WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:01.240 We're here with Safideen Amos. 00:01.320 --> 00:02.680 We're going to talk about everything that's 00:02.680 --> 00:05.660 happening in Bitcoin, whether El Salvador is the place to go, 00:05.960 --> 00:09.100 what it's like to use Bitcoin with a lesser passport. 00:09.240 --> 00:10.400 There's so much we're going to talk about. 00:10.520 --> 00:12.240 We are here at Nomad Capitalist Live. 00:12.340 --> 00:13.980 It's our sold out four day event. 00:14.120 --> 00:16.220 Make sure you're here with us next year in Kuala Lumpur. 00:16.400 --> 00:18.160 And Safideen, welcome. 00:18.380 --> 00:18.760 You look great. 00:19.180 --> 00:19.520 Thank you. 00:19.620 --> 00:20.500 Thank you for having me, Andrew. 00:20.740 --> 00:20.860 It's a pleasure. 00:25.220 --> 00:27.780 You tell me a nomad by birth. 00:28.440 --> 00:32.420 Yes, I'm Palestinian and spent my life 00:32.940 --> 00:36.280 traveling around the world, lived in four continents. 00:36.540 --> 00:38.740 So I was born in the West Bank in Palestine. 00:39.160 --> 00:43.980 Then when I was about a year old, my family moved to Saudi Arabia 00:43.980 --> 00:45.280 where my father worked as a doctor. 00:46.120 --> 00:47.680 Then he wanted to become a plastic surgeon. 00:47.720 --> 00:49.960 So he moved to Brazil, worked as a plastic surgeon in Brazil. 00:50.700 --> 00:52.940 Then after that, we moved back to the West Bank, 00:53.020 --> 00:55.040 to Ramallah, where my dad worked as a doctor. 00:55.880 --> 00:57.420 But a lot of our families in Jordan 00:57.420 --> 00:59.220 and we have Jordanian passport, which 00:59.220 --> 01:00.980 is what allows us to travel a lot more easily 01:00.980 --> 01:02.260 than if we didn't have it. 01:02.380 --> 01:03.860 Then I went to the university in Lebanon. 01:04.760 --> 01:06.460 And then I did my master's in London. 01:06.840 --> 01:09.260 And then I did my PhD at Columbia University in New York. 01:09.640 --> 01:12.300 Then I went back and worked in Lebanon 01:12.300 --> 01:13.380 as a university professor. 01:14.040 --> 01:17.380 And then I've lived for a while in the US and the Canada 01:17.860 --> 01:19.780 and Jordan, where I live right now. 01:20.040 --> 01:22.860 Were you born as a Jordanian citizen or did that come later? 01:23.060 --> 01:24.680 Because people in the West Bank 01:24.680 --> 01:26.480 get Jordanian citizenship. 01:27.020 --> 01:29.620 It's a little bit complicated up until the 80s. 01:29.640 --> 01:31.880 It was just regular Jordanian citizenship. 01:31.980 --> 01:34.040 Then it became a sort of different kind 01:34.040 --> 01:34.900 of Jordanian citizenship. 01:36.400 --> 01:39.700 We were lucky that we kept the proper Jordanian citizenship. 01:39.920 --> 01:42.820 So we are Jordanians and now I live in Jordan 01:42.820 --> 01:43.540 and I love Jordan. 01:43.680 --> 01:44.620 I'm very happy to be there. 01:44.880 --> 01:45.500 It's a great place. 01:45.680 --> 01:48.760 But how do you get to go to the US and Brazil 01:48.760 --> 01:49.500 and all these places? 01:49.700 --> 01:51.920 How did your family accomplish that? 01:52.360 --> 01:53.600 You just need to apply for a visa. 01:54.960 --> 01:56.400 It's not that difficult. 01:57.060 --> 01:59.480 And a few years ago, my wife and I, 01:59.560 --> 02:01.760 we'd considered the possibility of getting a Canadian passport. 02:01.940 --> 02:03.320 She had the permanent residency. 02:03.720 --> 02:05.420 She was very close to getting the Canadian passport. 02:05.580 --> 02:07.080 We just needed to spend more time there. 02:07.600 --> 02:09.160 And we also considered moving to the US, 02:09.360 --> 02:10.500 seriously thought about it. 02:10.620 --> 02:12.080 And really, yeah, we considered moving. 02:12.260 --> 02:14.100 And we just decided it wasn't worth it. 02:14.320 --> 02:17.040 The Canadian passport wasn't worth spending more time there. 02:17.320 --> 02:17.580 Yeah. 02:17.800 --> 02:18.500 Why was that? 02:18.660 --> 02:21.180 Because like Jordan, TRC passport, to your point, 02:21.180 --> 02:22.140 sure, you can get visas. 02:22.340 --> 02:25.280 If you have a skill as your father had, a good job. 02:25.440 --> 02:26.800 If you have some wealth, you can do that. 02:27.100 --> 02:28.920 But I would imagine people would think, 02:29.040 --> 02:30.700 oh, it would be easier to be TRA Canadian. 02:30.980 --> 02:31.720 You can travel anywhere. 