Wealth Formula by Buck Joffrey

I was just interviewed on a podcast earlier today and we got on the topic of gold. You know that I’m not a huge advocate for precious metals right now. Anyway, the argument became a little familiar. Ie. The global economy is going to melt down, there will be a zombie apocalypse and the the only thing that zombies accept is gold and silver. A few years ago I would have gotten sucked into all of this and drank the cool-aid. But the reality is that I don’t really see zombies headed our way anytime soon. That’s why I’m not terribly interested in gold. Admittedly I do own a monster box of silver coins but I’m not even sure where they are. The zombies will likely find them before me. Anyway, the entire conversation got me thinking about what money is in the first place and where gold fits in to that paradigm. It also got me thinking about cryptocurrency and why it seems like gold bugs should be all over bitcoin but they aren’t. That curiosity led me to a sight called GoldSilver.com. The site might suggest their primary interest, but I have found their founder, Mike Maloney, to be quite thoughtful in discussions regarding the history money, gold, and cryptocurrency. So, I reached out to speak to someone and found Jeff Clark, one of their senior analysts. In this episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, we take another peek back into precious metals with a detour into the history of money and cryptocurrency Jeff ClarkSenior Precious Metals Analyst An accomplished analyst, author, and speaker, Jeff Clark is a globally recognizedauthority on precious metals. The son of an award-winning gold panner, withfamily-owned mining claims in California, Arizona, and Nevada, Jeff has deep roots in the industry. An active investor, with a love of writing, Jeff eventually became a mining industry analyst, including 10 years as senior editor for the world- renowned publication BIG GOLD. Jeff has been a regular conference speaker, including at Cambridge House and Sprott Resources events, the Silver Summit, and many others. He currently serves on the advisory board at Strategic Wealth Preservation, a bullion storage facility in Grand Cayman, and provides analysis and market commentary for GoldSilver.com. Shownotes HISTORY OF MONEY PROBLEMS WITH FIAT CURRENCY DANGER IN FIAT CURRENCY WHY TO INVEST IN GOLD AND SILVER GROWING UP IN A GOLD HOUSEHOLD DIFFRENCE WITH ETF’S AND PHYSICAL GOLD GOLD TAXES WHAT IS GOLDSILVER BITCOIN TO GOLD COMPARISON GOLDSILVER.COM SWP.COM

You may know that by the end of last tax year, I sold most of the real estate that I held by myself—as owner and operator? Why? Well, first of all, I realized that to do real estate right, it really is not ever TRULY passive unless you have a full time operator doing all the work. The other thing that I realized is that for a busy person, finding the right operator with whom to invest passively is often MORE profitable than managing your own property. A good example of that is Western Wealth Capital—a group that many of you who are part of Investor Club know well. Cofounder and CEO Janet LePage was on Wealth Formula Podcast a few weeks ago and explained the operation that has produced investors annualized returns exceeding 30 percent on average. Let me tell you from being an owner operator of apartment buildings—it ain’t easy doing that by yourself. That’s why I have really focussed on a team approach to my investing and I know a number of you have made that decision as well. After all, you may think that you love real estate when, in reality, you love all the benefits of owning real estate like excellent returns and unbeatable tax benefits. Participating in limited partnerships can give you all the same benefits without the headaches. Now, last year I sold a few buildings and ended up with seven figures of capital gains with which to deal. I had to figure out if there was a way around paying the tax man. In my case, for better or worse, a failing business in Chicago provided some significant losses so I didn’t get hammered as badly as I thought I would. But, as a general rule, I would not recommend that as a way to minimize your tax burden. I would have rather paid the tax! So, if I didn’t have business losses to offset capital gains, what would my options have been? Before I tell you that, let me be clear that I am not a CPA so this is not official tax advice. However, I do happen to have a brilliant CPA so most of you know where I get this stuff.  Anyway, one of my options would have been to invest as much of those capital gains into syndications using bonus depreciation as possible. That would have theoretically knocked out well over half the gains right there and actually allowed me to create equity in the process (let’s get Tom Wheelwright on the show to explain that one). That’s the only option I honestly knew about last year and probably the one I would still use at this point in my investing life. In recent months, however, I started hearing about another option that I found intriguing called a Delaware Statutory Trust. I had no idea that this was an option for me last year and I’m still not sure I would have used it, but the idea is pretty compelling. You see, there are options to doing 1031 exchanges with property that you don’t have to manage yourself—and I’m not just talking about a triple net Walgreens which we usually think of in this scenario. This option that I