Judy Shelton's Saturday interview with President Trump is a must-listen. She is a force to be reckoned with. She has a unique perspective on how to deal with the current economic and political realities, and a unique approach to dealing with them. It's no surprise that she has been a long-time supporter of the Trump administration and has been one of the most influential voices in the pro-Trump faction of the Republican Party. She's also a fierce critic of the Federal Reserve, and has long been an advocate of the idea that the Fed should be replaced with a more independent, less interventionist central bank.
00:01:08.000So what I'm going to do, I'm going to do interstitial programming.
00:01:11.000We're going to play some of the interview and I'm going to come back and try to contextualize it since it happened on Saturday.
00:01:18.000Although she talked about kind of eternal truths about all this.
00:01:23.000Also, we have in here, if you remember, much to her surprise, I think pleasant surprise, we also found the clip from John Adams.
00:01:32.000And if you haven't seen John Adams, the series of HBO, I strongly recommend you to get a DVD.
00:01:38.000If you don't have a DVD player, you know, order it, get it up digitally online and watch it with the family.
00:01:45.000It is a it's quite frankly a masterpiece.
00:01:48.000And of course, it's written with a certain slant on it as everything is, but it's really a masterpiece.
00:01:54.000And we play a great segment of that in the next block with Jefferson and Hamilton kind of going at it on the fight that still continues today.
00:02:04.000I want to thank our team at Birch Gold, of course, Philip Patrick and the team.
00:02:09.000We think it's very important now more than ever that you understand a currency, that you understand America's role as the prime reserve currency.
00:02:18.000I'm very proud over the last couple of years in being, I think, last four years or longer of being with associated with Birch Gold where we've done this series called the end of the dollar empire.
00:02:28.000You heard Judy and a lot of people were so blown away by Judy.
00:02:31.000And when I tell them, hey, go get the end of the dollar empire, that's kind of a primer in what she's talking about.
00:02:36.000And she speaks with so clearly her thinking so clear, the way she articulates this, the ideas are so clear.
00:02:42.000I think that's why she she kind of stands out in today's about commentators and observers and people that do analytics is one of the reasons President Trump picked her in the first term.
00:02:53.000And of course, she was defeated in the United States Senate of Mitch McConnell.
00:02:57.000I don't think she would be defeated today. I'm a huge advocate of Judy getting involved, involved in all this.
00:03:03.000Make sure you go to Birch Gold dot com promo code abandoned.
00:03:08.000You get the end of the dollar empire. We've got seven free installments for you.
00:03:12.000We're working on installment number eight and we're also working on installment number nine.
00:03:17.000We think so much came out of Rio, particularly on the de-dollarization effort that you need to understand.
00:03:22.000Remember, I keep saying this over and over again. It's not the daily price of gold.
00:03:26.000Of course, it's had a historic run up the last year.
00:03:30.000If you've been with us for four years, you've and you've gotten involved early on, you understand a real run it's had.
00:03:36.000And in fact, before the stock market started breaking these all time records here recently, historically through the 21st century, I think it's got the best returns.
00:03:44.000Anyway, we're going to go back. This is the interview I just did on Saturday with Judy Shelton.
00:03:49.000Let's go ahead and hit the opening. Judy, you know, the president.
00:03:53.000We've got some clips we want to show you a little later, but the president went to the Federal Reserve on the same day.
00:03:57.000Scott Besson, the secretary of treasury, say, hey, look, this is just not about a new chairman.
00:04:02.000We need a fundamental review, strategic review of exactly what we're doing here as a central bank.
00:04:07.000What what what is what's their mandate? What's the plan?
00:04:10.000What are they helping us or hurting us?
00:04:12.000I think you've been and I would say the most prominent of the critics of the Federal Reserve.
00:04:18.000Can you walk us through your thoughts about what Scott Besson with the secretary of treasury saying?
00:04:23.000Because the media, as they always do, you know, they've got to focus on palace intrigue.
00:04:28.000So it's this person, that person. But you've argued for a while we have a much deeper and systemic problem with our central bank.
00:04:35.000Ma'am, the floor is yours. Your observations about where we stand with this central bank right now.
00:04:41.000Well, first, Steve, let me just say how honored I am that you invited me.
00:04:47.000I'm so glad to be with you this morning.
00:04:50.000As far as the Federal Reserve, boy, do I welcome this.
00:04:54.000They really needed a comeuppance for too long.
00:04:59.000The Fed has been accumulating power and prominence in financial markets.
00:05:09.000And I think that the chair, Jerome Powell, was setting himself up as some kind of an emperor who was going to sit in judgment.
