Carol Roth is a New York Times bestselling author who advocates for entrepreneurs and small business owners. She got her start in investment banking and quickly rose in rank to become an Investment Banker in Recovery. She watched as cronyism replaced capitalism as power became centralized and everyday Americans lost their livelihoods, their business, and even their freedom.
00:00:02.720Today's guest fights for the little guy, the David, except David is a her.
00:00:08.480She got her start in investment banking and quickly rose in rank.
00:00:12.360She calls herself an investment banker in recovery.
00:00:16.300She's worked as an investment banker on Wall Street, where she specialized in corporate finance, which basically means she helped big companies become bigger.
00:00:24.380She's now a New York Times bestselling author who advocates for entrepreneurs and small business owners.
00:00:31.720And she is very alarmed throughout the pandemic.
00:00:34.740She watched as cronyism replaced capitalism, as power became centralized and everyday Americans lost their livelihoods, their business, even their freedom.
00:00:45.040All as a result of powerful elites willing to betray our American values for profit.
00:00:51.700Today's guest examines this in her latest book, The War on Small Business, How the Government Used the Pandemic to Crush the Backbone of America.
00:01:01.200It's a book about freedom, but it's also a book about power, government power, corporate power, and the strange and terrifying power that merges when the two combine,
00:01:12.400which is exactly what led to the enormous transfer of wealth from Main Street to Wall Street.
00:01:18.220Small business is, as American baseball and cheeseburgers and the Fonz smack in the jukebox.
00:01:27.180Small business represents the possibility for freedom, a realistic chance at the American dream.
00:03:14.360So, a black swan in the financial world is an unpredictable event, something that comes out of nowhere and takes over everything.
00:03:24.060And it really became popularized by Nicholas Nassim Taleb, who was a former quant trader.
00:03:30.660And he made this big argument that we really need to be paying attention and worried about these things that we can't see because we're always kind of heads down in things we can't see.
00:03:39.940So, when 2020 came around, everyone said, oh, the pandemic, it's a black swan.
00:04:04.720The black swan was the government reaction to the pandemic.
00:04:08.620There was nobody who was sitting around going, you know, I really think that the government is going to shut down large swaths of the economy in reaction to this virus that came out.
00:04:19.640We, we, what happened to us, you would have said just a couple of months before, never, no one, A, the government would never do it, and no one would accept it.
00:04:32.780Both of those things happened, and it is crushed.
00:04:36.800I think it has fundamentally transformed America, possibly for at least the foreseeable future, but possibly a knockout punch on getting back to where we once were.
00:04:50.660Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that.
00:04:52.640I remember being in February 2020, and the news had come out of Asia, and everyone was trying to process what was going on.
00:05:00.100And my husband and I were having, you know, one of those dinnertime conversations going, you know, like, what if this actually became something?
00:05:33.740This idea that we had a lockdown, that we were all in this together, that everybody had the same fate, was completely not true.
00:05:41.940I mean, we had the government picking winners and losers.
00:05:44.740We had them deciding who was going to thrive and who was going to fight to survive, not based even on data or science, but based on political clout and connections.
00:05:53.980So, this concept of us all being in this together, if Wall Street hadn't been propped up, if the big businesses had been shut down too, I mean, I'll ask you, do you think that we would have lasted two or three weeks?
00:06:06.960And it was a massive transfer of wealth.
00:06:11.440But also, what happened that nobody's talking about is small businesses, and you talk about this a lot in your book, small businesses account for over half, sometimes 75% of all job growth in recessions and depressions.
00:06:28.980It is the way that America fires back up, and they have done and are still doing everything they can to kill the small business.
00:06:42.020I think when we talk about the concept of small business, people think, oh, it's small, it must be niche, it must not be that important.
00:06:49.400But if you look at the economy, like on a spectrum or a pie chart, and you just slice it down the middle, about half the economy, half the GDP, and about half the jobs are in the hands, before COVID, of 30.2 million small businesses.
00:07:03.420And that is a group that's a free market, right?
