Transcript

David McWilliams (on the history of money) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

From Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 47 min · 20,613 words · 512 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "David McWilliams (on the history of money) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard", an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard published January 14, 2026 (1 h 47 min, about 20,613 words). It mentions 6 people, works and ideas, including Kushim, David McWills, Trinity College, Fibonacci, Dante.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: David McWills
  2. – 20:00: Trinity College
  3. – 40:00: Kushim
  4. – 50:00: Kushim
  5. – 1:00:00: Fibonacci
  6. – 1:46:54: Kushim

Notable quotes from "David McWilliams (on the history of money) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"

  • An intro that kind of became a fact check. Alas, David McWills's book is called The History of Money and it's absolutely fascinating. Yeah, it is a force that really you don't have the luxury of ignoring because it fuels revolution and.
    about David McWills · at
  • It? Anyway the point is I went to university. It's an old university in Dublin, Trinity College where I now teach, which is kind of a bizarre sort of symmetry. And I thought…
    about Trinity College · at
  • So it's a guy called Kushim. So it's the first name we know has been written down was a dude called Kushim in the history of the world.
    about Kushim · at
  • Bzantians all live together unusual in Europe and there a young man who's now known as Fibonacci was who's the father of mathematics was the son of a Genevesei tax collector…
    about Fibonacci · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

  • Dante — Book · 1 mention

Companies & orgs

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

Hi. Today we have an economist on and this I've been wanting to do this for a while and I think it was maybe probably Malcolm who who planted the seed which is Malcolm Gladwell said

it is really peculiar how powerful money is in our lives. Yes. And how it is a forbidden topic.

I know. It's like there isn't a more relevant force that we don't talk about. I agree. It's a play for everything.

I think as we know intuitively it leads to envy. Yeah. So you just avoid it to avoid envy

or like bragging or something like I it there are traps but like if you work with someone they go how much do you make? The issue is well I'm afraid to say cuz if I make more than them we have issues.

Yes. And if I make less than them now I have an issue with them. I know somebody who who a few times has like

been in a group and said how much money they've made on something and I am like I'm so allergic to you.

Yeah. And I guess I don't is and this won't shock you, but I've always pretty much

been very open about it. Yeah. I remember um Kate Hudson's brother Oliver. Yeah.

Who I love and was really tight with for a while. I think the first time we ever met, we were sitting in the backyard of someone's palatial house and we're like looking at the city. It's just it's pretty overwhelming with how gorgeous everything was.

And this is 21 years ago. I like this is quite a place, huh? He's like, "Yeah." And we both worked a bit as an actor. And I'm like, "Yeah." And then somehow I don't know how, but

he was just like, "Yeah, how much do you have in the bank?" And I'm like, "Oh, I have like $400,000."

Mhm. He goes, "Oh my god, that's exactly what I have." And I was so excited and we like there was something very bonding about it, too. But like, yeah, I've always kind of been that way. I had to learn about I always had less than everyone, so it didn't matter.

Exactly. And my family was very open about money. Oh, see. And a lot of families are very tight- lipped about money.

My parents would never I would ask them. So, how much money do you make? Ah, isn't that weird?

They would never tell me. My mom's approach, which I I agree with, was like, "Hey, they got you got to learn how to manage all this and feed yourself. You better know what it like I I make this, the house is this, the groceries are this, like you need to understand."

Yeah. And that is more logical to be including your kids. So, they leave the house with a real sense of what it all is.

I mean, they were definitely instilling like you need to have enough, you need to be safe, everything costs so much money all the time. they were instilling fear around it. So then I would say like well how much do you make? Like if it's everything's so scary and then they didn't want to say that was not for us to ask.

I know it's very very common. Um what's what you're already detecting if you're listening still is that we had a break and now are so excited to be back together and chatting a lot. So this was an intro that kind of became a fact check. Alas,

uh David McWills's book is called The History of Money and it's absolutely fascinating. Yeah, it is it is a force that really you don't have the luxury of ignoring because it fuels revolution and despotic rulers and you got to keep your eye on it.

Yeah. Please enjoy David McWills. He's an observer. All is good. Europe's um surprisingly close to New York.

Yeah. And we really we really really appreciate that because, you know, when we're when we're when we are, you know, in our heads, America occupies a different place. Then you realize 5 hours is not a big deal.

That's why the Vikings were able to get there. Exactly. Whereas you bastards like you're [ __ ] miles away.

I know. Yeah. No, we're we're the real deal. This is like going to a different civilization for us.

That's right. I get it. Oh, no. It really is. For a lot of Americans, LA is a different civilization.

Is it not maddening if you're in the rest of the world going like this pl that place changes so radically every four years?

I mean, I can't believe you went from Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump. Yeah. And you're you're kind of sitting here in America thinking, h this is a country I really don't understand.

Sure. I think most Europeans look at it and think, "We thought it was left, now it's right. We thought it was socialist, now it's MAGA, now we have Mamami in in in New York." You know, it's it's all over.

Do you guys at least know though that we don't either? Cuz that that would I'm not kidding. That would comfort me that you guys understand we're as confused as you are. That now is very reassuring because we're watching the news and particularly as an Irish person, we thought we knew the United States. Yeah.

I was a dishwasher here. I was a bartender, a student. Okay. We came over to Boston, hung out with the Irish Americans. All

we kind of knew St. Patrick's Day. You guys came over. There's what, 40 million Irish Americans. We thought, okay, we know this country.

Yeah. Yeah. And now we have no idea. You're more than 10% of the place. Yeah. Yeah.

But now we have no idea. But we don't either. Well, that's reassuring. And now in our defense, I think we're getting a lot of the heat. But this is a global phenomenon. It is not unique to here. There has been a very huge rise of populism and authoritarian type leaders. So it's like it's not unique to here. But of course, we're unfortunately we move the needle the most.

Superpower. Yes. So like America's got 4% of the world's population and 24% of the world's income.

Yeah. So that's huge. Yes. So you got to take it serious. When America sneezes, the rest of us catch a cold. That's

so true. Yeah, we catch [ __ ] co, you know, and and and so you look at the states and you think, okay,

do I have any sense of what's going on in that country, but you know what? You're right. Like Britain's got a reform party which is probably going to win. France has got Le Pen, Italy's got Maloney. Germany's got the AFD, you know, so it's all going.

You got Putin, you got Putin, but at least Putin has the decency not to get elected. He's like he's he's he's not doing this democracy stuff at all.

Now, what I saw was great. It was on an English TV show and they said and it was when Biden came in and the joke on the show was, "Yeah, this season of America's boring as if we're a TV show." So, at least I hope you're entertained, are you not?

Well, it's kind of like succession. Anyway, I hope you're having a laugh. I guess that's what I'm saying. Okay. So, you uh you grew up in in Dublin and and mom was an educator. Yeah, she was a teacher.

Yeah, my mom was a teacher. Yeah, she's still she's still with us. She's 90 and I brought her to New York

6 weeks ago. No way. Extraordinary thing. So, we're sitting at home and she's from Cork

in Ireland in July and we're chatting, chatting, chatting and she goes, "God," she says, "God, I'm 90 this year." I said, "Yeah, you are." And I said, "What do you want to do?" She says, "You know what I really like to do? I'd love to go to New York."

Mhm. The last time she was in New York, think about this, she went on a boat. Wow.

In the late 90, early 60s. We forget. Air travel is new. Yeah. Yeah. And so I took her to New York. So the educator Yeah.

And it was really funny. She's 90. So it was myself, my wife, my two kids, and granny. Okay. We go to New York.

We're all jet-lagged in a little bit. After the third day, granny says, "I'm going to go to bed for half an hour." Said, "Fine. Okay." In the hotel. So, myself, the kids, and the misses are sitting having a drink and we're like, "Jesus great."

She I thought she was gone for the night. Texts me at 90 by 7:00. What's the plan? Where are we going? Now,

she did 11,000 steps. On average every day. Wow. And she's 9. So, she she'll be listening. She'll listen to this.

Okay. Great. Hello. Shout out to Alice. To Alice. Shout out to um Well, you got to bring her to LA now. Next in her 95th.

No, it's a little bit too far. It's too far. Okay. New York. We'll post up in New York for a few days and then swing.

And then dad worked at a chemical plant. Yeah. Yeah. My dad's passed away a long time. Uh he worked

in a chemical plant and a factory. You'd know it from Detroit. blue collar, old school Irish, very nice guy, really decent guy. Passed away a long time ago, 2009. Um, but yeah, he was a good skin.

Uh, heavy drinker on the contrary. Oh, what kind of workingass guy was? So, it's interesting. In Ireland, you've got these weird things, right? You got the boozy working-class guys.

Yeah. And then you've got these slightly tea totally sort of conservative. Not so much conservative, but they're they were not boozers. My dad wasn't a boozer. My mom wasn't a boozer. It was unusual Irish upbringing. So, there was no shouting and roaring, no fights, no slapping around.

Dad never came home with a black eye. Yeah. Yeah. None of that. You know, like it's funny, you know, when you watch The Wire and you see McNelte and all the patties and all the cop patties and the cop, you know, the firework fireman copies.

Wasn't our family. Uhhuh. We're not all like that. All to say, I'm not looking at that family and thinking, well, he'll certainly become an economist.

No, that's true. That's very true. That's why I lay out both of them. No, that's true. I should have become a school teacher or something, but or a cop actually.

Yeah. I would almost think it would be like you would seem greedy to even go into that line of work.

I went to school and in Ireland, we have this very strange, very narrow education system which is highly academic. And essentially what happens is you do these final exams, you get a certain amount of points, you have the same thing, the GMATs right here. It's the same thing, isn't it?

And those points allocate you to certain courses in university. And the points I got allocated me to doing economics,

the like that prescriptive, that almost that prescriptive, right? Uh like doing kind of business e-commerce thing. And then I went into this course and thought, okay, fine, let's have a look at this. And I realized, wow, this is amazing. This gives you a framework to totally understand the world.

And I was completely hooked when I went to university. Completely hooked. No sense of it at all prior to this. I had no sense of economics. I had no sense of what it was about. Think about it. Born in Ireland, so the economy is a disaster from day one.

We have a banking crisis. We have fiscal crisis. We've currency crisis. Everything. Half of the country lives here, immigrated, and we've and we have a war going on. Yeah. So you're born not conducive to prosperity.

Think about a little kid your little head in the 70s ' 80s and you think wow the last thing you want to do is economics cuz we can't do that. We can we can write we can talk we can sing. We can dance.

