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Visit yamava.com/palms to discover more. - Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My name is Joshua Sheets, I am your host, and today on the show I'm gonna tell you why I defend billionaires, why I systematically defend intentionally billionaires.

In a recent series of shows, I've been analyzing some of the ProPublica journalism where the journalists at ProPublica have been analyzing the confidential tax records of some of the wealthiest US Americans. In the most recent episode, I talked about their article on Peter Thiel, and I have systematically defended some of the billionaires in these articles, including Peter Thiel.

And I wanna tell you why I do that, because in some ways, it's become more culturally acceptable to be opposed to billionaires than it is to defend billionaires. But I wanna tell you why I intentionally choose to defend billionaires, even though I'm not one of them yet. The first principle is something that I live by or try to live by, and it is this.

Always defend and affirm the things that you want more of in your life. If you want something that you don't have yet, you should systematically stand up for it, call it out, and affirm it. I think of this with my own children. My goal, my ambition, is to spend three or four or five times more of my time systematically affirming my children for the things that they do well, for the things that they're really good at, as compared to the time that I spend criticizing them or correcting them for things that they're not doing well.

If I'm working with a friend, I wanna spend more of my time encouraging my friend for the things that he or she does well versus tearing them down and trying to correct them for the things that they're not doing well. And I believe that this applies at every level of society.

Some of the most bitter people that you'll find are those who spend all of their time criticizing something that they object to. They're just often unpleasant people. And in my opinion, the reason they're unpleasant is they spend all their time focusing on the things that they don't want in their life as compared to the things that they do want.

And I have found for me that when I spend a lot of time talking about the things that I do want, then I tend to experience more of those. So if I see somebody behaving in a way that is kind, I want to do my very best to notice it and at least acknowledge it to myself that I really like how kindly that person is behaving.

And if possible, call it out to them. I really appreciate Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so. I really appreciate how kind you were in this situation. It encouraged me. Or how patient you are. I want to call out those things that I appreciate and that I want more of in my life and in the world.

How does this relate to wealth? Well, very specifically, I want more wealth. I want more wealth in my life. I want more wealth in your life. And I want more wealth in the world around. I really do. I genuinely hope 10 years from now that I have 10 times as much wealth as I have today.

I want that for me. I want that for you. And I want that for every single one of our neighbors. You and I are living in a world that is infinitely wealthier and infinitely better than the world of our parents 50 years ago or the world of our grandparents 75 years ago or our previous generations a century or two ago.

You and I don't have any of the problems that some of our forebearers wrestled with in their poverty. And I'm grateful for that. But I don't want it to stop here. I don't want to live in a poorer world 10 years from now. I want to live in a wealthier world 10 years from now.

And so because of that, I am going to systematically encourage and compliment those who build wealth. I'm going to do my best to lead by example of showing how I build wealth. I'm going to do my best to teach others how to build wealth. And I'm going to systematically praise those who do build wealth.

And if you're looking for an example of some of the people who are the most effective, the most productive at building wealth, look at a billionaire. Look at a guy like Peter Thiel who started with very little. And transformed very little into a lot. I'm going to study someone like that.

And I'm going to do my very best to model and imitate somebody like that. And so I praise and call out the things that I want to see more of in the world. And one of those things is wealth. I want to see more wealth in the world. And so because of that, I systematically defend wealth.

You say, "Okay, Joshua, well, maybe I could see that being the case if wealth was a sign of good things. But what about all the bad things that come with wealth? What about those who become wealthy due to cheating?" Well, there are two things I'd like to say in response to that.

The second principle is I genuinely believe that those who build wealth sustainably, those who build the most wealth, and those who build wealth in such a way that they can reasonably expect to keep it for the long term, are always those who build wealth the right way. And I believe the right way is through service.

I do my very best, imperfectly I'm sure, but I do my very best to live based upon a systematically Christian worldview. And it's my own personal Christian worldview that leads me to believe that those who are the highest in society get there when they serve the most effectively. This flows from the teachings of Jesus Christ himself, who said, "He who would be the greatest among you must be the servant of all." And Christians believe that Jesus modeled the right behavior for us when, at that time that he spoke those words, he modeled service.

Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the God of the universe, the God who created the universe, king of all the universe and this earth, and yet the king of the earth humbled himself and took up a towel and washed the feet of his disciples. And of course in that cultural context, that was disgusting to do.

