0:00

Before we get started, the following includes several

0:02

clips that I pulled for this episode,

0:04

some of which include some profanity. Just

0:06

a quick heads up. So

0:08

here's the new podcast schedule.

0:10

I will be releasing an episode of the

0:12

reformed financial advisor podcast.

0:15

When I have something, when

0:17

I feel like it. This is

0:19

an episode that I, um, had

0:21

meant to release last fall, which

0:24

is when I started working on this. And,

0:26

um, just never had the time to put

0:28

it out for various reasons, not to make

0:30

excuses. I went through a major

0:32

surgery, a few other things that

0:34

had happened and it just didn't happen.

0:37

And the reality is I just don't need

0:39

to, um, follow

0:41

the conventional advice and have a regular

0:43

podcast schedule. This podcast,

0:46

scratches an itch. It's a

0:48

flattery following his own curiosities.

0:51

And, that's what I. Always

0:54

we'll intend it to be going forward

0:56

and the way to,

0:59

um, check in with me and find out.

1:01

What's on my mind. And what I'm going to be

1:04

releasing is to subscribe to

1:06

the podcast on your preferred podcast

1:09

player. And that's how you'll know when

1:11

I have something come out. The reason why I say

1:13

that is I I've given up social media

1:16

for sort of my Lenten fast for

1:18

about 40 days. I will not be posting

1:20

any of this on social media, but if you subscribe.

1:23

To the pod on a podcast

1:25

player. You're good. You're going to find out what's

1:27

going on with me and the podcast,

1:30

but as it stands, um, we're

1:32

back and the show must

1:34

go on. And so.

1:36

Today, I'm going to be doing a

1:38

analysis of die

1:41

with zero. Um, must

1:43

die with zero. And I'm going to offer some

1:45

reasons not to die

1:48

with zero, so let's get into it. So

2:22

the state of Iowa does an admirable

2:24

thing and they recognize families.

2:28

That have owned that.

2:30

I should say, held title to a

2:33

farm. For a hundred

2:35

years and the flattery

2:37

family that I come from. Was

2:40

awarded with this recognition.

2:44

Twice a once in a 2021.

2:47

And then once this year in

2:49

2023, because it would have been, my

2:52

great grandfather would have bought a couple

2:54

of plots, um, a hundred years ago,

2:56

1921 and 1923.

2:59

Which. Uh, were passed

3:02

onto my grandfather and

3:04

then is still in the family

3:06

to this day. This is something that I think

3:08

my, I think my dad's proud of. I think just as

3:10

a, you know, my extended family

3:13

is quite proud of. It's

3:16

uh, you know, the, I grew

3:18

up a city slicker, so I did not grew up

3:20

a farmer, but spent

3:22

a lot of time on the farm with grandpa

3:24

and. it's sort of the

3:26

identity of our family, even

3:28

still my family has been farming in some

3:31

way, shape or form. In

3:33

Northwest Iowa. For 150

3:35

years now. Uh, which is pretty cool. You

3:38

know, I, I think I probably grew up with the

3:41

ideal American American

3:44

upbringing we were far from

3:46

upper-class. We, you. I certainly

3:49

didn't have the silver spoon, but I had sorta every

3:51

advantage that that you'd want. No,

3:54

this is a very humble version of

3:57

multi-generational. Legacy.

4:00

If you will, for financial legacy.

4:03

Maybe it's the ideal version of

4:05

it, but at least in principle, it's in contrast

4:08

to. A growing.

4:11

Feeling that there's something

4:13

wrong with heritance or inheritance is,

4:15

is bad you get this celebration

4:18

of the Warren buffets in

4:20

the bill gates who have famously started

4:22

their giving pledge, which encourages wealthy.

4:24

Uh, people to give a majority of

4:26

their wealth to philanthropic causes

4:29

and it's been widely celebrated

4:31

by. All of our so-called

4:34

elites, the Elon Musks, the Zuckerberg,

4:37

the Larry Ellison's many

4:39

more have signed this pledge. And I think that the

4:41

general public. Tends to celebrate

4:43

this idea. And,

4:45

uh, you know, I think the sentiment is that, you know, capital

4:47

should not stay in families for more than

4:49

a generation or two. That's sort of the typical American

4:52

sentiment I heard. Um, Josh brown

4:55

joke wants that we don't

4:57

like aristocracy in this country, but we

4:59

do like. All the gospels that was

5:01

sort of his, uh, Kind of funny, cynical

5:03

way of looking at it. Now

5:06

to steal man, this

5:08

argument. Uh, die with zero.

