In this conversation, Johnny Punish and Steve Cooper discuss globalism, nationalism, and the rise of Bitcoin. They explore the benefits and drawbacks of global connections, the negative side of Brexit, and the need for a Middle Eastern Union.
They also delve into the potential of Bitcoin as a global conduit for trade and the fixed supply and growing demand of the cryptocurrency. The conversation highlights the importance of trade in eliminating tensions and fostering understanding between nations. In this conversation, Johnny Punish and Steve Cooper discuss various topics related to Bitcoin, globalism, and freedom.
They reflect on missed opportunities to buy Bitcoin at a low price and the potential for future growth. They also explore the concept of relative freedom in an unfree world and the importance of building connections and understanding between different cultures.
The conversation touches on the challenges of language barriers and the homogeneity brought about by globalization. They conclude with a discussion on the potential of Bitcoin to promote equality and the hope for peace and cooperation in the world.
Resources
In this conversation, Johnny Punish and Steve Cooper discuss globalism, nationalism, and the rise of Bitcoin. They explore the benefits and drawbacks of global connections, the negative side of Brexit, and the need for a Middle Eastern Union.
They also delve into the potential of Bitcoin as a global conduit for trade and the fixed supply and growing demand of the cryptocurrency. The conversation highlights the importance of trade in eliminating tensions and fostering understanding between nations. In this conversation, Johnny Punish and Steve Cooper discuss various topics related to Bitcoin, globalism, and freedom.
They reflect on missed opportunities to buy Bitcoin at a low price and the potential for future growth. They also explore the concept of relative freedom in an unfree world and the importance of building connections and understanding between different cultures.
The conversation touches on the challenges of language barriers and the homogeneity brought about by globalization. They conclude with a discussion on the potential of Bitcoin to promote equality and the hope for peace and cooperation in the world.
Resources
Johnny Punish (00:01.305)
And we're back on GT radio with the fantastic Steve Cooper all the way from Australia. I'm over here in Paris, France, halfway around the world. And we're going to talk globalism and nationalism and see where this world's going and how it's going to work out for all of us in the near future. Steve, how are you doing today?
Steve Cooper (00:18.026)
I'm great Johnny, it's been beautiful hot weather over here in Australia. You are at the other end of the spectrum there. I'm sure it's been freezing in Paris, right?
Johnny Punish (00:24.985)
Yes, actually, I just got back from, I was hanging out in Ireland. You can see my Ireland shirt here. T -shirt that I bought. Ireland, yep. And yeah, it was cold. I'm not gonna lie to you, it was cold. You know, I mean, for us, we live in Mexico, so it's warm in Mexico, but yeah, we had to wear a lot of clothes and it was all right. But you know, Ireland is super friendly. One of the most friendliest countries I've ever been to. I people are great. Just walk into a pub and start yelling and everybody talks to you, you know? It's really great.
Steve Cooper (00:30.538)
Hey, very nice.
Steve Cooper (00:53.29)
That's beautiful. That's beautiful, Johnny. Well done.
Johnny Punish (00:54.263)
Yeah, it's great. And I really enjoyed their history and culture. I'm here in Paris. I've been in Paris for a month. We usually get an apartment here for relocation because I'm a digital nomad and I have been for 20 years. I know the kids are talking about it like it's new, but I've been doing it since 2004. So we relocate around the world wherever we feel like it. We happen to like Paris. So Paris is kind of our hub. It's easy to fly into. It's easy to get to everywhere. So.
You know, we are the definition of globalists, at least the positive version. You know, I hope so.
Steve Cooper (01:30.792)
You know, you're a jet setter, but in the good sense because you're out and about doing things. You're not just flying around swizzling olives in cocktail glasses.
Johnny Punish (01:42.041)
Yeah, or swindling human beings and taking advantage of them. That's another different kind of globalist, right? And that's what I want to talk to you about today. Yeah, yeah. That's what I want to talk to you about today. I just saw on the news that the UK economy is really having a hard time and they predict in about five more years their GDP is going to be less than Slovakia. I mean, it's really bad out there.
Steve Cooper (01:44.49)
Hahaha.
Steve Cooper (01:48.682)
Yeah, yeah, well we're working people Johnny, right? We're working people
Johnny Punish (02:10.041)
And I was sitting in Ireland having some fish and chips at the pub and I met these two blokes from, where were they from? Liverpool. And they were young men, I would say they were 30 maybe, you know, maybe 25, 30, about 30. And they were telling me, you know, that their company that they work for has lost a ton of business due to Brexit. And I was thinking, so I asked them, so do you guys like Brexit? I mean, it's been a while now. They gave me the ugliest face ever, like this Brexit sucks.
And apparently everybody in England is complaining about Brexit, but here they are. They disassociated themselves from the globalized world. They wanted to go full nationalist and populist and cut off all their legs to spite their face. Their economy is failing. They're doing less business across the board. They've lost important clients. Traveling is harder. They have to even show their passports to come here to Paris. What do they do that for? What the heck is going on? And...
Why are we having a small regression here, a reactionary response to globalism? And can we find a globalist world that's a positive, not this negative one that some are predicting where it's a one world government and they're gonna own everything we own and we're just gonna be slaves to the man at the top. What do you say about that, Steve?
Steve Cooper (03:24.874)
Yeah. Well, that's a really good question because there's two distinctions here. You know, there's that globalist top end approach, which is trying to just homogenize everything. And they're the kinds of people that create the bottlenecks at that top tier, financial bottlenecks. They're hoarding opportunity, they're hoarding wealth. And that type of globalist is trying to just say, hey, look, we can just take this slice of the pie here. Actually, we'll take a bigger slice. Actually, there's a bigger slice.
