Move away from the U.S. currency as a medium of exchange is going to have massive repercussions for Americans, but really for the financial system all over the world. With us to talk about this today is Drew Mason, who you know is a financial expert with whom LifeSite has teamed up with St. Joseph's Partners to provide for you and your family to keep your financial situation secure during times of crisis.
00:01:20.540Moving away from the U.S. currency as a medium of exchange.
00:01:27.120And that is going to have massive repercussions for Americans, but really for the financial system all over the world.
00:01:33.260With us to talk about this today is Drew Mason, who you know is a financial expert with whom LifeSite has teamed up with his organization, St. Joseph's Partners, to provide for you and your family precious metals to keep your financial situation secure during times of crisis.
00:01:52.840This is the John Henry Weston Show. Stay tuned.
00:01:55.140Hey, my friends. Now is the time to stand up and fight.
00:02:01.420We are just about to have the Synod on Synodality, and everything that you've seen indicates that it's going to be an absolute disaster.
00:02:10.460We have Fr. James Martin as a personal appointee of the Pope speaking at it.
00:02:28.280And at these times of great crisis, the church, especially those called in the laity to work for the glory of Christ and his church, are called to gather and strategize.
00:02:42.720Back in 2014, LifeSite launched something called Rome Life Forum.
00:02:46.580It was a gathering at that point of some 75 life and family leaders from all around the world to strategize as to what we could do.
00:02:54.920And when we gathered, the majority of people were most concerned about what?
00:02:59.420About Pope Francis, about what was going on in Rome.
00:03:05.260But the life and family leaders saw it first.
00:03:09.660Now, a decade on, we are confronted with some of the most severe challenges the church has ever faced.
00:03:16.380And so, our tradition at LifeSite is to continue with Rome Life Forum, which has continued every year until we had to take a break over COVID because we weren't permitted.
00:04:17.520So, BRICS, as you said, John Henry, in the intro, stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and other nations that are gathering under their umbrella.
00:04:27.380Many of the nations that are rich in commodities, who are coming together and they're realizing a dollar-based financial system is not in their interests.
00:04:41.320So, just for a little history for the audience, John Henry, at the end of World War II, there was an event called Bretton Woods, when all the countries came together and they decided that they would make the U.S. dollar the sole reserve currency in the world.
00:04:56.340That's only happened a handful of occasions in history.
00:04:59.640And what that meant was, if you were France and Germany, rather than trading directly with your currencies, you would first buy dollars and convert into it.
00:05:07.980So, it was an inordinate advantage for America that everyone would be trading in the U.S. currency.
00:05:15.580And again, we've seen this a handful of times dating back to the Portuguese, Scudo, and then most recently in Great Britain, who had the sole reserve currency in the 18th century.
00:05:25.840And in each of those occasions, John Henry, what happened was those countries became complacent, they lost manufacturing prowess, they lost their work ethic, and other nations ultimately just walked away from using that sole reserve currency.
00:05:44.220And when that moment happened in time, especially, you know, with most data being available in Britain, when they lost theirs, you go back and you see it.
00:05:52.860It's as though everyone in the world was aware that this was happening, but the people who were in the epicenter of this, who were benefiting the most from the paradigm, the Brits back then, and Americans today, were the last to really realize that the paradigm outside of them was shifting and the implications for it.
00:06:14.360So, when the Brits lost the sole reserve currency, you could still go into your bank, and you could take out all those paper notes that you could save, but the implication was that they only bought a small fraction of what they bought.
00:06:28.180The purchasing power was destroyed, and that sole reserve currency status came out.
00:06:32.700And so, we are moving in that direction.
00:06:36.440We've had recently some incredible statements come out.
00:06:39.300I think we had referenced, perhaps before, the Treasury Secretary of the U.S., who should be a champion and defender of our currency, said U.S. currency isn't going to have the significance in the future that it's had.
00:06:49.380We've had arguably the most famous investment group in the country, in the world, Berkshire Hathaway, say their working hypothesis is the currency will be worthless.
00:06:58.380So, we're hearing these soundbites, but yet most Americans in particular, most Westerners really, are not awake to how extremely important this is.
00:07:11.320As one of the leaders of the BRIC said, this is a tectonic shift in finance, when all of a sudden you start pricing everything in a different asset.
00:07:20.820And what we're seeing may happen is that the BRICs are wrestling with these nations.
00:07:28.620How do they lure other people into trading in their new currency?
00:07:34.160Why should someone trust them when there's such distrust from any of those governments, Russia, China, et cetera?
00:07:40.080And what we're waiting to hear is what their conclusion on that will be.
00:07:44.020However, numerous nations have offered up the idea that they will back the BRICs currency by gold, meaning that you can exchange those paper notes into gold, like the U.S. dollar used to be.
