319: The Hidden Truths of Money, Interest Rates, and Your "Perfect" Investment
23 Apr 2026 · 33 min
In this solo podcast episode, the host (Richard) examines the persistent boom‑bust cycle driven by central‑bank manipulation of interest rates, drawing on Carlos Lara and Robert Murphy’s book The Perfect Investment. He outlines the 14 attributes that define an ideal investment—consistent high returns, liquidity, guarantees, safety, tax‑free status, no market volatility, creditor protection, inflation‑proofing, control, transferability, ease of management, no fees, reputable and private—and argues that dividend‑paying whole‑life insurance (the Infinite Banking Concept, IBC) uniquely satisfies most of these criteria. The episode critiques traditional vehicles such as mutual funds, stocks, gold, and real‑estate for their volatility, liquidity issues, and tax drawbacks, and uses a classic compounding illustration (Investor A vs. Investor B) to stress the importance of early, consistent investing. It also discusses the historical perception of whole‑life insurance, marketing mis‑representations, and the mechanics of policy loans that do not expand the money supply. Throughout, the host invites listener engagement, promotes a free 7‑step guide at 7steps.ca, and teases future discussion of Chapter 4 (“IBC is Not a Gimmick”).
Chapters
Are we headed for a boom or a bust? 15 years ago, Carlos Lara wrote that Americans— and yes, Canadians too— they've been tricked by the hidden process of money creation. Fast forward to March of 2026, and we're still living it. The Bank of Canada is holding interest rates at 2.25% while inflation sits around what they say 1.8%. We know that that's not always true, with upside risks from US tariffs, Middle East energy spikes. US recession odds right now are sitting at about 35% according to JP Morgan. Stock market volatility is back in the headlines. Hey, imagine that. Same movie for a decade. The article stands the test of time because the root cause, central banks artificially suppressing interest rates, never went away. It just keeps creating the next boom. And the next bust. So we're going to unpack that a little bit today and we have a little bit of fun because today is going to be our first solo episode actually on the podcast. And you get the benefit of just having Richard today, which is going to be a lot of fun. And in the spirit of this, what I wanted to do is talk a little bit about this incredible book, The Perfect Investment. So now this book is really basically tied to a number of incredible articles written over a few years by a combination of Robert Murphy and Carlos Lara. And so this one really focuses on the Carlos Lara articles, and they're put together in a really nice structured way where you kind of get it all in one package. And there's some incredible articles in here. Now, we're not going to unpack all of them, but I want to go over two of them, two of the chapters specifically in our conversation today. We're going to start in Chapter 1. Chapter 1 is called The Perfect Investment. I'm going to read a few moments from here, but then we're going to discuss it. And unpack a little bit and, and maybe talk about some of the relevance today. So starting right at the very beginning of Chapter 1, The Perfect Investment, there's no other way to put it. Americans have been tricked. Canadians too. The hidden process of money creation that artificially manipulates interest rates and creates economic booms have misguided society's views of money and credit. So just think about that. Think about the past. Have you seen interest rates up and down every quarter? It's in the news. Are they going to go up? Are they going to go down? What are they going to do with interest rates? All this news cycle around that element. But have we stopped to really think what is that, what's really happening there? Why is that manipulation taking place? Okay. Traditional savings plans lost favor with the general public because they were seen as too slow and boring. That's actually important in an economy that was flush with money and low interest rates. Because in low interest rate money, everything seems to be working really, really well. We're also just creating a bubble that eventually needs to be popped. That's the other thing that happens. That's the, that's the bust part of the boom. It's also the bubble popping situation. The lure of the stock market and promises of quick money through investing turned Americans into a nation of speculators. Now, Nelson Nash used to say this. He would say that an investment is only, or should only be in something that you know a great deal about. Everything else, I repeat, everything else is speculation. That's how Nelson Nash felt about quantifying the difference between an investment and speculation. And the reality is it was his belief, you know, after having a number of conversations with him, certainly over, you know, glass of Merlot or something like that after an event where he would indicate, look, if you look at and you analyze the types of products that people are buying and purchasing today, investment products, they're almost exclusively speculation products. We're hoping, we're trying to create an environment where we can build our financial life on hopium. He used to say that Wall Street and Bay Street in Canada operated on this drug called hopium, where we're trying to create this hopeful environment that everything's going to work out for the general population. And the reality is, unless you're an expert in Nvidia or AI this, or oil and gas that, whatever the sector is. There's one thing to know, have knowledge about a sector. It's another thing to have unique knowledge about a business model and a business structure of a company. And when you're investing, are you investing in that? And if you take like an example as like a mutual fund, let's just say, hey, I'm not mutual