And so it's leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. So we've lost that kind of national approach to what we're going to do, to how we're going to trade. I mean, so that's where I want to lead to with the Great Britain. What is boosting their GDP? What are they selling? What are they providing? How are they mixing it in the modern economy? I have no idea. I know they used to have North Sea oil back in the 80s.
And that was a big deal, you know, and they were making some pretty good money from that. But I mean, what else are they exporting?
Johnny Punish (04:31.257)
Right. Well, the whole loss of being part of the EU has really cost them dearly. And so that lack of connection, and that's what I call global connections. You know, somebody said to me about war and all this stuff. You know, we have less war now around the world than ever before in our modern histories because of globalism, because of trade, right? When we do more trade with our friends, they're our friends. We don't attack the people that we do business with. So.
But here in Europe, for 500, 1000 years, they were killing each other in every country until they became a union. Every other week, France was invading Germany, Germany's invading France, Spain's invading blah, blah, blah. They were killing each other left and right through all kinds of wars, right? And now when you travel through the EU, we love it here. It's fantastic. I mean, you just go from country to country on the train. You don't change currency. You don't have to show your passport. You don't have to answer questions.
Why this? Why that? Just go and enjoy the world, you know? And it's that kind of connection that's positive, I think. That's what I do. I travel around the world. You know, and we did travel recently to Egypt, and of course, that's a different country, not the EU. And of course, that was a hassle, right? I mean, oh my goodness, right? That's, you know, terrorist checks, all kinds of checks. Dude, they check this every five minutes. Like, we must have had 30 checks before we walked into the airport. It was ridiculous, right? I was like, I go, dude, you just checked me right there two minutes ago.
Well, we're checking you again. Like, okay, man. And then another guy comes up, I'm with the police. Well, what do you want? Because, well, do you smoke? I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, I don't understand the question. No, I don't smoke. Okay, is that okay? Like, it just becomes ridiculous. I'm not joking. This is what happened to us, right? I was just laughing. I was like, are you serious, dude? Because he found out we're from Mexico and I guess Mexicans smoke? I don't know. I'll smoke what? I don't know. I don't smoke, but whatever. I'm 60 years old. I'm gonna smoke whatever you think I'm gonna smoke.
Anyway, it was pretty funny, but a lot of checks, a lot of noise when countries are isolated like that. I've been arguing on my website for probably five years now for a Middle Eastern Union because we see what's happening in Gaza and what's happening in Israel with the Americans funding the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, et cetera, et cetera. And there's a lot of pushback in America. I don't know if you noticed that, but the people hate it. Nobody wants to be associated with.
Johnny Punish (06:50.009)
murder, starvation, and ethnic cleansing. Nobody wants that. But here we are, we're stuck in this weird world where the Americans are funding it and saying they don't want to fund it, but they fund it. And here we are. So I have been arguing for a Middle Eastern union where the whole thing is like the EU, where I can travel to Israel, to Jordan, to Gaza, to the West Bank, to Saudi Arabia, to Iran, to whatever. No passports, one citizenship, one currency, freedom for everybody to work, freedom for everybody to...
travel and live and worship. How about that? How about a constitution where you have the right to worship to be Jewish, to be Muslim, to be Christian or pagan or whatever else you want. Wouldn't that be a lovely world, right? And so I offer the solution. Of course, I'm getting pushback from so many people at the very top saying, well, we don't want that. That's, you know, peace and prosperity. My goodness, how are we going to make money off them?
Steve Cooper (07:45.386)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm accused of being naive a lot because I'm pushing the same barrow. What I'm trying to say is that, you trade is really where it's at. Trade is where we're going to eliminate these tensions between us. And of course, whenever we're talking about those guys at the top, the governments and the militaries and the intelligence people, you know, they really are creating the divisions. They really are creating the fear. They're trying to spook us.
Johnny Punish (07:51.769)
Yes.
Steve Cooper (08:11.754)
But you know, really, okay, so look, we can't trust anybody. I mean, I don't trust any politician from any country, but that's not me. That's not my world. My world is trade. My world is getting to know people. And so that's easy. That's just, that's dead easy. And that's the kind of world I think you're talking about where we can travel and trade and talk and share values. And I mean, one of the things that I think I've found from my years of doing this hosting international people here in Australia is that they want to know about our culture. They want, they don't want to take over our culture.
They want to see us preserve our culture. They want to see the Americans preserve their culture because they want to experience it. They don't, the Chinese don't want to come here and try and turn us all into Chinese or the Russians or the Iranians. They, they want to trade with us and they want to see us and experience who we are. You know, they, they understand that we're different.
Johnny Punish (08:45.593)
Absolutely. Yes.
Johnny Punish (08:59.929)
That's exciting. You know, if you go to Australia, you want to see Australia and all of its beautiful culture. That's the point of going there, not to turn into something else. Like, that's stupid, right? This is not the 18th century. This is the 21st century. And we're moving on, Steve. I mean, the kids are moving on. And what I talk about global is I'm talking about for the kids. I am concerned about freedom around the world. I mean, I am concerned. I mean, you can see what's happening with Bitcoin and why it's going through the roof. I know you don't know. You're not a Bitcoin historian or a Bitcoin expert, right?
Steve Cooper (09:07.178)
That's right.
Steve Cooper (09:12.53)
in date.
Steve Cooper (09:29.258)
No, but I will be after I talk to you a few more times. I know, I know this. You've got to tell me a little bit about Bitcoin because I see that as a global conduit for us to get to know each other better. So what's happened in the last week? What's happened in the last week?
Johnny Punish (09:31.609)
Well, you...
