Valuetainment - Episode 497： Economist Blasts The Fed, Stimulus, Bitcoin & Makes Bold Predictions

00:00:00.000 30 seconds.

00:00:30.000 And he blasts the Fed.

00:00:31.820 This is one you don't want to miss.

00:00:33.180 Peter Schiff, thanks for being a guest on Valuetainment.

00:00:35.180 Oh, Patrick, thanks for having me on.

00:00:36.980 You know, I caught your interview with Daniel DiMartino Booth, a good interview.

00:00:42.280 I've known her for quite a long time, I guess.

00:00:45.340 We speak at some of the same conferences.

00:00:48.780 You know, we'll see.

00:00:49.360 I think the next one I may go to is in New Orleans, and we'll see if that one actually happens live.

00:00:55.100 You know, with all the COVID, it's hard to say.

00:00:56.580 But, you know, if you see Art Laffer again, I'll let him know I'm still waiting for my penny.

00:01:01.240 She still hasn't given you the penny?

00:01:03.060 I don't know if you know about that bet that we made on Kudlow's show back in 2006.

00:01:08.280 But he's welched on that bet.

00:01:10.900 But he's been saying some decent things recently.

00:01:13.380 You know, I've got to at least give him a little credit.

00:01:15.940 You know, I've been hard on Art Laffer.

00:01:17.860 But at least recently, he's been in the correct camp.

00:01:21.140 He's been critical of the stimulus, of the CARES Act, of the PPP.

00:01:26.980 So, you know, better late than never.

00:01:29.180 You know, Peter, if we do this, just for some of the audience, some of the viewers that don't know who you are, ideas.

00:01:34.860 Okay, where do you position yourself economically if you were to say, I consider myself XYZ.

00:01:40.820 I'm a capitalist.

00:01:41.940 I'm a libertarian.

00:01:42.900 I'm a pro-gold.

00:01:44.140 Can you kind of say that?

00:01:45.480 And then I want to go to a couple of different areas from there.

00:01:48.300 Well, I'm all of those things.

00:01:49.500 I mean, I believe in free market, which is limited government, sound money.

00:01:56.260 You know, I believe in the principles that the nation was founded on by our founding fathers.

00:02:02.740 And, you know, laissez-faire, you know, the idea of America as a nation of individuals, rugged individuals, self-reliant, the idea of the concept of federalism, where the federal government is supposed to live within its constitutional restrictions, where the federal government does very little.

00:02:22.740 It's predominantly concerned about international affairs, keeping us safe from, you know, international threats.

00:02:31.600 But all the domestic affairs are left to state and local governments.

00:02:36.460 So the federal government is very small, does very little.

00:02:39.420 And even the state governments don't do a lot.

00:02:42.880 But obviously, we have the complete opposite of that now.

00:02:45.780 We have a very powerful, very strong central government.

00:02:49.420 The antithesis of what the founders envisioned for this nation.

00:02:53.400 We don't have sound money at all.

00:02:55.560 We have fiat money, just paper money.

00:02:58.140 They create a thin air that has no value.

00:03:00.320 We have more of a centrally planned economy where we rely on bureaucrats to make decisions about what they think is best instead of relying on Adam Smith and the invisible hand and the wonders of the free market.

00:03:16.220 And, you know, the problem is we have interjected so much socialism into the market-based economy that we once had, the capitalist economy.

00:03:25.440 And we've created tremendous problems, particularly the problem that we're in right now.

00:03:30.660 But what happens is whenever the government mixes socialism in with capitalism and creates a problem, it's always capitalism that gets the blame for the problems that socialism created.

00:03:45.180 And then the argument is always, well, we need even more socialism, which is what's happening now when everybody says, oh, we need to bail everybody out.

00:03:54.180 We need to stimulate the economy.

00:03:55.880 Everybody needs government money.

00:03:57.180 The reason that the economy was so sick, it's not the coronavirus, it's because of everything the government did before the coronavirus.

00:04:05.180 So the government crippled the economy.

00:04:07.260 The solution isn't to find a bigger crutch, a government crutch.

00:04:10.860 It's let's eliminate all these government programs, make government smaller so that the free market can solve these problems.

00:04:18.540 But we're doing the opposite.

00:04:19.720 We have made government much bigger, which is why this recession, depression, is going to be much deeper than it otherwise would have been had the government actually made itself smaller and reduced the burden that it imposes on the economy instead of what it's doing now.

00:04:35.480 Peter, why do you think – two things, by the way.

00:04:37.340 One, the government smaller – we'll get into that in a minute.

00:04:40.060 But the first thing you said was, you know, when we face problems like this, the immediate reaction is to blame capitalism, where in reality, socialism, the reason why – what caused it.

00:04:50.600 Why do you think that argument of blaming capitalism is so attractive?

00:04:55.040 Well, because it's politicians, right?

00:04:59.120 Politicians want to get votes.

00:05:01.400 And the way they get votes is by promising to do something, to give somebody something that they don't have.

00:05:09.180 And so if a politician says, look, the solution is let the free market work, there's no votes in that.

00:05:15.760 And, of course, you know, Wall Street, everybody that, you know, that made mistakes and borrowed too much money, they all want to get bailed out.

00:05:23.600 They don't want to lose money.

00:05:24.920 I mean, this is what happened after the 2008 financial crisis.

00:05:29.680 I mean, I made a name for myself on national television for four or five years predicting the 2008 financial crisis.

00:05:38.380 And I said it was going to result from the bursting of the real estate bubble and all of the debts that would go bad when that bubble popped.

00:05:47.060 So I talked about the problems in the financial institutions.

00:05:50.160 I talked about the bankruptcy of Fannie and Freddie and what all that would mean.

00:05:56.180 But I blamed both the housing bubble that I was witnessing and the financial crisis that I was forecasting on the Federal Reserve,

00:06:06.280 on Alan Greenspan for his response to the 2001 recession, the bursting of the dot-com bubble, 9-11.

00:06:14.000 I said the Fed lowered interest rates too much when they went to 1%.

00:06:18.480 They kept them there too long and they raised them too slowly.

00:06:23.160 And during that time, they were inflating a housing bubble that was also being fueled by the government agencies, Fannie and Freddie,

00:06:32.700 both guaranteeing mortgages and buying up mortgages.

00:06:36.680 And also, we were fueling an international demand for mortgage-backed securities by keeping interest rates so low.

00:06:44.560 Everybody was stretching for yield.

00:06:46.580 And as the Fed kept interest rates so low and real estate prices got too high, consumers were levering up.

