How Bitcoin, Oil, and Privacy Protect Wealth Today

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1:19This is the Rich Dad Radio Show. The good news and bad news about money. Here's Robert Kiyosaki. Hello, Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Radio Show. I'm broadcasting from beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona. Where it's either heaven or hell, and right now it's heaven. It'll soon be hot as hell. But anyway, our guest today is Natalie Brunel. She is the author of the book called Bitcoin is for Everyone. And the reason I wanted Natalie on board here is I'm the old guy. I'm up there with Warren Buffett and Peter Schiff and myself. And Buffett and Schiff, they talk badly about Bitcoin. And I think that's really stupid personally.

2:01I'll say that publicly. Why would you be against Bitcoin? But they have to talk their book, you know. So Peter Schiff sells gold, so he has to talk his book against Bitcoin. And Buffer's just an old guy. He's 90-something years old. And I think I have more gold than Schiff. I mean, I actually start gold mines. So this is a gold mine I took public. And I love gold. I love silver. I love Bitcoin. I love Ethereum. I just don't like the Federal Reserve Bank. and America today is the biggest detonation in world history. And when I was born in the 40s, we're the richest country in the world. But because of the Federal Reserve Bank, and I ask people to study this book here, it's called The Creature from Jekyll Island.

2:52You can see I studied, I was a real stupid kid in school, but I do study. And The Creature from Jekyll Island is about the Federal Reserve Bank, which was 1913 or something like that. and the creation from Jekyll Island also brought on board, the Federal Reserve Bank also brought on the Internal Revenue Service taxation. And America was found as a tax-free nation in 1773. As you know, it was called the Boston Tea Party and we revolted against taxes. And if you study the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, who was an intellectual, said that the object of communism was the abolition of private property.

3:38Labor unions, workers of the world unite, and taxation. And what Marx said was that taxation was essential for the spread of communism. So when the Federal Reserve Bank was kicked in and the creature from Jekyll Island, it was communism taking over America. That's how I see it. I'm a U.S. Marine. I went to military school. I fought against communism in Vietnam twice. So I'm very much anti-communist. I just don't understand why guys like Schiff and Buffett would have to downplay Bitcoin. Because the real enemy isn't Bitcoin. The real enemy is the Federal Reserve Bank and our treasury that prints fake money.

4:20And now America is the biggest debtor nation in world history. That's the problem. So I guess today is Natalie Brunel. She's infamous for Bitcoin, and I love what you're doing, Natalie, and I have lots of Bitcoin. I've made millions off of it. I got started real late, though. I got started at$6 ,000, and I'm still doing pretty good. I'm still in the money out there. So anyway, welcome to the show, Natalie. Oh, thank you so, so much for having me. This is quite an honor. You did very well on Bitcoin, and it just goes to show you how open-minded you have been. Because I think for so many people, the ego gets in the way.

5:00They heard about Bitcoin. They could have bought it much cheaper. And it does take a little bit of unlearning what you think you know, especially about the financial system, which you've done such a great job throughout the years educating the public on. The enemy is the Fed and the U.S. And we have a president today. I wrote two books with him named Donald Trump. He and his sons, who are friends of mine, Don Jr. and Eric, they're very pro-Bitcoin. And so every time Schiff gets on television, Schiff's one of the smartest guys I know. I've never debated with him because he'd be a waste of my time.

5:37He's very smart. But he just hates Bitcoin, so does Buffett. And if they treated it like any commodity trade, they'd be okay. I made millions. I bought it. I wish I bought it at six. Yeah,$6. I bought it at$6 ,000, but I'm still in the money. So, Natalie, how'd you get into Bitcoin? Sure. So, for me, it was actually a really interesting journey that I think really has to date back to my humble beginnings. I was raised in a communist country, or I was born into one. My parents were raised in Poland, and so they dreamt of coming to the United States for the American dream and the economic opportunity here.

6:16so they left when I was very young and we were able to come here move to the Chicago area and they started over they learned the language they asked for nothing they expected nothing from the government they just wanted a chance and and really it was a self-sacrifice so that their children would have a better life so I grew up watching them work really really hard and I went off to college and the great financial crisis hit and just before I had gone to college they were finally able to achieve a modest version of the American dream, purchase a small townhouse outside of the Chicago. And then the great financial crisis hit and they lost everything and they had to file for bankruptcy.