Johnny Punish (09:37.785)
It is. Right. That's right. Well, it's it's. Wow, it's been incredible, actually, in the last couple of weeks here, Bitcoin has gone through the roof. It's gone, you know, mainstream. What happened about two months ago, they in the United States, they allowed what they call ETFs, right? So that means you can buy Bitcoin, not directly as a Bitcoin on your exchange and download it onto your, you know, to your USB. But.
You can buy it on the exchange through an ETF, just like you could buy an index fund with Vanguard or whatever. But so let's say you buy it from ARK or from BlackRock or some of the other 11 companies that have been approved and you just buy it for whatever the price per share is $40 and you can buy it right now in five seconds, right? So you don't have to take ownership of the Bitcoin. You don't have to store it or anything like that. They do that. I mean, that's for easy investors. And they really did that for institutional investors and corporations.
to make it easier for them. So that's what's happening. So 10 billion in the last, I think it's the last 30 days or 60 days, 10 billion has floated to BlackRock alone. 10 billion. It's the largest rise of an ETF in history. There's never been an ETF went from zero to 10 billion in like 60 days. It's never happened. So what that means is tremendous amount of funds are being reallocated from either cash or stocks or something.
and their people are buying Bitcoin. Originally we had about a month ago, we had about 2 .7 % of humanity owned Bitcoin. That number is rising obviously because we're getting 500 million a day going to Bitcoin or something like that. It's some crazy number, right? So what's happening is supply and demand. So Bitcoin is basically a fixed commodity, right? So it's a fixed supply. And the demand is rising. So obviously demand rising, fixed supply, price goes up.
Blackrock and those companies have to buy all the Bitcoin because they have to match it with an ETF. So if you buy a Bitcoin with Blackrock, they have to buy the Bitcoin. Okay, they have to own it. They have to have it. It's yours, right? So that's the idea behind it. So yeah, that kind of demand is increasing the price big time. And right now we're probably at 66 or $67 ,000 of Bitcoin. I think a month or two ago we started around 40 maybe, something like that. But the point is a lot of people are making money.
Steve Cooper (11:41.45)
Yeah.
Johnny Punish (12:03.705)
and it's growing. A lot of skeptics are saying, I don't understand it, or I don't know what's going on, or this and that, or don't, you know, of course you have some mainstream news organizations still making fun of it, right? You got idiot Jamie Diming out there, JP Morgan, he's poo -pooing it because obviously, he can't butt, excuse me, I'm gonna have to cut that out. I got something in my throat, I got a Bitcoin in my throat.
Steve Cooper (12:03.818)
You are fantastic.
Steve Cooper (12:27.626)
I got a big one in my throat.
Johnny Punish (12:30.935)
JP Morgan can't really buy it so he's gonna say it's no good but he's you know that's what they're all gonna say right the guy on CNBC is always making fun of it right but here we are I mean I own Bitcoin so I'm not gonna tell you how much but you know it's been a good month my friend it's been a good month well I'll just say more than P for the vacation okay fair enough
Steve Cooper (12:45.738)
Yeah. So guess what? So.
Steve Cooper (12:54.026)
I'm very interested. So I've got to catch up here now. So.
Johnny Punish (12:55.545)
Yeah, so the big but the point of the Bitcoin is this it's not centralized right so there's no government Controlling it they can't debase it They cannot print any more money so to speak so you know the value of the US dollar I think has gone down 4 % in the last Year, I believe and bitcoins up, you know big time so you know if you have cash or US dollars Well, what do you want to be forget US dollars? What if you had Argentinian pesos or?
Jordanian dinars or all this garbage currency that's out there. I mean these poor people in Egypt I went to Egypt was horrible their money has been debased. They've inflation's killed them I mean, you know for us travelers I went there and everything was inexpensive, right? So I you know, I'm buying a soda for you know, 25 cents, you know what I mean? Whereas a soda here in Paris might be two US dollars or something like that, right? So it was very inexpensive for us, but the poor people there they're suffering under poverty, right because I
Steve Cooper (13:47.914)
Yeah, yeah.
Johnny Punish (13:54.009)
They're getting their money devalued. They don't have any money. They're poor. Egypt is poor, my friend. Okay. And, but what if they bought Bitcoin? What if that Egyptian guy, okay, who doesn't have access to Coinbase or any of these exchanges, they just don't have access. I tried to access Coinbase from Egypt and I got told, sorry, not from Egypt, you know, they control their internet. So they control their people. They can't access certain things like that. So yeah, doesn't that suck or what? Like, what freedom, right?
Steve Cooper (13:57.13)
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve Cooper (14:14.186)
Hmm.
Steve Cooper (14:19.114)
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's just awful. But look, but this is obviously going to change. So, I mean, coming from, so coming from the old school thought of, you know, when, when the dollar is being devalued that you could buy precious metals. So that was the old school thing, you know, maybe even 10 years ago, let's just say that was a very common, yeah. So, but Bitcoin's different because I mean, what I've learned since the, the, the precious metal sort of hype that was about 10, 15 years ago.
Johnny Punish (14:36.249)
That's right.
That's right. That's right.
Steve Cooper (14:48.97)
was that the value of the precious metals could still be traded down. That could be attacked by the big hedge funds. They can just manipulate the things. But you're saying they can't do that with Bitcoin, right?
Johnny Punish (14:59.673)
Well, and by the way, you could also mine more gold. So gold is not actually fixed, it's actually controlled. So they can mine more and add more to the supply. Without going into the details of the technical aspects of Bitcoin, in a sense, Bitcoin is fixed. It will be fixed in a couple of years. There's what they call mining, but I don't want to go into that right now, but basically it's a fixed commodity.
Steve Cooper (15:03.338)
Okay.
Steve Cooper (15:23.4)
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Johnny Punish (15:25.835)
It'll be fixed at 21 million Bitcoin and that's it. So that's it. So that's it. And so who controls it? Nobody. Nobody. The U .S. can't control it.