00:06:53.260 They were borrowing against their houses and buying more stuff.

00:06:56.340 So, our trade deficits were going up, hitting record highs.

00:06:59.480 And then what was happening was all of our trading partners were recycling their surpluses back into the mortgage bonds to get yield.

00:07:07.340 So, we had this huge bubble that the Fed inflated in combination with the moral hazard of Fannie and Freddie.

00:07:14.160 And I said, this is going to be a disaster.

00:07:16.020 When the bubble pops, it's going to be the worst recession since the Great Depression.

00:07:19.740 We're going to have trillion-dollar deficits.

00:07:21.500 We're going to have 10% unemployment.

00:07:23.360 Everything that I said was going to happen, happened.

00:07:25.680 In fact, you could watch on YouTube my mortgage banker speech from 2006.

00:07:30.960 I spoke in front of 3,000 mortgage bankers, laying out the financial crisis, the housing collapse, the subprime.

00:07:37.760 I actually went there raising money for the hedge fund that we had set up to short the subprime market in 2006.

00:07:43.060 So, I really knew what was going to happen.

00:07:45.580 But then, the more important part of it, and I put it all in a book.

00:07:49.240 You can see the book Crash Proof on my bookshelf.

00:07:52.700 The original one was not 2.0, but Crash Proof that came out in February of 07, but was written largely at the end of 05, the first half of 06.

00:08:02.800 The book was finished by the middle of 06.

00:08:05.680 It just took a while to come out.

00:08:08.220 But what I predicted was not only were we going to have this financial crisis, but that after the bubble popped, the government and the Fed, instead of acknowledging their fault in inflating this bubble and doing the right thing, they would double down on the failed policies.

00:08:28.500 They were going to slash interest rates, they were going to print all this money, and they were going to reflate the bubble or attempt to reflate the bubble.

00:08:37.960 I thought that they would fail in their attempt.

00:08:40.740 I thought the foreign currency markets and the gold market would put a stop to the party, but I was wrong on that in that we actually succeeded in doing something that I didn't think was possible,

00:08:53.680 but we actually inflated a bigger bubble than the one that popped in 2008.

00:08:58.580 And that's the one that just popped.

00:09:01.160 And in fact, the air was coming out of that bubble last year.

00:09:04.780 I predicted when the Federal Reserve first announced that it was going to end QE and that it was going to normalize rates.

00:09:12.540 I said at that time that the Fed was lying, that it could do neither, that it would never be able to normalize rates, it would never be able to shrink its balance sheet,

00:09:21.060 that if it tried, it would have to abort the efforts prematurely, that it would go back to zero, that QE4 would be bigger than QE1, 2, and 3 combined.

00:09:29.620 I was saying that for years.

00:09:31.620 In fact, on day one, when Ben Bernanke went to Congress, when they first said, hey, are you monetizing the debt?

00:09:39.300 And Ben Bernanke said, no, no, no, this is all temporary.

00:09:42.380 We're not monetizing the debt.

00:09:43.880 We're not a permanent source of government funding.

00:09:46.620 It's an emergency.

00:09:47.680 As soon as the emergency is over, we're going to sell these bonds.

00:09:50.980 I said at the time that Ben Bernanke was lying that the Fed could never sell those bonds,

00:09:56.320 that they had checked us into a monetary roach motel, that they could get in, they could never get out,

00:10:01.960 and we'd have more QE's than Rocky movies.

00:10:04.020 So I was right about all that.

00:10:05.940 And now we're at the end game.

00:10:08.400 We're at the real crash.

00:10:09.620 That was the topic of my later book.

00:10:13.760 Because we can't kick this can down the road anymore.

00:10:16.940 I mean, what the politicians want to do is they never want to deal with the problem.

00:10:21.800 They want to postpone the consequences by kicking the can down the road,

00:10:27.200 even if doing that makes the problems worse and makes the consequences even more severe.

00:10:33.120 They don't care about that because they'll deal with that in the future.

00:10:36.160 And then when they catch up to the can, they kick it again.

00:10:39.660 The problem is we are out of road at this point.

00:10:42.900 They don't know that yet.

00:10:43.980 They're trying to kick it down again.

00:10:45.980 But this time, we're going to get a dollar collapse.

00:10:49.260 We're going to get a sovereign debt crisis.

00:10:51.700 The party is going to end all the inflation that they're creating now,

00:10:56.140 which is unprecedented in scale, right?

00:10:58.640 They've done it before, but just not in this scale.

00:11:01.500 The amount of inflation, which is the money printing, is off the charts.

00:11:06.200 The deficits are exploding in a way that I've never seen.

00:11:10.420 And this is going to end in complete catastrophe.

00:11:13.740 And people are complacent because we got away with it after the 2008 financial crisis.

00:11:18.660 We're not going to get away with it again.

00:11:21.200 So then here's a question.

00:11:22.820 How much, I asked the question saying, why do they constantly blame capitalism and socialism?

00:11:29.100 Is, what is the benefit of doing that?

00:11:31.680 Why blame an economical system that's proven, that's worked to constantly say,

00:11:37.780 you know, capitalism's getting a black eye.

00:11:39.540 Capitalism's getting a black eye.

00:11:40.820 Capitalism doesn't work.

00:11:42.240 We need a new form of capitalism.

00:11:44.100 How much of that argument is right?

00:11:45.740 And how much of it is just, you know, finding something to blame?

00:11:48.240 We don't need a new form of capitalism.

00:11:50.260 We need to go back to capitalism.

00:11:52.640 The type of capitalism that we've been practicing has been the problem,

00:11:56.180 because it's capitalism in name only, right?

00:11:58.700 It's socialism, or maybe more accurately, fascism, if you understand the true meaning,

00:12:03.380 because fascism is a form of socialism.

00:12:06.080 So is communism.

00:12:07.560 And what we've been doing is more of a Mussolini type fascism, obviously, than communism.

00:12:13.580 But that is the problem with the economy, that economic system.

00:12:18.080 But A, in order to do the right thing, first, you have to have the politicians and the central

00:12:23.720 bankers admit that they did the wrong thing in the past, which they never want to do.

00:12:28.160 They never want to fess up to their mistakes and say, we did this, right?

00:12:32.540 We interfered with capitalism, and that's why we have this problem.

00:12:36.960 So number one, they never want to do that.

00:12:38.820 But if they finally embrace capitalism and say, okay, we're going to swallow this bitter-tasting

00:12:45.880 medicine, because ultimately, recessions is the free market's way of fixing the mistakes

00:12:52.720 that the government and the central banks create.

