The End of Scarcity with Kristen Ragusin

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself second, and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Welcome today's episode of the show. I'm your host, Dr. Aziz, and I have a special guest with me today that I'm very excited to talk about. And I think by the end of this episode, you're going to be very excited that we have had this conversation with her and that we all could learn because it's a topic that you might not immediately be focusing on when it comes to confidence, which is confidence around money and your capacity to create wealth and experience that freedom, as well as to maybe take a step back and question who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to do, maybe even take another step back and even look at what, what is money. And we're going to get into all of that. And the goal of this, as always, is liberation, freedom for you to choose your life and steer the life that you want in. In the direction that you want. And so my guest today is Kristin Ragason and she's the best selling author of a book called the End of Scarcity, which we're definitely going to talk about. I have lots of questions about this philosophically as well as practically around scarcity, but she, her background is a professional wealth management Advisor with over 30 years of experience, and she's certified a digital currency expert. She earned her master's degree from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She has a certificate in fintech from MIT and Money mechanics from Cumbria in London. So a lot of exposure and learning and immersion in the world of money and finance. But then also she's an adventurous spirit at heart, climbing Kilimanjaro and hiking the Sahara Desert. And so we're going to bring some of that adventure into this conversation as well. So, Kristen, thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh, thanks so much. It's so great to be here with you.

Yeah. So we got to dive right into scarcity and the end of scarcity. So the idea of scarcity and abundance is something, I think many people have heard those terms if they've done any personal development or read books about this kind of stuff in the last 15, 20 years. Seems like that, you know, there's a lot of like an abundance mindset. And I, when I'm teaching people confidence, I see a massive benefit in an abundance mindset, whether it's dating, you know, there's an abundance of opportunities, career, money. And so I have some maybe skepticism or questions about scarcity when it comes to money. But, but before we get into that, let's just talk about this idea of the end scarcity versus abundance when it comes to, to money. Or maybe the book goes even beyond money. Right? And so we'll kind of explore what, what does that mean, abundance or what is the end of scarcity. And you know, why, why the title of the book and, and feel free to share a little bit about, you know, what led to the writing of this book too, so we can get a sense of you.

Oh, it's so great. It's sort of so hard to imagine that this is literal the end of scarcity in our world. And this is really where we stand, we stand on the precipice that we have the opportunity as almost the first civilization in thousands of years to recreate our structures and not really create a utopia, but create the un blockages of the abund that's there waiting for us all the time. So, and this is true because we're living in the illusion of scarcity, no matter how real it feels. And I think even just listening to your, you know, your wise opening comments here, we're almost oscillating moment to moment between scarcity and abundance. You know, it could be every five minutes, it could be every five seconds where those thoughts are shifting. And both, both are absolutely possible at any moment. So, but the book actually gets into the structural part in society, which I didn't. I. A wild adventure led me here and it was so shocking and then liberating. I first wrote the book for myself, then I had my mom read it, then I probably had to rewrite it a thousand times. And then I really wrote it because I thought, wow, everyone needs to know this. And, and this is the information our grandparents were looking for, our great grandparents. And so scarcity, we know when we're tuned into things. You know, we're incredibly powerful beings and we can absolutely lock into that and that's what we find. And then also we, we know when we're reignited by our passion and the sense of our true selves, we can all of a sudden connect back into abundance, but we're dealing with society where we're actually structured on mechanics of scarcity. And this is sort of the shocking thing because it involves everyone as if we're on a great big circle together, and we believe, okay, I'm right, you know, he's wrong, she's wrong, but I'm right. And. And often we're feeling we're right to make ourselves feel better. Of course, we secretly worry that we're wrong, and it oscillates back and forth and sort of the good news and the bad news is that we are right and wrong at the same time. We're using a system that actually is unfortunately working everybody as hard as it possibly can and creating scarcity through, actually through the money unit. And that's. That's sort of a. The dollar itself, the way it's created, produces scarcity in our world. And I think this is shocking, but it's also the wonderful passage of liberation for us.

Yeah. So I definitely want to get into the weeds of that. Of the. The mechanics of the dollar and currency. And it's something that I didn't think at all about, you know, as. As short as five years ago. I remember maybe 10 years ago, someone gave me this little pamphlet that was about the Federal Reserve. And it was like, the secrets they don't want you to know about the Federal Reserve. And I remember looking. I was probably my early, you know, maybe it was long. It was like almost 20 years ago. It was my early 20s. And I looked at. And I was like, I don't even know, man, this thing looks janky. I know. I don't. I don't, you know, and I just didn't even really care. And it was only about five years ago, six years ago, when I. I spent a. I invested a lot of money in the bull market of cryptocurrency in 2017. Rode the wave for about a month, and then the whole thing just, you know, tanked. And all of a sudden I was like, wait a minute, What? I gotta, like, study this. And then I proceeded to make another investment that was. That I lost. And then I was like, all right, I really have to study this. I gotta understand. And it. So it started almost like, how do I make money? And then it became, what is money? So I really want to get into that. Before we do, though, let's take a moment, sort of philosophically, to look at scarcity, because I think it's interesting you said, now we're at the first time in human history where this is a possibility. So I want to hear what you mean by that because when I observe sort of the natural world and animals within it, to me there does seem to be this kind of built in competition for resources. You know, the wolves want their territory so they can get the deer and the deer want to get away from the wolves. And then they, if they do, then they expand and then there's not enough food for the deer. And there's this checks and balances in nature and, and, and these forces that are kind of keeping things in a way limited. And you know, there are, there are finite of certain resources that we're currently using, like oil. Maybe they can, you know, get more creative to get more juice out of that orange for a while. And so of course, you know, technologically you could get into harnessing, you know, a Dyson sphere around the sun to get infinite energy. There's all these things. So do you, is it sort of that through technology or through some evolution of humanity we can somehow tap into an abundance that's almost beyond the, the natural animal status of the world? Or do you see it differently than me and say hey, you know what, it looks like there's scarcity among animals and, and sort of basic resources on, on the planet, but actually it's different. And I'm open to hearing any different perspective.

You know, I can't say that I'm really an expert on, you know, I haven't really studied the environment to a large degree just being a lover of nature. And I, I mean for sure resources are scarce. I mean they, they have to be in the sense that we go through all kinds of cycles. But I, I do think there's a symbiosis in nature, a natural harmony, even a respect among prey and predator in nature that's, that's very different. You know, I, from what I can tell there seems to be an agreement to not touch little babies, you know, and even where you see prey and predator taking care of a stray or abandoned baby and, and then really more of an agreement maybe of which of the herd is going to be used. I really do think this happens with trees. I think trees are a vast network underneath and one or two trees sort of, you know, take something on for the who whole amount. It's my firm belief literally that nature is singing so that bugs and birds and trees, I really believe trees are singing all of nature in the unaudable space that maybe humanity yet can't fully access. There's A song. And so, you know, here we are in our brilliance and our sophistication and our desire to learn and create. And still the vast majority of the time we're telling stories about our woes. You know, we're sort of this incredibly conscious, maybe Atari stick driving, showing my age, essence of the creation, right? And yet, you know, we're still stuck in a lower resonance of self doubt. Scarcity really is the lack of confidence, isn't it? You know, and this is why it really can come in any moment. We can get a strange bill, we can get a strange quote, we can be worried about something at work, something at home. And it triggers, it triggers something deep and ancestral inhumanity from all the wars and struggles that are still in our DNA, alive in us, and even sort of as we're going through the shift, which really does look like a massive reorganization. So I still believe it is a vastly resourceful planet, truly an abundant planet in the sense that one acorn produces, you know, how many oak trees and you know, one grain of sand, one drop of water, one ray of light and all the technologies that we don't really know about, that maybe we don't know about because again, this illusion of scarcity is being held in place.

I love, I love all of that. And you know, for those of you who hear trees singing and roll your eyes, you know, I heard a statistic and I want to get the exact number, this was from a physicist, but that the human sense organs can perceive 0.003% of the spectrum of, of information that's happening right now. That means 99.997% is invisible or inaudible or happening without you knowing it. And of course we all know that with our cell phones that we don't hear the transmission of that data, but there's a lot more. And so before we roll our eyes at this stuff, I might say, you know, eat a handful of mushrooms and. No, but so I think that's a really interesting point too about this. When like what we're plugging into and what we're looking for and what we're listening for, and there's this abundance available in terms of when you say how many oak trees can an acorn produce? It's infinite, right? Because that oak tree produces more acorns produces more. So there's so much there. And then, yes, we can get in fear and there's kind of two parts to look at, right? One is a, is almost a personal. I don't know if we can separate the personal from the environment we're in, but the personal, which is like, in this moment right now, my mindset is one or the other. And I know that I've experienced anytime I have a sense of, like, I need something out there to be a certain way right now or else. And there's that grass beat. Like, I am stressed and I'm less powerful and stuff doesn't go that well. And then when it's like, hey, it's, it's okay. It's gonna happen in some way or another. If it's not that, it's this. And then all of a sudden stuff shows up. So that's the personal side. We can explore that. But then you also said something about the structure of society, so when it comes to money itself. So let's actually start with that, the bigger picture. And feel free to give us a history lesson of, you know, because I don't think many, many people have really studied at all the money or the history of the dollar or currencies or fiat or anything. So anything that'll be useful for us to understand how you perceive that the, the game is set up for scarcity.

