TRIGGERnometry - Why Your Money Buys You Less Every Year

00:00:00.000 I think this is the biggest story in world finance and nobody is looking at it so the big conspiracy

00:00:08.340 is that America does not have the gold that it says it does both Trump and Musk said we're going

00:00:12.660 to audit the gold we're going to audit the gold story's gone what happened China has understated

00:00:17.780 its gold holdings by it could be as much as 10 times and if at the same time China comes along

00:00:26.560 and says you know we've got five times as much gold as we said we did it's tantamount to a

00:00:32.480 declaration of financial war he who has the gold makes the rules and China will have the gold China

00:00:38.260 already does have the gold relax relax this is not an ad if you're not a fan of ads but love

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00:01:00.180 Dominic Frisby welcome back to trigonometry thank you very much Konstantin thank you Francis

00:01:06.240 pleasure to be here it's great to have you back a third interview with you we talked about taxes and

00:01:10.740 bitcoin in the first one I think we talked about something very personal to you and your family in

00:01:14.680 the second one which was really great and this one we want to talk about gold money tax and I saw

00:01:20.820 a perfect quote on my way into work this morning which I just thought sums up the conversation we're

00:01:25.200 about to have beautifully it's apparently misattributed to lots of people but I'll read

00:01:29.280 it to you anyway all the best quotes are yeah a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of

00:01:33.660 government it can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largesse out of the

00:01:39.000 public treasury and it's attributed to a Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Teitler but the reason I

00:01:45.200 bring it up is I actually think since we've gone off the gold standard which is really what we want to

00:01:50.580 talk about partly is we it's actually worse than that because not only can we now vote ourselves

00:01:55.280 largesse out of the public treasury we can vote ourselves to magic money out of thin air and then

00:02:01.480 be converted into largesse out of the public treasury and that's kind of where we're at isn't it it is

00:02:07.020 there are two ways by which a government makes money and one is by extracting it from the taxpayer

00:02:12.380 and then the other is through various means printing money effectively quantitative easing and so on

00:02:18.440 I suppose there's a third way which is by selling bonds and when you issue debt which is a would be

00:02:25.320 selling bonds you create money that way so that's the third way yeah and so how does the history of

00:02:32.620 gold with the secret history of gold is the title of your latest book how does the history of gold and

00:02:37.140 us coming off the gold standard play into all of this well it the the when gold was money the only

00:02:47.120 way you could create money or create cash was by mining gold which is an extremely dangerous and

00:02:53.440 expensive endeavor um but now that we're money is not in any way tied to gold you there are all sorts of

00:03:01.200 other means by by which we can create money and so since the the sort of the final vestiges of the

00:03:07.500 gold standard were abandoned in 1971 it actually the gold standard actually ended sooner than that

00:03:12.540 but let's use 1971 as a date and if you just look at the supply of money since 1971 it has ballooned and

00:03:19.140 ballooned and ballooned and at the same time the more money there is chasing the same amount of goods or

00:03:25.280 a marginally increased amount of goods it just means prices go up and up and up and so if you're

00:03:30.320 looking to try and understand why it is that you know things are so much more expensive today than

00:03:35.620 they were 10 years ago or 15 years ago or 50 years ago the answer is that you know there is very little

00:03:41.600 stopping money creation and is that actually true dominic when you say things are more expensive a lot

00:03:47.160 of people will assume well salaries have gone up cost of things has gone up you know it's inflation

00:03:51.680 you know your salary went up the cost of things went up you're kind of where you were is that

00:03:55.660 where are we on that well it's it's i'm glad you brought that up because there's a whole

00:03:59.960 chapter in my book on that and i present a table of prices in 1970 compared to prices today and if

00:04:09.460 you look at prices in the uk they've actually their things have gone up by twice as much in the uk as

00:04:16.100 they have in the us and the reason for that is that the pound has been roughly twice as weak as the

00:04:22.180 us dollar but it doesn't matter if you're in the us or the uk the price of everything almost

00:04:28.640 everything has gone up relative to earnings relative to earnings well it's slightly more

00:04:34.900 nuanced than that but yes the only thing that's come down in price or or in one of the few areas

00:04:40.140 that's come down in price is phone calls if you might remember when you were a kid you you're too

00:04:44.760 young but you used to put 10p in i remember this very well you get three minutes for a local call

00:04:49.960 yeah and now you can have a video call to anywhere in the world for nothing so that's what you're seeing

00:04:55.460 there is the deflationary effects of improved productivity because we've got so much better

00:05:00.840 at this technology the price has fallen to practically zero and the only price you pay is

00:05:05.200 your data which is a whole new currency in and of itself data as a thing didn't exist in the way it

00:05:11.640 does 50 years ago so i've got my book here with with the stats here salaries have more or less gone up

00:05:19.260 by um in the uk by about 20 times since the 1970s and if you look at a chart of salaries and you just

00:05:28.580 salaries go up and up and up every year so we should be earning more and more money but if you look at

00:05:34.480 salaries measured in gold they've actually been falling since 1970 so measured in gold we're earning

00:05:42.240 less than we've ever earned and gold is the stable form of money that's existed since before the earth

00:05:47.740 and obviously fiat money the pound the dollar is not a stable form of currency but so 20 times

00:05:53.480 salaries 20 times as much then if you look at house prices they are 70 times as expensive as they

00:06:00.720 were in 1970 so house prices have gone up by three and a half times the amount of salaries have gone up

00:06:06.200 and that's why you know in the 1970s of guy on an ordinary salary could afford a house now it takes

00:06:12.040 two salaries and shed a load more debt and the reason for that is that we use mortgages to buy

00:06:19.540 houses and mortgages allow allow for the creation of huge amounts of money uh and if you if if house

00:06:29.560 prices were just a cash market you couldn't borrow money to buy houses they'd be much more closer to

00:06:35.300 what people earn what people earn but with the creation of debt it just enables way more money to

00:06:40.060 come into this market and that's pushed house prices up and up and up if you look at like a

00:06:44.940 washing machine for example that's only maybe four times as expensive as it as it was in 1970 and

00:06:50.460 that's because there's no we don't use debt for the most part to buy washing machines and in fact

00:06:54.640 washing machines have got better and you know the improved productivity outsourcing to china all those

00:07:00.260 things have brought down the price relatively of washing machines so relative to earnings washing

00:07:04.760 machines are much cheaper than they were in 1970 now you'd think cars the same logic would apply to

00:07:10.420 cars that it does to washing machines but cars are actually you know 30 40 times more expensive than

00:07:15.780 they were in 1970 now obviously cars are a lot better you know they've got five gears and air

00:07:20.540 conditioning and amazing stereos and you know much better they're technologically much better even if

00:07:25.700 they're less stylish than they once were but the the reason why cars have gone up by so much more

00:07:29.820 is we use debt for the most part to buy cars finance pays a huge part especially new cars and

00:07:35.860 so that means more money gets created and that pushes the price of these things up if you look at

00:07:40.380 something like eggs you know or maybe not eggs aren't a good example because of because of the what's

00:07:45.620 happened with eggs in the u.s but yeah milk say you know milk is only maybe five ten times more

00:07:50.660 expensive than it was in 1970 because we've got better at making milk mass production farming so if

00:07:56.040 salaries have gone up by 20 a factor 20 milk has become cheaper effectively right yes and what is

00:08:01.160 a pint of milk today 60 70p it's it's it's pretty cheap for what it is given you know i i bought a

00:08:07.160 pine very good example pineapples i bought a pineapple in my co-op the other day for one pound 50

00:08:13.140 and you just think it takes two years to grow a pineapple in in costa rica all that farming it's

00:08:18.680 got to be farmed then you've got to ship it get it all the way across the atlantic yada yada yada

00:08:22.420 and at every step of the way somebody's making money and i'm buying a pineapple for one pound 50

