What's The Problem? - Joe Bryan

Summary

In an engaging presentation by Joe Bryan, the concept of flawed monetary systems is explored, focusing on the significant issues stemming from them. The story revolves around a fictional island split into two societies, each with different currency values, demonstrating how currency management (or mismanagement) affects the economy, society, and overall well-being. The ultimate solution, as proposed towards the end, is transitioning to a new form of currency, Bitcoin, to solve the global monetary problems.

Highlights

• The fictional narrative highlights how monetary quality controls society's trajectory 🚢.
• Introducing the 'Big Red Button' allegory to explain economic mismanagement's consequences 🔴.
• Demonstrating a comparison between traditional fiat currencies and Bitcoin as a solution to financial instability 📊.
• Illustrating the cascade of issues arising from poor monetary policies, highlighting escalating crises and social decline 📉.
• Emphasizing the transformative potential of Bitcoin in creating a stable economic environment 🌐.

Key Takeaways

• The quality of our money is the root cause of many global issues 🌍.
• Perfect money has seven key characteristics - scarcity, verifiability, portability, divisibility, durability, fungibility, and censorship resistance, which contrasts with traditional currencies 💰.
• Mismanagement through money printing creates wealth inequality and social issues 🏦.
• The concept of the 'Big Red Button' represents the destructive power of altering money supply without accountability 🔴.
• Bitcoin, described as the 'Satoshis,' is presented as a viable solution to fix these monetary problems and improve global social health 🚀.

Overview

In this creatively structured presentation, Joe Bryan uses an island allegory to dissect the profound impact that monetary systems have on society. Initially, two distinct societies are depicted to illustrate the contrast in outcomes between restrictive and flexible monetary policies, shedding light on how the stability of money can impact every facet of life.

The narrative introduces a pivotal moment with the so-called 'Big Red Button,' which serves as an allegory for the federal choice to print money. This action, meant to address governmental deficits, results in negative consequences, such as the depreciation of currency value and compounding economic and social crises, emphasizing the pressing need for responsible fiscal management.

The presentation concludes with a powerful proposition: embracing Bitcoin (‘Satoshis’) as a revolutionary way to rectify economic mismanagement. Through this digital currency, Bryan suggests, we can circumvent the systemic issues inherent in traditional money systems, enhancing economic health and stability globally.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction In the chapter titled 'Introduction,' the speakers, Joe and another unidentified person, discuss the existence of a significant problem. The conversation implies a sense of urgency and concern, noting that many people remain unaware of this issue. The discussion is characterized by a tone that suggests the importance of the problem, regardless of personal opinions or beliefs, indicating the need for awareness and addressing the matter at hand.
• 00:30 - 03:00: Understanding the Problem The chapter titled 'Understanding the Problem' opens by discussing the universality of the problems we face, noting that regardless of one's politics, religion, or location, once a problem is seen, it cannot be unseen. This realization is likened to passing through a one-way door, symbolizing irreversible awareness. However, there's optimism as a solution is proposed, and the speaker expresses a strong passion for sharing this solution, which fuels their hope for the future. The chapter poses a challenge: emphasizing that people can't fully appreciate a solution without first comprehending the problem.
• 03:00 - 09:00: Perfect Money and the Island Story The chapter opens with the narrator discussing the creation of a presentation intended for friends, aimed at explaining a certain problem. The narrator assumes the audience has basic human life experience and was encouraged to make this presentation available to a wider audience through video format. The chapter sets the stage for discussing the unspecified 'problem' that is suggested to be complex and multifaceted.
• 09:00 - 15:00: Divergent Paths: Satoshi vs. Fiatello This chapter explores the contrasting paths of Satoshi and Fiatello, capturing a prevalent feeling of unease. The narrative delves into how many individuals sense that things are not progressing positively in their personal lives and the broader world context. It highlights the growing perception that life is becoming increasingly difficult for most people.
• 15:00 - 23:00: Consequences of Money Printing The chapter explores the interconnectedness of various aspects of life and illustrates how these elements, though seemingly unrelated, are actually linked through the quality of money. The narrative is driven by a story of a group of intelligent individuals whose ship becomes wrecked on a deserted location, symbolizing the broader implications of financial mismanagement.
• 23:00 - 33:00: Long-Term Effects on Society In this chapter titled 'Long-Term Effects on Society,' the story unfolds on a deserted island, isolated from the rest of the world but rich in resources. This island is inhabited by people from an advanced civilization who are cut off from their previous society. They have the knowledge to rebuild society from scratch, even starting with nothing. As they begin this process, one of the crucial decisions they face is establishing a system of trade, which necessitates the creation of a new form of currency. This foundational step highlights the importance of economic systems in societal reconstruction.
