The Critical Compass Podcast - 'Based Banker' Brett Oland on how Government Money Printing is Stealing Humanity's Productive Value

00:00:00.000 And so effectively in 2008 and again in 2020, we completely detached from reality of the economics of money by basically saying we're going to the zero bound, money costs nothing, we're going to absorb everything and put it into central banks or people's hands or into commercial banks.

00:00:22.560 And so basically, once you do something like that, you basically detach the fundamental structure of money. All of a sudden, the fundamental structure of everything breaks down. Physics actually breaks down because you look at something like wind farms or solar farms and things like that, completely uneconomical. They don't make any sense. But yet during zero bound interest rates, all of a sudden physics doesn't matter.

00:00:52.560 And welcome back to another episode of the Critical Compass.

00:01:13.240 I'm James. This is my co-host, Mike. And we've got a special guest today. We've got Brett Oland, the CEO of Bow Valley Credit Union. Some of you may have seen him on X and Twitter saying things that no other base CEO would say. So welcome, Brett. It's good to have you on the show.

00:01:33.120 Well, thanks for that. Well, thanks for that. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Based, I guess it is. So I would love to hear maybe just a little bit on like how you got to this point, maybe a little bit of your background and how you came on to Bow Valley.

00:01:49.760 Sure. Yeah. And a lot has driven me towards where my line of thinking, where I sit today. But about 20 years ago, I started my career in banking. I was working down in the Cayman Islands, different type of banking. It was investment fund banking, just different from retail banking that mainly Bow Valley Credit Union does today.

00:02:15.420 Sort of left the Cayman Islands, sort of left the Caymans around 2006, ended up back in Alberta. And what struck me as really interesting down in the Caymans is it was working on a fund that was a billion dollars, which seems pretty small in today's terms.

00:02:37.000 But we were making about a 12% return per month on this particular fund. And that, I'm sure, continued right through the lead up to the great financial crisis. And it really struck me during the great financial crisis is I felt pretty well prepared for that, as well as obviously the getting 12% return per month on a fund.

00:03:03.500 You'd be doing pretty well. You'd be doing pretty well. But then you sort of looked behind yourself and there's 100 people that are struggling. It struck me in around 2008 in the great financial crisis that there was effectively something wrong with the money system if something like that is happening.

00:03:22.860 I made the mistake of thinking that it would be very inflationary of what the US in particular did around the great financial crisis of monetizing all the debt, effectively printing a bunch of currency to prop up the system.

00:03:38.980 I ended up being incorrect with that because it was largely captured within the system between the central bank, the Fed in the United States, and the commercial banks in the US and didn't get to the broader economy.

00:03:54.160 Now, fast forward to 2020, during COVID, when they locked everybody down, basically cut off all means of production and had people sitting at home and started sending out checks.

00:04:09.240 And I knew that that was going to be massively inflationary. And I think we're still continuing to see a lot of that happening today. And I don't think we're through the inflationary period.

00:04:22.580 Back in 2020, I was recently just assigned the role of CEO of Bow Valley Credit Union. After sort of working at some other jobs and on the board of Bow Valley Credit Union, I sort of parachuted in.

00:04:37.220 And I wanted to be able to create something that protected our membership from what I see as incipient inflation. The bigger banks in Canada especially don't do that.

00:04:50.540 Their primary concern is the shareholders of the big banks. And a lot of the time, they're foreign shareholders. And the mandate of credit unions is much different than the bigger banks because we actually care about the membership underneath the organization.

00:05:09.260 We care about their well-being. So, to us, it seemed like a no-brainer to actually help people prepare for what we see as a massive inflationary decade.

00:05:20.100 And we started down this pathway of providing products and services around precious metals because typically over the past 5,000 years, that's the best way to protect yourself against uncertainty, especially inflation.

00:05:36.260 And most recently, we've been going down the path of Bitcoin as well, as it also seems to be doing a fairly good job of protecting people's assets and productive means through basically a money in gold and silver in Bitcoin that doesn't deteriorate with the production of fiat currency is effectively what it is.

00:06:00.540 So, maybe that does actually raise one question. I'd love to hear how you would communicate this to somebody who's never really asked this question, but like, what is money? Just big, dumb question.

00:06:15.960 And what does it mean? Like, if my house increases in $200,000 worth of value, where is that value? Like, I don't have more house. So, what does that all mean? 0.98

00:06:28.960 No, and that's just about money, Brett, please.

00:06:31.740 Yeah, that is really a really big problem in society today. And so, especially with the baby boomer generation, they think they are really smart with their finances, but effectively, no, it's just that you were a result of a product of massive money printing in the background.

00:06:57.240 And so, I wouldn't think of that value of that house going up by $200,000, because the purchasing power of that $200,000 isn't there. It's just that they printed so much money in the background that it's effectively goosed the system to a point where it devalued the dollars.

00:07:21.920 So, here's a great example of how it would work. So, think of a cup of coffee, and then you pour that cup of coffee into a bowl, and then add a bunch of more hot water into it.

00:07:38.020 And so, that's effectively what money printing is doing in the background. And so, eventually, it's going to basically dilute that coffee to the point where it just gets thinner and thinner and thinner.

00:07:49.880 And that's effectively what money printing is. So, that original purchasing power or that original espresso that you had actually gets diluted down.

00:08:03.260 And that's effectively what's happening when the government goes into debt and deficits or prints money during COVID and helicopter monies it out.

00:08:16.380 It's diluting the purchasing power of every single dollar before it.

00:08:22.300 But the thing is, normally in society, we don't notice because they have inflation targets.

00:08:28.160 And likely, everybody's heard of inflation targets of 2% is usually what they're trying to create.

00:08:35.980 But, you know, that's just nonsense to start with.

00:08:39.360 Like, why is 2% better than 3% or better than 1%?

00:08:44.280 And really, what it is, is they've found that anything higher than 2%, people start complaining about it.

00:08:53.820 And they start complaining that their cost of energy is higher, their cost of food is higher, that the cost of housing is higher.

00:09:01.440 So, they'll basically print as much as they can get away with.

00:09:05.440 So, we definitely noticed it during the COVID times where in Canada, you know, the official inflation rate reached about 8% or 9%, even though it's an old likelihood it was much higher than that.

00:09:20.580 Because during the three years of COVID, we increased the Canadian money supply by over 40%.

00:09:26.760 So, effectively diluted that cup of coffee by 40%.

00:09:32.900 So, every dollar that came before it was diluted.

00:09:38.280 So, lots to go with.

00:09:41.420 Yeah.

00:09:42.400 One point on the, like, what the reported inflation is, and that's CPI, correct?

00:09:48.720 That's a basket of goods that they choose. 0.63

00:09:51.900 And there can be some bias of like, oh, maybe we chose this thing that didn't increase much in price.

00:09:57.240 Therefore, you can hide the real effects of inflation under this, like, umbrella of your summing up these products.

00:10:05.980 Is that correct?

00:10:07.720 Yeah.

00:10:07.980 And before I get into that, I'll explain why they do it.

00:10:12.100 And so, it's like the fox guarding the hen house.

00:10:16.340 So, the government has an incentive to not let CPI be high.

00:10:22.500 So, with CPP and old age security, as well as tax brackets, if CPI gets too hot, say it's 10% one year, then they have to actually increase CPP by 10%, old age security by 10%.

