We all know technology and geopolitics shape the world, but there’s a quieter, less obvious force that dictates the flow of wealth and opportunity: demographics.

Where people live, where they move, and how populations grow or shrink — these are the currents that ultimately drive economic gravity. That’s why all of the multifamily investments you see through Investor Club focus on areas where there is job creation. Where there is job creation, there is population growth, and people have to live somewhere.

Scale that concept up to a global level, and you start to see why migration, climate, and demographics are the real megatrends of the century.

Take China — decades of the one-child policy have created a demographic cliff. Contrast that with parts of Africa and South Asia, where populations are booming. Add to this the wildcard of AI, which could either amplify the advantages of youthful nations or offset aging ones.

For investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone thinking long term, the key isn’t where the puck is today — it’s where the puck is going. That’s the topic of this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at [email protected].

 If a place is attracting young people, it must be doing something right.

Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast. Coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin, I wanna remind you that there is a website associated with this podcast is called wealth formula.com. Go there and uh, check out some of the resources we have, including the opportunity.

To join our accredited investor club. Uh, this is a. A group, uh, for a credit investors to see a potential deal flow that you wouldn’t see otherwise, uh, because they are private, uh, private nature. So the process is easy. If you are an accredit investor, go ahead and sign up and get onboarded. Then basically wait to see what kind of deals are out there and see if you’re interested.

Check it out. Wealth formula.com. Okay, so let’s start. Uh, let’s talk a little bit today about something that’s really important, maybe not appreciated as much. You know, we know that technology and geopolitics shape the world, but there’s a quieter, sort of less obvious force that dictates the flow of wealth and opportunities.

And that is demographics, um, where people live, where they move, and how populations grow or shrink. These are the currents that ultimately drive economic gravity. And that’s why all of the multifamily investment you see through say investor club, uh, focus on areas where there’s job creation. Why? Because where there is job creation, there is population growth.

And guess what? People have to live somewhere, right? So that’s something that you might be familiar with already, but scale that concept up to a global level and you start to see why migration. Climate demographics, they’re really the sort of mega trends of the century. All you have to do is take a look at China, right?

Decades of one child policy have created essentially a demographic cliff for them. And you contrast that with parts of Africa and South Asia where populations are booming. And then you add to this, the wild card of ai, which could either amplify the advantages of youthful nations or, or potentially offset.

Aging ones like China, as we mentioned. So for investors, entrepreneurs, and anyone really thinking long, uh, term, the key isn’t necessarily where the Pak is today, as the Great Gretzky once said. It’s where the puck is going, and that is the topic of this Week’s Wealth Formula podcast, and we will have that for you right after these messages.

Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investment. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments.

Here’s the key, even though you’ve borrowed money at a simple interest rate. Your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you’ve borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That’s why your investments get supercharged. This isn’t a new technique.

It’s a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments visit. Wealth Formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today I’m joined by Parag, Dr.

Parag Khanna, a globally recognized strategist, bestselling author, and founder of Alpha Geo. His work focuses on some of the most important forces shaping the future of wealth, opportunity, uh, wealth, opportunity, migration, demographics, climate and technology. He’s advised governments, global institutions, and even military leaders on how to navigate a rapidly changing world, and his books, including Move the Future is Asian, have become.

Essential guides for understanding where people capital and power are headed. Uh, welcome to show up Pak, how are you? Thank you. Great. Great to be with you. And, uh, thanks again for coming all the way across, uh, the world from Singapore. Uh, I just got you off your, uh, ice bath and, and tea, so we should be ready to go right now.

Ready to rock? For sure. That is the best way to start the day. So I wanna talk to you about things that, you know, you’re, you’re an expert on. Um, one of the things that you talk about is, uh, migration as an investment signal. So you’ve written that migration is, is a driver of growth, which makes intuitive sense.

So what migration trends should investors be watching closely as signals, uh, for where capital will flow next? Sure. I mean, there’s many reasons to talk about migration and you know, just backing up for a moment, it really is the original globalization. So when we think of globalization as a force for good, a force for prosperity, a force for comparative advantage among nations and so forth, well migration, it all began with a single step.

Now, the reason this is so important today is because not only do we have the mass migrations of today, which can be both. Enriching and also destabilizing. Right? It’s not merely an unadulterated good look at the politics of the United States right now, for example. Yeah, in Europe. Yeah. Migration, turning migration off or on literally has a significant measurable economic impact.

Right now, for example, already economists are debating how. The extent to which cutting off inflows of migrants is going negatively impact GDP as we head into a recession, right? Among other things, right? So will it be wages or is it simply going to choke the innovative capacity? In the productive capacity and just the output of key industries.

Uh, so that’s something to, to dig into in a, uh, for a bit. But the real, one of the big reasons why I wrote the book is because. Unlike the last a hundred plus years where the world population was going like this, right? Quadrupling over the past century. Now we’re reaching a plateau, as you know, and this is why Elon Musk and everyone talks about, yeah, you know, peak humanity and civilizational decline and low fertility rates.

I mean, he’s, he’s late to the game, quite frankly. You know, those of us who work on these issues have been talking about this for a very long time. We’ve also noticed that it’s too late. A lot of people on social media are still kind of saying, let’s get, let’s have more babies, or These rich people have babies, right?

I just need to remind everyone so we’re on the same page. It’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough. There are not enough children. There will never be enough children. You need humanoids in robots or whatever the case may be, to take care of the elderly and the young. At this point, there’s so few young people.

So migration matters because where young people go in particular, take millennials, gen Z, gen Alpha, take everyone between the ages of five and 40. 35 years, or they’re up to 45. So a 40 year block spanning a couple of generations. Everyone today, who’s young, where they go, they vote with their feet, whether they’re moving from California to Texas, right?

You know, LA’s loss is Austin’s gain, or San Francisco Boulder, Colorado’s gain, or you know, Boise Idaho’s gain, right? It’s zero sum when you don’t have population growth, right? My people, I lose. You gain people, you win. So the zero sum nature of demographics and migration is what’s new because up until the present, every place was just having more and more children.

So it’s like, oh, well a million Indians left India, like no big deal. Right? Um, but once, once you stop having population growth, it’s, it’s zero sum. So in other words, why does it matter for investors? It’s three words. Follow the people. If a country, so you know, you and I can sit here and pontificate and we can say, oh, Europe is finished.

Europe is dead. Well, I mean, look, go to Lisbon, go to Berlin. Go to Athens. Yeah. Those places feel dead. No, they’re attracting young people. So it’s not necessarily at a country level. Right. But city by city, place by place. It’s, you can boil down all the complexity of the world. Geographically into this one thing.

If a place is attracting young people there, mu it must be doing something right. So, so in that regard, pro, so who, who are some of the winners and who are some of the losers when it comes to, at the city level? So here’s a place that everyone’s heard of Dubai, right? The United Arab Emirates, right as a country and Dubai as a city.

But there’s multiple Emirates. All of them are doing great, uh, to greater illustrious the UAE as a country. Fun fact, I, I grew up there as a child until the early eighties and um, it had 200,000 people. So it has more than 12 million today. So it’s the, by as a percentage of its own population, it’s grown, uh, by a factor of 60.

So, you know, it’s the fastest growing population in the history of the world. By, by far. Right. So, and it continues to grow and grow and grow. It’s the number one destination for new millionaires. So it’s also relevant in that sense. Ultra high net worth individuals are choosing to ditch Country X and move to the UAE, right?

So it’s, you know, Singapore, where I live right now, uh, it’s another winner, right? It’s very, very selective. It’s not about the total number of population increase, but rather the value add in terms of wealth. Invested in the economy, in real estate, in consumption, in financial services, and so on. So Singapore is also a clear winner since COVID.

You can tell that places like Lisbon, like Berlin, like Bali, right in Indonesia, you know, they call it silicon Bali. Now, it’s not really a hotbed of innovation. It’s just a place for digital nomads to go. But wherever you’re seeing young digital nomads show up and plant roots to the extent that young people plant roots at all.

You know, you’ve got a winning place, and that is a place where you might look to increase your exposure in some way, shape or form. So who, who are the losers that maybe there’s some, uh, I mean probably like Los Angeles or something like that, right? I mean, what. No, you know, I mean, I, I come to LA all the time and I, I get some of the macro dec declines data that people point to, you know, like net population outflow from California and LA is a source of that.

But they may not be fully considering new inflow, you know, new arrivals. They’re not seeing economic diversification, you know, and, and these kinds of things. So I, I’m still okay with, with la, um, as a whole being America’s second biggest city, you know, an enormous GDP. The California turnaround in general, that is kind of, you know, being, um, enacted, uh, right now that that’s underway.

Um, so let’s think more at, if you wanna look at the US for different reasons. Florida is not. Kind of, I don’t wanna say peak, you know, I don’t wanna call the peak, but you’ve seen a significant outflow now, or at least homes being sold because of the climate crisis and other kinds of issues, cost of living issues and so on.

So I think, you know. Florida is gonna be balanced out by other places. Um, so I, I mentioned climate, you know, the Gulf Coast of the US obviously, but let’s look globally, you know, places like Italy, places like Korea, places like Russia that are in just terminal population decline. These are the places where they’re selling.

They used to just sell a single home or a villa for one euro as a gimmick. Now you can buy an entire town, you know, for like a hundred thousand bucks. So there, you know, these places that are in structural population decline are gonna remain in structural population decline. Their entire geographies are gonna be backfilled and sold off to private investors to turn into resorts.

That kind of thing that that’s what’s happening. Almost a remapping of the world in light of these dire demographic changes. So I, I guess the obvious one that comes to mind for me when I think about big players, uh, in the global economy is China and you know, obviously with their. One child, um, laws that they had enacted for, you know, decades.

And then on top of that, there’s, there’s not really any immigration. I mean, what, what’s going on in China? Right, so China actually ha doesn’t technically need immigrants in the sense that you would say, how can the second largest population in the world behind India need immigrants? But it’s not about the number.

In the end, as I mentioned, it’s about the functions in the economy. So when you have what’s known as the 1, 2, 4 population pyramid where a young, young person has to provide for their two parents and their four grandparents, that’s just a big burden on the young, you know, breadwinner, right? Or earner.

Especially at a time of, you know, financial stress because of the cost of living in major Chinese cities. So what they do need though, is more El is more caregivers for the elderly, right? So China is importing people, but specifically, you know, uh, Filipino nurses or Burmese nurses and just young women even, even brides.

Of course they have their gender imbalance because not only the one trial policy, but the male preference, uh, led to an imbalanced gender divide, just like India has as well. So you wind up in a situation where you do need to import certain types of people, like elderly care workers, nurses, and uh, and and so on.

But they, but China is more rapidly automating through robotics. Some of these functions even faster than Japan. So in Japan, you don’t have enough of an acceptance. You have a cultural acceptance of technology, but you don’t have a mass deployment of technology to take care of the elderly at a communal level.

You don’t have telemedicine, right? And these kinds of things as rapidly deployed in Japan as you do in China. So China has a technological sophistication that’s allowing it to kind of, you know, circumvent some of the pain of this demographic adjustment. Interesting. And, and then the other thing that I think you’ve alluded to a couple times, um, I, I really think about quite a bit is the role of robotics and, and artificial intelligence.

Um, which is likely to be probably more rapid and a bigger impact than we. Can imagine right now. How, how do you think of that as I guess somebody who looks at, uh, through your lens? Well, there’s no question that it already has, having that impact and people are debating so much what the magnitude of that impact is.

Um, and that’s because they are looking at one particular industry, one particular country. If we’re gonna talk about this globally, what you really want to create is something of like a matrix where you say, okay. What is the specific technology? What are the sectors that you’re applying it to? In which countries is it deploying at what pace?

And then measure what impact it’s gonna have because that’s how things go in the. Un full, uh, unfold In the real world, there’s a lot of fiction in reality, right? So you can say, oh wow, we’ve got, you know, uh, full, you know, full self-drive vehicles. But okay. In some countries, the regulations, the roads, the uh, and so forth are amenable.

In other places they’re not. Right. In some countries you can afford those cars. In some countries you can’t. So think about the friction in it. So people have said it for a long time. Well, truck drivers, that’s gone, right? But guess what? Humans are still driving trucks so. Maybe instead of teams of two, you have, you have one, you know, or you have different kinds of shifts and so forth.

And these things still play. They play, maybe it’s gonna be, um, you know, long haul rather than short haul or media hall. Right. So, you know, look, you have to really, really splice and dice every sector to see the impact. So lawyers, right. Well, people thought it would hurt, affect blue collar people more than white collar people.

Turns out it’s the lawyer that’s redundant. Right. Or the paralegal that’s redundant. Whereas the plumber. We’re gonna need plumbers for a long time. Right. So I wanna see a robot contort himself to get underneath your bathroom sink and fix the plumbing. Right? Well, ain’t gonna happen. Right? So, so that’s the, the, in terms of robotics.

It’s gonna play out in that very, very jagged, um, non-linear, bumpy way. And of course, those among other things are powered by ai. So you’ve even got software engineers now who are needed, look at the jobs crisis for some of the most highest, best educated young computer scientists, right? So yeah. Never had such a high rate of unemployment.

