Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
Bitcoin Today Pre Show
Recorded: July 3, 2025 Duration: 1:02:13Space Recording
Short Summary
In a lively discussion, crypto enthusiasts explored the upcoming Bitcoin Alpha event, bullish predictions for Bitcoin's price, and the impact of macroeconomic trends on the crypto market. The conversation highlighted the growing interest in Bitcoin and the community's engagement, particularly around significant events like the Fourth of July.
Full Transcription
Oh oh
here's and
and I okay what it is
what Oh
Oh oh
We can't stop and Oh I'm going to go to the next one. All right, guys, we are doing a free Bitcoin Today show.
I will be joining the Bitcoin Today show for a little bit afterwards.
But I was just in the mood to uh to to hear some people on spaces so i thought hey i'll start a free
bitcoin today show and sort of tail off bitcoin today so if you're interested in bitcoin today
it's going to be playing on the same bat channel in uh in an hour from now a little bit little
less than an hour uh we got dark side thomas hooted simple waters dog said bitcoin how's everybody doing
today 110 not not too shabby for the fourth of july i would say
bullish fred how you doing i mean people said fred you're jinxing it by saying we're going to hit an
all-time high by the fourth but you know i gotta tell you i'm proud to be an american and a bitcoiner
at this kind of on this day fred can you hear me i'm yeah i can hear you yeah okay cool i just got
the headphones on so i just want to make sure um yeah, no, I like that call out, Fred. I think the structure looks good.
And I just, I think we're going to put in a pretty hefty two-month candle here.
So I think everyone's going to be pretty happy by at least October.
Wait, what happens in October?
Nothing specific happens in October.
I'm just looking at the two-month chart chart and I think we're going to put in a
big two month candle over the next two.
And,
yeah,
I'm thinking one 70 K by October.
That's,
that's my bet.
Anyone,
anyone can take me on that bet.
Totally down for it.
One 70 K by October.
Okay.
Dark side one 70 by October.
What do you think?
I like it. Um, Bitcoin alpha happens in October. I, DarkSide. $170 by October. What do you think? I like it.
Bitcoin Alpha happens in October, I believe, Fred.
Yeah, it does, actually.
That's so interesting you said that.
We have the Bitcoin Alpha event in October,
which is kind of a club for the insiders of Bitcoin, right?
So basically, if you're new to Bitcoin, you don't have any Bitcoin,
probably not the right event for you because it's expensive.
We, you know, we're renting out this five-star hotel.
We are having bacon-wrapped scallops and steak.
And, you know, we're just, you know, this is a club of, you know,
I'd like to, you know, there's this club in New York called the 21 Club that Donald Trump, you know, famously hung out for.
Well, this is kind of the 21 Club, too.
It's sort of like, if you have 21 Bitcoin, you can join this club.
I'm just kidding.
You don't have to have 21 Bitcoin.
to have 21 Bitcoin. But if you've got 10 Bitcoin or more, or 100 Bitcoin, or 1,000 Bitcoin,
you are welcome to the Bitcoin Alpha event. If you're serious about Bitcoin,
we're serious about Bitcoin, and we want to share our insight about where we think this our our asset our favorite asset is going over
the next five to ten years so that's kind of the idea you know we're basically it's a show by
bitcoiners for bitcoiners and we're selling tickets man we are we are selling tickets let
me just take a look at where we are on the ticket side. I have my Shopify here.
All right.
Okay.
We have sold $114,000 worth of tickets.
A little bit more, $114,500.
We have, in terms of how much stuff we have left, we have 39 Bitcoin Alpha Pass limited edition left at $1,250.
Once those go, we are down to 50 tickets left, period.
They will go because that is sort of the last chance tickets.
And they will be at $1,500.
And they will sell out because we have almost four months left before
this conference. This thing is already selling out. So if you're serious about going, don't
kind of come to me or Darkside or Thomas and say, you know, I really wanted to sign up, but I
couldn't get around to it. And I was thinking about this, you know, this real estate conference in Tahiti that
I was going to go to in September and I couldn't, I wasn't sure. So you have no, your excuses are
your own, as they say, just check out the side. The tickets are reimbursable up until the last
month, but then, then we need to kind of finalize the head count for the bacon wrap scallops and everything. So check it out, BitcoinAlpha.org.
And Thomas, what do you think?
Fourth of July.
I think the Fourth of July stuff's great.
I mean, it really feels like we're primed for a nice move up here.
I just want the moves up to be sustainable,
get us to a nice place by the end of the year and keep moving up. But, you know, what you don't want to see is a big rise up only to have it come back down to under 100.
I don't think I don't feel like that's going to happen.
I feel like the capital is kind of getting set up to to push here
a couple of hype things that i think are interesting of this we talked a little bit about
the tom lee thing that's that kind of was like uh uh you know this ethereum treasury companies
it seems i i can't wrap my head around it it's uh seems crazy. I got hit up by a bunch of investors saying,
Fred, we should do a Solana Degen treasury company.
Seriously, yesterday.
They're like, we got the vehicle, we got the money.
And I'm like, like what?
Like, oh, you know, like all this crypto stuff.
