China expert Peter Alexander reveals how the U.S. misreads China’s strategy, why America is “fiscally boxed in,” and what’s needed to avoid conflict.
This episode argues that Western policy circles misread China by projecting short-term, nation-state logic onto a millennia-old civilization that prizes stability, resources, and incremental, asymmetric advantage; China isn’t seeking global hegemony so much as regional primacy in Asia while hedging the dollar system via gold settlement, selective decoupling, and supply-chain leverage (rare earths, polysilicon, manufacturing). The U.S., meanwhile, is “fiscally boxed in,” overextended militarily, and deeply reliant on Chinese inputs, yet clings to ideology over pragmatism. Alexander likens the moment less to a Soviet-style Cold War and more to pre-WWI Britain, Germany missteps, where tariffs, posturing, and misreading the other side’s incentives raised the odds of conflict. He contends U.S. leverage still exists (consumer market, forward deployment, finance) but must be exercised through joint ventures, deregulation that enables on-shore production with Chinese capital/know-how, and, critically, an explicit diplomatic recognition of China as an equal to unlock cooperation.
Avoiding a needlessly dangerous confrontation requires replacing wishful thinking (“China will collapse”) with realism about interdependence and time horizons: China will keep chipping away at dollar centrality and shoring up resources, while the U.S. must “stop digging,” rebuild industry, and de-risk supply chains without theatrical saber-rattling. A face-saving reset, framed as equality plus practical pathways (targeted JVs, regulatory relief, shared standards), offers the best chance to stabilize relations, restore U.S. productive capacity, and keep competition bounded. Misperception at the margins is how great-power rivalries spiral; disciplined pragmatism is how this one doesn’t.
1:00 - Intro
1:05 - Peter's background
6:37 - China is a civilizaiton
11:17 - Western misperceptions
17:10 - Bitkey & Unchained
18:51 - Why this isn't Cold War 2.0
30:45 - Joint ventures and deregulation
34:25 - US leverage with China
38:43 - Obscura & SLNT
40:35 - Military parade, hegemony
49:54 - Opporunity Cost
50:39 - China's gold, Yuan vs Renminbi and Hong Kong
54:28 - Stockholm meetings and rare earths
1:02:11 - Recognizing China as an equal
1:25:08 - Taiwan
1:36:34 - Cautious optimism
(00:00) The United States is absolutely unquestionably fiscally boxed in. If the United States didn't go to war for 20 years, would China be where it is? Probably not. If there was a significant reduction in access to the United States market, it would have a tremendous negative effect on the Chinese economy.
(00:18) It becomes this battle of attrition, who can suffer the pain the most? Above all else, it's about the resources. You started to see China begin to limit the amount of US treasuries it was going to take on. The moment the Chinese think that they no longer need or find value in this partnership, they're going to cut you off.
(00:34) The US right now is nowhere near having the ability to understand how to navigate it. I've been hearing China's economy is going to collapse for the last 25 years. Like what's the joke? China's trying to work at the margins to sort of undermine the American geopolitical position. This was as much if not more about national security and nobody talks about that. You need the Chinese to invest.
(00:54) The first step that would need to be taken by the United States, a sit down where the United States says, "We recognize that our two countries are equals." [Applause] Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me. Marty, I got I got to do this. And this is going to demonstrate just how long I've been following you guys. the mandibles. The mandibles right now.
(01:27) Um I mean I'll leave that to Matt to to highlight and let him continue to beat you with a sock full of quarters every week because you haven't read it. But uh no, I was I was um I I just started laughing because I'm like, "Oh, after we went back and forth last night, I thought to myself, oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to bum rush him at the beginning with the mandibles book.
(01:47) I don't have it on my bookshelf. I don't have it on my on my uh Kindle either. It's a book I I'll get to it. I think eventually I will get to The Mandibles. Okay. As I've said many times, a rabbit hole recap. It's essentially been read to me uh on air over the course of seven years from that. Yeah.
(02:09) And and to to answer your question, yeah, I I'm of the mind that we are in the middle of the mandibles right now. Lovely. Yeah. Lovely. Well, let's uh let's set the stage for this conversation. I wrote a newsletter earlier this week. We talked about um talked about it on Rabbit Hole Recap yesterday. There was a chart of China uh gold stock on Warrant at the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
(02:38) And if you see the chart, it is straight up and to the right. uh just a crazy step function growth over the course of the last year and a half really and that sent a signal to me like what's going on? Seems like China's preparing for something. Wrote the newsletter. You responded on Noster um saying that I need to get the full picture of China.
(03:01) You have been living in China for 30 years, correct? 30 years, correct? So maybe we maybe we start there. How did you end up in China? uh and uh deciding to stay for for 30 years. Um I'll give you the uh the abridged version. Uh number one, it's always great to be young and dumb. So I was working on Wall Street back in the middle early mid 90s.
(03:27) Um and that was the first time China sort of landed on uh the sort of Wall Street radar. And so I was dabbling in, you know, what was going on in China, you know, working as an analyst, so on and so forth. And ultimately I decided rather than to get my MBA, I was studying a little bit of Chinese in New York and thought, you know what, I'll go to China for a couple years.
(03:53) I'll teach English, get a lay of the land, firm up my uh uh my language capabilities, and then I'll just circle back and come to uh to New York and start up the whole new career. And you know, what's the old saying? You know, life is what happens when you're busy making plans. And you know, one thing after another just happened.
(04:12) Uh, you know, I did the the teaching gig and then I got a job working as an analyst for a UK investment bank in Hong Kong. That lasted about four months and then the Asian financial crisis hit. got married, had a couple kids, you know, became what's called a chief rep, which is a glorified sort of secretary for a handful of American companies, you know, did all that and then um right after WTO was working for Credential Financial of Lovely Newark, New Jersey and uh you know set up a joint venture for them in the finance space and thought you know maybe there's a maybe there's an opportunity here for me to become sort of a consultant. Rather than work for one company, I'll work for a bunch. So I
(04:53) went out and set up this company called Zeban Advisors in 2004 and you know it's sort of 20 21 years later I've been doing that just basically a consultant helping you know predominantly European American financial firms navigate what the possibilities are in China and it's not it's not that easy.
(05:13) Not simply because China is a different market, but because especially the American organizations, they're just so tied to how they do business globally and just an unwillingness to adapt to the local market. So, yeah, it's, you know, 30 years just happens overnight, you know, and here I am. Yeah.
(05:34) And as I was saying before we hit record, I'm very excited for this conversation. I've had uh Baji on the podcast. he's got um a perspective that China is going to eat the US's lunch if we don't really light a fire under our proverbial asses to to compete um in many different aspects of the economy. Uh I was also telling you that my interaction with the Chinese uh over the last seven years has been via the Bitcoin mining industry and from what I've observed these individuals are incredibly ruthlessly capitalistic uh in a way that surprised
(06:13) me to the upside considering what I've been taught about the uh Chinese system of control uh over the course of my life uh and the Chinese I've interacted with in the mining industry are incredibly impressive in many ways. But to your point, they do business in a different way that is uh literally foreign to um the the western correct way of doing business.
(06:43) And I think to start off this conversation, you sent an email with incredible detail about different things we could cover today. And you started with a quote which I think is a good setting of the stage to really dive into the differences between the western eastern way of doing business and and politic really and that is a quote from Lucian Pi China is a civilization pretending to be a nation state and you were explaining in the email if you don't understand this sort of core concept you're you're not really going to understand this this whole situation. Yeah.
(07:16) I mean the if you consider the concept of a nation state itself I mean it's only a couple hundred years old. It you know it's not really um some sort of ancient governance system and even China didn't have this sort of nation state government system until 1912 uh when the the last formal dynasty ended theQing dynasty.
(07:44) So when you're trying to look at navigating the the entirety that is China, I mean I've been here 30 years and I'll tell you this, I'll always be a foreigner. like there's no way that you can be here for any period of time and you know not get to a point where you think that okay the the expression is bjong and hyonga like more Chinese than the Chinese and there's actually an inverse relationship with regard to the time you're here which is the longer you're here the less you you actually figure out you know like it just continues to expand with regard to the uncertainty and the unknowns but when you take I think it's
(08:20) fascinating and we can get into the SEO because I think genuinely this last this past week has been what maybe I don't know if I don't know if I want to say will be but potentially could be a real turning point because you've got really uh a group of of nations coming together saying you know we're done with the international rules-based order and we're going to move in this direction and you know China continues to operate you know as a nation state, but at its core, at its DNA, you know, Xi Jinping
(08:53) is just another emperor of another dynasty. It just happens to be called, you know, the Chinese Communist Party. So, you, I think, have to, and this is, I think, something I really need to stress, which is take the 20th century Western G7 lens off and try to be more open to how it is that the Chinese are going to operate.
(09:18) Right. And I think one of the other comments that I made to you in that that that lengthy email was we're also talking about things like Judeo-Christian ethos. Like I'll have people say to me, "Oh, the Chinese have no morals." And my immediate reaction to that is, "Okay, but by whose standards?" I I understand if you're coming at it and saying they have no morals based on, you know, how we do business in the West. You know, my word is my bond, a handshake, you know, a written contract.
(09:48) The Chinese play that game, but ultimately it's much deeper. It's much more about, you know, what is in it for various parties. One of the, you know, I'm going off a little bit here, but I think it's important. One of the key pieces of advice that I'll give to clients is if you're teamed up with a Chinese as a counterparty, whether it's a joint venture or you have some sort of distribution agreement, whatever, you need to keep in mind that the moment the Chinese think that they no longer need or find value in this partnership,
(10:19) they're going to cut you off. And it's the perception, not even the reality of the need for the foreign technology, the foreign expertise, whatever the case might be. The Chinese want to be able to endeavor, gather the information all they want and then move on. So this gets into things like international or intellectual property theft and the like and we can you know of course parse through that but yeah it's just a completely different environment to be able to operate in.