02:32.540 --> 02:35.420 The reason is that applying for an American visa 02:35.420 --> 02:38.000 once every four or five years and a Canadian visa 02:38.000 --> 02:40.840 once every four or five years and a European visa 02:40.840 --> 02:43.840 once a year, because you get it for about a year 02:43.840 --> 02:44.880 when you start getting it regularly, 02:45.800 --> 02:49.920 is a lot easier and better and a lot less hassle 02:49.920 --> 02:52.340 than having to deal with all of the baggage that comes 02:52.340 --> 02:53.160 with these passports. 02:53.540 --> 02:55.180 Of course, with the American, yeah, with the American, 02:55.300 --> 02:57.580 of course, it's because of worldwide taxation. 02:58.020 --> 02:59.460 Which will be in other countries eventually. 03:00.000 --> 03:00.360 Exactly. 03:00.640 --> 03:01.960 So you have that in the case of Canada. 03:02.120 --> 03:03.900 And in the case of Canada, for us, I mean, 03:03.900 --> 03:05.460 if we just could take the passport 03:05.460 --> 03:07.040 and not have to worry about taxation, 03:07.160 --> 03:08.100 then it would be worth it. 03:08.120 --> 03:10.120 But securing the passport would have required 03:10.120 --> 03:11.680 is to spend a lot of time in Canada. 03:12.180 --> 03:14.280 And that was in the aftermath of COVID. 03:14.540 --> 03:16.220 A couple of experiences with the health care system 03:16.220 --> 03:17.840 in Canada were absolutely shocking. 03:17.840 --> 03:19.700 And so when we lived in Canada, 03:20.720 --> 03:22.400 the coping mechanism was, well, 03:22.440 --> 03:23.960 we were living on the border with the U.S. 03:24.360 --> 03:26.120 You never had a problem in the U.S. 03:26.920 --> 03:27.420 No, I have not. 03:27.520 --> 03:28.160 Do they treat you well? 03:28.460 --> 03:29.840 Yeah, I cannot complain. 03:30.400 --> 03:33.200 I went, I did my graduate studies in Columbia University. 03:33.980 --> 03:38.680 I've never really felt any institutional racism 03:40.640 --> 03:42.380 or mistreatment because of my passport 03:42.380 --> 03:44.040 or where I'm from to be clear. 03:44.300 --> 03:46.980 You're the living embodiment of what we say 03:46.980 --> 03:50.440 that not everybody wants to move to the U.S., 03:50.440 --> 03:52.260 wants to move to Canada, even though you're already there. 03:52.380 --> 03:52.680 You know what? 03:52.780 --> 03:54.000 Hey, you can keep your passport. 03:54.180 --> 03:55.460 It's not worth the price. 03:55.720 --> 03:58.520 But don't you think that in the West, 03:59.040 --> 04:01.080 there are these things where everything has to be 04:01.080 --> 04:03.040 more complicated than what it is in Jordan 04:03.040 --> 04:05.640 or where it is in Malaysia or what is probably 04:05.640 --> 04:07.800 almost like the rest of the normal world? 04:08.180 --> 04:09.120 Why complicated? 04:09.580 --> 04:12.080 Yes, I think this is a very, very astute observation. 04:12.320 --> 04:14.000 I think it's just in the U.S. 04:14.040 --> 04:15.600 and in these Western countries 04:15.600 --> 04:16.600 and the way that I see it, 04:16.620 --> 04:18.160 because I see everything through the lens of money 04:18.160 --> 04:19.920 because of my books on Bitcoin and fiat, 04:20.640 --> 04:21.840 I think it's just these governments 04:21.840 --> 04:24.000 have a lot more leeway in terms of printing money. 04:24.220 --> 04:25.800 So that allows them to finance themselves 04:25.800 --> 04:27.320 and to keep coming up with stupid ideas 04:27.320 --> 04:28.620 of things that they need to do, 04:29.060 --> 04:31.140 which comes at the expense of people's lives. 04:31.260 --> 04:32.520 And so they're just always coming up 04:32.520 --> 04:34.980 with new bureaucracies and new reasons for you to do things. 04:34.980 --> 04:35.760 Unlike the rest of us, 04:35.840 --> 04:37.760 we often think about making sure we're making a living 04:37.760 --> 04:39.440 and making sure we're building our savings 04:39.440 --> 04:41.500 and protecting ourselves and protecting our assets. 04:41.660 --> 04:42.960 And we go up, these governments, right, 04:42.980 --> 04:44.440 they just push a button and they have the money 04:44.440 --> 04:45.140 and they don't worry it. 04:45.160 --> 04:47.060 So they find other ways to stay occupied. 04:47.340 --> 04:47.620 Exactly. 