Sam Callahan - The Problem

Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin. Today for episode three hundred and thirty six, Sam Callahan of Swan Bitcoin joins me on the show, and we're talking about the problem with the BIS, the Bank of International Settlements. Now, the BIS has a very shady history. It's one of those supranational government organizations that isn't really accountable possible to you and I. they have all kinds of plans and ideas around social control, central bank digital currencies, and they want to take away everyone's privacy. So Sam joins me to talk about them and what's going on here. This show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Swan is the easy way to accumulate Bitcoin and also learn about Bitcoin. Swan makes all kinds of resources available for free for customers, such as Inventing Bitcoin by Jan Pritzkir, you can also get Twenty One Lessons by GG, and you can also get Why Bitcoin by Toma. Now, Swan also offers gifts, so this is an easy way if you're gifting to somebody in the US, you can sign up and give a gift along with a custom message, and you're also gifting Swan's world-class education. And customer service along with this. So if you wanna sign up for that, the website is onebitcoin dot com slash gift. Lend at HoddleHoddle is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin-backed lending platform where you can lend or borrow stablecoins globally and anonymously. Sign up in just thirty seconds and borrow stablecoins without any verification. Deal directly with other people and control the collateral throughout the whole deal with interest paid at the end. On the other hand, you can earn extra on your stablecoins by lending them. at the highest returns. You issue an overcollateralized loan with full interest guaranteed. With Lend at HodlHodl, you can lend and borrow stablecoins on your terms at your desired interest rate. There's no hidden fees, the terms and conditions are transparent, and the users control the keys in the deal in escrow. So go and check it out at lend.hodlhd.com. Are you looking to get started in Bitcoin mining? Compass Mining can make it easy for you. You don't need advanced technical knowledge to get started. Compassmining.io has all sorts of resources. They have a newsletter, they have podcasts, and you can purchase a, an ASIC machine. If you're in the US, you can have that shipped to your home, and there are guides on how to mine from home. If you prefer to use a hosted facility, they have facilities available where you can have the ASIC sent to that facility and set up there. You pay hosting, and you select the mining pool. To point your hash rate towards and you receive sats you're starting to mine. So over at compassmining dot io, you can have a look at the different machines available. There are some that are second hand and will be online faster, and there are others that are newer and obviously will cost more. But that website is compassmining dot io. And now on to the show with Sam. Sam, welcome to the show. What's going on, Stefan? Yeah, great to speak with you, and, I've seen you've been doing some excellent work in terms of your writing and your thread writing on Twitter, and I obviously wanted to chat with you about a bunch of things, but today I know you've got a, you've got a lot of stuff to talk about with the BIS. So, for anyone who doesn't know you, who are you?

so my name's Sam Callahan. I'm a Bitcoin analyst at Swamp Bitcoin. So I've been there for, about nine months now. And, yeah, I'm, I'm just a Bitcoiner, you know? Right. And as any

Bitcoiner should be, we, try to challenge and skeptically think about things. And in this case, it's really skeptically looking at the BIS. So who, who are the BIS?

Yeah. So the BIS are the Bank of International settlements, and they're essentially a bank for central banks. so you could think of them as like a commercial bank that has complete legal immunities because they were set up under an international treaty, and they basically serve central banks just like a commercial bank would serve regular clients. And so they give out short-term credit to them, they hold deposits for them, they, they do all kinds of things a normal bank would do for central banks. And, their history is a little bit complicated, but that's kind of what they do now. And then along with just being, like a bank for the central banks, they're also like the most elite, event planner company in the world, 'cause they basically set up all these seminars and committees, and a lot of very important discussions happen behind closed doors in Switzerland at the Bank of International Settlements. And then on top of that, they actually have the largest data repository of international- capital flows. and so they're used as like a research center, and they, they give off their data to other central banks, and, that's kind of what they do now.

Right. And so, is there anything you might wanna shed a little-- If you could shed a little bit of insight into their history as well and how this, how these guys formed?