Among us computer science grads at the same time that America’s finally Amer, you know, we’ve been saying stem, stem, stem, right? And lo and behold, Americans are finally churning away from humanities towards stem. Yeah, they learned the code for no reason at all. And now you can’t get a job in stem. So this is the level, uh, pace and intensity of disruption that, um, that, that we’re facing.

So AI is a key upstream driver of these downstream impacts on fields like robotics, which then impact the labor market. Um, but again, there’s lots of new jobs to be created in. Building more electric vehicles and more, you know, the, the, the key components, you know, you know, the cameras and, and sensors and so forth that those vehicles need.

So the question is, where are those gonna be built and what skills need to build those? And, and, uh, and are we gonna have tariffs on those sectors to encourage those components to be built in the us? So again, the knock on effects ripple through supply chains, um, from every new technology, every new, you know, innovation.

Yeah, the, you call this sort of Asia’s, you know, is Asia’s century. Um, you, you argue that Asia will ultimately sort of dominate the global economy. What sectors or regions in Asia in particular and, and, and, and why? Well, so Asia is obviously a huge, uh, uh, mega region, right? And then that’s sort of, you know, actually the map behind me is, is one of my maps of Asia.

So a lot of people when, when. You say Asia, they think only of East Asia, the Pacific ri, and Greater China and Japan. In reality, there is not a debate among geographers what Asia is. Asia literally reaches the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Right? So Saudi Arabia, which we think of as the Middle East, is actually west.

Right. So that’s how far West Asia goes into the east. It’s Japan to the south, it’s Indonesia and even Australia. You might say though, Australia, you could say it’s Oceania, but economically it’s very tethered to Asia and to the north it’s Russia. Right. So that’s Asia, right. This sort of, you know, diamond shape, set up powers and everything in between them, such as India, of course.

And Southeast Asia. So Asia has many drivers. Japan is the original Asian economic miracle. Then you have the tiger economies, as they were called in the, in the sixties and seventies, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong. Then China itself has become the largest economy in Asia and and the world. And now you have a new wave of Asian growth from another sub region.

Which is, uh, India and Southeast Asia, right? The Ian countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, uh, and so on. So you, Asia is vast. Asia’s five and a half billion people. Most human beings on Earth live on this map behind me, quite literally, and that will always be true for the rest of our lives, our children’s lives, our grandchildren’s lives, our great grandchildren’s lives.

Most of the human species, like a substantial majority of the human beings on Earth, live inside this rectangle. They do not live outside of Syria. You in LA are in a great big city, but you are in a small minority of the human species. Yeah. Just so that we understand geographically what we’re talking about.

Yeah. So Asia’s got a long way to grow because it also says most of the world’s young people. Let’s tie it back to our very first topic, right? Most of the world’s young people are also on this map, and if you don’t have young people, you don’t have workers, you don’t have taxpayers, you don’t have innovation, you don’t have growth.

So I’m bullish on Asia, despite all the geopolitical tensions and so forth, because of some of these fundamental demographic facts, economic facts, infrastructure, investment, middle class growth, wealth creation, technology, capital industry. It’s all here. Yeah, I mean, you’ve mentioned a couple areas. I mean, certainly when you, you’re talking about, uh, you know, growth cities, um, you’re talking about Dubai, even Singapore, but there’s also, you know.

A variety of, of other issues that come with a number of these countries, like laws and immigration restrictions and all that. How is that all gonna play out? Do you, do you, do you anticipate some, some changes, uh, to various immigration patterns based on the needs of nation? For sure. You know, when I wrote the book Move I, I.

Almost realized they should have titled it moving because it’s not really a one way ticket. And we’re seeing this in the US obviously right now. Look at all the people that came to the US and have been deported, right? Or, you know, have, uh, their visas canceled even if they were legally in the country. So on over the cancellation of H one B, uh, you know, uh, policy as the Trump is threatening and, and the way Indians, you know, and Indian Americans are being treated right now.

So that’s just one example, but it’s really a, a pinball game. Migration has literally become a pinball game of billions of people, billions of lives. And that was the essence of what I was arguing, is that, you know, you can only. Politics in certain countries, whether it’s Britain or America, or Canada or Germany, uh, or Japan, you know, are gonna have an impact on the directionality, the vectors of migration.

But just remember you squeeze a balloon in one place, it expands somewhere else. So literally, you know, right. Right now we’re having Indians and Chinese think about leaving the United States because they’re not feeling welcome. But right now, the um. Uh, the German foreign minister, the Indian Foreign Minister, I believe is in Germany or, or vice versa, signing a bilateral agreement to expand immigration.

Right? And so one of the things I wrote about in the book was that, um, you’re, you have, you have a, such a fast, the fastest growing student population and professional population in Germany is Indian. You never would’ve imagined this. I, I actually went to high school in Germany. I lived near Hamburg, and I was the only Indian guy, an Indian American, but ethnically Indian guy for like, you know, hundreds of kilometers.

And now I hear Germany all the time, and it’s like Indians everywhere, right? So in, in the, in the blink of an eye, you have new migration vectors forming as people relocate to geographies where they’re welcome geographies of opportunity and so on. So. One of the things as a general statement, we just never had this volume of migration between regions of the world as we have today.

You just get on a plane, you don’t have to take a ship, uh, like the, the Puritans in a land on Ellis Island, like, you know, early 20th century migrants. Um, you literally just get on a plane. Just think about the volumes of people moving. Every single day, but the directions in which they’re moving. So you’ve never had so many Asians in Europe, rather than they’re having America as their default preference.

You’ve never had as many Asians in Central Asia or in East Asia as you do today, as many Africans in Europe, as many Latin Americans in North America, but now some moving back. So again, think of it as a giant pinball game of very thick vectors of migration that are, that are changing direction all the time.

I dunno if you have any views on this, but it, it’s interesting to me that within all of the positive things that come from the immigration in various countries, there’s just like escalating tensions across the world, a lot in Europe, obviously in the us uh, as a reaction to globalization. Well, how, uh, what’s your take on that?

So a couple of things. You know, blaming globalization or scapegoating globalization for domestic policy failures is a worn out or not so worn out, apparently political game, right? Yeah, you can still hear JD Vance and Elon Musk and whoever blame the globalists, right? The globalists get blamed for everything from liberal agendas like high tax and mass migration to being warmongers and wanting to perpetuate the Ukraine war, and so on and so on, right?

So every, everything that’s global and globalists is a convenient bogeyman. To deflect from the fact that the US has not had sufficient trade adjustment assistance, not retrained workers, um, you know, not, not, um, redistributed income. All of these not built enough housing, right? You know, you can blame globalization for everything because globalization doesn’t have a constituency, a voice to defend itself, right?

Um. So, so I want to be clear that just because you hear people talking about the anti-globalization backlash, it doesn’t mean that A, you know, globalization is B, that globalization is actually to blame, or that C bashing globalization will actually make it better, because in reality, globalization always wins.

Globalization, whoever, whoever it is, is sitting there laughing because in the end we always turn back to globalization. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this world that we’re in of hyperconnectivity, of transportation, of communications, of capital flows, of all of these things. Right? In the end, we always, you know, you and I are old enough to remember the nine 11 terrorist attacks 25 years ago.

Then you had the global financial crisis, then you had Trump. In 2016 and Brexit, then you had COVID, um, and, uh, and so, you know, five or six episodes in just 20, 25 years, and every single one of those episodes, what did the headlines say? It’s the end of globalization, right? Every time. Every time. And it’s always been wrong.

So we need to, if you want to have a serious conversation about this, and now I’m speaking obviously about our politicians and, uh, whether it’s business leaders or or political leaders, they need to get serious about the fact that the world has been remains and will be globalized in many ways. That it is their duty, their responsibility to harness those forces for public domestic benefit, for their constituents, for their citizens.

If they don’t have the capacity to do that, they should be the ones to step aside, not the globalists, quote unquote. Yeah. Interesting. Um, what, you know, obviously a majority, probably 90, certainly 95% of my audience is in the United States. What do you, when you look at the world through your lens again, where do you see the US headed and, you know, what are, what are some possible, uh, impacts of that?

Right. So, you know, uh, it may sound like I’m some kind of, uh, dec declines, but I’m actually very bullish on North America as a continental mega region, and America within that. If you rank the regions or continents of the world by their degree of self-sufficiency, like having enough land, labor, capital, industry, talent, technology, you know.

We natural resources, right? North America ranks number one by far, peace and stability right? As well, which is not to be discounted. So there are not just small but massive structural reasons to be very pro North America and to be continental list. And, and I am, that’s the kind of geopolitical tradition that I have trained in and written about in, in my books and so on.

And Ida potential is very much still there. That by the way, includes, I might add, you know, Greenland as a future member of a North American Union or part, part of the United States. No, no, no. Just part of the North American Union. Right. A or, or. Let’s create a milder term for it. A Federation of North American states, right?

And the United States is a sovereign state. Mexico’s a sovereign state. Canada’s a sovereign state. Greenland’s a sovereign state, uh, but for members of this federation, right? And, and I think that’s effectively what is happening in what will happen. We’re already in that in many ways, right? If you look at the functional reality, again, the trade flows, the supply chains, the capital flows.

Again, fun fact for your listeners. What are the two most busily, trafficked borders of Le legally not, not even illegally, legally traversed borders on the planet Earth? I, I mean, I’m kind of giving it away, right? Right. I think everyone should know. Right. And we need to appreciate the US Canada relationship.

The US Mexico relationship are fundamentally stable, right? These are the two busiest borders on earth by this much, right? And there’s not a third place that is even remotely meaning. And so we need to really, um, you know, kind of, you know, be, be grateful for it. Harness it. So I’m very bullish again on, um, on, on North America and, um, and I think the US is actually gonna sort itself out.

I’m also long on this reindustrialization, you know, industrial renaissance kind of paradigm too. It can be done. There’s no, you know, rule that is so steadfast that can’t be modified. No technology so arcane that we didn’t already invent that we can’t re domesticate. Nothing that we can’t produce cost effectively through technology on shore that we have to get from offshore.

It can all be done. It’s happened with oil and gas and shale energy. It’s happened, it can happen with semiconductors. Um, and, and on and on it goes. Yeah. Um, any particular areas in the US that, I mean, if you narrow in on, uh, geographically, you know, I know you mentioned sort of the sort of peaking of, of Florida, but.

Is there is particular areas within the US that might surprise us in terms of, of, of growth possibilities. Um, it kind of just, yes. I mean, the short answer, yes, it’s the Great Lakes, right? And so this is how I began the, the, the opening chapter of the MO book because when I was writing that book, it was the kind of post-industrial, post global financial crisis tail end of the already.

De industrializing wave that had hit the region and it was on its last legs. And you know, Detroit was bankrupt and so on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you look today, there’s already green shoots of an industrial revival. You know, people are moving in, home, prices have come down, and then you have the climate resilience, right?

So the combination of hitting rock bottom. Attracting, you know, re and revitalizing industries, um, and attracting young people are all, and climate resilience, all of those things favor Michigan, right In the Great Lakes region. Wow. Okay. So, you know, I first wrote this right after the financial crisis. So in 2010, um, I wrote an article titled, where Will You Live in 2050?

So when that came, when that was, um, published, it was like, what Michigan? Are you joking? And I gave all the reasons why. And so then the book move came out a decade later and I used those passages as the opening chapter of the book because it, it really already started to come true. And now in the post COVID.

Landscape as we look at, again, the industrial renaissance in the US and some of these patterns and of course accelerating climate volatility affecting places like Arizona to Florida and so on, you that amplifies and accelerates the Great Lakes, uh, stories. So I’m more bullish than ever on that region.

And, and as Alpha Geo is a software company that does geospatial analysis on these geographies, um. We brought that to life with our data where we kind of correlate every new factory that’s being built, where tax receipts are increasing as people move in. The inflows of people housing, market stabilization, climate resilience, and models, new infrastructure spending.

We put all of that literally physically as pin drops on maps and uh, and again, Michigan is looking good, so, so what kind of growth are they seeing? Um, in Michigan? I, it’s like a shell big surprise to me actually. So, well, it’s not so much the growth rate because that’s gonna be, you know, sort of that’s gonna.

Very significantly potentially year on year. But again, it’s, it’s the reversal of negative trends and it’s the, it’s definitely a marked year on year increase in population, right? And, uh, and, and therefore again, tax receipts, people buying homes, uh, and and so forth. So, um, I guess one more question and, you know, sort of a world shaped reshaped, I guess, by climate migration, demographics.

Do you have a sense of what asset classes you think might win because of some of these, you know, major shifts? Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, we could, we could run through the whole gamut, but right now we’re in the middle of a major global CapEx boom, right? The investments in, in mobility, transportation, the investments in, um, energy, obviously everything from, from still LNG to, to nuclear and wind and solar and, um, and, and, and hydrogen infusion, right?

And of course, uh, digital. Right. So everything from internet cables to data centers, to AI training models. So you know, the, the, I call it the connectivity asset class that encompasses transport energy communications, right? The overall infra asset classes are all doing well. You have to. Manage your exposure, whether these are privately driven or public, private driven, you know, or backstop kinds of ventures because of the long and CapEx cycle.