04:48.020 --> 04:50.380 And that just means more and more restrictions on your life. 04:50.720 --> 04:53.440 I think a good metric that I've recently begun using 04:53.440 --> 04:55.300 is I look at the exchange rate of the currency 04:55.300 --> 04:56.340 against the U.S. dollar. 04:56.640 --> 04:58.620 If your currency has been stable against the U.S. dollar 04:58.620 --> 04:59.540 for the last 20 years, 04:59.860 --> 05:01.580 that effectively means that your government 05:01.580 --> 05:03.860 has not been financing itself with inflation. 05:04.480 --> 05:05.400 You can't lie about that. 05:05.640 --> 05:07.660 If the government has been using money printing 05:07.660 --> 05:08.660 to finance itself, 05:09.220 --> 05:11.140 its currency is going to decline next to the dollar. 05:11.660 --> 05:13.640 If your government manages to keep the dollar 05:13.640 --> 05:15.720 rate stable over 20 years, 05:16.080 --> 05:17.720 that means the government is living off of taxes. 05:18.260 --> 05:19.680 And if a government has to live off taxes, 05:19.860 --> 05:22.820 it's a lot less wasteful and it's a lot more efficient. 05:23.240 --> 05:23.500 Right. 05:23.880 --> 05:25.120 It's an interesting way of looking at it. 05:25.500 --> 05:25.620 Right. 05:25.820 --> 05:27.240 Because I think when governments 05:27.240 --> 05:29.060 have to finance themselves with taxation, 05:29.700 --> 05:30.860 they run a budget. 05:31.180 --> 05:32.700 They have income and they have expenditure 05:32.700 --> 05:35.620 and they need to be a little bit more careful 05:35.620 --> 05:37.540 than if they just have a magic money printer 05:37.540 --> 05:39.100 where they come up with an idea, 05:39.300 --> 05:42.080 hey, wouldn't it be great to go finance this country, 05:42.080 --> 05:43.460 fighting that country for a war 05:43.460 --> 05:47.000 because we've got some nice feelings about this country 05:47.000 --> 05:48.200 and so let's go murder people. 05:48.540 --> 05:50.100 In the US, you just click a button 05:50.100 --> 05:51.600 and all of that money materializes 05:51.600 --> 05:54.500 and you finance all kinds of carnage 05:54.500 --> 05:55.920 and all kinds of horrific things. 05:56.240 --> 05:58.580 I don't proclaim to be an expert on this topic, 05:58.660 --> 06:01.040 but I'll take the United States, for example. 06:01.640 --> 06:03.600 It's anyone who wants to come after us 06:03.600 --> 06:05.540 must be jealous as the pretends 06:05.540 --> 06:06.640 to whatever we're going to do 06:06.640 --> 06:08.840 and maybe those are the things 06:08.840 --> 06:10.060 that we're not here talking about. 06:10.100 --> 06:11.020 Maybe that is military. 06:11.540 --> 06:14.040 But it's the propaganda, it's the way people think 06:14.040 --> 06:15.260 that hey, whatever the government says, 06:15.620 --> 06:17.440 oh, they're jealous of us for our freedom 06:17.440 --> 06:18.900 and then you go to all the places 06:18.900 --> 06:19.800 that we're talking about 06:19.800 --> 06:22.800 and you realize there's a pretty healthy amount 06:22.800 --> 06:25.340 of freedom there and maybe not as much of it's written down 06:25.880 --> 06:28.680 but maybe more of it is actually offered in practice 06:28.680 --> 06:30.080 and you think jealousy. 06:30.700 --> 06:32.520 Yeah, no, I think this is very true. 06:32.640 --> 06:35.100 I think it's if you travel around the Arab Gulf 06:35.740 --> 06:36.800 it's really stark. 06:37.180 --> 06:39.560 One very interesting story is when I was a kid, 06:39.560 --> 06:42.460 I was growing up in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s 06:42.460 --> 06:44.460 and I remember we would go to vacation to Europe 06:44.460 --> 06:45.580 and to the U.S. 06:45.740 --> 06:50.120 and I remember going from a small city in Saudi Arabia 06:50.120 --> 06:52.260 back then to Chicago and New York 06:52.260 --> 06:54.740 and seeing the skyscrapers and being blown away 06:54.740 --> 06:55.980 but just how amazing it was. 06:56.420 --> 06:58.360 And then I remember a few years ago, a friend of mine, 06:59.020 --> 07:00.160 her name is Natalie Brunel. 07:00.320 --> 07:02.840 She went to cover a Bitcoin conference in Dubai 07:02.840 --> 07:04.280 and I saw her social media 07:04.280 --> 07:05.880 in the post that she was posting about it in Dubai. 07:05.940 --> 07:07.960 She lives in LA or she lived in LA at that time 07:08.880 --> 07:12.960 and it was shocking for me to realize that she went to Dubai 07:12.960 --> 07:14.820 and she was posting pictures of Dubai 07:15.540 --> 07:18.940 similar to how I would have gone to the U.S. in the 1980s. 07:18.980 --> 07:20.660 Back when Dubai was two camels. 