Yeah, this is the critical passage. You know, most people wouldn't question this. I didn't question this. You know, I even started girl having to earn my allowance from my dad explaining how the markets worked, you know, I was fine.

That was your. That was your nice, good.

You know, and I would have to explain interest rates to earn my dollar that week, you know, and if I got it wrong, I didn't get the dollar. So. So I really learned, you know, and even with this type of experience, I would have thought I really understood money. But. But I really didn't. Because when we're little babies or little people run our parents or the people around us and the sun and the moon and money, you know, we don't really question it. We just say, hey, look at that. Or at some point we come to realize it's pretty important. It can be a positive, it can be a negative relationship. For me, it was very fun, sort of. I was excited. Like, wow, if I learned how I could walk dogs or, you know, organize papers for my father, I could get some of this stuff and I could go downtown and get what I wanted, you know, and it was really exciting and empowering. So. So we don't question it. We. We are born in the world where we see it and we right away are orchestrated in our minds to thinking that, number one, it's a thing that, like a table or a lamp Or a clock. It exists and it exists out there and it's stable. And when the sun rises, it's there. When the sun sets, it's not there. It may not be with us, but it's, it's out there in society. So this puts us in a really sort of unique, precarious position because we, without knowing, have a very uncomfortable conscious relationship or acceptance of money. And now, especially where we're living our lives, which is quote, unquote, advanced with all the information specialization, but intensity, you know, we have, we have such intensity and, and really in many ways sort of less time than even the generations before us. So people are sort of in the mode of how do I make money now that I have some. What, you know, what am I going to spend on it? Maybe what am I going to invest it on? And that's where it stop. And this is the linchpin, because money itself was never meant to be a thing. And so money, even today in our world does not exist separately. Some people will argue with me about this who are really, you know, monetary reform geeks. They'll say, first of all, I shouldn't use the word money. I should only use the word currency. And second of all, you know, we could get into the complicated mechanics, but the truth of it is, and this has not always been this, the, the actual way dollar or the unit of exchange has been designed has changed over and over and over in the history of the United States. We're probably on our eighth iteration, seventh to eighth, depending on how we define it. And today we do not have dollars. We only have mortgage debt. And this is really critical because when we wonder where, just like, you know, if we wonder where babies come from, do the storks bring them, you know, do the Federal Resort Reserve storks bring the dollars? Where, where do these dollars come from? You know, we just already have this experience of, of interacting with them. And I will say that the Federal Reserve does not create our money. And that can be sort of heretical. You know, even my business partner, I worked with him for 20 years and very bright man said to me, what do you mean? I said, read it twice. And the book is written so easy, friendly, I wrote it. Our money is created when people go to the bank to get a mortgage. And so when the Federal Reserve creates reserves, those do not, or those are not the dollars that we use in society. Those are simply the units that fortify the banking system. And today we don't even use fractional reserve lending or the money multiplier. These are now mythologies that are in an era that's passed today. When you go to a bank and you say, hi, I want a hundred thousand, I want 50,000, I want 500,000, they basically are going to give you that loan pretty much with very little consequence. And there's no money in the vaults. You're not borrowing someone else's money, you're not borrowing 90 or having 10% of it in reserve. They simply type the digits into your bank account and they type them through double book entry. One is the minus 100,000 and one is the plus 100,000. So now it looks like I've borrowed money, but it came into existence when I signed on the promissory note. So again, people say, oh, the banking system can create money out of nothing. This is also really not technically true. Money is created by our promise to repay it and it doesn't exist prior. They create it when we promise to repay it. So it's a little weird. This has huge ramifications and it has huge ramifications as to why life is so quietly difficult and seemingly unfair in many ways. But it's, it's really not a path of doomsday, it's a path of liberation. But it's very important to understand that when a loan is created, whether it's for a mortgage or for a business loan, or for college or car hospital debt, you name it, and now I take that money and I give it to the seller of a home. Now it looks like the seller received dollars, but they really received my debt to repay. So every dollar that you see has an expiration date on it. And so like a yo yo, when you toss a yo yo out, it may look like a dollar when it's circulating, but there is a time when it's due back. And when that debt is repaid on the principle, those dollars are extinguished. And so the take home. And this is sort of mind bending, but if you think about a snow globe and we think about snow making that little village pretty in the globe, that's when people are borrowing lots of money because there's, there's debt money circulating. But when those debts are retired, that money is extinguished. And if new debts aren't taken immediately, a lot of people with great businesses can go bankrupt, People can't get raises, people can't. Social mobility becomes really a farce and capitalism cannot be employed. And we get a, we, we get a, we get a fake system. So there's a lot of critique in the name of capitalism. And we haven't had capitalism for maybe 40 years, for a very, very long time. I would even argue since the 50s we haven't had investment capitalism. You get corporatism, you get oligarchy and the critique will end up on the system when the critique actually is we're using the wrong gas has never, never, never, never meant to be created as mortgage debt. So this is where the world opens and it's, it's, it can be. I, I'm really told by so many people who read the book, probably just even the first four or five chapters unwinds a lot of this underlying shame, guilt, contortions about money, either having, quote, unquote, too much, not having enough, where people feel like why do others do better? Why you know, or, or why do I have it? What is this? And all of these conversions that really become big torments when we actually see that we're all being used on this circle to end up bringing out sort of the worst in one another. And, and it's, it's, it's because the dollar is designed incorrectly. I think it's mind blowing. It blew my mind. And this is what that really set me on the seven year journey to figure this whole puppy out.

Yeah. Well, there's a lot of fascinating things in there and obviously I think for a real deep dive, I definitely would recommend the book and I personally. Do you have an audible version of the book?

Yes. Thank goodness. The audible has been out now for about three weeks or so.

Oh, that's perfect. That's what I must have, I must have been waiting for because I, I almost. The only thing I'll read is like a kid's book to my kids, but it was, for me it's all audible, so that's perfect. All right, well, I'm gonna follow up with the deep dive of listening to this. So we're not gonna be able to get into all of this, but I think to get a few bigger questions answered would be really helpful. So if we were to rewind, well, we could rewind with the dollar, but we could also just rewind a bit more with, with money or any sort of unit of exchange, sort of the, the common history or mythology of money, the creation of money is that way back in the day, humans needed something that was going to be able to be used as a unit of exchange because not everyone wants to barter with everybody and no one has the same stuff. And then so we're going to come up with something that's, you know, it's got good sound properties, right. It's Divisible, it's verifiable. You know, it's camp, it's hard to counterfeit, it's scarce. Which means you can't just like, like, oh, I found a bunch more of it there. Right. So we have these qualities. And there's been seashells and then there's been coins. And then. So there's been this need for something like a grease to help the flow of, of the machine, the human, you know, creations. And then. So that's sort of my understanding of the, the origins of money. And then, you know, there was a, there was a time where there would be a, the currency was a representation of a harder, the actual form of, of the scarce asset, like gold. So we have gold and then I'm not going to carry chunks of gold around with me. So I put it in a bank and the bank's like, here's your paper. And then, you know, someone, I could exchange the paper and the person could keep the paper or they could go to the bank and get the gold and back at that time. And this might be, you know, prior to Federal Reserve, this is, you know, there was issues, right? People could rob the bank. The banking system wasn't as connected, all kinds of things. But back then, would you say that money or currency was sort of created in more alignment with, with an actual real thing? Or is it, Are we already kind of off target?

Yeah, it, shockingly, we're already off target. It's, it's amazing, you know, and, and especially because a lot of people who will talk about this will promote having gold. It's, it's not that gold is bad or that it doesn't work. Certainly when society breaks down, gold is functional, you know, but again, gun and.

Sheep, that's what you need, you know.

But we run into, again, like, how do you know if the gold is, is real? And so when society is really breaking down, you know, is it.

It.

