01 October 2024
Antitrust Lawsuits, Bitcoin, & Interest Rates With Jeremy Lakosh - E391
On this episode of the Vance Crowe Podcast, Jeremy Lakosh returns to talk about the economy. Jeremy is both a friend and an incredibly popular author on the website Seeking Alpha, which allows great investors to be able to talk about their strategies and models. He is also quite articulate in his ability to be able to lay these things out in ways that any of us can understand.
We talk about the 50 basis point cut that the Federal Reserve made to interest rates, and how this now reverberates out into the rest of the economy, including China and the European markets. We also talk about regulations and how some of these new antitrust lawsuits put on by the DOJ are not benefiting us.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
5:57 - The Fed cutting interest rates
12:46 - Bad incentives for borrowing money?
21:06 - Chinese currency going down
29:33 - European Union also dropping
38:18 - Visa antitrust lawsuit
50:37 - Operation Choke Point
1:04:15 - Japanese yen carry trade
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A Legacy Interview is a two-hour recorded interview with you and a host that can be watched now and viewed in the future. It is a recording of what you experienced, the lessons you learned and the family values you want passed down. We will interview you or a loved one, capturing the sound of their voice, wisdom and a sense of who they are. These recorded conversations will be private, reserved only for the people that you want to share it with.
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00:00:00:00 - 00:00:15:05
Speaker 1
you know, sometimes I wonder, would the central bank be better if it wasn't run by human beings, but run by an algorithm that responded to certain, immediate moves in the economy
00:00:15:05 - 00:00:28:21
Speaker 1
You know, people talk about. Oh, I go over to Europe and I don't eat their GMO food. But the reality is, it's just that Europeans aren't allowed to grow GMOs and, they can grow them in Spain, but they are allowed to import them.
00:00:28:21 - 00:00:36:10
Speaker 1
And so much of what they import in order to make their own processed foods are GMO crops that are grown in the United States.
00:00:36:10 - 00:00:55:06
Speaker 1
There's few things in this world that are more frightening than powerful government bureaucracies that are in total fear themselves when they are panicking about something. There's no telling the amount of destruction that they that they could cause.
00:00:56:23 - 00:01:06:06
Speaker 1
I'm Jeremy McCosh, a retirement community CEO living in Eureka, Illinois, and you are listening to the Vance Crowe podcast.
00:01:06:06 - 00:01:42:19
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today, Jeremy Lacoste returns to talk about the economy. Longtime listeners of the podcast will recognize that this is an incredibly popular author on the website Seeking Alpha, which allows great investors to be able to talk about their strategies and models. We're very fortunate because I've developed a relationship with Jeremy every once in a while, when I have questions about all the things going on in the economy that I'm able to call him up and sit down to talk about crazy things that are happening that might seem out of reach when you listen to most news shows about the economy.
00:01:42:21 - 00:02:04:14
Speaker 1
Today we're going to talk about that 50 basis point cut that the Federal Reserve made to interest rates, and how this now reverberates out into the rest of the economy, including China and the European markets. We also talk about regulations and how some of these new antitrust lawsuits put on by the DOJ are really not good for us.
00:02:04:16 - 00:02:28:19
Speaker 1
And we do have a small conversation both about Bitcoin and the Japanese yen carry trade. This is not the normal podcast that people have about economics, because there are a lot of times when Jeremy is talking about things that are words I'm familiar with but don't really understand, I'm able to slow him down and be like, wait a second, let me see if I understand this, and let me try and explain it in a different way and see if that's right.
00:02:28:21 - 00:02:57:00
Speaker 1
And Jeremy is infinitely patient and very articulate for his ability to be able to lay these things out in ways that any of us can understand. This is a great podcast, and I think you're going to enjoy the insights that Jeremy brings. We're going to get to that in just a moment, but I am about to head into speaking season where I am invited around the US to give talks to different audiences, often agriculture audiences, about the way that I perceive the world.
00:02:57:05 - 00:03:37:20
Speaker 1
Sometimes I talk about strategy, sometimes I talk about negotiations. But this winter season, I'm going to be giving a talk that has become very popular called Changing Minds. In this talk, I describe how it is that the human mind changes when they have the opportunity to tell their life stories. Hundreds of times I have seen that when people sit in this studio or online, they talk about their lives and they share things that are really important to them, things that they haven't gone back and thought about in a really long time, and that the end result is that after they leave this studio, it's like they've turned a chapter and they've started to say, all
00:03:37:20 - 00:03:57:04
Speaker 1
right, I've been able to look back on what I did. Now what am I doing? And this has prompted people to make big changes in their lives, maybe take their first vacation in 40 years, or finally move off the farm and in with your sister in order that you can relax and finally make those life changes that have been hard to do.
00:03:57:06 - 00:04:31:20
Speaker 1
So this talk, Changing Minds, is not just about that, that it happens that people's minds change, but also what I've learned about how to get people to open up and want to share their stories. How do you prompt somebody to share those really important details about their life so that they can become more flexible? Ultimately, I believe that it is a way of persuasion to be able to understand another person so well that you can tell their story, that they've been comfortable enough to open up to you, that you can find common ground on issues that have been very difficult.
00:04:31:22 - 00:04:57:12
Speaker 1
I see this not only in the lives of legacy interview customers, but I also see it in my own life, both with my own parents and my in-laws, that the ability to talk about where you came from and how you did it often opens them up to be able to talk about where we're heading in the future. If you're interested in having me, come address your audience and we can tailor this talk changing minds to fit what you guys need.
00:04:57:12 - 00:05:13:22
Speaker 1
Maybe it's to a young audience that wants to talk about how do I get my parents to open up and let go of some of the things they're clinging onto, or to an older audience to talk about the value of sharing stories and what it can do for you to be able to find somebody that wants to hear your stories.
00:05:13:22 - 00:05:36:23
Speaker 1
And how do you make that happen? Then go to Vance Procom and look me up. We can have a short chat about your conference that's coming up and what that audience needs to get out of it, and then we can tailor that talk to meet your audience. Or if you're interested in having me interview one of your loved ones, to be able to get their life stories out so that they can turn that chapter and move on to something new.
00:05:37:04 - 00:05:46:00
Speaker 1
Go to Legacy interviews.com to find out more. All right, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my good friend Jeremy McCosh.
00:05:46:00 - 00:05:52:15
Speaker 1
Jeremy Laycock. Welcome back to the podcast.
00:05:52:17 - 00:07:47:03
Speaker 1
Well, the big news has been that the Federal Reserve, the Wizards, have come down from their mountain, and they have decided to cast a spell on our economy in hopes to stimulate it by saying the magic words that they're cutting the interest rate by 50 bips, which ultimately is just one half of a percentage point. What in the world does one half of a single little percentage point matter to a modern economy?
