Bitcoin Is Dead
Welcome to Bitcoin is Dead, the ultimate Bitcoin variety show where host Trey takes you on a journey through the ever-evolving world of Bitcoin. Each episode brings new personalities, fascinating locations, and insightful conversations with politicians, educators, and innovators shaping the future of Bitcoin. Whether you're a seasoned Bitcoiner or just starting your journey, tune in for thought-provoking discussions, unique perspectives, and a deep dive into the ideas and people driving the Bitcoin revolution.
Bitcoin Is Dead
Around the Willow Tree | Bitcoin is Dead
Around the Willow Tree business circle with Wayne, Evan, and Tom the Taxman Jones. Join us as we talk Bitcoin, business, the economy, and Alamance county.
Follow us on Twitter - @BTCisDeadPod
Today we've got our very special group once again. We've got wayne from willow treeler and we got his grandson, evan from Willow Tree Lawn Care and we got Tom the taxman in Jones, one of the regulars on the Bitcoin is Dead podcast. So I wanted to start with a mistake that I made during the last time we spoke. I told I think it was you specifically that I don't think your business should accept Bitcoin, because at the time, my train of thought was if you accept Bitcoin as a method of payment right now, most everybody around here isn't. They don't know about Bitcoin and they aren't going to spend it even if they know it.
Trey Carson:Here's what I think companies should do in general is the first thing you should do is adopt Bitcoin as an asset for the company. So if you have cash, instead of just keeping it in the bank outside of whatever funds that you need to operate, if you have extra funds that you're not going to spend to a later date, then drop that into Bitcoin and just hold that, because it's going to do two things. The first thing it's going to do is it's going to give you exposure to Bitcoin, which is a good thing, but it's going to give you educational exposure. You got to figure out how to get it into, how to convert your cash into Bitcoin, how to store the Bitcoin and then, as your conviction grows over time and more people interact with you about Bitcoin. If you have somebody then says, hey, I'd like to pay in Bitcoin, it's very quick and very easy to then accept payment. I mean within 24 hours, like at Taxman's place, within 24 hours. We had a system set up where he could accept Bitcoin and I think, taxman, you would probably agree not a lot of people want to pay in crypto.
Tom Taxman Jones:Not yet. Again, what you stated is true In this area here, people are slowly beginning to adapt to it and I think a lot of it has to do with the bad press that has gone out. The guy down in the Bahamas there, sam Bankman Fried, there you know, of course, but really what he did was no different from anyone else. That would have been laundering money and basically running a Ponzi scheme against the public, unknowing what was taking place. And of course, my position, which I'm even more and more a believer in the Bitcoin, is that it's going to help minimize the cost for small business. And what you mentioned there about Evans, he probably would run into a few problems dealing with the public there.
Tom Taxman Jones:As to being paid, because I know my other clients is doing lawn care, service, things of that nature there, the younger people and by that meaning my grandson, my daughter, all in on cash out there, and I noticed more and more of my clients heating and air, plumbing, things of that nature.
Tom Taxman Jones:A few Cash App were more of the Zeller there in the Venn mode, because of course they've been out there and then they're tied to the different banks there. But what Trey just mentioned beginning to accept Bitcoin, that, even when you have those individuals that want to pay you, it's going to be to your benefit because it's going to help build up your asset there on your balance sheet. And then, of course, wayne knows, when you go to borrow money, the first thing the bank wants is okay, let me see your balance sheet, what do you own and who do you owe? And, of course, with Bitcoin, especially with the fact that it's continued to show an appreciated value, it's just going to enhance your overall network, which means when you go into the bank or whoever you're dealing with, they're going to be like you know hey, look at this balance sheet there. It also is going to show that, running the business, that you got the discipline to set aside the money for that rainy day.
Trey Carson:Yeah. So, like I said, I think that in the long term, you will want to accept Bitcoin, but as a step towards that which is the ultimate goal, but a step towards that. I think keeping it as a treasury asset is a good idea If you want to accept it quickly. It's not hard to download a wallet I mean me and a few of you went through that. Download a wallet on your phone and you can accept Bitcoin right then and there. So it's not hard to do.
Trey Carson:It's just a matter of how you want to implement it, and what I don't want people to do is set up a system, try to accept Bitcoin and then run into problems. The first time somebody tries to pay or the first time they want to interact with it, they run into problems. It makes them nervous. They don't feel as comfortable with the asset because they haven't spent any time with it to actually see returns in general. So once you understand the returns and you have an understanding of how to store it, how to use it and so on and so forth, it's much easier then to accept. So I wanted to correct that from the last time we talked. It's bugged me since I did it but how's lawn care?
Evan:what's going on in the lawn care world? Um, it's pretty good so far. Um, I've seen a pretty big increase in uh work this year. I, you know, kind of aside from the lawn care portion, you know, actually doing the work and more towards, like the I guess, business side and running the company, I um kind of redesigned our marketing program this year, so I created a website and started running Google Ads, because we used to be on something called Angie Leads and I didn't really like the idea of it. It was really expensive and kind of inconvenient for us. And the Google Ads have been working a lot better and I've been seeing a lot of really good results from that, and that's something that, um, I really wanted to do. That's a big goal of mine for this year was increasing the amount of work we had and, um, you know, getting more jobs and things like that, you guys staying pretty busy, oh yeah yeah yeah, how many days a week you guys putting in now?
Evan:we're putting in five to six right now. Yeah, I was hoping to keep it like. Well, the idea is to mow four days throughout the week, monday through Thursday, and then Friday and Saturday, do projects like mulch installs, landscaping projects or anything like that, and then, if it rains or anything like that too, we have Fridays and Saturdays to catch up also, if we don't have any landscape projects.
Tom Taxman Jones:Do you do the patio with the outside? I call it outside fireplace. There I notice you're seeing more and more homes that's doing that Again growing up in the country. I'm like, ok, just go outside and build a fire there. Again growing up in the country. I'm like, okay, just go outside and build a fire there. But of course, more and more you see your homeowners and they look pretty nice, especially the stonework, so you provide that as well. Not yet they call that hardscaping.
Evan:Yeah, hardscaping, that's hardscaping. Okay, yeah, I saw, okay, hardscaping. My cousin works for a company that they do a lot of hardscaping. He's thought about it. He has thought about it. Yeah, well, in the future you know there's plenty of there's time and that's, you know, one direction I'd like to go. There's many places, you know I see the company going and that's you know, somewhere I'd like to go eventually is doing hardscaping and things like that too, because, yeah, it's pretty nice.
Tom Taxman Jones:Do you also plant trees, flowers, things like that, if the customer wants that?
Evan:Yeah, we do plantings and kind of. Another service that I started offering this year is weed control and fertilization. So you've probably heard of like True Green Companies, like True Green and other weed control and fertilization companies. They don't mow at all, they only do weed control and fertilization. Oh really, yeah, companies, they don't mow at all, they only do weed control and fertilization. Oh really yeah. Which is, um, they just go out and spray for weeds, keep your lawn fertilized and you're on a year-round program, um, you know, all throughout the year. So that's. Another benefit of that, too is that it um provides job security, you know, in like the winter months and things like that.
Wayne:You got a certification for chemicals and licensing.
Evan:Oh yeah, yeah, you had to. There's a certification process and a licensing process. So there's a gap, I guess, like a skill gap between, like weed control and fertilization, and people that just kind of do regular lawn maintenance, like mowing. So, you know, it just helps us stand out more and, um, it also separates us from like, uh, people, I guess people who are more, um, you know, just doing basic things right and a lot of.