Steve Cooper (15:30.154)
Yeah, okay. Right. So will there be a split off? Will there be a split off or will it be a separation of the unit of currency of the Bitcoin, do you think? Will there be a division? Will it sometimes, okay, we've only got this many Bitcoin. Okay, now we're going to know. So I mean, that's what they do with stocks. When stocks get too big, they divide it. They go, yeah, no.
Johnny Punish (15:40.887)
What does that mean?
Johnny Punish (15:47.929)
No. Not that I'm aware of. Ah, right. No. Not that I'm aware of. Technically speaking, it has to be approved by every Bitcoin owner. And not exactly something that's gonna happen. You know, it's not realistic to happen that way. But in a sense, it could happen, I guess. Technically it could happen. But no, it's not gonna happen. Right. So.
Steve Cooper (15:58.694)
Okay.
Steve Cooper (16:07.978)
Yeah, so you might know the answer to this question. I'm not sure if it's Costa Rica or El Salvador that has an official currency. Bitcoin is their official currency now. Can you? Okay, El Salvador. Okay.
Johnny Punish (16:19.705)
Well, it's one of them. It's called El Salvador, right? So they have a, their president, Nicholas Bukele, did that about four years ago with help from Max Kaiser, who formerly of RT, he was a stockbroker, a really inventive guy. He went down there to help him out. But yeah, that's what's happening over there. And I'll tell you right now, they're probably celebrating in the streets right now in El Salvador. No, cause they made a lot of money.
They made a ton of money and they're gonna make more. Bitcoin's gonna go to 100 ,000. Okay? It's just, it's not my opinion, it's math, right? So it's just math, it's just not an opinion. Math is this, if you have fixed supply and growing demand, price goes up, right? Well, if they opened up the world of Bitcoin recently to the ETF investors, institutional investors, like for example, Standard Endowment, Standard University just bought Bitcoin, right? So...
Steve Cooper (16:50.826)
Yeah, okay.
Steve Cooper (16:54.57)
Okay, yep.
Johnny Punish (17:16.345)
So they couldn't do that before, but now they're doing that now. Those kind of institutional investors need to get into Bitcoin because they don't want to be left out, right? So they're buying it up, right? So that's going to raise the price. And here we go. We're going on a ride where Bitcoin is going to go to 100 ,000. It's going to go to a million. And at some point, it's going to go to 10 million. OK? I know it sounds crazy. And some people, some of us go, what the hell are you talking about? Because a lot of people cannot see far down the road. They can only see in front of their face, right? But think about it.
Steve Cooper (17:35.21)
Yeah, okay. No, it doesn't.
Johnny Punish (17:46.457)
10 years from now, where are we gonna be? Right now, no one talks about gold as, hey, did you buy the gold ETF yet? No one's talking about that, you know? Gold is up slightly, like a little bit. It's not even worth talking about, okay? Yeah.
Steve Cooper (17:58.698)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And it's difficult to purchase as well. If you want to take physical delivery of it, it's a nightmare. We've done it. Don't worry.
Johnny Punish (18:05.081)
Oh, it's even worse than that. Talking about, you walk around with a bar of gold, let me tell you something, your government's gonna try to confiscate it from you immediately. They always try, where did you get this from? Why do you have it in your pocket? Why are you carrying gold? Are you a drug dealer? Are you a drug dealer? I mean, it's ridiculous, you know? Yeah, but.
Steve Cooper (18:13.866)
That's right.
Steve Cooper (18:18.218)
You're instantly vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a very famous Australian influencer who's living in El Salvador now. And now she puts out videos and she's just, she's walking around with her phone going beep and she's buying three bananas in El Salvador and she's buying a coffee with a Bitcoin and the 10 there's this lovely old grandma, Wally, our little.
Johnny Punish (18:34.937)
Right. Yeah.
Steve Cooper (18:44.042)
And she's there and they're just beep and they're doing that with their phones with Bitcoin in El Salvador. So, I mean, what the, so obviously, so if El Salvador can have that technology, surely that's going to start. So that's going phone to phone.
Johnny Punish (18:47.801)
That's
Johnny Punish (18:54.297)
Who's next?
Johnny Punish (18:57.977)
So that's starting with the poor countries because they have the least to lose, right? You're not gonna see this happen in the US, right? Where they're gonna make an official legal tender. They're not gonna do that. But you start off with like right now they had a big conference in Madaria, Canary Islands, and the president of Madaria or whatever his name is called, the governor or whatever, he's incorporating Bitcoin into his Canary Islands area. They're working through that right now.
Steve Cooper (19:07.53)
Yeah, OK, cool. Yep.
Johnny Punish (19:25.081)
There's a lot of talk of other smaller countries starting to do this, but in reality they can start to do that. It doesn't really matter. Yeah, it's better, but you don't have to. Everybody can trade Bitcoin. You know, just got to open it up. You know, don't limit them and don't make them unable to buy Bitcoin. You know what I mean? Like Egypt's trying to do, right? They're trying to hold back their population. They want them to use their shitty currency, you know, so they can prop up the rich people, right, in their stupid country and make everybody else poor and makes everybody miserable, right?
Steve Cooper (19:40.906)
Yeah, right.
Johnny Punish (19:54.457)
So these people have got to be stopped. They're like the old dictators of the past. They just got to be stopped. They're in the way of progress for humanity. They're in the way and they need to leave. And that's what I'm talking about is Bitcoin. Bitcoin represents freedom to me. Now there's a dark side of Bitcoin. I mean, if BlackRock and these companies, they're acquiring a lot of it. So obviously they're going to try to get a corner on the market. That's their nature. They're predators.
