David McWilliams

Second big claim of the book is that

money starts with credit it doesn't start with coins it doesn't start with a physical transaction it certainly doesn't start with the the nonsense of barter and all that stuff that we we learned when we were in school okay so it starts with credit and credit then is finance it's the bedrock of finance and things like reputation trust rates of interest all these things flow from that and are enmeshed with that and then finally

What does this mean for our comprehension, Brendan?

I know we're trying to synthesize a book in a very short conversation.

Well, not that short, but a conversation.

What does it mean for people's... Once you understand those two things, that money is chaos and sovereignty tries to catch up with it,

The euro-dollar system is enormous, and there's a fragility at the center of the global system, which may or may not be policed by the Fed, but will increasingly be policed, or could be, politically by the Treasury.

And certainly if the Treasury takes over the Fed, as Donald J. Trump would like, there's no doubt that those swap lines, which are an essential lubricant of the international system, will be politicized, or will become more politicized.

And then finally, you take those two big ideas, right?

What does it mean for people's understanding of, we started the Fed, central banking, the Federal Reserve, because an enormous amount of newspaper coverage, of online coverage is, you know, the Federal Reserve said this, and the macroeconomics and the Federal Reserve said that, and they're looking at the rate of interest and the rate of inflation.

What you're kind of saying is that's all slightly nonsensical.

Explain that to me.

Now, Brendan, that leads to the last question.

If the coin is the product of 150 years of not just regulation, but asset building, wealth creation, streams of income, etc., where does that leave this stuff called cryptocurrencies?

I mean, it's just not new, David.

Well, on that note, I do recommend The Almighty Dollar by Brendan Greedy.

Whether you're a crypto dude or not,

I read the original draft.

It is fascinating.

We start in deepest Germany, maybe even Sudetenland, which is now part of the Czech Republic, or Czechia, as it's called.