00:10:41.640 Those brackets should go up 10%.

00:10:43.720 But in each one of those cases, they have the incentive to keep the CPI actually much, much lower.

00:10:51.480 So, if the CPI is only 1%, then they only have to increase CPP by 1% or old age security by 1% or that tax bracket.

00:11:01.160 So, that minimum tax bracket that you don't get taxed on only goes up by 1%.

00:11:05.720 So, it's an embedded incentive within the system not to show the actual true CPI.

00:11:14.980 So, now, yeah, you're absolutely right that that incentive basically manipulates the system where they do things like substitution.

00:11:24.280 So, rather than having steak, they substitute it for hamburger or they substitute it for chicken or something like that.

00:11:33.320 And it's like, well, you're getting some protein.

00:11:35.320 Well, what's the problem here?

00:11:36.860 You know, and eventually they substitute it for cat food and bug meal and things like that.

00:11:43.480 So, yeah.

00:11:44.960 Oh, no, there's no inflation to see here, friends.

00:11:47.660 But the thing is, I think one of the best indicators of naturally knowing what inflation is, is just going to the grocery store.

00:11:56.340 Like, generally, week after week, most families buy the same items.

00:12:02.720 And I don't know about you, but I've noticed it, a significant increase from even just a couple of years ago.

00:12:09.640 You know, price of yogurt, price of bread, price of milk, eggs, cheese, that pack of hamburger, nobody can afford steak anymore, that type of thing, right?

00:12:20.580 So, it's, it's, that's probably your true CPI measure, and it's not this basket of phony goods that they've put together.

00:12:30.000 Yeah.

00:12:30.620 And meanwhile, while, while it's in their best interest to manipulate, you know, if you want to use that word, what the basket of goods represents to, to show a much smaller CPI than, increase than actually exists.

00:12:45.340 Because it's, it's actually in their best interest, and the people that they're actually working for, the people with hard goods, if it's, you know, if it's precious metals, or properties, or stakes in businesses, it's, it's in their best, like, that, for those people, it's great.

00:13:00.940 Inflation is awesome for them, because their, their goods are inflating along with it.

00:13:05.360 But, yeah, that's, that doesn't seem, so they seem to be, I don't know, might you say there's a conflict of interest there?

00:13:12.400 No, absolutely, and, and just to that point, but especially around businesses, where, uh, all these businesses out there, not that they're malicious or anything like that, but they're in business for a reason.

00:13:24.960 And so, they take a look at the CPI, and go to their employees, look, you know, CPI only went up 2% this year, so I'm going to only give you a cost of living adjustment for 2%.

00:13:36.300 But meanwhile, groceries have gone up 8%.

00:13:39.280 So, if, if that happens over years, over decades, all of a sudden, the middle class effectively gets wiped out, because of all these, basically, little manipulations that it's a game of inches over time.

00:13:57.420 And to, it, it, it, it's all related together, but it piles in with something like immigration.

00:14:05.180 So, a lot of people do that job, and maybe they work in a job for 20 years or something like that, and they only got a 2% in cost of living adjustment over those 20 years.

00:14:18.200 And finally, they go, forget it, I'm not doing that job anymore, I'm either going to resign and not do anything, or I'm going to go find another position.

00:14:26.340 And so, all of a sudden, oh, well, we can't find anybody that's willing to do this job for this little money.

00:14:33.520 Well, that's because 20 years ago, the purchasing power of what you were getting paid was much, much better than what it is today.

00:14:41.080 Yeah. Yeah, I use that argument a lot with, you know, we, we talk on this channel, I don't know, if you watch any of our stuff, or if you, if you do watch, you'll see probably, I don't know, James, is it every second episode, or maybe every episode at this point, where we say something about how, you know, we try to, like, convert our leftist liberal family members to our way of thinking.

00:15:02.400 And, uh, here's, here's another one, here's another one.

00:15:05.920 So, there's, there's this, you know, talking point that I've heard a lot on the left of, you know, what, exactly like you said, well, Canadians won't do this job, or, you know, you can't, this is why we need immigration, because, you know, it's only the immigrants who will, who will do this type of work, or, and I, and I try to, like, you know, you look at it in the way of, like, okay, but actually what you're saying is, like, that's actually really convenient if you're a multinational, or if you're a giant corporation,

00:15:32.020 because, yeah, that's, you do want it to look like that, but actually Canadians would be more than happy to do these jobs, if they paid what the actual value of the labor is supposed to pay.

00:15:41.540 So, what you're actually saying is that, actually, we're too good for these jobs, for the, and, and actually only, we, we can only bring in the third world, these, these people who will work for nothing. 1.00

00:15:52.740 Like, what are you, what are you actually saying when you say those words?

00:15:55.700 Well, exactly, and, and so, it, it almost degrades every single new immigrant, uh, new Canadian, that, that comes, comes to Canada, and, and maybe great, it's, it's maybe worth a fortune to them to, to, to clean toilets or something like that, and it's a much better position than they can get in their home country, but it's still degrading, nonetheless, 0.61

00:16:18.340 and basically devaluing people, and it goes further than that, just around productivity and, and payment of, of what people are actually worth.

00:16:30.940 It, it, it goes into housing as well, so, we, we all know that housing has gone up significantly over the past, say, five years, and, uh, the baby boomers, uh, are a generation where most of their investment is within their residential house, and so, it would be catastrophic for the baby boomers' retirement if, uh, all of a sudden, the housing prices started to decline.

00:16:59.780 And so, you goose the system further by pumping as many Canadians as you can into the country to basically goose up the housing, and it's like, that, that's what's really starkly ridiculous about the new mandate of the federal, liberal government of, like, oh, we're going to build 500,000 new homes.

00:17:21.460 Well, the most that Canada has ever built, ever built in their highest period was 250,000 housing units, and so, how are we going to come in and basically double that?

00:17:33.660 And they know that they can't do that, they've, they've failed ridiculously at it, but the thing is, they know it's also going to goose the system and keep those housing prices propped up, so the system doesn't implode on itself.

00:17:45.980 Yeah, and then it also, it, it placates, you know, anyone who's listening to those numbers and those statistics, so when they hear the fact that, you know, in the first quarter of 2025, the liberal government imported 860,000 people from India or something, it's a crazy number like that, it's almost a million people in the first quarter of this year.

00:18:08.320 And so you hear, okay, well, we're going to build 500,000 new houses, maybe there's two people to a house, you know, okay, that, that seems to make sense, but actually, to your point, it isn't two people to a house, especially when you're, when you're talking about, you know, Indian or Filipino immigrants, these are people who come from cultures with multi-generational housing.

00:18:26.800 And so you have maybe five or six or eight or 10 people to a house and, and, uh, you know, somebody with a more of a Western mindset who, who has a, you know, the single family home sort of idea of what they want their life to be, maybe them and their wife and their kid or two kids or something.

00:18:42.880 You can never compete with that.

00:18:44.580 Two incomes can never compete against five or six or 10 incomes.

00:18:48.420 Yep.

00:18:48.820 And so then all of a sudden they're able to buy a second home or a third home and that type of thing and, and just keep on piling in and, and don't get me wrong.

