Mark Moss, entrepreneur, investor, and host of The Mark Moss show on YouTube and iHeartRadio joins me on the show to talk about the recent energy crisis. We talk about what’s causing it, and the cycles impacting our world today. We also talk about dealing with it and responding to it.
Mark Moss links:
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Stephan Livera links:
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Podcast Transcript:
Stephan:
Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Moss:
Yeah, thanks so much, Stephan. I’m so excited to be here.
Stephan:
Yeah. So, Mark Moss, you’ve been doing a lot of cool stuff. I think you’re really good at sewing together these different macroeconomic themes as well as talking about this idea of different cycles and what are we seeing and how that is playing out in our world today. So, yeah. And I know you just recently posted about energy crisis as well, so, maybe, we should get into some of that. What’s going on in these crazy global energy markets?
Mark Moss:
Yeah, I’ve just always had this way where, I don’t know, my mind puts patterns together and I’ve just picked things up and it’s worked really good for me throughout my career, both investing and as an entrepreneur, seeing things develop and trends. And so, I’ve been really good at finding trends, jumping on trends both for investing and for business. And so, yeah, I’ve translated that to the content. And, what’s going on in the world today is, it’s pretty evident for anybody that’s paying attention but someone like me who’s been studying these trends for almost two decades now, man, what I’m seeing is just unbelievable and I’m surprised more people aren’t waking up to this and they will be.
Mark Moss:
So, specifically about the energy crisis which is literally affecting the entire world right now, a lot of people think it’s just happening over there, wherever there is. This morning, at the time of this recording, I should say, Bitcoin is on a tear, so we’re stoked for that. But as much as Bitcoin is tearing, I posted on Twitter earlier that Natural Gas had a move that made Bitcoin blush, a 40% candle today.
Stephan:
Yeah.
Mark Moss:
And so, prices are spiking all over the world. As a matter of fact, they’re up 800% throughout Europe. And the point that I made in this tweet thread I just put out and the video that I did about it, is that this is all being done by policy, it’s man made. I don’t know if it’s necessarily their intention, but it’s the result of their intentions. And I made this video, which I was actually following up from a video 13 months ago, where I said there was rolling blackouts happening in California where I’m from and I said, “Warning. What’s happening in California is coming for the rest of the country and it’s coming for the rest of the world.” And the way I was able to predict that 13 months ago is because it was being done by policy.
Stephan:
Yeah, that’s a really good point and I, 100%, agree with you there. It’s not like, say, hundreds of years ago, humanity was poor and we just didn’t have energy. Now, it’s we have the technology, but it’s by choice-
Mark Moss:
Yup.
Stephan:
… rather choice of the politicians and of people who are pushing things in that direction and they are, in essence, outlawing cheap and reliable energy which is really sad to see.
Mark Moss:
Yeah, it’s unbelievable and all this goes down to something. I know you’re super deep into the Austrian School and, really, it’s all central planning and that’s the problem. These central planners think that they can make changes to a complex system without thinking about the consequences of that. And so, basically, what they’ve done is that in order to save the world 100 years from now, because temperature might go up by 1.5 degrees. I come from California and, literally, people moved out to the desert where it’s 125 degrees in the summer. So, I think adding one or two degrees could work. But in order to save the planet from there, they’re literally putting lives at risk today.
Mark Moss:
So, throughout Europe right now because of the natural gas problem that they have, they’re saying people could be freezing to death this winter. And so, the fact that they’re literally shutting these down, now, I tried to not get into the science of it and I certainly could if we wanted to, but there’s other people that are much better at that. I was just looking at just pure policy and I know a lot of will people say, “Hey, Mark, stick to finance, stick the Bitcoin.” But if you don’t understand the policy, you can’t understand what’s happening. And so, they’ve just decided to shut down our energy sources, both natural gas and coal and even nuclear, to go to what Alex Epstein calls unreliables. Because the wind or solar, wind doesn’t blow all the time, the sun doesn’t shine all the time and that’s exactly what’s happened in Europe.
Mark Moss:
And what’s really, really rich, it’s just amazing, you can’t write this any better. Is a few weeks ago, in the EU, the leaders got together as part of the UN, they’re having a big meeting coming up here soon but they got together this pre-meeting and they doubled down on their goals to really cut down on cheap, abundant energy. And what’s so rich about that is PM of UK Boris Johnson said quote, “We are going to set the example.”, the UK will.
Mark Moss:
They’ll set the example, they want to be the springboard for the rest of Europe. And what’s so funny, I don’t know if it’s funny or not if you live there, but what’s ironic about that is the UK is the absolute worst, they’re having the biggest problems in the world. And to frame it up a little bit, just like in California, so in California, they shut down natural gas, they shut down coal, they shut down two out of three nuclear reactors to move to renewables, wind and solar, but they didn’t replace it. They didn’t get the wind and solar.
Mark Moss:
But even more, and I don’t get this piece, even more, what they thought is that well, what we’ll do is we’ll just get energy from our next-door neighbor states, Nevada and Arizona, whenever we need extra. So, for us to have these mandates, we’re going to shut our energy down but we’ll just buy the same dirty energy from our next-door neighbor and, somehow, I guess, that’s okay. The problem is that, when California needs it, so do the neighbors and they don’t have any leftover. And the same policy has happened in the UK. So, they have massive reserves of natural gas but, climate, we’re not going to get out of the ground. And so, let’s just buy it from our neighbors. What’s the difference?