00:08:27.340 it's quite incredible once upon a time pineapples were a symbol of wealth people had used to have

00:08:31.880 on the top of the wimbledon trophy you look there's a little pineapple it's a symbol of it's you know

00:08:35.940 there was you know they're expensive but because mass production and everything has brought down the

00:08:40.540 cost of pineapples and it's a cash market so if you want to make a fortune go into a go into a

00:08:45.040 business where people use debt to buy the product that you're selling you make more money

00:08:47.960 dominic i think it's very important for people who aren't as au fait with these terms that are

00:08:53.480 being used in this interview that we kind of explain it and what explain some of these terms

00:08:57.960 and why it is that they're so significant so we talked about the gold standard yeah for a layman

00:09:03.500 what is the gold standard and why was it so catastrophic that we left it and why did we leave

00:09:10.160 it as well so here i've got um i've got in my pocket oh thank you some gold and silver there's

00:09:17.840 a silver dollar that used to be you can have the silver dollar why am i getting the silver

00:09:22.040 because i'm gold you can have i'm the jewish one here give me the gold there we go there's a

00:09:27.180 victorian sovereign by the way can i just say dominic before you actually answer the serious

00:09:30.840 question so i bought some gold recently right it is on your advice by the way partly it is the most

00:09:36.900 disappointing experience ever because you're like do you know how this tiny little coin is like 600

00:09:42.700 pounds yeah and you in your head you're like oh i'm going to get some doublons out of those pirate

00:09:48.520 stories i'm going to bite into it it's going to be thick it's going to be meaty you get this bloody

00:09:52.660 like five five p coin type of thing or two p coin more like and it's 600 yeah it's about a quarter of

00:09:58.460 an ounce there's one for you francis thank you mate disappointing but the silver one is nice but

00:10:02.820 they're surprisingly heavy yeah they are they are it's it's a very dense metal but that what you're

00:10:08.440 holding there is the old pound coin wow and this was oh really yeah this is for american viewers the

00:10:15.400 the new pound coin is a chunky chunky chunky heavy coin it takes 650 pound coins to buy the old pound coin

00:10:23.060 and you know that's how much currency has been debased by and this the gold sovereign was brought

00:10:30.720 into currency in 1816 after napoleonic wars and it was it was the pound coin and this is the most

00:10:35.860 successful coin in history something like uh billions of i think of these coins have been printed

00:10:41.520 and now the biggest market for gold sovereigns is delhi india that's where the most of them get

00:10:46.420 manufactured and um but yeah that so that is the old pound coin and what i've got here is that you can

00:10:52.940 have a look at here now this is a justinian solidus so this was the the the dominant coin of byzantium

00:11:00.900 the old roman empire and that was minted in 600 ad but just look at how similar it is to the uh

00:11:06.540 yeah to the gold it's a little thinner but it's a little thinner it's a little lighter yeah the

00:11:11.220 sovereign would be about seven grams and that would be about four or five grams and the but the

00:11:16.580 difference the sovereign has got a tiny bit of copper mixed in it to make it harder whereas that one

00:11:21.620 it's you can tell it's soft yeah it's solid gold and um that's the solidus and italians call money

00:11:27.320 soldi and that comes from the the roman solidus and um it's a it's beautiful now if you you know

00:11:34.820 you might you'd see olympic gold medalists when they they get the thing they bite their coin and

00:11:39.040 that's because if it was solid gold you'd bite the coin and you'd use your mouth as a clamp and you

00:11:44.580 can fend the coin slightly and if the coin bent you'd know it's solid gold so that's why pirates always

00:11:49.300 bite by coin it's a rude test of the metal's purity and i don't know if this is going to work

00:11:54.180 but i'm just going to flip it here oh let me do that again i'm just i'm just going to flip it here

00:12:01.720 and you can hopefully you heard that there was a very familiar ring when when you flip a gold coin

00:12:08.560 that's solid gold it makes that unique ring now here's i've got sidetracked from the gold standard

00:12:13.720 i'll come back to in a sec here's here's quite a profound thought so this is maybe 1500 years old

00:12:19.880 and you can see it's still shiny now gold never loses its shine and then you think if you argue

00:12:29.960 about when gold was created one world view is that gold was created through divine um intervention

00:12:36.040 but the other the scientific explanation is that gold was created when there are interstellar

00:12:41.600 collisions in outer space and it was one into the collisions between stars and in the resulting

00:12:47.720 nuclear explosions the gold dust gets dispersed into the atmosphere and then gradually that gold

00:12:53.620 dust compressed through accretion collision asteroids colliding and that's how the planets formed

00:12:58.780 and that's how gold made its way into the earth's crust now you cannot destroy gold you can't the only

00:13:07.740 way is through nuclear explosions it is permanent you can put gold like that put it in the earth dig it

00:13:14.080 up a thousand years later and it will be exactly as it was no rust no tarnish nothing it will still be

00:13:19.580 shiny i can batter it into a leaf that's just one atom thick i could stretch the gold in this coin

00:13:27.240 maybe into a wire maybe half a mile long but you cannot destroy it so it's incredibly malleable

00:13:34.060 but it is permanent now if you cannot destroy gold and gold was made before the earth was formed

00:13:46.840 in interstellar collisions in outer space that means that this little bit of gold here and you can both

00:13:53.480 hold a little bit of gold as i say this this little bit of gold here is not just older than the earth

00:14:00.720 itself it is older than the solar system do you not find that quite profound yeah so to touch gold

00:14:09.520 to handle it is the closest you will ever come in your entire life to touching eternity and i find that

00:14:17.440 a very profound thought and you think what is eternity it is this it is you know this ethereal this

00:14:24.380 spiritual thing but what you're actually looking at is the most analog physical immutable nothing

00:14:32.580 asset in the world it just it is never changes and that's why gold makes such a fantastic form of money

00:14:39.320 because it's permanent because it's constant and when i say money in this sense i'm talking about the

00:14:44.400 store of value side of money not the medium of exchange as it happens gold is not a great medium of

00:14:50.520 exchange because as you say you know 650 quid in a tiny coin like that it's not very good for you know

00:14:56.980 buying milk or something like that and that's why as a rule we've tended to use silver and copper and

00:15:03.160 nickel as our day-to-day medium of exchange but as a store of value that like long after human beings

00:15:11.720 have have shuffled off their mortal coil and left this earth long after digital technology is in the past

00:15:17.100 and bitcoin is history thousands of years in the future this piece of gold will be there exactly as

00:15:23.600 it was and the other very profound thing to think is is every time um like for example when the

00:15:30.940 conquistadors went into south america and stole all the um the south american were brilliant artisans and

00:15:37.300 they made beautiful art out of their uh gold jewelry and all the uh people who wrote about it said they

00:15:43.540 were better artisans than the europeans were and the spaniards just melted down the gold and sent it

00:15:48.600 home and some of the art they sent home and then once they got back to spain they just melted it down

00:15:53.340 and that's the tragedy of of art made of gold is people always melt it down it's not just the

00:15:59.000 spaniards is everyone who's ever looted gold throughout history um but it also means that this

00:16:05.000 piece of gold before it was a this is a victorian sovereign that's maybe 150 years old before it was a

00:16:11.000 victorian sovereign what you know this gold might have been handled by a roman senator it might have

00:16:17.800 been you know it's it's well actually this gold it wouldn't have happened to this gold but but you

00:16:22.340 you know it's it's it's known that some of the gold that's sitting in gold bars in central bank vaults

00:16:28.200 was at one point dentures in jewish uh people's teeth in concentration camps and the nazis would rip the

00:16:36.820 gold out of their teeth and melt it down and send it off to switzerland you know it's horrible but it

00:16:41.860 just you you don't like you melt down once you melt down gold you don't know what its provenance is