00:07:06.300They're all very decentralized, different industries, different sizes, and that's what we want to see more of.
00:07:13.960We want to see more of that decentralization.
00:07:16.040The other half of the economy is in the hands, depending on how you want to count big or medium businesses, about 10,000 to 15,000 big or medium businesses.
00:07:25.480So think about that imbalance of power when you divide the economy in half, and then you can understand why the politicians want to align with the side that's easier to control and easier to get lobbying dollars from and have the financial wherewithal.
00:07:40.620So for those of us who believe in free markets and capitalism as that best path to prosperity and believe in economic freedom and wealth creation opportunities, we want to see more of the 30.2 million.
00:07:53.940We don't want to see more of that economy going into the hands.
00:08:44.060Same thing happened in the second quarter.
00:08:45.820I mean, it really boosted their revenue.
00:08:48.260So from a financial perspective, that's what happened.
00:08:52.180Then there's the monetary policy piece.
00:08:54.640And this is the opaque piece, which seems a little wonky, but that's why I went into it in the book in a very sort of Sesame Street sort of way, so people can better understand this.
00:09:04.500But the Fed came in and decided that they were going to further intervene in a market that they had already been intervening in basically since the Great Recession, disrupt risk, take interest rates back down to zero, and just inject trillions of dollars of cash.
00:09:22.380And it's not like they have this cash.
00:09:25.120This isn't like a pile that they're like, oh, we're going to put it in.
00:09:35.080So if you and I went into our accounts and we changed the numbers and we said, now we have trillions of dollars and we're going to go buy securities, that would be called counterfeiting.
00:10:12.040It was a record year in terms of the value that was created through SPACs, these highly speculative special purpose acquisition companies, which is basically a hybrid of a private equity company and an IPO.
00:10:24.920So if you had access to capital, this is a bonanza for you.
00:10:30.220At the same time that hundreds of thousands of small businesses had been completely murdered by the by the time June had come around, millions more were struggling to survive.
00:10:41.480And then you have the sort of imbalance of your small business just trying to find your footing and your competitors have access to additional capital, additional value.
00:10:51.820I mean, just an insane transfer of wealth and value.
00:10:55.020I've been watching this happen since 2008 and, you know, people were upset in 2008 when we bailed out the banks.
00:11:07.280They don't have any clue as to what has been going on since 2008.
00:13:06.160For those of you who haven't seen the movie before, what happened was because these regulations were so onerous, it ended up killing the formation of small business lenders and community banks.
00:13:21.620And as you can imagine, those who have smaller capital pools can lend to smaller businesses.
00:13:26.620So small business lending just went completely off a cliff.
00:13:30.480At the same time, because the Fed's still intervening in the market, which is the second piece that we'll get to, the big banks now have fewer competitors.
00:13:38.600They have access to all of this capital.
00:13:42.260Big business lending went through the roof.
00:13:43.740So let me ask you, was that, do you believe that was intentional?
00:13:48.820Like when FDR in the Great Recession or Great Depression, he went to the big three automakers and said, will you help us make the rules?
00:13:57.500And of course they helped to make the rules to keep the three big, you know, putting everybody else out of business.
00:14:03.100Do you think that happened or is this just bad policy?
00:14:07.560So it's interesting, the people who advise on policy, the lobbyists that get in there, the experts, they're coming from industry.
00:14:17.180They're far more intelligent and, you know, perhaps a little bit more nefarious than the folks who are elected by our popularity contest that we have in there.
00:14:28.140So I think it's likely, it's likely outcome that the people who are lobbying knew what was going to happen and the people who were writing the legislation were just too stupid to know.
00:14:42.680But there is a bigger thesis that I talk about, which again, is that when you look back to our spectrum of the decentralized economy versus the centralized power, that is the big battle that's going on.
00:14:54.960And so, you know, to the extent, whether it's intentional or it's like, hey, if that happens, like we just don't care, they want to be in bed with these big companies.
00:15:07.220They want to, it's that unholy trifecta of central planners and government, big business and special interests.
