and again that's where it like comes back to Bitcoin it's like maybe there's
not a solution from the inside maybe because this system is so entrenched so broken like
I'm curious what you guys think if there is any possibility of reforming this system

(01:01:11):
this Federal Reserve fiat system from the inside out or if that can only happen by external
forces parallel systems being a forcing function for change from the outside if that makes
sense.
Julian do you want to add anything or I can go for it?
You can go for it I have to think on that.

(01:01:33):
So you know this is something I've been thinking about been writing about for the last two
or three years and you know the conclusion I came to is actually really simple right
like the existence of the fiat system demands that interest be paid and the reason why is
because debt is money right whenever their new currency units are created they're loaned

(01:01:54):
into existence and you know to complete the loop on that prior thought of is the Fed printing
money technically right I said it's an oxymoron they are and they aren't yes they're printing
reserves the irony is that those reserves again they float into the banking system and if
they're loaned into the real economy they become real cash the other way they become
real cash and we think real cash like M2 is if the government spends money so the government

(01:02:18):
the Treasury they sell bonds who do they sell bonds to pension funds banks hedge funds right
primary dealers those that money goes into their Treasury General account which is their
checking account and then they spend it into the real economy there's like a magic button
they press that turns bank reserves into M2 cash and so that's why you see that the
chart of M2 just go exponential with COVID because the government had this huge stimulus

(01:02:41):
of trillions of dollars of money flowing to the real economy and that's the missing link
that I think Peter Schiff you know all the Goldbug Austrian libertarians missed is you
know they were decrying hyperinflation in 2011 it never came because we didn't have
the fiscal spending to pair with the QE once you have fiscal spending once you have a government
that's so indebted that they're just only spending their way out you have this release

(01:03:03):
valve from the truth from the financial system that moves down into the real economy all
these reserves that are created up in the in the financial economy right in the markets
by by the central bank they're flowing around and on bank balance sheets they're all now
starting to channel down into the real economy and turn into real money M2 cash and that
just causes this explosion of cash and because money demands an interest rate that means

(01:03:29):
every year you know if you think about a simple system if there's a hundred dollars and there's
five percent interest rate a hundred and five dollars needs to be paid back next year no
matter what and so where those marginal five dollars come from do you have to create them
and so that means that if you base a monetary system on debt you have to continually increase
the money supply no matter what and you know the only way to like prevent that would be

(01:03:53):
to have almost like a military rule where you would tell the banks zero percent rates
you know you cannot make usury is essentially illegal unpunishable by death but the issue
with that again is okay so people are really pissed off about the monetary system that
works for a generation or two and then the people forget about the the evils of central

(01:04:13):
banking and of interest and usury and they say hey you know the banks are like please
come on we need to make some profits if we make profits we can more intelligently invest
in the market and so people say okay well two percent you know let's let the banks loan
again and then let's let them loan at five and seven and then the problem starts all
over again we're now these banks you know need to lend more money the central bank needs

(01:04:34):
to help finance that the central bank is able to manipulate rates to allow them to lend
as much as they want and the system is just you know perpetuates and so I I've come to
the conclusion that you know there is no way to fix it within you know within the system
because it's humans and human incentives and human desires that ultimately shape the system
that's why bitcoin is so brilliant is because it removes humans from the monetary system

(01:04:59):
for the first time in all history yeah and I think there's this really interesting conversation
going on right now in the states about a bitcoin reserve and sort of like what the whole point
of it is you know is it is it a system that eventually if that reserve grows big enough
could we just you know press delete on the fiat system because it just kind of like removes

(01:05:21):
all the liabilities out of the US you know economy like let's just say we buy a trillion
dollars of bitcoin and bitcoin does you know bitcoin thing and goes up a hundred X right
it's like wow now all of a sudden the assets are maybe worth as much as the liabilities
and now we're at a crossroads or maybe we can like make a decision about you know how
we're gonna redirect and conduct Fed policy I don't know you know like it just feels so

(01:05:43):
early on that I personally hold out hope that there will be parallel systems and I think
the thing I'm a little surprised by honestly and maybe I'm just like my expectations are
not being patient enough is I thought after El Salvador adopted it more people would get
it as like we should start storing this as a reserve and I think a lot of people are
but I think maybe the logical thing right now is they're all trying to do it in secret

(01:06:06):
as much as possible before they're kind of like out in the open about it because I think
it's like it's the game theory thing it's like once the firing shot is off and it's
clear to the world then it's just a rush into this asset and so everyone's trying to kind
of they're just waiting and hoping no one you know peeps too loud about it but yeah I
don't ultimately believe that like the fiat system can reform itself I think there's like