But I’m obviously law on infrastructure and that’s been a big theme, you know, in, in, in my work, uh, certain commodities, obviously because climate volatility is accelerating. Geographies of food production are gonna shift. Um, then I’m big on anything that is urbanization when it comes to the top 30, 40 cities in the world that are gonna be the magnets for talent, right?

So that’s gonna be everything like around, um, real estate, but from like a rental, from an asset standpoint, right? So multifamily mixed use. Kinds of developments that are, you know, last mile, very convenient. Have retail medical education, um, you know, multi-generational housing, walkable. Um, all of those kinds of, ask all of those types of functionalities that you would ideally see if you were to start from scratch and design livable communities.

Well guess how many of those exist in the whole world today? Like zero, right? Zero. Yeah. Yeah. Here we are. You know, and this is a great way to wrap it all up. Here we are, 8 billion people, soon to be 9 billion people, but probably peaking around there ish that are moving and relocating ourselves to concentrate in anywhere from 50 to a hundred or more.

I mean, there’s a long tail of smaller cities, right? But the places that people wanna be, where you’re gonna have economic growth and dynamism and resilience and innovation. 50 really important cities. Not forget 200 countries, right? 50 important cities. Where those who can afford to, who are allowed to relocate and move, are gonna migrate to those places, and those cities are gonna thrive economically.

And so you want to be investing in the infrastructure, in the talent, in the skills, in the fixed assets and in the, in the businesses of those people in those places. So yes, you can understand it from the standpoint of asset classes, like I could say, sure, I’m super long on Asian emerging market equities, right?

Um, or, you know, super long on, on digital connectivity, but I’m also long on certain geographies and you just wanna have exposure to those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fascinating stuff. Well, uh, tell us a little bit about, uh, alpha Geo. So we’re a geospatial software company, AI powered from top to bottom using AI to downscale very large data sets like climate models and other kinds of market data and put it all together into one map based plane and run scenarios and simulations on how economies are gonna perform so that you can, we can guide investors, especially real estate infrastructure, data centers and so on.

So real estate is a huge area for us. So, as I mentioned before, whether you’re the outliers like Michigan, or whether it’s what neighborhood of Manhattan, uh, or la our models help, uh, you know, corporate investors and real estate investors kind of pinpoint where they wanna locate their assets. So, you know.

Specific Palisades fire tragic, uh, event from last year. Um, where do you wanna avoid fire risk in the future? Where can you buy a home where the insurance premium is not likely to go up as much because of the fire defense measures or the resilience of the location? Proximity to water supply, avoiding drought.

So we calculate all of that and we tried it. Our clients, everyone from high net worth individuals, like n of one or two, you know, I have one property, I have wanna buy two or three, four more properties or the world’s largest sovereigns and pensions are also customers of ours, and they also use the data in the same way.

Fascinating stuff. And again, the, the, the, uh, latest book is It’s Move, right? That’s the name of the book. Yeah. Move in a and that can be, uh, found pretty much everywhere, I assume. Uh, Parag, thanks so much for being on the show today. It’s been a, uh, very interesting conversation. Lovely. Really a pleasure.

Thank you so much. You make a lot of money, but are still worried about retirement. Maybe you didn’t start earning until your thirties and now you’re trying to catch up and meanwhile you’ve got a mortgage and private school to pay for and you feel like you’re getting farther and farther behind. Good news.

If you need to catch up on retirement, check out a program put out by some of the oldest and most prestigious life insurance companies in the world. It’s called Wealth Accelerator can help you amplify your returns quickly, protect your money from creditors, and provide financial protection to your family if something happens to you.

The concepts here are used by some of the wealthiest families in the world, and there’s no reason why they can’t be used by you. Check it out for yourself by going to wealth formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. Uh, interesting stuff.

I think, uh, you know, we’ve talked about population demographics, uh, on the show before. Uh, it is, and it, it continues to be a very, very important, uh, variable when it comes to, uh, wealth. And so I think it’s something to pay attention to. As I emphasized before you see this, when we have. Opportunities coming through our investor club, for example.

We often see, uh, you know, we often have deals, for example, in Dallas-Fort Worth, massive growth in Dallas-Fort Worth. And that’s why you have, you know, companies coming in. Uh, you have, uh, you know, lots of new jobs, people moving there because tax, same thing goes for Charlotte or Phoenix or any of these places.

But that’s one of the things you really gotta look at. When you make your investment. So anyway, that’s all I have this week, uh, on Well, formula Podcast. This is Buck Joffrey Signing off.

One of the realities of building wealth is that the more you have, the more you have to lose. Asset protection and estate planning aren’t just legal technicalities—they’re essential parts of safeguarding everything you’ve worked for. 

The worst time to plan is when you actually need it. If you wait until you’re facing a lawsuit, a creditor, or a sudden death in the family, it’s already too late.

Think of asset protection like insurance. Most of us wouldn’t drive without auto insurance or own a home without homeowners’ insurance. Yet many wealthy people operate businesses, hold investments, and build family wealth without putting legal structures in place to shield those assets. One lawsuit or one major life event can undo decades of hard work.

On the estate side, not having a proper plan doesn’t just cost money—it creates stress and hardship for your loved ones. Without a solid estate plan, your family could end up tied up in probate courts, fighting over assets, and losing valuable time and resources. 

We’ve talked on this show before about basic steps everyone should take—like forming entities to protect your business or making sure you have not only a will, but also a living trust. Those are the starting points.

But as your wealth continues to grow, your planning needs to grow with it. High-net-worth families have to think about more robust strategies—things like dynasty trusts, asset protection trusts, and the best jurisdictions to set them up. 

These aren’t just technical details. They’re the difference between wealth that gets preserved and multiplies across generations and wealth that gets chipped away by taxes, lawsuits, and poor planning.

To help us understand these tools at the highest level, I’ve invited perhaps the most respected attorney in this space—someone who is seen by other attorneys as the thought leader in asset protection and estate planning—Steve Oshins. Steve has pioneered strategies that are now industry standards, and his work has shaped how families across the country protect and grow their wealth. You’re going to want to pay attention this conversation closely.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at [email protected].

 If your trust is drafted really well at the inception or via the first decanting, you probably will never have to decant the trust again simply because you’ve already built the flexibilities into the trust.

Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey with the Wealth Formula Podcast coming to you from Montecito, California. Before we begin, reminder. There is a website associated with this podcast called wealth formula.com. Go check it out for the latest resources there. And also, uh, remember that if you are an accredited investor and you would like to potentially see deal flow, uh, go to wealth formula.com and sign up for the investor club.

You’ll get onboarded. At that point, potentially, uh, see opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise see that are limited for accredit investors. Again, that’s wealth formula.com. Sign up for investor club. Now let’s, uh, let’s talk a little bit about issues, uh, related to, uh, building of wealth. One of the realities of building wealth is that the more you have, the more you have to lose asset protection and estate planning Art.

Just legal technicalities. They’re really an essential part of safeguarding everything you’ve worked for. You know, the worst time to plan this stuff is when you actually need it. So if you wait until you’re facing a lawsuit, a creditor or a sudden death in the family, it’s already too late. Right? Think of asset protection like insurance.

That’s basically what it is. Most of us would drive without auto insurance or own a home without homeowner’s insurance yet. Many wealthy people operate businesses, hold investments, build family wealth without putting legal structures in place to shield those assets. And all it takes is one lawsuit, one major life event that can undo decades of work on the estate side.

Not having a proper plan doesn’t just cost money. It actually creates an enormous amount of stress and hardship for your loved ones. Without a solid estate plan, your family could end up tied up in probate courts fighting over assets, losing valuable time and resources. Now, we’ve talked on this show a lot about the basics.

Everyone should take forming entities on the asset protection side, of course. And when it comes to the estate planning, you gotta have both a will and a living trust. Okay? You’ve got to do that. If you don’t, uh, if you don’t look it up right now and, and you’ll understand why it has to do with probate, but.

We’re going beyond that today, but your, as your wealth continues to grow, your planning needs to grow with it. High net worth families have to think about more robust strategies. Things like dynasty trust, asset protection trust, and the best jurisdictions to set them up. So these aren’t just technical details, they’re really the difference between wealth that gets preserved, uh, and.

Debt that does not. So to help understand the nuances of this stuff, particularly this concept of the dynasty trust, I’ve invited, um, one of the most respected attorneys in this space. Someone who’s really seen by other attorneys as a thought leader who essentially kind of follow his lead. Uh, Steve Oshins.

He’s pioneered strategies that are now industry standards and his work has shaped really how. Families, uh, across the country, high net worth families really protect and grow their wealth. You’re going to wanna listen to this ’cause even if you are not wealthy today, probably are on your way. And, uh, this, this could very much be about your.

Your future self, and we will have that interview with Steve Oshins right after these messages. Wealth Formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investments. First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate.

Much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here’s the key. Even though you’ve borrowed money at a simple interest rate, your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you’ve borrowed it.

Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That’s why your investments get supercharged. This isn’t a new technique. It’s a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone. Turbocharge your investments.

Visit Wealth formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Today my guest on Wealth Formula podcast is Steve  Oshins.  He’s one of the nation’s leading experts on estate planning and asset protection. He’s based in Nevada and is really best known for pioneering strategies like the Nevada Dynasty Trust Hybrid Asset Protection Trust.

Uh, he also publishes the annual state rankings for Dynasty and Asset Protection Trust tools that attorneys across the country really rely on. He is really a thought leader in this field, and I really want to emphasize that. Um, a lot of people kind of listen to what he does and kind of pivot their own law practice based on what Steve is, is coming up with.

Uh, so really excited to have him. Steve, uh, welcome to the show. Thank you, buck. It’s great to be here. So Steve, let’s, let’s start out with this. Um, people in this, um, you know, in this audience, they hear about all sorts of different kind of trusts. What exactly is a Nevada dynasty trust and why is, uh, Nevada often considered one of the best jurisdictions for these types of things?

Well, let’s start with what a dynasty trust is. A dynasty trust is an irrevocable trust that continues for as long as applicable state law allows. Um, in many states that will be roughly 120 years, and in other states like Nevada, it can be 365 years, and there are other states where it can be perpetual.

So why would we wanna set that up? Because for as long as the trust is in existence, those assets are protected from estate taxes. Creditors and divorce and spouses are the beneficiaries. So all in all, we want to maximize the duration of the trust so we can protect the assets from estate, taxes, creditors, and divorce for the children, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren, and so on and so forth.

So why is Nevada one of the leaders? Well, Nevada and South Dakota are the leaders and no state is even close. There’s a. Big drop off before you get to the next batch of states. Nevada and South Dakota are basically neck and neck. The, the dis, the difference is that South Dakota allows a perpetual trust, whereas Nevada allows a 365 year trust.

In my opinion, the world might not even be here in year 360 6, so that’s not a big deal. Uh, basically you go somewhere where you have a relationship with a well reasonably priced trust company. Uh, that that bills on a flat fee basis and it’s a low number that it’s not gonna scare anyone away. And then you, whether it’s South Dakota or Nevada, wherever your relationship is, and my best relationships are obviously in Nevada, that’s where you go.

These, you can’t go wrong with either of these two states. Got it. So with, uh, for someone with significant wealth, what are the real benefits of setting up a dynasty trust? Um, obviously, you know. You can talk about them, but asset protection, estate planning, something else. Sure. There are three different things that I’m looking for.

I’m looking for asset protection. I’m looking for state tax avoidance, and I’m looking for income tax savings opportunities. Um, not every client’s gonna fit into all three of those. Probably every one of them fits into the asset protection. Depending upon the net worth of the client, we may or may not care that much about the estate tax.

Um, right now. We’re looking at roughly a $28 million state tax exemption. And January 1st, 2026, it’s gonna go up to 15 million per spouse. So there’s $30 million per married couple. So if you’re under that number, especially substantially under that number, we’re not really focusing in on estate tax savings at this moment.

We can always make up for that in the future. Uh, for those people. We’re gonna be more in the asset protection world, and we’re also gonna look for. Income tax opportunities. If they are approaching the, the 28 or $30 million number, assuming they’re married, then we start thinking deeply about the estate tax avoidance, um, strategies.

And if we wait a little bit longer than we should have, which is fine, we can always make up for what we didn’t do years ago. So. Nobody should ever feel rushed. But if you’re, if you’re a married couple and you’re worth over $50 million, clearly you need to make, to set the dynasty trust up and make a big gift and, and maximize the use of your exemption.

Now, for those people that are under 30 million, we just take it on a case by case basis. Yeah. And, and that brings up a good question ’cause we we’re sort of talking offline about this, but, you know, at, at what point do you, because you brought up the idea that this is not just about estate planning, it’s also about asset protection.

So. What is, what is the right time? I mean, I guess you said it case by case, but give, give us an example of, you know, a situation where you might wanna start thinking about doing this. Uh, there’s obviously other ways that people are setting up asset protection, they’re doing offshore trusts and all that kind of thing.

