#815 The Canadian Trucker Convoy Explained w/ Mackenzie Collins

Mackenzie Collins is the Founder & CEO of Mack's Installations. Mack was previously on the podcast and its one of my favorite episodes to date. Mackenzie is a Canadian who helped give us an on the ground report from the trucker protest. In this conversation, we discuss media misinformation, politics, Bitcoin, and what it means for every day citizens to achieve freedom from this technology. ======================= Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. It’s supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your wallet. Interactive charts let you view an asset’s price history and your portfolio’s performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with the Trezor hardware wallet - making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit exodus.com/pomp for your free download or search Exodus on the App Store or Playstore. ======================= Cryptocurrencies offer boundless potential, but how will you protect your crypto? Arculus is the next generation crypto cold storage wallet that combines the world’s strongest security protocols on the Arculus Key Card with an easy-to-use Arculus Wallet App. With over 20 years of experience developing leading-edge secure payment technologies, CompoSecure created Arculus to give you the power to protect your financial future. You can buy, store, swap, send and receive your crypto with a simple tap of your Arculus Key Card to your mobile device. Your private keys are encrypted on the Arculus Key Card and they never leave it. Stay safe from hackers with no cords; no charging; no Bluetooth. The only person accessing your crypto... is you. Buy yours at Get Arculus.com today ======================= Today’s episode is brought to you by Coinbase Wallet, your key to the world of crypto. Crypto wasn’t made to just buy, sell, and hodl. With Coinbase Wallet, you can do so much more: Collect more NFTs, earn more with DeFi, and trade more than 4,000 tokens. Whether you’re looking to play, stake, spend, or just explore a trending new protocol — Coinbase Wallet is your key to more. Long-time HODLers already know that wallets are a must-have if you want complete control of your crypto. That’s why Coinbase Wallet makes self-custody simple, while providing the safety and security of the most trusted name in crypto. Visit coinbase.com/wallet to learn more. ======================= _______________________________

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Mackenzie Collins is the founder and CEO of Mack's Installations. He lives in Vancouver Island and he's a Canadian. Mack was previously on the podcast before. He's one of my favorite conversations I've ever had. He's back once again to talk about Canada, politics, the trucker convoy, Bitcoin, and what it means for the everyday average citizen to get freedom from this technology and to stand up for what they believe in. I really enjoyed this conversation with Mackenzie and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Exodus, the world's leading desktop, mobile and hardware

• 0:47Anthony Pompliano?

  crypto wallet. They offer beautiful, user-friendly blockchain products that sync across all of your devices, making it easier to send, receive, and exchange over 150 or more crypto assets in one place. And with world-class customer service available to you 24/7, Exodus always has your back. But the fun doesn't stop with staking and trading. They recently launched a new NFT marketplace where you can buy and sell your favorite NFTs in the Solana network. By partnering with the popular NFT platform, Magic Eden, they're offering the full Monte Unverified Collection with more added every single day. Ready to check it out for yourself? Run, don't walk. Over to exodus.com/pomp for your free download today. Again, if you want the world's leading desktop, mobile and hardware crypto wallet,

• 1:30Anthony Pompliano?

  go to exodus.com/pomp today. Today's episode is brought to you by Arculus. Cryptocurrencies offer boundless potential, but how will you protect your crypto? Arculus is the next generation crypto cold storage wallet that combines the world's strongest security protocols on the Arculus key card with an easy to use Arculus wallet app. With over 20 years of experience developing leading-edge secure payment technologies, CompoServe created Arculus to give you the power to protect your financial future. You can buy, store, swap, send, and receive your crypto with a simple tap of your Arculus key card to your mobile device. Your private keys are encrypted on the Arculus key card and they never leave it. Stay safe from hackers with no cords, no charging, no Bluetooth.

• 2:13Anthony Pompliano?

  The only person accessing your crypto is you. Buy yours today at getarculus.com. Today's episode is brought to you by Coinbase Wallet, your key to the world of crypto. Crypto wasn't made to just buy, sell and hold. With Coinbase Wallet, you can do so much more. You can collect more NFTs, earn more with DeFi and trade more than 4,000 tokens. Whether you're looking to play, stake, spend, or just explore a trending new protocol, Coinbase Wallet is your key to more. Longtime holders already know that wallets are a must have if you want complete control of your crypto. That's why Coinbase Wallet makes self custody simple while providing the safety and security of the most trusted name in crypto. Visit coinbase.com/wallet to learn more.