• 33:00 - 43:00: Erosion of Trust and Economic Decline The chapter "Erosion of Trust and Economic Decline" opens with a pointed discussion about societies' ability to create their own monetary systems. The focus is on the theoretical concept of 'perfect money' – a monetary system designed with ideal characteristics. The criteria for 'good money' are introduced, totaling seven key elements. An essential characteristic emphasized is scarcity, implying a fixed supply perpetually. This sets the stage for further exploration of trust and economic systems as the narrative progresses.
• 43:00 - 55:00: The Real-world Parallel and the US Dollar The chapter discusses the concept of perfect money in a real-world context, emphasizing that perfect money should be easily verifiable by everyone at no cost. It should also be portable, divisible, infinitely divisible, and durable, meaning that it does not deteriorate over time and can exist indefinitely. These characteristics are paralleled with real-world currencies like the US Dollar, bringing into question what truly constitutes an ideal currency.
• 55:00 - 62:00: Solution: Separation of Money and State In the chapter titled 'Solution: Separation of Money and State,' the transcript highlights key properties that a form of money must possess. These include fungibility, ensuring that every piece of currency is identical and interchangeable with any other piece. Additionally, it must be widely acceptable, allowing for global transactions between any two parties. Most critically, it emphasizes the need for censorship resistance, where individuals maintain full control over their currency, making it immune to unauthorized confiscation or transaction blocks. This underscores the importance of individuals holding their money independently, without interference from any centralized authority.
• 62:00 - 65:30: Conclusion and Call to Action In the concluding chapter titled 'Conclusion and Call to Action', a conflict arises between two leaders over the concept of perfect money. Satoshi believes that the characteristics of perfect money should be immutable and unchanging throughout time. On the other hand, Fiatello accepts the idea of perfect money but questions the rigidity of its characteristics and implies a need for adaptability. This sets the stage for a debate between stability and flexibility in economic systems, urging readers to consider which approach leads to optimal financial governance.

What's The Problem? - Joe Bryan Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] Hey Joe. Hey. "What's this all about then? Well  we have a problem and it's a very big problem,   and unfortunately most people aren't aware of it.  It doesn't matter what your personal views are,
• 00:30 - 01:00 your politics, your religion or where you are,  and once you see the problem you can't unsee   it. It's like a one-way door. But thankfully we  also have the solution and it's this solution   that I'm so passionate about sharing and it's  what makes me just so optimistic for the future. The challenge I find though is how can anybody  fully value a solution unless they understand what
• 01:00 - 01:30 the problem is. And so, I put this presentation  together for some friends and it assumes no   knowledge other than just being a human being with  some life experience and they encouraged me then   to make this presentation into a video so I can  share it with everyone. So, I hope you enjoy. Welcome to 'What's The Problem?'. So, what is the  problem? Too many unfortunately. I probably could
• 01:30 - 02:00 have written twice as many things down on this  slide. I think we all have that sense of unease;   we all feel internally that things are not  moving in the right direction in our lives,   in the world. Things are becoming harder not  easier, and I think for most of us we would
• 02:00 - 02:30 recognize some elements of these things on  the screen as touching our lives directly,   or indirectly, and what I'm here today to  show you is that all these things may seem   unconnected but they're really not. The primary  cause of all of these is the quality of our money. Now, we're going to do this through a story.  So, imagine there's this far off world where   you have hundreds of smart people traveling on  a ship and this ship gets wrecked on a deserted
• 02:30 - 03:00 island. This deserted island is so far from  everywhere else they're effectively cut off,   but the island is resource rich - it has  everything they could possibly need to   rebuild society. Because these people have come  from an advanced civilization they know exactly   where they're ultimately going to get back to  but now, they're starting again with nothing. What's also clear is that they need some way  of trading with each other once they start to   rebuild so they prioritize deciding on what  to use for their new money. And suspend your
• 03:00 - 03:30 disbelief slightly further, in that they have,  despite not having anything, the ability to create   whatever monetary system they want with whatever  characteristics. So the first question they need   to answer is - what makes good money? There are  seven things. So these guys have the ability   to create whatever they want so instead of just  creating good money they create the perfect money. The perfect money is scarce which means it  has a fixed Supply forever and is instantly
• 03:30 - 04:00 and costlessly verifiable by everybody.  So if everybody can check it whenever   they want at no cost then you can verify for  yourself that nobody's creating any extra. It needs to be portable so you can effortlessly  move and store it with negligible costs. It needs to be divisible, and the perfect  money would be infinitely divisible. It needs to be durable - it can't rot or go off.   It can't deteriorate. So the  perfect money exists forever.
