Dominic Frisby | Who Really Controls Money & The World

So Dominic, what's the state of the UK right now? Well, the UK and the world, I think is it a really interesting, really interesting place. And it's like, I wouldn't say we're at a crossroads because we've already chosen which path we're going to. But so I wrote a book in 2011-2012 called Life After the State.

And the central argument of that book is that the state, you can look at almost any economic injustice in society, any problem in society, and almost inevitably, if you trace back its ultimate cause, you will find it as some, the state in some form or other. So why do we have

You know, why is our education such a disappointment, the state? Why is health care not working? You trace it back and you go to the state. And if you look at people's contentment levels with say, you know, the local council, with education, with government, with, with NHS, whatever, the police.

You know, people are really angry and really discontent. But if you look at people's contentment levels with things that the free market provides, so for example, clothes or food. On the whole, people are pre-content. Or tech, which comes down in price and up in quality. Tech, even more so. Even more so. I mean, people may moan about what social media is doing, but we are all on social media all the time, and we love Twitter and Facebook and whatever it is. And obviously, one is supplied by the free market for profit, and the other is supplied by government.

and the taxpayer pays. And so with that thought in mind, I basically made the argument that anything the state touches turns to crap. And we're better off with the private sector providing everything. And we're better off with as little state as possible in our lives. So I made the argument for much lower taxes that the private sector could provide health care to a much higher standard and a much lower cost than the NHS does. Same goes for like the private sector has given us the internet. I know originally it was a US government funded thing.

But it's everything that's built on top of it has come from the private sector, or most of the stuff has. You know, by people acting in their own self-interest. And the internet is the most powerful learning tool ever in all recorded history. Whether it's reference or learning, it's just wonderful. And yet, and we have the private sector largely to thank for it. So with that in mind, you know, the book was called Life After the State. I think it's pretty clear what the argument was.

And, but one of the things I said in the book, a quote I really like is, is, um, know the right answer, realize you will never see it in your lifetime, but argue for it anyway, because it's the right answer. I love that thought. And, but lo and behold, suddenly last year,

December the 10th last year, the glorious world of life after the state was realized, not in England, unfortunately, but in Argentina, in that it in elected a prime minister in Javier Malay, who is the most libertarian free market small state. And I listen to his rants and I'm like,

I sometimes think he's just lifted the whole rant out of my book, you know, because he's just arguing for exactly the same thing. He's arrived at the exactly the same conclusion as me by his own roots. I'm not trying to take the credit for it for a second. And, you know, I went to Argentina last month, and it is just the most fantastic country. It is a brilliant, brilliant country, and you see Buenos Aires and the size of the streets and the majesty of the buildings. It was all built at the turn of the 20th century, and it dwarfs

Paris or London in their pomp. It is just magnificent. And he has just spent the last year cutting government, cutting red tape, shrinking the state and the people are benefiting and they love him. He has 65% approval ratings, which is extraordinary for ministers.

Now, I argue that libertarianism is the belief system of the internet. So, and by that I mean, the internet loves Javier Malay. And if you look at all the memes, all the best memes, all the best, everything, it's all free markets, libertarianism has become the belief system of the internet. But it hasn't actually taken hold in the real world yet because the way political systems are, it can't take hold.

But it has in Argentina because it was just so bad. And if you looked at like the WEF forum, Javier Millet went and did a speech there earlier in the year. And his speech, I looked at the data when I looked at it. It's probably changed now. But on the day of his speech, his speech had 2 million views live. The next most watched speech was Emmanuel Macron with 20,000. Wow. And so, you know, Emmanuel Macron has been right at the center of things for a long time. But Millet, you know, you just can't compare the numbers.

And Malay is a star, but nobody cares about the old world politics of Emmanuel Macron. But one of Malay's biggest fans is Elon Musk. That's where I was going to take this. And so what we've seen, and Musk has been out there and I think they've been doing deals and I think Musk wants Argentinian lithium for his Tesla batteries and all the rest of it.

But, you know, Musk is, he's really got the libertarian bug. You can see by everything he tweets and everything. And he loves Javier Malay. Right. And obviously Malay loves Musk. Yeah. You know, they're singing from the same song sheet. And then now Musk has come along and suddenly got really involved with Donald Trump and the Trump campaign. And you have to say, has been a huge factor in the success that Trump had in that last election. And now he's got Doge, the Department of Government, what is it called? Efficiency.

And even if he's half a success as all the things they say they're going to do, it might be that he actually delivers on all the things they've said they're going to do because he's delivered everywhere else he's done in his life. But even if they're only half-delivers, you're looking at suddenly this world where America is going down the same route as Argentina. And as someone who believes in free markets and all that kind of stuff, you just have to think that an incredible economic boom is coming to that part of the world, to the United States.

and to Argentine. So that's that part of the world has gone one way. And then you look at your original question, where is Brit? We have gone the other way. We've elected a technocrat in Keir Starmer with very socialist tendencies. He might not be an out and out socialist, but he has socialist leanings.

A lot of the people in his government are very socialist, much more so than he is. And, you know, you just look at something like the train drivers, they gave them everything. Whereas Malay just went, fuck up. Excuse my language, but he just did the total opposite. He just went, you know you've all got the sack. Whereas here we gave them all the pay rises they wanted. And so we're doing the exact opposite.

We are growing government. Taxes have gone up under Rachel Reeves and they're not going to be enough to fund everything she wants. She doesn't understand the basic thing that with lower taxes government revenue actually increases. It's like the most basic law of taxation there is.

I imagine they've heard talk about it, but the left argue that the Laffer curve has been discredited, that the theory is no longer valid. But how can it not be correct? It's like the most basic thing ever. And Laffer himself says he got it from the Islamic philosophers in like 1,500 years ago. It'll be a theory that started when tax starts. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Charge zero tax, get zero tax, charge 100% tax, get zero tax.

So if those two are true, then any curve in between has to be true. So you think they just disown it? Well, they...

I think they're wrong and you clearly think they're wrong as well. Yeah. But for whatever reason, they, they, the left, the economic left think the Laffa curve has been discredited. Wow. I mean, fundamentally, do you think that Starmer labor feel that all the economic growth and revenue is generated by the state? Because I can't understand that theory. How can that theory be correct? The state is paid for by the taxpayer. The private sector is the biggest employer. So how can the state be the creator of all capital?

when it comes from the taxpayer, most of those who are private. Yeah. If the money was left with the taxpayer, they would spend it better than the government. Of course they would. Yeah. Of course they would. Should we have billions spent by Elon Musk on the UK or the government in the UK? The money that Elon Musk has actually earned because you've earned the money so you value it. Yeah, you invest it much better. Yeah.

And I hear stories of people in the NHS, people in councils, saying how henously wasteful the spending is there. They've said it to my face. You said it's not their money. It's like inherited wealth. And it's systemic as well. It's literally systemic. Like when you hear stories about them paying like 20 quid for a packet of paracetamol. And you're like, how is that possible? I mean, it wastes its money. It's just stupid systems. And they go, well, that's the system. And they go, well, somebody just go out to boots and buy a packet of boots, paracetamol.

Just give the patient that and you'll save yourself 18 quid. They never do. But anyway, in answer to your question, Gordon Brown always used to talk about investment in public services. They never talk about spending. They change the word spending to investment. And it's Orwellian misuse of language or manipulation of language. But yes, I genuinely think they think that by spending they are creating wealth. But there's two types of business.

There's one type of business that is creating something new and building something new and giving people something new that people are happy to pay for. And that is a wealth creative business. But there's another type of business which I'm afraid is rife.

everywhere there is big government. And that is the business that is the business of extracting wealth that is already there, okay? It's not creating new wealth, it's just extracting what is there. And that is crony capitalism or rent seeking, there's all sorts of different economic terms for it. And wherever you have big government, that extraction business is rife. And so you look at something like green energy, which has no place in a free market because that the energy created

does not pay back the cost of investment. It can only exist with subsidy. OK. And so... This is basically a loss-making business model. It is a loss-making business model and it is subsidized. And there are people who are building wind farms and renting out their land to wind farms and all the rest of it.

the people who are making an absolute fortune from. But it is rent extraction. Similarly, the trains, although the trains deliver an essential service, they are way, way, way more expensive than they need to be. Because there's just so much rent-seeking extraction built into extracting as much money as we possibly can from this captive market that we have paid a license for.