00:07:47:05 - 00:08:03:18
Speaker 1
So if we were to slow this down a little bit and talk about what they've been trying to do, what they. When they were raising interest rates, their goal was to make borrowing money more expensive. So that that way, people that had money available had to spend it rather than go out to the market and try and borrow it.
00:08:03:18 - 00:08:22:03
Speaker 1
Because if you borrow it at a higher interest rate, now you've got to make more money in order to be able to pay that back. So what this has the net effect of is you don't continue to expand your business. You actually start contracting how many people you can hire, in fact letting people go than those people don't have a job.
00:08:22:03 - 00:12:12:07
Speaker 1
So they stop spending money at things like restaurants or on other things that they don't need. And this starts slowing down inflation because there's less dollars chasing the same amount of goods. Is this an accurate representation? And then what is the, you know, 50 Bips have to do with how that all works out?
00:12:12:09 - 00:12:38:00
Speaker 1
Okay. So now I'm with you on where they went with that half a percentage point. But you mentioned that at the same time they were doing something in the back door. You know, by saying, hey, we're going to make all these much, much bigger cuts over the next few months. I mean, my sense when I was because I was around banking as the interest rates were going up, was that this was an inducement for people to go borrow now because they knew money was going to be more expensive later.
00:12:38:02 - 00:12:54:19
Speaker 1
If you're signaling to the market that you're going to continue to make cuts, doesn't this prevent people from saying, hey, I'm going to make use of a half a percentage point down, instead saying, well, if I can hold off and and wait till you go down, you know, several percentage points, that's going to be a lot better for me.
00:12:54:20 - 00:14:31:11
Speaker 1
Doesn't this slow down how much people want to get into borrowing money?
00:14:31:13 - 00:15:33:13
Speaker 1
Oh, really? Because my sense is that the Federal Reserve is now subservient to the Treasury and the Treasury is the person that runs that is chosen by the president. So my sense is that this is entirely political. You have a different sense.
00:15:33:15 - 00:15:52:18
Speaker 1
So, you know, we've known each other for years. I am absolutely of the mindset that the Federal Reserve is, Not able to control the economy in the way that it's presented. You know, the idea that they have a soft landing. I've been an extreme pessimist about this for a long time, although so far I've not been proven correct.
00:15:52:18 - 00:17:52:08
Speaker 1
I mean, so far they've been able to, you know, keep the thing in the guardrails. You're not that way. You don't seem like you're an extreme pessimist about the fed in the same way that I am. Is that right?
00:17:52:10 - 00:18:08:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I heard, Powell saying during this conference, when he stands up and says we're going to lower it by 50 bips, they asked him, hey, well, you are doing this, you say in response to data. That data came out in July, but you guys didn't meet in July, so would you have lowered the rates in July?
00:18:08:19 - 00:18:39:16
Speaker 1
And he said, yeah, I think we probably would have. And so it's like this to me, this bizarre world in which, it is both political and being run by a bureaucracy that has these rules about when they can and can't meet and the markets, you know, can be turned on and off. And it's like, to me, the soft landing is is a myth that keeps it's like a load bearing myth that allows them to continue to mess around with the economy that people are like, well, maybe they can do it.
00:18:39:22 - 00:20:39:02
Speaker 1
And, you know, I think that ultimately, you know, by moving all these levers around, the entire global economy is impacted by these levers, and you're going to kick something off that, sends a wave, a tsunami back to the United States and, and can't be handled, can't be predicted, and certainly can't be handled.
00:20:39:04 - 00:21:02:13
Speaker 1
Okay, so let's talk about this. Because I think when people hear of, like, weakening or strengthening currencies, it doesn't really make a ton of sense. But if we were to break this down and then get to the part of why are they dumping their currency onto the market, when you say that they're lowering, if the US dollar, weakens now all the sudden that means that they can buy less goods from China.
00:21:02:13 - 00:21:41:11
Speaker 1
Is that and then so then they do buy less goods from China.
00:21:41:13 - 00:21:56:05
Speaker 1
And so now China is sitting there saying, oh, we've got to do something to stimulate our economy. I was, looking over the last couple of days of what they've been doing, and I think a lot of economists thought their first moves in the last week. We're going to be their last moves, but now they just keep doing it.
00:21:56:05 - 00:22:16:12
Speaker 1
So they've already lowered their current mortgage interest rates by a half a percent. So you woke up, yesterday morning. And the Chinese government who who holds all the interest rates on their mortgages, says, you only have to pay you get to pay half a percent less. They have a big reduction in the reserve requirements for their banks.
00:22:16:12 - 00:22:37:17
Speaker 1
So they reduce that by a half a percentage point. Meaning if you're a bank and you normally have to have 10%. I don't know what China's, system is, but let's say you have to have 10% of the money that you, loan out sitting in reserves. Now, they've just lowered that by a half a percentage point. So that's freed up over $142 billion worth of M2 money.
00:22:37:17 - 00:24:42:20
Speaker 1
That's the amount of money that they can lend based on how much they have to have for capital reserves and many, many other stimulating things. So you described this as being similar to the 2007 2008 crisis in the U.S. what do you think? How does this play out? They're really hitting, this with both barrels.
00:24:42:22 - 00:25:05:23
Speaker 1
So when they, sell their treasuries, this means they've been holding a little piece of paper that says, you know, at the end of ten years, you you bought, let's say, $100 million worth of treasuries. And we're going to give you, I don't know, 110,000,105 million. I don't know what it would be, but and if they sell it, they then get U.S. dollars back.
00:25:05:23 - 00:26:03:13
Speaker 1
So what is it that they purchased in? And when they sell it, what do they get back? And now how does that impact them?
00:26:03:15 - 00:26:27:04
Speaker 1
As I'm hearing you describe this in China, what they're going to have to do, I. It makes sense why the Federal Reserve would, telegraph that they're going to continue to make these rate cuts. Because if the other countries around the world start saying, okay, I know where this is headed, I've got to make these reactions, proactively so that that way I don't get stuck, as they make wild moves.
00:26:27:06 - 00:27:39:19
Speaker 1
What do you think should other countries rely on the Federal Reserve saying we're heading all the way down there over the next 18 months? Or do you think the fed may reverse course and and go back upwards if they get the numbers? They don't like seeing?
00:27:39:21 - 00:28:56:22
Speaker 1
Do you see anybody out there? Soaking up treasuries with the money they have?
00:28:57:00 - 00:29:21:05
Speaker 1
Well, I just, heard an interview with that John Stuart did with, Christine Lagarde, who used to be the French finance minister. Then she was running the EU currency. Now I think she's with the ECB, which I understand is the Federal Reserve of the European Union. And, she and John had this, like, weirdly joyful conversation about dropping interest rates.
00:29:21:05 - 00:30:57:01
Speaker 1
And she said, yeah, you know, we actually just did this before you did. You guys dropped it 50 Bips. Well, we dropped it 25 Bips. And then a little bit later we dropped it. 25 more Bips. What is going on with that? The European Union also dropping and, how is this playing into the larger economy?