You know, like, I'm like, like Fartcoin. They're like, exactly know like all this crypto stuff uh you know like i'm like like
fart coin they're like exactly like fart coin like mainly fart point i'm like okay really
so that's the stage on the market that we're in now i have no doubt that if you did that and and
there was some form behind it not substance because i don't think there's anything substantive about it
some form behind it not substance because i don't think there's anything substantive about it
but if you had the form it would it would rally like a meme coin it's crazy yeah well that's what
everybody got really excited they were like okay wait a second like you know they would have these
you know different kind of derivatives or uh you know prefers shares based on fart and fume and things like that look people
love these meme coins i gotta tell you they're they're gonna end badly but people like the write
up you know they're gonna end badly that's my opinion but i don't know. I'm amazed that that like Doge has survived as long as it has.
And, you know, I keep thinking that, you know, Musk is I think he's still a decent sized holder.
I always thought that he was going to make the Dogecoin part of the X ecosystem.
You know, people so people right now like contributors you get to a certain level
i think it's five million views and above for three months period you start getting
uh you can get payments uh imagine he just says all right we're just going to start paying people
in doge uh you know a lot of creators might not like that because they're actually living off that
bank but i just think it would be an interesting...
And maybe he leaves the people who are making money now alone
and he gets the people beneath it
who are just shy of the monetization level
to throw them some doge for specific posts
that are interesting by the community.
I just think you can create some interesting stuff with that.
I always thought he might do that.
But I'm amazed that that coin has survived as long as it has these things have a life of
their own i gotta say even like stupid coin uh you know stupid coin hit a 10 million dollar market
cap last week and today currently as we stand today Stupid Kill Coin has a market cap of $4.7 million.
Okay?
So, there you go.
Stupid Coin.
That is amazing.
I find that amazing.
Because I just know how that whole thing went down.
And it was crazy.
Yeah.
And, you know, I own 12 million stupid coin.
They're all locked up.
But I do own 12 million stupid coin.
And it's, you know, it's half a penny right now.
So, something.
It'll pay for my breakfast burritos for a year um
or maybe not maybe it's the next dogecoin you know who knows at a half a penny at a half a
penny times 12 i can't do that math in my head i'm incapable of that 60 grand 60 000 yeah well
there you go that that that'll pay for some uh it'll cover your uh your office rent with
ben yeah exactly well i'm already getting covered just by twitter twitter's paying me two grand a
day two grand uh over two grand a month right now just twitter uh but anyways um so fred it's
anything that's going to really derail this thing at bitcoin first you i assume we'll have that that conference we had the chatham house rules
uh he had some security he had some security there as well but uh the one thing i thought
was interesting you said at the meeting the the last one, was as you kicked it off,
there was a certain amount of gravitas to the event,
meaning that you said,
look, there's a billion dollars of Bitcoin wealth in the room.
So what's your assessment
of how this coming October will be?
Let's assume that Bitcoin's at $125.
Hmm.
I mean,
I think it'll be 2 billion.
Yeah.
Two to three,
maybe.
Right.
Wow.
That would be,
that would be interesting.
Just to make that.
We can get right.
I'm trying to get some,
I'm really trying to get some,
some people who didn't show up last time, you know, look, I'm look,
I think everybody here can help on that. Right. Like we need,
we need to kind of work on them now to get in their schedule like Grant,
right. It'd be great to get Grant in person. Right. I mean, I just,
I think it'd be fantastic. You know, um,
it'd be great to get Simon in person.
We don't always disagree with everything,
but I feel like these things are very important bookends in our lives
because we can always do another space, right?
But we're not going to have that many more opportunities
to meet everybody in this community and to look them in the eye to cut a joke or two.
I just feel like it's important.
These things are important.
So, you know, you're going to look back.
You know, Bitcoin is going to be above a million five to ten years from now.
And you're going to be like oh yeah i remember those
days you know that we had those those events i kind of think you're going to you're going to
remember more that like the bitcoin first bitcoin today kind of things then uh then you will like
bitcoin vegas right oh i 100 agree i i think i i would say i would give grant 50 50 based on the conversations you
know i just a lot of it's just going to be what his schedule is i think he's predisposed to come
simon i would give less than 50 50 to come because there's apprehension of traveling
so um but hopefully you know both come that would be great yeah i mean there's other people too on
the list you know that i'd like to get like
i'd like to get you know caitlin long you know she might have you know she might have some other
personal reasons why she can't come but like there's a lot of people you know hunter from
bitwise you know i'm trying to work on some of those bitwise to jeff park from bitwise um you know some of these people larry lepart you know would be great you know
um i talked to larry in vegas i spent some time with him and i got the impression that
he he was going to dial back after his book tour yeah and and yet he showed up in bitcoin prog so
you know people say stuff like
this but then i don't know you never know thomas right people say this but then they
i don't know who knows look it's other than you know i think larry's in boston right but
other than um the travel getting there it's not a heavy lift to be there it's a pleasure i mean like yeah i mean
it's a beautiful hotel i i i booked a room in the hotel so i didn't have to like schlepper
but uh it's a beautiful facility and you don't you know it's we're going to be like
four four tracks nine nine hours of of and you, pick five or six sessions and take breaks.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, people don't sit back to back.
That's not how it rolls.
You pick five or six sessions and you go to them.
Yeah, I think Matthew Mazinskis will come, which I'm, you know,
I've been following him very carefully recently.
So he's kind of one of my favorites.
Where is he based out of?
Latvia.
I thought he was of Latvia then.
I didn't think he was in Latvia.
He lives in Latvia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he lives in Latvia.
So look, I think this is a, you know, you know, as we get to kind of 90 days before the event,
especially for these international travel, you kind of have to kind of plan it and book it, you know, as we get to kind of 90 days before the event, especially for these international travel,
you kind of have to kind of plan it and book it, you know?
