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The Honest Money Show is your guide to understanding what money really is, and where Bitcoin fits in. Hosted by Anja Dragovic, Australia's female-led, Bitcoin-only podcast, it cuts through the noise to explore how money shapes our lives, why the current system leaves so many people behind, and what a clearer, fairer future could look like.
Expect honest, accessible conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the space, the kind that take you from "I don't really get this" to genuinely curious. No hype, no pressure, just money, made clear.
Whether you're brand new to these questions or already deep in them, you're welcome here.
Welcome back to the Honest Money Show.
Joining me today is Tarik Sammour. Tarik is
the colorectal surgeon from Adelaide and
he's also an associate professor at
University of, I was going to say New
South Wales, but South Australia. No, so
interestingly enough, there's been a
change there. So University of South
Australia, University of Adelaide have
merged and now it's this giant university
called Adelaide University. So that's the
new name. Okay, awesome. Thank you for
correcting me. Welcome to the show. Oh,
thanks. It's really nice to be here.
Thanks, Anja. Looking forward to it. Yeah,
me too. I think I shared this story with
you last time, but I want to share it with
my audience as well. I had someone reach
out to me on LinkedIn saying, you know, I
was at a conference, international surgeon
conference in Europe, and I couldn't
believe it. There was an Australian
surgeon talking about Bitcoin. And as soon
as I heard your name, I knew that it was
you, obviously. Do you want to tell us
about that conference? It was actually the
conference organizers that wanted to talk
about something a little bit different. So
I normally, it was a colorectal surgery
conference. So I normally go to those and
speak about, you know, bowel cancer kind
of stuff. But this particular time they
said, look, we've got plenty of cancer
talks. Can you talk about something
different? And they said, you know, we
know. So I gave them a few options. And
one of the options was healthcare funding
and Bitcoin and how it can fix it. And
that's the one they picked. So, you know,
it was in Europe. And so I think they're a
bit more progressive about stuff like
this. So that's what they asked for. And
actually went very well. Like the talk was
very well received. So that was cool to
see. I love that. And were there any other
Bitcoiners in the room? I'm sure there
are. I'm sure there are. I mean, a couple
came up to me and a couple could see
because, you know, they published the
program ahead of time. And so I got I was
contacted by a few before the conference
even started. I would say, you know,
there's probably about 5% of doctors are
like hardcore Bitcoiners and probably
about 20% are, you know, into crypto stuff
in one way or another, but not really
hardcore Bitcoiners as such. So that's
what I would guess. In Australia? I think
everywhere, you know, just like the rest
of the population. I think I think that
would be true everywhere. Certainly,
definitely in Australia, that's the case.
And I know we've mentioned it before. But,
you know, there's a there's some pretty
big Facebook groups of, you know, Bitcoin
for doctors kind of stuff with, you know,
a couple of thousand members in Australia.
So, you know, there's there's definite
interest there, although still early on
the on the scheme of things. Yeah, I love
that. So what do you think draws doctors
to Bitcoin? Yeah, so it's a couple of
different angles. I think the first angle
is that, you know, doctors are, you know,
especially when we when they start along
their journey of becoming a doctor,
they're kind of doing it for altruistic
reasons, you know, like they're there to
help people, try and make people better
from their illnesses and that sort of
thing. And I think when they see that
there's some consequences that affect
health negatively to do with the fiat
system, it's sort of pretty natural to try
and read about or look at alternatives. So
I think that's one angle that leads
doctors towards down that path. Certainly,
that's the angle that eventually got me on
that path. And I think the other one is,
you know, doctors are not poor people,
they have a they have a significant amount
of money that they need to put somewhere.
And so, you know, the traditional advice
of just put all your excess capital in
houses or stocks is starting to get a bit
old. And so particularly younger doctors
are looking for better solutions to
preserve their own wealth in a way that is
sort of ethical and sound. And so I think
that's the other reason why the interest
is increasing in the medical community in
Bitcoin. Yeah, I don't think I told you
this story. But when I worked for an
exchange, a year ago, we had some issue
where we did some deployed and upgrade.
And as a result, all our automated buying
and sending of Bitcoin to your own
hardware wallet was seized. So we had a
user reach out and saying, look, all my
automation stopped, can we please get them
back up and running? So we looked into the
bug. And as part of this discovery, I
looked at the clients, the user's profile.
And she was a woman in her 30s. She was a
doctor. I don't know much about her. But I
do know that she was putting like a
significant or a reasonable amount of
money every month, dollar cost averaging
on a daily basis, buying like, you know,
just steadily buying it. And then when she
reached 0.1% of a Bitcoin, she would
withdraw. So the whole thing was
automated. She just used it as a savings
technology. And I just love that case
study. Like it's always in the back of my
mind. It's just like, here's a woman who's
very educated, including understands
Bitcoin the way I do. And I love that
there was no gambling to it. That was just
very, you know, systematic. I would say
most doctors are DCA-ers like that,
because it suits our mentality. You know,
we're not here to speculate. You know,
it's not really, we're not gamblers. We're
here to kind of work, make a salary or
make money from our work, and then try and
save it somewhere that makes sense for our
families, but also for the community at
large. And so you'll find that as doctors
get orange pilled, it's they're pretty
much like auto DCA-ers almost always. And
I know quite a few like that. Um, there's
a couple that I've orange pilled over the
years, you know, just through direct
talking, and that's exactly what they do.
So they, they DCA on Bitteroo or, you
know, used to be strike, although that
doesn't happen anymore. And then just auto
withdraw into a cold storage. And that's
what they do. And it's it, it does suit
the way that we thought being a doctor was
supposed to work. You know, like if you go
back to the 1940s, typical doctor had a
family worked hard, and then saved their
money in in the bank, you know, that's
kind of how it worked. Fast forward to
2026, the typical doctor makes money and
has to speculate and has advised to
speculate and in fact, with leverage. So,
you know, if I go to the typical sort of
medical accountant, or financial advisor,
and I have done so in the past, not
anymore, thankfully, they would tell you,
you know, borrow millions of dollars and
buy lots of houses. Before all the CGT
changes, that's what people did. Because
you have a decent salary. And so you can
borrow a lot of money, particularly for
houses. And because that there was such a
huge tax benefit to doing so on a high
income, that was like the standard advice.
But I don't think doctors are supposed to
be property speculators like those two,
those two ideas aren't immediately
obviously connected, you know, the
personality types and the reasons why we
do medicine are quite different to, you
know, sales, buying and selling stuff. And
so it doesn't suit a lot of doctors to do
that. And it's always been an
uncomfortable way to, to sort of save your
wealth. It's just that there wasn't really
much of an option until recently, to do
anything differently. Now with all the CGT
changes and things, I think there's going
to be a lot more of a shift towards stock
portfolios as opposed to housing. But
again, that's, you know, doctors haven't
quite realized this yet, but there are
some significant downsides to that
compared to say, on a Bitcoin standard. So
the two obvious downsides are one, it's
not self-sovereign. So if you have all
your wealth tied up in a, in a sort of an
exchange somewhere where you're buying,
uh, stock ETFs and things, uh, if, if, if
things get nasty, that's very easily
confiscatable. And that's a risk that
people don't think about. Um, certainly
Bitcoiners think about that, but I don't
think people invest in stocks, think about
that. The other major risk is like
housing, dumping a whole bunch of money
blindly into stocks, you know, and ETFs,
for example, um, does have the risk of,
uh, negative societal consequences. So for
example, uh, all these AI plays, which,
you know, a lot of doctors are kind of
greenies as well. So they don't like the,
the environmental impacts, um, things
like, you know, companies that specialize
in creating AI drones and things to kill
people with, that's certainly anti what a
typical doctor would want to be invested
in. But if you dump your money into these
ETFs and things is really, it's very, very
hard to avoid that because it just gets
sucked into where the money wants to go.
And at the moment that's where the money
wants to go. And so similar to the way,
you know, uh, inflating the housing market
has negative impacts, inflating the stock
market also has negative impacts. And I
think once people understand that better,
uh, Bitcoin becomes a more attractive
option as a, as a neutral monetary
standard. Yeah. I love that. And that
certainly resonates with me and the
reasons why, like, obviously I got into
Bitcoin for the number go up and I'm still
here for all the other benefits that you
kind of learn along the way. And, and you,
you, it's, it feels like a more moral
money to hold onto rather than, you know,
I sometimes think I do have an option to
go back to S and B 500, but why would I? I
am like, I just, it's like, what, what am
I supporting in the background? Um, so
that's always in the back of my mind.