00:18:56.720 I have zero problem with immigration, but the thing is it needs to be managed to the point where we're actually keeping up with school services, with legal services, with hospitals and yeah.

00:19:09.800 Yeah.

00:19:10.020 And people scratch their heads and go, gee, why is it taking eight hours to get into a hospital bed?

00:19:15.500 And it's like, it's a no brainer to me, but the thing is, it, it seems that people have lost a bit of that ability to have some critical thinking and think of those.

00:19:27.380 Derivative, uh, effects of, of a lot of these policies that we've sort of absorbed.

00:19:32.580 So yeah, and this goes beyond left, right, because, uh, these are tools that are abused, um, pretty much by any side.

00:19:44.220 Let it be when it comes to expanding, spanning debt.

00:19:47.720 We've seen that from liberals.

00:19:49.000 We've seen that from conservatives.

00:19:50.480 It's not just a, it's not just a left thing.

00:19:53.840 You don't have to be alt-right.

00:19:55.820 Yeah.

00:19:56.820 Like, well, the thing is we, we see a lot of kind of criticism on the left of them being

00:20:04.640 very skeptical of corporations, which is sure, be skeptical of corporations.

00:20:08.940 But if we go a layer deeper and you look at like what enables government corruption and

00:20:14.240 what enables corruption at the corporate level, and that's going to be a fiat system of money,

00:20:21.660 in my opinion.

00:20:23.440 So no, no completely.

00:20:24.660 Like you, you, you would want to address the fundamental layer of that, right?

00:20:28.880 Oh, exactly.

00:20:29.880 And so if fundamentally that, that base layer needs to have some kind of structure to it.

00:20:37.760 And so effectively in, in 2008 and again, in 2020, we completely detached from reality of

00:20:47.740 the economics of money by basically saying, we're going to the zero bound money costs, nothing.

00:20:53.880 We're going to absorb everything and put it into central banks or people's hands or into

00:21:00.060 commercial banks.

00:21:00.860 And so basically, once you do something like that, you basically detach the fundamental structure

00:21:07.460 of money.

00:21:08.280 All of a sudden, the fundamental structure of everything breaks down.

00:21:12.480 Physics actually breaks down because you look at something like wind farms or solar farms and

00:21:19.940 things like that, completely uneconomical.

00:21:22.400 They don't make any sense, but yet during zero bound interest rates, all of a sudden physics

00:21:29.880 doesn't matter.

00:21:30.860 Or biological things, all of a sudden there was a natural law in place, but all of a sudden

00:21:38.620 that comes completely detached when there's, you know, no tether to the actual dollar base

00:21:46.680 system.

00:21:49.340 Political, all of a sudden you can ignore the constitution because we have so much money that

00:21:55.020 we can print in the background.

00:21:56.340 It doesn't matter, you know?

00:21:58.440 And so it's not a surprise to me that we're seeing such a fundamental breakdown of society

00:22:05.240 and culture because when you basically detach something, and of course, this is just an

00:22:11.800 accountant, a banker talking here.

00:22:14.300 But when you take away...

00:22:15.480 A based banker though.

00:22:16.400 Take away a based banker's basically understanding of fundamental economics at basically what you're

00:22:28.480 doing when you print all that currency, you're devaluing people's time.

00:22:34.460 And so they've put time and effort and production into saving those dollars.

00:22:42.220 And really when the governments print those money or you go into deficit spending and things

00:22:47.840 like that, you're basically saying it doesn't matter.

00:22:50.040 The value that you put into society before doesn't matter.

00:22:54.020 We're basically stealing the productive value of everything going forward.

00:22:58.820 And so it's not a surprise to me that we see drug and alcohol abuse, social distortion,

00:23:07.240 economics not making sense, things like cryptocurrencies and fart coin going to the moon.

00:23:13.900 Like these things are all just second derivatives of the money.

00:23:20.380 And to your point, James, if you had an actual structure in place that basically holds up on

00:23:28.340 the reins of the government's ability to be able to do these things, all of a sudden,

00:23:32.960 all these natural laws come flying back into place.

00:23:36.960 And in my mind, it's a no brainer.

00:23:40.120 And you see it through examples like in El Salvador or Argentina, where basically they fixed

00:23:49.560 the money system and got rid of the corruption and basically things snap back into place very

00:23:56.420 quickly.

00:23:59.320 Yeah, you're tied to some of these natural laws again.

00:24:02.920 And even one example is like in the past, if you couldn't print money, a war would be

00:24:12.220 fought and eventually you ran out of money to pay soldiers with.

00:24:15.900 And you're like, well, if both sides run out of money or like, I guess, yeah, like, guess

00:24:20.400 like somebody won, you won this territory.

00:24:23.100 We can't fund any more advancements.

00:24:25.440 So you are done there.

00:24:27.220 And then I guess like in 1917, we saw that's when there was a shift like into like to pay

00:24:37.200 for the war that was basically taking out of people's savings to continue to pay all this,

00:24:43.940 like to put into the war machine.

00:24:46.440 So that's one notable, I guess, change.

00:24:50.300 And then we had 1970s, like getting off the gold standard.

00:24:55.440 In the United States, like a second major change.

00:24:59.600 And I know like some of these graphs, you can't always like correlate and just match up two

00:25:03.700 graphs, but we did see a significant shift in wages and what people like household debt

00:25:12.280 as well, like since the 1970s.

00:25:14.060 And I feel like that is a, it's a perfectly reasonable to point to that as a, as a major

00:25:20.340 shift away from our labor being tied to something physical in the form of something backing the

00:25:27.160 currency in that way.

00:25:29.060 Yeah, no, you're absolutely right with those charts.

00:25:31.540 So in August, uh, 1971, Nixon took the U S dollar off the gold standard and it was 54 years

00:25:40.600 ago, just, just a few days of back and you notice all these things.

00:25:46.740 So go look at a stock market chart of the S and P 500, go look at a housing chart, go look at

00:25:53.880 inflation, go look at cost of living, go look at energy prices, go look at insurance prices.

00:25:59.120 You look at all these charts, all those, they, they look exactly the same.

00:26:02.460 So that's circling back to my original comment.

00:26:06.600 And it's like, that's nice that you think you're really smart with your finances, baby

00:26:12.480 boomers, but it's just because of the detachment of, of this base layer of finances.

00:26:18.780 And, and that's, what's really troubling to me is anybody that owns these assets, which

00:26:25.860 is typically the baby boomers in society, they, they scratch their head and going, what's 1.00

00:26:30.300 wrong?

00:26:30.540 I got no problems here.

00:26:32.100 I'm going on my vacation.

00:26:33.380 I can afford everything.

00:26:34.440 And meanwhile, you've got, uh, the, the millennials and the gen alphas and things like that.

00:26:39.740 And they're dying out there.

00:26:41.280 They, they, they can't put food on the table. 0.57

00:26:43.760 They, they can't move out of their mom's basement.

00:26:46.380 Um, it's not because they're lazy.

00:26:48.580 It's because the structure was set up to basically work against them.

00:26:53.260 Yeah.

00:26:54.220 Yeah.

00:26:54.620 We've seen sort of a, you know, I don't, I don't pretend to know, you know, the, the

00:26:59.540 nuances of these things, but we have seen, you know, such a, such a hollowing out of

00:27:04.560 the middle class in the last, you know, 50, 60 years where it feels like, you know, like,

00:27:10.540 you know, I was surprised to learn not, not too long ago.