So there's that dark spot where we got to be careful with these guys. You know, these BlackRock folks, you know, they have a trillion dollars in assets. They're dangerous, right? They control too many things, right? So you got to be careful of them. But I see a better world with Bitcoin and all of us own a piece of the Bitcoin. You know, if you just have one Bitcoin, I mean, right now, if you bought a Bitcoin for $67 ,000, you'd be in the top, you know, area of Bitcoin owners, right? So...
It's not that expensive to buy even at these prices. I know it feels like left out like oh I could have bought it at 20 I could have bought it at 40. I could have bought it at 60 Let me tell you when I could have bought it Steve. I could have bought it at 300 Let me tell you a little quick little story. Okay, I was in Playa del Carmen It was 2013 and some lady said do you own any Bitcoin? I said, what the hell is Bitcoin? She says let me tell you what Bitcoin is. I'm like, oh, that's a good idea I think I'll buy some so I said ten thousand dollars
Steve Cooper (21:00.714)
Yeah, please.
Johnny Punish (21:15.897)
from my bank in the US to Coinbase, I think it was called Coinbase back then, I think it was called Coinbase back then. And I thought, yeah, I'm gonna buy, I think it's 30 Bitcoin, I think it is, right? Something like that. What's 10 ,000 divided by 300? I think it's like, yeah, something like that, 33 or something, okay. So yeah, I go, this is great, I'm buying Bitcoin. And a day later, I get a notice from the bank, I'm sorry, sir, we didn't send your money.
Steve Cooper (21:32.234)
Yeah, that's 30.
Johnny Punish (21:45.049)
I go, what do you mean you didn't send my money? I said, why are transferring money to Coinbase? What do you mean you didn't send my money? I'm sorry, not only we can't send your money because you're trying to buy Bitcoin. I'm like, so? What does that have to do with you? They go, well, we're not going to approve that. I go, what do you you're not going to approve it? I go, I didn't ask your opinion. OK? And they're like, not only that, sir, but we're closing your account. Yeah. Yeah. This is 2013. So.
Steve Cooper (22:07.21)
Ah, come on.
Johnny Punish (22:11.577)
Back then I had a business and I was like, well, I can't afford to lose my business account, right? That's not, just to buy Bitcoin, this thing called Bitcoin that I never heard of, I need to back off. So I backed off, they closed my account anyway. But this is the days where banks were in fear of Bitcoin, right? They were living in fear, right? They didn't know what it was, right? So they just rejected me completely. So I didn't buy Bitcoin. I didn't have 30 Bitcoin for $300 a Bitcoin.
Steve Cooper (22:16.714)
Yeah.
Johnny Punish (22:40.441)
which would be worth today 30 times $70 ,000. What's that? 2 million or something? I think it's like 2 million. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would have a little extra $2 million in my pocket right now if that happened, but it didn't happen. So the point is I could have bought it back then, so should I not buy it now because it was 300? Well, the guy that, when I bought it at 10 ,000 or 15 ,000 or 20 ,000, I thought, oh, I'm at the top of the market. I'm not.
Steve Cooper (22:44.906)
Yeah, that's, you're getting up to 2 million bucks there. Just a tad over.
Johnny Punish (23:08.409)
And it feels like we're at the top of the market, but let's look at the math. We have 2 .7 % of humanity. That's 8 billion people out there. About, what's 2 .7 %? 200 million, I think. 200 million people own Bitcoin around the world. That's not a lot, right? It's a $1 .3 trillion market cap, whereas gold, I think, is over 10 trillion, maybe 20.
Steve Cooper (23:21.578)
Yeah, that'd be 200 million, yeah, roughly.
Johnny Punish (23:36.057)
You know, we have a ways to go to even get close to gold. So and you know, the commodity of Bitcoin is basically a store of value. It's like digital gold, right? So you have that. So we have a long way to go to reach a certain level of what I'm looking for the word. What's the saturation? Yeah, saturation, right? So.
Steve Cooper (23:55.338)
Parity? Parity. Yeah.
Johnny Punish (24:00.377)
So we're far from that. So that just means anybody buys it now. Yeah, you might drop to 64 maybe to 60 maybe even at 55 but in the long run you're gonna go higher. So I argue this if you're a day trader, don't call me. I'm not a day trader. I don't know shit about day trading. I stink at it. I'm a lousy gambler. When I go to Las Vegas, I put $5 down. I always lose. Okay, so I don't bother but I do buy the stocks of the casinos because I know they make money. So I buy that.
But for Bitcoin, long -term investing, like Warren Buffett said, if you can't buy it for 10 years, don't buy it for 10 minutes. And I think if you subscribe to that idea and use it as a store of value, just buy it and hold it for your family, I think in the long run, you'll be happy. In the short run, you might look at the price and go, oh, it went down 5 ,000. I lost five grand or something. But that's happened over and over again. I just ignore it. I keep ignoring it and it keeps going up. So there you go.
Steve Cooper (24:57.93)
Yeah. So what are your options? I mean, if you're, if you've got money and I mean, so Kim and I have always just put our spare cash into improving our business because it just, you know, increase increases our cashflow and we just, we believe in ourselves. We know we're not bullshitting, you know, that was the whole. Yeah.
Johnny Punish (25:09.881)
Absolutely Right. That's a great place to do great great way to invest your money. You're betting on yourselves You're controlling the assets you're increasing your equity. Absolutely, but in the long run we want to be slightly diverse a little bit You know like just in case right sometimes that's all. Yeah Yeah
Steve Cooper (25:24.074)
Yes, yes, yeah I'm slowing down you know I'm in my 50s now I can't I can't do the 100 hour weeks I used to do. Oh I can but I'll be sorry the next week. Yeah.