• 04:00 - 04:30 It's fungible which means every piece is  forever the same as every other piece. It needs to be acceptable so everyone  anywhere can both send and receive. And the really important one  is it needs to be censorship   resistant - you hold it yourself.  Nobody can take it away from you   without your permission and no one  can stop you sending or receiving.
• 04:30 - 05:00 So this is great, they decide on perfect money.  But then there's a disagreement. Two leaders   emerge from within the population. The first,  Satoshi, he says, "Well, given these are the   characteristics of perfect money, that's going  to be true today, true tomorrow and true forever,   so we should lock them in, and you should  never change. Whereas Fiatello - he says,   "Well I get that. I get these characteristics of  perfect money and I totally agree *but* what if
• 05:00 - 05:30 there's an emergency? What if we need to change  something? What if the people we put in charge of   our money feel like it's not working and need  to make an adjustment? I think we should have   the perfect money, but we should also have a Big  Red Button which allows someone to press it and   change any of the characteristics if we need to.  Of course, no one ever will, but just in case." This becomes an irreconcilable  disagreement so a fairly drastic solution,
• 05:30 - 06:00 but they build a huge wall right  down the middle of this island. On   one side they create the currency called  Satoshis, which is perfect money always,   and on the other side are Fiatellos, which is  perfect money but with the option to change it. Now this wall is so big it cuts off the  communication and the trade between both   sides on the island so effectively  they're cut off from one another. So to begin with nobody has anything on either  side of the island so everyone's starting from   zero. Initially people have to be self-sufficient  - each person is fishing for their food,
• 06:00 - 06:30 cutting down trees for their wood to make fires  and also for houses, and they're also building   their own shelters. Now even though they have  perfect money there's very limited trading here   because people are working hard just to satisfy  their day-to-day needs across all of these goods.   But people are different. Some people are better  at some things than others and so people quickly   realize that if I spend my time focusing on the  things I'm good at and reducing the amount of time
• 06:30 - 07:00 I spend on things that I'm poor at then I can  contribute more to society. I can increase the   amount of goods I can provide to society in the  same amount of time as the average person. So the   wood cutter spends all his time now cutting down  wood. He stops fishing, he stops building shelters   and because he's spending his time cutting down  wood, he increases the quantity of wood available   to everyone else versus three people spending a  third of their time each because he's good at it.
• 07:00 - 07:30 Not only does the increase in the quantity  of wood available reduce the price of wood   for everybody on the island the quality  is also higher - he's better at doing it.   He produces a higher quality output, so prices  fall and quality increases. And not only that,   he's not the only wood cutter, there are  multiple wood cutters, so they're all   competing to supply wood to everybody else  and they're competing on price and in terms   of quality. And now what happens is because  the wood cutter needs other goods to survive,
• 07:30 - 08:00 he has to sell the wood to buy fish, he has  to sell the wood to pay for the services of   the home builder. So now everybody is  actively trading in this perfect money. Because processes continue to improve the wood  cutter can now satisfy the needs of the rest   of the population for wood in a smaller amount  of time. He can then take that time and think   about his own processes, his own Innovations,  maybe he can make cutting down wood even more   efficient and if he does that it drives  prices lower, it drives quality higher.
• 08:00 - 08:30 Maybe he reaches the end of his Innovation within  his wood cutting and then uses the excess money   and excess capital he has to invest in other  people. Maybe he lends it to the fisherman   who then builds a boat to increase the amount  of fish the fisherman can catch for everybody. So, what happens over time in a  free market with perfect money:   *prices go down forever and  quality goes up forever*.
• 08:30 - 09:00 So what people see on both sides of the island is  that the purchasing power of their money starts   to increase. Goods cost less tomorrow than they  do today so the price of tomorrow is lower. The   purchasing power of both currencies is increasing  at about 3% a year and this lifts the quality of   life. Life becomes cheaper and cheaper over time  for everybody, not just those people who are most   productive in society. But the key thing is *the  money itself is becoming more valuable over time*.