00:27:13.680 I should have known this earlier, but you know, there used to be a definition for what

00:27:17.140 the middle class meant and that the middle class used to be defined as, uh, earning part

00:27:23.480 of their income from their employment and a significant part of their income from investments.

00:27:28.020 And I don't think that there are like, you know, there's a statistic that I don't know

00:27:33.180 how accurate it is, but you know, it feels like it's probably true.

00:27:36.120 The average Canadian is, is an unexpected $200 bill away from, uh, from bankruptcy and, and

00:27:42.820 most, most people under, I don't know, under 45 or under 40, 40 years old or something like

00:27:48.500 that have no savings.

00:27:49.540 Like no one has savings.

00:27:50.580 So, you know, this is a, this is a significant shift that we've seen particularly in the millennial,

00:27:56.260 but also in the probably reaching into the, into the younger Gen X and the, and the, maybe

00:28:01.640 the older Gen alpha Gen Z, um, generations where there just is no, there is just, it feels

00:28:09.900 like there is no way to, to catch up enough to start generating a store of wealth like

00:28:16.600 our, you know, like the, the, the boomers had before us.

00:28:20.600 Right.

00:28:21.160 And then, and then you get into the nihilist thinking and, and sure, why wouldn't I just

00:28:26.180 go shoplift, whatever I want, or, you know, start that crack pipe up and things like that.

00:28:34.340 And sit, sit in the basement and play video games.

00:28:36.880 What's the point.

00:28:38.360 So all of a sudden it, it just detaches purpose as well.

00:28:45.000 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:28:46.440 And you, you, you see that in, you know, you know, particularly men, uh, have a, you know,

00:28:51.800 there, there's a lot of, uh, you know, we don't have to get into a discussion about this,

00:28:56.160 but a lot of what a man, you know, defines himself by is his ability to provide, right?

00:29:01.060 Like that's a very, that's very masculine quality.

00:29:03.220 And what you see during times of economic crisis is grotesquely increasing, uh, male 1.00

00:29:10.100 suicide rates, uh, male drug addiction.

00:29:12.580 You see, we saw a whole generation of men essentially lost to the opioid epidemic, which

00:29:17.820 a lot of people linked to, you can time that pretty accurately to the financial crisis.

00:29:24.240 And so, yeah, exactly.

00:29:26.240 There's, there's real social problems, psychological problems that happen when, when, uh, our concept

00:29:33.180 of, you know, this nebulous concept of what a currency is, uh, starts getting, uh, starts

00:29:38.420 getting affected.

00:29:39.360 Well, and there's recent examples in history of the same thing happening, and we're probably

00:29:43.800 just seeing it show up in, in Canada now, but, uh, Soviet Russia had the same thing where

00:29:50.720 there's that nihilist structure in place.

00:29:53.260 Many, many young males died from alcoholism.

00:29:56.880 Same thing in the Rust Belt in, in the United States, uh, drug use and, and alcoholism skyrocketed.

00:30:06.560 It's the, it's the same thing.

00:30:08.780 Uh, and so if, if we think we're immune to it in Canada, uh,

00:30:13.800 I think we're a far cry from understanding economics and the social impacts that, that

00:30:20.180 are sort of second to third derivatives.

00:30:22.500 So, so here, here's one thought then, um, it seems like these tools, as you increase

00:30:28.840 inflation and you have these economic pressures, it almost feels like, yeah, the, the solution

00:30:35.640 is very obvious.

00:30:36.740 We, we need more government and we need the government to provide everybody with, with a

00:30:41.560 universal basic income or like it's a solution for a problem that only governments

00:30:48.280 could create so mass for masterfully.

00:30:51.340 So like the solutions always just, well, we've got to centralize things.

00:30:55.120 Like there isn't enough of this isn't enough of that.

00:30:57.520 We need somebody to take care of us.

00:31:00.440 Yeah.

00:31:00.640 And it gets tricky to get out of this mindset because when you decouple our, our sense of

00:31:10.420 what money is actually worth from what it actually buys, you are shifting people's time preference.

00:31:16.920 So if people are unable to really view themselves in a long term, let it be saving investment.

00:31:23.260 Like they don't have the confidence 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from

00:31:28.000 now, what their life will be like.

00:31:30.140 They're operating on a short time preference.

00:31:33.100 And now these instant solutions imposed by essential authority seem a lot more like,

00:31:41.020 well, it's just going to remove the hurt right now.

00:31:43.860 Yeah.

00:31:43.980 And often these immediate solutions also have long-term consequences that hurt more than

00:31:50.360 whatever hurts right now, which kicks the can further and just erodes the system even

00:31:56.800 more just to solve the immediate problem, making things worse.

00:32:01.180 Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:32:02.260 And I'm glad you're recording this because I'm going to go on the record and say universal

00:32:06.160 basic income is a very, very, very bad idea.

00:32:09.360 Um, but you know, I, I honestly wouldn't blame people for going on it.

00:32:16.420 So if, if you're, you're a single mother or a single father or something like that, and

00:32:21.460 you're struggling to put a roof over your head, put food on the table and make sure that,

00:32:26.020 uh, you get the electricity bill paid, you're desperate.

00:32:29.720 And it's like it, uh, how are you supposed to look after that kid and work three jobs just

00:32:35.200 so you can pay your rent?

00:32:36.400 Like it, it, it just doesn't work.

00:32:38.260 And so really thinking it through that, you're right.

00:32:42.960 That instant gratification is almost a necessity in that case.

00:32:46.860 And I think governments know that as well.

00:32:50.080 And so they're basically right, walk right over here, sign up for your universal basic

00:32:56.940 income, by the way, we're going to put it to your central bank, digital currency account

00:33:01.340 and away we go.

00:33:04.080 You want to go on the record about that too?

00:33:06.300 Sure.

00:33:07.300 CBDCs, good or bad idea, Brett?

00:33:09.780 Terrible, terrible idea.

00:33:11.540 Um, you know.

00:33:12.840 Mark it down.

00:33:14.780 I, I wrote a paper, I think it was in the spring of, of 2023.

00:33:19.280 The bank of Canada came out with a survey that basically was asking questions like, how would

00:33:25.880 you use a central bank, digital currency?

00:33:28.000 Wouldn't it be fantastic if you could do this really easy?

00:33:30.960 And so I wrote this paper basically describing that you're, you're marching down to a dystopian

00:33:37.660 nightmare.

00:33:38.140 Thankfully, 90,000 Canadians responded and it was overwhelmingly bad towards a central bank,

00:33:46.580 digital currency.

00:33:47.480 And so, um, the bank of Canada has since put it on ice, but I've, I've also read a few

00:33:52.480 papers of how it would be implemented.

00:33:55.060 So the work hasn't stopped, uh, around a central bank, digital currency, but, but effectively,

00:34:01.180 um, it's, it's on pause until, um, on the surface.

00:34:06.880 Yeah.

00:34:07.360 Yeah.

00:34:07.760 Yeah.

00:34:08.200 But the thing is, like I say, if once people get desperate, it's, it's, I don't blame them.