Evan:Something I've been seeing a lot this year is that, um, people want to. They just want to go through one company for everything.
Tom Taxman Jones:One-stop business.
Evan:Yeah, exactly Because a lot of people are having a lawn care company that just mows their yard and everything, does all of that. And then they also have TruGreen come out spray for weeds, keep the lawn fertilized. But it's pretty convenient being able to offer a complete lawn care program. So you're going to give them the full turnkey.
Tom Taxman Jones:Whatever they want, you can come back and provide the herbicide, pesticides, things like that. Do you ever get any requests for dealing with insects? Because I know earlier this year it was some kind of bug and everybody was complaining about that.
Evan:Well, that's the thing too. So there is a separate license you have to get for doing insects, which that's called structural pest control. I'm licensed to do weed control, okay. So I'm not legally allowed to spray for insects and things like that. Well, at least ones that are inside the house and around the house. It's like, well, at least ones that are inside the house and around the house. But you know, maybe in the future I'm not haven't completely decided yet you know if I want to go that route of you know, spraying for mosquitoes and things like that, because for even for mosquitoes, you know you need a structural. I think, if I'm not mistaken, you need a structural license to even to spray for mosquitoes, which that kind of goes hand in hand. You know, with the weed control and fertilization. People start wondering about bugs and you know things like that. So you know, I might, I might end up getting that license also.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah, I know, of course people have changed over time and everybody likes to be able to set out doors and don't have the bugs, don't have any problems there, and so of course again looking for the turnkey. But you mentioned earlier about you no longer use the Angie list. I mean it just wasn't working out or you just wouldn't get the leads.
Evan:No, we were definitely getting them. They would pop up. But the thing is, when you get a lead through Angie's list, it goes to you and it also goes to three or four other contractors. It doesn't just go to you. So when it pops up on my phone, you know first of all, as soon as it pops up I'm charged like 40 bucks, 40 to 40 bucks per lead.
Wayne:It's a charge whether you get the lead or not. Let me elaborate on this a little bit. Well, you know, when it started out and don't get me wrong it was HomeAdvisor. Then I think Angie Lee bought them out when I started seven years ago and it was an excellent way. It's an absolutely excellent way to start a new business because it's actually targeting the customers that you want. I mean, they're coming to you to do that work. So it really got us going, got us started and also some of these other things I wasn't familiar with that he's using now.
Wayne:Or maybe it wasn't out there, I don't know, but it is expensive. There's no doubt about it, and I did notice that we've been in it so long. We've been on Angie's List or Angie's Leads. Angie's List is what the name of it is For, like I said, seven years. We get a lot of repeat business. You know a lot of customers. Even if somebody we already have reaches out and we're on that list, we'll still get the lead and we still get charged. But we can dispute that charge. But we get so many in it's hard to catch. You know, it's hard to take time to do all that we can write in and say this is existing customer and they'll take that charge off us so you would get a repeat customer, a returning customer.
Wayne:If they're looking for somebody else, yeah, you still get charged until you can dispute it and say the reasoning for the dispute and they give you credit. But if you miss that or whatever, you're too busy and whatnot, that's still a charge and it varies on on. I noticed it varies on the neighborhood this end, like west burlington is going to be higher than east burlington okay or green, you know, out the hall river based on your zip code.
Wayne:Yeah, it's based on your zip code, but I mean it was an excellent way to start a business. But now that we've been in longer, there was a lot of downfall.
Tom Taxman Jones:But we're still in it. We we're still involved in it. They do have some excellent software.
Wayne:I mean, we've got a very, very large customer list and that's all embedded in there. We've got every customer that we've ever did work for or requested work. If you wanted to take that list and start sending out flyers directly to them, try to get their business and all. But there's a lot of advantages that it offers, but there is disadvantages because it is expensive. We're probably paying what? Maybe on a weekly basis, $200, $300.
Wayne:Yeah, sometimes $200 to $300, and you can put that At the height of the business, but you can turn it off. See, right now we've still got it, but I've got everything turned off on there. You've got to have one active service that you provide, and there's a whole list of different things, not only in lawn care. You know anything. You can turn off all the ones you don't want to be active in, and it's divided up in business and residential. So I turned everything off except snow removal business.
Tom Taxman Jones:Which right now, in the middle of June, Right, what's the chances of getting some of that?
Wayne:But if somebody in the business wants to get. We do do snow removal, but we really don't want to do it, for, you know, we don't care about going from driveway to driveway, we want the shopping plazas. We do have about seven shopping plazas that we do now during the wintertime, yeah.
Evan:And that's how we got it through Angie's Leads. We never got that at 10 pm for Angie's Leads. Yeah, I just personally don't like it at all. I never really have. And I agree that it is a great way to start Maybe get your first 10 clients or something like that but once you get to a certain point, you have a few clients established definitely I would invest in building your own website, because there's easy ways to do that, and going into Google Ads or even Facebook Ads.
Wayne:It's easy to say we just get out of college. You see, you get out of college, graduating computer science or getting out of college. That's easy to say, but when you haven't done it, you've never done it. That's not an easy thing. That's easy to say, but when you haven't done it, you've never done it.
Evan:That's not an easy thing and it's costly too. Yeah, I would say, starting up building your website initially and getting onto Google, the initial cost might be a little bit higher than initially getting onto Angie, but over time you'll be saving a lot of money. You won't be spending two, you know, two, three. Well, it depends on how much you put as your monthly budget. That's another thing too. You know, by running Google ads and Facebook ads you can control your monthly budget and everything. But yeah, I would definitely for any service provider, any business that sells service, definitely look in the website, google ads, facebook ads, and I would stay away from Angie's List. If you look it up, if you look up Angie's List and their reviews and everything, most contractors don't really like them, and you know. That's just something I've learned from experience.
Tom Taxman Jones:And too by the fact how many years have you been?
Evan:out there now. Well, really, since I was like 13.
Tom Taxman Jones:Oh, okay.
Evan:So I've been on and off, you know, throughout my middle school and even high school career, college career. You know, I've been on and off just when I have time.
Wayne:You know you're talking to a tax man now.
Evan:Right, oh, okay. So yeah, you probably see he really, you know.
Wayne:No, you wasn't on.
Evan:You know he, probably he really. You know, no, you didn't, you wasn't on. You know he was just working. Oh, yeah, yeah, he saw it when I wasn't, you know officially, like on the payroll and everything. But yeah, I've been on for a while. You know, I don't know, I grew up with this company and you know I really love what I do.
Wayne:So yeah, he started more when I was about 13, you know.
Tom Taxman Jones:Okay, started mowing about 13, you know.
Wayne:Okay, make sure to get them started early, yeah I'm 20 now, so, all right, stay there as long as you can. Something else yeah, I didn't throw it on him either. You talk about that pest control and all. I'm going to get him into beekeeping, so we, when he's out there if a swarm of bees is there he'd catch them and bring them back and we get back started out.
Evan:That's not a bad idea I never thought about that, yeah there there's a whole community around beekeeping on. Youtube oh yeah.
Wayne:Yeah, he was really big into beekeeping. I was in beekeeping, yeah.
Trey Carson:Pretty good size. Did you work with the Alamance County Beekeepers Association?
Wayne:Yeah, I was in Alamance County, North Carolina.
