In this episode of The Reformed Financial Advisor podcast, I explore the topic of family wealth from a Catholic perspective. My guest is Dorian Antešić, a finance professional and Croatia's Catholic bitcoiner. We discuss his graduate school thesis on family wealth, Bitcoin, how Tucker Carlson said inheritance is a huge problem, a Benedictine monastery in Croatia, family dynasties, and the noblesse oblige. All in all an interesting conversation that combines legacy, finance, and the pursuit of generational prosperity.
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Andy Flattery is the Owner of Simple Wealth Planning, a Registered Investment Advisor. All opinions expressed by Andy and guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Simple Wealth Planning. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or legal advice. Clients of Simple Wealth Planning may maintain positions in bitcoin and the securities discussed in this podcast.
In this episode of The Reformed Financial Advisor podcast, I explore the topic of family wealth from a Catholic perspective. My guest is Dorian Antešić, a finance professional and Croatia's Catholic bitcoiner. We discuss his graduate school thesis on family wealth, Bitcoin, how Tucker Carlson said inheritance is a huge problem, a Benedictine monastery in Croatia, family dynasties, and the noblesse oblige. All in all an interesting conversation that combines legacy, finance, and the pursuit of generational prosperity.
Episode Links:
Get the essential list of The Reformed Financial Advisor episodes
Follow Andy Flattery on Twitter
Send an email to andy@simplewealthkc.com
Andy Flattery is the Owner of Simple Wealth Planning, a Registered Investment Advisor. All opinions expressed by Andy and guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Simple Wealth Planning. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or legal advice. Clients of Simple Wealth Planning may maintain positions in bitcoin and the securities discussed in this podcast.
Hey everyone I'm starting today. What I hope will be the first of a series on family. Uh, wealth. And the, uh, the way I'm going to start this as. Something a little different and a little bit interesting. It's going to be a Catholic perspective. On family wealth in the Catholic tradition. And to talk about this. I'm bringing on a new friend of mine guy by the name of Dorian Antar Schick and Dorian is a finance professional striving to build family wealth by serving God's little children. He held some Croatia and is a devoted Catholic. I read his, graduate school thesis on family wealth in Bitcoin, and I was quite impressed. And so asked him to come on and do this episode. So I hope you find this interesting. Here's my conversation with Dorian.
Track 1:with Dorian Anek, the, uh, maybe the Croatian Catholic Bitcoin. Is that right? Dorian?
Dorian Antesic:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I'm the, the creation Bitcoin or Catholic and I didn't met anyone Is, uh, outspoken, uh, uh, know. So, but hopefully, hopefully we'll change that. This bull
Track 1:We, we were just chatting before. Hit and record here about how I, uh, I, I would love to make a visit to Croatia with the family someday, but the, uh, you know,
Andy:the topic we wanna talk about is something that you told me that you had a passion for, and, uh, maybe I'll just frame it as family wealth in the Catholic tradition. And, um, maybe just to gimme a little bit of background on you, Dorian, um, you and I have had a couple of conversations, but how did you, how did you get interested in this topic? Like the background to you?
squadcaster-g285_1_12-07-2023_161423:Yeah,
Dorian Antesic:uh but took me and I didn't we that in the US too. Yeah. Yeah Unfortunately Yeah uh you know, one that I was like,'cause I figured out, there is answer. cannot actually, if is or there's not just, calls them, you it's uh or paganism balls? Is that what Yeah Like But And When the he lung And you just four you that almost religion Wonderful. And uh, yeah, I've read, I've read your thesis. Excellent job on that. Uh, Dorian here for, for a young guy, and I'm looking at you right now and I see you wearing, I think, you've got? Yep Yep Benedict. Um, so yeah, thanks, thanks for sharing that, uh, that story. That's, that's terrific. Um, so I want to get into it because I don't think anyone on the internet has done this conversation yet that I, that I'm aware of. Um, I'm sure someone like Charles Colon would be able to wax poetic on it. You and I are learning. We're, we're, we're coming from a place of learning, but I think this is gonna be, this is gonna be fun, but I think maybe the place that I'll start is. You know, at least here in America, and maybe you can tell me what it's like in, in Europe. Um, this is a unpopular, uh, conversation to talk about. It's, um, you know, in some ways the idea of family dynasties or, um, family fortunes may, could be viewed as like on American or maybe undemocratic or something like that. On, certainly on un egalitarian, which is not a virtue that I, um, subscribe to. But, um. I was listening to even like the All-in podcast last week. They had Tucker Carlson on their show. And, um, you know, Tucker Carlson is someone that I, I more or less would probably align myself with on a lot of things was talking about how, um, family fortunes are a huge problem. And if, if I have some time, I'll, I'll pull the clip and I, and I'll put it on there.