He can join you too. Maybe can join you too. Maybe all that sort of stuff. Yeah. The one success we had was the one success we had and everyone's looking at this guy say how did you do it? Anyway the point is I went to university. It's an old university in Dublin, Trinity College where where I now teach, which is kind of a bizarre sort of symmetry. And I thought, wow, we might not be able to understand Ireland because we're a particularly weird bunch.

Yeah. But we could maybe understand America the globe. I think what happens if you're lucky if you're lucky as a a late teenager, something happens in your life where you think,

okay, I like this stuff. Then you just then you just do it. Then you do the masters. you do you know all that sort of carry on and the reason I did a masters was because there was no jobs in Ireland

right so I did a masters in Belgium like nobody immigrates to Belgium from yes so then you found yourself at the central bank of Ireland from 90 to 93 and some pretty dramatic [ __ ] went down in those few years right you have the German reunification so they're going to have to combine a currency and

absorb this half of themselves that has nothing you had Black Wednesday. Is that what it's called?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Sterling thing. Yeah. The Sterling thing. And then you had another Oh, and then the the EU kind of the treaty of the European

Mastrict Mastrict. Yeah. And I had no idea and like none of us have any idea that there was going to be, as you said, German unification.

Yeah. Which totally transformed Europe. Then you have the General Master Treaty, which totally transforms Europe. And then the Brits did what they always do, which is they screw up. They screw up. He's talking like a true Irish man.

No, but they screwed up massively. They screwed up massively in this. And so when their currency collapsed, our currency collapsed with it. So you're sitting there as a you're a kid, but you're a you've got a job. Like this is your first job. And what is interesting about working central banks and like like working for the Fed here, you begin to understand how the system works and doesn't work. Mhm.

Is is it fair to say you're learning about the levers that can be pulled and how effective they are in different situations and you're kind of learning about the mechanisms by which the state can kind of try to help or attempt

it does try to help like like in a in a sense you know like it's very easy to sit in the sidelines and say you know the state is this and it's that and we're not wrong with them but but actually when you work in the system you realize that most of the people are actually trying to help.

Yes. Most of the people are trying to do the right thing. So for example, I was born in the poorest country in the western world. Now think about that, right? That can't be true.

So you're the poorest of the rich. Ireland was the poorest country. So if the richest

racking my brain, okay, cuz you're saying Eastern Europe is not communist. No, so Eastern Europe is a communist, right? So So we when you're born in the poorest country of the rich world.

Yeah. Yeah. It's maybe the most dilitterious place to be, right? Yeah. You know, because you're always comparing yourself to your neighbors.

Yeah. Yeah. You can only up compare. Really? Your neighbors are rich. So, when I was a kid, I worked I told you I worked in Boston. I worked as a dishwasher. We used to arrive over with degrees in mathematics and economics and all these things

and all the jobs you could get were washing dishes here in America. Yeah. So, I remember thinking to myself, I remember working when I was like 18 in Boston washing dishes and thinking to myself okay

these Americans who we are serving Mhm. are much richer than us, but they're not that smarter than us. They're not that better read. They're not that clever. What are they doing

that makes them or what are we doing that makes us so backward? Right. And that was something that always prompted me in the world of economics. Yeah.

The other issue is my dad who you mentioned uh lost his job when I was about 12 and we lived in a pretty middle class area and that wasn't really supposed to happen. Right. So I remember my dad when I was looking at the window in the morning, he put on a shirt and tie and pretended to go to work

because because of you know because of who we were you know and I remember as a kid this really weighed on me and I thought how can this man who was so decent I told you didn't drink guy didn't decent guy be

made redundant by somebody else like what is this world how's it all work and how does how is it so much that he feels so ashamed

Yeah. Yeah. and embarrassed that he's letting on to our neighbors that he's going to work

but everybody knew he was you know what I mean everyone knew he was maybe it's also for him

it was for him so in a way you asked me about working for the institutions and working in economics

that had a profound effect on me because I was trying to think okay you didn't want to be powerless

precisely how can a man who's decent get fun honest get screwed by the system so what is the system that's screwing him

yeah so that I don't get [ __ ] by it. So I don't get [ __ ] by it. Yeah. And maybe that's was it that was maybe that was a sort of a

a propulsion mechanism that I only realized as I get older. But but to come back to it, I think the people in the institutions of state are trying to do the right thing. However, they will never experience what my dad experienced. And the reason they won't is because they're in the big public sector. So they can hide.

They're not going to get screwed. Nobody's going to knock on the door and say you're you're gone.

That wage packet that you had. And and I remember also working he worked in this pharmaceutical

factory which is a big kind of chemical factory. And I worked there for a summer when I was 15.

And I remember thinking to myself, [ __ ] this is hard work. Mhm. This is hard. Like this is proper work. This is actually back breaking work.

Yeah. Yeah. Where you're in pain afterward. You're you're I was carrying crates and crates of chemicals, right? and you're lodging them and and you realize I was like 16, so as strong as I was ever going to be.

Yeah. Yeah. There was guys at 50 doing this. Guys at 40, guys at maybe close to 60

and they're bent over and they're broken. Yeah. Yeah. And they're working for the [ __ ] industrial wage. I remember seeing this and thinking to myself, okay, that's hard work.

Yeah. And you don't want to be doing that. So maybe you ask, not an obvious economist, but there was there was a certain amount of triggers that said maybe economics is more interesting.

Yes. So these three events that you oversaw and I imagine in some capacity got to weigh in on as much as the central bank of Ireland would have been involved in any of them. How did those three events shape your overarching philosophy on economics?

Working in inside the great institutions of state, the European Union, the Irish government. But my only lesson was that nobody's in control.

And that's a very strange thing to arrive that conclusion at the age of about 25.

Yeah. Yeah. Because most of us watch the telly, you see Jay Powell coming on TV, the head of the Fed, you think, okay, he's the guy in Cook. He's he's in control. He knows what's going on, right?

Yeah. And once you work in these institutions, that slightly ephemeral, but incredibly satisfying notion that there's somebody in control disappears. and you realize that the world, the economy, the stuff that I do is entirely random.

Can we drill for one second down in there? Because I just was in a debate with my brother while he was in town and and my brother leans more into conspiracy theories than certainly I do. And we're chatting in the car and I said, "David, my my thing that I I just got to push back on a little bit is like, I've been lucky enough to know a lot of these people that you think are at the head of these conspiracies." And I'm like, no one really has as much control as you think. There's no no one can pull the strings the way not one person, not one entity, not not even a collective of 20 people can. It's way too random and dynamic and there's too many players. And the notion that this person's in control of that is it's it's quite an illusion. That's just not how we

What did he say to you? Yeah, I don't think I sold him on it. No, but it's true, you know, like so I've always thought that economics is much closer to biology than physics. So biology is messy,

right? Evolution is messy. The notion that humanity is an animal is that arrived at the top of this evolutionary chain, it's a mess. It's unpredictable and you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone next year.

Yeah. Economics became captured by intrigued by infatuated by physics about 50 or 60 years ago. And the reason I think this is what happened this to go back to your story about conspiracies is that economists always wanted to be clever and in the 19th century the clever science was biology. So pastor and Darwin and evolution yada yada in the 20th century the clever science was physics. So Einstein he was a global superstar and economist said oh we why don't we

be clever like those guys. So they introduce all these mathematics into economics thinking that the world is predictable.

Yeah. It has the illusion. Yeah. So to come back to your bro your brother. So the idea is you know is it possible that one person and one Illuminati

run the world? Yeah. No. No. Because the world is beautifully chaotic. Yeah. Because we are beautifully chaotic

and unpredictable. So I I think one of the one of the joys of doing economics is to realize that at the core of this economics idea is this crazy thing called the human being.

What's interesting is yes to your point like the biologists were kings and then the physicists were kings. But there has been this really interesting thing I've seen in the social sciences which more and more psychologists borrow from economics that

they do. All these models of uh benefit and loss and these games you play, right? They're all kind of game theory. They're adjacent to economics and they're using kind of the mathematical equations to help us get to of all things psychological phenomena.

It's moving that in that direction. And psychology as we know it's impossible to study the collective human which is economics is about without psychology and particularly group psychology. Maybe not individual psychology. Well,

they call it behavioral economist now and it's it's becoming very vogue at the moment.

It's persuasive too. Look, I think it's I think all sciences pursuits academia once it starts to borrow from everywhere else, it's becoming much more interesting.

Agreed. So, I think that economics should be seen in that bizarrely in that in that in that field as

as as a form of intellectual communication about the world. Yeah. Okay. So, your book, The History of Money, immediately appeals to me. I um of the opinion that we have this enormous force in all of our lives that everyone is completely uncomfortable. I share this opinion with Malcolm Gladwell. He and I will lament often when he's on here. It's just like how bizarre is it that it's the most powerful force in our life and it's almost the most taboo topic to ever approach.

And I think uh your book is great in so many ways because we're going to go through how do we even get here? And I think we should start with how we got here. I think we should start with the previous most powerful invention of ours which is fire.

So I spent 30 years as a monetary economist professional and private sector public blah blah blah and one thing that really struck me after all this was that economists didn't really understand money. So economists my tribe took it upon ourselves to explain money to the world. And I remember watching this I said like do they really get it? The first thing I was always intrigued is I'd never met a rich economist, which was kind of interesting. They talk about money all the time. Yeah. But they they're not good with it.

Clairvoyance who don't play the lottery. Why aren't we playing the lottery? Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So, I thought that that was the first thing. That was unusual. The second thing is I thought like, you know, what does money do to us?

It's sexy. It's menacious. It's dangerous. It's transgressive. It turns us into strange creatures. like this isn't a mad force.

Creates envy and it creates envy and resentment and and love, but also it creates love and great stuff and imagination and we're animated. It creates great innovations. All

I thought to myself, there has to be another way of looking at this. Yeah. And that's where I was sitting during co I mean I've been thinking about this for about 20 years, but I was sitting during CO in the basement. uh we'd have serious lockdown because you're kind of stuck and I thought actually what money is is this amazing technology that humans invented.

We have been a species that has always been defined by mastering technologies, solving problems, figuring [ __ ] out. And so if you read anthropology, you realize that our big technology prior to money was fire. So we were the species that figured out how to make it,

how to keep it, how to use it. And fires change us physically, makes our jaws smaller, makes our stomach smaller, digest more, our teeth, look, look at the three of us. We are the products, the evolution products of fire.

Yeah. There will be a lot of people that are anti- uh meat eating that'll go like, "Well, if you look at our mouths, we don't have the teeth of a carnivore or a proper omnivore." And it's like, yeah, because they didn't have fire. We did.