00:12:55.560 Because the mistakes are made during the bubble, during the boom, right?

00:12:59.000 Everybody feels great during the boom, but that's when all the malinvestments are made,

00:13:03.400 all the misallocations or resources occur.

00:13:07.300 Then, when there's a bust, that's the free market's attempt to restore order, to create

00:13:13.040 balance in the economy so it's viable and sustainable.

00:13:16.940 And so you have to allow a recession to run its course, even though it's painful, even though

00:13:22.260 it means people lose jobs, investors lose money, loans go into default.

00:13:27.700 Companies that are not viable go bankrupt.

00:13:31.340 And what happens in that cleansing process is that resources are freed up to be reallocated

00:13:37.720 more efficiently and more productively.

00:13:39.780 That includes labor and capital and land.

00:13:43.320 But that process, obviously, is painful to certain people.

00:13:47.980 And in the immediate, you don't know how it's going to end.

00:13:52.920 And so the politicians are under tremendous pressure to do something about it.

00:13:58.540 Oh, people are unemployed.

00:13:59.960 Let's provide them with money.

00:14:01.920 Businesses are going to fail.

00:14:03.380 Let's bail them out.

00:14:04.600 Instead of doing the right thing by allowing the businesses to fail, right?

00:14:09.400 And allowing all the reallocation of labor and capital, they interfere.

00:14:15.820 But the interference is what makes it worse.

00:14:19.560 It exacerbates the downturn.

00:14:23.420 And it means that we don't get a real recovery.

00:14:27.080 The recovery that we had following the 2008 financial crisis was phony.

00:14:32.240 It was just a bigger bubble than the one that popped.

00:14:35.940 Had we done the right thing in 08 and let real estate prices continue to fall, let foreclosures

00:14:42.560 happen, let banks fail and not bail them out, let the bad actors be punished, right?

00:14:48.860 Let new owners step up and buy in bankruptcy a lot of these companies that were so mismanaged

00:14:55.940 and allowed consumption to come down and savings to go up, which is the underlying problem that

00:15:02.160 the Fed created is a nation where we have too much debt and not enough savings.

00:15:06.640 So instead of allowing the savings to be rebuilt and balance sheets to be improved, we inflated

00:15:13.020 an even bigger bubble than the one that popped.

00:15:16.020 And so we didn't have a real recovery.

00:15:17.800 And that's why the economy is so vulnerable now to this COVID-19 crisis.

00:15:24.800 Because as I said, the economy was sick long before the virus infected it.

00:15:29.680 And the air was already coming out of the bubble because the Fed tried to do something that

00:15:34.540 was impossible, which was normalized interest rates with an abnormal amount of debt.

00:15:39.160 They got everybody hooked on the drug of cheap money and then tried to withdraw the drug from

00:15:45.700 the market.

00:15:46.300 And then obviously we went into withdrawal at the end of 2018.

00:15:50.880 That's when the Fed came back and said, okay, more QE, we're going back to QE, we're going

00:15:56.360 back to rate cuts.

00:15:57.280 But then we got the coronavirus and what everybody is focusing on is the virus.

00:16:05.040 The virus is the pin.

00:16:06.740 The problem is the massive bubble that that pin pricked.

00:16:11.400 And in fact, I said it was already kind of pricked.

00:16:14.360 That pin just put a gaping hole in that bubble.

00:16:18.120 And now the air is coming gushing out.

00:16:20.620 But the reason that the economy is so vulnerable is because we're broke and levered to the hill.

00:16:27.280 The reason that nobody can do without income for a few weeks or a few months is because

00:16:33.380 everybody has debt to service, right?

00:16:35.920 Corporations are levered to the max.

00:16:38.080 They've been borrowing all this cheap money from the Fed.

00:16:40.440 They've been using it to buy up their overpriced stock.

00:16:43.180 So they didn't have any savings.

00:16:45.920 Individual households are leveraged to the max on cheap consumer credit.

00:16:50.560 They got mortgage debt, student loans, auto loans, credit card debt.

00:16:54.780 They're living paycheck to paycheck.

00:16:56.140 You take that paycheck away.

00:16:58.380 They can't pay their rent.

00:16:59.620 They can't pay their mortgage.

00:17:00.980 They can't pay their debts.

00:17:02.320 The same thing with local governments.

00:17:04.560 State municipalities have been making promises they couldn't keep.

00:17:09.540 They've been borrowing all this money.

00:17:10.900 They have underfunded pensions.

00:17:12.480 They got nothing saved for a rainy day.

00:17:15.060 Then it pours.

00:17:16.200 So the states are broke.

00:17:17.380 And then the federal government, of course, is we've been running massive deficits even

00:17:22.000 when the economy was supposedly recovering.

00:17:23.960 So everybody is broke.

00:17:26.120 Nobody has savings.

00:17:27.820 And then this crisis comes.

00:17:30.080 And a lot of people want to talk about, well, this is like World War II.

00:17:34.240 It's the opposite of World War II because when World War II hit, nobody got bailed out.

00:17:40.260 Nobody got a stimulus check.

00:17:41.920 Everybody got a bill for World War II.

00:17:44.460 First of all, 16 million men had to fight.

00:17:47.200 They had to leave their homes.

00:17:48.320 They had to go to Europe and Japan, but the people who didn't fight had to finance the

00:17:53.300 war.

00:17:54.200 The government massively increased taxes when the war began.

00:17:58.880 Fewer than 3% of the population even paid income taxes before World War II.

00:18:04.800 Once it started, better than 30% of the people started to pay income taxes because we imposed

00:18:10.220 withholding taxes for the first time as part of the victory tax.

00:18:13.420 But not only did we triple taxes on the middle class to pay for the war, but the government

00:18:19.460 borrowed money directly from the middle class by selling war bonds.

00:18:24.280 And so everybody stopped spending and was giving all their money to the government in either

00:18:29.520 taxes or in direct loans.

00:18:31.460 And where were all the customers?

00:18:33.080 Where were all the businesses who now had a big drop in their sales, right?

00:18:37.440 I mean, restaurants, I mean, who was eating in restaurants when, you know, everybody was

00:18:40.800 fighting a war or everybody was, you know, loaning money to the government?

00:18:44.120 I mean, all of these businesses suffered.

00:18:46.700 Consumer spending imploded during the Second World War, yet not a single business got bailed

00:18:53.380 out.

00:18:54.160 No, no, no.

00:18:55.180 The government relied on the people to pay for that war.

00:18:59.380 Now we're all, we all believe that the government needs to bail out the people.

00:19:03.440 The government needs to bail out individuals.