(10:48) Yeah. the and how do you think how maybe this is the best part um best place to start like how wide is the divergence between the perceived understanding from westerners of how China does business and the actual understanding of how the Chinese do business particularly at the nation state level um with the Trump administration all these tariffs and everything going on you mentioned the all the So how how even at the highest levels do you think there's still a fundamental misunderstanding of the different sort of cultural way of approaching business deals? Oh, without without question. And it's
(11:31) not even just business deals. I think it's it it goes all the way up to, you know, all relationships like uh trade negotiations, geopolitical um you know, communication, whatever the case might be. And and again, I'll I'll reiterate a point that I made just a few minutes ago, which is you have this um hegemonic, if you will, perspective of, you know, this is how we do things and this is how we've done things since 1945.
(12:03) Some would argue this is how we've done things since, you know, 1910, whatever the case might be. What is missing from that calculus is throughout that whole period of time, China really wasn't a player on the stage. So the manners in which their cultural approach being included into these negotiations, what have you, just doesn't enter that calculus, doesn't enter the thinking about how we're going to go about adjusting for all of this.
(12:29) So, you know, I'm watching it play out on a daily basis doubly. So, I mean, it wasn't just current Trump administration, the Biden administration, you know, they thought that they were dealing with, you know, a normal counterparty as though they were talking to France or Japan or somewhere else.
(12:46) China was like, "No, we're we're we're changing the tune and we're going to see how that dance is going to go." And the Biden administration just tripped over their feet, you know, basically to mix all my metaphors. So the US right now is nowhere near um having the ability to understand how to navigate it. I think Bessant has a decent understanding of leverage and where the United States finds itself right now with regards to China.
(13:10) We saw the whole thing with rare earths for chips, you name it. Um, but ultimately you there has to be a sort of a meeting of the minds, a recognition of what exactly is China, what is their history, what drives them, and that's still missing as far as I can see. Yeah, that's I had a conversation with Mel Madison yesterday on the show that'll be posted tomorrow, but actually actually told been so excited for this conversation. I told him I was speaking to you.
(13:41) Um, and we covered the military parade and that's one point we brought up is I think particularly here in the United States, which you've sort of touched on a little bit, but I think we should really expand on is America's going to be 250 years old next year and China has been around for millennia. And to think that 5,000 years 5,000 years to think that 5,000 years of history and developing and building a culture is going to be materially perturred by 250 years of history, I think is a bit uh naive.
(14:20) There are definitely deeply rooted sort of cultural practices and understandings that I I think many people just just like we're fishing water. I'm 34 years old. I'm trying to put Um, trying to put some sort of cultural DNA in a 5,000-year context is hard for people, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think look, I go ahead. Sorry. No, you go ahead.
(14:46) No, what what I was just going to sort of highlight is one of the bigger issues that's occurred of late is how many how many so-called China experts are there today? I mean, it's it's it it's shocked to me that over the last five years, everybody is weighing in on China. There's podcasts about China and so on and so forth. And that's great.
(15:07) The more engagement, the better, but one of the um the the first questions I'll talk to people and and when they're coming to me especially is I'll ask them, well, when was the last time you were in China? And you know, they get a little bit I think and there's no judgment. I'm not judging. I'm just curious.
(15:26) and their predominant answer is always 2018 2019 you know pre-COVID times and I tell them I'm like look you have to get on a plane to come out I said number one is things here have changed dramatically over a six year sixear period I mean six years in China is a lifetime but number two is over that six-year period there has been an absolute cacophony of headlines and framing and conversations I mean, remember the spy balloon? I mean, it goes on and on and on and it has been a just onslaught of negative headlines. So, I will talk to people and
(16:07) that's their entire framing and yet they're listening to people who've never been to China or haven't been to China in five, six, seven years. So, I'm I'm I'm really trying to to press people to say, "Look, it's fine if you're if you're out there looking for for insights, and I think everybody should be questioned.
(16:32) " I think Matt today when you guys or yesterday, I guess, did your uh your weekly recap, I busted out laughing because he was like, "Oh, he's got a pretty positive outlook on things." Yes, you could frame it that way, but it's there's enough negativity being discussed on China that the way that I phrase it, and I think I phrased it to you, is it's not that China shouldn't be critiqued.
(16:51) There's a ton of areas that you can critique critique China, but the critiques are very narrowly defined and I think miss an enormity of what else is going on and the fuller picture. So, I think that's kind of emblematic of what I've been witnessing, especially coming out of the US over the course of the last several years. Sup freaks, this rip of TFTC was brought to you by our good friends at BitKey.
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(18:47) And also if you're using Unchained, you can use the code TFTC for $50 off any of their services. Go check it out. Yeah, as an American looking out at the world right now as it seems to be going in this more multi-polar direction, geopolitical tensions rising, high war breaking out, different parts of the world, uh economic stress on top of everybody's mind.
(19:12) I think it's important to try to make sure that we're making the right critiques and understand the the full breadth of of the situation so that we can make the best decisions and especially after reading your email I mean the first bullet point you have is America versus China um saying it's not a new cold war war for you it's far more concerning which yeah I imagine is driven by the fact that there's a fundamental misunderstanding and people in the west don't even know how to properly critique what's happening.
(19:44) Well, I think I think on that point, so you know, you you would have seen over the course of the last I don't know, year that there's been this like, oh, this is Cold War 2 going up. You know, Nile Ferguson, Sir Nile, right? He's come up with this and he's been making the rounds and talking about it and look, it's easy to package. We have recency bias. We want to look back to the Soviet Union.
(20:08) For me, it's been really about the UK and Germany back in around 1905 when you had the UK, which was at that point even um a power that was maybe in the early stages of decline. The colonies and the empire, you know, had sprawled so far that it was difficult to maintain.
(20:34) and critical I think is this was around the time that you really had petroleum becoming an essential component for things like ships and the uh the UK Navy was all coal driven uh or steam driven and it was moving over to to to oil and the Germans were rising and the Germans if you look at a lot of the history and a lot of the research the Germans recognized and here's what's critical by the way the UK Germany and Russia at this time were basically run by cousins, you know, grandkids of Queen Victoria.
(21:04) These were all relations and they still couldn't get along. And, you know, Germany, I think, recognized, if you look at a lot of the research, that, okay, we can't go head-to-head with, you know, the UK. We have to try to play nice with them. And the Brits, in their own typical British fashion, were they would plate the Germans. Yes. Yes. Let's talk about this. Let's get a memo. Sit down for a meeting.
(21:27) and they just kind of slow ruled the Germans. And this for me all came to a head when Germany wanted to build a a railway from Berlin to Baghdad for the purpose of, you know, moving oil from the Middle East up to Germany. And they went to the went to the British and said, "Look, let's do this as a joint venture." British said, "Sure." But then they dragged their feet.
(21:53) And then Germany finally was like, "Look, we're gonna we're just going to go do this." And you know, there were a host of these issues that you had this power at the time that rather than address the issues that they had at home, they were more inclined to look at things like tariffs, you know, they tried to create this tariff regime where if you were part of the colonial empire, the Commonwealth, you'd get a better deal. um they tried to contain Germany with regard to economic sanctions.
(22:24) And for me ultimately you can draw a line between that action of the UK to this, you know, the start of World War I. You know, you could talk about Ferdinand down in, you know, the Balkans and what have you. I'm seeing so many similarities between how the United States is operating with regard to China right now that it is concerning more concerning than is this a capitalist versus a communist cold war comparison to the Soviet Union.
(22:55) I think the latter can certainly be thrown out the window because if you're trying to say that the Chinese Communist Party, I think you put it correctly, like Xi is just a dynastic ruler and his dynasty is just called the CCP. If you compare it to um Soviet Russia, like it's completely different. I've been listening to a lot of um Bill Gurley's comments on China.
(23:19) He's one of the few Americans that seems to get over to China a lot and really understand what's happening. And the way he describes how they invest in companies and try to ensure that there is um there is sort of a a free market for ideas to be built and companies to be built and they steward it with capital and then have a filtering system that lets the cream rise to the top. But it's very clear that they're not the Soviet Russia form of of communism.
(23:48) Um, and so I think a lot of the saber rattling and positioning particularly from the United States is just using your UK, Germany analogy is like the US um sort of on the brink of do we go down the road of empire or try to um revert to our our sort of democratic republic and um get back to the roots of being non-interventionist is is where we stand.
(24:20) If we go down the route of empire, the if we want to go down the route of empire, a lot of the positioning towards China makes sense to me. Um because it just seems like, hey, we want to keep control of this sort of massive footprint we have over the world. Um and to do that, we need to play hard ball with China. Well, and you can you can also I've made the argument that while the British back in previous empire days had their colonies, the United States has their own colonies. They're just called military bases. You know, I I I think
(24:50) and and again I and I haven't said this yet, so let me I mentioned this in a note earlier today on Noster. I'm a redblooded [ __ ] American, right? I need to stress that. And the commentary that I make about China is with regard to trying to get this ridiculous beltway consensus as I call it to understand what the issues are.
(25:16) And it's frustrating as all hell because most will look at it and say, "Oh, we don't need to worry because the the coping mechanism for almost everybody is don't worry about it. The Chinese economy is going to collapse." Marty, I've been hearing China's economy is going to collapse for the last 25 years. Like, what's the joke? Hope is not a strategy.