5:11

I'm going to, I'm going to analyze

5:13

bill Perkins today, who

5:15

is the author of a book called

5:18

die with zero. Getting all you can

5:21

from your money and your life. Um,

5:23

I'm looking at the Amazon listing right

5:25

now. It's got 3,900 reviews.

5:28

Um, I've never read the book and

5:30

I'm familiar with the title because

5:32

it comes up a lot in like, my financial

5:35

planning circles. People talk about.

5:37

You know, giving this to like retiree clients.

5:40

that, you know, need to

5:42

find a good way to spend their money in

5:44

retirement. And,, in

5:46

the spirit of the reformed

5:49

financial advisor podcast, I

5:51

I'd like to offer a little bit of Critique

5:53

of the idea now, full disclosure.

5:56

I've never read the book. I don't know

5:58

if I have to, but I'm going to play some clips

6:01

of a, uh, Interview

6:03

with the author bill Perkins, which

6:05

I think is, I don't know. I think

6:07

it's kind of. It captures

6:09

just about all I need to hear about the

6:11

idea of diet with zero. Now,

6:14

of course, as with all these things,

6:16

there are certainly some merits

6:18

to the idea. Of die with

6:21

zero and perhaps I'll be able to get into that.

6:23

The thing is there are a lot of books

6:25

to read and I read all the

6:27

time and I have to be selective

6:29

about the thing that I am reading And

6:32

I just don't know if I have time to read yet

6:34

another business book or. Um,

6:36

sort of pop personal finance book and

6:38

from what I've heard from the interview is. I

6:41

just don't know if it's that deep. Now I

6:43

will say if you've read the book and

6:45

you listen to my analysis here and you think I'm

6:47

dead wrong. Um, let

6:50

me know, and maybe I will have to

6:52

give it a shot, but I'm assuming

6:54

I'm getting the basic idea from this

6:57

interview, or at least enough to sort of analyze

6:59

The ethos. I

7:01

think I'm good. And there's a lot of books in the

7:03

world that I could read and I

7:05

have to be sort of, uh, particular about

7:07

my time. what I'm gonna do is I'm going

7:09

to share with you a clip of bill

7:12

Perkins and let him sort of intro

7:14

the idea with die with zero.

7:17

I have a, I have a deep fear

7:20

of wasting my life Right. You

7:22

don't want to be playing skeeball, get like, I don't know,

7:24

a million tickets and just walk out. Right.

7:26

And that, that was kind of the idea

7:28

of like working for money that I never would spend

7:31

or never use. And so I

7:33

was like, I don't want to waste my life. I don't want to waste

7:36

my life. Um, what

7:38

does that mean? How do I optimize my life?

7:41

How do I get the most out of my life? Regardless, you

7:43

know, if I'm going to spend all my

7:45

money, when, how does that curve

7:47

work? You know, so I

7:49

looked at life as kind of like this optimization

7:51

program, um, and

7:54

I tried to distill the variables and the variables

7:56

were your wealth, your health, and your time. And I

7:58

was like, I want to get the absolute most out

8:00

of this life. Absolute most.

8:02

And so. That's

8:05

the save my life. If

8:07

you save somebody

8:09

who's drowning, right, let's say

8:11

you walk by and they're drowning and you go in and you

8:14

do the mouth to mouth and they cough

8:16

up the water dramatically and you're like, oh my god,

8:18

you saved my life. And I go, guess what? They're

8:21

still going to fucking die. They're

8:23

just not going to die that day. So,

8:26

what did you really do for them? You gave

8:28

them more, I love you's, more walks

8:30

in the park, more trips, more

8:32

experiences basically. And

8:35

so you've optimized their life for more experiences

8:38

by pulling them out of the water that day. Um,

8:41

and so when I write a book

8:43

about optimizing your life, like not wasting your time

8:45

being deliberate with your money and getting

8:47

the most out of it, I feel like I'm doing

8:49

the same thing to a certain extent. I'm giving you

8:51

more, I love you's, more walks in the park, more

8:53

fulfillment. All right. So there's the

8:55

basic idea. And here he's going to share

8:57

his sort of, um, I think defining

9:00

principle that all of this is sort of built on and

9:02

it's this principle, he calls it net fulfillment.

9:05

a lot of people run their lives on a counterfactual

9:07

regret minimization solving for the highest net worth,

9:11

right? And I'm like, no, let's run the algorithm. Solving

9:13

for net fulfillment, because that's the purpose of

9:15

life, right? So we're, everybody agrees with me. Like, okay,

9:18

good. What resources do we have? Well, we're

9:20

going to use your wealth, your health, and your time.