So, you know, I just want to get on their radar.
I'd like to get, I'd like to get some of them,
some of the people from one, one or two people from Fidelity.
I think they would be really good to get to this event.
Did Yuri and Timmer get back to you after you reached out to him?
He has not gotten, but look, I know other people at Fidelity,
so I think we can probably get somebody from Fidelity.
I'd like to get somebody from BlackRock.
I don't know anybody at BlackRock,
but I'd like to get somebody from BlackRock.
And given the amount of money that we're going to be bringing to this table,
it probably makes sense for some people from Bitwise or BlackRock or both
or Fidelity to come, you know? Like, this could be a pretty good crowd, you know, for people just to
shake hands and meet. So, I don't know. I'm hoping that we can, you guys can all help by,
you know, trying to do this over the next month, I think.
If you can kind of get to these people who are...
It's easy for them to kind of put it off, like, you know,
I have this other conference or this or that.
But it'd be great if they could sort of commit in their schedules to come.
Look, we're not in need of anything right now, right?
We've already sold
more tickets than we did for
the first event.
We have $115,000
already
that we have. We booked.
We don't need any more money.
I'm trying to get Joe also.
Another thing. I know Dark's probably
like, Joe, what?
I've invited Joe. I'd like Joe to come. I'd like to get Joe also. Another thing. I know Dark's probably like, Joe, what? But I've invited Joe.
I'd like Joe to come.
I'd like to get a poker night the night before.
If anybody's interested in a poker night, let's get a poker night going.
I thought there was also a film screening.
Yeah, so Lauren, I think Ben already booked that.
So I think we have an 80-person theater.
So we're going to film that screen.
Anybody who wants to come, we're going to have to figure out quickly,
just like I'm interested in the film screening, right?
Because we are going to film this thing.
So we have to choose which room are we going to film it in, right?
But I think it's going to be great, meaning
we'll mix it up a little bit. We'll have some people that
you know, some people I think will do some crossover
people, you know, like this guy yesterday was talking to
this guy. He's quite big on YouTube. This guy's name is Threadguy.
But the guy's like,
I go what he goes.
I'm a bitcoiner Fred.
And I'm like,
you're a bitcoiner.
And he goes,
yeah.
And I go,
what percentage of your net worth?
Do you have a crypto?
Do you have an,
this guy's big into like meme coins and stuff.
He's got several hundred thousand followers on YouTube.
And,
he's like,
I'm 75% Bitcoin Fred.
And I'm like, okay, well you're a bitcoiner then you know welcome to the club so you know I just feel like it's
good to have people from different different walks of life a little bit
I see Gary's in the audience as he is I can't tell if he's a speaker or not.
Gary, are you planning on coming to Bitcoin Alpha?
He's not a speaker, but he's been invited.
I invited him.
But, yeah.
It'd be great.
Look, we're going to have a great time.
We have some good time.
Oh, there's Gary.
Okay.
Gary, you hear?
Hey, guys.
Hopefully you can hear me well.
I don't know.
What are the dates?
The date is October 16th at night, and then October 17th starting at like 8 a.m. All day
October 17th. Yeah
I've got the event in
Connecticut on October the 15th
16th with a bunch of
family offices with that
the last one. It's something I do
so it's going to be a conflict for me.
Alright.
Alright.
Pound on Grant.
We're going to pound.
We mentioned it to Grant a couple times.
It just depends on his schedule, right?
I mean, I know he's got the California presence.
I don't know what's going on with this Malibu house.
Last I heard, it wasn't good
stuff, but the Coastal Commission
is really fucking around.
I haven't heard anybody say
there's good stuff coming out of
the Coastal Commission right now.
The thing Grant said at the
last time we talked about it was,
it wasn't just even the, like, I think Grant's place is on Cable Beach in Malibu,
but up on the- Carbon Beach.
Yeah, Carbon Beach, yeah.
Up on the hill in the Pacific Palisades, where a good part of the fire was,
those people still aren't able to rebuild it.
Fred, you're not far from there.
Have you driven around?
What's your sense?
I haven't driven around yet,
but you can now drive around.
So literally, I probably should do that today.
Maybe I'll do a little video tour of the damage.
But they're letting people in for the first time.
You can go full self-driving mode
and video it while you're driving
uh yeah that's true i could take the tesla um i'll go with ben we'll go we'll take his tesla
what do you drive your tesla much not really i don't know not not that much I'm kind of more old school, but whatever.
I do like it.
I like the full driving mode.
We went to San Diego the other day, and it's great.
You just plop the self-drive on, and that's it.
You have a three-hour drive and three hours back, and you're just sitting there.
You're the passenger.
It's great.
But for tooling around town, I prefer my Porsche, you know.
All right. Is your Porsche a six speed or do you have it on a PDK?
What's PDK? Is that the uh automatic uh the tiptronic thing yeah
yeah i never use that tiptronic i always just use uh you know just the regular mode um
but uh yeah look i mean they're great i've had porsches i won't say all my life but i've had
them for the last 25 years i've had porsches and i the only inter interlude into that was an audi
uh at one point rs7 which uh was a really fun car but it was a big car kind of one of the things i
like about the porsche is i it's small and I kind of I'm a believer in less is more
so you know if if the if the car is smaller and it fits tighter around my body I like it you know
I in general I feel like you know these I want less clutter I want less car I want less
I want less everything in my life.