Okay, I guess it gives some type of psychological. And possibly if we're just breaking down some, some preservation of capital, that would be the hope. But it, but are we building our new systems on it? No. When societies were liberated, truly, you can look at every Renaissance period and money was not gold during those periods of time. So the big thing is, my gosh, what is money? Money? I, I often like to say to people, if you looked at the equation three plus four equals seven, where is money in the. Usually nobody knows, right? And then it's, it's, it's, it's the equal sign. It's, it really is. It's just that technology that we created, as you were just saying, to help us exchange with one another. Now the, the big difference is, and I think this is the second linchpin when we find out that a lot of the stress we're experiencing and breakdown of all kinds of things is because, in fact, I really do believe everything is breaking down because the dollar is miscre. That's, that's where you and, and this cycle happens over and over and then people actually come in and create it correctly for a period of time. But the bigger thing is that wealth and money are totally separate. And this I think is also mind blowing to us right now because we've conflated the two. We're so busy. We think of wealth as the money that we've stored, as the money that we make. But wealth is the three plus four and the seven. And so this is why wealth is an unlimited. Wealth is unstoppable. So just like that oak tree or that acorn that's dreaming of an oak tree, you know, we, as each one of us are born, we're coming with some inherent set of gifts and talents that represent some divine essence. And so every time a baby is born, everywhere in the world, that community, that family is more wealthy because another expression of this unlimited connected passion of life has materialized and now has potential, has potential to realize that expression. And this is really the basis of wealth. Nobody can really stop that. So every passion that we have, even the seven years I spent researching this, the three years writing it, the so on and so, and no one could really have stopped me, even if I couldn't have been ready for another 20 years. It's it, it, it vibes through us now. Money was meant to be created to assist us in the expression and the exchange and still the, yes, the counting of the contribution and withdrawals. Because at our present level of consciousness, we still need a little bit of scorekeeping, but when we do it correctly, the scorekeeping changes oh so much because money doesn't have this tremendous scarcity. So gold still had a point. It had an, it had a viable point in our history. It has a basis for some of the hardcore libertarians that talk about sound money. But the, the fundamental problem is that the quantity of gold or how gold is kept is by far too scarce to be equal to the real productivity of the people. And so people wildly more imaginative productive than the quantity of gold that circulates or is allowed to circulate. And so in, in when we look at the equal sign analogy if we had to, you know, measure the table or we're putting up a painting, we need to measure the wall. We don't have to go outside and dig up equal signs. You know, if our, if our ruler or our measuring tape is too short, we don't have to go and get more equal signs. We just mark it and you know, re measure again. So how is it that money would represent the same type of, of structure? And I'll tell you that monetary history is the backstory of all history. It's the history that should be in schools. The wisdom that's in the end of scarcity should be taught in the first grade. And we start to understand every war because money is created incorrectly. So back in the 1800s in the US money there was really silver and gold were money and it worked quite well for a good period of time. It really helped farmers, it really helped a lot of productive people. And money eventually became gold in order to bring in this, this Federal Reserve System so to consolidate and, and to anchor that power, which has had a basis of creating some stability. But even people will say that the wizard of Oz represents the, the plight that the farmers had against the bankers who at that point would call in the loans right prior to harvest. And so they had it. They actually opened a bank in North Dakota to fund farmers. And so in history, the productive people issued the money back by their production and it would come in and out of circulation relative on how productive they were. So in the 1800s we did wildcat banking. People understood, as they did for the past 5,000 years, money was supposed to be shifting in quantity relative to how productive people were. People were less productive, less money, more productive, more money, sort of getting your 200 when you pass go. But it was done by the people who were contributing. Therefore everyone could contribute and everyone who had a product or a service of value, supply and demand and a reputation was able to issue. Now of course, this ran into the regular problems of counterfeiting. How would you know once you got beyond geographical distance, all these kinds of things and the magic of the printing press, of other powerful hierarchies that didn't want these sort of flatline ground up systems to, to work. You know, that sort of the history of the fighting of, of the growth of our consciousness. So now with blockchain, I'll tell you, this is really what has changed. And the crypto era has been wonderful in that it's introducing blockchain. For the first time in history, we have the opportunity to prove the legitimacy of money. That's backed by real stuff. The real promise to deliver. You can get fancy and say like a futures contract, you can get real simple and say an iou, I promise to deliver you amount of whatever. And that's really. Money was always supposed to be a promise to deliver, but because you could settle that debt in what you delivered, you really couldn't go bankrupt if you were running a good business. And today you can go bankrupt if you're running a good business because you might not be able to catch enough of those little Federal Reserve bank credit notes in time.

There's so much there, which road to go down. Well, so the idea that money would be created almost grassroots to facilitate the exchange, that money represents an iou so that if we can't immediately exchange like, like, you know, I need these materials for my farm now, but then when my crop comes, I'll be able to sell those and then pay you back plus whatever is going on. And you know, because a lot of business transactions can't occur at the exact moment of time. There needs to be some delay or maybe, hey, you said you're going to give me something and then it wasn't what I wanted or what you said. Right. So there's all these little ways that, that money needs to be able to float and, and bridge these gaps of time and agreement and that sort of thing. And all those you were saying were more from the people rather than sort of centrally controlled.

Yeah. And you know, I still say there's nothing really wrong with centrally controlling as long as there is opportunity everywhere. Right. On one level, we still want a government to issue XYZ and, and really I'm talking about alternative currencies. I'm to overthrow the dollar. But it's, I'm just looking at the true mechanics of what's correct and also so that we can understand the real problem. You know, one of the big things I think especially that's, that's just become so clear in the past few years is the ever dividing and fracturing of politics. I mean, even in every single little way, economics, you know, everyone's still arguing about this or this or that and social issues, issues. And not that any of these things are not real, it's just that they're the symptoms. And that the root, root, root of the problem is that the dollar, the currency a society is using, must be corrected correctly or you get, you get a ton of really, really poor people and a few people that have all the resources and all the money. They have all the power. And that's what we've seen over and over the course of history. So when we look at production backed money it can sort of seem like wow, is this barter? You know, what is this? And no, it's actually just a fungible or exchangeable dollar. But the way it comes into existence is backed by a certain amount of production. And again, I still think this sounds a little tricky to people because what we don't understand is that the dollar is only coming into existence when someone or some corporation or some state city borrows debt. So when, when someone gives me a dollar it looks like oh hey, a US Federal Reserve note that's technically bank credit, but it really actually is someone specific debt. It's someone's specific promise to repay. And so the quantity is always too little what's in circulation. And it doesn't flow where the real productive people are doing the work. It usually flows primarily in the financial sector, real estate, insurance and financial sector. So sort of a built in hierarchy already. And, and then you, you, you get a propensity for two kinds of welfare. Welfare at the top, stealing at the top and then a need for welfare at the bottom. And sort of this new confusion that we're getting about universal basic incomes. That universal basic incomes are needed when in fact I really argue that they are trap doors that go to total control because we lose the point that we are inherently wealthy, that that the entire value, our productivity, the things that we, that we create with one another. And when we sort of go to a universal basic income, the idea is that good is outside of us. We need some type of central authority to give it to us or there isn't enough, or that it has to swirl in some way. It just can become total tyranny very, very quickly. You have to wear your purple and red striped sweater and stand on your head every Tuesday morning at 7:05 in order to get it. And so this again has been a repeating pattern over history of, you know, between a constant revolutions and these kinds of things. Yeah, freedom lies in having money come into circulation. Whether, and you know, I get a lot of flack for saying this, whether it's Amazon who creates our money. Right. I was talking to sort of an economics futurist giant a few years ago, Hazel Henderson, who wrote a book called Ethical Markets and did a lot of beautiful stuff and she passed away last year and she said to me, Kristen, you can't say that Amazon would create our money. That's horrifying. And I would say what difference does it make if it's Done correctly, whoever does it correctly is the Trojan horse, is the trapdoor that opens this whole path to freedom. So if Amazon started issuing X amount, and this is totally hypothetical X amount of dollars that was worth, worth whatever productivity they expected in 2023, and it was limited by the supply of what they really had to deliver versus the demand for that. Those Amazon credits or dollars could, could be used for all, for hiring one another, all hosts of things, and then they would be extinguished when they were redeemed for the Amazon product. The same thing is happening with our US Dollars today, our Federal Reserve notes, but through the debt system.

So not production, but, but basically infinite, Right? Because in some way what you're describing would, you know, is, is akin to like proof of work, right? There's something that needs to be done for the creation of that money. Whereas if it's debt, it's fingers on a button that there's no unlimited work.