00:15:14.420So, you know, they might craft something that's a little bit more favorable.
00:15:18.900And if a few small guys get hurt, you know, that's just the price we have to pay.
00:15:23.380We are living the same thing that our grandparents live through in the teens and the early 20s and the early 30s before fascism was known as a bad thing.
00:15:50.480No, and that's why I've used the phrase central planning to, if you look at the spectrum, people get so caught up in capitalism versus socialism, communism, democratic socialism, pretty social, like whatever you want to call it.
00:16:06.200I look at capitalism as just freedom, choice, transparency, surrounded by the guardrails of property rights.
00:16:14.520And so if you believe in freedom and choice, you believe in capitalism.
00:16:18.020So central planning, and again, I don't want to have a, like a discussion about which one you want to call it, but it's a handful of people that make decisions on the behalf of everybody else.
00:16:28.100They're using force, coercion, control, and usually opacity.
00:16:32.320So it doesn't matter which, you know, format or which name you want to call it.
00:16:36.160And I think that's where the debate always gets derailed because people want to say, oh, well, this hasn't been tried.
00:16:49.980We've actually exported capitalism around the world to our detriment.
00:16:53.560And we have imported central planning.
00:16:55.940And that's kind of the big battle that we're seeing, which has allowed this to happen over the last, you know, call it 17 months.
00:17:03.260And, you know, even in the days when we're having this conversation with the eviction moratorium coming back in place, oh, well, the Supreme Court said it was unconstitutional.
00:19:02.380And it's one of the reasons I included the chapter on China and called it Trading Places, because I do feel like there are so many times when it's like we're holding up a mirror and the things that come out of the United States sound like policy that would be coming out of China and vice versa.
00:19:20.640And it's very staggering to sit here and to say, wow, this is what we've become.
00:19:25.940And all of this has come out of central planning and their missteps.
00:19:33.460I mean, the reason why this didn't seem like it was such a big deal for so long is because the Federal Reserve, even though they were interfering in the markets and slanting the playing field, they weren't doing it at the level that they did.
00:19:47.160And after the Great Recession, all bets are off the table.
00:20:58.240And you could say for most companies, you know, this is kind of the standard multiple of cash flow or multiple of revenue or multiple of earnings that we would expect.
00:21:07.980And sure, there were some outliers in technology or biotech that were harder to suss.
00:21:13.240But there was at least like some semblance of rules that were agreed upon.
00:21:17.020What's happened when the Fed comes in and they say that, you know, interest rates are zero, they're basically saying like there's no compensation for taking risk.
00:21:27.120Like you're taking on risk and you get nothing in return, which is the whole point of taking on risk and sort of the principles of economics.
00:21:35.860And when you have that scenario, it's impossible to use valuation metrics and everything becomes sentiment and momentum.
00:21:45.520And so, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, as somebody who is asked to continually commentate on the market, it's kind of like, I don't know what to say.
00:21:53.960I saw a research report that came out today on Robinhood, this trading app that's, you know, supposed to democratize investing, but is backed by, of course, the big guys.
00:22:06.620And at this point in time, the research analyst is like, I don't know what to tell you.
00:22:19.940Because there's so much manipulation that's going on in the market because there's so much cash that's been brought in because risk has been disrupted because all of these factors just don't know what to make of it anymore.
00:22:34.600So I've been watching the economy since 2004 and ringing the bell on the collapse of the banks and nobody would listen and I was crazy and yada, yada, yada.
00:22:45.860And I have been shocked at the amount that this country and our financial system, the beating it can take.
00:22:59.440It has just taken a beating, you know, for the last 22 years.
00:23:34.200This is the debate that we're having on, you know, amongst financial folks every day.
00:23:39.500And the reality is that when you take actions, they ultimately have consequences.
00:23:45.000And I can't tell you, you know, over time what happens.
00:23:49.340The crazy thing that we have going on, which makes this so hard to peg, is that we are the world's reserve currency and we are what I call the skinniest kid at fat camp.