00:08:01.080The U.S. dollar used to say explicitly on it from the Constitution, you could exchange that $20 bill for gold.
00:08:08.680And it said it explicitly on it, it was convenient to carry that paper dollar, it was, you know, a lot easier in your pocket.
00:08:16.320But the only reason that had value was because the bearer of that dollar could go into the bank, and the function of the bank was to give them, give that bearer the physical gold.
00:08:25.860And that was the underpinnings that made the dollar so successful.
00:08:30.680So, you know, how do people then protect themselves if they know, as you said, this is 75% of the world population, that the financial sectors of that 75% is talking about moving away from this.
00:08:45.100We know from the example in Britain that it massively devalues the currency such that, you know, and what is the percentage we're talking about here?
00:08:53.480So, when it got devalued in England, let's say we're talking about pounds or whatever, one pound, let's say, brought a loaf of bread, how much were we paying for a loaf of bread after the fact?
00:09:07.440Oh, dramatically, it was multiples more, John Henry.
00:09:11.160And just to give you some data on that, on the implications of saving in currencies that are not backed by gold, for your viewers in Canada, for your countrymen there, we did some research ahead of this call.
00:09:28.920And we went back, because it's really interesting these days, John, and just to share a little financial trivia with the audience.
00:09:36.240The last day the world had a global currency that was backed by gold was when Nixon closed the gold window in the U.S.
00:09:46.920That was, he chose to do that on August the 15th, 1971, the Feast of Our Lady of the Assumption.
00:09:53.920Interestingly, today, when the BRICS are going into this coalition meeting, it is August the 22nd, 2023, another great feast day, the Queenship of Our Lady.
00:10:06.240And in the incredible precision and order that the Lord has in the universe, beyond my comprehension, it has been exactly 19,000 days, exactly 19,000 days since that time.
00:10:18.380And what has been the implication, well, for your fellow Canadians, who, if you had saved in gold, just kept the gold coins or gold bars within your family, when the gold standard ended, it would now take you essentially the same amount of gold, even a little less in Canada, to buy a home.
00:10:42.400But the Canadian currency, if you were going to use Canadian dollars, and you look at the median home price of Canada, of a Canadian home from 1971 until the end of last year, you've needed five times as many Canadian dollars to buy that same home.
00:11:00.140So if you had saved in gold, so if you had saved in gold, rather than in Canadian dollars, you see how much better off you would have been to buy whatever asset you wanted to buy.
00:11:09.540And in America, it was even more dramatic.
00:11:11.840If you look at, since America came off the gold standard, it would take essentially the same amount of gold to buy the median home.
00:11:19.780But if you were saving in dollars, you would need almost 15 times as many dollars to buy the median home today in the United States.
00:11:31.620So we don't know all that's going to transpire in terms of the intricacies of digital this or crypto or what the BRICS rulebook will essentially look like.
00:11:43.560But what we can say is, although gold has no guarantees attached to it, it has this precedent that it has always worked in preserving the wealth of families who saved it.
00:11:57.700And so our takeaway and our recommendation to families is not to say the world's ending.
00:12:05.780The financial world likes to link gold with Armageddon.
00:12:10.580Gold is about having the financial resources in this new paradigm that's unfolding to provide for your family, to buy great things for your family, and for Christians and believers to have even more influence in the world.
00:12:24.020The old saying goes, he who has the gold makes the rules.
00:12:43.500The average account in the United States, if you look at the wire houses, the big brokers that control literally millions of family investment accounts, is 0% physical gold.
00:12:55.060So de facto, financial advisors are recommending 0% physical gold because that's what shows up in the investors' accounts.
00:13:09.660We again went back and looked at all the data going to 1971 through year-end 2022.
00:13:15.700We said, okay, let's say you had had that classic financial advisors portfolio, 60% in the stock market, 40% in the bond market.
00:13:24.380So that's the baseline approach that's the baseline approach that advisors would build from.
00:13:27.820And say, okay, well, what if we layered in some gold?
00:13:30.640How much would we have to layer in to maximize the portfolio?
00:13:35.660And what we saw clearly from the data was 20%.
00:13:39.020So that improved not only the return, but also reduced the volatility and maximize what's called the Sharpe ratio, which is a measure of portfolio efficiency.
00:13:49.360So it doesn't mean a family has to get to that level right away, but we would encourage you to think about it.
00:13:56.500It doesn't make sense that with all of these debts that are out here today, you know there's going to be problems in the currency markets.
00:14:05.020You know there's going to be problems in the bond markets, and that means there's going to be problems in the real estate markets.
00:14:10.020And when you look at the equity markets today, the valuations really should be ringing another alarm bell.