00:05:20.000And yes, an elected president could come in and put forward their supply side program of lower taxes and less regulation and smarter trade policy, better energy policy.
00:05:32.000And the Fed would just sit there in judgment and decide if it would allow those things.
00:05:38.000And it really came to a head when Chair Powell made that that speech at the Economic Club in Chicago.
00:05:45.000And I think he bought the farm when he did that because finally the disconnect between the world of central banking and all the Americans who voted for President Trump and want those policy changes, who want an economy that's growing, who want an emphasis on the private sector, the real economy.
00:06:07.000And they just said, no, wait a minute, he's talking about tariff caused inflation as if as if that's a done deal.
00:06:16.000And it's time to to call the Fed out on it.
00:06:21.000It can no longer just say, oh, then you're threatening the sanctity of central bank independence or markets might get royal.
00:06:28.000I'm telling you, we're going to see the central bankers double down because when when Chair Powell goes to Europe and and he gets toasted by Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank.
00:06:42.000And and he gets a standing ovation as she says, oh, yes, we all hope to be as brave as he is in resisting.
00:07:18.000I welcome when Treasury Secretary Scott Besson said we need fundamental reform.
00:07:24.000It matters a lot more than whether the Fed reduces 25 basis points in July versus September.
00:07:30.000And even the the building renovation project.
00:07:33.000That's just that's just the thread that we can now pull to unravel all of the problems at the Fed running at an operating loss since September 2022.
00:07:44.000Over nine hundred billion in unrealized capital losses on its own portfolio.
00:07:50.000And for me, the worst, the Fed paying interest on reserve balances, which means it doesn't engage in open market operations to set monetary policy.
00:08:00.000It dictates the interest rate in a free market economy.
00:08:04.000It it fixes the interest rate, the price of loanable capital.
00:08:10.000And it does it by paying banks not to make loans and not to put their money in Treasury securities, which would bring down those rates, which do affect the real economy.
00:08:21.000So I'm happy I'll be meeting with Republican senators next week at their steering committee meeting.
00:08:27.000You have a number of senators who are finally willing to exercise, I think, their constitutionally mandated oversight responsibility.
00:08:35.000Section one, Article eight, they're supposed to regulate the money.
00:10:14.000And he knew he had enough to handle because he had selected both Hamilton to be his second minister of finance or secretary of the Treasury.
00:10:22.000And Jefferson to be secretary of state.
00:10:24.000Jefferson had been in revolutionary France and had just come back for the first cabinet meeting.
00:10:29.000And they and they went at it right off the bat.
00:10:32.000And what is about this about this central tension that's still in the country today between being a manual and Hamilton.
00:10:40.000These guys saw the fact that the United States could be a continental empire and a massive manufacturing superpower.
00:10:47.000Remember, this is in what, 1792, you know, this is the 18th century.
00:10:54.000This is the genius of Hamilton in his vision looking down range.
00:10:58.000This is why if you read the report on manufacturers, I say it's right up there with the Declaration of Independence as a sophisticated look of how you develop a nation.
00:11:07.000You know, Jefferson's was about the freedom of man and liberty and really a declaration of war, most of a declaration of war against the the British crown.
00:11:17.000The reports of manufacture came out later was about how you actually take a country that's really just agriculture in some trading in some ports and turn it into an industrial superpower.
00:11:29.000That's the vision Alexander Hamilton and the practicality put it through.
00:11:34.000But they were at each other's throats. And what did it get about?
00:11:37.000It got about debt, deficits, currency.
00:11:57.000And so you get to see this issue at the at the very start of the revolution.
00:12:02.000I really want to thank once again Birch Gold.
00:12:05.000And this is why we make the end of the dollar empire.
00:12:08.000It's now taught in college courses, because as these professors are saying in finance, it gives accessibility to their students.
00:12:15.000It's written like a textbook, much more accessible.
00:12:18.000Why? We want to take a middle class and a working class audience and it kind of explain how the system works, particularly capital markets, the economy and the economy.
00:12:26.000And the interactions between and currency and why being the prime reserve currency has been so important for America's rise.
00:12:34.000But it comes with a number of responsibilities and obligations.
00:12:39.000Right now we're in the middle of a huge fight where you have the BRICS nations led by Russia and China that are trying to get off.
00:12:48.000They think that the dollar we've weaponized the dollar and it's used against them.
00:12:52.000Also, they got a issue with, hey, they're running such huge debts that they're devaluing their dollar all the time.
00:12:58.000We don't want to take payment in fiat currencies is going to be depreciated over time.
00:13:03.000This is why gold more than ever. This is why these central banks are buying gold at record rates.