00:16:47.320 so you just don't know this gold has seen everything and you don't you just don't know what

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00:18:20.800 financial future today some say the bubbles in an aero truffle piece can take 34 seconds to melt

00:18:26.820 in your mouth sometimes the very amount you're stuck at the same red light rich creamy chocolatey

00:18:33.220 aero truffle feel the aero bubbles melt it's mind bubbling so come back to the gold standard because

00:18:39.960 you've kind of explained why gold has been a currency throughout history and explain why changing that

00:18:47.880 setup is part of the reason why we are where we are so the the war was always a very good business

00:18:55.220 model in ancient times you you would conquer a country and you would take control of the land the

00:18:59.880 labor the profit the produce you take control of the lax the tax base so you'd plunder and then you

00:19:05.420 would uh tax and it served the romans very well it served alexander the great very well um it's just

00:19:11.840 it's been a brilliant war model but wars are also extremely expensive and um so for example

00:19:18.680 we were on the gold standard in the 18th century isaac newton great physicist it's not known about

00:19:25.700 him he also designed the gold standard and um we were on the gold standard but uh we were trying we

00:19:32.060 were sending money overseas to prop up um napoleon's enemies to give them money and it was known as the

00:19:39.400 golden cavalry of saint george because we sent all our sovereigns overseas with with the uh image of

00:19:44.900 saint george and the dragon you can see he's on the so uh it wouldn't have been sovereigns it would

00:19:48.280 have been guineas back then and we sent so many of them abroad we had no gold left and so we actually

00:19:55.120 came off the gold standard in 1798 because the the bank of england could not afford to redeem its notes

00:20:02.020 if people came in with paper the bank of england couldn't afford to give out gold in exchange we came

00:20:06.300 off the gold standard went back on it again in 1816 and that gold standard lasted all the way through

00:20:11.880 the 19th century until 1914 and if you actually look at consumer prices again there's i can we can

00:20:18.980 show a chart up on the screen now if you look at consumer prices in the 19th century they came down

00:20:24.500 by more than half so over the course of the 19th century if you were a wage earner by the end of the

00:20:29.740 century your it went they went up in the civil war and then they came back down again your money bought

00:20:34.600 you more as time went by unlike now where your money buys you less and less each year so the whole

00:20:40.940 dynamic of working and saving and investing in the future totally changes when you have sound money

00:20:46.580 because people know that you know when you expend energy to get this money's like stored energy you

00:20:52.660 expend energy to earn it and it will keep its energy and you can spend it at some later stage if it loses

00:20:57.600 its energy you the nature of society changes 1914 first world war the french and the german

00:21:06.760 governments stopped when we went to war they stopped redeeming their paper for gold so they came off the

00:21:13.740 gold standard the english actually stayed on the gold standard but they took gold out of circulation

00:21:18.440 and and they sort of the bank of england redeemed a little bit but we fudge and eventually we actually

00:21:24.420 came off the gold standard i think 1919 so it meant that if you had a pound note i promised to pay the

00:21:30.480 bearer and at one point you could redeem that pound note for gold they stopped redeeming it for gold so

00:21:36.100 the money was unbacked and they printed the money they needed to pay for the world war that first world

00:21:40.420 war if those countries had stuck to the discipline of gold in other words they could only spend as much

00:21:48.140 money as they had gold in their vaults that war could not have happened to anything like the extent

00:21:54.800 that it did and in my view the beginning of the end of the west began in 1914 or beginning of the end

00:22:02.000 of europe uh you know it's been downhill relative to the rest of the world ever since and i and you just

00:22:07.840 think of 50 million if you include the spanish flu that followed 50 million people 50 million people

00:22:12.180 died and it was enabled by coming off the gold standard we if we if we'd stayed to the discipline

00:22:19.740 of gold there just would not have been the money to pay for that war to go on to the extent that it

00:22:24.320 did and i find that a profound thought anyway after the war everyone thought they could we could just

00:22:30.340 return to the gold stand and things would be as they were and britain was anxious to be the first

00:22:35.220 country that rejoined the gold stand and the pound was strong for various reasons in the foreign

00:22:38.780 exchange markets and in 1925 um we went back on the gold standard at the pre-war rate and we just

00:22:47.240 issued so much paper by that point it just was not feasible to go on at the um pre-war rate but it was

00:22:53.360 like a flex look at us we've gone back on the pre-war rate and other countries followed so that by 1932

00:22:58.680 most of the world was on um a gold standard again but the gold had been removed from circulation

00:23:05.680 so we were nominal britain was normally on a gold standard but there were no gold sovereigns

00:23:10.180 in the 19th century gold coins were trading you know people were handling gold there were just no

00:23:15.120 there was no gold in circulation there was a fake gold stand it's like a library oh yeah but you can't

00:23:19.180 touch the books that kind of thing anyway with the wall street crash and the deflation that followed

00:23:24.260 the wall street crash pretty much every country was forced off the gold standard in the 1930s

00:23:28.920 except for america and what what roosevelt did with his new deal and i don't know if you know this

00:23:34.320 little bit of history but when he came to power he hadn't mentioned gold in his uh manifesto when he

00:23:42.020 came to power he confidently became illegal for americans to own gold american citizens all had to hand in

00:23:50.280 their gold and it didn't matter if it was um monetary gold or like you know collector's item gold they all

00:23:56.520 had to hand in their gold jewelry as well i'm maybe not i'm not sure i can't imagine they were like

00:24:01.880 confiscating wedding rings right no it seems bizarre maybe may and i can't believe americans didn't own

00:24:07.440 necklaces all through the 20th century any so it was all gold that wasn't jewelry but and and americans

00:24:13.100 and it was all believed to be a temporary measure and so americans all handed in their gold and then

00:24:19.100 roosevelt devalued the dollar by 40 percent he gave him dollars in exchange and then devalued the dollar

00:24:23.260 so effectively he stole 40 of his people's wealth and americans were not allowed to own gold again

00:24:29.340 until 1975 wow they just were not allowed so america was on the gold standard but american citizens

00:24:36.720 couldn't own gold now if you go back to ancient egypt gold was a royal prerogative only the pharaohs

00:24:44.240 and the royal family could own gold ordinary citizens can know couldn't own it it was the same

00:24:48.480 in the 20th century the state could own gold but ordinary citizens couldn't handle it

00:24:53.400 uh couldn't own it and um so the gold standards of the 20th century were sort of fake gold standards

00:25:02.000 because as i say ordinary people weren't actually owning gold but in any case the final gold standard

00:25:08.380 the last vestiges of the gold standard were abandoned in 1971 that was when the u.s after after the

00:25:15.260 the second world war the u.s dollar became the global reserve currency the u.s dollar was backed by gold

00:25:21.200 and other countries had to tie their currencies to to the u.s dollar so it gave the u.s this extraordinary

00:25:27.540 status what what uh the french called america's exorbitant privilege and ever since then uh ever since

00:25:36.960 1945 america has used its dollar as uh a weapon of war or a uh a tool if you like money's become a

00:25:48.060 political tool and and in fact it's not just america every country in all history has done it

00:25:53.080 but in the case of america so you we print money to in the uk to cover a deficit if if the government's

00:26:02.000 spending more money than it has it'll print money to make up the difference or issue debt to make up the

00:26:06.540 difference so in that sense it becomes a political tool as you said you know is the premise of this

00:26:11.580 conversation but america also uses it money always gets used as a weapon of war so um for example in

00:26:19.840 the american revolution we issued load the british issued loads of counterfeit american notes and spread

00:26:24.500 them around europe the nazis created loads of fake pounds during world war ii and spread them around

00:26:29.440 europe to to to to you attack the money when putin invaded ukraine um shortly after that um the u.s