00:14:16.680We looked at the end of the second quarter of this year, second quarter of 2023, the most recently completed quarter.
00:14:23.140And we looked at the valuations of the stock market.
00:14:27.500Companies today are playing games with their accounting to make their numbers look the best they can, right, the best they can get away with.
00:14:34.600So we use what's called the Shiller PE ratio, which tries to take out some of the noise from accounting games.
00:14:42.060And if you look at the Shiller ratio, valuing the stock market, it's at 30 times as of the second quarter.
00:14:50.560You then go back and say, well, what has the market produced for investors when it started at a 30 times multiple, right?
00:15:01.880We know the last 10 years have been quite good, do we, by all this artificial government purchasing of these financial assets.
00:15:10.100But with a starting point where we are today, looking forward, right, thinking forward of what the future is going to hold for your investments, what does history have to show us?
00:15:19.400With this starting valuation, the median investment return investors should expect in the stock market for the decade ahead is 1% per year.
00:15:46.640What percent do you have in withering cash?
00:15:49.320We would submit, you want to think about, pray about, making sure you get to that right allocation for gold.
00:15:55.800We think history is whispering to us that this could be one of the most important financial decisions we'll make in terms of investments in our lives.
00:16:05.960Because when this shift takes place, like it took place in Britain, whenever that is, you want to be ready for it, because then it's going to be extremely difficult to go back and reset what you had, while the financial assets were priced as they are today.
00:16:20.500Indeed. So a lot of people, though, are going to be saying, wait a minute, in terms of my financial situation, I've still got a mortgage.
00:16:30.860I've got no savings. We're still working on paying off the mortgage in the car.
00:16:36.980What should I do? Should I even be involved in it at all?
00:16:39.980Should I just, oh, that's just for people with enough money to invest.
00:16:43.040We're not investing. We're just paying off debts. What do we do?
00:16:48.240So many financial advisors will say gold makes sense if you have $10 million to invest in the portfolio.
00:16:55.880And that is ludicrous, because the laws of finance apply, whether you have a $10 million portfolio, $100,000 portfolio, or whatever it is you have.
00:17:06.320So we would say you do want to pay down debt.
00:17:09.560The Bible is clear that debt is the currency of souls.
00:17:29.760To celebrate the momentous overturning of Roe v. Wade, we at LifeSite have minted just under 10,000 of these brand new limited edition pro-life silver rounds.
00:17:38.420Now, each round is stamped with the image of the Supreme Court of the United States, featuring the date that the High Court delivered this historic victory.
00:17:45.940And on the front of our pure silver rounds, LifeSite's logo surrounded by a brilliant sunburst and draped with olive branches.
00:17:51.980They, of course, commemorate our 25-year anniversary of LifeSite News.
00:18:00.760These one-ounce silver rounds are available from our partners at stjosephspartners.com, where you can fulfill all of your silver and gold needs in this perilous time.
00:18:10.820So, John Hunter, we've talked about why the currencies have a very bleak future, because they've been, they are so overly and literally hopelessly indebted today.
00:18:22.620And that's the case for the first time in financial history of all the world's major currencies.
00:18:28.160They are on a synchronized path to hopelessly indebtedness, to hopeless indebtedness.
00:18:33.960We talked about the implication that it has for the bond markets and the negative implications the stock market has, not only with those headwinds, but with valuations where we're starting from.
00:18:43.280But think about gold, which has the attribute of being inversely correlated to those other assets, which means when they struggle, historically, gold thrives.
00:18:54.700In the Great Depression, if you look at it from the peak to the trough, the stock market fell 80%.
00:19:04.040So you can see that very desirable building block in a portfolio that offsets the stress that hits stock markets and real estate markets.
00:19:13.160You saw something similar in many of, in really all the crises we've had financially in the country, right up to the last one, the great financial crisis in 08.
00:19:48.840It's less than one half of 1% of global wealth.
00:19:52.580And the CEO of the largest gold mining company in the world said, even if every blueprint works perfectly well in terms of gold projects that company is working on, the supply of gold this decade will still fall by a third.
00:20:08.900Do you have an asset less than 1% global wealth?
00:20:12.040And when I'm talking about the supply of that asset coming to the world falling dramatically further.
00:20:21.520We are seeing the central banks around the world who are the most plugged in investors, who know what they are doing to their own currencies, who know what their governments are doing, are buying gold aggressively.
00:20:33.1602022 was a record year for how much money central banks put into buying gold, and 2023 has even accelerated further beyond that pace.
00:20:43.840They are selling dollars, reducing their exposure to dollars, and they're adding to gold.
00:20:50.580The demand picture from that perspective looks great.
00:20:53.340And when you realize less than 1% of Western investors have any gold yet, you see where the demand is going to begin to rise.