Yeah. It's a neutral money, right? I mean,
it can be used for good and bad things,
but it's your choice, how you use it, you
know, as opposed to when you, uh, blindly
invest in, in 500 companies, you really,
it's very little choice there. You're
trusting an index or a fund manager or
someone like that. Uh, and they, the way
they spread risk is to invent, invest
across all sectors. And unfortunately
things like war are very profitable
sectors. So if there's a war coming up and
you have a, you have an interest in making
money, then you just invest in, in, you
know, weapons manufacturers. Now the idea
of a bunch of doctors investing in weapons
manufacturers doesn't really make sense.
And the only way that it happens is
because we don't think about it. It just
kind of happens passively without us
really think, you know, spending too much
time working on it. Um, but I think that
will be for Australia. That's going to be
the next intellectual challenge that will
need to be, um, once the housing Ponzi
blows up or stops becoming a Ponzi because
of changes in, uh, in demographics, which
is what we're seeing now, uh, the next
step will be, do you really want to put
all your money in stocks or is there a
better way? Yeah. And what has the
reaction been, um, with the new budget
coming out? Um, what's the sentiment on
those Facebook groups? Uh, yeah, a lot of
panic and a lot of kind of like, oh, this
wasn't the deal. You know, my financial
advisor said I should do this and now it's
not an option. And, you know, um, so, you
know, I, on one of the groups, which is
called investing for doctors, which is
really quite a massive Australian group.
Um, and the only reason it exists is
because doctors don't know what to do with
their wealth. So they seek advice and they
seek kind of advice from their peers
because there's not a hundred percent
trust of financial advisors. So, you know,
what are you doing and what are you doing?
And so these giant Facebook groups arise
because of that. Um, so when the CGT
changes were announced, it was obviously a
very big topic of conversation because all
these doctors were immediately affected by
those changes. Interestingly enough,
around the same time, because this was a
budget announcement, uh, there was a
dramatic increase in healthcare spending
in the budget, but nobody was talking
about that, which I made a post on the
Facebook group suggesting that it's a bit
strange that this is where we are like a
group full of doctors. I mean, I know it's
called investing for doctors, but a group
full of doctors or large numbers of
doctors doctors were more affected by CGT
changes, um, and housing policy changes
than by direct funding to their salaries,
healthcare funding. Um, and that's just a
reflection of where we're at in the, in
the petrodollar system where we can't sort
of focus on our jobs as much as we used
to, because we have all these competing
issues. Like, should I buy an extra three
houses or not? Where should I put my
money? I shouldn't have to think about
that. I should just go to work, treat
patients, and my money should just sit
there until I need it. And if I want to
invest in a company, I should be able to
do that. You know, if I think a company is
really useful and doing good things, and I
think it's going to be profitable, I can
still do that. If you save in Bitcoin, you
can still do that. Um, I guess what I'm
not advocating for is blind spending or
saving in, you know, less, um, fruitful
avenues. I don't, I try not to call it
ethical and unethical because I feel bad
saying that because the system we're in up
until recently was kind of geared that
way. And I don't really blame anybody for
doing that. Just what you're told to do.
Um, but I do think that a bit more
education is probably a good thing to see
where, where your energy
is actually being stored.
stored. Yeah, I, I hear you. I have that
moral conundrum all the time in terms of
like, how do I speak about this and
educate others? What I know, like my
peers, um, without sounding like, um, like
I'm taking a moral high ground or shaming,
you know what I mean? Cause then that's
not, not a positive way to spread the
message. Um, yeah, but I'd love to know a
little bit more about like the Australia's
health system and why it's struggling so
much. Yeah, well, we have a better
healthcare system than probably most
places I have to say. So we are
struggling, um, but relatively less than
some other places. And we're struggling
for the same reason that, you know, a
whole bunch of sectors are struggling like
the housing market. It's the same thing.
Like the inflation rate in, in how much
things cost, like say a hospital bed is so
much higher than the amount of dollars
that we have to spend on it. And as a
result, we end up getting fewer hospital
beds, which is probably the central
biggest problem we have is we just don't
have enough hospital beds for the number
of patients that we need to treat. Um, and
that manifests itself in a lot of ways. So
the thing you hear a lot about, especially
in South Australia is like ambulance
ramping. I don't know if you've had much
of that where you are, but basically
ambulances lined up outside the hospital
can't get into the hospital. Um, and the
sort of the, the reason for that is not
enough beds to put the patients in. That's
the reason. So the hospital is full and
the new patients, the safest place for
them to be is in the ambulance because
there's nowhere for them in the hospital.
And so there's a bit of a backlog until
the hospital beds clear with patients
getting discharged before the new patients
can come in. And that problem has been
increasing at a, quite a fast rate. Um,
when you look at, uh, healthcare funding,
and this is the main thing I was talking
about in that Paris conference. So the,
the, the government sort of spends about 3
% extra a year on healthcare because
that's, it's sort of indexed kind of the
CPI, you know, in a roundabout way, but
healthcare costs just like housing, in
fact, even more so increase about 10% per
year. And that's been the case for decades
now. And so the end result of that is the
number of hospital beds per head of
population goes down every year. So we
actually have fewer beds per population
every year. And as long as that problem
continues to be the way it is, and there's
no sign of it changing, uh, until maybe we
adopt a Bitcoin standard potentially, um,
you know, we're, we're going to struggle
more and more. And I think that's just the
reality for the next few years until
something, something drastically changes.
On the Bitcoin standard, do you think that
that's where we're headed? Like, I know
there's a lot of conversation around this
and a lot of quarreling within the Bitcoin
community in terms of, you know, we've got
like people like Michael Saylors talking
about that, you know, Bitcoin is only ever
going to be a store of value. And then
other people who want it to go all the
way. Where do you think? Yeah. Well, I
mean, we do have examples from other
technologies that have, that have kind of
come in, come in in the same way. And the
reality is, I think it's inevitable that
we will be on some sort of Bitcoin
standard, but I think it would be naive to
think that it will be completely separated
from the current, you know, oligopoly on
finance. So the way the internet happened,
I mean, you probably don't remember this,
but the internet used to be free. You used
to just plug your phone, literally plug
your computer into the phone line and you
would have a terminal. And that was it.
You didn't need to pay anyone. There were
no gatekeepers. You just started talking
to people online through your phone line.
That was the first version of the
internet. However, as we progress, what
ended up happening is you started getting
these gatekeepers, which were basically
the telephone companies that you have to
pay a monthly fee for. And they started
putting caps on the data use. And, you
know, that's kind of how they regulated
the entry point. I suspect it will be the
same with Bitcoin. I would love to think
that that won't be the case, that everyone
will have their own lightning wallet
that's self-custodial and that they would
buy things with it. But the more likely
reality is that you will have Bitcoin in
your bank account that is not in your
custody. And you will have the option of
self-custody, just like you have the
option of using, you know, a VPN or some
sort of, you know, separated access to the
internet, but it won't be the mainstream
way that it's used. That's just, I think,
the more likely outcome. I think the
bigger risk, from my perspective, because
I think the thing that Bitcoin solves is
not transactions. It's what the problem it
solves is sound money. In other words,
unprintability of money. That's the main
problem it solves. So my worry is that if
Bitcoin ends up locked in bigger and
bigger pools with these big banks, for
example, or with governments, that that
will fall into the same trap that we did
with gold, where it just becomes like a,
you know, they start creating paper
Bitcoin basically claims. And so, and it
would lose its store of value even because
you will not, no longer have a 21 million
cap if that's the case. So I think self
-custody is important. And I think we
should continue to champion self-custody,
particularly for larger pools of Bitcoin,
like for saving, so that the idea of paper
Bitcoin becomes less and less viable. I
think if we lose the cap, whether in,
whether, whether genuinely lose it on the
base chain, or whether we lose it because
the banks start, you know, doing
fractional banking, then the whole, the
whole proposition is lost, I would
suggest. Yeah, I do wonder about that.