Yeah, it's a good question, and, we're gonna have to go back through history if you don't mind. I think it's important to understand where these- How they came to power and kind of their whole history to understand why they're talking about central bank digital currencies and why anybody's listening to them today. I think it's really important that we go back in time. so they really started way back in, after World War One, with the Treaty of Versailles. they basically laid all the guilt of the war on Germany, and they made them pay ridiculous war reparations that they had no way of paying because their economy was totally in shambles, millions of people died, and it was completely unrealistic the numbers that they came out of the treaty. And so Weimar hyperinflation happened in the early twenties, and then all the- All the way up until 1929, Americans actually were investing in Germany to help rebuild their economy. But then 1929 happened and the stock market crashed, and then all that money and investment dried up, and then Germany was once again about to go into economic crisis, and so they had to basically revamp all the war reparations so that they wouldn't go into another hyperinflationary event. And so in 1930, all the central bankers and politicians got together. And they basically sat down, they're like, "All right, well, can we do?" So they basically revamped those war reparations, made it a little bit easier for the Germans to pay it, and at the same time, they created this bank. to help administer the loans to Germany and help also administer the war reparations from Germany to the Bank of England, to the Bank of France, and so it was almost like a neutral party that was a middleman, okay? And so- When they did this, it was incorporated in Switzerland under an international treaty, meaning that it has complete immunity. So the Bank of International Settlements doesn't, isn't held accountable by any government, any law, they can do whatever they want. So the Swiss authorities can't enter the biz's premises, their assets can't be seized, they don't pay taxes on any of their incomes, and that extends all the way to the bank managers of the biz. For life. Alright, so they have complete legal immunity, given it's under the international treaty. So, so they got set up, and that's what they initially were doing, where they essentially, Germany would say, "Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you guys some gold or some foreign currency to give to the Bank of England to pay off my war reparations." They'd give it to the biz. The biz would say, "Hey, England, Germany paid this. Do you want it all right now, or would that inflate your own currency?" You want us to hold on to it for now, and that's what they did, and then England could draw on the funds whenever they wanted. Now, 1931 happened, and that's when the Nazi Communist Party got a third of the seats, and this caused like a panic throughout the world, and suddenly a lot of capital left Germany again, and they were about to go into another economic crisis. And then the biz said, "Alright, we gotta do something about this." So they got all the central banks together and, and they said, "We're gonna give a loan to them," First time, essentially central banks got together and gave a loan to another country that was in economic crisis to help revive the economy. So this kind of set the stage for central banks, this idea of, "Hey, we can dish out a bunch of capital to a economy and revive it, and that works, and it's also profitable for us." So, so that was like their second, way that they made money after war reparations was giving out loans to struggling economies, and they started doing this to Hungary. Starting dishing out loans to any economy that was in, in trouble. now in 1934, Hitler said, "We're not paying the war reparations anymore, like it's a shame on our people," and he just said, "Hey, we're not doing this anymore." So the Bank of International Settlements just suddenly like, "Alright, what's our purpose now? That was why we were created. I guess we give out these loans, so whatever." but then it realized that there's actually a lot of profits to be made by fees and commission by just being National clearing house for these central banks, so moving large amounts of capital with gold as well as foreign currency exchange, they, they traded between central banks. And so they basically created this innovation at the time, which was earmarked gold, and it was essentially sub-accounts held at central banks that were biz accounts. So all these central banks had specific sub-accounts that were biz accounts. And so when the Central Bank of England wanted to pay gold to, say, the Federal Reserve, they didn't have to put all the gold in a boat and transport it, now they can just say, "Hey, biz, we're gonna move our, gold out, out of our sub account into another biz sub account under the Federal Reserve, and it's just a bookkeeping mark for the biz. They collect the, the fees and the commissions, and it's really quick and it's really fast. And so that's how they kind of shifted their purpose from war operations to giving out loans and to now moving large amounts of capital. And so moving up Are you with me right now? Moving up to, the World War II, this is what they really started to do because, no longer did countries like trade as much once World War II broke out. I mean, there's a war going on, right? But the biz kept their doors open, and they were like, "How are we gonna keep our, how are we gonna make profits now?" And what they ended up doing was they helped