00:34:14.960 I would like to, to actually carry on with this and talk a little bit about, uh, cryptocurrency

00:34:19.700 after, but just to one last touch on that last point you were saying about, um, you know,

00:34:25.160 a, a, a single mother desperate to, you know, feed her kids and all that. 1.00

00:34:28.980 Totally.

00:34:29.980 That's another example.

00:34:31.140 We've talked about it on the show before of how to another earlier point you made about

00:34:35.660 how, you know, this is not necessarily a left.

00:34:37.360 Or a right issue or a liberal conservative issue.

00:34:39.400 You know, we've been talking about, um, we use the example of, um, when Trudeau was

00:34:44.820 talking about implementing a, a national school lunch program.

00:34:48.660 And I don't know how far that went or if it's, if it's implemented in any such way, but you

00:34:53.000 know, we, we describe it in the way of like, you know, if you're a liberal in favor of a

00:34:57.340 national school lunch program, conservatives are not opposed to children eating lunch.

00:35:03.500 You know, they just believe that there's a different way to achieve that.

00:35:07.820 And that you, you know, you empower the parents to have more powerful paychecks to, uh, you

00:35:13.140 know, to be able to buy their own kids lunches and not rely on a government program that should

00:35:17.400 they end up, should their children end up relying on it and the government changes it in some

00:35:21.600 way or it defunds it or it moves it to something else.

00:35:24.480 Well, well now what are you going to do?

00:35:25.820 Cause you haven't planned, you know, you, it's just a different mindset of where you

00:35:29.400 believe the, um, the, uh, the, the source of the, of the, the goal should come from, you

00:35:35.100 know?

00:35:35.920 Yeah.

00:35:36.220 And, and it just, if, if you connect the dots to those, uh, next levels, you come out with

00:35:43.120 some pretty insidious outcomes, right?

00:35:45.140 And it's like, is this kid going to grow up thinking he's going to get his lunch paid

00:35:49.500 for and delivered and plopped on a tray everywhere he goes and oh, where's my dinner and my

00:35:54.760 breakfast for that matter?

00:35:56.020 You know?

00:35:56.500 So where's my bugs?

00:35:58.180 Yeah.

00:35:59.280 So it, it, it doesn't set a great precedent with, with anything.

00:36:05.380 And there's much better solutions that don't go down this dystopian nightmare pathway.

00:36:15.860 Yeah.

00:36:16.240 And, and, and again, it, it feels like some of the future behaviors baked into the system.

00:36:22.300 Like it, you erode our mechanism for exchanging value and now people have to operate within

00:36:30.400 that erosion and behaviors are going to align with these incentives.

00:36:35.500 So it's no surprise that like a lot of people are kind of stuck on dependencies.

00:36:41.220 And, and, and they really, really view the government as like, this is who saves us and it's their

00:36:49.960 role to take care of us rather than providing a space for people to exchange value for businesses

00:36:56.040 to do their thing, enforcing the rules.

00:36:58.440 So people don't take advantage of each other, et cetera.

00:37:01.960 Right now governments are being treated as an architect.

00:37:04.860 Like same thing with central banks, they are the architects of debt and money and they're

00:37:09.980 doing, they're doing their thing.

00:37:11.680 So the fundamental, like you are, there's a lot loaded into like, well, what's their role

00:37:20.440 and why do they actually exist in the form that they do?

00:37:23.120 So.

00:37:25.760 Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:37:27.000 And I think there's some statistic in Canada that over 50% of people in Canada are either

00:37:32.780 dependent on the government or work for the government.

00:37:35.800 So, you know, that's municipal, provincial, or federal level, but, you know, they have

00:37:42.960 a baked in incentive to keep this, this Ponzi going as well.

00:37:49.120 Yeah.

00:37:49.600 Do you view, to go back to CBDCs and crypto, do you view cryptocurrency as somewhat of a

00:38:00.740 bulwark against CBDCs and government control of currencies?

00:38:07.960 Like, do you, do you send, like, let me tell you why I ask this.

00:38:11.480 I hear, I hear both things.

00:38:12.720 I've heard, you know, a very strong push for, for crypto as a, you know, Bitcoin in

00:38:18.860 particular, as a, you know, a completely independent of government corruption store of

00:38:24.420 wealth.

00:38:25.200 And then I've heard another argument where people say, well, actually, you know, this

00:38:29.720 is still technical, this is still a blockchain and blockchains can be, you know, information

00:38:33.940 can be gleaned from blockchain.

00:38:35.780 So if governments wanted to snoop into transactions, even if, you know, you got to worry about potentially

00:38:41.580 things being decrypted and, you know, stuff that I'm not, I'm not super familiar with

00:38:47.320 all the ins and outs of it, but do you, do you, have you heard both arguments and do

00:38:51.660 you, do you fall on either side of them?

00:38:54.460 Yeah, no, definitely.

00:38:55.360 And so there's, there's strong cryptocurrencies and there's weak cryptocurrencies and, you

00:39:01.860 know, the king daddy of strength is probably Bitcoin just because of it effectively just

00:39:08.640 works through math.

00:39:09.960 So even if Satoshi Nakamoto came back, who's supposedly the founder of Bitcoin and holds

00:39:17.900 a million Bitcoin and that type of thing came back, he or she or that agency or group on

00:39:27.020 their own would not be able to disrupt the blockchain of Bitcoin because just the way the math works,

00:39:35.780 it, it, it can't be disrupted.

00:39:37.920 So now that's very different from some of these other things like fart coin or something like

00:39:43.560 that, where there's an actual CEO behind fart coin and saying, you know what, man, we're getting a lot

00:39:49.760 of dollars up in, in fart coin.

00:39:54.500 We need to print another trillion fart coin type thing.

00:39:57.740 And so, uh, lo and behold, that, that CEO holds that whole new trillion and sells them into the

00:40:03.380 market and that type of thing.

00:40:04.460 So it, it definitely could be, uh, it's, it's a double-edged sword.

00:40:08.720 There's over 10,000 cryptocurrencies out there. 0.99

00:40:11.760 Most of them are crap. 0.94

00:40:14.060 Um, and, and so, um, there, there probably is something around even with, with Bitcoin, because if, 0.99

00:40:25.560 if you think governments are just going to let control of money go completely, I think you're

00:40:31.540 sadly mistaken, but I think that's where a lot of the conversation around, uh, the genius act.

00:40:39.700 And you may have heard of that coming out of the U S and effectively it's, it's a tool to set up

00:40:45.120 stable coins to basically control the system around cryptocurrencies, because it is such a,

00:40:52.540 a powerful technology that you can move value, uh, around the world within seconds and have no

00:40:59.480 intermediaries telling you, uh, boo about, uh, whether or not you can do something or, or not.

00:41:07.380 So there's probably some kind of balance.

00:41:12.020 And that seems to be what the Trump administration is trying to do is maximize that Liberty piece

00:41:19.660 around cryptocurrency, stable coin and Bitcoin, but while balancing that, Hey, listen, we can't let

00:41:28.120 people just run haywire around and, and, uh, otherwise we just effectively descend into anarchy, but

00:41:36.400 you know, pick your poison and salt at the taste of, of where you sit along those lines.

00:41:44.200 Yeah.