Johnny Punish (25:32.345)
Right? Right. I don't want anybody to misunderstand. I do not have 100 % of my assets in Bitcoin and probably no one should. Nobody should do that. Yeah.
Steve Cooper (25:40.426)
Yeah, sure. Absolutely. No, no, that's right. But also you touch on something which is really interesting because you can't get emotional about it. I mean, trading is not an emotional thing. Trading is something that you believe in you or you've done the math, you've done some logical application of a sensible deduction of what you're going to be investing in. So it's not an emotional thing. Of course, we get emotional about money, but when you're making that decision, the emotion's got to stay out of it.
you've already put forward a good case. We've got a finite resource, we've got a lot of demand, and obviously that's the fundamentals there.
Johnny Punish (26:17.849)
That's right. And so basically, as long as individuals have a good game plan for themselves, you have your game plan, I have mine, and we execute our game plan. You're in your 50s, I'm in my 60s, so our game plan might be slightly different than yours maybe, but not probably pretty close. You get more conservative as you get a older because you don't need as much, right? So you're like, I'm good. I got a good nest egg, I got good income, I got good investments. I'm good, I don't need to take crazy ass risks.
Steve Cooper (26:33.866)
Hmm. Mm -hmm.
Steve Cooper (26:39.786)
That's right.
Steve Cooper (26:47.914)
That's right. No, that's right.
Johnny Punish (26:48.025)
I'm not 20, you know. So everybody has a different perspective, but for me, it's, you know, I enjoy playing the game, the long game. I enjoy increasing equity. It's a little boring because it's not exciting sometimes. You know, we've had an exciting month with Bitcoin, but I don't care about that. I care more about the long run. So I don't care. I just like, I just want to see Dune 2 at the IMAX theater in Place -Bilet in Paris.
We had a great time, we went out to lunch, we had a beautiful lunch on the San Jermán River. You know, you could do that when you have money and freedom in this unfree world, right? So we have relative freedom in an unfree world. And that's what I'm talking about, Steve, is globalism and nationalism. How do we find freedom? Because this show is actually called Let's Talk Freedom. And what we're really talking about is relative freedom in an unfree world. And sometimes that's a little bit of Bitcoin. Sometimes that's being smart about where you put your investments. In your case, it's, you know, you have a beautiful...
B &B thing going on and you got a way to earn a solid income in a lovely country like Australia But not everybody has that let's listen to this some people are living in tough places You know I can't imagine someone living in poverty in some other country or that's being controlled or let's say you know at the worst case You're living in Gaza. I mean completely living in hell right so how do we how do we free humanity? How do we free ourselves? That's what this is talking about and so I just wanted to mention. I thought globalism
Steve Cooper (27:57.386)
Hmm. Yeah.
Johnny Punish (28:17.465)
in the positive way and trade and connecting with each other is the way for humanity. And this idea of populism and shutting down and building walls and what Trump is selling. Hey, we're going to build a wall around everybody's head and we're going to isolate and we're going to hell with everybody. And what is this about? Kick all the Muslims out, kick all the Mexicans out, kick every black guy, kick his ass out. We don't like you, we don't like you. What is this?
Steve Cooper (28:45.386)
Yeah, that's intentional distraction to take us away from what we really should be focusing on, which is cooperating. And that's why I'm interested and excited about Bitcoin, because it's not that roller coaster. It really isn't. It doesn't seem to me like it's just something solid. It's dependable. It's easy to translate into what's going on with it. It can be global. And everyone can... So let me just go back, because I host a lot of people from around the world here.
Johnny Punish (28:47.353)
That was lovely.
Steve Cooper (29:13.546)
So you were talking about Ireland before a lot of those blokes in Ireland, they come and stay with me when they're doing big projects over here. Now they're getting really good money in Australia. You know, you know, five, six, seven times what they can get in the, in Europe. They're flying over to Australia big time. They're on big money. Now the wages and conditions are very good in Australia. If you can get on a good project. So those boys that have those skills, they're here and they're flying here. So I mean,
Johnny Punish (29:29.023)
Wow.
Steve Cooper (29:42.73)
We, you know, is that an example of globalism? I mean, look, these boys are happy here. They're doing good. You know, the pubs are open. The beer is cold here. You know, they, they're making really good money and sending a lot of money home. And then I've got other people that had a couple of girls got some jobs, uh, in the mines up here as well. They're from Argentina and they're telling me, they're going, look, the money we're making here is crazy good. This is insane. And they said, we're going to go back to Argentina rich.
for working in Australia for a year. Okay. But they were really organized girls. They were really sensible. And it's like the Irish guys really organized their trade. You know, they got their trade there. They understand what's going on. So these guys are coming to Australia to get that money. But I mean, this is going back to what your other point was, is about other people's currencies are being devalued so heavily.
Johnny Punish (30:32.665)
Yes. Destroying human beings, destroying families, it's horrible.
Steve Cooper (30:33.962)
that people are being forced. That's right. So the market is directing people away from families. And that's, I think we talked about that in the last podcast, which is really a devastating, which can be devastating. Now, in the example I just gave you with the Irish boys and the girls from Argentina, they're just young, they don't have families. So it's a good time for them to do that. And they can't do it on a long -term basis. So where's, where is the other or the, where is the next step for these people? And that's what's really challenging. And that's why I'm,
interested in getting involved in more of these discussions and building this audience because, you know, how are we going to do it? So if I've, if we've got a few minutes, I'll just tell you what's happened with me with the last week too. We met some fabulous people from China and they're very interested. So they fell in love with Kim and I, they fell in love with our family structure. They, our kids met their kids, you know, when we say kids, they're all in their twenties. Okay. So they're not really kids. They all met, but there was,
Johnny Punish (31:07.929)
Yes. Right.
