AS HEARD ON - The Jim Polito Show - WTAG 580 AM: Tesla Now Accepts Bitcoin and The Suez Canal Debacle

Good morning, everybody.

I was on this morning on WTAG with Jim Polito.   We discussed not only that Elon Musk's Tesla Organization is now accepting Bitcoin for payment but an additional interesting twist to that.  Then we talked about the Suez Canal and the problems with the Ever Given.  Here we go with Jim.

For more tech tips, news, and updates, visit - CraigPeterson.com.

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Mining equipment. It's like those guys that you watch on the discovery channel, where they're mining for gold up in Alaska. The guys that make the money, they've got these massive machines moving all of this stuff and they're making lots of money. Well, there's specialized equipment as well for mining for Bitcoin.

Good morning, Craig Peterson here. Of course, I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning. I had to talk about the Suez canal, this blockage. So we did, we got into that. Then also a little bit about Tesla and Bitcoin.  What is Elon Musk doing? What what's he thinking? I had a couple of ideas and we talked about them with Jim.

Here we go.

Jim Polito: [00:00:44] You can buy now a Tesla with Bitcoin. There are organizations that will accept Bitcoin. Here's what's different here. Most of those organizations take the Bitcoin converted to regular currency and then that's it.

Well, Elon Musk must be betting on Bitcoin. I don't know. I need a guy much smarter than me here, which doesn't take a lot of work. That is in no way to take anything away from our next guest, who is our good friend and tech talk guru. Craig Peterson. Good morning, Craig.

Craig Peterson: [00:01:20] Hey, good morning, Mr. Jim. Yeah. What a different world.

Jim Polito: [00:01:24] Yeah. You can buy a Tesla with Bitcoins, which is that crazy currency that we talk about frequently here. When he takes the Bitcoin in, unlike other businesses, he's not then converting it. Like when you go to Europe and you're converting your money into euros. He's not converting it. He's keeping the Bitcoin.

Does that mean he thinks Bitcoin is viable?

Craig Peterson: [00:01:50] Yeah, boy does he ever. He's been talking about it and promoting it for a while. He bought one and a half billion dollars, of course, that sends the price up. It isn't just ransomware now being used for Bitcoin. Everything's going crazy.

Look at this musician Grimes. I don't know if you heard about this, but he sold the collection of digital work for 6.3 million.

Jim Polito: [00:02:19] The digital artwork just makes me laugh. Somebody makes a piece of digital artwork, which, unlike the Mona Lisa, you can't go there and just pick it up and say, I'm going to bring it home, or I'm going to take a copy of it. You can't do that digital artwork as far as I'm concerned is worthless.

Craig Peterson: [00:02:37] It's a perfect copy, right? It's not like the Mona Lisa a forgery.

Jim Polito: [00:02:42] It's actually right. You're right. If you copy a piece of digital artwork, it's exactly the same.

Craig Peterson: [00:02:49] It absolutely is.

They filed at Tesla here. This is a regulatory filing with the securities and exchange commission about a month ago now saying that they would begin accepting Bitcoin as payment for Tesla cars.

Now, I'm not sure who they're going after or what they are gonna use bitcoin for, maybe he sees a Bitcoin going up even further. We've certainly seen some major runs in it. You referred to it as a currency. I think that's an interesting word because of what is. What is the currency?

We have dollars that we have right now that has the full faith and credit of the government just laughable in and of itself. But anyway, everybody takes it right from the pizza shop, that first took 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas. They're the first Bitcoin transaction ever. So figure out how much they were worth then far less than a penny. Now, Tesla saying, yeah, you can bring in one Bitcoin and I'll give you a full car.

Jim Polito: [00:03:57] I don't know. I'm just not getting it, you know what, as they say, that I think the chance to get in on the ground floor was a long time ago. I'm just not getting in on the ground floor.  I'll stick with all that stuff.

Craig Peterson: [00:04:09] My son and I started doing mining, years ago, Bitcoin mining. It was just so expensive to do because we didn't have specialized mining equipment.

It's like those guys that you watch on a discovery channel where they're mining for gold up in Alaska, the guys that make the money. They've got these massive machines moving all of this stuff and they're making lots of money. Well, if there's specialized equipment as well for mining for Bitcoin, and with the cost of electricity here in the Northeast, it's just not worth doing.

If you go to eBay right now, You could do a search for Bitcoin mining equipment and you would find all kinds of used stuff for sale because the next generations out. And the only way they can stay effective is to get the next generation. So right now it is cheaper to mine a Bitcoin than to pay for the electricity. It's about 25 to $30,000 for one Bitcoin.

If you're trying to mine it, it's going to vary. It's a little bit of a luck of the draw too, by the way, the Bitcoins they're in the $50,000 range. Okay, that makes some sense to do some mining. But again, you've still got to have this specialized equipment.

That's going to cost you a lot of money and get busy. He's obviously betting on it going up. Yeah, he may be just saying, I'll convert it to a hard currency, when I hit the hundred thousand dollars a Bitcoin, he really hasn't said.

Jim Polito: [00:05:37] There really are people who believe that it will too.

Craig Peterson: [00:05:41] Oh yeah.

Jim Polito: [00:05:42] Eric Bolling who used to be on Fox. He's a former investment person who then worked at the business channels. Then it gets a Fox. Then he had a sexual harassment allegation against him he's out. He does work for Newsmax now a few others. I listened to a podcast with him talking about it and he's betting on it.