00:19:05.460 The government has to bail out the states.

00:19:07.660 The government has to bail out corporations with what money?

00:19:11.660 The government doesn't have any money.

00:19:13.560 It's the people that support the government, not the other way around.

00:19:16.960 But we're pretending that the government can support the people by using a printing press,

00:19:22.000 that all we have to do is print money and nobody has to work.

00:19:25.580 Nobody has to produce.

00:19:27.000 We can have all this stuff for free.

00:19:28.600 Well, we're about to find out the hard way that the most expensive way to pay for government

00:19:33.580 is through inflation, through printing money.

00:19:36.040 That's what we're doing.

00:19:37.040 And we're about to relive the lessons of history because a lot of countries have tried this before

00:19:42.780 and it has ended in disaster every time it's been tried.

00:19:46.320 Peter, let me ask you this.

00:19:47.240 So in the world of bodybuilding, I ask bodybuilders, tell me what are the most important qualities

00:19:53.860 for somebody to win Mr. Olympia?

00:19:56.500 And they'll say, number one is you got to have good genetics.

00:19:59.860 It's number one.

00:20:00.460 If you don't have it, forget it.

00:20:01.620 Anybody can go out there and do it.

00:20:02.720 You're not going to win Mr. Olympia.

00:20:04.220 Then they say, number two is diet.

00:20:07.020 Then they'll go, number three is training.

00:20:09.560 Then they'll go, number four is cardio.

00:20:11.480 Whatever they'll tell me on, a height is one of them.

00:20:14.460 You can't be too tall because your muscles are long, et cetera, et cetera.

00:20:18.340 When somebody, when the average person turns on the news, they'll say, oh my gosh, it's,

00:20:22.880 you know, big government's the problem.

00:20:25.000 No, it's bailout.

00:20:25.900 No, we got to look at the GDP.

00:20:27.340 No, we got to look at our debt ratio.

00:20:28.760 No, we got to look at the gold standard.

00:20:30.380 No, we got to look at the fiat currency.

00:20:31.900 No, we got to look at, you know, this.

00:20:34.140 If the average person's watching this to say, what are the most important numbers to look

00:20:39.940 at?

00:20:40.120 You know, Gary Keller wrote the book, The One Thing, like always go to the one thing.

00:20:43.640 That's the most important thing to look at.

00:20:46.520 What are the most important numbers to look at that can predict what's going to be happening

00:20:52.680 in the future?

00:20:53.160 What would you say some of those numbers are?

00:20:55.200 Yeah, and I'll, I'll, I'll mention that in a second, but first, you know, when you're

00:20:58.560 talking about, uh, you know, the bodybuilder and how to, and getting in shape, and that's

00:21:02.260 a good analogy because I often use that to, you know, describe the economy because the

00:21:08.920 government is saying, hey, we're going to win Mr. Olympia and we're just, we're not going

00:21:12.620 to train at all.

00:21:13.520 We're not going to exercise at all.

00:21:15.060 And we're going to stuff our face with junk food yet expect to win that, that competition.

00:21:19.980 Because, you know, when, when somebody is out of shape and overweight, the solution

00:21:25.280 is not to eat more, you know, it's to go on a diet, it's to exercise.

00:21:30.180 But if you go to a person who is out of shape and is, and doesn't eat well, and you say,

00:21:34.920 look, you know, this is what you need to do.

00:21:37.600 Uh, they don't want to do that because it's going to temporarily, uh, you know, cause some

00:21:43.000 discomfort in their daily routine.

00:21:44.960 I got to stop eating what I want.

00:21:47.440 I got to wake up early and I got to exercise.

00:21:49.740 I don't want to do that.

00:21:50.840 That's hard.

00:21:51.520 I'd rather just, you know, lie in bed.

00:21:53.460 Right.

00:21:53.740 And so, um, that's the problem.

00:21:56.560 The economy, you know, the, the Fed is, you know, the, we're out of shape and, and what

00:22:02.040 the Fed says, just eat more junk food because it feels good to do that rather than doing

00:22:06.960 the right thing.

00:22:07.660 I mean, the right thing right now for the economy is for the government to shrink, right?

00:22:12.440 The government is a burden on the economy that everybody must bear.

00:22:16.220 So the correct solution in a recession is to shrink government, cut government spending

00:22:22.020 and free up those resources that were being, uh, consumed by government and free them back

00:22:28.380 into the economy to be used productively.

00:22:30.580 So you cut government spending, you cut government regulation and you let interest rates go up.

00:22:36.480 So when interest rates go up, we get more savings.

00:22:39.620 And when you have more savings, you have more capital investment.

00:22:42.840 That's what the economy needs, more savings and more investment.

00:22:45.600 We don't need more debt.

00:22:46.900 We don't need more consumption.

00:22:48.660 That was part of the problem.

00:22:50.160 Excess consumption financed by debt.

00:22:52.260 And we don't need to make government bigger.

00:22:54.440 Government was already too big, but we are doing the wrong thing right now, right?

00:22:58.660 We are simply increasing the problem.

00:23:01.040 We had a, a, a, a debt crisis in 2008.

00:23:04.560 What was the government solution to have more debt?

00:23:08.020 Well, if we had a crisis in 08, because we had too much debt, and if we have so much more

00:23:13.280 debt now, how much worse is this crisis going to be?

00:23:16.720 I mean, Greenspan only kept rates at 1% for about a year and a half.

00:23:20.480 And then it took about another year and a half to get back up to five.

00:23:23.480 We had rates at zero for six, seven years.

00:23:26.200 We never got them back up to normal.

00:23:27.900 It took like three years to get back to two, two and a half percent, and then it took a

00:23:31.840 year to get back to zero.

00:23:33.060 And we're never going off zero now until the market forces us, which answers your question.

00:23:37.940 What do people have to look at?

00:23:39.860 You got to look at the price of gold, which is already going up, but at some point it's

00:23:44.760 going to go up much faster.

00:23:46.180 You got to look at the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar versus other currencies.

00:23:51.440 Now, right now the dollar is stable, right?

00:23:53.860 But it's not going to stay stable for long.

00:23:55.700 At some point, the dollar is going to fall.

00:23:58.300 And then you got to look at long-term interest rates, right?

00:24:01.080 Wait for long-term interest rates to really start spiking higher.

00:24:04.420 That is ultimately going to happen.

00:24:06.080 Now, if you wait for those three things to happen, a big move up in gold, a plunge in

00:24:11.420 the dollar, and a sharp increase in long-term interest rates, it's too late to do anything

00:24:16.620 about it financially.