just became aware of is called a Delaware Statutory Trust. It’s similar to a syndication and limited to accredited investors. However, it is also a very intriguing option for those of you looking to get out of the real estate operating mode who want to avoid taxes and depreciation recapture. I love it when I learn about new things and I can share them with you on this show. That’s exactly what I will be doing on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast with my guest Leslie Pappas of Archer. Founder Leslie Pappas Leslie Pappas acts as Due Diligence Officer for Archer and performs site visits of our offerings. Leslie personally visits and inspects almost every offering prior to presenting them to her investors. Our investors feel more security in knowing that Leslie has seen the properties in which they invest. This is a distinctive factor in choosing to work with Archer over other firms that do not perform this additional work on behalf of their clients. Leslie has been cited on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and The Wall Street Journal regarding her work in Delaware Statutory Trust (DST) real estate investments. Across her 33 years of experience in investments and financial services, she has participated in over $2.5B in real estate transactions. Leslie is a Real Estate Broker in several states, and holds the Series 7, 22, 39, 63, 65 and 99 Securities Registrations. She is a Certified Commercial Investment Member, a credential that only 10,000 brokers worldwide have achieved. Leslie is also a LEED Accredited Professional and can manage the evaluation, development and redevelopment of projects hoping to achieve LEED certification through the USGBC. Leslie has an MBA from New York University ’82 and a BA from Vassar College ’80. Leslie enjoys her three miniature wirehaired dachshunds, Scout, Lizzie and Jack, and boating. Shownotes Leslie’s venture into real estate HOW 1031 EXCHANGES DECISION MAKER OF PROPERTY TYPES OF PROPERTIES LOOKED FOR LONGEVITY OF BUYING SHARES PERFORMANCE RECORD WHAT IS LESLIE’S ROLE IN ARCHER ARCHERINVESTORS.COM Cashing In Tax Free: The Ultimate Guide To A Tax Free Retirement Using 1031 Exchange and DSTs

Remember when you were a kid and you would go to the doctor? Your parents revered your doctor. The held him in high esteem. They trusted him. They would never say things like, “He’s just doing that test so he can make some extra money” or “He’s getting kickbacks from the drug company”. These are the types of things I regularly hear when I’m in the Sauna at the local YMCA. Doctors and science are becoming decreasingly popular these days and it’s from both political extremes. There are those on the right who deny climate change. You might be one of them. But…mainstream science disagrees with you. Similarly, you might be an anti-vaccination person most frequently observed on the left in places like Marin County. But…again, mainstream science disagrees with you. In fact, it’s not just disagreement. These days, it seems like doctors and scientists often are the object of disdain from all over the place. A few months back, I was at a mastermind event for entrepreneurs and the mastermind leader in the room asked how many “functional doctors” we had in the room. I honestly did not know what he meant so I said, “Well, I’m a real doctor. Does that count?” You see there were literally twenty people in that room practicing some kind of alternative medicine without any degree at all. So, I just asked if being an MD actually counted as a “functional doctor”. I got hissed at from a lot of people and told I was killing people instead of helping them by one person. I finally got off the hook when I announced that I hadn’t practiced medicine in a couple of years and, as far as I could remember, never killed anyone. Anyway, it’s not a good time to be “real doctor” these days. We are losing respect and we are losing reimbursement. For those of you who are sticking it out—fight for yourselves my friends.  Now I should say that, while I am a “real doctor” or allopathic physician as we like to call ourselves, I don’t disregard alternative therapies at all. In my view, if it doesn’t hurt then give it a try. We don’t always know why things work until later. Aspirin has been used for well over 100 years and comes from tree bark. I guess at some point someone was in pain and chewed on some bark and felt better. Who knows? Anyway, now we know why aspirin works. The same thing goes for acupuncture. Acupuncture has proven to be beneficial for variety of ailments for centuries and has only recently been supported through scientific validation.  