Like, I don't understand enough to have an
opinion, but I do wonder if having kind of
derivative-like products sitting on top of
Bitcoin actually ever dilutes the supply
cap, like, I don't know. Well, as long as
the underlying Bitcoin is accounted for in
a transparent way. And I'm not sure that
that's a guarantee, you know. And you
certainly have big pools of Bitcoin that
are kind of, they're not transparently
reported. I mean, Michael Saylor's stash,
hopefully it's all there, but we can't,
none of us can verify that. Auditors can
verify it, but do you really want to trust
auditors for that? You know, you might as
well go back to the gold standard where
you trusted banks to hold your gold, but
not really, you know. I think that's the
scenario we should try and avoid. That's
the main scenario we should try and avoid.
And I think self-custody is important for
that reason. Even if it's not going to be
the way most people transact with Bitcoin.
And I think the transactional layer will
be a competition between something like
Lightning and something like ComBank
having, allowing you to pay in Bitcoin,
but you have to put the Bitcoin in the
ComBank app. I mean, that's probably where
it's going. I also think that transacting
in Bitcoin is a bit of a threat to things
like the dollar, because if you are able
to pay in Bitcoin, you know, easily, like
you would, you know, on your banking app,
why would you still have dollars then? And
I think, you know, so we're in this
uncomfortable tension at the moment where
I think the banks are not sure if they
want you to be able to put Bitcoin on
their app and risk losing, you know,
control of the money insurance if it's no
longer necessary. So who knows where
that's going to head? I think our job as
Bitcoiners, as early Bitcoiners is to
champion self-custody at the very least,
so that the layer of account, the base
layer is a little bit more transparent and
a little bit more difficult to fake, like
what happened with gold. Yeah, it's
interesting with the gold standard. Like I
love having conversations with Claude and
ChatGPT about this and a lot of the time,
the sound, like that gold standard or the
sound money standard gets, gets criticized
quite a bit because apparently it had, you
know, that there were lots of bank runs
back in the day, but then I tried to kind
of challenge back. I'm like, well, the
bank runs had nothing to do with people
asking to redeem it. It was the fact that
they were fractionally reserved and that's
why people lost the trust. So you feel
like that sound money standard gets bad
rap, but it's completely, yeah, completely
point, like focusing on the wrong thing.
Yeah. I mean, I think Bitcoin has a
tremendous advantage over gold because
it's weightless. I mean, the problem with
gold is the mass. So it's hard to store
without trusting someone else to do it for
you, especially if you have a larger
amount. And I also think unlike gold, you
know, the reason paper money exists is
because it's kind of hard to sort of
transact in gold because it, you know, you
have to melt it down and make coins and
someone has to do that. Like, whereas
that's that, that problem doesn't exist
for Bitcoin. So, you know, it truly is
like, as if you had a gold 2.0 that was
better in every way, including in
transactions, but that doesn't mean that
it will, that doesn't mean that humans
will use it in the right way. And I think
we have plenty of examples where humans as
a collective tend to prioritize
convenience over, uh, over things like
self custody and sovereignty. You know,
Bitcoin is a prioritize sovereignty, but
the average person doesn't, the average
person prioritizes convenience. So if it's
easier to use your Combank app, most
people will use it, you know? And, uh, so
we just need to be a bit careful about
that point. Like there's no guarantee that
because it has the properties that would
make it usable, that people will use it in
the way we think they will, you know? Um,
and again, I think it's all about
education. If you, if you, if you care
about the sound money principle of the
hard cap, then you should try your best to
self custody and run a note. Yeah. When
the, tell me a little bit about, um, what
you've witnessed other doctors who start
understanding Bitcoin for the first time,
do they react similarly to everyone else?
Like in, in a sense, like I remember with
me, it was like the most beautiful gift
was just learning about money. Um, that's
something that's like, well, I spent my
whole life not really understanding. And
yeah, is that a similar reaction? Sort of
two groups of people, the larger group of
people sort of look at it. They, they sort
of understand it superficially and then
they just give up on it fairly quickly.
You know, they just go out. It's just,
that's too hard basket. And, you know, or
the governments are not going to let us
get away with this anyway. So what's the
point of, you know, that sort of thing.
And then you get a smaller group that, you
know, once they see how it works and what
the proposition is, they can't really see
anything else. Like it's kind of hard to
unsee and things around them start to make
more sense. Like why is the population
getting more and more unhealthy in their
habits and reliant on drugs to lose
weight, as opposed to just being healthy
with what you eat and how you work out.
Um, you know, these don't have easy
explanations. Like when you ask a standard
doctor, like, why are we so much more
obese than we were 50 years ago? What's
the reason? It's very hard to say, oh,
people are just lazy now. That's not the
reason. I mean, that's not a good enough
explanation. It's not genetics because the
genetics haven't changed that fast in
those 50 years. So what is the
explanation? And as Bitcoiners, we sort of
understand that the time preference
problem. And when doctors begin to
understand the low versus high time
preference issue, and the way, you know,
printable money has broken people's
spirit, so that they prioritize short term
feelings above long term feelings because
the money's failed. You start you begin to
understand why these societal problems are
creeping in, why nobody can afford a house
and why people would rather have a Big Mac
than a than a salad. Do you think it would
be fair? Sorry? Yeah. Sorry, so that this
one element, obviously, the other element
is the bed thing I was telling you about
before. We never really, you know, we
don't really think about it at baseline.
Like, why do we have fewer beds per head
than we used to have? You know, it's sort
of it masquerades as all we've got an
aging population. That's why. Well, that
doesn't explain it, actually doesn't
explain why you have fewer beds per head
of population, just because your
population is getting older. I mean, that
is one strain on the healthcare system.
But you should have the same or more beds
per population, as time goes on, not
fewer. And so when you start seeing things
like that, and understanding it from a
broken money, Bitcoin or lens, it's, it's
almost impossible to see it any other way,
because it is the most logical
explanation. Yeah, it's like the root
cause of beds declining and health, you
know, people require, yeah, it's just,
it's like the same root cause. It's just
insane to think about. Yeah. And it's also
the timeline fits as well. So I mean, we,
sometimes you get accused of Bitcoin or of
like, you can't bring everything back to
Bitcoin, but the timeline sort of fits.
Like if you looked at the healthcare
systems in the Western world in the 1940s
and 50s, it wasn't like this. You know, it
wasn't until the money broke in 1971, and
the printing started that these types of
problems accelerated really obviously.
Prior to that point, things were more
normal, you know, and you see these photos
of like, you know, Bondi Beach in the 40s
versus Bondi Beach in 2026. And, you know,
you got like the super fit young people
running around in one picture, and, you
know, quite a different view on the other
picture. And it's like, well, what
happened in between then and now? It's
easy to blame aging population and
McDonald's and immigration and all these
excuses. But the reality is, those are
minor things in comparison to the major
root cause problem, which is that the
money is broken, and we can no longer
afford things. And so we are relatively
poor compared to what we were back then.
And that has a lot of implications, like
fewer hospital beds, more obesity, more
dysfunction, more mental health problems,
all of these things that we're living
through at the moment. I love that you
brought this up, because I've just
recently been working on a website that
I'm going to publish on my website,
because John Howard gets a really bad,
really hard time about his CGT changes in
the late 90s. And everyone thinks that
that's the cause of our, you know,
housing, just prices got gone out of reach
for most people. And no one looks at the
M3 money supply. So I actually did like
overlay all three, I can't wait to publish
that, because it's like, the story is so
obvious. It's so obvious. Once you see it,
you can't unsee it. And even if you
like... Policy is, you know, one thing
that is relevant. But it's often
reactionary, you know, so they're
struggling, just like everyone else to try
and fix these problems. But they're, you
know, they're sort of pissing in the wind
a bit. Sorry to use that word. But they're
kind of sprinkling things around the
surface without addressing the underlying
root cause. As long as they keep printing
money, the house prices will continue to
rise over time, regardless of what you do
with... I mean, you might change the tax
system and dampen that down a little bit.