00:26:38.500 confiscated all of russia's u.s dollar assets um so it was used and and it uh but uh banned russia from

00:26:47.900 swift which is the global banking system uh the the system of uh transfer so it used its dollar

00:26:54.420 as a tool of war against russia even though it wasn't at war with russia it used its dollar as

00:27:00.940 a weapon of war against russia and in fact we can talk about this in a minute that um system may

00:27:07.060 backfire against uh america because it changed the nature of gold flows but we'll come back to that in

00:27:14.060 a minute but yes so i hope i've i've answered your question yes about coming off of the gold standard

00:27:19.580 so 1971 america came off the gold standard why was that it wasn't just vietnam vietnam played

00:27:27.720 obviously played a hugely significant part in it because it was a very expensive war as all wars

00:27:32.220 are but vietnam particularly so but there was another reason wasn't there dominic why it came

00:27:36.820 off the gold standard johnson's welfare yes yeah okay um america was basically america was spending

00:27:43.400 way more money than it had and it didn't have the gold to back all the u.s dollars that it had printed

00:27:49.320 and it was spending money on the war in vietnam and on president johnson's expansionary welfare

00:27:54.560 programs now why did he do those welfare programs to win votes to make himself popular it's exactly the

00:28:00.540 thing that we talked about at the beginning of the program and but in eventually countries started

00:28:05.200 going you have not got the dollars to you have not got the gold to back the dollars that you've

00:28:10.200 printed and the sort of ringleader in all this was charles de gaulle and at one stage the french

00:28:14.880 actually sent two um war ships to new york to collect their gold can you imagine sending warships

00:28:22.640 to to new york to then today just wouldn't happen but anyway um and very it created this run on the

00:28:28.360 dollar and so america was um uh sending gold over to the uk to uh redeem against its dollars the uk

00:28:37.720 london was at the center of the gold markets at this point and at one point there was so much gold

00:28:42.120 had been sent to the uk that the weighing room floor of the bank of england collapsed under the

00:28:47.440 weight of all the golds and um and eventually it was like we can't keep giving out the gold so they

00:28:53.580 came off the gold standard 1971 now the big question is there's america supposed to have 8 000 tons of

00:29:00.880 gold but that gold has not been audited in over 60 years there's there's been internal audits but there

00:29:06.500 has been no public audit of that gold so the big conspiracy is that america does not have the gold

00:29:12.200 that it says it does and that and and that it says it has 8 000 tons but who knows if it's there

00:29:19.720 and when trump was elected both trump and musk said we're going to audit the gold we're going to audit

00:29:23.260 the gold and elon musk was talking about having a live a live stream of the auditing of the gold

00:29:27.960 story's gone what happened and so why is that particularly pertinent when we look at the world now

00:29:35.100 that america doesn't have the gold that it says it does because well originally it mattered because

00:29:41.420 the u.s dollar was backed by gold dominic maybe sorry to interrupt but you might be worth explaining

00:29:47.100 what a reserve currency is before we go anywhere okay well it's it's basically the the the most

00:29:54.400 important currency in the world and it's the currency that's used for major international trade

00:29:59.340 it's the major currency of banking it is the in if you look at the the money that each central bank

00:30:04.760 around the world holds roughly it's roughly 50 it's just slightly below 50 of all central bank

00:30:11.740 holdings around the world are u.s dollars so it is the the primary currency of the world

00:30:16.420 simply if sri lankan wants to trade with a moroccan they'll use u.s dollar they'll convert both their

00:30:22.840 currencies into dollars and trade and then convert them back well you know i'm simplifying yes simplifying

00:30:28.560 yes and no but effectively they will do they will use the dollar to do business in because it's the

00:30:32.700 most relied upon currency in the world and partly that's because it's supposed to be you know

00:30:38.340 it's sound and it's backed by the u.s government and and and it's backed by the u.s military as well

00:30:44.220 and um but it gives america enormous power but every great empire in history whether it's here i've got

00:30:52.780 the coin of um alexander the great that would be that's a silver tetradam that's some uh several

00:30:58.920 thousand years old and and that was even before they were putting the that's hercules on the back

00:31:04.920 it's not even alexander the great they weren't even putting rulers heads on coins at this point

00:31:08.240 and but every you know whether it was the the greeks or the the romans or the british or

00:31:14.300 every major um empire in world history their money has been the global reserve currency and now

00:31:21.780 obviously america is the world's great superpower and china is rising and we've got this big rivalry

00:31:28.320 and at some point there will be some kind of currency war between the two so that being the case

00:31:34.920 why is it so important that america doesn't have the gold that it says it does why is that potentially

00:31:42.620 catastrophic because it it even though the gold doesn't actually back the u.s dollar it is america's

00:31:52.100 primary uh it is like america doesn't have any minimal amounts of foreign currencies it doesn't hold

00:32:00.340 so something like 70 or 80 percent of u.s foreign exchange holdings its entire bank reserves are in gold

00:32:07.320 there are no other currency whereas the uk i don't actually know what the uk's allocation is but

00:32:13.360 we're we have a tiny amount in gold and we have huge amounts of u.s dollars u.s treasuries euros and

00:32:18.840 other currencies and but if it basically means that america has been lying for the last 65 years

00:32:26.540 and there's a very important we were talking before the interview began um about you know if a

00:32:33.240 government can print money why does it need to tax people you know if it can print money why does it

00:32:38.700 need to collect taxes and there's a very good reason it's it's called money illusion even if there's

00:32:43.860 nothing actually backing the money we have to think that there is something backing the money for it to

00:32:49.880 work and so money illusion affects us all and if america does not have the gold that it says it does

00:32:55.900 the illusion of the u.s dollar is dramatically shattered and if at the same time china comes

00:33:04.440 along and says um you know we've got five times as much gold as we said we did then suddenly china

00:33:12.660 has a real tangible backing to its money just as america has none and there's a joke that i like um

00:33:19.900 uh the head of security goes to the u.s president and says mr president there's no gold in fort knox

00:33:25.620 and the president says what do you mean there's no gold in fort knox and the head of security says

00:33:28.980 there is no gold in fort knox and the president says double the guard

00:33:32.460 but sure go for it no you go no so i think it's very important as well that you raise china

00:33:40.500 because let's say if america are bluffing and let's say we don't know that they have more gold

00:33:47.400 than they're pretending than they say they do china has taken the opposite tack haven't they

00:33:52.860 yes potentially not potentially certainly um by the way my own view of of what america's gold

00:34:02.600 situation is is that i think america has most of the gold that it says it does but it is not of good

00:34:09.440 delivery quality um so today gold bars have to be of a certain weight in a certain purity to be traded on

00:34:17.200 on the on the um metals exchanges and most of america's gold like if they remelt that you you need

00:34:23.940 to resmelt it every so on and check for purity most of america's gold will be the gold coins that

00:34:29.040 it confiscated from its people in the 1930s and that is only about 90 pure so it it just won't be of

00:34:37.200 what what would what would be called good delivery quality so and that's an another issue in itself

00:34:44.880 but then you but anyway china says it has two thousand two thousand and several hundred tons

00:34:52.000 and this is every month china declares its goal its gold holdings and they've increased by you know 50

00:34:59.860 tons or something or 20 tons each month and it says it has two thousand tons compared to america's

00:35:04.720 eight thousand tons i'm using round numbers it's slightly more than that but china has been

00:35:10.760 um the world's largest producer of gold since 2007 okay overtook south africa to become the world's

00:35:21.400 largest producer and almost well over 50 percent of chinese gold production is state-owned and it is

00:35:29.740 illegal to export gold from china unless it's jewelry but as a if you look at jewelry it's a net importer

00:35:37.760 of jewelry so it doesn't export any of the gold that it mines so we know that from geological

00:35:43.520 records that some seven eight thousand tons of gold has been mined in china since 2000 and it says it

