📄 Extracted Text (15,795 words)
[00:00:04] Peter Shiff, thank you for for doing
[00:00:06] this. So, when did you personally first
[00:00:08] start buying gold, physical gold? Well,
[00:00:10] you know, ironically, the first time I
[00:00:13] bought gold was when I got bar mitzvah.
[00:00:15] That's how this was when I was 13 years
[00:00:17] old.
[00:00:17] >> Wow.
[00:00:18] >> And you know, so this is in the 70s when
[00:00:21] the, you know, the original gold bull
[00:00:23] market, right? And so I got my bar
[00:00:25] mitzvah money and because of my father
[00:00:28] um I you know I bought gold and I ended
[00:00:30] up selling it coincidentally near the
[00:00:33] highs in 1980 because that's cuz gold
[00:00:36] went from $35 an ounce in 1970 to 850
[00:00:41] 1980. So in the middle of that run, I
[00:00:44] took my bar mitzvah money cuz I probably
[00:00:46] got bar mitzvah in 197576
[00:00:49] and I got took my bar mitzvah money and
[00:00:52] I bought gold and then I sold it to buy
[00:00:54] my first car which I was a senior in
[00:00:57] high school. What kind?
[00:00:58] >> It was an MGB convertible.
[00:01:00] >> Nice.
[00:01:01] >> Yeah. So uh although it it broke down
[00:01:03] all the time and and and I didn't I
[00:01:05] bought it. It was a stick shift. I
[00:01:07] didn't even know how to drive a stick,
[00:01:08] but I wanted that car. So, I had to
[00:01:10] figure it out as I was going along. So,
[00:01:13] I happened to get out of gold, you know,
[00:01:15] near the highs because then gold went
[00:01:17] into a 20-year bare market, right? From
[00:01:21] 1980 when gold hit 800.
[00:01:24] It was, you know, bottomed out at 250
[00:01:29] in 2000, 1999, 2000.
[00:01:33] But that's about when I started
[00:01:36] recommending it. So I I got into the
[00:01:38] brokerage business in the 1990s and I
[00:01:41] was a stock broker. Um and but I you
[00:01:44] know I also wanted my clients to own
[00:01:47] gold. I didn't I wasn't in the gold
[00:01:49] business at the time but I believed that
[00:01:51] everybody should have you know some of
[00:01:53] their portfolio in gold. And so that's
[00:01:56] when I started recommending it. And so
[00:01:59] it's outperformed by a pretty big
[00:02:01] margin. uh you know the S&P 500, Dow
[00:02:05] Jones, you know, going back to the
[00:02:08] beginning of this century, right? 2000
[00:02:11] 2001, if you were to price the Dow in
[00:02:15] terms of gold, it's down about 70%.
[00:02:19] >> And and it's against gold.
[00:02:20] >> Yeah. I mean, so there's an illusion
[00:02:22] that oh, you know, we have all this
[00:02:24] prosperity because in the year 2000, the
[00:02:27] Dow was about 10,000 and now it's almost
[00:02:30] 50,000, right? So that's a big gain when
[00:02:33] you price it in dollars that have lost a
[00:02:36] lot of their purchasing power. But when
[00:02:38] you price it in gold and realize that,
[00:02:40] hey, gold was 300 back then and now it's
[00:02:42] 4,300. Right? The gold it you it took I
[00:02:47] think 45
[00:02:49] um ounces of gold to buy the Dow. And I
[00:02:53] forget what it is now, maybe 16 or 13.
[00:02:55] You know, it's you can buy a lot more of
[00:02:57] the Dow now than you could back then. So
[00:03:00] what that shows you is that the gain in
[00:03:04] the stock market is inflation. It's not
[00:03:08] real value that's been created in in the
[00:03:11] market. We've just destroyed the value
[00:03:13] of the currency that we use to price
[00:03:15] things in. Right?
[00:03:16] >> And so you need more dollars to buy
[00:03:20] stocks, but you don't need more gold.
[00:03:22] You can buy stocks with a lot less gold
[00:03:24] because gold is real money. Government
[00:03:26] can't just create gold. They can't
[00:03:28] create inflation and and create gold out
[00:03:31] of thin air like they do uh Federal
[00:03:33] Reserve notes, paper dollars. You know,
[00:03:35] originally the dollar in 1792
[00:03:39] uh was defined as a weight of gold. I
[00:03:40] mean, that's really what the dollar was.
[00:03:42] It was a specific quantity of gold or
[00:03:45] silver. And you know, for a long time,
[00:03:47] you know, till 1913 when we got the
[00:03:49] Federal Reserve, we were pretty much
[00:03:50] just using gold and silver as money. And
[00:03:53] even when the Federal Reserve was
[00:03:54] created, all the Federal Reserve notes
[00:03:56] were redeemable and lawful money and
[00:03:58] gold and and gold was money up until
[00:04:02] 1971. And even though Americans couldn't
[00:04:07] uh, you know, redeem their Federal
[00:04:09] Reserve notes, which we call dollars,
[00:04:10] they couldn't redeem them for gold.
[00:04:13] Foreign foreign governments could. And
[00:04:15] foreign governments held a lot of gold
[00:04:17] as dollars as a reserve. But they did
[00:04:19] that because they knew that those
[00:04:21] dollars were not only backed by gold but
[00:04:24] convertible on demand into gold. And so,
[00:04:26] you know, we were on a gold standard
[00:04:28] even through the dollar up until 1971.
[00:04:30] But once, you know, once we defaulted
[00:04:32] and the US government, you know, reiged
[00:04:34] on its commitments to pay to pay gold
[00:04:36] for its notes, that's when the real
[00:04:38] inflation started. That's when we really
[00:04:40] started printing a lot of money. And
[00:04:41] that's why you had the big price
[00:04:43] increases of the 1970s.
[00:04:46] uh you know, it it and it wasn't, you
[00:04:48] know, the Arabs that were just, you
[00:04:52] know, uh jacking up their oil prices
[00:04:54] because oil went from $3 a barrel to $40
[00:04:57] a barrel. But it wasn't that oil was
[00:04:59] getting more expensive. It's just that
[00:05:00] we used to pay for our oil with gold and
[00:05:03] we started paying for it with paper. But
[00:05:05] all that money, we printed it, you know,
[00:05:07] in the 60s, you know, for the war on
[00:05:09] poverty, the Great Society, the Vietnam
[00:05:11] War. We ran these big deficits which you
[00:05:14] know were small by today's standards but
[00:05:16] they were big back then and they were
[00:05:19] financed with inflation and we saw the
[00:05:21] consequences in the 1970s and we may
[00:05:25] have had a real dollar crisis because
[00:05:29] the dollar lost about twothirds of its
[00:05:31] value during that decade against other
[00:05:33] currencies like the Swiss Frank, the
[00:05:35] euro, the Japanese yen. But when Reagan
[00:05:38] came in and you know we had Vulkar in
[00:05:39] 1980 and interest rates went up to 20%.
[00:05:43] And we really had some substantial uh
[00:05:46] reforms in our tax system and we created
[00:05:48] a lot more confidence in our economy. We
[00:05:51] kind of stopped the dollars decline at
[00:05:54] that point. Um, but now I think we're on
[00:05:58] the verge of a much bigger crisis cuz I
[00:06:02] think that this time around it's not
[00:06:05] going to be uh the US going off the gold
[00:06:08] standard. It's going to be the world
[00:06:10] going off the dollar standard. And you
[00:06:13] really have to understand the degree to
[00:06:15] which the US has used the dollar and its
[00:06:19] reserve status as as a crutch. And our
[00:06:23] entire way of life as Americans has been
[00:06:25] supported by the by the idea that we
[00:06:28] could just create dollars out of thin
[00:06:30] air and then use those dollars to buy
[00:06:33] what the rest of the world produces.
[00:06:35] Right? We have these huge trade deficits
[00:06:37] now um you know in fact you know Donald
[00:06:40] Trump used to talk about the trade
[00:06:41] deficits a lot um as being the problem.
[00:06:45] They're a consequence of the problem.
[00:06:47] They're not the problem per se. But what
[00:06:50] enables these huge trade deficits, we
[00:06:52] have over a trillion dollar a year trade
[00:06:54] deficit, is the world is willing to
[00:06:56] accept the money that we print for the
[00:06:58] goods that they produce.
[00:07:01] And you know when you produce goods, you
[00:07:04] need a lot of resources. You need land,
[00:07:06] labor, capital, you need factories, you
[00:07:07] need supply chains, you need raw
[00:07:09] materials, you need workers, energy,
[00:07:11] >> right? And we, you know, you don't need
[00:07:13] anything just to create money out of
[00:07:14] thin air, right? The Fed just, you know,
[00:07:16] adds zeros right on a on a computer. And
[00:07:19] so we're able to create dollars that the
[00:07:21] world wants and we get all their stuff.
[00:07:24] We didn't have to produce it. Then the
[00:07:27] world takes the dollars that they earn
[00:07:29] from us and they buy stocks, they buy
[00:07:32] real estate, they buy our bonds. And so
[00:07:35] as a result, our asset prices have gone
[00:07:37] up and goods prices have stayed down.
[00:07:40] And interest rates have been relatively
[00:07:42] low because we're able to borrow what
[00:07:44] the rest of the world saves. even though
[00:07:46] we don't save very much ourselves and we
[00:07:48] don't produce very much uh you know we
[00:07:49] get the benefit of of of all these goods
[00:07:52] uh that are coming in and we get all the
[00:07:54] foreign savings that are financing our
[00:07:56] our spending and I think all of that is
[00:07:59] about to change. I think that you know
[00:08:02] when Donald Trump talked about
[00:08:03] liberation day ironically it was the
[00:08:07] rest of the world that is going to be
[00:08:09] liberated from the burden of having to
[00:08:11] support the US economy. When Trump says
[00:08:14] that the world has been screwing us over
[00:08:16] and ripping us off, he's got it
[00:08:18] backwards. We've been screwing them over
[00:08:20] because we we've been getting their
[00:08:21] stuff and all we do is export our
[00:08:23] inflation. They get our paper. We get
[00:08:25] things that make our lives better and
[00:08:27] and and they get our IUs and then, you
[00:08:30] know, they use our IUs to buy up our
[00:08:31] financial assets. Uh but I think this is
[00:08:34] all changing and I think what we're
[00:08:37] seeing now in the price of gold where
[00:08:39] it's finally broken out of its uh
[00:08:41] consolidation because after gold went
[00:08:44] from 300 250300 to 1900 right that was a
[00:08:48] 10-year move uh it went sideways from 19
[00:08:52] from 2011 to 2024 and it really broke
[00:08:56] out at the beginning of last year and uh
[00:08:59] it's more than doubled since then.
[00:09:00] Silver has finally broken out. Silver
[00:09:02] had a double top at around 50 from 1980
[00:09:06] to 2011 and it just broke out this year.
[00:09:09] Gold, you know, broke out last year. Uh
[00:09:11] but now you're seeing this movement out
[00:09:13] of dollars. Foreign central banks have
[00:09:16] been huge buyers of gold because they've
[00:09:19] been moving away from the dollar.
[00:09:22] They've been devesting themselves of
[00:09:23] dollars and buying gold instead. Well,
[00:09:26] 2026 is likely to be the year that some
[00:09:28] companies will find patriotism. and
[00:09:30] they'll discover it. During the Biden
[00:09:32] years, corporate America thought hating
[00:09:33] our country was the thing to do. So,
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[00:09:37] They are coming back to reality. It's
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[00:10:45] we know about who's buying at which
[00:10:46] central banks? Well, the major central
[00:10:48] banks other than, you know, the the the
[00:10:50] west, you know, you talk about in in
[00:10:52] Russia and India and uh China and even
[00:10:56] smaller ones, you know, Poland or
[00:10:58] various countries, uh are are buying are
[00:11:01] buying gold and they're buying gold
[00:11:03] because they want to get out of dollars.
[00:11:05] And in fact, you know, one of the things
[00:11:07] that that happened to really cause um
[00:11:12] this to happen in a bigger way was when
[00:11:14] when when Biden was president and he
[00:11:16] sanctioned Russia and in sanctioning
[00:11:19] them, they basically took away a lot of
[00:11:21] their dollar reserves that they had
[00:11:23] entrusted in dollars and we basically
[00:11:25] pulled the rug out from under them. We
[00:11:27] sent a message to the rest of the world
[00:11:29] that you could be next. Yeah. That you
[00:11:31] know, if you hold your reserves in
[00:11:33] dollars, you're vulnerable.
[00:11:35] unreliable store of value.
[00:11:36] >> Yeah. I mean, it wasn't even a store of
[00:11:38] value, but but as a reserve asset and
[00:11:41] and so that was a political impetus, but
[00:11:44] the real reason for getting out of the
[00:11:45] dollar is that we're going to destroy
[00:11:47] its value. We have these runaway uh
[00:11:51] deficit spending. Uh that is the source
[00:11:53] of all the inflation that we have. It's
[00:11:55] the Fed monetizing the debt that the
[00:11:58] government is creating. A lot of people
[00:12:00] don't know what inflation is. They just
[00:12:01] think it's prices going up because
[00:12:03] that's what the governments tell them or
[00:12:04] some economists tell them. But prices
[00:12:06] going up are a consequence of inflation.
