1:41:55 Yeah, probably went to Georgetown or American University or or Johns Hopkins One of those good ones for sure for sure Rhodes scholar there was a Big meeting at Jackson Hole the Jackson Hole meeting where all the central bankers get together This is a party you and I will never be invited to I'm pretty sure and and there was a lot of surprising talk
1:42:31 This is a meeting by the way, I asked about, we talked about this on the DHM Plug Show. And I was curious, was this like the Allen & Company meeting? What kind of a meeting is this? This was actually put on by the Fed. Yeah, it's the central bankers meeting. It's the Fed's party, I think is the way it's coined. So the Fed's party, they have all the central bankers come in and the director or whatever his exact title is of the Bank of England Mark Carney, who I think is actually Canadian, he dropped a bomb. He had this speech, the luncheon speech, which is an important one because everyone's going to be there and they're all chatting. And all of a sudden he starts coming out with, well, you know, the financial system has clearly got to change because it's not going so well. And maybe we should consider some kind of cryptocurrency. And this shook up a lot of people.
1:43:26 not us, you know, I only heard about it days after, like, oh that's interesting. But when you think about it, to have this guy from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve's party and say, well, you know, the central banking, I don't know, we got to change it, we haven't done so well, the transcript is available, I put it in the show notes, it's quite interesting. Quotes such as, there will be a change in our unsustainable monetary system. So when you're sitting around with a bunch of central bankers, you know, you can imagine a lot of spit takes going on. Yeah, people like what the hell is he talking about? And Mark Carney was questioned by a member of Parliament Steve Baker in the UK.
1:44:10 And I pulled three clips from that. I found the most interesting and I think that it kind of gives you an insight as to what he meant. And we'll start with the there will be change in this unsustainable monetary system. Given the things that you've said here, do you think it's possible to avoid a long-term fundamental structural change in the monetary regime? I think that there will be a change. Now, measured over decades, it's very hard to predict exactly. That which is unsustainable tends to go on for longer than you think and then happen more quickly than you expect, to paraphrase Rudy Dornbusch.
1:44:52 But I think that these structural flaws in the end in the system will ultimately result in a change. And the rise of China, the relative rise of China, will also result in a change through these two forces. And the question I'm trying to raise is do we get ahead of that change or do we help manage that change and affect some sort of rebalancing of the system? And to be absolutely clear, when I say we, I'm talking not about You know, the I've been talking about the central banks, the public side, as opposed to the private side coming up with an entirely different decentralized system. So this is partly where we may part company at that point on the issue of the solution. I'm only in favor of choice. Yeah, exactly. In favor of choice. But just to be clear. So he's talking about a decentralized system which
1:45:46 is not what the Federal Reserve wants, as we've mentioned before. Almost every transaction hits the New York Fed one way or the other, and that's how we can shut down countries like Iran, etc. This is quite a powerful tool. And here's this guy just saying, oh no, it's clearly his stuff is wrong. We've got to decentralize it. And so when you say decentralize, my ears prick up. I'm like, oh, all right, let's use Bitcoin. No, well, no such luck. But he has some thoughts. One of the issues which is linked back to the speech is whether or not there are going to be central bank digital currencies.
1:46:23 in order for there to be instantaneous, costless payments domestically and potentially cross-border, which would be to the benefit of citizens and businesses, and particularly small and medium-sized businesses, but all businesses. And the question is whether if that, could that happen? And the answer is yes, it could happen. In fact, Mr. Haldane is helping to lead our efforts in thinking about how the various ways, and there's more than one way you could do it, and various avenues to do it. But the question is, if you do have that happen, does it make sense to do it on a coordinated fashion with some of the core central banks, which
1:47:07 brings benefits in and of itself from a cross-border perspective, but happens to be a component of a more seamless rebalancing of how transactions are priced. So a lot of big words to say, well, you know, people are actually doing this very thing you're asking me about with Bitcoin today. So yeah, I think we could probably come up with some kind of digital crypto thing that would work. And we probably have to do that because they have to compete. And this got so out of hand that the French finance minister was asked a question about, well, and of course when you think about this now, this is being said, like, well we need to change the financial system, we need to decentralize, we need to have some form of digital currency, and of course