And we could chew. Yeah. And fire makes stuff. Soft. Yeah. Edible. Exactly. So if you think about it, so that intrigued me, this idea that okay, if the first 300,000 years of our existence as humans was a relationship or was characterized by the relationship between fire and us, this clever ape, which is what we are in effect

and that changed us. So we were a pyite species adapting to and adapted by fire. If you look at the last 5,000 years and particularly now, we have become, and I made this word up, so for the uh we've become a Pluto species. So Pluto being money in Greek and wealth, that's what we are. We're a Pluto species. So we are a species that has been constantly adapted by and we adapt to this technology money.

Yeah. But the fascinating thing about money is unlike fire. So when the Greeks thought about the world, they had the the four elements, the earth, wind, fire and water. I think money is the fifth element. It is a human invented element that only exists in our mind and we cannot we can't understand ourselves without understanding money.

Mhm. You can't understand the modern world. Think about like I'm in LA. I came from Dublin. I'm in a hotel down the road. You guys are doing a podcast. What's his name then? The

Rob. Rob is from from Chicago. What is the technology that binds us all together? It's actually money.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so you can't understand there's 7 billion people on the world. There's no way in the world you can understand us without understanding our relationship with this technology.

You make a great point like the the the rickshaw driver in Old Delhi. The one thing that assuredly he understands in the same way as the trust fund kid from New York is they both understand money.

Yeah, that's like the maybe the most unifying thing. Could we add love to that? That's not a technology, but that's also the most un a universal element if we're adding it.

Well, love is the thing that gets us out of bed in the morning, right? Love is the thing that keeps us together. But love is even more ephemeral than money as a force.

That's interesting. And it can't meet any of our survival needs other than what it you know it creates which is a bond where you can create more of us. But

but it is it's the most beautiful thing we have. I don't think you can live without it.

No, we can't. Yeah. And you and you meet you meet loveless people and you know it.

Yeah. Yeah. You can sense it. What's exciting for me to talk with you currently uh about this is we know all of the pjoratives about money, right? Is the root of all evil. It is is what makes everyone envious and jealous and all these things. And I think there are increasingly people in this country which I think is only a gift of being in such a rich [ __ ] country is that people want to do away with it. Like they really have this naive sense that like it's evil. We need to do away with it.

And and they need to understand they really need to understand what a tool it's been for us. And probably everything they love about life will find its way down and be distilled into money created it in some way. So let's start in Mesopotamia.

Well, just on on that point, I was educated by Catholic priests and they came in and they said money is the root of all evil. And I thought, well, that sounds okay. I accept that. That sounds cool.

Yeah. But then when you think about it, there was a French sociologist called Marcel Mouse. He said something very interesting from the 19th century. He said, "In order to trade, man must first throw down the spear." And what he meant was that trading and money was an alternative to war. Because in the old days, if I wanted what you had or you had, I had to kill you for it.

Yeah. Take it. But suddenly you say, you say, "Well, Monica," you say, "Well, actually, David, why don't we use this thing called dollars and you give me $100 and I'll give you

and suddenly you have this technology that allows cooperation." Yeah. Peace. And peace. So going back to Mesopotamia, what is absolutely fascinating for me was that civilizations that adopted money, particularly the Lydians and then the Greeks, okay, they seemed to acquire a competitive advantage over other civilizations. And I thought, why was that? Like so for example, how did the Greeks, the tiny little civilization, fight off the Persians, which is a massive empire.

Yeah. For so long. Why did the Greeks break the intellectual ceiling? Why did they come up with rationality? Why did they come up with democracy? Why did they not genetically smarter or superior? We need a much different explanation.

So I think what was actually going on was Greeks were the first monetized society. And the interesting about money is that if you start with a monetized society, then you have to count because you need to count. Then you have to be precise. Then suddenly if you're being precise, so then you're being rational, you're being logical. you don't believe. So I was always intrigued by why the Greeks moved from myths to logic in about 300 years because it's not a long time right?

I argue in the book that one of the reasons they did this is they were the first monetized society and a monetized society requires precision and precision requires you to be logical and logical requires you to be rational and rational requires you to question. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. We are supported by All State. Checking All State first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking the pockets of your jeans before doing laundry. Classic oversight. That mystery clunking in the dryer.

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That's turboax.com. Only available with Turboax full service experts, realtime updates, and iOS mobile app. The Greeks were the ones that came up with money and coins and coinage. Yeah.

And then the thing about coins is that it makes money real. It puts it in your pocket. It's a day-to-day thing. You're starting to be commercial. And what I was always intrigued about the Greeks, right, was that they at the center of the Greek cities wasn't some big palace or some big wide street for soldiers to go down was the market. They put the agora in the center of their society. And once you put the market in the center of your society, everybody can come.

Trading, spoofing, talking, all that sort of stuff. Moscow could never have been created by a democracy. Have you been there?

Every street in Moscow is huge. Big parades. For parades, for parades, for guys walking down with

with guns and machine guns and [ __ ] like that, right? Whereas, wow, you go to an old Greek town, higgledy biggledy markets, the whole thing.

Well, David, I did go in 95 to St. Petersburg. And I was driving around the morning. I'm like, where would anyone gather? There's no cafes. There's no supermarket. There's no like all the things that we think are well, we just think take them for granted. We underestimate that they're also the place that you gather and be social and meet your neighbors. And it was like there's nothing to congregate around here.

And when you gather and you're social, you grumble, you get pissed off, you gossip, all the good stuff.

You challenge. You're like, I don't like the big guy. Okay. So, yeah. It's by design.

Yeah. So, what I'm saying is that if you look at these civilizations and people say, why did they propel themselves forward so much? Lots of ideas been thrown around. I think one of the basic ideas is they were monetized and the monetary mind changes the world.

Yeah. And and what about as well uh you know in anthro you spent a lot of time on this which is once we moved to you know an agrarian or farming subsistence mode you had surplus which was a new thing right we had never had surplus we had storage of food. So all of this

facilitated specialized labor. Now you could have a cobbler who only did shoes. He didn't have to have an occupation that fed himself. He now could have an occupation where he become a specialist. So now he's going to he's going to learn everything there is to know about it in a way that someone would never have had the bandwidth to do. And then I'm presuming through through monetization that would have been all done with trading. And now you have you know you have calligraphers, you have writers, you have all these people that are dedicated to something other than feeding themselves. So knowledge is exploding. But still the the trading system is very inefficient versus a monetary system to handle the trading.

So, so the monetary system is the elixir of the trading system. It what kind of hypercharges the trading system and it's an amazing intellectual leap. It's, you know, in in economics they call it the law of one price, but I don't think that really captures what it is. But the idea that the three of us could align upon a notion of value. So you want this, you want this, I want this. And rather than discuss it and convince each other that we're wrong, we say, "Okay, here's here's a piece of coinage that settles the discussion." So if you think about societies, what is so essential for our societ our urban societies to work is trust. You go to a cafe, you turn up, say, "Could I have a flat white?" The geyser says, "Yeah, fine." He knows nothing about you, Monica

at all. Doesn't know your track record, doesn't know who you are, doesn't know where you're from, etc. But because of the dollar, that's sufficient trust between the pair of you to trade. And so you you click and your phone and it's done. So imagine money amplifies trust. And trust is essential for us to live in complex societies because we have to trust each other.

Yeah. So what you're seeing is the introduction of money had this incredibly constructive way of all humans

strangers. Strangers dealing with each other. Yeah. To trust each other. And once you start dealing with strangers, you start sleeping with strangers. You start hanging out with strangers. You start mixing with them. You've got exposed families. And you know, you're you're you're into the world that we begin to understand as the urban society that we all come from.

Yeah. Don't you think there's an argument for it engages distrust? Because if you're making the price then like if I'm trying to buy something from you and you're like, it's $10. And I'm like, but it's not. I mean, you kind of just had this happen. Dax kind of had is having this happen right now with the Christmas lights situation.

What's happening? What's happening? What's happening? I got a bid to install Christmas lights.

Okay. And it's so much money. And he's like, "It's not that much. It cannot be that much money to do this

to install a few lights, right?" And so he's like, "I don't trust you because you've decided to up the charge. Maybe because, you know, like it's me and I have money or or whatnot." So I feel like money like fuels a distrust.

Think about this in another way, Monica. I agree with you. But the price sets the signal to you. I don't trust you. So in the price is all this information. Like can you imagine like the guy who whoever's installing the whoever is installing let's say the Christmas guy okay Santa Claus

Santa Claus right? So you're thinking okay I don't really trust you. But actually what triggers your lack of trust is the price. And in the prices all this information in one number this is the fascinating thing I mean this is where economics is fascinating. So in one number Monica says [ __ ] nah I'm not having that right.

Mhm. So then you begin the process of the negotiation and then you will arrive at this conclusion of whether it's right or wrong or whatever. But my point is it's money expressed in a number which is a price that triggers whether or not you trust somebody. And that's a fascinating thing.

Yeah, it is because it's shortcuts. It's a it's such an amazing shorthand for everything. Let's talk though a little bit about me taking me because immediately uh once we have a monetary system, we we get immediately some very abstract um things built on top of it, which would be credit. Like our first guy, the first person in human history to be written about is a guy borrowing essentially barley to brew beer.

So it's a guy called Kushim. So it's the first name we know has been written down was a dude called Kushim

in the history of the world. And the reason his name so you know you would you would think it's some great god or some great storyteller or a hero from town.

No, he was a he was a hustler. He was a homebrew hustler, right? Could easily be from here in LA. Okay. a guy doing his thing and you think, okay, what was he doing? And then you realize that he was borrowing money from somebody else in order to make beer to pay that dude back in a year's time.

Two and a half years. Two and a half years. The rate of interest was 33%. That's pretty

seems deep to us now. Seems steep to us now. But again, tiny window of time though.

Tiny window of time. So you think and that's what I found fascinating about doing this like I can now feel what Kushim this guy felt at night waiting for the harvest so he needed a good harvest so he could get cheap cereal to pay back the dude and then you realize what what money makes money makes the ancient really modern because you know if we look back at ancient history like old Irish history there'd have been knights and you know big big chieftains and blah It's it's not real for us. It's like a weird totally

anchored into today. Yeah. Whereas Kushim, you can you can see the dude. He's got a mortgage to pay. He's like, "Shit, I don't have money. I've got these guys paying the taxment on my back."