00:13:07.000You have to understand all this one to understand politics today, but also to understand your community, your family's finances and you personally.
00:13:16.000Remember, we never talk about the price of gold and getting the price of gold.
00:13:19.000It's had a tremendous run up because it's not about the price of gold.
00:13:22.000It's about learning about it. How about it?
00:13:26.000Birchgold.com slash Bannon ended the dollar empire.
00:13:39.000There was more change than I could have imagined, Mr. Hamilton.
00:13:43.000Not the city itself. All cities swallow everything in their way.
00:13:47.000That's no surprise to me. That's why I abhor them.
00:13:50.000But I've been, as you know, in revolutionary France, where the streets are filled with the songs of liberty and brotherhood and the overthrow of ancient tyrannies of Europe.
00:14:01.000And to return from there to this, our cradle of revolution and find the dinner table chatter is all of money and banks and authority is an unwelcome surprise.
00:14:20.000I must admit, Mr. Hamilton, I'm a little uncertain as to the purpose of the Treasury Department.
00:14:28.000No doubt its function will reveal itself to me in good time.
00:14:32.000The future prosperity of this nation rests chiefly in trade.
00:14:38.000Trade depends, among other things, on the willingness of other nations to lend us money.
00:14:43.000And how would you propose to establish international credit?
00:14:47.000Our first step would be to incur a national debt.
00:14:51.000The greater the debt, the greater the credit.
00:14:53.000And to that end, I have recommended to the President that Congress adopt all the debts incurred by the individual states during the war through a national bank.
00:15:05.000The idea being that if the states owe Congress money, then other nations will feel more inclined to lend it to us.
00:15:13.000If the states are indebted to a central authority, it increases the power of the central government.
00:15:21.000Exactly. The greater the government's responsibility, the greater its authority.
00:15:27.000The moneyed interest in this country is all in the north, so the wealth and power would inevitably be concentrated there in the federal government, to the expense of the south.
00:15:42.000If that is the case, it is unavoidable if the union is to be preserved.
00:15:49.000I fear our revolution will have been in vain if a Virginia farmer is to be held in hock to a New York stock jobber, who in turn is in hock to a London banker.
00:16:00.000The opportunities for avarice and corruption would certainly prove irresistible.
00:16:08.000Well, there you have it. As I have heard said, men were angels and no government would be necessary.
00:16:15.000Right there you see, and that is from the classic John Adams on HBO, and I strongly recommend if you have not watched that and watched it with the family, you do it right there at the very beginning of the country.
00:16:26.000That is, ladies and gentlemen, the very first cabinet meeting of General Washington, President Washington, his very first cabinet meeting with Jefferson, newly returned from France, and Alexander Hamilton.
00:16:38.000And what is the argument at the very first cabinet meeting, the very first topic? Money, debt, central banking, all of it.
00:16:47.000Judy Shelton, so the beginning of our republic, ma'am, this has been a central issue. It's not taught, right?
00:16:53.000They don't want you to know about this, but this went all the way through Andrew Jackson, all the way through, in fact, the great 1836 to, I think, 1911, 1913.
00:17:03.000It was one of the greatest periods of growth in world history. We did it without a central bank. Your assessment of this, ma'am?
00:17:10.000Steve, that conversation you just aired is so riveting, and it shows that from the beginning, there was this slippery slope between wanting to preserve the founding principles of a nation that believed it was capable of self-government, and that it would achieve this by empowering individuals economically.
00:17:36.240They would have freedom to plan their own lives. They were deemed capable.
00:17:41.240In the Constitution, in Article I, Section 8, when Congress was granted the authority to regulate the money, it's in the same sentence as the one that gives Congress the power to establish the official standard of weights and measures, because money was meant to be a measure, an honest measure.
00:18:04.680And so this tension between Alexander Hamilton, who wanted to convince President Washington that the United States needed to be a big player and issue debt and gain credit and become part of that international system for purposes of trade.
00:18:25.340And taking on the debt of the individual colonies, which were now newly independent states, but beneath the protection of the United States of America as a nation on its own, Jefferson had written notes on the establishment of a money unit for the United States.
00:18:46.400And what Jefferson had emphasized is money, we have to have money that people could take straight up, and it shouldn't be a sophisticated thing.
00:18:56.500It should make sense to the people who carry out their everyday transactions.
00:19:01.120He said it should be easy to understand, it should be familiar, and it should give confidence, and it will help unite these earlier colonies into their own country.
00:19:12.620So Jefferson was highly suspicious of central banks because he thought, if you approve that, and you issue debt, and you're putting that burden, adding that to the yoke on members of the public, how are you so different from these other tyrannies dominated by a king?
