Peripatetics

Michael Duryea: One of the most famous people who ever lived was Alexander the Great, who invaded basically most of the known world and became treated almost like a god in the you know in Asia and know ⁓ people don't know that ⁓ Alexander had a tutor a fairly famous name, and his was Aristotle, one of the great From the time that I was very young, as a small boy, ⁓ remember having a lot of deep-seated fear about money. There something about money that made me afraid ⁓ and Greek philosophers, had something that he used to call peripatetics. And you've ever read the ⁓ Calvin Hobbes, Calvin and his Hobbes, his pet cat, is actually stuffed cat or real cat, whichever way you think of it. Calvin and Hobbes are always ⁓ off on a walk. And ⁓ often Calvin expounding some ⁓ deep and philosophical topic. there's one particular comic you can go look it up where they're just around and neither of them saying anything and suddenly ⁓ Calvin says, What someone decides we're just a pair 'o pathetic parapetics? And what he's there is Aristotle's peripatetics And used to go walking ⁓ the streets and in the gardens with his students, and they would discuss philosophy that way while they were walking. they discovered that their their conversations were deeper and more anointed by the gods and ⁓ and more fruitful and that the the the depth of conversation the quality of conversation was not deeper and better when they were walking. And so After I got married and I started building a family, I began to ask God to send men into my life to teach me the truth about money that I did not know. That was when Ray Poteet and Nelson Nash came into my life and I learned about the infinite banking concept. They used to go on walks and talk about philosophy while they were walking, instead of sitting around being slobs, they were walking around using their body and understanding that the body and the mind are connected and that the you know, it would make sense that when you're using your body, your mind is gonna work better. hence ⁓ Calvin and the comic Calvin and Hobbes is always, ⁓ know, expounding on some great philosophical theme ⁓ he and, you know, Hobbes are either they're walking around in the woods or when they're This podcast is about the love affair I have been having with Infinite Banking since that time. Welcome to the Duryea Financial Podcast. know, careening down a hill at seven hundred miles an hour on their sleds or whatever they're doing. But today I decided to do a peripatetical podcast. And you so if you guys want to, you can call me a ⁓ a pathetic peripatetic podcaster. but ⁓ thought I would just go on a walk and make people, you I've got my little middle fluffy microphone here. And I thought, you know, ⁓ maybe I make some of the neighbors think I'm really weird because I'm out on you know, I'm out walking and not talking to anybody, except I'm talking to of you who are my favorite people to talk to. And what I want to talk about today is what is a life insurance company? Because that's what's on my mind today. I've just been thinking about that. I've been thinking about infinite banking, life insurance, life insurance policies, it really is, ⁓ it really works, what are all the ⁓ common misconceptions, you know, what ⁓ what are the same questions that I constantly, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And ⁓ so I'm just gonna go on a peripatetical, know, pensive. Perambulatory philosophical podcast walk and talk about life insurance because it fascinates me to no end. Now life insurance does not fascinate me, but banking does. So What is a life insurance company? A life insurance company is a financing company. It's a it's a company that stores, and sells wealth. And that's it. A life insurance company is a company that buys sells and stores wealth. They have income statements, have balance sheets, they assets, ⁓ they liabilities, they have risk, and they have cash flow. And that's what it is. A life company is a company ⁓ that recognizes human beings have human life value. And so what people are ⁓ willing to do ⁓ is people willing to, ⁓ know, store some of their ⁓ you know, give in other words, they're willing to give some of their capital to a company in exchange for something. and do they get in exchange? Well, they get interest. Your money grows at interest in a policy faster than if you kept it in a mattress. if didn't, then probably nobody would store their wealth there. I just passed a guy that was walking two of his dogs. Now here's a guy mowing his lawn. It's beautiful day here in eastern Kansas. I needed to get out of the office I needed I needed to ⁓ some fresh air. And so what a perfect time to just kind of think out loud. People store their wealth at a life insurance company in exchange for something. And what they get at a mutual life insurance company is something unique. They get a contract that has a present value and a future value. The present value is the is the cash value. That's the value of the contract as of today. The future value is the death benefit. That's what the contract is going to be worth. the future when you know, as the in when whenever ⁓ insured dies and the beneficiaries submit a claim. And every time a premium is paid, the cash value ⁓ the death benefit go up in value. Every time a premium is paid, the present value and the future value go up in value. And we di we have been so conditioned for so long to only understand and think about half of that. Because when I say the words life insurance to you, before we found out about infinite banking, before we read Nelson Nash's book, before we started becoming our own banker, ⁓ someone said life insurance to us, and if you say the words life insurance to almost anybody in America, what they will think of is a an expense that they wish they didn't have to cover an event that they hope never happens, at least for a long time, And The message of the infinite banking concept is that that way of thinking about life insurance doesn't even cover half of the picture. Nelson is actually saying that your need to finance stuff, i.e., your need to store wealth, wealth, and sell wealth, which is something that everybody does, whether they want to or not, ⁓ every time you buy or sell something, you are also buying and selling money. Everybody has a need for their wealth to reside somewhere and they need a way to