Germany, move the gold from looted, like the looted gold from countries that they conquered, from the central banks that they conquered, they helped Germany move their gold into their own accounts, and that's how the biz survived World War II. And so there was a huge, scandal caught with the Bank of Czechoslovakia. So it's Essentially, when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, the, the central bankers in Czechoslovakia were very smart. They moved all their gold before German, forces got to the country, and they moved it to the Bank of England into one of these biz accounts and these subaccounts. And when Germans-Germany got there and they wanted the gold, they were like, "Hey, we want this gold, we conquered you." so they basically put a gun to the central banker's head and said, "Hey, tell the biz that..." We, you wanna move your gold into the Reich bank account, like, and then the central bankers of Czechoslovakia said, "Surely the biz won't do this, right? Surely they won't-- they'll know we're under duress, and why would we want our nation's gold moved into the German account?" And this is really important 'cause it kinda tells you what the biz's priorities are. they think that they- act above any political interest, any social interest is below them. They are the high priests of finance, and their only mission is to promote, like efficient flows of capital and then create financial and economic stability, like whatever that means. So they, they really work like They don't really have a moral compass, they only care about the finances. So to them, it, it was just, "Hey, Germany says that they have, you know, the gold, they're saying they wanna transact it, we're not involved with this war, whatever, we're gonna move the gold." So they just moved all of the wealth of Czechoslovakia into the Reichmark biz account. against their will, and this was a huge scandal, and the United States, like, said, "What is this bank that's working as a financial arm for the Nazis? Like, we wanna shut this down, right?" And, and the Bank of International Settlements said, "Hey, we're a neutral party, like, we're just moving gold, but this was like, very, very big deal at the time." Okay, and then so 1944 comes around, and it's Bretton Woods, and everybody remembers Bretton Woods for the creation of the dollar reserve system and, you know, all that, but they don't remember two other things with Bretton Woods. And one of 'em is the creation of the IMF and the World Bank happened then. And the second was there was a huge discussion about liquidating the Bank of International Settlements for their role of, moving looted gold, right? And being Working with the Nazis. Now, the big, the bank, the biz always kind of said, "You guys need us for post-war reconstruction. We've shown that we can give out loans to countries and revive economies, you're gonna need us." But when they created the IMF and the World Bank, suddenly they didn't need the biz for that at all, like they already had the, those functions covered by the creation of the IMF and the World Bank. And so- So they had really struggled to justify their existence at that point in 1944. and then the US Treasury Secretary at the time, he said, "You know, we gotta shut this thing down. They're way too powerful. They're protected under international treaty. we gotta shut this thing down now." Lo and behold, John Maynard Keynes would not sign the Bretton Woods Agreement with that clause in there. So these familiar names come into play here. John Maynard Keynes said, "We aren't gonna have that clause in here. I'm not gonna..." I'm gonna walk away. it's too big of a decision to be made here to shut down the biz. and so it wasn't included and the biz just kind of got away and everything was forgotten about that whole thing about the gold and the Nazis. It was just kind of swept under the rug. So that's the beginning of the biz. So, and then, it get-- and then, just a little bit more. So after that, they kind of struggled to, again, justify their existence. But then the Marshall Plan was- There was a twelve billion dollar American plan to revitalize the, European economy after World War II, and they suddenly were like, "Who's gonna help administer these loans? Who's gonna help, kind of, build back this whole system and build a more..." European integrated payment system, and the biz just kind of rose their hand, and, and that kind of assured their survival throughout the entire 1950s. and so they, they set up the European Payment Union, which they collected all the fees and commission of that, and they, they used all the funds of the Marshall Plan and kind of helped revitalize the economy of Europe. and then by the time in 1965, what their real purpose is today was the IMF. he, they basically said, they did a huge two year study of the, the global monetary system, and the IMF said, "Hey, all you central banks, we're gonna aggregate data of all the commercial banks in your area, and then we're gonna give it to the Bank of International Settlements, who's gonna analyze the data and be an early warning sign for all the central banks if anything cracks notice in the global financial system, the Bank of International Settlements will be there." And that's- One of their general purpose today is they're this huge data repository and research center that other central banks use, and that really started in the '60s. And so that's kind of where the Bank of International Settlements started. It's very complicated, and they've shifted their purpose throughout the early years into what they are today.