(01:06:27):
just a there's the level of like incentives that I just don't think will ever be perfectly
aligned from bankers and the government and the people I think it's just a very you know
maybe overly optimistic view of things to expect that to happen but I don't know I could
be wrong on that.
Peruvian I'm curious what you think about the Bitcoin strategic reserve idea as well

(01:06:49):
just because Julian brought it up like do you think this is something that I mean it
seems more and more likely that this is going to happen according to source but where are
you at with this how are you thinking about this good thing bad thing saves fiat ends
fiat what happens.
Sure actually this is a really good I was about to jump in with what Julian just said

(01:07:12):
because it's a really good point and I've actually written about it in my dollar end
game series you know extensively you know the issue with the issue with you know Bitcoin
being adopted strategic reserve right is that it's coming for the king daddy of all fiat
currencies which is the US dollar you know the dollar is the global reserve currency
it's loaned you know in 170 out of 180 or so nations and it's used for cross border payments

(01:07:39):
globally and you know we're talking about 62% of global forex reserves denominated in
dollars 53% of all transactions 83% of all cross border transactions you know something
like 80 to 90% of all banks globally have access to the US SWIFT system so this is like

(01:08:00):
the king daddy it's like the underpinning of the entire global financial system you
could think of the fiat system as the dollar and then derivatives of the dollar which are
all developed economy currencies and then below that all emerging market currencies
and so you know the Fed this is you know on the back of Brent Johnson's milkshake theory
which is a really good macro pundit and commentator which is that the Fed essentially controls

(01:08:26):
the price of money globally not because all currencies have to use the US dollar to transact
trade and so when the Fed changes interest rates or when the Fed moves you know monetary
policy it affects every single nation right and right now is a perfect example you see
the Korean won you see the Japanese yen you see the Canadian dollar at historic lows against

(01:08:47):
the US dollar and it's because of this you know hiking cycle that they've done that's
been so fast that's put the domestic US interest rate above the rest and you know El Salvador
adopting Bitcoin as a strategic reserve as a treasury asset I think it doesn't have you
know a hundredth of the importance of the US government doing that and again it's because

(01:09:09):
the US government actually controls the global reserve currency and with the central underpinning
of the entire global monetary system beginning to adopt Bitcoin that is what finally puts
a target on other central bank backs you know Bitcoin I think it it's going to follow the
same you know it's a new money so it's going to be difficult like it's very difficult to

(01:09:30):
map out exactly how this plays out but I agree with the thesis that you know it goes through
the three stages of money it goes through store value then medium exchange and then
unit of account and we're still in the store value stage right we're still convincing
people hey this is a superior you know capital preservation mechanism it's going to be much
more difficult to convince people to actually adopt it as a medium exchange and you'd have

(01:09:53):
count until the fiat system begins to truly enter its terminal stages which again I believe
it's coming in the next 10 10 to 15 years but as the you know if the US government can
can do this I think that this really sends a signal out to other central banks because
no longer they need to hold US Treasuries they can just hold Bitcoin and as the US acquires

(01:10:15):
more Bitcoin their values will increase and as other nation states join in it's almost
like a game theory mechanism where everyone starts to rush right every single if you're
Singapore if you're Australia if you're Norway you're just like wait wait the global reserve
currency which is the global empire the you know hegemon is acquiring Bitcoin at you know

(01:10:36):
400,000 Bitcoin a year I'm going to start you know like what am I doing like I need to
get in this immediately I'm holding US Treasuries why do I even own those that make 5% why not
sell the US Treasuries only hold liquid US dollars and only hold Bitcoin and I think
that that's you know that's a much more consequence and so I'm hopeful that that happens but even

(01:10:58):
if it doesn't right this is inevitable no matter what it's just a question of timing
this would speed things up if they don't do it it would slow things down but eventually
again all Fiat's must die because this you know the system is unsustainable just by design.
Well I want to pull on that a little bit because you mentioned like in the next 10 to 15 years

(01:11:21):
you think Fiat enters kind of a terminal stage so just to clarify do you think that
nations like if we look at just like the G7's or let's look at you know the nations that
are printing their own currency and that are you know have the largest richest nations right

(01:11:42):
do those nations adopting a Bitcoin strategic reserve does it prolong the life of their
own Fiat like if the US does this first is the dollar the last Fiat domino to fall I
mean I think it's kind of positioned to be the last domino to fall anyway even without
that if all else being equal but but how do you see that does that so does that accelerate