00:35:51.040 only has 2000 we also know that china has been buying vast amount it's also the world's largest importer of

00:35:59.220 gold as well as being the world's largest producer and it's been the world's largest importer

00:36:02.700 for maybe 20 years and if you look at the shanghai gold exchange you most of those gold imports are

00:36:10.140 not transparent they go through dubai go through switzerland they go through london they're private

00:36:14.200 they're not declared some of the stuff that goes through hong kong gets declared but you can look

00:36:18.740 at the shanghai gold exchange and look at withdrawals from the shanghai gold exchange and you can get a rough

00:36:24.120 idea of how much gold has gone to china even though not all the gold that goes to china goes through the

00:36:29.860 shanghai gold exchange the the the gold that the the um people's bank of china buys through switzerland

00:36:37.140 and dubai does not get declared but we know that over 22 000 tons of gold has been redeemed through

00:36:45.400 the shanghai gold exchange since it was formed in 2007 so that's 22 000 tons redeemed there and seven

00:36:51.620 eight thousand tons of production that's 30 000 tons compared to america's 8 000 tons now let's just say

00:36:58.600 for the sake of argument that 50 of that gold has gone into state hands that would mean that china

00:37:03.620 has 15 16 000 tons of gold hold on i mean presumably a lot of this gold is being used in manufacturing

00:37:09.120 production and all of these other things no but there's gold in everything isn't there no uh like

00:37:14.760 gold has some industrial use but it's just minimal it's like three of unless you include jewelry

00:37:21.380 which okay so i do it i accept you but in terms of like industrial uses of gold it does have them

00:37:27.260 outer space in your teeth um nanoparticles in medicine there are a few but it's just in the

00:37:33.060 context of most people buy gold to to either wear it or or hoard it okay that is the main reason the

00:37:38.640 chinese do love jewelry though they love jewelry right they love so so i think the numbers are probably not

00:37:44.360 as extreme as no they are they like i've i've said 50 like i've said like at least 30 000 tons of gold

00:37:53.660 has made its way to china it's probably more like 40 000 okay has made its way to china and i've just

00:37:58.840 said just assume that half of that has gone to the state and half of that has been accumulated by

00:38:05.200 citizens but even if you just say it's a quarter it's so if it's that if it's a quarter of 30 000 tons

00:38:11.960 it still means that china has more gold than the u.s does and it's it means that china has understated

00:38:17.440 its gold reserves by a factor of four why would it do that because the the way that china operates

00:38:23.480 it's basically like we know how ambitious china is and it's rightful places at the top of the world

00:38:30.660 because chinese people are better than you and it's very very ambitious and part it's not just that

00:38:38.980 it it's it wants its currency to be the global reserve currency it sees it as its destiny it's

00:38:44.600 right it's rightful place in the world and

00:38:47.280 there has never been a global reserve currency that did not start out backed by gold and sometimes

00:38:56.440 silver it has just never happened in history they all got debased into oblivion but they all started

00:39:01.400 out backed by gold and silver and right from alexander the great and whatever right through to the

00:39:07.540 the pound and then the dollar they all started out backed by something tangible because that's what

00:39:12.860 makes the currency a real thing in the first place um china's and it's not just china but it's all the

00:39:20.620 countries along the silk road the accumulation of gold by those central banks accelerated in the months

00:39:28.300 after america confiscated those russian assets so all those central banks looked at what happened

00:39:35.980 they looked at how overweight they all are u.s dollars they're not necessarily enemies of america

00:39:41.660 but they're not allies of america either and they're going we are in when we're using u.s dollars and

00:39:47.140 we're beholden to the u.s banking system we are beholden to the u.s so we need to diversify now it

00:39:53.520 might just be simple diversification that they're increasing their gold holdings that's that's the

00:39:58.140 occam's razor explanation or it might be that they're planning something bigger or it might be a bit of

00:40:02.700 both but in any case china has understand understated its gold holdings by it could be as much as 10

00:40:10.280 times it's probably more like three four five times something like that but for sure they have not

00:40:16.060 declared all their holdings now you ask why would they not do that because to turn around and china

00:40:20.920 to go to the u.s oh actually we've got more gold than you and america is the biggest holder of gold in

00:40:26.060 the world uh we've got more gold than you and you haven't audited your gold that's it's tantamount to

00:40:32.220 a declaration of financial war it's it's a hugely aggressive thing to declare and the chinese

00:40:39.120 modus operandi is we must not shine too brightly and it's quite happy to let the west destroy itself

00:40:47.200 as it carries on doing doesn't need to get involved in a conflict it just keeps making stuff and selling

00:40:51.500 it and its empire grows so it's that is its modus operandi but if they ever go into conflict you can

00:40:57.740 be sure that china will use money as a weapon of war just as america does if those two ever get into

00:41:02.740 conflict and and china goes yeah our gold holdings are 10 times what we said we were we're going to

00:41:08.140 back the yuan by with gold anyone can exchange their yuan for gold at any time they can't you the

00:41:13.500 u.s dollar doesn't have the gold that it says it does you know if china makes those declarations

00:41:18.180 the u.s dollar the the value of the u.s dollar falls rapidly and um the the value of the yuan

00:41:25.180 increases rapidly it's an extremely aggressive thing to do the price of gold goes through the roof

00:41:31.100 means that it's more expensive for china to accumulate it's just not ready to do that yet

00:41:35.180 it it will happen at some point but it's just not ready and by the way i think this is the biggest

00:41:40.340 story in world finance and china's accumulation of gold and nobody is looking at it it's it's that big

00:41:47.500 you like why is china accumulating all this gold it's obvious what it's doing and why are you just

00:41:52.580 turning a blind eye to it because we're too busy with all our various infighting about this that

00:41:56.640 and the other issue and but at a certain point it will matter and china he who has the gold makes the

00:42:02.600 rules and china will have the gold china already does have the gold and america meanwhile won't even

00:42:08.380 have a public audit of its gold the most likely explanation is that it's not it's because it's gold is

00:42:15.160 not of good enough quality to have that public order and what's also interesting is china is not

00:42:20.380 the only one hoarding gold i think russia is as well you mention it in your book russia accumulated

00:42:25.420 extraordinary amounts up until maybe 2019 2020 and then it's i don't quite know why but it stopped

00:42:32.520 accumulating but russia's production is huge i think it's third or fourth largest producer in the world

00:42:37.140 maybe second no australia's second um so china will like russia will likely have more gold than it says

00:42:44.240 it does and interestingly um some hackers discovered two or three years ago and this was

00:42:51.040 you know a story in the telegraph and so on is again one of these stories that's right there for

00:42:55.460 everyone to see and everyone ignores it it bought drones off iran to pay to use in the war with ukraine

00:43:03.180 and it paid for them in gold because both russia and iran uh you know they shut out of the financials

00:43:09.760 shut out of swift so it flew several tons of gold to iran to pay for those drones i mean that's you

00:43:17.760 know that shows how gold is you know money of last resort it's totally impractical to be flying tons

00:43:21.820 of gold every time you want to make a purchase but you know that's a last resort kind of purchase

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00:44:56.440 getting ready for a game means being ready for anything like packing a spare stick i like to be

00:45:06.120 prepared that's why i remember 988 canada's suicide crisis helpline it's good to know just in case

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00:45:19.520 crisis helpline is funded by the government in canada

00:45:21.880 and what's really interesting as at the time china is hoarding gold russia until recently is hoarding

00:45:32.280 gold well it's not it hasn't sold it's not selling its gold it's just not accumulating

00:45:36.460 it's just it's not as accumulating fair then i'm then i read about gordon brown and i'm like well then

00:45:42.480 why did gordon brown sell our gold reserves and i'm looking at the league table of gold reserves i think