Right. And it's really interesting as well, some of the comments you were making there around the international treaties that almost render them immune to accountability from- the average people of most countries. And so if an average person of a country wanted to do something about the existence of these entities like the BIS, what realistically

could they even do?

Nothing.

Literally nothing. Not even a government can do anything, that's the thing. It's-- and that's why, you know, you have to start asking questions like, who is this organization? Because they have a ton of power and they really shape the world by their policy decisions and their in- In the ears of these really, these central bankers and these politicians, and they really, they heed their advice, but they're completely unaccountable. And if you think about it, you know, it kind of infringes on the sovereignty of nations all over the world, and especially democracies where, like, America is a republic, it's made up of elected officials who are elected by sovereign individuals, and those sovereign individuals didn't elect anybody at the biz who's making these really, really big- Decisions. So they're these transnational organizations of unelected officials that are making really important decisions. And so you, we should question them, but nobody does. and nobody can really do anything about it because they have complete legal immunity, by the way, that their, their statutes are basically protected by the international treaty from 1930. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting.

Right. And it also, I mean, hypothetically, let's say if you could have enough people who were interested- Maybe they could, they could sort of bring up a movement to try to make something happen, but essentially it would just be-- it's an extremely high bar to change anything about the BIS at this point, that it would just take a lot of people all riling up and saying something about it or doing something about it, and I think it-- the point that I wanted to ask a little bit further about is, as you were saying, it's some of the people inside these entities act as though they are above it all, right? They act as though they sort of go even above and beyond Like what would typically be expected for people in some of these roles. It almost reminds you of how, there was a recent-- I can't remember the exact example, but I think it was a US defense person who was c-- like collaborating with like a Chinese defense person and saying, "We would tell you, right?" Yeah. It's kind of like, "Yeah, are these people having an allegiance to, like, to their own people and their own country, or are they just having their own interests at heart?"

You know, I think these guys, they really think they Their feet because of what they do for us, which is financial stability and provide economic growth and, and prosperity for all. That's kind of what they were founded on, it's part of their mission statement today. So they think that they're at such a high level that they're, they only care about finance. So it's like what I was saying, they, they don't, they don't really have a moral compass, they don't care about the, the frivolous activities of those pesky politicians and governments. It's part of the reason why it was created under international treaty by these central bankers, it was the same central bankers that started the Bank of England and, and the Federal Reserve. It's the same characters. They wanted a bank that, that acted above governments 'cause they were sick of, of dealing with it, of all the, the regulations. They thought that, you know, they wanted to act in finance so they could stabilize the world, and that's kind of the same mentality that we see today.

I see, yeah. And so, Sam, I know you've been going through and doing Some research on what the BIS have been saying. So, I guess firstly, what, what were you hoping to gain by going through, why bother going through all these papers and research? And, maybe if you could tell us a little bit about some of the high-level insights that you found.

I've always been interested in, like, learning about these, like, organizations and central banks, you know, even before I got into Bitcoin. I studied the global financial crisis pretty deeply, and I was always-- I used to go into the Federal Reserve website And like keyword Bitcoin on all the transcripts of speeches and stuff like that, so just to try to find nuggets of what they were doing, because, you know, it's like that quote, "Know, know thy enemy, and you'll never be defeated." I think it's really important to understand what they're thinking and what kind of plans they're, they're planning for the world, because it gives us a better idea of how to protect ourselves and, and what narratives kind of to, to combat, because you can kind of see what they're thinking, 'cause they kind of, they About what they're planning.

And so then out of your research, what were some of the high-level themes that you were seeing? So, so

basically a few things, They are really interested in a global digital ID system. They want to set up what they call like an account-based CBDC, which is tied to a specific identity of an ind-individual. The main critiques against Bitcoin throughout all these publications were it's bad for the environment and it's used by criminals, so that's still what they focus on with Bitcoin specifically. and then they really think that the vaccine rollouts are important for the economic recovery, and those are probably Probably the most high level things I'd say.

Right. And so let's go a little further into this whole idea of central bank digital currencies or surveillance coins or control coins. What are they and why is the BIS so excited about this?

Well, central bank digital currencies, they're essentially-- the why the BIS is excited about them is because they provide efficiency. So that's all the BIS really thinks about is how can we make capital movement more efficient, how can we make cross border transactions more efficient? Efficient, and then they actually provide an, easier transmission of monetary policy because you'd have a direct account with the central bank. So, you know, today when we do monetary policy, it goes-- it basically creates bank reserves, and it depends on the banks to loan out those funds to Main Street, and so it's very inefficient, and so that's been an ongoing problem. You know, with central bank digital currencies, what would happen was an individual would have a direct claim with the central bank, the CBDC with the central bank, and so that would allow them to do all kinds of new things with monetary policy that they can't do today, and it actually allow them to see how it's working in the economy in real time. Right now, they have to depend on like delayed reports from banks to see how the monetary, policy is actually getting into the real economy with, with a CBDC, There's a lot of benefits for them, for how they kind of elicit their, monetary policy, kind of bring it into the economy, as well as just like cross border payments and all these efficiency gains from it.

