Mailbag: Am I wrong to feel discouraged (and should we invade New Zealand)? August 10, 2025

26:57No harm, no foul. But don't just put your fingers in your ears and go, blah, blah, blah. I heard some idiot journalist from 2014 say this, and that's just what I'm going to run with forever, regardless of what anyone says. It's just you're only doing yourself a disservice, I would say. Correct. But you're right, Colin. I shouldn't have been mean about it. I do not try and justify that in any way, shape or form. Colin does ask a question, though. Now, this is a chance for you to test out your newly calm, zen approach to questions you may have heard before. Deep breath. He says, I was very interested and surprised to hear the US government had a large sum of Bitcoin they had confiscated for criminals and their criminal activities.

27:36I thought the transfers of coins from one account or another had to be mutually agreed upon. So unlike a regular bank account, governments cannot just seize the money. How did the government get the criminals' coins? Yeah, they got their keys. How did they get their keys? They raided their house and put them in jail and said, give me your keys. Is that the short answer? They didn't discover it. They made them hand over the things as part of some plea deal, I suppose. Yeah. Well, the amount that they have was seized over a variety of different - So in some cases, I'm sure the person just had it on their laptop unlocked and the FBI could open the laptop and transfer it somewhere else.

28:18In other instances, they might have had it banged into a steel plate buried in the backyard and they just said, tell us where it is or we're just going to lock you in jail. There are coercion sort of approaches. So they haven't done anything other than use the Bitcoin technology in some way, shape or form to use the same way I would transfer to you. The government have got the criminal transferred to them through whatever means fair or foul. If you've got the keys, you've got access. Pure and simple. So they could have rot in a jar with a billion dollars in Bitcoin and never came over. Some have.

28:48Absolutely. There's people in there going, no, you're never going to get it. And that's actually, not to go on too much of a tangent, but that is a really wonderful thing for the world at large. And again, whenever I say this to my Australian friends or friends from the West, it always sounds like very anti-authoritarian, very anti-authority and the rest of it. But again, you've always got to step back and remember that there are more billions of people who live under authoritarian regimes that don't. There's a reason that Tether is a massive, the biggest, most profitable company ever, because people in Latin America and Africa, and they just love what they do because they give them access to banking services that they would otherwise not have.

29:31And, you know, people in downtown Double Bay drinking their latte go, well, why would anyone use that? It's just like you can't possibly make claims on what is valuable or not from other people. But anyway, my point being is imagine for, again, several billion people, the opportunity where their authoritarian dictator and secret police can't come in and just seize everything. Imagine the Jews fleeing Poland, what they had to endure and stitch gold into their clothing and do all kinds of horrible things, right? Now you can just memorize 12 words in your head and skip across the border. And if you think I'm just like, you know, using some really weird examples that never actually happened, look up Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation who's doing incredible things in helping women flee Afghanistan.

30:22The list is too long to even mention here. And they're using Bitcoin to do it because it's a tool for freedom and liberation from tyranny. And I know how hyperbolic that sounds, but it's true. It's kind of a big deal. And that's the other thing. You don't have to necessarily buy the whole Bitcoin thing. Here's the other thing about it, and I don't want to talk about Bitcoin too much longer because we've only made a good point. We'll move on. But actually, we've got a Bitcoin question. It's so easy to talk about it forever. Right, yeah. But here's the other thing. You and I talk so regularly, mate, too distraction probably for our listeners about not having to be on a side, right?

30:56It is possible. I don't own any Bitcoin. I have not recommended investing in Bitcoin. You got a hundred bucks worth. Didn't you buy some back in the day? Oh, back in, yeah, I sold some. I've got some left. Did you sell it? Some of it at some point. Well, you still got some though. Good man. Yeah. I joked to you before, it's on an app on my phone. I don't have the keys. Not my keys, not my coin. I get it. It's somewhere. I'll look it up while we're talking and see if I can get the, so I can access to what I've got. Anyway, my point was going to be that you don't have to be 100 % pro or 100 % anti-Bitcoin.

31:27Yeah, you can say I don't know. As a non-investor, non-recommender or whatever, I've got some amount of dollars in Bitcoin, whatever I've got, I've got to work that out. For all of that, you are dead right, mate. It is a tool and a really effective tool to be able to transfer money for certain groups of people in certain circumstances. That is just true, right? I don't know why it's so controversial. I really don't get why it's so triggering to people that you can do this. This is debate more broadly. It's your point about the broader point. The problem with debate more broadly is people are, if I accept that's true, then I have to accept Bitcoin.

32:00Every pro-Bitcoin, I'll say nutter, and I don't mean you, I mean the kind of, you know, if I think Bitcoin can be used to help liberate women in dangerous situations, then I think it's okay to buy drugs using Bitcoin on Silk Road. Right. or I have to believe that therefore everyone should be investing in Bitcoin because those things can be, they don't have to all be true. They can be partly true or partly untrue. They might all be true, they might all be untrue. But the point is the spectrum is not every argument for Bitcoin must be invalid or I have to accept that every argument for Bitcoin is valid.

32:30It's just not true. Does Bitcoin make you sexier? Probably not. Is it good for women in Afghanistan? Probably. That's okay. You can have those two things, have different views on the same time. It's like the internet or any number of technologies you can go, like, do you think, what do you, what, think about for a second the pure evil that happens online. I don't even want to mention it on air and some of the stuff that's on the dark web. No one's talking about banning the internet. Right, exactly. You know, no one's, I mean, think about the hate that has. Also, you have to accept we should like the bad stuff because the rest of the internet's good.

33:05Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, it's a tool, it's a technology, it enables certain things. net positive i would argue very strongly but yeah bad people use it too bad people do calculus bad people speak english bad people play chess you know and it's like on twitter i have this rant tangent um i i so i've we've had you and i have this population conversation right and i'll say something like twitter so like oh yeah but then you're agreeing with the racist giving them support it's like so hang on i shouldn't agree with just because someone happens to be racist i deplore racism it's abhorrent yeah but just because they happen to we both speak to you both I speak English should I only speak French well has racists speak French should I not speak no there are some mute racists well now I'm stuffed aren't I like it's just that stupidity of you know that neo-nazi was wearing a pair of Nike sneakers and so are you oh how dare you don't you know it's just encouraging people with Nike race with Nike if you wear Nike too life is way too complicated to be binary and black and white it just is and people who live in that state of mind are just you know you're going to either forever be frustrated well you're just you're going to forever be frustrated Motley Fool Money for more Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener.

34:17Hey, question? I know your answer and you know my answer, but Colin has the question, so let's do it. We'll try and make it quickish. If the US government has so much debt, would either of you sell those confiscated coins to pay off some of the said debt? I can think I'll answer you. I think you can answer me and we're done, but that's okay. Why not? Surely having debt and paying interest is bad. If you could get rid of the interest, sure, that's a positive. You know why it's so hard to answer this question quickly or whatever? Because it gets fundamentally – I mean, again, you've got to start with – as crazy as Bitcoin is, you've got to remember that money's crazy, right?