00:24:17.780 I mean, you've missed the boat.

00:24:19.040 What you've got to do now, what I've done personally, what I'm helping my clients do, is

00:24:23.180 get out of U.S. financial assets, get out of the dollar, get out of U.S. bonds before

00:24:28.160 that crisis.

00:24:30.020 But once the market finally reacts, right?

00:24:34.060 Ben Bernanke, or not Ben Bernanke, Jerome Powell, yesterday said that now is not the

00:24:38.720 time.

00:24:39.160 He was at a press conference after they left rates at zero, and he was asked about the

00:24:43.680 debt.

00:24:44.020 Are you worried about the debt, which is exploding at an unprecedented rate?

00:24:47.720 And his response was, no, I'm not worried.

00:24:49.720 Now is not the time to worry about the debt.

00:24:51.220 Of course, he's never worried about the debt.

00:24:53.300 That's the problem.

00:24:54.280 And we never want to fix the debt when times are good.

00:24:56.820 And then when times are bad, we say we can't worry about the debt now.

00:24:59.780 And so we got to make the debt bigger and bigger.

00:25:02.140 But when the market finally worries about it, because, you know, if the central bank is worried

00:25:07.560 about the debt, then that's good.

00:25:09.360 Maybe the markets don't have to.

00:25:10.960 But if the chairman of the Federal Reserve says the Fed is not worried about the debt and

00:25:15.420 actually is encouraging the government to take on more debt, that's when the markets ought to

00:25:20.420 really worry about that debt because it's going to run out of control.

00:25:24.420 And when the markets put a brake on the debt, right, by we're not buying these treasuries,

00:25:29.060 we're not holding these dollars, and you start to see the dollar crashing, bond prices moving up,

00:25:35.040 right, the stagflation really comes fully into play, then that's when the party's over, right?

00:25:40.660 That's when the Fed is forced to make the decision that it has been reluctant to make for a decade

00:25:48.040 or two, and it keeps kicking the can down the road.

00:25:50.760 But when it finally has no choice, because we're about to see a sovereign debt crisis,

00:25:55.300 we're about to see hyperinflation, where the value of the dollar is completely destroyed,

00:26:00.040 right?

00:26:00.260 And everybody, you know, wants to think that we're going to get all this government for

00:26:03.760 free, right?

00:26:04.260 We're not raising taxes.

00:26:05.620 We're cutting taxes.

00:26:06.700 But everybody's getting a bailout, everybody's getting a check, and nobody is asking, who's

00:26:11.820 paying for it, right?

00:26:13.740 Government has to be paid for.

00:26:16.380 Now, the government can fund its operations honestly through taxation, where it actually

00:26:22.140 takes money away from some people and gives it to other people, or it can do it dishonestly,

00:26:27.640 the way it's doing now through inflation.

00:26:29.560 Have the Federal Reserve create money out of thin air and just give it to people, just spend

00:26:33.820 it into circulation.

00:26:35.140 But when the Fed does that, it's not, you're not getting that government for free.

00:26:39.280 That means that people that already have dollars in savings, in annuities, in pensions, you

00:26:46.060 know, under their mattress, wherever you have dollars, those dollars lose their purchasing

00:26:50.600 power.

00:26:51.200 And that purchasing power is transferred to the people who are receiving the government

00:26:55.200 money.

00:26:55.520 So instead of the government taking your money, the government is taking the purchasing power

00:27:00.160 from your money.

00:27:01.620 So that's who's going to get paid.

00:27:03.220 I mean, you're going to be stuck with this bill.

00:27:05.980 If you have savings, if you've got a portfolio of bonds, or you've got an annuity or cash

00:27:10.760 value in an insurance policy, or you're working for wages, the value of what you earn is about

00:27:16.020 to collapse in that the cost of living is about to explode.

00:27:20.160 And that's how we're paying for this.

00:27:21.420 But the choice that the Federal Reserve is going to have to make when the markets finally

00:27:25.500 take away the punch bowl, that the Fed should have taken away on its own.

00:27:28.620 But when the markets force this decision on the Fed, then the Fed's going to have to do

00:27:33.860 one of two things.

00:27:35.160 Let interest rates go way up, and they're going to have to go much higher than they would have

00:27:39.660 gone had the Fed let them go up before.

00:27:41.740 Remember, when Volcker did the right thing, who was the last Fed chairman to ever do the

00:27:46.880 right thing, the market pushed interest rates up to 20%.

00:27:50.600 I would say that they're going to go higher this time than 20%.

00:27:54.980 Now, imagine that, because we couldn't even survive two and a half percent.

00:27:59.200 The Fed had to start cutting.

00:28:00.900 Imagine what happens to this over-leveraged economy at 20% rates.

00:28:05.960 I mean, even at 10% rates or 5% rates.

00:28:08.960 Imagine what happens.

00:28:09.940 So what would actually happen is massive default on an unprecedented scale, including the U.S.

00:28:17.380 government.

00:28:17.600 If the Federal Reserve does the right thing, the U.S.

00:28:20.840 government will be forced to default on treasuries.

00:28:23.100 It will not be able to pay the interest on the debt.

00:28:26.640 It will not be able to, obviously, pay the principal.

00:28:29.840 And it will have to default on its commitments to pay people's Social Security benefits, Medicare

00:28:35.520 benefits.

00:28:36.120 I mean, it's going to be a wave of defaults on an unprecedented level, massive bankruptcies,

00:28:41.860 massive collapses.

00:28:43.200 That's if the Fed does the right thing.

00:28:44.960 But that's the problem, though.

00:28:47.660 I mean, if you think about that, if you think about that, this is what it seems like is

00:28:51.500 happening.

00:28:52.660 You said gold, exchange of rate, U.S., obviously, the currency, and then long-term interest rates.

00:28:59.240 And I'll get to a second part of the question here.

00:29:01.480 Is in order for the person to do the right thing, so let's just say we know what the right

00:29:07.660 thing is to campaign on, okay?

00:29:09.120 So imagine I'm running for office, and this is my campaign.

00:29:12.340 We need to stop spending money.

00:29:14.180 We need to have the 40% of businesses that are people that don't have the finances in

00:29:19.880 order.

00:29:20.440 Some of these guys need to get filtered out.

00:29:22.320 We need to figure out a way to pay off our debt.

00:29:24.640 And in doing so, we need to raise the taxes.

00:29:27.200 No one's going to vote for this person.

00:29:29.260 Look, yes, freedom, capitalism, liberty is a lousy campaign slogan.