(25:39) If if you're waiting on you don't need to change because your mortal enemy is going to collapse. Yeah. That's a recipe for disaster. So, you know, when I when I look around the region and I see things like 50,000 troops in Korea or 20 odds thousand troops in Japan, the United States last year put a a high-end Typhoon missile system on the northern end of the Philippines.
(26:07) They just announced two days ago that they're putting another one down in the Okinawa region. I mean, if I'm sitting back, it's China. And again, being a realist, you know, you've got to say, look, like we're going to have to at least start trying to project some degree of power as a defensive mode. And that's not me saying I'm supporting the CCP and I think everything's China is great.
(26:29) It's more about just looking at it from a realistic standpoint. I had been, to be quite frank, shocked at the level of restraint that the Chinese have demonstrated over the last several years with the various military exercises the US has taken right outside their doorstep. Yeah, I mean we do have uh I know this is a very controversial um take for many people, many of my listeners, but I I think we do have recent evidence that um when the US meddles in foreign affairs particularly of countries that or other superpowers
(27:07) and in the case of Russia and Ukraine with the encroachment of NATO um around their borders and um the conversation of letting Ukraine and the NATO and putting military bases and everything around Russia. I I'm a strong believer and that is one of the the driving catalyst of the war between Russia and Ukraine right now.
(27:37) And to think that we're not going to learn the lessons of that which has turned into an absolute catastrophe and turn it up to another level with um arguably a stronger superpower in China just seems suicidal to me. It's not it's and it's funny it's not just a stronger superpower.
(27:55) I think one of the most fascinating developments over the course of the last six months has been, oh wait, we we corporate America entered a Fouian bargain over the last 30 years to produce everything that we potentially need in the mainland. And then we wake up one day and Walmart is going in with Costco into the Oval Office saying, "Hey, look, man. Our shelves are going to be bare in two weeks because of these 145% tariffs.
(28:22) " And Trump folded like a lawn share. And I don't think he wanted to. He just simply had no choice. So, you know, what I have found is very endemic by American policy makers has been this look, this is what we think is right and we're going to go in this direction.
(28:41) and then second order effects come back and beat you over the head. And and I'll give you a a fantastic anecdote. Um uh back in October of last year, there was this literally week in Congress that was called the China week. And it was all of these bills that were being passed about targeting China and they were going to stop them doing this and that.
(29:00) One of the bills basically was called the Anti-China Drone Act. And essentially what it was um was a a a law that has been passed or a bill that's been passed into law that made it illegal for a company called DJI to sell their drones into the US. DJI is not just the largest and it's I'm telling you it is an amazing company. An absolutely amazing company. But here's the funny part.
(29:30) The bill was jokingly referred to as the Skyo bill because Skyo is a California company that makes drones. It was getting its ass kicked. So, you know, let's go with a little regulatory capture, which is the flavor of the day in the United States, right? And they were like, "This is great." Two weeks later, Sky was still sourcing all of the batteries for their drones from China.
(29:54) And guess what happened? The battery supply got cut off. So Skyo literally had to go with their point of sale documents to their buyers and say, "Look, we're going to sell you the drone, but you need to go on Amazon to buy the battery." Like, okay, that is a microcosm of the cancer quite frankly that is, you know, just all through the United States when it comes to sourcing. It's not sourcing just of end goods.
(30:29) You've got inputs that need to go into manufacturing in the United States. It's again like I said it was the Fouian bargain that to this day Tim Cook as another example. I'm sure he lays awake at night going why did I make this deal 15 years ago. Well, I think that's the big question on many Americans minds is how because I think it's become very clear um to to many Americans that we have made this Fostian bargain and we have become wholly beholden to the Chinese supply chain just due to the way we've built our economy over the last five decades uh more acutely the last three
(31:10) decades specifically and how do you fix that problem and how not only how do we fix that problem and obviously the the answer from the Trump administration is let's reshore as much as possible but how do you do that in the least disruptive way while maintaining sort of good relationships with China and maybe not even maintaining building back good relationships with China because at the end of the day as an American I was talking about this with Mel yesterday too like I don't want to be an empire I don't want to be in all these parts of the I think I'm MAGA in the sense of
(31:47) like I think we have a lot of problems here at home. We should um fix our problems here. Uh I am very aligned with George Washington and the founding fathers and let's not be interventionist. Let's just build a strong country, a strong economy and engage in free trade. And I I'm a true believer in the Austrian view of free market economics.
(32:09) you have free trade and and peace and you sort of leave everybody to do their own thing um and then engage in trade when it makes sense. That's that's the optimal outcome. I don't think we need to be the world police or have this hegemonic control over the world which is massive and filled with cultures that are truly different and as we're really digging into are completely misunderstood. It just seems impractical.
(32:37) And um from a systems perspective, it it we've learned time and time again throughout history, it just doesn't scale. Um it can scale. You can't coordinate at that scale. No. No. And and again, here's the kicker. China actually gets that. And people will always ask me because there's this this projection um by the sort of the the the power base in Washington that because we are a hegemonic power, China wants to replace us.
(33:08) Argo, China wants to be a hegemonic power. In my humble opinion, I don't see that. Uh there's look at all the hegeimons over the last I don't know 200 years, right? hasn't really turned out well for any of them in the end. There's been a period of like, okay, this was great. China wants regional hegemony in Asia. Uh they want to be able to say, "This is our sphere of influence. Look, the United States, you want to go with your Monuro doctrine.
(33:34) You want North and South America. We get it. You know, let's let Europe do what Europe's going to do." But ultimately, their attitude is just let us have Asia. And even for the United States, I think that that is a that's non-negotiable. Uh for whatever reason, I can understand it. They want to maintain the the power projection that they have as the United States hedgeimon.
(33:58) But that's kind of where I think things are heading at this point in time. But China has in again my opinion has no desire to be a hedgeimon. They don't want allies. Think of it this way. They don't want allies. They want counterparties. They want to be able to just build and sell and make money and prosper economically.
(34:18) Um, and that is a very um both unpopular and very minority held opinion. Yeah. Well, let's get into this. Like diving into what China actually wants and how our policy is being enacted because you're saying China wants this regional hegemony, but then we have like the belt and road initiative where they're they have inroads in to Africa, in Latin America.
(34:50) Um, I think a big topic in pretty niche circles in the US right now is the Chinese shipping boats going around the world and um, really cleaning up the oceans of all the fish and I believe right now they're off the coast of Ecuador. So, how does the belt and road compute with that idea that Asia or excuse me, China just wants Asian hegemony? Uh, there's a there's a couple of answers to it.
(35:12) Number one is um dollar diversification. Let's call it that. Uh if you look at when what was originally called the one belt one road program now BRRI this was really launched in in earnest around 2012. And if you look at a lot of the uh the events that sort of transpired in the 2012 2014 period, um you know, you started to see China begin to limit the amount of US treasuries it was going to take on to its foreign currency reserves.
(35:48) Um you started to have a little bit of dabbling in other areas as well with regard to foreign currency. thought one belt, one road or barrii, this was the perfect way to deploy foreign capital dollars in a way that was going to be able to secure hard resources um be able to provide you know there's a there's a joke that you know when the Americans or before them the the British would would go to some um developing nation they would always come with a lecture right and the Chinese come with a a hospital or a road now don't get me wrong. They're not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They're doing it for two reasons. One, there's
(36:26) typically loans involved. So, there is this issue of how much is China sort of creating this indentured servitude situation by other nations, but above all else, it's about the resources. They want to be able to build the roads. We want to have the energy um uh that's necessary all of that to extract minerals, gold, oil, energy, whatever the case might be.
(36:54) So it has clearly been positioned in a way that it is China's attempt to try to strongarm um other nations into its orbit. But I think as I mentioned to you in uh in the email I sent to you for me this is the this is the Marshall plan in a different guise when the United States in their benevolent wisdom came in to help save the world both the Marshall and the Dodge plan in fact two things people tend to leave out of that again benevolent um strategy which was the United States gave loans in US dollars which helped to push the dollars into the global system and at the same time
(37:37) they were loans and those loans had to be used to hire Caterpillar and all of these American companies to come in and that's where the first expats post World War II sort of went around the world all through Asia. So you know it was also in the United States interest to be able to push forward with the margin do uh the Marshall and the Dodge plan.
(38:01) China basically saw this as being something similar and said this is a great way for us to diversify and move out. Plus, we're going to be able to extract a ton of different resources to help us back at home. So, I don't think really this has much at all to do with hegemony. Um, and I would say the the interesting footnote to this whole point is how many bases military bases does the do the Chinese have? They have one.
(38:29) and it's in Djibouti uh in Africa. Now granted, it's near the Red Sea, I believe, or not the Red Sea. I can't remember. Maybe the Red Sea, but you know, that's it. So, you know, they're not looking in any way to try to project their their military power in this regard. Supre. This rep was brought to you by our good friends at Obscura.
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(40:48) Um BRICS SEO in the global south getting together. um Donald Trump um tweeting or truththing sending a truth out. I hate saying that, but it is what it is. Uh it's obviously seeming uh like he's missing out on the party. It was very obvious to me at least a uh sort of geopolitical flexing.
(41:10) We're going to have this massive military parade and we're going to bite all these world leaders and we're going to keep out the G7 and the US. And um how would you describe the land? Like going back to the newsletter and comments on Rabbit Hole Recap yesterday, both the the gold that is on Warrant, it seems like they've been building up this gold inventory for the better part of two decades now.
(41:35) Um by putting it on warrant, registering it with the Shanghai Gold Exchange. That's a signal to me like, hey, we do have this gold and we're putting it on war. We're willing to use it um in international trade. or whatever we want to. They have optionality by doing that. And then you have yes this military parade and this sort of fading of the western hedgeim hedgeimonyy um by keeping them out of of the guest list, keeping them off the guest list.