fund licensed, don't sell them, don't ever have any intention or want to do that. But if you think about them, what they are is a fund of pooled money, pooled resources from investors like you and I. and then it's all piled together where they invest in little slices of bigger companies. So all they're doing is they're chopping up and saying, look, you shouldn't be investing in company 1 or company 2 all on your own. Let us pool them together and get, you know, companies 1 through 50, and we'll have little pieces or bigger pieces of all of them, and then we'll have a target allocation, and then you just invest in that. And so they're creating tools to try to make your life simple. To minimize risk and increase your level of hopium. That's kind of the whole thought process there. All right. So it goes on to say that the problem is that inflation and credit expansion, credit expansion, always precipitate business maladjustments and malinvestments that must later be liquidated. The inevitable bust, the balloon popping, is always disastrous to the economy. So Consider that business maladjustments and malinvestments. So when you're looking at investing in a large project, let's say you're a real estate developer and you're now acquiring land, takes a lot of capital to do that. Then you gotta go through approvals depending on the city, the timeframe, how long is that gonna take? Then you gotta organize and section off lots. You gotta subdivide the pieces. That takes time to complete. Then you can either sell off those pieces or you might develop them yourself. And then, so by the time you go from conception of idea, looking at land pieces, finding the right land piece, doing all your, your pro formas, your math, your expectations, your spreadsheets, your business model, then you gotta go through all of those steps. We could be looking at 3, 5, 7 years, maybe as much as 10 years in that entire process before you're in a position where you can really get the net profit that you're looking for. And so the timeframe it takes to do that, how many interest rate announcements happen in that timeframe? So are you exploring the number based on the interest rate of today, but you're projecting out this 5, 10-year element? Well, what happens if the rate spikes up in that timeframe? How does that affect everything? And so there's always people who are early to the game and then there's people who are late to the game. Well, the ones that are late to the game, they're the ones that usually see the biggest impact and negatively so. When that bust happens and they're caught, you know, left holding the bag as it were. And that's, that's a real challenge and it's a consistent challenge that happens to North Americans across the board. We've all experienced it to some degree. And if you're, you're watching this, maybe you've experienced it. And so I'd be curious, what's, what's your story? Leave a comment below and let us know how has one of these boom-bust cycles shown up in your life? How has it affected you and your family even today? If we think about the kids who are turning 18, 19, 20, entering into the workforce, think about what their experience was 5 years ago during COVID that sort of thing. Think about their experience as they were aging into their premier years and what the impact of some of these economic challenges may leave a mark or a scar on them as they think about going through life financially. How is it going to affect their way of thinking about investment in their own life, their own future, their own business, that sort of thing. These are fun questions to kind of ask and unpack. Okay, so we're going to continue on. Now they get into the qualities of a person. Carlos calls them the attributes. So if you were to list out the attributes of the ideal investment, so just consider that for a moment as you're rolling that through your noodle. You know, Jayson Lowe here would say bake your noodle on that. What exactly would you say are the ideal attributes of the best of— you're building the ideal investment, but There could be nothing that could go wrong. Give us your laundry list of all the amazing things that you want that investment to have. And so although the lists vary from client to client, the following attributes and qualities are the ones that are most often cited. So he's got a list of 14 points here. So I'm going to go through the 14-point list and then we're going to unpack that just a little bit. And I just want you to think about them as you hear them come up in your listening. So number 1 is a consistent and high rate of return. We're going to come back to that. Number 2 is liquidity. In other words, access to capital. How quickly can you sell, convert that back into cash in some way? Number 3 is guaranteed. Well, obviously if it's a perfect investment, we would all want guarantees attached to it. If we can have all these things, why don't we throw that in as well? Number 4 is safe. Okay. Number 5 is tax-free. Okay, great. That sounds amazing so far. I like that. I like the list. Number 6 is no market volatility. So we're only 6 in and so far this does sound pretty good. So imagine you had consistent high rate of return, liquidity guaranteed, safe, tax-free, and no market volatility. If we just stopped there, that's probably like, that's better than almost, that's anything you can get on the market right now if you really think that through fundamentally. Okay. Number 7, creditor-proofed or protected, we should say. And I would put a little asterisk or a caveat on that in that can be creditor-proof. So, What we're going to talk about later is tied into that a little bit. We have that potential, but if you're ideally getting the perfect investment, having something that on the list makes a lot of sense. Okay. Number 8 is inflation-proof. Number 9 is control. So you, in other words, you have control over some measure of it. Number 10 