• 09:00 - 09:30 That is, until these guys come along.  So now because the society is growing   and the population's growing both sides  of the island elect a government. Now it   doesn't matter if the government  is left or right, big, small, up,   down doesn't matter they are all  the same - when it comes to this. However well-run the government is, inevitably it  will hit a deficit at some point and that means
• 09:30 - 10:00 it's spending more than it's receiving.  That could be through mismanagement,   but it could just be through external circumstance  like a natural disaster, or something like this.   The causes are not important, but it will  happen over the course of time, inevitably. But now we see a divergence across both  sides of the island. Satoshi - he only has   two choices here. To balance the budget, he  needs to either raise taxes or cut spending,
• 10:00 - 10:30 or maybe a combination of  the two. Whereas Fiatello,   he has exactly the same choices...  but he also has a Big Red Button. The important thing here is they're both  up for re-election and Fiatello knows that   if he raises taxes or he cuts spending it's  going to cost him votes. So, just this time,   he decides to press The Big Red Button and print  a little bit of extra money for the government. Okay, so what are the consequences? Well,  for Satoshi - not great. He cannot hide
• 10:30 - 11:00 those changes from the population because they're  paying more in taxes or they're getting less back   from the government from its spending, so he  loses the election. But government reduces in   size naturally so now overall the efficiency in  the economy has increased but not only this - the   social balance is improved within the economy  because people now realize there is no free money.
• 11:00 - 11:30 Taxes need to balance spending. But the important   thing is prices continue to fall  and quality continues to increase. Now for Fiatello - great news, he gets re-elected   and to start with it's consequence  free. He thinks this is the greatest   thing ever - I get re-elected and there's  no downside... but something's changed. So, what's happened? Fiatello's  pressed The Big Red Button   which has printed some money for the  government which has debased the currency.
• 11:30 - 12:00 So, what does that mean? He's increased the  amount of money in the economy overnight,   but he hasn't increased the amount  of goods and services available in   the economy overnight so now there's  more Fiatellos washing around compared   to yesterday for each piece  of the goods and services. This has three major impacts; the first is  a distortion of price signals, the second   is that increases input costs for businesses,  and the third - it leads to asset inflation.
• 12:00 - 12:30 That first one, distorting price signals,  well, prior to Fiatello pressing The Big   Red Button here all price changes in the  economy were purely a function of demand   and supply because this was a free market  with perfect money. But what's happened now   is that money has entered the economy, not to  everybody equally or even in proportion to the   amount of money everybody holds. The money  has entered the economy via the government.   It enters via the government into the accounts  of companies and people connected directly or
• 12:30 - 13:00 indirectly to the government. So, what Fiatello  starts to see is price increases in certain parts   of the economy. So the signal to everybody else  in the economy is that there's an imbalance of   supply and demand just in these sectors. So  you see a misallocation of capital by the   entrepreneurs in the market caused by the money  printer but not only that, it's human capital,   it's smart people, it's active people who  are trying to be productive - they get
• 13:00 - 13:30 sucked in closer to the government and  not servicing the rest of the economy. The second is that business input costs increase.  Now every single business in Fiatello's country   has at least a human being and some raw  material inputs like energy or even some   harder raw materials. Because the costs of  these things have gone up these businesses   now need to try and change something about  their product to maintain the small profit
• 13:30 - 14:00 margins that ensure that they can continue in  business. The first and most obvious one is   just to pass on the price increase to the  customer. The second is to keep the price   the same and the quality the same but just  shrink the product so instead of having 100   grams it's now 90 grams but for the same price.  Or the third one is to reduce the input costs. This is where consumer inflation  comes from. This is the only source of
• 14:00 - 14:30 consumer inflation - is the money printer,  causing businesses to make these changes. But if a business passes on the price increase  outright, or it shrinks the product and the   customer now just needs to buy more of it to  satisfy the fact that they needed 100 grams not 90   grams, both of those things reduce affordability.  So the population is becoming poorer. They're   going to have less disposable income despite  buying the same as what they bought yesterday.
• 14:30 - 15:00 If instead, the business chooses to keep  the price the same, the size the same,   but just reduce the cost, the most obvious  thing to do is just to fire people which leads   to unemployment. Now there are fewer people with  jobs which reduces the overall affordability for   the population in Fiatello's world. But not  only that, now the government's got a second   issue it needs to solve - how does it help support  all these people who are recently unemployed? But the most insidious way is for companies  to reduce their input *quality* and so what
• 15:00 - 15:30 Fiatello starts to see is there's a rise  in obesity across the population because   the food that was previously fresh and had high  quality ingredients is replaced with ever lower   quality ingredients and more industrialized  sludge. This leads to obesity; it also leads   to a myriad of secondary health issues which  causes a Health crisis and now the government   has to step in and figure out how it needs to  support all these people who are now unhealthy.
