#247 - How To Protect Your Wealth In The Australian Dollar Collapse

What I don't believe in is buying a completely ridiculously overpriced property that's got negative cash flow, sending you into a financial spiral. And that's currently what is happening because prices are ridiculously out of control. Bitcoin's a hedge against inflation. Oh my God. Think about Mark Zuckerberg. Think about the skills that he applied. He became worth a hundred billion dollars. Do you think that outperformed inflation? Yes.

Do you think Jeff Bezos outperformed inflation? Yes. Do you think Warren Buffett outperformed inflation? Yes, the best way to hedge inflation is to actually... I'm Lloyd James Ross, seven-figure investor and entrepreneur, and I've helped thousands of business owners and professionals turn financial stress into success. If you're stuck in old money habits, overwhelmed by investing,

or unsure where to start, this is for you. I'll give you the mindset and strategies to take control, grow your wealth, and achieve financial freedom. It's time to make your money work for you. How to protect your wealth in the Australian dollar collapse. Inflation's up, the

dollar's down, leaving your money in the bank. It's like putting it into a leaky bucket or chucking it into the fireplace. But here's the thing, smart money people and highly intelligent people financially have beaten inflation before. So in this episode, I'm going to break down exactly how you can protect your wealth even in uncertain times like now, using proven strategies that worked in most of the cases of brutal inflation in

the past. So some economic history tied into this. So if you haven't watched the previous episode yet on why the Australian dollar is collapsing, go and watch that now. Go watch that episode, because we'll set up and tell you why it is actually falling. Because once you know why it's falling, then the how-to of how to get out of it will be in this episode now. So every few decades, Inflation seems to roar back, which means the value of the currency falls. And

you have to adapt or you're going to get lost or fall behind. Your wealth is going to get hit. And history shows us that inflation can be survived and even used to grow your wealth if you play the game correctly. So just to be clear, in the past there's been some examples or real-life experiences where hyperinflation has completely decimated the economy. And as I said on the previous episode,

it has crafted things like World War II from it, right? So hyperinflation, Zimbabwe, Wyoming, Germany, it's extremely unlikely in Australia we're going to see hyperinflation to that extent, where we're taking a wheelbarrow of money down to the shop to buy a loaf of bread. But nonetheless,

It's inflation's already eating away at your wealth, all right? We are a developed economy, thankfully, with institutional safeguards and we've got an independent monetary policy and all these sort of fiscal controls in place to mean that our money is safe from hyperinflation, but An economy or a country and a government can get a bit ahead of themselves and they can start pulling too many levers, which seems to

be happening at the minute. It's causing more inflation than normal and it's slowly draining away the value of your wealth every single month and every single year. Let's get tactical. I'm going to take you through real examples of how you protect your wealth in periods like hyperinflation or in periods like we're seeing now, which is rising inflation. So the very first one, the simplest one, and before I

explain these, let me just explain one economic concept that you have to understand. To prevent inflation wiping away your wealth, what you want to do is buy assets, typically hard assets, not always, but typically hard assets that you only buy once and never have to buy again. Because once you bought once with today's currency, no matter how much inflation runs away, you never have to worry because the value of that will follow the currency. And there's no proven better way to do that than

with property, okay? Now you would have seen on some of my ads lately and some of my content, I'm just like killing property. I'm like, property, you don't need it. And what I mean by that is, cause I had a friend of mine asked me today, he goes, Lloyd, What's this? What are you doing? You

don't like property. I'm like, oh yeah, okay, the ads are working pretty well. I've had a vendetta against it at the minute because what I don't believe in is buying a completely ridiculously overpriced property that's got negative cash flow, sending you into a financial spiral, and putting you under extreme financial pressure that you feel like killing yourself. I don't want property to do that to you, and that's currently what is happening because

prices are ridiculously out of control. But the reason for it is because people are running to it to prevent inflation wiping away their wealth. And they know that property is one of the ways to do that. So here's, I want to caveat this. I believe in buying property when it's appropriately valued for the right reasons to produce passive income over