What, what’s the right time, the right person for this at the lower level, the right time? Well, I, I should actually answer that by telling you the wrong time. Long time would be after a person has um, already had a problem and they’re in the middle of a problem. It’s not necessarily when they were served with a lawsuit, it’s when the problem started.

So the right time is going to always be while the coast is clear. It’s kind of like buying insurance. You can’t buy homeowners insurance while your house isn’t on fire. You can’t buy life insurance while you’re in hospice. You can’t buy health insurance while you’re getting chemotherapy. You know you have to buy it well in advance while the coast is queer.

There’s a chicken and egg column here. Uh, most people don’t want to pay to get something done unless they feel like there’s something they’re doing it for. That’s the wrong way to look at it. We have to look at it like, um, I’m a wealthy person, and we never know if today’s gonna be the day that something happens.

So let’s set it up. Just like you buy your, your insurance, your homeowner’s insurance, or your life insurance, your health insurance, or you buy your umbrella insurance, you buy it well in advance to the problem, and if a problem does occur. Thank God you, you set it up. Um, interestingly, you asked me about the types of trusts.

I know we’re gonna get into that. Yeah. Foreign Asset Protection Trust. I’ve never done one, but um, I just posted on LinkedIn this morning, 29 Foreign Asset Protection Trust cases that have gone south. So the case law is really bad there. That’s why we go to the Hybrid Domestic Protection Trust. And I know you’re gonna be getting there at some point.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and I think that was one of the reasons I wanted to bring up this thing, because pe there’s people who are in this, you know, uh, situation, uh, where, you know, they’re high earners and, and say they have, uh, maybe they’re not ultra high net worth per se yet, but they’re, you know, they’re making over a million dollars a year.

They, they’re 40 years old and already have a net worth of 10 million. Should they be looking at this yet or not? I mean, if, if they’re looking at some sort of asset protection strategy anyway. Uh, a lot of people are looking offshore and so should they, even though their net worth is not 30 million, 40 million, something like that, should they be looking at this kind of option?

I don’t think the anybody should be looking offshore. Um, you know, with the 29 cases that I posted on LinkedIn this morning, uh, I, the problem is I don’t see any case where, where the person actually won. They either lost in some way or they had to sit in jail to protect their assets. And, uh, my, uh, my opinion of sitting in jail to protect your assets is, I wouldn’t do it.

No, I get that. But What, but what about, what about those people who are not at 30, 40 million? I mean, is this an option for them? Because they want asset protection. Sure. I get a lot of those two to $10 million doctor types, for example. Tons of those. Um, the, you know, the people worth even 1 million. If they know that they’re probably in a, in a type of industry where they’re gonna be sued, we can at least get it started.

There’s a point when it’s too small and it’s just not worth it. But I generally look for a $2 million net minimum net worth. That’s right. I mean, and I think the, uh, that’s helpful because I’d say probably the average net worth of the listener here is about 5 million, and they’re probably, uh, you know, high net worth people just in terms of, uh, you know, high earning doctors.

This is, this is the show for high earning doctors. So, but that’s good to know. So, um, okay, let’s go back to. Uh, you know, some of the mechanics here, so, a dynasty trust is designed essentially to last for centuries. So how does it, how, what, what is it that allows families to pass, uh, wealth across multiple generations without it being eroded by estate and gift taxes?

It’s, it’s actually very simple. You make a gift into a dynasty trust and then you file a gift tax return and you allocate generation skipping transfer tax exemption to the trust. Once you’ve allocated the generation skipping transfer tax exemption to the trust, no matter how large that trust grows, those assets are not subject to estate taxes for as long as applicable state law allows, which as we discussed earlier in Nevada, would be 365 years.

Right. And so here’s the, here’s the other question that a lot of people ask me about. Um, just in general when I mention that, like, I, I think these are good ideas for people. If they say, well, if I put money into a dynasty trust, do I completely lose control? Because of course. You have a trust, um, and that is no longer you, it’s out of your estate.

How do you structure these trusts so that families still have flexibility and influence without sacrificing protection? Uh, good question. It depends which attorney you go to. If you go to an attorney that, uh, didn’t take, uh, state tax co, um, code in, in law school, then you end up with a form agreement and the attorney’s petrified to, uh, make any adjustments to the document.

But any attorney that understands the estate tax code knows how to draft, where the grantor or settler of the trust who puts the assets in, can be the investment trustee of the trust. So generally we’ll have the seller who sets up the trustee, the investment trustee, or we’ll use the settler’s, spouse, or child or best friend or brother or sister as the investment trustee.

And then we’ll use a close friend as the distribution trustee, or we’ll use the Nevada based trust company as the distribution trustee. If we use a close friend is the distribution trustee, then we use the. Trust company in Nevada as a jurisdictional trustee. Um, some of, of what I just said won’t apply depending upon what we’re trying to accomplish.

For example, if we’re trying to avoid state income taxes, then we’re not going to use the grantor or grant or spouse as a trustee or anyone else who lives in their state or in certain other states that would cause a tax. And then regardless of who we pick, we can always have give the grantor. Who sets up the trust, the power to fire and hire trustees.

So even if the grantor’s not a controlling trustee, the grantor is the one pulling the strings in the background who always has a friendly trustee serving who will, uh, presumably do whatever the client wants. You can also, can you not Steve, have basically the idea that the trust can, you can, you can have a situation where a trust like this owns an LLC.

That LLC, uh, has a manager, right? So say for example, your assets are owned by this LLC, you don’t necessarily have the trustee to have to go do everything every time You wanna invest, every time you want to, you know, make a distribution or whatever you’re doing. You can have an LLC that is owned by a trust.

Choose a manager for that LLC and that could be you, correct? Sure, yeah. Yeah, sure. It depends how the trust is drafted. Sometimes you don’t need to do that. Um, you know, we can save you from an LLC fee, um, because you didn’t need it. But if there was a trust where you didn’t want whoever the trustees are to handle the direct manage management of the assets, yes, the assets can be transferred into an LLC owned by the trust.

Then whoever you want can be the manager of that LLC. Now we have to be careful if we’re trying to save state income taxes and we’re trying to avoid, uh, any contacts to the, the grantor’s home state. But generally, yes, you can have assets in an LLLC owned by the trust. Right. And I, I guess it’s kind of like in that regard, having your cake and eating it too.

In a lot of what we do, that’s the case. Yes. Right. Okay. Um, let’s, let’s talk a little bit about taxes. You mentioned this before, but beyond estate taxes, which, you know, it’s gonna be an issue for some, not for others. Um, you’ve, you’ve written that state income taxes obviously matter a lot. How can using a, a trust in Nevada help a California or New York family, for example, legally avoid state income taxes on investments inside the trust?

First of all, we have to make sure the trust is its own separate tax paying entity. So we have to set up what’s known as a non-grant for trust and, uh, we’re all gonna have to get a whole lot more familiar with those now that we have our new tax act. Because income tax declining is the new estate tax declining, uh, for a lot of these clients who have net worths below the the new permanent numbers.

For the exemption. So we have a non-grant or trust, meaning the trust pays its own income taxes except to the extent it makes distributions to the beneficiaries. And, uh, for New York and CA and California, we have to avoid any resident trustee. California has a, a, a very unique statute in that it prorates the tax on undistributed taxable income.

Based on the, partially based on the number of California resident trustees versus non California resident trustees. So we’re gonna avoid California resident trustees. New York’s, uh, statute, uh, causes a full New York State income tax if there is one or more New York resident trustee or $1 or more of New York sports income.

So you even have to move that little $50,000 in New York rental property out of the trust so you don’t screw up the taxation of that trust. Uh, so by setting up a non grantor trust in Nevada with no resident trustees from the client’s home state, we can avoid the New York or new or California state income tax on any taxable income that’s not sourced to California or, or New York sourced to means, uh, for example, a business operating in California or, or New York.

Or real estate operating or, or that is situated in California or New York. So this will work on selling a business, even if the business was located in that state. You can sell the business. That’s the, that’s the big opportunity here. Or investment portfolio or outstate real estate, for example. So it works for a lot of assets.

You just mentioned something I think is kind of important in that, um, so your trust could, um, you know, these kind of trusts can own. Active businesses, right? They can correct. Own active, and, and that, bring that up because you think of, uh, people often think of trust, primarily owning, you know, just stocks and, you know, passive assets.

But you can have, you can have, uh, a, an active business and this is a really, really important point potentially for business owners. Uh, thinking about exits. Is that fair? Yeah, we, our greatest opportunity is the non grantor trust where you’re gonna exit your business and sell it just because the business was operated in New York, where California as our examples doesn’t mean you can’t sell it, which is selling an intangible asset in out of that trust and avoid the state income tax in the sale.

How much control at that when you have, when you have a non-grant or trust, Steve, is that a lot less flexible for somebody in terms of control, um, or what they can do, uh, with that trust compared to a grantor trust? It’s, it’s definitely, I don’t know if I wanna say a lot, but it’s definitely less flexible than a grantor trust, uh, because you can, you can really mess it up easily if you give the grantor too much control.

We don’t want to use any local resident trustees or have administration in our, our. Grantor’s home state. Um, so you are giving up the direct control that you could have had with a grantor trust, but at the same time, for example, in California, we’re saving 13.3% on the sale of the business. So, um, it’s a question for every individual client, are you willing to give up the direct control in exchange for saving X percent on the, the sale of the business?

And almost always the answer is yes. So then the other question people have is once that money goes into the trust side of things, okay, whether it’s an LLC, whatever the case may be, what is okay to use, uh, that money for and what is, it’ll not okay to use it for, well, it’s okay to use it for anything that’s legal.

That would be the answer for any trust. Now if, if there are state income tax, if there’s state income tax planning going on, then we have to be very careful. Um, if the, if the grantor was a resident of either New York or New Jersey, which has a similar statute as New York’s, you can’t even have $1 of local, um, source income or you screw up the entire trust.

So you have to make sure you distribute any source income out of the trust and cleanse the trust. Uh, for other states, it’s just gonna. It’s not gonna, uh, destroy the tax savings in the trust. It’s just going to not get the tax savings for that particular income. So the New York and New Jersey residents especially have a, have more to worry about there, but basically ask, well, I guess the question is like, you can’t just give, make yourself distributions from that trust, uh, for personal expenses.

Can you? It depends what we’re trying to accomplish with the trust. Yeah. Um, well, the way we always draft our trust, we use in. An independent distribution trustee, as you know, to make the distribution decisions. Uh, now, the, now when you say you can’t just get it, um, I, you’re referring to a version of the trust where the settler or a grantor is a discretionary beneficiary, which would mean it’s a completed gift.

Domestic asset protection trust. One where, uh, let’s say buck sets the trust up for the benefit of buck, buck, spouse, and buck’s, descendants. In that case, if it’s a grantor trust, you just have the distribution trustee make the distribution decision to buck. If it’s a non-grant tour trust, then we need the distribution trustee plus any one adverse party, meaning, for example, one of your children whose interests are adverse to yours has to sign off on the distribution to you or to your spouse.

So with the non-grant tour trust, as you can see, um, it’s a, it’s a little. Tighter that we have to draft it and we have to be a little more careful not to mess up what we need to do in order to avoid the taxation going back to your return. Got it, got it. Okay. Well, you, um, you also created something called the hybrid Nevada Asset Protection Trust.

So what, what makes that different from the traditional one and, and why might people prefer it? For asset protection purposes, um, your, your basic options are either a foreign asset protection trust. I already, and I already told you, I’ve identified at least 29 cases that have gone south, so that seems to be a bad move at this point.

That was the way people were. Planning back in the eighties and nineties, but nowadays, I don’t think it’s smart or a regular domestic asset protection trust, which is one where you set it up in a state like Nevada or South Dakota for the benefit of yourself and your family. Um, those have been working well.

Uh, we don’t see a lot of case law. There’s only one bad case on that that I’ve ever seen. Uh, in fact, there was a local, uh, a recent good case, although it’s still an ongoing case, um, on those. And otherwise, so the issue is, can a person who lives in the state that doesn’t have a statute like this, set one of these up and have the law where the trust is, is set up, apply for creditor protection purposes?

And we’re still not a hundred percent sure on that. There’s almost no case law, which means it seems to be working. But if we wanna work around that and get to the point where we are as close to a hundred percent success as possible. We don’t make the settler a beneficiary of the trust. For example, uh, buck, you set the trust up for the benefit of your spouse and your descendants, assuming it’s coming from your separate property, not your community property with your spouse.

So you’re not a beneficiary. You set it up for spouse descendants. That because you’re not a beneficiary. We know that works in all 50 states, but we still set it up under Nevada and we build in this hybrid provision, which is the power of a trust protector, like your best friend. To be able to add and remove beneficiaries, including the power to add you.

So in the extremely unlikely situation where you need something outta that trust, which basically means your spouse predeceased you, and you run out, ran outta money, we have a backdoor ability to give you something outta that trust that’s better than any other asset protection option out there because it doesn’t have the potential taint that you’re a beneficiary of your own trust, which is what potentially can get you in trouble.