finance something. Now something is the buying and selling ⁓ money. Whenever you buy something, before you buy that thing, you have to buy the money first. I'm gonna say that again. whenever you buy something, you first have to finance it. have to buy the money first. Financing, you finance everything that you buy. And financing something is the buying and selling of money. You either buy the money from yourself, in which case the cost of the buying of the money is all the interest. and gains that you could have ke had if you had kept that money, or you buy the money from someone else, in which case you pay interest to a lender. And that's it. Life insurance companies contracts to their customers that give their customers the ability to finance anything that they want, anytime they want. Very, very much the same as a bank does. But the differences are very striking when you look at the details. So when you Contribute when when you take your money and it goes into a bank, you're actually selling them your money. This is the way that we've all got to start thinking about money. We've got to think of money as a commodity that's bought and sold. When you when your money goes into a bank, you're actually selling it to them. The bank is buying it from you. So in exchange for your money, they are giving you a contract. And that contract is either called a checking account or a savings account or a money market or a C D or whatever they call it. But it is a contract that says, you know, basically we'll give you interest as long as your money is here and we'll give you all your money back whenever you want to. Now, with a bank, that contract is backed by nothing. There are no c there's no cash reserves to back it. The the legal language of that contract is just a promissory note with no collateral, which means that if the bank ever shuts down, you're gonna be way back in line waiting for your money. The owners of the bank, the shareholders of the bank, and the creditors of the the secured creditors of the bank and all those people. are gonna get paid before you do, which means that it's very unlikely that you will get anything if that bank shuts down and you have deposits there. Now, what is everybody gonna say immediately when you say that? Well, it's fine because the FDIC insures it. Well, right now there's twenty-one trillion dollars of money on deposit in the United States, and the FDIC, the last time I checked, has less than three hundred billion to cover those deposits. Which means if another banking crisis happens and you happen to be one of the people that has a bunch of money on deposit in these banks, The only w way that you can be paid is if the FDIC is solvent enough. And if they aren't solvent enough, the only other thing that they have, the only other option that they have is to get a wh a huge loan from the Treasury Department, which means that your deposits are backed by taxes that your children and grandchildren are gonna have to pay. I. If the FDIC doesn't have enough money to back your deposits when there's another collapse, they use your own money to pay you back. The taxpayer. And that perpetuates the entire financial problem that we have. So that's the nature of deposits in a bank, Now, when you capital to your life insurance contract at a life insurance company, that ⁓ that that money, the life insurance company takes it, and in exchange, they give you liquid equity in a contract that is backed by cash reserves. And you own that equity personally ⁓ on balance sheet. And if in any case of solvency you would be the first to be paid. And life insurance companies are required to have liquid assets to back up everything that they've promised to their customers. Really the only reason that people are are so comfortable depositing money in banks and not comfortable depositing money in life insurance companies is because banks are familiar and life insurance companies are not. parents didn't do it, your grandparents didn't do it, so you don't do it. Now your great grandparents probably did, but you probably didn't talk to them very much, so So people deposit money in the commercial banks all the time. And then they turn around and they borrow money from the commercial banks all the time. Now, when you borrow money from them, they get collateral from you. if you don't pay them back, they foreclose on your collateral. Plus, they control the terms of the loan repayment. They control the interest rate, they control the amortization schedule, they control what the penalty fees are going to be if you don't pay them on time, et cetera, et cetera. And they can and they actually deny access to the loan when you need it the most. A bank a is a company that will loan you money if you can prove that you don't need it. Another perfect way to say that is a bank is a company that will loan you money if you can prove that you already have it. Now, the truth is that that's the way that financing has to work. And that's exactly how life insurance policy loans work too. part that's screwy with banks is why they own and control all the deposits and all the loans? Why do get to be in control ⁓ if it's capital? And that's the key. ⁓ It's not though the life insurance company gets to play by different rules. The rules are the same, it's just who sitting in what chair is what changes. When you do business with a bank, when you make your deposits there, in terms, you no longer that money no longer belongs to you. You've exchanged it for a contract that says this money belongs to the bank. ⁓ And we can foreclose on your deposits whenever we want to. and we're go make a profit on your deposits, but we're not gonna pay that money to you, the depositor. We're going to pay it to the shareholders of the bank. and the executives and the people that own the bank. So you should put your money in here like crazy, even though you don't own any of that money and you won't get any of the profit that we generate from that money. Whereas a life insurance company is a mutual life insurance company, I should say, which is the only kind that I would ever work with. mutual life insurance company says you retain full ownership of the equity that you're given in exchange for your premium dollars. That equity that you are given in exchange for your money is equity that is to the value of the money that you gave in exchange for it, plus a