9:22

How does that apply? You know, I could do

9:24

it. And again, we were, you know, we're, there was

9:26

a lot of debate about how

9:29

do you sink this message into

9:31

people, right? Like people

9:33

don't want to look at a bunch of spreadsheets, right? They want

9:35

to apply it in a visceral way.

9:37

How do they get the concept in a visceral way? And

9:40

that's why the book opens with my

9:43

friend's death. Right, because

9:45

death has a way of waking people up. Tell

9:47

us that story. Um, so my, my

9:49

friend Erin Brodson, um,

9:52

her husband, um, He,

9:54

he, he just all of a sudden got diagnosed with

9:56

cancer, right out of nowhere.

9:59

She calls me up. She knows I do

10:01

a lot of archaic research in medical and donate

10:03

medical. Like I went deep dive into

10:05

MS, um, and, and had a, had

10:08

a study actually published on the cover of journal

10:10

nature. You only see small ventures USA is

10:12

funding, but I was getting

10:15

sequencing

10:17

machine, whatever. So I do the

10:19

deep dive. And then I, I,

10:22

and the deep dive, like I'm some sort of medical professional.

10:24

I did the deep dive as an, as an, I did enough research

10:26

to know this is

10:29

it, right? This is over. Um,

10:32

you know, I said, Hey, you need

10:34

to take time off, spend,

10:36

spend time with each other, go with

10:39

the kids, et cetera. She was already on, on that plan,

10:42

but you know, I was there to assist, right?

10:44

Like whatever you need. Um,

10:47

do we, uh, You

10:49

know, go enjoy the last, last time together.

10:51

And it's hard to say that without saying that, right? Like you

10:54

have no hope, right? Obviously, you're always out for

10:56

hope and they're doing experimental research.

10:58

And, um, he, uh,

11:01

he eventually, um, was on the

11:03

East Coast and, you know, as

11:05

frail as could be, right? Um,

11:07

died. She violated.

11:10

She was going to violate a promise

11:12

she made to him, John,

11:15

by, by letting the

11:17

kids see him before he died. So

11:20

he, he was, he was going to go, she

11:22

calls me up and she's like, I got

11:24

to let the kids see him before he dies. I told him

11:27

he didn't want the kids to see him this way, but told

11:29

him not. I got her a plane, got

11:31

him on the plane with the, you know, all

11:33

the contraptions and he died in the air. And

11:36

they had the land. And so,

11:38

that's that story, right?

11:41

But, you know, the

11:43

point of that story is that that's everybody's

11:45

story. It's just, we just have an

11:47

elongated time frame. You know,

11:49

John had a month. You

11:51

have, I don't know, I

11:53

look at mine, you got 4, 000 weeks, 2, 000

11:56

weeks, you know, whatever it is, right?

11:58

And so the question is, is with

12:00

that vacation that we have here on Earth,

12:03

right? We have a vacation and it's going

12:05

to end. What do we want

12:07

to do with our time here? What do we want our

12:09

story to be, right? So,

12:13

he was an unfortunate event,

12:16

but they provided clarity on what they wanted

12:18

to do each day. Right.

12:22

And we have that same unfortunate

12:24

thing, but it's so far away. We're not really paying

12:26

attention to our death. We're not remembering death. We're acting

12:29

like this vacation never ends. Right.

12:31

Um, and we're living

12:33

on autopilot, which autopilot is great. It

12:36

helps you drive home without thinking too much. It helps

12:38

you do your job and get good at your

12:40

job and skills, but it also puts

12:42

you in this path to survive,

12:44

not thrive. And so, this

12:47

kind of, hey, you're

12:49

going to die. Hey, this vacation

12:51

is going to end. This kind of like, slap across

12:53

the face, wake up. Is, I

12:55

think everybody needs. And that's why

12:58

I started with death.

13:00

All right. So this part is obviously

13:03

very compelling. And I think if we

13:05

just stopped the podcast here and that's

13:07

all you took away from this, the memento

13:09

Mori, think on your death. Um,

13:11

this is good stuff from, from bill and,

13:14

uh, this is motivating and, uh, to

13:16

give bill credit, I don't know if

13:18

I've ever given that sort of motivational

13:20

speech, um, in the same way he just

13:22

did. So. Um, good job by

13:24

bill now. Um, I

13:27

think, uh, I think this is good because we just

13:29

don't think about death. Um, it's

13:32

um, you know, death has sort of kept in

13:34

a closet. Death is something that

13:36

is, is done clinically in a hospital.