34:51Like, that's the – having gone down this rabbit hole, that is the biggest draw drop of all, that of all the things that is so stupid and crazy and seemingly nuts about all of this, it's like it's equally and more true about fiat currency. And the assumption you make of fiat that are not necessarily untrue, but don't hold scrutiny the way we assume that, you know, gravity is gravity, money is money. It's like, well, not quite the same way. So it has no intrinsic value. Neither does the Australian dollar. It's not backed by anything. Neither is the Australian dollar. It's used by criminals. So is the Australian dollar.

35:23I can't buy a coffee with it. You can't buy a coffee with the Australian dollar in 99.9 % of places around the world. Like any criticism you want to level at it is the same. Like it's not, you know what I mean? Like it's really sort of wild. And the reason I say all of that is, is that for whatever historical reason, and there's a bunch of them, that the US uses its ledger, a thing called the US dollar, right? And they're in trouble. And they're headed towards a massive monetary reset, as every other great civilization in history has done. And as most countries around the world sooner or later run into, because it's been mismanaged.

35:59And so they're either going to reset and try again, and this time get it right, or they're going to transition to a new system. It's going to be a literal paradigm shift. Now, I don't want to get into the debate, but you know, me and others feels that's probably when something is a hundred times better and has all these advantages, it's probably going to go that way. Right. And so I feel as though over a very long period of time, decades, you know, this is going to be the future reserve currency of the world. I can't even say it with a straight face because I know how, I know how that sounds out loud, but if you think that, and you have to do a lot of thinking and pondering and research to sort of reach that very surprising kind of conclusion.

36:38And believe you me, I'm more surprised than anyone else with that conclusion. And I know how much of a crazy person I sound because I know how people look at me when I say all this stuff. But if you are of that belief, then what would you do as the US government? You can look at it this way. I'm the US government. I can print infinite amounts of one currency and another I can never get back if I sell it unless I buy it on the open market or exchange it for something like what are you going to do hey here's an idea keep the one thing that is pure scarcity and that cannot be manipulated and printed and if you need extra money print up the extra money for free like I mean that's what's causing your demise and that's causing all of these problems but nothing stops this train as Lynn Alden likes to say the maths is gonna match and it's just like that's just the path that we're on.

37:28And if you're, put it this way, Germany last year sold their Bitcoin, cost them billions of dollars. And in the full arc of time, that will be looked at as like, that was, oh my, you did what? Australians talking about, I think we've got a little bit as well. And other countries have done it in the past. And you look back at them, it's like, you sold it when it was 500. Wait, if you kept that, you would have paid off half the national debt. And that trend is just going to continue in my mind. So that's my attempt at a short answer. Yeah, no, it's a good one. So you expect that the value of Bitcoin increases faster than the US debt in US dollars.

38:01And so side by side, if the asset is going to increase faster than the debt is going to increase, then you're making money. One currency is depreciating in value. One is appreciating in value. Yeah. And you want to sell the one that's appreciating in value so you can acquire more of the one that is depreciating in value and that you can print for free. Okay, sure. If that makes sense to you. And by the way, by the way, let's say you did. Let's say you sold the lot. It fixes nothing. Like it's such a small amount in the grand scheme of things. It's like, okay, the budget's going to look a bit better this year and then back to our problems.

38:36So it's a short-term sugar hit that solves absolutely nothing and hobbles you for life. I mean, at the moment, the US is, as far as we know, because they haven't released the audit of it, which is interesting, the whole other thing. But at this point in time, the largest sovereign holders of Bitcoin are China and the US. Now, from a geopolitical strategic point, even if you think, geez, there's only a 1 % chance that this goes on to do something, would you get rid of it? When your main rival is the second largest, like let's say it does sort of go in that direction. Now, maybe it doesn't. I'm not going to go out there and say it's ordained by the gods that this is going to happen.

39:14But again, if it doesn't happen, it's like, well, so what? It didn't cost you anything. You confiscated it. So there's very little downside and only massive amounts of upside. So from a pure game theoretical lens, what's the smart move? I'll leave that for everyone to think of for themselves. To me, it's dumb to sell it. I was going to say, you say that, it's not going to be rhetorical, so I'm going to say I would absolutely sell it. Why? For all of the other reasons, I... Bird in the hand. Australia bird in the hand. They have a real and present currency crisis, debt crisis. It doesn't fix it, though.

39:51It helps it. Not much. Well, why do anything? They've got$33 trillion worth of debt, dude. They can sell 10 times as much and it doesn't make a difference. So what's the point? Because that's the same as the climate action. Why should Australia bother doing anything when China's burning coal? We'll just keep burning coal, right? Because why does it matter? It's not going to make much of a difference. That's a false comparison. No, it makes some difference. It reduces global warming. It reduces the level of debt and the level of interest. So you're saying that there's a dam and there's water. There's 10 ,000 gallons an hour gushing over it.

40:23But if you throw a cup of water into that dam, it is making a difference. And that's kind of the scale of what we're talking here. Factually, you're correct. It makes a difference in the same way that me throwing the cup of water back into the dam makes a difference. But not a lasting difference and not a meaningful difference. And the opportunity – now, again, we've got to think in terms of expected value because we don't – the future is unknown and it might be zero. but from an expected value calculation standpoint, it's like even if the odds of it succeeding are 0.1%, the math will tell you, it's like, yeah, hang on to it because the opportunity cost is too vast if you're wrong, which you might not be.

41:04And if you're not wrong, okay, we weed into the wind and we made bugger all difference and our problems are just as large. And if you are wrong, you've just made one of the biggest strategic blunders in history. like that is that is an asymmetric bet not in your favor my friend depending what yes but it depends on the assessment of the probability right that's where we get back to burden right so so that that's an argument for no no i don't i don't this is going to be spurious and i deliberately meant it seriously so i take it that way for me um the frank government could buy every every micro cap um you know specie minor just in case one of them eventually probabilistically you know if one of them does this then it'll be x right now i know you will say the probability is different I get it.

41:46I completely understand. My straight-up argument is at a national sober responsibility level, frankly, given the US's trouble. And to your point, it should be more than just this, right? In the event, whether you sell or not actually makes a bugger-all difference. The cup of water example is perfectly right, right? Because that's exactly what's going on. But directionally, should they be pulling out all the stops to fix the problem? Yeah, they should. And is this one of those stops you pull out? Yes, I think it would be. Because you are – it's kind of like we talk about the mortgage saving versus the investing thing.

42:18If I can save a guaranteed 6 % and make maybe seven or eight, you know, adjust that for probabilistic outcomes, I'll take the guaranteed saving. So broadly at a conceptual level, if the government could do, and I know you will say they should do this, by the way, but remember every inaction is action. So every dollar they've got, they could put Bitcoin down and do the same thing. So I want to double the debt and use it all to buy Bitcoin. You would say great idea, by the way, and that's completely reasonable. But at some point that it's kind of a great conversation because it's not really even about the amount of Bitcoin they have.