• 15:30 - 16:00 The third is asset inflation. Since  Fiatello pressed The Big Red Button   asset prices have been going up. The stock  market goes higher and higher and higher,   house prices go higher and higher and higher.  He thinks, "I'm some sort of economic genius".   But they're going up in price because he's just  created more Fiatellos, so anybody who knows that   there are more Fiatellos in the system of course  wouldn't sell their asset for the same as they did   yesterday. They would take into account the fact  that there were just more Fiatellos in the system,
• 16:00 - 16:30 so this is what is driving these prices up. But  this asset increase is good for the people who own   the assets but not for the people who don't. He  has a wealth inequality begin to emerge across the   economy and not just that, because house prices  are now more expensive the rent is more expensive.   So he sees increased levels of homelessness  and this increased levels of homelessness,   guess what, requires more government intervention  to try and deal with. Now asset prices are flying,
• 16:30 - 17:00 the stock market's on fire, the prevailing  perception across the population is,   "Why would I not invest? Why would I just keep  the money? I should be buying the stock market,   I should be invested, I should be buying a second  home to rent out, I should be buying speculative   assets because they never go down, they just  go up. If I don't invest, I'm a fool." Because   the assets are going up the banks are pushing  ever more leverage for people. Pushing bigger   and bigger mortgages to individuals, loans to  companies but now that house prices have gone up
• 17:00 - 17:30 and now that everyone has more debt, at the same  time as families are struggling with affordability   of day-to-day life, it's now much harder to  buy a house. So families where previously   they could have one main earner and afford  to buy a house with a mortgage can't anymore. You now need both parents working. Both parents  working to afford the mortgage and afford to live,   and when that happens people spend less time  together. You start to see the breakdown of
• 17:30 - 18:00 the nuclear family. They spend less time with  their children. They can afford to have fewer   children. now because you have declining  birth rates Fiatello starts to see a change   in his demographics across the population.  Fewer children are being born whereas the   older generations are living longer, and he  now starts to realize that the promises he   made to these older generations about being  able to retire at a certain age or having a   good quality of life, or defined income, in  their retirement can't be delivered upon.
• 18:00 - 18:30 For those not lucky enough to be able to  buy a house who are maybe stuck renting,   whereas before they could think about renting  the same place for 3 years or 5 years - because   the rent goes up too much every year, now  they're thinking about one year maybe two   years. You're planning less for the future  maybe you're putting off getting married,   putting off having children. You start to  prioritize today at the expense of tomorrow.   People see that saving their Fiatellos never gets  them anywhere because the asset prices are going
• 18:30 - 19:00 up too quickly - they'll never be able to buy a  house. So if you'll never be able to buy a house   then prioritize 'living your best life' and going  on holiday and spending more, enjoying yourself. But for those not fortunate to be in this  position for those that every day has a struggle,   feeding themselves and their families, housing  themselves and their families - they're stuck   on a treadmill of decline. Every day is  harder which leads to a growth in addiction,
• 19:00 - 19:30 various forms of addiction, including  opioids across Fiatello's Island which   leads to yet more of a Health crisis and  yet more intervention from the government.   And all of this leads to a mental  health crisis across the population. Now the government finds itself in a position  where because it pressed The Big Red Button it's   created a whole range of secondary issues that now  it needs to step in and try and solve. Because it   has to step in and try and solve these things it  means the government needs to divert more capital
• 19:30 - 20:00 to these areas of the economy which, again, is a  greater misallocation of capital which pulls more   entrepreneurs into the wrong parts of the economy  through the distortion of the price signals. Between the increased leverage in the  economy driven by the Banks and the   misallocation of capital it sows the seeds  of the next emergency... and Fiatello has   only one choice - and that's to  press The Big Red Button again! Now he's starting to realize that  actually this wasn't consequence free.
• 20:00 - 20:30 Now he's lurching from crisis to ever bigger  crisis. He presses The Big Red Button which   debases the currency, which leads to bigger  government and more involvement in everything. And now not only is the government bigger  but the government has spawned a series   of parasitic Industries attached to  it. Big Pharma who are increasingly   involved with the government to  try to deal with the symptoms,   but not the causes, of the various Health  Crises. Never incentivized is to actually   cure a patient just to treat them long term  because a healthy customer is a lost customer.
• 20:30 - 21:00 Big Food pushes for ever lower  food standards across the economy. The Military-Industrial Complex pushes for ever   greater spending on defence both  at home and on foreign shores. Wall Street are up to their eyeballs in debt  and now so leveraged that the government wants   to protect them. They can't be allowed  to fail - because if the banks fail,   the population loses their  money, the government falls.