(01:12:06):
Fiat demise or and do you think we reach a state where actually their like Fiat currencies
are a thing of the past or because I struggle with that and I often think it's like well
Fiat currencies could be useful tools for government still even on a Bitcoin standard
they may want to still use them they would just be different from the Fiat we know today
there'd be more accountability to that Fiat so how do you see that playing out sure the

(01:12:31):
only way right like the only way that they would really work to save their their domestic
currencies if they paid their Fiat to Bitcoin and allowed redemptions and capital flows
some nation a lot of nations actually cannot do that functionally like China or like Russia
they have closed capital accounts they cannot allow money to go in and out freely because

(01:12:52):
you know they have they have a currency peg rate that they want to maintain and it's you
can't have it's called the the it's like a the policy trilemma and macroeconomics you
can't have an open capital account free floating exchange rate and independent monetary autonomy
so either you're either you're gonna give up your monetary tommy to the Fed which has

(01:13:13):
become a vassal state of the US or you're gonna close your capital account or you're
gonna lose your peg a pegged exchange rate a lot of these you know countries like Japan
don't want to do that so you know if they do want to prolong the existence of their
Fiat yes they can pay it to Bitcoin I think that would work but then that would that would
kind of bring us back to the Austrian point of well great that's what we wanted we wanted

(01:13:35):
to rein in you know excess of fiscal spending we wanted to rein in excessive debt and now
you have a limit hey you can't issue you have you know 100 sats per yen you can't issue
any more than that okay great and if you start to them the people will start redeeming it
and you'll be drained and then you'll have a bank run just like the old days and your
nation will collapse and and so you know I think that yeah I think that the system it

(01:14:00):
could have evolved to adapt like mini Fiat Bitcoin stand quasi Bitcoin standards where
they peg the rate and my hope is that we we eventually make sure pure Bitcoin standard
and fiat sir you know purely a point of the past but that's obviously like the most bullish
hyper Bitcoinized world the more maybe middle ground you take is we're going to exist in

(01:14:23):
this world where there are fiat currencies but there's peg to Bitcoin and Bitcoin is
the store value and all all governments are responsible for you know for redeeming at
that parity and this is actually how the global monetary system worked in the 1800s 1700s
where everyone was pegged to gold and whenever a nation would excessively you know spend

(01:14:46):
or inflate their currency you would see an outflow of gold reserves from that nation
so you know France fighting the Napoleonic Wars they got into debt they started printing
money they started seeing inflation and gold started to withdraw from France and it was
all drained to the to the neighboring countries and then to you know recover from that what
do they have to do they have to raise interest rates rein in monetary spending actually induce

(01:15:09):
a recession so that their their currency strengthens in the forex markets and then that finally
draws the gold back in and so that's a that was like a self balancing mechanism that existed
in the gold standard where it would prevent any one nation from issuing too many bank
notes because other nations would call in their bank notes and start to just take the
gold and so you know the same thing happened to Germany in World War one and so we could

(01:15:33):
see that same dynamic play out under Bitcoin standard I think a probably a pretty cool
place where you can maybe picture some of this stuff happening is look at what's going
on with tether and micro strategy these are companies one of them has you know super put
Bitcoin as like the lead treasury asset but tether is like a really cool parable for what

(01:15:53):
potentially the US dollar could be something that initially was backed solely by treasuries
are almost you know entirely by treasuries just like the normal US dollar but whose Bitcoin
reserve has grown and is now eating a bigger slice of what the treasury reserve ratio is
within tether now tether if you you know believe the attestations is now like it's got like

(01:16:16):
a lower LTV ratio because of the increase in the value of Bitcoin in their treasury they
no longer need as many treasuries as I don't know if they're selling them off because of
the Bitcoin I have no clue what's going on there but tangibly as Bitcoin price rises
and as long as they keep it they could sell off treasuries right and so you can use that
as maybe a little bit of a microcosm see what they do as a microcosm for what potentially

(01:16:37):
the US government and other you know debt bearing entities could do I think tether probably
keeps holding quite a bit of treasuries though just they don't piss off US government too
much if I had to guess yeah don't worry guys we'll keep buying them under the table there
for sure but I think it's interesting right right like we just passed in Vancouver emotion

(01:16:58):
to explore adding Bitcoin to the to the city's treasury and one of the arguments that our
mayor made is that you know we have three billion dollars or three point two billion
dollars of bonds that are only worth two point eight billion dollars right so you know we're
under we're under collateralized for what we need to pay out and his argument to adopt
Bitcoin is we don't need to put all our money into Bitcoin but we should have this as sort

(01:17:22):
of like a hedge on these bonds as they they're moving inversely to one another and I just
think like you're seeing that shift of thinking in all these smaller institutions work its
way up to the bigger mama institution which is you know the federal government and how
they treat that asset so interesting to see all this play out you know but it is that's