The feet were pretty gross, and that was a job that was generally reserved for the humblest of servants and slaves. And yet here's Jesus Christ laying out the example of serving his own disciples. And I believe that that established the model for the world going forward. That if you desire to be wealthy, if you desire to be great, the way that you achieve that greatness is by serving all.

Serving your neighbor, serving your loved ones, serving the world more broadly. Now when you have a market system without coercion, force, and violence, those who serve the most people the most effectively build the greatest wealth. If you look at a free market system, or in a mostly free market system, you will always find that the wealthiest people in that system are those who serve others effectively.

Billionaires become billionaires because they develop products, services, and solutions that people want. Sam Walton and the Walton family became billionaires because he found a way to serve hundreds of millions of people more effectively than the merchants of his day were doing. He gave them better products at lower prices.

He put stores in areas that were poorly served, and he became a billionaire. A few decades later, Jeff Bezos did the same thing. He came up with a way of systematically serving more people better, and thus he became very wealthy. Now Peter Thiel accomplished the exact same thing. He came up with, along with his collaborators, he came up with a system that allowed him to serve many more people with a product, a service, that genuinely helps them.

I personally am exceedingly grateful that PayPal exists. I have used PayPal since the very earliest of days. In the beginning, PayPal facilitated my ability to buy and sell things on eBay. It was wonderful. I remember when I first made my first purchase on eBay, and the whole world opened up to me, and I could find all these weird, esoteric things that I was into, and buy them for a few dollars.

And PayPal facilitated that. It allowed me to accomplish those transactions simply and easily. Over the years, I've continued to appreciate and use PayPal. Even up to current day. Last year, I raised a couple tens of thousands of dollars for people who were in tremendous need using PayPal. I was involved with some relief work happening in the beleaguered nation of Venezuela, and I put out a call for any of my listeners who wanted to donate to some of the relief work that I was involved in.

It was extremely simple for me to raise the money, because I just said, "Go to paypal.me/joshuasheats and send me money," and people did it. Then I took that money, put it in my bank account, took out cash from my bank account, gave it to the appropriate people doing the relief work, and I was able, with a minimum of expense, with a minimum of bureaucratic interference, I was able to raise several tens of thousands of dollars for people who needed it.

And that is still a very effective work that's being done today because of that money. It has flourished and it has grown. So I'm grateful for PayPal. One thing that's very easy for people in the United States and some other Western economies to forget is how difficult and expensive the financial systems are for the vast majority of people in this world.

Those of us who come from the United States are accustomed to having very high-quality financial services delivered to them very, very cheaply. You speak to the average American and tell them they have to pay a monthly fee for their banking, and they'll look at you like you're crazy. "Are you kidding me?

Why wouldn't the bank pay me for them having my money?" And so we're accustomed to recognizing that we have a system that works pretty well. But the vast majority of the world does not live under such a system. The vast majority of the world is very poorly served, if they're served at all, by the financial systems around.

They're expensive, they're hard to deal with, they just don't work for them. And so companies like PayPal made a massive difference in the early days for those people. They're still making a difference, and what's more importantly, a company like PayPal paved the way for the increasingly robust financial services systems that we're living in right now.

Maybe today it's more likely that if you want to send me money, you might Venmo it to me, or use some Facebook cash app or something, or send it to me with Apple Pay. But all of these systems have built upon the ground that a company like PayPal trailblazed.

And I'm grateful that they exist. I'm grateful for PayPal. My life is better today because of PayPal. And so am I happy that Peter Thiel became very wealthy because of his early efforts in PayPal? I'm thrilled about it. I am absolutely thrilled about it. Because my life is better because Peter Thiel served me.

Your life is better because Peter Thiel served you. And I'm glad that Peter Thiel can be wealthy. So I believe that those who build wealth for the long term have to get there by serving others. And so I look at wealth, somebody who's a millionaire, a billionaire, I look at wealth as a marker of how effectively a person has served others.

And the wealthiest among us have often served others the best, the most effectively. Now the next principle, however, is what if they've done something wrong to get there? Right? That's what the ProPublica articles are talking about. What if they've done something wrong? Now to their credit, the journalists involved in the ProPublica articles have not made allocations that they can't support.