is transferable. Could you transfer it to your wife, your spouse, your, your kids, your grandkids, et cetera? Number 11, easy to manage. The time and effort it takes to do some of these things plays a toll on people, both in their household, in their life, in their day-to-day, just time requirements. We only have 24 hours in a day. Some of that we need to use to sleep, so I'm told. So how is that playing a role in how you're utilizing your human resources, your human resources of time? Number 12, no fees or penalties. That sounds pretty good. Number 13, reputable. In other words, the company, however it's put together and structured, it's in a reputable organization. And number 14 is private. Private meaning that it's not subject to prying eyes, you know, the government or someone else, a news article. When you kick the bucket and they're going through your probate or estate stuff, they're not finding and unpacking all your dirty laundry, that kind of thing. So those are the 14 list of points. Now, a lot of good points there. I would love to hear and maybe just comment below. Let us know which of the 14 that I listed is the one that's most important to you. You can give me top 2 if you want, but, but rank them like number 1, number 2. So let's see if we can get some comments on that. I'd like to see from our listeners which of those appeals most to you because ultimately we, we record this session for you. So we'd like to know your thoughts on the matter. Now I want to circle back to the very top of the list, a consistent and high rate of return. What's the most important word there? And I have it underlined and highlighted actually in blue. Is consistent. So it's one thing to have a high rate of return. It's another thing to have it consistent. There's a lot of things that claim to have a high rate of return. We have a lot of people we've interviewed, we've spoken to clients that we meet with who've experienced a high rate of return. I personally have also experienced that, but in the same way I've experienced a high rate of return, I've also personally experienced a drastic dip loss against my value. So I've seen both of the extremes and in some cases, The negative part of the extreme won out over top of the high ceiling of the extreme. So consistent and high rate of turn is the key element there. If you can't make it or get it consistently, then what's the end result going to be? The answer is nobody knows. And the risk associated with that can sometimes be really, really, really powerful and often not fond, not friendly. When we're looking back upon our life and we're kind of analyzing some of our choices. Not that we want to have regret, but we want to be able to see, okay, what was our thinking like that caused us to make this decision or that decision? And if I could go back and adjust my thinking, would I do today the same thing I did back then? I know for myself, there's a lot of things I would do differently based on where my thinking is at today. Experience, time, research, reading, uh, watching a lot of YouTube videos. Those things tend to becoming a parent, all those things tend to adjust and meld your way of doing things for the future because you're trying to set your best foot forward. And sometimes what was your best foot forward 10 years ago? Well, you were a different person 10 years ago. And is the best foot forward for you today the same step, or is it a different— is a sidestep? What are you doing differently based on the knowledge, information, understanding that you have? And your awareness of what's around you and your focus and your goals and your intentions. Like all those things kind of blend together. So it's a really powerful list. Now, the reality is, what of these things actually create this for you? Well, he goes on to say that it's pretty astonishing that when people find out that the thing that creates these qualities more, most across the board that actually exists as a tool or a product today is high life, uh, whole life insurance. It has most of these elements. Furthermore, it's not even an investment, it's life insurance. So just imagine having the infrastructure with all of these qualities we identified, 14 points, and having full control of the asset. That is the power of IBC, the Infinite Banking Concept. In contrast, most popular investment vehicles which also comes with the risk of loss, by the way, are strong on some of the cited criteria, but very, very weak on others. For ex— Okay. Do you want a clear and focused way to decide if the infinite banking concept is even right for your family? It's simple. Download our free 7-Step Guide at 7steps.ca. It's a very smart, time-saving roadmap that'll help you evaluate this process fast so you can move forward forward with total confidence. In fact, once you complete step 4, you will know if this is even the right fit for you. Find out now. Get it at 7steps.ca. Example, go list a couple great examples. I like these ones because Carlos Lara is an Austrian. Usually Austrians are very focused on things like gold, precious metals because of as an inflation hedge. So he says, for example, gold is an excellent inflation hedge, but it does not provide a flow of income. Its appreciation can be taxed as a capital gain. And the government has confiscated in the past. I used to have, I'd have to track it down. We used to have this article, I think it was from FDR, that was like the gold seizure notice that was posted where they were seizing gold during the Great Depression because they needed to kind of, well, they needed it to be able to pay for services and things for people. So it was a really interesting period of time. Real estate can be quite volatile stock market investments. The other thing about real estate is it can be very illiquid if you live, if you're in a marketplace that it's not churning, there's not an, there's not enough volume of people. If you're