WHAT IS MONEY (Episode #2) - Fiat's Final Chapter

0:04 People around the world are having unique experiences with money. Unfortunately, these experiences are often less than positive. Debt, Inflation, instability and political unrest have become the norm for many, all rooted in the current financial system. The global currency and financial infrastructure is constructed in contrast to the needs of the vast majority. The average person can barely keep their head above water and provide for their families. Ours is a world of the haves and the have-nots. But no matter who you are or where you live, we are all equal parts of the information age, and information is a powerful thing.

0:56 The rise of the Internet gave us unprecedented access to new possibilities. Smartphones have connected us globally, powering a new economy. And now, with the advent of blockchain and the acceleration of digital currencies, the power is in the hands of the people to come together to create a new global financial system.

1:19 Introducing AGX and AUX coins, digital silver and gold money for everyone. Intelligently designed, AGX and AUX coins are a stabilized universal cryptocurrency constructed from one of the oldest forms of money, pure silver and gold. By tracking vaulted grams of silver and gold using blockchain technology, AGX and AUX coins are simple, durable forms of value that have the ability to transform the money we use, backing it with real tangible value. No matter where you live, what you do, or how much you earn, it will work for you. It is silver and gold money reimagined so that people everywhere can experience a better life.

2:06 Join the modern silver and gold money revolution now at Lode.one and start creating a better financial future today. Experience your modern silver and gold money. Experience AGX and AUX coins. Well, thank you all for tuning in and watching that great video, powered by and presented by Lode, who's also putting this wonderful event together today for our listeners. We have 40 great listeners that are watching what we're going to present today. Episode 2, following a really powerful episode last week or 2 weeks ago, where we had an incredible audience. So again, help promote this while you're live with us. Share it on your socials. Get people to sign in, register, and hear about the great discussions that are happening.

2:53 This episode is, What is Money? Fiat's Final Chapter. That's one hell of a title. We're

3:00 presenting this alongside some phenomenal people and experts in their industry. Once again, Richard Groom, Chairman and CEO of Lone Mining Corporations with us. David Morgan again, founder of The Morgan Report. Last time, David, your insight and your experience and the way that you articulate things is just amazing. I could sit and listen to that all day. I also got tremendous inbound interest from people that are watching what we're doing from all the great stuff that you presented to us.

3:24 Also, Mike Mansell, a monetary enthusiast, blogger, and talk show host of the Rethinking the Dollar is joining us. Also, when I learned today, previous amazing professional basketball players. So his history and what he's done in the world, what he continues to do is quite exceptional. Andy Sheckman, who's supposed to be joining us today, is the president of Miles Franklin Limited Precious Metals. So unfortunately, he's going to have to delay joining us for a future event but for very good reasons which I'm sure the World will see soon what he's been working on and what he's working on today Which again is reason why he couldn't join us, but he will be with us soon, so let's dive into it guys I'm Looking forward to having a great show again.

4:03 Nearly 50 people listening in. In today's world, that's a lot of people because there's so much due and so much activity and chaos and noise out there. So to have anybody watching what we're doing, we're very honored and humbled. And again, please share with everybody that you can that you're with us today. So let's dive right in. Mike, welcome to the show and thanks for being here today. Well, thank you gentlemen for having me. I'm definitely looking forward to having an interesting discussion on where we're at now in current monetary history. We're at a turning point that

4:30 it's going to be very interesting to see how it plays out, but excited to connect. I look forward to talking. Absolutely. Thank you again for being here and your time today. I'm going to throw the first question out to you, put you on the hot seat, which I know you can handle. So give us a little thing, your thoughts on the history of the monetary system. Ooh. Okay. So the monetary system in of itself, it can be very complex depending on how and what angle you take, but very short and simple, gold and silver have been monetary units of exchange of value, mediums of exchange, you name it, for thousands of years. And over the last 100,200 years plus,

5:07 the powers that be, or the monetary forces that I like to call them, have taken gold and silver out of the money realm and turned it more into a commodity to where now people see it in a different light. They see gold and silver as just some precious metal or some metal that happens to trade on, you know, futures contracts and things of that nature. But in actuality, it is money itself. And so now we're turning to a point now where I think gold and silver is starting

5:33 to make its way back into the mainstream media with all the recent activity and whatnot. So gold and silver, always money, always will be. And so now it's a matter of how can we position it so people can take advantage of opportunity of getting hold of it now. So I couldn't agree more with you, David or Rick, anyone had any additional thoughts to what Mike was discussing there?

5:57 I would just add that with modern technology, like in the film, the bankers basically took money away from us and gave us fiat. And now we have the opportunity to put money back in everybody's hands because everyone has a smartphone and we can load real money into the phone. Yeah. What I've learned with a lot of my work in history around the world, especially in building wireless technologies. Yeah, it's amazing to see someone in a third world country that may be living in a small village, they live in a hut, but they're walking around with an Android device. So it's a pretty fascinating thing to see. It's a little, it takes you back a little bit because they don't have good or, you know, infrastructure like we're used to. But, you know, like we talk about often, the ability for a global

6:42 civilization or global human civilization to be able to participate in things like real asset-backed fractional ownership and in these types of precious metals, that this is where things get really exciting for us. And also, hopefully, turns things upside down as far as what we're used to with the current monetary system. And Like I said, David, that the banking world has taken that freedom away from us. So, David, with that, I'm coming unless Rick, anything you want to add to that? Well, I'll just echo

7:10 one of your words that you said, Brian, is and on what Mike and David said, essentially what Lode is doing now is we're fractionalizing the asset of gold and silver. And when you fractionalize an asset, you make it available to everybody. People can buy a dollar worth of gold, digital gold, a dollar worth of digital silver, put in their wallet, they could buy it every day. And they don't need to fall into the trap of their own fiat system.