Johnny Punish (31:26.457)
Beautiful.
Right.
Steve Cooper (31:32.874)
there was this sense that there was this trust built, there was this interpersonal kind of trust that instantly happened. I mean, we've met this family three or four times. Now, he's an architect in China, has a lot of money behind him, does big projects. And I walked into a meeting last week in Sydney. I was dressed like a roadie, okay? Like I am now, you know?
And there's these other guys there from Sydney, you know, they've got the gold Rolex and the gold chain and the gold, everything. And they've got the sleeper. That's right. And I'm a righty and I'd go and they said, Oh, did you drive down? I said, Oh no, I got the train. It's cheaper. You know, yeah, I don't want to drive, you know, I get the chance to sit back and read my phone. You know, so I just went now they were more excited that the Chinese investors were more excited about talking to Kim and I than they were about these big money guys. Now I'm not to say I'm not putting anyone down.
Johnny Punish (32:01.945)
So gold Rolex meets crocodile Steve Cooper.
Steve Cooper (32:26.09)
But all I'm saying is I built this relationship with them that was based on this, our family respects your family. And we were asking them about questions. And one of the big themes was benevolence and courtesy, which is a big feature of Confucianism. And they were just stunned that we understood that. And I...
But you know, I said, don't look, don't be stunned. I'm just interested in your code. I want to understand the same way you're trying to understand what's going on here in Australia. I'm trying to understand what's going on in China. I can see my children and my grandchildren will probably be doing business with China. So I'm, I'm here not trying to be selfish. I'm here. Well, I'm being selfish to a degree, I suppose. But you know, what are we going to do? And it's been difficult because there's a language barrier.
Johnny Punish (33:02.137)
Yes.
Steve Cooper (33:12.106)
don't really understand their culture, they don't really understand ours. We're trying to say to them, hey guys, you know, there's only 25 million Australians here. You've got 1 .5 billion over there. I mean, are you sure you want to come? There's not many of us here that want to buy your stuff. And they say, no, no, no, the margins are good. We're coming. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. So yeah, it's fabulous. It's just been so exciting just trying to build that kind of understanding. So.
Johnny Punish (33:27.737)
Right.
Johnny Punish (33:31.973)
Incredible, right?
Steve Cooper (33:40.434)
What's been difficult is getting onto the nuts and bolts of the details of how we're going to work for each other or be associates. And that's been very difficult because the language barrier is so strong. But what we're completely aligned with is that our families and us understanding the idea and the concept of benevolence and courtesy really just struck with them. They said, look, you know, this is what our Chinese culture is about.
They started talking about the cultural revolution, started getting really nervous, like we were going to judge them for it. And I'm going, well, look, I know a bit about it, but you know, that's, that's okay. And they're saying it's coming back, but they did say something very interesting, which I think, you know, is worth sharing that they say that the people in Beijing and Shanghai, they're just, they're trying to be Western, you know, they're, they're abandoning their old Chinese principles. They just want to be Western. They just, they want the gold Rolex and the fence, the tailored suit.
Johnny Punish (34:33.177)
notice that here in France you can see Chinese people here now they travel a lot now. It wasn't like that 30 years ago you know but now you see them everywhere and they're dressed very very well wearing the latest fashion so you see that a lot. Also you know what you see Steve traveling around the world is it's there's a lot of homogeneity going around like for example every country that I go to I see the same stores now H &M, Zara, McDonald's.
Steve Cooper (34:39.978)
Right.
Mm -hmm. Yes.
Johnny Punish (35:02.603)
unfortunately McDonald's, but you know.
Steve Cooper (35:04.04)
Yeah, 7 -Eleven. My daughter said she had 7 -Eleven in Denmark last year. Coffee at 7 -Eleven.
Johnny Punish (35:08.121)
There you go. When I was in Egypt, I was in a place called New Cairo. New Cairo is the brand new city that they put 60 billion dollars into. That's about 40 minutes away from Old Cairo. Old Cairo is a big freaking mess, right? It's like old, beaten, disheveled. I mean, it's crazy. I don't know how to describe Cairo. It's incredibly chaos, right? And you go to New Cairo, it looks like Southern California. It's...
Steve Cooper (35:30.858)
It's tragic.
Yeah.
Okay.
Johnny Punish (35:37.593)
got malls, brand new malls, open air malls, and they have every single American franchise that you can think about, right? But yet the Egyptians don't really speak English. So I asked them, and I don't know, you probably don't know this, but I do speak fluent Arabic. So I asked them in Arabic, why you don't speak English, why do you have so many American franchises here? What's going on here? And they say, this is pretty normal, that over there,
high fashion is American culture. Okay, so to be associated with the United States of America is high fashion because America is the empire, right? I mean, we don't call it, a lot of people don't want to call it an empire, but it's certainly bigger than the Roman Empire. They're everywhere, right? So you have Subway, you have Burger King, they even have a Hardee's, which is called Carl's Jr. It's an obscure company that it's not that big, but it's called Hardee's in the East Coast, Carl's Jr. in the West Coast of the United States.
Steve Cooper (36:15.37)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Johnny Punish (36:36.825)
They have that. They have Arby's for God's sake. Arby's. No one has an Arby's. But Egypt has an Arby's. It's weird. Everything is American. So they worship or they idolize or they want to be like because that to their eyes is the success. Right? Not...
Steve Cooper (36:52.97)
Yeah, or it's just a ticket in. It's just, they're saying it is a ticket to something better for themselves.