[00:12:08] They're not inflation. Inflation is an
[00:12:11] expansion of the supply of money and
[00:12:14] credit. And when you expand money, you
[00:12:17] expand credit, right, that bids up
[00:12:20] prices. And so as a result of inflation,
[00:12:22] prices go up, right? The the root of the
[00:12:25] word inflate means to expand, right?
[00:12:28] Prices don't expand. They go up, they go
[00:12:30] down. And if you get an old dictionary,
[00:12:32] get an old Webster's dictionary, even as
[00:12:34] even as late as the 80s, and you look up
[00:12:36] inflation, that's exactly what it says,
[00:12:38] an expansion of the money supply. Right.
[00:12:41] Uh but the government kind of redefined
[00:12:44] inflation because if you define it
[00:12:46] properly, well, it's pretty obvious who
[00:12:47] causes it.
[00:12:48] >> Right.
[00:12:49] >> Right. So, [laughter] good point. Anyone
[00:12:51] increasing the money supply,
[00:12:52] >> right? But if you change the definition
[00:12:54] to rising prices, now the public blames
[00:12:57] whoever it is that's raising the prices,
[00:12:59] right? that that's where it's coming
[00:13:01] from. And so the government is able to
[00:13:02] blame the private sector, whether it's
[00:13:05] corporations or workers, uh, uh, for
[00:13:10] prices going up when they're simply
[00:13:12] raising prices in response to inflation.
[00:13:15] And of course, sometimes inflation just
[00:13:18] doesn't just cause prices to go up, it
[00:13:20] prevents them from going down. See, in a
[00:13:23] free market economy, in a capitalist
[00:13:25] economy, the natural tendency for prices
[00:13:28] is to go down. Right? If you look at the
[00:13:30] CPI in 1900
[00:13:32] >> because of efficiencies.
[00:13:33] >> Yes. If you look at the CPI in 1900 and
[00:13:36] you look at it in 1800, it was down by
[00:13:39] 50%. So for a 100red years in America,
[00:13:42] prices went down. And during that time,
[00:13:44] we had the industrial revolution.
[00:13:46] >> We had the we had the most rapid period
[00:13:48] of economic growth in the history of
[00:13:50] America, which was after the Civil War
[00:13:52] and into the early 1900s. All the time
[00:13:55] prices were coming down. Today, the
[00:13:57] Federal Reserve says that we need to
[00:13:58] have 2% inflation, right? Prices have to
[00:14:00] go up 2% a year. Why? I mean, why does
[00:14:03] the cost of living have to go up? Why
[00:14:05] can't it go down or at least remain the
[00:14:07] same?
[00:14:08] >> And and what is the answer to that?
[00:14:09] What's their rationale for that?
[00:14:11] >> Well, they have a bunch of BS
[00:14:13] explanations and it's all to justify the
[00:14:15] fact that the government wants
[00:14:16] inflation. It's not that it's good for
[00:14:18] us. The government needs it. It's, you
[00:14:20] know, it's the way the government, you
[00:14:21] know, raises revenue and and and
[00:14:23] repudiates its debts. But they have a
[00:14:26] couple of things that they say. One of
[00:14:27] the things they say is, "Well, if prices
[00:14:30] are were going down, nobody would buy
[00:14:32] anything, right? People would just be
[00:14:34] constantly waiting for lower prices and
[00:14:36] so nobody would buy." And that's the
[00:14:38] number one reason they say that prices
[00:14:40] have to go up. And that's all
[00:14:41] >> no one would buy if prices were going
[00:14:43] down.
[00:14:43] >> Yeah. That's how ridiculous it is
[00:14:45] because everyone would be waiting for
[00:14:46] the bottom to buy a new dishwasher.
[00:14:47] >> Supposedly. Supposedly. But of course,
[00:14:50] we all have cell phones. If that were
[00:14:52] the case, nobody would ever buy a cell
[00:14:54] phone or a television set or a computer,
[00:14:56] right? Prices go down. But also, like,
[00:14:59] if I'm hungry, am I going to wait a year
[00:15:01] to eat because I think the food is going
[00:15:03] to be 2% cheaper.
[00:15:04] >> If you don't have a dryer, are you going
[00:15:06] to wait a year? No. Right.
[00:15:08] >> You buy things. They forget that there
[00:15:10] is a value to having something today
[00:15:13] versus having to wait.
[00:15:14] >> Right.
[00:15:14] >> The the only reason
[00:15:15] >> Amazon is based on that idea.
[00:15:17] >> Yes. The only reason that you don't buy
[00:15:19] something now because you want a lower
[00:15:21] price is because you can't afford it.
[00:15:23] And so you're hoping that the price will
[00:15:25] go down and then you'll be able to buy
[00:15:27] it, which is what the free market does.
[00:15:29] So it's nonsense to say that, you know,
[00:15:32] we're not going to buy, you know, I
[00:15:34] mean, would it be a disaster if food got
[00:15:37] cheaper, if healthc care got cheaper, if
[00:15:40] energy got cheaper, if clothing got
[00:15:42] cheaper, if everything you needed was
[00:15:44] less expensive? Why does the Fed have to
[00:15:47] prevent that from happening? Why is that
[00:15:48] such a horrible thing?
[00:15:50] >> Are you I'm not I'm not questioning your
[00:15:52] knowledge, which is obvious. It's on
[00:15:54] display,
[00:15:55] >> but is that actually their rationality?
[00:15:57] >> Oh, yeah, it is. I'm not making so
[00:15:59] deranged that I have trouble believing
[00:16:01] it.
[00:16:01] >> Yeah. No, I know that's how stupid they
[00:16:02] think we are. And then the other thing
[00:16:04] >> that we can't we need inflation because
[00:16:06] we can't let prices of services and
[00:16:08] consumer goods get too low because
[00:16:09] people won't buy them.
[00:16:10] >> Yeah. People will stop buying. We'll sit
[00:16:11] on our hands indefinitely waiting for a
[00:16:13] better deal. like, you know,
[00:16:15] >> and the Fed, the Federal Reserve says
[00:16:17] that.
[00:16:17] >> Oh, yeah. They believe that. Then the
[00:16:19] other thing they think is that
[00:16:21] businesses can't make money if prices
[00:16:23] aren't rising, which is also not true.
[00:16:26] They actually make more money when
[00:16:27] prices are falling because what's
[00:16:29] important for a business is not the
[00:16:32] price that they charge. No,
[00:16:33] >> it's the spread between what they paid
[00:16:34] and what they sell for.
[00:16:35] >> Exactly. It's the margin.
[00:16:36] >> The margin.
[00:16:37] >> And if prices are falling, right, even I
[00:16:40] know that.
[00:16:40] >> Yes. That's because you didn't go and
[00:16:42] get a a degree in economics at a US
[00:16:45] university. Then you wouldn't know
[00:16:46] anything. You would have been
[00:16:47] brainwashed. This is what they teach.
[00:16:48] >> They But they actually say that
[00:16:50] businesses don't make money unless the
[00:16:52] prices keep rising.
[00:16:53] >> They they don't. But the reality is you
[00:16:56] actually make more money when prices are
[00:16:57] going down because you sell more. You
[00:16:59] have more volume.
[00:17:00] >> As a restaurant owner right now, a steak
[00:17:01] is 80 bucks. It cost 80 bucks at the
[00:17:03] restaurant I ate at last night. It's not
[00:17:04] even a high tone restaurant
[00:17:06] >> cuz meat is so expensive right now.
[00:17:08] >> Yeah. Look, and they're making less
[00:17:10] money because who can pay 80 bucks for a
[00:17:12] stake? Yes. If you have any common
[00:17:14] sense, you can't be an economist at the
[00:17:15] Federal Reserve or or or for the US
[00:17:17] government. So, they they don't
[00:17:18] understand. So, the but the government
[00:17:20] wants to create inflation. They they
[00:17:21] create inflation. And so, quantitative
[00:17:24] easing, right, which was the term they
[00:17:26] introduced after the 2008 financial
[00:17:28] crisis. That's just a eupheism for
[00:17:30] inflation. What is quantitative easing?
[00:17:32] The government, the Federal Reserve
[00:17:33] prints money and buys government debt,
[00:17:36] right? Monetizing debt. That's pure
[00:17:38] inflation. They didn't like they don't
[00:17:40] like to call inflation inflation because
[00:17:42] you know the public doesn't like
[00:17:43] inflation. So they called it
[00:17:44] quantitative easing. But we created a
[00:17:47] lot of inflation um following the 2008
[00:17:50] financial crisis. And a lot of that
[00:17:52] inflation ended up going into financial
[00:17:54] assets. But if it wasn't for all the
[00:17:57] inflation the government created, prices
[00:17:59] would have come down following the 2008.
[00:18:00] >> Can you be more specific when you say
[00:18:02] that inflation went into assets? What
[00:18:03] does that what does that mean?
[00:18:04] >> Well, stocks. So the money like so we
[00:18:06] create money, we create credit, but
[00:18:09] where does it go, right? And if it goes
[00:18:11] into the stock market, if it goes into
[00:18:13] the real estate market, it's bidding up
[00:18:15] those asset prices, right? And so to
[00:18:18] hold dollars like you want to put into
[00:18:20] something,
[00:18:20] >> right? But people don't look at asset
[00:18:23] prices rising and they don't they don't
[00:18:25] they don't think that's a bad thing
[00:18:26] because people think that they're
[00:18:27] getting richer because prices are going
[00:18:29] up. But it's really distorting the
[00:18:31] economy. uh you you you don't want
[00:18:33] prices to go up because we print a lot
[00:18:36] of money. You want stock prices to go up
[00:18:38] because the companies are inherently
[00:18:39] more valuable because they're generating
[00:18:41] more earnings and their stock it price
[00:18:43] is higher because they're worth more
[00:18:46] because they're earning more. You don't
[00:18:47] want just the price to go up uh because
[00:18:49] there's so much cash that's that's
[00:18:51] bidding it up. But that's really what's
[00:18:52] been happening. And that's why when you
[00:18:54] look at prices from the terms of gold,
[00:18:57] you can see that real prices are
[00:18:58] falling. But I wanted to get to why we
[00:19:01] had this big spike in inflation uh under
[00:19:03] Biden. U so when we got COVID in in in
[00:19:08] 2020,
[00:19:10] the government basically
[00:19:13] implemented the most inflationary
[00:19:16] combination of monetary and fiscal
[00:19:18] policy I'd ever seen. And I I called it
[00:19:20] out on my podcast at the time when
[00:19:23] everybody was swearing, oh, deflation.
[00:19:25] And I was like, look, this is massive
[00:19:26] inflation that's coming. Um, so when
[00:19:29] COVID hit, we shut down economy. We told
[00:19:33] people, don't go to work, stay at home,
[00:19:34] don't produce anything.
[00:19:36] But then we said, but don't stop
[00:19:38] shopping. So, everyone's going to get a
[00:19:40] bunch of money. We had the the pay
[00:19:43] paycheck protection. We had these
[00:19:44] enhanced unemployment benefits. We ran
[00:19:47] massive deficits. The Fed printed money
[00:19:49] like crazy, right? We doubled the Fed's
[00:19:52] balance sheet from like 4 trillion to 8
[00:19:53] trillion, right? Everybody stayed home
[00:19:55] and and got money to spend. So, we had
[00:19:57] all this money to spend, but we weren't
[00:19:59] making anything. And and so I knew that
[00:20:02] the consequence of that was going to be
[00:20:04] soaring prices. Now, inflation, right,
[00:20:08] the expansion of money supply always
[00:20:09] acts with a lag, right? If I create a
[00:20:11] bunch of money today, you're not going
[00:20:13] to see it tomorrow, you know, at the at
[00:20:15] the supermarket or at, you know, at
[00:20:17] Walmart. There's a little bit of time.
[00:20:19] It could take 6 months. It could take a
[00:20:21] year before you really start to see the
[00:20:23] effect of all that inflation in retail
[00:20:27] prices. So what happened was if you look
[00:20:30] at the CPI in the final year of the
[00:20:33] Trump presidency, the last three or four
[00:20:35] months it really started to shoot up and
[00:20:38] it continued for the first few months of
[00:20:41] the Biden presidency before Biden's
[00:20:43] policies had ever come into effect
[00:20:45] before the first stimulus check was put
[00:20:47] in the mail and that inflation
[00:20:50] continued. So all the the the CPI was up
[00:20:54] 9.1%
[00:20:56] during um um Biden's first year, his
[00:21:00] first term. That was all Trump and on on
[00:21:03] Trump and and and the Congress under
[00:21:05] Trump because all the money that was
[00:21:08] created that resulted in those price
[00:21:10] increases was created before Biden got
[00:21:13] into office. Had Trump been reelected,
[00:21:16] it would have been the same thing,
[00:21:17] right? we would have had just as high a
[00:21:19] move in CPI had Trump won, right? So,
[00:21:22] it's not because we elected Biden,
[00:21:24] right? That the it was already baked in
[00:21:26] the cake. And the main reason that Trump
[00:21:29] didn't get reelected, whether or not
[00:21:30] you'd want to think it was rigged or
[00:21:31] not, the main reason was that Trump got
[00:21:34] elected promising to make things better.
[00:21:37] And at the end of his first term, they
[00:21:38] were worse because all Trump really did
[00:21:41] was continue the failed policies of of
[00:21:43] Obama.
[00:21:45] And so, he promised What area? In all
[00:21:48] areas. Our new partner dose is a way
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[00:23:07] Code Tucker 35% off. I mean, we he
[00:23:12] government continued to get bigger under
[00:23:14] Trump. Deficits continued to get bigger.