(01:17:42):
actually something I wanted to talk to you guys about because it's like you know okay
we talked about the Fed quite a lot and there's proving as you pointed out we could go for
you know all day long and still you know get close to scratch in the surface maybe but
if we look at the state of like Bitcoin adoptions okay obviously individual adoption is one thing

(01:18:02):
that retail adoption as it's commonly called there's a massive massive wave of psychopathic
codelers of last resort that continue DCA all the time and that's just that's not going
to stop I know my DCA is not going to turn off you know then there's a lot of new entrants
that may come in okay but setting aside retail we look at all the different levels of let's

(01:18:27):
say corporate nation state but also local adoption like you mentioned Vancouver you
look at also in the United States I think Ohio just put forward a bill there's other
you know states that have done this as well to establish their own Bitcoin strategic reserves
and a florida is looking at at Texas you're seeing this happen at all these different
levels and it feels to me like they're sort of like something about Bitcoin hitting 100k

(01:18:52):
like even though this is like you know it's a number right like it's a psychological number
does that number actually like mean anything I mean not more than it does in our in our
brains right it's just it is what is it's a hundred hundred thousand us cuckbucks like
wow but something about that seems to have flipped a switch where now we're seeing like
the con the conversations seem to be accelerating they seem to be getting more serious it seems

(01:19:17):
to be that everybody is kind of coming around this realization at the same time that oh shit
I guess this is real I guess it's not gonna die at least not you know tomorrow and maybe
we need to figure this out like right right the fuck now is that is you guys feeling that
kind of vibe shift as well hundred percent hundred percent it is interesting that there's

(01:19:42):
a second order effect of this now where you're seeing unit bias and people are like ask her
this Bitcoin thing I missed it a long time ago and it's like oh I hate to see that discouragement
among people who haven't picked it up yet and you know I think we have to do our duty
as Bitcoiners to tell people look sats are a thing and like that's it's it's just because
it's already gone from zero to a hundred thousand that doesn't mean that it's like near the end

(01:20:04):
of where we think it's gonna go and all that and that all comes with education I'll say
this I don't have like a ton to say on this but if you're a creator in this space it's
like the best thing you can do is just stack sats because that will pay for your ability
to educate people more like Bitcoin is your reserve currency to educate other people about
Bitcoin so don't like I made a I've made some mistakes in selling quite a bit of my Bitcoin

(01:20:29):
to pay for other ventures and I'm realizing like I probably should have just taken out
like fiat debt to pay for my films rather than like sell my Bitcoin and pay for my films
so take that as a bit of experience for me but like a crude Bitcoin you can go out and
you can educate people so they don't have the unit bias problems but yeah in terms of
everyone everyone else that's not retail I think the the urgency is really starting to

(01:20:51):
kick in yeah this is where you get into right the psychotic like monetary economics and
monetary psychology and you know I think like I get into arguments all the time I was in
a spaces the other day where people were you know Bitcoin skeptics which is fun I think
that I almost laugh at the Bitcoin skeptics because especially now with us past 100k it's

(01:21:12):
like guys like this I was telling you about this at 50k people were telling me that 25k
people were before me were at talking at 5k and you still aren't listening like how ignorant
you have to be but you know they were saying they're like look it's not used they're like
proving you're an idiot this isn't used as money this isn't used as a transaction tool

(01:21:32):
and I'm like yeah do you understand what have you heard of Gresham's law have you heard that
bad money drives out good if Bitcoiners we believe it's a store of value we're not gonna
you know go out and just spend we want it to remain a store of value we don't want to
go out and spend all of our Bitcoin immediately because we know that the dollar is going to
continue to debase and so because of that incentive structure it's going to continue

(01:21:54):
to become a store of value and a superior store of value for longer and longer periods
of time until it finally reaches you know market cap saturation where then it will flip
into tears law where you know we'll start to actually use it as money because it no
longer is going up 20% or for the 10 year cagger is 60% a year right so once that train
stops then sure people want to spend it but we're still in the store of value stage we're

(01:22:18):
still convincing people and every day you see I think this 100,000 level was very psychological
where you know you see the pensions you know pension funds in Michigan you know you mentioned
Florida's looking at it Texas I've had actually I've had several asset managers that I know
reach out to me and ask me about Bitcoin custody and it's funny because these are people I

(01:22:41):
haven't talked to in like maybe a year or two since the bear market and now they're just
like hey proven do you know a Bitcoin custodian I can talk to you know some of my clients
they keep pestering me about it you know and I'm like well I have some I have some advice
for you but I also have a little bit of I told you so because I told you at 30k and
you didn't want to listen.