For example, for years, people have claimed acupuncture helps with sinus problems. I wouldn’t have believed it frankly but the studies came out and it actually does provide benefit to people with sinus problems. That said would I tell you not to try acupuncture if you wanted to give it a shot before the studies came out? Absolutely not! If it’s not going to hurt you, and you think it might actually help, then give it a go. Anyway, one of the areas where there are plenty of non-validated treatments that many people swear by is in the area of chronic pain. This week on Wealth Formula Podcast, I will talk to someone who believes he has a novel means of treating chronic pain with greater than 80 percent efficacy. And…if you want to, you can even invest in this project. Full disclaimer: I have nothing to do financially or otherwise with this company. It is one more example of ways for you to invest outside of Wall Street. Brendon co-founded Radiant Pain Relief Centres with a vision to build the safest, most consistently effective and appealing solution to the epidemic of chronic pain. Combining a mission to change the way chronic pain is treated with deep experience in healthcare management, marketing, business development and sales, Brendon and Dr. David Farley opened Radiant Pain Relief Centres in West Linn in February 2014. Following the success of the first center, they are laying out a plan for expansion to open new centers in new markets nationally and internationally. Previous to founding Radiant, Brendon played key operational and business development roles for two Portland-Area Portland Business Journal and Inc. Magazine Growth Award winning companies, and was the Director of Sales and Marketing for another Portland-based medical device start-up. Brendon holds a BS in business marketing and an MBA. Show notes WHAT STARTED HIS PRACTICE TREATMENT PROCESS PERCENTAGE OF REDUCED PAIN BUISNES MODEL TIME FOR CENTER MATURITY RADIENTPAINRELIEF.COM

To all those who made it out to Scottsdale last weekend, it was great to see you! Of course I’m biased, but I have NEVER seen such a high quality group of people at an investors event before ours. You guys are by far the most interesting podcast listeners in the entire podcast ecosystem—guaranteed. Of course the speakers were fantastic as well. Ken McElroy, Tom Wheelwright and David Steele from Western Wealth Capital dazzled us with their wealth of knowledge on real estate and related tax benefits. Damion Lupo taught us about using QRPs and also managed to sell a $1300 gold coin for $400 (nice going Eric!). And of course Christian and Rod reminded us how Wealth Formula Banking can enhance your profits even more with leverage. All of these speakers taught us a ton then we got to walk a property that Wealth Formula Investor Club members own that is already way-outperforming pro-forma in less than one year! Of course, that was a nice way to end the formal education but perhaps the best part of the whole event was getting to know each other. For those of you who attended the event, I know that you agree with that sentiment. If you enjoyed being part of the tribe in person, I just want to take this opportunity to remind you that you don’t have to wait for the next get together to keep the party going. Consider joining Wealth Formula Network. There is a robust course with the likes of Tom Wheelwright, Ken McElroy, Kevin Day, and Dean Graziosi which helps you to get caught up with the foundations that every investor should have. In addition to this, however, you have access to me and to one another in a private facebook group and biweekly video conferenced mastermind calls. The people who are in it love it.  That said, I’m not one to push things on you. If you are the type who loves talking about money and are looking for a fantastic group to do it with, go to WealthFormulaRoadmap.com and sign up. Now, going back to the meetup… there was one noticeable absence from the event. If you are in Wealth Formula Network, you already know who I’m talking about because we call him the mascot. He is also known as Goose! And there is no one better to debut for a new type of show that we will do periodically on Wealth Formula Podcast called The Real Investors of Wealth Formula. For investors like you, this might be a much better option than The Real Housewives… series. You see, what I realized at our event is that you guys got as much, if not more, talking to one another and hearing about your unique experiences, than you might have gotten from listening to the star-studded faculty. Anyway, let’s give this series a try. And…do me a favor. Tell me what you think. I’m not planning to do this for every show by any means, but I think it’s nice to have something every 6 weeks or so that includes you, the Wealth Formula Nation, into the show. So, when we come back, our first episode of the Real Investors of Wealth Formula starring Jerry “Goose” Gosnell! P.S. Check out Jerry’s vacation rental: Goslings’ Nest’  in the beautiful Lake Placid region of NY-  https://www.facebook.com/TheGoslingsNest/ Jerry Gosnell is part of Wealth Formula “Bucks Tribe”. For the past 35 years, Jerry followed the conventional wisdom of investing in stocks, bonds and mutual funds along with 401k’s, and 529’s. It wasn’t until his late 40’s he realized that a single stream of income and the ups and downs of Wall Street were not the best approach to financial success or retirement. It was then he decided to do something about it and began to get financially educated. He is now 52 and with each day passing gets a little closer to financial independence. His ultimate goal is to leave a legacy of financial literacy for his children and create additional options of wealth generation for his family. Shownotes What drove Jerry to look for external streams of revenue? His changing of perspective on investing Deciding on what to invest in The value Wealth Formula brought to him