00:29:36.840 People don't vote for freedom.

00:29:38.680 They vote for free stuff.

00:29:40.380 That is the problem.

00:29:41.500 Look, the founding fathers knew this.

00:29:43.600 That's why America was created as a republic.

00:29:47.060 They knew if we were a democracy, we would collapse.

00:29:49.880 So they protected us from democracy with the republican form of government that they created.

00:29:55.400 And they bound the government in the chains of the constitution.

00:29:59.180 And it worked for a long time.

00:30:01.020 We were incredibly free throughout the 19th century.

00:30:04.560 I mean, the most prosperous period of American history, of world history, was probably the

00:30:09.900 end of the Civil War to the beginning of the First World War.

00:30:12.740 That's when we had the smallest government, the purest gold standard.

00:30:16.020 We really were following the constitution, and we prospered.

00:30:20.260 But yes, it is very difficult when now everybody is voting.

00:30:24.080 And the government in particular has crippled so many people, and now they have the crutch.

00:30:30.160 And people don't realize that they're crippled because of the government.

00:30:33.240 All they see is the government offering a crutch, and they want that crutch.

00:30:37.020 And look, you know, look at the example of student loans.

00:30:40.240 I mean, this is one of the most obvious examples of a government-created problem.

00:30:44.620 I ran for Senate in Connecticut in 2010, and, you know, I was against student loans.

00:30:49.600 I wanted to abolish all government-guaranteed student loans and all student loans.

00:30:53.220 And, you know, before the government got involved in student loans, which it didn't always do.

00:30:58.880 It really started with the GI Bill in the Second World War, but that was just, you know,

00:31:02.840 to help the soldiers who were returning from the war.

00:31:05.280 They really started getting involved in the 60s.

00:31:08.260 So before that, you know, if you wanted to go to college, you just paid for it.

00:31:12.740 And it wasn't expensive.

00:31:14.620 College, believe it or not, was not expensive before the government came in to help make it

00:31:19.700 affordable.

00:31:20.360 If your parents were relatively rich, they just wrote a check.

00:31:23.780 You know, if they were upper class, you know.

00:31:25.520 If your parents were lower middle class or middle class, maybe you got a summer job.

00:31:30.340 That's what my dad did.

00:31:31.580 My dad went to college.

00:31:33.020 He grew up.

00:31:33.820 His parents were relatively poor.

00:31:35.760 He worked his way through college, like most of his friends, by waiting tables over the summer.

00:31:40.400 That's it.

00:31:41.140 He graduated college, no debt, right?

00:31:43.840 And he, you know, and he lived away from home, but he was able to earn enough just getting tips

00:31:49.160 on a summer job to put himself through college.

00:31:52.620 But what happened is a bunch of politicians came to the students in the 1960s and said,

00:31:57.800 you shouldn't have to work over the summers.

00:31:59.960 You should enjoy your summers.

00:32:01.400 You should be going to the beach and having fun.

00:32:04.640 We'll let you borrow the money, right, to go to college.

00:32:08.220 And you just pay it back after you graduate when you have a better job and you can earn more money.

00:32:12.820 And the students were like, oh, that sounds great.

00:32:15.320 I can have fun this summer.

00:32:16.780 I don't have to work.

00:32:18.040 The government's going to give me this loan.

00:32:19.440 Now, of course, without the government guarantees, the students couldn't borrow the money because

00:32:23.520 they had no collateral.

00:32:24.760 What bank is going to loan money to an 18-year-old?

00:32:27.440 You know, so they couldn't have got the loans.

00:32:30.280 But once the government guaranteed the loans, then anybody could get the loans.

00:32:34.260 So the minute the kids had all this money to go to college and bid up the prices,

00:32:39.280 the universities were like, oh, wow, we can really raise prices now because the students

00:32:44.060 can borrow the money from the government and give it to us.

00:32:47.120 So the minute the government started guaranteeing student loans, tuition has started to explode.

00:32:52.720 And then as the tuition got higher and higher, the government had to provide bigger and bigger

00:32:56.860 loans to pay for it.

00:32:58.200 And then it became a self-perpetuating spiral.

00:33:01.120 The more money the government made available to students, the higher the tuition got to the

00:33:06.120 point that now the students are graduating with a crippling amount of debt, whereas they

00:33:11.340 used to graduate debt-free when the government wasn't involved at all.

00:33:15.740 Now they're graduating with massive debt.

00:33:17.940 And the irony of it is you see these Democrats, right, in these debates pointing to this huge

00:33:23.880 problem without admitting that the government is the only reason those student loans exist.

00:33:29.400 Without those student loans, college would be cheap and students wouldn't have any debt.

00:33:34.060 But because of government interference, the cost of a college degree went through the roof.

00:33:39.580 And because everybody has a college degree now, they're worth nothing.

00:33:43.280 Before the government was involved, most people didn't go to college.

00:33:46.780 A high school degree was all you needed.

00:33:48.760 Now, because everybody goes, you need a college degree to do what you used to be able to do with

00:33:53.520 a high school degree.

00:33:54.580 Now you've got to get a master's or a PhD.

00:33:56.980 But by the time you borrow all the money to get that and you're in school into your early

00:34:00.740 30s, right, you're in debt up to your eyebrows, all this is because of government.

00:34:05.620 Now, what are these guys saying?

00:34:07.460 Are they saying, oh, we really screwed up here?

00:34:09.780 We had good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

00:34:14.480 And now we need to get government out of the student loan business completely.

00:34:18.320 We need to have free market capitalism working so that colleges are under competitive pressures

00:34:23.840 to control their costs to get customers like everybody.

00:34:27.240 No, no, no.

00:34:27.780 Now the solution is completely nationalize it.

00:34:30.640 Have the government pay for college.

00:34:32.600 Let's make college free.

00:34:34.460 Let's forgive all the loans.

00:34:35.920 So now they want to make college even more expensive by making it free, right?

00:34:40.320 The most expensive things are the stuff you get from the government for free.

00:34:44.320 So first they jacked up the cost by subsidizing it.

00:34:47.500 Now they want to make it even more expensive by providing it for free.

00:34:50.640 They did the same thing with housing.

00:34:52.100 You know, they did the same thing with health care.

00:34:54.480 Every aspect of the economy that the government gets involved in, they screw it up.

00:34:59.600 They make the price go up and the quality go down.

00:35:02.020 Whereas when the free market is involved, the opposite happens.

00:35:05.460 Prices go down and quality goes up.

00:35:08.200 But I got to finish the point I was making on the choice that the Fed has.