7:42 You know, in Africa, for example, Africa has a billion and a half people and they have 42 different currencies. In the world today, we have 180 different fiat currencies. I mean, imagine if everybody went to gold and silver or a quarter of the world went to gold and silver, what that would do just for the demand of the product.

8:06 Yeah, we're a tenth of the world, right?

8:08 It won't take much to see a massive movement like that with this amount of people and with the power of this. This is their server. This is their bank. This is their wallet. This is their communicator. And you start to see a viral movement, too, when things like that happen. Because it wouldn't take much for someone to see something real and tangible inside of their digital wallet, and seeing it appreciate, and having a sense of ownership and a sense of pride to share that with their community, and how that mushrooms around the world it will and can go very fast

8:37 So David I'm coming over to you again. I'm excited about this because you're always all fired up Give us a little background of thoughts on central bank and digital currencies. Well, the system is failing. Love it. The best one. Great. Who is a friend of mine in Switzerland runs the gold shop. Talked about the fact that the US dollar by the feds admission has lost 98.2% of its value since inception and he's saying what I've said Doesn't really matter at this point if the dollar gets stronger or weaker

9:17 Well, it's already 98% down, you know, so and it's strong relative to other currencies. I'll give it that. I think all of us in the honest money movement know that, But the bankers know it's very near the end. So they need a new system. What's that going to be? Well, the number 1 thing that they want since they started the Fed was control, and they want to maintain that control. To maintain the control, they want to move everything digitally under their control and eliminate cash. So it'd be a cashless system run by them. And what they want is unbacked, meaning just Fiat electronically. And then it's able to, with today's technology, monitor everything. Meaning each purchase that you make, the central bank sees it, and then they have the control to basically make your money or make your spending available

10:13 to them and mitigate it. In other words, if you have had too many carbon credits and you go to buy some fuel To go see your grandmother. It has the possibility To just cut you off and say no. No, no your carbon score is too high. You can't see grandma this It sounds absurd but that's exactly what the technology is capable of. And the reason I could say that other part with authority is this is exactly what's going on in China. And China is the model for the new system on a global basis. But none of this is fiction. It's all reality. And it's rather scary reality. And Mike,

10:54 no, go ahead, Mike. No, I was gonna say, I would agree with that. I was actually looking at a CBDC tracker.org not long ago, cause I try to stay on top of that. And, you know, bit by bit, country by country, they're all at some phase of rolling it out. And so I believe that the US Federal Reserve System will be the last one to actually roll out due to our current reserve status with the dollar or whatnot. But every country at this current moment is progressing in that direction. So it's not a matter of if, but more so when. And I think somebody mentioned earlier about the banking situation. I think as we get through this current events that's unfolding now, I think that part of their solution will be the central bank digital currency for everybody that's used to dealing with actual physical fiat paper systems. So it's going to be interesting times ahead.

11:43 Very interesting times ahead.

11:46 Thankfully, and I guess it keeps me very grounded that I get to travel around the world with all the work that we do. And I see, David, some of the things you're talking about. One of the things that freaks me out the most in certain countries where there's a certain digital wallet App where you can't even enter a grocery store. You have to be green lit to be able to enter a grocery store Now, I don't know all the particulars behind what allowed that citizen or person. So I don't know that checklist but Scary right, but when I see those posts on certain social medias a lot of the comments are like, oh, this is so cool.

12:20 It's just all digital, but I never see anybody saying, well, that's really concerning that 1 day maybe I can't eat if I don't follow all the new rules of the powers that be. But I always try to think outside COVID kind of set me back a little bit. But when you have 7, 8 billion people around the world and a few thousand people running the world, I feel like the masses should be able to make a big difference and to be determined when we can do that type of movement like history has done in the past. So.

12:50 Brian interject here and just take up on that thread, you know, the power that we actually have. I did an article, a couple of lectures about what if silver were treated like gold because bankers really are, are gold centric, I mean, central bank, as we said, the last time we did this, how much the central banks have been buying gold over the last year and continuing in 2023.

13:12 I did a miss in the silver market And it's the idea that everybody should own a little precious metals. So I examine that I said, well, let's think about this If everyone owned a little what's a little so I used 2 ounces of silver I'm gonna round it to 3 this time So 3 ounces of silver is roughly a hundred dollars us if you have a hundred dollars you're really not going to change your lifestyle unless you put that on a lottery ticket. But still, that's what it would take. So I would say a hundred bucks is a little amount for most Americans. However, that represents 3 ounces of silver and the population United States is about 320 million. So that comes out to a billion ounces of silver, which represents the entire silver market mining and recycling for 1 year.