6:58And so I graduated into that recession in 09 thinking, well, this system is very unfair and broken. All the bankers are getting bailed out and people like my family are losing their home that they worked so hard for, played by all the rules. And that's when I knew something was wrong. I could recognize that there was a problem. And I went out into the world as a reporter to pursue a career in journalism. And I was reporting on so many of these issues and symptoms that were ultimately rooted in this broken financial system, but I didn't know it at the time. So I was reporting on the increasing cost of living and the growing fragmentation, the the political polarization and people just feeling so frustrated that they're working harder than ever, but they're not able to afford what a generation or two ago was much easier.

7:49And as you've pointed out in your writings, they don't teach you in school that you need to accumulate assets because the world is really built on inflation and a system of printing money. So I learned about Bitcoin in 2017 when it was about$3 ,000 a coin. And like so many people, I initially dismissed it. I thought, well, it's digital. It could be hacked. I'm going to lose all my money. But I went on a years long journey of really studying the financial system to come to the conclusion that Bitcoin is the best form of money that has ever existed. The hardest form of money, it improves on the properties of gold.

8:24And I think it will be the base layer for our economy going forward as the base layer of capital that we can build on to have a more fair system that offers opportunity to more people. Welcome back, Robert Kiyosaki. Our guest today, Michael Maselli. He's REI Energy. And for full disclosure, I've been investing with Michael for about 25 years in oil. And Tom Wheelwright, he's the author of Tax-Free Wealth. He's my accountant. And the reason I like inviting Michael is I make a lot of money and pay very little in taxes. Now, you can't do that with a 401k, and neither should you. So anyway, it's an interesting time in oil.

9:06And again, I went to school for oil. I drove tankers for Standard Oil of California. So I like the oil business. So, Michael, what else is going on with you think this bombing of Venezuela? We're going to take Venezuela. How's it affecting the oil business in America?

9:23Robert Kiyosaki:Well, I don't think it's had much effect so far on prices. Obviously, it's going to take quite a while to get Venezuela back to producing the amount of production they did 10 or 20 years. ago as far as that. Now, you know, Venezuela was one of the founding members of OPEC, so they are an OPEC, you know, country. So, I'm sure that once that production starts flowing again, there will be restrictions on how much oil and gas each of these members can produce. So, I don't really see it having that big of an effect, you know, on the prices of oil. So, you know, we, of course, here in the United States, we drill shell wells and shell wells are probably the most expensive oil to export.

10:11Robert Kiyosaki:You know, our crude, you know, I mean, you have to have 50 to 60 dollars a barrel. So if crude was to drop, say, in the 40s for a while due to some of these reasons that, you know, about bringing more crude onto the market, I mean, you would definitely see drilling slow down here in the United States. as far as on that. So it's kind of a, you know, a give and take type situation. I mean, we have a lot of oil reserves here in the United States. Of course, we don't have 300 billion barrels of reserves in the ground, but our oil is more expensive to drill and it is more expensive to get out. So I don't really seeing it have that much effect on prices going forward.

10:53Okay. Any comments on that, Tom?

10:57Robert Kiyosaki:Yeah, this is fascinating to me because it seems to me like it gives the U.S. an opportunity to control the production a little bit and actually have a voice in OPEC, which we have not had much of a voice in OPEC outside of Saudi Arabia. And of course, the price of oil is a big part of the investment in oil, right? Because you can't control the price of oil. A little easier to control, say, rents on a place you're renting. It's much harder to control the price of oil. So that is one of the challenges with oil, which is why the government gives us such big tax incentives for oil. Now, here's another interesting thing.

11:34Robert Kiyosaki:You get incentives for investing in domestic oil, but you don't get tax incentives for investing in foreign oil. So, you know, the average investor in the U.S. is not going to be investing in Venezuela. that's going to be the big guys like Chevron, et cetera, Standard Oil, et cetera, that invest in Venezuela. They're the ones with the drilling platforms down there. The people who invest here are going to be really a lot of smaller investors, really doctors, lawyers, business owners, employees. One of the great things about oil is that you can be an employee and invest in oil and get the deduction immediately, whereas it's very hard to do that in real estate.