00:24:00.840So if you look around the world and you say, well, OK, you know, the dollar tanks, the financial market tanks, this whole thing unravels the amount of epic devastation that that has for the rest of the world and the lack of somebody else to be able to step in and take our place.
00:24:22.280I mean, I know a lot of people like, oh, China is going to be the reserve currency.
00:24:25.420I mean, nobody's going to let a communist country be the reserve currency other than maybe like if you're Iran and, you know, nobody else is giving you money.
00:24:33.280I don't know. We seem to love communist countries right now.
00:24:38.460But, you know, in an intellectual standpoint, you know, if you're France, if you're the, you know, the UK, if you're, you know, any of these Germany, like, are you really going to trust the financial system that keeps producing financial frauds?
00:24:51.200I mean, the number of companies that we've had to pull off U.S. exchanges because of financial frauds, because nobody can trust the number system that's coming out there.
00:25:00.560So the good thing we have going is that everyone is like invested in this scheme.
00:25:06.600And I use the word scheme intentionally.
00:25:09.260So they kind of can't afford to let it collapse.
00:25:12.300So, you know, I've been playing around with like wild concepts and talking to people and I'm finding out that there are other people who are playing around with the same wild concepts.
00:25:21.260Like, could there be a situation where everyone just agrees that we're going to just cancel a bunch of debt and there's going to be no consequence because the consequence of doing it on everyone ends up being worse?
00:25:34.040Like, I don't know. I mean, this is all so outside of the realm of just, you know, basic economics and markets.
00:26:17.580You get to a point, I've said to the audience several times, if you ever read that in the Wall Street Journal and they're seriously talking about rehypothecation, run.
00:26:28.900The idea is that really nobody owns anything because everybody owns a little of something.
00:26:49.780Isn't that exactly what they're trying to do?
00:26:51.500This is, you know, the whole concept of wealth creation opportunities and economic freedom has made the United States the most successful country in all of history and has drawn people from all over the globe to want to come here to pursue that.
00:27:12.020What they have been doing is making it impossible for you as an individual to create wealth.
00:27:20.000The war on small business is the war on wealth creation opportunities, because how do you get wealthy in the United States of America?
00:27:27.060You get wealthy through ownership of assets.
00:27:29.660I mean, it's not just it's not income.
00:27:32.960So it's owning a business, it's owning a home, it's investing in stocks, it's, you know, maybe having options in a company that, you know, you own privately.
00:28:26.240So there was a lot of supply in the market.
00:28:28.660And because of that, there was a lot less building that was happening.
00:28:32.520But as that kind of got cleaned up, you then rolled into this, quote unquote, government created crisis.
00:28:41.560And so not only do you have what I call government inflation, the cost of a new home has $94,000 added to it, according to the National Association of Home Builders, for every new home based on government regulations.
00:28:57.760That doesn't even get to your property taxes.
00:28:59.800So you've got the government inflation piece.
00:29:01.740And then you have this capital bonanza.
00:29:12.980Because there's all this capital in the market at these very low rates, these big firms, biggest investors out there, BlackRock and some of the other really big names, they're trying to find a return on investment for their investors.
00:29:28.960And they're out of options because all of these sort of other options have been exhausted.
00:29:36.520Oh, and they can borrow cheaply as well.
00:29:39.060So that has allowed them to set their sights on the housing market and the individual housing market.
00:29:46.600So we have these big companies over the last 12 to 16 months who've been going out and competing for neighborhoods and for individual houses with you as a homeowner.
00:29:57.880Like, it's hard enough to have to compete with all the other people who want to go out and buy them.
00:30:02.860Now you have to compete with big companies that are getting free money because the Fed has completely disrupted risk in the market.
00:30:31.360And all of that capital, all of that money is being given to these big companies who are going out and, as we talked about, increasing in value.
00:31:57.760For anybody who hasn't seen the video, there's this, like, really crazy kind of, like, teaser for the Great Reset that says, here are predictions of what's going to happen by 2030.
00:32:44.180And as I said, like, I'm, you can go through my stuff.