Tucker:But when you find people who inherited a lot of money, we never talk about that. It's a huge problem in this country. I'm not, I'm not arguing for the death tax at all. But I'm just saying, as an observation, there are an awful, there's a huge class of people with massive inherited wealth, and they're almost all horrible. Not all of them. I mean, I know, you know, very well, I know some of them, and they're fine. They're, some of them are great. But as a class, they're awful. And they don't help at all. And they're also super annoying and dumb. And I think it's the wealth No, it's just true and everyone knows it's true..
Dorian Antesic:And so I bring that up, not to just pick on Tucker, but it's not only Tucker, it's um, uh, you know, it's the political left as well. It's maybe just pop populace in general that have this, um, you know, the Bernie Sanders of the world that have this, aversion to billion billionaires for sure. Um, so what do you think, like, why, why is this, um, why do you think this is an, an idea worth pursuing despite the fact that's extremely popular and someone like Tucker Carlson on Or you know the which They It's and or like which families topics right In different different ways I I I'm really glad you said that because obviously Tucker has a point. Um, the, the sort of elites in our society today are not good elites in, in the way that we might have thought of good elites, like in some of the periods of time that I'm gonna talk about. Um, you know, where the elites in our society would. Have this desire to be like, um, father figures or to have certain virtues that they would show for others. Now our elites are very, you know, despicable in a lot of ways. I I, but I think about like, a lot of my models are kind of regular families that indeed are wealthy, but, you know, not in the sort of billionaire elite sense. Um, the, uh, you know, I'm, I'm from a middle class family myself, and I'm proud, I'm proud of the family I'm from. But like, we have a family farm in northwest Iowa that's been in the family for a hundred years. Um, my, my family's been farming in that area for 150 years, and so that's something that as a family we have certain pride in and it's kept the family together. Um, it's, uh, you know, offered Our, our family, this con like continuity throughout the generations. There's a, a story of, um, my brother's father-in-Law, a guy named Ken Motz, who I really admire. May he rest in peace. He died earlier this year and, um, Ken Motz, um, moved his family to St. Mary's, Kansas. I think he had a dozen kids now, like 50 or 60 plus grandkids. And what he did in this little town was he started a bunch of businesses because he knew that that was the way to be able to gain employment in a town that doesn't have a lot of employers So he was starting these businesses for the purpose of raising his kids. And, uh, and I think Ken, Ken died a wealthy man, but he certainly was not, you know, a billionaire. And so, um, and he was a very good man. So I think these are people that I sort of admire and aspire to be like, that aren't necessarily, um, the elites that we have in our society today. I think maybe, did you say you have something like that in your family with regards to real and uh teaching offsprings the family wealth Yeah, historically, I think, um, passing on lands has been one of the ways that this has been done probably best. Uh, but certainly I see, you know, family business as being a way to do this throughout the generations now. And what I'm curious about, and I think you are too, is, you know, how do you do that with Bitcoin? Um, could that be a way to even improve upon this model? Um, that's maybe not the point of this episode, but maybe I'll cover, try to cover that on a future episode. But I think, of, um, to, to go a little bit deeper into where you and I are thinking about this in terms of like, um, you know, our, our sort of Catholic heritage you had shared with me sort of a simple point that makes perfect sense in terms of like the biblical background, um, of how this sort of idea actually is pretty biblical. and uh uh so And uh beautiful for me I love it. Yeah. When I, um, interviewed Mother Cecilia at the, uh, be, uh, Benedictines of Mary, queen of the Apostles Abby last year, one of the things that she, um, little bits of wisdom that she shared was, what they're doing is they are receiving from their heritage, um, and they're part of this heritage, and then they're passing it on to the future. And it sounds like sort of a trite thing, but it, it is, it's kind of countercultural Now we think of ourselves as like living on an island. You know, like I'm, you know, I'm a human