Wayne:I was on the list with the agriculture board. And that's another funny story. They used to call me remember Ghostbusters? They used to call me remember Ghostbusters. They used to call me the Bee Buster because I'd go to work with a beehive in the back of my truck and whenever they'd call into the agriculture extension about a hive of bees they would contact me to go get them. So if I was working I'd have to get off work and go catch the bees and then I'd go back at night and pick up the hive and I'd go all different times to catch bees. That's where I got most of my bees at. I got 50 hives at one time and I still got all the wood and everything and I just got too old to do it.
Tom Taxman Jones:But I got a young grandson that's a good entrepreneur and there's a lot of money to be made in bees. I got a couple of clients that's into the whole bee thing and the fact of it is a lot of people take bees for granted, but if you don't have bees, you don't eat.
Wayne:They pollinate, honeybee pollinates about 90% 80-some percent of all the food that we consume. The only other pollinator, real good pollinator, decent pollinator, is a bumblebee and it's lazy. Wow, I can't remember the figures off the top of my head because I hadn't done it in 25 years since I bought the service station, that whole term busy as a bee yeah.
Evan:See, I would do it. I would be interested in maybe getting into beekeeping or something like that, but I'd have to wear one of those suits with a net over your face. I never wore a suit. Yeah, exactly that's what I was about to get into is how he's never worn a suit. He would go in there, you know, I think he'd take his shirt off and everything.
Wayne:I have my shirt off just go and jump in.
Evan:Well, the reason behind that, too, is because I think I think you mentioned this to me before, pa you know if you're wearing your shirt and a bunch of clothes, and that's what makes them start to sting you.
Wayne:That's not the only thing, but that is one reason.
Evan:What's another reason they're mad.
Wayne:Okay, they get mad at you, but anyway, that's definitely a good something to get into. I just thought about it when you were talking about pest control. That would be ideal to incorporate with this business.
Evan:Well, you know, that's the thing I really love about lawn care and landscaping is that it's a perfect. There's so many doors. There's so many different ways you can go with it. My dad has even told me that he knows people who started mowing lawns and doing lawn care and now they own like 20 dump trucks and they're, you know, they have like a million dollar business, a few million dollar business. You know.
Tom Taxman Jones:So there's just so many different avenues you can go it's got a good start too yeah, I mean the growth potentials is really unbelievable there, because, I mean, the fact of it is was mentioned here earlier about the whole homeowners association there, because of course, more and more people living in those type of developments there and also the fact of it is you just don't see the children mowing yards anymore and of course everybody likes to have a pretty yard there and um, well, speaking of that, all right, have you had any trouble with getting people to work again running the tax service and payroll? I know that's one of the things a lot of my, my clients in construction is getting dependable workers. Have you encountered any problems with that?
Evan:Not yet. Fortunately, I have a pretty large family and I have some family that I can call on to help me, like right now, I have my uncle and my cousin working with me and, um, you know, fortunately enough, they're pretty good and, um, they listen to me and you know, we were able to work together and everything so your cousin's helping us now, or yeah, uh will.
Wayne:Yeah, his name is oh yeah, oh, you're that's jack, your cousin, other grandson, all right, yeah, well, I was thinking about the other cousin yeah, that's, yeah, exactly.
Evan:That's a good, that's exactly my point I have such a big family that I'm able to call on them for help. Like I said, I have another cousin who's working in landscaping. Once I get to a good point, I would be able to probably pull him in if necessary. Another good thing is that he has experience, but once it comes to finding other people on the outside, I think that I would have a problem finding a good person.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah, I mean because everybody's dealing in there. I want to say everybody. When you start talking about manual labor, especially in the food industry waiters, waitresses what have you there? It's interesting that small businesses still have no problem with getting people to work because of this inflation. How has this inflation has it had? I know it's had a negative impact. So how have you been able to handle the whole inflation with the escalating costs?
Evan:Well, really the main thing was cutting our you know that expense, our marketing expense. I feel like that's helped us a lot, but he's increased the. Oh and increasing rates too. Increasing rates, yeah, all of our rates.
Wayne:Nobody expects it now.
Tom Taxman Jones:Right there's no way out of it.
Evan:But yeah, that was so, that's, you know, those are a couple really big things that I feel like that I've done this year was, you know, like I said, I reworked the marketing expense and also I increased our rates, you know, all across the board on everything.
Tom Taxman Jones:When you went up on your rates, what kind of reaction did you get from your customers?
Evan:Well, nobody was really mad, Everybody really understood. I have almost 80 lawns that I Out of 80.
Wayne:About 80, give or take We've been $10 to $12 for a cheeseburger now at McDonald's.
Evan:But out of that many regular clients whose lawns I maintain, I feel like losing one out of that many is pretty good.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah, that's pretty impressive there because the fact of it is your business is no different than anybody else, especially if you go in the grocery store, because I know for myself I had a few complaints about the increase in my tax preparation and monthly bookkeeping fee there. But the fact of it is, I don't care who you are, what you're doing there, everybody's dealing with this escalating cost there, especially the guys in construction, because they don't know what the price of job from one week to another week there because of materials and supplies there and of course everybody has a different take on inflation. But the bottom line it just means that your dollar is not going as far as it used to be Right, and of course you got to stretch it what you can, but you can only stretch it so much.
Trey Carson:I read yesterday that $1 in 1930 is now worth 17 cents 17 cents. There are people alive that were born in 1930 or before. Yeah, In their lifetime they've seen almost a complete destruction of a currency.
Tom Taxman Jones:I looked at the statistics being born in 1960. A dollar today will be worth $10 in 1960. Today will be worth $10 in 1960. So that just goes to show what's taking place to the dollar. And again, due to inflation and that's one of the things that's so attractive about Bitcoin it's going to help insulate this, especially when you begin to set aside money, because in the past you set aside $1,000, you got inflation 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10% a year. That $1,000, you got inflation 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%, 10% a year. That $1,000 at 10% is now $900. Well, who's going to make up that difference there of your buying power? Because the bottom line, that's what inflation does it destroys your buying power.
Evan:Well, I just want to make a point that, due to my age, I feel like I've never really noticed, uh, you know, inflation in the stores and everything like that until recently. You know, growing up I remember going to McDonald's or anything and the price for you know, a meal like, let's say, number one, for example, you know six, $7. Now, um, you go and it's in the double digits. Yeah, it's like $13. Exactly, it almost doubled, you know, and I'm starting to see that now with my own eyes and it's kind of interesting because I'm like, wow, you know, I feel like I'm getting old by seeing that, by noticing the inflation and everything.
Wayne:It's unfortunate. I hate it that you know. To me it feels just like the 1970s.
Tom Taxman Jones:Right, right, it feels like I'm living in the ground all day, Because right now it's almost a mimic of how it was in the late 70s Of course you're just a little bit older than I am, wayne, but I can remember that and back then, of course, for y'all youngsters, that's when you had to buy gas based on the last digit of your license tag.
Tom Taxman Jones:You had to, even in the odd days, and I can remember my mother was working in the textile mill and she had a Volkswagen Bug and of course she would go in there and fill it up and then she would drop my younger brother and I off, maybe I don't know a block or two from there, and then we would go with the plastic jug to get another two gallons so she would have enough gas for the week. And people don't think that that can happen, but of course, as Wayne and I know, it very much did happen, especially that what about 72, 73, 74. 73, 74. Yeah, so it can happen. Now, also by the fact that you are, say, an entrepreneur, and with this inflation and you see what it does there again, how it takes away the buying power of your money, you can see also, I guess being an entrepreneur it makes you realize it more.