00:30:57:02 - 00:31:53:05
Speaker 1
What is it? What does that mean? They're more tolerant of inflation. I mean, like, their people don't care if their food gets more expensive or they don't. They don't like their. The people that are in control own assets. And so they're watching their wealth go up is the value of the the money in your bank goes down.
00:31:53:07 - 00:32:12:20
Speaker 1
Well, and they're also watching their industrial base just get eroded right out from underneath them. When the Germans worked out a deal with the Russians to have a natural gas pipeline built so that that way they could have cheaper electricity and the energy to run their factories. And they used to be a powerhouse when that mysterious sleep blew up.
00:32:13:01 - 00:33:45:01
Speaker 1
Then all of a sudden, the amount that they have to spend in order to make their factories run goes way up, so they become less competitive. It seems to me that the European industrial base has hollowed out worse than Detroit, and has very little hope of coming back anytime soon.
00:33:45:02 - 00:34:07:00
Speaker 1
Well, I mean, so many of their economic policies cut off their nose to spite their face. And what's funny about it is, something like GMOs. You know, people talk about. Oh, I go over to Europe and I don't eat their GMO food. But the reality is, it's just that Europeans aren't allowed to grow GMOs and, they can grow them in Spain, but they are allowed to import them.
00:34:07:00 - 00:34:27:12
Speaker 1
And so much of what they import in order to make their own processed foods are GMO crops that are grown in the United States. I don't think that that's ultimately done because it's, it's good for the environment or better for their farmers. I think it's done to, yeah, keep farmers propped up. They have to be much, much less efficient.
00:34:27:12 - 00:35:38:07
Speaker 1
And because they're less efficient, it, makes those, it makes who are the few people that do own farmland and assets able to sustain themselves. So they don't want this collapsing farmer market, and they're doing all these weird things that seem totally backwards. If you're looking at it objectively, that people want less expensive food, healthier food, I don't know, not a good situation in Europe.
00:35:38:09 - 00:36:02:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. As I watch things, decisions that happen that cause inflation, I look at it and say, well, who are the asset holders? They're the ruling class. Because if the value of your dollars or euros or whatever, goes down because you have to spend more money to buy things, but that also increases the price of it. So people that own a house now are getting to feel that appreciation.
00:36:02:12 - 00:36:55:18
Speaker 1
It costs more dollars to buy your house. Your house didn't actually become more valuable, but relative to other people, you're you're growing. So the the ruling class, the ownership class doesn't get harmed nearly as much in, in an inflated currency as, those that, that are the have nots. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
00:36:55:20 - 00:38:18:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't really know very much about what's going on with consumer debt now, you know, because for a while there, you hear all these headlines that are like, oh, it's getting bad. Oh, there's more consumer debt. But eventually, I mean, it doesn't it doesn't seem to have this collapsing impact or some narrative that's clear to understand. Consumer debt continuing to go up into the right.
00:38:18:19 - 00:38:45:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't know how much you follow this. I just saw the headline that, visa just got this, antitrust lawsuit put against them by the Department of Justice. And, thankfully, Nancy Pelosi's husband was able to sell, about $500 million worth of that stock before the DOJ investigation. So it looks like, it did very well, because once visa got hit with that, lawsuit, they lost a ton of market cap.
00:38:45:00 - 00:39:19:14
Speaker 1
So really, hats off to the Pelosi's for making another great trade.
00:39:19:16 - 00:41:45:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. How dare you ask that I yeah, she I she freaks out and it's like, you know, how how could you possibly say that? I'm using insider trading when I'm clearly using insider trading.
00:41:45:16 - 00:42:08:19
Speaker 1
I mean, it's totally absurd that the DOJ does this stuff. Or that they even have this power. To me, there is no such thing as a natural monopoly. The only time you ever get a monopoly is when you have some sort of regulatory body that says, hey, we're going to control how you can do business. And then all of a sudden there's only 2 or 3 large companies that can handle getting over those bureaucratic leaps.
00:42:09:00 - 00:42:34:14
Speaker 1
And so then you're basically creating this monopoly through your regulation. But in the world of a free market, if there's one company that comes in and soaks up all of the business in that area, and then they start doing things like raising prices, well, then a new entrant comes into the market and undercuts that. And I think we saw that in the in the oil and gas industry before they went in and started saying, oh, we've got these antitrust.
00:42:34:17 - 00:45:07:20
Speaker 1
Every time Rockefeller tried to buy up everybody and then raise prices, then a new entrant would come into the market, start producing at a cheaper price, sell it for a lower price and start gaining market share. And so in the real world, in a, in a in a free market, there are no monopolies. The only thing the DOJ is doing is, policing a problem that they created.
00:45:07:22 - 00:45:27:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. And one of the things that you notice is, as a company gets to that declining phase, is there are more entrants. They don't keep up. They have too much bureaucratic red tape inside. Then what they do is they turn to the government and they say, you know what? These other people aren't safe. They should have to have these rules on them that that, you know, make sure that you track what everybody searches.
00:45:27:06 - 00:45:51:12
Speaker 1
Because what happens if somebody is a terrorist and they're using search for bad things, and then you start adding in that regulation and you make it harder and harder for a new entrants to come in. And it is a story that plays out over and over and over again, totally stifling innovation. Going back to the health care situation, you know, one of the the things that has driven up our health care costs is the electronic medical records.
00:45:51:14 - 00:46:07:13
Speaker 1
And it's like they did, you know, it's like you need to go to a doctor. That doctor needs to take notes that they can share with other people and share with you. So now how are we going to make sure that your medical records are good enough, strong enough, and secure enough that your stuff's not going to get stolen?
00:46:07:18 - 00:46:32:02
Speaker 1
Well, what we're going to do is we're going to create regulations about how you have to do this and who certifies it. And so then you get these large bureaucratic organizations, the first few entrants there, they put tons and tons and tons of money not into designing, just building a really great electronic medical record system, but instead putting it towards the lobbying arm and the regulations arm to make sure you're filling out all the paperwork.
00:46:32:02 - 00:48:32:12
Speaker 1
You're, you know, complying with all their security checks. You're not making a better product. You're only making it harder for other people to come in. And if you talk to any small medical company that's trying to start up one of the biggest things that holds them down is the price of electronic medical records. And we ultimately, as the consumer, bear those costs.
00:48:32:13 - 00:48:52:19
Speaker 1
Well, and the way that this should get solved is a dad with a child with RSV that's sitting there so annoyed by this that, That he's, like, losing his mind. Decides I'm in it's spin up. An app that makes it really easy for you to answer these questions, for it to be transferred from one doctor to another, that you, as the private citizen, get access to it.
00:48:52:19 - 00:49:19:08
Speaker 1
And and in an inner operates between systems. And then they go to different doctors and say, hey, let me show you this system and how it works and why it's secure. But that young entrepreneur that is trying to resolve a problem can't possibly do it because of the regulations that are there for them to even begin. This process is so onerous, is so extreme that they have no hope of entering new products into the market.