(01:23:03):
You know okay couple things I want to pull on there one just as a point about the store
value medium exchange unit of account progression right I think an important caveat to that is
like that you know that expression like the future is already here it's just not evenly
distributed yet I think that's the same thing with the progression of Bitcoin as money I

(01:23:26):
think that like most people do and we'll go through that kind of standard progression
of store value medium exchange unit of account but that doesn't mean that everybody is only
at the store value phase and depending where you are in the world or just depending on
what you do and where your head is at like I personally I think you know maybe you guys
do too like I try to I try to use Bitcoin as a medium exchange as much as I can I mean

(01:23:51):
I certainly use it every day on Noster which is great people are using it right now in
this Noster live stream to zap some sats I also try to denominate my life in Bitcoin
as much as possible to use it as my personal unit of account because I find that it's a
more accurate one for measuring how much value I'm actually creating and bringing back in

(01:24:14):
to myself the dollar is just a really bad measuring stick right even though it's the
prettiest horse at the glue factory it's still at the glue factory right and so I think that
that is an interesting point I do think that a lot of these like if we go to lightning
if we go to FETI if we go to Noster kind of indirectly as a way that Bitcoin is used in
a very normalized way I think these are really important things because that medium of exchange

(01:24:39):
piece is actually really important for as Jeff Booth would say Bitcoin remaining decentralized
and secure but I would also I would also concede the point that like right now what
do the vast vast overwhelming majority of people care about is number gonna go up is
value going to be stored that's that's just the reality right and and that doesn't that's

(01:25:02):
not a you know it's not like it's a bad thing that's just the reality it is what it is and
I'm I'm very curious to see too as we as we go forward you know we've got I'm curious
to see how much Bitcoin the ETFs end up pulling in because they've obviously been a historic
success from an ETF standpoint it's also like you know a lot of bit quarters myself

(01:25:25):
included I would much rather have actual Bitcoin that I control the keys to then holding an
ETF but okay for a lot of people that's an easy way to get exposure and I'm curious if
you think you know okay between nation-state setting up Bitcoin strategic reserves potentially
and that kind of snowballing and accelerating between ETFs gobbling up evermore Bitcoin

(01:25:45):
do you think there are any risks to that as we go down the line in terms of this is a
centralizing force in terms of Bitcoin ownership in terms of economic power in the network
because a node that controls a lot of Bitcoin and can move it in the event of a chain split
like economic nodes are a thing like this does matter my node is not the same as Coin

(01:26:06):
basis node it's just not the case I'm just curious if you guys see any sort of kind of
risk there for for us down the line I think that it's really important as Bitcoin educators
to number one acknowledge that like there's no situation where eight billion people are
self-custodying Bitcoin like on the base layer but we need to reach the people who have the

(01:26:32):
capability to self-custody there is an economic cost to doing that which is you know fronting
the money for a wallet and there's a technical know-how know how they need to get to and
the optimal way of doing it is probably through multi-sig see need to make sure that you have
people that you can trust but we need to meet those people and really motivate them to choose

(01:26:52):
self-custody if they're fully capable of doing it over leaving it with custodians like BlackRock
because it's just the convenience model right now it wins every single freaking time and
the ETFs and the micro strategy or the convenience model and there's just a lot of people out
there and that's kind of the mission of what we've been trying to do with get base TV is
to like find those people that can take that responsibility and to really like act on it

(01:27:17):
as much as possible so that we don't end up in a situation where you have too much centralized
too many centralized forces I think there's just a lot of misconceptions about how difficult
it is to self-custody Bitcoin I think there's also a side of people in the Bitcoin space
that say everyone should do it it's super easy blah blah blah like you have no excuse and
it's like there's a middle ground there and we need to just like find the right people

(01:27:40):
you know that can self-custody with their Bitcoin and really push them to do so yeah I mean
my take on it is right we're already sitting at what 19.7 million of the supply has been
mined and you know we have again we had this discussion in that Twitter space as I told
you about where it's basically me and one other couple other like quasi Bitcoiners who

(01:28:01):
it's they somehow half get in and also half don't get it arguing about this and they
you know people are saying hey there's another 2 million to be mined so the network is compromised
so I was like how are you ignoring the 19 million that's already been mined and already you
know being held right something like you know there's there's what like 6 million unique

(01:28:22):
addresses with you know over to Bitcoin and there's you know millions and millions over
one Bitcoin and obviously even more than that between 0.1 and 1 and so we really have a
network where there's already a huge amount of you know small small level holders retail