13:39

And, you know, it's not all around us and maybe

13:42

the same way that it has been at different

13:44

points in human history or something like that. So I think

13:46

it's good that bill is, is bringing

13:48

up the idea that we really need to

13:50

think on our death and really.

13:53

Uh, the decisions that we make in life should

13:55

really begin with the end in mind.

13:57

How's everything going? Oh, great, man. Couldn't

13:59

be better. Life is, uh, is

14:01

fantastic. Yeah. I

14:04

like life, man. You do? Really? Oh, my

14:06

God. People are complaining about it. First

14:08

of all, you're lucky. You're lucky enough

14:10

to be alive when you think about it. You

14:12

know what I'm saying? Your mother had to have sex

14:14

with your father. That your

14:17

grandparents had to have sex. Grand,

14:19

great grandparents had to have sex. It's

14:21

lucky you're alive, my God. It's

14:23

amazing. And I'm so happy every day.

14:26

You alive because it's just a fluke.

14:29

There's so many, many more people.

14:31

That never got to be alive. You

14:34

know? That's an interesting

14:36

point. I guess you're

14:38

right. If you do the math. When people

14:41

talk about it, I'm like, man, it's the greatest gig

14:43

in the world. Being alive. You get

14:45

to eat at Denny's, wear a hat,

14:47

whatever you want to do. Yeah, yeah. Get haircuts.

14:50

Let me share this next clip

14:52

with, uh, bill Perkins die. I was

14:54

zero. The first one is maximize

14:57

positive life experiences Right.

15:00

So, you know, it's kind of like,

15:03

how do I have this broad

15:05

definition of what is the purpose of your life,

15:08

right? And when

15:10

I say experience, I really mean your choices,

15:12

right? Like you make a choice. I have the,

15:14

I have a choice. I can wake up, I can come on this podcast,

15:16

I can drink water, I can drink a sugary drink,

15:18

et cetera. And those

15:20

choices drive our fulfillment, right?

15:23

And they're different for each person, right? Somebody

15:25

like I'm maximally filled. Fulfilled playing

15:27

a game of chess somebody's like it's

15:29

swimming for me. It's travel for me It's doing

15:31

charity work and doing you know, I make

15:33

no judgment about what that is But

15:36

what I say is is that life is the sum of your

15:38

choices life is the sum of your experiences

15:41

Life is the sum of your positive experiences. And

15:43

so if you trying to get

15:45

the most out of this life, let's

15:48

Make the high score

15:51

positive life experiences. So let's maximize

15:53

those, right? So now we have a

15:55

metric that all of us can think about. Something

15:58

optimizing for, right?

16:00

And so we, we, we have

16:02

this kind of, um, it's

16:05

a variable, right? And that variable means different things to different

16:07

people, right? And different and different, you know,

16:09

mixes, right? But we know we're solving

16:12

for that. And

16:14

we, and if we're, if that everybody

16:16

kind of gets on board, like I agree. Right. I'd

16:18

have an inbound, like, no, that's not what I want.

16:20

I said, well, experience can be anything. It could be charitable.

16:22

It could be hedonistic. Right. For some of my friends,

16:25

it's as many girls as they can get. And for

16:27

some of my friends, it's as many lives that can impact

16:29

and, and, and, and, and change

16:31

in a positive direction. Right. I cast

16:34

no judgment. I just say, Hey. What

16:37

you're solving for, this is how we get the maximum.

16:39

All right. So don't know if you just caught that, but,

16:42

um, you know, if the goal of financial

16:45

freedom is, is true freedom,

16:47

And then the question is it's

16:49

freedom for, for what? And

16:51

so if, if it's, um,

16:54

freedom to sort

16:56

of just kind of live a hedonistic

16:58

life, I would argue

17:00

that perhaps that isn't true freedom

17:03

cause true freedom is to do what

17:05

you ought and not necessarily

17:08

what you, what you want. I think this

17:10

is where we're, we're starting to get off track

17:12

here with die with zero when it's just sort

17:14

of like agnostic. The shallow

17:16

sort of, um, Social

17:19

media girl thing. When, um,

17:21

girls used to be alike, live life to

17:23

the fullest and it it was kind of like a little

17:25

wink and a nod saying like I'm promiscuous.

17:29

I think. I think what's happening

17:31

here is it's just, it's falling a little

17:33

flat. And it's turning

17:35

this like, you know, memento, Mori

17:37

thing, think on your death.

17:40

Into a, um, just

17:42

sort of a hedonistic do whatever you

17:44

want in the time that you have. If you sort of check

17:46

off everything on your bucket list,

17:49

Then you will have, um, fulfilled

17:52

everything that you want in life.