Got it. Um, let’s talk a little bit about decanting. Um, it’s basically the ability to pour an old trust into a new one, right? So how does that keep the flexibility over decades? Centuries? Okay, so it’s an interesting question because if, if your trust is drafted really well at the inception or via the first canting.

You probably will never have to decant the trust again simply because you’ve already built the flexibilities into the trust. Where we see the decanting would be where you have an inferior trust agreement. Uh, you know, a lot of the estate planning attorneys weren’t trained well and they just grab a form and you know they’re doing something that.

That meets the minimum, minimal state, uh, standards of what one would expect from an attorney, but they don’t do anything super. What if we want to fix and enhance that trust once we enhance it into a really, really nice trust? You probably don’t need to decant it after that unless there was something that, some flexibility that you somehow didn’t think about.

Spill it into the trust in the first place. Uh, the top attorneys forms have already built in these flexibilities in most cases, but, uh, we’re, none of us are perfect. You know, we don’t have superpowers. There’s no way that I can anticipate anything, every, anything and everything that could happen. I think that my documents, uh, get at least 99% of what anyone would wanna change.

But if there is something that I’m not thinking about, we can always decant the trust, which is where we have the distribution trustee distribute the assets into a new, a brand new trust. For the benefit of one or more of the same beneficiaries of the old trust in order to fix something over years. And that all being said, um, one other comment is sometimes we do set up a perfect trust, but then strategically we wanna divide the trust into more trusts for certain purposes, such as, uh, qualified small business stock and the $10 million QSBS exemption per trust.

So sometimes we have a perfect trust. Then there’s an opportunity to sell a business that’s gonna qualify for the $10 million per, per non grantor trust, um, um, exemption from federal income taxes. We have five kids, so we do decant that trust into five separate trusts because there’s a tax reason to do so because of a change in circumstances.

Steve, I have, um, a few clients I know of who are, uh, sitting on, uh, you know, eight figures of of Bitcoin. Uh, something like that, and they’re looking to potentially just sell and get out. Would this be a good option, a, a non-grant or trust if somebody lives in California or New York to move that over, then sell, uh, after it’s in a non-grant or trust?

Yeah, that’s a, that’s a, that’s a good opportunity there because, uh, you can save the state income taxes on the capital gains of the sale. Now, California, New York, funny that you mentioned, those two states and Washington, the state of Washington, are the three states where you can’t set up an incomplete gift non-grant or trust or so-called Ning or Ding Trust, as they call it, in Nevada or Delaware.

So for California. Residents, New York residents and Washington residents, we always have to set up a completed gift, not a grantor trust, which means we are limited to the client’s remaining gift tax exemption in how much we can transfer to the trust. So if the client is married, we’re looking at $27.98 million of gift tax exemption.

Um, whereas. If the, if the client lived in a different state where we set these up from, such as, uh, we do a lot in Oregon, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and some of these other high tax states, they can throw, uh, um, billions of dollars of, of Bitcoin or other assets into an incomplete gift trust and avoid the state income tax.

So for the California and New York. Residents, it makes sense to do it as soon as possible. I guess we, we just had a little bit of a dip in Bitcoin over the last, you know, week or two. You know, maybe, maybe today’s the day to make the gift, you know, at least, you know, high, a little short time ago. Uh, because the sooner you gift it, the, and get the appreciation moving out of your estate, the more you can avoid in state income taxes because of that limitation, because it can’t be the incomplete gift version.

If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Got it. Um, what, uh, what role does, um, do these trusts play in in situations of divorce? Uh, it depends who set the trust up. Uh, if it was a community property joint trust, it doesn’t play any role other than to increase legal fees and, and complexity. So they should have stayed married.

Um, if someone set up an asset protection trust that works such as a hybrid domestic asset protection trust, well before the, the marital issues. So not a week before filing for divorce, you know, not right before, um, you know, they, they were throwing things at each other in the living room. You set it up years ago, you’ve moved those assets, uh, away from your marital estate and then they’re not subject to division and a divorce.

So people, people who are in a bad marriage who have wealth should think about setting this up, but not those who are in such a bad marriage that they’re gonna be divorced over the next couple years, for example. It’s probably too late to set something up at that point. Um, so you wanna set it up now? So if you have, if you think in 10 years maybe there’s a 50% chance that we’re gonna be divorced, you might as well set it up right now.

If you think there’s a 50% chance you’re gonna be divorced in two months, uh, there’s a really good chance it’s too late because things have already gone too far. I mean, I guess the other way to think about it is, is this, um, a, a way to protect your own assets If you’re not married yet and you do get married and you already have one of these in place.

Uh, absolutely. Um, you wanna move, you want your prenuptial agreement to show the lowest number possible. This is not where we wanna brag. It’s kind of like when you die, you want the lowest number. When you’re bragging, you want the highest number, uh, or when you’re going trying to get a loan from the bank, you want the highest number Here, we want the lowest number on our, on our, um, exhibit A in our prenuptial agreement.

So if our client’s worth $10 million, why not throw, let’s say, $5 million into an asset protection trust, A hybrid version where the client’s not a beneficiary, so that when you’re putting the divorce. The prenuptial agreement together, it shows that you have a net worth of $5 million. Although it’s a good idea, in my opinion, although I’m not a family law attorney, to at least disclose the existence of the trust and note that the client is not a beneficiary of the trust.

I I, I like as much disclosure as possible. So you take away the argument that you were hiding something. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about like, the changes, um, you know, the changes of. Um, that, that we can potentially see with tax law IRS scrutiny in the future. How, how do you, how do you navigate those?

I mean, it just seems like, you know, a lot of this changing all the time and if sometimes I think there was some threats to the way grantor trusts were treated before during the Biden administration that seemed to pass. But can you, can you talk a little bit about how do you navigate some of those issues?

I mean, part of it might be trying to get into a trust when laws are favorable, right? Is is that kind of one of the strategies you talk about? Sure, yeah. When laws are favorable, such as where we have a high state and gift tax exemption, the ultra wealthy people now have a lifeline to be able to take their time a little bit here to make their gifts.

Although a gift today is better than a gift tomorrow because of appreciation, but we don’t have that pressure to get it done by the end of the year. For a client who is having trouble making some decisions, we can take a little bit more time. So, yeah, as long, anytime we have a good opportunity, we, we want to jump on it in case the law goes the other way the next time Congress meets.

Um, now it’s hard to navigate our job as. Estate planners is to try to help our clients understand when to jump and when not to jump. Um, a lot of what I’ve learned from doing this for now 31 years is, uh, there’s a lot of potential law changes such as the grantor trust law that you mentioned, and our job is to tell our clients to let us know those things just relax.

It’s extremely unlikely that anything like that could possibly pass. It’s just, you know, sometimes the Democrats wanna show, show their voters. Something in their potential act. The Republicans wanna show the voters something. These are just ideas that someone wants to get passed. It doesn’t mean that it’s going to get passed.

So our job is to calm our clients down and make sure they don’t make gifts with that they’re, they’re gonna regret. We don’t want donors remorse. So a lot of what I’ve had to do over the last few times that the estate tax exemption was gonna drop down, such as in 2012, there was a big concern in 2020, you know, with with Biden in 2021, with there being a potential democratic tax act.

And then this year a little bit of. A concern for a while because the exemption was gonna drop in half. My job was to calm the clients that shouldn’t be making the gifts, and then the ones like the 50 millionaires who should be making the gifts regardless of where the law goes. My job is to push them harder.

So I, I feel like I did a, a, mostly a good job. I, there were a lot of clients I couldn’t, they were begging me to take their money to set up their dynasty trusts. And I was, I was saying no to a lot of them. I was trying to say yes to the ones who do it, but there were a lot of them that just begged me and I said, you’re gonna regret it, but I will certainly take the retainer and I will set it up for you, but you’re gonna regret it.

And, and I was right. So our job is to try to, um, advise our clients not to do something they’re gonna regret. Yeah. Um, tell us a little bit about the process, Steve, of, um, you know, working with you, shedding, you know, discussing this possibility of doing something like this. How, uh, tell us, tell us how you work.

Okay. Sure. The best way to reach me is to send me an email. Um, uh, I’m at S-O-S-H-I-N-S at os HIN s.com. Send me an email and just say, here’s basically what I’m looking for, or, I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’m wealthy and I’d like to set up a video meeting with you. And then we set up a meeting and then, um, if we know a direction, then it.

I usually set it for 45 minutes. If I’m, if it’s just a ultra high net worth person, I’ll set it for 60 and then we will explore a little bit. And where I’m gonna try to get the person is to is with either asset protection planning, the state tax avoidance planning, or state income tax avoidance planning usually.

And sometimes there’s some federal income tax avoidance planning as well. And usually if I’m. Uh, if I’m in a meeting with someone who has wealth, there’s something I can help ’em with. It’s, it’s very rare that there’s nothing. Sometimes we go into the meeting having absolutely no idea where the meeting’s gonna go, and I just take them to where I can help them.

If there’s, if I don’t think I should help them, I tell them very clearly, I don’t want to take your money because you’re better off just getting something basic done local, and there’s no reason to have me help you. Here’s a referral. Um, and then the process is assuming they like me and they want to go forward, either they think about it or they tell me on the spot, and then I get them the engagement agreement, take a re roughly a 50% retainer, and then intake questionnaires, and then we just draft and then do the follow-up meeting to go through the documents, get ’em executed if we’re okay, and then get them.

I would just, uh, say that, uh, I’ve worked with Steve, myself. Uh, definitely. Uh, Steve is one of the best attorneys out there. He’s a terrible salesman though, I’ll tell you not to get things. So, so he’s the perfect, it’s reverse psychology bucket. It’s worked on you so far. That’s right. That’s right. It’s worked on me for sure.

Uh, anyway. Uh. If, if, if people want to also, if it’s just easier, certainly, you know, send me an email, let me know if you’re interested in talking to Steve, and I’ll be happy to forward the email to him. Um, I’m, I’m a big fan. Hopefully some of you who, uh, you know, are doing risky stuff as physicians are starting to build wealth, maybe really something to think about.

So Steve, I wanna thank you so much for being on the show and, um, you know, I’d love to have you on again sometime. Alright. I, I don’t know if we, uh, ran out of material though. We’ll have to find a new, a new material. Got it. Next time. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure and I, I always enjoy talking to you.

Thanks. You make a lot of money, but are still worried about retirement. Maybe you didn’t start earning until you’re thirties and now you’re trying to catch up and meanwhile you’ve got a mortgage and private school to pay for and you feel like you’re getting farther and farther behind. Good news. If you need to catch up on retirement, check out a program put out by some of the oldest and most prestigious life insurance companies in the world.

It’s called Wealth Accelerator can help you amplify your returns quickly, protect your money from creditors, and provide financial protection to your family if something happens to you. The concepts here are used by some of the wealthiest families in the world, and there’s no reason why they can’t be used by you.

Check it out for yourself by going to wealth formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to Show Everyone. Hope you enjoyed it once again. Uh, can’t say enough about Steve Oshin a very smart guy. Sometimes he’s too smart, so you have to like ask him questions a few times over.

But, uh, he is a guy who, you know, some of the. These families in, in, in this country actually, um, uh, really rely on and, uh, he’s actually more affordable than a lot of the others out there who are, um, much more sales oriented. Uh, so if you are thinking about doing something like this, I highly, highly recommend, uh, Steve Oshins.

Anyway, that is it for me. This week on Wealth Formula Podcast. This is Buck Joffrey signing off.

I’m not a big stock guy. However, there are some companies out there that you know are just going to change the world, and it would be nice to be able to own part of them—especially before they go public.

That’s why this week on Wealth Formula Podcast we’re diving into a topic that’s been on my mind for quite some time: the world of pre-IPO investing.

If you’ve ever felt like by the time a company finally hits the public market it’s already ballooned in value and you’re basically buying in at a premium, you’re not alone.

I personally had my eye on a company called Circle, which deals in stablecoins. As I’ve talked about on the show before, I think it’s going to be huge globally.

But as soon as Circle went public, the valuation shot up to a point where I felt like it was way too expensive to jump in. If I had access to those shares before the IPO, I would have definitely taken the plunge.

Now, this isn’t just about one company. We’ve seen this story play out with others, and right now there are some major game-changers like SpaceX on the horizon.

SpaceX, one of Elon Musk’s ventures, is one of those companies you just know is going to have a massive impact.

But how do you get access to those deals?

If you’re an accredited investor, I have good news. Getting a piece of the action before these companies go public isn’t just for the ultra-wealthy insiders anymore.

It’s becoming more accessible to accredited investors who want to get in earlier and potentially see greater upside.

That’s the topic of this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you notice any errors or corrections, please email us at [email protected].

 If you are purely investing in the public markets, in many cases, you’ve missed the majority of a company’s growth cycle.

Welcome everybody. This is Buck Joffrey Wealth Formula Podcast, coming to you from Montecito, California today. Before we begin, as I always do, I will suggest you visit walt formula.com, which is the, um. Primary Home of Wealth Formula podcast, and it’s also where you can get some resources outside of the podcast, including access to our accredited investor club, otherwise known as investor Club.