being. I'm a solo person. I have no sort of, um, connection to anything in the past. And there will not, there's nothing that comes after me. And that's just, that's not historical and it's certainly not part of the Christian story. We, you know, we're part of the Christian story. Um. There's a, a good quote that I found by St. Charles bor Mayo, and he said, uh, he mentioned the beginning of the Holy Gospel of, of Matthew. So if you read the gospels, you know they have these genealogies in the gospels, you always wonder like, what, what are the point of these things? And St. Uh, St. Charles Bour says, it inspires us above all to examine attentively the nobility, the remarkable line lineage, and the magnificence of the most Holy virgin. Uh, he's talking about the Virgin Mary for if that person is to be considered noble, who traces his origins from illustrious, illustrious ancestors. How great is the nobility of Mary whose affiliation traces from kings, patriarchs, prophets, and priests of the tribe of Judah, to the seed of Abraham and to the royal stir of David? Moreover, although we are not ignorant of the fact that the true nobility, the Christian nobility, is that which the only begotten of the father conferred on all of us, and that this dignity of nobility is common to all faith faithful Christians, and this is the operative point, he says, nevertheless, we believe that nobility, according to the flesh, ought not in any way to be despised or rejected. So this nobility, according to the flesh, it's a bit of an earthly, uh, phenomenon. It's Um, but we, we, we shouldn't reject it. It's, it's a sort of human, a human thing. And so I think, um, I think in that regard, it's biblical. Um, yeah, there's a proverb. You mentioned the psalms. The, there's a proverb, a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous. Yeah man we Already uh the for uh And the uh That centuries 1500 right Yeah 15th centuries So Yeah, I mean that, that's, that's the model of how to think forward a thousand years. um, and I. know, we're all kind of starving for this sort of heritage, you know, like, ha having a heritage. Like, I think there's like, uh, you know, when you become a boomer, you become really interested in like the ancestry.com stuff where you try to learn more about where you, where you come from.'cause nobody really knows, at least not here. Most people in the, in the in America don't really know, um, much past a few generations where, where they really come from. Maybe that's different in Europe actually. Um, but you're just like, you're just, um, grasping at, at scraps of, oh, maybe I was somewhere down the line related to Obama or something like that.'cause Obama's from Ireland, Are you but, uh, but we want, we want to have, we wanna know who, who we are and where we come from, and we want to know what, what story that we're part of. And the, the Benedictines are a, a great model for that. And, um. One of the interesting pieces about sort of, um, you know, the height of Christendom is that we do have these models of these, um, sort of noble families who, um, produced saints. So they produced, you know, great men and women and, you know, many of these saints were ones that, um, you know, like St. Benedict's lived an aesthetic life and, you know, they sort of left the world in order to attain their, um, their, uh, you know, godly reward. But not all of them. I mean, there were, there were saints sort of in all walks of life. Um, there were noble Saints, St. Louis, um, I think there's one called St. Ferdinand who is a, um, a monarch. Um, St. Welo I believe was the patriot saint of Bohemia. And um, and these were now he reached the Saint Hood yeah, yeah. That's a good, a, a modern example. So, uh, it is the case that, um, you know, unlike what maybe Tucker Carlson said, you know, these, these were men from that had a name, they came from a family, maybe they had certain means, and they were still able to, um, be an example of, of true kind of Christian nobility. The, the, no, the noble o oblige. Um, just, uh, we're recording this on November 7th. We celebrated the Feast of St. Nicholas yesterday. And, um, I dunno if you've heard this, but there's a legend Nicholas, pardon me. December December, did I say November? Thank you. Uh, it's early in the morning. There's a legend that St. Uh, Nicholas was a benefactor of Um, three sisters who, um, in order to not have to sell themselves into, into, uh, prostitution, he paid for their dowry so they were able to get married. And the legend is that his wealth came from inheritance. So his, I think his parents died and left him with, uh, gold coins or something like that. And that, that's what the