time to put you in a better financial position. Without a doubt, I'm a big believer. However, we haven't seen property at that price range in this country for many years. So right now, I'm against it. And I don't own any. Because I don't think it's going to create any wealth in the next couple of years. It's extremely overvalued. That's why I've started a rebellion against it. Because there's other smarter ways

to make money and grow your wealth than property. And I became a multi, multimillionaire without owning a single house. So there are ways. And I want to give you hope that you can do it too without having to clamor into a property you can't afford. I just want to caveat that, just so you know. So check it out. For an inflation hedge, property is good because once you buy it once with specifically with a mortgage to if you can afford the mortgage and put a reasonable deposit in there. Because

the value of the mortgage falls away over time towards the bank. So like the bank lends you $800,000, in the next say, I don't know, 20 years, it's worth $400,000 or less. So inflation is working for you if you have a mortgage. And the other thing too is you don't have to keep rebuying the house necessarily. You do have to do some upkeep. But what you don't want to do is buy a property that requires you to continually put money into it because you do get hit by inflation. So here's an

example. Let's say you bought an apartment and the apartment's got high body corporate fees, it's got high maintenance, it's got high insurance, it's got high operating costs, that could be a problem when it comes to inflation because you're having to put money in all the time. Whereas if you buy a house that doesn't have the same running costs, perhaps

something that's a bit newer or you're buying it undervalued. more land attached to it, then you're going to find that it's a better hedge, just so you know.

Here's a historical example. In the 1970s, when there was a massive oil embargo and inflation shot up to 13% and interest rates shot up to 17%, property owners who already owned a property thrived because the rents climbed, but the fixed rate mortgage they had, they were able to keep that in today's dollars. They were actually able to devalue their mortgage, which is amazing for a mortgage holder. The same thing happened in Australia during the early 2000s boom, I'd say the late 90s boom, which

is the last real estate boom we had, which is 25 years ago. And real estate outpaced inflation due to rising wages and population growth. The same kind of thing has happened over the last few years, but now it's a point where not many people can even buy a house. So it's not as effective right now. So here's how to win when it comes to using

property as a hedge. One, focus on positive cash flow. Do not put yourself in a position just to beat inflation by house when you're putting yourself in an absolute financial bond that will cause you to commit suicide to get out of it. This is crazy. People are doing that. People laugh that it's like, I saw an article with a guy recently,

he felt like he had nowhere to go financially and he killed himself. This is what we're doing to people because we're focusing on, I must own a house to have any social status in the country, which is a joke. You can't take it with you when you die. Make sure if you're going to do property, have high cash flow. wherever possible. I know it's difficult in this interest rate environment and the price of houses, crazy, but still possible. Lock in wherever you can fixed interest

rates. Now in America, you can lock in 30 year fixed interest rates, crazy. Anyone in the States who bought a house can lock in a 30 year fixed term at two and a half percent, killing it. But we don't have that in Australia. We don't have those types of fixed rates because we don't get the same borrowing power that you get in America. The same capital is not available in Australia. So in Australia, we can have fixed rates for about four to five years.

So if you're on a fixed rate now, just so you know, that's going to stop in the next four or five years if you just fixed it. So fix it wherever you can, but be aware that it can come off the fixed rate. Avoid overleveraging and speculative property traps. Boom, boom, boom. This is a big warning sign for right now because people are overleveraged and there's a massive speculative property bubble. Right now, just be aware of it. You're buying into the biggest property

bubble in the history of the country. Last time, A friend of mine on X, well, acquaintance on X, appropriately sent me to some history, some economic history in Australia. The last time we had an immigration-led boom like we're having now, boom, was in 1870 to 18, actually it was, yeah, it was 1870, 1890, I want to say, late 1800s. And what happened then was there was a massive gold rush in Australia and had huge immigration coming to Australia, and

of course, a massive property boom. just like what's happening at the moment from immigration. But if you look at the data, the property market didn't recover for like 70 years. 70. Yes. You think this is the first time there's been an immigration-led boom in the country? You're wrong. So can property go sideways and down for seven years? Yes, it can. Happened in Tokyo in 1988. The property market in Japan still hasn't recovered.