I would love to see as a government thing. Business is actually marked. This is a wealth creation business. This is a wealth extraction business. And they should be tapped. Labour would never do that, would they? So Nigel Farage said to me, and actually Quasi said it to me on the same week, that essentially Labour are far left socialists. Apparently, in 10 Downing Street,

You know, a lot of the old pictures have been taken down and communist leaders have been put up in place. And from someone who's been in there and said that to me. Do you agree with that? Do you think this is far left socialism? It's, I mean, it all depends on how you define socialism and what is far left. You know, there's the thing of, you know, anyone who's to the right of Jeremy Corbyn is far right. You know, and so if you're not careful, you're falling into the same trap and dismiss you. But that's not, that's not, you know, anyone to the left of Margaret Thatcher is far left.

But I do think they have very left-wing tendencies. They'll believe that thing. I was listening to a fantastic talk by Rory Sutherland yesterday, the advertising executive. And he was talking about bee colonies. And if you actually look at a bee colony, there's like 40% of the bees do absolutely nothing. But you need those bees because they're the exploratory bees. If you just have a really efficient bee colony that only process all the honey and do all the thing that bees work,

That bee colony becomes very vulnerable and it can easily be taken out and it never expands and it never grows. That 40% of bees who actually do nothing are all the bees who are trying out new things, looking for new flowers, looking for new places where we could potentially start another hive.

And with capitalism, in an economy, you need, you know, you can do really effective business models and get your business running as tightly as possible and look at the spreadsheets and get everything maximised. And that is the most effective way to run the company. But you need the nut jobs who are trying out new things and experimenting and doing new stuff because so much of growth and invention and everything else is accidental.

and you accidentally stumble on stuff, and so you just need it. And if you get rid of that in a business, you look and look at the business goes much more efficient, but it's also never gonna grow. It's just gonna run really effective. It's not disruptive, it's devoid of any kind of energy personality. You look at all the great antibiotics, or penicillin, it was discovered by accident. Post-it note was. Loads of stories like that.

stick. The guy who invented plastic was a Danish guy and he was just trying to find a way of insulating electric wire that was cheaper than crushed beetles and invented plastic, which is like being one of the most phenomenal inventions in

recorded history with a multitude of uses beyond insulating electric wire. But the problem with government and so much of the way modern businesses run is all spreadsheet-based. It's all the person that makes the best argument on a spreadsheet wins the contract. But actually, you need this sort of accidental stuff. And you have that in free markets and capitalism because it's just built in.

But when everything's planned and structured, there's no scope for it. You're also going to have it if it's easier to make profit in a business. I remember 15, 20 years ago when I started in business, I remember learning about Google X and their little play area where they could go and their goal was to fail. I remember thinking, I'd love to have a little progressive X, a little X department. I could just hire five mad professors and let them fail, let them try things. You can't fucking afford it now.

because it's 20% VAT, 25% corporation tax, 45% income tax. Now 15% national insurance, business rates, to start a business, you can be a tiny little business and pay 65 grand a year in business. So much? It's so expensive. So how can you be creative? How can you be artistic? How can you be accidental? How can you be exploratory?

How can you do all these things when you're not left with any money? Well, 100%. And that's why Malay and the US is going to be so successful because they're getting rid of all that. Do you think America will succeed? Do you think Musk will get rid of 80% of the government like he did 80% of Twitter? I think it will be a lot harder. I think you underestimate Elon Musk at your peril because he is probably the most competent human being in the world at the moment.

proven. But I would say, you know, if he offered me 60% of what he promises, I'll take it now. Yeah. Well, I mean, if so, if that means the state halves, I mean, that's all that money that's going to be freed. And also, I realized this. And not just money, time and creativity. Energy, energy. Yeah. So something I realized, because I always thought, well, you know, if you grow a company, you need to grow your staff base. And I found that about over 100, maybe 110 staff, you might as well have 5,000. And

kind of like 30 is much more agile. So at this 100 mark, you're in no man's land where you're almost as big as a massive corporation with layers of bureaucracy and middle managers. But you're still small enough that you can't really make massive turnover. And I just found that like the direction from A to B went via this person and that person and this person and that person, everything took so fucking long. And you could get rid of 20 or 30% of those staff and you would assume you lose resources, but you actually increase speed.

Amen, brother. But you know, England has chosen, or Britain, and Western Europe has chosen this other part. It's chosen layer upon layer of bureaucracy. The planner knows better than the individual. They do not trust people. You know, they don't want people to vote on stuff. Like, I'm a big fan of direct democracy. Should we legalize drugs? Let's have a vote on it. Should we, what should, what should the ideal number of immigrant immigration be every year? Should it be 50,000? Should it be 200,000? Should it be 500,000?

Let's have a vote on it. Where should we put your tax? Because we don't get a choice of where our tax goes. Absolutely. You know, should we spend on pensions? Should we spend on, you know, do you want the train drivers, salaries? Let's have a vote on it. You know, I'm a big believer in direct democracy. And they do not, especially after Brexit, they do not trust people to vote rightly on everything. They do not trust the people. They do not trust free markets. They do don't trust it or it doesn't benefit like a deeper stock. Both. Both. Yeah.

There's a brilliant quote by a chap called Cooperthwaite, John James Cooperthwaite, who was the financial controller of Hong Kong in its boom years in the 50s and 60s. And he said, I trust the aggregate decisions of a million people each make

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decisions in their own interest in the free market ahead of the decision of one guy behind a desk in an office and it's it's that it's the aggregate outcome of a million individual decision and that will deliver you the best outcomes and it will be chaotic and you cannot plan for it and that's why people don't like it people want every plan spelt out what is going to happen what's the plan this is going to this

Just let's say fair, let it be. And you're the outcome will be better. And so why are we nowhere near that? Because it feels like democracy is... Does it even exist? I mean, at least two of the leaders of the Conservative Party we didn't even get to vote for. They were internally chosen. Why are we nowhere near that?

because the Tories messed it up. Yeah, they did. You know, what we're talking about is basically old-school right-wing conservative government. And the Conservatives have power for 13 years. But ever since they chose David Cameron and that, you know, Osborne and that whole leaning, you know, left-of-centre Social Democrat Conservatives and whatever you want to call it.

mentality took over the party and so even, you know, they were conservatives in Naemon. So why were they there? Because they had a chance, they totally cocked it up and the Labour government would, you know, the Labour government, if you actually look at the numbers, I forget the exact numbers, but if you look at the people who didn't vote and who voted for other parties,

The Labour Party got like 30% of the vote, 35% of the vote. It's not a majority. They just won because everyone was so sick of the Tories and reform aren't quite ready yet. Do you think Nigel Farage will be a future Prime Minister? It's very, very hard.

with the two-party sister, the way it works, far first past the post. But if he's ever going to do it, it's not. And I think he's the most brilliant statesman in the country. He loves this country more than anyone else does. He's the most charismatic politician. He's obviously been the most effective politician, influential politician of the last 30, 40 years without, you know, from the outside. He is a brilliantly capable individual.

And I know some people can't stand him. I think really what they can't stand is the idea of him more than actually him. But, you know, I think if his chant, I remember having lunch with him, and he said, Labour are going to win the next election, and then it's going to be such a cluster, you know, the next syllable of that word, that everything's going to fall apart. The Tories won't have got their act together in time.

That's the time when I'll have my chance, which would be the next election. And I feel all this stuff about Musk giving him $100 million is true. That's what I was going to ask you. Do you think that'll happen? I hope so. I do think it'll happen. I think Musk, despite being, he's the world's richest man, and you don't become the world's richest man by being bad with money, but he seems to wear his money on his sleeve. Do you remember he just did a Twitter poll? Should I sell my Tesla shares?

few years ago. And he just did what the Twitter poll said. And he lashes out the money. And I guess when you're worth hundreds of millions, 100 million is very little. But he does seem to splash about the cash. Maybe he realizes he's in the mid-50s, he's only probably got another 30 years, he may as well enjoy it. And what do you think is reason for backing Nigel Farage in the UK? I think it's ideological. Meaning.

