In this week's show, the boys discuss the latest news out of the NHL, including the latest in the spy scandal in Ottawa, Air Canada's new ultra-low fare plan, and the news that Canada's top doctor says no such thing as a vaccine injury.
00:22:55.520But really, the big driver to that is not actually that Bitcoin is going up.
00:22:59.220It's that the dollar is going down, right?
00:23:01.320Our dollars are becoming more and more plentiful.
00:23:05.960The Canadian government has printed an absolutely unprecedented amount of money in the last four years.
00:23:11.460We've printed more than any other G7 nation.
00:23:14.040And we've really got addicted to this free, cheap money.
00:23:16.560And you can see that with the Bank of Canada decision today where, you know, we're the first G7 nation to raise or to start to lower our rates in a time when, you know, governments all over the Western world, really all over the world, have been battling this inflation bug.
00:23:33.080And, you know, we hear numbers like inflation is down.
00:23:37.520And people assume in a lot of cases that means the prices are going to go back to where they were.
00:23:42.280That just means they're not going up as fast as they were last year.
00:23:45.580And there's also a lot of questions about how they measure that inflation.
00:23:49.720And I think most people would agree that we're not in a we're not in an economy where we're in a reasonable inflation rate at all right now.
00:23:56.360You know, if you're if you're spending money on the regular basis, you can feel those costs going up and up and up.
00:24:02.080And this move back towards lower interest rates is just going to make that worse.
00:24:07.120Yeah, well, and it's a it gets into a complicated realm.
00:24:10.520Like they talk about the preferred inflation rate.
00:24:13.380There's an assumption among economists that our society is supposed to work with a constant inflation rate.
00:24:17.800It should always the value of the buying power of the currency should always essentially be going down.
00:24:22.260And you've just got to hope then that your own income or investments or something is rising by more than the say they figure two to three percent is a good inflation rate.
00:24:31.940But it means you're always kind of climbing uphill no matter what you do.
00:24:34.720Yeah. And I mean, people can argue about whether a two percent inflation rate is good or not.
00:24:40.580But I think the actual fallacy comes down to this idea that, you know, you can have some ivory tower economists pulling levers and managing the entire economy.
00:24:50.900And I think that's a fallacy that we've seen from our leadership around the world in a lot of areas where they believe that, you know, we can model, we can control, we can understand these extremely complex systems like the climate, an ecosystem, the ocean, the economy.
00:25:07.020Like these are these are systems with way too many inputs for humans to understand, let alone control or effect in a meaningful, deliberate way.
00:25:16.560And this particular fallacy is it goes right back to that same idea, the idea that the government can just control the entire economy by moving interest rates up and down.
00:25:28.000And somehow that, you know, is going to lead to more prosperity for everyone.
00:25:33.460I think that's a ridiculous idea. And I think that the idea of taking money away from the people who spend the money is is really the path out of this for us.
00:25:44.380Yeah. So the practicality of Bitcoin, I got to admit, I just took the simple route, though.
00:25:49.640I got it set up. It just goes in. It goes. I've never actually drawn from it.
00:25:53.460I mean, eventually, presumably I'll want to convert it or use it for something.
00:25:58.140It is getting more accepted and easier to do, but it's still kind of foreign to a lot of us.
00:26:04.560Is there's more businesses accepting that or able to convert that now or?
00:26:08.500Yeah. And so there, you know, we've been for the first 15 years of Bitcoin's life.
00:26:13.320The main use case has been to store value.
00:26:16.520And that's the core function of money really is it needs to be able to take the value you create with your time and store it so that you can use it later somewhere else.
00:26:23.600And then once your money can do that, you want it to be a medium of exchange, which is what you're talking about now and being able to spend it at different places.
00:26:33.020And, you know, some some companies that I'm involved in, like Bitcoin Well, that's been a sponsor of the Western Standard.
00:26:39.440You know, one of the main things that we do is we facilitate that transfer.
00:26:43.920So with Bitcoin Well, for example, you can buy just about any any major gift card on the Web site.
00:26:48.420You can pay any of your your bills that you can pay in your online banking all with Bitcoin.
00:26:53.060So we've got a bunch of tools to facilitate that stuff.
00:26:55.920But there's actually another movement coming sort of in a grassroots way that that's going really well here, but it's popping up all over the world.
00:27:05.260And that's sort of this like circular economy spending.
00:27:08.620And so we're putting on an event, actually a little little market that's free to attend.
