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George Noi with Rich Turn. He is live in Shanghai as we talk. His book is called Cashless, China's Digital Currency Revolution, And.
It's happening, isn't it?
Rich?
Yeah, George. You know, Look, whether we like it or not, we're going cashless in the sense that we're all using Apple pay, Google Pay, or credit cards or PayPal or PayPal great example, kids are the younger people are using Venmo right, They're all transacting digitally and our lives are more digital. So the concept that money should go more digital and be cheaper to send is something that should be welcomed by most people.
There seems to be an I resistance to it, though, what are they afraid of?
Them? Look? Yeah, so, and this is something I guess relevant to a couple of the last callers. You know that people do not like the Federal Reserve or the central banking system, or how much the government spends. Those are absolutely legit concerns are we know, I want to make that clear. But at the same time, you know the concept that we're going to have a war against the Fed or otherwise reject all that we have. You know, that's sort of a higher level issue. What I'm trying
to get at is you use Bucks. You use them to pay for stuff, your local gas station, your local butcher, you know, butcher, baker and candle stick maker. Is sick and tired of paying Visa and MasterCard three percent plus for the privilege of taking a credit card. We got to have a better way of doing it. And as more of our goods and services go digital, we need a better way to do it. And how we do it is certainly up for debate. We should have a
national discussion on that. But that national discussion should be based on what's real and what technology can actually do for us, and not on imaginary stuff. And you know, I'm not anti crypto, but there shouldn't be based on the fact that we should take the multi trillion dollar American economy and somehow revalue it to some other cryptocurrency. That's that's just not a reasonable expectation.
Most thanks for going through a system called Zel. If you want to send money, what is that?
Sure? ZL is I had some funny bad experience is using Zel. But look, Zel is a way to basically digitally send money using your existing bank systems, and it is available on most of the major banks. A lot of the community banks may not have it, but basically I can send you a limited amount of money. I think it's up to around one thousand bucks for any one individual transfer. And yeah, it's a you know, you know what it is, hey, George. It's a great way
of thinking about it. Did you ever have a BlackBerry earlier in your career? Maybe now you've migrated to something newer and better, yep. Right, Well, look, we've got digital payment and it's no different than our cell phones.
You know.
We started digital payment being credit cards, all right, and now we've got Apple Pay and Google Pay and they're better, and that is a way of paying stuff. But all of these are like those old sull phones that you stick in your closet somewhere and dust off and say, I remember in the nineties when I used this. You know, there are generations of electronic payment, and electronic payment is just getting better and better all the time.
Let's go to jeff in North Dakota to get us going here. Hi Jeffrey, go ahead.
Hi George, Thanks sand Neon, Hey, uh, thank you. I just want to remind everyone about what God says and sow many teen. It says better to put your trust in the Lord than in man, and it also says, what is it good does it do for man to gain the whole world and lose his soul? And George, you were talking about the chips. There's a commany called version ship right now waiting to put chips in human beings,
and their emblem is the eye of a snake. Now in Revelation, God warns us that this times are counting. You would not be able to buy or sell unless you take the mark of the beast. Those who have given their life to Christ, they won't take that mark because you're sealed with the Holy Spirit. But those who be deceived, that's the number one thing he is that also, don't be deceived, because there's going to become a world leader coming soon, the anti Christ. The first three and
a half years, everything's gonna be humpty dory. In the last three and a half years, you will be killed for your faith and you don't take their mark on your right hand and forehead. Bibles very clear about that. So there's the just, the unjust, the whatd says he lets the rain fall and adjust and the unjust, the sinner of the saint.
A lot of people are concerned about that.
Rich.
Yeah, you know. Look, he look, Higer, Jeff, Look, I hear you. And I want to make a world where you can have your belief system along with the ability to get if you ever get sick, Jeff, the latest and greatest cancer detection system which may be built, which will be built on digital and use things like artificial intelligence.
So I want to close the gap and make people understand that the digital world we are living in as good things associated with it, and that those good things do not conflict with Biblical verse as best as I can. You know, they're not the tall order because the Bible says a lot and beliefs about what the Bible say are very different. But I try, I try to do my best.
That's got dawn now on the international line in Alberta, Canada.
Hey, Donald, go ahead, Hi George.
Hi Rich.
Actually, the best cancer detection system is the dog that's properly trained. They can detect cancer way a right.
Anyway.
My philosophy on investing is our money is if I can't see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, it doesn't exist. I know people have lost millions on digital currency, actually bitcoin. You know, it doesn't matter if the computer hard right fails, or the phone gets lost or somebody steals it while you're sleeping at night, so they just go in digitally and extract it.
Yeah.
I probably will actually end up owning the B five currency only because it's an international currency. But the problem I have with China is that if you don't have enough social rewards points, they just close down your bank accounts. You can't travel, take a bus, the kids can't go to school, whatever the case may be. But the other part of the equation.