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Well, for, for us, I mean, essentially it would kind of infringe on our privacy and our freedom, right? So our freedom of choice of, if everything is cashless and it's in a, you only have a CBDC, that really gives them a lot of power, so they can do anything they want really. Any- Kind of monetary policy, if you don't like it, there's really nothing you can do, and this is in a world without Bitcoin, right? But, but they would be basically, if they wanted to do negative interest rates, they could do it. If they wanted to say like, "Hey, we wanna give only the monetary policy to this specific cohort of people who did this, we wanna..." Cut people access off from the financial system because they're dissidents, and we don't agree with what they're saying, they could do that. So it's kind of a more draconian world, and then what they would be able to do is get all your data. I mean, they would have basically all your financial data to use and to analyze, and so it, it would basically set up this potential for state surveillance and control. So yeah, it's, it's kind of scary to think about what could come from that. I think the Bank of International Settlement Evidence, I think there's, you know, there's probably some good people in there, good-natured people who actually have good intentions with this stuff, and they're just thinking about the benefits, but they don't think about how this could be used poorly against the people. And so those are what the potential scenarios are if, if we did get on this account-based CBDC system with a digital ID system combined with it. I

see. So summarizing, essentially, if central banks had complete oversight into the money using a CBDC, they could essentially see every- Everything that's going on in the system, any semblance of privacy would be gone, and they could start to very specifically target monetary policy, and they could start to target very individual people's access to things. They might say, "We don't want you to spend your coin on air flights because you have used this X, Y, Z number of emissions," or "We don't want you to purchase this kind of food because we think that's not healthy or not..." Aligned with our sponsors. So there could be all kinds of ways where a person might go into this with good intentions, even, even if we were to steelman that view and say, "Well, we're gonna use it to stop the terrorists or whatever," yep, the reality is, even in that sense, there's still going to be a massive loss of freedom and a massive loss of autonomy for the everyday person.

Yeah, and they say that, I mean, they say it in their own jargon, they say it. I mean, they say, "In addition, you know, Programmable and allow information specific monetary transfers. You know, that's how they say it, right? But if you, you know, decipher that, that's basically what you just said, right? They'd be able to have specific information to give monetary transfers. And if you think about how the independence of the Fed has basically eroded over the last, you know, five years or so, and how close they are to Treasury, you can see how politics can get involved with this power. And so that's when it kind of gets scary. Right,

and additionally, it might push things more in a global direction, right? So currently, the world doesn't have a global government. There are something like two hundred nations on the earth today, but to some extent, this push towards global central bank digital currencies may mean an attempt to supersede each nation's own sovereignty and control.

Yeah, I would say that they already have that power. You know, they've already wielded that power For decades, like I said, they basically influence policy decisions, on these governments. So they, they're kind of already do that, but this would just give them more ability to do that. And so like, you know, we could probably talk about this at some point, but like the multi-multi-CBDC systems that they're setting up, they really say like one rulebook, but they don't say like who would write that rulebook or who would enforce it. You know, who would it be? Would it be a committee of central bankers? y-y'know Just like the ECB or the, the Bank of International Settlements, when they're under these international treaties, there's nothing anybody can do about it, like literally. And so, yeah, I mean, that's kind of why I, I'm so passionate about getting this information out there, because I feel like, in a way, the, the sovereignty of nations are at risk here of, of these organizations, these, these supranational organizations.

I see, yeah. And so as you mentioned, I mean, we might as well go into that. So with multi-CBDCs, can you give us an overview of what kinds of ideas they are proposing here?

essentially, you know, they realize that all the central banks are working on central bank digital currencies. I mean, there's like, I think something greater than eighty percent of 'em are have a pilot program or have been doing research into 'em, but they're realizing that it's not gonna work if they-- everyone just has their own little CBDC system that doesn't help extremely inefficient. And so their, then their idea was to get them on all in one system, that would have one digital ID s-s-system as well as, one rulebook for The monetary system, the infrastructure, and, and one person or a group of people or an organization would be the operator of that system. And so they're trying to make the interoperability, interoperability of these payment systems to reduce friction, their idea was to have this global CBDC system under one rulebook. And so, They don't really specify, it's really early days with this one, that, that they're just getting into this. I mean, it'll probably take them over a decade to try to do something like this, but that's kind of the idea behind it.

Right. And so sometimes- It's almost like they float a trial balloon out there and then, yeah. Eventually over time, that idea does actually become, come to fruition. And so I guess on one point we could think, "Well, hang on, how feasible is it that all of these, say, two hundred different countries, or even, let's say, a hundred of the larger ones, how realistic is it that we would see them agree? Because in many cases, they have different values, different religion, different culture, different ideas. How likely is it that all the central banks- banks or say the governments of those large nations would be able to agree, given at least to some extent, they have countering interests with each other.