00:32:47.340Like, I'm very grounded in facts and numbers and data.
00:32:52.100But, like, yeah, they pretty much said it.
00:32:54.580And while I don't necessarily think that all of the governments are joining together to do it globally, but maybe they're doing it on a one-off basis.
00:33:02.240Maybe they're like, hey, here's a good plan.
00:33:03.880Why don't you try and roll it out individually?
00:33:05.820We're all in the, we're all in the same boat.
00:33:10.380So it's, it's not, you know, I don't think you have to, they're not calling each other at night going, okay, now step two.
00:33:17.020That's, I don't think that's happening.
00:33:18.480Well, the hilarious part is that they're doing it under the guise of, oh, inequality is so bad.
00:33:24.620I mean, is there anything that creates more unequalness than a few people who are in the club absconding all of your property and saying to the rest of you, you will own nothing and be happy.
00:34:25.240It's, it's a hard thing to sort of like get the nuance on because a big company in and of itself, as you said, throughout history, isn't a problem.
00:34:34.160When you have something that resembles freedom and choice and people compete themselves into a position where they're doing better, that's a good thing.
00:34:43.800And we want that to happen as long as they're doing it on a fair, a fair and level playing field and it's not being tilted in their favor by their government cronies.
00:34:54.180So you look at throughout history, even if you look at the Dow Jones, I mean, there's like, maybe like a handful of two or three companies that are even still there that were there 50 years ago.
00:35:39.060So I don't know if you know the stat, but the top 1% in the United States, do you know what number you need to hit from a wealth standpoint to be in the top 1%?
00:36:25.980And that gives them the cover for that handful of people to keep growing and growing.
00:36:31.680And then the funny part is I call them like the terrible capitalists because so many of them want to pull the ladder up behind them and say, oh, we're in late stage capitalism or there's something where there's a different version.
00:36:45.420There's no different version of freedom, choice, transparency, property rights.
00:36:54.360And you're telling us that we should continue to move towards central planning because you know that it's going to benefit you.
00:37:01.140And I go back to the concept of monetary policy, us going off the gold standard and then the changes in terms of the Fed's reaction, that has just like exponentially grown the capital base,
00:37:17.420which means the differential just by compounding is becomes bigger, which means that those big companies become more powerful and better allies.
00:37:27.120So it's kind of this like one, two punch.
00:37:31.820Like once you lose the key principle, everything starts to spiral out of control.
00:37:36.700And so as we have started giving up small principles, they end up with these big consequences.
00:37:42.880Little baby steps at first, but then somebody comes in and is like, oh, well, I think we should keep interest rates at zero for seven years.
00:37:50.640Oh, yeah, that seems like a good idea.
00:38:08.480And I think people need to educate themselves and understand these things that are intentionally opaque, because only when they understand that can we move forward.
00:38:19.760I mean, I don't know anybody who like there's no big call.
00:38:54.460They were asking questions, because I see the world differently than the people who are trained to trust the system.
00:39:01.640But I don't think that's the case anymore.
00:39:04.440I think, you know, when you look at these big companies, and they are bashing America, and they're bashing their clients, they're calling half of their clients racist, bigots, dangerous, etc.
00:39:21.020That doesn't make any sense, any sense, unless you're playing for a different game, and you're playing for a much larger market.
00:39:34.200Yeah, and it's interesting, because, you know, I tried to do the gymnastics in my head, too.
00:39:39.520And these are supposed to be the smartest and sharpest people.
00:39:43.120But if you're trying to get rid of, you know, small businesses, which are huge customers, if you're trying to take away wealth from these small guys, yeah, I get the fact that you're going to be the only ones left standing, and that you're going to have the monopoly power.
00:40:21.000Yeah, this entire set of policies have been a trial run for universal basic income.
00:40:27.640It is the most clear and obvious thing.
00:40:31.420You know, stimulus checks under both administrations, the extended unemployment benefits, the early child tax credit, like, they're conditioning.
00:41:00.120I have tried to think of—I used to believe that people were just mistaken, or they had a different understanding, or maybe I was lacking some information.