(42:00) And it it just seems like very overt explicit geopolitical posturing on the stage. Sort of a chess move. Uh two chess moves there with the gold and this military parade. Um, what is what is this? What are these moves in your mind? Well, well, first of all, and and I think you guys talked about it on rabbit hole recap. Look, I'm never a believer in coincidences.
(42:26) Like the the Chinese have a tendency of I find them and and it's funny because I've seen a lot more people talking about this. They are the consumate trolls. They know how to use what they have and be able to sort of just Hey, what whoa what what are you talking about? Like they're just brilliant at playing this game.
(42:45) Um, so a couple things. I'll start with the SEO meeting at the beginning of the week and then the uh the military parade and then I'll jump into the gold issue. Uh, first and foremost, I mean, let's we do have to be mindful that this parade was planned months in advance and the the guest list was planned months in advance.
(43:05) So it really wasn't in terms of the parade and the attendees. It wasn't all that much of a surprise. Now that's not to say that there was coordination that was going on behind the scenes and there were separate meetings that were taking place with regard to call it the the broader global financial system. But the only I think real fly in the ointment was uh was the Moody participation in the SEO on the weekend and you would have seen all the pictures holding hands with Putin the whole lot.
(43:39) Um, you know, look, I've I've been watching, you know, Donald Trump the man and and his sort of approach to, if you want to call it an approach to sort of geopolitics, and it's, you know, I a degree of buffoonery that is even surprising to me. This is on a whole different level. Uh, the antagonizing of India. Um, I just don't get it.
(44:05) There's no there's no material upside to it. And then he doubles down on it, not but a day after the the SEO meeting saying, "Oh, it's a one-sided relationship, what have you." And look, China and India are they are no close bed fellows. They've had issues for years. In fact, Russia and China have had issues for for years.
(44:29) The the way that I've sort of tried to describe this to various groups that I've spoken to is, and I wrote this to you as well, the enemy of my enemy theory. You know, how long can that center hold? Well, it's going to hold as long as the United States continues to be belligerent on the global stage. But I I I'll just quickly say with regard to the military parade, you know, been there, done that. I I think that was my I don't know.
(45:00) They do one every 10 years for this anniversary, but then they also do one every 10 years for the anniversary of the the Chinese uh Communist Party. So, I've seen more than my fair share. It's It's very staged and it's interesting to see what kind of toys they put out. But on the gold issue, I've this has been something that I've been focused on for years. And the most interesting element is the Shanghai gold exchange, which I think you highlighted.
(45:28) They have sort of a subsidiary called the Shanghai International Gold Exchange which was created in 2014 and that was the first time they opened up the the local market to offshore participation uh to be able to trade and to be able to settle. Going all the way back to 2014, you did have physical settlement if needed with different counterparties.
(45:56) Now, for the first number of years, there wasn't a lot of volume or activity at that point. But I find it fascinating because 2014, you're talking about was like a year or so after Iran got sanctioned and kicked off the Swift system. It was the year in which Russia essentially went in and annexed Crimea. Uh it was also just so happened the year that I think Chinese Treasury holdings peaked.
(46:20) So you look at sort of the trend over the last decade and it's very clear that there has been a progression very slow you know no pun intended but a little bit Chinese water torture to be able to move this forward and I think this is the important part and this is perhaps where I'll have a disagreement with you on some sort of impending development is China's trying to work at the margins to sort of undermine the American geopolitical position, but not in such a blatant way that it causes an overreaction. And I think we can both agree that American foreign policy has a
(47:02) tendency to overreact. Uh I mean there were a lot of rumors that you know Gaddafi got taken out because he wanted to start pricing oil in euros. Uh so you know China has been at the margins selling a or I should say buying a truck ton of energy using remn. So you've had an increase in volume and I think more importantly just I want to say last month they the Chinese went and opened up a new gold vault in Hong Kong.
(47:35) uh because I think that there is increasing demand and I think this is where your issue that you raised with regard to the warrants is there's probably more demand coming in that you had all of this gold that was probably sitting privately in Bank of China most likely that was then moved to the gold exchange with the warrants being issued.
(48:01) Um what in my opinion China has been doing and will continue to do is demarcate between a foreign uh foreign currency asset and a foreign currency. Meaning they they don't want to replace the dollar. You want to use the dollar, knock yourself out.
(48:20) But they want the optionality to be able to say we're going to go to different counterparties and they're going to use the remn. But again, as you both rightly pointed out on your uh your weekly show, nobody wants to hold the remn. And the Chinese don't want people holding rem in their bond market either. They like their closed capital account.
(48:39) So what you do is you create the ability over a period of time that if you want, you can settle in gold. And I'm aware of numerous events where settlement has taken place and some of it stays here as you guys pointed out but some of it does get transported elsewhere and that is undermining the pure bedrock of the reserve asset the US Treasury because the US Treasury has only been really uh a requirement if you will if you have excess you know savings if you will from your trade surplus.
(49:12) the Chinese where where does the chi where do the Chinese have a trade surplus predominantly from those uh exporters of energy and minerals and other um you know inputs if you will food potach you name it and those countries are like look we'll take your rum and be and we know that we can come in and we can just settle in gold we're fine with that and that's going to continue to move on taking that next step to create a gold back bricks or a gold back yan I personally think that would be viewed as an act of war by the US government honestly and the Chinese know that. There's no reason for them to take that what would be viewed as a natural step
(49:49) forward um if they already get 90% of the benefits of just allowing for settlement in gold. So freaks, guess what? We launched a browser extension. It's called Opportunity Cost and it helps you see the true cost of everything in Bitcoin. Convert prices to Bitcoin as you browse the web.
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(50:30) It's a great way to recalibrate your life and begin thinking in SATS. Go check it out at opportunitycost.app. That's opportunitycost.app. And again, going back to not only misunderstanding uh a culture that is five millennia old, but it's like the it's just reverting to how they probably settled trade for millennia with gold.
(50:59) And that that's the other thing is the fish and water not understanding we live in an anomalous time. um whether it be the use of our nation in the nation state model or the fact that we're using this fiat currency, it's uh you know to your point like why even do a gold back you want? We could just settle in gold itself. Right. Right. And China has all the gold right now.
(51:24) I mean, yeah, this is this is this is the reason of my opinion why they have been so aggressive in buying as much gold as they've had is because they want to be able to demonstrate that they're able to settle for anybody on any trade surplus that might exist. Mhm.
(51:44) And just quickly, can we touch on this because I I'm sure there's a number of listeners uh who were sort of using Yuan and Ren Nimi interchangeably. Can you describe the dynamics of like the onshore offshore and how these two currencies actually work? Well, so there's first of all the yan is sort of like saying the the the buck, right? The US dollar the equivalent in China is the remmbb the people's currency.
(52:14) Um so they're interchangeable, but there is an offshore um remmbb or yan that's traded in Hong Kong. Um, it's to be honest with you, it's more about the Chinese sort of trying to create this dual system of we have both our onshore market and our offshore market.
(52:39) And what I've always found fascinating and I'll ask you this question because I think it's it can be quite enlightening. If I were to ask you from the Chinese perspective, from Beijing's perspective, is Hong Kong foreign or domestic? I would um I would say they think it's domestic and and the right answer is both. Um when I go to the airport in Shanghai and I'm traveling anywhere and I go I have to fly through the international terminal to get to Hong Kong and it says in Chinese international Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau.
(53:10) So what China's been able to to brilliantly do is they've had their cake and eat it too with regard to Hong Kong. They they're able to say, "Oh, this is an international city, so we can do things differently down there." Um, but if we want to, we can come down and, you know, we can bring the hammer of Thor on to Hong Kong as well and say, "No, you're actually ours as well.
(53:31) " So whatever the the sort of flavor of the day might be in terms of what's going on in Beijing, they can basically just go and say it's one or the other. But in terms of the financial service industry, I mean, look at the crypto space, right? I mean, if it was domestic, they wouldn't be having some massive conference or letting Bitcoin ETFs or anything else trade.
(53:55) It's just the ability to say, "We're going to do it down here because it's not really China." But deep down, everybody knows it is China. That makes sense. Yeah. I'm trying to think of like an analog. I was going to say like the Virgin Islands of Puerto Rico, but they're not really financial hubs or powerhouses, but well, I mean, it's it's essentially what Hong Kong was under British rule for 150 years. The same kind of thing.
(54:20) Yeah, that whole I mean, we don't have to dive down that rabbit hole, but the fact that Hong Kong was leased to the British Empire for 100 years is is insane to me. Um, but let's let's reorient this back to the current day and the sort of USChina relationship particularly Trump and Xi um you have it in in the email that you sent um that Trump is being outplayed.
(54:45) I mean you mentioned it earlier but you think percent understands the lack of leverage the US has in these negotiations and this sort of chess match that we find ourselves in. Yeah. Well, let me let me give you let me give you the perfect sort of sort of evidence of how things have changed. Um, you've had three meetings over the course of this year. Um, there was one in Geneva, I think one in the UK.
(55:12) I forget where they were, but um, you had the Geneva meeting happened and there was kind of this armistice. Okay, everything's fine. Um, and then all of a sudden you had rare earths come into the equation and you had I know the US was talking about jet parts and a whole bunch of different things and for the first time finally Xi Jinping gets on the phone talks to Trump and they all agree we're going to meet in Stockholm. We're going to iron this out.