in a small town, smaller market, if you're in a market that's very economically cyclical, like as an example, one of those markets would be Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. It's an oil-based primarily economy, very resource-based economy. And so it's ebbs and flows, ups and downs of market value and and ability to sell is very relevant to major market factors and geopolitical elements. And because the volume of the town, while it certainly has grown a lot in the last 40 years, it may not absorb the turnover, right? And so compare that to a major city like a Phoenix or a New York or an Edmonton where, not to say that Edmonton maybe is in the same quantity of people as some of those other cities, But the connection point is that the ability to turn over properties in that area is much better. Doesn't mean you'll get the value, but how long is it sitting without being liquid? So liquidity and the measure of time in relation to liquidity is often one of the risk factors that, you know, if you're a regulator looking at what are some of the things that you would identify as higher risk? Well, liquidity and your ability to convert something into cash is one of those measuring sticks. Okay. The standard. Okay. So while stock market investments, though promising a high rate of return, promising being the key or operative word, also come with risk of massive short-term losses. And many people we've spoken to, we've had on our podcast, clients we serve have experienced that. It's not to say you shouldn't do those things. Hey, we're even talking about promoting about the ultimate tag team, having a dividend-based stock portfolio for some of its long-term tax benefits, income generation, yield-oriented, less focused on the growth of the stock itself, but more so on the yield and how that's the ultimate tag team when matched with the infinite banking concept and dividend-paying whole life. It could be fantastic. So it's not to say that you shouldn't do these things. There's no advice here. It's just awareness. Like these things have all these various risks and you don't control a lot of them. And if we go back to our 14-point list, we said consistent and high rate of return, not just high rate of return potential. Liquidity guaranteed, safe, tax-free, low, no market volatility. So no market volatility, number 6, kind of eliminates some of the things that we've already mentioned on the list almost instantaneously. Creditor protected. Okay. Depending on the situation. I mean, it's like not a lot you could have that fits that description unless it's maybe a registered account. And then there might be some limitations there as well. Okay. Inflation-proof control. Again, listing all these things out, when we talk about the primary core buckets of where people think about their investing, like stock market or stock market adjacent, that would mean even like index funds, that would mean mutual funds. It's all in that same wrapper. It might be different type of a product, but it's all tied to the same general premise of major companies that we're investing in, either in mutual relationship with one another, mutual fund, or individual stock picking or stockbroker, whatever that looks like. Okay. Index fund simply is, again, it's not drastically different than a mutual fund other than its management level, but okay, it's following the index, which is also tied to whatever the index is, but that market element. All right. So the standard case for whole life is that it is remarkably reliable. On most of the cited criteria, and even in its weak points are not as bad as the critics think. In reality, there is no such thing as the perfect investment. Now we can all agree on that. If you think you found one, maybe comment below, let us know. Someone's going to say, I've got some oceanfront properties. But the case for middle to upper income families, including whole life as part of their conservative financial plan, is quite compelling. I would happen to agree. Not saying that it needs to be the end-all be-all of your financial strategies. It's not saying that you would do that and not do anything else. It's saying that it should be a very core part of your conservative financial plan. It's logical. Now he talks next about an article that was written back in like 1958, in the late, early '60s by a gentleman named Richard Russell. He was a popular writer at the time and he had this article called Rich Man Poor Man. Where it analyzes Investor A and Investor B and it points out some key clarity. But Carlos in the article tends to highlight some of the things that were missing from the article. While the article was good, Rich Man Poor Man, what some of the differences between them were, the key distinction is also what wasn't said and how we need to think about those things relevant to your own circumstance. So this article by Richard Russell, a couple of things that he identifies in some of his writing was that for the majority of investors, majority of investors, making money requires a plan, self-discipline, and desire. Plan, self-discipline, desire. Those are 3 critical elements. So if you're watching this and you don't have those things, or you haven't considered implementing them in some degree in your life, why is that? And consider your own circumstance where you're at at this stage in life. How much of that have you already done to this point? How much plan did you actually have in place written in some way? Self-discipline to manage it effectively, keep an eye on it, keep tabs on it, be aware, and how much desire do you have to— desire would also directly correlate to something else, like capitalization. Desire. You have to put capital in. You have to have a desire to make sure you're saving or compartmentalizing money away from your regular budget, not spending it, to be able to implement these types of things. Now, the article author, Richard