And that's what I found fascinating. But it introduces this concept uh which I love how you you um uh articulated it, which is credit is being able to spend the profits of tomorrow today.

Yeah. which is a fascinating again this is such an abstraction and this is such a a paradigm shift and this opens us up to kind of a unimaginable world of potential because you can spend the money the profits of tomorrow today

the potential profits yes it's an amazing thing right and we kind of can't grow without that

we can't grow we cannot grow money allows us to travel in time and that's a really essential thing to grasp

how cool that is so for example people listen to podcast will have a mortgage, right? They go to the bank, they buy a house. A mortgage in effect is painting a picture of who you're going to be in 30 years time. And everybody believes this. And the rate of interest is the price at which we decide is the risk. It's an amazing idea. And you're traveling in time all the time with finances. As you said, you're borrowing from tomorrow, from an unimagined tomorrow. Uh-huh.

And an unpredictable tomorrow for reality today. And that's why credit and interest rates are so much more fascinating than economists talk about because what you're actually doing is you're traveling in time.

You're projecting into the future. The three of us have no idea what's going to happen in an hour's time. So, we're we're painting a picture of the person we're going to be over the next 30 years.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that opens up the world of possibility. In the book, I call money magic because it is like magic. It more magical is we all

suspend our critical faculties to imagine a future with money. And that I find not just fascinating, it just I find really

well it's optimistic minimally. Minimally, it's very optimistic. You know, it's it's saying I believe it's going to work out in the end to the degree that I'll take this risk. But this is the thing, Dax. All of us humans are programmed to be optimistic.

You You have to be. Which is why pessimists are so unusual. Well, that's when you have depression. When you think the world will be worse.

Why do you get out of bed in the morning? You get out of bed in the morning because in some little part of your head, you think tomorrow or today is going to be better than yesterday. It's a it's it's it's what doctors called your biological arrogance, which is that we are going to be better today than we were yesterday. And we know biological arrogance is ridiculous notion because we're all going to die.

Yeah. We're all getting closer the other way. We should be biologically pessimistic, but we're not.

Yeah. And that is a a beautiful elemental part of humanity. And I think money to the extent that it is this amazing technology animates that. This is again this why I can't believe we don't talk about it more. Um it is it is this incredible power. Uh and it's not without its warts but I do think people without the without the awareness of of how much it's given us and you're only aware of the warts which those are very visible.

Yeah. You could really throw the baby out with the bath water. And I would urge people to really understand the relevance in our life and our culture and our expansion

and why it's so emotional. Money is complex as we are complex. Yeah. Mhm. Because money is all about humanity and we're weird. We're armed and we're different and our brains are weird and therefore money is unusual.

Yeah. So it gives us writing. It gives us this this this new paradigm of again spending tomorrow's earnings today which allows for growth and uh investment and

hope and hope and it and it allows for trust. Okay. So as you you you give us the Greeks, right? and they become probably the the best sales pitch for money.

Yeah. What then did the Romans, you say the Roman Empire was built on credit? How did they take what the Greeks did and then expand it?

So So like for example, if you watch a movie like Gladiator, you know, you think the Romans, it's all about killing Christians or killing animals or fighting

big armies. Big armies, all that stuff. Big muscular guys, beefy guys, buffed up guys walking around with shields.

And then you realize, okay, well, what was actually fueling this whole thing? What were they doing? What were they doing it for? What were the Romans conquering Syria for? What were the Romans conquering North Africa for? Why did the Romans go to Britain? What was it? They were looking for resources. Now, why were they looking for resources? Because it was an empire built on credit.

Tomorrow had to be more profitable than today. Exactly. Exactly. So, they have this great expression called Peunia nonlette, which means money does not smell. And so the Romans had this and it comes from Vespasian the emperor because they actually used to tax piss urine.

Oh what? Because in urine is ammonia and they use it to clean their teeth. Oh wow.

So you think now so you think about it. Okay. So you guys have American teeth. I have European teeth. American teeth are whiter. Okay. We don't do that [ __ ] Okay. So you guys have American teeth, right? Okay.

Austin Powers did a good job at that. But it's it's it's just a thing. Europeans don't we don't whiten our teeth. It's a general rule, right? But Americans do. Now, why do you do that? Because you want to look younger. You look better. It's a it's more beautiful. It looks cleaner.

It looks cleaner. Yeah. I think it's that I think it's an indicator. You know, when I see American teeth, I think they're cleaner. Okay.

They're veiner, but they also have I have a mouthful of those. Okay. So, you think the Romans thought the same thing? And also clean teeth are a symbol of youth.

Mhm. So kids have white teeth. Yeah. And so they understood that in order to make their togas whiter, to clean their toas and their teeth, they needed this chemical. So it became valuable. So they used to have these big latrines. I know this podcast is going in a strange place, but here we go.

Yeah. Yeah. Full of piss. Yeah. Which the Romans collected. Ah. And then they thought, okay, if piss is valuable, then we should tax piss.

Wow. So there was a piss tax agent, right? That was his job or her job. Yeah. And fascinatingly, so the coliseum was built by a guy called Vespasian. And Vespasian was a Roman emperor around 72 AD. And so of course, you're building the coliseum. So you're spending money. So what he had to do when you're spending money is tax broadly. So he thought let's tax piss as well as everything else. Now his son guy called Titus who subsequently became an emperor was one of these sort of aristocratic sort of guys. Titus said to his dad Vespasian he said look man he said we're the Roman Empire. We can't be doing something as derogatory degrading.

That's taxing piss. And Vespasian responded peunia nonlette money does not smell. And what he meant by that is people don't care where it comes from. as long as it works.

Which was in a beautiful way. So he was slapping down his son saying, "Don't you be too upy."

Yeah. You can't be too good for this. Don't you be too uppidity. Okay. But on the other hand, he was saying, "This is an amazing concept." And so the Romans, you see, were this amazing empire of credit. The Romans, like the Greeks, had something very bizarre. They couldn't feed themselves. So the empire was too big. They didn't have enough agriculture. So they had to persuade other people. and they persuaded other people through military occupation and credit. So what you see is all the credit cycles like so for example 2008 what happened here in America when the property market goes up and everyone's doing these things the same thing happened believe it or not in AD.33 under a different emperor. So what you see is the Romans were like us. They speculated. They bought and sold. They spent tomorrow's money today and sometimes tomorrow's money didn't wasn't there.

They had banking crisis. They had their Lehman Brothers moment. Amazing. Yeah. And that that's what intrigued me about writing the book. You realize,

wow, this is just the story of us. Yeah. And we never learn. Yeah. So, so with the obvious success of money up to that point, why when we enter the Middle Ages do we see money go away?

Yeah. It disappeared. Yeah. What what happened? Why? Well, in the in Western Europe, it disappeared. The fascinating thing is if you look at, for example, Indian or East Asian culture.

Money existed there all the time, right? So, so for example, the fascinating thing with the Romans, they traded with Indians, but the Indians didn't want anything that the Romans made because it was all second grade.

So, the Indians acquired gold from the Romans because they said, "You know what? We don't want your

Indians have always your shitty stuff." Yeah. Okay. No, but think about it, right? Even today, Indians hoard gold. Yeah, they love gold culturally. Big big thing right?

So, Plenny the Elder even noticed and remarked that all the Roman gold that they were getting from the Roman gold mines in in Iberia, but also they're robbing for everybody else ended up in India. So what you see after the end of the Roman Empire, again, one of the things never really focused on the end of the Roman Empire was the Roman Empire ended around the same time as hyperinflation set in in Rome. So I think one of the reasons the Roman Empire collapsed was that the monetary system broke down. And once the monetary system breaks down, you break down the whole gel of society,

which we'll get to. We see this pattern emerge in Germany. We see it emerge in Russia. We see it emerge. This is a wellworn.

It's a well-worn trope. Not even a trope. It's a phenomena. Yeah. That when you [ __ ] with money, you [ __ ] with people's heads.

Okay. That's why inflation is so dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. Governments collapse. Governments collapse. Yeah.

Just the threat of it, even if it's not there. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's a really powerful it's a power incredibly elemental force in our in in our world. So the dark ages, one of the interesting thing about the dark ages for me looking at the history of money was money disappears. Coinage disappears. People stop inventing, innovating in money. We all stop innovating in art, culture, in literature, in architecture. All these things that are expressions of human dynamism.

Yeah. We went backwards. We went completely backwards in Western Europe. Yeah. In in Eastern Europe, in the Ottoman Empire, well, it was Bzantine Empire and further east, we didn't. But in in in Western European civilization, we really went backwards. Now, is there a link between the elimination of money and the elimination of culture? I think yes.

Mhm. I think that what money is the jelling agent as I've said before of civilized urban societies

and and equal uh an uptick in oppression and subjugation because you have now the feudal system takes place or takes the place of this monetary system. Right.

So I mean the last thing you want to be is a peasant born in seventh or 8th century Western Europe.

Yeah. You're an indentured slave, right? You're never you're never getting out of that. You can't buy your piece of property. There's no there's no means to do that.

Precisely. I mean the promise of money today and then is that and the reason people want it is that with money you can change and alter your material situation. You can go from being poor to being rich.

Yeah. And that's what people want. Without that it's just hereditary and you can't break out of those shackles.

So imagine when money disappears that hereditary obsess not obsession but that hereditary brace or straight jacket becomes even more tight. Mhm.

And that's what happened. And then what you see is that when money begins to reemerge from Germany in the 10th century,

you begin the process which leads inevitably I I think to the Renaissance, to the Reformation,

to European civilization, to European philosophy, all that good stuff. Without money, you don't have it. Our next resurgence is the Renaissance and you're in Florence and they have now the very famous Dante

coin. Yeah. The Floren. The Floren. And tell us how that money created the greatest explosion of art, of literature of

it's a fascinating story which begins in India and is located in the island of Sicily in the Mediterranean. And in the Mediterranean in Sicily when the Arab faith, Islamic faith literally burst out of Saudi Arabia, if you think about it, they conquered all of North Africa and Persia.

Yeah. And into India. And what the Arabs were doing like all conquerors, they were taking good bits of everything, right? And the bit they took from India, which is fascinating, is they took the concept of zero. the the number zero

which Europeans Greek philosophy which is where where where where our philosophical hterlandism

was obsessed by proving things and if you're obsessed by proving things obsessed by proving things there's one thing you really really dislike is nothing

nothingness the void and zero is the void so Greek philosophy closed down notions of the void Indian philosophy on the other hand embraced nothingness,

embraced the void. Therefore, Indian mathematicians embraced zero, and they exported that to Persia. And the Arabs thought, [ __ ] this is really interesting.

