Max Keiser is a prominent figure in the Crypto space, and we had the opportunity to talk to him about his show, his life and the podcasts he is running with his wife, Stacy Herbert. He has contributed to the markets, technology inventions and exchange, as well as a broadcaster and filmmaker. He hosts Keiser Report, a financial program broadcast on the media channel RT that features heterodox economics theories. In 2020, he started another podcast called The Orange Pill. Please read about his interesting way of looking at life and economy.
Max Keiser
Interview Date : 4th August 2020
How do you think about the economy, digital stock market, and has the stock market changed since the 1980s?
It has not changed in terms of the disconnection between the economy, and the stock market, which started to get quite pronounced during the 1980s. This was due to the creation of the derivatives market, and it has grown ever wider since the 1980s. Here we are in the 2020s, and the disconnect and the economy have reached kind of a fatal disconnect. We are starting to see the economy completely collapsing because those people who are manipulating the stock market are running away with the goods. This is basically a heist that we have seen, and the top millionaires are succeeding in stealing the global economy.
How do you feel about the current market situation, and how would you like to change it?
I started my career on Wall Street in 1983, so I rode this way for 40 years. I feel like I was lucky to be riding on the right side for 40 years, but I feel bad for young people today who are unfortunately not going to be in good shape because of the situation even though the way to fix it is quite simple. It would be to raise interest rates because you want to raise the cost of financial terrorism. If you want to stop financial terrorism, you have to make it too expensive for the financial terrorist to engage in financial terrorism. The only way to do that is to raise interest rates. Instead, what is going on is that interest rates are going down, and that is to facilitate financial terrorism that is making it easier, cheaper, and more profitable. We have to change that.
Can you tell us about how you started your career and how your journey has been?
I started on Wall Street in the 1980s as a stockbroker. I was in Los Angeles in the 1990s, and I invented a technology for digital scarcity as part of a currency that I invented for an exchange I launched. The exchange was for trading mediate derivatives that I also invented as part of what became known as the prediction market industry. So, I did all that in the 1990s. Then, we sold out to a bank in 2001, and later I started Bitcoin in 2011 at a dollar, and we have been talking about it now for almost 11 years. I saw it as a more perfect technological solution for digital scarcity.
What does gold mean to you?
Gold has evolved to become the best form of money around the world. It took a couple of thousand years for gold to become the primary form of money around the world. It is the only form of money that is trusted on a central bank level, and the central bank still deals in gold. They still are on a gold standard, even though they don’t recognize it as a currency. Central banks still use it to back up their banks to exchange with other central banks. It is the one monetary standard that connects all points in history going back thousands of years, and Bitcoin, of course, is digital gold. It was able to replace gold, in my opinion, and it approves of gold. It means that we have a new chapter in monetary history that started in 2009 with Bitcoin.
Is there a Gold and Bitcoin disparity?
Anyone in the Bitcoin space who doesn’t like gold, doesn’t understand either Bitcoin or gold. Thus, it is a question of education and knowledge. If you are a Bitcoiner and you don’t understand gold, you don’t understand Bitcoin. Likewise, if you are a gold bug, and you don’t understand or appreciate Bitcoin, then you don’t understand gold. So, there are not a lot of people who really under-stand what gold and Bitcoin are, or how they work.
Are there any issues that yet have to be solved?
I think that what we don’t know about Bitcoin is an issue. Right now, what we don’t know exceeds what we know about Bitcoin. I always say that Bitcoin changes you, and you don’t change Bitcoin. As the hash rate goes up, as it becomes more secure, as the price goes higher, it changes human behavior and human society and we are still in the process of this transformation. A lot is still yet to be revealed. All of the misunderstanding and squabbles that you hear from different camps are all immaterial to the path of Bitcoin as to where it is taking us as a species into the future.
Is Bitcoin moving parallel to the stock market?
I don’t think that it would be correct to say that Bitcoin follows the stock market. If you take a step back and look at Bitcoin and the stock market over the past 10 years, you will see that statement is not true. Nassim Taleb wrote a book called Fooled by Randomness, and that describes this situation the best. Occasionally the two appear to be trading together, but that is just a random situation that you shouldn’t be fooled by. Take a step back and look at the 10-year chart, and you will see that Bitcoin is on a unique path, not correlated to any asset at all.
Is there anything pumping of Bitcoin to raise its price like the Fed is pumping money into stock market prices?
Demand is! On the periphery, there is always a lot of noise and a lot of trading that can create short-term moves in any market. However, in the long-term, the price will move up based on demand. The demand keeps growing as the fiat money around the world keeps collapsing.
Is there a free market in the market space?
In Bitcoin, there is a free market. However, I would say that it is not true for the other crypto coins. I don’t believe they are trading in a free market at all.
How do you feel about people coming to your show, and learning about Bitcoin from being on your show?
I feel humbled by channeling Satoshi Nakamoto, and I am pleased that so many folks around the world have been educated about Bitcoin thanks to the Keiser Report. We estimated that we have created 100 thousand millionaires.
What was the reaction of the people when you first started talking about Bitcoin openly?
In the past, there have been 3 bubble bursts. The first one was in 2011-2012 when the price moved from 30 dollars to 1 dollar. Then we saw it move back from 1000 dollars to 250 dollars, and lastly, from 20000 dollars to 3500 dollars.