Evan:Oh, yeah, definitely. You know. That just means I have to. You know, as prices increase, we have to increase our rates too, even if it's in the middle of the year, you know, then I increase my prices. You know, if I keep getting so many jobs, and you know I increase my I I increase my prices. You know, if I keep getting so many jobs, then you know I have to increase my prices.
Tom Taxman Jones:Now, majority of your customers are individuals commercial.
Evan:Majority is residential residential clients majority. But this year at least, we are getting a lot more commercial customers too.
Tom Taxman Jones:How did you get to commercial customers?
Evan:I think it's from increasing my social media presence and Google and everything, because before, maybe like last year and the year before you look at Willow Tree Lawn Care not much came up, but I completely updated our Google profile and I made some social media accounts for us too.
Tom Taxman Jones:Which one did you do for the social media?
Evan:social media accounts for us to like. You know which one did you do for the social media? I did Instagram, facebook, tiktok. So you know some stuff that I made it kind of appeal to, like you know, younger audiences, I guess. Like I made it, you know, colorful and everything, made some videos, before and after pictures, things like that. But the main thing is with my website, you know I was able to. You know it's important to include keywords like lawn care in Alamance County, lawn care in Graham, lawn care near me, things like that. That way, when these commercial people are looking for new clients or new service providers, you know they're probably just going to do a Google search like anybody else. You know lawn care providers in this area, and so I have to, you know, put in the work to make sure my website and my Google profile comes up, you know, when they search in those keywords. And you know I feel like I did a pretty good job with that. So I think that's really how I got a lot of these commercial projects that I'm getting now.
Trey Carson:If I had a product for the lawn care business for, like the industry as a whole, I had this new product Could I just approach you as like a business to business thing and say, hey, I got this product. Could I just approach you and then get you to help me tailor that product or maybe even use that product? I'm thinking a little back story here. If I start working with crumb rubber, do some other stuff where I have basically just granulated rubber, I can form that into any mold, and what I'm seeing some people do is form it into mold for landscaping, a variety of different applications.
Trey Carson:But if I came to you and said I've got this edger or this edge that you would put down as a separator between, say, the driveway and the grass, or I have mulch like rubber mulch, could I just approach you and say, hey, here's a product, try it out. If it works, let me know. If it doesn't, then let's work together to try to figure out how to make it work. Like, where is it going wrong for you? Because I have some aspirations to do some stuff like that down the road and I'm curious on how to take a nonexisting product into a market that already exists.
Evan:So you're basically saying like test it out, yeah, yeah, definitely I'd be open to things like that you have got one call.
Wayne:You said you had to buy it down at Lowe's. Yeah.
Evan:I haven't personally. Everybody's business is different and everybody gets different types of leads, but me personally, I haven't had many customers use artificial mulch or anything like that. Like my grandpa said, I have had one lead come in where they wanted to use artificial mulch. But you know, as we progress and as we move on in life, I think that will be a thing that people will start to get into, and the reason is because it doesn't decompose, it doesn't Color, doesn't fade, right, but I feel like it's just not. Kind of similarly, I guess, to Bitcoin. It's just not advertised, people don't really talk about it that much, but definitely in the years coming I see that to be on the rise.
Trey Carson:The idea is that you take a wasteful product and turn it into a useful product, and in some instances. I don't know all the ins and outs of mulch, but I know that it changes color and I have to refresh it every year or two, whereas if I didn't have to refresh it, I'd be a little more interested In a given like if I'm at the store and I'm looking at a bag, if this one's color never fades and this one does all things else, or everything else equal, I'm going to take the one that doesn't fade, if I somehow know that. So I'm just trying to come up with ways to use scrap rubber, because I think I'm going to end up with a lot of it.
Evan:yeah, yeah, that's a. That's a great idea and I think the the um only thing really kind of maybe pushing people away from that um is the initial cost, because um mulch regular mulch is pretty cheap and rubber mulch is more expensive, but there's a lot more pros. Like you said, it doesn't break down. You don't have to refresh it every year. This person that reached out to me actually, I think she says she put it down like five or six years ago and it still looked fine to me. She just said she just wanted something new.
Trey Carson:I've never seen a tire change colors, no matter how long it sat in the field. So I mean, that's the weird thing about tires there's no way to get rid of them effectively. You can burn them, but that creates its own problem.
Evan:Yeah, that creates its own problem. Well, I'm not exactly sure how do they do it at the dump. Do they burn it?
Wayne:I thought they burned it. No, they probably shred them.
Evan:Oh, they do shred them. I would think Okay.
Wayne:Uh-huh, I don't know that, but I had heard they at one time they were shredding them to add to asphalt.
Trey Carson:Yeah, that's another application. I had heard that. And also, you know, like if you go to a track or if you go to like in the mevin park, there's the, there's like a paved walk around, yeah, kind of around. That's all recycled rubber, just crumbed up and colored, and they come and put it down. I'm wondering if you can take it. You know, when people do epoxy floors and garages, they come in and they put down a lot of epoxy and then they throw flake on it and that flake gives it the color and the epoxy gives it the hardness.
Trey Carson:You could do effectively the same thing with rubber, but you wouldn't throw it onto it. You would color the rubber whatever color or patterns you wanted and then lay it out almost like a thick paste and as the epoxy hardens, that rubber is ingrained in it, and so you'd have a semi-rubber, semi-epoxy floor and that floor would potentially be something that would last. You know, epoxy lasts for a long time. Rubber never goes away, so that floor would almost last indefinitely If you had the right mixture of epoxy and thickness, all those things you'd have to. There's a lot of experimentation that you could do with with crumb rubber, and I think lawn care is going to be one of the places where you can, because you can mold it into so many different shapes bricks, patio pavers, edgers, I mean all these things you can. You can mold rubber into, and people will just come drop off tires because they can't get rid of them. So your, your incoming supply of goods is free. The only thing you've really got to pay for is storage and processing.
Evan:Yeah, I would definitely test it out. I wouldn't be opposed to that at all. I'm pretty sure I could find some use for it in a job.
Trey Carson:If I progress down that road which I'll probably know more about by the end of this year if I progress down that road, I'll definitely come knocking. I can't design a better product if I don't know what the product needs are. So if you come to me and say, hey, I could really use something that does this better or cheaper, then I can say, okay, let me try to build that and then turn around, give it to you and actually test it out, see how it goes. That'd be fun and potentially, you know, good for both of us.
Evan:Yeah, definitely potentially you know, good for both of us.
Trey Carson:Yeah, yeah, definitely um, so do you go to a lot of houses? Yeah, yeah, I suspect you run into some interesting people. I mean, I'm not asking specifics here, but everybody knows about the pizza delivery guy, the plumber we all know how that stuff works. Milkman, you run into wild stuff when you're out there talking to people uh, not as often as you think.
Evan:I mean, I've seen some you know um pretty far out things, um I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I've definitely, you know um, interacted with some interesting characters my old father-in-law was uh, after he got out of the Navy he did Time Warner installs and he said he wouldn't believe the shit that people opened the door in.
Trey Carson:He said you wouldn't believe it. So you go to do an install at a house and the lady opens the door and she ain't wearing nothing but a bathrobe and she ain't shy about nothing. He's like you just got to stare at the cable while you're plugging in things, just like, okay, I'm not going to look anywhere Because you might get in trouble. You don't know what her actual intentions are. Necessarily, dudes get in trouble a lot these days, but I thought maybe in lawn care you might run across that Like, yeah, maybe you come back and water these plants and something like that I don't know.