14:00 So if we got, you know, 4% of the world's population in the United States, we got 4% of the world's population

14:06 to buy 3 ounces of silver, we would basically corner the silver market. The reason that's so important is because it's much more powerful than gold. Gold the bankers have, but they don't have any silver. Silver runs the world. Without silver you can't have this discussion, you can't have a computer, you can't have an electric car, you can't have a normal car, you can't have a memory rate switch, you can't have electrical Power, you can't have anything. I'm not suggesting that we all go out to 4% of the population. If we did, you can see that the value of silver would in relation to gold or anything else for that matter. Would have a huge impact because now the supply would be in the hands of the people. Silver's always been the money of the people. There's been more transactions in silver than gold ever.

14:56 Gold is really for settlement and large things and was really designed after the 30s of Franklin

15:02 president, Franklin Roosevelt took silver, excuse me, gold away from the people. It was international trust. The America's condone it was illegal, but for international settlement, gold was the settlement. And so again, I've been a silver nut. I am not ashamed of it. I wanna put the power of money, which really is silver more than gold, back into the hands of the people so that we have control and they don't. And it could be that simple in theory. We just gotta get the word out there and you'll never hear a banker talk about

15:37 I love it. My, I grew up, my dad's father, my best friend, I lost him too young, but I'll never forget him saying, get as much silver as you can. And there's only X amount of oceanfront property. So those 2 things always stuck with me and timeless things.

15:56 I want to ask this question. I know we haven't talked about it before but it's something that I always wonder about even when I speak. I ask people these things. So let's talk about silver prices, gold prices, or even Bitcoin. They always still reference it to how much it's worth in US dollars. So we're trying to say that you said the US dollar is 98%, and was it 98.2% less than it was when it first came to be a real currency? So don't you think that conversation has to shift at some point? Because if we're still connecting the future value of something, a digital asset, silver, gold, Bitcoin, anything you may hold in a digital asset, but you're still pairing it with the value based on US dollar, I feel like there's some...

16:46 That has to change, right? So we can get people to stop thinking there's real value in US dollar because we're comparing it to these futuristic currencies that we're currently participating in. Does that question make sense to you guys? Yeah, I give it to Mike. I mean, rethinking the dollar is the name of his site, and he's been doing that for a decade.

17:05 Yeah, yeah, good point. So I think right now we're witnessing the restructuring or reset of the global monetary system in and of itself. And so for the last 100 years or so, ever since Bretton Woods and beyond, we've lived in a very dollar-centric world to where internationally speaking, having the world reserve currency, everything has been centered around maintaining that structure. And then you bring in the whole petrodollar system on top of that. And so literally, since I started rethinking the dollar 10 years ago a part of my journey was Literally trying to track day-to-day activity Surrounding the dollar and activity outside the dollar and that leads us to what's happening right now with the BRICS Union We have the Aegean Brunia we got the Eurasian you mean a lot of the Eastern forces that right now are working on something that has become relatively popular and that's the de-dollarization process.

17:57 And so right now, every nation that has been subjected to the whims of the Western forces, i.e. You know, the war structure, the quantitative easing policies, you name it. Those nations, I guess, have grown tired of that and they begin working on alternatives. And so as of right now, we're witnessing a shift in alternative format with how people will settle trade, how people will price their future energy and everything else in between that and something else. And so we have the memorandum of agreements between China and Saudi Arabia, we have just last year, I like to say the last year was a major event that for the most part, reopened the gold window that Nixon closed in 91 or 71, sorry. And that was the kickoff of the Russian ruble and the gold gram pair that really kicked off in February of 2022. So since that timeframe, gold has become a major topic, internationally speaking.

18:57 Outside of the mainstream media here, don't cover it as much, But gold is back, in my opinion. The window has been open, and there's more trade, more settlement, and then you factor in the currency swaps.

19:08 For the most part, all the BRIC nations have set up, which goes past the dollar. It bypasses the dollar. So between now and I believe the end of this decade, we're going to actually have some alternative payment platforms that those nations will use as well as an alternative, I guess, stable form of price settlement that will be brought about soon enough. So it's just a matter of time, but the framework is being laid right now as we speak. Whew, we got the right guy for that question. I'm glad you dedicated your career in rethinking the dollar because it's something that needs to be on everybody's mindset. Because again, it is the global superpower currency. Some of the things I'm always watching and concerned about is, is there going to be a day when the Saudi Arabia oil is no longer paying to the US dollar and then all of a sudden we

19:57 become a third world nation, right? That would be really interesting. Something that maybe could happen 1 day. I mean, Rome's, the Roman Empire is gone, so when people say it can't happen, there's enough history to say things can happen to a civilization or a country. We talked about Argentina last week. And there's so many things that can and are happening. That's why people need to be very educated, listen to people like Mike and David and all the great work that everybody at Lode is doing to give you something that you can diversify your wealth with or give you something, the ability to obtain wealth and have your own control over your life. And these are things that technology has allowed us to do now and these are the great conversations that help people actually make a difference and create generational wealth. So we have 60 people listening and thank you all again. There's a chat box if anybody's got any questions, please throw it in there. We'd love to hear from you And please share with your socials that you're listening to a great show with some amazing people.

20:52 Rick, I'm coming your way to lead this one off. Give us your thoughts on purchasing power and we'll follow with everybody else's thoughts, but I know you talk about this often.