Yeah, it's gonna be nice to meet all of you guys. I already booked my ticket out there.
Fred, you know, I've never had caviar.
And I know you were talking about
maybe having some caviar as like hors d'oeuvres.
Is that still on the menu
or are we just gonna have have these bacon-wrapped scallops?
I think Fred stepped away here.
I've seen some of the menu stuff.
I just don't know if it got finalized.
I think Fred's joking around about the bacon-wrapped scallops.
I think he's literally going to have it,
but that was because I requested it, I think.
Yeah, I know that he was mentioning that,
that you were the one that requested the bacon-wrapped scallops.
Yeah, it was kind of a joke. But, you know, Thomas, what are your thoughts,
or even the panel, about today's print on employment and everything else and the market, overall employment looking good?
Do you guys foresee any rate cuts in the near future?
Because I know, at least from what I've read on X, that now the probability of us having rate cuts, you know, has basically diminished to zero.
Is that, do you feel that way or what? I think it's less likely because of it.
In terms of an early cut, even though there's a low probability, I think that
early cut in July has probably diminished significantly. But I would just say in general,
diminished significantly. But I would just say in general, I'm not inclined to put too much weight
into these reports because there's so many revisions in the future. And I just don't know
what to believe and what's really going on. So maybe it's a good thing, but the ADP report, which is
not a reliable report all the time, but anyway, it didn't sync up with what was reported this
morning. So anyway, I don't want to put too much into these things. I think the TradFi community sits around like dogs waiting for someone to yell bacon.
And as soon as someone issues one piece of data that has suspect veracity, there's an overreaction to it.
I don't know.
So I don't put a lot of stock into it. Maybe it's a good thing that the economy is getting hot.
You know, 6% GDP or something around there.
If that's the case, you know, cutting interest rates, you know, in the wake of that's probably not what the economists are going to want to go do.
But I still think the argument for lower interest rates is there.
It's just money's expensive right now and if keeping it high is a way to keep the the growth from from going above
six percent and the issue is should we be at seven or eight or nine percent nominal growth
i don't know i'll let the economists argue that.
Yeah. You know, I always like to kind of know.
And it's interesting because you kind of get conflicting reports and, you know, economists say one thing or another. And then now you have this gentleman from the housing committee talking about Powell should get removed because Trump does want to
lower rates. But it's kind of an interesting scenario because if the economy is good,
then we shouldn't lower rates. But if we don't lower rates, then it doesn't really support the
economy. So it's kind of like a back and forth. And it's kind of confusing, to be honest.
and forth and it's kind of confusing to be honest. I mean, to me, again, I just say if you step back,
that handwritten note that Trump had to Powell, I thought was very cheeky, right? But it also suggests that, you know, our cost of money is a good bit higher than a lot of the countries, specifically like the European zone, it's around 2%.
You know, is it in our interest to keep it high?
I don't know.
I mean, I know that if you look at the DXY, which is the index of the value of the dollar, it's been trending down since a couple months.
It was like $110.
Now it's down to about $90, $96 or something like that.
I think what Besson has said is he wants to bring it down and target it in the mid-80s, which is kind of where it was for a long time back, I guess, pre-COVID.
But, you know, that's good for exports.
You know, if we go down in the 80s, it's good for exports.
Imports will get much more expensive.
I think that aligns with the political philosophy of the administration.
I mean, I just call bullshit on this.
The economy is doing great pieces because, you know, first of all, I feel like if you go to any major city right now, it's kind of a disaster zone.
L.A. is not an exception.
You know, there's Santa Monica is all boarded up.
I mean, not all of it, but it's it's a lot of it's still boarded up.
The homeless people are everywhere.
Same is true in San Francisco.
New York's not good.
We just elected a socialist mayor, or we're about to elect a socialist mayor in New York.
You know, I feel like the average person can't make their mortgage payments, let alone, you know, go out to eat and then going to
McDonald's is viewed as kind of like, you know, a splurge. I don't feel like the, you know, I don't
think that we're doing so great on the economy. I really don't. So I, you know, I feel like these
job reports, they don't even take into account what kind of jobs. They're just like some kind
of job and that job might be a door
dasher. So I don't know. I really think there's something fundamentally wrong with all these
economic reports right now. Well, so Fred, a lot of the economic reports around jobs report,
you pick your report. They're a single measure of a complex economy. And so if you look at the economy and cohorts, right,
I say, is the economy doing well for the top 20%?
Probably.
Is it doing well for the bottom 50%?
I don't think so.
I think the bottom 50% are struggling to tread water
for a couple of reasons.
One is the top of the food chain
is heavy asset and light wage dependent. The bottom 50% are, they have very little assets,
if any, and are highly wage dependent. And if we move into an inflationary environment where
inflation is significant, let's say in the above four south
of 10 in that range, kind of what it was after post-World War II, wages will not keep up with
inflation. And so that bottom half will suffer the most with a mid-range inflation. Obviously,
hyperinflation is bad for everybody, but i think a six or seven percent inflation um which would be good for jet debt to gdp and those kind of
measures but you know the weight the people who are wage dependent i think are are suffering
so when we look at one measure we miss that stratification of who's where's the economy
really doing well and i think we have this continued concentration of wealth
that I don't believe is healthy for society.
Forget what the economists say.
You know, that's a very great point, Thomas.
And I have a question about that.