When people like even what we're experiencing today with the inflation and people say, oh, the Fed, you know, can control the money supply, I argue against this is not true. Those reserves do not determine how much lending the bank can create. The bank creates money through, through crediting accounts. The US Government does not pay Social Security from taxes. They don't wait until April 15th when we send our money in or during the course of the year they credit accounts. So it's really in this again. We're sort of beginning to open up Pandora's box here. Because our federal taxes necessary, I would say no, they're absolutely not that. When a, when a government creates its own currency, it's not dependent on that revenue. But a state is, you know, the state of California, the state of New York, this, any state that has an income tax is absolutely dependent on its revenue because they don't issue currency. So. But everything starts to change when, and my hope is to really empower farmers and ranchers to start issuing their own credit. I think this is where it truly begins. Now individuals can do it. Is that, that likely? No, not so much. Most people are not going to want the responsibility of being a currency issuer. I think. I do think we're going to see corporations doing this very, very quickly. But I think it's very important that counties, communities, farmers, anybody who is providing a value or has a beautiful idea and says, my gosh, I just can't get funding, guess what? Yes. Crowdfunding already shows you this. And now with the mechanics of, of articulating an alternative currency correctly, we now change it's, it's True decentralized finance. And the whole idea that money is sort of this very, very scarce resource, you know, sort of the, the thing that's driving us or even that makes some of our behavior okay, or the way we treat one another okay. It all stops because money goes into the back seat. Wealth is in the driver's seat. What do I want to create? What type of world do we want to live in? And now when we redesign the articulation, which is very, very simple, I will say it's in chapter 11. Even though it's important to read the book consistently, actually it might be chapter 12. The, the formula is very simple. How money needs to be articulated and designed and, and truly, they. They knew this in the Roman Empire before it fell. The Magna Carta, which came in 1250, was the product of doing money correctly. And Parliament in England came because for 600 years they issued the money token correctly. It was taken away in, in the mid-1800s, and the British system went back to the system that we have been using since 1812. So the founding fathers of this country also left England because they were in debt. That's the real reason why they came here. And they did absolutely create money correctly. You'll find it in Benjamin Franklin's writings where they issued money off of productive land banks. And this is what started the Revolutionary War. And the French and the British came with printing presses to destroy the money. So this is the gateway.

And when you said something interesting about, you know, ranchers, farmers, but, you know, corporations issuing, do you imagine that that would be in this day and age, say, corporations creating their own token, their own blockchain, cryptocurrency, and then having it enough. So like, you know, and, you know, it was interesting, kind of flirting with it. There's. There's sort of some issue of being the early adopter and being beheaded for it. Right. Or, or stopped because there's so much, well, can be resistance in aspects of the system. Right. So there's this kind of strange thing going on where there's no regulation and if someone tries to do something, they'll like, you know, attack them. But there's no clarity. It's like, well, that's because. Because it's. There's not a. I think they're looking to see how do we integrate this into our system and sort of get control of something that might be ultimately, again, decentralizing in nature. So I think there's the way the system is now. It is, it. It functions, albeit, you know, by creating scarcity, but the machine rolls on. And yet there is like, there's a way that the. It kind of feels the cart is a little rickety and there's, you know, steam coming out of some gaskets, for example. Like many countries, most developed nations having insane debt to GDP ratios, right? Like the debts bananas out of control. And what's the solution? Oh, make more, you know, and then you have these strange kind of theories of money. Like, well, if everyone just prints everything, then there's. It's all good, right? And, and professors are like, yeah, that's right. And so there's this way in which it. I think and even just the average person who studies is kind of like, you know, something feels off here. This doesn't seem sustainable. Might be a simple way to say it. And yet the way that humans seem to operate often, especially in groups is wait until the bus hits the wall and then everybody get out as opposed to like steer around the wall. And I know we're getting into the realm of like fortune telling, so this is all just sort of speculation, but what is your sense of does this system go on for another hundred years? Because hey, you just keep pulling the levers and it goes and you know, and then like all, all fiat currencies throughout history, at some point does the dollar kind of unravel and then there's a meltdown and then there's a reformulating of a new thing, you know, and how is that kind of different than just the same old merry go round where it's like, hey, do we're doing it better now? Nope. Let's co op power and, and reformulate. So what's your vision of how the rate at which things change or unravel? And again, this is, you know, your informed guess really. But I'm definitely curious in your thoughts.

It's. It seemed that every 40 years around, every 40 years we've had some significant change to the currency. So, you know, we're, we're late right now. So. 71. Nixon formally close the gold window primarily to foreign countries from being able to redeem us still Federal Reserve notes for actual gold. So is Fort Knox empty? Probably. Does it matter? No. You know, I do think hypothetically this system could go on for a very long, long time. I don't think it will. And I do think if it collapses, it still is done really as a decision because a new system is built and that crisis is created, so the new system is adopted. And I think that's also what we find in history, that every sort of collapse has also been A controlled demolition. And I do think that we're in the midst of one right now. And that's why it's so important that we stand at this precipice and actually do what every civilization tried to do, but they didn't have blockchain if we don't do it. And I think what's, what's really important is just that whole sense of, number one, knowing how truly powerful we are. And these are not cheap words, you know, really with a very moment of, of grasping how powerful we are even from the day to day moment of how we can shift how we feel when we have an awareness and, you know, shift how we feel connected, sustained, how then all of a sudden we feel alone and, and all these other kinds of things. So we have tremendous power over our state of mind. And then likewise, we have tremendous power over our resources when we recognize how many people it's required for every single thing that we use in our life. So we are really all working for one another because even a glass of water, you know, having, having breakfast, how many thousands of people did that require? The, the bulk of, of, of what creates the world is people intending and actually getting up and doing things. And this is not such an easy system to stop. Now when we start to realize how powerful we are, the only thing we need to know is what's the pathway to change it? Are, are there other systems? You know, I think we see so much doom and gloom. And even when I came to terms with realizing, wow, we are required for people to borrow debt, consumers to borrow debt, we need speculation to destroy investment. We need over consumption and, and beyond materialism, we need a campaign for not enoughness and indebtedness just to have a money supply. How crazy this is. And just like that 1994 movie like Sandra Bullock where she was, you know, what was it called? Speed and she was the bus driver, she had to keep her foot on the gas or the thing was going to blow up. This is the pathway that we're on in human. So yeah, if that doesn't keep going, this system can stop. But why would we want this system? And is there a better system that actually says, whoa, you're in charge. Who do you want to be? What's important to you? What kind of an education do you want for kids? Should it be paid for? What kind of healthcare do you want? Should it be paid for? Because guess what? We do have all the resources. If a government is not dependent on tax revenue in order to send checks in the mail, they are not dependent on tax revenue in order to create com. Services of the commons. So it really sort of. This is what is the information that I think is what a lot of the, you know, the. The quote, unquote debt ceiling and all these other kinds of things that become soft dramas to not get this information out that, no, the money supplies on unlimited. It shouldn't be unlimited without having a restraint relative to our productivity. But we don't have a too small money supply of having to dig up rocks out of the ground and say, oh, gee, I hope we find some more rocks. Oh, gee, I hope we find some more oil in order to decide what kind of society we want. No, in fact, it's really sort of the opposite. How productive are we? How productive do we want to be? And that determines the money supply. And, you know, years ago, Paul Ryan was sort of grilling Greenspan, Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Fed at that time, who sort of became a celebrity, you know, back in the early 2000s, and he said to him, saying, listen, shouldn't Social Security be private? You know, we've worked, we put our money in. It's at risk. And Greenspan said, really? To Ryan chagrin, no. You know, in fact, a government that creates its own dollars can always create its own dollars, I. E. Those Social Security accounts can always be credited. The big question is, what are we doing with those dollars once we create them? Are we investing them in small business? Are we investing them in productivity? You know, and the sad part is, since our money supply is created out of mortgage debt, it becomes a Ponzi scheme. And this is why college and housing has gone up ten fold since the 70s. So in the 70s, a home to live in where a family could really enjoy themselves was three times salary. And it might even have been one person's salary. And today, certainly in cities, it's 10 times salary. A college education, certainly in California, UCLA used to be free, you know, or 250 bucks, and now it's. It's really indentured servant territory for kids.

Why?