But, you know, they're sort of minor
levers. If they want the house prices to
stop growing at the rate that they are,
then the underlying unit of account needs
to be different than it is now. And that
became very clear to me during COVID,
actually, because during COVID, I was sort
of expecting the housing market in
Australia to collapse. Because if it was a
free market, and you completely stopped
immigration to zero, and you lock people
up in their homes, and you stopped them
being able to transact and do business,
that should have a negative effect on
house prices, not a positive effect. But
house prices in Melbourne grew 20% or
something like that during COVID. So how
does that work? Like, how does that make
any sense? And the only way it makes sense
is because the government printed a whole
bunch of money and gave it to people. And
they spent it on what they normally spend
it on, which is when they have excess
capital, they put it in the housing market
in Australia. So to me, that was very eye
opening, that period, the fact that there
is no free market anymore, because it is
distorted by money printing, which is
basically means that, you know, things
like rational markets no longer exist,
really. The S&P will always go up, the
housing prices will always go up,
regardless of what's happening. You could
have a global depression pandemic, and the
house prices will still go up. Do you
think policymakers are aware of the, like
how Australians in general are responding
to this? Because even if someone doesn't
know the root cause, and they just have a
surface level of understanding, a lot of
people will naturally store their money in
something they believe to be a better
store of value than the Australian dollar.
And for the last, you know, few decades,
that has been housing. And now obviously,
young Australians are catching on to
people, onto the fact that Bitcoin has the
least sensitivity to inflation, and that's
kind of becoming the new store of value.
Do you think government's catching on to
this? And that's why these reforms are
taking place now? Yes, 100%. I do think
governments, I don't believe for a minute
that there's incompetence in the
government. I think they understand
exactly what's going on. The problem is,
though, that their levers are limited, and
their incentive structure is limited. So
they can't fix this problem, I don't
think. You know, they're incentivized to
pull on little government levers like
taxation, to kind of dampen down some of
the dislocations, like housing prices, for
example. They're also beholden to their
population. And as the demographics
change, and we're going through a major
shift now from the boomer class to the
young people class, their policies will
change with that, because their incentive
is to get votes, their incentive is not to
fix long term problems necessarily. And
so, you know, some people would ask, like,
why is the labor government now doing what
they're doing? You know, the only reason
they didn't do that 10 years ago, is
because 10 years ago, it would not have
generated any votes, whereas now it does.
And the reason it does now is because the
boomer class is shrinking, or about to
start shrinking. And the next generation
class who can afford to buy houses are
starting to grow. And so they're catering
to that. And that's what they're supposed
to do. They've got three to four year
cycles in most of the Western world, and
that's their incentive structure. So why
would you expect them to fix a 50 year
problem when their outlook is three to
four years? So from my perspective, some
of these things need to be addressed
through technology, and through disruptive
technology, and not through the
expectation that you can somehow vote it
in or out, because it's just not how it
works in our societies anymore.
Yeah, I did. So I mean, you know, it's
kind of hopeful in a way, because we do
have the disruptive technology. And
eventually, I think it will be quite
difficult for governments not to adopt a
Bitcoin standard at some point. It's just
that day is not today. And I don't think
it's going to be in 100 years. So it's
somewhere between now and then. Yeah,
probably coinciding with some sort of
market crash, you know, some sort of
dollar collapse or something like that,
that is almost inevitable at this point.
But you know, it's just a question of
when. Yeah, I am, I've been very curious,
because on social media, I follow a lot of
political profiles from all different, you
know, sides. And I was very surprised to
see that a lot of very young people were,
the sentiment was that they were against
these capital gains tax changes. So I was
wondering, it was like, is the algorithm
serving me with just things that I want to
see? Like, is it just validating my
worldview? And so I tried to search for
some studies. And there has been one
study, I can't remember, but I can share
it with you after, where it just shows
that a minority of Gen Zs and millennials
believe that these changes will actually
improve anything like outcomes for them.
And majority of them believe that it's a
really bad policy. And I was very
pleasantly surprised to see that because
he's, you know, a young cohort of people
that this is supposedly catering to that
are just going, nah, don't believe it.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting. So then
if that's the case, and I don't agree that
that's the case, I have to say. But if it
is the case, then... I'll find a study and
I'll share it with you. Because yeah, I
can't remember. What I recommend with
social media is, because the studies, I
mean, I do a lot of studies myself. So the
studies can also be biased in many ways.
So what I would recommend with social
media, I mean, social media is a very
powerful tool. But I think the right way,
if you don't want to be manipulated by the
algo, is to have two profiles, one of
which is right wing and one of which is
left wing, or one of which is libertarian,
and one of which is authoritarian, like,
you know, anonymous profiles. And you will
see completely different realities. I've
got that, by the way. Sorry, I'm just
laughing, Tariq, because this is what I'm
imagining. You with one phone going, CD,
DC, digital ID, and then another phone.
But I do recommend for everyone, because
it's a very dangerous thing, going down
one side of the rabbit hole and never
coming back. Because it doesn't reinforce
your biases to you constantly. Yeah. So if
you were able, like, let's say you're
naturally a little bit more libertarian,
which a lot of Bitcoiners are, you know,
for the sovereignty angle, you should
probably just make a fake account where
you're not, where you're a bit more
authoritarian, and you love the Labour
government, and you love the Greens, and
you retweet and repost and read and click
on those kinds of posts. And you will find
that within 24 hours, you are living in a
completely different reality, where the
vast majority of the Australian population
supports the Labour government tax
changes. And so the question is, why is
that happening? Now, the governments, they
have more sophisticated ways of measuring
sentiment, which kind of cuts across a bit
of the social media stuff. And my
expectation is that they wouldn't have
done this if they didn't think that the
balance is starting to tip in favour of
that as being the way forward. And
unfortunately, as the fiat system
implodes, what you can expect to see
historically, is more and more left wing
leaning authoritarian governments. That's
just the way the cycle goes, the longer
term cycles, until there's a massive
collapse, and then it goes back the other
way suddenly and violently. You know,
that's kind of the history of this, if you
look back through various political
cycles. So I expect more and more left
wing authoritarian type governments in
Australia in the coming years, even though
it seems as though right wing libertarian
governments are sort of rapidly rising in
the background, right? That's what we hear
about one nation constantly. I don't think
that's the long term, like in the medium
term, I don't actually think that's what's
going to happen. But it'll be interesting
to find out. I'm not sure that it's
correct to say that the vast majority of
the population are against the CGT
changes. I think the vast majority of the
population that we interact with, as
speaking for myself, as sort of upper
middle class person with libertarian
views, that's all I see on my normal page.
But I'm not sure that goes for everyone
else in, say, in Adelaide, for example.
You know, based on my own research on
social media, there's certainly a very big
group of people that were extremely
disillusioned with the housing market and
just the way capitalism is turning out for
them, you know? Yeah, this is so
interesting. Like, I spend a lot of time
thinking about this and I'm kind of like a
centrist libertarian and trying to figure
out how libertarian I am. Yeah. So I'm
just exploring that. And my concern with
Australia in particular is that we are
seeing those kind of edge voices from both
the left and the right coming out a lot
louder on social media. And I always
wonder what the silent majority is. Yes,
that's a very good point. Yeah. And then,
like, my fear, obviously, with libertarian
leanings is that either side wins, because
the both are going to lead towards some
sort of totalitarianism that I'm not
comfortable with. Yes. And yeah, things
can get ugly quite quickly. Like, we've
seen that during COVID, like how people
treated each other on the street, like
complete strangers over mandates. And
there was like a lot of shaming and a lot
of ugly came out, you know, of a toilet
paper fights all over the news. It was
just, it was, it was an ugly time. And I
don't want to see Australians go through
something like that. In general, I think
the right message is to reject any type of
extremism, because that tends to give
worse outcomes. So what you want is a
healthy balance of voices that compete and
complement each other. And, you know, we
might have discussed this before, but
that's how the healthcare system works. I
mean, I mentioned before how Australia has
one of the better healthcare setups. The
reason for that is that we have a free
market sort of private sector, and then a
public sector that are roughly equal in
size, more or less. And so they compete
against each other, and they complement
each other. So if insurance costs get too
high, people drop their insurance and go
to the public sector. If the public sector
gets too inefficient and too bloated,
people will get insurance and go to the
private sector. And it sort of balances
each other route. And you get different
pros and cons, like the private sector is
much better at high volume, low risk
surgery, for example. Public sector is
much better at low volume, high risk
surgery. And so they fulfill different
roles. There are countries like ours,
where it's not like that. So for example,
New Zealand and the UK are much more
public sector focused than private sector
focused. There's a much bigger public
sector, much smaller private sector. And
if you live in those societies, you tend
to think that that's the way to do it.