(01:28:43):
holders and those holders are trimming right you see like the amount of addresses holding
one Bitcoin it started to fall every time there's a bull market but it falls by you
know 10% falls by 12% had Lynn Alden said this in the most recent newsletter and it
rebounds afterwards so they trim some of their position and then when the bear market comes

(01:29:04):
back in they all buy back in and so what the market is telling you is people still obviously
have a preference for owning Bitcoin as a store of value and you know I think that the
ETFs getting in the you know sailor getting in I think the the main risk this poses poses
a price risk and a narrative risk where if sailor blows up or if the ETFs blow up or

(01:29:26):
some Bitcoin somehow you know there's a there's a hack where the custodian coin base gets
compromised you you could see a situation where you know there's this narrative that
comes out Bitcoin is dangerous you know look at these you're gonna get capitalists that
lost billions of dollars on Bitcoin you're an idiot the Bitcoin prices price crashes
to $30,000 or whatever and everyone in the space says it's over right and my opinion

(01:29:51):
would be that's the perfect time to stack sats I'm gonna work even harder and just buy even
more and because I know that these you know these are temporary flushouts right it's
just like FTX and Celsius this is the system sometimes needs to clean clean itself out
and by no means am I saying sailor's gonna blow up or the ETFs are gonna blow up I'm
just saying that this is I think that that's like the the main risk that that they pose

(01:30:11):
because I think at this point that it's too late for them to actually compromise the network
in a in a meaningful way you know even with what 2% of the Bitcoin that sailor has right
he can't affect all the consensus rules he can't change the miners you know block you
know block pair what are they called paradigms or I forgot the word templates templates this

(01:30:35):
he can't yeah he can't change that and the block size wars prove that right like even
with concerted effort at an early stage they weren't able to change the block height or
the block size and so because they're not able to write like that makes this the perfect
system to kind of be like that Trojan horse to enter the fiat system and and kind of take
it over for its own now I don't love the idea of billionaires getting in because I think

(01:30:59):
they're already wealthy enough which is why I think retail we just need to stack as much
as we can now because you know there's only what one to 1.5 million and free floating
Bitcoin meaning Bitcoin that's being actively bought and sold on exchanges once that dries
up right who knows where the price will go it'll have to go much higher to find sellers
now I think that that's that's such an important point because like if you have a significant

(01:31:23):
amount of capital you do not care if Bitcoin's at 100,000 or 200,000 or 300 like it's it's
actually much safer bet for you like that that looks good to you okay this is a mature
asset yep I'm now I'm gonna allocate you know to two to five percent of my insanely large
portfolio to this and that part of my portfolio is gonna carry the rest of it actually much

(01:31:44):
more than I thought it would wow isn't this great I'm now you know even more exceptionally
wealthy hmm but they don't have a unit bias you know what I mean like it's just they're
just allocating a percentage but for the average retail I honestly I hate the word retail

(01:32:05):
it just it just feels dumb for the average fucking person like a hundred thousand sounds
like a really scary big number it feels like you've missed the boat but it's like I've
only been in Bitcoin for four years and I can say wow you know every time Bitcoin started
pumping it was like well this will probably be the last you know last chance I I have

(01:32:27):
to buy it cheap but the reality is that if you go forward you know one year two year four
years go through a full cycle that's when you realize oh no it's always cheap right now
when you're looking back four years later like Bitcoin is is always going to be cheaper
today than it is in four years so you haven't missed anything it's just but it that's like

(01:32:50):
that takes some time to come around to that idea too right but that's Julian's your point
that's why education is so important and to bring this back full circle I think one of
the most important things to educate people about is the problems with our current system
that's why I'm super stoked that you guys made this film because until you understand
just how dark and just how broken our monetary system is you may not have the you may not

(01:33:16):
have the tools necessary to understand why you need Bitcoin so much and I want to I want
to again bring it back to the dock a little bit just before we close out want to be conscious
of y'all's time what do you hope people get out of this as as this film is coming out
what what do you you know and and I guess is this a film that you really hope kind of

(01:33:39):
you know reaches out just you know into the normie world like I think it has the potential
to because it's you know it's an accessible film but what do you hope that people take
from this who do you you know who were you thinking about as your audience when you made
this I um it's hard because it's it's a super like dense story and you know you'll see

(01:34:03):
it when you come out and you can come to your own opinion on it but my intention with all
the content with get based is I think that you can't understand or appreciate Bitcoin
until you reprogram and you rewire your rewire your brain to have a low time preference and
so there's a lot of different ways to get there you've seen my shorts I try and explain

(01:34:26):
concepts and very high time preference ways because I think it's just like it's a bridge
right to get to the low time preference stuff but my hope from all this is that slowly piece
by piece there's a lot of sacrifice in ones in ones day to day and in ones routines and
habits to get to an area where you where you choose you know the low time preference way