• 21:00 - 21:30 The government also continues to  make unproductive investments.   Investments trying to deal with the  secondary issues it's created but   also investments driven from whatever  political ideology the government has. All of these things are effectively now *crony  corporatism*. It's very hard to see where the   government ends, and these industries begin. The  success of the government is deeply intertwined   with the success of the industries. These  industries start to ask the government to
• 21:30 - 22:00 become regulated. "You need to regulate us to  protect the public". But this regulation all   it does is make competition harder. The one,  two, three companies in each of these areas   and now very very close to the government.  They supply the people for the regulator,   when the regulators end their tenure, they go  back and work for these companies. It stops   smaller companies coming in and competing with  them to then supply the government on better   terms with higher quality product. So quality  starts to decline and prices start to rise which,
• 22:00 - 22:30 of course, is great news for these  companies because profit margins go up. What happens then is the media gets captured.  The government is teetering to maintain social   stability. It's now protecting these industries  at the expense of the population rather than   the other way around and because of this social  balance that it needs to maintain it can't allow   Free Speech, dissent, alternative  opinions or questioning of anything
• 22:30 - 23:00 that undermines the legitimacy of the  government in anyway. Not only that,   the biggest advertisers for the media companies  are companies connected to the government,   so the media companies increasingly  don't want to upset their advertisers. When you have a captured media and a military  industrial complex fomenting strife on foreign   shores you get the creation of the Forever  Wars. And the wars themselves are actively   supported by the Fiatello  population because all they
• 23:00 - 23:30 see in their media is that "we have to do  this because it's the right thing to do." And, between the Forever Wars and the banking  system bailouts and the excessive debt it leads   to the next emergency but this time it's just  so much bigger, and the only choice he has is   to press The Big Red Button again. But this  time it's different. It's a massive erosion   of trust. Every time he presses the button more  and more people become aware of what is happening,   and this goes round and round  and round until something breaks.
• 23:30 - 24:00 And now Fiatello is starting to get quite worried. So what's happening to the money? Well, instead  of increasing 3% a year in purchasing power he's   now losing 7% a year because he's printing  10% a year of extra money. Not only that,   he's undermining the productivity in the  economy by distorting all the price signals. So what happens to the Fiatello island population? Well, the poor who are on fixed  wages, have very low-income security
• 24:00 - 24:30 and no assets - they can't win. They  just get poorer every single year. For the middle earners, who have fixed salaries  and mixed income security - they're not the   first to be fired - they often have a home,  but they can never sell the home and realize   any gain because you've got to live somewhere,  if you sell one home you've got to buy another   home. You might have some Investments,  but they are becoming the new poor. Well surely the wealthy are doing well?  Their income is largely from asset yields
• 24:30 - 25:00 from operating businesses or investing. Their  income security is high because they can't get   fired but for them it's death-by-a-thousand-cuts.  They see their wealth as a number continue to   increase but they feel like they're getting  poorer. Life continues to get harder and   that's because the rate at which they're  earning money, their yield on their assets,   is below the rate which Fiatello is printing  money so they're slowly having their wealth
• 25:00 - 25:30 siphoned away by the politically connected.  Those that are government funded and have fully   insulated income security and, perversely,  their income goes up and becomes even more   valuable as society continues to decline because  the government needs more and more intervention.   It's really just industrialized theft at  this point from everyone else in society. But now so much time has passed that the wall  down the middle of the island starts to crack,
• 25:30 - 26:00 and it starts to crack in such  a way that both people and money   can start to flow from one side to the other. So, on the one side you've got the Satoshis  increasing their purchasing power at 3% a year,   on the other side you've got the Fiatellos  that are losing 7% purchasing power every year. So, what happens and why? What Fiatello starts to see is that  money and people start to leave   because they don't trust their ability to  save using Fiatellos, they want Satoshis.
• 26:00 - 26:30 Okay, so this sums it up: on a Fiatello  standard your money is stealing from you   whereas on a Satoshi standard the whole world is  working 24/7 to increase your purchasing power. But now the Escape valve is open. People  realize they can't save in Fiatellos so   they start selling Fiatellos to buy Satoshis,  so the Fiatellos decline further in value,   triggering yet more budgetary and currency  crises for Fiatello to deal with... and the
• 26:30 - 27:00 only choice is to press The Big Red Button  again! But this time printing money is not   enough because value is leaking out of Fiatello's  side of the island. He needs to change another   characteristic of perfect money which is to  remove the censorship resistant nature of it. The Fiatello population used to be  able to hold the money themselves,   now Fiatello says you're no longer allowed to hold  it yourselves. You have to put it in the banks.