When a new asset class is emerging, a lot of volatility is to be expected. So, you want that volatility because that is needed for security. In other words, in Bitcoin’s monetary policy of coin emission, every 10 minutes is the only real thing that matters, and not the volatility. The hash rate that keeps going up almost exponentially is what is important, and not the volatility. The underlying fundamen-tals of Bitcoin are what are important, and not the price. The price is the least important part of Bitcoin, and if you focus on price, then you are missing what Bitcoin is all about.
What kind of critic did you get for talking about Bitcoin and digital currency?
You will get criticism for anything new that people don’t like. People don’t like change and new things. They say “we like new things”, but in reality, people don’t like new changes to their eve-ryday life and society. They like to carry on doing the same chores because human nature resists change. In 2009 when you had the appearance of a new better form of gold, certainly a lot of people were scared by that, and they were afraid to buy it. So, they expressed that fear in terms of anger. That’s to be expected, and that’s what happened. Every revolution is the same. Every transformative technological innovation that has been introduced is the same, whether it was the airplane, the printing press, and even fire. The creation of fire is something we still talk about. Who is responsible and who should be punished for those innovations? Humans are very routine-oriented, and to upset the routine makes people angry, and when they express their anger. However, it doesn’t change the facts.
What platform is the most influential platform to learn and get information about Bitcoin from?
The Keiser Report, is the most influential tv show relating to Bitcoin that has been there for 10 years. It reaches the biggest audience and has the best content. Stacy Herbert is the best pro-ducer, the best writer, and director, and if you put that together, you get the best show. We put Bitcoin on the map, I must say. We put it on the global map.
What Kind of books do you recommend?
That Depends on what your interests are. The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous is very good. If you are looking for the technical aspects, then the books by Andreas Antonopolous are also very good. So, I would start there.
What ideology do you believe in?
In 2009 a new ideology was born, and that is the ideology of Satoshi Nakamoto. So, I would describe myself as a Satoshi-st, because I evolved. I had an instant evolutionary leap into an iron state of consciousness. After that, I obliterated all previous schemes of thoughts and paradigm phi-losophies. In a way that I became closer to god. I am directly channeling the intention of god through Bitcoin. Bitcoin is God’s money.
Are there Any people who you admire?
I would say Nassim Taleb is probably one of the most fascinating thinkers and public intel-lectuals of our time. He speaks about a lot of different matters, currencies, and he is an excellent chef. He covers Lebanese food, like black squid ink pasta. He likes to walk around and eat fine food, and give his opinion on things. What could be better?
How is a country’s development status related to Bitcoin knowledge?
Bitcoin is known everywhere in the world, and depending on how bad your economy is, the number of people who know about it goes up. In the case of Lebanon, since the economy and the currency just crashed, and they are experiencing an existential threat. Due to this, knowledge about Bitcoin is spreading. The same thing with Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe, etc. Countries that are experiencing hyperinflationary currency collapse or economic destruction, they start to get educat-ed on Bitcoin quickly.
Do you think America is going to experience hyperinflation in the future?
The United States has the US dollar, and the US dollar is a global currency, and this is how America controls the global empire. It is the last country probably to experience hyper-Bitcoinization because it is the primary beneficiary of having the world reserve currency; the US dollar. It is also a country where you have an incredible gap between the people at the top and everybody else at the bottom. What is more, the people at the bottom have the least ability to change the system than in other countries.
How is the global economy transitioning today?
We are currently transitioning away from a globalized world that has been dominated by America ever since World War II. I believe we are heading into a multi-collar world of de-globalization. This will be where you have the rise of Russia, China, Iran, and German that probably will be the dominant economic force going forward. America will become a second-tier country, and I would imagine Japan remaining somewhat similar to how it is now. In the grand scheme of things, Japan wouldn’t be at the top but not in the bottom either.
Any other projects that you are planning?
We have launched a new podcast that premiered on the 16th of August called The Orange Pill Podcast. The concept of the Orange Pill Podcast is to uncover what happens after you have had the red-pilled. Many people say “they took the Red Pill” or “I am woke”. But now what?
After you take the red pill, you have to take the orange pill. The orange pill is really the Bitcoin pill, and everything that encompasses Bitcoin financially, monetarily, religiously, economically, spiritually, sociologically, psychologically, cosmically, universally, etc. So, you have to make sure you don’t miss it.
What Kind of activities and talk do you and Stacy have off-screen?
Right now, we talk a lot about food. Due to lock-down, we are doing a lot of cooking at home. I have become a very good chef in the kitchen with baking. We are also doing Keto cooking and Keto baking, like Keto cheesecake, Keto creme brulee, Keto chocolate cake, and tart, etc. It is very satisfying, but also interesting to think that baking desserts primarily includes heavy cream, egg, and milk, and yet, it is allowed in the Keto diet. You will need some Keto sugar substitute, and in-stead of whole wheat flour, you use almond flour, but that’s good stuff. We mostly have fun all the time, and you can tell that we have fun on the show as well.
Interviewer , Editor : Lina Kamada
【Disclaimer】
The Article published on this our Homepage are only for the purpose of providing information. This is not intended as a solicitation for cryptocurrency trading. Also, this article is the author’s personal opinions, and this does not represent opinion for the Company BTCBOX co.,Ltd.