So, algebra is a Arabic word. Yeah, you can't have algebra without zero. So they brought this and the reason they brought it to Sicily is that Sicily was this extraordinarily cosmopolitan anthropo in the 11th century where Arabs, Jews, Christians, Bzantians all live together unusual in Europe and there a young man who's now known as Fibonacci was who's the father of mathematics was the son of a Genevesei tax collector and he went to school in Sicily and he learned from the Arab traders mathematics, algebra, zero. He brought that to Florence with him and that created I know it sounds weird as accountants are tend to be diminished as not particularly interested creative.

But it was accountants that brought this amazing thing called double entry bookkeeping into Europe. And this allowed European traders to begin to figure out accounts, sets of accounts. And this is the elixir of commerce because commerce needs a technology. So imagine zero and double entry bookkeeping is the software.

How does double entry bookkeeping work? Can you tell me in seconds? Yeah, very simple.

Yeah. Debits, credits. So like a P&L sheet. Yeah. You take Yeah. You take your P&L the podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. How much we cost? How much money we're raising? How much of the advertising?

And then every week you can say, "Are we up or down?" Yeah. Okay. Are we up or down relative to the next guy? The

company is It's kind of hard to imagine that wouldn't be obvious and didn't always exist.

I know exist. Yeah. Yeah. You take it for granted. Someone invented that. Somebody invented it. Think about it. It's It's not a natural way to look at the world.

We think it's natural. For us, it is. But so baked into so baked into us. But it came from somewhere.

Yeah. and it came from the Indians who gave it to the Arabs who gave it to the Europeans and then the Europeans double down on it. Okay. So that's what I find fascinating. So in a way the book is about all these kind of odd things that you think [ __ ]

[ __ ] that's important. Yeah. Yeah. With our remaining time I would love to talk about the

Sorry. We're going. But I do want to make sure we get to the uh destructive power that it holds. And that Let's talk about revolutions.

Yeah. I mean, revolutions are usually about money. So, the American Revolution was about money.

We didn't want to pay that tax. It was about taxation, but it was also about resources,

all that sort of stuff. We know all that that sort of stuff. You guys, that's when you guys started, let's say, setting the rules of the game. Okay. Revolutions all need to be financed. There was an expression in America. I'm not sure if it's still used because not worth a continental. Is that still used?

No. It certainly was used up until the 60s. And the continental was the currency of the revolutionary patriots which was so devalued, so debunked, so debased that this American expression not worth a continental was something that your fathers or grandfathers would have used all the time.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So because the complex was a [ __ ] currency and that was the first one we came up with.

That was your that was your currency. And the problem with the American Revolution is you had no money.

So the Brits squeezed you. So you had no money. So the French lent you a little bit because they wanted you to win

to piss off because they hate the [ __ ] Yeah. Exactly. So it's very simple, right? But of course to pay the patriotic army, George Washington had to print a useless currency to keep everything going called the Continental because of course that was the name of the United States before the United States became the United States. And in 1792, our friend Hamilton comes in and he goes, "No, we've got to have a proper currency and we're going to call the currency the dollar." Now the fascinating thing was the dollar didn't exist in the lexicon of America because the dollar is a German expression called a talor

and talor means valley. Most of the silver in Europe was found in a place called Yokam's Talor which is now in Czech Republic but then was in Germany. So the talor was always seen in Europe as currency. The problem for the American revolutionaries was they were using the Spanish silver dollar which was called the realale which was coming from Mexico and they were using this as currency here but even though the American patriots were anti-British they were English and their real DNA hated the Spaniards. So they couldn't name the currency after the Royale after Spain Hamilton Washington all those guys. So they said, "Fuck it. What number? What name are we going to come up with?

Who do we not hate currently?" The Germans seem pretty. Ah, the Germans. The German No, the German They'll have their day again. Don't worry. We'll get there. We'll get there. But today, we like them.

What I'm saying is all these stories are fascinating because they're the stories of us.

Okay. But the here's where where money has to be protected in some sense. So for the people who don't already know, I'm sure they do know, you know, post World War I, Germany uh as a product of the Treaty of Versailles, they get these incredible war reparations they have to make. And the end result of that is that their money becomes completely valueless,

which is how we get Hitler. Yeah, that's pretty well known. I didn't realize until your book, which is fascinating, is that uh Lenin after the 1917 Russian Revolution, he said, "How do we get rid of all remnants of the Russian government uh to now try this experiment, communism, we must completely annihilate the currency."

Yeah. And that's what they did. And so he just printed all day long as much money as he could to make it [ __ ] useless. And that think of the power. That's how

that's how that revolution stuck. That's how that revolution was successful. Yeah.

That's the interesting thing. through money. When you when we read about the Russian Revolution, we read Trosky and the Red Army and the battles and the white Russians and the Red Russians and okay, actually

what Lenon did was so much more destructive because he said, "Okay, money exists in people's heads and stability exists in people's heads and the system exists in people's heads. So if I can destroy the very very elemental tool of the system, I will destroy the system and they destroy the ruble. So suddenly you have no savings, you have no income, you guys don't know how much money you have if you have money. And he destroyed the Russian society from the inside out.

This is the most destabilizing thing. Fascinating thing is all he did was destroy the assumption

the mental Yeah. in people's heads. Got them to not believe in the story. Yeah. But that disproves that one person can't have a huge impact. That's the opposite of the conspiracy theory.

You're right. If that person is totalitarian and can turn the printing press on, you're right. That person, but they can destroy Russia. They can't destroy the world. And most of these

continues to it's still this Russia, the biggest country in the world. Yeah. Like it physically is an enormous country.

Most conspiracy theorists think there's a world cabal. No, there's not. Right. I know. I'm just saying there are there are individuals in history that do have and Lenin Lennon was

unbelievably intelligent person. Yeah, that's so clever to think. Scary as hell. You don't want that guy running your country.

Psychologically brilliant. Amazingly brilliant. And and and and Hitler learned from that.

Talk about the airdrop that Hitler was going to have. So, so 1941, the Lufafa be the battle of Britain, the Germans that had conquered France, they conquered Netherlands, they conquered Belgium, they were conquered Poland, they thought to themselves, okay, Britain, yeah, it's an island, but they won't fight. The Brits are obsessed by their empire. That's what's really important to them. And of course, the Brits fought, and they were like, whoa. and the Brits beat them in the air. So the RF So they thought, okay, [ __ ] we can't beat these guys in the air. We can't really invade them. What are we going to do? So you forget that Hitler lived through the VHimar Republic. So he saw the destruction of German democracy from the destruction of German money from the hyperinflation. He thought, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to replicate that in Britain. So how are we going to do this? But he

said, "We need to have the world's greatest and still today largest counterfeiting operation."

What? Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. So this actually happened. This is the real story. In 1941,

Hitler and Himmler got together and they said, "Okay, what we're going to do is we are going to have the largest forgery operation ever in history, and we're going to forge British bank notes, five pound notes, and we're going to airdrop them over the UK,

and we are going to destroy the spirit of the British people by destroying their money." Because this is what happened to us in Germany, and that's why we are here. They figured out the reason we're here with our crazy Nazi regime is cuz money was destroyed. And so in an amazing story, the Nazis sent out to concentration camps all over Europe, flyers that they needed, artists, mathematicians,

printers, bank printer, printers, mechanical things. I say people who were good with paper, all that sort of stuff. Right?

Even to the degree where they had the serial numbers correct. the serial number. So they needed mathematicians the whole thing, right? And so they went out and they found 127 I believe Jewish men who had been artists, bankers, serial numbers and they brought them to a place called Saxonhausen which is a concentration camp outside of Berlin. It's only about 15 miles outside Berlin. If if you go you can you can see the place right? So they took them from Mousefitch, they took them from everywhere and they brought them there and their job was to break the Bank of England and they started in 1942 1942.

By 1943 they were ready to go. They had printed, can I say, the equivalent of 10 billion?

What? Oh my god. It was $184 million at that time and 42. Wow. Anyway, the long and the short of it, they came up with the currency. What was most difficult for them was to figure out the paper upon which the currency, the British sterling, they they thought that the paper came from Malaya or what we now call Malaysia. But actual fact, British paper was British currency was pulped closed. So what the Brits used from their currency, the paper was closed. It was washed and pulped and washed and pulped and washed and pulled and washed and pulled. And they figured that out cuz that was the thing. So the watermark, the serial numbers, that wasn't the hard thing. The hard thing was the texture, was it?

So what they did was a Nazi turned up with a bucketload of this money in Switzerland in 1943 and he went, ironically, the bank I used to work for, UBS, Union Bank of Switzerland, which is kind of weird, right? Yeah.

And he he said to the Swiss bankers, "I've just done a trade in Germany. I think this is counterfeit money. Can you check it for me?"

So the Swiss bankers checked it. They got their big their big headlights and they came back about a week later. I said, "No, no, this is this is this is cool. This money is cool.

It passed the ultimate." Ah, but interesting. The guy then doubled down. He said, "Look, I'm really I know you say it's real, but I'm really suspicious. could you possibly send this to the Bank of England to make sure that this is real? So the Swiss bankers sent the batch to the Bank of England. The Bank of England came back a couple of days later and said, "Yeah, this is stuff we printed this money." They said, "This is our shit."

Therefore, the forgers had got it right. So the guy goes back to Sax and Haz and says, "We're in business."

We're in business. Right. and they printed and of course the problem was the idea was to airdrop this stuff over Britain in 1943 1944 but by that stage the Germans were losing the war in Russia and they couldn't risk Luwafa planes because the Lufafa planes were fighting in Russia

so they didn't have the planes so they were going to airdrop the whole thing it was called operation Hinrich Google it may

and that would have been even Churchill would have had a hard straighten that. What happens is if you imagine if you walk out in the street here and dollar bills come out

money everywhere. Yeah, you're going to put a few in your back pocket. And if it's indistinguishable, I mean that could have been a tipping point.

The interesting thing is they had the money. So then what did they do with it? The Nazis. So the last two years of the war the Nazis bought all the Nazis bought all the art. They bought it all with this counterfeit money. So much so that they bought Mussolini out of captivity. So Mussolini was kidnapped by Italian communists at the end of the war. The Germans didn't capture, they paid for him and they paid for him with counterfeit British notes.

So this money, is it in museums? I mean, has it been accounted for? No, not and and and the amazing thing is the Bank of England at the end of the war was so worried about this money. So worried were they about the accuracy and the precision of these German counterfeits and they knew there was millions of pounds out there that they retired all their five pounds.