He's not a stupid guy, he's betting on it.

Craig Peterson: [00:06:06] I wish I had money to bet on it. I just don't right. I'm trying to build a business and raise a family, support a wife, kids, chickens, by the way, the Fox got four or two foxes came by this morning I got four my chickens, but, we get it.

Jim Polito: [00:06:22] We gotta talk about that after, but keep that thought in mind. Cause I gotta tell you a good story. Go ahead.

Craig Peterson: [00:06:28] It's that time of year. We'll see what happens, Bitcoin. I just don't know. I've never had the trust in it. It takes trust to buy Bitcoin.

The major drive driving force behind Bitcoin has been corporations buying Bitcoin so they can pay for a ransom when they get ransomware. They're buying Bitcoin in advance. That's part of their plan for disaster if they get hit with ransomware.

Then the other thing that's really driven up Bitcoin over the years is people buying it to pay ransoms themselves.

And that's a real big deal. That's something we're covering on the improving windows security course this week too. You got to keep yourself safe. How do you mitigate it?

There just aren't that many places that accept it. Maybe Elon saying while we've got all of these total geeks that mine Bitcoin, now they'll trade it over.

The fact that he bought a billion and a half drove the value of Bitcoin up. Is he playing the market? Is he gaming it by buying it? Driving it up, testing it, which will drive it up, right? The value just keeps going up. Who knows maybe that's even illegal.

Jim Polito: [00:07:41] Well, he's been in trouble before with the SEC. Remember some of the statements he made. He should stop smoking pot, live on a podcast.  He should maybe start with that. You have to give him some credit though for what he's done was SpaceX and other things. The very fact that he bought $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, right after that purchase is closed. The price goes up because people seem to just see that Elon Musk bought Bitcoin maybe he's part of the whole thing and like old man, Joe Kennedy used to do. He knew when to get in the market and when to get out. Maybe Elon Musk got a little bit of that. I just think it's fascinating.

Craig Peterson: [00:08:21] Hey, I gotta bring up those Suez canal thing here too, Jim.

Oh no, go

Jim Polito: [00:08:25] Go ahead. Go ahead.

Craig Peterson: [00:08:26] I've got two kids in the maritime industry and you know that. It was three actually that have been. One of whom is a Master Mariner. She has unlimited oceans, unlimited tonnage command vessels for the US Navy and merchant vessels. And she's been through that very Suez canal before.

She's told me some stories about it. I'm not sure that the pilots, now remember pilots when it comes to ships, are the specialized people, that know the harbors.

Jim Polito: [00:08:59] Usually, they come out to the ship. Bring them out, they climb up the side, get in. They know the local waterways they take over for the Captain.

Craig Peterson: [00:09:09] Those are the guys. You know what nepotism is, right?

Jim Polito: [00:09:12] Oh yes, I do. We have quite a bit of that in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. We have a little bit of that going on.

Craig Peterson: [00:09:19] I'm not sure these ships pilots over there by the descriptions I have heard. From the family members and others, I'm not sure those ship pilots are actually even qualified to get a Massachusetts voters license.

Jim Polito: [00:09:35] No.

Craig Peterson: [00:09:36] They are the least competent people I have ever heard of, nepotism runs rampant. If you actually want to get through the canal, you have to make sure when you go over there that your ship, you might be hauling oil, you might be hauling it doesn't matter what, but you better be hauling Marlboro Reds and M&M's because that's what powers the Suez Canal..

Jim Polito: [00:10:01] You know what, that's great. One of the busiest waterways in the world, what is it? How much of the trade of the world? 11% of the world's trade goes through and you're telling me that if you don't have the Marlboro Reds, forget about the Marlboro lights but if you don't have the Marlboro Reds and some M&M's, it's all over.

Craig Peterson: [00:10:20] Forget about it. You're going to end up blocking that Canal.

Jim Polito: [00:10:25] That's very, very interesting. There's a cool little app out there right now that allows you to put the ship anywhere that you want. Like, you can drop it on a map anywhere. You can drop it on your street on the map.

Craig Peterson: [00:10:42] Boston public library curator. It's called when the Suez.

Jim Polito: [00:10:48] I'm seeing quite a few online of people taking it and putting it in interesting places. Hey, you mentioned it and then maybe we should just now close with is that program that you're putting on. We always ask you at the end, how can folks get more information from Craig Peterson?

Craig Peterson: [00:11:06] Absolutely. Now's the time to do this. This is an Improving Windows Security course. You probably also got an email if you're active on the email list. I don't want to bother people who aren't that interested.

First of all, Big big problem right now with iOS Apple's operating system for its mobile devices, you should have already received and installed a patch from Apple, even an old Apple phone. Okay, good.

Jim Polito: [00:11:38] Yeah, I saw

Craig Peterson: [00:11:42] Android. That's why I don't like Android. Apple gets it out even for old, old phones,

Number two, this Improving Windows Security course is starting this week. I hope to get the email out this afternoon with all of the details. It is going to help you tighten up your windows computer. If you're not on that email list, get on it now. Credit Peterson.com/subscribe, because I send out tips and tricks and training.

We do free webinars, just all kinds of stuff. You'll only know if you go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe

Jim Polito: [00:12:17] Craig that is great. Good. Good to hear from you. Thank you as usual for making the very complex simple, and we'll catch up with you next week.

Craig Peterson: [00:12:28] Bye-bye

Jim Polito: [00:12:28] Bye-Bye. Craig Peterson.

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