very good interest rate, and it is always higher than what the bank will give you. And on top of that, whatever tiny interest the bank pays you in equity, you owe taxes on it every year. Not so with your life insurance policy cash values if managed properly. Say that again, if managed properly. No, it is not difficult to manage your life insurance cash values properly so that you're never taxed. So this is just what rattles around in my brain day in and day out every day. I realized week that what I'm providing to the public is even more than what I thought. I realized as an infinite banking practitioner, I'm offering to The most valuable beneficial method of financing that exists in the world today. There is no other method of financing that benefits the depositor and the borrower more in terms of profit. and gives them control and more liberty and more freedom ⁓ than they can anywhere else. Without a way to finance something, you can't buy a house, you can't rent a house, you can't pay your electric or your water bill, you can't buy food, you can't buy a car, you can't buy gas, you can't have w work done on your teeth, you can't pay for education, you can't do anything. Think of it this way if the bank that you use shut down, you be able to buy or sell anything? You write checks, you can't swipe your credit card. You can't get a mortgage, you can't access your money to pay your landlord, you can't can't do anything. You can't get cash. Everybody has to have a financial institution that that's that's up and running and profitable and operating. Operating and Let me say that again. Every single person in this country. in order to live life to be a customer of a financial institution ⁓ facilitates all their transactions. If the money doesn't move, nothing else happens. And so I just realized this week I was like, wow, I'm actually providing a service to people that is more fundamental buying a house, buying car, buying food, their electric and water bill, making investments, saving for the future. I'm giving them a way to finance all of that, no matter what it is. it's the most valuable method financing that there is. And I keep telling people this, and I'm going to continue telling them this. Because it's the truth. If I find a financial instrument that's better than a life insurance policy for financing Or a company corporate structure that offers contracts that are specifically designed for financing the things of life, and those contracts benefit the owner of that money and that equity and that contract more than a life insurance policy does. I'll throw my life insurance license in the trash, cash out all my policies, and move over to that immediately. And if any of you find out about that before I do and you don't tell me, as Ray would say, I will haunt your ass through eternity. This is not about life insurance. I hope you notice that. This is not about a premium for a death benefit. It's about financing the things of life. I want to buy real estate. I want to make investments. I want to grow my wealth. I want to finance my entrepreneurial endeavors, whatever they might be. I want to finance the home that I live in, the cars that I need to drive, the food that I want to eat, the places I want to go, the education that my children need, the medicine and that they need. And that's what this is all about. These life insurance policies work for financing the things of life better than anything else, but only if you are thinking properly. If you're not thinking properly, if you don't have a basic understanding of what a bank is, is a financial institution that buys and sells money. Then you won't be able to see yourself as a banker, someone who is also buying and selling money. I said earlier in the podcast, and I need to say it again now. It is not possible break the laws of the universe that God put into the universe. It's not possible. You can pretend, but you're gonna be wrong every time. And one of the laws of the universe is you have to finance everything that you buy. You cannot avoid it. ⁓ You either pay to a lender or For someone else's money, or you give up the interest that you could have earned on your own money. Every time you buy something, you are either paying interest to a lender or experiencing lost opportunity cost with your own capital. And there are no exceptions. Every time you buy anything, have to buy the money first before you can go ⁓ the thing. And you are either buying that money from yourself or you're buying it from someone else. And again, there no exceptions. A life company is a company allows its customers to store their equity there. More safely, with more liberty and more control than any other financial institution. And they also allow their customers to leverage that equity, which is the buying and selling of money, it's called leverage. They allow their customers to buy and sell capital under better terms and conditions than any other tool out there in the marketplace. And as soon as that changes, will use whatever is better. And believe me, I'm looking at it very carefully all the time. ⁓ Borrowing silver, borrowing against gold, borrowing against cryptocurrency, ⁓ you ⁓ whatever might be. People do it with stock market assets called margin debt, very dangerous. I'm not interested. I met a guy once. an Uber driver for fun. That's one of the things I do on the side. Not do I walk around the neighborhood looking weird, but I I walk around the neighborhood picking up strangers in my car. But it's a known contract that everybody agrees on, so ⁓ it's moderately I picked up guy once at the Kansas City Airport. He had just flown ⁓ commercial, he had a plane to Tennessee. He flew back to Kansas City commercial. And he was telling me how he was financing his annual tax liability with a loan against his Amazon stock. There is a man that understands the buying and selling of money. And I got to talk to him about infinite banking. And it was awesome. I hope I get to talk to him again sometime. He's a really sharp guy. Plus I like pilots. I love aviation. So that my ⁓ parapetetics of the day. And no, I am not a pathetic peripatetic. I don't know what Kelvin and Hobbes were all worried about. So my little nod to Aristotle, the great philosopher, Hopefully that didn't all sound like hieroglyphics. if it did, just ⁓ well you don't have to listen to it again. God bless you all.