42:46It's about their ability to buy or sell any amount of Bitcoin based on any amount of currency and what they should do on it. Because if you're going to keep, I don't know how many billions they have in Bitcoin,$3 billion, make it up, or maybe just one Bitcoin, still one Bitcoin, as you would tell me. Why don't I buy 100 times as much? Because that same outcome is the same. It's still, but the amount of sell at all. Like it's at some, and I don't, I'm not arguing you're wrong or right in this context. I'm saying the question is actually not just about how much Bitcoin you actually currently have.

43:13As we say with shares every day. if you were forced to sell your portfolio every night, what would you buy in the morning? It's kind of the same with Bitcoin, the amount of Bitcoin the US government's got. It's like, well, if you were forced to sell it now, would you buy it back in that quantity or more or less? And that's the proper question, right? That's the genuine question we're asking ourselves here rather than getting anchored to how much do we actually currently own of whatever asset, including Bitcoin and as equally for governments as for individuals, I think. Okay, agree to disagree, I suppose.

43:42I'll say that the US has actually sold it before. They sold 195 ,000 Bitcoin over the past decade, according to AP News, in that they raised$366 million. Had they not sold, it's$17 billion. Actually, that's an old article. It's probably about$28 billion now. Brutal. And it's kind of like that's what's at stake here. So for me, you're right. but I would just, and I look at life in general investing like this. It's sort of like I absolutely know I'm going to be wrong on a bunch of things but if the cost of being wrong is minimal and the reward for being right is significant, I will play that game all day long.

44:27And that's what the governments of the US has got to contend with. And it's like, you just - It's all probabilities, right? It's all just assessment of probabilities because the same with any company you could buy, any asset you could buy or not buy. It's a little bit different though So because if you're, let's say that your upside is you could become Apple, a$3 trillion company. Yep. That's pretty big. That's a prize worth going after. Yeah. Like the total addressable market for Bitcoin is something like$500 trillion. Yeah. So you're right. And again, I don't, it's hard to do this on air, but if you do, and this is actually one of the insights I had that actually made me go pretty hard in this in the first place, was that when you do that expected value calculation, and these aren't, before any maths people write in and go, well, you know, it's different on a roulette table as it is to real life.

45:20And it's different when you get to have multiple spins of the wheel as opposed to one single spin of the wheel. And you're 100 % right, but it is a nice way of framing it. My point is, is that this, what you've got to understand with Bitcoin is that it is either what I said, a future reserve currency and$500 trillion in today's value, worth of value, or a zero. It's kind of like, or, you know, some niche thing that's, you know, probably less than what it is now. That's kind of, that's your option set. It's not like, it doesn't just cap out at a certain point. It either, the network affects a self-reinforcing, you know, it just sort of like, it is either everything or nothing.

45:57And when you say, so the upside over, let's call it a century is$500 trillion. The downside is 50, 90 % or something like that. It's just like, You only need like the probability of being right. There's a 1 % chance I should probably do it, which is where I'll shut up and move on, which is where I guess I pound the table a little bit here because when you're talking to other investors, they feel as though when you're advocating, and I'm just, you know, all I'm saying is take it seriously and have a look and think about it in these kinds of ways. They feel as though it's either like, so I've got to go all in.

46:31I'm like, no, but for the love of God, maybe a 2 % position is pretty good. and and and i hear what you're saying with the the small cap example and and if we were in 2014 i think it's a really good analogy in 2025 it's not a good i don't with respect i don't think it's a good analogy because it's like it's like there is a difference between the biotech hopeful that's got some interesting lab results and the csl which has got real life products and massive massive uh you know like it was a bad example i was just i was using the idea of just a probabilistic outcomes, it's all just a weighting of probabilities.

47:08And you're right, the probabilities are higher and lower based on how far through the journey you are. Betting on CSL's probability of growth is different from speccy miner's probability of finding copper. You're absolutely right. It's more meant just as a concept of all you cared about was the potential upside. Yeah. And your answer, which I clumsily tried to allude to, which is it depends on what probability you assign to these things. Yeah, yeah. Look, if you think it's a 0 % chance, then no. But if you think it's low but not insignificant, then the calculus is different. There's a question too, I think, and I don't want to get back into it necessarily, but there is an ideological question.

47:41I'm not going to oppose a view. I'm just going to say there's an ideological question about what the role of government is in that sense. To what degree does the government speculate or not in assets outside the running of the society? Yes. And I don't really have a strong view on that one. I guess I'm a little bit pro it because I've talked about sovereign wealth fund, but there's that kind of thing of like, you know, even if that's true, if it is true then of course you do it because why wouldn't you because you make money but but there is a question about you know to what extent are governments should they be in the business of speculating public money on that on any ask should governments be buying and selling bhp shares in the hope they're going to double like a sell them and pay back the public debt no i don't think so yeah um is bitcoin an asset is it a currency and it gets down the rabbit hole i'm not going to make the argument i'm just going to say there's a philosophical conversation about what is the role of government, that can lead you to have or not have.

48:35By the way, they hold gold, so it's exactly the same thing. Right, you beat me to it. Yeah, and originally it was backing money, so that's the whole rabbit hole reopened. Which, by the way, is how it's going to evolve. I don't know if you've been following it with the Genius Act and all the stuff they're doing with the stable coins. The US banks will now be able to issue these things. So Tether, which is the biggest one, is basically buying Bitcoin hand over fist. And gold, as you mentioned it. And they're using it to back these things. It's just, without getting too into the weeds here, there is something very powerful about having instant settlement in a digital.

49:08Like, it's like, rather than sending a boat full of gold across the waters, as de Gaulle tried to do, called Nixon's bluff, and that's why we went off the gold standard, by the way. It's like, to have something which you can instantly settle and yet trade in an existing fiat currency. So it won't, again, people mistake the transition with the end state. It's like this thing you blink and it's like, oh, everyone's on a Bitcoin standard. Like, no, it's not going to happen like that. We're going to transition through it. And again, the future's already here. It's just not evenly distributed because no one bothers to look except for the hardcore weirdos on Twitter.

49:44But when you do, it's kind of like, what's happening now? And it's happening in full view of everyone. And it's not getting coverage because it's not serious finance. The other one that was interesting the other day is that Trump bought$3 billion worth of Bitcoin. Did you hear about that? I bet you didn't. I did. Oh, you did. I did. Well, no, it wasn't. You probably told me. I'm not sure, but I did know that, yes. Oh, and they passed all this legislation. And I'm not saying that because I'm interested in it, the AFR needs to have it as front page news. But the fact that it's not even written about, but you'll get some 24-year-old writing about XRP or some shitcoin token.

50:21You know, it's like you just clearly don't get it. And that whether or not this is the greatest scam of all time and the biggest bubble in history or something else, either way, that's – I was on the ABC recently, by the way. And I said to the journo there, it's like, here's the thing. From your point of view, this is a story either way because it is the future of the financial system or it's the biggest bubble in history. Now, either way, that's a great story. So, all I'm saying is there's something happening here. Yeah, that's right. But because of the journey that it's been on, there's a bit of a path dependence here.