[00:23:16] We continued to print more money. We
[00:23:18] didn't have the real structural reforms
[00:23:20] that we needed to make America great
[00:23:22] again. We just kept blowing more air
[00:23:24] into the bubble. And and so the in the
[00:23:28] the inflation rates as measured by CPI.
[00:23:31] Remember the CPI is a very flawed way to
[00:23:34] measure prices.
[00:23:35] >> Yeah.
[00:23:36] >> In in in in the 1990s, they had
[00:23:38] something
[00:23:38] >> price index. Why? Tell tell me why it's
[00:23:40] slowed.
[00:23:41] >> Well, so in the 1990s, the government
[00:23:43] decided that the CPI was overstating how
[00:23:46] much prices were going up. Now, that was
[00:23:48] probably a lie, but the government said,
[00:23:49] "We need to recalculate it. We need to
[00:23:52] figure out a better way to measure
[00:23:53] prices." So, they made drastic changes
[00:23:56] to the methodology for calculating the
[00:23:58] CPI. And they've done the same thing for
[00:24:01] unemployment, too. The government
[00:24:02] constantly changes how they measure
[00:24:03] things.
[00:24:03] >> Oh, I've noticed.
[00:24:04] >> Right. So, to
[00:24:05] >> unemployment doesn't measure how many
[00:24:06] people are unemployed.
[00:24:07] >> No, not even close. I know. So,
[00:24:10] >> so in order to see what prices are
[00:24:13] doing, you pretty much have to double
[00:24:14] whatever the government says, right? I
[00:24:16] mean, I did a But tell us what the
[00:24:18] changes are that they made to
[00:24:19] >> Well, they they introduced all kinds of
[00:24:21] substitution,
[00:24:22] uh, hedonics,
[00:24:24] um, just, you know, they they they make
[00:24:26] changes to the basket. Like, I don't
[00:24:28] even know like in 2020 20 2013, I just,
[00:24:33] you know, I did a YouTube video. This is
[00:24:34] a long time ago. Um because I remember
[00:24:37] looking at the CPI and according to the
[00:24:39] government over a 10-year period,
[00:24:42] newspaper and magazine prices were up by
[00:24:44] 30%. And I remember thinking, I don't
[00:24:47] know, I think they're up more than that.
[00:24:49] So, I went on the internet and I and I
[00:24:51] took the 20 most popular newspapers and
[00:24:54] magazines in 2013. I looked at what the
[00:24:57] prices were cuz it's just written right
[00:24:59] there on the cover. It's not hard to
[00:25:00] see. And then I went and I got
[00:25:03] photographs on the internet of the exact
[00:25:05] same newspapers and magazines from 10
[00:25:06] years earlier and I looked at the prices
[00:25:08] and I just compared them and the actual
[00:25:11] increase was 130%. So who knows how you
[00:25:16] put 130% in and only 30% comes out. That
[00:25:20] is the magic of the CPI. So you know
[00:25:22] well that just that's lying.
[00:25:24] >> Well yeah that's what they do. I mean
[00:25:26] unemployment the way they measure
[00:25:27] unemployment now they they used to when
[00:25:30] they measured unemployment the official
[00:25:32] rate so when they go back and they say
[00:25:33] hey unemployment is not as bad as it was
[00:25:35] in the 70s of course it's actually worse
[00:25:38] if we measured it the way we measured it
[00:25:40] then because back then if you were um if
[00:25:45] you were um part-time had a part-time
[00:25:49] job but you were looking for a full-time
[00:25:51] job you were still unemployed and now
[00:25:54] you don't count right if If you're if
[00:25:56] you're you could be you can be working
[00:25:58] one one hour a week and you're not
[00:26:00] unemployed anymore. Even if you spend
[00:26:02] the rest of the week looking for work,
[00:26:03] you're still not unemployed. You used to
[00:26:05] be unemployed. Um if you stop looking
[00:26:08] for work because you can't find a job
[00:26:10] and you're just tired of looking. You
[00:26:12] really want one, uh but you're just not
[00:26:14] looking because you're you're convinced
[00:26:15] there is no job for you. You used to be
[00:26:17] counted as unemployed. Today they say,
[00:26:19] "Well, you're discouraged. We're not
[00:26:20] going to count you." So if you give up
[00:26:22] looking for work but you don't have a
[00:26:24] job, you're no longer unemployed. But
[00:26:26] back in the 70s and 80s, you were still
[00:26:29] unemployed. So we've basically taken so
[00:26:32] many unemployed people and we've decided
[00:26:34] that we're not going to count them as
[00:26:36] being unemployed. That's the reason that
[00:26:37] unemployment is so low because we're not
[00:26:39] counting all these people. If we still
[00:26:41] measured unemployment now the way we did
[00:26:44] in the 70s and ' 80s, the official
[00:26:46] unemployment rate would be well over
[00:26:47] 10%. and the inflation rate would be,
[00:26:50] you know, at least double what they
[00:26:51] claim. And Donald Trump, ironically
[00:26:53] enough, when Donald Trump ran for office
[00:26:57] the first time, he said this, if you
[00:26:59] remember, he kept saying, "Don't believe
[00:27:01] these government numbers. They're fake.
[00:27:03] Unemployment is a lot higher, right?"
[00:27:06] But once he became president, then he
[00:27:08] told everybody the numbers were real
[00:27:09] because he wanted people to believe he
[00:27:11] was doing a great job. And so he pointed
[00:27:13] to the same government numbers that he
[00:27:15] said were fake when he was trying to get
[00:27:17] elected. All of a sudden they were real
[00:27:19] when he wanted to use those same fake
[00:27:21] numbers to pretend that the economy was
[00:27:24] doing well when it wasn't doing well. So
[00:27:27] So the big beautiful bill was the worst
[00:27:29] thing that we've done under Trump
[00:27:32] because the big beautiful bill not only
[00:27:35] preserved all the deficit spending under
[00:27:38] Biden, but it expanded it. It made it
[00:27:42] worse, right? We made the deficits even
[00:27:44] worse uh by increasing government
[00:27:46] spending and and through tax cuts. And
[00:27:49] so now we're going to have even bigger
[00:27:51] deficits and the Fed is going to be
[00:27:54] monetizing those deficits. Money supply,
[00:27:57] you know, after
[00:27:58] >> to monetize a deficit.
[00:27:59] >> It just buys prints money and buys the
[00:28:02] bonds. And in fact, just last week, the
[00:28:05] Fed basically said, "We're going back to
[00:28:08] quantitative easing without saying it
[00:28:10] because they don't want to admit it."
[00:28:12] But they announced, you know, they were
[00:28:13] doing quantitative tightening, right?
[00:28:15] They were shrinking their balance sheet
[00:28:16] because the balance sheet blew up uh,
[00:28:19] you know, after the financial crisis and
[00:28:20] after COVID. And so the Fed was reducing
[00:28:23] shrinking the balance sheet and they
[00:28:25] stopped in December just this month. But
[00:28:28] now they restarted expanding it again.
[00:28:30] They're now printing money to buy up um
[00:28:34] treasuries in order to suppress interest
[00:28:37] rates. But you know the the underlying
[00:28:40] problem of the US economy has been for
[00:28:42] decades now. Interest rates are too low,
[00:28:44] right? Everybody says, "Oh, we need
[00:28:45] lower interest rates. We need lower
[00:28:46] interest rates." We actually need higher
[00:28:48] interest rates. The reason our economy
[00:28:50] is so screwed up is because interest
[00:28:52] rates have been too low. That's why
[00:28:53] nobody saves because you know that you
[00:28:55] you don't have a return on savings and
[00:28:58] everybody is going into debt. We have
[00:29:00] record debt in the government, record
[00:29:01] debt in the corporate sector, record
[00:29:03] record debt in households. Uh all
[00:29:06] because the Fed has kept interest rates
[00:29:07] too low. And and and they've done that
[00:29:09] to, you know, keep this bubble economy
[00:29:12] going. In fact, that's the real reason
[00:29:14] when the Fed started hiking rates, the
[00:29:16] reason it stopped hiking rates wasn't
[00:29:18] because they finished the job and they
[00:29:20] they beat inflation. It was because the
[00:29:22] banks started to fail. You had several
[00:29:24] banks that went under because of higher
[00:29:28] rates, right? Which was another thing
[00:29:29] that I I predicted just like I predicted
[00:29:31] the 2008 financial crisis. I predicted
[00:29:34] that uh the Fed was set sewing the stage
[00:29:38] of another crisis by keeping interest
[00:29:39] rates so low because the banks were
[00:29:41] loading up on lowy yielding long-term
[00:29:44] mortgages and government debt. And
[00:29:46] everybody thought this was great. You
[00:29:48] know, people can go out and borrow buy a
[00:29:50] house and they can borrow money at 3 and
[00:29:51] 4%.
[00:29:53] But I was pointing out, well, what
[00:29:54] happens to the lenders who own all that
[00:29:56] paper when interest rates eventually go
[00:29:58] up and they're stuck with this long-term
[00:30:02] uh debt where they're collecting 3 or 4%
[00:30:05] but they're now their their cost of
[00:30:06] funds are 5% and they're getting killed.
[00:30:09] And I said exactly what's happening with
[00:30:11] the housing market now. You have a
[00:30:13] situation where, you know, the Fed has
[00:30:15] inflated a housing bubble bigger than
[00:30:17] the one that popped in 2007 because they
[00:30:20] kept interest rates so low and people
[00:30:22] were able to borrow money to bid up home
[00:30:24] prices. But now that mortgage rates are
[00:30:27] not rock bottom anymore. They're still
[00:30:28] not high. They're still low by historic
[00:30:31] standards. They're just not as low as
[00:30:33] they were, right? 7% mortgage is still
[00:30:35] pretty cheap. Um, but you can't afford
[00:30:38] to buy a home at a 7% mortgage that was
[00:30:41] priced for a 3% mortgage. And so now you
[00:30:43] have a situation where real estate
[00:30:45] prices have to fall. Things around the
[00:30:47] world are moving so fast right now, it's
[00:30:50] impossible to keep up with all of the
[00:30:52] changes. But we do know that when those
[00:30:54] changes happen, markets change, too. And
[00:30:58] nothing changes faster than the price of
[00:31:00] precious metals, gold and silver. It
[00:31:02] just shifts in an instant [music]
[00:31:04] because it is a reaction to and against
[00:31:08] what's happening in [music] the world.
[00:31:09] So timing is essential. If you're
[00:31:11] thinking about adding precious metals,
[00:31:13] and you definitely should, we do, you
[00:31:16] need to know when prices are going to
[00:31:18] move and why they're moving. And
[00:31:20] Battalion Metals makes that all really
[00:31:21] simple. You can buy the dip when it
[00:31:23] happens. Try calling your broker in the
[00:31:26] public equities market.
[00:31:28] No, this is a new world and Battalion
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[00:31:35] There's no fraud here at all. We were
[00:31:37] founded to fight fraud. So, if you want
[00:31:39] realtime alerts sent directly to your
[00:31:41] inbox when gold and silver prices move,
[00:31:44] go to battalionals.com/alerts.
[00:31:48] Markets move fast. Stay ahead of them.
[00:31:51] So, it's battalianmetals.com/alerts.
[00:31:55] Why haven't those prices adjusted more
[00:31:58] quickly than they have?
[00:31:59] >> Well, I mean, it takes some time.
[00:32:02] >> I think that's a myster. It's a mystery.
[00:32:04] All of a sudden, no one can buy a house,
[00:32:05] but house prices are still high.
[00:32:07] >> Yeah. Well, you know what's happening is
[00:32:08] a lot of the people who own their homes
[00:32:11] and have these low low mortgages,
[00:32:14] >> uh, they don't feel any pressure to put
[00:32:15] them on the market. I mean, if they can
[00:32:16] get a high price, they'll sell. If not,
[00:32:19] they're just staying on their homes.
[00:32:20] >> Yeah, it would be crazy not.
[00:32:21] >> Meanwhile, we're not building a lot of
[00:32:23] new homes because it's very expensive to
[00:32:25] build them. Um, and in fact, Trump has
[00:32:27] made them even more expensive with
[00:32:28] tariffs. So, we have tariffs on lumber.
[00:32:30] We have tariffs on on copper and steel
[00:32:33] and all the things that, you know, need
[00:32:34] to build houses. Plus, you know, we're
[00:32:36] chasing out all the the workers. I think
[00:32:38] something like 20% of the the people who
[00:32:40] work in construction are illegal, right?
[00:32:42] So, if if they're not here, you know, so
[00:32:45] you're driving up Well, that's just
[00:32:46] right there. What you said is
[00:32:48] You've got 50 million illegals
[00:32:51] in the United States and they're all
[00:32:53] being paid. Not all, but a lot of them
[00:32:54] are on the government subsidies. So,
[00:32:56] maybe if you took those away, they would
[00:32:58] go into the construction trades. You've
[00:32:59] got a lot of unemployed people who could
[00:33:00] build houses.
[00:33:01] >> Yes. But they're not going to take those
[00:33:03] jobs unless you pay them higher wages. I
[00:33:05] mean, that's the problem. So, you're
[00:33:07] driving up the cost of building homes.
[00:33:08] So, fewer homes are being built, right?
[00:33:10] Regardless of what you think of the
[00:33:11] immigration policy.