00:49:19:08 - 00:50:38:10
Speaker 1
So there's never any competition. So these large organizations just continue to get more and more bloat, fill out more and more regulations, and nothing gets better. It's it's a form of of communism. We just don't call it that. We don't really have a word describing this in our like mindset of being capitalists.
00:50:38:12 - 00:50:59:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I like that. Calling them a cartel. And like you understand why these companies end up participating in the cartel. Because you either are in or you are out. And the people that are out don't have any, like, any chance to get back in. And so you, you these are people just responding to, the market conditions and following in their interests.
00:50:59:13 - 00:51:33:09
Speaker 1
Speaking of cartels, this, in the last week, there has been a bombshell that just came out about, of course, my favorite subject, Bitcoin and a thing called Operation Choke Point. So there is a podcast out there called FTX, and it's hosted by a man named Marty Bent. He had a woman named, Caitlin Long on his podcast, and they discussed how the if we recall the banking cascading problem that happened not last spring, but the spring before that, where these banks were all of a sudden completely insolvent.
00:51:33:13 - 00:51:55:21
Speaker 1
SVB crashes, you know, there's all these banks that you're saying, oh, they were totally irresponsible. They didn't have enough reserve, money. Well, it turns out that it is a lot more complicated than this. And it largely has to do with the the federal agencies coming into these banks and saying, yeah, even though you have the capital that you're supposed to have, we don't like the way it's structured.
00:51:56:00 - 00:53:53:22
Speaker 1
So we're going to radically change things. Jeremy, you probably understand this story on a level I don't. What's your overview of Operation Choke Point and how it kind of rolled out into the, a small thing about Bitcoin rolled out into the rest of the world.
00:53:54:00 - 00:54:16:13
Speaker 1
So, there's a lot going on here. And maybe to take a step back. What happened was there was, a bank silvergate bank that, And they had the assets that they needed to in terms of, people are borrowing this money that they have, and they had accumulated Bitcoin. They had enough Bitcoin to be able to cover if there was a run on the bank.
00:54:16:15 - 00:54:35:22
Speaker 1
And so there were people that came and said, hey, we're seeing all this stuff go on with, whatever his name is, Bankman-Fried. And and so people came in to get their money from Silvergate and guess what? Silvergate had all of it. 100% of it didn't lose a single dollar. The run that happened on that bank didn't really occur.
00:54:36:00 - 00:54:57:19
Speaker 1
But the feds came in and said, you know what? We don't like that you're using Bitcoin to to support yourself to, to be this, you know, basically a fully reserved bank as opposed to a fractional reserve bank. And they said we don't like that, so we're going to shut it down. And this was largely around when Elizabeth Warren was making this like, you know, Bitcoin is a threat to us.
00:54:57:19 - 00:55:19:01
Speaker 1
We shouldn't allow it. It's an unregulated market. Well, fast forward to now. They're saying like, look, you guys, by saying that Silvergate couldn't do this caused so much of that cascading, bank run. And there are people that lost millions upon millions of dollars. I interviewed Rick Holt and their their bank. They can no longer get access to their money.
00:55:19:01 - 00:56:19:15
Speaker 1
And this all happened because a, a senator and some bureaucrats decided they were going to jump in here and start interfering with a market that was working perfectly fine.
00:56:19:17 - 00:56:45:10
Speaker 1
Well, now it just came out that, Brian Mellon, which I guess is a large, banking institution, has started lobbying the government to say, well, we would like to start cutting, bitcoin at our bank, and this is a big deal. This is making it. So if the government does approve that, and it would surprise me that buying Mellon, which such a large organization would go make this public if they didn't think it was already a done deal.
00:56:45:12 - 00:57:05:03
Speaker 1
And so it seems like banks are going to be able to hold Bitcoin as a reserve asset. But that's not the only big news going on. The big news that could bring trillions of dollars into the Bitcoin market is that now you are going to be able to start doing options trading on ETFs. So give us a little rundown.
00:57:05:03 - 00:59:31:02
Speaker 1
What does it mean to be able to do options trading on Bitcoin.
00:59:31:04 - 00:59:49:00
Speaker 1
And my understanding is that the way that this is going to bring trillions of dollars, or have the potential to bring trillions of dollars into the market, is that, if you're in a company like Apple and you have a whole bunch of cash sitting on your balance sheet and you're saying, well, we know that's just getting lit on fire due to inflation.
00:59:49:01 - 01:00:07:14
Speaker 1
So what we're going to do is we're going to buy, like Bitcoin ETFs to be able to store our money in in the past, they wouldn't want to do that because like you said Bitcoin could drop you know 10% 15% overnight and the markets are closed. So you can't run in there and sell to try and offset your losses.
01:00:07:19 - 01:00:28:19
Speaker 1
But by having these options to be able to put put and call options on there. Now these, these large institutions that want to make sure they don't have their money burning off to inflation, can invest in there and still have, and up in a downside, to, to be able to know. Well, as long as it stays within these parameters, then it's going to be okay.
01:00:29:01 - 01:02:16:00
Speaker 1
And that Bitcoin is in fact the very first instrument that is truly scarce, that you can't create more of it. That allows people to do this. Options trading and that this will become attractive on a scale that other, other options for them to put their money into. Don't give them.
01:02:16:01 - 01:03:49:21
Speaker 1
Why? Explain that to me. Why would an ETF not map directly to the price of the raw commodity?
01:03:49:21 - 01:04:09:02
Speaker 1
Well, it is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. I can say I, for one, would rather, hold my own Bitcoin keys, than be able to sell at any time, day or night and not have to wait for the markets to open up. But I'm, I'm interested to see where these options, take the price of bitcoin.
01:04:09:04 - 01:06:37:14
Speaker 1
All right. One final story I want to talk about. And this kind of relates to the global economy. The Japanese yen carry trade. The thing that, made the market start to have a little bit of a sneeze. And then somehow we got past it. What should people know about that Japanese yen carry? And is the problem over?
01:06:37:16 - 01:06:57:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. And from what I understand, when people were doing this carry trade, it was kind of like the, You know, the free money printer that you got. You get to get access to really cheap capital. And the fact that the Japanese said, we're actually going to go back, we aren't going to keep doing these rate cuts meant that as soon as those investors believe that, they went right back to doing Japanese yen carry trades.
01:06:57:19 - 01:08:22:01
Speaker 1
And so now that that problem that that, shook the market a little bit could come back. And there's probably others that are similar to this. We just haven't identified them in the same way.
01:08:22:03 - 01:10:22:19
Speaker 1
So this whole time we've been talking about one off things. You know, this part of the economy, that part of the economy. But as we wrap up, what do you think is the holistic way to look at the global economy, how things are going and where they're going?