17:55

And, um, you're good, but

17:57

I think, if you truly want to thrive,

17:59

the answer is you, you want to have

18:01

freedom to do what you aren't and you

18:04

want it, and then you should do what you are.

18:06

And so I think that is a sticking point

18:08

here that we're getting to with this.

18:10

Um, sort of die with zero. Mentality.

18:14

I tell people like, it's not

18:16

in the book. Life is like Tetris. Everybody,

18:19

you know the game Tetris? You

18:21

know, I use the example, let's say you're in heaven and you're

18:23

about to be born. And God's like, here's

18:26

the infinite bucket of experiences. Choose

18:28

what you would like on your adventure. And you're like,

18:30

okay, this sex thing seems

18:33

interesting. 10, 000, maybe 15, 000

18:35

times. Okay, uh, I want to ride a bike. I want

18:37

to get a job. I want to get graduated. I

18:39

think I want to get married and have kids. I want to marry and have kids.

18:41

I want to You strip clubs. That's interesting.

18:44

I'll throw in a couple of those. You know, biking.

18:46

I want to get an award. You know, you just, whatever.

18:49

I'm just making these things up, right? Play baseball. God

18:51

goes, Alright, you can have

18:53

them all. The only one thing. Only

18:56

one thing, only one condition, you got to get the order right,

18:59

right? And so the people that,

19:01

like, do the marriage thing

19:04

and have kids and then put the strip club afterwards,

19:06

don't kind of get the high score, right? Because

19:08

it interferes with it. These are dynamic decisions,

19:11

right? Or they put

19:13

the Hella skiing Mount

19:16

Kilimanjaro at 86

19:18

is kind of in the wrong spot, right? Like they don't

19:20

get fulfillment for it and they can't do it, right? They waited

19:23

too long. They, they should put that there

19:25

and then this here, right? All right. So.

19:28

Again, I want to sort of

19:30

affirm that being deliberate,

19:32

um, or, you know, the word that you hear a lot

19:35

is like intentionality. Is

19:37

a good thing. If you have some resources,

19:39

you should be a good steward with those

19:41

resources. You should be deliberate about

19:43

how your, making best use of

19:45

it. I guess I just sort of continue to bristle

19:48

at the idea that. It's

19:50

sort of a value agnostic process

19:52

of figuring out how you should,

19:55

um, make best use

19:57

of these resources. So for example, like. What

19:59

if my sort of net fulfillment in life

20:01

is to, um, eliminate

20:04

the kitten population

20:06

of, of the earth. And I start a nonprofit

20:08

whose goal is to sort of drown

20:11

baby kittens. Um, because not

20:13

only do I want to sort of eliminate the

20:16

kitten population, but I get net

20:18

fulfillment out of seeing baby kittens

20:20

drown. Like, is that a good thing

20:22

of, of course not right. I mean, that's,

20:24

that's. Like, hopefully you don't

20:26

want to see a lot of baby kittens drown.

20:29

Um, and I would say, you know, bill should have put

20:31

that in his book, like, okay, okay. Straight

20:33

it's net fulfillment for you, but if you're drowning

20:36

baby kittens like that, that is taking

20:38

it a step too far. So I think

20:40

it's just missing that.. Um,

20:42

a, it could be like just

20:44

pure hedonism or B

20:47

it's just very surface level and

20:49

it's not. Getting to sort of the real

20:51

things in life that give us true

20:54

fulfillment and true joy. And

20:56

that's what I. I. worry about here. I'll be optimizing for

20:58

FOMO at every wealth level, it doesn't

21:00

really bother me. I'm really happy to be alive

21:02

and I think everything else is gravy. Give

21:07

money to kids and charity early.

21:09

Yes. So this

21:12

is, this hits a lot of people. So like

21:14

some people might like be too scared to implement

21:16

Daiwa Zero. They, they might still argue about a principle.

21:18

But one thing that hits a lot of people is,

21:21

um, you know, that

21:23

the same laws of physics

21:25

that govern my body, right?

21:27

The fact that most of

21:30

us reach mental maturity at

21:32

28. Physical peak maturity

21:34

at 33, and then we're in plateau and decline.

21:37

Every human, right? There might be some wild

21:40

exceptions, right? So, if you're at the bestest, bestest, bestest

21:42

shape of your life at 33, you'll

21:44

never be in better shape, right? Technology,

21:48

notwithstanding, right? So, um, so,

21:51

and then their ability to, um,

21:55

enjoy experiences, certain

21:57

experiences, will decline as they age, right?