00:41:12.800And you could sit down and talk about it, and you could figure it out, because people are generally good and honest.
00:41:18.740I don't believe that—I don't believe that they're just making mistakes.
00:41:25.500You couldn't—you—you—this couldn't happen by accident.
00:41:31.200All of these things are designed for a different system entirely by the end.
00:41:40.480You would know you can't take people out of school for two years.
00:41:46.480You can't destroy small businesses and then beat them over the head with all kinds of new regulations.
00:41:57.200We are being trained, and I'm afraid that we are—I think there's a lot of people that are willing to go along with that, that are willing to go, why do it?
00:42:09.100I mean, listen, in Illinois, if you're getting, between all the different programs, $51,000 a year not to work, yeah, I mean, it's hard to blame them, you know, other than just the personal dignity of it.
00:42:22.400But the whole concept of, you know, whether this is intentional or not is a really interesting one.
00:42:29.200And I tell people when they read it, like, I don't care if you think it's intentional or it's incompetence or, eh, it's just a cannon fodder.
00:42:40.060The outcomes are still going to be the same.
00:42:44.020And that's the issue when you have central planning.
00:42:47.180And, you know, central planning is about human nature, as is capitalism.
00:42:51.280If you think that greed exists—because this is something we hear, right?
00:42:54.780It's like, if you really think that people are greedy, which, by the way, they are, which is fine—capitalism, free choice harnesses that greed to everybody's benefits.
00:43:06.520Central planning pretends that it doesn't exist.
00:43:09.380So I think there are a lot of people who buy into unicorns and fairies and think, ah, you know, this is all going to work out okay.
00:43:17.040And because we don't have the economic literacy in this country, they can't even see those chess moves ahead.
00:43:25.620Like, they can't see the average person.
00:43:28.480Oh, well, you know, we'll be able to make this up or we'll get this person.
00:43:50.920But there are lots of people, because we've had it so good for so long in this country, that just believe everything's going to continue along at that pace.
00:44:00.300And people are mostly good and unicorns and fairies, and we need to take care of things.
00:44:07.640Like, I think it's great that people want to do these things, but they have to understand that good intentions don't lead to good outcomes.
00:44:15.880And when you don't understand economics, that can create severe disaster.
00:44:21.220I mean, even just the discussions around minimum wage and the, like, everyone I know wants people to get paid as much as the market will bear.
00:44:29.580People want people to pay well, they want them to get in the game, but they don't want people to pay $23 for a slice of pizza and have that wage raise not be meaningful because your dollar is worth less.
00:44:40.880People don't understand the concept that your dollar is worth less, and that begets the problem.
00:44:46.620So let's talk about the dollar being worth less.
00:44:54.000They are doing everything they can to kill cryptocurrency.
00:44:59.220I thought it was more safe because some of the big boys got into play, but Yellen is not helping the cryptocurrency world.
00:45:11.840And, you know, in their own documents, they are looking at a DUSD, a digital U.S. dollar.
00:45:17.340First of all, do you think crypto remains and grows, or do you think the governments of the world are going to just choke it to death?
00:45:29.920Yeah, this is a great intellectual exercise.
00:45:32.500I think cryptocurrency is fascinating.
00:45:34.960The reason it got so many people to buy into it is because there are enough people who see what you and I have just been talking about
00:45:41.620and what the governments and cahoots with the Federal Reserve has been doing to the dollar and to our monetary system.
00:45:49.860And so that's been a driving force in terms of it.
00:45:53.340As well as I think another part of it is seeing the writing on the wall of tracking and controlling every aspect of your life.
00:46:06.240It's a great, excellent, excellent point.
00:46:08.460Yes, and that's the difference between a cryptocurrency, which is, you know, transparent on the blockchain and is not owned by any entity,
00:46:17.160versus a digital currency, which is, you know, tracking 101.
00:46:22.340In fact, China said that they have their own digital currency that might expire after a certain amount of time.
00:46:27.800Like, we'll give you some dollars, but three months later, I mean, yeah.