• 2:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Again, coinbase.com/wallet to learn more.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:22Anthony Pompliano?

  How are you, sir?

• 3:23Speaker 02

  I'm good. How are you?

• 3:24Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm doing fantastic. All right. Let's start first with what the hell is going on in Canada? It feels like over the last two, three weeks, all of a sudden, uh, your friends down here south of Canada, in the United States and around the world, they've all sort of paid attention. There's this convoy going on. I think people started to say, hey, there's something going on up there. And, uh, at first it was like, is this real? Is it not? Now all of a sudden it's like there's 70 kilometer long, uh, you know, kind of, um, truck convoy going into Ottawa. And now I think everyone's paying attention. So what's going on or what's your kind of view on it?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  Well, I'll preface this with saying this is my opinion and I'm, uh, speaking for myself and my family.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  I'm a little fired up here. I'm gonna be honest.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  What's going on is regular, everyday, decent people are being turned into, uh, excuse me, the enemy.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  We get called racist and misogynist. As a father of two girls, that cuts to the deep, to the core of me. I mean, that, my girls are everything to me. And, uh, the ruthless tactics that the liberal government is taking part in right now?

• 4:44Speaker 02

  I don't get it. And I've stopped trying to understand it because you can't make sense of something that doesn't make sense.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, things are wild, Pomp.

• 4:57Anthony Pompliano?

  So let's do this. Let's, just so people understand what's going on, right? The government is, uh, in the nicest way to interpret, taking a very aggressive stance on a number of issues that, uh, they've been able to, um, get some support on. So whether it's COVID, whether it's economics, et cetera. In the most un-nice interpretation, it's becoming a little authoritarian. It's becoming a little bit of an overreach in terms of the freedom of everyday people. And I think that part of what's brought so much attention to this, specifically in Canada, is this truck convoy where it, at least from the outside, appears at some point, people just got fed up and they said, you know what?

• 5:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Like, we're just gonna go drive to Ottawa and if you want to join us, join us. And it kind of got out of hand in the sense of like, what turned from a couple of trucks to now? I mean, literally, there's this trucks parked all throughout Ottawa and they're not leaving.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  And, and I'm glad that you guys are able to see that from the outside because I haven't had cable for 12 years now and I fired on the news, uh, the other day. And what they're reporting is absolutely not what's going on, at least on, uh, on the stations in our country.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  We've got every type of human being down there protesting, every type, every race. We are, what do we call Canada? We're the melting pot. And people come here just like they come to go to America for freedom, to raise their family in a safe manner, the way they see fit. And that's what is occupying

• 6:42Speaker 02

  the nation's capital right now, and not just the nation's capital. Every single capital across the province has some kind of protest going on. All peaceful, by the way. And yeah, it's just, I find it baffling. I don't know how we got here. I don't know how this health issue ended up turning into this hate speech. I don't know how this all happened, but yeah, no, I have nothing but respect and faith in the Canadians.

• 7:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's what

• 7:22Speaker 02

  even the naysayers. We're, I mean, I just don't, I guess I don't really know what to say here. It's just, it's wild, man.

• 7:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Here's, I'm going to read you a couple of headlines. If you just search Canadian truck convoy on Google, right? I just go to the news tab. The Washington Post, blockade of US Canada border crossing in Alberta amid freedom convoy protest. USA Today, fact check, photo used to promote freedom convoy on social media is from 2019 truck show. BBC, freedom convoy blockade at Alberta border crossing unlawful. CNN, truckers and protesters against COVID-19 mandates block a border crossing. Others tried to take meals away from the homeless in Ottawa, shelter says. Business Insider, Elon Musk, Trump praised Canadian trucker vaccine protest.

• 8:13Anthony Pompliano?

  New York Times, Trudeau condemns freedom convoy, which by the way is a hilarious title. Trucker protests in Ottawa.

• 8:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Fox News, Washington Post, MSNBC, trash Canadian freedom convoy truckers. It's a cult. And then The Independent, Canada convoy, truckers ban media as Trudeau refuses meeting and calls protest an insult to truth. And so here's the part that to me blows my mind. All those people that are writing these articles. I don't see anything in terms of, why are they there? What's the story of the people that are there? You can say whatever you want about this, but to me, the part that blows me away is it feels like it's easier to talk about the protest or to talk about a blockade. But from the interviews that I've seen that usually aren't on the mainstream media, and again, who knows, you know, what goes on before or after these interviews?