Uh, that is where you can get, if, if you aren’t an accredited investor, you can get access to opportunities that you would not otherwise see because they are not available to the general public. Um, speaking of. That kind of investment that’s not typically, uh, available to the general public. Uh, that takes us sort of to the topic of today’s show.

That is, um, well, you see, I’m not a big stock guy, as you probably know, if you’ve listened to this show before, I’m not, you know, listen, I’m not anti stock. It’s just not, you know. Generally what I’ve invested in my life. However, there are some companies out there that you just know are going to change the world, and because of that, it’d be nice to potentially be able to own part of them, you know, especially if they, if before they go public.

That’s why this week on Wealth Formula Podcast, we’re gonna dive into a topic that’s sort of been on my mind for some time. The world of what’s called pre IPO investing. Basically investing before a stock goes public. Now, if you’ve ever felt like by the time a company finally hits the public market, it’s already ballooned in value and you’re basically buying at a premium, you’re not alone.

Again, this is not something I do often, but I had, um, as you know from my previous shows, I believe heavily that this whole world of stable coins is going to be enormous. And I had my eye on a company called Circle and then trades with CR Cl, uh, which deals in stable coins, uh, which is a, a really big player in stable coins.

I think this is gonna be huge. Uh, but as soon as Circle went public, the valuation shot up, like just took off where it was kind of ridiculous and. At that point, basically it was just too expensive to jump in. It just didn’t make any sense. Now, if I’d had access to those shares before the IPO, and if it, you know, started where it actually started, I definitely would’ve taken the plunge and I actually would’ve made a lot of money.

But that didn’t happen. Now, this isn’t just about one company. We’ve, you know, seen this happen several times, uh, before people know there’s this big private company that, you know, all the. Insiders are gonna make a bunch of money on IPO comes bang, they all cash in, right? But there are some out there that are in that pre IPO phase right now, such as SpaceX, um, you know, Elon’s, uh, one of Elon Musk’s companies.

Um, you know, they are out there traveling space. They also own starlink, uh, all that kind of stuff. So, you know, that company’s gonna have a huge impact, at least. I mean, you know, I guess you don’t know for sure, but. Shown us one thing before he, he can, uh, he can build extraordinary companies. So that’s something I would be interested in.

But how do you get access to those deals, right? If you’re an accredited investor, as it turns out, I have good news on this show. Getting a piece of the action before these companies go public isn’t actually just for the ultra wealthy Silicon Valley insiders anymore. It’s actually becoming more accessible to accredited investors who want to get in early.

Potentially see greater upside. So that is a topic of this week’s show, and we will have, uh, that conversation right after these messages. Wealth formula banking is an ingenious concept powered by whole life insurance, but instead of acting just as a safety net, the strategy supercharges your investment.

First, you create a personal financial reservoir that grows at a compounding interest rate much higher than any bank savings account. As your money accumulates, you borrow from your own bank to invest in other cash flowing investments. Here’s the key, even though you’ve borrowed money at a simple interest rate.

Your insurance company keeps paying you compound interest on that money even though you’ve borrowed it. Net result, you make money in two places at the same time. That’s why your investments get supercharged. This isn’t a new technique. It’s a refined strategy used by some of the wealthiest families in history, and it uses century old rock solid insurance companies as its backbone.

Turbocharge your investments visit. Wealth Formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show, everyone. Today my guest, uh, on Wealth Formula podcast. Christine Healey, she’s founder of Healy Pre IPO. Which is a, uh, boutique brokerage firm that gives high net worth investors access to some of the world’s most exclusive pre IPO opportunities.

Companies like SpaceX, open AI and Stripe long before they hit the public markets. Uh, she’s closed over 600 million in private market deals. Previously held leadership roles at firms like Destiny Tech 100 and Forge Global. She’s built a white glove concierge level service for investors who want insider access to vetted late stage private companies without the corporate red tape.

Welcome to the program, Christine. Thank you, buck. Great to be here. Well, um, let’s, let’s kind of start with, so we have a lot of, you know, retail investors, accredited investors. This may not be something, uh, that, that they know much about. So for investors who only know about public markets, uh, those types of stocks, what exactly is the pre IPO market?

How does it work? So I see a lot of high net worth investors that may hold, um, very skilled professional jobs. They might be doctors or lawyers or small business owners, and they see companies like SpaceX constantly in the news with these amazing milestones. Or they might use open AI’s product chat GBT every day in some cases.

But they’re seeing these amazing technological innovations as a bystander. A lot of them are saying, um, I’ve worked hard to build an amass some wealth. I’ve got a high income. I wish there was a way to actually financially participate in these stocks. Sure. So investing pre IPO is essentially a way to invest in these companies while they’re still private companies in a bespoke privately.

Brokered transaction where you might be matched with a private seller, like an early employee, or you might be matched with an early VC that’s looking for liquidity and you can actually get in before the IPO. So we’ve seen a lot of IPOs recently be very choppy, very volatile. Mm-hmm. In many cases, um, a lot of value in a technology company’s lifecycle is accruing purely on the private markets.

Since these tech companies are waiting longer and longer to IPO in a lot of cases. So if you are purely investing in the public markets, in many cases, you’ve missed the majority of a company’s growth cycle. So what I do is help investors, um, that are accredited to get into some of their favorite companies that, that they love, that they believe in.

Mm-hmm. That they’re inspired by. And to navigate the private market, which is very tricky, in some cases, messy and requires a lot of bespoke, um, process. Yeah. And, and I think, um, one of the things that I have noticed sort of, kind of sniffing around this pre IPO space, there’s obviously a few companies who, who do this and um, you know, one of the questions I always have when I’m looking at it as a retail investor is like.

Yeah, this is an interesting company. I hear about, you know, ripple or I hear about like Circle before it happened. Um, and the issue there becomes like, how in the world do you know if it’s a good price? Because, you know, the valuations, um, that these things are being offered at often look significant, right?

They’ll say the, there’s like a, uh, the last valuation was, you know, uh, literally, you know, half or. 25% of what, what the valuation based on the stock price that they’re trying to sell. How do you possibly navigate through that? I personally believe it’s one of those things where you get what you pay for, and if you actually go the extra mile to hire a pre IPO broker that specializes in this space, one of their core jobs is to help you contextualize pricing.

So I. Um, if you’re getting an offer at a certain price, they’ll help you understand how does this relate to the latest, uh, primary round of the company. But not just that, how does this relate to the market right now in that company to recent deals, to recent bids and offers by other buyers and sellers in this space?

So that’s. That’s really like going in with, uh, you know, an army of information and power and, and support by your side versus going in alone as a retail investor. So I believe that makes a lot of difference. Um, in my personal information, there’s more access to pre IPO than there has ever been, but it’s actually a lot of mediocre access, a lot of, um, unreliable parties, a lot of people that are really new to the market and lack the kind of nuance and experience in reps to.

Perform really well for their clients. And so it, it’s kind of foggy out there and a lot of people that are used to purely public investing, um, will have a really negative experience at first because they don’t even know which brokers they can trust or which platforms, or they try and do a deal, it falls through and they’re so discouraged.

Or like you’re saying, they have no way of contextualizing the pricing they’re seeing. Retail investors are really the most vulnerable to price exploitation or fee exploitation when it comes to these very actively traded names. Um, and so I think that’s what separates really a, a good or a great broker from these run of the mill platforms or crowdfunding, uh, you know, websites.

They’re gonna help you go into a negotiation with a seller, armed with information so you know what you’re getting and you can decide yes or no. I think one of the companies you mentioned was, uh, SpaceX. And it makes me think, uh, it’s obviously one of Elon Musk companies, um, believe it or not, despite, uh, how much we hear about Elon, Tesla is really the only public company and everything else is private.

How do we know Elon’s even gonna go private or go public with his stuff? Uh, you know, I think he, he seems to not necessarily think of it as advantageous. Is that one of the inherent risks in investing, you know, in, in a company, uh, like this, that, you know, listen, you may just not wanna go public? It’s a great question and really yes and no.

So yes, there’s an inherent risk in investing in private stocks that they are less liquid. There’s no shying away from that. But the interesting thing is that. Um, I personally don’t think for the average SpaceX investor, it may matter that much, whether SpaceX does exit in five years or in 10 years. Um, Elon is really the poster child of a, a founder, which historically hasn’t seemed to want to go public.

He’s not a huge fan of operating and, and, and reaching moonshot goals in the public eye. Um, but why I say it may not necessarily matter. Is that as the secondary markets grow and as liquidity grows, um, someone investing in SpaceX today could potentially be able to resell on the private market in, in several years to another private buyer.

Now, of course there’s no guarantee that assumes that there’ll be a replacement buyer in the market when you’re looking to sell. Regulations also require you to buy to be a long-term holder. So typically you wanna be holding for at least six months, but ideally longer to kind of have that, that provable intent to have housed long-term.

But in general, there is the possibility of reselling. Even if the IPO is is still further down the road. So I think that’s when it becomes really, really interesting because you can still invest in SpaceX if you believe in its growth, even if you believe that the IPO might be a decade away, let’s say, or, or even more.

Give us an example of how this has worked out positively for a client. Um, you know, from soup to nuts. Like what process? Somebody came in, they were interested in this, they bought that, and. They went to I PPO companies that went to IPO. I mean, there’s, there’s a number, there’s rubric, there’s Unity, there’s Pinterest, um, there’s, um.

There’s a number. Um, there’s also, ’cause I’ve been in this industry for so long, since 2018, you also see some of the companies that are still private and how much their valuations have grown on the private markets during that time. So there was a lot of investor activity around, um, 20 19, 20 20 in SpaceX, for example, where valuations were below.

Below 50 billion, give or take. Um, and now SpaceX just came out with their new tender, uh, priced at roughly a 400 billion valuation. So there you’re seeing, you know, astronomical growth for companies that are still private and still potentially have growth left in them as well. What have you seen on the other side of this?

’cause obviously there’s risk. You know, these aren’t startups we’re talking about SpaceX and, you know, Stripe or whatever. Uh, but. Compare the risk profile of something like, you know, investing in these pre IPOs versus public stock. Yeah, I mean there, there’s certainly risk. You see cases like 23 and Me, which was actively traded when I first started, um, for MA many years really.

Um, 23 and Me is now going through bankruptcy or liquidation and it’s kind of a mess. Um, you also see companies like FDX, which we’re approaching, I believe $40 billion, and of course completely imploded. So there’s also no shying away from the risk in this asset class. It’s not for everybody. How I see investors dealing with the inherent, um.

Risk around liquidity risks around these businesses, even, even existing, um, in the future is, um, either diversification, which is a natural way to, to manage risk or what’s really common in this asset class is, um, a flight to quality type effect or, or hyper concentration where investors are cutting down their lists of names to ones where they have the highest conviction.

So an investor that’s looking for, um, more of a track record of growth and price marks on a regular basis, that investor might be attracted to SpaceX because they’ve had these tenders that, um, have marked up the stock at, you know, incrementally higher valuations roughly every six months, which is really unique for, um, for a private company.

Or you could have, um, you know, a number of other reasons to look to different companies based on your particular thesis and your profile and what you’re looking to see. Mm-hmm. So would you say that this from a portfolio standpoint for, um, you know, somebody who’s, uh, an accredited investor probably should be in their, I don’t know, maybe an asymmetric risk category?

Yes, I would say so. Yeah. What, um, uh, you know, when you, what’s the process of, actually, I know you said this is from like, people who are trying to get, um, liquidity and stuff. Um, what’s the process of actually finding that from your side, like as a broker? Like how do you find these people? So first I figure out what’s the best fit for the investor.

So one of the main things is size, whether you’re investing at a hundred k, whether you’re investing at a couple million, um, whether you’re, you know, accredited or whether you’re a qualified purchaser, which is a higher level or a qualified investor or, or anything in between. So we’ll look at your particular timeline needs.

Profile, et cetera. Um, and then figure out who to match you to. So typically if you are a more retail investor, maybe you’re trying to invest a hundred k. You’ll end up investing in a, in a fund vehicle where you’re pooled together with other investors to together take down a block that could be a million or 5 million or 10 million.

So that’s what you should really expect when you are, um, coming in at say, a hundred k. You’ll go into some sort of. Fund, you know, for the most part. So I have a network of a ton of different counterparties, and if we’re looking for a fund, that’s where I look at, um, maybe family offices, VCs, specialty secondaries funds that already hold stock from previous rounds or from, maybe they’re getting an allocation in an upcoming primary from the company.

Sources like that. Um, and I, I talk to those parties in the network to see if there’s a relevant opportunity for my buyers. Yeah, so talk us a little bit about your due diligence process. Yeah, it’s important that as a broker, I’m not a fiduciary. I don’t hold that type of role. Um, where I come in is really to help source the deals for people, help them understand the structures, contextualize pricing, um, understand the, you know, the terms and the conditions of the vehicles they’re getting into.

Help them negotiate to see if we can cut fees to see if we can optimize, um, the economics, and then to help streamline closing. So, I. I am actually prohibited from giving too strong a view as to you should buy this or you should not buy this. Mm-hmm. But I can help arm my clients with, um, secondary market information and make sure they are really informed about what they want, about, um, how the pricing compares to other opportunities, and then they can make the decision.

