Mind Snacks S02 -Ep1: What is Money?

you know, I honestly, you guys put me out of pedestal. I don't think I deserve, you know, I just feel like everybody should be doing what we're doing. You know, and we should not make it weird, you know, we should make this the norm of people going out and asking questions and just doing their own research. I don't know why we're the outcast. Why would we resist those ones? You know why? You know why? Well, to be fair, I was only competing with you because you did it for me. I'm like, now I gotta top him. You know what I'm saying? I felt it. That's all I felt. You guys. Oh my God. Fuck. I was like, what the hell? First of all, you're the one that set the bar that high because you're an amazing, thoughtful person and you're passionate about everything. So he wrote these, like, he created these two posts for me and Des, because our birthdays are really close together. And it's like, no one's ever shown me that much love. Nobody in my real life and family even. Like, that was so thoughtful, so well put together. I was like, oh, I'm about to top this. You know what I'm saying? Let's go. I can't wait for your birthday. Anyway, no, but it was well deserved. What happens with Leo's? Like this is, and that's what it is. That's why we're so special. Like, I agree. Everyone should be just like us, Rance. I agree. I think we're fantastic people. And we do a lot of good things. And it's hard when we're so amazing to out amazing each other, but it's a Leo thing. It's really not even like that we're personally wonderful. That would be selfish to say, we had nothing to do with it. It's not like we were like, chose to be born Leo's, the regal people of all the zodiac. It's not even our fault. We just wish everyone was just as good. That's all. But we love each other just more than the other person. Equally sometimes. Exactly. So sometimes, you know, it depends on the weather. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So guys, welcome to all the people that just pulled up. I appreciate it. Today, we're going to have a special guest. He's going to be rolling in here in just a few minutes. We're just getting, allowing people to get settled. I'm going to kick off here in the next four minutes. I'm going to start with the intro and kind of lay a foundation to be able to transition the topic over to on zoo, the special guest when he pulls up. But first, we'll go and take Layla's hand and also want to say hi to Rachel and to AJ and just to see how you guys are doing as well, Zfani. What in my top liver? You didn't say hi to me. Oh, I didn't see you. Boom. You're on the top right. I'm just teasing you. I'm just teasing you. I'm just teasing you. I'm teasing you. I'm going to thank you. But yeah, did you want to say something, honey? Are you good? No, I just wanted some attention from you. That's all. Thank you. You got it. Layla, go ahead, honey. Mays. You are looking beautiful. Again, hey, hey, everybody. Hi, hi, hello. By the way, thank you for this Leo space. It's my birthday today. I'm a strongholds Leo. I'm reporting from Austin, Texas. And thank you guys so much. Mays, I just wanted to I didn't want to. I just joined. So I'm going to shut up now. And you you mentioned an intro. And I'm so looking forward to this space. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, happy birthday. Oh my God, you and Rans have the same birthday. That's really interesting. Oh, I'm going to do that. This whole stage is just full of Leo's. Okay, we got a tour up here. I don't even know what AJ is. She's a Gemini. Oh, is she? Oh, it's like all my placements right there. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Leo's don't know. Do Leo's are. We got Gemini Moon. I know Leo's compiled a lot of Gemini people are going to be like. These astrology mofos are just way woo-woo. Okay. We will. We will. We will. We will. What's the type of that? That's how. Oh, that's terrible. That's terrible. Where we at the beach or where? No, we were at the beach. I think it was trying to get a nice agor-fold. My ear hole. We have to be. He's at Niagara Falls. Well, I remember. Well, that's kind of the sound that I had when I was flying up to the firmman and holding on to the outside of you. I'm so glad we got that audio clip, guys. Now, you know, I'm telling the truth. Obviously. That was hilarious. I don't know if you have to. I don't know what that was. That was very. I've never heard of before. First, let go of the rocket and then try again. Yeah. But go ahead Rachel in the meantime. And then we'll. I just want to say to my good friend that I am so happy you're back. Damn, we missed you, girl. You can't leave us again. Thank you. Well, thank you. And happy birthday, man. You're welcome. Welcome back. Yes. You're welcome. I'm really happy to have you here. I'm really happy to have you here today. Thank you so much. And I'm so happy to be here. Be like when's mine snacks? And I was like, what are you asking me? Like what may the media respond to my message? Yes, and it's like, you think she responds to mine? But like, first off, you're looking. I found yours. Like, this is crazy. So yeah, I'm super glad they're back. I've had people in other countries. He's been like, where is Mrs. Mine snacks? So I'm like, I wish I knew. You let me know when you find them. Well, they're here. But. full effect, you know, and then eventually we'll bring in the Wednesdays, but I wanted to get, you know, off the, I wanted to get on the ground running and getting this backup and making sure that, you know, all the content I bring to you guys is quality content, quality guests. And today we're going to be talking and asking a very important question, okay? What is money? And if we better understand this, I think we're going to be asking better questions, and we're going to be understanding, you know, our socio-economic reality. So I will introduce my guest when he gets here. But I think a great foundation to the money question is really understanding the history of gold. And, and its role in the introduction of the banking and central banking. And then after 1971, how all of that has changed. And so out of all of the definitions, I'm just going to go with what the according to Austrian economic definition where money is and it's good, it's changed so that we're going back in history. So it's, it's, you know, a universal medium of exchange. It is supposed to emerge naturally in a capitalist system. This is what's supposed to happen. And so as individuals specialize in something and they trade with one another and in that process and asset that can become liquid and more exchangeable and tradable is known as money. And the most exchangeable asset, and also let me just say that even though it's an asset, it's really a service. It's the service