[00:33:12] >> No, but I'm just saying it's not a a
[00:33:14] potential. We have all kinds of labor
[00:33:16] problems. No one can find labor, but
[00:33:18] it's not because there aren't enough
[00:33:19] people without work. There are a lot of
[00:33:20] people.
[00:33:21] >> No, there are a lot of people that
[00:33:22] should be working, but the government
[00:33:24] has given them an alternative. And so,
[00:33:25] they and that that is a huge problem. Uh
[00:33:28] that is a whole different topic. But the
[00:33:31] the point is that there aren't a lot of
[00:33:33] homes being constructed and there's not
[00:33:35] a lot of homes for sale because the
[00:33:37] people that own the homes uh you know
[00:33:39] they they they have such a good deal on
[00:33:40] their mortgage that they don't and
[00:33:43] rather than even sell it you'll rent it
[00:33:45] out because now you can rent it out and
[00:33:47] pay the mortgage and collect the rent
[00:33:49] and you know you have a a good a good uh
[00:33:52] spread there
[00:33:52] >> put on Airbnb
[00:33:54] >> but eventually right people have to sell
[00:33:57] their houses for whatever reason people
[00:33:59] die People get divorced, people move,
[00:34:01] houses are going to come on the market,
[00:34:03] and of course eventually people are
[00:34:05] going to lose their jobs. I mean, we're
[00:34:06] headed for a very severe recession. I
[00:34:08] think we've been in recession for years.
[00:34:10] It's just going to get a lot worse. And
[00:34:12] a lot of the houses are going to come on
[00:34:14] the market and real estate prices are
[00:34:16] going to go down substantially
[00:34:18] nationwide. And that creates a whole new
[00:34:21] problem because now if people lose their
[00:34:24] home equity, now they may just default
[00:34:27] on their mortgage. And now in addition
[00:34:29] to sitting on all these underwater
[00:34:31] mortgages, uh banks are going to start
[00:34:33] to lose money on defaulted mortgages. So
[00:34:36] the question is who who eats the
[00:34:38] sandwich? Is it the real estate? Is it
[00:34:42] the people who have real estate assets
[00:34:43] or the people seeking to buy real estate
[00:34:46] assets?
[00:34:46] >> Yeah. I mean, you someone's going to get
[00:34:48] screwed here, right? Exactly. The buyer
[00:34:50] or the seller.
[00:34:51] >> Well, houses are unaffordable. People
[00:34:55] cannot afford to buy them, right? So the
[00:34:57] solution is lower prices, but obviously
[00:34:59] if you already own a house and that's
[00:35:01] your main asset, the last thing you want
[00:35:04] is lower home prices.
[00:35:06] >> Exactly. And so that is the problem. But
[00:35:08] the Fed created that problem by blowing
[00:35:09] up this bubble in the first place. If we
[00:35:11] never had uh the artificially low
[00:35:13] interest rates and of course the other
[00:35:15] problem was the government guaranteeing
[00:35:16] the mortgages uh which enabled people to
[00:35:19] pay more for homes than they otherwise
[00:35:21] could have paid. So all of these Wait,
[00:35:23] can I just ask you a foundational
[00:35:24] question? Why did you've referred a
[00:35:26] couple times to uh quantitative easing,
[00:35:29] the post financial crisis,
[00:35:32] >> interest rates at zero, but that went on
[00:35:34] for like what 15 years or something. Why
[00:35:36] did that go on for so long?
[00:35:38] >> Because they were afraid to let rates go
[00:35:39] up because of all the debt that we had.
[00:35:41] They they they they knew that if they
[00:35:42] let rates go up, it was going to be a
[00:35:44] problem. So, they kicked the can down
[00:35:46] the road and and and they kept them low.
[00:35:49] But the point is that all of the the
[00:35:52] money in housing, it's not it doesn't
[00:35:53] make housing more affordable. It
[00:35:55] actually makes housing more expensive.
[00:35:57] Right? When whenever the government
[00:35:59] comes in to try to help you pay for
[00:36:02] something, they actually make it more
[00:36:04] expensive. If you look at all the areas
[00:36:06] where the government is involved in a
[00:36:07] big way, which would be housing, uh,
[00:36:10] health care, education,
[00:36:12] that's where prices have gone up the
[00:36:14] most, right? It's because the government
[00:36:16] gets involved and and subsidizes it. You
[00:36:19] know, before the government got involved
[00:36:21] in education. College was not expensive,
[00:36:24] right? Uh if you were upper middle class
[00:36:28] uh in the 1940s, 1950s,
[00:36:32] you could afford to send your kids to
[00:36:33] Ivy League schools. It was, you know,
[00:36:35] wasn't that big a deal, right? If you
[00:36:37] were poor, like my my uh my father grew
[00:36:40] up poor, right? Um he wasn't dirt poor
[00:36:42] but you know he was you know he thought
[00:36:44] he was like upper lower middle but my my
[00:36:46] my father's father you know he had eight
[00:36:50] kids um and you know his mother didn't
[00:36:52] have a job right so even though my
[00:36:54] grandfather worked as a carpenter uh he
[00:36:57] had a wife who didn't have a job and he
[00:36:59] was able to support eight kids and they
[00:37:00] had a house they had like a beach house
[00:37:02] they had a car I mean you know they
[00:37:03] lived okay for you know uh what would be
[00:37:06] he would consider you know upper lower
[00:37:08] class
[00:37:08] >> well if they had a house and a beach
[00:37:09] house by modern standards they'd be
[00:37:11] rich, but they weren't back then, right?
[00:37:12] I'm saying even having eight kids,
[00:37:14] either you're Amish or you're rich.
[00:37:16] >> Yeah. Nobody could afford eight. I mean,
[00:37:18] you got to be rich to afford eight kids
[00:37:19] today. And of course, you could cuz your
[00:37:21] wife would have a job. My grandmother
[00:37:23] didn't work. Um, and my my grandfather
[00:37:25] came to this country without a penny. He
[00:37:27] didn't even speak English. He came here
[00:37:28] at about 12 or 13. No welfare, no food
[00:37:31] stamps, no government housing, just
[00:37:33] nothing. Just show up and, you know, get
[00:37:35] a job. Where did they live? In New Haven
[00:37:37] in Connecticut. He started we was worked
[00:37:39] he worked on building the Yale Bull.
[00:37:41] It's like the first thing he did. But
[00:37:42] but anyway, so my father didn't have any
[00:37:45] money for college. So he got a job in
[00:37:47] the summer and that paid for all his
[00:37:49] college. He didn't graduate with any
[00:37:50] debt. He worked his way through college
[00:37:52] like a lot of his friends. That was
[00:37:54] common to do back then. There was no
[00:37:56] government loans. There was nobody could
[00:37:57] get a loan to go to college. But because
[00:37:59] nobody can get a loan to go to college,
[00:38:01] the universities had to keep the cost
[00:38:03] down or they wouldn't have any
[00:38:04] customers. So there was a lot of free
[00:38:06] market pressure to keep tuition down.
[00:38:09] But what happened during the 1960s is
[00:38:12] the 18-year-olds got to vote, right? And
[00:38:14] once 18-year-olds could vote,
[00:38:17] politicians figured, well, how can we
[00:38:18] get these kids to vote for us? Oh, let's
[00:38:21] let's promise that they don't have to
[00:38:22] work their way through college anymore.
[00:38:24] You could just bum around Europe all
[00:38:26] summer, go to Woodstock, and uh we'll
[00:38:28] we'll arrange loans for you. You can
[00:38:30] loan money, you can borrow money, and
[00:38:32] just pay it back later when you get your
[00:38:34] job. And so they started all these
[00:38:36] government guaranteed loans. And then
[00:38:38] what happened? The colleges reacted to
[00:38:41] that by raising prices. Hey, the kids
[00:38:43] have all this money, right? Let's raise
[00:38:45] prices. And so, and then they kept
[00:38:47] increasing how much the kids could
[00:38:49] borrow. And the colleges kept raising
[00:38:51] prices. And then they said, "Oh, well,
[00:38:52] let's have fancy gymnasiums. Let's have
[00:38:54] nicer dorms." Nobody cared how much
[00:38:56] anything cost because all the loans were
[00:38:58] coming in. And so the government got
[00:39:00] involved. And and now college costs a
[00:39:02] fortune. Everybody has a degree, so it
[00:39:04] doesn't even mean anything anymore. And
[00:39:06] you and you and and you graduate with a
[00:39:08] mortgage, right? The government caused
[00:39:11] tuition prices to skyrocket. The same
[00:39:13] thing with health.
[00:39:14] >> Can I ask a question about college
[00:39:16] loans? How did the lenders do in that
[00:39:18] arrangement?
[00:39:19] >> Well, the lenders did great because the
[00:39:20] government guaranteed all the loans. So,
[00:39:22] the lenders didn't care if the kids
[00:39:24] could pay back the loans. Didn't matter
[00:39:26] what your major was, right? You could
[00:39:28] major in basket weaving. you you you
[00:39:31] could go to a college, you know, where
[00:39:32] you take, you know, you don't get no
[00:39:34] reading or math. I mean, they didn't
[00:39:37] care because the government guaranteed
[00:39:40] every loan. And and and and so, you
[00:39:43] know, in a free market, you couldn't
[00:39:45] borrow all this money because the banks
[00:39:47] would be worried about getting the money
[00:39:48] back. Why why am I going to loan all
[00:39:50] this money to somebody who has no
[00:39:52] assets? You know what? You know, but
[00:39:54] once the government comes in, then
[00:39:55] nobody cares, right? That's what that's
[00:39:57] what happened. So the lenders got pretty
[00:39:59] rich on this thing.
[00:40:00] >> Of course they Yeah. The lenders made a
[00:40:02] fortune and the universities made a
[00:40:03] fortune because they got to charge more
[00:40:05] for their product. Exactly. Right. It's
[00:40:07] the kids that get stuck with the bill.
[00:40:09] You get all these liberal or I like to
[00:40:10] say liberal but Democrat fratical left
[00:40:13] politicians that are now complaining
[00:40:15] about all the student loan debt. They're
[00:40:17] the reason it exists. Without the
[00:40:19] government, there would be no student
[00:40:20] loan debt. Colleges would be a lot less
[00:40:23] expensive. Uh yeah. and and and people,
[00:40:25] you know, would would work their way
[00:40:26] through like my dad did if they didn't
[00:40:28] come from an affluent uh family. But
[00:40:31] they did the same thing with with with
[00:40:33] health with health care. I mean, health
[00:40:35] insurance and and and and healthcare is
[00:40:37] expensive because the government is so
[00:40:39] involved in it. And even if you look at
[00:40:42] where the government is not involved
[00:40:44] like lasic surgery, prices have come
[00:40:47] down um for those procedures because the
[00:40:50] government doesn't pay for it. you know,
[00:40:52] the government and and and the reason
[00:40:54] that we all have insurance, right?
[00:40:56] People have, you know, uh insurance for
[00:40:59] everything now. And in fact, what really
[00:41:03] made it bad and Trump doesn't, you know,
[00:41:06] they the Republicans want no uh uh role
[00:41:09] in repealing it is under Obamacare, they
[00:41:13] said that insurance companies cannot
[00:41:15] discriminate against people who are
[00:41:17] already sick. Right? Right? If you have
[00:41:19] a pre-existing condition, the insurance
[00:41:21] companies have to charge you the same as
[00:41:22] if you were completely healthy, which
[00:41:25] destroys the whole concept of insurance
[00:41:27] and makes it extremely expensive.
[00:41:29] >> Well, it's not insurance at that.
[00:41:30] >> It's not. It's free healthcare. It's
[00:41:31] like you can't buy fire insurance after
[00:41:34] your house burns down,
[00:41:35] >> right?
[00:41:36] >> And if you could, nobody would buy fire
[00:41:38] insurance before it burns down.
[00:41:40] >> Well, no one would have a fire
[00:41:40] extinguisher either. Why?
[00:41:43] >> Yeah. Well, it's like what if you could
[00:41:44] buy car insurance that covered all your
[00:41:47] gas, right? I mean, would you cons you
[00:41:49] you I mean, nobody expects their auto
[00:41:52] insurance to cover their gas or their
[00:41:54] their oil changes or their tires, right?
[00:41:57] You buy auto insurance in case you get a
[00:42:00] wreck and now you have your car is
[00:42:02] total, right? You don't have the money.
[00:42:03] Health insurance is supposed to be, I
[00:42:05] got cancer, I got a brain tumor. You're
[00:42:08] not supposed to have health insurance
[00:42:10] because you sprained your ankle, because
[00:42:11] you had a baby, you got the flu. Yeah.
[00:42:14] All of that stuff is supposed to be paid
[00:42:16] for out of pocket. But the reason it's
[00:42:18] not is because the government created a
[00:42:20] perverse incentive for people to get
[00:42:22] their insurance from their employer.
[00:42:24] Because if your employer gives you
[00:42:25] health insurance, there's no tax. If
[00:42:27] they give you money to buy health
[00:42:29] insurance, then you have to pay taxes.
[00:42:31] So now everybody gets their health
[00:42:33] insurance from their employer. Uh and
[00:42:36] and now they have health insurance that
[00:42:37] pays for everything. And so, you know,
[00:42:39] you go to a doctor sometimes and if they
[00:42:42] tell you you need to do something, ask
[00:42:44] what it costs. They're like, "Who the
[00:42:46] hell knows? Nobody knows what anything
[00:42:48] costs." Yeah.