00:41:44.760 It it's, it's, it's probably better than, than what seems to be coming out of Europe where

00:41:50.200 they think it's the government's job to basically manipulate currency because it's for our own good.

00:41:58.400 Um, which, which is sort of down the route of a central bank, digital currency, a planned, uh,

00:42:05.040 economy, a planned structure, no Johnny, you can't buy that pizza.

00:42:09.880 Uh, no Sally, you can't drive your car, that type of thing.

00:42:13.260 So.

00:42:14.340 So maybe even to take a step back, like a blockchain technology itself is just, you've got a ledger

00:42:21.260 and you've got everything on there and it's, everybody has a copy of that ledger.

00:42:25.960 And the, and if the ledger doesn't match, then it's invalid.

00:42:30.220 So you can't double spend, you can't duplicate a dollar, but that's, that ledger is operating

00:42:37.320 on a rule set and that rule set differs depending on what cryptocurrency it is.

00:42:43.740 Uh, in the case of Bitcoin, you've got a rules, you've got basically how the nodes are set up

00:42:52.080 and how the network is set up and forced by these miners.

00:42:56.160 They're running, they're basically solving all these equations to compete, to do proof

00:43:03.780 of work.

00:43:04.980 They're literally spending electricity to validate these transactions and they have to

00:43:10.880 compete for them.

00:43:12.280 And it's, there's like a little bit of cryptology and like random number BS that's

00:43:18.220 happening on there, so don't have to like unpack that, but with that, that is much different

00:43:24.180 than proof of stake with proof of work.

00:43:26.900 You cannot, you cannot fudge it.

00:43:29.520 Uh, so I, I feel like if you're trying to evaluate the differences between a cryptocurrency

00:43:36.480 and another, if there's anything that's proof of stake, I'm immediately a little bit

00:43:41.460 skeptical of that setup where they can either change the supply or they can, um, basically

00:43:51.720 it's enforced by consensus of this many miners.

00:43:54.940 Like this can be, you can weaponize or you can abuse that system.

00:44:00.960 But one more point on this is that like a blockchain itself is most likely going to be the backbone

00:44:06.800 for central bank digital currency.

00:44:09.060 The only difference being it, whatever that turns into would probably be still tied to

00:44:15.320 an inflationary fiat analog of some sort.

00:44:20.080 It's unlikely to be a hard money system that would not inflate.

00:44:25.340 And so the people advocating for Bitcoin, um, they like it cause there's 21 million.

00:44:30.460 It doesn't, you cannot create any more than that.

00:44:33.620 And after 21 million or mind, everything's just a fraction of that.

00:44:38.640 So it's a, it, you cannot create more.

00:44:42.480 So that changes your relationship with money at that point as a store of value.

00:44:47.960 Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:44:49.420 And, and it absolutely depends on who's behind the switch in the background.

00:44:53.400 So if, if you'd move to some of these cryptocurrencies where a CEO can just crank up more coins and

00:45:00.060 things like that, that's not any better than the existing system where they can just print

00:45:05.020 more money or deficit spend or not even have budgets and, and things like that.

00:45:09.580 Whereas with something like Bitcoin, there is no CEO.

00:45:13.760 And, and so you need to convince 20,000 other nodes that this is the direction that we need

00:45:20.080 to take and good luck with that.

00:45:23.000 Um, because it, it's, um, we can't agree on anything these days.

00:45:27.200 Well, but they've tried to fork Bitcoin's people have tried to fork it out and they've

00:45:32.260 said, this is our modified version of it.

00:45:34.940 And it's failed every single time somebody tries to fork.

00:45:38.900 Yep.

00:45:39.120 It has failed and it doesn't, there's not consensus.

00:45:41.700 So the larger a network that network gets, and it has more than a decade of just like

00:45:48.840 every transaction going through, you almost have like confidence in the network because

00:45:54.180 it's proven that it can do what it's designed to do time over time again.

00:46:00.380 And you add another decade on that.

00:46:02.360 And maybe that's a good backbone for, for like a non-inflation based currency.

00:46:08.400 So like it's, it'll be interesting to see.

00:46:13.740 Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:46:14.720 And so you, I can definitely see sort of moving into the futuristic conversation is, um, it's,

00:46:22.940 it's, there's enough awareness around the world, uh, that something is wrong, that I,

00:46:29.920 I can't put food on the table.

00:46:31.480 I can't afford a house.

00:46:32.860 And to me, the more conversations that happen like this, uh,

00:46:38.400 people will all of a sudden wake up and, and demand something better.

00:46:42.420 And so whether that's through the genius act and, and stable coins demanding sort of a

00:46:50.360 harder currency or moving back towards a gold based system or a partially gold based system,

00:46:56.540 I think eventually people are going to effectively demand it.

00:47:01.500 And so that will swing the pendulum to, to a different degree and in a different direction,

00:47:09.120 because I think we have to remember at the end of the day, we, we supposedly live in democracies

00:47:13.960 and we have choice in these things.

00:47:15.740 So right now there's enough people that are incented with the existing system, uh, and,

00:47:25.160 and so they'll agree with it, but eventually it'll flip.

00:47:28.140 And maybe that's some of the baby boomers passing away and passing the money down to their 0.95

00:47:33.320 kids.

00:47:33.660 I don't know.

00:47:34.760 Um, it'll be interesting to watch for sure.

00:47:37.700 So that leads me to a, uh, to a question I've wanted to ask you.

00:47:42.520 Um, being a based banker and being somebody who, uh, you know, is, is very obviously concerned

00:47:50.920 with the future of our money supply, good governance with respect to the economy, you must have

00:47:58.520 a lot of enemies.

00:47:59.740 And I wonder if you, uh, or your, your Bow Valley credit union, or, you know, your, any

00:48:07.660 of your personal endeavors, I wonder if you've felt, or even if it's been directed,

00:48:12.520 rather than, uh, subtle, uh, have you heard anything?

00:48:15.580 Have you, have people approached you or have government agencies, you know, just, uh, it's

00:48:20.600 so odd.

00:48:21.100 You get audited every year.

00:48:22.400 What a, what a coincidence that is.

00:48:23.860 Like, do you see any sort of pushback from the, uh, from the man, from the institutions

00:48:28.660 as it were?

00:48:29.920 Oh, you know, absolutely.

00:48:31.040 Our organization, as well as me personally has, uh, been, we've attempted to get canceled.

00:48:41.280 They've attempted to cancel us more than a few times and that's why the support of the

00:48:48.420 board of directors and having backbones of steel, uh, really helps.

00:48:54.400 And so now that's, you know, probably just even phase one of, of the pushback on something

00:49:00.620 like that.

00:49:01.160 Like, um, governments will not like these conversations that we're having because effectively we talk

00:49:10.620 about those, those natural laws, they're, they're basically at the point of defying natural

00:49:17.380 laws as politicians because they have their finger on, on the printing switch.

00:49:21.820 And so if you take that away effectively, they lose all their power.

00:49:27.720 And so, you know, there, there's conversation out there of that's potentially why JFK actually

00:49:36.480 got shot is because he was moving towards, uh, backing, uh, the currency was silver or creating

00:49:43.820 silver bonds or something like that.

00:49:46.220 And, and, and, and so I, I, I'm definitely aware of, uh, there you go.

00:49:54.260 And so that, that, that might even be in there, um, about, uh, you know, and that's, that's just a

00:50:00.360 suspicion.