I think he believes, he passionately believes in free markets, he believes in the West, he believes in Western culture and what Western culture has achieved and in science and in innovation and invention and libertarian ideology and he wants that to happen and he doesn't want the rest of, you know, he's always telling everyone to get out there and shag and have more kids.

I think he's got six or seven, but you know more. Oh, okay Yeah, and you know that was the old thing in the Bible go forth and multiply. Yeah, he's saying exactly the same thing and So, you know, he so why does he want Britain to help himself? I mean he's South African and

A lot of South Africans have their roots in Britain. I don't know if he's Dutch or English, but he clearly loves the West and he wants the West to be the best possible version of itself it can be. And the way to be that is not technocratic left-wing. It's free market libertarianism. And so he wants to help that happen wherever it can. And once he's done America, you know, America's closest ally will be Britain. He can't go straight into Europe. And he clearly loaves Keir Starmer because he won't stop trolling him. And it's hilarious.

Do you think he's got a commercial motive behind all these political moves? Probably. What do you think it is? I'm sure with everything he does, he can probably see a way of making money out of it. But it might be altruistic. He might make money out of it. It might be a bit of both. Who cares? If Elon Musk makes the world a better place and everyone gets richer, I don't care if Elon Musk doubles his wealth or triples his wealth. If I have more opportunity and everything else, it doesn't matter if Elon Musk makes money out of it.

And as long as it's not crony and wealth extraction, as long as it's genuine wealth creation, good luck to it. And a lot of people say, you know, he's got far too much power. We shouldn't have billionaires. What do you think about that? Thank God. Because without Elon Musk, where would we be? We would not have Twitter. We would not have the free market. All the ideas that have come about, you know, I mean, sorry, we would not have free speech on the Internet.

And the beauty of Twitter and all the free speech that's gone on there is that it has exposed the bias of all the other media platforms, the left-wing bias of Wikipedia, how Facebook senses it is exposed to everywhere. And what's going to happen now with Malay and Trump and the boom that's coming to America, he's just going to expose what a shite show Britain and Europe both are. So you think that single-handedly Elon Musk saved free speech?

Almost, yeah. I mean, it's not single handedly because he needs, once he creates the platform, everyone else needs to get up and speak freely. But the leader of it. Yeah, I think it's a hero. Wow. Yeah, I mean, some of the social media channels have got so bad. And then people are now getting imprisoned for social media posts. How is that possible? How can you release? Especially when you have full prisons and you're letting out criminals. Yeah. You just did this. It was like, well, that's the Italian. I like it. Yeah.

I've got Italian grandparents, but that means what the hell. And it's literally like, how can you let out a rapist or a murderer or a whatever or a violent person and put someone else in jail who tweeted or posted a group? That is political. It is deeply political in a bad way. What's the motive of that?

we're going to find out and it's going to be too late. But it now looks like with all the incidents in Southport, with everything that happened in South... The riots. The riots. I didn't follow that story that closely at the time. But, you know, they were big to emphasise the fact that the guy that killed those girls was a Christian and he was second generation and all this stuff. And it's since turned out that he had al-Qaeda bomb manuals and he'd been indoctrinated by all that Islamic stuff. And they suppress that. And so all the riots that when the rioters then went to the mosque,

They attacked them for being far right, and it's since turned out that actually their grievances were justified. And Stama appears to have buried that news, and there's now an inquiry, and it's obviously going to be a washout, but he has got a problem on his hands. And that was, he was trying to bury his ideological enemies.

and stamp out far right and all the rest of it, but he can't because Twitter. He can control the BBC, he can control other big tech, he cannot control Twitter. I love citizen journalism, I just love it. Who's the best guy to report on all the boats coming over from France or whatever? It's some guy who lives in Dover who sees it every day.

He's just gonna know more about it. He's just gonna know. And similarly, and I just think citizen journalism is a wonderful thing. We're all journalists. Every time I read the paper, and there's a story that I know more about than the journalist. So for example, there's a story about comedy, and I'll read the story about comedy, and I'm like, I've worked in comedy for 30 years. I just know how to stand up comedy, and you read it, and you go, no, that's bollocks, that's bollocks. It doesn't work like that, that's bollocks.

And if you just think that same syndrome, there might be an article about the property market in Peterborough or something that you know more about than anyone. And you'll see this guy and you'll just know, no, that's bollocks. That's not true. It doesn't work like that. That's not how it is. And when you read an article that you actually know about and you see the amount of bullshit, you realize you just extrapolate that across the entire media and you realize just how much bullshit there is in the media.

And citizen journalism takes us closer to the truth than traditional journalism. And citizen journalism has exploded, thanks to the internet, then social media tried to lock it in and it's got freed up again, thanks to Twitter. And that has to be a good thing. And similarly, free speech has to be a good thing, because unless you have free speech, you cannot have the truth. You have to have the truth.

Like, truth is that every human being philosopher in all recorded history has been on a quest for the truth. And unless you have free speech, you will never find the truth. You have to have free speech if you are to find the truth. It is that profound. And obviously, the truth changes all the time with its generation and perception and everything.

But we are all of us on a quest for the truth, our own truth, the truth of humankind, everything. And we, in order to get there and explore it and find it, even if that truth only ends up being temporary, we have to have free speech. It is that profound. And is that therefore why the deep state try and control it? Yes. Because they don't want the truth coming out.

They want to impose their truth. They want to impose their narrative. And they do not trust people. That's the ultimate problem with big government. It does not trust the people. Or it has other motives. What might those motives be? Control, power, wealth, suppression. Ideology. Same reason, Elon Musk does what he does. Ideology. But theirs is the worst and the more evil ideology. And ours is the good one.

He said every. He said every evil tyrant mass murderer any ever. I'm glad you said that. So if you want to, there's a statement I like, which is, if you want to see who controls the world, follow the money. So who do you think controls the world's money? Well, this is a huge battleground that has come in. It's possibly the biggest battleground of the lot because it used to be, once upon a time, since forever, that gold and silver were money. And nobody could print gold and silver. The only way you could create

money was by mining, which takes a lot of effort. And obviously kings and rulers and so on, they'd conquer countries and they'd nick the gold and they'd remeant the coins and do all of that, but it was still gold and silver that was mine. And over the course of the 20th century, that changed. The link between money and gold and silver went. In fact, the link between money and silver went in the 19th century, and then the link between money and gold went in the 20th century.

It started in the UK and Germany and France, World War I, 1914. We all came off the gold standard to print the money we needed to pay for the war. Actually England, Britain didn't come off the gold standard, but it kind of did. And then America kind of came off the gold standard in 32 and then it did fully in 1971.

Americans weren't allowed to own gold after 1933. And so gold and silver, independent money, disappeared from the system. And money is now what the government says is mine. And I would say it's paper, except it's not even paper anymore. It's just digits in their computer. It's exactly what it is.

But that system of money that is the creation of government, the law, has enabled governments to grow and expand. It's enabled them to run enormous deficits for decades. And as a result of your wonder, how is it that the government is so big? Why is the government telling me what food to eat, what this, what that? How has it grown so big and invasive? It's because it has the power to create money.

And when one body in a society has the power to create money at no cost to itself, the rest of us have to make it earn it, it can just create it, run up a deficit, we'll get the tax later. That gives that body disproportionate power within a society. When money was gold and the gold run out, it was a way of the citizen holding its government to account. We can't do that now. And that's why government has just grown and grown and grown and we have this endless technocracy, bureaucracy, blob, whatever you want to call it.

suddenly first we saw the resurgence of gold in the early part of this century and now we're seeing the Chinese Russians all the countries along the Silk Road in Asia buying extraordinary amounts of gold because they know that it otherwise they're too dependent on the US dollar and they're America's enemies so that you know we're seeing a return to gold and more and more individuals and investors are buying gold and let's push the price way up of

pushing the price way up. But then we're also seeing the emergence of Bitcoin and all these cryptocurrencies, but Bitcoin especially, this new digital, independent, borderless system of money, the most amazing technological innovation since the internet, this brilliant new system of money. And obviously, yesterday, Bitcoin went through $100,000, an incredible, you know, 10 years ago, it was not even 10, 12 years.