at render renders that we're most interested in. And so, so money must possess five key properties. And that is divisibility where you can transact at different scales. You can buy a coffee or you could buy a car. Durability. And it has to be something that can stand the test of time where it's not going to degrade or corrode. And then, okay, so that's two. Number three is recognizable. So like all parties transacting would agree that it's authentic. And then number four is portability. So if you wanted to move it, it should easily be able to be moved from one place to another. And then scarcity, which means that, you know, and that's the most critical property, you know, time, energy, the second law of thermodynamics, we sacrifice this to earn money, which is scarce in exchange for something that's just as scarce. And scarcity occurs when the demand outstrips the supply. So there was a time when people used to trade in all types of stuff. They used to trade in seashells, pebbles, even, I swear, and cattle over time, though, monetary metals became the most satisfactory due to their ability to satisfy at least four of the five properties that we just went over. Now specifically gold, because it happened to be the most scarce, which made the supply least vulnerable to change. So supply increased the slowest, and it had the most predictable change, which was roughly about 2% year over year. Now the issue with it, however, was the lack of portability. It was heavy, and it was physically expensive to secure. Like how are you going to make sure that nobody like taken off of your gold? But it was seen as beneficial because you could store a lot of economic value in a small area, and sort of amortize the security cost around it. But when you need to move it, there would be a lot of risk involved. And so, so the lack of portability led to the development of warehousing businesses. And so this private enterprise, the free market function came to be where it would take custody of the gold, and it would give you a warehouse receipt so that you could go transact. Right? And you essentially would have a call option of gold effectively. It was, you know, like wherever you take, so like basically wherever you go, you'd be able to, you know, trade it in for gold. Like if you go back to that warehouse, right? So you have a call option for gold, and it was introduced to basically augment the whole portability issue. But over time these warehouses evolved into banks, and then banks became central banks. And this was the economies of scale associated with gold. It's more efficient to transact in that model than it was with the actual gold. But the problem is is that you have to trust the custodian of the actual gold, right? So as the one takes the receipt there to cash in the gold, you'd have to trust that it would be there. And so that leads us to 1971 where several countries were trying to claim their gold and Nixon took us off the gold standard. And so it's perfect timing for our special guests to come because if money is a claim, a transferable claim recognized by society on production, both the production that exists now and the production that hasn't happened yet, which means that when you hold a dollar, you're not holding a value, you're holding a promise that somewhere out there, someone will produce something and honor that promise, right? And so this is kind of where we are now. And if you think about how we no longer have the things that that brought us here in terms of the gold and the standard and the backing the value. So what are we doing? What is money? Anyway, let me introduce my special guest and I'm coming to you, Lance, right after. But I just wanted to say hi to Anzu. I'm so glad that you were able to make it today. And everybody, make sure that you follow him. He's, it's at Anzu, Bird A.K. You can go read his post. He writes from a first principles constitutional republic frame. He isn't the typical money expert trying to give you financial advice or telling you what stocks to buy and shit. He's asking the harder question, which is what does a free people actually owe each other and what happens to that society when the promises outrun the ability to keep them? And so this is where we're going to kick off today's show. Let me go ahead and tap in with France and then I wanted to welcome we'll hear from Anzu. Go ahead, Lance. Oh, money. So in your opening statement, I loved everything except for the fact that the reason why we went through the different types of currencies wasn't necessarily about the value of the gold, but was the durability in the long last scene. Relationship that currency had, which is what got us to the US dollar and how strong the US dollar is an indestructible, right? Like they wanted currencies that were lighter and lasted longer. So that's how the currencies evolved from us going from like clay tablets to rice to seashells, right? To all the way up to where we are now with the dollar. So I think that's also one pillar that you could add into that and then also the fact that every currency relies on trust, the trust of the people, right? And so before currency can go mainstream or as utilized as a society's currency, right? It has to go through a trust and trial period. I'm sure Anzu will cover some of that in his little thing, but I'm going to give it back to me. And I think we're on to you. Come up, Mr. Sir. Welcome to the space. How you doing today? Oh, rock and roll. No, I'm doing good. Running late is usual. That's how I am. I'm always doing two things at once. I apologize for being late and I'm thankful that you guys are all here. You're right, maize. I don't look. I spent like 20 years thinking of money from the banking sense, right? I'm studied every kind of currency you could ever think of from every country. I was always fascinated by my countries mainly during their collapse, what was going on in the money supply and everything else. And you're right. Look, money could be anything. You know, Rance, you said it. It could be seashells. They even had in Germany, they had labor certificates, even here in America, in New York. They had a currency called the Ithaca Hour. It's quite popular. In fact, it got so popular, it became a little competitive, and it had to shun it down. We've had currencies in Italy that were so successful, started by college professors, that the country had to go shut them down. Money, I think what you said, maize is really critical. And I don't think people think of it from this point. I'm going to try to wear the common sense hat today philosophically and a little bit of tin hat. I'm going to throw a little foil in there. I think it's important because I need you guys to think outside the box when it comes to money. And look, you said about obligations, and that is so...