12:21Robert Kiyosaki:So this is a huge advantage that oil has over real estate is that it's not a passive investment, so you don't have to have passive income to offset. You can have ordinary income and offset even your wage income up to a limit, but for most investors, it's a plenty high limit that it's not going to affect them. So I think that's a huge advantage of domestic drilling in the United States. So, Michael, any words of caution for people looking to invest with guys like you? Well, there's always risk. There's risk in every type of investment. So, you know, if you can't afford to lose the amount you invest, then I would say, you know, you need to look at more of a conservative type investment.

13:08So one of the things I'm looking at right now, I was talking to Mike Maselli and Tom about this. With AI coming on board, that sucks up a lot of energy. Yep. Right. It does. Michael, I guess looking at that because right now I'm looking at an investment for energy outside of oil. Tom, any comments on that?

13:32Robert Kiyosaki:Well, there's obviously different forms of energy. I think that what eventually impacts more of the prices. I mean, we all know right now wind and solar, they're, well, they're investments. They're not, you know, they don't account for a large amount of the energy that's produced here in the United States just simply because of the cost. I think going forward in the future, you know, you're going to see a lot more small nuclear reactors. You're going to see more nuclear energy that provided that we, you know, we continue on with the administration we have. And we don't go back to the, you know, what the last administration was trying to do.

14:13Robert Kiyosaki:But I think in the future, you'll see more, you know, electricity being produced through nuclear. It's just simply because it's a cleaner electricity. And, of course, our military has been running the battleships off of it for, you know, what, 20 or 30 years. So I think that technology will come on shore eventually. Well, on top of that, Mike, it seems like we've got a lot of opportunity for natural gas. You were mentioning that your oil fields in Texas are 60 % natural gas, where it seems to me like until we get the small nuclear plants, which is still quite a ways away, probably, I'm guessing probably 10 years away before we get those small nuclear plants easily.

14:54Robert Kiyosaki:During that time, aren't we going to see more natural gas production and producing a lot of that energy for those big AI facilities, let's call them the data centers? Aren't we going to see that coming through natural gas? Yes, certainly. In fact, we have probably more natural gas reserves here in the United States than anywhere in the world. And our biggest problem that we have in this country is just getting the gas to market. If you look at some areas out in West Texas, out in the Permian Basin, I mean, they actually have to pay to get rid of their gas. They don't have the pipelines that can move the gas to the Gulf Coast or where it needs to go.

15:41Robert Kiyosaki:So a lot of times, you know, it'll cost them$2 or$3 a barrel, I mean,$2 or$3 an MCF just to get rid of the natural gas. So let's say, how do I say this? If I make$100 ,000 with Michael, Tom, gross, how much in tax do I pay? Well, you're going to pay tax on only 85 % of that. So you'll pay tax on$85 ,000. But the reality is you can keep investing with Michael and never pay tax. So there's no reason. Somebody who's an active investor like you are, Robert, somebody who's constantly reinvesting, there's no reason to be paying tax. because the money you put in, you get the tax benefit to offset the income you're taking out.

16:30Robert Kiyosaki:So it's just, you keep, this is why the rich keep getting richer because the rich keep investing. They keep getting the tax benefits and then they get the cashflow, but it's non-taxable cashflow because of all the tax benefits they're getting from investing.

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19:42welcome back robert kiskin rich dad radio show my special guest today is my long friend over 30 years now ken mcelroy he's made me a very rich man but kenny talks about his aha moment was that he's a property in college he's property management he collects all the rent he manages the property and this investor pulls up and kenny gives the cash to the investor and that was his, the lights went on so Kenny would switch sides of the table and now I'm one of those investors that comes up to Kenny and he makes a lot of people very, very rich with zero of their own money in the deal. He is 100 % dead.

20:21Now don't try this at home unless you're willing to practice because debt can kill you one way or the other. And the reason I want to bring Kenny up right now is this, everybody keeps talking about what's the Fed doing in the 3 of Covert Row. What's interest rates? All this stuff. It's important. But when people keep talking about the Fed, how much does that affect your thinking? The Federal Reserve Bank, should I say. First of all, you've got to watch that stuff. Those are indicators for sure. But I think for a lot of people, they're just a distraction from actually getting busy. You know what I mean?