And I know what you're going to say, but Lloyd, they didn't have immigration in Japan. Well, they did in Australia in the late 1800s, and it didn't recover for like 70 to 80 years. So just be aware that yes, property can be used as a hedge to protect your wealth, but buying in an overpriced bubble and buying too much leverage and not being able to service it is a problem, it's a worse problem. So don't be too pedantic about protecting your wealth when you're gonna put yourself

in a financial bind for the rest of your life. You don't want to handcuff yourself just to get away from inflation. What kind of life is that? Next way to prevent your wealth being degraded is high interest savings accounts. I know it's not as effective. I get it. But here's where it helps. It doesn't build wealth from your money, but it does protect it from inflationary wipeout. Meaning, if you put your money in the bank, it's like a

bond. You're lending money to the bank, and they're paying you accordingly for the borrowing of your money. That's kind of what it is. It doesn't sit in a vault. Just sit there, and they just pay you money. They actually use the money themselves to lend at a higher rate. For example, right now, you can I've got some money in the term deposit myself, and the term deposit is producing about 4.5%. You can get better. Up to 250k, you can get better savings accounts in some

places like St. George and ING. I think they're like 5 and 5.5%. This is in Australia. In America, not so easy. You can put your money into treasury bonds, which is probably better than a savings account in the States in the bank, and they're paying about 4.5%. So whether it's treasury bonds or treasury bills in America, or whether it's Australian savings accounts, you can get about 4.5% return on your money, and that will prevent at least 4.5% a

year of inflation biting away at it. Again, not the best, but it's certainly a place to store your wealth. And in Australia, we have government guarantee of your money in the bank of up to $250,000, which means if there's a bank run and the bank collapses, the Australian government will give you your money back. And the same in America too, by the way. And I don't think it'd even stop at $250,000. I think they would just honor it and get it going. Otherwise, we don't have an

economy. Real use case, here's what happened in countries with high inflation like Brazil in the 2010s, smart savers rotated into cash high-interest savings accounts and short-term bonds. So there's an example of what happened in Brazil and this happens all the time. I mean, even looking at Warren Buffett right now, just so you know, he's put $370 billion into

short-term treasury bills, just so you know. So here's an example of how he's putting his capital, not into risk assets, he's putting it into risk-free assets, getting a 4.5% return on $370 billion. So if it's good enough for Warren Buffett to protect himself against inflation, good enough for you and I, all right? So that's the other way to do it. All right, the next way to hedge your bets to a collapsing Australian

currency is the global hedge for a weak Australian currency, which is actually the US dollar. And you're probably thinking to yourself, why would I trade one fiat currency that's getting killed by inflation for another one? Well, here's why. The US dollar is the world's reserve currency, which means during times of inflation and during times of uncertainty, people flood to the USD, not the AUD, not the Australian dollar, the US dollar. And so what happens is the value of that dollar

is more steady against other assets. And so you do have a better hedge against inflationary pressures if you own the world's reserve currency. You'll notice soon when I explain some examples of what's happened during hyperinflation if you have USD it's better. It's the last currency that's effectively Disappeared and so you're better off to own that than you are to the only Australian currency during risk off

Experiences like we're seeing now. Okay, so some historical examples of what happened in 2008 the global financial crisis when there was a massive run on banks and US banks were going bankrupt and Even then, the Australian dollar fell from 98 US cents down to 60 US cents. In a matter of weeks, it just collapsed. Bang. So even though the American economy was wobbling, people flood to the US currency as a safe haven. It's a safe haven asset,

just so you know. So it can protect you from a falling Australian dollar if you hold USD. And a lot of our wealth is held in USD currency, not Australian currency presently. Okay, in 2020 in COVID, again, the same thing happened. The Australian dollar was 70 cents, 70 US cents, it was buying 70 US cents, and it dropped down to 57 US cents because there was uncertainty. People thought the world was gonna end. And when that happens, they