Mark Moss:
And so, all of Europe has literally shut down all their natural gas even though there’s massive reserves of natural gas. In the Netherlands, they just shut down their natural gas plants which produced 20% of the natural gas for Europe. And now, all of Europe is dependent on Russia for natural gas.
Stephan:
It’s crazy.
Mark Moss:
And, you know?
Stephan:
Yeah, yeah.
Mark Moss:
It’s insane.
Stephan:
It reminds me as well of these virtue signaling celebrities who will be all about, “Oh, you should shut your emissions but I will still fly all over the world, I will still have multiple mansions.” That’s what they will do and they believe in this idea and some of the big corporations get behind it as well. So, the likes of Apple and others who will say, “Oh, look, we’re not doing the carbon stuff, we bought an offset so somebody else is going to do that and someone else can do our dirty work.” And it’s the same thing with these states who are trying to push it off to some other state and say, “Well, we’re just going to buy their energy when they need it.”
Stephan:
And that’s the thing with energy, you need it to be reliable. If some child is being born and you need an incubator or you need something to save someone’s life, the energy must be reliable, it must be available.
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
You can’t just play this game of, “Oh, we’re going to move everything to wind and solar.” And, this is all around the world, even in Australia. I’m not in Australia now myself, but even in Australia, they’re off with the fairies, they are saying, “Yeah, netzero and we’re just going to transition the grid.” It just seems insane that the people have come to accept all of this as well. Because you must think, well, there would have been all these people who are rioting in the streets because they can’t get their air conditioning or heating when they need it. It just seems really weird to me. I wonder, what do you think about that? Why are people going with this?
Mark Moss:
Let’s talk about why they’re going with it. But before I do, I want to talk about two points that you made while you were just talking.
Stephan:
Yeah.
Mark Moss:
The first thing you talked about was the unreliables which we mentioned before. And so, the problems are happening all over the world right now but they’re happening for different reasons. So, they’re all man made. But throughout Europe, they’ve transitioned, again, away from coal, away from natural gas, away from nuclear. And, apparently, this year, this summer was a very low year for wind. The wind was abnormally low this year and they didn’t produce enough power this year. But over in the US and in Asia, it’s a different problem.
Mark Moss:
Over there, they rely on hydro power and we had droughts this year. And so, because there was droughts, they didn’t produce enough power. And so, what’s interesting is they were affected for different reasons, natural reasons but it shows the fact of these unreliables. You can’t just, “Oh, we had a low wind here, I guess people die. Oh, I guess we had a drought here, no power this year.” And so, that’s what they’re literally doing.
Mark Moss:
So, in China, for example, right now, as we speak, they’re literally starting to shut down their factories and starting to ration when they can run at different times because they don’t have enough power. Well, the world is already at the breaking point on supply chain issues, we’re already barely hanging on and, now, they’re literally having to shut down production because they don’t have energy. That’s in China. In Europe, it’s the same thing. So, anyway, that just shows these unreliables for different reasons, different parts of the world.
Mark Moss:
There’s one more thing that you touched on I want to talk about also real quickly. And you talked about this virtue signaling where we might call it greenwashing where I can just produce as much as I want and I’ll just buy some carbon credits and I’ll offset that, I’ll virtue signal that, greenwash it. And what the government does is they think they can put policies in place that would affect or curb peoples use. So, in America, smoking is bad for you. So, “Oh, I have a great idea. Let’s just add a bunch of tax on to that and people will smoke less.” Well, it didn’t really work but they’ve done the same thing with carbon credits where they say, “Well, here’s what we’ll do. We’ll just charge companies to produce carbon and that will just be enough in itself to get them to reduce that.” But it hasn’t and here’s where it adds to the problem.
Mark Moss:
So, the policies already made the problem as bad as it is. But on top of it, in Europe they have what’s called cap and trade. So, cap and trade is, basically, keep producing as much carbon as you want but now you have to buy our carbon credits. Well, two things happen. Always. Supply and demand. And so, because everyone is forced to buy it now, the demand has gone up and so the prices have gone up. And at the same time, the governments have restricted the amount of carbon credits. So, the demand has gone up, the supply has come down, so what happens? Well, of course, the costs go sky high.
Mark Moss:
Well, now, the producers of the energy, the electricity companies, one, electricity companies need natural gas which they can’t get, it’s up 800%. And now, to even make it worse, they’re being forced by governments to buy carbon credits and it’s pushed the prices up so high that, throughout the UK, over a dozen energy companies have already gone bankrupt. Throughout Germany, all the companies are falling insolvent right now.
Stephan:
Yeah.
Mark Moss:
And so, if the policies weren’t bad enough restricting it, now, they’re putting these cap and trade things on. It’s just insanity.
Stephan:
Well, actually, one point I wanted to touch on there as well is that it takes a big investment to make the coal and natural gas and, basically, any of these large, industrial scale level energy. It takes a big investment and a lot of time. And so, what happens over time is, part of, I guess, the theory, if you believed in it, is this idea that governments should have created this set of ground rules that people could trust and rely on.