I’m a surgeon—a retired surgeon. I started out in neurosurgery. Then, after a couple years, I fled to a specialty where I could operate on the head and neck without the brain. I loved neuroscience, but found the brain, itself, to be a pain in the ass. When the brain gets injured, you can’t wait until the morning to fix the problem. That’s a problem for someone who does not like being woken up in the middle of the night. Anyway, after finishing my less night intensive surgical residency I did a fellowship year in cosmetics. By the time I was done with all of this training, I was 34 years old. Now I’m retired from surgery and medicine of any kind and I’m 45 years old. In fact, I haven’t seen a patient in two years. Imagine that. Admittedly, it is a bit painful for me to think about my lost decades of youth. It was a long run for a short slide. Why did I retire from medicine? It wasn’t because I wanted to “retire” aka sit around and wait to die. I just stopped doing something that I no longer wanted to do. I didn’t like it anymore. Actually, I liked operating but didn’t like anything else about medicine. On top of that, I have a little bit of attention deficit disorder so I tend to change direction a lot. I transferred out of my first college after my first year, I changed residency specialties after two years, I quit/got fired from my first job after 8 months then I quit medicine all together in less then a decade after completion of my training. The only thing that’s lasted over 10 years in my life is my marriage and I’m going to stick with that one for sure! Anyway, beyond the general lack of interest in practice, I didn’t like the way medicine in general was headed. I had one insurance based business that was a nightmare. The insurance companies were ultimately telling me who I could operate on and who I could not. For those of you in the medical field, you know exactly what I’m getting at. Insurance based medicine is also the only field in the history of the universe where someone does the work first and then a third party decides how much to pay you or whether or not to pay you at all! But we health care providers are too focussed and idealistic to fight for compensation. We also have created an environment within our own culture that makes talking about money dirty. Mixing money talk with medicine, at least in my experience, is considered heresy in physician culture. The end result is that others in the system happily fill that vacuum and they are the ones getting paid the most! I feel especially bad for my friends in non-surgical specialties who are getting squeezed even harder. My best friend in college was the smartest kid in the class and became a pediatrician. Now she works her tail off and her reimbursement is going down every year.  Internists are also in the same boat. They just can’t see enough patients to stay profitable. Of course patients blame the doctors for not giving them enough attention and using ancillary staff like physician’s assistants to help with the workload. If patients understood how badly internists are getting squeezed by insurance companies and how much they have to work to make a living, they might instead focus their anger at the insurance companies that now control their care. As a result of this unfortunate situation, some doctors have decided to move towards a concierge practice model. Here’s how it works. You sign up with a doctor and pay maybe a $200 per month. The doctor has all of his patients do that. That makes sure he can make a living. Next, the doctor caps his total number of patients. The result…medicine that you remember as a kid. Doctors spend a lot of time with you. You can stop in if you are sick and you can pretty much make an appointment anytime you want. Oh…and some will even do house calls. I use one of these doctors and it is definitely worth the price of admission. But, I have to admit it is sad that this kind of care is no longer the standard of care. The insurance companies and reimbursement have made that impossible. Of course my experience is that of a physician but I have met a lot of dentists and orthodontists through our accredited investor club. I will say this, dentists are a heck of a lot more business savvy than doctors are as a general rule. And some of you are downright killing it by selling large practices etc. So, it came to no surprise to me when I learned about a blockchain project called dentacoin which has gotten a lot of very positive feedback from the dental community around the world. This is project that combines both health care and cryptocurrency and may actually be applicable to a host of other fields. Whether you are interested in blockchain technology or not, you will find this interview with the cofounder of dentacoin absolutely fascinating. It is a sign of things to come in the new world financial paradigm. Buck Jeremias Grenzebach Jeremias is the Co-Founder & Core Developer at Dentacoin being an early entrant into the Blockchain scene. Immersed within the peer-to-peer technology for 8 years. Contributor to Ethereum, Waves, ZCash, uPort, Status, imToken, Byteball. Strong believer in decentralization and transparency. Shownotes WHAT PROBLEM DOES DENTACOIN LOOK TO SOLVE HOW IT IS WORKING TO IMPROVE HEALTHCARE THE VALUE BLOCKCHAIN BRINGS TO DENTISTRY WHERE IS DENTACOIN THE BENEFITS IT BRINGS TO PROVIDERS DENTACOIN.COM DENTACOIN.COM/DENTISTS DENTISTS.DENTACOIN.COM