Yeah, that's smart. redesign redesign the whole thing get rid of the because so they were so aware that this was out there and it could undermine sterling and of course sterling was the dollar of the time. Sterling was

the reserve currency of the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. That's why you need to think about it this way. That's why you need to take inflation seriously. That's why you need

crypto seriously. You need to take all this stuff seriously. Yeah. Yes. Let's end on crypto. What we're talking about there is, you know, Hitler forging money, basically having his own printing press.

Mhm. In a sense, not in all senses, but in a sense, all crypto is trying to do is replace the United States dollar.

Can I add the one really the I think the distinction people need to think about is money conventionally has been state ordained.

Money is state. Yes. So you must you must understand that crypto is private. Yeah. I don't think people necessarily put those two.

So this is the key thing. So for example, what what gives the United States dollar its potency at the end of the day is the fact that the United States government requires you to pay your taxes in dollars. So the dollar is soldered on to the American economic system. I can't pay for a beer in euros here. I can't go to a barn, right? I can't do it. I need dollars, right? The American dollar and the United States system are one and the same thing. and they are provided by the state. A state that whether you like it or not is democratically elected. You have the institutions, the Federal Reserve, all that sort of stuff, right?

So money is public. The American dollar is a public good issued by the American state. Crypto is private money issued by private individuals. And private money means that the people who really really benefit are the people who print it.

It's a business. It's a business. Yeah. So it's not actually money. I'll go further. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's not even a business.

I think so. It only works if people are buying into works. So for example, you say that like

you get death. Think of money. Think of money. Well, that's also the way money works. It only works if everyone buys in. But we just have.

But it is backed. It's backed by the state. It's backed by the state and it is related to something. It's related to GDP. It's related to debt. It's related to interest rates.

There are a ton of mechanisms to help keep it a trustworthy story. 3 months ago, I was in Kenya.

You go in, you fly into Kenya, find Nairobi, you get into the back of a cab, taxi driver talks to you about dollars. What's the value of the dollar? What's the value? The dollars, right? So, why is that? It's because the dollar is this universal currency that everyone understands the value of. So I in in the book I compare money to the language. What gives money its potency is its usability that we all use it.

How many people does it unite? That's its total power. The reason the English language is interesting is that the three of us can communicate using a language that maybe our grandparents didn't speak like I'm sure. Like so think about it. So we use this language as a technology so we can communicate together. So English if you were to think about it, if you were to look at it now, it's not the easiest grammatically. It's not the easiest phonetically. It's kind of weird. You know, night is ni ght.

Yeah. [ __ ] Don't get dedicated. If you were to invent a language today that the world would use to communicate, it wouldn't look like English.

Although can I add one thing? We were in India. We're at Microsoft learning about their AI. English is the most efficient language for AI.

It costs 40% more to have AI working in Spanish. It is a very concise language. So it does weirdly now in this age.

I didn't know that. It has a value which is you need less syllables in in data entry to convey.

Wow. That I did not know. Yeah. It costs more to run models in other languages.

So if you think the English language is the default language of the world, right?

The dollar is the default currency of the world. So the way I look at crypto, crypto is like Espiranto.

What's Espiran? Espiranto was a language that was invented in Europe between the wars that was going to be the unifying language. Espiranto is incredibly important to people who speak it, but the rest of us don't give a [ __ ]

It's still being spoken. No, it's only it's only academic. It's only academic right now, right?

Okay. Crypto is the espiranto of money. Incredibly important to people who own Bitcoin like and and they'll tell you. You'll sit in a bar and they will tell you a religion. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the rest of us don't give a [ __ ] No. Could be less interesting.

You know what I mean? You go down to the you go down to the pub, you go down to the grocery store,

you're just like, "Give me the stuff and dollar." My point is that it's it's a it's a private scam which is a function of social media, tech bros, young males, all that stuff.

People with too much money that are constantly looking to diversify in an inflation,

people with no money who want That's why it's it's preying on vulnerable people who need money.

The really rich and the really poor crypto. The rest of us don't care. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. and and all of its appeal is all of the issues with it, right? So, it's deregulated. There's no government oversight. Yeah. But then when it's stolen, which so many people have had it stolen, there's no one to pick up the phone and call. There's no investigative body that's going to go out and find your money. Remember, it was meant to be anti-establishment kills away. It was meant to be anti- this.

Who are the biggest traders in crypto now? Wall Street. Yeah. And now the the governments governments went into the Trump family are now printing their own [ __ ] I'm surprised it got this big here because I mean there's already so much uh conflict and issue around American healthcare which is this private versus public. Like people want a lot of people want the government to take over health care and are mad at the private sector. So it's like why would you want that and then also want private money?

Yeah, that makes no sense to me. Well, I can tell you what the sales pitch was is like, I should be able to move currency between David and I without the government having any sense of that, without them trying to tax it, without them being involved. It's my thing and it's your thing. We should have the freedom. We should have the liberty to do that. That's the appeal.

That's the appeal. But in function, it doesn't operate that way. We know that the vast vast vast majority of crypto and I know Bitcoin it's not cryptos are it's the crypto family, right? It's the alternative money. The vast majority of this is still for criminal behavior.

Yeah, we know this. Yeah. Okay. Number one. Number two, the vast use of stable coins is trading between people who already own stable coins, right? It does it hasn't broken out into the world. I think we are looking at maybe the most spectacular heist foed upon people that we have ever seen.

Yeah. It's a MLM. It's a market. It's a massive fraud. It's a pyramid scheme. It's a multi-level marketing scheme. It's all It's a promise of riches for nothing. It's all there. It's all

And I And someone's feelings are really hurt right now. And I get it. People have made a lot of money on it. So, I don't hate on them. I understand the appeal, but uh ultimately

someone's going to hold that back. And it's not going to be the rich people. Making a lot of money on something that's speculative isn't a sign of reality. It's part of the speculative mania that makes us human. So people, you know, AI, the same sort of thing. What's going to happen when, you know, Nvidia or whatever that share price collapses, right? It's just a speculative thing. We are in a casino world.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, we already watched NFTts come and go. Yes, I remember them.

Talk about confirmation bias. Like that doesn't fit into my narrative. So like we just ignore the fact that there was billions of dollars lost in NFTTS and that that's not even a thing people talk about like it'll it'll go away like that.

It it'll be the same. Yeah. Now will digital currencies matter? Of course they will.

The state and the state the central banks will issue digital dollars. Yeah. Before long.

And that is because you know I've been in America for two days. I have not seen a dollar note.

Yeah, I've it's all cashless, right? You know, it's all cashless. So, I've been here. I haven't seen dollar note.

At the end of the day, the Federal Reserve will issue digital dollars and that's it.

But isn't that what we already have? Is we have that already. We have that already and we're going to migrate towards this and some people want cash because they don't want to be traced. But as a general rule, guys,

the idea that some private tech bro is going to be issuing the money. Yeah, I get that you don't trust the government. I get that you don't trust the government, but the notion that you trust an individual even more isn't that proven a million times over. I don't understand that.

Well, David, this has been a blast. I love this book, and I'll tell you why it's a great read because it is every bit as much a history book as it is uh a book about money. you're learning so many fascinating uh details about uh history from the beginning till now. Uh so it's a very fun ride and it moves fast in your uh full of characters and and great stories. It's it's it's wonderful. Uh the history of money, a story of humanity. Um I really urge people to check it out. This has been the light attacks. I could be here all day as we police ourselves.

Thank you guys so much. Pleasure. Great. Pleasure. Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at.

How was the party? There was a party last night. Rob and I were both there. Rob, you better get behind a microphone so I can hear your up your update, too.

He was mingling and schmingling. Oh, I bet he made a lot of connections. It was really fun. So, yeah. last night. Well, when this comes out, all will be over. We'll know the results.

All will be revealed. All will be revealed. But, um, yeah, this week has a lot of events leading up to the Golden Globes. Last night was a Spotify by the Hollywood Reporter Party.

Uhhuh. And um, and it was really fun. It was really fun. Many friends of the pod there. Saw Kumale.

Oh, you did. Ding, ding, ding. Dingles. And uh Mel Robbins was there. Okay, great.

Friend of the pot Amy Polar was there, but I did not get to see her. She was walking out as I came in. I was sad to have missed her.

Um I brought Anna as my plus one, and she's the best plus one cuz she's so fun.

Yeah. And she loves free drinks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was great. So much fun. They threw a really good party. Um of Oh, Jackie was there. I hung out a lot with Jackie. Yes.

Fun. Always a good time. Joe. Jackie and Joe. Jack and Joe. Always a good time. Jack and Joe.

Yeah, there's a song in there for Jack and Joe. Um, now Yes. Of course. Of course. Things can't be Yeah. Yeah. Not complaints. These are not complaints ever. These are like just insecurities.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. That I'm just I'm just, you know, working through with. So, you know, we're invited to this and you can't go. You're sick.

Yeah. Well, we'll get to that. Okay. And we get there and Jordan, our old friend at Spotify, incredible man and father.

Yes. Um and husband. And husband and son. I don't know how he is as a son. I know exactly cuz his mom is Tom Hansen's partner and I've met her and she adores her. Jordan.

A that's nice. Anyway, Jordan's the best. And he so you know he was arranging with me beforehand and he was like, "Do you want a car? Do you want a whatever?"

Uhhuh. And then he was like, "Let me, you know, tell me when you're pulling up." So I did. He's there. And he was like, "Let's expedite you through the carpet." And they had asked me before. They're like, "I just spit. I'm cutting that."

Yeah. I couldn't see it from here. And I got an eye exam yesterday, so I would have been able to see it.

Okay. Um, now people will rewind. Um, yeah. So So he had asked me earlier, I was like, "Will you do the carpet?" Uh-huh.

And I was I said, "Sure." So, he's walking. He He's trying to get me through. And then the the man that's like, "I don't know the gatekeeper, but he's just a boy."

Was like, "Only she can go." And I I said to him, I was like, "He's like running this party." And then and Jordan was like, "It's okay. I know. I'll whatever. I'll meet you on the you stand by this whatever." It was like then it got chaotic. Okay.

Okay. cuz then he was gone and Anna was gone and then I'm just standing and I'm like I don't know where I don't know what to do now.

So then from the side they're like go this way and I was like okay and then I'm still standing.

Yeah. I end up on the carpet. I'm taking pictures but then there's nobody. Really quick before we move on from pictures. What's your comfort level during those pictures?