50:57It's like we've all seen the FDX. It is confusing. It is hard. It's a scam. Yeah, I saw that. It's not a thing. People aren't interested in it. So no one's following it, which is not to complain about it because therein lies the opportunity. Again, if everyone loved it, it wouldn't be an opportunity. You couldn't stack sats. You couldn't stack those sats. Mate, let's go to a couple other Collins questions slash comments because I like some of these. He said, on to another rant topic. Colin's got to dominate this entire podcast, but I love it. Housing policy. Prior to the election, he says... You've been quite into housing.

51:32This is game over. No, he's got a very specific suggestion we need to comment on. So I'm going to play the role of the Speaker of the House. Please. And I'm going to make sure your response remains appropriate to the question that's asked. Okay. Prior to the election, says Colin, I mentally juggled a few words and came up with a new modified policy. what about a first home builders assistance plan there are not enough homes there's not enough infrastructure and the new home would probably be too far away from the city centers but if the current first home buyer scheme was replaced by a builders scheme would there be a benefit yeah maybe but i don't know if you've made the point and others have made the point for as well.

52:16Okay, let's do that. We still don't have it. We're already, every builder out there that can be building houses is building houses. Would it be more demand, though, I suppose, is the question. Would it change the dynamics of how housing was done to add to supply if we incentivized the building rather than... Yes. I mean, the current incentive structure is insane. So anything that's not that... I am for anything... Just being less worse. That's right. Anything that is less worse and in that regard, Colin, yeah, full marks. The benefit of the host-home building scheme would actually be that it wasn't a first-home buyer scheme.

52:45That's all it is. The removal of the other scheme would be better than the implementation of something else. Yeah, I was banging my head on a brick wall and now I'm doing it into a pillow. So I'll take the pillow, thanks. I like it. Yeah, I'm just, we live in this really contradictory world where we're sort of self-avowed capitalists, but we just love to be socialists when it comes to these things. And again, those words are so loaded that they're already, I've triggered half the people because everyone's got their own interpretation of what those two words mean. And I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be use it in the very traditional strict definition of what those words mean.

53:27Yes, yes, yes. And I try to sort of always couch it in the, I mean, this is a dismal science economics and it's a dismal science because it's very hard to have set up experiments with controls and, you know, you can work out what the counterfactuals are. You can't do that in the economy because it just is what's happening. And it's like, wow. And it's hard to hold variables steady while you do other things. So we don't really kind of know. But despite that limitation, when we look around the world and we look throughout history, it's not like it's a 50-50 call. You can go either way. It's like whenever we have tried to centrally plan the allocation of resources, it's really been counterproductive.

54:05It just has been. I'm not even trying to apply an ideological lens to that. I'm just saying observational fact is thus. Does that mean that all socialized programs are bad? No, I'm a big believer in Australia's healthcare system. That's a form of socialization. So, you know, again, the world is complex, right? So please don't put me in a box. But what we're doing here is we're saying the market's broken. Let's directly intervene and interrupt the free transmission of information between buyer and seller, producer and consumer because we know best and we can direct it. And it just, it always comes from a very good place.

54:44And I 100 % get it. But as the pink bats showed, as various COVID policy payments showed, it's like, I don't know, the list is too long to even mention here. You can bet that in the devil will be in the detail there. It'll be a system that will be abused. There'll be unintended consequences. It'll be gamed. All these things will happen. And at the end of the day, even if it's got some modicum of success around it, in and of itself, it's not going to be enough to move the dial. When we're bringing in 800 ,000 people a year to a country of 25 million people, how many houses is this thing going to spur on to build, right?

55:22And I'm not saying, I've long said, like do whatever we can to increase supply. Like I am for addressing supply, but it is not a silver bullet that, and I'm not saying you say this, Colin, but a lot of people see it as a silver bullet that just solves everything. Like in the same way that if we got rid of negative gearing, that that would solve it. It would help, definitely, but it's not going to solve it. I think you're right, 100 % right. Here's the thing, Colin. I like Ram's point of view. It's a way of first-time buyers probably helps. Supply and demand interact and a price is found. If you were to remove first-time buyers and add to first-time builders and you didn't change supply, all you do is push up the cost of newly built homes.

56:03Why? Because there's more money chasing the same supply. And the only way this would work, and again, I don't mean that critically either. What you just said there, can I just double down on what you just said? That one thing is really at the core of so many of our problems with government policy there because they assume the all else being equal. But of course it's not. Adding more money towards something doesn't conjure new builders and new materials out of thin air. Now it's just competing against those resources. Over the medium term, there's a chance if you threw a lot more money at first-term builders and they pushed up the potential price, you may attract more people in the industry to build homes.

56:42Yeah, I'll stop building the other things, yeah. But they're going to do that at that nearly higher price. And we're not going to get the other things that the market's been demanding that we build, yeah. So you're not going to get affordability increase. You'll get more supply, but the supply at a higher price, that kind of defeats the purpose because then you just push up the prices anyway. We could push up the price of existing homes and it wouldn't, you know. So glad you made this point. Ram's point is, and I want to get back to your point, mate. And by the way, I've been told, don't talk about population because there's other issues.

57:06Don't blame the immigrants. I'm not blaming the immigrants. I'm not even blaming population growth. It's not a blame question. You say regularly, Ram, you can have your own opinion, you can have your own facts. I've adapted that to you. You can have your own opinion, you can have your own facts or your own maths. So supply and demand is, it's not a law, but it's as close as economics gets to a law. If you end up with so much. We can't house the number of people we have. We can't build fast enough to house the number of people we're bringing in. I've used the example before. if you've got a sports stadium and you know there's 30 ,000 seats, even if you know you're going to add 100 seats a year, you're not selling 35 ,000 tickets to the game.

57:40Right? You're just not. You're saying, actually, why don't we just sell the number of seats we've got? And then as we add more seats, great. Let's sell more tickets. Right? And we do it the other way around. We say, let's sell all the tickets. When they get in here, oh, I hope the bills are ready. Here's some money, guys. Go and build some more seats quick. How many are you going to... Actually, don't worry about how many you've got. Don't tell me. I'll tell you 35 ,000 people in. Let's see what happens. it is In terms of economic-owned goals, in terms of social-owned goals, in terms of worsening...

58:07And by the way, Rem, you regularly talk exactly perfectly about the poor bastards at the bottom end of the income spectrum who always get smashed by this stuff. Oh, they're the ones who suffer, yeah. I can afford my home. You can afford your home. They can't afford to rent and or buy because we've screwed with demand without making sure supply is keeping up. And we've caused this problem. So, look, I think, Colin, if we could improve supply, would we? Of course we would, in a heartbeat. If I thought this was going to work without pushing prices up. Because if it just pushes prices up, by the way, there's no benefit.