07:20.960 --> 07:21.260 Exactly. 07:21.560 --> 07:24.720 In the 80s, LA was what everybody in the world looked for 07:24.720 --> 07:26.320 but if you've been to LA recently. 07:26.660 --> 07:28.900 Was it ever as good as they said, do you think? 07:29.300 --> 07:29.920 I don't know. 07:30.080 --> 07:31.680 I didn't live in it extensively. 07:32.000 --> 07:33.380 I think I may have gone for a couple of days 07:33.380 --> 07:35.040 when I was a kid but I don't really remember it 07:35.380 --> 07:37.540 but it's definitely nowhere near as good 07:37.540 --> 07:38.740 as they think it is today. 07:39.040 --> 07:40.920 And I think I find it hilarious that Americans think 07:40.920 --> 07:45.040 that people are jealous of the Americans way of life 07:45.040 --> 07:47.240 because realistically, if you live in Dubai 07:47.240 --> 07:50.620 you pay very little taxes, you are safe, 07:51.220 --> 07:52.380 the streets are clean, 07:53.100 --> 07:55.740 you all have incredible services for everything. 07:55.800 --> 07:56.800 Oh but it's too hot. 07:57.360 --> 07:58.060 It's a little hot. 07:58.720 --> 08:00.320 Yeah, well there's air conditioning 08:00.900 --> 08:02.120 but putting the weather aside, 08:02.660 --> 08:04.380 the most important thing for me is 08:04.380 --> 08:07.280 in terms of quality of life is your safety 08:07.280 --> 08:09.620 and your ability to own your property 08:09.620 --> 08:12.040 and taxes are a big part of that. 08:12.300 --> 08:13.940 Taxes are just the theft of your property. 08:14.660 --> 08:16.840 So living in a place like LA or San Francisco 08:16.840 --> 08:18.180 or Chicago or New York today, 08:18.220 --> 08:20.420 you're paying about half of your income in taxes 08:20.420 --> 08:22.440 depending on your income, depending on the state taxes 08:22.440 --> 08:23.940 but you're paying something like half. 08:24.300 --> 08:25.680 You go to Dubai, you go to Qatar, 08:26.520 --> 08:27.400 you go to the Arab Gulf, 08:27.740 --> 08:30.260 you pay somewhere between zero and three percent 08:30.260 --> 08:31.000 or something like that. 08:31.560 --> 08:33.600 If you're in Bitcoin, maybe a little bit more 08:33.600 --> 08:35.700 if you're an entrepreneur as they raise the corporate tax 08:35.700 --> 08:36.660 but for Bitcoin still. 08:36.980 --> 08:39.220 Yeah, still it's a tiny fraction of what you'd pay there 08:39.740 --> 08:41.100 and you get safe streets. 08:41.360 --> 08:43.400 You can walk around, you don't have to worry 08:43.400 --> 08:45.180 about your kids getting abducted every five minutes. 08:45.500 --> 08:46.760 My explanation for which I discussed 08:46.760 --> 08:48.960 in my last book, Principles of Economics 08:50.220 --> 08:54.080 is that ultimately places that have to compete 08:54.080 --> 08:56.540 for citizens are like businesses. 08:57.160 --> 08:58.700 So even though it's a government 08:58.700 --> 09:00.420 and you don't think of a government as a business 09:00.420 --> 09:02.660 but the Gulf countries are businesses. 09:02.920 --> 09:04.900 They've had to compete for the majority of their workforce 09:05.300 --> 09:06.880 for the past 50, 60 years. 09:07.400 --> 09:09.820 Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, 09:10.380 --> 09:13.460 Oman, these countries, the majority of their residents 09:13.460 --> 09:17.660 are foreigners so they needed to attract talent from Europe, 09:17.900 --> 09:20.400 from the US, from South Asia, from Africa, 09:20.460 --> 09:21.280 from all over the world 09:21.820 --> 09:24.600 and so that means they must offer something attractive. 09:24.800 --> 09:26.700 Nobody forces anybody in Dubai. 09:26.920 --> 09:28.500 They didn't have anybody, they built it from scratch. 09:28.500 --> 09:30.740 In 20 years ago it was a punchline. 09:30.960 --> 09:31.920 Dubai was a punchline. 09:32.380 --> 09:35.480 And what Dubai did, which was really very smart 09:35.480 --> 09:38.940 is that they basically copied the commercial law of Hong Kong 09:38.940 --> 09:42.320 which was copied from Britain, from the city of London. 09:42.860 --> 09:47.000 And so it's a set of ways of managing commercial law 09:47.000 --> 09:48.440 that has evolved over hundreds of years 09:48.440 --> 09:50.820 at the epicenter of global capitalism 09:50.820 --> 09:53.380 where London had developed these codes 09:53.380 --> 09:56.500 over common law tradition, over hundreds of years 09:56.500 --> 09:59.240 to suit the needs of business. 