00:50:00.780 And I, I, I don't have any frame of reference.

00:50:02.940 Uh, of course, I, I don't think I've read a JFK book, but, um,

00:50:07.140 these are coincidences that, that pop up or you're like, oh, there's a few wars happening in these,

00:50:12.920 all these countries that didn't have a central bank, like, like, what are the chances?

00:50:18.960 Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:50:20.120 And, and, uh, things like Iran deciding that they're moving away from the U S dollar.

00:50:27.080 Whoops.

00:50:27.660 We need to invade Iran. 1.00

00:50:29.960 Oops.

00:50:30.880 Venezuela, the same thing.

00:50:32.840 Uh, yeah.

00:50:33.720 And, and we, I think we have, uh, the U S has some battle cruisers headed down there right

00:50:40.100 now around that.

00:50:41.540 And, you know, happened countless times throughout history where, uh, the British empire didn't

00:50:50.260 like something one European country is doing.

00:50:52.660 And all of a sudden they get fired up and, and are in a war and that type of thing.

00:50:57.520 And, uh, financial warfare is absolutely real.

00:51:02.920 They use it more often than I think we'd like to admit, but just back to the conversation,

00:51:10.280 it's like, uh,

00:51:11.540 of course, I don't think we're doing anything wrong other than educating.

00:51:16.000 And we're not likely big enough as an organization to make a huge impact.

00:51:21.540 But the thing is we're, we're trying to help our members and people understand this a little

00:51:25.940 bit better because that's really our proposition is I don't think governments are going to stop.

00:51:32.340 They're going to continue to print money.

00:51:35.980 They're in a position right now, which is termed fiscal, fiscal dominance.

00:51:40.300 And really what that means is they cannot function without going bankrupt, without printing money.

00:51:49.900 So the, the debt is so big and the interest payments are so big.

00:51:54.520 And these, these goodies promises that they've, they've promised people are so big that if they do not print the money, the system will collapse.

00:52:04.520 And, and that's effectively the entire Western world.

00:52:07.520 Hmm.

00:52:08.520 So they need to continue to inflate, but eventually the road's going to run out there.

00:52:14.520 There, the, the system's going to need to be re recapitalized.

00:52:18.520 And the thing is it's, it's happened before in history.

00:52:25.520 It's, uh, effectively the last time it, there was a semi, uh, piece of it happening at late seventies and early eighties in Canada.

00:52:33.520 Before that it was, uh, around in the forties for world war II.

00:52:38.520 Before that it was the beginning of the 1900s and led to the first world war, like these, these things happen all the time.

00:52:46.520 And, and generally what they try and do is create something like a war, uh, to basically cover up their financial malfeasance.

00:52:56.520 And so it's, it's again, not a surprise to me that a lot of the Western countries are basically banging the war drums and saying, we need to invade Russia.

00:53:06.520 We need to take them over.

00:53:08.520 We need to go blow some up, up some stuff.

00:53:10.520 And the thing is my, my wife's family is from Ukraine.

00:53:14.520 Like I have a ton of sympathy for the country, but the thing is.

00:53:18.520 The, the way that the Western world is acting is, is they're, they're trying to get us into this war.

00:53:23.520 And, and, uh, Trump maybe have, have skirted around that issue now, but he's basically saying, no, we're not going to let you basically reset the system and do this again.

00:53:33.520 We're going to do things differently this time.

00:53:36.520 Yeah.

00:53:37.520 And that's, you know, everything you say there about the, you know, this basically being an affliction that's common amongst, if not all than most Western nations right now leads me to, I think this, this point we wanted to get, get some of your thoughts on, um, with respect to the Alberta independence movement right now, uh, wanting to break away from this, you know, what, what a lot of people term as a, you know, as a sinking ship.

00:54:00.520 Certainly Jeff Rath would call it that we've interviewed him, uh, Bruce party, same, same sort of idea from a banking perspective.

00:54:07.520 Let's say Alberta does become independent.

00:54:09.520 Do we switch right away to, to an American dollar?

00:54:12.520 Do we develop our own currency?

00:54:13.520 Like just maybe take us through some of the, the major points that you would see from a, from a banking economic perspective in the conversation of Alberta becoming an independent state.

00:54:25.520 Okay.

00:54:26.520 First, first off, I'll say as the CEO of Bow Valley credit union, I do not have a position on this, but if, if I was going to become a separate country, uh, I think, yeah, you touched on a few, few points there.

00:54:40.520 I would definitely transition to a U S dollar first and basically be able to flip a switch and move everybody's Canadian dollar account in, and convert it into U S or the equivalent effectively overnight.

00:54:55.520 Because I think it's important for people to, to understand that Alberta is effectively underpinning the Canadian dollar because we are a resource based country.

00:55:08.520 It might get wild in the U S or, uh, Canadian effects exchange for an exchange.

00:55:17.520 If, if Alberta decided to depart.

00:55:20.520 So I think plans need to be sort of in place before a vote even happens around something like that.

00:55:27.520 So now my recommendation would be go to U S dollar first, uh, because it's the most liquid and stable, uh, currency in the world.

00:55:36.520 It's, it's still a dirty shirt, but it's the least dirty shirt.

00:55:39.520 I would also recommend getting a line of credit with one of the bigger banks, uh, in the United States for say $500 billion to give confidence to.

00:55:51.520 The people of Alberta that we can pay our bills, even though sort of day one under the value of freedom, uh, document that Jeff Wrath and the APP produced.

00:56:04.520 Um, we would be able to be solvent and, and sustainable, uh, effectively day one, uh, with, with our finances, but a line of credit would go a long way for assurance.

00:56:14.520 As well as I think we would need a U S swap line, uh, with, with, uh, the U S government, the state department, um, to basically continue with trade with, with our major trade partner, the U S.

00:56:28.520 And it makes a lot of sense because, um, a U S swap line would allow you to trade oil and gas in, in U S dollars.

00:56:38.520 It's, it's, uh, convertibility.

00:56:39.520 And again, you'd probably need about a $500 billion swap line minimum with something like that.

00:56:45.520 Um, if you eventually did want to transition to an Alberta dollar, uh, what I would recommend is first moving to the U S dollar and then, uh, setting up.

00:56:57.520 Uh, setting up the structure behind it, uh, with basically a reserve behind the dollar.

00:57:05.520 Uh, you, you wouldn't need a hundred percent backing for the reserve, but say 30% backing for the reserve.

00:57:11.520 And, and that reserve would consist of about 50% gold, uh, 30% or 40% oil reserves.

00:57:20.520 And then maybe another 10% for Bitcoin, um, to basically underpin and give confidence that the Alberta dollar does have something besides government promises behind it.

00:57:34.520 So part of the challenge is to, to set up some kind of reserve structure like that.

00:57:38.520 You likely would need something like a central bank.

00:57:41.520 I'm not a huge proponent of central banks.

00:57:44.520 So you'd have to really scale back what their powers are and their abilities to do behind that.

00:57:50.520 And maybe their only function is to make sure that credit doesn't grow too fast within the commercial banking sector.

00:57:59.520 Uh, meaning that commercial banks can't create loans to get to a place where there's a bubble.