58:33We haven't improved anything. Maybe there's a couple more houses built. Maybe there's not. But to your point, Ram, and you mentioned infrastructure, Colin, if you build the houses, you're not building the bridge. If you're building the house, you're not building the tunnel, you're not building the sewer. I know there are different trades, don't at me. You're not building the office blocks that people need to work in when they move to those homes. We are not – you need to build. Build and they will come, right? We've gone with they'll come and then maybe we'll build it. And it's just – no one of the people are intense.

59:01Or just let the natural incentive of people do the wonderful thing that that will happen. Like people will always demand a nice place to live because I don't even know how to explain that. If you don't understand that, you can live under a bridge, I suppose. But the rest of us like to live in comfort, in a nice place. So demand is always and everywhere going to be there. And left to their own devices, people will provide that, not because of some social desire to do good, but because like, wait, I can build a house and make money doing that. Yeah, absolutely. And if there's not enough people who are doing it, well, you can charge whatever you want because you're the only builder in town, which will make someone else who's doing something else in the economy go, wait, that guy over there is making all this.

59:45I'm going to build houses too. And again, that's the signaling mechanism of prices. So just let that unfold. So what do you do? One, there's no silver bullet. But one, you cut the red tape. You make it easier for builders to come in there and to do their job. Stop distorting prices by adding free money to the system because that just does not work. In no way, shape or form. Remove some of the tax and policy incentives around that kind of state. Maybe tweak, to your point, some of the immigration policy just to make sure that we've got the infrastructure and capacity to absorb people. You can go down the list and it's just – And even then, even if, like, you know, you and I are made emperor of the world and we change all these policies, even then, like, it's going to take years for this to work its way through.

1:00:35But it will get better. And we've just got to take that first step, recognizing it's a multifactorial problem, recognizing that there's no quick and easy fix, and it will solve. But just stop throwing made-up money at it. stop thinking that another set of regulations are going to help this, you know, because it just, it just, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. And that is exactly what Australia's housing policy is. We've been doing this for decades now. And we think this time it's going to work. The only thing I'd add, mate, is, and this is cynical and but unfortunately necessary, is that would be right if we believe the pollies were actually just getting it wrong because they had the wrong idea with the right intent.

1:01:17Yeah, that's true. And I don't say to be overly, I don't say to be too cynical. It is impossible to imagine that any reasonable thinking person, because every economist in the world, in Australia, knows that first-time buyers is dumb, right? So why are they doing it? Well, because they don't want prices to go down because that'll make homeowners unhappy. They want young people to vote for them, so they're going to throw money at them because saying we're going to help by these, we're going to change immigration to help your house prices. Well, that doesn't feel very good. Okay, how about some money?

1:01:46Oh, okay, in that case I'll vote for you. But the reality is that if they wanted to solve it, this would be a bad way to do it. If they didn't want to solve it, this would be a great way to pretend you were trying to solve it and maximize votes. Perfectly rational once you lay it out like that. I hate being that guy. I'm the optimist. I'm the Pollyanna. You guys know that. But there's no other way around it other than there's no single economist in the country I've ever heard, at least anyone with any sort of credibility, who has said, you know what? First-time bioscape, great way to help housing affordability.

1:02:14You should do more of that. Like none, zero, nil, zilch, right? But if anyone's saying it, can I just pay PwC enough money to tell me that that's the right thing to do? I'm the good folk at PwC who may be about sewers. Another three-letter acronym or an ampersand in the middle, a consultant firm will definitely do it for the right amount of money. If you've seen Utopia, there's a great – I've talked to her before. They walk in and Rob Sitch sits there. He's the guy who's running this thing and they say, so could you just tell us what you would like? Well, we want an unbiased, independent view.

1:02:46Yes, of course. But if we did that review, what would you like it to say? Oh, well, whatever it comes up. You know, we understand that. But hypothetically, what would be – well, the minister would probably like us to go ahead. Oh, good. We've got enough. Oh, guys, do you want any more? No, no, we've got enough. We've got enough information. Thank you. We'll go and do our numbers. We'll call you if we've got any questions. Let's go to Colin's last question, mate. Jester's the only one who can tell truth to power, speak truth to power, right? You know it. You know it. He – this is more esoteric, says Colin.

1:03:15and will never happen. But, now Colin then helpfully uses my favourite analogy, the RBA is flying a biplane, has a joystick, up, down or sideways. But what is one extra control you would give the Reserve Bank? My pie in the sky idea, I wonder if you're going with the plane reference, that'd be clever if you were Colin, we'd be to have the RBA give the government a budget range that they should have to stay within. That is, in better times, the RBA requests a surplus, but in tougher conditions, allows the government to run a deficit. Any thoughts? Terrible idea. Tell me why. God awful idea, Colin.

1:03:52Colin was the man who said there were no silly questions. I'm just going to remind you of that as you answer. It's not a silly question, but I'll tell you why it's not a good idea. It's a god awful idea. I'm not sure that probably hits the letter of the law. Whether it hits the spirit of the law may be different. Keep going. It was a bad attempt at humour, Colin. Sorry. I was trying deliberately to do that. But so what you're saying, at the moment we have a system where we have elected representatives who tax us and spend on our behalf, but you want to give that to an unelected group of bureaucrats.

1:04:24I mean, that is – then there's no accountability. More responsibility, though, to be fair, after we've just said about politicians. Yeah, true. I'm not sure it would be worse. Yeah. Ironically or maybe problematically. I'm always nervous of a system that is a really good system as long as the right people are running it. But if the wrong people are running it, it's not a good system. And you don't know who it about to is going to run it. You can't vote him up. And even if it's like for the next hundred years, we're going to have great people running it. And then in a hundred years time, we get, you know, some idiot doing it.

1:04:51And it's just, that's not a good system. And a lot of the time that's unavoidable because people, people, and you just, you know, we don't have AGI yet to do it for us in an unbiased and sensible manner. So we, humans are very hard to take out of the loop for a lot of things. But whenever we, and so, So I'm just trying to flesh out the thinking here. It's like, if that happened, and if we had very capable, honest, ethical, long-term thinking people who were also omnipotent, all seeing, all knowing, could see every aspect of the economy, then yes, it's a great idea. But that is a very, very, very, very high bar.

1:05:27And so for that reason, I don't think that I would like a non-elected bureaucrat to make such incredibly important decisions, particularly when there's no ramifications for them personally and there's no skin in the game is just a terrible idea. So I agree with you in terms of who gets that power. i would though column given the given my druthers um require parliament to and this is kind of a bit unelected ram so i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you forbearance you may still disagree with me maybe even took me out of it we have a parliamentary budget office their job is to provide unbiased costings of budget um message so that we can understand as citizens our democracy is again i mentioned like churchill's quote the worst except everything else we are very very fortunate all right we have a an impartial budget parliamentary budget office we have an impartial australian electoral commission uh speaking of reason not to go to the u.s by the way um we are very very very fortunate if it was me i would either constitutionally or by legislation i don't really care which and andrew may talk me out of both of those um require governments require budgets if not governments here's the thing government is just the majority party parliament has to pass the budget so so i'm going to say parliament just to be really a bit a bit nerdy but also really really clear i would require any budget passed by parliament to be structurally balanced within a tolerance because nothing's ever perfectly forecastable and judged by the parliamentary budget office to be within i'm going to say one percent of total by the way it's not hard to do because it's massive um of being structurally balanced and what i meant by structurally balanced this is where andrew and i have this kind of ongoing kind of half half on and off again talk about keynesianism right so keynes wanted to print money and i'm actually with Andrew that we shouldn't do that.