Stephan:
But what’s happening now is, effectively, governments are out here rug pulling all these people who, years ago, made these investments into these big, whatever it was, coal or natural gas or other energy, reliable and cheap energy, they’re all worried about getting rug pulled. And so, in that sense, it makes it harder and harder for them to go and engage in a new project because they’re like, “Well, if I go and start this new coal project, I don’t know what the prevailing political wings will be in 5 or 10 years and that may impact my payback period, I may not be profitable on this project. Therefore, I’m just not going to make that investment.”
Stephan:
And so, then, the population suffers because, now, they don’t have access to cheap and reliable energy which, previously, we took for granted. We just thought, “Oh, turn the light switch on and the lights come on.”, and we are really getting to that point. And, actually, one other point I wanted to touch on with the whole virtue signaling aspect of it. There might be some rich people or celebrities who genuinely think, “Yeah, look, I’m just going to pay my offsets.” But the problem, even there, is it’s an accessibility thing. So, maybe a rich person can afford to pay this fancy offset and to do all this stuff, but for poor and middle-class people, they can’t necessarily afford it and so, that’s a real problem.
Mark Moss:
Yeah, it’s a massive problem and a practical example of that is I’m in Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico has massive power outage and shortage problems as well. A week ago, on my side of the island, the power kept going out over and over and over. We, literally, were going 12 hours a day without electricity and over 800,000 people on the island were affected by that. I had work to do, I needed to work and so, I, literally, got in my car, well, actually, I hopped on a plane and flew to the other side of the island and I posted up in the city for a week where there was plenty of electricity and I got a hotel room and I rented a little office down the street. And, I had to leave my house and that was a pain in the butt but my life didn’t suffer because I had money.
Mark Moss:
Unfortunately, the poor people on the island were, literally, dealing with 95-degree temperature, no electricity, couldn’t even run a fan, their food spoiling in the frigerator and so, yeah, the poor people are adversely affected by this in a really, really big way. And so, when you keep hearing about the central planners talking about equality and income inequality and things like that, all their policies do is adversely affect the poor people and so, it’s ironic, I guess, you could say.
Stephan:
Yeah. And, well, I guess that also brings it back to that point of why are they going with this? Surely, people would vote in the person who’s saying, “This is nonsense. Let’s just have reliable and cheap energy.” What’s going on? What’s your take on why that’s happening?
Mark Moss:
Well, unfortunately, I think the answer is actually somewhat simple and it all comes down to education. The people, one, haven’t been educated. Two, they’ve purposely been taught not to think for themselves. We’ve seen this very evident throughout this last year, literally, meme-
Stephan:
Follow the science.
Mark Moss:
Yeah, literally, memes going around where the government’s gaslighting people telling them do not do your own research. They’re literally telling people that. Do not do your own research. And so, one, we’ve been trained through school to not think about it, not to question these things and, now, like I said, being told to not question them. And, the reason why I would say that is because somebody that’s been taught basics in elementary of supply and demand, for example, would understand these things. But when I posted some stuff about what was happening in Puerto Rico, not a lot because my following is a little bit cultivated, but a lot of the comments did say like, “Well, the government needs to take over the power companies, we need more central planning.”
Mark Moss:
And so, a lot of people think that these problems that we’re having with shortages are caused by capitalism, they’re being caused by free markets and they’re being caused by greedy people. And then, they think that the answer is more central government. But what they’re failing to realize is it’s the actual central government that’s causing the problem. And, again, like I said, even my kids can understand this concept, it’s so simple. Imagine if there was two power companies here in Puerto Rico, they would both be competing to offer me better product at a better price with better service. And so, they would each be innovating to try to get cleaner energy and a way they could produce it more for less. And they would make sure that my service never was interrupted because if my service was interrupted, I would go to the competitor.
Mark Moss:
And so, they would compete and they would make things better. But when the government, when the central planners take it over and, even worse, politicians take it over. And so, we saw this happen in Venezuela. Venezuela has more oil than anywhere in the world, more than Saudi Arabia. But when they became socialist, they pulled the people that knew how to run energy, pulled them out and they put their brother-in-laws and their cronies in and, of course, they don’t know anything about running energy. And so, now, today, they can’t even get the oil out of the ground barely. And the same thing is happening in Puerto Rico. We saw AOC come over here a few months ago and hold this conference and she said, “We need to shut down the gas diesel generator plant.”, which produces 20% of the energy on the island. “We need to shut that down.” And she said, “I’ve talked to people and they said it’s going to have no adverse effects on the amount of energy and the price that people pay.”
Mark Moss:
I’m like, “Really? So, you can shut down 20% of the production in an island that already has massive problems and that’s not going to have any effect?” And so, when you have politicians that have no understanding of how to run energy, neither do I. But the problem is you put them into positions to run these things and central planning always fails.
Stephan:
Yeah, and you make a lot of great points there. And also, in many cases, it was earlier interventions that caused some of these problems. And you know what else is funny is, depending on the political rhetoric, obviously, it varies on different countries but, sometimes, people try to frame it like cap and trade is actually a free market thing because, look, there’s a price that you put on the carbon. But wait, it’s actually a government set price. It’s price fixing.
Mark Moss:
Right.
Stephan:
The government has set a price in its central planning. But people, unfortunately, have not taken the time to do the learning on real economics and competence, now, is not valued. It’s almost like virtue signaling is more important than competence which is a bad trend for society and the world to be going in, isn’t it? And I think it ties into-
Mark Moss:
The virtue signaling now is trust the experts.