I've commented on how impressed I personally am at how they've found virtually no dirt on some of these wealthiest people in the United States of America. That's unusual. That's unusual in the history of the world. For a journalist to have virtually unfettered access to the most intimate of details of the wealthiest people in a country, and then to come away without many scandalous or salacious details to share with the world around, is pretty remarkable.

That's a testament to the general honesty of the wealthy taxpayers in the United States. That's a testament to the people of the United States who've built a system where the wealthiest can get there by serving and not by taking advantage of others, not by robbing and killing and stealing from others.

The most damning of accusations that the ProPublica journalists could raise for Peter Thiel was that perhaps he undervalued the stock that he put into his Roth IRA. In that episode, I talked about how maybe that's true, but that's a hard argument to make when you're dealing with illiquid things like early stage shares of a company.

Now, you can question that, and I think it's fair to question that. You and I don't know. But here's the next principle that I want to systematically defend. I believe very, very deeply, it's a firm and deep conviction for me, that we should always defend the principle that another person is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, of course, those words are very commonly understood by any person who's been involved in a criminal trial in the United States. In the U.S. American legal system, in a criminal court of law, in order for somebody to be found guilty, they have to be proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

We know that there are people who are genuinely guilty of the crime for which they are later set free who get off because we require a very high standard of evidence. But I believe that's the right tactic, the right principle for us to maintain. We should always defend that somebody is not guilty.

They're innocent until they're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And I would rather have 10 guilty people walking around free than I would one innocent person who's wrongly convicted because a lower standard was held. But here's what's beautiful about that particular set of words, that particular phrase. I believe that that is a worthy principle that you and I should apply to every area of our life.

And I personally, in the same vein that I want to defend those things that I appreciate, I want to lead in setting that example. I want to be the kind of person who, when I read an article in a newspaper about so-and-so is alleged to have done something wrong, or we think that so-and-so may have been involved in some scandalous thing, I want to be the kind of person who quickly reacts to that and says, "No, I'm going to judge this person to be innocent "until they're proven guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." I don't want to be the kind of person who jumps on another person and says, "I don't like that person.

"They're from the wrong political party "or the wrong religious persuasion "or the wrong side of town, "so you know what, they're probably guilty." I want to be the kind of person who defends their innocence until they're proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And so when I read an article about a guy like Peter Thiel and the journalist intimates that perhaps this PayPal stock was undervalued, I refuse, flat-out refuse, to indulge any questioning or any questioning or suspicion that he did something wrong until that's proven guilty, until he's proven guilty by those who have the appropriate information.

I will not be the kind of person who sits back and gossips about, "You know what, he's rich, "so he's probably guilty. "He probably got there "because he undervalued his stock." First of all, we're dealing with a fairly mundane accounting question. Peter Thiel would be incredibly wealthy whether he had valued his original PayPal stock at a third of what he did or at three times what he did.

That didn't matter. That was simply an accounting mechanism with the IRS. And so he really did nothing wrong, period. But even if he did, I want to be the kind of person who defends someone's innocence until they're proven guilty. And I see the relaxation of this standard as a deeply toxic trend in your life and in my life that people walk around ascribing guilt to others and saying, "Oh, you know, "so-and-so is a Democrat," or, "So-and-so is a Republican," or, "So-and-so is a Trumpster, "and so they're probably guilty "of this great crime." No, I'm done with that.

I don't want to live in that world. I believe that you are innocent of any wrongdoing that is alleged about you until you are proven to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not to say, of course, that there aren't guilty people. Of course there are. But I'm going to defend your innocence until you're proven to be guilty.

And I believe that when we do that, it makes us better people, right, who actually look for evidence instead of just jumping on the bandwagon to be against somebody that we disagree with. It also just leads to a better world. It leads to the kind-- you become the kind of person that people want to be around, that people like to be with.

And it causes you to just simply live in a better world. You go around in a happy haze of positive expectations of other people, and you live a better life, and you make the world better. And so I'm going to practice that. Now, if you can prove that a billionaire is guilty of something, I'll stand beside you beyond a reasonable doubt.

Not to be perfect, but beyond a reasonable doubt. You can prove that so-and-so is guilty of something. I'll stand side-by-side with you and be with you in throwing the first stones. But you've got to prove that they are guilty, and it has to be proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

So I believe in that principle, and so thus, I'm going to systematically defend it, because that's the principle that I want to be held-- that I want to be held to. I want you to defend my innocence until I'm proven to be guilty of something, if someday the people come for me and they write articles about me.