00:45:47.340 we're 18th i'm going well i'm not an economist but this this seems demented doesn't it oh it was

00:45:51.920 one of the worst decisions ever made in all his you know we have a long history of financial blunders

00:45:57.700 in the uk made by our leaders but that is ranks up there with the top of them and um he sold it right

00:46:03.180 at the bottom of the market and um in fact he's and this again some say he sold it to there's various

00:46:10.860 conspiracy theories some say he told uh sold the gold to bail out goldman sachs and various other

00:46:15.160 banking things the more likely explanation is and the given explanation at the time it was done to

00:46:20.220 diversify our assets and he failed to he thought um the swiss were about to sell their gold and he

00:46:26.120 wanted to sell before the swiss did because he was front running the swiss as it turned out the swiss

00:46:29.580 never sold their gold but yes i mean he sold two-thirds of our gold right at the bottom of the

00:46:34.000 market and and that you know every time the gold price goes up somebody is tweeting this is how

00:46:40.300 much gordon brown lost us by selling us you know it's lived to haunt him for the rest of his life

00:46:44.060 but it was a terrible decision and a strategic a short-term strategic decision you know he didn't

00:46:48.980 need to do it he was under no pressure to do it so why did he do it the other countries by the way

00:46:52.800 that are you know you mentioned that we're 18th on the league table i've got the league table somewhere

00:46:56.860 in the book but you look at the country 16th 17th it's like kyrgyzstan and tajikistan and

00:47:01.880 countries like that and it's all countries in the shanghai cooperation organization which is this

00:47:07.860 trading bloc um set up china russia and basically most of asian countries they are all increasing

00:47:14.040 their um gold holdings and they are at the same time de-dollarizing is the expression so reducing

00:47:20.000 their us dollar holdings now again it might just be diversification um but it there's i think

00:47:26.800 there's something bigger at play and all these countries are trying to create a payment system

00:47:30.480 that bypasses the us dollar they haven't quite cracked it yet dominic and what would be the

00:47:34.360 impact on that for the ordinary person in in britain and america if if if actually these

00:47:40.620 countries are attempting to effectively stop the us dollar being the world's reserve currency what

00:47:45.700 would that mean for us i in my newsletter for years i have been urging everyone to accumulate gold

00:47:53.640 and bitcoin i know a lot of people don't like bitcoin particularly the over 50s don't like it but they

00:47:58.660 are two proven non-government forms of money non-government currencies and you know governments

00:48:07.060 can debase the dollar they can debase the pound they can debase the euro they can print it they can

00:48:11.520 do whatever inflation it's you know they say it's four or five percent but we all know it's much higher

00:48:17.360 than that real inflation and in fact inflation used to mean you inflate you blow up the money supply

00:48:23.480 with the consequence of higher prices now it just means higher prices and they cut out what caused

00:48:28.540 it in the first place blowing up the money supply but gold and bitcoin are both forms of money that

00:48:34.280 they cannot debase and i cannot help thinking they're both going to have a very important role

00:48:40.040 to play in the future not just as speculative assets but you know gold will be your lifeboat

00:48:44.960 and bitcoin is obviously a digital asset their advantages to digital assets gold is as analog of physical

00:48:50.940 asset as you could ever have but you know it's it it if if if our currencies lose their purchasing

00:48:58.580 power and i don't i'm not one of these guys who goes you've got to protect gold the dollar's going

00:49:02.600 to collapse there is a maybe a 20 25 chance of that happening there's a very real chance and

00:49:09.440 particularly if we ever get into some kind of conflict with china they will attack the money

00:49:13.840 and gold and bitcoin monies they can't debase will protect you and so i urge people readers i urge

00:49:22.520 everyone to accumulate gold and accumulate bitcoin for those re you'll be very glad at some point in

00:49:27.860 the future that you own them you said something very interesting there where you said inflation is

00:49:31.840 at four percent but we know it's much higher than that why do we know it's much higher than that

00:49:36.660 and what do you think is a real rate of inflation well i i think a much fairer rate of inflation is

00:49:43.860 just look at global money supply and it's seven percent money supply growth around the world is

00:49:48.960 about seven percent it got up to about ten percent during covid with all the stuff they printed i think

00:49:53.380 even 12 at one point but so i would say it's more like those figures now the reason that they

00:50:00.140 understate inflation that they're able to understate it is um is inflation is measured by looking at the

00:50:08.180 price um of certain consumer items like washing machines uh petrol car the prices now many of these

00:50:18.040 items as i say we don't use debt to buy and they are prone to the deflationary forces of improved

00:50:25.320 productivity as we talked about already so consumer price inflation which is the measure the bank

00:50:31.840 uses makes it enables them to say our inflation is only three four percent it enables them to say

00:50:37.960 it's lower but if you actually look at money supply and where money where money goes um i think it's only

00:50:44.480 13 percent of new money supply goes into consumer the goods we buy in consumer prices i'm recalling this

00:50:51.640 figures from a long time ago i'm gonna get it slightly wrong but i think it's something like

00:50:55.040 40 percent 35 40 goes into financial assets goes into the stock market now you look at the s&p 500

00:51:02.200 it's growing at 10 15 20 a year at the moment the last few years that's not four percent inflation

00:51:07.600 that's much higher than that you look at house prices you know even with all the downward pressure

00:51:12.540 on house prices in the uk and the housing market in the uk is is right up the swanny at the moment

00:51:18.260 you know last month house prices normally went up and and because 40 of something of new money supply

00:51:24.760 just goes straight into the housing market because you know you come to me you want to buy a house for

00:51:29.580 100 grand or a million say you want to buy a house for a million pounds and i'm the bank and you've got

00:51:34.480 100 grand deposit the other 900 grand is is mortgage i the bank create that 900 grand and issue it to you

00:51:43.640 as debt and i use the house as collateral that 900 grand did not previously exist so there's 900

00:51:49.780 grand of new money that gets created in the form of debt and it makes its way into the housing market

00:51:55.020 and from there into the broader economy and so that 900 grand it's that that is how money gets created

00:52:01.260 people don't understand money is debt you know i think one percent of of two percent of actual money

00:52:08.800 exists in physical form the rest of it is debt where it's a debt-based fiat money system and um

00:52:14.940 it's just extremely vulnerable one of the only reasons it survives is the architecture around

00:52:20.200 money you know there's just such a vested interest in it surviving um you know all the payment systems

00:52:26.520 the banking systems the fintech around money is just so brilliant that there's just too much vested

00:52:31.620 interest in it surviving but it will become extremely vulnerable if conflict between um

00:52:38.780 you know russia china and the u.s escalates and the worrying thing about this is the ordinary person

00:52:45.000 who has a regular salary i mean it's really tough for people the average person let's be fair just

00:52:53.760 about gets by if they get to the end of the month with paying their rent their bills everything else

00:52:58.360 that's a win and it's really hard and what you're talking about with this volatility of money

00:53:05.540 is that those regular people who are let's be honest the backbone of society they are the backbone of

00:53:11.760 society and without them nothing works well we're just going to wipe them out aren't we they're going

00:53:16.940 to have if if if if we have another crisis we saw in covid the default position in a crisis and we saw it

00:53:23.300 in the financial crisis the default position is to print that is the that is the default thing

00:53:28.260 and so they will print and then money will lose its value

00:53:32.420 the problem with all of this dominic that i see is during my lifetime alone not that particular long

00:53:39.200 period of time really we've we've taken that we've gone to that drug let's say to that medicine

00:53:47.640 time and again and now it feels like to me well the medicine cupboard might be empty the next time we reach

00:53:53.300 into it it just gets less and less powerful with each print right well like drugs yeah so but the

00:53:59.580 problem is that i also think in addition to that there comes a point when you actually the drug dealer

00:54:05.660 won't sell you any more drugs because you don't you're not actually offering them something that has