[00:42:49] >> Because nobody cares because nobody's
[00:42:51] paying for it, right? That the person
[00:42:53] that's paying for it isn't even in the
[00:42:55] room, right? You have the patient and
[00:42:56] the doctor and neither one of them is
[00:42:59] is, you know, knows what anything costs
[00:43:01] because you got some third party that's
[00:43:03] paying the bill. So the the entire
[00:43:04] system doesn't work. But it's all
[00:43:06] because government got involved, right?
[00:43:09] When government tries to make things
[00:43:10] more affordable, it makes them more
[00:43:12] expensive. The only way to make things
[00:43:15] cheaper is to let the free market do it.
[00:43:16] Right? The free market is great at
[00:43:18] lowering costs and increasing quality.
[00:43:20] But the free market is blamed. I mean,
[00:43:23] of course, we don't have anything
[00:43:24] approaching a free market. Nothing
[00:43:25] resembles a free market. It's a monopoly
[00:43:28] economy. It's cartel. But all of this is
[00:43:30] described as a free market, thereby
[00:43:32] totally discrediting the concept of free
[00:43:34] market economics and [clears throat]
[00:43:36] ensuring that we're going to get a
[00:43:38] socialist system. No, we don't have it
[00:43:39] anymore. And it's very unfortunate
[00:43:41] because a lot of people look at Trump
[00:43:42] and they say, well, he is a pro business
[00:43:44] president. And he is pro business, but
[00:43:47] he's not pro pro- capitalism, pro- free
[00:43:49] markets. Donald Trump wants to
[00:43:52] micromanage the economy from the White
[00:43:54] House. Like he's the CEO. He wants to
[00:43:56] decide where he thinks capital should go
[00:43:59] and direct it into industries that he
[00:44:02] that he likes or companies that he
[00:44:04] likes. And that's wrong. I mean I mean
[00:44:06] one of the big industries that he's
[00:44:09] promoting is crypto. And for me I think
[00:44:12] this is a complete waste of capital. Now
[00:44:15] yeah I mean if if Americans want to
[00:44:17] throw their money away in a lot of these
[00:44:19] crypto companies all right. I mean, it's
[00:44:21] it's unfortunate, but if the government
[00:44:24] is now promoting it and pushing money
[00:44:27] into this industry that might have gone
[00:44:29] someplace else if it was a free market,
[00:44:32] this is doing a lot of harm. Why is it
[00:44:34] throwing I mean, you know, you meet all
[00:44:36] these people who've made hundreds of
[00:44:37] millions. You meet kids who've made real
[00:44:40] money from crypto. Why is it throwing it
[00:44:42] away?
[00:44:42] >> Well, because where did they make it?
[00:44:44] They they didn't make money in crypto
[00:44:46] because they, you know, produced
[00:44:48] products that we consume or provide
[00:44:52] services that improve our lives. The
[00:44:54] people who have made money in crypto,
[00:44:56] and I know a lot of them, they've made
[00:44:58] money in crypto because the crypto that
[00:45:00] they bought a long time ago went way up.
[00:45:03] How's that different from buying gold?
[00:45:05] >> Well, I'm I'm not people I don't know a
[00:45:07] lot of people who got rich buying gold,
[00:45:09] right? Uh
[00:45:10] >> well, I've done really well, just being
[00:45:11] honest. And so have you.
[00:45:12] >> No. Well, okay. Hey, we've tripled our
[00:45:14] money. I'm [laughter] Right. But I'm
[00:45:15] talking about I'm talking about people
[00:45:17] who bought Bitcoin for a dollar and now
[00:45:20] it's $90,000, right? You're talking
[00:45:23] about people who put Okay, so it's a big
[00:45:25] runup, but it's the same. But when you
[00:45:26] buy gold, which I'm to I own a gold
[00:45:28] company. I'm totally for buying gold,
[00:45:30] >> but [clears throat] you're not
[00:45:32] >> it's not a creative act. You're not
[00:45:33] making anything. You're not making
[00:45:35] anyone's life better. You're not really
[00:45:36] adding to the sum total of the economy.
[00:45:38] You're not doing anything other than
[00:45:39] buying something low and holding until
[00:45:41] it gets high.
[00:45:42] >> Right? But there is a big difference.
[00:45:43] I'll and I'll get to that in a minute.
[00:45:44] But the people who have made money in in
[00:45:47] crypto, right? It they bought it at a
[00:45:50] very low price and now other people are
[00:45:54] buying it at a much higher price
[00:45:56] believing that they're going to be able
[00:45:57] to do the same thing. They're people who
[00:45:59] are buying Bitcoin now at, you know,
[00:46:01] $90,000, whatever it's at. They're
[00:46:04] buying it because they think it's going
[00:46:05] to a million. They think they'll be able
[00:46:07] to sell it at a million. And of course,
[00:46:09] the only reason someone's going to buy
[00:46:10] it at a million is because they think
[00:46:12] it's going to 10 million, right? So,
[00:46:13] it's all this greater fool theory. And
[00:46:16] so, why is that different from Nvidia or
[00:46:18] or any stock?
[00:46:20] >> So, Nvidia, right? And I I think Nvidia
[00:46:23] is overpriced. But Nvidia is a business
[00:46:25] that is generating income, right?
[00:46:27] Selling its GPUs and has earnings. So,
[00:46:30] it's an actual viable business. The
[00:46:32] question is, what is that business
[00:46:33] worth? I think it's worth less than the
[00:46:36] market currently believes, but it's
[00:46:37] worth something. There's no doubt that
[00:46:39] Nvidia is a valuable company that is
[00:46:42] producing things that that that people
[00:46:43] need.
[00:46:44] >> But the rationale for the trade like for
[00:46:45] the average person buying any stock is
[00:46:48] that I will buy it lower than I will
[00:46:50] sell it.
[00:46:51] >> Well, and that people at the very end of
[00:46:52] that chain as it starts to decline get
[00:46:55] screwed. Well, if that's the reason,
[00:46:57] look, if if we buy stocks, right, for my
[00:47:00] our customers at Europe Pacific Asset
[00:47:02] Management, which is my my company, the
[00:47:04] most important criteria is the current
[00:47:06] earnings and the dividends, right? So,
[00:47:08] I'm buying companies because they
[00:47:11] generate income to me as the owner. Just
[00:47:13] like if I were to buy real estate, I
[00:47:16] would look at the rental income, right?
[00:47:18] What am I getting in rent? Yes. Right?
[00:47:20] If you just buy real estate because you
[00:47:21] think the price is going to go up, well,
[00:47:23] you're a real estate speculator. Maybe
[00:47:25] you'll speculate right, maybe you'll be
[00:47:26] wrong. But it's different from an
[00:47:28] investor who is looking at the cash
[00:47:29] flow. Sure. So when I buy a stock, if
[00:47:31] I'm getting a seven, eight, nine%
[00:47:33] dividend, right? Because I own that
[00:47:35] company, it's paying me a dividend. I
[00:47:37] don't need the stock to go up. I just
[00:47:39] get my share of the income. I'm buying
[00:47:40] into a business that is generating
[00:47:43] income. Now, if the business grows and
[00:47:46] generates more income in addition to my
[00:47:49] dividend yield, when I go to sell the
[00:47:51] stock in the future, if it's a more
[00:47:53] valuable company that's generating more
[00:47:55] income and paying more dividends, then I
[00:47:57] can sell it at a higher price than what
[00:47:59] I paid, right? Because the business
[00:48:00] itself is more valuable. But if you're
[00:48:02] simply buying a company that doesn't
[00:48:04] even make any money, then maybe it's
[00:48:05] losing money and you just want to bet
[00:48:08] that in the future it might make money
[00:48:10] and you're speculating on a stock. You
[00:48:13] could speculate, but it's very different
[00:48:14] from being an investor, right? You're
[00:48:17] you're a stock speculator. But when you
[00:48:19] buy Bitcoin, you're not even speculating
[00:48:22] in the sense that Bitcoin is going to
[00:48:24] earn money in the future. It's never
[00:48:25] going to earn money in the future. It is
[00:48:27] a non-incomeroucing digital asset. You
[00:48:30] know, it's marketed as if it were
[00:48:33] digital gold, but it's not digital gold
[00:48:34] at all. It's got nothing in common with
[00:48:36] gold. Gold is a valuable commodity. Now
[00:48:41] when you own gold, when you decide to
[00:48:43] buy some gold, right? What you're doing
[00:48:45] is you're storing that gold so that
[00:48:47] somebody in the future can use it,
[00:48:49] right? Gold is unique among commodities
[00:48:52] in that it doesn't decay. It doesn't
[00:48:55] spoil, right? For thousands of years,
[00:48:58] you know, gold will stay the same,
[00:49:00] right? And if you know if a if a ship
[00:49:03] sunk 500 years ago in the in the ocean
[00:49:06] and you can salvage that ship today, if
[00:49:08] there was gold in it, it's it looks
[00:49:10] exactly the way it looked when the ship
[00:49:11] sank. Everything else is so the physical
[00:49:14] properties of it are enduring
[00:49:16] >> and but they're not just enduring, they
[00:49:18] are important and valuable because
[00:49:20] they're needed in all sorts of
[00:49:21] industries, right? And so when you are
[00:49:24] storing gold, the gold that you're
[00:49:26] storing can be used in the future not
[00:49:28] just by a jeweler who would want it, you
[00:49:30] know, to make jewelry, but you know to
[00:49:32] use in aerospace, in consumer
[00:49:34] electronics, in medicine. There are all
[00:49:36] sorts of things where you actually need
[00:49:39] gold. There are industrial applications
[00:49:41] for gold,
[00:49:41] >> right? And there there are more uses for
[00:49:43] gold now than there's ever been. And in
[00:49:45] fact, we're developing new uses all the
[00:49:48] time. So as as we advance as a
[00:49:50] civilization, we come up with more ways
[00:49:53] that we can utilize gold. And so when
[00:49:56] you're storing that gold and you know,
[00:49:58] you are you know holding it for somebody
[00:50:00] to use in the future. That's why it's a
[00:50:02] store of value. But can I also add to
[00:50:04] that? I mean that's obviously true what
[00:50:06] you're saying. It's even more true for
[00:50:07] platinum which is not as prized as gold.
[00:50:10] And I think the difference is that gold
[00:50:13] does have a mystical quality to it. It's
[00:50:15] been a medium of exchange for all
[00:50:16] recorded human history. All recorded. I
[00:50:18] mean, from the the earliest rings we
[00:50:20] have refer to gold. So, there's
[00:50:21] something about gold that people
[00:50:23] associate with value. And
[00:50:25] >> well, it has value. It's not that they
[00:50:26] associate it.
[00:50:27] >> Well, it has industrial value. Okay. It
[00:50:29] has but
[00:50:30] >> even just look just even here I have a
[00:50:31] gold bracelet that I'm wearing. I mean,
[00:50:32] just having a a a jeweler. I have a gold
[00:50:35] watch, right? I like some I wear gold
[00:50:37] when I know I'm going to talk about
[00:50:38] gold. The reason people could see that
[00:50:41] that people like it for a reason as to
[00:50:43] where it is going
[00:50:44] >> but the reason is not so easily
[00:50:45] explained. It's not just that it's you
[00:50:47] know useful in medical devices or in
[00:50:49] consumer electronics. Is there something
[00:50:50] about it that resonates that you know
[00:50:53] hums at a certain frequency within
[00:50:55] people and
[00:50:56] >> right and you're talking that is
[00:50:58] societies that never had any interaction
[00:51:00] with each other
[00:51:01] >> we're using gold. That's kind of what
[00:51:03] I'm saying but we don't know why. Let's
[00:51:05] be honest. We don't actually know what
[00:51:06] that No, but when you look at gold and
[00:51:08] you look at the things you can do with
[00:51:09] it and the properties that it has, you
[00:51:11] know, we as humans value the properties
[00:51:13] that gold,
[00:51:14] >> but it's just inherent. It's like we
[00:51:16] always have.
[00:51:16] >> Well, I would I would I would imagine
[00:51:18] that if there's life on other planets,
[00:51:20] they value gold there, too. You know, I
[00:51:22] I I I think it's kind of a universal
[00:51:25] thing as far as the properties that gold
[00:51:27] has. Now, what what Bitcoin did, right?
[00:51:30] Gold wasn't the first money. It was the
[00:51:32] best money, right? Because before we had
[00:51:34] money, there was barter, right? We
[00:51:37] invented money. But when when there was
[00:51:39] no money and if two people wanted to
[00:51:41] trade uh with each other, you know, they
[00:51:44] they they would barter. So if I was a
[00:51:46] butcher and you were a baker and you
[00:51:49] know, you wanted some meat, you would
[00:51:51] offer me some of your bread, right? And
[00:51:53] then I would give you some meat and and
[00:51:55] and we could trade. But what what if
[00:51:56] you're a vegetarian, right? What if you
[00:51:58] don't want meat? How you know how am I
[00:52:00] going to buy your bread if all I have is
[00:52:01] meat, right? So it's it was difficult
[00:52:03] because you needed a confluence of
[00:52:05] needs. But man invented money, right?