run to USD denominated currency, okay? It's just, it is a quick way to hedge your bets against a falling Australian currency. The next way, this is arguably the most popular way to hedge inflation. Not necessarily the best, but it is timeless. And this has worked time and time again for thousands of years. And of course, you guessed it, it's gold. Not my favorite asset because it's not productive, meaning if you have an ounce of gold today, in the

next 100 years, you still have an ounce of gold. It's like, I've talked about whether you want to own the goose that lays golden eggs or whether you want to own the golden egg. Owning gold is like owning one golden egg and then hoping it grows in value over time, which it does against inflationary pressures, but I prefer to own the goose. However, if you want to buy gold, and that's why gold's up like 40% year to date, is because

it protects purchasing power during crises. And so you'll see gold go up in value when there's inflation happening and also when

there's global uncertainty. And here's why. Because there's limited supply and they can only pull out gold over a certain period of time So there's like this global demand for an uncertainty limited supply eating a scarcity hedge and that's why it's a great example of what you can put your money into to protect it against inflation so during the German crazy hyperinflation when they're taking wheelbarrows of the the paper mark down

to the to the to the shop to buy a loaf of bread really happened in 1923 and Gold was the go-to there. So people that moved their money into gold as that paper currency collapsed, they protected all of their wealth. Same thing in the 1970s, the oil embargo in the United States, inflation went crazy. Gold went from $35 an ounce to $800 an ounce in under 10 years because of the massive inflation.

So you can see very clearly when there's massive inflation, gold is a run-to asset for a lot of people, which is why it's had such a tremendous rise in the last 12 months. but in times of risk on, doesn't do anything. Goes sideways, goes nowhere, doesn't produce income. So it's not a great financial freedom vehicle, but it's a great currency hedge, right? Gold didn't make people rich, as they say,

but it sure meant they didn't get their wealth wiped out. Just quickly, if you're ready to take control of your finances, but feel stuck on where to start, I have a solution. My book, Money Bias Happiness, simplifies investing and wealth building with practical steps to help you achieve financial peace. Get your copy via the link in the show notes, and let's get your money working for you. Now, back to the episode. Next one,

oil. All right, black gold. I'm reading a book at the moment called Titan. It's a John D. Rockefeller story, the richest man in history. He would

be worth in today's dollars about $600 billion if we wind it forward with inflation. And he owns Standard Oil. And so if you look at one of the greatest hedges against inflation is oil. Oil, the reason why it's a hedge is because oil is in everything. It's in transport, it's in food production, it's in goods and services. Oil is in fuel, it's in everything. It's in food production because of fuel and farming equipment. Oil passes the inflation test because it keeps profits flowing. It's

an inflation-proof product because we need it in everything. It actually forms the basis of most inflation, price inflation, because it is in everything. If you have a world without oil, goodbye iPhone, you don't have one. In fact, almost all goods in the world, if you don't have oil, they disappear. If we don't have oil, one of the key hydrocarbon, the food bowl of the world disappears and you and I starve to death. I just don't think people really grasp how important oil is to

your well-being. You probably have no idea. It's such a great hedge because if inflation goes up, guess what? You just increase the price of oil. It's like gold. It will ebb and flow with inflation itself. And so the value of oil becomes more and more valuable over time because it's a scarce resource. There might only be enough for the next 200 years. Here's

what has happened recently to hedge against inflation. If you take a look at Warren Buffett's share portfolio, the top five positions, guess what's there? Chevron. And Chevron's one of the world's largest oil producers. And you look at Occidental, it's now up the top five as well. So two of the top five positions in his portfolio are

oil companies, Occidental Petroleum. So the reason he's positioning his portfolio into oil companies is because he knows that oil has pricing power, that he knows when inflation goes up, you can just simply increase the price of oil. It's an inflation hedge, right? But he doesn't just buy the actual commodity, he buys the businesses that produce. So he's still buying stocks