So it’s really important regulatory wise that I’m not too pushy or opinionated, um, but I help my clients in a number of other ways to optimize what they’re already seeking. So you’ve, uh, you’ve closed, I guess 600 million, uh, in private deals. So, you know, what patterns have you seen in the most successful pre IPO investments?

I mean, you know, I know you’re not in a role to be advising per se, but just, you know, as, as an individual who’s, uh, observing this happening real time, what lessons, um, could, would you take away as, as somebody who’s investing in this space? Yeah, that’s a great question. I think in recent years we’ve seen hyper concentration.

So there’s been a very small number of companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe, Andel, which have accounted for the vast majority of activity. So that can make it tricky if you’re trying to sell an asset that’s outside of this, you know, top 10 or top 20. Um, on the other side, it can also be advantageous if you’re a buyer in a company that is less active, you have a bit more leverage with the sellers.

So it does depend on personal preference. You know, if you’re looking for a less active company and you wanna get a great discount, that’s a great, um, en environment and a backdrop to be in. Um, if you’re looking for. A bit more confidence in terms of future saleability. You might look for a more liquid opportunity, um, in a company that’s historically had a, a very active market like SpaceX.

So personal preference always, but I think one thing that’s important to keep in mind is, is that possibility of selling down the road. So if you are going into a deal today, it’s worth, um, speaking to the broker, speaking to the, the selling investment manager whose fund you’re going into. Do you allow resales?

How would that actually work? Will you charge me a fee if I want to resell in future? Or some of those things, um, or even the terms of what you’re buying. How would that play out in a future, uh, resale transaction? So, for example, um, investments that do not have carried interest or management fees on it, which we call zero zero, are much easier to resell in future.

So as with most things, it’s just kind of thinking through all the details, how they will play out and how. How much, um, autonomy you’d have in future if you, if you wanted to, to do something with that asset. So that can, that can really make the difference really, um, in terms of liquidity down the road, even on the private market still, Phil, you know, I know, again, just going back to the fact that you can’t necessarily give advice, like how do people get, I mean, how do people educate themselves then, like at any given particular investment?

Because again, you know, my limited experience on this is just seeing things on platforms. Getting valuations and such. And again, if you’re not really allowed to say, this is a good deal, this is not a good deal, who do we get that information from? Yeah, I mean, I can’t say this is a great deal, you should do it, but I can flag, um, you know, this is a discount to where recent deals are getting done or, um.

If this is roughly in line with the pricing of recent secondaries or some of that data, so you can kind of put two and two together and, and figure out if that qualifies as a good deal in your opinion. Um, and that’s really it. But one of the main challenges for this type of investing is relatively limited information.

Compared to what public market investors are used to getting. So there’s some amazing companies like Klarna, which just put a lot of information out there publicly for anyone to see in terms of their financials and stuff like that. Yeah. But that’s quite uncommon for these pre IPO companies. You have very kind of private companies like, um, SpaceX, like Open ai, like Impossible Foods, which are very protective about their information and almost never release.

Um. Tangible data points around the financials publicly. So, um, I think that’s why a lot of investors, especially institutions, have held off for quite a number of years on going all in, in this asset class, because you don’t have the same underwriting ability, you don’t have the same analysis, um, due to the, the limited information.

But on the other side, you see. Some really interesting success stories, um, in terms of gains and, and the wins. And now a lot of institutions and investors are saying, well, this might be a different process than I’m used to for public investing, but I’m gonna have to figure out a process around these, these private companies because I don’t wanna miss out.

So you can look to, like I mentioned, secondary market data. You can look at what the caliber of, um, institutions that have got involved. You know, do they have, um, tier one VC backers, um, all that kind of stuff. How has their momentum been in terms of funding rounds, in terms of tenders, et cetera, on a number of other data points, which helped.

Create a picture where otherwise we don’t have as much of a a data picture as you’d see with a publicly reporting company. What are some of the most interesting companies out there right now, in your opinion, that are in the space? You mentioned SpaceX. I’m relatively specialized in the sense that, you know, if the market itself is specialized in 10, 15, 20 names, that’s where I’m gonna focus my time as a broker.

So I spend a lot of time in names like Andal, Neuralink, SpaceX, OpenAI, Stripe, anthropic, um, and several others just based on where the demand is coming from my clients or where the sell interest is coming from. My seller clients too. So those are the companies I see as being very interesting. Um, very active right now.

And that’s really where I spend a lot of my time. Whereas some of the, the crowdfunding and the other platforms they talk about, we cover 300 companies or we’ve traded in 400 companies, and I’m saying, well. That means you’re not necessarily an expert in the ones that really matter to. A lot of investors right now are those platforms that we see on the, uh, internet.

Are they trying to do the role that you’re doing, but doing it sort of on mass, because you always see a broker fee on there. So essentially, take the platform away, put the human in. That’s you. Is that. Is that how it works? Yeah, pretty much. I see. You know, this has been such a lucrative industry for a number of years now that you’re seeing.

More new entrants, more new platforms, more new funds. Everyone trying to get a piece of the pie. And for the majority, they’re trying to take over the market. They have grand visions of centralizing everything. Everything’s gonna run through them. They’re gonna be a $10 billion company. And when all these companies are going left, I’m going right.

I’m saying I’m not trying to be a $10 billion company with hundreds of employees. I am trying to stay a small business to spend the majority of my time with my clients and on on the best deal flow possible for them, and really stay disciplined in that. So I’m not optimizing for scale, I’m optimizing for quality and performance.

Um, and I think that’s a differentiator when all these companies are trying to go huge and, you know, hiring like crazy. And some of their agents have only been in the market a year, been in the market two years, and I’m on, you know, seven years or so and counting. Um, and so yeah, you alluded it to as well in terms of scale, but that’s, that’s a huge differentiator and we all intuitively understand the difference between a, a large business and their approach.

Versus the small business approach. Um, I know many of your, your listeners are small business owners as well, so what you’re getting with me is a small business approach backed by years of expertise in this market. Right. Right. Hey, before I forget, and one I was curious about was, um, you know, there was a stock I always following, which was circle Internet.

I mentioned it before, because, because of the, uh, us, uh, US dollar coin, this stable coin. Um, my personal belief that this is, you know, just to, I mean, this is gonna revolutionize everything with the stablecoin world. And I’m curious, so now I’m looking at Circle Internet right now, and it’s priced at, well, it’s actually come way down.

It’s like at $162 right now. It had gone well into the two hundreds, 215 year, 250. Um, do you recall like what that was trading at in the pre IAPO space? Just, just to get some sense of like, you know. The differences, uh, that sometimes these things make in public market? Yeah, I, I don’t recall if there’s been any kind of split or reverse split, um, since they went public.

Maybe you, oh, the IPO was only like, gosh, just a few, like, um, two months ago. So yeah, I’m not a, I’m not aware of any kind of split or anything like that, so hopefully I’m speaking on an apples to apples basis. The market for circle leading up to their IPO was, I would say around $30 per share, give or take.

Yeah. Yeah. So maybe there’s been some split action and we can verify after that. But in the absence of any kind of split, that’s obviously a huge, huge, huge, um, jump from where trades could have gotten done on the private market, even in the months leading up to it. Wow. Yeah. Fascinating. Well, uh, Christine, how do people get ahold of you and your company if they’re, uh, interested?

I’m very active with educational information on LinkedIn under Christine Healey, H-E-A-L-E-Y. You can also find me on my website, healeypreipo.com. And I have a mailing list there too, where I send market insights, occasionally live deals, depending on suitability. Um, and I’m happy to speak to anyone and, and help them learn more.

Great. Thanks so much for being on the program. Thanks so much. We’ll be right back. You make a lot of money but are still worried about retirement. Maybe you didn’t start earning until your thirties and now you’re trying to catch up, and meanwhile you’ve got a mortgage and private school to pay for and you feel like you’re getting farther and farther behind.

Good news. If you need to catch up on retirement, check out a program put out by some of the oldest and most prestigious life insurance companies in the world. It’s called Wealth Accelerator. Can help. You amplify your returns quickly, protect your money from creditors, and provide financial protection to your family if something happens to you.

The concepts here are used by some of the wealthiest families in the world, and there’s no reason why they can’t be used by you. Check it out for yourself by going to wealth formula banking.com. Again, that’s wealth formula banking.com. Welcome back to the show everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. And, uh, again, I mean, listen, this is, uh, uh, again, the same kind of concept as we have in our credit investor club.

Investor club is basically giving you access to stuff that generally you don’t see in public. This is the same thing, except this isn’t like tech companies or other kind of, you know, companies that have. Tremendous value and have not gone public. You can essentially potentially buy stuff as a private investor, get unfair advantage because you’re a credit investor and ride these things up.

So it’s a really interesting concept. I mean, are they all gonna work? I don’t know. I, I’m not in this world right now, but it sure sounds like something to look into if it is of interest to you. And that’s all I have this week on Wealth Formula Podcast. This is Buck Joffrey signing off.

Bitcoin may be breaking records again, but this time it’s not because of retail frenzy. Search trends, social media chatter, and small-investor activity are all far quieter than they were in 2017 or 2021. The people driving this move aren’t hobby traders—they’re the biggest institutions and the wealthiest investors on the planet.

Look at BlackRock. Larry Fink once dismissed Bitcoin as an “index of money laundering.” Now he’s calling it “digital gold,” and his firm’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) has become the fastest-growing ETF in history. 

It’s pulled in nearly $90 billion, representing more than 3% of all the Bitcoin that will ever exist. Those billions aren’t coming from TikTok influencers—they’re coming from pensions, hedge funds, and the kind of family offices that have multi-generational plans for capital preservation and growth.

Even Harvard University has made the leap. Back in 2018, its star economist Kenneth Rogoff said Bitcoin was more likely to hit $100 than $100,000. Today, Harvard’s endowment owns more of BlackRock’s IBIT than it does Apple stock in its U.S. equity portfolio. That’s not just a change of heart—it’s a complete reversal in worldview.

And of course, there’s Michael Saylor, whose MicroStrategy now holds close to 3% of the total future Bitcoin supply, turning a business software company into a corporate Bitcoin vault.

This is institutional FOMO. The biggest asset manager on Earth is selling it, elite universities are holding it, corporate treasuries are betting their future on it, and family offices are adding it to the same portfolios that hold their blue-chip stocks and trophy real estate.

But institutions aren’t the only ones making this move. There’s another wave—quieter but just as significant—coming from the ultra-high-net-worth crowd. The centimillionaires. 

The people who can wire $10 million into a position without blinking. I’ve always said: never take financial advice from someone with less money than you. Well, Gary Cardone has a lot more than me—and he’s all in on Bitcoin.

Gary is part of what they call “smart money.” He’s in the same camp as the other ultra-wealthy who aren’t just dabbling in crypto—they’re making conviction bets. 

And when you see people with that kind of capital and that kind of access all moving in the same direction, it’s worth listening to why. That’s exactly why I sat down with him—to hear, straight from someone in that rarefied circle, why Bitcoin has gone from a curiosity to a core holding.

Hey everyone,

If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you already know that I believe real estate is the single greatest wealth-building tool available to everyday investors like you and me. (Although, I’ll admit, Bitcoin is making a strong case to be in that conversation.)

But every once in a while, it’s worth stepping back and asking: Why has real estate created more millionaires than any other asset class—and why do the ultra-wealthy keep buying it, decade after decade?

It comes down to a unique stack of advantages that you simply can’t replicate anywhere else:

Now, here’s where things get truly magical: cost segregation combined with 100% bonus depreciation. These strategies let you front-load those tax deductions, often allowing you to write off a massive portion of your investment in the first year.

For example, let’s say you buy a property for $1 million and put down $300K. With a proper cost segregation study and bonus depreciation, you might receive a K-1 showing a $300K loss that same year. That’s a paper loss offsetting your taxable income—meaning money that would’ve gone to the IRS is now working to build your wealth instead.

And with Congress reinstating 100% bonus depreciation, this playbook for savvy investors is back at full strength. If you think about it, upfront tax savings alone can turbocharge your returns before you’ve even collected your first rent check.

This week on Wealth Formula Podcast, I sit down with Gian Pazzia, chairman and chief strategy officer at KBKG, to pull back the curtain on cost segregation and bonus depreciation. We’ll dig into:

If you’ve ever wondered how sophisticated investors legally shelter huge amounts of income while building massive wealth, this episode gives you the inside track.

P.S. If you want access to the “Do it Yourself” Cost Segregation tool mentioned in this podcast, you can access it HERE. Use the code FORMULAPROMO to get 10% off. 

Last week, we talked about side gigs—smart ways to earn extra income outside your day job. One of the options we touched on was affiliate marketing, a tried-and-true method still relevant today.

But here’s another strategy I’ve personally dabbled in: building websites designed to generate leads. These sites are created with specific search terms in mind—mine were focused on cosmetic surgery—but the model can be applied to nearly any industry.

Once your site is ranking on Google and generating traffic, you rent out that digital space to businesses who want the leads. I had a friend who made millions using this model with smartlipo.com back in the day. It was like owning valuable digital real estate.