01:10:22:21 - 01:11:05:11
Speaker 1
Absolutely fascinating. Well, there is no surprise why you are such a popular artist. An author on Seeking Alpha. So if people wanted to subscribe to your, newsletter and how you put your writing out, where would they go to do that?
01:11:05:13 - 01:11:15:14
Speaker 1
Well, Jeremy, of course. I'm always grateful. Whenever you hop on here to talk about the economy or whatever else is going on. Thanks so much for coming on.
Speaker 1
you know, sometimes I wonder, would the central bank be better if it wasn't run by human beings, but run by an algorithm that responded to certain, immediate moves in the economy
00:00:15:05 - 00:00:28:21
Speaker 1
You know, people talk about. Oh, I go over to Europe and I don't eat their GMO food. But the reality is, it's just that Europeans aren't allowed to grow GMOs and, they can grow them in Spain, but they are allowed to import them.
00:00:28:21 - 00:00:36:10
Speaker 1
And so much of what they import in order to make their own processed foods are GMO crops that are grown in the United States.
00:00:36:10 - 00:00:55:06
Speaker 1
There's few things in this world that are more frightening than powerful government bureaucracies that are in total fear themselves when they are panicking about something. There's no telling the amount of destruction that they that they could cause.
00:00:56:23 - 00:01:06:06
Speaker 1
I'm Jeremy McCosh, a retirement community CEO living in Eureka, Illinois, and you are listening to the Vance Crowe podcast.
00:01:06:06 - 00:01:42:19
Speaker 1
Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today, Jeremy Lacoste returns to talk about the economy. Longtime listeners of the podcast will recognize that this is an incredibly popular author on the website Seeking Alpha, which allows great investors to be able to talk about their strategies and models. We're very fortunate because I've developed a relationship with Jeremy every once in a while, when I have questions about all the things going on in the economy that I'm able to call him up and sit down to talk about crazy things that are happening that might seem out of reach when you listen to most news shows about the economy.
00:01:42:21 - 00:02:04:14
Speaker 1
Today we're going to talk about that 50 basis point cut that the Federal Reserve made to interest rates, and how this now reverberates out into the rest of the economy, including China and the European markets. We also talk about regulations and how some of these new antitrust lawsuits put on by the DOJ are really not good for us.
00:02:04:16 - 00:02:28:19
Speaker 1
And we do have a small conversation both about Bitcoin and the Japanese yen carry trade. This is not the normal podcast that people have about economics, because there are a lot of times when Jeremy is talking about things that are words I'm familiar with but don't really understand, I'm able to slow him down and be like, wait a second, let me see if I understand this, and let me try and explain it in a different way and see if that's right.
00:02:28:21 - 00:02:57:00
Speaker 1
And Jeremy is infinitely patient and very articulate for his ability to be able to lay these things out in ways that any of us can understand. This is a great podcast, and I think you're going to enjoy the insights that Jeremy brings. We're going to get to that in just a moment, but I am about to head into speaking season where I am invited around the US to give talks to different audiences, often agriculture audiences, about the way that I perceive the world.
00:02:57:05 - 00:03:37:20
Speaker 1
Sometimes I talk about strategy, sometimes I talk about negotiations. But this winter season, I'm going to be giving a talk that has become very popular called Changing Minds. In this talk, I describe how it is that the human mind changes when they have the opportunity to tell their life stories. Hundreds of times I have seen that when people sit in this studio or online, they talk about their lives and they share things that are really important to them, things that they haven't gone back and thought about in a really long time, and that the end result is that after they leave this studio, it's like they've turned a chapter and they've started to say, all
00:03:37:20 - 00:03:57:04
Speaker 1
right, I've been able to look back on what I did. Now what am I doing? And this has prompted people to make big changes in their lives, maybe take their first vacation in 40 years, or finally move off the farm and in with your sister in order that you can relax and finally make those life changes that have been hard to do.
00:03:57:06 - 00:04:31:20
Speaker 1
So this talk, Changing Minds, is not just about that, that it happens that people's minds change, but also what I've learned about how to get people to open up and want to share their stories. How do you prompt somebody to share those really important details about their life so that they can become more flexible? Ultimately, I believe that it is a way of persuasion to be able to understand another person so well that you can tell their story, that they've been comfortable enough to open up to you, that you can find common ground on issues that have been very difficult.
00:04:31:22 - 00:04:57:12
Speaker 1
I see this not only in the lives of legacy interview customers, but I also see it in my own life, both with my own parents and my in-laws, that the ability to talk about where you came from and how you did it often opens them up to be able to talk about where we're heading in the future. If you're interested in having me, come address your audience and we can tailor this talk changing minds to fit what you guys need.
00:04:57:12 - 00:05:13:22
Speaker 1
Maybe it's to a young audience that wants to talk about how do I get my parents to open up and let go of some of the things they're clinging onto, or to an older audience to talk about the value of sharing stories and what it can do for you to be able to find somebody that wants to hear your stories.
00:05:13:22 - 00:05:36:23
Speaker 1
And how do you make that happen? Then go to Vance Procom and look me up. We can have a short chat about your conference that's coming up and what that audience needs to get out of it, and then we can tailor that talk to meet your audience. Or if you're interested in having me interview one of your loved ones, to be able to get their life stories out so that they can turn that chapter and move on to something new.
00:05:37:04 - 00:05:46:00
Speaker 1
Go to Legacy interviews.com to find out more. All right, without further ado, let's head to the interview with my good friend Jeremy McCosh.
00:05:46:00 - 00:05:52:15
Speaker 1
Jeremy Laycock. Welcome back to the podcast.
00:05:52:17 - 00:07:47:03
Speaker 1
Well, the big news has been that the Federal Reserve, the Wizards, have come down from their mountain, and they have decided to cast a spell on our economy in hopes to stimulate it by saying the magic words that they're cutting the interest rate by 50 bips, which ultimately is just one half of a percentage point. What in the world does one half of a single little percentage point matter to a modern economy?
00:07:47:05 - 00:08:03:18
Speaker 1
So if we were to slow this down a little bit and talk about what they've been trying to do, what they. When they were raising interest rates, their goal was to make borrowing money more expensive. So that that way, people that had money available had to spend it rather than go out to the market and try and borrow it.
00:08:03:18 - 00:08:22:03
Speaker 1
Because if you borrow it at a higher interest rate, now you've got to make more money in order to be able to pay that back. So what this has the net effect of is you don't continue to expand your business. You actually start contracting how many people you can hire, in fact letting people go than those people don't have a job.
00:08:22:03 - 00:12:12:07
Speaker 1
So they stop spending money at things like restaurants or on other things that they don't need. And this starts slowing down inflation because there's less dollars chasing the same amount of goods. Is this an accurate representation? And then what is the, you know, 50 Bips have to do with how that all works out?