Because we're creating the dollar simply as bank credit, where people sign on the line. And so when this system implodes, which would be sort of a decision that the powers that be would continue to not create money. And, you know, I mean, you could say, all right, if the. If the dollar wasn't held up, we're starting to see that the petrodollar, you know, a lot of commodities might be settled in yuan or other things that could be quite troubling. I would even Argue that the US Military really has created a lot of world dominance for the dollar. And so now maybe the globe has decided, all right, we don't want the dollar anymore. But I can tell you at certain times, you know, the Federal Reserve would create the money and even the big money center banks would just go and buy up those excess reserves with Treasuries. So this system is a lot more orchestrated than it seems. And you know, the whole idea is if, if they take, if they take it down, if the powers that be really do sort of let it go, which absolutely could happen. What, what are we left with right now? After the banking crisis of 2008, the Dodd Frank act put in something called Ola Ola which meant that there will no longer be bailouts of the money center banks, but instead there'll be bail inside. And that means we as depositors will actually have money taken out of our accounts to bail out bail in these big institutions. Nobody really knows what that looks like. I would hope that that would only be over FDIC insurance. But when you still get down to it, FDIC insurance is I think 1% funded, less than 5% funded. So we have a lot of precariousness out there that could keep people up at night. And the thing that I would say, not that I know anything along these lines because that's total crystal ball territory, but you, I, I would still be surprised you get a real collapse in the sense, you know, because you'd have so much disarray. But you know, you, you get the pressure of the not enoughness and the stealing of people's lives and identities and self esteems by creating money as consumers debt. And so we do have central bank digital currencies sort of coming to the forefront in the next two years. Either they will be helpful or again they absolutely could go down the path of tyranny saying, you know, listen, you have flown four times this year, you can't use your card or your, or your account is cut off. You know, we say you owe this type of surtax and your account is just, just debited without any type of, of opportunity to say I don't agree. So absolutely that framework is being built and you know, I would say it's, it's going to bring about, this topic will be very, very mainstream in a year. You know, I, I, I may be on the edge. You know, I always think I'm too late. And back in 2007 I was talking about how companies, corporations were going to start to issue money and then when Bitcoin came in 2009. People thought, okay, maybe, maybe you mean cryptocurrency. But we have yet to see the money revolution. All the crypto is not money, it's speculation. And Bitcoin itself may at some point become a wonderful store of value. I don't think it needs to be banned because again, the powers that be, if they wanted to deregulate it or get rid of it, all they would have to do is when it eventually traded, just be on the other end of that trade and put it on the shelf. And it would, you know, maybe it could go to a million dollars a coin, but no one could use it because they wouldn't have access to it anymore. And this is why whatever we're using as money should not be scarce. And that's fundamentally why gold as a you, as an equal sign, as a unit of exchange does not work. But it can be a store of value for a period of time. So we have, we do, we're sort of in this storm of some very scary ideas, some, some whole essence of the floor dissolving below our feet. And yet we also stand at this really wonderful excitement period of time when we come together and recognize we're the ones who do all the work in the world. We come up with the beautiful ideas and the resources are in our local communities, the things that we need for life. And we can now create these systems of exchange, these patterns, and actually tokenize them like the founding fathers did, like Lincoln did in some ways. And really, I would argue I could even take you back truly 5,000 years. It's, it's, it's quite miraculous. And the one little last thing I'll throw in here is that people actually never barter. You know, we're, we're taught, I mean, I grew up remembering this from, as a little girl world, that of course, you know, if people all over the world bartered and that's where money came from. And it turns out that Adam Smith, with sort of hopefully the best intentions, created that mythology which came part of our history to encourage sort of some freedom around money. But the problem is it sort of built this sort of Hobbesian dog eat dog world, you know, again, sort of keeping the idea that money had to be scarce to, to have its value. Money originated really, people lived in, in tribes with families, and often the women would take the resources and divvy them up among families after either the resources were brought in from the men. This is, this is what the archaeological record shows. And coin money did not really Come about until kings wanted standing armies, armies, hundred thousand men, and they had no way to take care of them. So then they created an income tax. And they said to the townspeople, you owe the tax in this specific coin. They decided to only pay the army in the coin. So the townspeople moved next to the hundred thousand men, armies, took care of them or earned the coin and were able to pay the tax. So these ideas of scarcity are really ideas. And you know, because we live within the dualistic mind, maybe even sort of that whole sense of being fueled unfueled, you know, feeling great, feeling insecure, you know, we, we think, gosh, okay, if I'm saying money does not have to be scarce to have value, it could be ridiculously unlimited. No, it's, it's meant to be truly like the equal sign. The quantity in circulation must be changing and forever fluctuating equal to the real productive value of the people. Then you have freedom, Then you have life. And we can look in history and find this every single time brilliance came through humanity. Guess what? Money was designed in this fashion.

I have, I love, I love what you're sharing and it's really thought provoking. And there's two, two questions I have. You know, one is kind of macro and one is personal to our, my life and our lives. So macro. I think for much of my life I've been, I think when it comes to individuals and maybe small groups of people, I have a very optimistic, personal, empowered viewpoint. Like, yeah, we, you're a powerful creator. You can, you know, you're the captain of your ship. You know, know, let's, let's find that. That's a big part of confidence, right? When it comes to larger things like the kingdom, the nation state of 300 million people, I think I've had a much more like, keep your ear to the ground, try to figure out which way the winds are blowing and get in the current. Because, you know, these, these four, it's almost like the weather and these massive forces that are way beyond my influence and control. So needless to say, I never wanted to be part of like the student body. I wouldn't want to be in politics. I have a much more like, hey, just figure out how to, you know, almost in spite of the powers, grow, thrive in your life and create as much value for others around you as possible. So when I imagine like a controlled, demonish demolition of the system, I don't have a very optimistic perspective that someone, you know, whoever's doing that demolition is like, you know, what now what we're going to do. We're going to give it all back to the people. You know, it seems to me that that would come, and historically has come, that the powers that be are actually challenged and overthrown. And that could be either militarily, like, French Revolution style, behead everybody, or Industrial Revolutions, you know, like. Or that kind of thing where it's like, hey, things have evolved and changed so fast that all of a sudden now the power is coming into these new people's hands because of technological advance or something like that. So that's the macro one. So we'll start with that. Question. Question. What are your. What is your sense of it? Because almost like we get to choose. I'm like, I'm not choosing. I'm just gonna be along for the ride. It seems like, you know, I can tell my friends about it and. But are we doing anything there? So I'm curious what your sense of. Of that is.

Yeah, I. I think we're doing a lot. You know, it's interesting. I really do say, like, I. I use this wonderful Sufi parable that I learned, like, 20 years ago, and I still was like, wow, I know that's really important, but I don't totally get it. And as I studied Monet, like, wow, I really get it. And it's. It's the old man who is. Lost it, you know, lost his keys in the dark of night, and he's searching for them under the lamppost, and the traveler comes by to help him. He feels bad for him. And they search and search, and it's cold. And finally the traveler's like, are you sure you lost your keys here? Like. And the old man looks up gruffly and is like, no, no, you know, I lost him two blocks down to the east. And the traveler is like, are you kidding me? You know, just, like, dumbfounded. And he said, you know, why are we looking here? Here? And the old man says, because there's light. We can. I can see here, there's no light down there. I can't see anything. And so here we are. We. We look at our politics and, you know, I would imagine for anyone in any place of the spectrum, it's just, you know, exhausting and heartbreaking and, and, and. And all these kinds of things when we start to look economically confusing, like, what do you mean the Federal Reserve is trying to raise interest rates to lower inflation? Because higher interest rates actually creates more inflation. Oh, does that mean they're trying to burn the house down in order to say they put the fire out you know, like, and then we look at social issues and to say, gosh, how do we actually create more cohesion through more division? Or, or you know, what are we doing? Are we, are we breaking even, even our whole families, from our parents to our children to our spouses, what's happening? So, so the issue really is that, my gosh, if we start to find out we have to look in places that are not familiar, we have to challenge ourselves to say, maybe I am part of the solution and I'm part of the problem. At the same time, maybe there's something in that unfamiliar territory that I'm going to find that key that's in the dark, that's going to open that, that door to a path of illumination that's off of this cycle of pain that gives just some inner minutes, sense of feeling better. Because I'm hearing stories or, or philosophies or senses of identity, whether it's, it's this belief set that makes me feel better for a little period of time, but also I'm starting to feel like, wow, I've heard that story before. So here we are. And I think that the beauty of this is that we are a fractal. Everything is a fractal. So when I look out into the outer part of the world and if I'm disappointed with what I perceive as corruption or this and this and that, oh, guess what, it's still a fractal of me. And I'm not saying that I'm responsible for the world, but that I'm, I'm an inseparable, unique point of consciousness. So I don't think that we are all just one. And we're also not separate. We're both right. And so as we come to this new, new understanding and then we begin to really embody this, all of our systems are going to change and embody that. So how do we create things that will embody the sense of weakness plus honoring the unique identity and personal selves that we are. So I often used to say to people, you know, especially investing money all these years, and we would look at when Walmart came and they would do the heavy handed price setting and you know, the sense of destroying small business or Amazon, and I would say, you know, if you want your prices cheaper and you want your stocks higher, then there's no difference between us and the principles of Amazon or Walmart, right? And so it sort of takes it home because how do we get out of this? And I think it's still not being naive, there's A sense of, of realism, sobriety about how things are and also a sense of atonement that, that this is the system, system that we've created, that we're part of that we have also the opportunity to change as we change inside of ourselves, more moments of peace for ourselves, for our families, for those around us. You know, and, and really as that healing process occurs inside, it is absolutely has to be occurring on the outside because they're inseparable. And as we grow, the more we become connected on the local level, the more responsive the, the national and the, and the global level becomes. So we are in the problem that we're in today because we're not taking self responsibility. And yet that on its face seems somewhat also unfair because how do we take responsibility in this kind of a situation? And I believe that really the solution is monetary. So when we simply come together, whether it's supporting local farmers, farmers which many of us do by funding them in the winters with CSAs, their farm shares, if you give them four or five hundred dollars in the winter and you get 10, 12, 16 weeks of food in the summer, why can't that be tokenized? You know, why can't the farmers promise to deliver become an alternative currency that's verifiable in quantity and value, limited by supply and demand. So it's very easy to start orchestrating these systems off of those that provide our living. Builders could do this, energy companies could and, and soon people will start accepting them. I do know of a company in California that started to create a token like this, backed off of their services. It's yet to come. There's a company in Argentina who does this with soybeans. But again we want to get away from just single commodity. Ben and Jerry's could do it, Toyota could do it. So it is coming. But at the same point in time, I think that fractal pickup picture is, is, is what speaks to me most because as I go through the oscillations, I mean I still have the 3am terrors less than I've had them in the past few years. But you know, just the sense of wow, what can we trust anymore? What could happen tomorrow? And you know, I, I always thought that the, the caterpillar and the chrysalis was having a way better time than this.