Evan:Yeah, well, yeah, I've definitely ran into some interesting characters. Like I said, I just can't think of anything off the top of my head right now. Well, actually, I can think of something off the top of my head, but if I say it, yeah you don't want to let it out. If I say it, then it's going to, because it's so far out and like so interesting that the person would know it was about them. You know what I mean.
Trey Carson:Yeah, fully, I get you. We are kind of a local podcast, exactly.
Evan:If I disclose that, they would know it was about them.
Tom Taxman Jones:Going back to what you're doing with your landscaping business there, because that creates the whole middle class. Once you take away the incentive for an individual to go in business for themselves, you begin to destroy the middle class. And if you don't have a middle class, then that means you're going to have a very small percentage of extremely wealthy. Everybody else is going to be living in poverty.
Trey Carson:Today, on the way here, I was thinking if 2% interest or 2% inflation is the target by the Federal Reserve, then in effect, a kid born today, if we stuck with 2% inflation, a kid born today and into whatever his lifespan would be, every year his life would get 2% worse, like in a measurable way. So if you go over the span of a lifetime, a solid 80 years, that means that it's 160% worse than it was when you were born. If you live 80 years, Whereas if you flip it, if Bitcoin gets 2% more valuable over the years or every year, which presumably will be way more than that, but as a point of comparison, that means that your life would be 160% better by the time that you die, In terms of what you could do. All things equal, and it's actual slavery. It's actual like for real, no cage slavery.
Tom Taxman Jones:And that's the intention of inflation, that it keeps you where you're constantly losing because the value of your work has decreased. You go out and you get a job and you get paid $100 for it. Well, you wake up in the morning that $100 is now $99. You've lost a dollar overnight there and then, of course, over a period of time, it's continued to accumulate and then, of course, over a period of time, has continued to accumulate.
Tom Taxman Jones:And the fact of it is, when you talk about income inequality just equality period, or what have you standing a living, when your work begins to lose value on a daily basis, then that means someone has robbed and stole from you. Because who are you working for? You're working for yourself, but with inflation you wind up working for the bank, because then you got to go borrow money to make up that difference that you have now lost from the value of labor to pay your bills. And it's not going to change as long as you got inflation. And we have been sold to believe oh, it's only 1%, oh, it's only 2%, oh, it's only 3%. And in the scheme of things, you think oh, okay, it's only 1%, oh, it's only 2%, oh, it's only 3%. And in the scheme of things, you think, oh okay, that's not a lot, but, as you just stated, 2% in 10 years, that's 20%.
Trey Carson:Yeah, it's the equivalent of being like I'm going to go earn $100 an hour and then in 10 years somebody says well, now you earn $80 an hour. It doesn't work out that way because the pay normally goes up, but the pay doesn't go up enough to compensate for what was lost due to this invisible taxation, inflation thing. And nobody knows like most people don't know what's happening. That's the crazy part, as I walk into the grocery store sometimes and I see people just going about their daily lives, checking out, buying some hamburger meat, what have you? And I know what everybody's thinking like damn, why is this shit so expensive? Or how is it more expensive? Or I don't have enough money. You know something like that and the unfortunate part is none of you understand. You don't have a mechanism to learn what you need to learn.
Tom Taxman Jones:Nobody's going to tell you If you're using EBT government subsidy. You don't care. I'm so tired of fucking liberals, you don't care, and that's the thing. And that's really. What has happened is, again we've been brainwashed that okay, everything is all well and fine, and so boom. At the end of the day, those who are working and paying taxes has got to pay for those who don't work. And I saw something I may read too many things in the edit. Roughly 20% of the population pay no tax whatsoever and is totally dependent upon the government.
Trey Carson:Oh, yeah, I have a family member.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah.
Trey Carson:There's no question, she doesn't pay taxes.
Tom Taxman Jones:So who pays for them?
Trey Carson:We do. I'm like, how do you get money back at the end of the year when you didn't pay in? Like I didn't know how that actually worked Because from 18 until now I was either in the Marine Corps or employed. I've never had an unemployed period Well, except when I got fired recently, but other than that I've never had an unemployed period. So when it came time for this one particular family member of mine to talk to me about taxes, she was saying that, oh, I'm going to get back X, y, z at the end of the year on average. And I was like, how? Like how do you normally, if you get money back, that means you paid too much in how do you get money Normally? How do you get money out when you didn't pay anything in when in fact you took from the system the whole time? She has no idea. She doesn't know how she gets that money. Zero idea. The light bulb is not on when it comes to that conversation With children Earn income credit.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yes, the best thing since sliced bread. If you don't work.
Trey Carson:It's the craziest shit. I have to pay taxes and at the end of the year I might owe taxes because I didn't pay enough taxes. Right when somebody who paid zero taxes gets money back because they didn't earn enough money to pay taxes.
Tom Taxman Jones:And when you really begin to peel the onions away individuals such as yourself who are young you're going to be saddled with this debt. And again, the majority of people don't understand when they talk about oh, we got a $36 trillion debt, oh, we're running at a deficit of a trillion dollars a month. Well, most people can't comprehend that. I think we said a billion dollars is a thousand dump trucks with $100 bills.
Trey Carson:Yeah, it's an incredible amount.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah, I mean again think about that A tandem dump truck at $100 bills is $1 billion.
Wayne:And this is $1,000 billion Right. So most people can't begin to comprehend that.
Tom Taxman Jones:And you see, and one of the things too that we've been led to, the slaughter is the whole concept of Social Security. You see, your generation is paying for Wayne and I to have social security. You know, Trey's a little young, he got a few more years to work Excuse me, a few more years to slave away, for lack of a better term. But the fact of it is that's what inflation does, and inflation comes from one. Well, you can have a natural disaster, but it comes from one thing, and one thing only Excessive government spending.
Trey Carson:And it permeates every part of the culture.
Tom Taxman Jones:Everything.
Trey Carson:It permeates everything. There's a new music video out and I don't even know who the artist is, but it's horrendous. It's so hypersexual from a female perspective. It's so hypersexual that it's unbelievable.
Trey Carson:And my opinion is that the reason that you have people that are so comfortable acting in this manner is because they know that sex sells and because you don't have enough money or your perception is that you always need more money. You'll do these types of things in order to get that money, and it just a matter of levels, right? Some people won't stoop to certain levels. Other people will do other things to get more money, but when there's easy money to be made by just saying hyper-sexualized shit on the radio, you're going to continue to do that. And if you think about that from terms of TikTok Instagram, it's an assault on core values of human decency, and they don't realize it, but I believe at its core it's a chase of money, just like pretty much every other problem, in my opinion. But they'll never know that. They can't know that because they won't understand, they won't take the time to understand this, a conversation like this where somebody's taking from you and they're like well, I got more money this year than I did last year.
Tom Taxman Jones:And that's all they care about.
Trey Carson:That's the end of the question. That's the end of the conversation, and it bothers me deeply that I have to raise kids in this type of environment and combat these type of things. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is talking about pausing hikes, or pausing their activities, and everybody's like well, I can't wait until they print some more money, so the stock market will go up.
Tom Taxman Jones:Or get my stimulus check.
Trey Carson:I'm like you don't understand what you're talking about. You're saying I'm going to shoot myself in the foot but I'll run faster afterwards, and they're like no, you don't understand.