Stephan:
Yeah.
Mark Moss:
Right? That’s the virtue. So, it’s almost, now, virtuous to say I’m just going to default to the expert as opposed to me trying to learn anything about it, which is crazy.
Stephan:
Exactly. It’s all about compliance. And I think even all the mask rules around, yeah. So, that’s one angle and, I think, the cycles aspect that you’ve been talking about a lot as well. It starts to make you think about, well, maybe that’s how some of these things went down in history. Is that people, the environment around them was so bad that they weren’t able to push back and resist. And, maybe, were coming into another time like that.
Mark Moss:
Yeah. Well, I’ve been doing a lot of work and looking at historical cycles throughout multiple different areas. When you’re looking at, especially in financial markets, you’re looking for indicators. And indicators, hopefully, they’re leading indicators which tell you what may come next. So, unsustainable debt levels, zero interest rates, things like that and they predict what comes next. But what happens is, with indicators, is you don’t want to look at just one, you want to look at multiple. And so, I’ve looked at these different cycles and there’s different parts of the world where the economy work in different ways. So, you have this 250-year revolution cycle, which is pretty amazing, and that’s a political, social, cultural thing.
Mark Moss:
But then, you have a technological revolution cycle that works on a 50-year. So, a 250 cycle, a 50-year cycle and then you have a financial revolution cycle that runs on an 80-year cycle. And so, they work on different timeframes and they’re all happening at different times. But sometimes, occasionally, like right now, all three actually converge at the same time. And so, we’re at this point right now and I think it’s pretty evident to people. But if we’d look at just the political, social, cultural side, what’s interesting is on a 84-year cycle, it’s like a populist uprising or a regime change cycle. So, 84 years ago was the end of World War II, we had Mussolini, we had Hitler, FDR did the New Deal and changed America to a socialist country. 84 years before that, Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto springing what’s the largest revolution in European history.
Mark Moss:
So, those are 84-year cycles. But three 84-year cycles, three times 84 equals 252. So, 250 years, we have a revolution. And, basically, as far back as you go through history, you see that, if human nature wants to be free, they’re pushing to be free. Some humans want to control them and then they get a little bit of power, a little bit of control and then that power grows, oppression grows until the point it’s too much to bear. And then, revolution happens and then freedom. And it just repeats over and over.
Mark Moss:
So, 250 years ago from right now was the American French Revolution, 250 years before that was the Protestant Reformation. And both of those represent the people rejecting centralization or rejecting globalization and moving to decentralization. So, in the United States, we rejected the monarchy, the centralization, the globalization of the crown and set up a decentralized government. So, the United States was set up as a republic, which was a decentralized form of governance, which was pretty amazing when you look at it today. And, I think, it’s pretty evident to anybody, if you’re paying attention to what we’re just even talking about here. These problems that we’re just talking about, as far as energy, are the result of central planning or centralization.
Mark Moss:
And so, I think it’s pretty evident to see that we’re literally at peak centralization. We have the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, the World Meteorological Association, we have the UN, we have the IMF. In the whole world now, peak centralization but, at the same time, we’re starting to see it all falling apart. So, their policies are now starting to have massive adverse effects and, at the same time, we’re seeing the population push back against that. Now, pre-pandemic, there was over 10 countries with over one million people each marching in the streets. The pandemic, somehow, made that go away but it’s all coming back pretty quickly. Mainstream media won’t show that but I know you’re from Australia and it’s breaking apart down there really bad.
Mark Moss:
So, we can see that peak centralization is here, we can see that the world is pushing back on it at the same time and we can also see that central planning is failing in a spectacular way like we’re talking about with the energy. And the breaking point for every revolution, and we just go back to the Arab Spring from several years ago or any other one before that, the breaking point is when people can’t eat.
Stephan:
Yeah.
Mark Moss:
And with the energy supply chain problems that we’re having throughout Europe, that’s what’s starting to happen. And so, I think that we’re going to hit peak centralization and then we’ll move back to a decentralized form of governance and this globalization falls apart.
Stephan:
Right, yeah. And so, look, I think a lot of what you’re saying makes sense. Now, let’s say, the steel man, my counter argument to you here and I don’t necessarily believe this. But they might say, “Look, Mark Moss, it’s transitory. We just had temporary shutdowns because of all the COVID shutdowns and once things open up, then, the prices might come back down. And so, it’s transitory. You’re raising too much alarm.” What would you say to that person?
Mark Moss:
Well, I’d say two things to that person. First off, I would say, if you’ve ever ran a business, you would understand that once prices go up, they don’t usually come back down. So, that’s one. But two, what I’d say is that I don’t believe they’re transitory, Larry Fink from BlackRock doesn’t think it’s transitory, most of the fed doesn’t think it’s transitory either. And the reason why is because these are being done by policy, as I’ve just broken down with the energy, for example. So, they are artificially, or I shouldn’t say artificially, but man made, pushing the prices of energy up. And so, the only way to get those prices back down would be for them to reverse their policy.
Mark Moss:
And so, in China, they’re literally shutting down factories because they don’t have enough energy which is only going to make supply chain issues worse, not better. So, one, watch the policies. If the policies are magically reversed, okay, back to a free market then, potentially, yeah, prices could come back down and there’d be some transitory of that. The other thing that I’d say, though, too, this gets into the next piece, which is the financial side, the financial revolution. But the big problem that we have is that we don’t have a free market and the way that a market … So, the central planners think that a market is like a machine that could be built and managed. But it’s not, it’s organic. It’s made up of people that are irrational, that have wants, needs and desires that change all the time.