You know, I love that, that image of a fractal. And what's a appealing about that is there's a way in which I, I am very dedicated to growth and, and expansion of all of it, right. Myself, my perceptions, consciousness, and so it takes a little bit of that. Like what, what do I have to do? Because it's like, oh man, life's already really full. I got kids and a business and it's like now go out and you know. But let me ask one follow up question. I want to get back to that, that personal lifestyle question which is so one, the vision you have of a future. One possibility is if Toyota's got its own token and Ben and Jerry's has its token and the farmer down the street has their token and what am I using to exchange with you? Say I want to buy your services or like, you know, something like what we're in different states, you know, I'm like, hey, got a jingle jingle. I got some Toyota coin. You want some Toyota coin? You want some Ben and Jerry's? You know, is it that, is it that or, or is there are there, do you see like you know, the CBDC centralized digital bank currency or Bitcoin or some other more kind of standardized one. One is, you know, we're going in and out of those and then, and then when, when I'm not trading with the specific company or buying from that company, I'm using a more standardized token coin currency.

So when you think of Toyota issuing its own own currency, Toyota dollars or you know, Canada Tire, which I think is like Walmart issues a hundred thousand dollars of paper Canada dollars every year or something. I should look it up again. But it was, I think Maybe it's been 100 million in their history. Like it's huge amount and sort of, you know, if people were short on money, you know, you could say, hey listen, can I give you a few extra Canada Tire dollars to make up the difference? Because you can pretty much get everything there like a Walmart or an Amazon.

I take Amazon money credit.

I know, I know. And even like when I return something I say it's okay, you can just give me Amazon credit because I trust them in the thing and so on. And you know, I, I, it's also.

I understand you feel like you're winning when you buy the next thing, right? You're like, oh, it only cost me $9. You know, never mind that you actually put in the credit from your last purchase.

But it is so true, you really do get that little rush of endorphins. And you know, in the, and the production tokens would have a discount when they're going back to whoever issued them. With the mind blowing thing about this, this is exactly still the same system we're using today. So in my wallet or in my bank account I just have dollars in there. But really it's a whole multi sphere of anonymous debt. So I have no idea. Is it Monsanto's debt? Is it Raytheon's debt? Is it, is it you know, Joe, Joe's mortgage? You know, I, I have no idea. And so if we think of the Eurozone before the euro and there were Deutsche marks and liras and French francs and so on and drachmas and you know, know people would have a multitude of currencies and maybe Europeans were more comfortable with that. In the crypto space maybe people are more comfortable with that. And then for people who are trading they're going into these stable coins, these altcoins, which again I argue, I say breha, who cares about that stuff? Because this is a natural stable coin. You know, it's not based off of fiat. You would even price it in, in something like the Jim Rogers Ree Commodity Index. It's a basket of 38 commodities. So you'd buffer away from fiat currency. That's how you do it when it was more sophisticated and, and in later stages. But you know, you would have a wallet and the wallet would be on reject permanent, you know, just automatically. And then someone would say could I pay you in Amazon dollars? And and your wallet would say no, but you would have to click yes. And then when you went somewhere to buy something you would just be. The wallet itself would do, do the exchanging so you wouldn't have to be doing the calculator. Oh yeah, yeah, so same thing. So it's, it's exactly what we have today in the sense that we don't know that we have multiple issuers of our own money. Yeah, we don't know that the Federal Reserve actually doesn't create the money we use. We think the federal does. Oh, doesn't the, isn't the Fed so inflationary? Well, guess what? From 2009 to 2011, how many rounds of quantitative easing or money printing did we have? And guess what interest rates did. They went lower. We actually had deflation when they raised interest rates until you know, what created 2009 was not that banks became, were unable to to lend anymore, it's that people were no longer able to borrow more. So the money system busted out. So we're on a boom and bust cycle every time. Borrowers can't keep running on that hamster wheel. We are, we are so dependent on people borrowing and, and stealing people's lives for over commercialism and materialism beyond wanting Nice things. It's, it's, it's only to create a money supply to use. So we are, we are so on that bus, you know, with, with Sandra Bullock from 1994. So when, when money is just flip flop the other way, it's not debt, it becomes credit. It's not this mortgage until you die. You sign on the promissory note and then you run as hard, hard as higher interest rates or as lower interest rates, which are the whip, you know, for how fast we have to run to re. Earn and pay and can run out of steam. And you get a super aggressive game of musical chairs in society when you create money out of mortgage debt and there isn't enough for everybody. And I think that's sort of shocking in the American dream because it makes it the ephemeral carrot. Now you turn around and you create money as crazy credit, legitimate credit, that's a legal promise to deliver with provable supply, provable that it's there limited in quantity by real supply and demand, which all can be proved by technology. It's actually super easy for us to do this right now. You change the world and you, you, you change the world effortlessly. So it's, it's just the, the big problem is we don't. First of all, we, we sense, we now, we sense we have a problem. But the thing is we, we, we would never look to see that it's actually the way the dollar is designed and that the dollar has been designed so many different ways throughout history and that it's, it's, it's. The people are meant to do it. And so I say okay, good, we're, we're in the corridor, but we are that little baby chick who is in this strange conundrum now getting bigger. And all the nutrients that were inside of the egg helping us to grow, grow have now sort of gotten mixed with the toxins as we're getting bigger and we're being propelled to like break down this structure that kept us safe, you know, and, but just like the caterpillar in the cocoon, you know, the baby chick cannot even imagine the world that's waiting for it. And so as we stay energized in the truth of who we are and the truth of what's possible with our imagination and passions and reasons, resources and talents and that the money power actually is born in us, that we were meant to design the money systems, boy, what beautiful world could really, you know, is in fact waiting for us as we continue to sort of bolster one another.

Yeah, yeah. Well, there's so much there, I think, about competitive currency is a very interesting idea. Right. If you look at a lot of industry, the fact that, that we. If there's a monopoly and I don't have a choice, the industry tends to stagnate, doesn't advance, because they're like, well, what are you going to do? You know, go somewhere else. Whereas if you have competition, all of a sudden, hey, we'll make you a better car. We'll make you a better thing. Because so this idea of different currencies competing, then people actually do choose. And so if someone is worried about a particular currency not being backed properly or. Or even despite the technology, forgery of production, you know, it's like, well, that currency gets sort of besmirched, and people are like, hey, that one is, you know, don't go with that one. And people. So there's a natural correcting. But here's the question I have for you is about materialism. And, you know, I think when I was younger, my. My mid late twenties, I read a lot of Noam Chomsky and learned about, like, the American empire and corporations and, hey, man, you know, mind controlling us. And. And it's bad. And don't buy stuff and be a minimalist. And, you know, then I had children, and it's like, they want things, and then like, okay, we need what, More baby swag? You need a carrier and you need this thing, and you don't technically need any of that, but sweet Jesus, is it nice to have the Ergo360 so I can chop vegetables and hold my baby at the same time. Right, right. So. And then just recently, maybe about a year ago, we moved out to the woods outside of about 45 minutes outside of Portland, Oregon. And it is extraordinary. And we live on 20 acres of forest, and it is the most amazing experience to live out here. But in the year that we've been out here, it wasn't just getting the house. Right. I have a. I've acquired an ATV and a cart and a chainsaw, because you got to take care of this, you know, you got to chop down fallen. You know, chop up fallen trees. We have a wood stove, so we're, you know, processing all this wood. And I love all the things I've gotten. I love the atv. I love the smell of the gas and the chainsaw. It's probably not good for my brain, but I love it, you know, getting different tools. And I'm not going to endlessly buy these things. Things. Right. I. I'd like to keep that ATV for, you know, couple decades. But man, when I wanted those things, I go out and buy them and I love it. There's like a celebration of that access to all these things. And so I'm curious. And then I might say, well, I bought it within reason and for good purpose. And those people over there, they're, they're materialist. They're buying unnecessary stuff. And then it's like, well, is it just unnecessary because you, you don't want it? And then when you want it, all of a sudden it becomes necessary. So I'm curious about this idea of consumption over. I mean, I think we all know the feeling of like I'm going to go to my phone and I'm going to. I'm nervous, so I'm going to go to a shopping site and buy some shirts I don't need. Right. Like, I get that kind of, you know, that's the way we could emotionally eat. We could do something to distract ourselves. So there's this that. Putting that aside and just like the desire to have things and use things, tools. And some people love to go out and wine and dine. It's not my thing, but they want, you know, they want the nice wines and they want the nice table at the bar. And so whatever people value. When I look around and if people aren't in this obsessive compulsive shopping thing, it does seem like there's a way that people like to, to spend their money and consume things. And, and you could say it is materialistic or cons, consumer based. And what is your sense of that? Is that do you see the world? Is the future still operating like that? Or are people more like. No, I don't need stuff, man. I just got. I play music with my friends, you know. What's your sense of that?