(55:45) Okay, a couple things. Number one, that call happened supposedly on a Friday and it was agreed that the parties would meet on a Monday. Okay? And then they met on a Monday and then they came to what and and I I still can't believe this is being debated throughout the United States. This was a quid proquo trade.
(56:07) China was like, "Look, we know you need the rare earths. You're still playing. You guys are being dicks. So, we'll give you the rare earths and access to all of this, but you have to give us the H20. That's what we want. You've got to stop. You weaponize trade first. We're just rep reciprocating. That deal was essentially um agreed to in a matter of a day and a half.
(56:31) Now, what's with the recap? In the entire time I've been here, number one, no meeting happens in 48 hours from the time some senior official says, "We should get this done." there's going to be talks and when are we going to do it and it gets dragged out. The Chinese love the delay aspect of negotiations and they know that the Americans, not even if they really are up against the wall, but Americans have had a tendency from my experience of being extremely impatient to do things. And the Chinese use that to their advantage.
(57:03) And then you have a deal that is agreed to in 72 hours essentially, 48 hours maybe. That never happens except when the Chinese get everything they want. The Chinese will typically walk away and just see how things go. So as soon as that meeting was over, I laughed and I thought I think I even put something up on Noster where I said, "Yeah, I know how this is going to play out, you know, and best he had he had no cards.
(57:30) " And in fact they wrote the the US side wrote in their communicate and we will deliver what we promised to deliver with no details of what that was. They said the Chinese were going to deliver rare earths and the uh the batteries and and all that but they didn't say what they were going to deliver.
(57:47) And then lo and behold I think it was Seammens and somebody else was able to start selling their chip related equipment back into China. And then next you know it was the H20 and everybody in Washington lost their collective [ __ ] right? It was all about, oh, Trump is selling national security. Here's the thing. The amount of rare earths required for the defense industry in the United States never gets discussed.
(58:14) This was as much, if not more, about national security because of the limited access to rare earth than it was about giving China the H20. And nobody talks about that. So it's, you know, that's just one example. And this is why, you know, India exports imports less oil from from Russia than China does.
(58:38) China's still on the sidelines. Like all of this just demonstrates that Besset sitting there going, I need to keep the wheels on this bus and the last thing that I need to do is have something in the supply chain go off the rails. Well, and again like you can I don't think it bears repeating.
(59:01) I don't think you you can repeat it too much like we are wholly dependent on this supply chain rarers for the defense industry, antibiotics, consumer goods. Um like I'll give you the I'll give you the classic example. So everybody everybody's talking about AI chips. We control AI chips. You know we China doesn't have access. Nobody asks what is the primary ingredient or ingredients that go into high-end AI chips.
(59:27) Polysilicon, it's like the the the most purest silicon out there. It's sourced from China. The majority of it is sourced from China. So, you know, I try and say to people that look, Nvidia doesn't make chips. TMS TSMC makes chips. Apple doesn't make iPhones. Foxcon makes iPhones. You have all of this focus on IP and and I think the IP is great, but if you don't control or or have a dominant position in how that supply chain is actually going to work, what do you actually have? And what is the actual solution to this? I mean, this is what people aren't really asking because
(1:00:15) okay, here's another anecdote. This and this one, Nick. So, the Biden administration, I think it was, is able to convince Taiwan Semi to come and build an Arizona, right? Fantastic. Give him a bunch of money. And it's supposed to be a fantastic, fantastic facility. Great.
(1:00:36) Three months ago, Taiwan Semi gets served a class action suit for discrimination because a whole bunch of people that came in for job interviews who were we're nowhere near qualified basically were like, "Oh, they they didn't want to hire us because we're Americans and they want to just bring in all of the all of their own Taiwanese to do the jobs." And the courts took it. They didn't say, "Okay, we're going to dismiss this.
(1:01:00) " They were like, "Okay, we should look into this." How are you going to build anything if you're not able to I mean, we can go down the rabbit hole that is are there enough people to do the jobs that need to be done in this whole this whole ecosystem, but here we have something that is desperately needed and you have, you know, the latigious nature of the American society going to TSMC and saying, "Yeah, we're just going to we're going to target you because we didn't get a job.
(1:01:29) " Yeah. And if I remember correctly too, there was some like dei influence on on that latigiousness as well. And I mean it goes in whether it's polysilicone being the raw input of the chips and then the the TSMC Arizona foundry question like the intellectual capital that goes into building the building the foundry that makes the chips.
(1:02:00) That's overall input doesn't exist over here either cuz we hollow out our manufacturing base and depp prioritize that education and it is uh it it is extremely disheartening that America has led itself and that's I think that what I'd really like to get out of this conversation um too is like what is the ba best path forward because to your point we don't have a lot of leverage I think it's pretty obvious we are completely a holden to the Chinese supply chain.
(1:02:28) Right now, it is clear that the administration and many Americans, myself included, would like to um derisk that that dependency by building um building our own manufacturing base here in the United States, building up the industrial base um as best that we can while maintaining I would like I'll speak for myself while maintaining an amicable relationship with our trade counterparts around the world that we are sort of diversifying away from.
(1:03:00) And so what I'd love to get out of this conversation is your mind like what is the best path forward to make this happen? Like how what what needs to happen from a posturing perspective, a u blocking and tackling policy decision-m perspective and how can we sort of get on the playing field like hey let's put the cards on the table. We understand that we're beholden to you to a certain degree.
(1:03:26) We know the reserve system is out of favor. We want to rebuild our manufacturing base. What can we do to work together to make this happen? So there's there's really two complimentary solutions that that solve it. And here's the thing. You take a page out of the Chinese playbook. I I tell people all the time, the Chinese playbook is pretty thin. There's not a lot of plays in there, but they're masterful at how they apply them.
(1:03:50) So, you just do this massive deregulation and joint ventures. You basically say to the Chinese, "Look, BYD, we love your cars. Your cars are great. We want you to come here and we're going to do a 5149 joint venture. We're going to have a bunch of rights and waiverss.
(1:04:09) You're going to be able to run it and we're going to put our own people in there and you're going to train them up and you're going to be able to sell your cars into our market." Or you got, you know, DJI, let them do the same thing. I mean, all of the goods that are needed. Now, you can't go across the board, but you can be very smart about how you do this, but you have to have the deregulation element involved as well because you cannot continue to get bogged down with all of the issues on, you know, I don't know, OSHA or the, you know, liability and discrimination and all of this. And
(1:04:44) I'm sure that sounds extremely heartless. Hey, we're in this situation. We need to come up with solutions. You need the Chinese to invest. You need to lower the regulation and then you'll train up a ton of people. That's how the Chinese got trained. The Chinese got trained through all of these joint ventures that got set up over the last 30 years.
(1:05:07) So ultimately that is probably the best way forward. Um, but I think the first step that would need to be taken by the United States would be for there to be some big coming together with the Chinese president and a sitdown where the United States says we recognize that our two countries are equals. And I think that that's going to be a very difficult ask of the United States government. And that's really the what the Chinese want is just give us give us the face.
(1:05:39) Give us the tell us that we're equals that we're good to go. And I think that that would work. And we've been running another thing I want to touch on. We've been running under the assumption that we have zero leverage. I think the manufact I find it hard to believe that it's exactly zero.
(1:06:02) Like what leverage do we have? Is it our consumer base? Is it? Yeah. I mean, you the entrepreneurial spirit. Oh, okay. Now you're talking about something different. Now we're talking about DNA. I mean, there's a couple things like number one, what what leverage like right now does the United States have? And and very simply would be the market.
(1:06:19) Even though China has very meticulously reduced its dependency on exports to the United States over the last six years, I mean, as a quick aside, I think one of the one of the biggest tactical mistakes that Donald Trump made in his first term was very loudly proclaiming all of the various target vectors that were present in China.
(1:06:42) um you know talking about oh you know they need us for our capital markets you know they need us for our market so on and so forth and the Chinese kind of from the conversations I had the Chinese were like he's not wrong um and once he was out of office they they spent four or five years addressing the vast majority of those issues which put them in a much stronger position going into Trump 2.0.
(1:07:09) Um, but the market, if if there was a significant reduction in access to the United States market, it would have a tremendous tremendous negative effect on the Chinese economy. No question. It would also though leave so many shelves empty in the United States. So it it becomes this battle of attrition who can suffer the pain the most. But the market's still, I think, super important.
(1:07:37) Um, I mean, leverage-wise, the United States has the biggest military. The United States has access to the I mean to financial markets. I mean, there are what I refer to as nuclear options, and I don't think Bessant wants to go down that route. Um, but I would argue geopolitically, um, the most leverage, and I, yeah, I put this in the email because this is gonna people's heads are going to explode later this year when this comes out. Um, is Taiwan.
(1:08:08) Like, a bit a bit of history, just bear with me for a second. In 1999, the United States accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. It was Mother's Day 1999. I'll never forget it. Um and it was bit dodgy here. Um there was a lot of a lot of anger. Um and Bill Clinton um Oh no, I'm sorry. I take that back.
(1:08:33) I won't go into the details. Long story short, Bill Clinton owed Jang Zamin, president of China, a favor. He had Jangin had done something for for Bill Clinton in terms of you know making sure he could get reelected so he wasn't causing problems in the East China Sea.
(1:08:50) Bill Clinton came out here in 1998 and he has this infamous three nos speech and the three nos were basically um President Clinton reaffirming essentially the American one China policy of saying there's only one China. Taiwan and China are both the same um one China and the United States does not support independence. And that was it. The Chinese were super happy.
(1:09:16) They were like, "Okay, we're good to go. We just just verbal." And I think when President Trump comes out here, part of the negotiations, he's going to do something similar and the quid proquo that he wants from this, and I kid you not, Tik Tok. He wants Tik Tok. And he's going to he's going to say, "I'll come out and talk about how there's only one China, and you're going to give me Tik Tok.