It's so awkward. It's [ __ ] rough. I want to look so cool and I just don't. And that's fine. Like it's fine. You were gone so long too cuz we ran into Anna while you were at the carpet and she thought you were lost.

I was She wasn't I was because because Jordan was like I'll meet you on the end of that carpet. So I was like looking for him because there was all these outlets and I knew I was supposed to do them.

Uhhuh. But I didn't know how cuz I didn't have anyone there to help me. Yeah. So then I just walked off the carpet. Okay.

So, I didn't do any of those things I was supposed to do. All right. And I felt really like

this is the thing out of water. This is the thing I I talk about a lot on here, which is like it's difficult for me and I'm enormous and

you mean tall one. Navigating the scenario. I'm a very big man who is not easily rattled. And as I always bring up the like upfronts when you go to New York and it's like here's this 5'1 18year-old

woman from a CW show and she has to walk this gauntlet of all these maniacs and like it rattles me and I So yeah, you were one of them. You're just this

little tiny person scurrying around the red carpet. Where do I stand? Yeah. Am I supposed to smile or look seductive?

I mean even the playful or panty dropper? I did the pictures which I was like good. like that's fine, but it was more like the outlets, which I I knew I had said I would do. So, I felt like I'm I know I'm supposed to, but nobody's here. And someone was like, "Where's your publicist?" And I was like, "I don't have one."

Uhhuh. Help. So, I just scured off. My little mouse self scured off. Um and then uh and then I entered the party.

Well, rest assure we'll be together. Yeah, exactly. And we will have a publicist. Actually, we'll have a few. So,

Okay. that will be um better and I'm glad we're going to be doing it together, but I don't lose me cuz remember I'm so small.

No, I'm going to have two of you little people so I got to like bounce back and forth. It's going to be a busy Sunday for me on that red carpet.

Exactly. Anyho, so but it was really fun. And you know, it is fun for me to get to wear cute outfits.

Yes. You love it. I do love that. Dream come true. They did have Ted Seagars at the party last night.

Oh, [ __ ] I can't believe I wasn't there. I know. And they had I told you this already, but they had little um appetizer bites named after us. Yours was named um

Yours was named Dax's Michigan strip. Was it a steaky? Yeah, it was a seared petite fillet steak at top a crisp palenta square. Gluten-free.

Oh boy. Yeah, I feel lousy now. I there's no possible way I could have gone um because I was like I gotta go. I love Jordan and I and I owe him so much and I gotta go and then um yeah I got sick on December 15th and as I've already talked about I went to New York with my brother and just went hard hard. I've been never shook this cold even until I got back.

And then my sweet, sweet friend from London, England, Jethro, came to visit and he's staying at the house and we've been hanging out and saunaing together

and uh he hit me I guess Tuesday morning. He's like, "Oh my god, dude. I feel so terrible. I hope I didn't get you sick." And I'm like, "I'm already sick. I probably got you sick. I'm sorry."

But no, no, no, no. It definitely had a new flavor. So like a second and some second virus entered the scenario. Two front wars they would say.

God and you're in the sauna. It's like you definitely got it for us. And we were kissing and talking and

Yeah. Yeah. But the sauna is really how it happened. Yes. Um so now you Yeah. Now you have a new

So really it started going downhill and I was kind of ignoring them. Oh, it's the same thing I already have. No. Um it got much much worse. Um so yesterday I woke up. I was like I'm in trouble. I'm in I'm in trouble. Let's hope this

We have a big weekend. huge weekend and I had made a commitment to my sweet oldest girl that I was going to take her to the go-kart track.

Now, backtory about the go-kart track. I took her one time like three years ago with my fantasy of her starting to race go-karts. I took her to K1. She rode our first session with the juniors

and these boys were passing her a bunch and she thought she was terrible and she just didn't want to do it again.

Yeah. I was like, "Fuck, man. That there goes that dream." So anyways, out of the blue, I was like, "If you ever want to go to the go-kart track, I want to go." "Oh, I want to go." Okay. So the whole ride there, she's like, "Uh" I go, "You're going to ride in the adults. You're tall enough now. You're you're five feet, so you can ride in the adult carts." "No, I want to ride in the junior cars." I'm like, "We're going to ride together."

Oh, we're going to do this as a team. I got you. I'm going to ride behind you so no one can hit you. Like I'm going to be running buffer behind you.

Okay. I don't know. We check in and she's even trying to talk the workers into putting her into the junior. She's going with me and the adults. So, there's two different tracks at K1. One's one's bigger and one's smaller. So, the first session we're on the big track and um there was four other strangers out there adults.

And first lap was a little wobbly, shaky. Second lap she started to get the the feel. She started getting comfortable.

By the end of this 10-minute session, she was like totally comfortable in the car. We got out and she was like elated and happy.

Great. And you get times and there was six adults. Yeah. And she came in third.

Nice. And her time was 34. Okay. You got to remember 34. So we come off the track and now I want to teach her a little bit about the strategy. So I go to the big map of the track on the wall and I start explaining to her how to go through corners and I like explain the whole thing to her. I don't take a ton of time. Maybe we're looking at that map for 10 minutes. I'm explaining stuff.

Yeah. Then we go to a brand new track, um, the smaller track, and I start behind her, and within one lap, this [ __ ] kid is on the racetine the entire time. I'm like, "Oh my god, did she get that quick?" I was like smiling ear to ear behind her.

It was so fun. She like really loved the second session. We go back to the big track for our third one and as we're walking to the thing, I said, "Well, what's our goal?" And she said, "I I don't And I said, "I think you got to break 30 if you started at 34."

Okay, break 30. She's like, "Oh, it's 30. That's 4 seconds." So, we get on the track and we're going

and she's just [ __ ] Monica, I'm not I'm not like proud dadding it. It's bonkers how in natural.

Yeah. We get off the track 27. Wow. And I got to tell you, when I go with the boys,

7 seconds beating. When I go with all the guys Yeah. and I and I generally am in first. I pulled up those old ones because I can look at them in my email.

I'm running 24s. I'm winning with 24s. And she was running 27 on her first day.

That's amazing. Oh, was I happy. And then I was completely dead. Sure. Cycling through fever, chill, fever, chill fever chill.

And uh and then I felt terrible that I didn't go to that party. But I woke up and I have to say definitely on the upswing. I was like, "Okay, I'm done with the fever part. I can tell.

Okay. Yeah. Time to move the body a little bit and get going. You know, you get really upset when I

I mean, try not to get mad at me. I mean, I'm a little mad at you in the way that you would be mad at me. And you do get mad at me. If I'm like, "Ow, my back hurts." And like, "Why aren't you drinking water or taking this and and you get mad at me and I say, "Don't get mad at me." And you say, "Well, you're not taking care of my friend."

That's true. That's what you say to me. But could you find all I'll ask is if you could find a scientific paper or study that says you shouldn't work out while you're sick. And if that's the truth, I'll abide by it. But I don't think that's the truth.

Okay. It is. And so doctors, I'd like you to weigh in and I'll also find some studies on it and um you can do some light.

Yeah, I went pretty light today. But I mean, no, like walk like you can like take a walk, but if your body is trying to recover, it it needs to. Yeah, but I have to manage two things. I have to manage the illness and then I have to manage my temperament. And I just was completely stagnant for two days. And that'll [ __ ] with me. So that's also for me.

I know. But then you're just going to be sick for like 8 months then, which is not like you have to give your body some time to really recover.

Okay. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Now, my snack was called Monica's standards, and I love

I wish I got that. What's the standards? Standards. Oh, done. You think that's obvious?

I think so. I think of music standards. Sinatra. I'm like, did do you have favorite?

What did you think, Rob? I got it. But okay. Um because it was Mel's permission slip, Amy's Yes. And Dax's Michigan strip, Monica's standards.

I think it was clear. Are you going to do the update or do you want me to? I think you should read it in its entirety.

Oh, yeah. Okay. This is one of the funnest dingings we've had on the show for me.

This is really fun. Also, there's another one. This is a separate thing. What did you send me, Rob?

Oh, there was someone sent pictures of the Kmart thing. Oh, yeah. Your shirt. The shirt I got you for your birthday.

Yeah. Um, someone sent an email. I'll pull it up. This is from Rob. So, this person Stephanie

Oh my gosh. reached out. She said, "Listening to the podcast yesterday and her decks open his birthday gift for Monica. My first job out of Ohio State University was traveling manager for the KKR A Kmart Kids Race Against Drugs program." me.

I said Sinbad on. So, there's a photo up now of Sinbad on a lawn tractor that they put a fake hood scoop on and it's all stickered up with the Kmart.

I guess this is a ding-ding ding. I wonder if this program ever like I be impossible to um measure it, but do you think it kept a single kid off drugs?

Yeah, you do. I I really was affected by the DARE program. Um I never did drugs.

Do you think because of the DARE program? Yeah. Okay. Um, me and 60 plus other postgrads got paid to travel the country for six months setting up this giant racetrack in Kmart parking lot. See

I would have loved this. Yeah. She said it was a party. We would give kids the opportunity to race a slick looking lawn mower and one year later a golf cart made to look like a Ford Mustang thanks to a sponsorship from Ford. We love Ford. We love Jim Farley friend. I'm going to Detroit next week to unveil the new Red Bull race car. And I'm going to hang with Max Versstappen.

Wow. And Jim Farley. Fun. And Hajar, the new driver. And I think Ricardo. Oh, fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we love Jim. He's a nice man. We do. Friend of the pod. So nice.

I got some sweet Fords I love, too. Okay. For each child that went through the race, Kmart donated $5,000 to the local DARE program. All the kids and volunteer staff received a free t-shirt like the one Monica got taxed for his birthday. A lot of celebrities joined the cause from city to city, including Dick Clark, Mary Lou Rettton, Paul Newman. He has You have the same shirt as Paul Newman.

Oh my goodness. Kathy Island, Shaq, Mary from Gilligans Island. You notice there's no pictures of Shaq in any of those vehicles. Not a [ __ ] chance. He's getting a mini

Mustang. Can't do it. Front of the pod. Um anyway that's adorable. I know. I thought that was so cute.

But alas, that is not the That's so cute. That's the Thank you for sending that. Yes. But this, and I'm gonna I'm going to remind people in case they didn't listen to the fact check for Walter Isacson. We discussed our flight home from Nashville. You were seated next to a cute boy. That cute boy started interacting a lot with the gal across the aisle from him. Then they

I thought it was a meat cute. You thought it was a meat cute. I was suggesting it was they were already lovers. And now we received this email.