Like, you know, if the economy, let's say, you know,
is really not doing so great and, you know,
a lot of Americans are hurting because of inflation and, you know, is really not doing so great and, you know, a lot of Americans are hurting because of inflation.
And, you know, like you mentioned, right, the wages is not increasing a proportion to inflation.
Then, you know, then how is it right that New York is thinking about electing a mayor who's just a full out socialist talking about there should not be any billionaires in
existence you know we're gonna have state-run grocery stores and how like it's it's the
antithesis of you know capitalism and freedom and entrepreneurship and all the stuff that you know
we value as americans so like you know where you know why is there such a disconnect in you know we value as americans so like you know where you know why is there such a disconnect
and you know obviously if we're not doing well i mean do we think we're gonna do better by you
know by having this guy go in there and just start spouting all this nonsense yes yes that's
exactly what they think i mean because the the argument you're making is a rational argument that is appealing to the top 10 or 20 percent.
The bottom 50 percent are like, well, this system's not good for me.
Some guys come in and say, screw the rich.
We're going to take control of things.
They're like, yeah, let's give this guy a try.
It's not like they're doing a deep historical analysis of what it means to elect a communist
to lead you uh which is what this guy is is bad news uh you know david friedberg you know from
the all-in made a quip which i thought was pretty funny he said you know i i'm only half joking when
i said that you know a couple years from now kamala harris is going to look like the conservative
candidate on the left.
It's probably true.
All right, so wait a second.
Let's go down that path.
The bottom 50% says, all right, I like this guy's attitude.
I like his belief system and his delivery.
Screw the rich.
Let's aim for the little guy, right?
Fast forward three
or four years, I mean, we already know what socialism does to countries or cities or even
communism, right? So once they realize that they're actually in a worse position than when he got
elected, then what? That's when you actually learn.
Some people need to learn by experiencing.
And a lot of the people who support Mamdani are young Gen Zs, up and coming Gen Alphas, younger millennials.
But it's one thing to read about why these philosophies didn't work in the past.
It's another thing to live through them. And when New York City's crime gets even worse in the next four years, I think people are going to really find out.
There's a reason that this guy is so popular, though. People are tired of the status quo.
People are tired of living paycheck to paycheck. And like I think it was Thomas that just said,
he's promising to come in and fix all their problems
with government-owned grocery stores
and affordable housing.
These are things that people want to hear.
This is what they're struggling with day by day.
Well, that's why we need to goose the economy right now.
And we need to accelerate on the interest rate reduction.
We need to take interest rates all the way down to 1%.
I really agree with Trump.
That's what we need to do.
Because if we do that,
guess what's going to happen to the economy
over the next couple of years?
It's going to do fantastically well.
Will there be inflation?
Sure, there'll be a little bit.
But you know what?
It's the Republicans will win the midterms.
And that's the only thing that matters at this point. You know, so the Republicans got to win the midterms. And that's the only thing that matters at this point.
You know, so the Republicans got to win the midterms and then we got to let AI do its
thing.
So I think at the end of the day, having four and a half percent interest rates is not going
to be a good idea right now.
We really need to cut interest rates very badly.
And I think Trump 100% realizes that.
Now, I know Joe has a different view on that
and would probably say that's not a good idea.
Hopefully he can expound on that. Joe, is it a good idea that we should lower rates to 1%,
maybe have some creative offering of BIT bonds and let everybody just have easier access to money,
Let everybody just have easier access to money, refinance, real estate, lower the rates, free cash for everybody that has assets, or getting into real estate with a 1% or 2% interest rate.
I mean, I can't imagine that is negative for the common American.
Would you agree or what are your thoughts on that?
So I think that lowering interest rates net net is going to cause 10 year yields to rise.
And if your goal is to get real estate prices under control, you should hope that real estate
that interest rates, at least at the short end remain roughly where they are
number that's number one number two one of the reasons why we've had so much robustness
in our economic data has been because of fiscal outlays and what fred is advocating for is he's
advocating for the u.s government to not spend somewhere you know if you come to one percent
or whatever he said an an additional 200 to $300
billion annually. Now, you may be a fiscal hawk and want to do that. To me, if his goal is to
supercharge the economy, should be advocating for rates to remain roughly where they're at,
because net net, it is more stimulative to the economy. And you're seeing this in the fiscal
outlays. So just to be very clear, there are massive amounts of individuals who have built up huge wealth, and they're getting
subsidized, mostly the boomer class, by high interest rates. If you're a young person,
it really can be difficult because of structural issues in the real estate market where homes just
aren't coming to market because there's low fixed rates.
But I think the notion that cutting rates, even to 1.5%, 2%, that's going to cause some massive housing boom. Why would I sell my house at those rates when 10 years are likely to rise or remain
flat? And again, mortgage industry is built on the 10 years. It's not built on Fed funds.
So this fiction that people have locked in their heads
that cutting 100 bips is going to cause some massive boom,
I think net net it's actually counterproductive.
And I think people haven't thought it through.
But Fred, are you still there?
Yeah, I'm still here.
Well, look, here's the thing. I think that if you have a real serious policy of we're going lower interest rates, we're doing QE, I do think the long-end rallies.
Okay, I do.
I think right now.
you know, right now.
Why would they do QE?
Why would they do QE?
I think what they will do is if there's any weakness on the long end,
they will buy bonds and they were just going to refinance everything short
term. I think they're going to,
they will try to manipulate the market just like Japan did.
And they will try to get rates down across the curve.
That's what I think they will try to do.