But that was then. The landscape has shifted. With the rise of tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity, fewer people are relying on traditional search engines. So the question is:

Is this still a viable side hustle in 2025?

And if it is, how does it work now—and how can you get started?

That’s exactly what we’re diving into on this week’s Wealth Formula Podcast.

My financial journey started after I accidentally picked up one of Robert Kiyosaki’s books. It was the end of my honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta, and my wife (at the time) and I were waiting for our plane back home.

I decided to grab a book from one of the little airport shops, but there weren’t many choices. In fact, I believe there were four, and three of them were romance novels with pictures of muscular men with long blonde hair on them.

The only other option was Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow Quadrant. I had no idea who Robert Kiyosaki was, nor did I really care that much about investing and personal finance. But it sounded like a better read than the others, so I bought it.

At the time, I had just finished residency training and was focused on my career ahead. I never really thought much about money beyond the fact that I was finally going to make some after years of indentured servitude as a surgical resident.

But on the flight back from Mexico, everything changed. Reading that book felt like a bolt of lightning, and it changed my mindset forever. This experience, I later found out, has happened to countless people I’ve met since then.

I call it taking the pill (the book is purple).

A world of possibilities suddenly opened up to me. I know it may sound strange, but the idea that I could ever not have a job and, instead, become an entrepreneur had never before occurred to me.

In hindsight, I understand why. I was a very good student. “A students” get addicted to the educational system. When you get As, you are rewarded. You get accolades. Your teachers love you. What’s not to love?

That makes you try even harder. That feeling of success is addictive, and you want more of it. So you aspire to do the things that the smart kids are supposed to do, like going to a fancy college and becoming a lawyer or doctor.

If you succeed in a system, you don’t doubt the system. You don’t look for alternatives. The system I bought into was an educational system created by industrialists a century ago. They didn’t want to train entrepreneurs; they wanted to train a workforce. And I was winning in that system.

C students, on the other hand, have nothing to lose. They search for success in other ways and often end up more successful than those who did better in school. That’s why A students rarely become entrepreneurs. They never have a reason to look outside the system.

The purple book I read on that plane helped me break away from that world. I saw life differently after reading it. Even though I was already a surgeon who had completed residency, I never wanted to work for anyone ever again.

I started my own cosmetic surgery practice, then another medical business, and had a lot of success. I also tried my hand at other businesses that were less successful. I made lots of money and lost lots of money. Living the life of an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart.

I also believe, to a certain extent, that you are either born an entrepreneur or you are not. I was born an entrepreneur, despite the fact that it took me over 30 years to discover it.

Because of that, I never push anyone to quit their job and go out on their own. That kind of risk is not for everyone. That said, there are certainly ways to dabble in entrepreneurship without risking everything.

People call them side hustles. Side hustles are ways to make a little extra money that you can use to make an extra investment or simply go on a nicer vacation.

One of those side hustles I have engaged in is affiliate marketing. Ten or fifteen years ago, I had websites designed to sell products to people by providing links to things they might be interested in—even Amazon links. If someone decided to buy something after clicking my link, I would get a small commission from the seller. It was not a huge money maker for me, so eventually I decided to focus on other things.

However, opportunities like this still exist. And these days, it doesn’t really take any technical savvy to participate. On this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, we learn about one option that may be of interest to you.

This one may or may not be a good fit for you, but it will get you thinking. There are a million ways to make money out there. All you have to do is look for them. You can start by listening to this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast.

P.S. I have not used the platform we talked about on the show, nor do I stand to benefit from it financially. It’s purely educational.

There’s no shortage of doom-and-gloom in the podcast world—especially in the gold and silver crowd. You know the type. The ones who spend half their airtime warning you that the dollar is about to collapse, the grid will go down, and that only silver coins will save you.

I used to buy into that narrative too. I was a card-carrying member of the Zombie Apocalypse school of personal finance. I even listened to Peter Schiff religiously.

But as time passed and I realized that zombies would not rule the world, I gradually became an optimist. I believe in the resilience of the U.S. economy. I don’t think society is going to crumble, and I’m not prepping for Armageddon.

That said, there is one warning from the doom crowd that’s absolutely true—and it’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact.

The U.S. dollar is losing value. Fast.

That might not feel dramatic. But it should. Because it means that if you’re sitting on cash—thinking you’re being conservative—you’re actually guaranteeing yourself a loss.

Robert Kiyosaki said it best: “Savers are losers.”
It’s a clever phrase, but it’s not a joke. It’s reality.

Inflation isn’t a glitch in the system—it is the system. In a country running record-breaking deficits and drowning in debt, the only viable solution is to devalue the currency. In other words, print more money.

And whether that inflation comes in at a “modest” 2% like the Fed wants, or 7–9% like we saw in recent years, the outcome is the same: your money loses purchasing power.

A dollar in 1970 had the buying power of nearly $8 today. So if your dad tucked away $10,000 in a shoebox thinking he was doing you a favor, that money is now worth a little over $1,200. Even the money you saved in the year 2000 has lost nearly half its value.

Inflation is the background noise of our economy. It’s always there, always working, always eroding. Slowly when things are “normal.” Fast when they’re not.

So what do you do?

Well, if you’re keeping large chunks of money in a savings account paying less than 1% interest while inflation clips along at 3–6%, you are, without exaggeration, bleeding wealth every single day.

It feels safe. It looks safe. But it’s not.
It’s a bucket with a hole in the bottom. And you don’t even notice until it’s almost empty.

That’s why the wealthy don’t hoard cash. They own assets that inflate with inflation.

They buy things that grow in value as the dollar shrinks—because they understand the system. They don’t fight it. They ride it.

Real estate is one of the best tools in the game. Home prices tend to rise over time. Rents go up. But if you lock in a 30-year fixed mortgage, your payment never changes. So while the cost of everything else is climbing, your loan stays frozen. Meanwhile, inflation is silently reducing the real value of the debt you owe. You’re paying it back in cheaper dollars every single year.

Then you’ve got ownership in productive businesses. Sure, stock prices can swing in the short term. But long-term? Equities in companies with pricing power—companies that can raise prices when costs go up—often outpace inflation. And as an owner, you benefit directly.

And finally, there are the scarce assets. Bitcoin. Gold. Precious metals. In a world where central banks can conjure trillions out of nowhere, things that can’t be printed tend to hold real value—or even multiply it.

This is how the wealthy play the game.
While most people are watching their savings accounts decay quietly, the wealthy are stacking assets that appreciate. They are playing offense in a very predictable system.

So those are the basics. But let me give you one more ninja tip from the wealthiest real estate investors in the world: You can print your own money by using debt.

Think about it. Let’s say you buy a $250,000 property this year using a 30-year fixed mortgage. You put 20% down, so you’re financing $200,000.

Now fast forward three decades.

Even if you paid zero principal and still owed $200,000 in nominal terms, you eroded the value of that debt. With just 3% annual inflation, the real value of that debt has been cut in half. You’re effectively repaying $100,000 in today’s dollars. That’s how you print your own dollars.

That’s not just hedging inflation. That’s weaponizing it.

Now if you take nothing else from this rant, remember that currency debasement is not theoretical. It’s happening in real time.

This week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast dives deep on this topic and what you can do to prepare yourself for the ever-shrinking buying power of the U.S. dollar.

I want to share a story you may have heard before—but it’s worth telling again.

When I finished surgical training and joined a practice in 2008, we were in the middle of the Great Recession.

But for me, the recession didn’t mean anything. My net worth was below zero. I’d made less than $50K a year for seven years. I wasn’t worried about losing money—I didn’t have any.

What I did have was a new six-figure salary and a baby on the way. Suddenly, I had to start thinking like a grown-up. I needed to protect my family. I needed life insurance. But I had no idea what that really meant.

I started asking around. One of the younger surgeons told me to “buy term and invest the difference.” That’s what Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman were preaching on TV too.

But an older surgeon—close to retirement—told me something very different. He’d been financially wrecked by the market crash and said permanent life insurance was one of the only things keeping him afloat.

Here’s the thing: they were both kind of right.

The young guy was right that most permanent life insurance is designed in such a way that it is a terrible investment. But the older guy had discovered something the hard way—permanent life insurance can offer unmatched financial stability when everything else is falling apart.

Still, neither of them understood what I would come to learn just a few years later from some of my wealthiest friends.

You see, permanent life insurance isn’t one thing. It’s a flexible tool. In the right hands, it can be optimized for estate planning, tax-free growth, or even used as a powerful retirement income strategy—especially for those of us who started making money later in life.

That’s when I took a deep dive, even getting a life insurance license so I could fully understand the mechanics myself. What I found became the foundation for Wealth Formula Banking, Wealth Accelerator, and now, Wealth Accelerator Plus. 

In fact, some of these strategies are so effective that they’ve already helped people like me “catch up” on retirement income planning—even if we didn’t start earning real money until our 30s.

On this week’s show, I talk with one of my new partners at Wealth Formula Banking, Brandon Preece. We unpack common misconceptions about life insurance, discuss mainstream strategies, and then go further—exploring new protocols that could be game-changers for your financial future.

If you haven’t learned about this stuff yet, it’s time. And if you have, it’s time to revisit all of these strategies. These strategies have played a major role in my financial life—and in the lives of many in our Wealth Formula community.

And I can honestly say that I don’t know of a single person who ever regretted setting up a plan!

I know some of you are tired of hearing about Bitcoin and digital currencies. That’s not what this week’s show is about. This week’s podcast conversation is broader—it touches the entire global economy.

But…you just can’t talk about macroeconomic trends anymore without talking about digital dollars and Bitcoin. Leaving them out today would be like ignoring gold when discussing commodities.

There’s a section this week in my interview with Ian Reynolds that dives deep into the bond market and the growing influence of stablecoins. And I realized—it might be helpful to give you a bit of context up front. If you’re already familiar, consider this a refresher. If not, this will make the second half of our conversation a lot more useful.

Let’s start with the 10-year U.S. Treasury—arguably the most important interest rate in the world. This one number influences everything from mortgage rates to stock valuations to how much it costs the government to borrow money. Historically, when inflation drops, yields on the 10-year tend to fall as well. That’s the standard relationship: lower inflation usually leads to lower yields.

But that’s not what’s happening right now.

Despite a year of cooling inflation, the 10-year Treasury yield has stayed surprisingly high. Why? The answer boils down to supply and demand.

On the supply side, the U.S. government is flooding the market with Treasuries—over a trillion dollars’ worth every quarter—to finance its growing deficits. That’s a lot of new bonds entering the market.

At the same time, demand isn’t keeping up. Foreign central banks like China and Japan, which used to be some of the biggest buyers of our debt, are pulling back. Some are dealing with their own domestic issues. Others are deliberately reducing their exposure to the dollar as a reaction to U.S. foreign policy over the past year.

So: more supply, less demand—what happens? Bond prices go down, resulting in higher yields for bond investors. That, in turn, means higher borrowing costs for everyone—including the U.S. government, businesses, and consumers. That’s why, even with inflation falling, the 10-year hasn’t followed the script.

But here’s where things get interesting. A new kind of buyer has started stepping in: stablecoin issuers.

Stablecoins—like USDC and Tether—are digital tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar. They’ve become essential plumbing for the crypto economy, but their growth is increasingly relevant to the broader financial system. Why? Because in order to maintain their dollar peg, these companies need to back their coins with something stable—and that “something” is often short-term U.S. Treasuries.

It turns out, that’s a great business to be in. These stablecoin issuers collect real dollars, turn around, and invest them in T-bills yielding 5% or more. That spread—between what they earn and what they pay out—is pure profit. It’s essentially a 21st-century version of a money market fund, just running on blockchain.

And it’s growing fast.

Tether now holds more Treasuries than countries like Australia or Mexico. BlackRock has launched a tokenized Treasury fund that already has nearly $3 billion under management. And just this week, Mastercard announced that it’s integrating USDC and other stablecoins for cross-border settlement.

In other words, this isn’t fringe anymore. It’s moved into the mainstream, and it’s growing quickly.

Even lawmakers are catching up. Just this month, the U.S. Senate passed the GENIUS Act, a bipartisan bill that sets clear regulatory guidelines for stablecoins. It requires full backing by liquid assets—like Treasuries—and regular public disclosures. It’s now headed to the House, and while not law yet, the momentum is clearly there. The takeaway? Regulatory clarity is coming, and that opens the door for large institutions, payment processors, and even governments to scale up stablecoin usage with confidence.

So why does this matter for bond yields?

Because if this growth continues—and all signs suggest it will—stablecoin issuers could become a major new class of permanent Treasury buyers. That consistent demand could help reduce or at least stabilize borrowing costs for the U.S. government over time, especially at the short end of the yield curve.

It’s not a magic fix, but it’s one of the few credible tailwinds for demand in an otherwise stretched bond market. And it’s coming from a place most economists didn’t expect: crypto.

So with that context, let’s jump into the conversation with Ian Reynolds. On this week’s episode of Wealth Formula Podcast, we talk about macro trends, currencies, Bitcoin, and yes—the bond market. But now you’ll see how it all fits together.