1:07:20What Cain's also said was we'd spend up big in the bad times and recover it in the good times and end up with a balanced budget over time, which politicians then bastardize, which is why Ram's like, well, just don't do it if you can't do it properly. So my solution to all of this is I absolutely want to have the so-called automatic stabilizers work, which is when things are going too hot, we collect extra tax, pay out less welfare. That kind of takes money out of the economy. When things are going badly, we collect less tax, but we pay the extra welfare payments. That is a deficit, but it supports the economy.

1:07:48if that was done in a structurally balanced way, that is, the deficits offset the surplus over the cycle or are likely to. Again, no crystal ball stuff. You can reasonably guess, right? Based on economic cycles, unemployment is going to go between 4 % and 8%. Tax revenue is going to go between X billion and Y billion over a cycle. It's roughly balanced. I would require parliament. So I don't want them to have a zero, sorry, a perfectly balanced budget every year because I don't want them cutting welfare payments when there's 15 % unemployment, right? I don't want them jacking up corporate tax rates to 45%.

1:08:17you know when when when things are collecting too much money um or spending on willful projects just because they've got money to burn so a structurally balanced budget with what i would require of parliament whether it's done by the legislation or constitution i really wouldn't care constitution easier because they can't change it and that way they could do what you're saying chris which is chris collins sorry which is effectively you know do the right things make make some you know put some money put some some wheat in the silo in the good years and take it out of the silo in the bad years um that's what i would do i i would i would absolutely require that i wouldn't do have the rba do it i wouldn't have an individual person set what they think in a given year was a reasonable range but i would ask the parliamentary budget office to calculate and again give them a it's gonna be perfect is it structurally balanced likely within two percent either way yeah okay that's good enough that'll do me or some version of that and that's what i'd run i would by the way make them pay down their debt over time so i'd also have some sort of claw back to pay down in the meantime but that's what i would do It'd be an improvement for sure.

1:09:14You wouldn't even do that?

1:09:19Sometimes I think the solution, the problem is so big that it requires a complete rethink and rebuild. So rather than often you - With a new magic internet token about Relief Couch. Oftentimes you get to a thing where it's like we can tweak this all day long, but it's still terrible. And it's just like, you said something in there which was really interesting. And I won't go into it now other than just to plant the seed in people's mind for them to ponder and think about it. And then you can have the mind borrowed. So you're not sleeping at night either. But let's, you said something about putting money in or taking it out of the economy.

1:09:54And that's the framework we all operate under. But let's imagine a world where you can do neither. There is just the money. To be close about borrowing and spending. Yeah, that's cool. That's absolutely a really good distinction. So you can still borrow money, but you've got to get someone to lend it to you. Yes. Okay, so assume I'm doing that without printing money, which gets back to your point. So I think we're on the same page there, but you're right to be clearer about where that borrowing comes from. I'm not saying you borrow money by creating it. I'm saying you say to someone, hey, I will pay you some more.

1:10:27I need to spend more on welfare this year because the economy has gone to hell. I will pay you a higher rate this year to borrow the money you're not going to spend and vice versa. So you're absolutely right. No, and it's just, it's such, I think you'll wrestle with this, dear listener. Like, again, take that idea and run with it and say, wait a second, there is only a, forget about Bitcoin. These ideas predate Bitcoin by centuries, right? Like that's the first, it's just the first, it's the first instantiation where it's actually possible. But forget it. It's got nothing to do with that. Just imagine it as a thought exercise and what that would mean.

1:11:02If you want to borrow money, someone's got to give you some of their savings and agree to that. That's a profound idea. And you might say, well, actually, isn't that what happens now? I was going to say, that's what most people believe is the case. Exactly. It's not. Every time a bank gives you a loan, they create that money. I'm not even saying it in a conspiratorial way. It's important to understand the functioning of this thing that we call money. is like, well, is it not important to think or at least have an understanding of where it comes from and who gets to create it? Like, it feels like that's a big deal.

1:11:35I feel as though that's something that is worthy of discussing. But apparently in my life and lived experience, it's not worth discussing at all and just get on with it. But to me, it's a fascinating exercise. And there was a point in time, I've made this point before in the pod where separating church and state it was considered like just like the craziest, wildest idea. But I think with the benefit of a few centuries under our belt, we can say that was a really good idea. And I'm sure - And by the way, at the time, the establishment hated it and the church would lobby against it. And it was not a, you know, it wasn't an easy one.

1:12:07Of course they did. No one likes power being taken away from them. Like, no. And that's why it's going to be so hard to do. But if you could separate state and money, and that doesn't mean that the state doesn't have money and needs money in you. Of course it does. It's a tool. It's super important. but you take away their ability to just create money. You get rid of forever wars. You get rid of inflation. You get rid of all of these things. It's just like you transition to a world that is so radically different. It'll break your brain when you fall like inductively reason it through. And whether or not that happens is a separate thing.

1:12:42I'm just putting it out there as an intellectual thought. So all of these things that people suggest, and Colin, it's a great suggestion. It's just, it's an interesting one, but it's fiddling while Rome burns. We need much bigger and bolder ideas. And fortunately, I think it's going to happen in a sneaky, sly roundabout way as Hayek predicted. Very good. If there was no printing of money, would you – you'd say just give me your code anyway, right? So I get that. But you said about the rebuild. It's really about the expansion of the money supply that's your major concern, right? If Colin's suggestion was put in place using my preferred – I'm trying to get you to agree with me here – Using my preferred, rather the RBA setting, having it legislated or in the constitution.

1:13:26If there's no money printing, money creation, but it was done that way, isn't that kind of really... Yeah, big improvement. Because I think you fundamentally agree with the automatic stabilizer idea of making sure there's money to pay the welfare payments and all that kind of stuff if and when they're needed. So it's a case of how do we facilitate that variation in spending without taking on more debt and without devaluing money? We are 100 % on the same page. The only difference that we have is that you say we should do that via institution and law or whatever. And I'm just saying we just do it by system design.

1:14:01And so it's not like I promise I won't do it. It's just like you can't do it. You can't do it. It's not possible. And it's just such a – honestly, it's such a profound thing. It's just if – And by the way, that used to be the case, right? That used to be the case. When money was backed by gold, and it was only by convention, and again, it was law and regulation rather than possibility. I take your point about why Bitcoin is better, because you can't just choose to go off the gold standard if you're using gold as your currency. So if you're using Bitcoin, you can't go off the Bitcoin standard because Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

1:14:32You can't create more if you want to. But again, I say that to remind our listeners that the concept of a gold standard feels particularly weird and esoteric and distant, and I get why. Kind of chronistic almost. And there's no reason for it necessarily to have been required. but what it did do was create some stability and money supply until we chose society to say, let's stop worrying about it. And that kind of, you know, that's where we get to where we are now. All it did was enforce reality onto our human way of thinking. Yes. It's all it did. Yes. It just, it just. Using a resource constraint that was relatively stable because it was harder and expensive to find the extra gold.