They're already doing it. I mean, that's what the duration management is.
That's why they're, that, that, you know, that's why Besson came out're already doing it i mean that's what the duration management is that's why they're that that you know that's why bessen came out and said it makes no issue no
sense to issue uh long-end treasuries i mean long-end treasuries should be north of five percent
they're not right i agree they're not duration i look and and trump came out and said i mean i
don't know what his exact words are they didn't make a lot of sense he's like i'm not going to
do any debt over a year.
That's what he sort of said, right?
Because he's like, I'm going to wait until I get my guy in the Fed.
But I think what I think is going to happen is, number one,
I do think that Trump will get somebody who takes his marching orders
from Mar-a-Lago,
not from the Fed government. Which of the three candidates do you think is the most dovish
that are the leading candidates?
Which ones?
There's one who just said,
I will do whatever the president tells me to do.
Nobody has said that.
No one's going to say that.
That's not true.
Besson sort of said.
Look, Trump is, by the way,
he said, I can be a candidate myself.
Elect me as chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Remember that?
He did.
He might disappoint himself.
Why do you,
I just don't understand this theory you have
that cutting interest rates
by 50 or 100 base points is going to cause this economic boom.
You're taking hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus away.
Why would you do – why do you think that's positive?
Just explain that to me.
In an era of – do you believe in fiscal dominance?
Do you believe we've entered an era of fiscal dominance?
fiscal dominance? Do you believe that?
Do you believe that?
I believe that the most important thing are and will continue to be asset prices. So I think if
asset prices go up, which they will, if interest rates go to 1%, it'll be great for the stock
market. There's just no doubt about it. It will be great for the stock market.
Stock market's been doing great with interest rates rising.
And how great do you think it's going to be doing with interest rates at 1%?
It'll be doing for the 1%.
Usually when interest rates are rapidly falling, the stock market's in free fall.
That's just historically.
I mean, again, you're saying because that usually corresponds to a fear of recession or an actual recession yes yes so
look i think i think this is a political calculation i think that trump needs to
fight this growing extreme left movement uh that we're seeing with new york and i feel like it's a political calculus and i think
what you need to do is you you need you need to say how is he going to win the midterms i don't
think you need to see are you honestly saying macro policy monetary policy should be driven by
politics like you should you think that but that's like literally banana Republic test style stuff.
That's literally saying, well, we need to, we need to juice things because we're going
into a tough election cycle.
And by the way, that's exactly what the entire right criticized the Biden administration,
Jan Yellen of doing before the election.
So is it, it's what's good for me is not good for thee.
I mean, I don't get it.
Yeah, no, I, exactly.
Uh-huh.
You're right.
So, so like you, this don't get it. Exactly. You're right. So like,
this is the most bizarre
conversation. I think Trump has said it as much.
He said, listen,
I'm all for like balancing the,
you know, not balancing the budget, but
more restraint.
However, I got to win the midterms.
I got to, we got to get these
elections. That's literally what he said.
So the end justifies the means here.
I think basically we need to have,
we cannot have a left-wing version of Kamala Harris.
Kamala Harris, in my opinion, was pretty left-wing,
but we can't have AOC slash Mondami
kind of style politics in America. So I feel like,
yeah, they're going to, they're going to, and whether, whether I say, whether I believe that
they should do this or not, doesn't even matter. I believe they will do this. I think there will
be a movement to lower interest rates because I think Trump believes that this will increase his chance of
winning the midterms. So that's what I think. I'll just quote back to you the exact thing
that happened last year when they lowered interest rates, you had the 10-year sell-off.
And you keep stating it as a fact that lowering interest rates rapidly is not going to be met with a 10-year selling off, which I think is an assumption.
I'm assuming that we have a different person in charge of the Fed than Jerome Powell.
But the Fed is not as important as you think in an era of fiscal dominance.
It's just not.
People are stuck in this pre-2019 mindset where the only thing that mattered was bank credit
creation when you're running six to seven percent structural deficits massive outlays and a supposed
economic expansion that has rarely happened in our history so so you're making the argument yeah joe
we're going to cut 300 billion dollars of stimulus in the form of interest payments because that's
somebody's income and that's not going to have any effect in slowing down the economy that's why i say net net i think it's well you could
look first of all you can stimulate any in any which way till sunday right what i'm saying
is the most important thing right now i think is to lower interest rates cut off the interest costs
uh on on the on the on the treasury this i, we're spending a trillion dollars a year on interest.
That's terrible.
That's ridiculous.
You can say it's terrible,
but that interest is someone's income.
So you're arguing that in an era of fiscal dominance,
that monetary policy is really just dominant.
It's really not fiscal dominance.
You think that Lynn Alden's smoking something, basically.
Yeah, I am. Okay, that's fine. and smoking something basically uh yeah i i am okay i am i think i look i think i think that
i think that we would be much better off in a one percent interest rate environment why
why because houses would suddenly become affordable not if the 10-year doesn't come down
not if 10-year doesn't come down the 10-year is look first of all is the 10-year doesn't come down. Not if the 10-year doesn't come down. The 10-year is, look, first of all, is the 10-year going to go, if we have interest rates at 1%, is the 10-year going to go massively higher?
Well, when they cut it, it actually may.
I mean, it may show that we've just said it.
It may, but I.
Here's why it would.
It may not, too.
It may not.
Here's why it could, just theoretically, okay?
Theoretically, it could because bondholders will say, what are you doing?