It started in 2009 and it's gone from nothing. Open source, not planned, not done on a spreadsheet. Just thousands and thousands of people making their own little contribution. It has grown and grown and grown from something that wasn't even worth pennies to now $100,000 a Bitcoin. $100,000 a bit. In the old days, people just used to give them out. People gave me.

Yeah, of course. I can't find them. I've got a hat to lost them. Somebody once gave me seven bitcoins. That's three quarters of a million pounds or dollars. He just gave it to me. I try this. They got stolen from me, unfortunately. But anyway, we have this incredible event. And so the next battleground is particularly in Western Europe and England.

Britain. I keep saying England, Britain. You know, we're running up huge deficits. These guys are printing money. They're the pound and the euro are losing value all the time. And even though the gold has pulled back a little bit against the dollar, it hasn't pulled back against the pound. And I think we've got a big problem next year. There has never been a Labour government without us that hasn't devalued sterling. It has never happened in history. Wow.

Every Labour government has devalued sterling. And I think we're headed into a sterling crisis. And I think we might already be in the early stages of it. And I have a sub stack and my advice to all my readers is buy gold, buy Bitcoin, buy assets, get your money out of sterling. Sterling has got problems. And cash. Have some cash as an emergency, but

Not but maybe gold's better for an emergency emergency. Yes, it is. Yeah, and you know you have a fire in your house to cash burns up the gold to the gold to the heart. Yeah, it's a large carat gold survived absolutely to the bottom. Yeah, but it survives everything It literally is it's the oldest substance on earth. It's older than the earth itself gold Wow

You know, you touch gold, a little bit of gold. You're touching something that's been around since before the solar system. It's like the closest you will ever come to touching eternity is to touch a piece of gold. Wow. It's a very profound thought when you think about it. Yes, someone said to me, it's God's money. It is. Wow. It is God's money. You're touching something there that existed before Earth. Mm-hmm.

not just before Earth, before the solar system. And in fact, it was probably created in the supernovae explosions, the collisions of stars in outer space that created the solar system in the first place. It's just, it's like, wow, it is wow stuff. I'm going to go and touch my gold a bit more tonight.

What are you doing darling? Touching eternity. That's why, but it gives you pleasure handling it. You're supposed to handle it. You talk about the miser's handling the gold and counting the gold, but it's good for the soul to wear it on your body. There's something important about gold. The gypsies are right.

They are. Do you think it's an old wisdom? But to come the big battleground, the big conflict is going to be between government money that they can print and inflate and debase. And why is everything getting more expensive? Because they keep printing more money and non-government money. That is going to be a huge battleground over the next few years.

So I was going to take us that way and now you have, which is decentralization. So I think what a lot of people like about Bitcoin other than its appreciating value is its decentralized nature can't be manipulated, inflated, hyper inflated. Like you said, it's open source.

So is that also a fight that we're seeing in the world right now? The centralization of government and maybe even this totalitarian one-world government one day, because people say that that's the outcome of the world economic form or whatever, and then this independence of decentralization.

Is that the real war that's going on? It's exactly that. What you've described is exactly that. And one is freedom. Individualism. Individualism, all of that. And one is control. But the big battleground is money because that is the power source. That's the fuel. The energy. Yeah. If government, I used to say, I used to want to write this sort of, I never did it. It's one of the many things I never did in my life. But I wanted to write a sort of huge fantasy epic

about everything that's going on in the world. And the main character, the way he saves the world is by destroying the monetary system. You know, it's like Frodo's Ring throwing the ring in Mount Doom is taking out the money system and everything else follows.

If money loses its value, it's losing its value 10% every year. But if we get proper sterling crisis and we have a big crisis of currency, and it could happen to the whole of Europe, it could happen to the whole of fiat money. This is why it's so interesting that America is talking about this strategic Bitcoin reserve, because it may not have the goal that it says it does, which is we can talk about in a sec.

But this money is everything. And if we get a sterling crisis and the pound collapses 50%, and sterling loses its purchasing power, the government loses its power. And what happens then? Because it does? It had happened through history. Absolutely. This would have happened. Maybe every century. I mean, every empire rises and falls. Absolutely. So chaos.

Political chaos possibly the like previously the citizens could rise up because the citizens were armed But we can't rise up in the same way that we could in the English Civil War or something because we're not armed Americans can because they're armed but we can't European citizens become thousands of millions of people on social media that you can do and Bitcoin if Everyone just starts using Bitcoin Sterling's crap. I don't want to receive it for my services. I'll take payment in Bitcoin. Thank you very much

And I'll save in Bitcoin. I won't save in certain because Bitcoin is much more reliable. The world starts using Bitcoin. It's a peaceful revolution. That's what's so beautiful about it. It's a peaceful revolution. It allows you to peacefully exit the system. But we're going to have to Veen. Yeah, they want to have Bitcoin.

China Bank, the UK is all but banned it. You try buying Bitcoin in the UK. It is a nightmare. It is. So, Nat West will let you put a grand a day, maximum five grand a month, and make it virtually impossible. They may as well have banned it. And it's throughout the whole well sector. It's pretty much Shadow Band. They've made, and the FCA,

When the FCA made its rulings, Bitcoin was $5,000. Now it's $100,000. So that's $95,000 of appreciation, like how many hundreds of per cent the FCA in its wisdom have prevented UK citizens from enjoying. Imagine the wealth that could have been created. You know, Satoshi Nakimoto wrote in British English.

It's very likely that he might have been English or British. The very first timestamp was an article from The Times. He was heavily involved in Britain in some way. And in the early days of Bitcoin, so many of the meetups were happening in London. We were right at the centre of it. And now we have just lost a march, not even one march. We've lost a thousand marches on the rest of the world.

because the fca knew better and it knew that bitcoin is bad because cryptocurrencies are bad because people use them to buy drugs on the internet because that's their story is it just because it gives you freedom and independence and you're less controllable by the state both i think it's partly that but i think the main reason is they genuinely thought they're protecting citizens from scams and the rest of but in doing that they have

We're just backward down and it's stupid and they probably congratulate themselves and then America invented the Bitcoin ETFs and we can't buy them. It's just so stupid. So where do we go from here? Let's start with... We need massive deregulation but we need Javier Malay to come with his chainsaw and go, I'd love to say the English translation with that. It just means away with you or outside but

You know, fuck off. You know, it needs a chainsaw. But the current system is never going to allow anyone like that in. That's like Harry Carey's suicide, isn't it? Yeah. And you wonder, you know, Nigel Farage, let's just assume he wins the next election. You know, I think Nigel's very libertarian instinct. He definitely seems pro-business to me. He's very much pro-business, but he's also very pro the NHS. He's very, you know, he will, he's actually quite moderate economically when, to me, it needs someone way more aggressive.

So, but maybe those guys will come in behind it, who just go, we need to get rid of this and we need, you know, I don't know who are, maybe it's me, maybe it's you, maybe, but it needs business. Maybe it's Elon Musk, but maybe or or Aaron Banks or one of those really clever business guys, we go to the like the I Institute of Economic Affairs and stuff. There's plenty of successful businessmen who are massively libertarian and just need some even richer ties.

Probably, again, Richard Tyse is probably just a bit too sensible and I love Richard, but it just needs somebody more extreme. Maybe we're not ready for somebody that extreme. Or someone more bold, more brave. Yeah, I mean, I think they've just been clever and tactical now. But we need somebody to do way more than what Liz trusted with her budget. Do you think that was an epic failure or do you think the markets and the people that control the money just didn't want to?

She was shafted by the bank. Do you remember when the Bank of England sold Britain's gold in 1999? They sold two-thirds of it really cheap and then it flew up in value. They sold it at the bottom of the market. The reason they caught the bottom of the market is that they advertised the market before they were selling the gold that they were going to sell the gold.