[00:52:08] Which was a commodity that everybody
[00:52:11] would accept as payment. And so if I had
[00:52:15] money, then I could buy your bread and
[00:52:17] give you the money and then you could
[00:52:19] take that money, right, and buy
[00:52:20] something else. But the money also had
[00:52:22] to be something of value. But not bread,
[00:52:26] which would go stale or meat that would
[00:52:29] um, you know, go bad. the money had to
[00:52:31] be a commodity that would hold on to its
[00:52:33] value. And so that's where, you know,
[00:52:35] gold came in. So instead of giving you
[00:52:38] meat that you'd have to eat right away
[00:52:39] or freeze it or something, I just give
[00:52:41] you gold. And you knew that that was
[00:52:43] valuable. And somebody else, the
[00:52:45] candlestick maker, would take gold for
[00:52:47] his candlesticks. You don't need to give
[00:52:48] him meat. You don't need to give him
[00:52:49] bread. So you know, and a lot of things
[00:52:51] were used as money, you know, throughout
[00:52:54] societies. But what what what ended up
[00:52:56] being the best money was gold. And they
[00:52:58] made coins out of it. and that you could
[00:53:00] easily tell, you know, the the how how
[00:53:02] much gold was in each coin and so what
[00:53:04] kind of weight of gold you were getting
[00:53:05] in exchange for whatever it was you were
[00:53:07] selling. And the reason gold became
[00:53:10] better money than you know sea shells or
[00:53:14] you know uh um cattle or salt you know
[00:53:18] different things that were used you know
[00:53:19] the Romans use salt as money that's
[00:53:20] where the word salary comes from right
[00:53:22] because it was salt
[00:53:23] >> um but um gold had a lot of properties
[00:53:27] you know it was very divisible it was
[00:53:29] very portable it was very durable it was
[00:53:31] fungeable it had a lot of these
[00:53:33] properties that really made it ideal to
[00:53:36] use as money and so what What the
[00:53:39] creator of Bitcoin did is he came up
[00:53:41] with a you know a digital token that you
[00:53:46] know mimicked those properties right
[00:53:47] Bitcoin it's portable it's divisible
[00:53:50] it's fungeable right it it it you know
[00:53:53] it can do all that stuff which is fine
[00:53:56] but what it doesn't has have is the most
[00:53:58] important characteristic that you need
[00:54:00] to be money and that's you have to be a
[00:54:02] valuable commodity you have to have
[00:54:04] value intrinsic value for on on grown,
[00:54:08] right? There has to be a use beyond just
[00:54:11] a medium of exchange because money needs
[00:54:13] to be a store of value. It can't just be
[00:54:15] a medium of exchange or a unit account.
[00:54:16] It has to be a store of value. And so,
[00:54:18] in order to store value, you got to have
[00:54:20] value, right? You can't store something
[00:54:22] that you don't have. So, when you have
[00:54:24] gold, you're storing the value of a
[00:54:26] metal that can be used in jewelry and
[00:54:28] consumer electronics and aerospace and
[00:54:30] all this stuff. But when you're holding
[00:54:32] on to Bitcoin, you have nothing, right?
[00:54:35] I can't do anything with Bitcoin. And it
[00:54:37] can't be used for anything because it's
[00:54:38] just a string of numbers. I can, you
[00:54:40] know, it it's so it has no actual use.
[00:54:43] Sure, I can give you my Bitcoin. I can
[00:54:45] sell you my Bitcoin, but what can you do
[00:54:47] with it? Well, you could give it to
[00:54:48] somebody else or sell it to somebody
[00:54:49] else. But the only reason anybody wants
[00:54:52] to buy it is because they think the
[00:54:54] price is going to go up. That is the
[00:54:56] sole source of demand is I'm going to
[00:54:59] get rich. If I buy this Bitcoin and hold
[00:55:02] it and never sell it and ride out the
[00:55:04] volatility, I'm going to get rich. Well,
[00:55:06] there was another use that was intended
[00:55:08] or at least advertised at the very
[00:55:10] beginning. I remember it vividly which
[00:55:12] was as a medium of exchange that
[00:55:14] couldn't be controlled by governments
[00:55:15] and that was going to usher in true
[00:55:17] human freedom where they couldn't
[00:55:19] control commerce.
[00:55:20] >> Yeah. Part of the promise of Bitcoin
[00:55:22] when I first learned about it was it it
[00:55:24] it was, you know, anonymous and private
[00:55:27] and it allowed you to circumvent the AML
[00:55:30] laws and the KYC laws and you can
[00:55:33] transact without the government knowing
[00:55:35] what you were doing and that was a a a
[00:55:38] positive aspect of it.
[00:55:40] >> Yeah, that was the whole appeal to me
[00:55:41] >> which is completely lost now that it's
[00:55:44] all in ETFs and Bitcoin treasury
[00:55:46] companies and all that. But even though
[00:55:49] that was appealing
[00:55:51] because it didn't have any real
[00:55:53] underlying value, you couldn't really
[00:55:55] keep a lot of money in it, it was only
[00:55:57] really uh useful, I think, for people
[00:56:00] who were doing something illegal because
[00:56:02] there, you know, if you have to launder
[00:56:05] money because you're doing something
[00:56:06] illegal, even if I end up losing 20 or
[00:56:10] 30% of my money in Bitcoin because I
[00:56:12] accept Bitcoin and by the time I use it,
[00:56:14] it's, you know, it's lost 30% of its
[00:56:16] value, that's fine. fine because
[00:56:18] criminals are used to paying to launder
[00:56:20] money. They don't mind it.
[00:56:21] >> But if you're if you're a law honest
[00:56:24] person and you know I'm buying stuff, I
[00:56:25] really don't you know care if the
[00:56:26] government knows I I I bought it.
[00:56:28] >> You're not going to take that kind of a
[00:56:30] risk um to be anonymous to be you know
[00:56:34] to to transact in private and you know I
[00:56:37] think I think it's unfortunate that
[00:56:38] we've lost all of this privacy uh that
[00:56:41] we once had. I mean it was you know
[00:56:42] constitutional right you had a right to
[00:56:44] to privacy. The whole constitution is
[00:56:45] written supposedly. So yeah, but not
[00:56:47] anymore. We have, you know, we're
[00:56:49] there's no privacy whatsoever in
[00:56:51] anymore. Um but um ultimately the fact
[00:56:56] that it didn't have any real value is is
[00:56:58] what is is what lessened that appeal to
[00:57:01] most people. But in order to make
[00:57:03] Bitcoin palatable to Wall Street, they
[00:57:07] actually got all this government
[00:57:08] regulation. I mean, can you imagine an
[00:57:10] industry that is just asking to be
[00:57:12] regulated wants regulation? I mean,
[00:57:14] normally a a business industry would
[00:57:17] would want as little regulation as
[00:57:19] possible. They don't want the government
[00:57:20] getting involved. Well, they call it
[00:57:22] clarity. Well, what they're looking for
[00:57:24] in crypto is validation. They want the
[00:57:26] regulation to validate product in the
[00:57:29] industry so they can get people to buy
[00:57:31] it by saying the government has blessed
[00:57:33] it. See, the government now endorses it.
[00:57:35] The government is supporting it. And the
[00:57:37] reason that so many politicians,
[00:57:39] including Trump, the reason that they
[00:57:41] support Bitcoin is because Bitcoin
[00:57:43] supported them, right? People that got
[00:57:45] into Bitcoin early made so much money
[00:57:49] because so many other people got in late
[00:57:51] that they were able to pay off a bunch
[00:57:53] of politicians and get them to support
[00:57:56] Bitcoin. Uh they supported this whole
[00:57:58] idea of a Bitcoin strategic reserve,
[00:58:00] which is really just a Bitcoin bailout
[00:58:02] fund, trying to use taxpayer money to
[00:58:04] buy out Bitcoin. But the the the Bitcoin
[00:58:08] industry was able to pay off a lot of
[00:58:09] politicians. And can I can I just ask
[00:58:12] though? Uh I mean a lot of what you're
[00:58:13] saying is obviously true, but I also
[00:58:15] think you've described the decline of
[00:58:17] the US dollar, it's diminishing
[00:58:20] purchasing power.
[00:58:22] >> So clearly there needs to be a new
[00:58:23] global reserve currency. You don't want
[00:58:25] it to be one owned by a geopolitical
[00:58:28] rival. So why wouldn't tether why
[00:58:31] wouldn't Bitcoin
[00:58:33] be the new global reserve currency?
[00:58:35] think, well, first of all, gold is
[00:58:37] money. It's not currency. And so there's
[00:58:39] a difference between money and currency.
[00:58:41] So currency is backed by money. So when
[00:58:46] we were on a gold standard and we had
[00:58:48] paper that was redeemable in gold, the
[00:58:51] paper was currency, the gold was money.
[00:58:53] So currency is like a money substitute.
[00:58:55] But you can have two kinds of currency.
[00:58:57] You can have legitimate currency, which
[00:58:58] is backed by real money, or you can have
[00:59:00] fiat currency, which is backed by
[00:59:02] nothing. And so what we have now is is
[00:59:04] fiat currency. And the question is,
[00:59:05] well, could we replace that with
[00:59:07] Bitcoin? Um, and I don't think that
[00:59:10] that's possible because I don't think
[00:59:12] that Bitcoin has any value uh beyond its
[00:59:16] appeal that you know, you know, a
[00:59:18] greater fool is going to come and buy
[00:59:20] it. Central banks can't hold Bitcoin as
[00:59:24] a reserve against their own currency. If
[00:59:27] they had to sell it, I mean, the price
[00:59:29] would drop sharply. You know, you know,
[00:59:32] you have to have real money. That's why
[00:59:34] all these central banks
[00:59:35] >> but under our current system you don't
[00:59:36] have real money. You have the US dollar
[00:59:38] which is real because people have
[00:59:40] decided it's real. It's it's an act of
[00:59:42] faith
[00:59:43] >> and their faith in that is declining
[00:59:45] because it's been used as a political
[00:59:46] weapon as you I thought so crisply
[00:59:49] explained
[00:59:51] >> and so you need to replace it with
[00:59:53] something. Why wouldn't bit why would
[00:59:55] bitcoin be any different from the dollar
[00:59:56] except you like start a new. Well, the
[00:59:58] diff the main difference there is, you
[01:00:00] know, they're both in a way fiat in that
[01:00:03] both Bitcoin and the dollar derive their
[01:00:06] value from faith and confidence,
[01:00:08] >> right?
[01:00:09] >> But Bitcoin, people are buying, most
[01:00:12] people who are buying Bitcoin are buying
[01:00:13] Bitcoin to get more dollars. They
[01:00:15] they're thinking the price is going to
[01:00:16] go way up and they'll be able to sell
[01:00:18] out and have more dollars than they
[01:00:19] started with. Most people are not
[01:00:21] getting into Bitcoin because they just
[01:00:23] want a safe store of value. If that was
[01:00:25] the case, they they would buy gold.
[01:00:27] they're speculating in it. Um, but the
[01:00:31] central banks, right, these big central
[01:00:33] banks are not going to be able to put
[01:00:36] large quantities of their dollar
[01:00:39] reserves into Bitcoin. Uh, it there's
[01:00:42] just it's not a reliable long-term store
[01:00:45] of value for them. That's what they're
[01:00:46] looking for. They're looking for
[01:00:47] something to replace the dollar to back
[01:00:50] up their currency. And
[01:00:52] >> are they are they buying Bitcoin?
[01:00:54] >> No, they're not buying. I mean you have
[01:00:55] El Salvador bought some Bitcoin. I mean
[01:00:57] you have you have some foreign
[01:00:59] governments that have sovereign wealth
[01:01:00] funds. Yes. Where those sovereign wealth
[01:01:02] funds have kind of bought some Bitcoin
[01:01:04] ETFs or maybe they bought strategy you
[01:01:07] know which was a big mistake but because
[01:01:10] they're you know these investment
[01:01:11] managers are under a lot of pressure
[01:01:13] just like any other manager to perform
[01:01:16] and and so a lot of these cryptoreated
[01:01:18] assets went up and so there was some
[01:01:20] pressure. Hey, I need to put these in
[01:01:22] the portfolio. Uh and and so you have
[01:01:25] allocations and and then the commu
[01:01:27] crypto community tries to pretend, oh,
[01:01:29] these governments are buying up Bitcoin.
[01:01:31] They're not really buying Bitcoin. The
[01:01:32] managers of these sovereign wealth funds
[01:01:34] have have taken a small allocation. I
[01:01:37] think that's all going to stop because
[01:01:38] this is going to blow up. Uh you know,
[01:01:40] the people who are putting money into
[01:01:41] crypto now into Bitcoin are going to
[01:01:43] lose a lot of money where they're
[01:01:44] they're the exit strategy. I mean,
[01:01:46] that's why Bitcoin hasn't gone up. You
[01:01:48] know, Bitcoin's real high water mark was
[01:01:51] four years ago. It's down about 40%
[01:01:53] priced in gold over the last four years.
[01:01:55] So, we've been distributing Bitcoin from
[01:01:58] the strong hands that bought it early,
[01:02:00] the OGs, the whales, uh, to the retail
[01:02:03] public has been buying it at these
[01:02:06] inflated prices, uh, for years and
[01:02:09] eventually, you know, the bottom's going
[01:02:10] to drop out of this thing. So that le I
[01:02:12] mean you're making a very I would say
[01:02:14] I'm biased of course, but you're making
[01:02:16] a pretty compelling case for gold on a
[01:02:19] bunch of levels, but one most obviously
[01:02:20] is a hedge against whatever the hell's
[01:02:22] going to happen next. Like so if you're
[01:02:24] giving advice to someone you love, like
[01:02:26] I've got $100, what do I do with it? I
[01:02:29] think the wise the loving advice would
[01:02:31] be put some of it in gold.