21:59

They have that, that same Same,

22:02

um, lifespan, arc of lifespan,

22:04

deterioration, et cetera, right? And

22:07

they also get the memory dividend, right?

22:10

Using the memory dividend and investing early. And

22:12

so if you live to like 86

22:14

or 90 and you die and then you give

22:16

your money, kids, you know, people say, I'm working for my kids.

22:18

What about their inheritance? I'm like,

22:20

well, what about your fucking kids? Who, you want

22:22

to give money to a six year old, 56?

22:26

Like, eat a bag of dicks. Sorry, am I supposed

22:29

to say this on this podcast? Like, what the fuck are you talking

22:31

about? That's not thinking about your kids, right? We

22:33

want to have maximum impact. All

22:36

right up until this point, we really haven't

22:38

talked about inheritance and you could

22:40

sort of do a lot of the things that

22:43

Perkins is talking about. Living

22:45

your best life and still leave

22:47

some sort of inheritance, but here he sorta

22:49

Getting this idea of just, um,

22:51

giving earlier to your kids. And

22:54

this is often presented as, as an idea. And

22:57

I guess what I would say is, you know, of course you could

22:59

do both. And I think

23:01

he's, he's, he's sort of off

23:03

the mark a bit when he's talking about.

23:05

You know, giving your children

23:08

maximum fulfillment and that's, our goal

23:10

should be to help them, um,

23:12

sort of live their best life. As

23:15

well too, it's again, it's, it's

23:17

sort of falls kind of flat. But

23:19

you could do both. Who

23:22

is to say that there's not, um,

23:24

a way to sort of help launch your children.

23:27

Um, help support them while they are

23:29

in their lower earning years. And you have resources

23:32

to help support them and their families. And

23:35

sort of, uh, leave some sort

23:37

of inheritance or,

23:39

even better. An idea that I'm going

23:41

to get into is sort of even start, building

23:44

family wealth, which I think is even a little bit

23:46

different or more nuanced way of thinking about.

23:49

Inheritance. Not just giving children's

23:51

stuff that they get upon your death,

23:53

but actually starting, um,

23:56

actually having family wealth that belongs

23:58

to the family as a whole. So

24:01

I want to propose here,

24:03

the, uh, institution of

24:05

the family or growing. The

24:07

institution of your

24:09

family. As something that is

24:11

worth. continuing. In

24:14

the next generation and generations to come.

24:16

This is a, um, This

24:18

is from a book called family fortunes

24:20

by. Bill and we'll Bonner.

24:23

There's a section that's called the family versus

24:25

the state. It says, quote, people

24:27

are social animals. They need organizations,

24:29

institutions, and collective arrangements that suit

24:32

them. Family organizations come

24:34

naturally. The family extended

24:36

to uncles. Aunts cousins

24:38

and so forth has been the most important

24:40

grouping for most of our time is humans.

24:43

It used to be the family that provided most of

24:45

our wants and needs from shelter to

24:47

food, to clothing, entertainment, companionship.

24:51

You name it? The means of production

24:53

were controlled by the family.

24:55

Production took place within the family.

24:58

Only mating was and still

25:00

is usually done outside the side of the family.

25:02

It goes on to say families

25:04

receded in importance with the rise

25:07

of the social welfare nation state.

25:09

The promise of modern government was

25:11

that it would take care of its people and

25:13

the illusion was that it didn't matter what

25:16

kind of family you came from. That

25:18

you would be equal to every other citizen.

25:21

You would have equal access to public transportation,

25:23

public education, job opportunities, and ultimately

25:26

a good life. So, so I think

25:28

in. And sort of just using

25:30

this like net fulfillment metric

25:33

as a. Uh, way

25:35

to sort of gauge if you're doing

25:37

a good job of spending your capital.

25:40

It doesn't. It doesn't, consider

25:43

the fact that, you know, some of us might be

25:45

trying to grow a family or

25:47

using our capital to sort of bolster,

25:50

um, our family as an institution.

25:52

The last thing I'll read here from, from bill Bonner

25:55

is people with some family

25:57

money behind them are more likely to

25:59

start successful businesses. Successful

26:02

families, help their members overcome problems.

26:05

Help them get back on their feet when they fall,

26:07

they help them in countless ways. Most

26:09

of them are measurable. as I kind of

26:11

mentioned at the beginning of this, most successful

26:13

people do in some ways. Start

26:16

on third base. It actually is

26:18

uncommon that someone, um,

26:21

is a pure rags to riches story.