So they told the market. So everyone said, well, they're selling the market. We're just short. We won't buy. And that's what happened. That's why they caught the bottom of the market. Now, from 2008 until Liz Truss was in power, we had what was called quantitative easing, where the government printed money and bought bonds. The week of Liz Truss's budget, they brought in quantitative types. So for the first time, instead of printing money, they were

and buying bonds, they were going to tighten the money supply and sell their guilds, British government bonds, guilds. And they advertised it to the market. And so the markets knew the sales were coming in advance. They knew that the Bank of England was gone from being a net buyer to a net seller. And the guilt price started to sell off on the Thursday, the day of

The day they said they were going to start selling the gilts and then we got quasi-quatting's budget on the Friday. The gilt market had already started to crash by the time of the budget. It had already started. You can see it in the charts, but the media being stupid and not understanding gilts and not being proper citizen journalists, but being stupid journalists just blew and just blame the whole thing.

on Quarting's budget and the sterling sell-off that followed. But it was because of the Bank of England had told the market it was selling gilts and then they stopped a week later and the whole thing lightened up. And in any case, the gilt prices are now lower than they were when this whole incident happened under Labour. So it was a Bank of England thing. And it was just a classic case of the lack of coordination in government. And I think trust and Quarting put their budget through

And they decided not to tell any civil servants because they didn't want them stopping it happening. So they just announced it. But then the blob was like, no, you can't do that. We're in charge, not you. And so they stopped it happening. And Paul Liz, she just got totally smeared by that, as did Quasi Quater. And actually, what they were doing was just minimal tax cuts compared to what's actually needed. So they were shafted by the blob. Yeah, I felt they were. And I actually didn't think her proposals were

ridiculous. No. And it seemed to be able to loosen things up a bit to go and make a bit more money. They were all for a business. Yeah. Build things. Yeah. Yeah. Quasi said to me that they just did too much too soon. Yeah. And should have been a bit slower with it. But they didn't. No. They did the right thing. And what I hated about that is that it just meant they killed income tax cuts to income tax for probably half a generation with that.

It just meant no government's going to do an income. After what happened to Liz Truss, no other government's going to do a cut to high rate income tax. They're just not going to do it. And they might now because of everything that's happening in America. What's so glorious is just what happens in America and on Twitter and everything. It just exposes the crap in Europe every day and it's just apparent for all to see.

You know, since the financial crisis, Britain and Western Europe have grown by something like 10%. In total. Compared to the United States, it's grown by 90%. Wow. I mean, yeah, if you look at the S&P 500, it's flying. It is. When I was a kid, you go to America and America was cheap. Now America is expensive. Food is twice the price in America than it is here in Europe. Exactly. We don't pound.

It's partly because of the wheat pound and it's food. We don't realise how food, we're lucky that food is as cheap as it is in the UK. It's more expensive on the continental Europe as well. I don't know why it's so cheap in the UK, but we're lucky. And it won't always be like that. But it's just, you know, American markets are so much bigger. It's just so much more dynamic. We used to go, when I used to go abroad as a kid, everyone was like, oh, you're British and you had a sort of status. You know, there was up there with the Swiss or something.

Now you go then, there'll be a Swiss guy, and everyone knows the Swiss guy is five times richer than everyone else in the room, because he's Swiss and one in nine Swiss is a millionaire. It's just our international status has just shrunk with our currency, and Labour's going to devalue it.

Unfortunately, I agree with nearly everything you've said. So where should we go with this? Is the future Bitcoin? I know you've written a book about Bitcoin. Is that as solid a bet as, you know, all the evangelists seem to think? Yeah. You're bullish about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, keep going up. Yes, I think so. I mean, I recognise that Bitcoin moves in cycles. It has as like, there's like a four prong cycle and you have this period where Bitcoin goes absolutely nowhere. Just go somewhere. You've had that in gold. You have that in every asset.

And then Bitcoin's something, for six or nine months, it moonshots. And then it collapses. And then it goes, no. The trend is always upwards. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, this move has gone from 30 or $40,000 was the low, and it's taken us to $100,000. So it's already triple quadrupled from the low of the previous cycle. And it might go to $150, it might go to $200, it might even go to $250, I don't know. You know, each move is less big than the last.

And then it's going to collapse again and it's going to have another 70%, 80% correction. So I don't know when they come. And I just accept the volatility as part of it. But it is a technologically superior form of money to what currently exists. And we have the borderless medium that is the internet.

we need a borderless system of money. And if you think about scalability, how big can a currency scale? And at the moment, the US dollar is the global reserve currency. But how big? The amount, and it's the money of international trade, but there's a limit to how big the US dollar can scale. And that limit is the US borders. And you know, it's really difficult to get a US bank account. Yes, you can have like revolute and things like that and hold US dollars, but it's just tricky. And that's made it easier.

The financial system is a barrier to how big even the US dollar can become. And Sterling can never get anything like us. But then to get Bitcoin, to use Bitcoin, all you need is a smartphone. And we're already, we're already at 85, 90% smartphone coverage around the world. 85 or 95% of people around the world have a smartphone coverage. And you know, they are, those many people in Africa and Asia, South America are excluded

from traditional finance. They cannot get a bank account, but they can get a wallet, just download it from the app store, and they can get a smartphone, and so they can start trading and exchanging using cryptocurrencies. And so the potential of a borderless currency to grow is just so much more potential scalability than there is in the US dollar. And speed, which money loves speed. I'll say, particularly on the Lightning network, it does love speed.

And I did a test and I sent one sack. So a sat would be, so one Bitcoin, Bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places. So one sat would be point, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, one of a Bitcoin. And it would be roughly one now with the price rises, it would be maybe one 20th of a penny, one 20th of a penny. And I sent that page to another wallet.

payment of 120th of a penny and that payment was to somebody in another country. Now you try sending a payment of 120th of a penny. The banks don't want you to because they can't charge their face. You can't. Literally cannot. There is not the technological possibility. Now you just think of the implications of being able to send payments that small. And that fast. And that quickly. So let's say

We put up our podcast on YouTube, and instead of people clicking like, they can send us one 20th of a penny. And then this discussion... Well, they can send a Bitcoin if they want to us. Well, they can. But I'm talking about on micro payments instead of likes on the internet. It's just such a huge potential.

So then every like has a value, every action. Everything. And there's so many multiple uses and nuance pricing and it's just such a huge growth industry. It cannot happen with fiat money system that the technology is not there, but it is there with crypto. And then at the same time, I could send a billion dollar payment, imagine trying to send a billion dollar payment by bank.

Well, you can't even send a 20 gram payment. What's the money for? It's my money. Then we won't send it. Unless they know everything about what you're going to do with the money, they won't even give it to you or send it.

Okay, so look at the growth that Twitter has had since it's become a free speech platform. What's going to happen with money? Where's the growth going to be in the restricted market or the free market? That is, if the state doesn't relinquish control, because they could come back with a central digital currency. It won't work. Because the reason fiat money works

is because we believe it. We believe it. But as well as the fiat, everyone used the currencies. The currencies were normal when we abandoned gold and silver. So people carried on using the currencies. And then because of digital technology, thousands and thousands of individuals, fintech, businesses have built all these amazing apps on top of the payment system. And so we built this huge architecture around fiat money. And it's quite brilliant.

some of the payments, some of the FinTech evolution that's gone on. It is quite brilliant. And the same thing's happened with Bitcoin and we've got this huge architecture on built on top of the currencies. CBDCs does not have that architecture. It's literally the government just going, oh, CBDCs are a really good idea and they're like Bitcoin and they'll work the same way. We're going to start using CBDCs. Doesn't mean they won't try their best of them. Of course they're going to try. Yeah.

But it won't work. It will fail because people don't use it. And even if you go, there isn't the architecture on top of it. And they just think they can come along and, oh, we'll get Barclays to build the architecture. It's just not that easy. Do you therefore then fear a cashless society? Because surely that's the way they can get the control of making us use a central digital currency by slowing us back on cash. Yeah. And they will do

If there's a real crisis like there was in Covid, you know, they will use that as an excuse to impose it and they'll give everyone their grants, their grant money through CBDCs, and that will normalise it a little bit. But the accidental thing of if people start using CBDCs, it will normalise the use of cryptocurrency. It'll just be an on-ramp. It'll just be a slip road into Bitcoin. It'll accelerate crypto adoption. I think they will try. I just don't think it will work. Yes.

OK, so I like why I'm hearing from you, but I have to ask you this. Are you just a bit too pro Bitcoin or you may be a bit evangelical about Bitcoin? I mean, the power of governments can do what they want. They can try. You think they'll try and fail? I think they will try and CBDC, like everywhere that has tried CBDCs, like the one, everyone goes Bahamas is the one place they've got it working. I mean, they haven't had long to try it, have they?