Tom Taxman Jones:The whole again, for lack of a better word. Hustle on being disabled at 35 years of age. I mean true enough. There are some individuals who are truly disabled, but there are also individuals that take advantage of being classified as disabled at 30, 35, 40 years of age, and Social Security was not designed for that.
Trey Carson:And then you got Biden coming out talking about canceling student debt and things of this nature. It's like you're not stupid, biden any president was not stupid. They might not have been intelligent, but they weren't stupid. Biden fully knows that canceling student debt ain't shit, it's nothing. It means nothing. It means nothing. It'll help out the families that get canceled, but otherwise it means nothing. You could cancel 60,000 people's worth of college debt. What impact would that have on the economy? Effectively, none, when you have $34, $35 trillion in debt. Two days ago, our debt payments surpassed our defense budget, and our defense budget is like 30 times larger than every other country that comes after us Student debt doesn't mean anything.
Wayne:There was a thing on Fox News today I was watching it on the Fox Business channel where they're projecting the debt to be $50 trillion by 34. $50 trillion, yeah.
Tom Taxman Jones:See what you got to look forward to.
Trey Carson:You can't, and that's why I think that companies should hold Bitcoin, because you can't combat this, you can't outwork this, it just. There's no way. You can work until you're older and potentially have like a reasonable life, but the value of the work that you put in for 40, 60 years of your life is not going to be shown if you're using the dollar as a traditional saving system.
Tom Taxman Jones:And another statistic came out I don't know if you saw it, wayne, I think it came out sometime this week here that you have a higher percentage of elderly retirees basically they're 62, 65 age and up are having to get another job to just maintain their standard of living because of the escalating property tax and property insurance.
Tom Taxman Jones:Even if you just talk about food in general there, of course we all understand and feel the impact on food and the thing of it is the increase. When you talk about property tax and property insurance, that's affecting individuals who own property. Now, if you don't own any property, you don't feel it. If you go into the grocery store and you buy everything through EBT or what have you, you don't feel it. You don't feel it. You're living in government subsidy houses. You don't feel it there Because but basically, you are a slave of the federal government and, unfortunately, people have been brainwashed to think that they're coming out of here. Well, how are you coming out of here? And you have basically forfeited your right to get what you think is a free check.
Trey Carson:Bread and circuses. Bread and circuses. Just keep them entertained, keep them fed and they won't revolt. It drives me crazy, and especially when I talk to people who I care about at a personal level and I try to explain something to them about this and then the next comment out of their mouth is oh so you see the game. Last night it's like, yeah, it's cool, but you're being like if I came and stole two percent of your shit from your house in front of you, you would be outraged. If I took a battery out of your remote, if I went over there and stole the mouse to your computer, took out every left sock that you own and took 2% of your goods, or took away your YouTube.
Tom Taxman Jones:You lose your mind or your.
Trey Carson:TikTok Because somebody's doing it behind your back. You're like, yeah, okay, it's fine.
Tom Taxman Jones:I'm not going to worry about it, you don't even know it's happening.
Trey Carson:It's an invisible tax, something I wanted to ask both of you guys, though on a different note. So we've talked to you. We've tried to reach out to some other business owners. We recently talked to the gunsmith business in downtown Levin. They own a t-shirt company and a few other things. Is there a company in the area that you've always wondered about that we could reach out to and say, hey, let's get together, do a little podcast? Brand new company we don't know about, but maybe something that interests you specifically? Or bring you on as kind of a guest and we'll talk with them. What do you guys think? Is there a company that comes to mind?
Wayne:Yep. What's that Quick Cash Pawn Quick Cash Pawn or no Super Safe Pawn? I'm sorry, that's what the previous place they worked at Tracy and On North Church Street I think Tracy and.
Tom Taxman Jones:Teresa, yeah, because they buy. In fact, if you heard the ad on WBAG, your hometown station there, they talk a lot about buying coins and collectible there, and so of course they very much understand the value of having an asset is going to have an appreciated value as opposed to a depreciated value.
Trey Carson:So what was the name of them? Again, it's Super Safe Pond, super Safe Pond in Burlington.
Wayne:Yeah, it's right down from the muffler shop If you go to bypass as soon as you get in, well, it's still in Hall River. It's right before you get to the city limits of the end of Hall River and the start of Burlington. Our town and country is on the left. I'm good friends with them. They're good people.
Trey Carson:Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll try to get them on. I'll reach out to them and say, uh, I'll speak with them. You want to speak to them? Okay, yeah, is there? Is there a company that you guys don't have contact with, that you guys don't know, because I'm always driven by these industrial places and wondering how did that shit start? Obviously, some of them are chains and didn't start there, but I've got local places that are in industrial facilities. I've always driven by and wondered how did that start? What do you do? Did you go in the bank and ask them for a $30 million loan and they just gave it to you, like, how did this work?
Tom Taxman Jones:out, oh no.
Trey Carson:Oh no, oh no, How'd this work out?
Tom Taxman Jones:It doesn't quite work like that, does it, Wayne?
Trey Carson:But on the pawn shop front that'll be interesting because they are heavy in gold.
Wayne:I presume Gold and silver. Yeah, a lot of collectibles.
Trey Carson:There's an antique store in downtown Mebane, right on Clay Street, downtown Mebane, and I walked in there as a gold guy. They sell antiques and gold and things like that and I want to have him on the podcast. But I haven't figured out how to approach him yet, because the last time I saw him I mentioned Bitcoin and we had a small conversation and now obviously he has a business that deals with gold, so he's got a stake in it. But he told me he said you should be ashamed of yourself Out here telling these people these things. You should be ashamed of yourself. And I've always wondered like what do you think I'm telling people? Like where do you think I'm coming from? And I'd like to have them on the podcast. But I've got to figure out a way to approach them because I'm not trying to pin Bitcoin against gold. There's an argument to be made from both sides.
Wayne:Sure, but you could have, you know, a lot of other things. It I mean you could have a lot of other things. It's like when you have a meal you can have different things. It's just another investment thing in my opinion. I agree with you, it's just another commodity?
Tom Taxman Jones:Yep, exactly, and that was one of the things. When it first came out, it was a lot of questions, but now we've got more and more government rulings and the IRS said, okay, it's an asset, yeah, just like gold silver land. And when you sell it it creates a capital gain, just like gold silver land there. So of course, I know people have their own idea about it and that's part of what we've got to do is educate people. But what you said, wayne, is the case.
Wayne:It's just another investment. What scares a lot of people, though? And it's totally different, particularly Bitcoin, totally different than central banking digital currency, cbdc, I think you know. I've heard some of your discussions on the radio. It's terrifying. And that scared a lot of people, because you know that would be controlled completely by the government. Exactly.
Tom Taxman Jones:And that's their intention.
Wayne:Yeah, and they can cut it off. You know one thing that stuck out when I listened to you all on BAG Trey was talking you know you might be buying too much of this, we'll cut you off. You know, yeah, maybe getting overweight, and they cut you off on.
Trey Carson:Sundays or whatever. Well, there's this big problem right now where the idea to lose weight is that you eat less fat, when the truth is the opposite. If you want to lose weight, you eat proper fat steak like actual protein-level fat, not carbohydrates over and over again. And I can imagine a future where they say hey, cows are contributing too much to global warming, so we're not going to allow you to buy beef, not the cow. Oh the cow.
Tom Taxman Jones:What about the goat?
Trey Carson:Well, I, mean goat milk is pretty friendly among vegetarians or not vegetarians, among the left-leaning side of the crowd, I think.