in companies to hedge inflation, which we'll come to in a second. So during the 1970s, oil shocks, inflation went out of control again, as an example. Oil stocks went way up. Now, if you're looking in the last couple of days, when Iran was attacked by Israel, Iran's like it produces I think Iran sends 15% of China's oil comes from Iran So Iran's a big oil producer you look at when this conflict bang oils Oil supplies

contained a bit and bang the price of oil has gone up to now. It's like it was $45 a barrel and now it's gone up to 75 and like a number of days and So oil can surge when there's high inflation and global unrest. So you look at what happened in the 70s, oil went drastically high. And people made a ton of money out of energy. Energy, oil. Oil is the foundation of all energy. So currently, most energy I should say. So 2021-2022 inflation, it

went up to $120 a barrel. So you can see real world examples during COVID went up to $120 a barrel, or certainly after COVID, went down to negative. What's interesting about COVID is that when the global economy stopped, oil went drastically down, and it went down to negative $37 a barrel. So let me explain what that means. you were being paid to house oil back then. It was like the ultimate oil boom. So if you had to bought

oil companies back then, you killed it. But it went up to $120 a barrel, because it is a good hedge against inflation, right? So there you go. Great

way to beat the inflation pressures is oil. Now, what's next? We have gold, oil. Buffett's moves on oil. Here we go. Stocks. This is interesting because you're like, well, how do paper assets protect against inflation? Here's how. With real businesses, real businesses beat fake money. So people are like, Lloyd, how come you're not buying gold? You're not buying this? I'm like, I'm already hedged in

inflation because I have businesses. So one business we have is a laundromat, and we know if inflation goes way up and the dollar loses its value and collapses, we just increase prices. Why? Because people need to clean their clothes. Fact. It's a very recessionary proof business model. People need clean clothes. They don't want to walk around in smelly clothes and filthy clothes, so they need to wash. They need to dry. So if inflation

inflates the value of the local currency, we just increase prices. So businesses that do well in inflationary times are ones that can raise their prices. It means they've got what's called high or good quality pricing power. So they can increase their prices during inflation. They can increase dividends. They can effectively outperform inflation. So for example, one of the most powerful companies in the world when it comes to pricing power

is, you guessed it, Apple. Because people would trade their second car in to get their hands on one of these like the pricing This is probably worth $30,000 to people not 1500 bucks It's got so much pricing power in it And I know that because I know that people would literally trade their cars to get this and I know cars cost 30,000 So this is really a $30,000 product, but

it's not being sold for that. So Apple knows it can incrementally increase the prices like this and over and over again to combat inflation because they know that people are still going to buy this because it's such a valuable commodity to people. The same thing I can see over there in the fridge, there's a can of Coke in there. Another example of a company that can actually outperform inflation is Coca-Cola because Coca-Cola has the ability to increase each can by one cent. Over

8 billion cans consumed daily. Think about that. Some huge number of cans consumed daily can increase it by one cent. It's almost 2 billion cans of Coke consumed daily. So you think if Coke can increase it by a cent, it's increasing it by like 2 billion cents a day. Isn't that insane? So it's got pricing power, so it can outperform inflation. So check this out. Look at what Warren Buffett's doing right now. Look at this. He knows that the US dollar is inflating. He

knows that, and I'm talking about the Australian dollar, but the US dollar is also inflating. He knows this. So he's positioned his portfolio into bonds, which helps hedge inflation a bit because you're getting 4.5%. He's putting his money into oil stocks hedge, and he also owns Coca-Cola as a company. His highest position is Apple. Think about this. And he's got Moody's. So all these companies in his top five or six holdings, which takes over most of his portfolio and other private

companies he owns, he's got pricing power. See his candy. Big, big powerful company. He bought that for $25 million many years ago. It's worth billions now. And it can increase its candy prices to combat inflation because people will still want to buy its product. So he's got tremendous hedge in inflationary pressures with his holdings and businesses. So, companies can raise prices in inflationary times. This happened during the GFC, the