Like, you know, because healthcare is a
right, so we should have a giant public
sector. The problem is that when you look
at the outcomes of that system, the
outcomes are worse, because you don't have
that healthy, balanced competition. And
I'm speaking as someone who's mostly a
public surgeon, you know, I spent four
days of my week in the public sector. So I
like the public sector. But I'm just
pointing out that the right way for a
society to achieve optimal outcomes is to
balance right and left authoritarian
libertarian. If you stray too far in any
one direction, even though that might seem
like the right thing to do at the time for
various reasons, the overall outcomes tend
to deteriorate. And so you're better off
either bouncing between the two, or if
possible, staying as moderate as possible
in order to improve the output.
Yeah, now
I wanted to ask you about the chart you
would have seen. I think it's like a 25
year chart where it shows inflation,
inflationary and deflationary services and
products. And the in the red are all the
inflationary things which are like
education, healthcare, a lot of the things
that are tied to government, and then
below are things like technology,
televisions, iPhones, whatever, whatever,
that are typically tied to the private
sector. I would love you to be able to, I
don't know if you can show that chart. So
it's called the chart of the century at
some point when you cut it off,
potentially. It's called the chart of the
century. It's a US based chart. And it
looks like inflation, it looks at
inflation across different sectors. And
healthcare is always number one by a long
shot. Now, like we talked about before,
the US where this chart comes from is
mostly a capitalist system. It's a private
sector healthcare system. There is public
healthcare, but it's very, very small
component of the overall system. The
problem with having hardcore capitalism in
healthcare is, again, there's no such
thing as a free market in healthcare,
because healthcare is an essential
service. So what does that mean? If you
break your leg, or you, you know, you get
very sick, you need treatment. And the
idea that you can defer that, or, you
know, you know, find some other option is
not really valid. And so you can, this,
the free market tends to disrupt things by
charging exorbitant prices, because you,
you can't avoid, like, it's not a normal
supply demand equation. The demand is
unlimited and inelastic. You know, when
you get sick, you get sick, you can't not
seek care easily if you're sick. And so in
general, when it comes to essential things
like food, shelter, healthcare, if you
have 100% free markets, you can expect
serious distortions and very, very high
prices. So the price they pay for
healthcare in the US is much higher than
in Australia. And they don't get better
outcomes overall. They get worse outcomes.
Again, because the efficient market
hypothesis for essential services, like
healthcare is to have a balance between
public and private sectors, that is the
efficient market. The efficient market is
not letting insurance companies run wild,
because that's not going to get you what
you want. But again, because the demands
inelastic. And I think the chart of the
century reflects that it reflects the fact
that over the last 20 years, the price of
healthcare in America has has gone
absolutely bonkers, you know, in terms of
inflation. Yeah, like, in America, is it
like, is it true that like, I've seen in
movies and TV shows where if you're
seeking employment, you have to negotiate
healthcare and dental as part of your
employment? Yeah, so it's mostly an
insurance based system. I mean, I lived in
America for a year, and I was a doctor
there, I practiced medicine there. And it
costs me for my wife and I and two young
kids, all healthy, no medical problems,
$25,000 a year in insurance. We didn't
even use it like that's just how much it
costs. And that was what was called like a
top tier, whatever it is. But that was
mandated by my employer, I had to have
that I couldn't work unless I had that.
Yeah. And they sort of pretended like they
were paying for it. But it actually, it's
mandatory. So it sort of comes out of your
paycheck, so to speak. So yeah, it's an
insurance model. It's not super efficient,
because they can charge whatever they
like. And there's a certain subset of the
population that just doesn't have any
access, because they don't have a job or
they don't have the mental capacity, for
example, to fill out the forms. Those
people in America, they fall through the
net big time. And, you know, it's one of
the reasons why there's such a massive
mental health crisis there is, you know,
if let's say you have a serious
psychiatric condition, like let's say
you've got schizophrenia or something. How
do you access healthcare? Like, how does
that work? Can you can you actually afford
to get insurance? Can you fill out the
form to get insurance? We don't have that
much of a problem with that here, because
we have a safety net, which is the public
sector, which over there, there are such
things as charity hospitals, but there's
so few, and they're so far between and a
very sort of low level of care that people
get. And so that lowest aspect of the
population doesn't get good care. Rich
people get excellent care, probably best
in the world, because their hospitals are
so good, and they can access excellent
healthcare, again, because their
healthcare is concentrated to only a
segment of their population, they don't
treat everyone, really. And so because of
that, you can provide excellent care,
probably better than what you can in
Australia, but only to a segment of the
population. Yeah, I don't know if you've
been in the US lately, but basically, you
go to any major city downtown, and it's
like the population is like, there's just
so many drugs there. It's unlike anything
I've ever seen in my whole life. It's,
it's really scary to even think that
something like that could come to
Australia. Well, hopefully not. I mean,
we, I guess, again, the message is, let's
not be extremist about any sort of
political agenda, because whether you go
hardcore socialist, or you go hardcore
capitalist, right versus left, you end up
in a situation where a segment of the
population doesn't get what they need. And
so the right way to play it, and the way
Australia has always played it, and
hopefully continues to do so, is to just
stay moderate, you know, just stay
moderate. That would be the message there
from my personal point of view. Which,
yeah, another thing where I'm trying to
form an opinion, and it links to this,
it's like, we, we have mandatory voting,
and we're one of the few kind of Western
countries that have that. Most places
don't. So it's kind of always worked in
our favor to date, because we've always
stayed moderate, we've always stayed
centrist. And I don't know, like, there's
an argument to be made that that can also
sometimes shoot us in the foot. But is the
alternative better? I don't know. Like,
yeah. I don't know. I do know we seem to
be doing a little bit better than a lot of
countries. And I think, you know, with
probably with the exception of like
Northern European countries and Nordic
countries. So I think, you know, there's a
lesson there, isn't there? I mean, I spent
18 years in New Zealand, and I moved here
because life was better here. And the main
reason why life was better here wasn't
because the environment's nicer, New
Zealand's a beautiful place. It was
because the political system in New
Zealand was very, in some ways,
dysfunctional. So, for example, the
housing market was completely free market,
right? But the healthcare system was very
socialized. And so you had this weird
situation where doctors like me had a
relatively low salary compared to
Australia, but had significantly higher
house prices in the big cities, which
didn't make any sense. So someone like me
would go, well, I can earn twice as much
in Australia, and the house prices in
Adelaide are about half what they are in
an equivalent size city in New Zealand. So
I'm just going to move. You know, so that
was the, that was probably the majority of
the reason why after 18 years in New
Zealand, I moved to Australia. Yeah. And
many people like me have a similar sort of
story with that. And so again, there's a
lesson there, right? You can't have an
ultra capitalist housing market, and an
ultra socialist healthcare system and
expect there not to be weird anomalies
when you do that, you know, and Australia
had generally a much healthier balance
there. Yeah. I'm also very curious to
know, like, maybe not so much Adelaide,
but cities like Sydney, do you think
doctors would be feeling the cost of
living crisis and having mortgage stress,
even if there was like two people, you
know, a couple that are both doctors and
obviously have a great salary? Do you
think we're, we're at that stage where
like, everyone's feeling it? I think in
the bigger cities, that's probably true,
particularly for younger doctors starting
out. I think that's definitely the case.
But again, you know, there's competition.
So move to Adelaide, move to Perth, move
to smaller towns in New South Wales, where
the quality of life is still extremely
high. So we have options here. You don't
have to live in central Sydney if you
don't want to. I live in rural New South
Wales, and I love it. It's one of the
nicest places on earth, you know, there's
a lot of smaller, medium sized, smaller
places in Australia that are like amazing
places to live. So you don't want to be
too far away from a big hospital as you
get older, I would say. But apart from
that, there's really very little drawback.
Yeah. And I'm very curious to know,
because obviously you're a Bitcoiner and a
doctor and a surgeon. Do you, have you
applied thinking like Bitcoiner mentality
onto other fields of medicine? Have you
thought about decentralized versus
centralized medicine and what the pros and
cons of each approach might be? Yeah. So I
think decentralization is very useful for
certain things, but it's not useful for
others. So for example, let's put the case
of medicine. I think if you have, let's
say, a surgical procedure that's really
high volume, then it's probably better to
have that decentralized because putting it
all in one place means that you're
unlikely to cope with the volume. But you
still have enough numbers that, you know,
you could do a significant amount in other
places and still be proficient in it. So
that's one good example of where
decentralization is very helpful because
you spread the load across multiple areas.