00:54:11.340 any value like we can't we are already at a hundred percent debt to gdp can we go to 200 what japan has

00:54:18.440 japan i know japan has but i don't i don't know it doesn't it doesn't seem like i mean at some point

00:54:26.600 this idea that we can just create money to buy things yeah that seems like an unviable strategy

00:54:32.880 long term well in this case i i would say to continue your analogy the drug dealer is the bond

00:54:38.720 market right and if the bond market says you know i'm not letting you you're gonna have to pay eight

00:54:44.420 nine ten percent to to borrow money that is the bond market's way of saying you know you're gonna

00:54:49.940 have to pay a higher price and that we have a lot of the uk bonds gilts are inflation linked so that's

00:54:56.620 why the uk is in such a fiscal pick one of the reasons why we're in such a pickle at the moment

00:55:01.160 is the the the amount of interest keeps going up as inflation goes up and it becomes a bigger

00:55:06.660 part of government well liam halligan he had an article on his yeah sub stack that i retweeted the other

00:55:11.540 day eighty percent of uh the money we borrowed last month went to paying off the money we've

00:55:18.740 already borrowed in the past it's nuts that's basically like you're taking out a credit card

00:55:23.780 to pay off another credit card now if you were doing that as an individual people would say you're

00:55:29.280 being irresponsible and you're headed for a very bad financial outcome when we do it as a country

00:55:35.840 everyone just likes like nothing's going on i know the rule like i've been looking at this

00:55:39.800 constantin for 20 years now i bought my first gold in 2005 2006 and i don't understand why it

00:55:47.320 hasn't already gone tits up and yeah it just sort of carries on trundling along and you'd lurch from

00:55:52.600 one crisis and they seem to print their way out of it and the money gets debased by a little i can't

00:55:56.800 understand why it hasn't already gone tits up and it mystifies me but it sort of trundles on so i'm

00:56:02.540 very coarse that's why i get very worried when i say it's gonna go tits up and i just say you know

00:56:07.100 there's a good expression i i thought this was an old wall street expression um but i actually googled

00:56:12.900 it and it turns out the person who coined it was me but the expression is put five percent of your

00:56:17.580 net worth in gold and hope it doesn't go up and so that that's a sort of insurance attitude but yes

00:56:23.360 i don't understand why it hasn't already you know at what point and i just think these things have

00:56:30.300 gradually gradually gradually then suddenly and you look at um it's different when you look at

00:56:36.220 zimbabwe or venezuela or argentina or one of these countries that's had huge hyperinflation

00:56:40.320 because they didn't have the same status as western europe or the uk or or u.s going into it so

00:56:49.080 maybe they had to be a bit behave a bit more a bit better and their their bond markets were a bit

00:56:54.320 crueler but the rules for the government are different to the rules for the individual that's

00:57:02.220 that's one thing we have to understand and so when you apply the logic of the individual to the

00:57:08.080 government it doesn't work and when when one body in a society has the power to create money at no

00:57:15.240 cost to itself or at very little cost to itself which is the power the state does under a system

00:57:20.360 where there's no gold it is inevitable that that body will have disproportionate power within that

00:57:27.060 society and that is why in my opinion just government has got so bloated and it's just we

00:57:33.580 have this endless bureaucracy and i think we're now 40 50 of gdp is the state and it's because it

00:57:40.060 doesn't have to live by the same rules as the rest of us it doesn't have to tighten its belt and it has

00:57:45.320 the money printer that it can always resort to and it's under tremendous political pressure this is the

00:57:50.140 other problem and this is a huge problem for all western countries in particular that i see

00:57:54.160 which is look if you look at what malay has done in argentina he's come in and slashed budgets left

00:58:00.460 right and center but i don't see look look at nigel farage is a good example of this right reform are

00:58:05.900 crushing it in the polls at the moment but when you look at their economic policies they are

00:58:10.640 redistributionists just like labor and the conservatives from what i can tell because nobody in this

00:58:16.200 country actually can say and then get elected or stay in power we actually need to reduce our spending

00:58:22.560 because we're spending more money than we have yeah he's doing like what we saw the tories do a lot

00:58:27.720 of the time is they would occupy labor policies and own the labor policies and leave labor labor nowhere

00:58:33.440 to go and farage is doing the same thing he's kind of occupying labor policies in order to win you know

00:58:39.340 the red wall vote and all of that but it means more spending right and it it and you know he's a great

00:58:46.360 tactician he knows and and he's ultimately he cares more about getting elected than he does about

00:58:53.760 you know and i think he's a thatcherite he is yes i mean he was in in this very studio talking about

00:58:59.900 inflation being a disease of government yeah and he used to be a metals trader he understands gold

00:59:03.740 right so i guess you what you're saying you think it's a political move to get elected but my worry is

00:59:09.780 but then he's committed to it right what do you then do because if you've committed yourself to massive

00:59:14.580 public spending in advance and you've got elected on that basis you're going to have to do the massive

00:59:21.740 public spending i know i mean he'll cut they'll cut foreign aid and those kind of things but i know

00:59:26.880 foreign aid make people like talking about foreign aid because it makes them feel like we're not giving

00:59:33.280 our money away to foreigners or great i'm in favor of not giving money away to foreigners but that's not

00:59:37.600 going to solve our fiscal issues it's the same this is my big worry about reform which at the moment

00:59:42.940 seems to me like the best chance we have of changing things in this country the issue that

00:59:48.920 i've got with it that i don't understand is uh you know i've said this to people within reform you know

00:59:55.400 once you've achieved our great british dream of you know removing the illegal immigrants which i'm

01:00:00.060 down for i think it's really important to reinstate the idea of fairness to make sure we have a border

01:00:04.480 to deal with the fact that we are spending lots of money that we shouldn't be on that issue

01:00:08.580 that's going to cost a lot of money in itself fine i'm fine with paying that money uh because you

01:00:13.620 deal with the crime you deal with the unfairness and british people frankly have had had enough of

01:00:17.880 it but then like where's the economic growth going to come from if you are still using the government

01:00:24.860 to spend a ton of money because you're gonna have to keep taxes high right so like i i don't really

01:00:31.780 see the answer there i don't know what the answer is i mean you know the purist in me wants our own

01:00:37.120 and i think but i think farage is you know he has enough nous to know that he can't for example turn

01:00:43.720 around and go the nhs doesn't work it's needlessly expensive it's hopelessly inefficient it's a total

01:00:49.840 drain on capital it needs to go and we need to replace it with something else and um it might

01:00:54.560 involve direct payments or something you know to that's the media would just crucify him they'd

01:01:00.820 smear him his political enemies would smear him and he would jeopardize the position he's

01:01:06.720 negotiated himself into where it looks like he's going to be the next prime minister so he's not

01:01:10.920 going to do it but what is the i i really i i don't want to like criticize reform unnecessarily but

01:01:18.600 i also want to be fair and the question for me is what's the point of being prime minister if you're

01:01:22.420 just going to do labor policy i'm i you you'd have to ask nigel and uh he i'm sure he'd have a good

01:01:29.860 answer and i'm i i rather expect he would say look i'll just get me in the seat and then i'll deal

01:01:36.660 with it but and what you're going to sell out the red wall i don't know sorry i've put you on the spot

01:01:42.880 here i don't know what the answer is like i'm praying for our own javier malay right these are

01:01:48.600 just questions in my head because uh the every time we've interviewed nigel i'm sure we'll interview

01:01:54.080 again and i'm sure we'll talk about this because it's an important conversation he's been on your he's

01:01:59.180 been like you yeah he's been saying the stuff that you're saying and to my mind that's really

01:02:04.920 important but then you get matthew goodwin and he'll say well look the right answer is you want

01:02:09.180 to be right on culture and left on economics and that's where they've ended up more or less right