Is is.
I mean you've had these guests on your show, George, is that China is actually openly talking about taking out United States and it's a step by step process and they listed it and actually the event that occurred in Israel, and it's unfortunate because I know people on both sides of the border, and the civilians always get caught in the way. But this is just another step, this digital currency, it's just another step to take out America. That's my
belief on what's happening right now. And do I trust digital currency? You know, because if I show up and it's minus thirty five minus forty of gas station and their systems down and I can't put gas in my highway track traill unit. Guess what, I freeze the truck's going to freeze up on me. So if I have cash in my pocket, I'm going again. Yeah, and Solver, I think will be the backup currency in gold. It's just I don't trust digital currency. I'm sorry.
Well, a lot of people don't.
A lot of people don't rich are is it appropriate to ask you if you feel is if.
China wants to go to war with the United States?
Boy, you know, I gotta tell you that's news to me. I read everything that I can about China every day. I can't tell you that I read the local newspapers in Mandarin, but I do read the translations that I get on you know, on the internet. And you know the concept that China wants to go to war with America. I'm sorry, I feel that that's misguided. And I don't
know where. Don you know, it's nice to meet you, and I don't know where you read that, And I'm sure you can come up with a source for me if we were there in person, But from where I sit and from everything that I read, there is no desire for China to go to war with one of its largest trading partners and with the country whose US dollar it holds some six hundred billion of in reserves.
So basically, you know, the China doesn't want to destroy America or destroy the dollar because basically it has a lot of dollars and it would impoverish itself in that process. So no, I don't buy that. But look as far as digital currencies go. Don you quoted cryptocurrency and here I'm talking about digital currencies that are Anadian dollar or US dollar, not crypto. And as far as your big rig and you know, getting digital currency frozen with minus forty,
I'm more having cash. Nobody's trying to take your cash away. But when the weather is good, and also in the future, when we have these new systems which will allow transfer of currency without signal or without electricity, you'll be able to pay digitally, but keep cash. Nobody's trying to take it from you.
Well, that's an important factor too. Rich you don't think it's going to be one or the other. Do you think is it possible they'll say we're going to have cash you can use cash, but we're going this way too.
Absolutely. Look, you know, you know, George, we're all humans, and we like to think in terms of black and white, you know, but the reality is there's a lot of gray in the world. And the concept that we're going to give you digital currency and we're going to take away all your money, that's nuts. Not going to happen. Do you know how much? Think about it another way? Do you know how much cash has squirreled away in America right now? If the government wanted to come for it,
how could they? It wouldn't It wouldn't be practical. There's zillions of dollars all sitting there in cupboards and in closets all over and hidden the middle cuffy holes all over America.
And West Arsenal wipe out the drug dealers, wouldn't it.
Well, I don't know what to say there. Yeah, sadly, you know, there are those who make the argument, and I'm not gonna I'm not going to go there personally, but I'm going to just make it because I want people to hear it. Is that the loss of cash would be a great reduction of crime. Now, this part I can tell you I'm willing to go here. Ready.
In China, where cash use is reduced, in the major cities, the local convenience stores, nobody tries to rob them because they don't have any money, And nobody tries to rob somebody's wallet or purse for the cash because nobody's got any cash in it. Now they do try to rob ursus and stuff for cell phones. I'm not arguing that, but the reality is people or societies that use less cash have less crime because people aren't walking around with wads of cash in their pocket that you can steal.
There's no access to it.
There's that, okay, so people choose not to use it. People have access to it. I got an ATM machine across the street from my house. I got like four of them, but I don't use them, and so people have so in China. Let's talk specifically about my life, which is hardcore concrete. I have as much access to cash here as I have in the US as I have anywhere. I can go to the bank and get wads of money.
US dollars are Chinese, oh Chinese.
Yes, I can also get US dollars, but I got to make conversion. And then who's going to take it right. I mean, but when I travel occasionally, I got to get some US extra US dollars, and sure, I'll go to the bank with draw R and B and then I'll have to convert that R and B. It cost me some money and I'll get a handful of dollars out of it.
Rich speculate on what the next few years will be like in terms of this push to go to this kind of digital currency.
Look, it's going to be a long, hard transition, and look, I'm gonna have fun with this, if you don't mind me, George, because I want to put it in terms that everybody can relate to.
We have a minute, minute and a half left.
Go ahead, minute and a half. We all had blackberries. We now have iPhones or whatever phone we got, and we're on iPhone what is it fifteen these days? And it was incremental steps from a BlackBerry to the iPhone and from the old days when we didn't have any smartphones at all. So we're going to have an incremental change in getting better cashless systems, but you're always going to have access to cash. If you want to
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