26:23

All of us come from somewhere

26:25

where we were probably given a leg up by

26:28

somebody in, in our past. And that's

26:30

the idea of trying to build family

26:32

wealth. I don't hear that in

26:34

the die with zero concept

26:37

or in this sort of net fulfillment

26:39

metric.

26:40

Yeah, so it used to be

26:42

that we depended on our families

26:44

for a lot of different things. Um, unfortunately

26:47

with fiat money you have Essentially,

26:50

the moral obligation

26:53

as the money printer to solve

26:55

lots of problems, and this, this is

26:57

always sort of the argument politically

26:59

that everyone gives for, you know, free health care,

27:02

free housing or free whatever, is that,

27:04

okay, I have this problem.

27:06

So here I'm playing for you Jimmy

27:08

song, who was being interviewed on the

27:10

Bitcoin standard podcast.

27:13

And because you can print money out of

27:15

nothing, you have to solve it. And,

27:18

I mean, being sort of like reasonable,

27:20

like if you want to keep the Ponzi

27:23

of, uh, FIAT going, you kind of have to

27:25

respond to that as a government. And

27:27

so they say, okay, well, we'll, we'll take care

27:29

of your needs this way and that

27:31

way. So at a certain point, you, you

27:34

no longer need that, right?

27:36

It becomes a sort of a very

27:38

alienated and sort

27:40

of different relationship that we have with

27:42

our families. It used to be that, you know, that,

27:44

that was your primary identity. Instead,

27:47

now it's. You know, whatever company

27:49

you work for, the job that you have, or, you

27:51

know, however you fit into a

27:53

giant sort of Fiat machine,

27:56

but, you know, families used to be a lot

27:58

closer and a lot more abundant and

28:00

so on. Instead, we've gotten to

28:02

the point where everyone is just sort

28:04

of. taken care of in many ways

28:06

by the government, uh, or dependent

28:09

on the government. And once you induce

28:11

dependency, well then, you

28:13

know, all these other things are kind of extraneous.

28:16

So people aren't investing

28:18

in their families. People are a lot more

28:20

narcissistic, thinking about

28:22

their own needs. As you would say, They're

28:25

very high time preference because

28:27

they have this sort of like safety

28:29

net that's provided for them in all

28:32

sorts of ways. So, you know, Fiat

28:34

money essentially changes the incentives

28:36

of the life that you're leading instead of personal

28:39

responsibility and trying to create

28:41

a legacy for yourself. It's just about

28:43

surviving and having fun now

28:46

rather than. You know, building something

28:48

for later and families, as you're

28:50

very well aware, require

28:52

a significant amount of,

28:54

uh, long term planning and,

28:56

uh, and low time preference behavior,

28:59

which, uh, you know, honestly is

29:01

antithetical to the fiat mentality.

29:04

So it's no surprise then that

29:06

we have lowering. birth

29:08

rates pretty much everywhere except

29:11

for Palestine and Israel for

29:13

some reason. Well, I, we, we

29:15

know the reason they're, they're, they're like preparing

29:17

for war or something, but, but other than

29:19

that, those places everywhere else,

29:22

you know, birth rates are declining because

29:25

No one is thinking about leaving a legacy.

29:28

So, this kind of brings me to my last point.

29:30

being a, a father, being

29:32

a husband. Being a patriarch.

29:34

If you want to use that terminology. It

29:37

just gives you a purpose.

29:39

It gives you a purpose that, um,

29:42

you know, guys have had for thousands of years.

29:45

that have been doing the same thing for thousands

29:47

of years. So you don't have to reinvent

29:50

the wheel. You don't have to, um,

29:53

Write your own script. Come up with some

29:55

super creative, deliberate,

29:57

intentional way to achieve

30:00

net fulfillment in life. If

30:02

you do your job and you do it well,

30:05

you are a hero. You have achieved

30:07

the adventure. You have made an impact

30:10

on, maybe one person, maybe

30:12

a couple of people, maybe generations

30:14

in some circumstances. So. I

30:16

think the last thing that I would say is like, perhaps

30:19

you don't have to be super deliberate,

30:22

super intentional, super

30:24

precious about every decision

30:26

you might ever make with your money.

30:28

Maybe just be a good person. Be.

30:31

Uh, be a good man and, you

30:34

know, kind of in the same way, like our, our grandparents

30:36

are a great Grandparents would have

30:38

thought of, how to handle money.

30:41

They weren't very precious about it. You know, they just,

30:43

they just were good people. They were

30:45

trying to do simple things like make life

30:48

better for the, for the

30:50

next generation, make life better for our

30:52

kids. And I'm here to say,

30:54

like, I think that is okay. So

30:56

here is Katherine Boyle.