[01:02:33] >> Well, everybody should have some money
[01:02:34] in gold. But so why isn't that advice
[01:02:37] ever uttered on any of the financial
[01:02:40] advice channels? Um, I think that's
[01:02:42] weird.
[01:02:43] >> Yeah. You know, because Wall Street has
[01:02:45] never been a big promoter of gold. Um,
[01:02:49] >> wait, you know, I don't mean why why
[01:02:51] doesn't, you know, JP Morgan tell you to
[01:02:52] buy gold. Why doesn't CNBC tell you to
[01:02:54] buy gold?
[01:02:55] >> Well, I don't think they have enough
[01:02:56] gold companies that advertise on CNBC. I
[01:02:59] think most of their advertisers are from
[01:03:01] the crypto industry, and I think that
[01:03:03] really corrupts the whole process.
[01:03:05] >> Really? Yeah. I think the advertisers
[01:03:08] advertise because they know they're
[01:03:10] going to have a lot of pro- crypto
[01:03:11] content. I mean, they they spend the
[01:03:13] entire day on CNBC. Uh I, you know, I
[01:03:16] haven't been on that show in over a
[01:03:18] decade. You know, they they're the ones
[01:03:19] that initially started calling me Dr.
[01:03:21] Doom when I was predicting the 2008
[01:03:23] financial crisis. So, they kind of used
[01:03:24] to have me on. Uh but and it and it's
[01:03:27] not just me. They don't really have any
[01:03:28] Bitcoin critics on their air. They have
[01:03:31] they have one Bitcoin promoter after
[01:03:34] another. and all of the the on air
[01:03:36] talent, all the anchors are pretty much
[01:03:38] pro Bitcoin. Um,
[01:03:40] >> but where are they on gold?
[01:03:41] >> They don't even really talk about it. I
[01:03:43] mean, you know, but you'd started this
[01:03:45] conversation by describing the rise in
[01:03:49] the S&P relative to gold.
[01:03:52] >> Fall in the S&P relative?
[01:03:53] >> Well, well, the S&P has risen, but once
[01:03:55] you root it in gold, because all
[01:03:57] measures are comparative, you see that
[01:03:59] it's actually fallen compared to gold.
[01:04:01] So, gold was the better buy.
[01:04:02] >> Yeah. But again, you know,
[01:04:03] >> but so like that's just indisputable,
[01:04:05] right?
[01:04:06] >> Yes. But that that that is not what
[01:04:08] they're selling on these financial
[01:04:09] >> but they're lying then.
[01:04:10] >> Well, yeah. I mean, you know, or or they
[01:04:12] or they don't understand it. I mean,
[01:04:14] there's a lot of
[01:04:15] >> But that's even I I mean, I don't know
[01:04:16] anything because you didn't get a degree
[01:04:18] in economics from a major.
[01:04:20] >> But that's really simple. I you I buy
[01:04:22] two things 25 years ago. Which is worth
[01:04:24] more now? That's just simple, right? and
[01:04:27] and you know it's going to accelerate
[01:04:29] because we're going to be printing a lot
[01:04:31] of money you know now that the Fed has
[01:04:33] really gone back to QE they haven't
[01:04:34] admitted it but it's only a matter of
[01:04:36] time
[01:04:36] >> why do you say they've gone back to
[01:04:38] quantitation
[01:04:38] >> because they're printing money and
[01:04:39] buying treasuries so but what are
[01:04:41] interest like over the past 6 months
[01:04:42] what have for those who are not paying
[01:04:44] attention tell us where interest rates
[01:04:45] have
[01:04:46] >> well short-term interest rates have come
[01:04:47] down right the Fed has cut rates three
[01:04:49] times and so now they have the Fed funds
[01:04:51] at three and a half to three and 3/4 but
[01:04:53] the 10-year Treasury has stayed around
[01:04:56] 4%. It's around 4.15%.
[01:04:59] The 30-year Treasury is around 3 4.8%.
[01:05:03] Right? So, they haven't been able to
[01:05:05] move long-term rates down. And I think
[01:05:08] long-term rates are going to soar in
[01:05:10] this country. And I think in order to
[01:05:12] prevent long-term rates from really
[01:05:14] rising, the Fed is going to be
[01:05:16] monetizing more debt, printing more
[01:05:17] money, creating more inflation.
[01:05:19] Remember, we're spending now over a
[01:05:21] trillion dollars a year just on interest
[01:05:23] on the national debt. Like 1.2 2 1.3
[01:05:26] trillion. That's going to hit 2 trillion
[01:05:28] probably sometime next year because
[01:05:30] almost all of the national debt is
[01:05:33] financed with Treasury bills. Right?
[01:05:35] Back when interest rates got to 20% in
[01:05:38] 1980, most of the national debt was
[01:05:40] long-term. So it was unaffected by the
[01:05:43] big move. It only affected the new
[01:05:45] borrowing. But now, right, if a third of
[01:05:48] the national debt comes due in the next
[01:05:50] year, the government has to refinance
[01:05:52] that at whatever the current uh rate of
[01:05:55] interest is. So, I think we're we're
[01:05:57] headed for this fiscal, you know, time
[01:05:59] bomb uh where the the cost of servicing
[01:06:02] the debt is is skyrocketing. I mean, in
[01:06:04] not too many years, it could cost us
[01:06:08] more than we collect in taxes just to
[01:06:10] pay the interest on what we've borrowed,
[01:06:12] right? Because the the debt service
[01:06:14] costs are exploding. And the only reason
[01:06:16] they're not much higher now is because
[01:06:18] rates are still low. You know, 4% is
[01:06:21] low, right? Donald Trump wants them
[01:06:23] lower. You know, he wants, you know,
[01:06:25] zero or 1%. But the reason he wants
[01:06:27] that, he wants just more inflation. He
[01:06:29] wants to try to blow air into the bubble
[01:06:31] to hide the fact that the economy is
[01:06:33] actually getting weaker. So, he just
[01:06:34] wants to make the bubbles bigger by
[01:06:36] creating more inflation while at the
[01:06:38] same time claiming that he's vanquished
[01:06:41] inflation. All because energy prices
[01:06:43] have come down. And energy prices have
[01:06:45] come down. In fact, energy prices are as
[01:06:48] cheap as they've ever been. If you look
[01:06:50] at how many barrels of oil you can buy
[01:06:52] with an ounce of gold, oil is dirt
[01:06:54] cheap. The question is, how long is it
[01:06:57] going to stay this cheap? I don't think
[01:06:58] it's going to stay cheap. I've been
[01:06:59] buying a lot of oil stocks now. Uh we've
[01:07:01] been increasing our allocation to energy
[01:07:03] because I think we're going to see a big
[01:07:05] move up in in oil prices.
[01:07:07] >> The one factor you haven't mentioned is
[01:07:09] technological change. So,
[01:07:12] >> and with gold, too. I mean, if gold
[01:07:13] prices I don't know what the threshold
[01:07:15] for gold is, but if it gets to, you
[01:07:16] know, six grand an ounce or something
[01:07:18] crazy, somebody's going to figure out a
[01:07:20] better extraction technique and there's
[01:07:22] going to be a lot more gold and prices
[01:07:23] will fall.
[01:07:23] >> Well, there won't be a lot more gold
[01:07:25] because, you know, the supply of gold
[01:07:27] grows pretty slowly, 1 or 2% a year.
[01:07:30] >> It has, right? But that's a technology
[01:07:32] question.
[01:07:33] >> Yeah, but you know, we you know, we
[01:07:34] haven't come up with um better ways um
[01:07:38] or you know, because the gold gets
[01:07:40] harder to get out of the ground. you
[01:07:41] know, the the real easy gold has already
[01:07:43] been extracted, right? Because they've
[01:07:44] been mining gold for hundreds of years.
[01:07:46] So, uh you know, the gold that's still
[01:07:48] there is more difficult to get out of
[01:07:49] the ground, but there hasn't been a
[01:07:51] major gold discovery in decades, there
[01:07:54] hasn't been a lot of investment in
[01:07:57] exploration and development. So, by the
[01:07:59] time the industry is able to uh you
[01:08:02] know, attract enough capital into the
[01:08:04] sector because nobody's been interested
[01:08:06] in in gold mining, right? It's been it's
[01:08:08] been dead. In fact, crypto I think
[01:08:10] really harmed the industry. It created a
[01:08:13] big distraction of course where people
[01:08:14] were like, "Well, why should I buy gold?
[01:08:16] I got Bitcoin. It's better than gold.
[01:08:17] It's gold 2.0." So, the industry was
[01:08:19] really starved for capital.
[01:08:21] >> But I'm just saying because markets do
[01:08:23] respond to reality over time. If the
[01:08:26] price gets high enough, it's in
[01:08:27] seawater. Okay. So, like
[01:08:29] >> Yeah, they will. Yes. over time and and
[01:08:32] people will start melting down their
[01:08:33] jewelry because they need money and the
[01:08:35] prices are higher. And yes, all this
[01:08:37] will happen, but it's not going to stop
[01:08:38] the price of gold. Look, the price of
[01:08:40] gold was $20 an ounce uh from 1789
[01:08:45] to 1933, right? For like 150 years, it
[01:08:49] was $20 an ounce and then Roosevelt
[01:08:51] devalued and got 35. But if gold can go
[01:08:54] from $20 an ounce to 4,000, right? Where
[01:08:57] can it go from 4,000? I mean it can go
[01:08:59] to 100,000 you know obviously you know
[01:09:02] we can keep debasing the value of
[01:09:04] currency you know ironically you know
[01:09:07] the one of the ways that you're going to
[01:09:10] actually bring gold into the modern
[01:09:14] economy is through the blockchain
[01:09:16] through the internet. Everybody wants to
[01:09:18] talk about, you know, uh, uh, stable
[01:09:21] coins, right? Which are basically
[01:09:23] tokenized dollars, right? Just taking
[01:09:25] the dollar and turning it into a token.
[01:09:27] Yeah. Right.
[01:09:28] >> Well, there's no real stability in
[01:09:30] tokenizing dollars because you've got
[01:09:32] the same inherent problem. If you own a
[01:09:35] st a dollar token, inflation is going to
[01:09:38] destroy its value. It's gonna, you know,
[01:09:40] you're going to lose value the same way.
[01:09:41] >> You're not in control of the Congress
[01:09:42] and the Fed. So, like,
[01:09:44] >> and you don't even really earn interest
[01:09:45] on it. At least if I have dollars, I can
[01:09:48] put them in a money market and get some
[01:09:49] interest to offset some of what I'm
[01:09:51] losing to inflation. But the ideal thing
[01:09:54] to tokenize is gold, right? Because when
[01:09:57] you turn gold into a token, now you
[01:09:59] actually have digital gold. So instead
[01:10:02] of having paper money that's backed by
[01:10:04] gold, I can have a digital token that's
[01:10:06] backed by gold. As long as the tokens
[01:10:09] continue to match one for one, the
[01:10:11] physical supply of gold, that's a real
[01:10:13] system.
[01:10:13] >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, the second you've got
[01:10:15] more paper than you've got assets, then
[01:10:16] it's not real.
[01:10:17] >> But you know what? But it's so easily
[01:10:18] auditable on a blockchain. I mean, I'm
[01:10:20] doing that and you should look into
[01:10:22] this, too. I I you know, I have a on
[01:10:24] shift gold, I have a T- gold, uh, which
[01:10:27] is ultimately going to be tokenized
[01:10:28] gold. I haven't launched the token yet.
[01:10:30] Uh, but right now, I'm I'm helping
[01:10:33] people buy gold and silver that we're
[01:10:35] going to tokenize. So once you have the
[01:10:37] gold, you'll have the ability to
[01:10:40] withdraw it either in a physical form or
[01:10:42] in the form of a token. But the idea of
[01:10:44] a gold back token, the idea of T- Gold
[01:10:47] is so that you can use your gold easily
[01:10:49] as a medium of exchange and you can
[01:10:51] transact instantly uh over the internet.
[01:10:54] You you know somebody in the United
[01:10:56] States can make a purchase from somebody
[01:10:59] in Australia and pay them instantly with
[01:11:01] gold. You don't have to send the actual
[01:11:03] gold to Australia. You just send the
[01:11:06] token which represents ownership of that
[01:11:08] gold. If you have the token, then the
[01:11:10] gold belongs to you. And so if I want to
[01:11:12] give you my gold, I don't have to drive
[01:11:14] down to the vault, grab some of it and
[01:11:16] and and bring it to you. I just send you
[01:11:18] the token and now you own the gold. Just
[01:11:21] like paper money, when paper used to
[01:11:23] circulate, whoever had the paper had
[01:11:25] ownership of the gold. The paper
[01:11:27] currency was titled to gold. And so now
[01:11:30] you could do that with a token through a
[01:11:31] blockchain
[01:11:32] >> as long as you can redeem it.
[01:11:34] >> Yeah. And it's enforceable
[01:11:35] >> and it's auditable. Look, when you know,
[01:11:37] >> but is it enforceable?