00:35:11.840 Either they do the right thing and let interest rates go up and the whole house of cards that

00:35:17.040 they've been building crashes down, or they don't do that because it's too

00:35:21.700 politically difficult and they just print money.

00:35:24.380 They just continue the QE.

00:35:26.020 They bail out everybody and they destroy the dollar.

00:35:29.080 And then the dollar is worthless.

00:35:30.300 And then if they do that, right, a hyperinflation is much worse economically than just a massive

00:35:37.400 economic collapse, right?

00:35:39.120 The pain that that will inflict is going to be far greater.

00:35:42.300 But because it may happen six months or a year later or two years later, who knows?

00:35:47.020 That may be the course that we end up taking.

00:35:49.980 So again, everything you said, let's just say common sense.

00:35:53.060 Let's take common sense.

00:35:54.560 Make the government smaller.

00:35:56.140 You know, figure out a way to not spend the kind of money with school loans where the government's

00:36:01.740 not involved in the school loans.

00:36:02.980 Let the private folks do it.

00:36:04.280 You don't get involved.

00:36:05.120 So we don't have to have the, what's the number today?

00:36:07.400 One trillion dollars, a trillion, one, four or one, it's somewhere around there, a trillion

00:36:13.280 two or trillion three.

00:36:14.180 We have college debt, right?

00:36:15.520 Oh yeah.

00:36:16.120 It's like, there's more than that.

00:36:17.760 Yeah.

00:36:17.960 Let's just say it's everything you're saying, common sense.

00:36:20.240 Somebody watching says, okay, this makes sense.

00:36:23.320 I get it.

00:36:24.380 But I want to go solutions.

00:36:26.740 I want to go next phase.

00:36:28.600 I talked to a guy at AIG.

00:36:30.160 We were having a debate because I've been asking these guys to make some adjustments on their

00:36:33.800 technology and they keep saying, Pat, you know, we're working on it.

00:36:37.740 We're working on it.

00:36:38.420 This was like four years ago.

00:36:39.480 Finally, one of the guys who's a stud, quality guy, trust them.

00:36:42.480 He said, look, you have to realize who you're doing business with.

00:36:44.840 I said, what's that?

00:36:46.860 He said, this is AIG.

00:36:48.240 I said, I know.

00:36:48.880 I've been doing business with you guys for a decade now.

00:36:50.960 He says, we're so big that when you want to launch a new adjustment to a software or a

00:36:59.100 technology, it's not like a small business owner, entrepreneur that's nimble to say,

00:37:03.800 let's make the change.

00:37:04.900 It's going to take, you know, 60 days, 90 days.

00:37:07.760 Here's where I'm going with this.

00:37:08.660 Let me wrap up the question here.

00:37:10.060 We're saying, okay, let's make the government smaller.

00:37:12.000 You got seven and a half, eight million employees that are government employees.

00:37:15.380 You got the military.

00:37:16.620 You got all these people that are working.

00:37:18.460 You're all these different EPA, all these departments that you have.

00:37:21.160 How do you make the government smaller on one term or two terms?

00:37:24.580 So again, this leads to the next question is you got one term, two term president.

00:37:29.700 Then you got Republican president, Bush senior.

00:37:32.180 Then you got Clinton.

00:37:33.440 Then you got Bush.

00:37:34.380 Then you got Obama.

00:37:35.240 Then you got Trump.

00:37:36.000 Then you got, you know, say Cuomo gets elected.

00:37:39.880 One philosophy doesn't stay long enough for us to be able to pay off this, that it's about

00:37:44.180 what campaigns gets us reelected.

00:37:46.280 I mean, the debt's not going to be paid off.

00:37:48.500 We have to be honest about that.

00:37:49.980 We can't even solve the problems and we're honest about the situation.

00:37:53.800 So the debts are not going to be repaid.

00:37:55.800 The question is, is it better to inflate them away or default?

00:37:59.260 I think default is better.

00:38:00.880 I think a legitimate bankruptcy and restructuring is better.

00:38:04.220 Hey, look, we loaded all the kids up with debt.

00:38:06.700 Yes, students have much too much debt.

00:38:08.740 We cannot expect them to repay it.

00:38:10.800 But we can't solve the problem unless we first say, okay, no more government involvement

00:38:16.220 in college.

00:38:17.820 It was a mistake.

00:38:19.520 And colleges are going to have to compete in the free market for students.

00:38:24.120 No government guaranteed loans.

00:38:25.780 No government direct loans.

00:38:27.620 We have to go back to capitalism in order for the solutions to work.

00:38:32.360 The solutions will work.

00:38:34.020 Now, people are going to lose money because if loans are not repaid, then the lenders

00:38:38.740 are going to suffer a loss.

00:38:40.520 That has to happen.

00:38:42.380 But, you know, when you talk about making government smaller, yes, the government's going

00:38:46.120 to have to lay off a lot of government workers.

00:38:48.020 That doesn't mean those people are going to be unemployed forever.

00:38:50.480 That means the resources that were required to employ them are now freed up back to the

00:38:56.100 private sector.

00:38:56.940 The private sector is going to use those resources more efficiently and more productively than

00:39:01.900 the government.

00:39:02.760 So whenever the government cuts spending, right, and including laying off government workers,

00:39:08.360 now the private sector has more money to employ those workers productively.

00:39:13.520 In fact, a lot of government workers, not only are they not productive, they actually work

00:39:18.000 reducing the productivity of everybody else.

00:39:20.300 So it's like the people who are actually producing, they are less productive because

00:39:24.420 of all these bureaucrats getting in their way.

00:39:26.740 So, you know, the bureaucrats are riding in the wagon and the rest of us are trying to

00:39:30.720 pull it.

00:39:31.100 If the people who are riding in the wagon not only jump out, but help us pull, right,

00:39:35.880 then we're going to make a lot more progress.

00:39:37.900 That wagon is going to be a lot easier.

00:39:39.260 We're going to be able to take it a lot further.

00:39:40.620 So there's a lot of light at the end of a free market tunnel.

00:39:44.340 But first, you've got to get over that hump of letting voters know that, you know, yes,

00:39:49.980 if you diet and exercise, I know it's not going to be fun, but you're going to be healthier.

00:39:56.060 You're going to have a better life.

00:39:57.200 You're going to live longer.

00:39:58.540 You know, if you just do this, if you just follow this program.

00:40:01.860 So capitalism is going to take us to where we want to go.

00:40:06.380 Socialism never will.

00:40:07.400 It's a false promise that, oh, we're just going to solve this problem with more government.

