Max Keiser on Bitcoin and futurist Buckminster Fuller
Today, Rich Dad Radio spends time with Max Keiser, host of The Max Keiser
Report and Orange Pill Podcast, to discuss Bitcoin as well as the
predictions and insight of the late Buckminster Fuller. Keiser and Rich Dad
Radio share Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller as a mentor, utilizing and
implementing his teachings, books, and wisdom to further personal economic
growth.
Buckminster Fuller’s Critical Path
Max Keiser was 21 when Buckminster Fuller’s book, Critical Path, was
published. On the precipice of a career on Wall Street, Keiser gravitated
to the almost “punk engineer’ language of Buckminster Fuller. For Keiser,
it’s all about doing it yourself, without outside legitimacy,
accreditation’s, approval. “You don’t need the status quo,” he says, “just
really think, probe your own mind and there’s so much, so many rich things
in your own mind.”
What stood out for Keiser were the philosophies of the book’s take on money
and the principal Buckminster shares on how he decided that he wasn’t going
to do anything anymore unless it benefited humanity as a whole.
Against the mainstream, Buckminster kept his design parameters based on
this principal: how does this help the greater good. He went on to do
things like the Geodesic Dome, designs for electric cars, among others.
Buckminster had a completely different way of looking at things,
particularly as it applied to economics and business, and it wasn’t
political. It came from an engineering prospective, from a humanist side,
something that felt almost Renaissance. Keiser says of Buckminster, “I
think you could say he was a Renaissance man in the truest sense of the
word in that he was ushering in…the internet age.”
Keiser transitioned into Wall Street, he tells us, and Critical Path and
the teachings of Buckminster were a bridge for this new way of thinking. He
began seeing money, finances, and markets as something malleable as opposed
to hard-coded, and as a medium where you could express yourself. Keiser
would ultimately create the Hollywood Stock Exchange during the 1990’s, in
an attempt to bridge money with self-expression. All of which related back
to Buckminster Fuller teachings.
I Will Never Work For Money Again
Buckminster Fuller might even be a key element to the formation of the Rich
Dad Company itself, having influenced Robert and Kim to make drastic moves
in the mid-1980’s.
In the early 1980’s, Robert followed the same Buckminster Fuller books,
starting with "Critical Path". In the summer of 1983, Buckminster dies and
his book, "Grunch of Giants", is released. Kim shares how Buckminster would
impact Robert’s next moves.
“You were conflicted inside because you were studying this guy Fuller and
Fuller said to you, "What do you do for a living?" And you said, "I make
money." And he said, "What a waste of a great mind."
“One of the lines that he said, that we've always operated by, is the more
people we serve, the more effective we become. And that's always a
principle that's guided us. So we've never done it for money. That was
never been the initial goal. The initial goal is how do you serve more
people, more effectively, and then once you left rock and roll, then you
were kind of set free.”
Ultimately, they would quit their jobs, follow these Buckminster teachings,
and move forward into building companies based on these principals and
predictions.
One Buckminster Fuller prediction was the internet, would come to
realization in the 1990’s. Buckminster wrote there would be new technology
entering planet Earth, prior to the end of the decade.
“…to electronify wealth distribution that accomplish a movements of goods
and service that is more channeled design structures, not Big Brother
though, since no central planning authority.”—Buckminster Fuller.
“When I met Kim, Fuller hit me right in the brain. I said, I will never
work for money again, I’ll work for humanity.” —Robert Kiyosaki.
Buckminster Fuller’s teachings and principals would change the course of
life for Robert and Kim. A foundational Rich Dad principal, Kim shares, is
Angular Redundancy. With Buckminster, his words and writings could be
strange to the average reader, as he used phrases that were uncommon, or in
some cases, completely made up. One of these terms was Angular Redundancy.
This is, essentially:
“What needs to be done in this world that nobody else is doing, and that
you can do?”
“This is how we’ve built the Rich Dad Company and how we’ve lived our
lives.”—Kim Kiyosaki
Max Keiser heard about Bitcoin in 2011, but he already held the Keiser
Patent on how to trade virtual currencies. Bitcoin was a leap beyond what
he was thinking because all the virtual currencies and digital currencies
up until that point were centralized, to some degree.
Keiser explains, “All market making, all federal banks, all political
considerations regarding money are all centralized. So the thing about
Bitcoin that breaks it from everything else is that it’s decentralized.”
The interesting thing about Buckminster Fuller is if you look at his
writings through a political lens, you would say, ‘this is NOT capitalism’.
Maybe even the opposite of capitalism. And yet the results are tools that
enable capitalists to do fantastic work as capitalist.
Max Keiser and Bitcoin
“I always compare Bitcoin to shamanism and spiritualism, Keiser explains.
Where people have the freedom to delve into their own spiritual journeys,
because they have money that cannot be confiscated, and not debasing in
value. They have no worries. “In other words, you achieve individual
sovereignty and you can just pursue spirituality.”