As you know, I have been on a kick to challenge myself to learn more about things that I don’t know about and to challenge my personal investing dogmas.  Recently, you saw me come out of the proverbial gold closet and proclaim that I don’t see the point of owning physical gold. You can hedge the economy with appreciating real estate with leveraged debt and cash flow to boot. Who needs gold? Again. Please write me and prove me wrong but that’s where I’m at right now when it comes to this beautiful but useless precious metal. On the other hand, there are areas that I went into thinking that I would be more excited about than I ended up being. To be honest, mobile home parks were one of those. I started looking at mobile home parks and mobile home funds recently expecting yield to be significantly better than apartments. No one buys low income housing for appreciation so I figured the cash flow must be super high and the tax advantages must be off the charts. But honestly, that’s not what I found and so I’m back to being a true blue apartment investor.  Recently, I got asked if I would like to have Jefferson Lilly on my show. I looked at his bio and was pretty impressed. He’s a Wharton business school guy who lives in San Francisco. He’s obviously smart. Furthermore, his bio said that mobile home parks were BETTER than apartments as an investment. So, I figured if anyone could convince me to leave my happy place outside of apartments it was him. So, on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast, you will hear that conversation and will give you a chance to make a decision for yourself. Don’t miss this the show. Jefferson Lilly is a mobile home park investment expert, educator, and industry consultant who has been featured in the New York Times, Bloomberg Magazine, and on the ‘Real Money’ television show.  Prior to co-founding Park Street Partners in 2013, Mr. Lilly spent seven years investing his own capital at Lilly & Company where he acquired and continues to operate mobile home parks in the Midwest.  Prior to becoming an investor full-time, Jefferson spent 10 years in sales leadership roles with several venture-backed startup companies in Silicon Valley that were acquired by Openwave Systems and VeriSign.  Earlier in his career he held operational roles at Viacom and was a consultant with Bain & Company.   Shownotes: MOBILE HOME MAINTENANCE NUMBER OF MOBIL HOME PARKS LOT FEES RETURN ON INVESTMENT MANAGING STARTING UP MOBILEHOMEPARKINVESTORS.COM PARKAVENUEPARTNERS.COM

If I hadn’t listened to Peter Schiff, I would have made gobs and gobs of money in the past few years. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like listening to Peter Schiff’s podcast. He is a very smart guy. In fact, he predicted the financial meltdown of 2008. It would be even more impressive if he had not predicted the financial meltdown of every other year that there was not a financial meltdown, but he did get 2008 right. Peter has a keen sense of the economy and a very strong perspective that you have to respect. I think the problem, in general, is that if you only listen to Peter, you might be only seeing his very narrow perspective on things. Let’s take bitcoin for example. I started hearing about bitcoin back in 2015 or so when bitcoin was trading for under $300. The problem is that back then I used to listen to Peter Schiff’s podcast religiously and every time he brought it up he was so damn negative about it. He made bitcoin sound like a big joke. Now, you may not be a bitcoin person, but if you dig down into the concept and the economics it represents, bitcoin should have been something that Peter actually supported. It is pretty much gold—but better in theory.  Anyway, he was so darn negative about it that I never bothered to take it seriously. I didn’t dig any further or try to listen to other intelligent voices with a different perspective. As a result, I lost out. Even at bitcoin’s low this year, I would have still been up 1000 percent had I not listened to Peter back then. Now I don’t actually blame Peter for not buying bitcoin in 2015. I blame myself. I blame myself for not listening to people with other perspectives then me. There were plenty of smart people like Eric Voorhees out there that made the case for bitcoin as clear as it is for me today. But I was too busy listening to the same podcasts who basically regurgitated what everyone else in the niche had to say. No one in the real estate/real asset niche knew a damn thing about bitcoin but everyone acted like it was a joke. My story of bitcoin opportunity lost has a larger message that must be taken to heart. Stop listening to the same source of information to make all of your financial decisions. You may think you are listening to a whole bunch of different podcasts but if the same guests keep popping up all the time then maybe you are just listening to the same ideas recirculating through a closed podcast circulation—sort of like an echo chamber. I don’t want to be part of that. That’s why I’m trying to get people on the show to explain to me why I’m wrong for believing what I believe. One of those beliefs that I have held for many years is the idea that I don’t like commercial real estate. I don’t like mini-malls, office space, or restaurants? I’m a multifamily guy for the most part. I want to invest in things people have to have…not what they want to have. So, today I invited a a commercial real estate guy on the show who does exactly what I have said that I don’t like to make his case for commercial real estate in 2019. Make sure to listen to this show—especially if you have the same bias as me. Michael has worked for more than 32 years and handled more than $500 million worth of real estate transactions on behalf of his clients at Concordia Realty. Although Michael began his business in the realm of retail real estate, Concordia Realty now handles third-party property and asset management services for a variety of commercial real estate investments. He also specializes in revitalizing distressed investments for partners, adding value for clients … including banks, insurance companies, and hedge funds. Michael has consulted for some of the top investment and development companies in the world … and now his knowledge is available to YOU. Shownotes: Commercial Real estate Affect from Economy E-Commerce Effects concordiarealty.com