21:01 I'm gonna share my screen, Brian. We've done a little bit of work on trying to make it simple. Let me see if you can see this. Can you see my screen? You're good to go. Yeah. Okay. So what we did is before COVID, we took the spot price of Silver and the spot price of Gold, January 2020, January 1st. And then we locked it off at November 30th, 2023 per ounce. Silver is up 47.46%

21:37 in that time. Gold is up 38.6% during that time. And then we said, Okay, what does it cost for a basket of goods? And these are Canadian numbers. To keep it simple, we did sirloin steak, 1 kg, a dozen eggs, 400 ml of a shampoo bottle, and 100 ml of a toothpaste, and 4.43 liters of laundry detergent. And we should have put a hamburger and a beer in there, but we didn't have enough space, but we'll do it next time for David's sake. And you can see that the sirloin steak is up 27%, but if I asked my wife, she'd probably say it's up about 200% during that period. But let's, these are Statistics Canada numbers.

22:28 The eggs are up about 28, shampoos up 21, toothpaste and laundry 28 and 27, respectively. Then we said, well, what would that cost if we kept our money in fiat during the period of time, January 2020 to November 2023? So you'd see a decrease in purchasing power on the stake side from 45 kilos to 38, the eggs, everything is down and quite considerably. Then we said, well, what happens if we put that thousand bucks into gold during that period of time, same period of time? And with respect to the state,

23:13 you're basically up 29%. The eggs are up 31% in terms of purchasing power. The shampoo is up 30%. Toothpaste is up 30%. And the laundry detergent, believe it or not, is up 52 percent. And if you did that in silver,

23:31 It's basically almost the same numbers, slight deviation. So what the purpose of the exercise is, and we didn't go back, we didn't go back 10 or 20 or 30 years, which we're going to do in our research team. But we just went back to January 2020. And it's very evident to us that gold and silver, and if you can get it digitally with load, so be it. If you want it physical, go and get it physical. Gold and silver are a fabulous hedge against currency devaluations as well as inflation. And so you've got to have that in your portfolio. End of story.

24:17 I agree. And the other percentage I always look at when you're looking at the cost of things because again, we work with so many different industries across all different levels of employment and it is not easy to survive. And some of those increase and some of those, you know, I would say all our basic needs is food, clothing, shampoo.

24:40 And the average salary from what we see is increase year over year from 1 to 2% as far as pay raises. So when you start to tie that in, the hell's that gonna do? It's a drop in the bucket. It makes it even more infuriating for people's mental health and wellness where they feel like they don't have any, there's no choice. But you're Right, there are choices. Mike would love to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah, at this current moment, as we're witnessing, you know, the world for the most part unravel,

25:10 preservation of wealth and maintaining purchasing power down to the very simplest form is what is becoming most important. So one thing I like about Lode is the fact that you mentioned you can onboard someone with just a single dollar. It doesn't take much to be able to preserve the smallest fraction of your fiat currency, or I like to say, redeem some of your fiat currency, because that's how the whole Federal Reserve concept was started, and then actually get back into something sound and tangible that allows you to put power back into your own hand. And so I started a campaign a couple of years ago where I wanted to really bring a hot topic to the surface and see what people's response would be. And it was a little emblem

25:50 that focused on purchasing power and saying purchasing power matters. And when I started that campaign, it was premature or early. But then again, after the whole COVID situation And here in the US in particular, you know, you create 50% of the money supply within a very short timeframe. The end result was, you know, 40 year high inflation. I think it was in June of last year to where it got a lot of people's attention. And so a lot of people were actually seeing real world examples where you go to a grocery store 1 week, and then you go and come back a week or 2 later and the prices shift dramatically to where there was the big question of what's going on. So it's been a lot easier now to reach people and telling them that, you know, you need to start rethinking some things well beyond what you're being told and what you've learned in school. Because if you don't do something now, you know, it's going to hurt you much, much worse in the future.

26:39 So preservation of wealth, man, and purchasing power are 2 key components and gold and silver does

26:44 that. That's one of the bonus parts by being able to acquire now at these current prices. You don't have to do anything It's more so insurance against your fiat currency So it just having it sit there is one of the things I encourage people to do because you know in doing that It's literally taking out an insurance policy on your national currency, wherever you're located geographically. So for those who have done it, it served them well, but there's a lot more to go. So I'm excited to really see how this program here is able to reach more people to get them on board so that they can take advantage of what's coming, man. It's going to be a real game changer coming. Oh, we're, we're getting there. Mike. I like this to build everything I'm involved with one person at a time, 1 passionate person at a time. David, your thoughts on the purchasing power and some of the statistics that rich Rick shared with us.

27:30 Yeah, I really couldn't add to it. Nice job, Rick and Mike. What I would say is that if we go to the blue collar, I'm generalizing, I don't want to upset anybody, but I ask the taxi drivers, whatever city I'm in, I've traveled the world, and I get the feel from the real people on the street A lot of people on the street never own a stock. They never have a Futures account and that's the beauty about gold and silver But it never gets the word out because Wall Street never talks about it But get it buying gold and silver is probably the easiest asset. That's a real that's the best asset my view very simply in almost any good-sized town there's someone that sells gold and silver over-the-counter and all you need to do is walk in with currency and as Mike said we deem it for money and Usually there's no, you know fingerprint no whatever Now that's changing in some jurisdictions.