These things take time to build. That's not long. In the history and evolution of money, of which you're a study of and I am too, that's not long. OK, nowhere's got it to work. Bahamas is touted as the... Have they really tried yet? Nigeria has been a total disaster. It's just a basket case. It's slightly different from America or UK maybe doing it.

The technological architecture of getting it to work is too different. And how do you cross over between CBDCs and ordinary fiat money? There's just so many technological challenges. They will try, but they're taking for granted the changes in consumer habits, and they're taking for granted all the incredible FinTech architecture that exists in traditional finance in Bitcoin. They're taking that for granted. I don't think it can work.

Well, I hope you're right. Me too, because they are evil. I still use cash everywhere I can. Me too. I will fight for it. Oh, yeah. You must. Cash is like freedom and everything. But it's also not that convenient. No. But I go to the farmers market near me and broccoli. The farmers market. Nobody uses cash in the farmers market. You're like, what's going on?

Yeah. But if people listen to this, people think cash isn't as convenient. But it is. Easy. So don't be lazy. Because it is easy. Oh, just tap and pay. Just get your cash out and pay. OK. Oh, it's good for security. Well, if they nick your phone, you've lost all your fucking money. If you want to pay me cash or you want to pay me by direct transfer, I will always take the cash. Yeah. Given the choice. I prefer cash.

But I also recognise convenience wins and people just are lazy. But there will always be a role for cash, but Bitcoin is digital cash. Maybe there won't be, though, because salt used to be money, and now it's not. In 100 years, there's going to be nothing as cash. Well, it's going to have eaten itself. Cash is, I forget the word for it. I wrote about this in my book Money, but there's a name for if you cannibalise yourself, there's a name for that.

That's what cash is because it goes down in value and the more we make of it, the more it goes down in value. So it's literally eating itself. So it probably never quite go to zero. But if property prices keep going up and the value of money keeps going down, in the end, it doesn't work. So surely in the end, cash has gone. I wonder which will be the first country to actually go?

No more paper money. Do you mean cash or do you mean fiat currency? I mean, I mean physical cash. Right. Which is the first... Because you know the Scandinavians were the closest. They were like the most and then cash has had to sort of come back. Yeah. I think there'll always be a few champions of cash. Everyone will always keep cash and there will always be the argument that it's unfair on the technologically unsavier. But they'll just say, I'll use it for drug dealing.

But drug dealers are innovative, ingenious, disruptive entrepreneurs. You think if cash has gone there, we'd better quit.

How naive is that? I know. I know. And they'll trade in something else. Of course they will. But let's come back to Bitcoin, if I may, because I want to just say one other thing about it, why I like it. I agree. I think cash will just get less and less, but I don't think it will ever die there. But for me, I think there's a big difference between cash and fiat currency. Yeah. I mean, cash is obviously a form of fiat currency, but cash is freedom. Fiat currency is the ever-depreciating value of money.

And you said 10%. And most people go, oh no, look at CPI, look at RPI, look at with the H on the end and all it is bollocks. Do you look at your everyday spending go, oh yeah, that's only gone down 2.1%. No one fucking understands it. You're not taught it in school. People think when it slows, it goes in reverse. It doesn't, it just slows the devaluation. But in the end, if it goes 10% a year, in the end, everything is worth nothing surely. Yeah, well,

That's why the pound, the pound has lost more than a third of its value just since Covid, since 2021. And that's similar to inflation, because I think inflation in four years was 25%. It's lost more than a third of its purchasing power since 20 in five years. People need to stop and take note of that, like really think about that.

It's terrible. And they don't tell you. It's lost more than 90% of its purchasing power just since the turn of the century. And it will lose another 90% over the next 10 or 15 years. Gold has consistently beaten inflation. Why a little bit or matches it? I do want to come back to Bitcoin, but while we're on the subject to this cash thing, and physical cash loses its purchasing power, but it is independent money. It is money in and of itself. It is empowering to the individual. You are more powerful when you hold cash.

And I hand you the money and nobody else can get their tentacles in on the transaction. That's what is beautiful about it. It empowers its users. I stand with you on that one, Rob. But it does still lose its... 10 pounds in cash buys you less than 10 pounds in cash bought you 15 years ago. I wanted to say the reason why house prices, houses, have become such important assets to people in the UK is by owning a house

is one of the only things that you've been able to own over the last 20 or 30 or 40 years that protects you from all the inflation, from all the currency debasement. And the reason for that is if you look at all the new money that gets created, all the new debt that gets created, 40% of it goes into property.

via the banks, you mean mortgages? Yeah. So you go to the bank, can I borrow a million pounds by this house? The bank creates that million pounds. It did not previously exist. So there's now a million pounds that's just been created from nowhere. It's gone into the property market. And so the property market's gone up by a million pounds. And owning property is one of the only ways that people have been able to protect themselves from the relentless currency debasement.

And that's why I actually argue that property is a financial asset as much as it is a real asset. And that's why we have this obsession with property. It's subconsciously, it's been one of the only places of safety. And you think... And there's still tax breaks on your own home, which there aren't and inadvertently anything else. Yeah, because you can trade up without taxes. Yeah, that too. And that not for much longer.

What do you mean, Labour? Yeah, I do. They're never after every now and then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's coming. But this is a good point, because a lot of the Americans say you shouldn't own your own home. Stupid to own your own home. You still think it's a good thing to own your own home? Well, I don't own my home. And I sold my house in 2007, because I thought there was going to be a financial crisis. I was right, but I should have kept my bloody house. Don't go and look at what it's worth now. It's the worst decision I ever made in my life. Yeah.

And I've made some bad decisions. But so I don't know. And I never wanted to buy back in because I just thought the property market was evil. And I complete, I know your business is property. Let's go there. Let's do it. I mean, I don't think it's evil. I think it's a market. OK, fair enough. I'm not calling you or anyone who participates in it. I just wanted to beat it. You wanted to beat the property market. And actually, it's not evil. You fucked up.

Yeah, yeah, I did. I did. But where I think the property market is evil is what it's done to the demography of this country in that property is like, if you look at why people don't have families, why they have kids later in life, the most commonly given reason is expense.

Now, the biggest expense in your life by far and away is your government. And over the course of your life, you will spend more than 50 between taxes and currency debasement. More than 50% of everything you ever own will be taken from you, from the government. OK, so just stop there. Yeah. Let everyone take that in. Because that's more than a fucking divorce, because at least you only lose half in a divorce. It's 50% relentlessly throughout your whole life. And I would say minimum. Yeah. Minimum. Yeah. Wow, OK, carry on.

And then the next most expensive thing in your life is a house. And if you look at why do people have smaller families later in life, the most commonly given reason is expense. If you could take those two big expenses, the government and housing out of people's lives, and house prices are more affordable relative to what people earn, then people would be reproducing more and younger. And a generation ago, you could have a middle class lifestyle with one parent, not two.

I'm sorry, one parent, one earner. Now, both have to earn. They have to rent relentless hours. They don't see their kids. They are slaves to the system. I think that high property prices are partly a consequence of stupid planning laws, and they are partly a consequence of the fiat money system. But I don't like it. Which isn't property in and of itself's issue. So you said property is evil.

But it's not really, it's the system. It's the fiat currency system and centralized control. And allowing the banks to have the power that they have. It is. Because the flip side of it, because I write a book called The Money Matrix, which is, play the banks at their own game and win. The flip side of it is, if you learn what the banks know, they say safe as houses, not safe as fiat currency. And if you... Good as gold. Good as gold, yeah.

thus you have to be our age plus to remember that. But the more property you own, the more money you make. Because it's forced up by inflation and forced up by all the money printing and all the bank money going into it. So we're both singing from the same song sheet and I didn't want to play the game. And also because I made a bad decision and I sold and I couldn't bring myself to

you know, to buy back at a loss. And I just wanted to beat it and I just didn't want to participate in it. I think it was a wrong decision. It was also because I was getting divorced and I had other problems and, you know, personal issues. But I don't like what the property market has done to this country, to the effect it's had on families. And, you know, I think it's really done more damage than it has good. But I recognize why people have participated in it and I do not blame them for a second.

and it's normal and natural to want a nice house. Who doesn't want a nice house? I want a nice house. I just don't want to pay. I don't want to play that fiat game. I probably buy a place next year with my Bitcoin. But it beats fiat. You say, don't play the fiat game, but it beats fiat. It does beat fiat. It's been the only way by which ordinary people have been able to protect themselves from this relentless debasement. And now the government's coming after the landlords and they're blaming the landlords for high prices.

and this started with the Tories, but it actually started with Osborne, but it's been going on for a while, but it's just getting more and more intense. It's not the landlord's fault. The property prices are unaffordable because the system is broken. It's not because of landlords who are just being sensible businessmen within the reality of their life.