Yeah, obviously, yeah, the world's pretty like divided right now, so you'd think it wouldn't be that likely, but honestly, I think people, there's probably higher probability than you'd think, because when the world goes to shit and, there's actual crises, what happens is, is these central bankers get together at these accords, at these, you know, comm- committees at these conferences, specifically in Basel at the Bank of International Settlements, where they have these discussions and they try to re-rebuild the system, create a new system. and, and it reminds me a lot these multi-CBDCs, it reminds me of the euro, because the euro was actually the Bank of International Settlements' child. They created it, in nineteen eighty nine at the DeLors Committee, they got together and they basically wrote this paper about the European- Union to European integration, and it's this kind of the same thing, where you have all these different countries with different cultures, but what the Biz did was they created the European Union, again under international treaty, and then the same thing, they wrote about fifteen working papers similar to the CBDC of all these working papers about the euro. And then in nineteen ninety nine, fast forward, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Central Bank is created with the Biz under the same legal immunity. And it, it manages twenty seven countries, and when the countries join the Eurozone, they give up their sovereignty, their monetary sovereignty to the, the European Central Bank. And what, what happened with the euro is what you're saying, where it goes back to the biz, they don't think about the political, the culture, anybody, they just think, "Wow, this is gonna be great, you know, trade is gonna flow and it's gonna be really efficient if everybody's on one currency." But what they found out was that everyone's different, like Germans Like to save more, Greeks spend more, and they all had their own fiscal policy and tax, tax policies and spending, so it's been kind of a mess with the euro. I mean, it's been a disaster. So the, the multi-CBDCs remind me a lot of the euro with the Bank of International Settlements, because it's the same thing. They're trying-- but they're doing it at the global stage. They're trying to put every single country with different needs, different cultures under one essential monetary policy under one rulebook. And we saw how it happened with the euro and how it went, but they're still thinking this is a good idea. so I think it is possible, I think-- Is it likely? I'm not sure. It's, it's pretty hefty lift for them to get this not only built, but then to get everybody agree to it. I mean, things would probably have to be pretty rough out there, in terms of the current system maybe collapsing or being in trouble for this to actually get pushed through, I think, but It's possible.

So with those parallels there as well around the EU and the euro and what went on there in terms of the sovereignty of the individual nations being diminished in favor of the EU, obviously, another aspect I've seen you talk about is this idea that central banks all around the world can correlate information. And so what are you seeing there? Are they able to correlate information on individual people and then tie that in with spending information?

Yeah, so, you know, in, in 2019, in one of their papers, they said that they use like, you know, financial surveillance tools, and they used to use 12 tools, and now it's 71, I think, today. And so from the pandemic, if you think about it from their perspective, how much happened in, in 2020 in terms of the liquidity swap lines with central banks, like I give them a little-- they probably just need more tools to understand where the flows are, are going right now,

You have to understand, like, financial information, it can tell a lot about an individual. I, I don't know what this quote is, I forgot who said it, but it's like, "Tell me, show me where you spend, and I'll tell you what you worship." And so you can, you can piece together information about somebody by their financial information and really learn who they are as an individual just by having that information. I mean, that's kind of what we learned from Edward Snowden and, and, and the use of big data. And so one of the papers looked at the big Almost eighty percent of them use machine learning and big data today, and that's only increasing. And that paper was interesting because they're not like wondering if they should do it, it's more like, we have so much of it that we can't store it and process it and analyze it, this is a problem. And they're actually teaming up with other central banks together to be like, hey, let's share resources so we can analyze this big data better. And they're scraping websites, they're looking at social media, they're looking at all that stuff, and you have to wonder, like, with that data. And so, but, but the problem is that they're under international treaties, so even if they were misusing that data, there's nothing anybody could do. And so there's no way to even look into how they're utilizing this massive amounts of data. And this goes back to 1965 with that IMF re-research report. So essentially, they told All the commercial banks to aggre-aggregate their data, their assets and liabilities, give it to their local central banks, and then all the central banks give it to the BIS, and so the BIS has like got all of it, and they, and they, they have all this data to do with it, and that's why they put out a lot of research, and that's why they do all this stuff. And to be fair with them, I'll, I'll throw 'em a bone because Given the business, origins of Weimar Germany, they are really against excessive easy money and credit. And so in the early nineties, they, they used that access to data of, of looking at the international flows and the credit markets to say, "Hey, there's a lot of easy, excessive credit going on in Asia right now. Like, you guys gotta chill out." And then suddenly in nineteen ninety-seven, we had the Asian debt crisis, and so the biz was warning about that. And then in two thousand three and two thousand four 2004, they were banging the table about the easy credit going on with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, like almost four years before the global financial crisis. So I have to give them a little bit of credit, so that's kind of what they do, the good side of, of the data, right? They're tracking. But there's a lot of, you have to wonder all this other stuff that they have and why are they looking at social media accounts? Why are they looking at these things? because they have so much of it. They literally probably have more data Than anybody in the world, they have the world's largest data repository of financial information in the world, hands down. and so there's no accountability, there's, there's nothing at all to kind of check them of what they're doing with that data. and they only-- it's only increasing, it's not going down, you know, the trend is increasing that they're using more and more data and using machine learning, and so you have to just-- you have to ask some questions, and nobody's really asking any questions about that. Right. And