Yeah, no, I do think the material is quite spiritual. You know, I think that they really are embedded like a DNA or you know, some better visual together. And this sort of demonization even of one or the other is, is, is again this sort of strange dichotomy. But we know where the perversion is. So there's perversion on either side. There can be spiritual escapism from saying, hey, it's actually nice to pay your bills. You know, it's, you know, and at the same point in time.

Yeah.

Yes. So when I think of, even when I watch the butterflies or I watch the birds, how the butterfly enjoys going from flower to flower, you know, and the new flowers and the endless kaleidoscope how the sky is different every single day. So our creations are part of life, our imagination are part of life. The experience, the joy or the thrill that you get of being on that ATV and cutting down the wood and also that, that's a new fractal of experience. And we're in these material bodies for a reason. So if we are against the material experience, then we're going to really struggle here or we're not and we're not going to have an impact and we're not going to make a difference in a host of ways. But I do think it's a dance between the material and the spiritual and both are really meant to be honored. When money is created correctly, there becomes no such thing as nonprofit and profit profit. I do think the non profit world goes away because it, the, when money is created correctly, companies are so in alignment and service and there's such transparency around that about what they do with their money and these kinds of things. So I, I think it's possible that the nonprofit world was even born out of some of the contortions of the for profit world. You know, a host of things like, like this. So the only problem that we have today where we're dealing with this perversion that takes us off our center or sort of that sense of satisfaction or new experience when we taste something new or see a new color or create something new, is that if people are not going into debt, we don't have money. And because the money is destroyed when the, when the debt is repaid, so an individual is in a better position temporarily when the debt is repaid, but the society at a whole is at a worse position. If the United States government were to pay off its debt, we would have a depression that would rock the stone Ages. You know, so it's, it's, it's we, this is sort of the hidden contortion. And then we deal with the symptoms of wow, wait a minute, is this bad? Is this good? Good. So I think often even when I sit with a client or even when I really feel like I'm connecting with people and you, you can feel that, that, that impact that we've had either in our service or in that connection that we've made with one another, those are the moments that I, I really feel alive and, and that I feel like, wow, I, I get a glimpse of me, be who this being is that I am. And so without being really in service to one another, which on a material plane still means making stuff, you know, buying stuff, experiencing stuff, and, and Really I think however that range is as people decide maybe they go through periods of time where they don't want anything. Maybe they go through periods of time where they really want something. And you know, I've had some people say to me, wow, you know, end of scarcity, we have climate change, you know, what are you talking about? We need to conserve. And what I would say is that greed and over consumption actually comes from scarcity. That's where it comes from. It comes from the belief in scarcity and it comes in the hoarding of resources and the misintention which also that shows up in the fractal. And so when money, let's say that in mass, it starts now being issued instead of from debt, debt from credit from the promise to deliver xyz, we may have a J curve, you know, a little bit of a bump up where people are satiating themselves and stuff. But simply that, that very quickly comes back into balance because once we realize that everything that we want really wants us to.

Yeah.

And, and that whole sense of abundance comes from that cup overflowing that we are connected to that energy endless stream of divine inspiration and beauty and magic in this world, I think all the rapid and pillaging and, and real contortions that we're seeing surprisingly will correct themselves. This planet is very, very powerful and you know, their, their technologies that exist that you know, for, for having a certain level of order and centralization which has served us. But the chicken is ready to come out of the egg. We're now ready to see maybe what some of these other technologies really are.

There is one thing in there that I think is really worth highlighting. You said everything that we really want, wants us to. Can you say more about that? Maybe beyond money, but also maybe even beyond money too. Just sounds like almost a spiritual perspective.

Yeah, I mean I think really in those quiet moments and in those moments where we, we are feeling connected and filled up or maybe coming off of a moment where we don't, but when we really rest in the fact of when we feel into or, or somehow connect with what we love, of what we really, really want. And this may take a moment of disconnecting from the, the packaging of that perversion of consumption and materialism, but to really connect, just as you're feeling living in the woods with your family, you know, this, the shock of this, this, this joy of this whole new experience, what we're being called, you know, what's calling us is. It's not just a one way call, it's always a Two way call. So what's, what's lighting us up and what's really calling us is almost like, you know, is it a Pink Floyd album? Album where like the, the rainbow goes through the crystal. I'm not even like a Pink Floyd fan. I don't know why I'm seeing this. But you know, you see that rainbow that, the light go through the prism and you see it on either side. This is what's happening to us as humans. So we, when we, when we re. When, when a passion calls us, it's also because it's the services required in the world. And, and so we're always being called. Sometimes we hear it, sometimes we, and when we begin to answer consistently truly, we begin to fall in love with what is calling us. We are in love with it already because it's, it's the next expression of who we are. It may even be that divine blueprint of who we are. And it's, it's what the world is seeking. And if we could have confidence in that and commune with that, we would be living quite a graceful, flowing life. Life and money was meant to be in service of this.

Yeah, I, I love that. And I, when you say it, I can tune into that. And I, I know that feeling. It's that, that deep interconnectivity. And that's like I have this passion and it's like, oh, no, wait, like I am being had with this passion. It's coming through me. So I, I have two more questions I wanted to, to touch on one here. One is bitcoin. What is your sense of. Because I think a big. So there's kind of two big draws to people that are into bitcoin. I like both of those draws. One is sort of the speculative. I'm gonna get rich, you know, like this ride that wave. And, and that's, you know, that's part of almost the design of the, the, of the spread in some ways. Some people argue that that's kind of the way it was. It's almost like the marketing of it, right? It's like, oh, it'll get people in. Max Kaiser says, you know, come for the greed, stay for the revolution. And that's certainly been my experiences. You know, it came in like, I'm gonna get rich off this thing. And then it became more like, wait, what is this? And it started to open all these, these doors that we've been talking about. And then the second draw is this, this, you know, possibility of an alternative, a new way, maybe even a life raft in this transition time to have something that, that people, that the governments can't control, or maybe they can shut off off ramps and stuff, but in terms of they can't issue it. It's not owned by a particular nation, even if a lot of it's being mined there. As we saw with China shutting down the mining, they just migrated all the miners, so it's like these little minnows that can go all over the place. So what is your sense on the shorter term or even longer term? Do you see it as a. As something that, in comparison to currency breakdown, becomes a thing that, oh, look, it's worth more and more, even though the currency is getting weaker, at least you are, you're preserving or increasing value. And also as a. As this other more visionary potential, as an alternative way of means of exchange. What are your. What is your sense of it?

Yeah, well, I think it's a lot of fun, definitely. I'm technically not able to give legal advice, just, you know, in my financial advisor capacity. But when I first ran into it in 2009, I read the white paper online. I somehow stumbled onto, like, a bitcoin community, which was like, hi, we're starting this and we need people's computers and would you be a minor? And I had no idea what any of that was. And too bad I wasn't more technologically savvy because I was like, sure, you can use my computer, but never, you know, never ended up doing it. And I think at that point, you know, I was going to bitcoin meetups in Cambridge and, you know, and that kind of stuff. And I, I loved the idea. I was just very, you know, sort of religious about it, that it wasn't money, you know, because I was already two years into this truly understanding monetary reform. You know, I. I saw the 2008 crisis coming ahead of time, and even though I got people out of markets, when I saw it collapse, I knew I was missing something. And. And it took me nine months to discover that I had no idea that money was created through the creation process, just on the golden keyboard. And, and, and, you know, I was heartbroken after that. So I thought bitcoin was cool, and I thought it was totally fun, and I loved the people because it was this, you know, totally optimistic space. And you got lots of young, you know, people that were wanting to do all these fun things. And in 2000, I think 16, 17, maybe 18, I was talking at crypto conferences, and I would love the, the. Just the euphoria, but I was still pointing to more of, of what is money. So I personally think, you know, I, I would be surprised if bitcoin goes away. I, I, I personally think that it should survive any type of, of, of change. I mean the volatility that we could experience, who knows, it could go to zero, unlikely. It could go to a million dollars a coin. You know, I think, you know, I think right now probably 60, 70% most people believe that the central bank digital currency is going to come as a totalitarian sort of through ESG goals. Hopefully that's not the case. Still again, I think as we build the consciousness and the pathways of exchange, it doesn't matter what it will come as it, it will sort of become irrelevant. My druthers. What if I had to guess, I would bet that probably some type of intelligence agency created bitcoin.