(1:09:40) " And then, you know, this is this is a little bit for us on the on this call. Tik Tok once Trump owns it or his buddies own it becomes essentially a poison chalice. How many people in the United States are going to want to use Tik Tok if Trump's buddies own it, right? So where are they going to go? Well, some of them are going to come here and they're going to go to Red Note, but most likely a lot of people are going to all of a sudden learn about Nostra real quick. Yeah.
(1:10:05) And so there's so that that's that's I think the Taiwan issue is really where the most leverage lies. And you have it in the email too. The if you look at the map, the US have China cut off across the east from Japan to South Korea to the Philippines and Australia. So there's this perception that China is really close, but it seems like the the US has allies in the region that that create this sort of stalemate in terms of preventing China from trying to take it over. and the whole meme of China trying to take it over and literally having a
(1:10:42) kinetic war around Taiwan just makes no sense considering the strategic importance of the foundaries that that are housed there. So, let me let me and just bear with me. I know it's a bit off topic, but I think it's important maybe for you, but also for your audience.
(1:11:00) Allow me to sort of state with a pretty emphatic level of confidence, China's not going to be invading Taiwan anytime in the near future, no matter what you read or hear on social media or elsewhere. You know, China's going to invade by 2027 because Xi Jinping said so. No, he didn't. He he said for the military to be prepared for, you know, what needs to be done. Jang Zamin said that. UAO said that. They've all said it's the same thing.
(1:11:26) But okay, let's ignore the, you know, what these, you know, communist leaders say. They're politicians. We don't listen to politicians. Here's an interesting fun fact. China never really wins wars. If you look over the last 8 7 800 years, better part of a thousand years, China was taken over first by the Manurion, no, the Mongolians, and then by the Manurans. And um this is when you get the Yuan dynasty.
(1:11:57) Then the Ming dynasty came in and was like, "Okay, we're going to be HanChinese again. And then you had the um the Manurians came in and it was uh the last dynasty, theQing dynasty." The reason I bring that up is China has learned that the way in which they exert control as the ethnic HanChinese, which 95% of all Chinese are, is through what I refer to politely and diplomatically as assimilation.
(1:12:25) meaning you over time, over generations through marriage and family and whatnot. You end up all becoming HanChinese again. And it's like, okay, we lost the war. We're not going to try to have this resistance or anything else. We're just going to, you know, we're going to intermar and whatnot. And, you know, give us a couple hundred years and we'll be back in power.
(1:12:44) The reason I bring that up is this is what happened in Hong Kong. And it's Hong Kong that I think is extremely important as a uh as a case for what is going to be what is going on with regard to Taiwan. And when I first came to China and the first time I went to Hong Kong was in 1994 and um Hong Kong was British.
(1:13:07) Everybody spoke Cantonese, completely British. Over the course of 20 odd years, Hong Kong became nothing but another Chinese city. The majority of people who were living in Hong Kong were from the mainland. So when China decided, and by the way, I should mention in terms of all the things that China has done, you know, this was I think the dumbest geopolitical mistake under Xi Jinping since he's been here was taking over Hong Kong in the way that he did.
(1:13:38) basically, you know, putting the stamp on it saying, "We're going to make this a real province, if you will." But the reason it was so relatively successful with limited violence, there was violence, but nowhere near to the extent of, say, Tiana Square, was because everybody down there was already Chinese and they were like, "Yeah, we're used to this. Okay, whatever." Compare that example with Taiwan.
(1:14:00) Even if China was able to go in, they wouldn't be able to so-called win the peace. There was no assimilation. Everybody in Taiwan are essentially Taiwanese. And the Taiwanese because they are Hanchinese and they understand this. It's the reason why they have been so reluctant to allow for any mainland Chinese to come and reside in Taiwan in Taiwan because they know that this is how you could play it.
(1:14:31) You just it's what's it called? The the the fifth um I don't know it something about fifth column. Thank you. It's the fifth column approach and the Chinese have been brilliant at that. So because it there's an inability to win the peace and especially there's no assimilation. China's not going to risk doing anything at this stage.
(1:14:49) They're just going to play for time. Um and this I just continue to see not being addressed anywhere. People just want to focus on the United States. We're going to be there. They're going to attack by 2020. So what happens when 2027 comes and go? He's just going to move the goalposts. Yeah, probably. I mean, that's that's the that's the modus operande for politics at least here.
(1:15:14) Sorry about that. Sorry about that. I went rogue. I I'm not sure if you want to talk. No, I think that I think that assimilation context is very important as especially as it pertains to Taiwan. I was completely unaware of that context and it makes sense. Um, again is in this I think it's important that I want to service as many of these fundamental misunderstandings as possible cuz again going back to and Matt alluded to it.
(1:15:43) He's like be careful like this guy's very pro-china and I don't want anybody here to think that I'm pro-china. I've had Bellagio on. He's put a very pro-China um bullish China bearish future of the United States thesis out there. And as an American like I as somebody who wants to get to the truth of things, truth for the commoner is what this what this company is called TFTC.
(1:16:09) And I think we should explore both sides of the argument and try to better understand with the intent of getting to a point where if you have better understanding, you can actually get things done. And to that point, like I worry that we're spending years with all this jocking and moving pieces on the chessboard with fundamental misunderstandings that don't actually allow us to get to a point where we can have productive um outcomes. And so like how much time are we wasting? What is the opportunity cost of doing all this posturing and sable
(1:16:44) rattling from a position of misunderstanding that just forces us down a path of delayed productive um outcomes? Yeah. And and I'm I'm in agreement and I I do want to circle back to a point you made which is look I want like I'm I'm a child I'm a child of the Reagan revolution. Like my most formative years were from 1980 to 1988.
(1:17:09) And you know, as someone who's lived out of the country, travels back a couple times a year, you know, just the snapshots each year when I go, I'm I'm I'm just shocked at how, you know, the stripping away of freedom, you know, as I wrote today, it's like some the sovereignty of it all, like the independence, like go out and and make it happen for yourself.
(1:17:35) Um, and there just so many gatekeepers across the board all over the place. Um, and it just seems as though that there's this this this element of fear that exists throughout the United States of, you know, I don't want to sound like all hokey, right? Like the scarcity mentality.
(1:17:55) The United States is still the greatest easily greatest country on earth. All of it. It just needs to go back to what it used to be. And I don't mean, you know, the 1950s and all that horrible stuff that was I'm just talking about, hey, let's get on let's get on with the business of doing business and let's get regulatory capture for me. It just drives me insane.
(1:18:18) Like that that has got to be You saw that picture, all the tech titans having dinner with Trump. I mean, that's about as Chinese as China gets. Yeah. Yeah. Chimas. And it's become like a thing particularly with the Trump administration where it is it there's a lot of sick fans who just want to be seen next to him because the leadup to the election was like we've got the tech the tech right the tech people are all right now they they they're absolving themselves of the sins of DEI and what politics and bending the knee to the progressive left and now it's cool to be conservative and free market oriented. But it's all it's all about who can be seen in a picture with Trump, which like literally they're I
(1:19:05) got invited to meetings with Trump where you pay 100 grand to get a picture with them when they were leading up to the campaign. It's like it's uh it's a lot of um a lot of sizzle, no stake in terms of substance. It's it's really and it's really like a social posturing and sort of hierarchy game that's being played where it's like I let's actually get some [ __ ] done here.
(1:19:33) And with that being said, like I'd much prefer Trump in office than Kamla, but like going back to um there's so many just idiotic mistakes like in our space like launching World Liberty Financial, launching the Trump memecoin, like just idiot like no like no reason to do it, but idiotic mistakes, right? I think and and you bring up a really good point.
(1:20:06) I I think there's a couple of points where I think, you know, if you look at Bology, I think it's I always find him fascinating because it's like, okay, dude, number one, enough with the slideshows. We get it, right? China produces everything. Um, but what he never really addresses, and I think this is an important point, is China right now is attempting to traverse from one economic model to the next.
(1:20:30) They're trying to move from growth model that was driven by real estate, infrastructure, little bit of exports, if you will, to one that is going to be high-end manufacturing, more consumption, still exports, but on the higher end. And I'll be honest with you, I have no idea if it's going to work. Nobody does because you also have on top of all of this gobs of debt.
(1:20:53) I mean, the the the local governments are just absolutely getting themselves, you know, you know, they they can't pay bills. So, you know, you you can look at all of the, oh, look, they're building this, they're building that, and I think that's fantastic.
(1:21:10) I think there has been an enormous amount of positive momentum there, but much like the G7, you have tremendous, tremendous debt. What I will say, and as I commented to you, my catchphrase has been Canes is dead in China. And what I mean by that is you would have seen a lot of headlines saying, "Oh, look, China's issuing tons and tons of bonds." They have, but the majority of those bonds are actually being used to go restructure local government debt in a way that is more transparent.
(1:21:38) Um, now left pocket, right pocket, it's still a mound of debt and you're trying to move to a whole new economic model. Um, I will certainly give the Chinese credit for rolling the dice, but you know, you're talking 1.4 billion people. Property values are still underwater. Stock market's finally starting to catch up.
(1:22:03) Um, there's been there's been a bit of a renaissance in terms of settlement over the course of the last six or seven months, but this is this is not a forgone conclusion. China is going to have to I mean, there's a lot of luck involved. If the United States didn't go to war for 20 years, would China be where it is? Probably not.