Now, why else do I defend billionaires? Notice that I said earlier that in a relatively free system, in a system where people can choose how they want to spend their money and with whom they want to associate, the way to become great is to serve others effectively. We don't live in a perfect system, but we live in a system that is closer to that rather than in the realm of force and coercion.

So why else do I defend billionaires? Well, the reason is billionaires function mostly in that system, where they have to make offers to people and see if people want to do business with them, versus the immoral system of force, coercion, and violence against other people. And so when I read a series of articles, for example, from ProPublica, and of course ProPublica is advocating for increasing taxation of billionaires, I am very uncomfortable with that, because the single largest group of proven criminals in the history of the world have always come from those who've been involved in taking other people's money, controlling it through the institutions of government, and then using that for the way that they think is best.

Hundreds of millions of lives were lost in the 20th century because of those kinds of people. Those people have generally committed the largest crimes, stolen the most money, killed the most people, oppressed the largest number of people when they have done so, with the powers of the institutions of government.

Now when the institutions of government are small and underfunded, then those same institutions now have to fight for their legitimacy in the public eye. And to the extent that the public sees them as doing good work, they'll reward them with more power. If you have a district attorney in your local area who runs a small office, but that office is very heavily involved in fighting crime, going after those who deserve it, exposing corruption, the people will turn around and they'll reward that person with a higher budget.

They'll reward that department for their good work. They'll give them good press and they'll honor that person. But in a system like the United States, you do not live in that system. Instead, we're dealing with a behemoth, an incredibly corrupt, immoral behemoth that is responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world, that is responsible for interfering in the affairs of practically every country in the world, interfering in the free and open elections of countries around the world, killing people, deposing dictators, sending armies here and there, interfering in the internal affairs of countries all around the world.

I do not want that group of people whose lives are marked by involvement in a corrupt system to have more resources. I want them to have 20% of the resources that they have now. Another biblical principle. To him who is, to him, I'll skip that for a moment, okay?

I want them to have less is the point. I want them to be shown faithful with what they do have before they have more. And as far as I'm concerned, if you or I ever hired somebody who did anything like what your federal government does, we would have fired them decades ago.

We would have cut their budget by 80%. And so when you talk about tax revenues, I would much rather Peter Thiel have a few extra billion dollars because he doesn't have the power of coercion, of force. He's not out there interfering in people's lives the way that an institution like the US government is.

Now, does this violate my principle of innocent until proven guilty? I have to be very careful, right? I want to be judged by that, so I want to judge by that. At this point in time, though, it seems pretty obvious to me that anybody who is involved in any way as a government agent is on a very slippery slope.

And perhaps there are a few people who are doing genuine good in those areas, perhaps, right? We all have our politician that we like. But on the whole, there is abundant evidence with the millions of people killed, the tremendous corruption all around the world, there is abundant evidence to believe at this point in time the case has been proven that these people are guilty.

So I don't want those people to have more money. I simply don't. Now, that's my opinion. Your mileage may vary. But I have observed that the more money that those people have, the more corrupt they become. The more power that government bureaucrats have because they have more money, the more corrupt they become.

The more they wind up wanting to perpetuate the systems of corruption that give them that money. And so instead of bringing the world a service and saying, "Here, here's something. "Would you like it? "I bring it to you "and I offer it to you. "Would you like to buy this?" They bring the world inferior products that nobody really wants.

And then they, figuratively speaking, most of the time, point guns at people's head and say, "Now, pay us for this. "Pay up, suckers." So if you're dealing in a world of tax disputes, I'm almost always going to side against the tax collector and in favor of the taxpayer in virtually every circumstance.

Now, is there an argument that says, "Hey, so and so "should pay their taxes?" Yeah, there is. And I'm not opposed to that, although sometimes I wonder if I'll always be opposed to simply saying, "Follow the law." But the point remains that when no wrongful behavior is proven, you should side with those who are genuinely serving you rather than those who are genuinely enslaving you.

The last and final point. Why will I systematically defend billionaires, especially as opposed to people like ProPublica or their journalists? To be clear, I'm not accusing their journalists of wrongdoing. I'm not accusing their journalists of getting something grossly wrong. But why would I defend them? Why would I defend someone like Thiel instead of those journalists?