And actually, the only people who were doing anything about the housing crisis. I took a 130,000 square foot, mostly disused, big lump of shit in Peterborough and turned it into a hundred lats with 160 tenants. I did that. Our local councils could have done that.

Yeah. And yet they're coming after me, you know, less tax breaks. They make you Satan. But I did that. They didn't do it. They're not solving the housing crisis. They're not allowing enough houses to be built. Like you said, the planet. Yeah, they're causing it and how ridiculously onerous planning is. I agree. I hate it.

You look at all the beautiful buildings in this country were built largely before, in the 18th and 19th century, before there was any kind of planning. You know, all those Victorian... Also when our empire was an empire. Well, yeah. And also when money was gold and people did things with their legacy in mind and the future in mind and we had younger families and we thought about our future of our people and we had all these values that have just disappeared now.

In 200 years, how are we going to look back at this time in humanity? I think we'll look on it a bit, not unlike the way people look at Rome under Diocletian and the fall of the Roman Empire. We'll just study it and go, what were they thinking? How short-sighted, how greedy, how stupid, how could they live like that? Why do we keep making the same mistakes? Because the changes required are too big, but they are happening. But certainly back to the beginning of this conversation, they are happening in Argentina.

It's like it has to get as bad as Argentina was before we can turn it around. But it's infected America. Free markets, it's an infectious thing. And it's infecting. And the success those countries are going to have are just going to expose Western Europe so quickly. And so I think we've got two or three years of horror. And then things of labor. Do you think they'll last a turn beyond?

When they were first elected, it was a dead sir, but they're just so bad and Stalin was so incompetent and there's so many lies going on. It wouldn't surprise me if he gets kicked out even by his own government at some point within the next year or so. He's so unpopular and they'll start looking towards the next election. They'll go, we're not going to win with this guy. They'll do what the conservatives, I don't know why I said we, but...

What the Conservatives did to Boris, they go, we're not going to win with this guy, they'll get rid of him. And then the government hate to have a leader who hasn't been elected, and we'll be in the same situation we were with Ricky and with Rishi and Liz Truss. So is there anything to be excited about? Well, lots. Firstly, it's Britain. But that's living on our past, isn't it, by saying it's Britain? Well, I'm looking... I write comic songs, as you know, and perform them. And looking at the world from that point of view, I was actually pleased that Labour won the last government because it just gives me more material as a satirist.

You must have music coming out of your ears. Oh, I've got so many songs coming out too. I've got really good ones. There's always an upside. And I'm looking at America, and I'm wondering, because America, like our argument has won in America. You know, the one in the election, the Bitcoin price is winning.

The war on work is winning and social media, the better ideas are winning. All that stupid stuff that came along with work is losing in America. The war has almost been won, not in the UK, though. So, I'm asking myself, where does satire go in America? All these podcasts with everyone moaning about work. What's going to happen now? What are they going to moan about? Because, I guess why they got it. So, we've still got plenty to moan about, but they don't. So, I'm really interested to see where satire goes, but here,

You know, we've still got a couple of years of moaning and taking the piss and all the rest of it. But yeah, it'd be very telling where satire goes, but just circling back to this thing about Bitcoin. If I asked you, what is the fastest growing workforce in the world? Would you know what the answer is? Probably some, either some tech around a blockchain or the opposite with maybe something like AI behind it.

It's a bit more basic than that, and it was a difficult question, but it's actually the freelance, the contingent worker, the gig economy. There you go, the gig economy. And so our industrial, our societies, and we forget that most nation states are only about 200 years old. Germany is only about 200 years old. Italy is not even 200 years old. They were built up around

the tax structures that emerged after the Industrial Revolution, where a business was in one place and it created physical things in this one place that workers went to this one place to work, and everything was very easy to tax because it was all in one place. And suddenly we've got this rise of the digital economy. Income tax is the biggest source of government revenue around the world. Fifty percent of government revenue comes from income tax.

where you've got one worker who goes to a place and the company takes the money, becomes the tax collector on behalf of the government and sends the government the money. But the nature of employment is changing. People are no longer working for one company. They're working, they're moonlighting, they're doing multiple jobs. They're doing this job for this guy and this job for this guy. And they think that by the estimates are that by 2030, half of the American workforce will be what they call contingent workers, freelancers, gig economies, all this kind of thing.

And it's a global phenomenon and it's not just a first world phenomenon and it's a developing world phenomenon as well. Now gig economy workers tend to pay their tax after the event rather than deducted at source. Yeah, being self-employed. Exactly. So it's a hard way for them to. It's hard.

Every study shows that they pay a gig economy worker doing the same worker as a guy working for the same company pays less tax. Often it's deliberate. It finds things to write off. Often it's just incompetence. There's all sorts of reasons for it. But they end up paying less worker. And also there needs to be an incentive for someone to go and take their risk and sit up on their own. So there needs to be some tax breaks, otherwise no one would do it.

that too. So the governments around the world, main source of revenue is coming under pressure, main source of revenue, income tax, because the nature of employment has changed. Now, within that contingent worker, now let's say 2030, half the US workforce is contingent. Within that, the fastest growing workforce

is what's called the digital nomad. So these are guys who says not even clear what tax jurisdiction they're going to pay because they're around the world. Absolutely. Now you look at Britain after the Labour government was elected. We had the biggest exodus of millionaires. And it doubled every year from 2020.

I talked to one company, which is a brokerage that works, a city brokerage, and it had 100 people working for the broker who were on more than a million pounds a year. 100 people. Labour government wins, looks at Rachel Reeves, goes, we're relocating to Dubai.

So, like that, the government lost the income tax of a hundred millionaires. Like that. The only country that has a bigger exodus of millionaires than the UK's China, which has like 25 times as many people as there are in the UK. But it's not just like my son is in his first year outside of university. He's working, he's doing really, really well. He's earning lots of money. And in his last month, he earned nine grand.

Excuse me, which is really good for a 24-year-old kid. It was the most he ever earned, 9 grand, and he had to pay 4.5 grand in town. And he couldn't believe it. It was like, I've got to pay 4.5 grand. And I've just earned 9 grand, and I've just had to give away 4.5 grand. And I don't even register with a doctor. I don't use the NHS. I don't use this up. Why am I having to give away 4.5 grand? And he cannot wait to go to Dubai.

as a result of that. And so there are just so many kids who are looking at, you know, expensive houses, high levels of tax, they're there and they're just, it's not just millionaires who are leaving. It is across the workforce. People are leaving and they're going, if you can go and live in Thailand on a beach and pay Thai prices and earn London salaries, who's not going to do that?

And people are going to Portugal. They're just everywhere. And it's people from all over the world who are on the move. Africans. There are more people in the world than ever before. Transport planes, trains, cars. You can almost get around the world in 24 hours now. More people are on the move than ever before.

Everyone's got a mobile phone. If there's nothing else that social media doesn't create, it creates FOMO. The whole world is looking at everyone else's Instagram and going, I want to go and live in Thailand. I want to go and be in a beach in Brazil. I want to go and climb the Alps or whatever it is. And so the more and more people are on the move. And so the digital nomad is the fastest growing workforce, sovereign individuals, stateless individuals.

Who do they pay tax to? A lot of the time it just is not clear. A lot of the time they want to pay tax, they just don't know who to pay to, because they don't live in the UK anymore, and they don't live in this place, and they keep moving. And people go, well, when they have families, they settle down, but the evidence is they don't. They stay on the move, and they go three months here, and there are all these, like, we works rising up all around the world, but for schools, we work schools. And to educate the kids of digital nomads, to cater for this new market.