Bitcoin and Blockchain are not dead. In fact, if you look at the history of bitcoin itself you see that it seems to have a feline propensity for multiple lives. After being battered and beaten up so many times, why is bitcoin not dead? I am reminded of a movie that I recently watched with my nine year old daughter from the late eighties called The Princess Bride. If you happened to miss this one, you really ought to see it. It’s a very funny love story based in the the middle ages with pirates, kings, and lots of sword fighting. The love story is between a farm boy called Wesley and Buttercup. The two are separated as Wesley goes off to sea and Buttercup presumes he is dead.  Years later, she is chosen by the local King to marry and she agrees although she knows that she can never love again. Now this king is a bad guy and he knows that Wesley is not only alive but coming back to claim his beloved. Eventually, Wesley is caught and tortured to death by the King’s minions. However, Wesley’s allies need him back alive to defeat the king so, after finding him apparently dead, they bring him to a magician who was recently fired by the King. This former disgruntled employee of the King, played by Billy Crystal, says that Wesley is actually “mostly dead” but refuses to help unless there is a true meaningful reason to bring him back to life. So, he pushes air into Wesley’s mouth and squeezes on his chest. What comes out of Wesley’s mouth is “true love”. The magician admits that this is, indeed, the most noble cause to bring him back alive but tries to get out of it anyway. But when he finds out that bringing him back will help him get revenge on his former employer, the King, he agrees and brings him back to life. OK, so perhaps my metaphor is a little overboard, but just like “true love” was worth bringing back to life in The Princess Bride, bitcoin has been brought back from the brinks of “mostly dead” several times over because of what it represents. What bitcoin represents is the ultimate storage of value. It has all the traits of gold but it’s better because it is portable and can easily be transferred from peer to peer thousands of miles away from one another without the need for a central authority like a bank. Bitcoin is not hackable because it is decentralized and there is a finite amount making it “unprintable”. Like many people, up until 2016, I didn’t get it and maybe I don’t entirely understand even now. However, this concept of eliminating the middle man is so powerful that I now believe that it CAN NOT be stomped out by anyone or any entity.  That powerful message, unfortunately, has been bastardized by many like Tai Lopez and other charlatans who took advantage of people with the idea of getting rich fast because of the explosive growth of cryptocurrency. The bubble created in the frenzy of greed and subsequent popping of that bubble has led to the current round of bitcoin obituaries. That said, the concept of bitcoin and distributed ledgers in general, is anything but dead. It is actually in its early years and it is simply experiencing the growing pains of any new technology or concept that is new to the world. There is value in what is being created and people will continue to make a lot of money in the future from it. They may do so through owning cryptocurrency or through creating the infrastructure surrounding this new economy. For example, collateralized bitcoin lending services have nothing to do with investing in bitcoin, but they make a lot of money through a fairly traditional lending business model. There is so much going on out there. It’s just important to make sure you are listening to the right people. One of the legitimately smartest individuals in crypto today is Nic Carter. He is not a social media figure and he does not have a newsletter. However, for those at the highest levels of cryptocurrency investing and technology, Nic has a voice to which everyone listens. So, despite the polar vortex sweeping across the cryptocurrency world, this week I urge you to listen to my conversation with Nic on Wealth Formula Podcast. Shownotes: Nic Carter’s background What’s is Coinmetrics How is Coinmetrics different than bits activity and other competitors Castle Island Blockchain, blockchain, blockchain… When will the impact of institutional interest reflect the market? Learn more about Nic Carter https://medium.com/@nic__carter