Russell, he goes on to say that for the majority of people— the reason I say the majority of people is because If you are Steven Spielberg or Bill Gates, you have to understand the context of when this was written. So nowadays you might say like Elon Musk or whoever the CEO is in NVIDIA as an example. You're a phenomenon in your own field and you're going to make big money as a byproduct of your talent and ability. But this kind of genius is rare. Now, he's not saying that it's not available to everybody. What he's saying is that banking your life plan on the fact that you're going to home run it like an Elon Musk is or something isn't necessarily the best planning strategy. So you probably need some other things in place. So then he goes on to talk about comparing Investor A and Investor B. And the key differences between the two of them is that Investor B makes contributions, 7 contributions. I only have 5 fingers because I'm holding the book in one hand, but 7 contributions. And I think the example he uses, like, $5,000 or $2,000. I don't remember the math, but I've seen the spreadsheet for it. And Investor A does 40 contributions. So on the surface, our brain's like, oh, well, obviously the person who did 40 contributions did better. However, the difference is when did they start? Okay. So Investor B started early. I believe the age was about 20, 21. And then Investor A, who made 40 contributions, didn't start until about 7 years later. So Investor B starts early. Let's just assume age 21 for my example, puts in 7 years of whatever it is, $5,000 a year. And then Investor A puts in 40 contributions, but doesn't start until 7 years later. So way more capital goes in, 33 more contributions of the same amount of money. The end result is when it's all said and done at the exact same interest rate they're earning, he goes on to show 10%, but it's consistent. It never goes down. So it's the beautiful power of compounding. We get to see that compounding curve on a nice little graph, but Investor B, who started earlier and put in way less contributions, comes out ahead. That's the summary point of the example. And so the, what he goes on to say is that even though Investor B had several more early years of compounding than A, and those 7 early years were worth more than all of Investor A's 33 additional contributions, it's amazing. It's the power of compounding, but there is also the unmistakable consistency in the growth of this fund as it's illustrated in the example, a fact that would never happen in the real world. So here's where Carlos is starting to put influence on what we really see happening and taking place here. Okay. He says that the guy who created the article, Rich Man Poor Man article, one of the cardinal rules to compounding success is to never lose money. We've heard that quote from Warren Buffett, you know, rule Rule number 1, never lose money. Rule number 2 is don't forget rule number 1. Yet most financial products do lose money. So it's an example, but where are we referencing and isolating? Okay, what's, what's the reality of life? Like, where is life going to come in and kick this plan square in the nuts and derail everything that's taking place? Okay. Now going down a little bit further, he's talking about the problem with control. Specifically around like tax-qualified plans. He lists off a number of plans like 401(k)s, RRSPs, et cetera. More important is that without the ability to tap into the pool of savings in case of emergencies for large-scale purchases. So again, he's referencing like tax-qualified plans in this scenario. Americans have very little recourse but to suffer great hardship or be forced to borrow and go into debt. Now, I'm sure you know people who that's happened. Maybe that's even happened to you to some degree. Because of a lack of liquidity, things being tied up. I know I've experienced that where things were tied up in equity and real estate that was really hard to liberate or get access to. And that is often the case. Like even if you think about having a home equity credit line where you have access, well, that's fine, except what are the limitations in the rules? Usually you have to have a big cushion of equity, say 20, maybe 30% of equity in that property. That's still not touchable or tapped. You might be able to get it from a private source, private lending, but getting it from a regular bank or in a format where you can access and put it back in easily becomes very difficult and very restrictive. Like there's just too many rules around that type of environment. Okay. Fortunately, the power of compounding that Richard Russell describes in his example can still be achieved if the money is stored inside of a whole life policy. So the whole point of going over the Investor B, Investor A analogy is to number one, isolate the critical element of starting early. Number two, the impact of compounding over extended periods of time. So I like to say that compounding requires two critical elements. Element number one is it has to sit still. The money has to stay in one location. It can't leave. It can't go down. It can't be exited. It can't be withdrawn, collapsed in some way. And then number 2, it requires time. So the combination of those 2 things is what creates compound potential. And then you need, then you need consistency. Well, one of the things we listed on our 14-point list was a consistent high rate of return. Now, when you add all those 14 points together, most people don't look at whole life and say, wow, that's a high rate of return. The answer is you're right. It's not meant to be a high rate of return. But if you were to get all 14 points or almost all 14 points, and still get a reasonably high rate of return in a tax-exempt environment that was highly competitive with something that met those characteristics. I mean, it's still pretty impressive what you can get accomplished. Okay. By