You also can treat people closer to home,
which is important for some people. Where
it breaks down sometimes is when you have
a low volume, high risk procedure. Like
some of the surgery I do is very, is not
very common and it's extremely big
operations. That is much harder to
decentralize because you need the
resources to do it. You need special
equipment to do it. You need special
expertise to do it. And there's not enough
numbers for a hundred surgeons to be
proficient in it. And so the way we look
at it in medicine is we tailor the
centralization level to what the problem
requires. And I think, you know, the way
Bitcoin teaches you that in some ways is
that when it comes to something like money
and the security of money issuance, there
is nothing more important than
decentralization. And we've learned that
lesson a few times now in our history as a
species. And I think we'd be very ashamed
to let go of that. Having said that for
transactions, and you see that with some
of the other old coins, I don't think
decentralization is that important. So
high volume transactions, I don't think
you need decentralization for that. That's
my personal view. A lot of Bitcoiners
might take issue with them. But I don't
think one solution is right for
everything, right? I think that my
personal view, again, avoiding any sort of
extremism, the solution needs to be
tailored to the problem. If the problem
you have is you want to do a trillion
transactions a second, it's very hard to
achieve that with decentralization.
Because what you sacrifice is security. So
it's either security or transaction speed
are generally what you would sacrifice. So
I'm quite happy for the US dollar to keep
the transactions, as long as I can keep
the money issuance in Bitcoin. Yeah, I
like that answer. Which I know is not the
most popular answer in Bitcoin circles.
But and to some extent, you do need to be
a bit careful because a lot of Bitcoiners
believe, including people like Jack
Dorsey, that if you don't have the
transactions on the Bitcoin layer, then
you will lose the decentralization for the
issuance of the money. I don't know if I
100% agree with that. I think you can have
both. I think as long as you keep enough
Bitcoin in self-custody that it's held to
account, and you keep enough
decentralization in the nodes of the
Bitcoin network, I'm not sure why you need
to be transacting rapidly and at high
volume on the base chain. I'm not sure
that that's necessary.
We spoke about this previously, and I was
just very curious in terms of whether
there is merit in decentralizing the
standard treatment of care. I can
understand why you don't want everyone
going off and doing different things and A
-B testing, but at the same time, and the
example that I used with you, obviously,
you know, my brother passed away from a
very, very rare type of cancer, which
hasn't seen an improvement in the median
survival rate in 30 years. So nothing has
changed in 30 years. And to me, like the
definition of insanity is doing the same
thing over and over again and expecting
different outcomes. But I can also
understand and empathize with the medical
establishment who's like, well, this is
the best we know how at this point in
time. And the other alternatives might
actually reap, you know, worse outcomes.
So we'd rather stick with what we know. So
I don't know. What are your thoughts? So
again, like talking about the
decentralization and centralization thing,
I'm obviously very sorry to hear about
your brother. It was glioblastoma, wasn't
it? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. So I
think the methodology is relatively
centralized. So for what do I mean by
that? There are accepted standards for how
you test new drugs and new technologies
and new operations. And it's very much
scientific methodology. So like, you know,
with a typical, say, new drug, it starts
with animal testing, unfortunately. Then
it starts with testing on, you know, low
level testing on healthy volunteers. And
then it goes from health to safety is the
number one consideration. And then it goes
to testing small numbers of patients with
that condition. And then eventually large
scale randomized trials, which means that
you get a placebo or you get the drug,
often blinded to which group you're in.
And then the final step is like mass
distribution and testing internationally
at a much higher scale to pick up like
low, low event rates complications that
you wouldn't otherwise necessarily pick
up. That's been the standard for testing
healthcare technology for as long as
basically as long as science has been
around. That idea is a centralized idea.
It's a centralized concept, but it is a
very sound concept. And I think deviating
from that has a lot of risk, including,
for example, and I don't think doctors are
particularly immune from this, including,
for example, rolling out immunizations
without going through that process, which
we did during COVID. Now that was done
because it was considered to be a
immediate emergency, but we bent the rules
there, I suspect, in terms of like
following the science to its standard
thing, which would have been large scale
double-blinded trials. I don't think that
really happened prior to the rollout. So
we do need to be a bit careful whether
we're individuals or whether we're doctors
or scientists to follow that relatively
centralized but very well-established
track. Having said that, that principle
can be applied anywhere. So the testing of
these new drugs is pretty decentralized.
So for example, the Royal Adelaide
Hospital might be testing a drug for
guioblastoma, while somewhere in Texas
might be doing it as well under completely
different rules, completely different
ideas of which drug might work and which
might not work. So I do think we, kind of
like with Bitcoin, I think we need a
centralized understood framework that
needs to be accepted by consensus. And
then you can have decentralized
application across multiple countries and
different size hospitals. I think where it
gets a bit weird is where you have
individuals just testing things on
themselves, alternative treatments, or
people suggesting alternative treatments
without going through the testing. So
like, you know, I think turmeric cures
glioblastoma. So I think you should eat
more turmeric and you'll see the tumor
will disappear. It's like, well, firstly,
it's very hard to show that if you're at
the same time having other treatments like
standard treatments. And secondly, if it
doesn't respond to the treatment, that's
not really measured either, because
there's a lot of placebo effects. People
think they're getting better when they
might not be. And so while there's a role
for alternative treatments, I think that
those alternative treatments should be
tested in the standard ways, as opposed to
through weird alternative ways that aren't
proven and could potentially be quite
dangerous. So that would be my view on it.
That is the traditional Western medicine
view, though. So but that is that would be
my view on it. Yeah. And I remember going
through that, like you, you know, when
you're confronted with something like
this, I remember your ego immediately
drops and you're kind of like, OK, we need
to fight this, we need to figure out a
way. So you just open your mind to
everything that's out there. And then, you
know, obviously, like we were very against
some very alternative things that we came
across. But one thing that I did find very
interesting, and I think there was a
doctor in Germany who was exploring this,
is attacking it because it's such a
complex, complex cancer that's different
to other forms of cancer that is not as, I
guess, complex. That's my way of
explaining it. Yeah, no, sure. Yeah. That
one promising therapy was just attacking
with all these like off-label uses of
various drugs that might be used for
diabetes or this and that, and just like,
you know, attacking it from all angles.
And I know that's really hard because
you're not isolating variables and things.
But yeah, I think the other conversation
we had was like how heartbreaking double
-blind studies are in general. Like you
don't think about how that actually works
until you're on the receiving end. And you
might be the person who's receiving the
placebo and there's nothing you can do
about it. Like... No, it's designed to be
like that. I mean, science can be brutal
at times. Yeah. But I guess the question
is, is there an alternative way? There's
not. There's nothing. I mean, a hard cap
on money is brutal. It's not easy. It's
not, you know, having 21 million tokens
and no more, no matter how desperate you
are, is not easy. But is there a better
way? Is the real question. I think the
trouble with this gas, you know, sort of
scattergun approach of trying all these
alternative treatments is one is it's
unclear whether that works at all. And you
probably won't know. But secondly, there's
the additive toxicity of the drugs, which
can actually make your life worse, not
better. And that, you know, when you're
doing these studies, like the double
-blinded studies, you got to remember that
we have this thing called equipoise, which
means we're not sure if this drug works or
not. And more importantly, we're not sure
if the toxicity is worse than the benefit.
So being in the placebo group in a double
-blinded trial doesn't mean you lost
anything. It just means that you are
helping us understand which group is
better. And it could end up being the
placebo group. Or in many of the cases,
there's no difference. You know, so you
accept the toxicity of the drug in the
study group without any material benefit.
So actually, in that case, you'd probably
be rather in the placebo group. If there's
very clear improvements and safety profile
of the drug, some would argue that you
might not need a double-blinded randomized
trial. But for the vast majority of cases,
it's when we're genuinely not sure. So we
have a promising drug. We don't know if it
works. And we don't know what its toxicity
profile is in terms of is it worth it?
That's the ideal candidate to test in that way.