What currency do these digital nomads use? I knew where you were going to go with this. Are they going to use US dollar? Of course. It's like, you know, if they got hard to do a job in Brazil, but they were in Thailand when they were doing it. They're based in the UK. What currency do we use? And yeah, they can get their revolute out and all their whys and switch all the things and all they can use dollar stable coins. But the most

If not for actual payments, the most obvious currency for them to save in is Bitcoin. And I remember I talked about the scalability of the dollar and the scalability of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the money of this new rising workforce that is inevitably going to grow. And it's the money of the contingent worker, the fastest growing workforce in the world.

And that's why I just think there's so much potential still, even at these high prices. And I recommend everyone to have a little allocation to Bitcoin and just keep growing it, buying a little bit month in month out and just growing your position. So have you kind of learned the mistakes of selling your property and now you just buy and hold, you just keep it? Absolutely. Selling that property was, I wish I'd never done it and I had a chance to buy back in and I didn't take him and I'm a fool. And if I write a list of things that I'm angry with myself about, I will always mention that. But life has been very kind to me in other ways.

And that may have been your best lesson. Maybe. Because you're referring back to that now. And the main reason why I don't buy a house now is I just don't want to give them, like if I buy a house for a million and a half quid or something, I don't want to give them the stamp duty. No, well, that's ridiculous. I don't want to give it to you. No, that's ridiculous. And my friend is Argentinian and he bought a house in Toughenel Park for like one and three quarter million quid or something, which is just what a house in Toughenel Park costs. And he could not believe that he was giving the government 150, 200 grand in. Is that what it was? Something like that.

It's just like, and it's not like debt. You can't use debt. It's cash. It's hard money. And he can believe it. And I'm just like, I don't want to give him it. I just do not want to give him it. I just kind of am renting. I've got a very cushy arrangement at the moment with cheap rent. And your flexibility, I guess, with rent. And I've got flexibility in all the rest of it.

But it cost me a relationship, you know, and the boss was my girlfriend really wanted me to buy a place and I didn't want to buy and it cost me a relationship. But, you know, I will eventually. But the, the, the, I really begrudge the stamp duty. So if there's a stamp duty holiday, I'll be in like that.

So Dominic tell me I do a quick fire round okay, but we've got a unique one for you Okay, we haven't got the usual disruptors one. Okay now We've talked a lot about some of these so if you could do one sentence or two Macs okay for each one What's the biggest money scam that affects everyone Fiat money why because it is a racket and nobody realises it and it it happens by subterfuge the debasement of

If the government print money, why do they need taxation? I don't know. You tell me. Well, I'm asking you. If I go on your show, I will. Money illusion is the reason. Do you know what that means? Control and money illusion. Money illusion. If they could just print money and they didn't have to tax people, then everyone would go, what? But you have to keep the illusion of money going. And so you need the tax system to keep that illusion of money working. Is that a woo? I don't understand or woo. It's evil.

No, that's actually a wall that might go viral on TikTok. No, that's no one's explained it to me like that before. Because I ask it a lot. Because if you think about it, if they are the creators of money, why do they need our fucking money? Exactly. They don't. But they have to keep the illusion going. That's the wall. Is tax legal and can we avoid paying it? Tax is legal, but it is also legalised theft. And you can avoid it, but it's very hard. And if you do avoid it, I would endeavour to do it, make sure you avoid it legally.

Otherwise, you can get into big trouble. And if there's one thing, like HMRC has rights that no other government body does, rights to invade your privacy and invade your personal space. It all goes back to revenue and customs and some legacy law there, but they are an extremely powerful and unanswerable government body and you do not mess with them if you don't need it. It's tithing in church, terror. It's tithing in church, charity or taxation. In church, it's charity, but it's sort of taxation as well.

There's a big crossover, though, between charity and taxation. There really is. And, you know, we have this thing of, it's our duty. They carefully use the word duty, and taxation is the price we pay for a civilized society. And if you didn't pay your taxes, how would we fund our NHS? And how would we provide care? All these moral arguments get used, and they're very strong and powerful. But a private company will just come in and do a better job, of course. But that's evil and exploitative, and profit is bad.

What about this theory? We should pay politicians more and have them accountable. They do well, they get bonuses, they don't, they get fined or fired. Yes, very nice in theory. But their accountability is at the ballot box. But I like the idea of direct democracy and they are there to carry out the wishes of the people. Would a flat rate tax system work? Yes. Why? Because it would be simpler and the rules would be the same for everyone. But then we wouldn't need all these government employees. Absolutely. It's another reason why it would work.

You know, our tax code is some thousands of pages. My accountant tells me. Yeah, it's tens of thousands of pages. It's 20 Bibles or something like that. And nobody's read it by design. Well, the reason it's so big and bloated is all the exemptions and the opposite, the flat rates, the exemptions for this and the little bonus for that. And that's what makes it so complicated, the subsidies and the exemptions and the breaks and all that. So if you just flatten that instead of flat 25 for everyone,

Or the million lower? Yeah. Okay. But let's be realistic. Okay. So flat 25 on everything, not 45 on income. And don't tax a three times just once. None of this corporation income, business rates, VAT, everything, just flat, 25%. Surely a million years and billionaires will come back.

Surely we'd all be able to pump all that money into hiring more staff and grow the economy and create capital and therefore create labour. The evidence is in places where taxes are low and flat is that people are happier to pay them. So revenue increases so they don't avoid. You get greater compliance, exactly that.

right i can just say this personally i'm not i don't mind saying it and i don't draw as much money as i used to because i don't want the big fat income tax so i've got all this money stuck in my accounts i'm intentionally not taking and i'm just having a lower spending quality just waiting for a tax change

And if they just made it flat and fair, all of us would just draw all the money and they'd all go into the economy. Rob, I'm exactly the same. I've just got money sitting in my company, and I don't want to pay a dividend tax, I don't want to pay a salary tax, so I'll just leave it there. Yeah, because you've already paid VAT on top, because that is a tax you've had to add. And 25% corp, you've already paid. And it's all because they invented this whole company tax thing, and then they, for self-employed people, and then people used it, and it was really good, and then they stopped it and penalized you for it.

I'm the same. It frustrates me. I've got this money sitting there. I want to spend it. I just don't want to pay the tax. And how's the economy going to grow if everyone who makes good money isn't spending their money? Hello!

I know we've discussed this, but this is the quick fire. Is Elon Musk a genius or someone who has too much power? The first one. A genius. Yeah. Why? Because he's the most competent and brilliant human being on the planet. Dominic, what are you up to at the moment? Where should we follow you? I know you've done a lot of that. You've got a varied career and all the things I know that you do. You've written books on money and Bitcoin and you've got your comedy. Where should we find you?

Well, I have a sub-stack and I would love it if you signed up for my sub-stack. It's called The Flying Frisbee, The Flying Frisbee.com. And that's like my newsletter. And that's with the why, Frisbee with the why. Flying Frisbee.com with the why, yeah. And if you want to come and see me live, I have another mailing list. The Flying Frisbee is more for my sort of financially philosophical stuff.

But my other mailing list is Frisbee's News, and that's my comedy mailing list, and that has information about all my gigs. Please come and see one of my shows. I'm doing lots of shows next year, and I don't know when this interview goes out, but February, March, April, next year, I'm doing lots of live shows all across the country. So come and see one of those. Excellent, and any social media you use? Probably Twitter at Dominic Frisbee.

Yeah. Yeah. And then what about, if we had to pick one of your books to start with, where would you send us? Daylight robbery. I'm writing a new book about gold, actually. That'll be out in August. But daylight robbery, the one about taxation. OK, could you give us a little teaser on what the gold one is? Because that'll be on the episode.

The gold book is called The Secret History of Gold. We talked about the stuff about gold and eternity. That's where it starts, beginning of the solar system. And then we talk about the extraordinary amounts of gold that China are buying, all the way through the history of the gold.

It's like the biography of gold, basically. And then we look at where gold, what is gold's role now? This incredibly analog asset in a digital world. Does it have any future? Or is it going to be the future backing of money and talk about all of that really interesting stuff? Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you, Rob. Thanks for having me.