(01:34:51):
of thinking and going and I think the more that I can just hammer that into people through
interest interesting films that make you think twice and things that entertain you and you
know seeing how I've gone on that journey myself from being a pretty high time preference
individual to working towards being a low time preference individual I hope through
all that journey people will eventually go there and that's once you're there then Bitcoin

(01:35:15):
becomes a lot easier to understand you just have to rewire people's brains slowly and
surely and I think this is like a pretty cool part and a cool way of doing it because I
just think that this story in particular is just not something and you know you're just
never going to be taught it in school you're never going to be taught it in your favorite
movie you have to learn it somewhere and I think the somewhere that people learn nowadays

(01:35:37):
is it's YouTube right and it's Twitter and it's seeing these things in 30 minute formats
and it's seeing these things told from like three or four people you know and especially
Ian who's really broken through you know kind of the social media echo chamber to really
bring these interesting values through his content and so I'm just so stoked that we
got this crew assembled there's like a levity to it there's some intrigue there's some conspiracy

(01:36:01):
theory inside the film and I just hope people enjoy the ride and you know kind of arrive
to where they need to arrive to see that bitcoins the solution to a lot of this yeah absolutely
I'm on the same page you know I I've been studying like macroeconomics finance the
Fed for the last like eight years nine years at this point and you know the further you

(01:36:22):
dive down this rabbit hole and the further you study econ you realize how much of our
world is just warped and distorted and broken because of this right even the economics profession
itself right they are the foremost propagandists of Keynesian economics and the existence of
the Fed and so they've kind of indoctrinated an entire generation of economists to believe

(01:36:45):
in this and and it's going to take a lot of you know hard discussions to unprogram and
to re configure people's minds to realize the truth and I think you know this is coming
whether we like it or not right the inflation is going to come back we're going to see you
know more wars more government spending more debasement more chaos because that's just

(01:37:09):
the nature of the cycle you know we're at 130% GDP we can't get it you can't get out
of this in any way other than either devaluation or depression and the Fed does not want to
allow depression under any circumstances because that puts the banking system at risk so they're
going to opt for inflation and you know that that will finally I think open people's eyes

(01:37:31):
to the evils of the system and hopefully docs like this one will be right there to show people
hey this is the reason why you're in a world of constant debasement and constant theft
of your life of your life force of your energy of your time and this is why it should change
and you know that would hopefully orange pill some more people and add to the Bitcoin movement

(01:37:52):
so I'm very hopeful for that you know just because Julian said the words conspiracy
theory and I said I would get back this did JP Morgan know the Titanic was going to sink
I have a hard time I'm just asking the question I have a hard time with that one because the
idea is that there were three bankers on that boat that were anti central bank however there's

(01:38:16):
zero evidence that they made any statements about that I don't know where that assumption
came from but the conspiracy is that three anti central bank bankers were on the Titanic
and it was a planned demolition to get them out of the picture in the conversation around
the Federal Reserve I just don't have the evidence if someone can link it to me but
like I dug I dug deep on that there's another weird conspiracy in the film which you'll

(01:38:39):
see which is the you know the the dead bodies and stuff that one I was willing to kind of
like chew through a little bit more but the Titanic one not so much wait what about the
bodies sorry the Rockefeller's house is on top of let's just say I wear some sacrifice
and pretty positive took place and I think they were aware of it that was a dark that

(01:39:05):
was a dark part of the film for sure I was not aware of that particular particular storyline
and it was a little bit disturbing yeah well that's how you should feel it is it is coincident
right because again the National Reserve Act right so they met in December 1910 to plan

(01:39:26):
the National Reserve which later became the Federal Reserve they put you know they lobbied
Congress they put forth the act and in January of 1912 it was shot down and then April 1912
the Titanic sank and those you know those bankers who were on the Titanic you know even though
they didn't have public statements I believe that they had voted against the act and you

(01:39:48):
know behind closed doors at least in the National Monetary Commission they had been you know
in opposition to it so we don't have the problem is it's one of those things where it's like
it could be a coincidence and as far as I can tell I'm same as Julian I couldn't find
a direct link where it's like oh here's a letter from JPMorgan ordering for bombs to

(01:40:08):
be put in the mailroom of the Titanic for sure yeah there's nothing like that but you
know there's just an it's just a weird coincidence and it could be you know could be true who
knows what the the weird part for me is like he was JPMorgan was supposed to be on the
Titanic and then he got sick a couple days before and then decided to stay but then he