28:25 But the idea is it's pretty anonymous, pretty simple for the average person to do. It's a lot less cumbersome than filling out the paperwork to open a futures account or a brokerage account or even a bank account. And that's why you find places like India where you've got a population where they know what currencies do and that's why they wear their wealth on their bodies. I mean, many of the women have, you know, silver and gold jewelry because that's their wealth and they know it. And they know that the currency, the rupee, is going to be worthless at some point in their future. And you don't really have the barrier to entry in some of the third world countries because they've been through these inflations. I think Mike's got something to show us on on currency devaluations that are basically gone to 0 and This is not something that's rocket science people know their currency is being destroyed I mean the people of Argentina go through it every decade and they're witnessing it again. And so there's a way to mitigate it, but we just need to get more people educated, which Mike has done a great job of. The loan community is doing that. I've been doing that my whole life, basically. I mean, my dream is to put the power of money and money is power in my view into the hands of the people so that we have control of our future and not some, you know, behind the scenes banking entity that the curtain that's drawn on and the wizards they're pulling levers going nowhere. I wanna go somewhere for our future. I want a bright future for myself, my daughters and my granddaughter, because we owe it to them. And we

29:55 need to stand up and do it. And we have the power to do it. We just need to spread the word. You know, David, you know, listening to your comments and Mike's, essentially, in many countries, the middle class is being totally wiped out. In Canada, the middle class is being totally wiped out as we speak, people cannot make ends meet. And in the United States, the same. And if we had gold and silver as a currency and in a digital format where we don't have to bother about the physical storage of the asset and it's fungible and It's a means of an exchange and a unit of account. And everything that we're doing now, and you can buy and sell it on your phone and deliver it to a friend in Dubai in less than 4 seconds, it'll change the world. And it reminds me, as we said last webinar, of when the internet started, Mike. You remember when the internet started?

30:54 We used to say to ourselves what's a browser? What the heck is a browser? I remember those days and it changed the entire world. And I still remember the same point. Well, people will never buy shoes on the Internet. What are you talking about? And, you know, look at what's happened. So this is a major turning point for the world with this Web3 ability on the blockchain and the fractionalization of the asset and you know history shows us when you fractionalize the an asset that is you know $2,100 $2,000 an ounce or $27 an ounce, and you let people buy a dollar, $2, $5, $10 or whatever they want, it increases the demand anywhere from 5 to 100x.

31:44 So this is early days. And I think we've got a long road ahead of us, Brian. No, I agree. David, one of the points you just made, you're absolutely correct that the average person's never bought a stock or bought into any type of precious metal or commodity. And someone I spoke with last week going over load with them, a good friend, colleague, he was so grateful. He's like, nobody's ever walked me through the opportunity of getting involved with something that I could be the first one in and really be part of what great upside can be. And I was taken back by that because this is somebody that I would say is a little bit more sophisticated that I would assume they have a broker that calls them once in a while and gives them a couple of IPO shares because the broker has completely taken all of his maximum fees that he could possibly take from his clients.

32:36 So it took me back a little bit, how important it is to get people into the know of actually being part of something. And one of the things I also talk about like with this Bitcoin ETF, it's great for the industry. It helps me breathe a little bit better that the banks have to support people that have these assets now that are in their holdings. But I also look at it like, well, that's just the 1% again getting involved into something that the masses can't get involved in. And then you hear all these people that are talking about decentralization and are also happy about this Bitcoin ETF. And I think it's a little bit of a hypocrisy to it. But you want to see the movement. You want to see traction. You want to see media. Most importantly, you want people to feel confident that digital assets or Bitcoin's a commodity that it's credible, right?

33:25 That's important. That's one of the biggest barriers here is that people need to trust this new medium and they need to trust the exchanges or wallets where they put in their KYC, they put in some banking information and they purchase these things. So that trust is the most important thing that we have to continue to educate people on. On that point, Rick, a good question came in from David. You want to talk about what the Lode distributor ledger is so people can understand what we have? Well, we're on the Avalanche network and the company has been around for 7 years, as many of you know, and the company load went up and down with the crypto markets and has had its challenges. And we're just at the breaking point right now. And the lot of lot of questions in the chat about when can I use my silver and gold and the silver and gold can be used now?

34:24 In the Q1 2024, we expect to have the credit card up and running finally and that'll be excellent in terms of the means of exchange and clients and users can use their credit card basically anywhere in the world. It will likely be a Visa card and And then it'll automatically translate whatever they have in gold and silver into the local currency, which is kind of cool. Absolutely. Thank you, Rick. Appreciate that. I've got some more questions coming in. Just trying to go through them here. If I may, one of the things that you know really sparked my interest is that we talked about earlier but you know the availability for anybody to be able to get access to real money in a very timely manner is crucial, because at any minute now we don't know what can break in the system because everybody's expecting something to change And actually being able to get involved in something that you can actually benefit from in the long run is crucial.