having one's money inside of a private contractual arrangement with an insurance company instead of tax-qualified government plans, such as IRAs, 401(k)s, RSPs, et cetera. Or similar vehicles, you have real control over your money without the typical restrictions and penalties. That's another thing. Those are one of the things I like to talk about when I mentioned the silent assassins of your money. These are things that slice and dice like the death of a thousand paper cuts, little pieces of your money, your wealth as it flows through your life. Some of them are very behavior-based. Some of them are happening in the background where we don't even know it. And one of those ones is things like penalties and fees that we incur which are little slices of your wealth and your wealth potential that disappear, never to be seen again. So it's important to be mindful of them. Very mindful. Now, next piece of this, this is one of the main reasons why I want to go into this article from the book first. Again, the perfect investment that we're talking about is that whole life policy loans are non-inflationary, non-inflationary. He talks about how Nelson, of course, kind of discovered the power of this concept and how amazing it is. But equally important, when major purchases are financed through whole life insurance policy loans, the money supply— so we go back to the very beginning of our conversation about the manipulation of the money supply and credit and the expansion of credit. But in this example, with whole life policy loans, the money supply is not expanded and there is no contribution to the boom-bust cycle. No expansion of the money supply because the insurance company can't create or manufacture money out of thin air. They're not allowed to do that. A dollar is a dollar. So you you request a policy loan as a policy owner. Well, in practice, what, you know, every single day premiums are showing up. People pay premiums monthly, they pay premiums annually. They're all different sizes. They might be for term insurance, for all kinds of different lines of business. And that money shows up. And then from there, it now gets deployed immediately into the machine. The machine's going to put it to work. Well, one of the areas they can put it to work is with you. So if you request a policy loan for $50,000, Well, they don't maintain a massive amount. I mean, they have liquidity probably in several hundred thousand to several millions of dollars because it's rotating all the time, but it's a constant flow of financial energy in and out of the insurance company. And when I say out, it's out for expenses, but it's also out for investments. So they're deploying capital to put it to work. One of the places they can put it to work, if you look at page 26 of Nelson's book, turns out I have that here. Imagine that. So for any of you watching on YouTube, you might want to reference page 26 in Jayson Lowe's book, and there's a perfect drawing there called the money pool. And the money pool, and I'll just hold up to the camera here, here's the money pool, is that this is basically how the insurance company puts capital to work. We get premiums in, we got to pay expenses of operation. If there's death claims, those are called mortality costs. We got to pay those out of there because it's a contract. Okay, then they got to put money to work in types of investments. So Nelson has listed joint ventures, mortgages, and policy owners, and then he ranks them 1, 2, 3. Policy owners are at the top in the hierarchy of who can ask for, receive capital first. The policyholder is the first right to access whatever can be lent from their policy. Okay, that's— Nelson would go on to say that is absolute and total control. So yeah, we're very, very phenomenal consideration. Now, when we think about the lack of adding to the inflation in the money supply, that's really important. In fact, that's going to lead us to the next section, which is going to bring us to chapter 4. I want to flip to chapter 4, and that chapter is called IBC is Not a Gimmick. So stay tuned for that because I want to unpack that and we're going to pull these things together. The IBC is Not a Gimmick chapter talks a little bit about some of the history of the whole life industry and some things that happened in the '80s, specifically around 1987, 1988, and how that impacted in general, the understanding and the societal, you know, for American society, how we view and understand and interpret things like whole life insurance in a modern way today, how it fell out of favor, what led to some of those things, and also some of the marketing practices I'll refer to them as clickbait that had an impact in that decision. And we're seeing some of those things today. It's just that they're not showing up in a newspaper or a magazine because you can't actually click the newspaper, but you can online. And so, TikToks, the TikToks, as we like to say, the Instagrammies, these are all things where we're seeing a lot of, I don't say manipulation, but we'll say falsification or misleading elements as people are describing the power of dividend-paying whole life insurance or the process of becoming your own banker, because not those two are not the same thing. And often we see some misalignment that's happening there, which is why it's important that we focus on telling the truth and getting really clear on what we're saying. And that's our focus is to educate, you know, our listeners, the general public on how to make sure that they're interpreting that correctly. So there we go. That's a little bit about the perfect investment. Stay tuned. We'll talk more about Chapter 4 when we come back in our next session. And this was a lot of fun. If you enjoyed this content, you're going to see some amazing content that just popped up that says, oh my God, more good information. 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