Mark Moss:
And so, how do you coordinate an economy in the US of 330 million people or seven, eight billion people in the world and how does the exact product they need show up on the shelf at the exact time I want it, at the price I need it? Well, it’s done through coordination, through the price signal and the price signal has been distorted. So, the United States fed dumped in about $8 trillion in the last year. And so, it’s distorted the price signal so people don’t know what’s going on anymore. And so, normally, in a time when supply chains were backing up and now prices are sky high and people think, “Oh, well, it’ll find its equilibrium.” Well, it could if there was true price discovery.
Mark Moss:
So, what would happen is, the prices to unload ships would go way up so people would go build more facilities to unload ships. And then, that increased supply would then bring the price down. The problem is, though, because of this price signal so messed up, it’s preventing that from happening. So, because inflation is so high, it’s too expensive for me to go build a new port to pull the ships up. So, the regulations are too high, the costs are too high because of inflation, the materials are in short supply, so I can’t go alleviate that need. And so, that’s why it’s not transitory, in my opinion.
Stephan:
Yeah, very well put. And I think it comes back to the Austrian story and explanation around malinvestment. And what’s happened is cheap credit has created a world where people get the wrong signal, they get sent the wrong signal and think, “Oh, look, these resources are available for me to use.” But actually, when they try to go and use them, they’re not there when they need them because what’s happened is the capital that was needed is, just simply, it’s not there, they’ve been sent the wrong signal and that’s very unfortunate. And so, whether it’s because of that aspect or they’re being politically stopped because of, again, the virtue signaling, the politicians who stopped them from producing cheap and reliable energy, in that example, and it can have such strong knock-on effects as well. Because if energy costs go up, the cost for all these other things goes up as well. Because-
Mark Moss:
Everything.
Stephan:
… you got to produce things. How else do you produce? So, it’s a very unfortunate-
Mark Moss:
And transport.
Stephan:
Yeah, exactly. How do you transport the goods to where it’s needed? And so, it’s such a difficult thing. And so, I guess, how are you thinking about it in terms of what people can do about this? So, let’s say, maybe you’re not necessarily really rich, but you’re cognizant about some of these things, you’re concerned about these things. What are some steps that you can take to try to protect yourself?
Mark Moss:
Well, I think what’s interesting when you look at these three revolutionary cycles that are converging right now, at a time when, politically, socially, culturally, like I said, the world is peak globalization and the pendulum is about to swing back the other way. What’s interesting is that, typically, solutions come to problems. In a world run by central bankers, we have a bunch of money chasing imaginary things. But typically, solutions come to problems and what’s interesting is, we have this 50-year technological revolution cycle that’s hitting at the exact same time. And these aren’t new technologies, not like an iPhone or Uber or Airbnb, I’m talking about a technological revolution that literally changes the course of humanity. So, there’s only been five, I’ll just run through them real quick.
Mark Moss:
In the 1700s, we had the Industrial Revolution which, literally, changed the whole world. Brought people from farms and cottage industry into cities and factories. Then, approximately 50 years later, we had steel and steam engines. So, all of humanity, we had manpower and horsepower and, now, we have steam engines, that was a massive invention. And steel allowed us to go from a two-story brick building to skyscrapers and bridges and things like that. Approximately 50 years later, we had electricity. Now, at the time, this is an important piece, at the time, electricity was a digital candle. Do we need that? Candles worked pretty good, they worked for 5,000 years, right? Do we need a digital candle? But electricity was so much more and it enabled us to do what we’re doing today, it changed humanity.
Mark Moss:
About 50 years later, we had the age of oil, automobiles and mass production, assembly lines. And so, again, all of humanity, people walked and rode horses and, now, we have cars. Now we can transport materials, now we can transport things. Then, about 50 years later, in 1971, we had the age of the microprocessor which brought us personal computers, which brought us telecommunications, which brought us the internet, which allows us to do exactly what we’re doing today. 1971, add 50 years, puts us at right now, today and we’re witnessing another technological revolution, not a new technology, a technological revolution that will, literally, change the course of humanity. And what’s interesting about that technological revolution is, again, the solution comes to the problem. Well, the problem is peak centralization, peak globalization, that’s the problem. The solution that we have, the next technological revolution is giving us decentralized technology. It solves the problem that we have which is pretty important to understand.
Mark Moss:
So, how do people navigate through this? I think, one, is to understand that we actually have a tool now that can solve that problem and it can solve that problem in a number of ways that people can take advantage of. So, one, it can help us store our money. So, during these technological revolutions, massive wealth is created, massive wealth transfers. If you go back and study just the computer age or information age boom, or you go back to the automobile boom, or go back to the steel age, you’ll notice that each time it was different groups of people that got rich. It wasn’t the same people over and over. The old people go out, the incumbents go out, creative destruction, and the new wave ushers in a whole new set of people. And so, this is a massive opportunity for people that understand this technological revolution and can jump into it and we’re going to need money to navigate this because, as prices go up for everything, we’re going to need more money for that.