• 27:00 - 27:30 The banks are going to hold everybody's money.  The population now feel that they are guilty   until proven innocent for making any transaction -  the banks will check every transaction to 'protect   you' which means when people are trying to  buy certain things, including Satoshis the   banks now say "No... it's because of this,  it's because of that, it's because of the   other". He restricts the flow of capital out of  Fiatello's side of the island. He may even just
• 27:30 - 28:00 create explicit capital controls - "You're now  no longer allowed to buy Satoshis at all". But   people always find a way and more and more people  are waking up to what is happening, and the cycle   continues. The important thing is the wealth,  and the people flee to the uncorrupted money. Now Fiatello is beginning to really panic So where does it end for Fiatello? Well, if  he's lucky, with sustained inflation allowing
• 28:00 - 28:30 the government to inflate away its debts and  slowly siphon away the wealth of the public.   This may even border on hyperinflation.  I say "lucky" because it's very hard to   do that and maintain social cohesion  and something is likely to go wrong. It will *definitely* be asset seizures. Now  that all the money is held in the banks one   day Fiatello will decree that "we're all in  it together" and the banks will hand over a
• 28:30 - 29:00 proportion of that capital to the government.  Just like in Cyprus in 2013 - if you held over   €100,000 in the bank, overnight 45% of  that went to the government. The public   was effectively bailed in to bailout the banks  and the government from their own mismanagement. It also happened in the US in 1933. They made  gold holdings for the individual illegal,
• 29:00 - 29:30 and this lasted for almost 40 years. If you  held more than $100 of gold and you were caught:   $10,000 fine or 10 years in prison, and this  was when $10,000 was a *huge* amount of money. Fiatello sees a rise in political extremism  on both ends of the spectrum. The government   never explains to the population where these  problems are coming from. They don't tell   them it's because of the money printing  via The Big Red Button. They control the
• 29:30 - 30:00 media. The government is protective of  itself. They don't tell the population   the truth. They don't help the population  join the dots. They don't explain the link   from The Big Red Button to the issues. They  blame it on the 'greedy businessmen' or 'the   billionaires' or 'that foreign dictator'  or this or that. Then what happens is,   people ask for more help and more support from the  government to deal with all of these issues and so   the only solution is the government's involved  in everything. At every step of this journey
• 30:00 - 30:30 the solution to all the problems has always been  *more government involvement* and so the people   see these problems and vote for more government  involvement to solve them... or something worse. But in all scenarios people want  to hold Satoshis and not Fiatellos. So if we go back to that list of seven  characteristics of perfect money - Fiatello
• 30:30 - 31:00 only changed two of them. The other five are  still exactly the same and look where he ended up. Now the reveal (and some of  you may be slightly ahead of   me here). The US Dollar is just a  terrible version of the Fiatello. The US Dollar is corrupted on  the same two key issues that   the Fiatellos were but on the other  five it's materially worse as well.
• 31:00 - 31:30 In terms of portability - it's easy to carry,   easy to pay but it's not great for merchants.  You pay instantly but the merchant doesn't get   the money for multiple days and that's  if there was no fraud or chargebacks. It's divisible but only to a point and removes  the ability to do microtransactions which will   unlock potentially completely  different economic models. It's durable, in digital form, but we have a cash  component, and that cash component is constantly
• 31:30 - 32:00 undermined. The notes are reprinted in terms  of design every 15 or 20 years so there's no   ability for an individual to save outside the  banking system. If you put notes under your bed   or under the floorboards and leave them 25 years  they're worthless. Those types of notes have   gone out of circulation, so you need to take the  notes every 15 or 20 years to the bank hand them   in and get new notes. They recentralize  everything periodically, out of choice.
• 32:00 - 32:30 They're fungible which means every dollar is  the same as every other dollar... until it's   not. Some countries around the world  have already introduced what are known   as CBDCs - which is central bank digital  currency, but effectively it's programmable   money. A specific dollar may have an expiration  date - you need to spend it before this period   of time elapses or else it disappears.  Or a dollar may have only specific use   cases - you must spend this dollar on X or  Y, or you must not spend this dollar on ABC.