I'm not so sure Satoshi is. Huh.

Yeah, that would be my, if I really had to guess, I would say yeah, it's probably a precursor to the cbdc, you know and sort of to see how does the public react, let's do a test case. Also, it's very important to get a comfort level with blockchain. But you know, again, anything like the Internet or blockchain which would be required for a surveillance society, it's only half the story. So with the poison, so comes the medicine and the freedom. Systems are also built with the Internet and blockchain. So I think that again, just as you're saying, if, if the US were to outlaw it, which my personal opinion would be unlikely, you know, it pops up somewhere else. You know, you, you see different types of rules happening in Switzerland. We've seen a whole variance. I, was it Congressman Loudermilk or something like that recently put a statement out saying that they were going to make sure that the CBDC could not become a tyrannical type of thing. My, my real belief is that much like when we look at the cell phone, which again has its positives and negatives, we still did not have to burn down phone booths, you know. And so the more that we build positive systems, the more that systems gone wrong or tyrannical systems become quaint and irrelevant. You know, so state banking sort of makes the central bank, central banks irrelevant. When, when communities start issuing their own credit backed alternative currencies, it makes, makes central bank digital currencies one, one of many. And as long as everything is one of many, we're living in a thriving universe. You know, you look at nature, all the problems with monocrops, you, you know, you look at when you destroy the bees, what it does to everything else, you destroy the mosquitoes. How important every component is in the symphony. Truly the symphony. So I personally like bicycle bitcoin. I hope it continues to do really well. I think there should be a lot of potential for it to do really well. But it's. It's totally speculative. Right. Still at this point. And I think eventually to me, it just becomes a really cool store of value. I don't really see it becoming money. I mean, maybe Max Kaiser has, you know, I mean, certainly a lot more invested in it. Right. And. And done phenomenally well.

Well.

But I think a few years ago I saw him in Aspen and he was saying maybe it would. It would level out at a hundred thousand and then it would become money. We don't really know. These are still the wrong principles of a token of exchange. A token of exchange should have no intrinsic value. It should be valueless, like the equal sign. But it should just be a standard of measure that assists us in saying, hey, yeah, that's a fair exchange. And guess what? It's a receipt for certain services I exchanged, I gave. And it should store my value by maintaining stable value for me to use it later on. So if a farmer were to issue their own credit and it. And part of it was backed by eggs, those credits would maintain their purchasing power today pretty darn well, by far better than most. Most things than gold, than bitcoin, than US Dollars. So, you know, I say the more the merrier. The most important thing is that money itself should not be scarce to have value. And that, to me, is the downfall of bitcoin. But if bitcoin were to lose its scarcity, it would lose all of its value. So it's very important that bitcoin maintains its scarcity and the community is fervent about it, committed to it, you know. So I, I think there's so much to be esteemed about it. But because it. It violates the very first principle of a properly created money, which is money should be equal, fluctuating, and equal to the changing productivity of the people. It. It. It cannot do that, no matter how many little satoshi you make from, you know, from 21 million coins by 20, 20, 40.

Wow. I love it. Well, so, okay, the last question I have is what would you. So definitely listen. Reading or listening to your book would be a phenomenal next step. I personally am going to do that. And then any other resources that you'd recommend. Let's say someone's listening to this and being like, What? You know, and they want to go. Not everyone will. Somebody like, neat. I'm gonna go back to my day. But there's gonna be people like, you know, me who are like, what? And they just want to know. It's just this fascination, this hunger to. So your book. And then are there any other books or resources you'd say, hey, check out this too. Or maybe you have other things in addition to the book you want to recommend. But how do we continue to gain awareness and liberate ourselves through learning?

Yeah. I mean, honestly, truly, objectively, the book, the reading, the end of scarcity, like listening to the end of scarcity. And later on, I will have a cartoon version, but it still might take me a year, just because I'm surprised how much longer everything takes. If I could have come across a resource like this in the pat, you know, in the years that I was researching, I cannot even tell you what. What this would have meant to me. But it's probably why I put 10 years of my life into this book, because it's so important that we get this information again. And the book is written like narrative nonfiction, so it is actually the story. It's an adventure story. I tell the story of how I go around the world and meet these people and uncover these truths. So I include in the book probably about seven different experts that you can go and get their material. You know, so I'll. I'll give you, you know, 10 minutes of their talk. I actually, many of them became good friends because I stalked them for so long, and.

Best way to make friends, by the way, in case you're wondering, total side note, you want friends, stalk people.

I read the books. I went to their conferences, you know, and. And we really, for. For a couple of them, we learned together, even over many years. And so there are some wonderful, beautiful thinkers in this book. Visionaries. I encourage you to read their work. There's enough you'll get the gist of just by reading the chapter where you'll get the core points of what they're talking about. And then, you know, still the history, you know, Bill still forever Money Masters is a great, you know, review of some monetary history. Paul Grignon is a profound monetary visionary out of Canada who's also a cartoonist. And just recently, I ran into Professor Richard Warner versus Werner, who is absolutely describing money, the creation of money, as I am. And I'm thinking maybe in London. I ran into one of the books he wrote, but it would have been late. So I'm not. I have to look. I Have a huge closet full of books. I have to look if it was his. He is breaking money creation down to the minutia of economic, like as if you were to take an economics class. So he's got lots of stuff out there on YouTubes and big manuals. I had my mom read the book and my mom and my sister would say to me, more simple, more simple. And I would say, really? You know, are you sure this isn't getting annoying? But people tell me they can't put it down and, you know, it's one plus one equals two. And I, I say to people, the, the less, the less really formal education you have around markets and money, the easier it is because you, you, you have to unlearn everything, you know, but it, it's really simple, but it, but the hard part is it's, it's not what we believed. But hey, this is how we set ourselves free because we really start to get the money. Power is in us. It's. It's actually in us. And EC Regal, who is the grand thinker reading any of his stuff, it's a little bit more dated from the 40s. Beautiful man. He worked on this day in and day out trying to stop World War II because he knew it was coming. Every war, every war has been the contortion of the money supply and every work comes about in order to create more debt. So it's, it's just so sad in so many kinds of ways. But so EC Regal did the best that he could to stop World War II and wrote beautiful books that you still can get. But, and I do quote many passages because, you know, without this man, I certainly wouldn't have learned this. And, and many of the beautiful visionaries, monetary reformists, also sort of stand on his shoulders as well.

Wow. So much. Just even in that last answer and throughout this whole interview, I, you know, there's a, there's a wealth of knowledge. And I, I didn't sense that we're just, we're at the very tip of that iceberg. And so I'm inspired and energized to look further. And I, I know that, I mean, there's, you could look at any facet of life that we just took take for granted is like, this is how it is. And if you dig a little bit, whether it's your physical habit, health, relationships, money, taking it, this is how it is. And I'm not going to even think about it, is generally not going to set you up for the most awesome life. And instead, let me become a student and a master as much as I can of this so that I can steer and navigate and make better choices and ultimately, you know, bring a positive effect to my life and others as you're doing. So thank you so much Kristen for your time for your in input and I'm excited to read this book. I'll probably be texting you follow up questions as we go and passion to.

Talk about 247 so yay.

I almost I love it. I love it. So the book itself people can get on Amazon, Audible and do you have a website or a place that people can go to find out more about you and what you're up to?

I do. It's, it's the book's title, the endofscarcity.com or my name kristenragason.com K R I S T E N R A G U S I N and you know, you can just sign up there for a newsletter. I hope to have a lot of stuff coming. It's, there's already some decent stuff on the website, but I want to, I've got events on there, a community that you can join on Facebook so we can help bolster all different kinds of communities to begin to create this. I'm going to be giving some talks this summer in person and and then also other resources. I'll have cartoon videos, cartoon book and then as things sort of become much more mainstream, hopefully every week I'll have an article out and from time to time I'll send an email. So it's, it's a great place to meet other like minded people and also just stay connected.

Yeah, beautiful. All right, well I'm definitely gonna learn a lot more from this book and I loved some of the other things you're mentioning too, so thank you so much. Kristen.

Thank you for so much fun. I appreciate it.

Aziz, Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com. Sam.