[01:11:38] >> Of course, it's a legal contract. It's a
[01:11:40] law. So, if I sell you a gold token and
[01:11:43] that's like an IOU, it's an IOU for gold
[01:11:46] and I legally contractually am obligated
[01:11:49] to pay you or whoever is the bearer of
[01:11:52] that token. So, while you own the token,
[01:11:54] the gold belongs to you. But if you
[01:11:56] spend that token and now somebody else
[01:11:58] earns it because you know they provided
[01:12:01] goods or services or you just gave them
[01:12:02] a gift. Now they own the gold. Now they
[01:12:06] don't have to come and get it. They you
[01:12:07] know they can just leave it there and
[01:12:09] just transact uh the token. I mean
[01:12:10] that's what people did. If you go back
[01:12:12] to the days of a blacksmith with your
[01:12:14] gold, you would have gold and you left
[01:12:16] it with a blacksmith and he gave you an
[01:12:18] IOU and and and if the people in the
[01:12:21] town knew the local blacksmith and they
[01:12:24] recognized his IOU, you know, if you you
[01:12:27] could you could spend it, people would
[01:12:28] take it because they they didn't have to
[01:12:30] go get the gold. They knew the gold was
[01:12:32] there. The problem would be, of course,
[01:12:33] if the blacksmith, you know, absconded
[01:12:36] with the gold. But, you know, in in in
[01:12:38] capitalism, and I I have this argument
[01:12:40] all the time with these Bitcoiners
[01:12:42] because they think that what I'm doing
[01:12:45] with tokenized gold, they think, well,
[01:12:47] you know, you have to trust the third
[01:12:48] party. So, you know, I want to own
[01:12:50] Bitcoin because I don't have to trust a
[01:12:51] third party. Well, of course, you know,
[01:12:53] if you put your Bitcoin on an exchange,
[01:12:55] if you own it through an ETF, of course,
[01:12:56] you're trusting a third party. Um, but I
[01:13:00] have no problem with trusting third
[01:13:01] parties in capitalism because a business
[01:13:06] that has a reputation and has a brand
[01:13:09] uh, wants to maintain the value of that
[01:13:11] brand. You know, I mean, the insurance
[01:13:14] industry is a perfect example of trust.
[01:13:17] When you buy an insurance policy, you're
[01:13:19] relying on a third party, the insurance
[01:13:21] company, to pay your claim, right? You
[01:13:24] know, if you have fire insurance, you're
[01:13:26] trusting that if your house burns down,
[01:13:28] the insurance company is going to pay
[01:13:30] you.
[01:13:30] >> Well, every transaction require I mean,
[01:13:32] I trust there's no poison in my ice
[01:13:34] cream. You know, every transaction
[01:13:35] >> now people in Bitcoin say, "Well, when I
[01:13:36] have Bitcoin, I don't have to trust
[01:13:38] anybody." Well, no, you have to trust
[01:13:39] everybody. You have to trust that people
[01:13:41] still want your Bitcoin despite the fact
[01:13:43] that it has no value.
[01:13:44] >> We also have to trust the electrical
[01:13:45] grid because it doesn't exist without
[01:13:47] it,
[01:13:47] >> right? That too. But the the bigger
[01:13:49] thing is you're just trusting that that
[01:13:51] the the people who believe in Bitcoin,
[01:13:53] who believe that nothing is something
[01:13:55] continue to believe that and continue to
[01:13:57] have gold coins in your backyard, you
[01:13:59] you have to trust fewer people. All you
[01:14:01] have to trust is human nature which is
[01:14:02] attracted to gold. Period.
[01:14:04] >> Well, but when when you own gold, you're
[01:14:06] not trusting anything because the gold
[01:14:08] itself has value.
[01:14:10] >> Well, that's what I'm saying, right? So,
[01:14:12] but if you have possession of physical
[01:14:13] gold,
[01:14:15] >> you you're not relying on fragile
[01:14:16] systems. I mean, the only risk there is
[01:14:18] somebody could steal it from you if they
[01:14:20] find it, right? You could lose it,
[01:14:22] right? You know, if you have gold. Um,
[01:14:24] but the the thing about tokenized gold,
[01:14:26] and I I I recommend that people have
[01:14:28] both. They have physical gold and and
[01:14:30] they have some tokenized gold because
[01:14:32] the tokenized gold is the gold that you
[01:14:34] can use in commerce, you know, that you
[01:14:36] could easily spend. It's much more
[01:14:38] difficult. If I have bars of gold or
[01:14:40] even gold coins, even a even a you know
[01:14:44] 1 ounce gold coin is $4,000.
[01:14:46] A tenth of an ounce coin is $400, right?
[01:14:49] I mean, so if you want to buy something
[01:14:50] for five bucks, you know, how you know,
[01:14:53] let's go, you know, you can't really do
[01:14:55] it. But if you have the tokenized gold,
[01:14:57] then you can easily transact. You can,
[01:14:59] you know, buy a cup of coffee and the
[01:15:01] barista can accept payment in gold. You
[01:15:04] know the big problem though and I I want
[01:15:06] to congratulate you too on on on
[01:15:08] battalion gold right that you that you
[01:15:10] set up. Um because you know when I
[01:15:13] started as I mentioned when I started in
[01:15:15] this industry in the gold industry in
[01:15:18] 2010
[01:15:19] >> for over 10 years before that I was just
[01:15:22] telling all my customers buy gold just
[01:15:25] go out and buy gold right even though I
[01:15:26] didn't sell it I thought everybody
[01:15:28] should own it and I just said you know
[01:15:29] go out and get it. And little did I know
[01:15:32] that people were just getting ripped off
[01:15:34] because I found out years later. People
[01:15:36] would call me up and they would say, you
[01:15:38] know, I I just sold some gold. You know,
[01:15:40] I bought it, you know, it was $400 and
[01:15:43] and now I sold it at 700 and I lost
[01:15:45] money. Like, well, how'd you lose money?
[01:15:47] And and then uh and I started looking
[01:15:49] into it and I found out that when they
[01:15:51] bought gold when it was $400, they
[01:15:53] didn't pay $400. They paid like because
[01:15:55] they they didn't get $400 worth of gold.
[01:15:57] They just paid $400 to get like $200
[01:16:00] worth of gold.
[01:16:01] >> So because they bought it in the form of
[01:16:02] a commemorative coin that was supposed
[01:16:04] to have value.
[01:16:05] >> Yeah. They got and and so I set up Shift
[01:16:08] Gold
[01:16:09] >> simply because I didn't want people to
[01:16:10] get ripped off anymore because it was so
[01:16:13] it was so pervasive and it was almost
[01:16:15] because so few people were buying gold
[01:16:17] that the only way that the gold uh
[01:16:20] industry could make money was to
[01:16:21] overcharge. And what really made me
[01:16:24] furious, and I don't even want to name
[01:16:26] names, but I I I had a, you know, is
[01:16:28] that they would go to some of the most
[01:16:31] popular conservative talk show hosts and
[01:16:34] they would pay these guys to recommend
[01:16:36] their goal company.
[01:16:37] >> Oh, I know.
[01:16:38] >> And the reason they would do that is
[01:16:41] because the loyal listeners trusted the
[01:16:43] talk show host.
[01:16:44] >> Well, they came to me with an offer.
[01:16:46] That's how I know this. I didn't
[01:16:48] understand how it worked. I never
[01:16:49] thought I've always been pro gold, but I
[01:16:50] didn't realize people were paying twice
[01:16:53] oh the value twice the spot price.
[01:16:55] >> The only reason it worked, Tucker. The
[01:16:58] reason it worked is because the people
[01:16:59] who listen to their favorite talk show
[01:17:01] host and the guy would say, "Here's the
[01:17:03] firm I trust. This is where I buy my
[01:17:05] gold." Yeah, cuz they don't rip you off,
[01:17:07] but here's where I get my gold. Go buy
[01:17:09] your gold there. and the the the
[01:17:11] listener who is very, you know, loyal to
[01:17:13] the talk show host and trusts them goes
[01:17:16] to that gold broker and just assumes
[01:17:18] they're getting a great deal. Hey, you
[01:17:20] know, so and so wouldn't recommend this
[01:17:21] company unless they were going to treat
[01:17:23] me right. And so they didn't shop around
[01:17:25] and in fact they make it impossible to
[01:17:27] shop around because they sell coins that
[01:17:29] nobody else has because they're so
[01:17:30] obscure and they try to pretend that
[01:17:33] they're, you know, they're not going to
[01:17:35] be confiscated or they have some kind of
[01:17:36] collectible value and it's all BS. They
[01:17:39] have no value. They they it's all the
[01:17:41] money went it goes into the pocket of
[01:17:44] the salesman because these these gold
[01:17:45] salesmen work on commission and if they
[01:17:48] sell you, you know, maple leaves at a 1%
[01:17:51] markup and maybe they make $200 in gross
[01:17:53] commission and they make 30 bucks for
[01:17:55] themselves or they can get you to put
[01:17:57] the $10,000 into these deadly coins and
[01:18:00] they make $2,000,000.
[01:18:02] That's what they sell. That's what they
[01:18:04] >> I didn't know any of this. And the
[01:18:06] problem with selling gold in an honest
[01:18:08] way is that it's a very low mar. You do
[01:18:11] this, you know, it's a very low margin.
[01:18:12] You're not getting rich selling gold and
[01:18:14] we're not getting rich from it. And our
[01:18:15] prices are transparent. You know,
[01:18:17] exactly. It's whatever two points above
[01:18:19] spot or something. We're not in this to
[01:18:21] get rich.
[01:18:21] >> Well, where you're going to make money
[01:18:22] eventually is on volume. Eventually, a
[01:18:24] lot more people are going to start
[01:18:25] buying gold. I mean, people just don't
[01:18:27] know enough to buy.
[01:18:28] >> Anything can't be a scam because then
[01:18:30] people lose confidence in their fellow
[01:18:32] human beings and their country and it's
[01:18:34] just bad. The problem is the only
[01:18:36] companies I can afford to advertise on
[01:18:38] television are the ones that are ripping
[01:18:40] you off. I'm that that's how I figured
[01:18:41] out it was a scam. I was like, how can
[01:18:43] they afford? It's a commodity. How can
[01:18:46] they afford to pay me just as a
[01:18:48] pitchman? I'm sure they have other
[01:18:50] people Well, they do have other people
[01:18:51] pitching as well. How can where does
[01:18:53] this money come from? And that's how I
[01:18:54] figured out
[01:18:55] >> and that's and I talked to a lot of
[01:18:56] people that I knew in the industry and I
[01:18:58] was pointing out you are your your
[01:19:00] audience is getting ripped off. You are
[01:19:02] helping these guys steal money by
[01:19:05] promoting these companies. And they're
[01:19:07] the nicest people and they're
[01:19:08] directionally correct in their concerns.
[01:19:10] They're they love America. They're
[01:19:11] worried about the softening of the
[01:19:13] dollar. They know that the politicians
[01:19:14] basically are looting the country
[01:19:16] through devaluing the dollar. That's all
[01:19:18] true. So they're they're the best
[01:19:21] people. They're the most honest people.
[01:19:22] And screw them over just enraged me.
[01:19:25] >> Yes. They're screwing them over. They're
[01:19:26] do they're trying to do the right thing.
[01:19:28] They're trying to buy gold
[01:19:30] >> and then they're getting ripped off.
[01:19:31] Now, the thing is, gold has gone up so
[01:19:33] much that a lot of those people don't
[01:19:35] even realize cuz now they could actually
[01:19:37] still sell their their their gold at a
[01:19:39] at a gain, but they would have a much
[01:19:40] bigger gain if they hadn't been ripped
[01:19:43] off. In fact, I have a a special report.
[01:19:45] I remember I wrote this report. People
[01:19:46] can get it, you know, it's on my website
[01:19:48] on shiftgold.com, but it's classic gold
[01:19:50] scams. And I go over all of the tricks,
[01:19:54] all the things that gold salesmen tell
[01:19:56] you to steal your money, to convince you
[01:19:58] why you shouldn't buy, you know, a maple
[01:20:00] leaf or a cougarand, why you should buy
[01:20:03] this certain and they have all these
[01:20:04] tricks and and and a lot of times too,
[01:20:07] they'll even advertise
[01:20:09] for these, you know, they'll have a low
[01:20:11] price on a maple leaf, right? That might
[01:20:15] even be lower than what I would charge,
[01:20:17] right? But then when someone calls up to
[01:20:18] buy it, they don't sell you that. No,
[01:20:20] >> they sell you talk you into something
[01:20:23] else. And they also try to con you into
[01:20:25] it by a lot of these companies have
[01:20:27] something called like a price
[01:20:28] protection. Like they say, "Hey, we'll
[01:20:30] guarantee you if the price goes down
[01:20:31] over the next 30 days, we'll we'll do it
[01:20:33] at we'll we'll market to the lower price
[01:20:36] like we'll give you some more." Or
[01:20:37] sometimes they even offer to give you
[01:20:39] free gold or free silver if you buy a
[01:20:41] certain amount. And the only reason they
[01:20:42] could do that is because they're
[01:20:43] overcharging you by so much money. It's
[01:20:45] totally right. They have enough left
[01:20:47] over. Or if they're if they're if
[01:20:48] they're charging you 50% more than the
[01:20:51] price of gold and the price of gold goes
[01:20:53] down and they have to give you back 10%
[01:20:55] of what they overcharge you, they still
[01:20:56] made a fortune. Exactly. [music]
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