00:58:05.520 Um, and, and, uh, asset prices get goosed and basically ensure that the, the, uh, stabilization factor of the reserve of gold, Bitcoin and oil is, is intact.

00:58:18.520 And that effectively the dollars, uh, produced are not outstripping the need for, for production in, in, in Alberta.

00:58:29.520 So anyway, that's, uh, a few ideas that I would recommend.

00:58:34.520 Yeah.

00:58:35.520 Yeah.

00:58:36.520 And it seems like that would be in line with, um, there are many who seek the, they, they see Alberta independence as a good opportunity to set up more, maybe checks and balances on a government side.

00:58:50.520 Because if you just leave Canada and you've got the same career, like same fundamental issues underpinning your society, like you'll just create a small Canada outside of Canada.

00:59:01.520 Like, so are we leaving, like, are we actually leaving, like, or are we just replicating the system that we're trying to get away from?

00:59:10.520 So I feel like on the government level, those checks and balances would be key in addition to like a central bank that again, was there to enforce, to provide that confidence and level playing field on the financial side.

00:59:26.520 That's a different, it's playing a slightly different focused role than central banks would be currently in a fiat system.

00:59:34.520 So like there are ways of weaving in these checks and balances.

00:59:39.520 So yeah, it would just need to be a spy design, some really good focused direction when it comes to, to some of these things.

00:59:50.520 Yeah, no, and absolutely that, that, and that'll take time to set up as well.

00:59:54.520 And so that's, that's maybe what you do during the transition period from, from the U S dollar.

01:00:00.520 Yeah, you're Alberta is definitely in a position. 1.00

01:00:05.520 You definitely want to be a rich idiot versus a poor idiot. 1.00

01:00:08.520 But the thing is, you still don't want to be that idiot. 1.00

01:00:10.520 That's that basically in another 50 years, we'd be running into the same problems that the West is in right now. 1.00

01:00:19.520 So.

01:00:20.520 Well, I feel like that brings it full circle a little bit.

01:00:24.520 I, I, I'm curious on like, well, not that we had a lot of doom and gloom, but these things can be, they can feel heavy.

01:00:35.520 And I want to know, like, what can people do to better secure themselves for the future?

01:00:42.520 Um, is there anything with that Bow Valley helps like ease of access that maybe you guys can help, help, uh, anybody who signs up?

01:00:52.520 Like, is there anything unique about Bow Valley that, that maybe aligns with things we've touched on today or.

01:00:58.520 Yeah, no, absolutely.

01:01:00.520 We're, we're an Alberta based financial institution and we have eight branches.

01:01:04.520 Be nine in, in Alberta.

01:01:07.520 Um, and unfortunately we can only help Alberta just because of our, our regulations that, that we have in place at, at the time being.

01:01:17.520 But as mentioned, really what we started from five years ago on was to create products and services to help people navigate this.

01:01:28.520 What we see is a, a massively inflationary time.

01:01:32.520 Um, so we have, uh, products both on the gold and silver, precious metal side, as, as well as on, on the Bitcoin side to help people protect against that.

01:01:42.520 The Bitcoin gateway is, is a new account that's linked to, uh, your Bow Valley credit union account.

01:01:50.520 And you can seamlessly move fiat cash to Bitcoin back and forth within seconds.

01:01:57.520 Um, and so effectively the on ramps and off ramps, you don't have to worry about, um, a lot of financial institutions will block, uh, Bitcoin transactions.

01:02:07.520 And so we've basically combined our banking rail system.

01:02:13.520 So you can live your life.

01:02:14.520 You can get cash.

01:02:15.520 You can pay your bills.

01:02:17.520 You can do e-transfers, that type of thing.

01:02:20.520 All regular banking functions, but with the actual store of value being in, in Bitcoin.

01:02:26.520 And now we've, we've on the, on the gold and silver side, it's a much more robust system just because we've been at it for longer than the Bitcoin.

01:02:36.520 So, uh, you can purchase physical gold and silver through us.

01:02:41.520 We also have what's called an e-metals account.

01:02:44.520 So it works the same way as the Bitcoin gateway.

01:02:46.520 You can transition from your Bow Valley credit union account into your e-metals account, seamlessly back and forth, purchase tokenized gold and silver.

01:02:55.520 It's, it's tokenized because it's much more effective to pay less premiums and less cost when you're going in and out of gold and silver.

01:03:07.520 Uh, the premiums can get quite high on like one ounce coins of, of say silver.

01:03:12.520 It's upwards about 15% or on gold, it can be around 3%.

01:03:17.520 Whereas with this tokenized system, we're using 400 ounce bars of gold and thousand ounce bars of silver.

01:03:24.520 So you own a fraction of that, but don't have to pay, um, basically the cost.

01:03:29.520 And, and it's, it's like basically your volume buying, but we fractionalized it.

01:03:35.520 So you can just get a portion that so you can buy 50 cents worth of silver or 50 bucks worth of gold.

01:03:41.520 And it makes it much more, uh, accessible for people being a little bit more robust.

01:03:48.520 You can actually borrow against your gold and silver.

01:03:50.520 So if, if you say have $10,000 in gold and silver, oops, your furnace blew up or something like that.

01:03:57.520 I need a loan for $5,000.

01:03:59.520 We can give you a loan on something like that.

01:04:02.520 Um, and so we have a number of products and services that, that, uh, will hopefully help people.

01:04:10.520 Wade through this, this very inflationary period.

01:04:13.520 And, and like, we don't propose the, it put every single red cent into gold and silver and Bitcoin.

01:04:19.520 I think that's, uh, that's a little foolhardy to do something like that, but a little bit of exposure will, will go a long way.

01:04:26.520 Uh, and, and we've tried to make it a little more seamless for, for people to be able to do that.

01:04:31.520 So.

01:04:32.520 That's fantastic.

01:04:33.520 You know, that's, yeah, that's such a unique thing in this industry to have somebody concerned with, you know, the,

01:04:39.520 you know, the, the future of somebody's money rather than, you know, what can I, what can I earn off of my clients right now?

01:04:45.520 You know?

01:04:46.520 So that's, that's awesome.

01:04:47.520 Um, Brett, where can, um, where can people find you on your social medias and where can people find out more about, uh, Bow Valley credit?

01:04:54.520 Sure.

01:04:55.520 Uh, I'm fairly active on X, uh, at Brett underscore Oland.

01:05:01.520 Um, I'm, I'm extremely sarcastic most of the time on there, but, uh, you can also go to our website, bowvalleycu.com.

01:05:11.520 Uh, there's, there's a ton of great information on there, uh, just about our products and services and our locations and, and how we can try and help.

01:05:19.520 Awesome.

01:05:21.520 Thanks so much for your time, man.

01:05:23.520 This has been, this has been so cool to, uh, I, I never thought we'd, uh, we'd actually have a podcast where we interview a CEO of a bank and it's not like, and I don't feel like I have to have a shower after, you know what I mean?

01:05:34.520 Yeah.

01:05:35.520 So really appreciate what you're doing and appreciate your time.

01:05:39.520 You bet.

01:05:40.520 Thanks for your time.

01:05:41.520 It's great to have you on.

The Critical Compass Podcast - September 07, 2025

'Based Banker' Brett Oland on how Government Money Printing is Stealing Humanity's Productive Value

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