35:36 I was thinking earlier about how, we hear all the stories about how the average household may not be able to have a thousand dollars worth of savings and credit card usage just through the roof. Like literally, like this is probably one of the better opportunities for, you know, that, you know, not to quote, quote, point of attention, but the average person to be able to actually get involved in something a early. And then on top of that, you know, have a long-term benefits of protecting and preserving purchasing power. So The merger of the tech and the metals, man, I think it's coming at a great time. So it just really excites me is what I'm getting. Absolutely, Mike, everybody listening, and please go to rethink in the dollar.com. Follow Mike, follow his Twitter account. Great information. He continues to work and really educate his audience. He's done a phenomenal job. Also, David Morgan, the Morgan Report, please follow them on Twitter and all the socials.

36:24 And on our accounts, load LODE, LODE underscore 1 on Twitter. You're starting to see a lot of momentum behind the work that we're doing here. And Rick, you can, what we can say, the inbound interest on what we've been working on is, I think, larger than ever. I mean, your own calls 24-7 on companies and partners that want to work with us. The movement is happening. The ability to have a fractional ownership in these assets is amazing, and also the premium of these physical assets are moving up in the markets, which is great. So the timing is happening. Brian, we did an internal report on the failed and failing states of the world. And we basically concluded with, well, we basically compared the countries of the world that are in stress or distress, whether it be high inflation and Argentina has 150% inflation this year. I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous.

37:28 Can you imagine living in those times? We compare the countries that had high inflation, high currency devaluation that were in wars or in skirmishes where there's rebels and attacks going on. And we added it all up. There's over 2 billion people that are in stress right now. And you've got countries the size of Turkey and the size of Egypt that are in serious devaluation mode, stress, whether it becomes another Argentina, we don't know, or Venezuela, we don't know. But there's 2 billion people out there and the average mobile penetration in these countries is about 80-85% and most of those are now smartphones and the cheap smartphones they cost a hundred bucks in many places now. So the market for digital gold and silver I could argue right now is between 2 and 4 billion people.

38:36 So we got a long runway, Mike, we're gonna need some help. I'll do what I can. And since you're a basketball player, I know you can run faster than me. I still can run, but not as fast as I used to. Oh, there's some good questions coming in. Larry, I appreciate that question as far as how do you score banks with the movement happening with these digital assets and the ability to use credit cards or debit cards such as Rick was talking about. I always try to give my experience and a little bit of an opinion because I'm glad I'm not in all the rooms that these decisions happen in.

39:23 David, maybe you can agree or disagree with me, but my opinion is there has to be an adaption of any type of asset leaving a balance sheet. So for these banks, again my opinion from a lot of the work that we do with some great banks that were Silicon Valley, Silvergate Bank, Signature Banks, these were very heavy focused digital asset banks. I know the Signature Bank team very well, they're now branded Flagstar, very sound balance sheet. They were under the gun over the summer. In my opinion on that, certain other banks, we'll call them the chases of the World or the Bank of America, I think they were seeing a tremendous amount of assets move off their balance sheet into these other banks because there's this giant movement in people wanting to get in digital assets.

40:11 So when you see things like that happening, I believe credit card companies, such as your question Larry, that they're going to be forced to say, how do we at least get our transaction fee whatever the asset moves from 1 entity to another we still want to be in there in a medium to allow transactions to occur which is what I believe you see happening now. You saw MasterCard do a great deal with MoonPay for credit card processing for digital assets. So the credit card companies aren't, I don't believe, are bound by the banks as far as what the, ultimately the banks, their Cinderella story is to keep things as it is as long as they possibly can and allow people to continue to suffer and be in pain and not be able to increase their – have their own control. So I don't think there's an issue with the credit card processing network. I think they're going to continue to adapt this movement as long as they're getting their fee.

41:04 And you see that all these credit card companies have digital asset divisions now. They bring in really talented people for how do you manage these transactions. And the biggest Issue they have to be concerned about is money laundering fraud and what is actually being bought when it's commerce You know, there's actually things being bought, you know, there's things going into the shipping network There's tracking numbers when you're coming with an asset like this They just be very careful that their networks not being used or abused for illegal activity. Yeah, Brian, I'll add onto that. There's a, asset backed credit card here or actually debit card here in town. And what we found out is the adoption was pretty strong, but the utilization was weak So for every hundred people that actually have a debit card where they can debit out Their silver or gold for payment and on the back end the bank doesn't care because they're getting their fee So it's totally put in alignment with what you said But many of these people 80% really have the card but don't use it So this puts the bank in a situation where, why are we even issuing these cards?

42:13 So they made a need it, you know, you signed up. If you don't use your card, in other words, like a thousand year or something, you're not gonna be able to keep the card. And I see this in our genre as well, because a lot of people stack. It's a form of preserving wealth. We all get that, but there's gotta be momentum into the utilization of the card. This is where I think Lode has a unique opportunity. Because once we get the complete structure in place and we're able to refine or mine our own products, silver and gold, now we have an edge over anyone else in this digital honest money movement. Because now we can pass that along to all users of the system, which means you're incentivized, especially the middle class that's getting wiped out. If you can get your laundry detergent by using silver to purchase it at an 8% discount, you're going to feel good about that.

43:12 And that will promote utilization of money back into the system. So this is the possibilities that we have going forward. And the idea is going to be transparent to the merchant, which makes it very, very simple. If you just put out a card on the deck and you're at Walmart or Safeway, or let me think of a Canadian store, RBC or whatever. Tim Horton. You don't care. Virgie doesn't care. Yeah. It all comes out on the back end. So there's a lot to it. But yet, in a way, it's very simple because, as I said, buying silver and gold is probably the one commodity, as Mike said, that has been traded or bartered or bought and sold for thousands of years. There's no stock that's gone on that long. In fact, the longest stock on the New York Stock Exchange that ever existed was homestake mines and it was gold mine. It lasted a hundred years.