1:15:13So for as long as you said a dollar is an ounce of gold, that's just what it was for as long as it needed to be. People tend to think that any sort of sound money system or hard money system envisages some kind of anarcho-capitalistic libertarian non-government. No, it's got nothing. You could have a perfectly communist society on a hard money standard. It's got nothing to do with it. But when I say it enforces reality on people, it's like we want to go to war. Okay. War's expensive. So we're going to increase your taxes because that's the only way we're going to get the money is because we can't create money.

1:15:45So we have to tax you. oh, I'm less savor rattling at this point in time. Everyone should get social security to the, I go, yay, it's going to mean more tax for you. And it's not that we don't have these decisions or can't implement these. I'm not trying to make a statement on any of those. It just says that, well, don't forget, money is just a claim on real world resources. It serves no other purpose than just to keep track of who owns what. And just like you use the example on Friday, if all of a sudden I just start pulling it out of my backside, I'm getting extra claims on resources. There's no extra resources here.

1:16:18So it allows governments to do all kinds of silly things that disconnects them from the reality of the world around them. And it feels good in the short term and in the long term. We find it's like, this is where Colin started from. Was it Colin or was it Nick? Nick, it's like, I'm working my butt off here. I can't afford a hell. What's going wrong? And the money's broken. That's what's gone wrong. Politicians have borrowed their way into oblivion to such an extent that the amount of money supply growth has far exceeded the amount of resource growth and stuff growth. That's what's happened. And it - And Australia's capitalized a lot of that into property prices, specifically as a capitalized - We've capitalized it - Haven't quite as much.

1:16:55Absolutely. Now you might sort of say, yeah, but someone, they borrowed that money by issuing bonds and that was real money. So yes, and that's the way it usually works until it all goes pear-shaped and then we start doing quantitative easing and yield curve control and all these big fancy ways of just saying, we spend more money than we can afford. We're just like, we're so bankrupt at this point. So let's, can I just have some more tokens is if that fixes anything. And so all this, all this does just to round it off and I'll shut the hell up. It's just, it's just to say that like you can, you can be angry at reality, but you can't deny reality.

1:17:27You want to have fight a war, fight a war. You want to make sure that everyone has free medication. Absolutely do it, but it's got to be funded and we can have a discussion about that. But we're now operating in the real world, not in a make-believe fairy world where it's just like i can conjure this out of thin air and i can make sure that everyone is rich and as long as i conjure a small enough amount of it and have over a long enough period of time no one really notices that's being conjured absolutely and and and the real pernicious part of it is is that it's it's those that are close to the seat of power that get all the stuff is that it's why are the poor all continually screwed over because they're not near the money printer that's why they're not that's why they're screwed over you know and so it is it is it is a social moral imperative i i think is to at least maybe maybe i'm being too idealistic to think we'll ever adopt a hard money standard but to at least push in that direction i think would would would lead to better decisions because decisions would have to be made in in uh consideration of reality that's all i'm saying i want to pick up on one point i think i'm gonna i think i'm correcting you though maybe it would we're just disagreeing or talking different sides of the same thing you see if we want to go to war we've got to raise more taxes.

1:18:39If we want to pay socially, we've got to raise more taxes. One-off spending, all spending could be, I suspect and suggest, funded actually by borrowing in that scenario. But the cost of that borrowing would be functionally different because of the limited supply. So if you want to go to war, you could borrow a billion dollars to do it. If you can find someone to lend you a billion dollars to go to war and were happy to pay the interest rate they were going to charge. That's also true, right? Yep. And this is why I rail against the RBA setting interest rates or the cost of money because it distorts that signal.

1:19:08So let's say that we want to go and bomb New Zealand because that's why not? They deserve it. They've had it coming for a while, these Kiwis. And I, for one, want to send over, you know, the full force of our military and I want to take them over. I was like, great. Okay, let's do that. Well, we don't have enough money to do that. Now, we can still borrow the money. It's like, okay, and maybe I can rally all of Australia. It's easy to rally all of Australia. everyone's for it okay because Kiwis so they had the chance to do it in Australia they chose not to we will take it by force god damn it absolutely it's in the constitution it's our god given right you had your chance blessed by whoever the king was at the time and now we're going to do it and you know what happens with war is like it's going to we're going to go in there we're going to win and four years later it turns out it's an absolute cluster poo and we have all we've done is take Christchurch but you know the Kiwis are holding up in the mountains and we just can't We just can't win.

1:20:07They would, they're sneaky little bugger. And so we'd be fighting a guerrilla war. And anyway, we would find that it's going, gosh, this thing is costing us more than we thought. Can we borrow some more money, please? Now, again, no money is being created. You're just borrowing it off other people who have it. Now, those people might turn around at this point and go, well, you know what? I did really want to stick it to the Kiwis. And I was happy to lend you the money. And in fact, you promised to pay me back that money in 10 years time. And you said you'd pay me 4 % interest along the way. Well, we've spent all that money.

1:20:36It's war, so there's no return on that money until we can sort of like get all their resources and then sell their cheese and cheese and everything. So, and maybe that doesn't come. So, like, what does any rational person do? It's like, well, the risk seems high. I want a higher interest rate. But this is where the RBA comes in or central banking comes in and distorts it. They go, well, no, no, no, no. The market might say that it needs a higher interest rate to compensate for the risk, but we don't think so. So we're going to artificially suppress the interest rate. So we do that for a time as well.

1:21:08So now we've really muddled with the signaling mechanism across the economy. And so now we're borrowing money at rates that do not compensate you for the risk. And then when the private market, this happened, this is happening now in England, right? And it happened with LizTrust really blew up the entire guilt market by doing this, because at some point the private market goes, no, don't want to lend you any money. and that's the point where the RBA or the central bank company go well I guess we'll buy it which is just another fancy way of saying it's like well we'll just print up some tokens and give it to you so so so again you take all of that away you can still do the things and you're right you're absolutely right to mention it so it doesn't a sound money hard money system whatever you want to call it doesn't prevent borrowing but it does require that borrowing is done at a rate which is commensurate with the risk and it is completely uh uh uh optional for those of the money and some level two also go well no no that i guess that's i guess that's that's really it that you you if you can find someone to lend you money at a rate that's appropriate and it's just free market capitalism who's being wronged here we we are both hey scott lend me a hundred bucks okay i will for if you pay me back 110 in a week that transaction is only going to happen if i'm happy with that and you're happy with that deal.