Johnny Punish (36:55.609)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, so, New Cairo is upper class, upper middle class, and that's what's happening there. So you see this all over the world. Here in France, we have the same stores. If you go to Vienna, you go to Italy, they're becoming the same stores. So yes, we are losing a little bit of the culture. That's true. It's not, you know, the evolution of globalism will be like that. And hopefully each country will maintain.
its languages are maintained, its certain cultures that we look, that we enjoy. But yeah, evolution's changing the world. I'm not gonna lie to you about that. That's actually changing. If you come to Europe 30 years ago, it would've been completely different. Today, most people speak English. A lot of the same stores, you can go to the same store here that you can go to the same store in Italy or the same store in Egypt or to the same store in the US or same store in Mexico. I don't know, I guess so.
Steve Cooper (37:47.178)
But do people really want that? I mean, that's just, I'm so, I always scratch my head and I don't think I'm a normal person. I've always been a bit of an anti -establishment sort of dissenter, but is that what people want?
Johnny Punish (37:56.601)
That's what's happening. So so but we still go to the bistro We still go to the French quarters here in Paris. We have lovely neighborhoods and villages and you still have Paris and France It's still here, but I am saying that it is expanding out to a little bit homogeneity So you're getting a lot of the same store same retail experiences So that's happening around the world. And so yeah, that's part of it and and and speaking the language English language Most most people speak English if they don't speak
If they don't, let's say they speak Greek or something, they're gonna speak English. If they speak maybe Danish, they're gonna speak English. If they speak French, they're probably gonna speak English. English is becoming the language that we all speak to understand each other and I see nothing wrong with that, okay? Because when we don't speak the same language, that's when we misunderstand each other, right? That's when the wars happen. You see, if you spoke a different language than me, I'd be like, I don't understand that guy. I don't like that guy. He looks scary to me. So as far as I'm concerned, he's the enemy. We gotta go take your stuff.
Steve Cooper (38:29.01)
Yep.
Steve Cooper (38:44.394)
Absolutely.
Steve Cooper (38:50.282)
Yeah.
Steve Cooper (38:54.578)
Yeah.
Johnny Punish (38:55.843)
He's gonna take his stuff and kill him because I don't know him. He looks dangerous.
Steve Cooper (38:59.018)
Yeah, well you've got, you might have two people in the same room speaking another language having a conversation and start laughing. You think, oh, they must be laughing at me. What have I done wrong? Yeah. I mean, you, we naturally.
Johnny Punish (39:06.681)
Yeah, yeah. So that's the history of the world, right? I mean, where you are talking with your Chinese friend there and you're really working hard to communicate, right? And maybe you'll learn a few Chinese words and they'll learn a few English words and it'll start to get together. And if you keep working hard at it, it'll go, it'll connect, right? And that kind of connection is what stops the wars, is what creates the peace. We just need the economic systems for humanity to continue that.
Steve Cooper (39:25.898)
Yeah, absolutely.
Johnny Punish (39:36.025)
success for all of humanity. Maybe I'm Pollyanna sure naive and maybe that's pie in the sky but I think Bitcoin could be a part of that because if we all own Bitcoin maybe we can get on par with each other and have a little bit more equality in the world instead of this inequality where you got one guy worth a hundred billion another guy worth five cents. You know what I mean?
Steve Cooper (39:56.362)
Yeah. Well, you've got one country that just prints money for itself and other countries that just try and do that and go down the gurgler. So of course it's going to create resentment. Right. And of course that resent, that resentment's in our face right now, 2024.
Johnny Punish (40:04.089)
Yeah, no kidding, right? There you go.
Exactly. So I'm hoping for peace and love and one world that's positive. I hope it's not that dark world that some people are predicting, which is the central government, the one guy on very top, you know, the evil doer that's going to put chips in our heads. You know what I mean?
Steve Cooper (40:24.936)
No, I don't I don't think that's gonna happen. I just think we got to keep talking about this We got to keep we got to keep breaking down these barriers and through being honest and direct Hey, we've got this thing called the internet. We can do it I mean I was you know, I've just I've been getting messages to last night from my contacts in China I mean 30 years ago that was never gonna happen I wasn't gonna get a message from someone in China 30 years ago, but here I am. I'm getting message Oh, they've got back to me. I'll just quickly write back. We've got this tools. This is tools in our hands. We can do this. Oh
Johnny Punish (40:44.697)
Right.
It's incredible.
Johnny Punish (40:51.489)
Absolutely incredible.
Johnny Punish (40:55.289)
Absolutely incredible. Now Steve, before I let you go today, tell us about what you're doing this week and what's happening with your company. Tell us what you and Kim are doing.
Steve Cooper (41:04.394)
Yeah, so Kim's just released a fantastic new audio that she's got behind a paywall. Kim Cooper on Substack. So it's free for now. So it's going behind the paywall, but if you log in now, you can get it for free. Her hypnosis, so it's a suggestion therapy. It's like a hypnosis, you can relax and just enjoy. It's about breaking down the prejudice. It's about getting some power back in your own life.
which is a really important step at the moment for all of us. We've got to take charge of ourselves. We can't keep pushing blame onto other people. That audio is fantastic. So it's up there on Kim Cooper at Substack. You can get it for free at the moment. Just join up. So that's, and there's another article up there. Oh, I'm hearing Kim in my ear. There's another article.
Johnny Punish (41:55.833)
Really? What's going on?
Steve Cooper (41:57.226)
There's another article on global thinkers that Kim's just released as well, which is really exciting. Go and have a look at that. It's fantastic.
Johnny Punish (42:04.505)
Yeah, that's globalthinkers .money. Check it out. You know, we're all about let's talk freedom and we're all about building bridges and connections. And that's what we did here today from Paris to Australia today. Steve Cooper, thank you for being on GT Radio and have a terrific week, my friend.
Steve Cooper (42:21.322)
Thank you, Johnny. Enjoy your flight home.
Johnny Punish (42:23.801)
Okay, perfect. Okay. Gotcha.