Wayne:There's another segment I watched today I watched the business channel slightly, but it's on the same subject is they were talking about feeding our military. I didn't catch the whole thing. I caught a portion of it, but my understanding is it's lab-processed meat.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah.
Wayne:They were going to feed the military lab-processed meat which they say, you know, having it gone through verifications, it's processed meat, which they say, you know, having it gone through verifications, is even safe.
Trey Carson:Well, a friend of mine a while back was saying that if he could take a pill, just a single pill that gave him all the nutrients that he needed throughout the day and he didn't have to eat, he wouldn't. And this like he would take the pill, he wouldn't eat. And this led into a conversation about if you have an animal and the animal exists for the purpose of your needs, whatever it is that you need from him, be it working, eating, what have you would you rather the animal live a very comfortable, a very relaxed, a very massaged lifestyle, or do you want an animal that's more free roaming? There's risks, there's natural selection processes going on. It's at risk, it's more natural. And I was like I'd rather, I prefer an animal. Just as an animal exists right Off the hoof, cook him, we're good.
Trey Carson:And it came up. We came up with this idea where, if we had a farm, we'd call it teardrop farms, where you could taste the struggle because all of our animals were just animals living in a field doing animal things. Right, we didn't. There's no hormones, there's no massages, there's no anything, just teardrop farms.
Tom Taxman Jones:You could taste the struggle well been old country boy and I know wayne can relate uh to me um food. The taste of food has changed.
Trey Carson:Oh yeah, it's, it's not why is the mcdonald's hamburger so much different than a burger on the grill? Like what's in it, Like there's something there. It isn't just meat, it can't be.
Tom Taxman Jones:I don't know. I do know, if you drop this fast food outside, ants won't go to it. No shit.
Trey Carson:Are you serious? I know the no shit. Are you serious? I know the French fries. Are you serious?
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah, the French fries.
Trey Carson:I thought you were going to say that they won't decompose, which I've heard. But ants won't eat it.
Tom Taxman Jones:Well I know they came out with ice cream cones that that cone won't melt because of the—.
Tom Taxman Jones:The ice cream won't melt. Well, the ice cream will, but the cone that's holding the ice cream because of the preservatives is in it. And if people would just stop and look at the ingredients in food, my thing is, if I can't pronounce it, I'm not going to eat it. Okay, yeah, Because again you got so many additives that's put in the food and all you got to do is look at the youth, and this is a perfect point.
Trey Carson:Why would I put additives in food if I knew it would hurt people If I was a company? It's simply a financial motivation, exactly, and you don't make enough money, you need more. And that's why I think everything is downstream of money, because as soon as you start tracing it back, it just ends up in money.
Tom Taxman Jones:Oh yeah everything the as soon as you start tracing it back it just ends up in money. Oh yeah, everything. The love of money is the root of all evil.
Trey Carson:It never goes back to just pure. There are cases like vengeance and things of that nature, where there's human emotion involved, but when you look at structured things that people have created and tried to improve over time, typically it just results back to money.
Wayne:It just blows my mind how people don't see it On the other side. You have to have it to survive. And it just blows my mind how people don't see it On the other side. You have to have it to survive Right. I mean, you've got to have it to survive, to eat.
Tom Taxman Jones:And you know, and Wayne, the thing of it is, a lot of people get misunderstanding. But Bitcoin is just another means of paying your bills and being compensated for the work you have provided in the service there.
Trey Carson:Well, just recently I think it was today or yesterday Germany sold 1,000 Bitcoin. Well, just recently I think it was today or yesterday Germany sold a thousand Bitcoin and they got that Bitcoin from taking it from people who had done various illegal things and such as that right. So that causes impact to the price and you see a nation state selling Bitcoin. I think if you look at a nation state like El Salvador, who's buying one Bitcoin every single day, you can go and look at their wallet and every day there's a new Bitcoin gets dropped in there. I think countries like Germany are going to regret it down the road, because people will demand to pay their taxes with something that holds value, something that's more valuable than it was when they originally got it, because it improves their life. To do so, they sell less of a commodity or less of a thing to pay their bills.
Wayne:On that subject, since we are talking about that, do you think the cause of that halving occurred? As far as getting paid for mining half price? That's my understanding of it. The halving occurred a few months ago.
Trey Carson:Yeah, in April In.
Wayne:April. Yeah, do you think that's what's holding the price up? Because I've been watching it and I noticed it running somewhere around in the mid 60s I think 65,000 or something because I want to pick it up again, but I want to get it hopefully down in at least the 50s.
Trey Carson:I don't think it'll drop so imagine if, if I have a bitcoin miner and that miner produces and it doesn't, but let's just say it produces one bitcoin a day, yeah, after the halving price, irregardless, I then started making half a Bitcoin a day. Okay, so my supplier is reduced by half. If I have to pay my bills with the Bitcoin that comes in, I now have half of that income. So it's like if you lost half your yards, it'd be the equivalent of that, where your money might vary, but the total quantity of well, in your case it would be the total quantity of service that you were providing got cut in half. But realistically, when the income gets cut in half, miners have to sell more Bitcoin in order to service whatever loans or bills that they have in a month. So miners are selling a lot.
Trey Carson:On the other hand, because the ETF got approved and I don't understand the Wall Street side of it all that well but there's a difference between the spot Bitcoin ETF price and a thing called the futures market, where people are buying a spot Bitcoin and then somehow working with the futures market to arbitrage between the price difference of those two markets. That's holding the price down and typically after a halving, historically for three or four months we've seen kind of sideways or even negative price down and typically after a halving. Historically, for three or four months we've seen kind of sideways or even negative price action. Normally if we repeat some of the same patterns we should see the price start going back up around October.
Wayne:Well, I'm not really saying it's holding it down. It's really holding it up Because before I've watched it for a long time or a pretty good while say 10 years, maybe seven or eight pretty good, while Say 10 years, maybe Seven or eight years at least, and I've noticed it hasn't had the big drops as it has in the past.
Trey Carson:Yeah, there's a heavy buying pressure. Yeah, but long-term holders, people that have held Bitcoin, say, one, two years, a lot of times. They bought Bitcoin somewhere around that $60,000, $65,000 mark back a couple of years ago. Now some of those guys are in the green when they're at $65,000, $69,000 and they're selling. So there's a heavy sell pressure from not just those type of people, but heavy sell pressure across the board for people that are doing arbitrage or things of that nature. But then that's counterbalanced by people like the ETF of that nature. But then that's counterbalanced by people like the ETF. This morning, michael Saylor with MicroStrategy, who is kind of my inspiration for my apology at the beginning of this episode where I wanted to correct saying that you shouldn't accept Bitcoin but you should buy Bitcoin and hold it as an asset. That's because that's what he's doing and it seems to be working. He bought 11,000 more Bitcoin this morning.
Wayne:So 11,000 Bitcoin just went off the market, basically for see that that's my whole intention anyway, exactly what you said. I mean, if I take it at the muffler shop or if he took it at the lawn care, it would be there for the long run yeah, it's, it's an asset, it's not a that's right. It'd be an asset yeah and just like the reason that Tom mentioned, among other things, it would definitely be an asset and just to boost up your bottom line.
Trey Carson:Well, all of a sudden, you've got something that you can go to lenders and loan against potentially I mean that's difficult to do now, but presumably in the future that'll be around You've got something where, if an emergency hits, it doesn't take you out, it can't be taken from you. Right earlier, before we started the podcast, I remember we were talking about people when they get a um, a wage, a wage garnishment applied against them. There's no wage garnishment in the bitcoin world. I mean you can say I can't spend it, but you can't stop me. In reality, right, you can imprison me, but you can't. You can't stop me from doing that. If I have access to a way to do it, that's right, whereas with a bank account, they can freeze it and you're done.