00:21:01.120As people wake up to the realities of financial history and they say higher inflation is bad for financial assets, it's great for gold.
00:21:10.020Currency indebtedness is bad for financial assets, great for gold.
00:21:13.460And they go through the list and they see this extraordinary setup that gold has.
00:21:19.380It is another reason to say it makes sense to have some of this in your portfolio.
00:21:25.78020% mathematically has worked out very well.
00:21:28.580And why wouldn't an investor want at least 20% of their portfolio exposed assets that have such strong fundamental outlooks moving forward?
00:21:39.840Let me just say here, if you're interested in investing in gold, do so with our partners at St. Joseph's Partners.
00:21:48.760If you go to lifesitenews.com and click on the ad that you'll see there, it says, Protect Yourself, St. Joseph's Partners.
00:21:56.900Tell us, Drew, if you could, as we close out here, about silver as well, because we've talked a lot about gold.
00:22:03.380But for a lot of people, they're going to say, well, you know, even one ounce of gold is tough for me.
00:22:39.560A lot of, especially in the third world, where families have the same concerns and they're saying, what can I save in to protect my wealth?
00:22:47.800I don't want to save in our currency here.
00:22:50.140And they ask their grandparents, what can we save in?
00:23:36.360Gold and silver were both written in the Constitution as U.S. money.
00:23:40.040Gold for bigger ticket transactions, but silver so that the middle class, the working class, could be paid in a currency that wouldn't lose its value over time and that we can use for day-to-day transactions.
00:23:54.800If we want to go into a supermarket and there is currency stress, what will they accept?
00:23:59.520Historically, silver has worked extremely well.
00:24:02.560Silver's fundamentals are also very attractive.
00:24:05.280The supply of silver coming out of the ground relative to the demand for it is on a trajectory now to hit a record shortfall, record deficit this year, because demand for silver is very strong.
00:24:20.320When you talk about the uses of silver today, three-quarters of it is for industrial purposes.
00:24:27.000Only one-quarter so far is for money and investing.
00:24:30.680And that industrial end market for silver is all the things that the financial markets are enamored with, your cell phones, your computers, any type of hybrid battery, wind power, health care.
00:24:44.380They're realizing now silver is a natural biocidal.
00:24:48.340So if you have a burn and you don't want to have to change the bandage if you're in a hospital because you'll rip that skin off, you lace those bandages with silver and you won't need to change them.
00:25:11.800They realized we just throw some silver in there.
00:25:14.880Our water, our drinking water will stay pure.
00:25:17.280So these industrial end markets are extraordinary for silver.
00:25:21.020However, the monetary ratio of gold to silver now is 80 times, meaning you get 80 ounces of silver for one ounce of gold.
00:25:32.440Historically, that has been closer to 1.5, 15 times.
00:25:36.620And when you look at the silver that's coming out of the ground relative to gold, it's only about 7 to 1.
00:25:41.900So, again, whatever we say about gold is very positive for silver.
00:25:47.900We think it will also do extremely well.
00:25:50.780And in a one-on-one conversation, we can delve into what may make the most sense for your family, either in your taxable accounts or in a retirement account, where you can also save in silver, save in physical gold to protect your wealth at this juncture.
00:26:25.120Any last thoughts for us as we close out?
00:26:28.940John Henry, many people also don't realize that while gold has the laws of finance supporting it,
00:26:37.800higher inflation is great for gold, higher debts are great for gold.
00:26:41.500It has the history of finance supporting it.
00:26:44.260Every time you've had a currency not backed by gold, it's failed.
00:26:48.980Every time you've saved in gold, it has preserved the wealth of the families that invested in it.
00:26:54.820But the third leg of the stool, we would say, to make the case for gold is biblical.
00:27:01.400Gold is the only asset scripture counsels us to buy so that we will grow wealthy.
00:27:08.300And it specifies not paper gold, not IOUs that are centuries old, but physical gold refined in the fire.
00:27:14.720We recognize the primary meaning of that was spiritual.
00:27:20.240However, the Bible is very precise, and there are so many layers of truth in it.
00:27:25.360The fact that it is the only asset scripture counsels us to buy is significant.
00:27:29.840In the Bible, God also says, the silver and the gold are mine.
00:27:35.500We think that's a big reason why Wall Street hates it, while many in finance hate it, because God has aligned himself with silver and gold, literally.
00:27:46.800And then the third reference we would make that we think is so noteworthy is that if you go back to the Garden of Eden,
00:27:53.240when you wouldn't think there was any need for commerce,
00:27:55.400before God threw Adam and Eden out of the Garden of Eden,
00:27:59.700he told Adam where to go to find the gold.
00:28:04.360It was the only asset he told him where to go to find it.