• 9:06Anthony Pompliano?

  There's people who are saying some of the things to you, which is like, hey, we just want to live our lives and we don't want to have to constantly look over our shoulder at what our government's going to tell us to do. I mean, is that kind of your take as well?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  And I can answer why, why those headlines are that way. It's because it's easier to diminish people nowadays than it is to try and understand them. We don't take time to understand. Everybody's got a different story. Sorry, man.

• 9:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, let me ask this. Well, I know you, I think, at this point, well enough where I know you really care about this stuff, right? And there's a lot of people who I think, I'll call them kind of bandwagon commentators, right? Where they see something that's hot, they kind of get involved in talking about it, but they don't really do anything. They don't really actually give a shit about it and they move on to the next thing later on. Why does it mean so much? Right? To like the, to the average citizen, the everyday person that makes up the country of Canada?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Because this just, at the core of it, isn't who we are. I don't, I, most of us don't get it. Most of us, unfortunately, just want to ignore it and hope it goes away. And I have friends and family who look at me and go, why do you dig so deep? Why do you, why do you, why do you occupy so much of your time with it? And the bottom line is, it's for my kids. I want to know, I want, I have a responsibility to them to understand what's going on, or at least try. And I'm not going to be perfect. But to ignore it and plead ignorance doesn't fix anything. So that's really why.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  I mean, I think if everybody would just look after their own family and stop worrying about what their neighbor is doing, we'd be in a lot better place. That's what we used to do. There's no compromise anymore. That's the scariest thing about what is going on in our politics is the zero. There is zero case for compromise. We act like this whole thing is zero sum and there's no other effects. You and me and the people who watch this show, we understand what's happening with the economy. We get what all this money printing is doing and we know the repercussions that are coming. And most people don't understand money. They don't get it.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  So.

• 11:32Anthony Pompliano?

  And how much of that feeds into this, right? Because I think a lot of people are saying, okay, got it, right? That the, let's call it the freedom aspect of this is important. But I think part of what's so interesting and remind folks in terms of the business that you run, Max's Insulations, like when you think about that business, let's say five, six years ago to today, and your understanding of economics, of how money works, etc., and how much that has changed as it has for me and many other people as they've learned about Bitcoin and all of this, the difference in impact to your life and to other folks that you've spent time with to kind of understand this, it feels like everyone was in the dark five, six years ago and now that's changing rapidly.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, to bring it back to Bitcoin, I guess. If people, we have in society this jaded and unfortunate view of what money is. A lot of people don't like talking about money. They think it's tacky, it's distasteful. But if people really understood what money is supposed to be, you know, we talk about Elon, he's in the search for the perfect battery to preserve energy that won't lose its power while it's just sitting there, right? Won't diminish. Well, that's what Bitcoin is. So the value you're going out into the world to provide every day isn't diminished.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  And that's what's happening with all this money printing. Your value is being diminished. Which causes everything to inflate, all the prices to go up. And your dollar doesn't go as far. It's like the worst possible situation for you going to work a nine to five. And then trying to save that money to provide for your family. I'm fortunate. I'm self-employed. So I have, I'm in the position where I see inflation coming. I see. I see prices of my materials go up. I can adjust on the fly right now. These restaurants, these stores, these small businesses can't do that.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  And not only that, with these restrictions that seemingly come out of nowhere. I've talked to business owners, restaurant owners in our, in our town. They say the biggest frustration is especially in the summer. They need to know how much beer to order for the UFC fight that's coming up. But they don't even know if they're going to be open because like that, they could order thirty kegs. And nobody show up. And that's just gone. Like it's just, it's unfairness is like that. And I know, like I say. You have to weigh everything differently. We are in a health crisis. We do have to fix this, but this can't be zero sum.

• 14:18Anthony Pompliano?

  How, how has your life changed? Like, what do you do differently now that you've got a better understanding kind of how money works? You know, given that you're a small business owner, right? You spend a lot of time with your family, etc. Like what, what, what have you changed?

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Honestly, it, it just. Somehow it's caused me to value my family even more.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  We, a- a- as we spoke on, on our last podcast, well, my wife and I sold our house at the beginning of COVID. I didn't mention this in the last podcast, but we paid down our debt and everything else went into Bitcoin. And so we've been blessed that way. We're very fortunate, but.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  My understanding of money now, yeah, it's not my enemy. It's my friend and it allows me time to spend with my family. One dollar is one minute with my kids. We've been over this and, and yeah, I mean, it's time. I think people need to stop being scared of everything.