You've got 6% nominal GDP.
The economy is running hot, and you're cutting interest rates rapidly.
For what purpose?
To juice the economy?
You've turned into a banana republic.
We no longer have faith.
This confidence game is up, and we're selling long-end U.S. debt.
And by the way, it puts a ton of pressure on other currencies.
So, yes, you can make a very strong case that the most recent episode where they were cutting, perhaps too early,
given the economic data last year, that that is indicative of more to come. And if you mess this
up, if you cut aggressively in the face of a relatively strong economy, I know that you get
people up here like Puncher saying the average guy is struggling and I don't discount that. I'm just saying if you do that, you're
jeopardizing long end rates. And I think you could actually have a counterproductive result. So I just,
again, it's not as clear as you're making it out. You could, you could, you could, but you know,
also people could refinance their homes on
adjustable rates on the low end.
There's a lot of things that could happen, Joe.
And you know, if we go to a lower interest rate environment, it's going to be good for
business.
It's going to be good for America.
And I go back to what the president said with the, with the list that, uh, that Thomas was
talking about. I think that list was great.
Do you want to be like Papua New Guinea at four and a half percent, or do you want to be like
Switzerland at 0.5 percent? I think you want to be more like Switzerland. I think that's a better
place to be than Papua New Guinea or Ghana, right? I feel like I'm reading this list of countries that are at four
and a half percent. I feel like that's the banana republic. Okay. Why are we in this list? It makes
no sense. Europe, Europe rates are much lower now. Like why are our rates so much higher than
because we have better growth because we have better economic growth. And interest rates have to reflect real economic growth.
The reason we had low interest rates during the Obama years with pathetic economies during most of Obama's term is because our growth sucked.
The reason Ghana's growth, Ghana's running at 4% or 5% real.
Look that up if you don't believe me.
But that's why the rates are higher.
Why is Switzerland, why is the EU running at real low interest rates? Because their growth sucks.
You would much rather take high growth and high interest rates than low growth and low interest
rates. Great depression. OK, not exactly a robust economy. What were rates at? Zero percent. Is that
good? Is that positive? No. You want to have strong economic growth. And if you have strong economic growth, like we did in the 1980s, right, you have higher interest rates.
All right, I'm going to bring in my quant to respond. My quant is Asteroid. Let's say and Asteroid. Can you respond to Joe, please?
Uh, let's see.
And asteroid, can you respond to Joe, please?
Um, yeah, here's what I don't, here's the only thing I disagree with Joe with, uh, all
these rich people, these rich boomers who have tens of millions of dollars in treasuries.
If that rate were to come down to one, they're going to be forced to go to the long end to
buy.
And I know some of these people, and I've asked them, would you go buy 10 years, 30
years, given that you're going to, your real value is going to go over they're like what do i care i'm 85 years old like and you know that's
where that's where they hold their money they hold their money in treasuries and they have procter
and gamble and at&t like they don't care they don't care about that the inflation's high so i
think i disagree i don't i think the long end would it would probably go jump up because of
front running and then it would go down so i just i don't think people care. It's not going to go out of control.
I mean, the Lepard argument.
I don't think they care as much as you think because these people are old.
Again, we're talking net-net.
Okay, we're talking net-net.
Think of it this way.
I'll throw around numbers on it.
Let's say we cut aggressively like Fred is advocating for.
You will see marginal buying there, I think, at the long end because people
want to lock in. They're sitting in T-bills because of an uncertain environment. And then
you're saying, OK, they're cutting aggressively, so that money market is not as lucrative for me,
so I'm going to move through the long end. Let's say you move the 10-year from 4.5,
and it doesn't blow out to 5% or somewhere or somewhere there it blows to four seven okay that's
like that's like a quarter of a basis point it's really nothing on a net net basis but what it
doesn't do is doesn't help people trying to buy mortgages doesn't it doesn't help people in that
front but people are forced to to buy them because the short end's not paying them anymore any money
they already own they already own if you look at retirement accounts you look at 60 40 allocations all these things a lot of people already own long-term securities and yeah they
do but they also have a lot of the short end that is going to be lowered so correct so when that
comes they're going to be like oh what do i buy i can buy you're looking at 7 trillion there's
7 trillion dollars in like cash and money market equivalents right now so which is which is not which is not just
just yeah one percent that money is like squeezed they're gonna have to go buy bonds
no they're gonna have to buy stocks no no first of all the money market accounts always go up over
time they always go up they always roll higher okay but so everybody doesn't just randomly just go by say you cut off two to three
trillion okay you're talking about 10 percent of you know uh u.s u.s debt okay that that's that's
i mean it's meaningful but it's not gonna random it's not gonna push 10 year rates down to like
four percent it's not enough money two trillion three trillion even five trillion you're not
gonna push long and i mean japan like you know i i just feel like there you have to you have to it's
a dynamic system so you can't look at any one factor my point is my point is i think you're not
going to see the move down in long-end rates of what you're expecting it's not going to be we're
not going back to four percent mortgages anytime soon.
It's not happening.
It's happening, Joe.
Okay.
Joe, to me, when the long end went up in October,
to me, it felt like front running
because I saw all these people on YouTube.
They're like, oh, buy TLT, buy TMF.
It's going to go up because the rates are going to go down.