Wayne:You can pay the Bitcoin directly, but if you take cash for it, then they'll get it as soon as it goes in, like I think in El Salvador you can pay two Bitcoin and get a passport, so things go real bad.
Trey Carson:Two Bitcoin, I think it's a passport.
Wayne:So things go real bad. You can move down. I think it's $220,000.
Trey Carson:Yeah, but that's a that's a full citizenship. Yeah, that's the full citizenship you can just if you have the money you can just buy and they're they accept Bitcoin for taxes.
Wayne:Yeah, just a reminder. You know his other side of his family. You know His other side of his family. You know Evan is my grandson through my daughter, but his father's side of the family is from El Salvador. I didn't know. He mentioned that in the last podcast.
Evan:Yeah, yeah, hopefully you know in the future that people start to use it more down there, which the economy is definitely on the rise with this new president, nayib Bukele.
Tom Taxman Jones:He just got reelected.
Evan:Yep.
Tom Taxman Jones:In a landslide.
Evan:Oh yeah, everybody loves him. My whole family loves him. You know he's doing a lot of great things for the country. Salvador was, you know, probably I think it was actually the most dangerous country in Central America.
Tom Taxman Jones:In the world at one time? Yeah, in the world.
Evan:And now it's one of the safest. It is, yeah In the world, really good time. And they can walk the street and they feel safe. Exactly so. Nayib Bukele is doing great things.
Trey Carson:I don't claim it's all Bitcoin, because I know he locked up a lot of the bad folk. Oh, yeah. Judge's in-law.
Wayne:Well, there's a.
Trey Carson:It's a double-edged sword, right? Yeah, well, there's a. It's a double-edged sword, right. Like you. There was some my understanding. There was basically a suspension of their constitution when he did that, but at some point, like, if your country is absolutely and completely corrupt, Joe Biden, if he's absolutely and completely corrupt, I could get now up here.
Wayne:Yeah, he had to do what he had to do At some point.
Trey Carson:The constitution needs to be like. Our Constitution has an enforcement clause, but I don't know if the El Salvadorians did. But you can't argue with the results.
Evan:Right, I think, like his Twitter bio says, like the quote unquote the coolest dictator in the world, or something like that. Yeah, but I mean, you know, sometimes it's just necessary for the future and you know it paid off.
Trey Carson:So his economic advisor is just an absolute crazy Bitcoin guy, like full blown. He was buying Bitcoin when it was a dollar, a dollar and a half. He was buying Bitcoin back then and he is a full blown nutcase now. But he is a hundred percent the economic advisor to the president of El Salvador because he's so well-versed and so hardcore on Bitcoin.
Tom Taxman Jones:And again look at the results.
Trey Carson:Oh, today Trump received a $2 million donation in Bitcoin from the Winklevoss twins, the ones who sued Mark Zuckerberg during the Facebook thing, the original. Facebook people Supposedly. Yeah, I don't know the full story behind it.
Tom Taxman Jones:Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you had to watch the movie the social network.
Trey Carson:Is it called the social network? Yeah, I think it's called the social network. But yeah, they donated $2 million.
Tom Taxman Jones:Not to get too far off track, but it's interesting how President Trump, when he came out and made the statement about taking Bitcoin, how the Biden administration had basically turned 180 degrees where now they're going to have a Bitcoin conference.
Trey Carson:It's game theory in action that you have to do what's best for you and what's best for you. Unfortunately, in the case of Biden, it's to accept Bitcoin, and the only reason I say unfortunately is because you generally want to be on the other side of the aisle on most things that Trump says are good if you're Biden, but he had to bite the bullet, that's because you can't be like. You just can't ignore this, right. I guarantee you, if we walked outside right now and could talk to every person that drove by this company, one out of 10 would have no concept, no idea what to talk about when it came to Bitcoin.
Tom Taxman Jones:But the one out of 10 that you did talk to would know a whole hell of a lot, and that's because he crossed that barrier, and everybody eventually crosses that barrier. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read or saw 60 million people in the United States that either own Bitcoins or have dealt in Bitcoin.
Trey Carson:I don't know the exact number, but it's like a third of the US, something like that it's a cryptocurrency of some kind and probably say half of them have an idea of what they own.
Tom Taxman Jones:Right.
Trey Carson:But truthfully, there's probably less than 250,000 pure hardcore, really understand Bitcoin people in the world. That's how early we probably are. There's plenty of people who know about it, who might own a little bit, that have heard of it, but people that actually understand it and really think about can this win against something against the dollar and have the tools to mentally process kind of the dollar world against the Bitcoin world? There's probably 250,000 people who really get it and those people are heavily invested in Bitcoin. They aren't heavily invested in the dollar.
Tom Taxman Jones:They read the writing on the wall.
Trey Carson:Yeah, I'm reading a book right now about risk. We talked about this the other day and one of the new things that I came across was that insurance houses we were talking about this- Lloyd's of.
Trey Carson:London. Yeah, lloyd's of London started as a coffee shop and the reason that Lloyd's of London was successful was because they had access to information before everybody else did. And that's where we are in Bitcoin is that? If you're in Bitcoin right now, it may seem like you're 15 years too late, but you're probably 50 years ahead of the majority of the Western world I mean assuming that the dollar doesn't collapse immediately but you're probably. If you just know about it and work with it, you're probably 25 to 50 years ahead of most of the Western world. But we can wrap up here. I appreciate you guys joining me.
Trey Carson:Evan, last time we talked, we forgot to get you and Wayne to sign our little artwork over there. We're going to auction that off at the end of 21 episodes. If nobody buys it or nobody bids on it, I'll buy it for myself and I'll donate the funds regardless of if it's me or someone else to the Bitcoin core development group, however small or however large those funds might be. But I wanted to bring it in today so to get an opportunity for you to sign it, because I saw your grandpa up at his shop since the last time we spoke, so he got to sign it then, but I wanted to see if you'd sign it today. Oh yeah, no problem. Awesome, because wherever that goes, it's going to live on somebody's wall forever, even if it's just mine.
Evan:Yeah, for sure.
Trey Carson:So cool. Well, I appreciate you guys joining me today. We'll wrap up from here, but if you're in Alamwn Care, Buy some firewood. Yeah, get some firewood. Get your yard done. Get up with Willow Tree Muffler if you want some exhaust work done. Tom Jones Taxes we all know that's right there in Graham If you want to go down there and get your taxes and payroll In between the courthouse and the jailhouse. There we go, there we go and we're going to you keep them separated.
Tom Taxman Jones:Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Trey Carson:And if you're a business in Alamance County, we want to talk to you, and by we I don't mean just me, I mean me and kind of my whole crew that comes along with me. I like to bring on extra people when I interview folks so that way we can get different points of view. So if you own a business in Alamance County, orange County or the surrounding central North Carolina area, let's get together. Let's talk about Bitcoin, let's answer some questions. I've beaten pretty much everybody I know at this point over the head about Bitcoin for the past two years, so I'm looking for new victims. So just let me know you guys can reach out to us on the podcast. We're all over Twitter Bitcoin is Dead, podcast, things like that but otherwise, reach out to Wayne, to Evan or to Tom for your tax muffler or lawn care needs and thanks everybody.
Tom Taxman Jones:Thank you.