(1:22:21) You know, if China, if the United States didn't focus on, you know, a lot more of these social issues that were nonsense, DEI and what have you, would China have been able to progress as far as they have? Probably not. Um, you know, what's the what's the joke, Marty? When you're digging a hole and you're trying to get out, the first thing you need to do is stop digging. The United States needs to stop digging.
(1:22:41) What um what would be the first step to stop digging in your mind? What the first thing to do? That's it's it's a it's a sit down in Beijing between Trump and she where they say, "Okay, we're we're going to figure this out and we want to make sure that we're, you know, working together, that we're um we're peers.
(1:23:04) Uh we're going to try to figure out a way that we can share the sphere of influence throughout Asia." Um, I don't think China would even ask for, let alone would the would the Trump administration even say things like, oh, you know, Japan's yours, Korea's there, what have you. It's just, look, we respect you. We want to try to find ways to work together.
(1:23:21) We've had 30 years 30 years of collaboration that has led to prosperity and to peace. Now, granted, that prosperity has not been all that well received by lower income levels throughout the United States, the working class. That's something the United States is going to have to try to figure out, whether it's a UVI or whatever they're going to try to do.
(1:23:44) But the very first step is to just sit down and say, "Okay, the world is big enough for these two nations to be able to get along." And again, the the degree of and I hate this word, so please I apologize. I just It's the only one I can the synergy that exists between these two nations economically. it it there's a reason why it worked so well for so long.
(1:24:08) Um it just needs to be adjusted uh to come up with a way that all of the identified problems let's say the United States has with regard to manufacturing can get addressed. That's where I was talking about joint ventures and the like. Let China invest in the United States. Stop freaking out about farmland.
(1:24:26) I mean, you're just guys, like, you're you're making a big deal over something that might have an issue, but the Chinese are just looking to figure out a way. How can we take our hard currency, get it out of the country, and put it somewhere in the United States is still the best place in town. Yeah, that I mean, that's a very controversial one.
(1:24:44) And one, I'll admit that does give me pause, particularly if they're buying around military bases. I mean, that was a big big thing in Texas specifically. I think Texas outlawed it um outright last year. And I think that's I think if there are strategic areas that you shouldn't absolutely that makes sense. The United States has got a lot of farmland. You don't have to buy it right next to you know Fort Bragg. Yeah.
(1:25:10) Well, that's the other thing I I wonder about. Maybe I'm extremely naive idolistic, but to me, I mean, we saw there was the two Chinese researchers in Michigan who were arrested for bringing in that fungus that could kill crops. We've seen obviously the the whole COVID thing with the Wuhan lab, but there was some inter like NIH was funding the lab and the Chinese were running it.
(1:25:36) And so there is this there is this sort of um you do have to have your guards up to a certain degree. But maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm ideal idealist, but uh I think if you can get to a point where the relationship is on good footing and you have free equal fair trade between the countries, it's a good deal.
(1:26:06) like the incentive to play these war games and um these spy games, if you will, is decreased a bit and then the the incentive is to cooperate and not try to sabotage each other. Yeah. And and again, I think this is this is a good point and and I always stress this. China is a an absolute lover of the word asymmetry. That's all they're looking for is how can they do little things that have bigger impacts.
(1:26:27) So, do I think that, you know, you've got people coming into the United States that are trying to find ways to be able to, you know, undermine systems, you know, the electrical grid and everything else? I absolutely do. Right. I mean, when when you're What did I write to you? Right. If you go for the king, you better not miss.
(1:26:48) And so, there's going to be a lot of things that are going to be going on that we don't we're not aware of. A lot of um nefarious actions. I wouldn't put it past the Chinese to do it. This is kind of their modus operandi. Um but at the same time is you know you know sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
(1:27:09) So you know you you have to find a way I think to be a little bit judicious in how you go and target it. Um and by the way if you want if you want my sort of uh my my point of view on co because co here was well that's a whole different story. I guarantee you this this was literally somebody was somewhere dropped something and it escaped. Like it's as simple as that. Now the Chinese are not going to admit that.
(1:27:36) Like that's a huge loss of face, right? So what do they do? Oh, it came from the United States. Come on, man. Nobody believes that. Um I mean I know there's some supposed incredible theories coming out. But as I see it, they took the SAR, the original SARS from 2003 where I was here and they were funking around with it, getting some funding from the United States.
(1:27:56) God knows what reason, you know, some guy's having, you know, lunch one day and he's handling a petri dish and trips. Like I've seen things like this happen. Not to that extent, I mind you, but I've seen big things happen over very trivial catalysts. Yeah. No. And then like two other things I want to touch like the um again it seems to me that China thinks in centuries not quarters which is very important for westerners to understand and that was brought up in the discussion yesterday like how much um the how much of like the outcome of the opium wars and um the the century between like 19 1850 and 1950 is seeped in the psyche of the Chinese
(1:28:46) uh to the to the extent where they have it internally like we never want that to happen again. We don't want to get owned by by foreigners to that extent ever again. Yeah. No, the I mean it's called the 200 years of hum 100 years of humiliation whatever it's called. Um yeah that's that is front and center.
(1:29:10) Um, and I mean it's taught in schools, you know, the the the whole drug culture here. Zero tolerance, man. Like, do not get caught with drugs in China. Full stop. I mean, there's zero tolerance for DWI. You get caught drinking and driving here, you're in jail for 10 days. No questions asked. Um, so that's definitely in the back of their minds.
(1:29:34) But it's it's not what I would consider to be a driving um motivation. I mean the driving motivation is chaos. Meaning what transpired during that hundred years is you had warlords, you had civil war. I mean it was I mean it was pure chaos. And over that 5,000 years, if you go through the Chinese history, you find that typically this is when there's always a turnover in dynasties is things get so chaotic and the country breaks apart that you have to have somebody as a new strongman come in and try to keep it together. Um, so that is a a number
(1:30:14) one priority is making sure that there is stability as best as possible throughout the system. Um now the opium wars and being owned by any for I mean even being owned on a diplomatic level is viewed as being like you know the opium wars you know you want to make sure that you're being viewed as an equal and right now I keep coming back to this most of the countries around the world will sort of tacitly view China as an equal um the large G7 nations the US is the only one that does not So yeah, I I think it's it's stability more than anything else.
(1:30:56) No, that's another big topic here. Like is the fentanyl crisis a reverse opium war um tactic to destabilize what's happening domestically here in the United? Yeah. Oh, I think so. Yeah. I mean it's again it goes back to my issue about asymmetry. Um, and I think the the the way in which the Chinese are doing it, I think, is is again, it goes to the brilliance.
(1:31:21) I mean, I don't mean to sound callous with regard to the outcome, but you know, they can they can honestly say, "Hey, look, we're doing what we can. We're not actually sending the fentanyl. We're just sending the precursors." And those precursors can be used for a whole bunch of different things. Just so happens that it's being sold to to Mexico.
(1:31:39) Um, but you know the the Chinese will also look at it and say, "Hey, you need to close your borders and you need to get this drug issue under control." And as much as I think that there is a driving element with regard to the Chinese using asymmetry in their tactics to be able to exploit this, no doubt, I also think that this is with it should be within the the power of the American government to stop it. You know, it's a supply and demand issue.
(1:32:02) I'm not saying, oh, the war on drugs and but, you know, I think there's a lot of money being made by a lot of groups across the whole border. Um, so if you were to stop the demand issue of it, um, I think there would be, you know, China be like, "All right, we're out here. We'll figure something else out.
(1:32:20) " But, um, yeah, I'm not going to sit here and say, "Oh, no, it's just a coincidence." It's not, it's not a coincidence. No. Yeah. There was just a book written. Apparently, there's US military uh personnel that were that were working with the cartels to move all this stuff in. It is. Uh are you optimistic or worried about this the future state of the relationship between the United States and China? Do you think that Trump probably via the behest of Scott Patent and the advice of Scott Patent can come to recognize the the sort of way the best way to do business with the Chinese and um swallow his pride a bit and actually get
(1:33:08) something productive done or do you think we're destined to continue down this sort of saber rattling um uh sort of very uh what's the word I'm looking for? Confrontational relationship. Yeah. So, in my own DNA, I'm a raging optimist. Uh probably much to uh my and probably not too healthy, but I I just I I'll always have an optimistic perspective on things.
(1:33:45) And on the point of the relationship between China and the United States, I am too grateful that Trump has assumed power and it wasn't a redo of the Biden administration because I think there were very clear signs in that sort of side of the political party that you know let's try to push the buttons. Uh like Nancy Pelosi flew out to Taiwan.
(1:34:08) There was a lot of events that again that's why I said the degree of restraint out of China I don't think really gets appreciated. Uh but Trump came in and my immediate reaction was oh this is not going to be good because if you looked across his you know he said um Rubio I mean you guys in Congress I mean China is the most bipartisan issue where there's agreement like we all hate China great like how's that going to help and Trump has been able to keep that whole sort of group in check so far so that allows me that provides me with an enormous amount of comfort.
(1:34:43) Um, how it goes forward, I think, is going to be open to things like the midterms. I mean, China understands, by the way, how the American political system operates. They learned this the hard way back in 96. So, you know, they're they're just sitting there saying, "Look, we're just going to kick the can until November 26th.
(1:35:03) " Because in November 26, everybody in the United States turns their brain off. It's Thanksgiving. They go to the end of the year. Next thing you know, it's January 4th and what is it? It's midterms. Everybody's talking about midterms. Everybody's energy is either on trying to maintain power or trying to reassume power.
(1:35:24) So, the political capital and the ability to sort of have the bandwidth to deal with China is going to be very minimal. And I think the next two months are going to be very telling because they've got a lot of wood to chop between now and call it the middle of November. um if there are issues um they'll probably pop up Q1 of next year, but like you and like many people on this uh who are viewing or listening to this podcast, it's quite possible over that period of time that the United States may have a few houses that are burning that they need to to focus on.