And it just, to me, it looked like it was sort of a market reaction just to kind of screw them because they were front
running what they thought was an obvious trade which went in the opposite direction what do you
mean they're front running the market moved opposite what people were saying it was going to
do yeah how was that front running it moved opposite because everybody was everybody was
starting to pile into tmf and tlt and all these things on youtube because they're like oh it's a guarantee
part of that was recession right like people thought like oh this big recession's coming
and uh that was totally unwarranted um but i mean i saw when i saw all these youtube accounts all
of a sudden talking about tlt and TMF and like front run it.
It's guaranteed to go down.
And then it was sort of like one of those kind of market reactions to just basically.
But that's the case for why. But if people were truly front running it in the end of last year, meaning that they were moving in, that means that long end rates probably should have gone even higher because that additional buying would not have come into the place.
Right.
You understand what I'm saying?
Like if a bunch of people
were trying to move in earlier, really, you should have seen
10 year rates well above five.
I mean, I even bought a little bit because, you know, I was like,
whatever. But you even remember that I think David Lev was like,
oh, I went 95% or something, right? Because it's a guarantee
you'll go down. I mean, didn't you say something like that? A lot
of people were doing that.
I just i just
forget the theoretics okay i i just want to make clear that if you cut the biggest driver of rates oh excuse me of the deficit right now has been interest rates we can agree on that that's just
a data point sorry i got i got a call i gotta go in a second um but we can agree on the biggest
driver of the of the the deficit has been interest rates.
So if you are, you know, nothing stops this train, you know, we want fiscal deficits, we want continued stimulus.
Explain to me why you're advocating for $200 to $300 billion worth of cuts to the deficit.
Why?
I mean, I agree with you there.
I think that there's a lot of stimulus.
It makes no sense.
That nobody really thinks about. I mean that there's a lot of stimulus. It makes no sense. That nobody really thinks about.
I mean, that's what fiscal dominance is.
So, Joe, when you say if you have a hot economy, then money is hot.
And if money is hot, interest rates reflect that.
If you have a hot economy, money is easy peasy, and that's reflected in a lower interest rate lower interest rates are
not good i don't know why people think they're good they may be good for asset holders we want
to get your opinion before we move to bitcoin today what do you think are interest rates good
high interest rates good for america or bad i think short interest rates are bad that's for sure
and i think when the fed funds is way higher than equivalent T-bills, it's really bad.
And I think a politicized Fed is bad, but not as bad as an authoritarian Fed.
So look, there's no great solution to any of these issues people are talking about.
Like you really do need a politicize that because the alternative
is so much worse. Sure, it's not perfect, but in terms of high interest rates, I think some of it's
true. Long debt is really good for the economy because long debt is how people buy homes and
it's how they buy equipment and lease equipment. I think generally when borrowers can afford higher interest rates, it does generally mean the economy is stronger.
I also wouldn't compare the U.S. situation to Europe because Europe's, I mean, their banking system is basically a cartel at this point.
They're the ones buying all the debt.
It's not a true free market anymore.
I think the U.S. is the actual free market.
I think Japan's the same way.
You know, Japanese banks are totally a cartel and they just buy the u.s is the actual free market i think japan's the same way you know japanese
banks are totally a cartel and they and they just buy the debt so i don't know i i don't think these
international i agree and and and right like that's a japan's per example so are you are you
advocating you want you want japan's economy Fred? Is that what you're looking for?
Do you want Japan's economy?
I do not.
You want Mandami's economy.
Because that's what we're going to do.
That's a low blow.
That's a low blow.
It's anti-Italian.
I think, you know, you're right, Joe.
I don't think there's a good
chance we never get that 4% rate. It's possible.
I do think you had a good proposal to unlock
this housing market, though, and I don't know why they
don't start discussing
being able to transfer the rates because
I don't know what's going to fix this
thing that's essentially just
frozen. I just think it's hilarious
that for years... It's frozen, man.
There's no houses listed in... Yeah, no, it's hilarious that for years. It's frozen, man. There's no houses listed.
Yeah, no, it's so hot. Like the houses go well over a bit as soon as they're listed. Well,
they do. It's hot, but it's like there's not really enough transactions. There's no
lot of transactions. It's slow volume, but I just think it's hilarious because like for years on this
app, people were criticizing the Fed because why are you cutting interest rates? Let the market
decide. Let them say hi. Then as soon as they hold them and try to hold the line with a relatively strong economy, people
say, how dare you keep interest rates this high? You're a derelict in your responsibilities. You
should be terminated for cause. What do you want them to do? Joe, hey, one other thing you mentioned earlier is you thought long rates would go
higher if the Fed cut short rates.
I don't know that any of us-
It's possible.
Well, anything's possible.
I'm just saying none of us really know.
I mean, the world economy is pretty complicated.
There's a lot of debt out there.
I mean, it's hard to say what happens, but I think what's clear is the Fed fund's rate
is way higher than three months T-bills and all the way up to two years.
And that's got to change.
So the current interest rate structure is a mess.
I agree.
To Fred's point, it's – go ahead.
But, Rob, just to be really clear, to tell you my position.
is very simple, that Fred is taking it as a conclusion that cutting rates will cause long
end where people borrow at, you know, 10-year was really baked into the mortgage market,
it will cause it to drop. And I don't, I think that's a conclusion that at least there's some
evidence that you just might not be correct. Guys, I want to, in the spirit of not trying
to intrude on Bitcoin today, I'm going to end the space. If you want to bring it, I'm sure the Bitcoin today guys will be happy to, and I'll be there a little bit too.
I'll see you guys on Bitcoin today. Thank you.