01:02:14.880 from a political perspective because matthew is about you know how do you watch polls right how do

01:02:19.680 you get elected which is really important because you want to get elected but ultimately i just worry

01:02:24.160 about this country's economy growing and that's something that i don't think you can do while

01:02:31.060 increasing public spending the way we are at the moment well the glory age of britain was probably

01:02:36.400 you know the second half of the 19th century that's when we were the industrial might of the world we had

01:02:42.560 the greatest inventors in the world we had the greatest artists in the world it was the kind of

01:02:46.840 britain's golden age if you like and the military and the military that helped yeah it also helped that

01:02:52.060 there were gold rushes all around the world in australia and south africa and we own them

01:02:55.840 so the gold came to us that was a big factor that never gets talked about and there's there's how the

01:03:02.320 gold rushes of the 19th century changed the world is it's a whole subject in itself but that was the

01:03:07.080 golden age of britain and and it was probably the golden age of of western europe generally and if you

01:03:12.440 look at tax um as a proportion of gdp in that age it was around about 10 slightly lower in sweden

01:03:18.360 maybe 11 or 12 in france but it was around about 10 of gdp which is a number that goes all the way

01:03:24.280 back to the tithe you know we got 10 the tithe comes 10 fingers one finger goes to the you know

01:03:29.480 the church or the ruler as the church often was and but now we're at 40 50 it's more than 50 if you

01:03:35.500 include currency debasement or inflation and you know if you said to me we're going to get it down

01:03:40.540 to 30 i'd be like yes but but if you the greatest societies in history the most inventive the most

01:03:47.740 innovative the most progressive not in the left-wing sense of the world but progressive in

01:03:52.040 the sense of bringing humanity forward have always been low tax societies and tax is a measure of

01:03:58.120 freedom and you need freedom of thought and freedom of speech and the the you know tax you you you police

01:04:04.400 speech by increasing taxes and having the censor in ancient rome collected taxes he was also the the guy

01:04:11.240 who um moderated speech it it you know we if we need to be a free speech low tax low this inventive

01:04:20.160 and so that people need to go and invent stuff and be encouraged to be entrepreneurs and take risks and

01:04:24.940 get the reward of their risk taking and so on you can't do it at 50 of gdp why do you think all the

01:04:29.700 tech growth is in the states and not here it's all because of our tax structures and how on earth that

01:04:35.280 happens how he changes our tax structure to to turn us into a high growth society again you know this

01:04:41.460 brexit was supposed to do it we were supposed to become singapore after brexit and i'm you know

01:04:45.540 we haven't become singapore have we we've become i don't know words fail me um but yeah somebody needs

01:04:53.880 to do it because otherwise it's not otherwise we're just going to stagnate and this is really important

01:04:59.760 because going back to the ordinary people if ordinary people who do a job that you know takes

01:05:08.140 up all of their time majority of their time they work really hard at it they can't make it through

01:05:13.140 to the end of the month they will feel cheated and quite rightly so and when people feel cheated ugly

01:05:19.140 things start to happen so it's really important that we talk about this and we solve this because

01:05:24.060 we're getting to a point now where life is becoming unaffordable for the ordinary person

01:05:28.800 and we've seen in previous societies what happens when that becomes the case yeah it already is

01:05:36.280 unaffordable and you know every summer there's a riot you know people are very discontent and you know

01:05:42.600 we talked about money and gold it is related it so much starts with it and the huge issue that i

01:05:51.340 relates to what you were just talking about francis is family size people are having smaller families

01:05:56.820 and they are having them later and later in life and the most commonly given reason for why people

01:06:03.880 aren't having bigger families is expense yeah and you know i would have a i would have 10 kids if i

01:06:10.140 could afford it i can't maybe they wouldn't because you know the practicalities but and so it tends to

01:06:15.520 be the people who have huge families are either the super rich the elon musks of this world who can

01:06:20.580 afford to have loads of kids or they're the super poor who want benefits but either way one way or

01:06:26.120 other the family is being paid for by by you it can it is affordable but you're the middle class we're

01:06:31.840 below two we're below two people per family and the number one reason is expense now if the salary

01:06:37.300 people always go when you debase the currency when you have inflation it's savers that get robbed

01:06:42.120 but the biggest loser is people on salaries because not only are you having to pay huge amounts of

01:06:48.160 tax income tax and so on the the money that you are paid in is losing its value all the time

01:06:54.280 as well and meanwhile the house that you want to buy is getting more and more expensive so you're

01:06:59.160 constantly squeezed and strung and you know it now takes um two people and a lot more debt to have the

01:07:04.840 middle class lifestyle that was affordable on one salary a generation ago and and this is why we're

01:07:09.740 having smaller families and then the government comes along and says oh we're not we have you know

01:07:13.880 we've got a demographics time bomb we need to import loads of workers oh and they're very cheap so

01:07:18.260 they're going to boost the gdp as well and you replace the population and you destroy the entire

01:07:23.400 civilization and this is why inflation destroys a civilization and if you want to fix it fix the tax

01:07:31.240 fix the money and the rest will take care of itself hopefully dominic it's great having you on we're

01:07:35.980 going to ask you questions from our supporters in a second but before we do what's the one thing we're

01:07:40.420 not talking about that we really should be before dominic answers the final question at the end of the

01:07:45.300 interview make sure to head over to our sub stack the link is in the description where you'll be able

01:07:49.820 to see this why the government so hell-bent on taxing working people to within an inch of their lives

01:07:55.660 please give us two minutes on gold versus bitcoin this show is living up to its reputation mate

01:08:01.840 just us slagging off different ethnic groups yeah well it's what people want it's what the public

01:08:07.440 want i mean fucking hurry up already jesus christ mate i'm enjoying myself leave me alone money

01:08:13.580 well most people are talking about money because none of them have it yeah yeah i remember coming

01:08:19.180 last time two times ago we came and you asked me that question yeah and i talked about race and uh and

01:08:24.820 it was just at the beginning of covid and and i said we're not talking about racism and we're not

01:08:28.920 defining what racism is and about a month later black lives matter kicked off i remember you were

01:08:32.960 really awkward with what i was saying and then the whole black lives matter thing happened and i think

01:08:36.600 that's a huge subject and i should have prepared an answer for that but yeah i'm gonna um if people

01:08:43.440 there's a four quote that i'm gonna misquote now but if people understood money and banking and how it

01:08:50.380 really works and and what really goes on there would be a revolution tomorrow so i'm gonna say we need to

01:08:56.020 talk about money and tax and how it works and how it's created and what the consequences are

01:09:00.740 and why we need all need sound money in our lives because if we don't have that conversation

01:09:05.380 um we're going to have a revolution and we're going to end up with something even worse

01:09:11.700 is that why we're not taught about money at school because i always thought about this when i was

01:09:15.540 teaching i was like why am i teaching kids how to use a protractor and i'm not teaching them

01:09:19.540 about apr on a credit card it's insane why like that the education system's designed about an

01:09:25.260 industrial age 150 years ago we should be teaching them the effects of compound interest

01:09:29.920 just basic financial literacy the most powerful force in the world i'll say not not just with money

01:09:34.560 with anything compounding incremental gains the fact that if you do the same thing for 30 years

01:09:39.340 good or bad after 30 years these two people are going to end up in completely different places

01:09:43.960 yes one percent improvement you teach that to kids over how to use a protractor you're going to

01:09:48.340 get very different outcomes for those children anyway uh head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where

01:09:53.780 dominic is going to answer your questions with gold bitcoin and other assets often pitches hedges

01:10:00.080 against state overreach where do you see the most realistic opportunity for ordinary people to

01:10:04.380 protect their wealth over the next decade

TRIGGERnometry - October 12, 2025

Why Your Money Buys You Less Every Year - Dominic Frisby

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