#788: Rebuilding The High Trust Society with Johann Kurtz

**Marty Bent** (0:07)
You've had a dynamic where money has become freer than free.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:10)
When you talk about a Fed just going nuts, all the central banks going nuts.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:16)
So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:29)
I mean, that's part of the bold case for Bitcoin. If you're not paying attention, you probably should be.

**Marty Bent** (0:36)
Johann Kurtz, welcome back to the show.

**Johann Kurtz** (0:39)
Thank you, Marty. It's great to be here.

**Marty Bent** (0:42)
It's a pleasure to have you. I have to say, the first episode we did last December, the first conversation we had was probably one of the most popular we've ever done. I had a ton of people reach out to me, and I can see the analytics on the back of the site, the podcast page for that episode is still the most viewed page on the site on a daily basis.
Really? Well, there you go.

**Johann Kurtz** (1:04)
I didn't know.
I wish you hadn't told me that. It's all come to pressure now. But I'll try and say some outrageous things, and I tried those views.

**Marty Bent** (1:12)
It's not outrageous. I think people are thirsting for this type of conversation, and the framing that you bring, these conversations, and I guess just jumping into it. When we last spoke, conversation really centered around duty of older generations, how to preserve wealth, how to raise capable heirs, how to make sure that those heirs stay rooted and build things that outlive you.
Since then, you've been writing about very similar topics, but on the other side of things, writing about young adults, and how even though they have higher measured incomes and cheaper televisions, they cannot afford the house, spouse, children, school, neighborhood, and trust that make durable life. So, I think just following up from our first conversation last year, sort of connecting these things with the other side and really diagnosing the problem of modernity when it comes to family formation and living a life of dignity, if you will.

**Johann Kurtz** (2:12)
Yeah, I mean, that's right. All these pieces are interconnected. So, what we discussed last time was a kind of entreatment to actually invest in your family and your wealth each generationally to set your family up in such a way that it can steward wealth, assets, heirlooms across the generations and that there is a right way to do that that sets them up for virtue and flourishing.
And I think, you know, what we're here to discuss today, what you suggested we just discuss today leads into that. Because an inevitable question you face is, well, I, as the patriarch, generation one of this family and family wealth, really managed to build something maybe from nothing, maybe from a difficult standpoint several decades ago. And now I want to put my children in the same position to do it. And I'm looking around and I'm seeing these statistics that suggest there is no reason they shouldn't do exactly what I did. In that it does appear that, you know, real wages have increased. So if they were to go and work a job, they would theoretically be earning more than I did at their age. And unemployment, at least among millennials, is less so for Gen Z, is low. So there seems to be plenty of opportunity out there for them. So why would I not, you know, just let them, why would I invest in them and not give my money away to causes I cared about? Do I not risk spoiling them on top of the extravagant opportunities that they should be pursuing?
But I think, as we've seen, the reality is not quite as rosy as a handful of headlines statistics suggest.

**Marty Bent** (3:47)
And how do you see past the headline? Like, what should we be looking for past the headlines that really prove that things are not as rosy as they're presented to be?

**Johann Kurtz** (3:58)
Well, at some stage, at some level, there has to be a measurement problem, right? You know, it's that Bezos quote about when the metrics and people's lived experience, their reported anecdotes clearly mismatch. Typically, it's that you're collecting the wrong metrics and that you're not revealing the underlying truth of the situation. And in our case, the kind of revealed preferences of why the actual behavior of Gen Z and the millennial generation does seem to indicate profound struggle, despite the fact that real incomes are up and unemployment is relatively low.