(1:35:55) China is not going to be the priority. Uh so you know the the financial situation as I call it the United States is absolutely unquestionably fiscally boxed in. Everybody knows it. Um it's the it's the world's worst kept secret. Nobody talks about it outside of this echo chamber, right? And um how are they going to square the circle? I I just don't see how they're going to be able to do it.
(1:36:24) So um we'll we'll have to wait and see. I think for for the time being, I think I'm I'm overly positive that we're not going to go into anything that's going to be overly nasty. Uh but that could change by the Q1 of next year. Well, you bring up an interesting point, too.
(1:36:42) Um it may be a controversial thought experiment, but is the nature of the US political system, particularly elections, completely hamstring us in terms of being able to actually get stuff done? Because people talk about four year cycles, but it's really what we're highlighting here, two-year cycles. You have presidential election, then two years later you have midterms.
(1:37:02) And many would argue they're equally as important. And so you have and people for the presidential election it's like a year and a half of bandwidth mental bandwidth I was talking about and focusing on midterms to your point maybe half that or uh 3/4 of that 8 months um 8 n months January to right and and again I mean you can you can see it I mean you're in I mean look you're a family man now you got three kids you're you and your wife are insane.
(1:37:33) Um, and uh, once once Thanksgiving comes, you're you're mentally going to be checked out until the beginning of January, right? You're going to be family and everything and and you are representative so many people throughout the country. So, you know, China will use that to its advantage and say, "Look, okay, you know, we'll just wait for the next guy to come in maybe or we'll see.
(1:37:58) " Well, and I've learned this through the mining industry, too, because you have the US holiday system that rolls right into the Chinese New Year, uh, where everything shuts down for a month in China and Yep. So, it's like you have even an even smaller window to actually be productive to get stuff done. Oh, God. Tell me about it. And that's that's typically when end of January through February. Anywhere? Yeah.
(1:38:19) Anywhere from the end of January to early February. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh it's funny. Uh we always have to prep for for Chinese New Year in the mining industry. It's like, okay, if you want to get anything done with the Chinese counterparts, make sure you get it done before the the new year. Yeah, abs. You get it's with anything. It's with anything. Yeah.
(1:38:44) Well, uh Peter, this has been incredibly illuminating. what final thoughts or words of wisdom, advice would you give anybody listening to this? Um, and yeah, we do have some policy makers to listen to this, I'm pretty sure. So, okay. Um, okay. Number one, if you have not been to China, I implore everybody to get on a plane and come out.
(1:39:14) It's actually you can get, you don't have to get a visa anymore. You can do transit visas as Americans. It's pretty easy. come and see for yourself. Um, now here may be the more controversial. Do not go to Beijing. Um, I would even argue, and I can't believe I'm saying this, don't even come to Shanghai. If you can land in Shanghai a day, you want to go to Shenzhen.
(1:39:32) You want to go to Hjo and Chongqing. These cities are just, I mean, this is where the excitement is. This is where the energy is. Uh, you're seeing real Chinese entrepreneurial spirit. People out having a good just people living their daily lives. get on a plane, come out and spend some time. Every person that I have sort of been with that has done this over the last 18 months, to the man and to the woman, they have said to me, "This is not at all what I expected.
(1:40:02) " And I I just really encourage people to do that. Um the other the other point that I would make to you is whatever you see or and and I would implore you to be very careful when you go about um you know indulging in certain content that's like China's going to collapse. Um it it could it very well could. I'm not going to say it can't. Uh but again, I've been hearing this for two decades.
(1:40:28) So when you when you're hearing input from people talking about China, the first question you should ask yourself is, has this person ever been to China? The the amount of second sourcing of information of late is frightening. Meaning that people are talking to people who have agendas who are then translating it and saying, "Oh, this meets my confirmed bias, so I'm going to put this out there.
(1:40:52) " And then finally, and this one is probably I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Anybody that wants to have a deeper conversation about any of this stuff, hit me up on Noster. I'm I I will talk to anybody as open as possible. As I said to you in the email, Marty, I'm in Shanghai. I'm in China. I'm talking about Fenton.
(1:41:15) No one's coming in the door and they could black me, right? So, a lot of the I have a VPN. As I said, my VPN is from China Telecom. They just want the money. like all of these stories that Oh, sorry. You got me going. There's no social credit score. None. I I'm I'm done with all this stuff.
(1:41:39) Um, so be mindful of the messages you get out and just make sure to question who's saying it, what agendas they have, including myself. I'm glad Matt called me out. Good. Um, again, yeah, just reach out. You know, I I again, love Nostra. I'm still shocked that you guys were talking about it. And I I I'm like, "Oh, wow. That's pretty cool." Talking about what? Talking about me. Oh, that you're coming on here. Yeah.
(1:42:04) I mean, no. And it's I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass either. I was really happy that you responded to that newsletter. And I'll hand up. I'm probably guilty of um hearing information about China from people with an agenda and taking it at face value and sharing it like oh like and I've been cuz I've fallen for it before like Peter Peter Zion like the whole demographics problem.
(1:42:36) Um, another one, Kyle Bass, uh, Hong Kong dollar is going to going to fail and China's going to I'm just trying to take over America. Like, I've I've definitely um fallen for those thesis, but they've been around for I've been at least I've been paying attention to them from those two individuals for the better part of a decade. It's like it hasn't come true.
(1:42:54) So, what's actually happening here? So, here here just a just a quick editorial note on these guys and you there's a host of others. Have have the opinion. keep the opinion, that's fine, right? If you if you change your your points, that that should be fine. But when you go on traditional media like CNBC or CNN and you're you're pitching essentially the same storyline that you've been wrong about for 15 years or 10 years, I would think it would be in the the fiduciary duty, let's say, of the anchor to say, "Okay, we appreciate this perspective you have on China. You've been wrong for a long
(1:43:27) time. Why shouldn't we listen to you now? What's changed? And and yet because of the nature of how media is and everything else, I get it. That's me being naive. But I think that's more my bigger gripe because these same people are on all the time. Yeah. No, we see it. I mean, it's funny. It happens in the Bitcoin space, too. There's like a a carousel of people.
(1:43:54) Many are good, but many are like, you've been particularly in the cryptosphere, you've been consistently wrong for better part of a decade. and you're still getting trotted out and uh enabled to shill your your wares to to the to the retail public. It's very disheartening. And that's why like I love having this podcast and being able to have we just spoke for an hour and 40 minutes and really diving deep into these topics that I'm I'm curious about. And I will admit I've probably spoken out of line on the topic in the past, but do earnestly want to
(1:44:23) learn and try to get to the truth. And I think someone like yourself who's lived in China for 30 years and definitely has a better perspective than myself and likely others who haven't but are speaking confidently on the subject is is important. Right. No. And and again I as I said I'm not going anywhere and I'm super ecstatic to be able to talk to anybody and be challenged.
(1:44:47) I mean I don't have all the answers. That's for sure. Yeah. Well hopefully this is the first of many. I'm sure the uh the USChinese relationship is not um not going to be boring anytime soon. So, as things develop, I'll make sure that uh our conversation is running behind the scenes and if we feel that it's uh important to get on air again, have a conversation to update the freaks about what's going on, we should definitely do it. Yeah. And and I'll be I'll be here.
(1:45:21) Um, and I'll keep I'll keep doing my my China morning missives or whatever I keep calling them. Um, I have a good time with those. And the engagement's been great. I mean, and I am, by the way, Nostra only. Yeah, I was looking for you on on X. I couldn't find you. So, it was very impressive to see that you're Nostra only. I haven't yet.
(1:45:39) Uh I it it's hard when you have the engagement but for for me it was you know look at the end of the day I am a I'm someone who really doesn't like centralized power uh so ironically that I live in China um but uh that's why I think Noster it was so funny I remember in the very beginning been on two and a half years saying sending a a note to Jack and I was like I'll tell you two things the next election meeting 2028 it's going to be only two topics, Bitcoin and China.
(1:46:11) And he and he wrote back and he was like, "Probably." And that's what it was. That's what it was. And the border. The border was a big one. But, uh, Peter, I know it's getting late where you are. Appreciate you spending your Friday night with me. Um, I feel very fortunate that you were willing to do that. And, uh, until next time. I can't wait to do it again. Always good to be around, Marty. I appreciate the invite.
(1:46:36) and uh you be well with your family. You as well. Peace and love, freaks. Freaks, thank you for listening to the show. I hope you liked it. If you did like it, please make sure you subscribe, rate, review the show. It helps us out a lot.
(1:46:55) And also, if you like these conversations, I've come to realize that many people listen to the podcast, they don't know we have another sort of layer of this media company. We have the newsletter, the Bitcoin brief. Go to tfttc.io. Make sure you subscribe there. a lot of the topics that are discussed on this podcast. I write about 5 days a week in the newsletter. We also have the TFTC elite tier.
(1:47:13) If you sign up for that, become a member. We have a private Discord server for the elite freaks out there where we're dropping adree versions of this show and having discussions about everything we talk about. A day early. Logan wanted me to make sure if you want to get the show a day early, become a TFTC elite member. You will get that. We have our Discord server.
(1:47:37) Right now, it's conversation between myself and TFTC elite tier members, but we're going to expand that. We'll probably do closed Q&As with people in the industry. Uh I may be doing macro Mondays. So, join us. Go to tftc.io. Subscribe. Find the button in the top right corner of the website. become a TFTC Elite member. Thank you for joining us.