30:59

Making this point, she appeared on

31:01

the moment of Zed podcast, and I want to share

31:03

this clip. We

31:05

did grow up in a generation where we were told

31:07

like you win the trophy. If you participate,

31:10

you are the main character. You are exceptional.

31:13

Like everything about you is interesting. And

31:15

it turns out, now at

31:17

midlife, not true, like,

31:19

not true, except for Solana.

31:22

And you want to just like, we got to get this straight,

31:24

so it's true for some of us. But I think the

31:26

biggest difference between our generation, our grandparents

31:29

generation, is that like, our grandparents generation

31:31

just did stuff. They didn't really think about it.

31:33

They were, and they were thinking about it too, in terms of like,

31:35

everything will have worked out if my, if

31:37

my children are better off than me. How

31:39

often do you hear 35, 40

31:41

year olds saying that? Like, that what they are working

31:43

for and living for is the next generation

31:46

that will outlive them? Like, no, it's mostly

31:48

about, like, how interesting am I on Instagram?

31:50

Like, am I the main character? Am I, like,

31:52

moving up my rank in society? Do I have high

31:54

status? It's not about the family unit.

31:57

And Eric and I talked a bunch about this, uh, previously,

31:59

but like, I, I think this is like the real issue

32:01

is that if you're thinking in terms of am I bettering

32:03

off my family, you stop thinking about yourself when

32:06

you hit that point that Dan's talking about. But

32:08

if you're still in the millennial, like I am

32:10

super interesting and I want everyone to know how great

32:12

I am, like the misery just overcomes

32:15

you. If you can't tell already

32:17

the reason why I'm sharing. Jimmy song,

32:19

Katherine Boyle on these points is

32:22

they can articulate this. Much

32:24

better than I can. So I hope you sort

32:26

of appreciate my little mix tape. Here

32:29

of this podcast. Uh,

32:31

what I want to leave you with? There's a great

32:34

movie. It's a, maybe

32:36

one of the last great Clint Eastwood films

32:38

called Gran Torino. And in the

32:40

end, the sort of spoiler alert

32:42

climax of the film is, um,

32:45

when Clint leaves

32:47

his inheritance and it's done.

32:50

Uh, there's a courtroom scene where the judge

32:53

is reading the will and

32:55

his, his next door neighbor,

32:58

the Chinese kid who, Clint,

33:00

becomes friends with, but also, um, kind

33:02

of fights with throughout the film is

33:04

given the sort of beautiful, um,

33:07

The beautiful vintage Grant's Reno car.

33:10

Now here's my question. Should Clint

33:12

Eastwood have died with

33:14

zero. Should he have sold

33:16

the car or given it away earlier

33:18

Well, no, like in the context of this film,

33:21

it was, um, sort of the highlight

33:23

of what, one of the highlights of

33:26

the movie. Uh, now maybe there is a critique

33:28

of the, sort of the legacy that Clint left for

33:30

his kids. And I think that's kind

33:32

of a good commentary on his generation

33:34

as well to the fact that he didn't have a good relationship

33:36

with his kids. But in the context

33:38

of the film. Leaving the

33:41

legacy of the grand Torino,

33:43

um, was awesome. It's

33:45

like the, that was the perfect ending for

33:47

the movie. So I'm gonna leave you with the

33:49

final scene here from grant

33:52

Reno.

34:00

And I want to leave my house to the church

34:02

because Dorothy would have liked it. Now,

34:08

which brings us to our last item. And again,

34:10

please excuse the language

34:12

in Mr. Kowalski's will. I'm simply reading

34:14

it the way it was written. And

34:18

I'd like to leave my 1972 Grand

34:20

Torino to my

34:23

friend Tau

34:32

Van Lor. On

34:34

the condition that you don't chop top the roof

34:37

like one of those beaners. Don't

34:39

paint any idiotic flames on

34:41

it like some white trash hillbilly.

34:44

And don't put a big gay spoiler on

34:46

the rear end like you see on all the other Zipperhead's

34:48

cars. It just looks like hell.

34:51

If you can refrain from doing any of that,

34:54

it's yours.

35:18

All right, and with that I'm going to take my own advice

35:20

and spend some time with my boys

35:23

Let me know how I did on this

35:25

one If you want to shoot me an email andy at simplewealthkc.

35:28

com I got a little takey

35:30

on this episode, but I think it's an important

35:33

topic And i'll

35:35

leave you here with bruce hornsby