09:59.940 --> 10:01.300 And Dubai copied that 10:01.980 --> 10:03.840 and that's why people from all over the world 10:03.840 --> 10:05.480 want to get headquartered in Dubai today. 10:05.920 --> 10:08.720 And I think that's a lot more conducive to business 10:08.720 --> 10:13.540 than what you're seeing in the legacy of countries 10:13.540 --> 10:16.820 where the, again, the money printer 10:16.820 --> 10:20.240 just allows them to continuously treat their people 10:20.240 --> 10:22.680 as a cattle to be sheared 10:22.680 --> 10:25.780 rather than as resources to be developed. 10:25.780 --> 10:27.860 I mentioned on stage last night 10:28.380 --> 10:31.520 that as, whether it's loss of the power of sanctions, 10:32.980 --> 10:35.700 marginal continual losses of world reserve currency, 10:35.840 --> 10:37.300 whatever it is, anything we're talking about, 10:37.700 --> 10:40.060 as the legacy brand countries, the US being the biggest, 10:40.580 --> 10:42.680 lose little marginal pieces of power, 10:42.860 --> 10:44.460 they're gonna have to become more and more aggressive. 10:44.680 --> 10:46.480 Like a tiger, you corner, 10:47.500 --> 10:49.760 and it has to eventually just come out and attack you. 10:49.880 --> 10:50.900 What do you think about that? 10:51.320 --> 10:52.400 I think that's the case, yeah. 10:52.660 --> 10:54.120 This is also borne out by experience 10:54.120 --> 10:55.360 in the last few decades. 10:55.640 --> 10:57.440 You see tax rates constantly going up, 10:57.920 --> 10:59.800 government spending constantly going up. 11:00.520 --> 11:03.500 There, to borrow a phrase, there's no stopping the strain. 11:03.980 --> 11:07.080 It's, the incentives are baked in at the political level. 11:07.260 --> 11:08.160 It's too late, probably, yeah. 11:08.360 --> 11:10.660 I think we've probably reached a very important 11:10.660 --> 11:11.940 tipic point over the last year, 11:12.020 --> 11:14.620 which is that the interest expense on the national debt 11:14.620 --> 11:16.880 has overtaken the defense budget. 11:17.420 --> 11:18.820 Yeah, and the defense budget is enormous. 11:19.100 --> 11:20.820 A lot of people are being killed 11:20.820 --> 11:22.740 by enormously expensive American weapons. 11:22.740 --> 11:23.760 By the defense. 11:24.040 --> 11:25.080 By the defense, exactly. 11:25.260 --> 11:26.500 A lot of innocent people all over the world 11:26.500 --> 11:28.660 are getting killed with extremely expensive weapons. 11:28.900 --> 11:31.060 You know, these bombs that are being thrown at Lebanon 11:31.060 --> 11:32.620 and Gaza, they're being thrown at houses 11:32.620 --> 11:33.740 that are worth $50,000, 11:34.360 --> 11:36.060 you're throwing a $5 million bomb 11:36.060 --> 11:37.500 and it's killing 20 people. 11:37.560 --> 11:39.040 Why would you, if that were the case, 11:39.320 --> 11:40.660 and I've thought about this a bit, 11:40.860 --> 11:43.060 why would you wanna be American at some point? 11:43.120 --> 11:44.000 Why would you wanna live there? 11:45.200 --> 11:47.420 I think there's, if I were to make the case for it, 11:47.440 --> 11:50.220 I still think if you had a startup, 11:50.220 --> 11:53.340 I think that's probably the best case I could come up with. 11:53.420 --> 11:55.100 If you had a startup and you're looking for funding, 11:55.560 --> 11:57.120 probably being in America is a great place 11:57.120 --> 11:59.960 to secure funding, to secure venture capital for early stage, 12:00.880 --> 12:02.820 and probably to list on IPO, 12:03.300 --> 12:05.600 it's because it's the biggest, deepest capital market. 12:05.600 --> 12:06.740 Don't those things just seem like a different, 12:06.920 --> 12:08.560 maybe I'm thinking small. 12:09.040 --> 12:11.220 Those things always seem like their own form of control. 12:11.920 --> 12:12.840 I don't wanna be my own boss. 12:13.020 --> 12:14.160 So I'm gonna get, I'm gonna raise money 12:14.160 --> 12:16.100 so I can basically have a new boss, 12:16.440 --> 12:18.580 or I'm gonna have the average person 12:18.580 --> 12:19.840 buying shares of my stock. 12:19.840 --> 12:21.140 I mean, look at the Trump media stock 12:21.620 --> 12:23.760 with all the retail investors buying that. 12:23.840 --> 12:25.660 It's down 30% in a week sometimes. 