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty heavy stuff, but
that's kind of what I do. I mean, I'm a
surgeon, but I'm also, you know, I do a
lot of work for the university. So I do,
I've done my own double-blinded trials. I
tend to focus on things that are a little
bit less scary than that, you know, where
there's some benefit, but it's not the end
of the world either way, because it's
easier to recruit patients for that kind
of thing. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But
especially in surgery, you know, it's very
hard to do double-blinded randomized
trials in surgery. You know, you can
imagine, it used to be the case that you
would put patients to sleep, make a cut
and not do the operation. That would be
the placebo group. That's considered
unethical now for most situations. So we
can't really do double-blinded randomized
trials in surgery. We can still do it for
medication, but not so much for surgery,
because there's harm in the placebo group.
Yeah. Going on to something a little bit
more positive. Do you believe Bitcoin has
a place in reforming healthcare? Yes, I
do. Like we talked about before, the
broken money situation we find ourselves
in now has profound healthcare
implications, and there's many ways that
can be. The three most obvious ones, if I
had to, like, you know, go through them.
Firstly, it's sort of understanding the
inflation problem at a deeper level. So,
you know, let's say magically tomorrow
we're on a sound money Bitcoin standard. I
think it'll be a lot more obvious that the
healthcare inflation rate is much higher
than we are led to believe. It'll just
become much clearer because the
measurement tool is not manipulated. So
the problem with the dollar or measuring
inflation in dollars is a dollar today is
not the same as a dollar tomorrow. So it's
much harder to actually measure things
because the ruler is changing size all the
time. Whereas that problem goes away with
Bitcoin. It's a fixed unit, standard unit.
And so I think that problem is helped by
having a Bitcoin standard. The other
problem is obviously the Cantillon effect,
which we sometimes talk about. So at the
moment, you know, the central bank prints
some money, and that money is distributed,
but it's not distributed evenly. So, you
know, the politicians tend to get an
unfair share. The property speculators,
real estate agents, financial advisors,
bankers, the people closer to the spigot,
they take a cut, which is probably an
unfair share. And then essential services
are somewhere down the bottom. Like, you
know, do we really think, like as a
society, do you really think that a nurse
or a teacher should be significantly
poorer than a real estate agent? I don't
believe so. Yeah. I don't believe so. You
know, one's more qualified, one's more
valued by society, but yet gets paid a lot
less. And when you look at why this might
be, it really is just as simple as one's
closer to the money printer than the other
one. That's why we have this distortion in
the market. Otherwise, that problem goes
away. I think on a Bitcoin standard, you
have much higher chance of the wealth of
the economy or the society being spent in
places that you want it to be spent in.
Things like healthcare, things like
education, rather than, you know, the
financial industry or in the worst case
scenario, things like international wars
and things like that, which do suck away a
lot of the energy of society. So that's
the second way. So the Cantillon effect
being deleted is a big part of it. And the
final way is just time preference. You
know, I think if you restored sound money
to society, you will find that that
society, I suspect, will just get
naturally healthier in their outlook. I
mean, we've seen it in the Bitcoin
community, right? I often, doctors will
comment on this, like, when someone
becomes orange pills, for some strange
reason, they start becoming healthier than
they were before. You know, they drink
less, they eat a lot less carbs, they
exercise more. It's like, well, what is
the connection there? You know, why is
having such an improved time preference
resulting in these changes? And it's
simply that you just have more hope for
the future, you want to live longer, and
you defer short term pleasure for the sake
of long term improvements in your quality
of life. You know, you go to a Bitcoin
conference, and like, people are super
fit, right? In general, you know, and it's
like, you know, so you can see that
translating to a societal level. And it
sounds a bit like kooky to say that. But
if we just went back to the 1940s, you
know, everyone was healthier in the 1940s.
And so what's the difference? The
difference is that they were relatively
wealthier in real terms. And their time
preference was much better than it is now,
on average. And that has health effects.
So I think the drag on our healthcare
system, from, you know, systemic issues
like diabetes, obesity, smoking,
alcoholism, some of these things will be
improved on a sound money standard. And so
to me, if I look at the future of what the
healthcare system might look like, I sort
of would be hopeful that some of these
problems will improve, just because the
money has been repaired. And so, you know,
it's a kind of a hopeful message. I hope
it comes true. Yeah, it definitely is. And
I'm curious, are doctors also like,
there's a baby boom happening in Bitcoin
Australia, doctors pretty much the same,
like getting healthier, getting married,
having kids? Not on average, no, I
wouldn't say on average. Yeah, I would say
you see it in the Bitcoiners and the
Orangeville people a lot more. Yeah. But I
wouldn't say that's the standard view.
It's not yet. You know, we're not, on
average, we're not super tech savvy or
financially savvy as doctors, but we do
have the right principles in place, you
know, where, where, you know, there's a
high level of intelligence, there's a
relatively high level of wealth, and
there's a relatively high level of social
responsibility on average, in the medical
community. And, and that includes things
like nurses and physios and allied health
workers, it's not just doctors, right?
It's a quite a huge group of people. So I
think the basic principles of what makes a
Bitcoin are already there. I think what
needs to come is a little bit more
financial education of how the money
system actually works. And so the reason
why I do podcasts like this, and I do
talks like the one I gave before, is
because I think the medical community is
like a, is a good group of people to talk
to about it. If I was a teacher, I'd be
doing it in the teaching community as
well, because I think those are kind of
basic, good people in society that you
want to get onto a Bitcoin standard as
soon as possible. That's my, that's my
view about it. Absolutely. And I'd love to
know, is there a nurses Facebook group for
Bitcoin? I'm, I'm maybe, but I'm not
invited to it yet. So if you're out there,
I'm happy to be part of it. I'm not sure,
actually, I've not seen that. I'm not
heard of it. I'm going to try, I'm going
to try to search for it. I'd be happy to
know. If not, if there's a nurse
listening, or you know a nurse, please do
pitch this idea to them. I have to say
some young nurses are very interested. I,
you know, maybe once a month, I'll get
approached by a young nurse that's just
starting out. And, you know, they say, oh,
I hear you're into Bitcoin. Can you tell
me about it? And, you know, some of them
will like bust out their phone and get me
to show them how to download, you know,
Bitaroo or something and start DCAing. But
we're very, very, honestly, very, very
early, I'd say in that process. And what I
have noticed has changed a lot is there
used to be more interest in the boom
times. So when Bitcoin was going through
the roof, that's when I'd get all the
questions. That's kind of changing a bit.
Now I'm getting more questions in the
dumps, which is weird. I'm noticing that
as well. Yeah, I think people have sort of
realized that it's a very cyclical
phenomenon. And in the early days, they
didn't really understand that. Now that
they do, which is they're sort of more
interested in joining at the bottoms than
the tops, which is probably quite healthy
in general. But that has been a change in
this cycle, I'd say. Yeah. I've noticed
that as well. And it just, it like makes
me so happy. Like even the event that we
organized here, which is like a Bitcoin
bush bash in Byron Bay, it was a three day
event. We're in the bottom of a bear
market. And we had like outstanding
attendance and people from all walks of
life. We had people bringing their
parents, their grandparents, there was
like women and children everywhere. It was
like, it went from being this fringe money
that only a few men were interested in
that were very technical to now, you know,
just essentially people are really
starting to slowly, slowly see it as
money. And I have noticed a lot more women
being involved than there used to be. I
mean, I used to remember, like say last
cycle or the one before that, it was
really very few women involved. And it was
sort of one of the biggest weaknesses,
actually, especially in Australia, where
it's like half the population is not
interested in this. Why is that? And it's
changed a lot now. It's still not quite 50
50, but there's definitely a lot more
women interested. And I think it's because
on average, I don't want to be too
judgmental or make any sort of statements
that aren't wanted. But on average, I
think women are a bit more sensible and
less and more risk averse. Whereas men
tend to be more risk takers. And I think
in the early Bitcoin cycles, it was a lot
more risky. And so because of that, it
attracted the sort of the bros, you know
what I mean, the ones that wanted to
gamble and play that. Whereas as the
cycles have become more established, and
it's got a bit more track record, I think
the more kind of sensible female brain is
like, well, actually, this is this has not
gone away. And I'm ready to be involved in
it. And so that's why you're seeing you're
seeing a lot more influencers as well,
Bitcoin influencers that are female. And
certainly in my circles, like in medical
circles, way more women involved than
there used to be this cycle, particularly,
which is really good to see because, you
know, half the population and you bring in
a different perspective, you're probably
also a better holding as well, I would
say, if I had to guess. I would think so
as well. Like, I mean, there are some
studies. So were you saying this, like,
has there some studies, I don't know how
good they are, but the, you know, women
are more risk averse. And I actually spoke
with Andrew Page about this. I wish
recorded it because we had this
conversation after we stopped recording.