• 15:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  We can't be scared of money. What, what relationship do you have where you hate the opposing subject, person, whatever? And it's a healthy relationship? None, zero. Make friends with money, understand it. Then you might understand some of the incentive structure around what's going on in our political world too. So yeah, that's how I think about it.

• 15:42Anthony Pompliano?

  It, it, it's so true, right? In terms of like money is just a unit of time. And the more units of time you get, uh, the more time you have obviously to spend how you want and vice versa. It's why, you know, people have heard me talking about a million times, but the, uh, uh, the movie In Time has so many lessons in it in terms of literally having time in a bank on your arm. Right? When you run out of time, you run out of time. So makes sense. John, you got any questions?

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, Mackenzie, I'm just curious, where do you see all this going from here? Like what ideas, um, or like, where do you just see it going? The convoy and kind of the mandates and, uh, the trucking and everything?

• 16:17Speaker 02

  I always come from a place of remaining, uh, optimistic and hopeful. The scary part is, uh, we have two conservative parties in our, uh, country that are at ends with each other. We, uh, actually this morning, uh, our main conservative party is taking a vote whether the leader should remain or not. And those are the only two parties that are speaking for us. So what scares me, what really scares me is the voices that we have in our nation's capital. It feels like they're being diminished right now, but here's my hope.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  The people who are on the streets, the people who are peacefully protesting, spreading love and understanding, that would be inspiring if they were the ones to make the change.

• 17:10Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think we can see the last thing I want to ask you and then we'll let you go because I know you've got a bunch of stuff you've got to do today. You made a video and Jordan Peterson shared it and I think I saw it because I saw him share it. I was like, oh my God. Has Mac, like what is going on here? What was your reaction when that happened? And kind of maybe talk a little bit about Jordan, kind of what he's been doing to bring attention and awareness to some of these issues.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  That guy's a machine. I just, I don't understand, like what he's doing for the people who just want decency is unreal. Because he puts himself right in the line of fire every single day and he's relentless. He doesn't stop. So for him to go and retweet that, that was just, that was huge. I've been following that guy for years. And you know, nowadays I'm public enemy number one. I love Jordan Peterson. I love Joe Rogan. I love Bitcoin. I love supporting my family and I believe that I can build a better life for them. And for whatever reason, that's evil nowadays. So I love Jordan Peterson.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  I really, if he ever sees this, I really hope he's doing okay because I don't see anyone asking him, you know, are you doing okay, doctor? Because that guy, it's ruthless what he gets thrown at him.

• 18:26Anthony Pompliano?

  He's a special guy, right? He came to Florida, him and Dave Rubin, I guess, had a, like one of their events. And somebody sent me a photo and it was literally like down the block, around the corner. I was like, oh my God. So they, they got an audience, right? Which something a lot of people forget. All right. Where can we send people to find you on the internet or find business?

• 18:50Speaker 02

  So on Instagram, I'm at Mac, period, the period builder. On Twitter, I am at Mac the Builder, no punctuation. Right now I'm posting a lot of video from on the ground in Ottawa. I don't like doing it. I don't want to be doing it. I don't want to be a political commentator. I just think it's important for people to see what's going on right now and at least have perspective from both sides because. If the protester side doesn't get out, that's when it scares me that people's voices

• 19:32Speaker 02

  aren't being heard, and then that's when things start to descend and get ugly. So I really, you're gonna see a lot of that from me for now. That's not what I'm all about. I'm all about family, friends, and loving each other. So hopefully, I can get back to that sooner rather than later. And Bitcoin. Oh, yeah.

• 19:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, my friend. Listen, thank you so much for coming on today. I know, like I said, you got a bunch of stuff going on, but I think it's important. And, you know, look, it's a thing where you gotta fight the fight every single day. So keep up the good work, and we'll definitely bring you back at some point in the future.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  Thanks, man. And I just wanted to say I haven't had a chance yet. Congratulations on your beautiful family. Makes me feel good, man.

• 20:13Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Sounds good. Thank you, buddy.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Take care.

• 20:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to try to transition to get a new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to pompscryptocourse.com. We've developed a curriculum with the top teams across the industry. It's a three-week intensive training program with over 50 events packed into that three-week time period. Go to pompscryptocourse.com to learn more, and I'll meet you guys for the next episode.