12:26.520 --> 12:27.120 Am I right? 12:27.580 --> 12:29.240 No, no, I agree. 12:29.460 --> 12:30.280 I think- 12:30.280 --> 12:31.100 I'd say start a business in Dubai 12:31.100 --> 12:32.040 and don't take the funding. 12:32.220 --> 12:32.480 Exactly. 12:32.800 --> 12:34.180 I would strap my own business, 12:34.340 --> 12:35.620 my website where I teach my courses. 12:35.840 --> 12:36.920 I just decided from day one 12:36.920 --> 12:38.460 I'm going to generate enough income 12:38.460 --> 12:39.680 to manage my costs. 12:39.860 --> 12:41.480 So much more sustainable that way, don't you think? 12:41.600 --> 12:43.800 Yeah, I don't have to report to people all the time. 12:43.900 --> 12:44.760 I can just do what I want 12:44.760 --> 12:45.840 and I need to report for myself. 12:46.080 --> 12:48.580 Obviously there are advantages to working with 12:48.580 --> 12:50.680 venture capital, working with people 12:50.680 --> 12:51.840 who have experience with this thing. 12:52.240 --> 12:53.520 So I don't completely dismiss it, 12:53.600 --> 12:56.700 but that for me is the best case 12:56.700 --> 12:58.100 for why you would want to be in the U.S. 12:58.100 --> 12:59.640 and I know several people who've moved there 12:59.640 --> 12:59.960 for that reason. 12:59.960 --> 13:00.800 Could you live with yourself? 13:01.060 --> 13:02.800 If you said I'm gonna become an American citizen 13:02.800 --> 13:05.280 because you live there, would you feel at odds 13:05.280 --> 13:07.780 knowing that you are against how that money is spent? 13:08.500 --> 13:11.980 Yeah, the moral aspect of it is very heavy. 13:12.120 --> 13:14.620 Although to be fair, realistically the U.S. government 13:14.620 --> 13:16.200 doesn't just rob American citizens 13:16.200 --> 13:17.240 in order to finance itself, 13:17.240 --> 13:18.800 it drops the entire planet with inflation. 13:19.080 --> 13:20.340 So if you're using the dollar, 13:20.700 --> 13:22.220 you're financing American government 13:22.720 --> 13:25.120 and that's why you shouldn't use the dollar. 13:25.220 --> 13:26.780 That's why I encourage people to have as much 13:26.780 --> 13:28.320 of their money in Bitcoin as possible 13:28.320 --> 13:30.640 because the more you hold in dollars, 13:30.900 --> 13:32.720 the more you're providing value for the dollar, 13:32.840 --> 13:34.120 the more they're able to print 13:34.120 --> 13:36.060 and take that value away from you, 13:36.240 --> 13:37.860 which is A, impoverishing you 13:37.860 --> 13:39.940 and B, enriching them and allowing them 13:39.940 --> 13:43.420 to do all of the horrific, violent criminal things 13:43.420 --> 13:44.380 that they do all over the world. 13:44.580 --> 13:45.480 Let's talk about El Salvador. 13:45.940 --> 13:47.820 I know you were at Bitcoin Beach recently. 13:48.240 --> 13:51.160 What are your thoughts on what they're doing with Bitcoin? 13:51.700 --> 13:54.100 I am a huge fan of El Salvador 13:54.100 --> 13:55.540 and a huge fan of President Buqueta. 13:55.600 --> 13:57.160 I think he's been doing a tremendous job. 13:57.360 --> 13:58.240 It's truly a miracle. 13:58.580 --> 14:00.740 El Salvador was the murder capital of the world 14:00.740 --> 14:01.920 up until a few years ago. 14:02.340 --> 14:04.600 He took over and now it is the safest country 14:04.600 --> 14:05.400 in the Western Hemisphere, 14:05.540 --> 14:07.100 safer than the U.S., safer than Canada, 14:07.620 --> 14:08.460 on course this year. 14:08.660 --> 14:10.000 Crime statistics, by the end of the year, 14:11.160 --> 14:12.800 unless something drastic happens, 14:13.380 --> 14:14.900 the U.S. gets its act together 14:14.900 --> 14:16.660 or El Salvador breaks out into violence. 14:16.660 --> 14:19.020 The U.S. is in the bottom half of safe countries in the world 14:19.020 --> 14:20.020 for violent crime. 14:20.500 --> 14:22.240 Well, the Western Hemisphere is generally 14:22.240 --> 14:23.400 a lot more unsafe. 14:24.180 --> 14:25.640 So El Salvador is now, I think, 14:25.700 --> 14:27.300 the safest country in the Western Hemisphere. 14:27.440 --> 14:29.680 So this has been an incredible, incredible transformation 14:30.230 --> 14:31.580 but also add to that the fact 14:31.580 --> 14:34.040 that President Buqueta has been buying Bitcoin 14:34.040 --> 14:35.500 and accumulating Bitcoin, 14:35.560 --> 14:38.060 which I find to be enormously valuable. 