related is this idea of credit scores acting as a kind of disciplinary device, and this is very reminiscent of what is going on today with the Chinese Communist Party and the social credit scores going on already. So do you see parallels there and what's coming to the rest of the world?

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, it's an interesting paper because it's titled "What Lessons We Can Learn from China," and it's really about FinTech companies Companies. So it's about the rise of Alibaba and Tencent and Ant Financial associated with Alibaba as major, essentially financial players as payment systems, and the biz is looking into them as almost like competition and wondering if that's good and what are the effects of these large fintech companies on the financial system for stability. But this is kind of what I'm talking about. They almost like tease certain things, like little nuggets, and what they did is they threw in this little story, and it's really out of place in this paper, like it doesn't really make sense why they talk about it. And they, they basically say, about credit scores in China, how their u- that how Ant Financial had these credit scores, and then they worked with the courts of China, about these people who defaulted on their car loans, and they were saying how the credit scores, but specifically the private information backing the credit scores, can be used as disciplinary forces. And so what happened was, fifty-three hundred of these people Who defaulted on car loans, they were blacklisted from thousands of merchants and services, their names were released to the public, and so they were shamed and restricted, and they were voluntarily, you know, they voluntarily paid off the loans, After they did that, and, and, and the biz just found that interesting, and it's, it's, it's such a weird thing to throw into this paper to actually put into print, and you have to ask like, why they did that? And then if you think about a credit score, it's kind of like a pseudo-social credit score, it's kind of been normalized, but it's not like what China's doing, but you can kind of see how it's a slippery slope and kind of lead to something like that in the

future. So with all of these things, and And what are we seeing in terms of the war on cash? Are you seeing, what, what kind of, impacts are you seeing there around the discouragement of cash payment?

Well, you know, in that, in that one paper, they talk about like how a CBDC would work in a cashless society. And, you know, one of the things with the CBDC, like we talked about before, is it gives them kind of complete control over the monetary policy. Specifically, if you think about something like negative interest rates. One of the reasons why they can't just enforce that now is everybody could just withdraw the cash and put it under, you know, their bed or something, whatever. if there's no cash to go to, there's no escape valve, they can kind of trap people into whatever policy they want, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. And this isn't what they say explicitly in the paper, but they're just kind of exploring what that world would look like. And so, you know, again, this is like in a non-bitcoin world, like, thank God for Bitcoin, because But, in a cashless world, they would have even more power with a CBDC. and, and, you know, the war on cash has been going on for a while. The Kenneth Rogoff is a major economist that wrote a book on it and- You know, for, you can't surveil cash, so that's their justification to try to get rid of it, one of the things, it's used for illicit activity, all those common things to justify, the CBDC is the same thing. but the thing is, actually, I looked into this a little bit and cash is actually on the rise, which I found surprising, throughout the world. So it's, that's a good thing. It's, we're not very close to a cashless society yet, but they're definitely exploring what that

What can be done about all of these things? What can be done about the BIS? Is it lobbying? Is it activism? Is it building an alternative? What do you think?