“And I think that's where Bitcoin is heading. I think everyone ultimately
achieves individual sovereignty, the whole idea of wealth changes
dramatically itself. And this would be a Buckminster Fuller idea, that his
idea of wealth was very, very radically different than what most people
consider to be wealth.”
If Bitcoin is the coin of his (Buckminster Fuller’s) thinking, then what do
you have? If you had everyone thinking like Buckminster Fuller the world
would be a dramatically and drastically different place. And with Bitcoin
we can get to that place and we are getting to that place and it is
happening right now.
Architects of the Future
Buckminster Fuller predicted Bitcoin, Youtube, the internet. He was a
futurist. For Robert and Kim, starting the Rich Dad Company was a direct
response to avoid being a victim of the future, and instead, following
Buckminster Fuller’s teachings, become an architect of their future. To do
what God wanted done, and to educate.
Buckminster had amazing confidence in himself, as an engineer. He was a
visionary, and engineered things like Buckminster Fuller’s Geodesic Dome,
among other things that would be good for humanity. Keiser believes we have
others like him in the world today, like Elon Musk, who has similar
confidence as an engineer. He’s putting out incredible products and
scientific projects and he’s taken us all along on a journey. Keiser is
quick to point out that Musk is not Buckminster, and would never have
written a book like Critical Path, but he IS someone who we can look to, to
some degree, because he has that similar confidence in himself.
“We've dealt with a lot of rich people throughout our careers, and many
times rich people are miserable because they never really are on a journey
of self-discovery. Conversely, I've met many people all over the world who
have maybe $5 to their name who couldn't be happier, because they are
completely comfortable with themselves and they're completely comfortable
with the world. And that to them is infinite riches.”—Max Keiser
Buckminster Fuller Critical Path
Robert recalls a time back in 1981, in Lake Tahoe, where Buckminster Fuller
address a room full of people, including Robert. He explains the reason he
speaks in a language less understood, and uncommon (speaking into the
future) is because, “if people knew what I was saying, they would kill me.”
He writes into the future and used a language they can’t read. He told
Roberts group, “and so here we are today taking the fight. And that’s why I
wanted to talk with you because you’re in a fight.”
Max Keiser agrees; this is going to end up in a fight. In the Bitcoin
community, it is evident. Keiser says it doesn’t matter how friendly the
regulators are, or if corporations buy it or don’t buy it. At the end, it
will wind up a serious fight because Bitcoin is so disruptive to the status
quo and the legacy system.
The Big Bitcoin Fight
The fight is from centralized to decentralized systems. Right now, it’s
evidenced in the rhetoric from senators like Elizabeth Warren, who has just
claimed she’s arming herself for a fight with Bitcoin. Brad Sherman is
another politician who is openly hostile to Bitcoin.
They’ve come up with ESG, the environmental considerations, as their
rallying cry to lead the attack on Bitcoin. There is no basis for that,
Keiser says.
But we know propaganda is not based on things that make sense, but rather
an emotional appeal.
But Bitcoin, Keiser says, is designed to attract attacks. That’s the game
theory built into the protocol. For 11 years now, the attacks have worked
their way up from coders hating each other to influencers hating each other
to now, politicians hating each other. Central banks are now against each
other, and Nation states are doing the same.
El Salvador was the bravest, Keiser says, and first to come out and make
Bitcoin legal tender.
But the more they attack Bitcoin, the more hash rate goes up, thereby
increasing it’s security, and ultimately, the price goes up. Against
Bitcoin, the only weapon is printing money. The value of Bitcoin will just
continue to rise.
Max Keiser Predictions
Does Bitcoin have the ability to wipe out the monetary system or just
change it?
It’s definitely changing the monetary system. The design of Bitcoin itself
is disruptive. It’s an immutable network that gives private property rights
to billions of people, and they can’t censor it! It cannot be confiscated
and it’s mathematically certain to go up in purchasing power.
There are three major categories of investment, says Keiser:
Fiat money is not volatile, but you’re guaranteed to lose purchasing power.
Gold is somewhat volatile over time, and you’re guaranteed to maintain
purchasing power. And Bitcoin is volatile, and is guaranteed to increase
purchasing power.
“We only have had a world of all Fiat money since 1971, when Nixon closed
the gold standard. And the only way they can fight is to print more money.
Therefore, I can categorically say, emphatically, you have guaranteed
purchasing power with Bitcoin, and I’m willing to accept a little
volatility for that.”—Max Keiser
“We're taking a victory lap. It's a victory celebration. And we won,
essentially. I'm looking into the future right now. I live in the future
today. We won because they lost, because they put 100% of their vested
interest into money printing, crooked accounting, and a very corrupted
connection between Wall Street and Washington. I mean, when Washington is
starting to tell Facebook that they're going to monitor what's happening on
Facebook, that is what we would say if we were historians looks and smells
an awful lot like a fascism, right? Let's call it what it is.”
Max Keiser can be found at
The Max Keiser Report and Orange Pill podcast.