00:27:12.460It's kind of like a flea market, farmer's market type thing that we're going to be doing on on Canada Day on July 1st, the day before our conference.
00:27:19.120And, you know, we have a bunch of vendors come out that sell, you know, everything from beef to honey and knickknacks and whatnot.
00:27:28.100And part of where this came from was this this idea that we've got within the Bitcoin community that, you know, we can see a lot of the like sort of communist dystopian policies that the governments of the world are planning for us.
00:27:42.960You know, with the central bank digital currencies and the climate lockdowns and all this stuff that, you know, when they tell us what they're going to do, we should believe them.
00:27:51.500And I think the idea that at some point we won't be allowed to buy more than a certain amount of red meat is not at all far fetched.
00:28:00.120And so that was literally like that that that idea is where the market came from is we're like, I want to be able to have a place that I can buy my meat with money that the government can't stop.
00:28:10.200And so, you know, buying beef from an Alberta rancher using Bitcoin, not in the government's currency at all, they're not involved in that transaction whatsoever.
00:28:22.160And if they try to say you can't have red meat, they're going to have a hard time stopping us.
00:28:28.760So there's going to be, yeah, it's a great way to get off the government's grid, basically.
00:28:32.620I mean, the old way might have been, I guess, store some gold under your pillow and try and barter with your neighbors.
00:28:37.000But we've moved beyond that. I guess the international value of this, I mean, this this coin doesn't recognize borders, right?
00:28:44.780You can go country to country and it'll still be a useful currency for you in some ways.
00:28:49.460Yeah, exactly. And we've seen that in a lot of places that have been troubled around the world.
00:28:53.860Ukraine, Venezuela was a big one. There was a lot of people escaping from Venezuela because they had Bitcoin.
00:28:59.720They were able to get out of the country as it descended into the communist hellhole.
00:29:04.000Hellhole. And, you know, Bitcoin is one of only two currencies that is really accepted everywhere in the world.
00:29:12.820Every single country in the world, you can spend Bitcoins, you can spend U.S. dollars.
00:29:16.400You can find someone to change your Bitcoins into the local currency.
00:29:21.040And that's not true for any other currency, really.
00:29:23.760And so Bitcoin is a really global currency, but it's also a censorship resistant currency,
00:29:27.940which is important in cases like what I described before.
00:29:30.800You can walk across a border with a memorized set of 12 words that's just as good as carrying your wallet.
00:29:38.320And there's no way for anyone to even know that you have those words in your head, let alone stop you.
00:29:44.120True enough. I mean, you can't pickpocket somebody's Bitcoin typically unless you're doing something really stupid.
00:29:49.100So just back to the rodeo before we wrap up.
00:29:52.560I mean, J.P. Sears, I'm enough of a political dork.
00:29:54.420Actually, I recognize that name the second you said it.
00:29:56.260But for those who aren't familiar with him, I mean, you're not going to go wrong by watching him.
00:30:03.340But I mean, some of the other sessions you got going on, I mean, there's a whole giant list of speakers.
00:30:08.200Are you going to be covering things like for people who are Bitcoin beginners or is this kind of advanced?
00:30:12.420Or is there a bit of both? What are people going to get out of this?
00:30:15.020Yeah. So we're aiming for it to be mostly targeting to people that are not yet Bitcoiners, that are potential future Bitcoiners.
00:30:22.880And so we're going to have a lot of topics like like one of the ones that I think is going to be really good is why your small business should hold Bitcoin.
00:30:31.620You know, so we've got a lot of topics that are about how Bitcoin can be useful to normal people in the real world.
00:30:37.220And then we've got some topics that are also about like how Bitcoin is changing the world and how fiat currency is changing the world.
00:30:45.920So another one that I'm really excited for is about how the debasement of money around the world is affecting our culture.
00:30:52.000And I think if you if you follow the logic on that argument, you can trace it right down to, you know, all the ridiculous stuff that you guys were talking about in the in the in the lead in there where, you know, how ridiculous does stuff have to get?
00:31:07.100How how much credibility do we have to give these people that are are performing all these ridiculous, this ridiculous acts?
00:31:15.640And and this debasement of our culture ultimately comes back to the fact that our money, which is supposed to create a link between a person's actions and the outcome for their lives is broken.
00:31:29.660The idea of like the American dream, so to speak, where you can work harder, earn more money and have a better life doesn't work if a huge percentage of the value of the money that you're earning is being stolen by the federal government and spent on their pet projects.