you know, I think just like raising awareness about this stuff is important, which is, you know, when I wrote this thread, I wasn't expecting the response, but, one of the active congressmen retweeted it and he said, "This is a threat to our democracy," and that was really cool, more so because he knows about it now, and I don't know I don't know if he was familiar with what was going on here, and I don't know how many congressmen even know what the Bank of International Settlements is, let alone their plans for a CBDC. And so raising awareness, talking to people about this stuff who have large platforms is important, I think. Now, obviously, Bitcoin's a huge part of this, so I think with Bitcoin, for me, like when I think about all these privacy, you know, problems with the C- BDC, you know, I look at Bitcoin and I think there's a lot of improvements to be made on that front too with, with privacy in Bitcoin. And so how do, how do you use Bitcoin more effectively, to ensure your privacy? And that's using things like Whirlpool and CoinJoin, as well as, you know, supporting privacy-enhancing technologies like mesh networks and things like that. That's kind of how we can protect ourselves against this future. And it's part of the reason why I'm Bitcoin only. I mean, I think it's the only tool, period, to help combat this problem. And, and I'm interested in real threats to freedom, which is the CBDCs and these supranational organizations and, and, and big government and, you know, state surveillance and things like that. And so Bitcoin, because of its decentralization and censorship resistance, you know, there's nothing that even comes close to Bitcoin. And so it's why I spend all my time on it and I don't worry about any- Any of these other, you know, altcoins because they don't have the same assurances at all, and they aren't gonna help us in this battle against CBDCs, against these, you know, organizations that really are a threat to our freedoms and our privacy. And so when I think about like David and Goliath, for instance, you know, David had the perfect tool to bring down a really powerful foe. hit him right in between the eyes, he dropped. same thing with like Achilles Paris had the perfect tool, bow and arrow, to bring him down, a really powerful foe, and the Bank of International Settlements and the central bankers have held power for decades. I mean, they're, they're masters at it, and they're, they're on the money printer, they are the money printers. So they have endless funds, they have endless power, so you need the perfect tool, right? And so I think supporting Bitcoin and, and putting all your efforts into Bitcoin is the right move if you wanna try to combat this. This scary draconian future.

Well said, Sam. So I think there are a lot of issues with these supranational organizations and ultimately not facing the same level of accountability that other institutions and individuals face. And so I think it just comes down to enough people being aware about the challenges and, the problems, that they pose to a free society. So is there anything else you're looking at from a supranational, organization point of view that people should be aware of?

you know, I kind of, I did this for a lot of different organizations. I haven't really shared my research yet for the other ones, but, you know, there's, it's just like there's so many of them now. you know- You know, there's the IMF, there's the World Economic Forum, and there's all these characters and connections between them. And so, you know, I, I'm probably gonna be sharing more research in the future. I think I'm gonna make this more of like a, a thread series called "Behind Enemy Lines." It's kind of dramatic, but, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep sharing some of these stuff, with the IMF. It's all kind of intertwined, and they're all kind of on the same page with a lot of things. And you see, like, when you talk about like, can these things coordinate with each other, one another? I think the pandemic is a perfect example where you, you saw like coordination at the governmental and supranational level that we've never really seen before. They're all kind of parroting the same narratives, and it just seems like very coordinated. And so I'll definitely like share more research, it would probably be going into a long thing if we start getting into the IMF right now or something like that, but, yeah, there's, there's a lot. Yeah, there's, there's a lot to get into, with these organizations, and, you know, that's what, you know, I'm just kinda focusing on the problem, because a lot of-- it's like kind of, it's more hopeful to read about Bitcoin and the solution, I think it's, it's fun to research that stuff. It's not as fun to go into the biz's publications and, and read about like a dreadful future that they kind of have in store. And so I think it's important to share that so people under-- better understand the solution, which is, I think, Bitcoin. and you know, like somebody said in my comments, they're like, "Thanks for this thread, man, but, I'm gonna go take a shower and wash the, wash the biz off me." So I think that's kind of how I feel when I'm researching it, but, you know, I think Messages out and to raise awareness.

Well, that sounds fantastic, Sam. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your threads and, of course, chatting again, when the time's right. but where can people find you online if they wanna keep up with you and follow your work? yeah, so,

you know, I'm mostly on Twitter, so you can follow me at, at sam callahan, s a m c a l l a h. and then I write, you know, blog posts on the, the Swan website, so you can just go and yeah, that's pretty much it. That's, that's where I spend a lot of my time. Fantastic, thanks for joining me. Thanks, Stefan. Appreciate it, man. Have a good one.

I hope you enjoyed that exploration of the BIS, and I think these supranational, unaccountable organizations do need more scrutiny, and so I do plan to try to discuss more about some of them in future also. If you're enjoying the show, make sure you help by Sharing it out on social media and leaving a review on your podcast platform so that other people can also find out. Get the show notes at stephanlivera dot com. Thanks for listening, and I will see you in the citadels.