legend says. And so, um, we, we have that. So it's not only biblical, but we have these, um, pieces of sort of family wealth, um, in our, in our sort well too. Yeah in the right Yeah. He's probably the most popular saint, right? So most of, I mean most of these, these saints were from a family. they didn't achieve their sort of, um, sanctity on their own. Like they came from a place, um, many times they came generations of, you know, of a family that had a, that had a certain, um, um, you know, had had certain bonafide days. And, um, and I think that, that, there's something to be said for that. These are families that for generations had been working to sort of elevate themselves. Oh yeah They they not on they Uh it's with uh He when direction of Yeah Well, well, well said. It's, uh, it's, you know, certainly it's a burden to, um, to have a family name. You know, it's, you have certain expectations that maybe you're beholden to live up to and many people can't live up to that. It's certainly a burden to have wealth. Um, and it's like the Spider-Man thing. It's like, with, with great power comes great responsibility. You know, certainly there's, there's plenty of folks that shirk those responsibilities or they don't even know what, what is required of them, you know, it's like they, they don't even know that there is this thing like the noble obl where you're required to be. Um, well, I guess this is, I'm, I'm now going Batman, right? Um, uh, try to be Bruce Wayne and Bruce Wayne, who was like, uh, kind of the Sort of philanthropist that Tucker Carlson would probably, um, be okay with. But he also was Batman, right? Like he's trying, he's trying to save Gotham. That's the sort of nobility that, um, that I think we can at least sort of relate to or, or, Um. right And fate if came slowly and So educate again collapses rebuild everything again Yeah. And, and when that happened, when society, um, was built back, or at least Chris, uh, we're talking about kind of Christian Europe, Christian C. Christian Europe was built back, um, you know, what you ended up have happening was the. Um, you know, the, the families that formed, you know, often around these monasteries, uh, would become their own little society. And through, throughout the, the generations, um, these families would grow and they would, uh, sort of grow their lands. And literally the father of the family, the patriarch, um, was the father of, the particular dynasty. And that's kind of where the, the term father land comes from. It was literally the, uh, um, the land of the father. And, um, one of the kind of peculiarities you might say around about this, um, sort of structure was, um. I know this wa uh, I know it wasn't perfect or, um, maybe even exclusive, but it was this idea of primogenitor, which, which you kind of associate a lot of time with this period of time. And this is something that I've dove into a little bit. Um, Dorian, I don't know how much you've gone into, but, um, but uh, I think it's sort of interesting'cause it does kind of lay out some of the ways that this structure or this these sort of family dynasties were able to work or able to continue was through this sort of primogenitor, um, idea. you did so Okay, cool. me Yeah. Yeah. Uh, primogenitor, it's obviously, it's probably a term most people aren't familiar with. It's, it's the, it's the idea that there was, um. Uh, one person in the family that's in charge of being the head of the family. So, um, you know, usually it's the oldest son, not always will be sort of the next head of the family after the current head dies. And so oftentimes you think about it as like, oh, that person gets the kingdom, or that person gets the estate, or that person gets the stuff. Although that's not exactly what's what's happening. That's kind of how people often think about it. Um, but, but the idea with, with, um, Prema gender, at least if I have to try to make a case for why this made sense or maybe even still makes sense, it's the idea that like, by distributing inheritance equally, um, what you do is you cr you could create some incentives to just sell off your non-monetary wealth. And so if you think about, I mean, we see this all the time in families today. I, I see it with families I work with. If there's a family home and, and. The parents die. The thing that happens most often is the kids wanna sell the house and they wanna split the cash. And what that does is it creates this, um. Um, it sort of disincentivize, disincentivize the families to sort of just split up. Okay. Um, but what you do by, by sort of giving the home to maybe the eldest son, you keep someone in charge of keeping the family together and managing