00:12:12:09 - 00:12:38:00
Speaker 1
Okay. So now I'm with you on where they went with that half a percentage point. But you mentioned that at the same time they were doing something in the back door. You know, by saying, hey, we're going to make all these much, much bigger cuts over the next few months. I mean, my sense when I was because I was around banking as the interest rates were going up, was that this was an inducement for people to go borrow now because they knew money was going to be more expensive later.
00:12:38:02 - 00:12:54:19
Speaker 1
If you're signaling to the market that you're going to continue to make cuts, doesn't this prevent people from saying, hey, I'm going to make use of a half a percentage point down, instead saying, well, if I can hold off and and wait till you go down, you know, several percentage points, that's going to be a lot better for me.
00:12:54:20 - 00:14:31:11
Speaker 1
Doesn't this slow down how much people want to get into borrowing money?
00:14:31:13 - 00:15:33:13
Speaker 1
Oh, really? Because my sense is that the Federal Reserve is now subservient to the Treasury and the Treasury is the person that runs that is chosen by the president. So my sense is that this is entirely political. You have a different sense.
00:15:33:15 - 00:15:52:18
Speaker 1
So, you know, we've known each other for years. I am absolutely of the mindset that the Federal Reserve is, Not able to control the economy in the way that it's presented. You know, the idea that they have a soft landing. I've been an extreme pessimist about this for a long time, although so far I've not been proven correct.
00:15:52:18 - 00:17:52:08
Speaker 1
I mean, so far they've been able to, you know, keep the thing in the guardrails. You're not that way. You don't seem like you're an extreme pessimist about the fed in the same way that I am. Is that right?
00:17:52:10 - 00:18:08:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, I heard, Powell saying during this conference, when he stands up and says we're going to lower it by 50 bips, they asked him, hey, well, you are doing this, you say in response to data. That data came out in July, but you guys didn't meet in July, so would you have lowered the rates in July?
00:18:08:19 - 00:18:39:16
Speaker 1
And he said, yeah, I think we probably would have. And so it's like this to me, this bizarre world in which, it is both political and being run by a bureaucracy that has these rules about when they can and can't meet and the markets, you know, can be turned on and off. And it's like, to me, the soft landing is is a myth that keeps it's like a load bearing myth that allows them to continue to mess around with the economy that people are like, well, maybe they can do it.
00:18:39:22 - 00:20:39:02
Speaker 1
And, you know, I think that ultimately, you know, by moving all these levers around, the entire global economy is impacted by these levers, and you're going to kick something off that, sends a wave, a tsunami back to the United States and, and can't be handled, can't be predicted, and certainly can't be handled.
00:20:39:04 - 00:21:02:13
Speaker 1
Okay, so let's talk about this. Because I think when people hear of, like, weakening or strengthening currencies, it doesn't really make a ton of sense. But if we were to break this down and then get to the part of why are they dumping their currency onto the market, when you say that they're lowering, if the US dollar, weakens now all the sudden that means that they can buy less goods from China.
00:21:02:13 - 00:21:41:11
Speaker 1
Is that and then so then they do buy less goods from China.
00:21:41:13 - 00:21:56:05
Speaker 1
And so now China is sitting there saying, oh, we've got to do something to stimulate our economy. I was, looking over the last couple of days of what they've been doing, and I think a lot of economists thought their first moves in the last week. We're going to be their last moves, but now they just keep doing it.
00:21:56:05 - 00:22:16:12
Speaker 1
So they've already lowered their current mortgage interest rates by a half a percent. So you woke up, yesterday morning. And the Chinese government who who holds all the interest rates on their mortgages, says, you only have to pay you get to pay half a percent less. They have a big reduction in the reserve requirements for their banks.
00:22:16:12 - 00:22:37:17
Speaker 1
So they reduce that by a half a percentage point. Meaning if you're a bank and you normally have to have 10%. I don't know what China's, system is, but let's say you have to have 10% of the money that you, loan out sitting in reserves. Now, they've just lowered that by a half a percentage point. So that's freed up over $142 billion worth of M2 money.
00:22:37:17 - 00:24:42:20
Speaker 1
That's the amount of money that they can lend based on how much they have to have for capital reserves and many, many other stimulating things. So you described this as being similar to the 2007 2008 crisis in the U.S. what do you think? How does this play out? They're really hitting, this with both barrels.
00:24:42:22 - 00:25:05:23
Speaker 1
So when they, sell their treasuries, this means they've been holding a little piece of paper that says, you know, at the end of ten years, you you bought, let's say, $100 million worth of treasuries. And we're going to give you, I don't know, 110,000,105 million. I don't know what it would be, but and if they sell it, they then get U.S. dollars back.
00:25:05:23 - 00:26:03:13
Speaker 1
So what is it that they purchased in? And when they sell it, what do they get back? And now how does that impact them?
00:26:03:15 - 00:26:27:04
Speaker 1
As I'm hearing you describe this in China, what they're going to have to do, I. It makes sense why the Federal Reserve would, telegraph that they're going to continue to make these rate cuts. Because if the other countries around the world start saying, okay, I know where this is headed, I've got to make these reactions, proactively so that that way I don't get stuck, as they make wild moves.
00:26:27:06 - 00:27:39:19
Speaker 1
What do you think should other countries rely on the Federal Reserve saying we're heading all the way down there over the next 18 months? Or do you think the fed may reverse course and and go back upwards if they get the numbers? They don't like seeing?
00:27:39:21 - 00:28:56:22
Speaker 1
Do you see anybody out there? Soaking up treasuries with the money they have?
00:28:57:00 - 00:29:21:05
Speaker 1
Well, I just, heard an interview with that John Stuart did with, Christine Lagarde, who used to be the French finance minister. Then she was running the EU currency. Now I think she's with the ECB, which I understand is the Federal Reserve of the European Union. And, she and John had this, like, weirdly joyful conversation about dropping interest rates.
00:29:21:05 - 00:30:57:01
Speaker 1
And she said, yeah, you know, we actually just did this before you did. You guys dropped it 50 Bips. Well, we dropped it 25 Bips. And then a little bit later we dropped it. 25 more Bips. What is going on with that? The European Union also dropping and, how is this playing into the larger economy?
00:30:57:02 - 00:31:53:05
Speaker 1
What is it? What does that mean? They're more tolerant of inflation. I mean, like, their people don't care if their food gets more expensive or they don't. They don't like their. The people that are in control own assets. And so they're watching their wealth go up is the value of the the money in your bank goes down.
00:31:53:07 - 00:32:12:20
Speaker 1
Well, and they're also watching their industrial base just get eroded right out from underneath them. When the Germans worked out a deal with the Russians to have a natural gas pipeline built so that that way they could have cheaper electricity and the energy to run their factories. And they used to be a powerhouse when that mysterious sleep blew up.
00:32:13:01 - 00:33:45:01
Speaker 1
Then all of a sudden, the amount that they have to spend in order to make their factories run goes way up, so they become less competitive. It seems to me that the European industrial base has hollowed out worse than Detroit, and has very little hope of coming back anytime soon.