And he was saying that the studies he's
come across is that women overall are
better investors than men. Like, yeah. But
what the best investors are, are women and
men working together. So like a couple
working together to invest tends to
outperform. Funny how that works. Yeah.
Well, it's different on average, right? I
mean, they're bell curves, they're
overlapping bell curves. You can't
generalize. But on average, I think men
are more, yeah, I think they're more sort
of more prone to buying and selling
irrationally.
Whereas women are kind of more a
stabilizing influence. But there is some
benefit to taking risks early. Like, for
example, in the Bitcoin thing, you know, I
would say that I wouldn't be surprised if
the majority of the early, early, early
Bitcoin whales were male, because they
took that risk early. And sometimes that
blows up in your face, and other times it
doesn't. And I think the balancing, again,
avoiding extremism, the balancing
influence between the sort of on average
male brain and the on average female brain
is probably gives you the optimal outcome.
So I'm guessing that's how that works.
Yeah, yeah. And I love it. I love it. I
think we need more people in Bitcoin in
general. Well, I hope the adoption
continues to rise. I mean, that's really
our biggest challenge, right? That's
really what it's all about. Adoption and
self custody. The dollar sign side of it
is that that's less relevant, because
that'll just fix itself. So I think that's
what we should be championing just slow
DCA, don't panic sell and self custody.
Yeah. So second last question, Tariq. I
love asking this question from Bitcoiners.
And obviously, you said you're libertarian
ish as well. What are your thoughts on
involving like the government having
conversations with government in terms of
like teaching them about Bitcoin and how
to, you know, this is a new form of money
that, you know, the population is
interested in, and whether they treat it
as an investment, whether they treat it as
money, it's different for every
individual. So what are your thoughts?
Because some Bitcoiners are like, don't
involve the government. And I'm a little
bit like, I'd rather them understand it
and why it's important to us. But I can
see why that would be made with some crazy
stuff. I have involved in some
institutions, like, for example, I was a
member of the Royal College of Surgeons,
which is like the governing body for
surgeons in Australia and New Zealand.
And, you know, last cycle, pretty much at
the bottom, you could tell that their
balance sheet was not very good. So they
had a whole bunch of money and things that
were probably going to implode over time.
And I was at one of these conferences
where they were talking about that. And I
gave a Bitcoin talk and the treasurer of
the Royal College of Surgeons said to me
at the conference, put up his hand, he
just happened to be there, one of the
audience members. And he goes, so do you
think the College of Surgeons should
allocate to Bitcoin? And he just started
laughing as though like that was such an
impossible thing. And, you know, two
cycles ago, it was pretty impossible for
anyone to think like that. And I said,
look, you know, you are a membership
organization, so you should reflect your
members. You know, I would say at the
moment, 5% of your members are Bitcoiners.
So 5% of your balance sheet should be in
Bitcoin. And I don't see why that's so
controversial, right? Anyway, fast forward
three, four years later, and the balance
sheet is bankrupt of the institution.
Because when the interest rates fluctuated
so wildly, they were caught in that trap
of long versus short duration bonds. And
basically, the rug got pulled from under
them. And I texted that person and I said,
the Bitcoin price is now three times as
high. Had you allocated to Bitcoin, as
your members would have back then, you
might not be in this trouble right now.
And to his credit, that person was like,
you know what, I agree. And I should have
listened. And, you know, it was like, you
know, it was like kind of a fall on your
sword kind of situation. So all that is to
say, I think governments should be the
same. I think governments should be a
reflection of their people. I don't, I'm
not an anarchist, or an extremist of any
kind. I don't expect a world where there
is no government. Because like we
mentioned before, particularly for
essential services, there needs to be a
public sector of some kind. And the best
way we know how to do it is with some
version of democracy. We've tried lots of
different systems. And that seems to be
the one. It's not perfect, but it, you
know, it gets us most of the way there. So
the baseline thing is, I do think there
should be a government. I think the role
of government should be to look after its
people, in particularly when it comes to
essential services. What is the role of
Bitcoin in government? Well, our
government is sitting on billions of
dollars worth of gold, as is every other
government. Or are they? Well, supposedly.
It's locked somewhere in a vault that we
can't see. But that's the point, right?
That is the point. There is a weakness of
that. When you look at the government's
balance sheet, there's two big problems.
One is that the debt is astronomical and
getting worse. And, you know, they really
have no way out of that, that they can
see. And you've got weird things on the
balance sheet, like billions of dollars
worth of gold that's in some sort of vault
somewhere in another country that we don't
even know if it's there anymore, right? So
is it really that out of the imagination
for them to go, well, maybe we should
start allocating some small amount of our
balance sheet to Bitcoin to fix those two
problems? Runaway inflation and debt, a
debt spiral that is not going away, and
this weird shiny metal that we don't even
know if it's there or not. We can't
account for it. At least if that was
converted to Bitcoin, they can account for
it, despite the wild fluctuation in
prices. So yes, I do think we should
communicate with government. I don't think
government is a separate entity to who we
are as citizens. I think they are a
representation of us as citizens. So the
idea that we would not communicate with
them, or them not communicate with us
doesn't really make any sense, unless you
want to be an anarchist, in which case,
good luck, because, you know, that's, I
think the average quality of life for the
average citizen will probably be worse
under that system, not better. So if we
accept that there has to be some sort of
government, and I think we should accept
that, then there should be communication
between the citizenry and their
leadership. And that needs to be a two-way
communication. And if we're not happy with
their performance, we should make that
clear, and we should vote in that way. I'm
not sure there's a better system. You
know, I'm not sure, like, if you look at
it objectively, I'm not sure there's a
better system. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there
is like a thing called crowding. I don't
know too much about it. But it's an
economic principle that if you get like
big players, like governments and
institutions and large companies owning
Bitcoin, then that crowds out the smaller
player. So from that perspective, it's not
good to have them. But the other, like the
perspective I take is, it's like
governments are made up of people. And if
people respond to the incentives that
Bitcoin provides the same way that you and
I have, and it restores this optimism in
the future, then that's ultimately a
positive outcome for society. But I don't
know if that's just like me being
optimistic. Well, I think we have a case
study of that. We have a case study of
that called El Salvador, which seems to be
playing out in a positive way. So I agree
with that. I mean, governments and
companies, you know, are just groups of
people. That, that go to, you know, form a
collective, and they have a purpose. In
the case of a company, the purpose is to
generate a product of some kind or a
service and sell it. In the case of a
government is to represent its people in
four things like essential services.
That's the purpose of it. And so what
what's good for us should be good for them
and vice versa. Right. And in fact, one of
the main reasons that that there's a
dislocation between what's good for
Facebook and what's good for Tarek or
Anya, or what's good for Albo and what's
good for Anya, one of the main reasons for
that dislocation is that the money is
broken. That's, that's one of the
fundamental problems as to why the
governments represent the people less and
less. Because if their accounting, their
financial accounting is independent of us,
if they can just print money, what do they
need us for?
Taxes. Well, yeah, but again, like, it
seems like the taxing thing is just a way
to kind of control prices as opposed to
like generate revenue, you know, honestly,
because they have a better way of
generating revenue. So that is not a
healthy dynamic, you know. And so I think
that they should see that hopefully. And
as the generations change, and hopefully
you teach your kids, and I'll teach my
kids about sound money principles. At some
point down the line, we'll transition from
the current broken system to a better one.
I mean, that's my hope. That's my hope
too. And I've loved this conversation. Do
you have any final thoughts you want to
share with my audience? Final thoughts is,
things might seem bad for you today. But
there is a there there are, I think there
are improvements on the horizon. And I
think as far as Bitcoin is concerned,
ignore the noise, DCA slowly, not quickly.
Don't try and time things and self
custody. And I think if you do that,
things will be okay, might take some time
might take a few years, but things will be
okay. Love it. Thanks for coming on. No
worries. Thanks, Anja.