the family wealth. And so the family wealth, it's not so much considered the property of the oldest son, it's more considered like an entity in and of itself. Okay. So this is something that belongs to the family as an entity. It's, it's going to continue, um, beyond the eldest son into and into, down into the generations. And probably even added to is the idea there. And so like if it, in the way it's done today, inheritance is done today. Like if everyone gets their own inheritance, which is, you know, the, the, the default option now there, there tends to be less solidarity among the recipients. So I. You know, it's like I get mine, you get yours, see you later. That the family doesn't talk to each other as much. Maybe they meet up less frequently, frequently they move across the country or to, to various countries, and the family sort of splits up. the, yeah, you get, you get yours, right? Um, and you see this all the time. Um, it's very, very sad. And so what you do is by essentially creating a steward over that family wealth, you know, uh, like the, in, in the case of like the oldest son, uh, you open up the ability for essentially a family welfare system for, for lack of a better word. So, you know, in the way that like a socialist might want to have like a state. You know, a state nanny, state today to, um, you know, give us a UBI or something like that. There, there is a sort, a version of that in families. You could have a bit of that in families where there, the safety net is not, is not taken care of by the state, but it happens inside of the family. And so, you know, instead of having like this sort of egalitarianism where everyone's involved in the family in the exact same way, they're all involved in the same positions, you might have various roles in the family. So you might have, like the oldest son, he's the steward. He's in charge of, you know, obviously being the, the, the person, the head of the family, uh, you might have, um, maybe the, one of the sisters never marries, so she be, she goes into, becomes a Benedictine nun. Um, you might have a, you know, you or you might have a monk or a priest or something like that. Oftentimes like the youngest son. Um, doesn't have anything to do. So he becomes like the adventurer, that's like the, uh, like the, there's this, this adventure tradition in like, uh, European history, like the DSS of the world of Three Musketeers or, you know, the, the youngest son maybe would travel to the new world and try to set up a life for himself and like New Spain or something like that. That, that was something that happened. And so you have various roles in the family. If, if someone in the family is, um, needs to be protected from the world, like it's a, you know, a drug addict or something like that, they have a place to go. They can go live in the family house or something like that and get themselves back on their feet. And so, um, that's sort of the idea as to what the, the, the purpose of the family home is for, um, is you have a pla you have a fallback system, you have a bit of a welfare, um. A, a welfare system for the family. And so, so this idea of primogenitor gets misunderstood. Certainly there's like extreme examples of how this has gone wrong throughout history. So I'm not trying to like glamorize it, but, um, but it's not the case that the, it's the first son gets everything and then everyone, and nobody else gets nothing. It's really, the family is something that everyone is a part of, and the son has important obligations as the steward to the rest of the family. Hi. His role is a burden. So he's, you know, he's responsible for finding, you know, good marriages for his sisters, finding gainful employment for his brothers, um, things of that nature. And I think that's the kind of the way that I would try to, um, So not you Um my uh how moved so and uh for You And It's But business from and I Yeah Yeah. You know, to me, like I'm coming from a place of admiration and, um, and learning here. I don't know exactly know how to implement this in my own life. I mean, that's, I guess that's what we're gonna work out here, hopefully on this podcast. Um, or a future podcast I should say. But I will say, um, I admire the ethos of Of the Bitcoiners who have take pride in never selling their Bitcoin And there's a sense that like, oh, I'm just gonna keep adding to, to my holdings or adding to my Bitcoin. That that's the kind of Michael Saylor, I think, mentality. He's, he's And, um, and that there was a certain ethos of that in like this, um, heritage in Christendom where the expectation was not only that you were not going to receive your own lands split and split apart the