21:00Like, like it's important, but the fed doesn't, uh, you know, everything that they do takes a year to year and a half to two years to even hit the economy. Like everything, like an interest rate increase or, you know, uh, you know, so they're a, they're a slow moving animal. You know, the market, the stock market definitely reacts and, you know, those kinds of things, you know, obviously based on some decisions, but real estate is. it's a slow moving animal. And a quarter point here, quarter point there. I'm not going to say it's not important, but I don't understand why there's so much focus on it.

21:42If you focus on cash flow, if the Fed's lowering the federal funds rate and interest rates are going down and the 10 years going down and all that stuff, then you just refinance on the way down. It's a slow process. If you fix your rate and the rates go up, you're hedged. You're good, but you just make sure it cash flows every single time so you don't have to worry about the Fed. So the Fed is something that you got to watch, but it's no different than the way I watch a tenant or a vendor or anything. It's just one thing. Well, the way I look at it is the Fed is like the cost of the money because we're using 100 % debt.

22:29The reason I mentioned my first property, this was back in 74, a piece of one-bedroom apartment in Maui, I think it was$18 ,000 was the total price. I needed 10 % down. Now, I could have put$1 ,800 down and got the property, but I used my credit card. So I maxed out my credit card, and I'm paying about 30 % interest on that credit card and it's still cash flowed. So all is the price of the money. It's like the price of electricity, the price of water, the price of sewage and all this. It's just an expense out there, but you have to pay attention to it. So Kenny, one thing you talked to me about this is called deal flow.

23:20How many deals are you looking at as an everyday practice? Well, we have an investment committee with 10 people that meet every week. And there's a tremendous amount of work that's done before that meeting. So, in fact, right now during this filming, there's a pre-investment committee meeting that I'm not on to review deal flow. So to answer your question, there's hundreds of deals right now we're looking at, probably 20 seriously, underwriting most of those to see if they make any sense at all. And then it's typical for an investment committee to look at one to three a week, and we'll make an offer on one or two a week and probably get zero.

24:12So, you know, like, you know, there's a whole process of looking at the deals, getting information from the brokers, underwriting it, seeing if it cash flows, you know, and then most of those don't even make, you know, they're on the cutting room floor, I guess, is a great analogy. And then the ones that actually come, they usually have to have some kind of story, some kind of upside, some kind of cash flow. So like, I'll give you an example. We're looking at a deal right now that's a 2025 build. And we made an offer for 127 ,000 a unit, brand new construction. And, you know, which is, you know, maybe some people know what that means.

24:55That's$100 ,000 discount that the person that built it per unit. And it's 250 units. So you can imagine it's like a$25 million discount. Now, I might get it. We might not get it. But those are the kinds of ones. They have a great story. It's not highly occupied yet. So we can fix the management. And we're looking at stuff like that a lot, Robert. Last week, we made an offer on six properties, 1 ,410 units that were lender owned. So every week, there's something new. Yeah. The reason I say that the average person, you know, they go to school, they get a job, they have a 401k and they don't even look at the deal.

25:43You know, they just go to their, the financial planner just puts money in the 401k. They'll learn nothing. That's, I think that's the biggest crime. with estate high risk but you have to learn a lot to be successful with a 401k it's just hit or miss let's say you you start investing a 425 and hopefully at 665 you have money left but there's no guarantee of it so the reason kenny and i talk we talk all over the world we teach we encourage people to go out there learn to put your own deals together and you might look at and the I remember when I was first looking for my first property in Honolulu after the real estate course and I wasn't successful and my rich dad said to me, the reason is you haven't looked at enough deals it was like the lights going on, I said my god you gotta step up what Kenny calls deal flow look, look, talk, invest people look at one, they quit, they go there's nothing out there or the Fed said this, there's nothing out there.

26:52And all the Fed is the cost of your money. It's like the cost of your water, your electricity. That's all it is. But it's important. So what would you encourage the, we call them the FNG, the FNU guy to do? How should they get started? Well, I think that the reason that you wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the reason that you created the rich dad company and the reason I teach and the reason I do books is, is what is that the way the system works is that wall street reaches in everyone's pocket and uses your money anyway. Like they, they make you, you put it into a bank, you put it into a pension, you put it into an insurance company, you put it into a retirement account.