00:46:30.720So having them be able to take the money away is like a whole other permutation.
00:46:37.340So when I look at cryptocurrency, you have to look at the currency aspect of it, as well as sort of the asset side of it as an alternative asset.
00:46:49.380So when you think about crypto or think about currency, a unit of account, a medium of exchange, a measure of value, a store of value, it's not there yet, right?
00:47:00.220We're still talking about things in dollars.
00:47:05.400I will have crypto people argue that it's a great store of value because it keeps going up, but the volatility implies that it hasn't quite found its place yet there.
00:47:14.640So I think as a currency, all the things we've been talking about, the people who are in charge of the monetary system do not want to give up that power,
00:47:23.920and they will do everything that they can as a currency to make this, you know, cryptocurrency not be something that people go to and use as a medium of exchange.
00:47:36.040However, then there is the asset side, which is kind of like collectibles, you know, wine, art, beanie babies, anything like that.
00:47:49.060And pretty much everything that we have is just a social contract, right?
00:47:52.420If you think about gold, it's a long-term social contract.
00:50:14.600They now want to take on credit ratings.
00:50:18.640The government giving credit ratings is the scariest thing I think I've heard.
00:50:24.320And we we've seen in in China, this concept of social credits.
00:50:30.480And there is a lot of concern that the rhetoric that we're hearing and the actual fundamental steps, as you've laid out, is leading to that.
00:50:41.040And if you think that did platforming is bad now, imagine when the government has a digital currency and you can only transact with that.
00:50:51.000And they can manage every move that you make.
00:50:54.380I mean, we've seen what they've done to other countries.
00:50:57.780They certainly could do that to individuals.
00:51:00.160We know they have no qualms in terms of overstepping their bounds and stepping on our individual rights.
00:51:06.420So, you know, you as an individual should really hope that cash sticks around for as long as possible.
00:51:11.700Yeah, yeah, it's it's very and it's not just reporting to the IRS tips.
00:51:17.960But this concept and it goes back to the broader discussion we're having around central planning and wanting to have a few people who are making these decisions and controlling everything.
00:51:41.680And, you know, when you think of printing this much money, I mean, we've printed more in the last 18 months than I think we've printed, you know, in the in the run.
00:51:55.220Yeah, you would think that that's going to go to hyperinflation because that's what happened in Zimbabwe.
00:52:21.000It means that you're paying more to get the same goods and services.
00:52:24.280So, in effect, on the flip side of that, each dollar that you have becomes worth less.
00:52:29.600And that is usually an impact of monetary policy, although in this particular case with government stimulus and adding to the money supply in that way, at the same time as crazy monetary policy, you know, that's something we can see.
00:52:44.800So the easy way for you to see inflation is if you've been to the grocery store lately, are things costing more or what we're seeing with shrinkflation that you're actually getting.
00:52:54.820It's the same headline price, but you're getting a smaller box or fewer items or whatnot.
00:52:59.800And you can see that direct relationship in housing or lumber or, you know, drying a piece of plywood.
00:53:05.940But it's not necessarily that there's a shortage of plywood.
00:53:09.580There's just so many people with money that want to buy plywood right now.
00:53:14.600Right. So you've got you've got all this money that's out there chasing and the money supply right now is just at historic levels.
00:53:21.120It's insane, as we talked about, because they're creating dollars out of nowhere.
00:53:24.920And I should mention is that's sort of a distinction between monetary policy and just capitalism.
00:53:31.260It's not like we've grown the economy and that means that we've created more value.
00:53:36.760No, we've just poked more money into the same economy.
00:53:40.340So that drives up prices and that becomes inflation.
00:53:44.020And the big words that you're hearing now is whether that is transitory or not.
00:53:50.200Transitory means short term in nature.
00:53:52.300Oh, it's just a blip because of covid.
00:53:54.920And, you know, certainly elements of the supply chain, the fact that you've got shipping containers that, you know, are stuck all over the world.
00:54:02.200And now it costs, you know, four times as much to ship something as it did a year ago.