00:33:45:02 - 00:34:07:00
Speaker 1
Well, I mean, so many of their economic policies cut off their nose to spite their face. And what's funny about it is, something like GMOs. You know, people talk about. Oh, I go over to Europe and I don't eat their GMO food. But the reality is, it's just that Europeans aren't allowed to grow GMOs and, they can grow them in Spain, but they are allowed to import them.
00:34:07:00 - 00:34:27:12
Speaker 1
And so much of what they import in order to make their own processed foods are GMO crops that are grown in the United States. I don't think that that's ultimately done because it's, it's good for the environment or better for their farmers. I think it's done to, yeah, keep farmers propped up. They have to be much, much less efficient.
00:34:27:12 - 00:35:38:07
Speaker 1
And because they're less efficient, it, makes those, it makes who are the few people that do own farmland and assets able to sustain themselves. So they don't want this collapsing farmer market, and they're doing all these weird things that seem totally backwards. If you're looking at it objectively, that people want less expensive food, healthier food, I don't know, not a good situation in Europe.
00:35:38:09 - 00:36:02:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. As I watch things, decisions that happen that cause inflation, I look at it and say, well, who are the asset holders? They're the ruling class. Because if the value of your dollars or euros or whatever, goes down because you have to spend more money to buy things, but that also increases the price of it. So people that own a house now are getting to feel that appreciation.
00:36:02:12 - 00:36:55:18
Speaker 1
It costs more dollars to buy your house. Your house didn't actually become more valuable, but relative to other people, you're you're growing. So the the ruling class, the ownership class doesn't get harmed nearly as much in, in an inflated currency as, those that, that are the have nots. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
00:36:55:20 - 00:38:18:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't really know very much about what's going on with consumer debt now, you know, because for a while there, you hear all these headlines that are like, oh, it's getting bad. Oh, there's more consumer debt. But eventually, I mean, it doesn't it doesn't seem to have this collapsing impact or some narrative that's clear to understand. Consumer debt continuing to go up into the right.
00:38:18:19 - 00:38:45:00
Speaker 1
Yeah. I don't know how much you follow this. I just saw the headline that, visa just got this, antitrust lawsuit put against them by the Department of Justice. And, thankfully, Nancy Pelosi's husband was able to sell, about $500 million worth of that stock before the DOJ investigation. So it looks like, it did very well, because once visa got hit with that, lawsuit, they lost a ton of market cap.
00:38:45:00 - 00:39:19:14
Speaker 1
So really, hats off to the Pelosi's for making another great trade.
00:39:19:16 - 00:41:45:14
Speaker 1
Yeah. How dare you ask that I yeah, she I she freaks out and it's like, you know, how how could you possibly say that? I'm using insider trading when I'm clearly using insider trading.
00:41:45:16 - 00:42:08:19
Speaker 1
I mean, it's totally absurd that the DOJ does this stuff. Or that they even have this power. To me, there is no such thing as a natural monopoly. The only time you ever get a monopoly is when you have some sort of regulatory body that says, hey, we're going to control how you can do business. And then all of a sudden there's only 2 or 3 large companies that can handle getting over those bureaucratic leaps.
00:42:09:00 - 00:42:34:14
Speaker 1
And so then you're basically creating this monopoly through your regulation. But in the world of a free market, if there's one company that comes in and soaks up all of the business in that area, and then they start doing things like raising prices, well, then a new entrant comes into the market and undercuts that. And I think we saw that in the in the oil and gas industry before they went in and started saying, oh, we've got these antitrust.
00:42:34:17 - 00:45:07:20
Speaker 1
Every time Rockefeller tried to buy up everybody and then raise prices, then a new entrant would come into the market, start producing at a cheaper price, sell it for a lower price and start gaining market share. And so in the real world, in a, in a in a free market, there are no monopolies. The only thing the DOJ is doing is, policing a problem that they created.
00:45:07:22 - 00:45:27:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. And one of the things that you notice is, as a company gets to that declining phase, is there are more entrants. They don't keep up. They have too much bureaucratic red tape inside. Then what they do is they turn to the government and they say, you know what? These other people aren't safe. They should have to have these rules on them that that, you know, make sure that you track what everybody searches.
00:45:27:06 - 00:45:51:12
Speaker 1
Because what happens if somebody is a terrorist and they're using search for bad things, and then you start adding in that regulation and you make it harder and harder for a new entrants to come in. And it is a story that plays out over and over and over again, totally stifling innovation. Going back to the health care situation, you know, one of the the things that has driven up our health care costs is the electronic medical records.
00:45:51:14 - 00:46:07:13
Speaker 1
And it's like they did, you know, it's like you need to go to a doctor. That doctor needs to take notes that they can share with other people and share with you. So now how are we going to make sure that your medical records are good enough, strong enough, and secure enough that your stuff's not going to get stolen?
00:46:07:18 - 00:46:32:02
Speaker 1
Well, what we're going to do is we're going to create regulations about how you have to do this and who certifies it. And so then you get these large bureaucratic organizations, the first few entrants there, they put tons and tons and tons of money not into designing, just building a really great electronic medical record system, but instead putting it towards the lobbying arm and the regulations arm to make sure you're filling out all the paperwork.
00:46:32:02 - 00:48:32:12
Speaker 1
You're, you know, complying with all their security checks. You're not making a better product. You're only making it harder for other people to come in. And if you talk to any small medical company that's trying to start up one of the biggest things that holds them down is the price of electronic medical records. And we ultimately, as the consumer, bear those costs.
00:48:32:13 - 00:48:52:19
Speaker 1
Well, and the way that this should get solved is a dad with a child with RSV that's sitting there so annoyed by this that, That he's, like, losing his mind. Decides I'm in it's spin up. An app that makes it really easy for you to answer these questions, for it to be transferred from one doctor to another, that you, as the private citizen, get access to it.
00:48:52:19 - 00:49:19:08
Speaker 1
And and in an inner operates between systems. And then they go to different doctors and say, hey, let me show you this system and how it works and why it's secure. But that young entrepreneur that is trying to resolve a problem can't possibly do it because of the regulations that are there for them to even begin. This process is so onerous, is so extreme that they have no hope of entering new products into the market.
00:49:19:08 - 00:50:38:10
Speaker 1
So there's never any competition. So these large organizations just continue to get more and more bloat, fill out more and more regulations, and nothing gets better. It's it's a form of of communism. We just don't call it that. We don't really have a word describing this in our like mindset of being capitalists.
00:50:38:12 - 00:50:59:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, I like that. Calling them a cartel. And like you understand why these companies end up participating in the cartel. Because you either are in or you are out. And the people that are out don't have any, like, any chance to get back in. And so you, you these are people just responding to, the market conditions and following in their interests.