• 32:30 - 33:00 The Dollar is very acceptable around the  world, but you can't pay with it everywhere   and typically most national currencies  are only acceptable in their own country. And the US has a major Fiatello problem. This is the budget for 2024 - the budget not the  actuals which of course were worse -a deficit of   almost $2 trillion on a spend just over $6  trillion. That's a loss in one year. Now to
• 33:00 - 33:30 put that in context they'd have to double  the amount of individual income taxes for   everybody in the US just to balance that  and on the cost side they can make some   improvements but there are some key things there  you just cannot remove like the debt interest. And the consequences? Well, this is a chart of  the amount of money in the system in dollars   and the amount of debt issued by the US government  over time. Now I've labelled 1971 on here because
• 33:30 - 34:00 that's when the US came unilaterally off the  gold standard. Prior to 1971 you could give   your dollars back and receive gold in return.  Nixon took the US off the gold standard and   every currency in the world followed and since  then it's allowed the US to print unlimited   amounts of money to satisfy its own needs. The red  chart on the left-hand axis shows that amount of   money is now $22 trillion and on the right hand  side you've got the US government debt which,
• 34:00 - 34:30 even a month later, this chart is now  out of date - it's now $36 trillion! And this doesn't include the unfunded  liabilities - the amount of money the   US government has committed to pay at some  point in the future through Social Security,   Medicare, Medicaid etc but it hasn't had  to write the cheque yet. Now depending on   how you calculate that it's between $50 and  $200 trillion, on top of 36 trillion of debt!
• 34:30 - 35:00 The only way to solve that is more  money printing. The money printer   is systematically destroying the  purchasing power of the Dollar. Now you may think I have something against  the Dollar. I absolutely don't! The Dollar   is the *best* that we have. I would love  to be able to use the Dollar, as would the   vast majority of people around the world but  unfortunately most people just aren't as lucky. This is the performance of all the  other currencies versus the Dollar   over the last 10 years. Some have near enough  disappeared completely and some absolutely have,
• 35:00 - 35:30 they've ceased to exist. The  people who saved their economic   energy in those currencies have seen them vanish. The unfortunate reality here as the  wonderful Lyn Alden repeatedly says   Is "Nothing Stops This Train". There is no way out   for governments. The only solution is  to keep pressing The Big Red Button. And so, the conclusion is a quote from Hayek  who was an economist of the Austrian School,
• 35:30 - 36:00 "The history of government management  of money has except for a few short   happy periods been one of incessant fraud  and deception." And he said this in 1988. Now, that would all be pretty depressing if  there wasn't a solution but thankfully there is. The only solution here is *the separation of money
• 36:00 - 36:30 and state*. The government cannot be  allowed access to a Big Red Button. And Hayek again and this time the quote is  from 1984. "I don't believe we shall ever   have good money again until we take  it out of the hands of government,   we can't take it violently out of their  hands. All we can do is by some sly,   roundabout way introduce something  they just can't stop". Brilliant quote.
• 36:30 - 37:00 So, I hope now with these links  between The Big Red Button and   the money printer and all of these  issues that we see in our lives today   that it's now much clearer that if we  can fix the money we'll fix the world. The good news here, and this is the best news,   is that Satoshis are real and  even Fiatello is now a convert.
• 37:00 - 37:30 The solution is Bitcoin. One Bitcoin is 100 million Satoshis  in the same way that $1 is 100 cents Now, you may feel you know about Bitcoin already   because of something you've been told  by friends or you read in the media. I would encourage you to start again. When we derive our information from the  media or from people who have derived
• 37:30 - 38:00 their information from the media, and that media  is connected to the people who own and benefit   from the money printer, it tends not to be  necessarily the most accurate information. So don't trust, verify. Come to SatsVsFiat.com - we've set up  a website which helps people get up and   running. If you're just getting started,  maybe even never heard of Bitcoin before,   come sign up and we'll send you some  information so you can learn about   it for yourself and make your  own decisions about Bitcoin.
• 38:00 - 38:30 If you're further along and maybe even call  yourself a Bitcoin already then amazing.   This is not a commercial enterprise  for me, this is a charitable one,   and so any support from within the Bitcoin  Community, or from further afield, I would   love to receive. If people want to give this talk  themselves to their friends or just share it more   broadly or even volunteer to give a presentation  as part of our group, then just get in touch. And the third one is inviting us to  speak - we want as many people as
• 38:30 - 39:00 possible to see this presentation because  the information contained within it about   what the problem is is so important. So  we'd love to speak, if you'll have us,   at schools, universities,  industry conferences, events,   even at workplaces if people are interested  to learn more. So please just get in touch. Here's the QR code which will take you directly  to the website. Alternatively, if you are on   X and want to come and say hi and join the  conversation with us then please, please do.
• 39:00 - 39:30 Firstly, thank you for watching. I hope  you enjoyed it. Please share this with   anyone you care about. And, if there's  one thing that you take away from this is   I hope you will remember that: if we fix the  money, we'll fix the world thank you [Music]