00:31:42.800And when people feel that lack of connection between their efforts and their outcome, it leads to kind of this this general malaise that you can see all across society.
00:31:53.340And it it actually plays a role in this entire meltdown that we're going through in terms of, you know, the the the crumbling of our cities.
00:32:04.820So we're going to hope to talk a lot more at the conference about what this actually means and and how important this is to everyone.
00:32:12.120And I think people in the sort of freedom community, people who've woken up to the idea that we don't necessarily need to trust the government, that's like that's our ideal audience.
00:32:21.860And so we've got a we've got a promo code, promo code Western Standard.
00:32:27.980Anyone can can get tickets on BitcoinRodeo.com and that's good for $50 off with that promo code.
00:39:29.540But if they can't make money, they can't.
00:39:32.040And when you're running on a lower than 4% profit margin, and you've got a foolish government that forces you to lower prices, you close your doors.
00:39:45.780When you go into a store and find literally thousands of items and brands, who's going to organize that?
00:39:52.120Once the big retailers say, we're done, we're out, we're pulling out.
00:39:55.600You've got to remember the, again, you know, the fart catchers of Trudeau who felt he was on to things and smart and, you know, constantly villainizing our grocery chains and such and trying to imply that they're gouging Canadians and screwing them.
00:40:10.680And that there's huge money being made and huge record profits.
00:40:13.640And they came out publicly and said, we're going to get some big European grocery chains to come out here to Canada and set up shop and compete with these guys.
00:40:19.960Guess how many European chains have come out so far?
00:40:25.700Who in their right mind would want to relocate to a country with a government that's talking about forcing you to cap your prices at a certain range?
00:40:34.700With a government that's going to call you virtually a criminal for having a profit margin of under 4%.
00:40:42.220If you've got a problem with profit margins, fine.
00:41:17.460Yes, they're well over 20% profit margins because they've got that protected supply management system where they literally make it illegal to sell more than a certain quota.
00:41:27.180And it forces the prices to stay higher and it keeps their margins higher.
00:42:00.180We've seen it in the States, you know, with some of these, it wasn't the price controls going on,
00:42:05.160but it's when you had these idiotic areas like San Francisco and Portland and progressive areas that, again, villainized the large business owners.
00:42:12.940And they basically said, we're going to let the shoplifting go.
00:43:39.700So when Dave was talking about, you know, how stupid government is, and, you know, wanting to keep your funds as clear of them as possible, there's one of the examples.
00:43:51.720So the CRTC, this is one of the big areas of the Trudeau regime in the last few years, too.
00:43:55.440Controlling information, controlling media, controlling the messaging.
00:43:59.000Of course, any dictator wants to do that.
00:44:01.920They don't like hearing outside voices.
00:44:03.100So now the CRTC, emboldened by crap like Bill C-68, C-11, all these other controlling bills, has said they're going to require online services to contribute 5% of the Canadian revenues to support the Canadian broadcast system.
00:44:16.820In other words, we're going to steal 5%.
00:45:08.880They'll make a stupid documentary or a bad comedy or whatever that nobody's going to view.
00:45:14.840But as long as they got the paycheck from stealing 5% from the streamers who actually provide citizens with what they want to watch, the grifters will come out and they'll make those things.
00:45:24.300As Ian Leslie said, somebody's got to pay for the CBC.
00:45:32.940And then they steal, and I'll call it stealing again, because if you get that much in tax dollars just to pay for your operations, they sell advertising for hundreds of millions a year, too.
00:45:42.120But that's stealing it from the private market because the private broadcasters can't compete with them on advertising dollars.
00:45:47.480I mean, when you get a billion in the bank, you can really undercut the advertising rates.
00:46:58.740Well, now that Singh and Trudeau were cuddling in bed together and thinking about it, hey, we could control those oil companies.
00:47:05.940So, yeah, they want to basically fine oil companies for daring to point out on how they've been reducing emissions or how they've been doing anything good.
00:47:16.220They want them to look at their shoes and apologize for giving you a service that keeps you from freezing to death in the winter.
00:47:21.640It keeps your lights on and keeps your vehicle running.
00:47:23.800And, of course, employs hundreds of thousands of Canadians, brings billions and billions into the economy, funds all your bloody social welfare programs.
00:47:33.420But we've got to call them jerks for having dared done so.
00:47:39.100And they are not allowed to defend themselves.