1:22:29But if you now have, now Sarah comes in from left field and go, no, you have to land Andrew at that rate. And if you don't, I'm just going to, and if it goes bad because it didn't compensate for the risk, I'm just going to make up the money and make you whole. I mean, everything gets muddied with that process. I was going to say too, the point about the extension of the war, for example, in your example, Porto or Kiwi, although maybe they... I so love New Zealand and Kiwi. Just if no one recognizes how I'm joking, I just, I just put that in there. Around 22 minutes of the podcast, All I heard was Andrew wants to bomb New Zealand.

1:22:59So a couple of things, right? So your point about, you know, you haven't paid you back yet. You want to borrow even more money. The risk is now higher. So there's that. The other thing too, you know, in a hard money world is there's less of that money to be lent. So I lent you my first billion dollars because I had it. Yes. You want to borrow another billion dollars. Not only am I now feeling like you're riskier, but I was prepared to forego the consumption for the first billion. Yeah. The second billion. I might actually need. Well, I'm a billionaire, right? So I don't need it. Right. I want it and I'd rather buy another sports car than give you – like the first part was fine because of more effort and Kiwis and sheep and stuff.

1:23:30But now I'm like, well, A, now it's riskier. B, you're now kind of eating into stuff I want. So the cost of me – the opportunity cost for me gets higher the more of my money you want. So you kind of got both those things playing at the same time. And again, perfect example of capitalism. This is where for all of our questions about Bitcoin directly, and I've said this to you before separately, the sale money doesn't get talked about without Bitcoin. But at some point, honestly, I think Bitcoin gets in the way of the sound money conversation. It does. It kind of almost distracts us. And it's not bad.

1:23:58It's unfortunate. Well, it's necessary because we don't get there. But once you get there, it's almost like if we can put away the Bitcoin prejudice and you're right that people have it for the wrong reasons a lot of the time. But actually, let's just talk about the concept of the money. Yes. And then you have that. And by the way, that probably actually helps people go back to Bitcoin or something at some point. Like, let's at least go back to the gold standard or at least let's go back to whatever number of tokens we have now. It doesn't need to be backed by gold necessarily. We just agree that that's the total number.

1:24:23Now, to your point, something that's naturally limited rather than requiring regulation of the good graces of politicians has its meaningful advantages, let's be honest, because if you can legislate it in a way you're probably going to, which is what they've done. So, yeah, it goes a bit both ways. It is both the only thing that made the sound money, hard money conversation public, but then it almost becomes distracting or an obstacle to actually put the token aside for a second. Let's talk about the concept. Forget about the means to the end. Yes, exactly. Think about the end itself. And then go back to the end, what are the best means?

1:24:53Yeah, sorry. It just happens to be the only thing that's realistically capable of fulfilling the ideal. Maybe it doesn't, but it's the only thing that we've got that might be able to. But that's not the point. I mean, if we could send gold through the internet, we wouldn't be having this discussion, right? But we can't, and that's why. Well, frankly, if we got back to, and you've made this point before, if we got back to people saying, I heard about Bitcoin, investigated sound money, hard money. What's your preferred phrase, sound money or hard money? I like sound money, but they're synonyms. So let's say we get back to sound money, and the result is we don't use Bitcoin, but we embrace sound money.

1:25:23You said before that Bitcoin's biggest challenge is that the government's voluntarily stopped printing money, right? Because there's no need for it. Now, the likelihood of that comes to how cynical or otherwise you are, and I think we're all cynical enough to think it's probably not going to happen. But that's almost a better conversation, because then you start to say, well, actually, is this system more useful and for what reasons? And then you say, actually, we have a token that does this. Or we say, we've got a token that does this, but we're going to legislate, put in the constitution, find some other way of making sure we don't do it anymore.

1:25:49Either of those is as good. I mean, you make less money out of it. Such a massive improvement on what we've got. I'm with you. And it's the same end. With you 100%. Societally, the winners and losers are different depending on what token is used or what fiat is used or how we use it. Let's use the Australian dollar but just promise not to pull it out of our backside every time. How many of them are there now? Good, that's the maximum we'll ever have. Same as the Bitcoin process. So there's a guy I quite like called Alan Farrington. He's written some really good stuff on all of this. But he's got this great saying, which is it's not that I like Bitcoin, it's just that I hate Fiat.

1:26:21And I love that. And that's really where he's at for me. It's not that I'm just, people see it as this easy path to riches and I buy it and then I sell it and then I get a Ferrari or some nonsense like that. It's like, no, it's just that what we, it's a viable alternative to this awful, awful system, which by the way is only 50 years old. Like it's not, we act as if it's like been like the ancient Greeks did it and we've always done it. And yeah, that's right. We've only had a pure fiat system since 1971. Prior to that, we had a gold standard, right? And it just, it just kept a handbrake. It kept a check on things.

1:26:58So I just, I wanted to make that point. Two other points. You said before the billionaires in lending the money, right? Right. And, and, but what's, what's really depressing about it is it's not the billionaires it's pension funds, it's insurance companies. And you go like, okay, well, it's still not me. No, it's you. It's you, you sucker. It's, it's, it's your money that you've, you've paid into you and every other hardworking schmuck out there has paid all this money to make sure that your life is insured and your house is insured. And then that insurance company is taking your money and now buying these bonds with it, right?

1:27:38And that's why when the GFC happened, they have no, quote unquote, no choice but to bail them out because they can rightly point to the nurse and the teacher and go, well, if we don't do that, they lose their pension. Yep, exactly. Which is such an awful moral hazard because that, and that's why I'm so passionate about it. It's not that I care about whether the billionaires decide to fund the war or not. They don't have enough. Gina Reinhart couldn't fund the war against New Zealand? No chance. You know, neither could you, if you got Clive and Twiggy to help her, no, the money comes from the people and the money comes from our sovereign wealth funds, our superannuation funds, our pension funds, our insurance schemes, all of this, that's where the money sort of comes from.

1:28:18And these people custody it on our behalf for our benefit. And they put it into this, they put it into these nonsense IOUs, which is backed by absent people go bitcoin's backed by nothing he's like yep and look at what this stuff's backed by in fact this is backed by a promise and a goodwill and and a promise that has been broken repeatedly throughout history and even in recent history and that and that and irony and i'll shut up after this last point irony of irony is if you're in our space and you say what's the lowest risk asset fixed interest yeah like it's the highest risk asset by far and and i think empirically you can say that oh okay colin thank you for writing in because you put some bangers out there today and i appreciate it colin finishes with thank you for reading my rant and perhaps you'll find time on that wonderful machine of pod to actually answer some of these dumb questions straw on colin and i think that's a lovely way for us to finish off having been appropriately cleansed of your rantiness of your i wouldn't go that far i wouldn't go that far i was going to make sure there's going to be some for Friday.

1:29:28There's always some in the tank for this kind of stuff. Make sure you are listening on Friday for more rants from Andrew Page and me, Scott Phillips, but probably more him than me. Until then, full on. This was fun. Cheers. The Motley Fool and people appearing in this program may have positions in the companies mentioned. General advice only. Please speak to your financial professional to understand how it may pertain to your situation. Subscribe to the free newsletter at fool.com.au forward slash listener. The Motley Fool operates under Financial Services Licence 400691.