00:50:59:13 - 00:51:33:09
Speaker 1
Speaking of cartels, this, in the last week, there has been a bombshell that just came out about, of course, my favorite subject, Bitcoin and a thing called Operation Choke Point. So there is a podcast out there called FTX, and it's hosted by a man named Marty Bent. He had a woman named, Caitlin Long on his podcast, and they discussed how the if we recall the banking cascading problem that happened not last spring, but the spring before that, where these banks were all of a sudden completely insolvent.
00:51:33:13 - 00:51:55:21
Speaker 1
SVB crashes, you know, there's all these banks that you're saying, oh, they were totally irresponsible. They didn't have enough reserve, money. Well, it turns out that it is a lot more complicated than this. And it largely has to do with the the federal agencies coming into these banks and saying, yeah, even though you have the capital that you're supposed to have, we don't like the way it's structured.
00:51:56:00 - 00:53:53:22
Speaker 1
So we're going to radically change things. Jeremy, you probably understand this story on a level I don't. What's your overview of Operation Choke Point and how it kind of rolled out into the, a small thing about Bitcoin rolled out into the rest of the world.
00:53:54:00 - 00:54:16:13
Speaker 1
So, there's a lot going on here. And maybe to take a step back. What happened was there was, a bank silvergate bank that, And they had the assets that they needed to in terms of, people are borrowing this money that they have, and they had accumulated Bitcoin. They had enough Bitcoin to be able to cover if there was a run on the bank.
00:54:16:15 - 00:54:35:22
Speaker 1
And so there were people that came and said, hey, we're seeing all this stuff go on with, whatever his name is, Bankman-Fried. And and so people came in to get their money from Silvergate and guess what? Silvergate had all of it. 100% of it didn't lose a single dollar. The run that happened on that bank didn't really occur.
00:54:36:00 - 00:54:57:19
Speaker 1
But the feds came in and said, you know what? We don't like that you're using Bitcoin to to support yourself to, to be this, you know, basically a fully reserved bank as opposed to a fractional reserve bank. And they said we don't like that, so we're going to shut it down. And this was largely around when Elizabeth Warren was making this like, you know, Bitcoin is a threat to us.
00:54:57:19 - 00:55:19:01
Speaker 1
We shouldn't allow it. It's an unregulated market. Well, fast forward to now. They're saying like, look, you guys, by saying that Silvergate couldn't do this caused so much of that cascading, bank run. And there are people that lost millions upon millions of dollars. I interviewed Rick Holt and their their bank. They can no longer get access to their money.
00:55:19:01 - 00:56:19:15
Speaker 1
And this all happened because a, a senator and some bureaucrats decided they were going to jump in here and start interfering with a market that was working perfectly fine.
00:56:19:17 - 00:56:45:10
Speaker 1
Well, now it just came out that, Brian Mellon, which I guess is a large, banking institution, has started lobbying the government to say, well, we would like to start cutting, bitcoin at our bank, and this is a big deal. This is making it. So if the government does approve that, and it would surprise me that buying Mellon, which such a large organization would go make this public if they didn't think it was already a done deal.
00:56:45:12 - 00:57:05:03
Speaker 1
And so it seems like banks are going to be able to hold Bitcoin as a reserve asset. But that's not the only big news going on. The big news that could bring trillions of dollars into the Bitcoin market is that now you are going to be able to start doing options trading on ETFs. So give us a little rundown.
00:57:05:03 - 00:59:31:02
Speaker 1
What does it mean to be able to do options trading on Bitcoin.
00:59:31:04 - 00:59:49:00
Speaker 1
And my understanding is that the way that this is going to bring trillions of dollars, or have the potential to bring trillions of dollars into the market, is that, if you're in a company like Apple and you have a whole bunch of cash sitting on your balance sheet and you're saying, well, we know that's just getting lit on fire due to inflation.
00:59:49:01 - 01:00:07:14
Speaker 1
So what we're going to do is we're going to buy, like Bitcoin ETFs to be able to store our money in in the past, they wouldn't want to do that because like you said Bitcoin could drop you know 10% 15% overnight and the markets are closed. So you can't run in there and sell to try and offset your losses.
01:00:07:19 - 01:00:28:19
Speaker 1
But by having these options to be able to put put and call options on there. Now these, these large institutions that want to make sure they don't have their money burning off to inflation, can invest in there and still have, and up in a downside, to, to be able to know. Well, as long as it stays within these parameters, then it's going to be okay.
01:00:29:01 - 01:02:16:00
Speaker 1
And that Bitcoin is in fact the very first instrument that is truly scarce, that you can't create more of it. That allows people to do this. Options trading and that this will become attractive on a scale that other, other options for them to put their money into. Don't give them.
01:02:16:01 - 01:03:49:21
Speaker 1
Why? Explain that to me. Why would an ETF not map directly to the price of the raw commodity?
01:03:49:21 - 01:04:09:02
Speaker 1
Well, it is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out. I can say I, for one, would rather, hold my own Bitcoin keys, than be able to sell at any time, day or night and not have to wait for the markets to open up. But I'm, I'm interested to see where these options, take the price of bitcoin.
01:04:09:04 - 01:06:37:14
Speaker 1
All right. One final story I want to talk about. And this kind of relates to the global economy. The Japanese yen carry trade. The thing that, made the market start to have a little bit of a sneeze. And then somehow we got past it. What should people know about that Japanese yen carry? And is the problem over?
01:06:37:16 - 01:06:57:17
Speaker 1
Yeah. And from what I understand, when people were doing this carry trade, it was kind of like the, You know, the free money printer that you got. You get to get access to really cheap capital. And the fact that the Japanese said, we're actually going to go back, we aren't going to keep doing these rate cuts meant that as soon as those investors believe that, they went right back to doing Japanese yen carry trades.
01:06:57:19 - 01:08:22:01
Speaker 1
And so now that that problem that that, shook the market a little bit could come back. And there's probably others that are similar to this. We just haven't identified them in the same way.
01:08:22:03 - 01:10:22:19
Speaker 1
So this whole time we've been talking about one off things. You know, this part of the economy, that part of the economy. But as we wrap up, what do you think is the holistic way to look at the global economy, how things are going and where they're going?
01:10:22:21 - 01:11:05:11
Speaker 1
Absolutely fascinating. Well, there is no surprise why you are such a popular artist. An author on Seeking Alpha. So if people wanted to subscribe to your, newsletter and how you put your writing out, where would they go to do that?
01:11:05:13 - 01:11:15:14
Speaker 1
Well, Jeremy, of course. I'm always grateful. Whenever you hop on here to talk about the economy or whatever else is going on. Thanks so much for coming on.
- Intro
- The Fed cutting interest rates
- Bad incentives for borrowing money?
- Chinese currency going down
- European Union also dropping
- Visa antitrust lawsuit
- Operation Choke Point
- Japanese yen carry tradeConnect with us! =============================IG: ➡︎ /…