00:19:33.100And both gentlemen, both of these great men in U.S. history, wrote lengthy essays to try to convince Washington.
00:19:43.520Washington was very reluctant to agree to establish a bank.
00:19:48.480But in the end, I think for these pragmatic purposes of gaining entry into what was then the international trading system and being seen as a legitimate authority and a new nation, he acquiesced.
00:20:05.100But as you say, later in the 1800s, when we issued greenbacks and during the Civil War, and the idea was the government would just have these IOUs with no connection to gold reserves or backing of any kind, but they had to be accepted as legal tender.
00:20:24.320That prevailed during the war, and right after the war, the very man who had approved that as a Treasury official became the head of the Supreme Court, and he said that what he had done was unconstitutional.
00:20:40.020He ruled that that was a violation of really these same founding principles that are in the Constitution.
00:20:46.680So this tension goes on, and I'm so pleased, it was so gratifying to see President Trump looking very natural in a hard hat for construction, really confronting, and I think bringing down to size this chairman of the Fed.
00:21:07.460And the message there for me was that when you have a change of leadership, and I think he's hitting on all cylinders, remarkably, in all these foreign policy areas, on the border, he's doing so much, challenging a corrupt DOJ.
00:21:25.260But on this big question, what is the appropriate role of a central bank in a free market economy?
00:21:31.780And you hear all the invocation of the dual mandate, but really, that's the way the Fed protects itself.
00:21:41.640I would put the next Fed chairman should be someone who puts the Constitution ahead of the Federal Reserve Reform Act of 1977.
00:21:52.360And I might also point out that the Humphrey Hawkins Act of 1978, contrary to what people say about establishing central bank independence, says in it several times what we need.
00:22:07.900And I'm quoting, this is legislative language, is improved coordination among the president, the Congress, and the board of governors of the Federal Reserve.
00:22:18.020And it was meant to help use an all-of-government approach to achieve national economic priorities, one of which was a better trade balance.
00:22:30.240So I just think the Fed has gone off the rails and kind of believes its own press clippings when, in fact, it is not serving the public and it is not carrying out the function.
00:22:43.620I mean, even the dual mandate, stable prices, that was meant to mean zero inflation.
00:22:50.540Again, read the legislation, zero inflation.
00:22:54.480The Fed, in 1996, when Alan Greenspan was the chair, discussed what it meant to deliver stable prices.
00:23:02.540And Greenspan thought it meant zero inflation.
00:23:06.200But he was talked out of that by Janet Yellen, who was on the Federal Open Market Committee at the Federal Reserve.
00:23:13.420And she thought, let's have perpetual low inflation, basically because through Keynesian principles, that's how you fool wage earners.
00:23:23.280If the economy takes a downturn, and let's say normally that meant companies did 1% less business and you would maybe cut wages 1%, she said, oh, no, no.
00:23:35.940If you have inflation at, say, 2% or 3%, you can actually give them a raise and they won't realize that in real terms they've lost purchasing power.
00:23:45.160And that has been the Fed's policy to deliberately debase the dollar, even at 2% a year.
00:23:52.760They would pat themselves on the back to get down to 2%.
00:23:55.680But think of that, over a decade, losing 20% of your purchasing power.
00:24:00.360I just think I'm amazed the American people have put up with it, and I'm delighted that I think we're now starting to confront the Fed about these longstanding policies that have not served the aims or been consistent with the principles of America.
00:24:22.660We're going to have her on a lot more often.
00:24:25.200And remember, you know, Navarro and Russ Vogt and Scott Besson, just really so proud of who's come on the show and how they've taken to the audience and the audience has taken to them.
00:24:36.020Of course, guys like Mike Benz, Philip Patrick from Birch Gold.
00:24:39.920I always want to thank the Birch Gold team makes all this possible.
00:24:42.900And, of course, you guys have jumped into the Birch Gold situation and have told us time and again, we want to learn more.
00:25:06.640Strategic Intelligence is the newsletter.
00:25:09.720The reason I love it, this audience of working class and middle class folks, you get access to something that the C-suites,
00:25:16.240that's a fancy Harvard Business School term for the guys that are chairman of the boards or the CEOs or people running these organizations.
00:25:25.000You get the same access to information that you get.
00:25:28.060Make sure you go to RickardsWarRoom.com today to get Strategic Intelligence.
00:25:33.040And Jim kicks in a book, Money, GPT, about currency and artificial intelligence.
00:25:38.600I came to Jim's writings over a decade ago, I think 15 years ago, with his currency wars.