44:09 Anything else on the Dow hasn't lasted that long. That's a good point, David. I know you were limited on current meetings you had to head out to. David, do you need to jump off or are you still with us for a little bit? I got about 4 minutes. Okay. Brian, if I could add, I mean, I sold it. No, you cannot add. Go ahead. I sold my last business to a bank. I worked for a bank for 5 years. And the banks have wonderful staying power. They've been in business for hundreds of years. And the digital asset class is challenging them and with their superiority. So naturally you're gonna get pushback. This is a natural phenomena in human beings.

45:01 And as you've seen with BlackRock and Fidelity and many others, the major institutions in the United States are all getting ready for the SEC to approve, you know, the BlackRock and the Fidelity ETFs for Bitcoin. And there's many others lined up. And it's an education process. Many of the banks and many of the regulators still don't understand everything to do with the digital assets that are coming out. And it's best to have a regulated environment rather than operate in a non-regulated environment. I've been regulated for 35 years. And it's a good thing that the US will hopefully approve the ETFs because everyone will know where they stand.

45:56 And at some point in time, the people that left the United States because of a lack of regulation clarity are going to come back. And there was a big brain drain, and we all know that, over to different parts of the world. So the banks are just being natural what they're doing, and they're making it very difficult for digital asset companies period. So it's absolutely normal. Yeah well your experience in the regulated environment Rick and your Passion in this I think that speaks volumes for you know what needs to be done right because you've been living this in this world your entire professional career so To me that's the loudest voice that you can have someone that is working with banks you You're rolling up major stock exchanges in Canada like you live and breathe by the law of regulation And I do too you know I annex is our partners with a lot of the security token offerings that we do and I think regulation is It's there It's there in theory to protect people. It's there in theory to ensure that real securities are being properly managed and there's transparency and helping somebody understand the risk and getting put in their tax earnings behind something. So I think that system in theory is really important.

47:17 However, not everybody has access to that system. And that's where it gets really disappointing for the world to be able to better themselves because they don't have the opportunity to get in on IPOs, the opportunity to get in on startups during their mini-series before they have an IPO moment. By the IPO moment of a unicorn, it's usually all the bankers and initial holders that make all their money and the stock usually tanks. Look at Facebook for an example. I was part of that IPO proudly and stupidly bought it in at 30 wound up at 16 a few months later, but if you held it and you watch it do its thing and you know They found a way to to add a lot of value to stockholders But if you bought in at the IPO you lost money if you sold shortly after. So, you know, these are things and tools and technologies that we have now that people can be involved with in a global network, such as what LODE is on and the ability to access these through a smartphone or web portal. So we know this is the time for people to actually make wealth, preserve their wealth. And David, you mentioned purchasing detergent with silver.

48:23 The goal here is you're purchasing that detergent with your juice or yield from the silver and never touching your principles. So These are the things that we want people to understand the load model being able to have access to those precious metals from the processing to going to market. There's so much extra margins in there that the people that are part of the load network and buying these tokens and holding these tokens, they're going to earn on that extra juice. Yeah, Brian, as we roll out the load mining model, just so everybody understands, we're going to be acquiring Gold and Silver processing plants. We're going to start in Mexico. The EBITDA margin in that business is about 18% to 22%.

49:09 The net margin is about 8% to 9%, depending on grades and volumes. Our focus is really processing the concentrates, the ore and the tailings from small miners, small licensed miners of which there's approximately 180,000 of them in Mexico. And they've been a top 10 producer of Gold and Silver for over 100 years. So there's lots of gold and silver still there. And that'll enable us to sell to load a digital gold and silver at a discount to LBMA and the spot prices. Because we want our clients that at the end of the day that purchase the load AGX and AUX tokens to be able to access them without a huge premium to the spot price That's the key because if you go to a bullion dealer now Mike You know better than I do you go to a bullion dealer now and you ask them to buy a dollar or 5 dollars worth of gold or silver, they're gonna laugh at your face. If you want to buy a thousand or 5000 dollars, you'll probably pay a premium anywhere from 8 to 30 percent depending on how much you buy and where you buy it.

50:21 We want our B2B2C clients, the retail clients, to be able to buy those tokens at as low a price as possible to spot premium. So this will have less risk for them if they need to sell it for some family emergency and less hopefully chance to break even if they pay a 30% premium. You got to wait until you know the silver or gold spot price goes up by 30% before you can break even on your token. To me, that doesn't make any sense. So the business model of vertical integration is absolutely spot on. And congratulations to all of the team for working on this because it's the perfect business model. All right, I think it boils down to diversification.

51:07 You know, you have exposure to the physical, you have exposure to the merger of the digital and the physical. And then also I'm a big proponent of, you know, the mining side of things. So having exposure to the miners or whatnot. So yeah, having a well-balanced portfolio is definitely a right approach to have in this current age. So, but no, I'm, you know, I've learned a lot, you know, about the low program. So definitely looking forward to find out more and definitely getting involved. So it's presents a great opportunity. Thank you, Mike. We got lots of lots of spaces for you. Oh, yeah. So no, like, I think for in particular, like the audience that I've pretty much focused on, are people who, as I mentioned, just the average Jane and Joe who are not really too monetarily savvy, but then again, they're starting to wake up now due to the inflation and things of that nature.