kingdom, although that did happen sometimes. But you would actually add to the lands as well too. And like a, a sig a sign of the success of your family was that you were adding to your lands. And so, you know, maybe there should be this ethos in, in bitcoin that, you know, over the generations, not only do you not sell your stack, but the expectation is that you would actually add to your bit the, the family's Bitcoin holdings as is certainly work So as you point out, one of the, maybe the most important piece of family wealth is not necessarily it's monetarily wealth, although that's important too. But, um, you know, you have like, uh, your, your family capital, so like the human capital. And also, um, I think I kind of wanna just talk about like family traditions. So like what is actually being passed down to the, um, from uh, from generation to generation in the families. And, um, there's this commentator that I had read His name is Mon Monsignor Delais, I think he was a French, um, uh, 19th century counter-revolutionary. And he said that while the body of a family is its home and lands that it transmits intact from generation to generation, its soul is constituted by its traditions. And so he said the tradition is the legacy of the ideas of the ancestors and their sentiments as well as their organic practices and customs. And so I think this is important too. Um, you know, part of what we're talking about here is not just, you know, um, having some land to pass on, but actually to have some, some, a real tradition and real story with your family as well too. And, um, you know, Dorin, you've shared some of this with me today from your own family. I love that. That's, um, but it, yeah. And family And you beautiful um right the for the Santa on So world We, uh, the example of that in our family, or at least what I see, um, with my people, if you will, like, we would align ourselves with like the, uh, sort of Irish Catholic tradition and, um, a lot of the people in that tradition, what I've noticed is the, um, the way that they sort of, um, display that is by. Getting drunk on St. Patrick's Day drinking Guinness, um, going to the Irish Festival, which by the way, I lo, I lo, Kansas City has got a terrific Irish festival. Like, so I enjoy these things too. But it does ring a little hollow if like, that is the extent of your kind of family heritage is. Like, it's the fact that you wear green on St. Patrick's Day or something like that. Um, and so I think one of the things that my family has, has done to our credit is we have kept the faith that's been passed down, um, for, for centuries in, um, uh, in my family. If you travel to county, awfully in Ireland where my family's from, like there's flattery, um, buried in the Catholic cemetery from the 17 hundreds. And um, at this parish, I think his name is like St. Rinds maybe, which is like a saint that only is a local Catholic saint. It's not even recognized by Rome. It's like, was like a, like a local tradition. This is very cool. But I think that to, to our, to my family's credit, we've kept that over the centuries, whereas like a lot of I Irish Catholics, it's more about like, you know, drinking Green Bud Light or something like that on, on St. Patrick's Day. And so, um, I think, um, that's something that I think we're quite proud of. Um, you know, much more so than like the, uh, you know, the, the, the family lands or something that, that's been passed down, which is, you know, not a big deal, but, um, but I think that uh going to the church big everyone with that a lot you know Yeah. How far do you live, with my family That's is interesting. I, I wasn't planning on asking you this, but something that I think about is like, um, you know, especially like in digital nomad life or increasingly like my business is virtual and I could work anywhere with anyone, um, you could live anywhere and yet you decided to move back home. and, uh, you've lived around the world and kinda digital yourself, right?'cause I freelancing uh I think and uh murderers I and stop like just father with currently you of uh building family wealth you know Yeah Yeah Well thanks sharing that. And, uh, yeah, dear dare I say, um, again, it's, uh, maybe like Bruce, you know, Bruce Wayne came back to Gotham, right. for a way for college or whatever it was he was doing. Um, this is great. Well, Dorian, this has been terrific. Um, hopefully this is the, uh, first of other conversations that you and I are gonna have, but, um, yeah, you, you've got a lot going on right now. You, you have a lot of different projects in the works. Where's the best place to send that's the main stuff I'll put the link, um, in the notes and,,