14:38.400 --> 14:39.460 I think a lot of people 14:39.460 --> 14:41.480 have had a misconception about Bitcoin. 14:41.980 --> 14:43.280 They think of it as being a replacement 14:43.280 --> 14:44.460 for Visa credit cards 14:44.460 --> 14:46.500 or a replacement for the Western Union 14:46.500 --> 14:48.560 or a replacement for PayPal. 14:48.860 --> 14:50.420 And what I argue in my book, The Bitcoin Standard, 14:50.560 --> 14:52.260 which I think is what made the book successful, 14:52.440 --> 14:53.880 is that I presented the case for it 14:53.880 --> 14:56.040 as not being a payment technology 14:56.040 --> 14:57.960 but being a financial asset. 14:58.440 --> 15:00.260 And therefore, it's not out there competing 15:00.260 --> 15:01.540 with Visa and PayPal 15:02.120 --> 15:05.360 because Visa and PayPal can just use Bitcoin. 15:05.600 --> 15:06.840 Visa supports 150... 15:06.840 --> 15:08.320 You can get a PayPal account with Bitcoin. 15:08.560 --> 15:10.520 Yes, and Visa has 150 currencies. 15:10.520 --> 15:13.080 So adding one more is not a major issue. 15:13.380 --> 15:15.020 And I think the interesting thing is, 15:15.100 --> 15:17.580 if you keep extrapolating this over the next five years, 15:18.100 --> 15:19.760 everybody who's got US government bonds 15:19.760 --> 15:20.920 is going to be worse off. 15:21.340 --> 15:23.680 Their assets are going to be less valuable. 15:24.000 --> 15:25.300 Their government is going to be financed. 15:25.360 --> 15:26.560 It's going to have financial problems 15:26.560 --> 15:28.360 because your assets are being devalued. 15:28.440 --> 15:29.900 Your government bonds are becoming worthless. 15:30.460 --> 15:31.600 Whereas El Salvador is becoming, 15:32.120 --> 15:33.440 as having its balance sheet increase. 15:33.600 --> 15:35.940 And you know, Bitcoin's gone up tremendous amounts. 15:36.120 --> 15:37.600 So they've held it now for three years. 15:38.060 --> 15:40.560 Maybe next year we get a major bull run. 15:41.080 --> 15:43.320 And then that completely transforms El Salvador's expenses. 15:43.840 --> 15:47.040 And what President Buqueta said they're going to do next year 15:47.040 --> 15:49.360 is that they're not going to have a budget deficit. 15:49.460 --> 15:50.480 They're going to run a budget surplus. 15:51.080 --> 15:52.580 So now if you start running a budget surplus 15:52.580 --> 15:53.940 and you stop borrowing 15:54.940 --> 15:56.480 and you start accumulating Bitcoin, 15:57.100 --> 15:59.780 the entire model of government in the 21st century 15:59.780 --> 16:00.820 is going to be different 16:00.820 --> 16:02.580 from the model of government in the 20th century. 16:02.640 --> 16:03.820 The 20th century was all about 16:04.420 --> 16:05.980 governments borrowing as much as they can, 16:05.980 --> 16:07.800 creating as much inflation as they can, 16:07.960 --> 16:09.220 and taxing as much as they can. 16:09.700 --> 16:10.880 All of that comes down to the fact 16:10.880 --> 16:12.800 that they just can't have a good form of money 16:12.800 --> 16:13.600 that would hold value. 16:13.760 --> 16:15.420 Now that you have a good form of money 16:15.420 --> 16:16.820 that can hold value over time, 16:17.020 --> 16:18.520 I think the most successful governments 16:18.520 --> 16:19.780 are going to do what Buqueta is doing, 16:19.880 --> 16:21.180 which is we don't want debt. 16:21.300 --> 16:23.200 We don't want to have our citizens taxed 16:23.200 --> 16:24.920 to pay interest on the national debt. 16:25.280 --> 16:27.320 Instead, we're going to keep accumulating 16:27.840 --> 16:29.660 hard assets that are going to keep appreciating. 16:30.420 --> 16:32.840 And we are going to spend less than we earn. 16:33.000 --> 16:34.060 The country's so behind 16:34.060 --> 16:36.240 because of lack of investment over the last 40 years 16:36.660 --> 16:38.760 that if you provide the security 16:38.760 --> 16:40.620 that's going to bring in that investment, 16:41.200 --> 16:43.960 you can see the country growing enormously. 16:44.080 --> 16:46.880 There's just an enormous amount of potential ahead of it. 16:47.100 --> 16:50.240 And I think Bitcoin is going to help make this sustainable 16:50.240 --> 16:52.240 because it's money that appreciates over time 16:52.240 --> 16:53.760 completely changes the way 16:53.760 --> 16:55.320 that people approach everything in life. 16:55.540 --> 16:57.520 If your money is depreciating over time, 16:58.080 --> 16:59.080 the future is insecure, 16:59.580 --> 17:01.320 you become a lot more present oriented, 17:01.320 --> 17:03.820 you have very high discounting rate for the future. 