Those journalists cannot and have not, for me, articulated a clear argument as to how much is enough. Anytime I find somebody advocating for more taxes, higher tax collection, higher tax rates, et cetera, I always ask, "Well, how much?" What's the appropriate number? If you believe that 10% of taxes is too little, what's the right number?

Well, it should be 20%. Okay, well, why? How do you get there? And so at this point in time, I have yet to find the proponent of higher taxation who will give me a number and then defend it. They always say, "Just a little bit more. "Just a little bit more." And so because of that, and because of the inherent violence associated with tax collection, forcing people to give you their money because you believe that they should, I don't trust them.

I don't trust anybody advocating for higher taxation, ever, until they can answer some of those baseline questions. Now, I'm not sure if I'm necessarily a 0% tax guy, but I'm a whole lot more comfortable with those who follow the rules and systematically move their taxes in as close of a direction to 0% as I am with those who want to move other people's taxes in the direction of 100%.

Again, who is more likely to be in the realm of moral behavior? The man or woman who's going to the market and who's saying to other people, "Here is a product. "Here is a service that will serve you. "Would you like to buy this thing from me?" and is profiting from it?

Or the man or woman who's going to the market and saying, "You have something that I want, "and so I'm going to come and take it from you, "or I'm going to send others to take it from you "because you have something that I want, "and I want my guys, "I want my gals to control it." At the end of the day, you're probably going to wind up siding with one of those sides as a matter of default position.

And I've made the choice that I prefer the world of freedom and non-coercion as compared to the world of control and coercion. Does that mean that potentially a billionaire might slip through who doesn't deserve it? Does. But I would rather have 10 of those guys slip through rather than suppress the system that has brought you and me a very wealthy life and a tremendous lifestyle.

I don't believe that all billionaires should be defended. I do believe that some people have become billionaires based upon outright immoral actions. I'm not 100% sure of who those people are. People often, for example, people often allege that Vladimir Putin may be one of the wealthiest men in the world, perhaps, right?

But we don't know. Maybe he does or doesn't deserve that. Maybe he doesn't deserve to be a billionaire. If that's the case, I would point out to you that the way that he became wealthy was by using the tools of government, not through using the tools of the free market.

So I won't necessarily defend all billionaires, although I want to be disciplined enough to maintain anybody's innocence until they're proven guilty. Peter Thiel or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or George Soros, right? These are not the men who are coercing others. Rather, these are the men who are saying, "How can we bring a product to market?

"How can we bring a solution to market?" And I like living in the world that these men's products and solutions have created. I like living in a wealthy society. It's because of that. My default position is going to be to defend wealthy people who built their wealth through service.

My default position, if an accusation is brought against them, is going to be that they're innocent until proven guilty. And my default position is going to be to defend your right to maintain control of your own money, my right to retain control over my own money, and that guy's right to retain control over his own money from those who want to come and take it because they think that they can spend your money better than you can, especially when those people are the ones who control the goons with the guns.

To me, that seems like a reliable starting position. If along the way, good evidence comes out that somebody has committed a crime, that somebody is proven to be guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, then I'll change my position. At that point in time, I will then judge the morality of the law as well as whether somebody broke it.

This is the basic principle of a fully informed jury person. That it's always your right to judge whether a law should exist. If you're on a jury and someone's being charged before you, you have the right when you're on that jury to judge whether a law is right or wrong, regardless of whether somebody has broken it.

It's always your right. It's the fully informed jury movement. I would love to see legislation passed in every state in the United States that every jury person is required to be held, required to be informed of their right. It's called the Fully Informed Jury Association, the amendment. At that point in time, you and I can then judge the law.

Maybe Peter Thiel did break the law. Maybe he's proven to be guilty. Then we ask the question, should this law exist? You and I have the right to judge any law, as whether it exists, and argue among ourselves our case as to why it should exist or shouldn't exist or what becomes of it.

If you're wondering why I defend billionaires, that's why. I want to be a billionaire. I want you to be a billionaire. I want more billionaires to exist. As far as I can tell, more billionaires that exist means the more money that's been created by serving others. The wealthier the society that you and I live in.

As far as I can tell, most billionaires wind up giving away their billions. And that's becoming increasingly popular. It's probably how it should be. And so, I'm happy with that. And so I'm going to systematically defend billionaires until they're proven to be guilty of something. That's why I defend billionaires.

Thank you for listening. Be back with you very soon.