Yes. Emma sent me um a a text. She said um the girl you saw holding hands with that guy on the plane is an armchair and wrote into aa

by luck. She happened to hear that fact check. Yeah, she's a good listener. Uhhuh.

She said, "I was listening to the Walter Isaxson fact check and I am the girl from the January 3rd Nashville to LAX meat cute. I heard Monica recount the meat cute she thought she was witnessing between me and my boyfriend, which is now a very fun, treasured memory for us. After listening, I felt bad and I wanted to figure out some way to let her know he didn't pick someone else over her in that moment. I checked the website as a long shot to see if there was a quick way to send an email and saw me cute as a prom. So, hopefully this gets to her in some way. The full story from the other side of the aisle. My boyfriend and I were supposed to fly back from Nashville to LA on January 2nd. Last minute, we were able to snag a reservation at the restaurant Locust on the night we were supposed to leave. So, we decided to pivot the flight to January 3rd. Rob just made a noise, so that must

He just came. Locus is great. I'm glad they got to go. We had a mixup when rebooking our seats, so instead of sitting next to one another, we were sat across the aisle from one another. My boyfriend saw Dax get on the plane and tap me because he knows Armchair is my favorite podcast. While I was trying to act cool, the girl sitting next to me struck up a conversation, which is why my boyfriend wasn't talking to me and didn't appear to be with me when Monica first sat down. When I went to talk to him, I saw Monica sitting there. In an effort to give her privacy, I started texting my boyfriend rather than leaning into the aisle to talk. I also think people were still boarding the plane, so it was difficult to talk. Anyway, the irony is that while Monica was building the scenario out, I was thinking two things. One, Sim. I just downloaded all of season five of Friends to watch on this flight. I was locked into Friends

and he was locked into his book. Two, I've listened to the podcast for years and so I've heard Monica talk about meat cutees. Immediately when I saw her sitting next to him, I was hoping she wasn't thinking about this as a meat cute because she deserves one and my boyfriend is a little oblivious and wouldn't notice if she flirted with him. It was also hard enough for me to get attention on that flight. That said, Sam was looking great. That must be the boyfriend and reading so I wouldn't have blamed her. I had a crush on him, too.

I've listened to the podcast for years and realized I was being a little over the top thinking this person I've never met would think about a meet cute with my boyfriend when in reality the girl is really just trying to sleep on this late night flight. I did ask him to hold my wine when I went to the bathroom and we did hold hands during the turbulence which there was a lot of because I've become a bit of a nervous flyer. I've been with my boyfriend for three years, but it made me feel so happy to hear someone I think of as an absolute badass, an incredible businesswoman, and someone I am personally grateful for with Race to 35 describe our interactions. You don't typically get to hear unfiltered versions of how strangers observe you. It's a very interesting feeling driving home from work, turning on a podcast, and hearing that someone perceived your actions as falling in love. I also have to thank

Monica and Dax. In a lot of instances, it would have been very easy to try and make yourself or a friend feel better by cutting down the other girl in this scenario. I respect them both for fostering a story that built us up. A story that my boyfriend and I both feel represents our love.

I love that email. It's so good. I love it. Shout out to what I still consider a meat cute.

Okay, now it's a meat cube between me and her. There we go. It is. This is the Locust dinner or the

He's still thinking he's still He's back there rubbing himself. Their dessert. This is like a shaved ice with whipped cream on top.

Is it an egg on top? No, it's looks like an egg, but it's a insane. It's a still thinking about that dessert. Yeah.

Oh, no. It's a carbuncle. Carbuncle. It does look delicious. Anyway, that's it.

That's That was a good update. Yeah, that was a really good update. Okay, so yeah, let's do some facts. Okay, David. So, he said air travel is new, newish, like we forget, you know,

right? And so then I was looking that up. We all know that the Wright brothers had a successful flight that was in 1903. Kittyhawk,

great book by the way, David McCulla. Wright brothers book. That's great. Nice. But really, it became mainstream in the 50s and 60s.

Sure. So, transitioning from luxury to common transport. So, that is so recent.

Of the many things we're going to do with our time machine. Mhm. The list is so long. I don't know when I'll get to this, but I would like to go back in time

to like 1962 and fly Panam. Oh, I know. First class. And see like was it crazy? Like did they really

pamper you and treat you like you were royalty? Yeah. I have a question about going back in time. Yeah.

Um, do you think if you go back in time you could die? Like you could die for sure.

Yeah. And it'd be so confusing cuz on your headstone it say born in 1987 died in 1950.

That's what doesn't make any sense. Wow. That's a movie. That is a movie. Yeah.

It's like some kids are going through the cemetery and then they stumble across that. And it's weird because they were so tight lipped about the technology that they had time travel, but then they just put it bllightly on a headstone. That'll be addressed

later loosely in the third act. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully so much will be going on. You'll not

just with one clean everything up. Mhm. Okay. Um, was Kushim or Kushim, now I forget, the first name ever written? Yes. All all his facts were correct basically. I did do some checking though cuz I was like, can that be right? And then yes, it was um it's he's widely considered the earliest known individual name in recorded history, appearing on Sumerian clay tablets from around 3200 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia.

Mm. Is algebra an Arabic word? Yes. Meaning restoration, reunion of broken parts, or completion?

Oo, completion. Yeah, I like that. Were you about to say something? I was I was gonna say how Lincoln always says, "Was that back in the 1900s?"

Oh god. I know. And it sounds like a joke. And it is, but it's not a joke. It's not a joke.

Was that in the 1900s? She'll say, "Oh, it's so depressing. It's so depressing.

It sounds like It sounds like 300 years ago." It really does. It's really funny. It's a good joke. Okay. So, is English the most efficient language for AI? English is considered one of the most information dense languages meaning it conveys a lot of meaning with fewer syllables but it it is it say is not definitively the most efficient as efficiency can be measured differently studies show it has a higher information rate meaning per I mean that's just in general so for AI yes but languages like Spanish and French compensate with faster speech rates balancing out overall information delivery making them comparably efficient in terms of of overall speed and communication verbally obviously

although we found out When our stuff was converted to Spanish, they clearly did not pick up our speed of talking

and it was about 1.6 as long. I know because I think what they were doing was keeping our speed,

our cadence and our speed. Yeah. And it made it which is funny because we experienced that right before we went to India and sat with the ai people who told us it was more efficient.

Right. Exactly. But I was like it has to be more efficient. Why? Why would it take an hour and a half to say what we said in an hour?

I know, but also if if a Spanish person was saying it, they would be saying it so much faster.

You just have to talk really fast, but the computer runs at a standard, right? Exactly. These are two separate things. But yeah, it it's weird. Oh, and then I was looking up syllables for languages. Languages with very few syllables often have simple structures. Roicos Rodicos Papa New Guinea having one of the smallest inventories around 50 possible syllables due to few consonants and vowels. Isn't that interesting?

Very interesting. And Japanese being notable for its extremely small set of 107 syllables.

Ooh. Yeah. Papa New Guinea is one of the most fascinating places for many reasons, but it's one of the places where cannibalism has been well documented.

Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Is it still? I doubt it. Yeah, but that's also where they were weaning. They weaning children off of breastfeeding with cigarettes and yet no lung cancer. There's like a lot of interesting stuff.

The very it still occurs. um in really isolated cultures like parts of Papa New Guinea

and it's different than you would think cuz I had actually had a class on this in anthro which is like I think they consume their dad like as a part of

Oh, I think I've heard that as a like a respect ritual. Not like we're hungry, let's eat one of the members of the group.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's from corpses it says. Yeah. Wow. God. Do you think it's like like when you go to KFC and it's like I'd like a drumstick.

You want like a finger? Like everyone has their favorite body part. Favorite part. It's like can I have the

Did someone already get the nose? Yeah. I really want the calf. Can you always get the calf?

Yeah. You got the calf last time. Do you think as you're like your grandparents aging and getting terminal that you're with them and you're kind of eyeing them like I got to eat some piece of this guy?

What do I want? What? Like do you think you'd be distracted with knowing you're about to eat some of this guy. Trying to find like

Oh, that area that little patch of skin looks really healthy. Yeah, exactly. I hope I get that.

I don't I bet if it's just part of your customs, you really like it's nothing, you know, you of course.

Yeah. Do you think they cook it? I should know that. I can't remember. Be a long time ago. Um, how much money was lost in NFTTS? While exact total figures are elusive, the NFT market saw massive losses following its 2021 peak with reports indicating 90 to 99% of collections lost significant value, leaving millions with effectively worthless digital assets.

I kind of don't even feel bad for those people. I mean, I do. It was just such a cash grab [ __ ] thing to begin with.

People are desperate. People want money. They're desperate to get something for nothing, which I'm not very sympathetic to.

I understand, but like they're just desperate to have something. Yeah. And I was even wrestling with this last night.

I was thinking about like investing and like what percentage is acceptable. And mostly you just you you have to outpace inflation is the goal.

But what's funny is like but why could why is that even possible? Like this notion that you're you're you put your money here and then you just get paid.

I know. Ideally something above 4%. Yeah. And like people are, you know, they're bummed if they're not making 10%. It's like for doing what? For like parking your money over there. It's kind of

It is [ __ ] goofy. I know. And I too am like I got to be making. It's like why are you gonna get You didn't go You didn't show up and work. You didn't do anything.

I know. It's It's because it's all comparison. It's like because that guy has 10%. I should have that.

Yes. It's not about what you're doing to get it. You're doing everyone's doing nothing to get it. Although I guess in your head you're like, "No, but if I traded correct, like you do make it about your own actions.

You convince yourself you have worked your way into these riches." Exactly. Yeah. Um, what happened to your arm?

What happened to my arm? Oh, I have a duad stuck to it. That was just a doodad.

What if you thought that was a skin tie? Oh, you have a new tumor. No, I thought it was a band-aid.

I mean, look, if we do this long enough, I'm just going to have like [ __ ] things hanging off of all skin tags everywhere.

We'll have to go back. We'll be the first show that went from audio to video, then back to audio.

All right, that's love you.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "David McWilliams (on the history of money) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

In order: 0:00 David McWills; 10:00 Trinity College; 30:00 Kushim; 40:00 Kushim; 50:00 Fibonacci; 1:40:00 Kushim.

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

6 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Kushim, David McWills, Trinity College, Fibonacci, Dante, Miles Vulcan Titus. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "David McWilliams (on the history of money) | Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard"?

The episode runs 1 h 47 min; the transcript is about 20,613 words in 512 timestamped sections.

More from Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 14, 2026.