S&P 500 soared because of rising money supply. Owning an index fund, if you've got companies in there like Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc., Coca-Cola, they can increase their prices. McDonald's, the Big Mac index. When you went to McDonald's recently, I bet you were shocked by the price of stuff. Yes, it hurts. It used to be you could go to McDonald's at $5.95 for a meal. a house to get a meal at McDonald's. It's the Big Mac Index. McDonald's is a perfect example of a company and

a business that can increase its prices. Why? Because it has. So if you want to hedge inflation, businesses are a wonderful way to do it. That's how I do it. That's how I do it. So I'm excited that I own certain companies that are hedged with oil stocks. I'm excited that we have businesses that are hedged in products and services that people need. You know, super, super

effective way to do it, right? So you can either get it through some sort of index, you can get it through ownership of businesses, private or public. All right, next one. This is the last one. The best hedge of all time. We said the best to last. This is the best hedge against inflation of all time. It's the fastest way to outrun inflation. And unlike cash, it can compound very powerfully. So

check it out. You're going to be thrilled or you're going to be disappointed, be the one. Here we go. The best way to hedge inflation is to actually increase your skills. The best way to hedge inflation is to earn more money. The fastest way to outrun it is to earn more. Unlike cash, skills can compound drastically. You can end up finding skills that you can totally transform your earning power with and your income is the most important thing you can do to enhance

your wealth. It really is. You can't save your way to wealth. You can do it for a period of time but you can't get it down to nothing. There's an example in, I mean, many examples in the past where there's inflations crushed the economy. I know without a doubt that people in that economy with skills, sought after skills, were still getting paid a ton of money in all sorts of different currencies and or gold and or in barter to

apply their skills to the economy. If you've got skills, people will find a way to give you something of value to get them. It doesn't really matter if your local currency like the Australian dollar is completely getting It's completely collapsed in the last few years in terms of its value, but... I know that if I've got skills, I can get paid in gold, I can get paid in US dollars, I can get paid in barter. Like if I'm good at what I do and people need it, they will find a way to pay me.

Even if the currency is toilet paper, I know during COVID when there's a lot of toilet paper, I could have provided a skill to someone. So Lloyd, I'll pay you in toilet paper. Go, give me the toilet paper. It doesn't really matter what it is, your skills are inflation proof. And it doesn't matter if the global currency is crypto, USD, gold, Barter, whatever. Your skills transcend all of the global currencies. All of them. So the most important thing you can do is improve your

knowledge and skills because they are inflation proof. They will ride inflation way up because there's people out there with skills. Think about it. Think about Mark Zuckerberg. He's now like the top three or four wealthiest people in the world. He's also the youngest in that group. Think about the skills that he applied. He became a multi, he became worth $100 billion. Do you think that outperformed inflation? Yes. Do you think Jeff Bezos outperformed inflation?

Yes. Do you think Warren Buffett outperformed inflation? Yes. All the people I know who are wealthy, a lot of my friends who are worth millions of dollars, how did they get there? Did they buy gold? No. Did they buy real estate? No, they didn't. They might say they do now to protect their wealth, but they didn't get there that way, let me tell you. They all did it through actually improving their skills and starting and building their own businesses. That's how

they did it. So don't, and some people have certainly, there's a story of a lady, she just gave a billion dollars to a charity. Her husband happened to invest with Warren Buffett, that's stocks, that's Berkshire Hathaway, and ride that sucker way up to a billion dollars, and of course, incredibly powerful hedge, because Warren Buffett in the last 60 years created 5.5 million percent return. To put that in perspective, the S&P 500, 30,000 percent return. To

put that in perspective, it way outperformed inflation. Inflation hasn't been anywhere close to those two numbers. So stocks and businesses, yes, can also outperform it. But for most part, it's businesses because of skills. So if you want the ultimate hedge, invest in yourself. You are the ultimate hedge. You are the best asset to invest in to overcome inflation. So could hyperinflation happen

in Australia? Could we absolutely destroy the power of the Australian dollar? Theoretically, yes. Will it happen? Technically, well, technically yes, but theoretically or I would say no. It's unlikely because we've got a floating exchange rate. We've got an independent reserve bank. We've got global trading partners. We've got a ton of resources here, deep capital markets. And we do have, despite the challenging