Mark Moss:
But the other way that I think it really helps is it literally solves the root of the problem. The root of the problem is centralization, the central planning, that’s the root. And so, for years, I’ve listened to the libertarians and the anarchists and these people and they understand the problem and, rightfully so, they’re correct and they’re angry about it but they don’t have a solution for it. And this decentralized revolution, Bitcoin, the technology, the platform, the network, solves that. So, one, it can help us with our money. Two, it literally solves the problem of centralization.
Stephan:
Yeah, yeah. And, look, I think it’s interesting as well. So, obviously, Bitcoin is massive, it’s a huge part of this. Obviously, regularly saving into Bitcoin is, I think, a big part of the answer. I also am seeing more and more of an appetite for this idea. People frame it in different ways. Some people have said it like it’s a national divorce or it’s a devolution of power down from the federal down to the states levels and we’re starting to see that come in the conversation. And it’s not just the right-wing people, it’s actually people on the left as well. And so, it seems to be, there’s a little bit more of a conversation around that. At least, as I read the conversation in the US. And so-
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
… this is something that libertarians and my friend, [Jeff Dice 00:31:49] over the Mesas Institute has done a talk called Smaller is Better and this idea of trying to, wherever you can, push that power closer to where that individual is. Instead of federal, have it at state. Instead of state, have it at local. Instead of local, the individual and the family. And so-
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
… maybe that is also a trend and a direction that we’re going to see and we’re going to see more of this idea. People move to just be in the places that actually support freedom. Maybe that’s really where it’s going to go.
Mark Moss:
Well, it’s massive. And so, I think it’s evident to anybody paying attention, that the world’s trending towards totalitarianism, or authoritarianism, or whatever you want to call it. And, not only is it trending that way, it’s even more scary than that in a sense where technology is giving these authoritarians the tools they need to create this perfect enslavement. They’re trying to get your whole world into one switch with your social credit score and your CBDCs and your health pass and your global ID and all these things into one location that could be turned in on and off. And so, the world is trending that way and I just ask people the question like, “What do you think breaks that trend? Does the government wake up one day and say, ‘Oh, we have too much power, let’s give some freedom back?'” And I would say, the answer is, no, that doesn’t happen.
Mark Moss:
And I don’t think it’s really through guns either. I think the answer is, to your point, competition. Competition is what breaks that trend. And so, in the United States, we saw Texas and Florida out compete New York and California and massive people left those states, productive people left. And then, both governors found themselves on the chopping block. And I think it gets even bigger. So, when states can compete, cities can compete, or when nations can compete. And so, I grew up under the Cold War. Russia and Berlin Wall fell when I was in high school, so I grew up under that. I had lots of friends who had moved from oppressive countries in Europe to the United States. When they came, they came penniless. They couldn’t get their money out of the banks, they couldn’t carry their gold bars, they couldn’t bring their real estate.
Mark Moss:
And so, they did leave to come to America to be productive, but what does it really matter to the country if you leave but they keep all your wealth? But now, today, we can take our wealth with us which, I think, speeds that competition loop up and, I think, that is what breaks that trend. And then, ultimately, the point of what you just said, smaller governments, of course, I’m 100% into that. That’s been the goal of the libertarians or, specifically, more of the anarchists for a long time. The problem is, how do you break the power grip from the central planners in order to be left alone at your state or city level? And so, that’s where there wasn’t that practical application and I think that’s where Bitcoin fits in.
Stephan:
Yeah, that’s right. And I think we might potentially see some smaller states with an incentive to go that direction. As an example, Texas, right?
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
They’ve got their own energy grid. Obviously, we’ve been talking about energy as well, so that’s an important part.
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
They have, historically, a culture of being more independent, more of a discussion around succession. So, I think that’s an example. And, maybe, elsewhere in the world, there might be other countries that, perhaps, though not perfect, have developed a lot compared to what people’s conception of those countries was, say, 20, 30, 40 years ago of saying we might have looked at those countries and thought, “Oh, that’s really just not developed enough, I wouldn’t go and live there.” But, really, now, 20, 30 years on, they’ve developed up a lot. And, although, they wouldn’t necessarily have the exact same very high standards in the west of the typical US, America, UK, sorry, Australia, Canada, they could have more of a viable alternative for people.
Stephan:
And so, maybe that’s something that people will really start to think about more and it’s something that’s on my mind as well, obviously. But, yeah, I wonder what your thoughts are on that international aspect and the countries that have come up a lot recently?
Mark Moss:
Yeah. So, just back to what you said, the succession or some sort of divorce. I think, at this point, it’s the only way forward. The two sides are just so far apart. And not just in the US but Canada, Australia, same thing. And so, there needs to be that separation. If we can’t get that separation in your country where you’re at, then, to your point, internationally, you may have to go and do that.
Mark Moss:
I’m a surfer, so I’ve been traveling the whole world going surfing all over the world. And, typically, we go to very remote places because we’re trying to find places where people don’t go so the waves aren’t as crowded. And so, I’ve been to a lot of very remote places all through Mexico, all through Central America. And, to your point, yeah, they have made massive improvements but they’re still not anywhere near what you might expect in Australia or the US or Canada. And so, unfortunately, we’re at this point, I think, where there’s nowhere in the world that you can go to have it all anymore. And so, you need to figure out what’s most important to you and then you have to optimize for that.