51:56 So they would definitely appreciate having an opportunity to put their fiat into something that can protect them in the form of an insurance type of asset. So definitely I see a lot of interest from the people that follow me and whatnot. So it definitely could be a good thing. So looking excited for the future. Thank you, Mike. Brian, After Andy Schechman comes on either next week or the week after, we're going to do 1 conference on asset diversification. And we'll invite one of our board of advisors, Todd Rupert, who's the former president and CEO of T. Rowe Price, to join us in that discussion. Because absolutely, Mike, asset diversification is the key here. Well, that's going to be an exciting one, boys. I mean, we're coming up on the hour. We've had a consistent 50, 50 plus people listening. Thank you all. Thank everybody for their great questions coming in. Some of the, a lot of the questions are asking about the people speaking as being involved with load.

52:58 I'm honored to be on the team. I help lead on global strategy, global partnerships. I'm honored to have a Lode wallet and I'm all in on this great company and they have my full support. And I believe this is the true way in which a global population can actually buy into something. There's a lot happening in the tokenization of real estate. We work with some great companies like Unicoin there, and they're doing amazing of what they've done. So they're proving that there's the ability to have an asset for fractionalized ownership for shoring up those balance sheets. Many of that may be in the real estate industry. There's about 2 billion plus pieces of paper out on commercial real estate coming to maturation in the US alone over the next 10 to 20 months. So it's gonna be maybe very scary times there that we've resembled in 2008, 2009.

53:47 But I do believe technologies like fractionalized ownership into these assets open up capital that's never been able to be accessed before by the people. And with that same mindset, the ability to make that movement here in physical gold and silver thanks to products like Lode, you have the ability to buy into something you never had access to. And that's where it gets really empowering. So any final thoughts from you guys before we end the show? No, great discussion. Great discussion. Great introduction for myself to Lode and definitely looking forward to finding out more and ultimate end of the day, as I mentioned before, purchasing power, like literally, you know, that's going to be on the forefront of everybody's mind, especially heading into 2024, because we haven't seen the worst of what I believe is yet to come, you know, in particular with the banking sector, as well as the real estate side, as you just mentioned, So but then again, it's not necessarily a doom and gloom thing. It's more so like, how can you prepare now? And taking advantage of opportunities such as this definitely can put you far ahead than the masses.

54:40 So definitely worth considering. So appreciate you guys for having me. Well said, Mike. And again, Mike Manuel, please, everybody go to Rethink and the Dollar, follow that great site, sign up and follow him on his socials. Phenomenal guy, exceptional experience and research in this space and from what I've learned here to help people, which is very honorable. Thank you Mike for your work and efforts. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks Rick. Come on final thoughts man Something good because it's always like the world is crushing I try not to read all the negative articles that come through my emails every day Think about those 2 billion people I talked about in our failed state report. If we could get them access to a Web3 wallet that is easy And we're doing now partnerships with many web 3 wallets that are in local countries And we're working on several of them right now as we speak imagine if we could get Get access to them so they could start buying a little bit of AGX and AUX every day or every week or every month and get them a hard asset for their families and reminds me of micro banking.

56:01 Brian, remember the micro banking in Africa and bringing the internet to cities and towns and villages and immediately the productivity and the wealth of those villages, towns started to increase because it becomes more efficient. And so it's the same thing. It's basically identical. Digital gold and silver is far more efficient than a local countrywide fiat currency that is subject to all the vagaries that go on in governments. So I'm excited for the day that we can bring this throughout Central Latin America, throughout Asia and throughout Africa, Because these are the countries and continents that really need it now, or yesterday, I should say.

56:51 And that's what drives us. That's what drives me every day. I'm really excited to be here. And every day brings new, fresh air where people are actually starting to embrace what we're doing as opposed to rebuke what we're doing. So it's very exciting. It is really exciting. Great reference on the means of technologies throughout Africa. I mean, there's a company, biggest wireless company there is MTN. And they were brought up on transactions done through text messaging. So they pay for most of their things through text messaging. They pay their bills, They send money through text messaging. Very secure means is very little fraud because of that system. So the reference is very on point as to that same type of process through a Web3 wallet and having digital ownership into these types of asset classes. So again, it falls back on just getting people comfortable.

57:50 How when people were able to buy stocks online in the early 2000s, it took time. It took time for people to trust that system. And it's happening again here. It's a new evolution of how do you get involved in something? How do you move currency from 1 form to another, an asset from 1 form to another? And we're doing great things. So I thank you guys so much. Again, I really thank you for listening to this episode 2 of What Is Money? The fiat's final chapter. We're joined by David Morgan, founder of the Morgan Report, who had to hop off into some even more important stuff that he's always working on. Mike Manuel, host of Rethinkin$$.com talk show and Rethinkin$$.com. And of course, Richard Groom, CEO of Lode Mining Corporation. Thanks, boys. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Stay well, everybody. You as well. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Bye. Bye. Bye.