leadership we have at the minute, that's a whole other episode of what I think about that. But we do have the ability to control money supply. And we do have hard assets backing. We've got land, arable land. We've got farming, commodities. We've got resources, energy, hydrocarbons. We're good. But if hyperinflation does happen, like what happened in Germany, what happened in Venezuela, what happened in Zimbabwe. In those scenarios, you know what happened? People fled back. They

just dropped the currency. They went back to other currencies. They went back to the US dollar. They went back to gold. That's what happened. The economy doesn't die. The paper money is just forgotten. All trust is broken and we stop using it. So it's not like you'll just have nothing. You will have figured out by then if there's hyperinflation, what

does work and you'll have already gone there. But I can almost guarantee you that if you have business skills and you have the ability to pivot and you buy businesses and build businesses, there's no amount of inflation that can hurt you because you are indestructible because you invested in yourself. And of course, one of the other hedges that's happening that I haven't really covered here because I don't want to is cryptocurrencies, especially

Bitcoin. They're like, oh, Bitcoin's a hedge against inflation. Oh,

my God. Do I have to talk about Bitcoin? It's a code. It's a piece of code. And people are like, read the Bitcoin standard. How much research you have to do to realize something's valueless? Look, people are using crypto and specifically Bitcoin as an inflation hedge. But the fact of the matter is this, gold has got thousands of years of measurable data against inflation than crypto does. It's tangible. Remember, the inflation hedges against tangible assets, right? Things that can

produce value for the world. Crypto doesn't produce any value. How do I know that? Because I went down to the supermarket, With my wife, we were doing a checkout and I said to the lady, ìHey, do you take cryptocurrency for my groceries?î She went, ìNo.î I was like, ìPfft.î Then I went to my landlord the other day, my property manager and he called up and said, ìHey, you owe rent.î And I'm like, ìOh, do you take Bitcoin?î He goes, ìPfft.î So I'm like, ìOkay.î And

so I rang up my American Express. I got an American Express card, platinum card. It's a wonderful card, lots of points. And I rang him up the other day and I had like $100,000 to repound that. And I said, ìHey, do you take cryptocurrency? Do you take Bitcoin?î They went, ìPfft.î How is crypto or Bitcoin a hedge when it's not even valuable? I can't use it for anything. At least I can sell gold on the open market. I can sell it. You can touch it. You feel it. Even though I hate gold, I can at

least see it's there. You can't see anything with crypto. It's just code. There's certainly value in the technology of a blockchain. There's certainly value in the technology of internet. There's certainly value in technology of AI, LLM models. There's value in those for sure, because they speed up things, yes? But I can't see it in crypto. And so it might feel like it's a hedge against inflation. By all accounts, if you haven't bought it, it looks like it's hedged. But how they measure it is

in USD, right? And so if the USD disappeared overnight, so would the value of cryptocurrency, right? Because it's really got to be valuable in the real world. And that's why I don't think it's the best hedge. So I don't hold any of it. I never will hold it. Even if the world adopted it as a currency, which I cannot see happening, I would still own businesses. I would still, for that matter, if it was the right price, own a piece of property. I would still own things

that are valuable. And I just can't see how it's valuable. This is why I don't personally own gold. I don't personally own crypto. I personally own things that are valuable to the world. Because I know if push came to shove and shit hit the fan, like it did in COVID, did people go to crypto? No. Did they go to gold? No. They went to toilet paper. So I'm thinking to myself, wouldn't I want to own companies that produce toilet paper? That's a better hedge, right? This

is where my mind's at. This is how I think. So I know that people got wealthy by not owning those assets. I know they got wealthy by building businesses and investing in themselves. So I'm all about playing wealth games. What are the wealthy doing? What did the wealthy do to build wealth? Because it's much better than just preserving it. So I hope this makes sense to you and you've enjoyed the episode. And if you have, hit the subscribe button,

leave us a comment. What do you think is happening to the Australian dollar? Do you think it's going to be hyperinflated? Let me ask you this. What is

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