Mark Moss:
And so, for me, freedom is the number one value at the top of my list. And so, I will sacrifice convenience in order to get more freedom. And so, I’ve been down to El Salvador a couple of times throughout the year surfing. I’ve been down there since they did the Bitcoin beach thing. And it’s a beautiful country, the weather is awesome, I could live on the beach and surf and fish every day, I could live pretty free. Because those countries are so underdeveloped, there’s a lot of just being left alone there. But, at the same time, you don’t have any of the conveniences or most of the conveniences that you would find in these developed nations, you don’t have those.
Mark Moss:
But the one thing that, I think, has really changed and at least even the playing field out is that you pretty much have internet anywhere now. And, I think, as long as you have internet, it’s a base level. If I can get food, I can have a nice shelter and I can be on the internet, then I’ll definitely optimize for freedom. And, unfortunately, this is going to probably play out over a number of years or even this decade. But, yeah, as more and more people like El Salvador, for example, has now opened up this program to attract investment into the country just by making Bitcoin a legal reserve or tender, it’s brought all this investment in and now they’re encouraging it. If you invest three Bitcoin, you get residency, et cetera. And so, we’ll see it develop but it’s definitely going to be a slower road.
Stephan:
Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Yeah, it’s an interesting point as well around priorities, what’s your priority? Because, even there, you might think, well, there’s things like freedom against all the restrictions and freedom from taxes. And then, thinking about what’s most important for you and, I guess, that’s also about trying to understand what are the options available out there that you can go to and use and managing that process of transitioning your life out of the country that you once knew and loved. And, maybe, it’s gone downhill a bit and it’s time to get out or, maybe, even get out and take your family out with you.
Stephan:
So, I think those are things that freedom lovers are all thinking about at this point. And I’ll tell you what, I’m getting a lot of messages even from my listeners and followers who are saying, “Oh, how’d you get out? How do you do it? I want to get out. too.” Yeah, I think it’s just on everyone’s minds right now.
Mark Moss:
It’s interesting. I’ve been following somebody called the Sovereign Man, Simon Black, for over a decade and he’s really helped shaped my worldview to where I have today. And I’ve been waiting for this to happen for over a decade because I’ve been reading this stuff. And I wanted to check out on politics a little bit but I’ve been paying attention, almost selfishly waiting, because I knew at some point those walls were going to close in, at some point I was going to have to leave. I want to get out before the doors closed like what happened to you in Australia. And it’s interesting because like Lenin says, “There’s decades where nothing seems to happen and there’s days where decades seem to happen.”
Mark Moss:
And so, for the last decade, I’ve been waiting for this to happen and nothing has been happening. And then, all of a sudden, in a year, it’s, whoa, it’s there. And so, for me, I see all these people, like you said, in Australia that are stuck there. I get messages from them as well. And my goal, I don’t want to get stuck inside my country. And so, I would leave before that happens. But that’s, again, my personal values. I’ve talked to other people who are like, “I’ll just move to Sweden or Norway and I’ll gladly pay the 60 or 70% taxes because I can live free there.” And so, everybody, I guess, has their different levels that they’re looking for.
Stephan:
Yeah, I think that’s a good point. It might literally be worthwhile. In this world where you just want to be able to live a normal life. And, I think, that’s ultimately what a lot of people want. They’re not necessarily very politically engaged or active, they just want to be able to live and raise their family and grill and-
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
… do those typical family things. And so, it just forces a lot more people to start thinking about these things. And so, yeah, I think that’s a big part of it. Also, around the narrative and the messaging. It just seems like the authorities and the powers that be have this way of controlling how everyone thinks. Because the average person is just watching TV and then, anyone who’s trying to speak out against it, they get censored. And, for all we know, this conversation might get censored off of YouTube, who knows? But-
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
… it is a bit concerning. And so, in my mind, here’s a couple things I’m thinking about. So, of course, yeah, there are some of these other platforms that are trying to offer a more decentralized way to put out video content, audio content, text, blogs, whatever. But then, the issue is reach. You can’t reach as many people. And so, it’s an unfortunate trade off that we have to all really think about more carefully.
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
I’m sure you think about this as well, right? You have a-
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
… big audience on YouTube and yet, you don’t want to just say goodbye to that because, obviously, you need that. But I guess, at the same time, you’re trying to build onto other platforms. Is that something you’re looking at?
Mark Moss:
Yeah, definitely. So, following Sun Tzu, The Art of War, you have to realize we’re in a war and you have to learn the techniques for that. And so, what I’m doing, what my plan is, there’s a lot of new technology that’s actually being built on the Bitcoin protocol. And so, I’m looking at setting up some of my communities on that. There’s several communities right now. There’s library, my YouTube videos go over there and that’s this decentralized blockchain thing. I’m not super confident in their censorship resisting capabilities. And then, you have other platforms like Locals or Rumble, things like that but I’m afraid of the rug pull as well. So, I spent all of this time putting my audience over there and then that gets shut down.
Mark Moss:
And so, there’s a couple of communities that are opening up that I’m looking at setting up, that I think could be there long term. But, to your point, you don’t have the reach. And so, this art of war is let’s use the enemy’s weapons. And so, let’s continue to use YouTube, let’s continue to use Twitter, let’s continue to use the tools that they have. But I think we have to, unfortunately, toe the line and play along with their rules. And we use those for reach and then we bring people into our communities where, then, we can really go deep with them and give them the information that we need.