It’s so strange to think of the way our politics have evolved even in my lifetime. The first president I remember (barely) is Jimmy Carter. Most of grade school for me were the Reagan years. After a bumpy start, the 1980s became the roaring 80s. It was a decade remembered for wealth and excess. Remember Wall Street with Michael Douglas and Michael J. Fox as the Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties?  The Republican party, at the time, was clearly the party of the rich and made little effort to concern itself with poverty and equality. Ideologically, it was a different mind sent. The appealing nature of the 80s was that it was aspirational. It was indeed Morning in America. After the hopelessness of the Carter economy, everyone seemed optimistic. That’s why even the middle class, the traditionally democratic bastion of unions and the democratic party, defected. They became Reagan democrats. The good times continued through the 90s into the Clinton years. In fact, Clinton represented a new kind of democrat who embraced Wall Street and free trade. The old democratic party seemed dead and the difference between Democrats and Republicans was minimal. Rising tides raise all ships—even if some ships are rising more than others. A recent Brookings Institute analysis found that out of the last five presidents the largest annual income gains in the middle class occurred during the Reagan and Clinton years. In general, these were good times in America. People were generally pretty happy and optimistic. Now to be clear, there is a ton of data showing that it makes virtually no statistical difference to the economic performance of the country whether there is a Republican or Democrat in the White House. In fact, I hate to say it, but there is a very slight advantage to the democrats. What I’m getting at here is that when times were good economically for the middle class, there was less divisiveness in the country.  It is no coincidence that over the last 2 decades, median household incomes have barely budged, wages are declining and that this corresponds to the rise of political and demographic divisiveness and demagoguery. Almost 80 percent of Americans believe that today’s children will grow up worse-off than their parents. Think about that. That isn’t Morning in America. That’s downright depressing. Now what happens when people are not doing well and are worried about the future? Well, it starts with blaming everyone else for our problems. Maybe that’s why anti-semitism and white nationalism is on the rise? People become more tribal and insular. They stick with their own and look for scapegoats. The worst example of this in recent history was, of course Nazi Germany which followed a horrific economic period of hyperinflation following the first world war as it was paying reparations. That was extreme but we now see a lot more divisiveness in our politics and both parties are pandering to our worst instincts. I really hate that my kids are growing up in this kind of polarized country.  Now most of us are doing pretty well and we’ve made a lot of economic gains over the past several years after the great recession so it’s easy to not recognize what is underlying all this strife. But that’s a mistake. Why? Because eventually when enough people are hurting, they will come for us with pitchforks. Whether that’s with literal civil unrest or 70 percent tax brackets suggested by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—it’s time to take this seriously. There are a lot of smart people who you might not expect to care that recognize what is going on and who have spoken about it extensively. Robert Kiyosaki, Billionaire Charles Koch, CEO of Koch industries, and even libertarians who most people consider insensitive to the poor recognize this. Now, how to deal with the problem is another issue entirely. This week, we speak with a libertarian from the Cato Institute, Mike Tanner, who shares some common sense strategies that are more nuanced than simply raising taxes. In fact, these strategies are probably the ones that make the most sense but get the least actual political attention. Cato Institute senior fellow, Michael Tanner heads research into a variety of domestic policies with a particular emphasis on poverty and social welfare policy, health care reform, and Social Security. Tanner is the author of numerous other books on public policy, including Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution, Healthy Competition: What’s Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It, The Poverty of Welfare: Helping Others in Civil Society, and A New Deal for Social Security. Under Tanner’s direction, Cato launched the Project on Social Security Choice, which is widely considered the leading impetus for transforming the soon-to-be-bankrupt system into a private savings program. Time magazine calls Tanner, “one of the architects of the private accounts movement,” and Congressional Quarterly named him one of the nation’s five most influential experts on Social Security. The New York Times refers to him as “a lucid writer and skilled polemicist.” More recently Tanner has undertaken a major project to develop innovative solutions to poverty and inequality. Tanner’s writings have appeared in nearly every major American newspaper, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He writes a weekly column for National Review Online, and is a contributing columnist with the New York Post. A prolific writer and frequent guest lecturer, Tanner appears regularly on network and cable news programs. Shownotes: Mike Tanner’s background Inequality and poverty from a practical perspective What’s wrong with the criminal justice reform system now? The effect of zoning laws Occupational licensing Unemployment insurance Cato.org The Inclusive Economy