(01:40:30):
was like seen out and about making public appearances so like clearly like not that
sick and didn't he own the like he owned like it was like the white star line or something
he he had various interests in the construction and operation of the Titanic as well so you

(01:40:51):
know I'm just just asking questions here you know I have no idea but I think it's also
an interesting thing where it's like oh you know we can't find any evidence on this but
it's like man at that time it was it's not like the internet existed where like something
a piece of information could get out there and then be really hard to like forever delete
it's like if you're one of the wealthiest people in the world and you also have ownership

(01:41:13):
stakes in all of the media companies and you also have ownership stakes in the cruise lines
and construction companies and you literally you know own a giant bank it's pretty easy
to make sure that a story is spun whatever way you want and that there is no evidence
to the contrary I just feel like there's like a lower budget way to pick off all those bankers

(01:41:36):
that probably would have made more sense than like we're going to destroy this boat with
like hundreds of other innocent civilians you know the question is what kind of insurance
policy was there on the boat that's what you know again just asking questions like and
yeah and if you think about it too is a great coincidence right you can always hide behind
the accident right if to get that amount of wealthy people in the same room if you just

(01:41:59):
had an assassin going and shoot them it's clearly targeted but if they all get on the
boat and it's just made in voyage and they're sitting first class and the boat sinks very
easy to have plausible deniability around you should right you should tell the to the
subtlety part to the CIA you know they didn't they didn't get so good with the whole subtlety
thing we're seeing all these people picked off left and right and it all looks so suspicious

(01:42:20):
you know maybe they could see I could learn from JP Morgan if that's the case yeah I
mean they literally invented the term conspiracy theorist so you know at least they have that
going for them right yeah absolutely yeah and you know it wouldn't again it none of
this would surprise me because I was recently doing some research on JP Morgan and Tesla

(01:42:41):
and how test JP Morgan had funded Tesla's research at Warden Cliff Tower and then you
know when Tesla wanted to create this free energy that would be available to all people
wirelessly and he didn't want to file for patents for the radio or you know any of his
other inventions JP Morgan decided to pull funding because he he wanted money he wanted

(01:43:03):
you know to produce he wanted he wanted his investments to to make a income and so he pulled
all this funding from Tesla basically sabotage and blacklisted him from all the private you
know equity investors and then he went and funded Edison and Edison's other compatriots
who basically plagiarized his DC current DC AC current work and then you know stole it

(01:43:28):
monetized it and profit from it and Tesla was left he died broke and penniless and his
possessions were seized by the FBI and by you know private bankers apparently again in
in a conspiracy because they've they sent his belongings back to Europe and to his son

(01:43:49):
and when they arrived there were like 10 crates of his belongings missing and no one knows
where they went so the spirit conspiracy is that JP Morgan stole them what upon his death
or in that's why Satoshi stayed anonymous exactly there's another I've I believe that
minutes yeah well over but look into this and later if you feel like it I believe it

(01:44:13):
was like it was Donald Trump's grandpa who was like you know like the extremely long
tenured MIT professor and he was the one who was in charge of like the invention part of
the estate of Tesla when it was given to MIT there's a whole different rabbit hole to go
down there we won't get into it I appreciate you guys coming on here this was super fascinating

(01:44:35):
I encourage everyone to check out the film when it comes out where do you want to send
people where should they go watch it I'll make sure to link it in the show notes yeah
Twitter X at get base TV it'll be posted there hopefully a week or so from now I don't know
when the recorded edited version of this will come out but for the live viewers a week from
now and then on YouTube as well we prefer if you watch it on YouTube because we sell fun

(01:44:58):
of this entire thing and we get ad revenue from that so at get base TV on YouTube as well
awesome and I'll link you guys on on X and Noster as well but seriously thank you guys
for the time I'm gonna try to get this out this evening actually once the wife and son
go to bed but this was a great time talking with you guys I hope this encourages more

(01:45:20):
people to go down more rabbit holes and thank you guys for going so deep down this Federal
Reserve rabbit hole because it is a fascinating one appreciate you guys awesome thanks so
much for having us really appreciate it Walker thanks for the invite
and that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast you are a Bitcoin only

(01:45:45):
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(01:46:08):
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no stir and on X Bitcoin is scarce there will only ever be 21 million but Bitcoin podcasts

(01:46:30):
are abundant so thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to the Bitcoin podcast
until next time stay free.

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Jekyll Island, The Federal Reserve, & The End of Fiat - Julian Figueroa & Peruvian Bull (THE Bitcoin Podcast)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jekyll Island, The Federal Reserve, & The End of Fiat - Julian Figueroa & Peruvian Bull (THE Bitcoin Podcast)