17:04.020 --> 17:06.260 You're more likely to engage in reckless behavior 17:06.260 --> 17:07.880 that endangers you for the future. 17:08.080 --> 17:09.900 You're more likely to engage in criminal behavior, 17:10.040 --> 17:10.820 immoral behavior, 17:10.960 --> 17:12.940 because you don't care about long-term consequences. 17:13.200 --> 17:14.740 Ultimately, the moral problem 17:15.640 --> 17:17.860 is rooted in my opinion in money. 17:18.100 --> 17:19.240 Once money is devalued, 17:19.260 --> 17:20.820 once money is being destroyed, 17:21.300 --> 17:24.040 then people find it very hard to provide for their future. 17:24.440 --> 17:25.940 And therefore they discount the future more 17:25.940 --> 17:28.700 and they behave in much more destructive ways. 17:29.140 --> 17:32.420 So I think as El Salvador stacks more Bitcoin, 17:32.960 --> 17:34.580 I think everybody in the country 17:34.580 --> 17:38.020 from the president down to the Pupusa stand, 17:38.380 --> 17:40.260 they're going to become more future oriented, 17:40.480 --> 17:42.240 they're going to become more peaceful, more civilized. 17:42.640 --> 17:46.840 And I believe it's a pretty sustainable improvement 17:46.840 --> 17:48.260 and I hope it continues. 17:48.560 --> 17:50.120 Real quick, Bitcoin Beach, you were there. 17:50.200 --> 17:52.300 What's going on in El Santa, is it? 17:52.480 --> 17:52.700 Yeah. 17:52.900 --> 17:54.320 You're down there with Max Kaiser. 17:54.700 --> 17:56.160 Yes, I was there with Max and Stacey. 17:56.300 --> 17:57.360 It's a beautiful, beautiful place. 17:57.360 --> 17:58.140 It's amazing. 17:59.140 --> 18:00.500 Is he wearing the orange shoes still? 18:01.140 --> 18:02.020 Always, I think. 18:02.720 --> 18:04.440 It's attracting a lot of tourists from all over the world, 18:04.580 --> 18:05.920 particularly Bitcoin tourists. 18:06.220 --> 18:08.460 And I think Bitcoiners are becoming a significant part 18:08.460 --> 18:10.240 of the tourism income of El Salvador, 18:10.420 --> 18:12.620 because it's really put the country on the map for Bitcoiners. 18:13.120 --> 18:14.940 And because of the way that Bitcoin appreciates, 18:15.020 --> 18:17.260 Bitcoiners generally tend to have a lot of disposable income. 18:17.440 --> 18:19.860 So it's probably demographic 18:19.860 --> 18:22.400 that has a lot more money to spend than other demographics. 18:22.480 --> 18:24.160 And more time flexibility in many cases. 18:24.360 --> 18:25.080 And more time flexibility. 18:25.340 --> 18:27.160 A lot of Bitcoiners just don't need to be 18:27.160 --> 18:28.440 in the office 24-7. 18:28.700 --> 18:30.180 What's the best hotel in El Santa? 18:30.500 --> 18:31.060 Where would you stay? 18:31.420 --> 18:33.480 Well, I stayed in a very nice place called the Garten. 18:33.860 --> 18:35.780 It's a small place, I think it's only five rooms or so. 18:36.220 --> 18:37.200 But it's right on the beach. 18:37.520 --> 18:38.440 They've got a great restaurant. 18:39.180 --> 18:41.160 And they have surf lessons there. 18:41.240 --> 18:43.120 So if you don't know how to surf, it's a great place to go. 18:43.200 --> 18:44.460 I took my first surf lessons there. 18:44.660 --> 18:45.340 We'll have to go to Amman. 18:45.400 --> 18:47.400 We'll have to do a Live Like a King in Amman at some point 18:47.400 --> 18:47.900 and show people what it's like. 18:47.920 --> 18:49.020 Absolutely. We'd love to have you. 18:49.140 --> 18:50.660 We should maybe do a conference there. 18:50.760 --> 18:51.760 It's a great place to have conferences. 18:52.020 --> 18:52.420 They've got a lot of nice venues. 18:52.420 --> 18:53.660 You can fly in at Real Jordanian. 18:53.660 --> 18:55.580 And yeah, we've got Petra as well. 18:55.700 --> 18:57.180 The Dead Sea, you've got to float in the Dead Sea. 18:57.640 --> 18:58.360 And you've got to see Petra. 18:58.440 --> 19:00.440 It's an incredible city that's all carved in stone. 19:01.180 --> 19:02.420 Let's do the next conference in Amman. 19:02.640 --> 19:04.140 Oh, well, we'll take it under advisement. 19:04.200 --> 19:04.760 Save it, Inamos. 19:05.440 --> 19:06.920 Good to see you here at Nomad Capitalist Live. 19:07.300 --> 19:07.440 Thank you. 19:07.460 --> 19:07.820 Thank you.