Mark Moss:
And so, that’s my plan. That’s what I’m working on right now. To continue to use YouTube and Twitter to get as close to the line as I can without going over it but continue to pull people and then, push them into a community that I can control. So, one, I have an email list so I control that. But, two, I want to set up these communities where, then, we can really talk about the things that we want. Anyway, that’s my plan for now.
Stephan:
Yeah, and I think that’s useful for a lot of listeners of my show as well because they might have their own content they’re trying to make and put out there and it’s just useful for us to have these ways. And I think you’re right, because it would be silly to just give up, cede that turf when we’ve already spent time fighting to build up an audience or build up a brand. You can’t just cede that turf but you also have to be-
Mark Moss:
And-
Stephan:
Yeah?
Mark Moss:
And you don’t want to blow that up either. So, some people are like, “I’m just going to say whatever I’m going to say and I don’t care if I get banned.” It’s, well, I don’t want to give it up and I don’t want to get banned either. Let’s use their weapon against them. And I think if you’re smart enough, it’s easy enough to get your points across without getting banned, at least for now. Eventually, we’ll probably get there. But while we can, just use their tools and harvest people as much as we can.
Stephan:
Yeah, I think that is a clever approach and something we all have to think about. Because whether it is trying to get our Bitcoin message out there, or whether we are talking about sovereignty and how to achieve that, libertarians trying to talk about liberty, all of these things are going to get shut down eventually. That’s the current track we’re on. So-
Mark Moss:
Yeah.
Stephan:
… we have to be wary with that. But of course, there’s also live events and I know you’ve got a live event on scene. So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that?
Mark Moss:
Yeah, I am having a live event while we’re still able to have them. I thought about pushing it till next year but, at the rate we’re going, who knows if we can have them next year. And so, there’s these three revolutionary cycles happening, we didn’t get into all three of them. But basically, I believe that this decade is going to, probably, change the course of the world. I think we’ll see the end of this giant centralization. Of course, the World Economic Forum says, by 2030, you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy. Mark Moss Carney, head of Bank of England and Bank of Canada and the UN, et cetera, he says that you need to be prepared to have a worse life, you need to be prepared to not be able to fly, not be able to drive, not be able to eat meat et cetera.
Mark Moss:
And so, they have a plan for our lives. I don’t like that plan. I don’t want that plan for my life. And I think history tells us that that plan doesn’t actually work. So, I think that, probably at the end of the decade, we’ll see the end of the giant nation state and I think there’s massive hope and prosperity on that side. The problem is, how do we get from here to there? And I think things, unfortunately, probably continue to get worse for the next several years before we start to see things getting better. And so, while I do have a message of hope, like I said, I want to stay alive to survive and thrive that. And so, I’m having a live event to focus specifically on that. Bringing some of the best people, including you, coming over to talk about what you’re seeing happening now, what you think’s going to happen over the next couple years and, most importantly, what you’re doing or how you think you would survive that.
Mark Moss:
You’re a perfect person because you’re, literally, living it as a refugee from your own country today. But that’s what we’re going to talk about and we’re going to look at it from the political side, the financial side, tools that we have, financial tools that we have and even getting into sustainable living. Passports, plan B, asset protection strategies because I don’t want to own nothing by 2030. And so, really give everybody the tools that they need to understand and to navigate these next couple years.
Stephan:
Yeah, yeah. And I’m excited for it. Yeah, I think it’ll be a great event. I’m looking forward to it myself. So, it’ll be November 12th to 14th?
Mark Moss:
Yeah, yeah, November 12th to 14th in Miami, which is Florida and Texas are the two states holding it down through, we want to go bring them some business. So, yeah, November 12th to 14th in Miami. Stephan and myself, a bunch of good bitcoiners, bunch of other people are going to be there. And another thing that’s important to understand, I think, in order to navigate through this isn’t just the knowledge. You need the knowledge to have actual knowledge but, also, you need to build a community. And a community is just such an important piece that people, I think, really overlooked.
Mark Moss:
And so, getting to events like this where you can actually meet people and build relationships and build rapport and have people to talk to and have people to lean on is also going to be a massive piece of navigating this. I know, you and I, we get to talk sometimes online but getting to hang out in person and all the other people that can come and meet other people, it’s a really important piece.
Stephan:
Yeah, yeah. So, I’m looking forward to that. I think it’s time for everyone to really, at least for the action taking people, to really meet up and start planning things and doing things. Whether that is learning a bit more about Bitcoin or learning a bit more about what you’re going to do about it and learning how to protect your assets, I think there’s a lot there that people can learn and share their strategies on that. So, yeah, I think it’ll be a really cool event so I’m looking forward to that.
Stephan:
I think that’s probably all we’ve got time for for today. I’ve got to pack up and run, got a couple of things on. But, Mark Moss, where can people find you online?
Mark Moss:
Well, I’m all over YouTube. Just search Mark Moss or I’m really active on Twitter,1MarkMoss. The best place, probably, is just go to my website, just 1markmoss.com, 1markmoss.com and you’ll find information on the event and all my social media stuff.
Stephan:
Fantastic. Well, Mark Moss, I enjoyed chatting with you and I look forward to seeing you in person.
Mark Moss:
Thanks so much, Stephan. Appreciate it.