00:40:12.100 But, you know, the other problem is, you know, so many Americans have been brainwashed in

00:40:17.100 government schools.

00:40:18.320 They don't understand free market capitalism.

00:40:21.320 They just see the problems in the economy and assume that they're a function of free

00:40:26.380 market capitalism when they're not.

00:40:28.340 And they think that more government is the solution to a problem that they don't understand

00:40:33.220 was created by government.

00:40:34.720 And by making government bigger, we're just going to make the problems bigger.

00:40:38.560 Yeah, but that still doesn't answer my question for you.

00:40:40.600 The question about you got something this big to want to rehaul and change, it's not

00:40:49.840 a small thing to change.

00:40:51.140 It's a massive, massive thing to change.

00:40:53.460 And to have one president we elect who gets up there and comes up with this campaign to

00:40:58.340 say, let's do this.

00:40:59.780 The number of opposition is so massive.

00:41:03.000 For somebody to do this, they have so many, even whether it's a Republican or Democrat or

00:41:08.720 Libertarian or third party, whatever you want to call it, there are so many people on each

00:41:13.200 camp that are relying on lobbyists, that are relying on these people on the back.

00:41:18.200 How do you fight those guys?

00:41:20.280 Yeah, it's look, the founding fathers refer to them as factions.

00:41:23.820 And that's basically what we have.

00:41:25.240 Look, there is an entire establishment that is feeding off the status quo.

00:41:29.760 And so they want to perpetuate it.

00:41:32.260 And they're basically like sucking the blood out of the economy, right?

00:41:35.840 You have certain people getting rich, bleeding the rest of the nation.

00:41:39.340 That's why you have this growing divide between the average American or the poor and the super

00:41:46.180 rich.

00:41:46.760 This is not a failure of capitalism.

00:41:49.200 Yes, in capitalism, there's always going to be income inequality, and that's fine.

00:41:52.700 But what we have now is an extreme, and it's not because of capitalism.

00:41:58.220 It's not a failure of capitalism.

00:41:59.600 It's a failure to have capitalism.

00:42:02.060 It's government that is doing this.

00:42:03.660 Now, the people who are benefiting from these policies have a vested interest to maintain

00:42:09.400 them.

00:42:09.980 And they will pay the politicians, one way or the other, in order to perpetuate this scheme.

00:42:16.820 Look, we elected Donald Trump, right, an outsider, not a politician, who said a lot of really

00:42:22.740 good things on the camp train trail about the phony nature of the recovery, about the

00:42:28.120 bubble.

00:42:28.800 He was anti-Fed.

00:42:30.620 You know, this is cheap money.

00:42:31.760 This is all artificial.

00:42:33.120 I'm going to drain the swamp.

00:42:34.640 He actually came at this like, yes, I am an outsider.

00:42:38.380 I'm not a politician.

00:42:39.780 I'm going to go to Washington and clean house.

00:42:41.620 And then as soon as he got to Washington, he became part of the very swamp that he wanted

00:42:46.400 to drain.

00:42:47.260 He presided over a massive increase in government spending.

00:42:51.300 So government got bigger under Donald Trump.

00:42:53.820 He went from being a Fed critic to a Fed cheerleader.

00:42:57.540 In fact, the only thing he criticized the Fed for was not printing enough money, right, not

00:43:02.320 cutting rates enough.

00:43:03.780 I mean, he criticized the Fed for being too easy as a candidate.

00:43:08.260 And then he said they were too tight when he was president.

00:43:10.720 He wanted the Fed to do everything he criticized it for.

00:43:13.360 So he became the leader of that swamp.

00:43:17.680 And yes, we got some tax cuts.

00:43:20.380 But those tax cuts were a fraud because tax cuts have to do with cutting government spending.

00:43:27.620 The cost of government is what it spends.

00:43:30.480 So government spending is taxation.

00:43:33.200 Every dollar the government spends is a dollar that we have to fund.

00:43:37.300 And so when presidents sign budgets that increase government spending, they are increasing taxation,

00:43:44.520 regardless of what they do with the income tax rate.

00:43:48.660 Spending is taxation.

00:43:50.340 Now, how are they going to pay for it?

00:43:52.360 Are they going to tax us today?

00:43:54.360 Are they going to borrow the money, which means they're going to tax us even more tomorrow,

00:43:57.840 because now we have to pay the taxes to cover the interest?

00:44:00.900 Or is the Federal Reserve going to monetize the debt?

00:44:04.400 Are they going to print more money, which means we pay for government through debasement of the currency, through inflation?

00:44:10.360 Now, we have not felt the full weight of the inflation tax because we've been able to export it.

00:44:16.480 Because the dollar has functioned as the world's reserve currency,

00:44:19.580 we're able to run these massive trade deficits,

00:44:22.120 and we can export all the money that we're printing, and we can get products in return.

00:44:26.940 So that's kept a lid on consumer prices and allowed the Fed to pretend that even though they're creating inflation

00:44:32.960 at an unprecedented scale, that we don't have any inflation, that there's not enough of it.

00:44:37.880 But that's why I said you've got to watch the dollar.

00:44:40.500 You've got to watch the treasuries, the gold market.

00:44:42.540 This thing is going to implode, and it's going to implode soon.

00:44:45.680 The party is going to end.

00:44:47.020 The dollar is going to crash.

00:44:48.760 And a tsunami of inflation that we've been exporting for years and years is going to come hitting us, our shores,

00:44:55.400 and we're going to see the cost of living go through the roof.

00:44:58.980 And that is the cost of government.

00:45:01.040 And then, once the world no longer accepts the dollar, and we can't run these huge trade deficits,

00:45:06.220 we're stuck with all the money we print, then we're going to feel the full weight of that inflation tax.

00:45:10.800 Which means what?

00:45:11.600 Then we're going to be open to the idea of changing?

00:45:14.900 Because every single—this goes back to what you said earlier,

00:45:17.940 when you said every time there's a problem, it's another avenue.

00:45:21.980 Like, even right now, you see, this is why we need a stimulus check.

00:45:26.820 This is why the plan that Andrew Yang talked about is effective.

00:45:31.200 We can't afford to pay people $1,000 a month.

00:45:33.280 We can't afford to pay people $2,000 a month.

00:45:35.960 If we're spending trillions on the military, why can't we spend money on sending checks to people?

00:45:41.300 If we can bail out these big companies, then you know the whole concept about social—

00:45:46.420 I know, too, but the idea is two wrongs make a right, but they don't.

00:45:51.100 And we couldn't.

00:45:52.460 The bailouts are a mistake.

00:45:53.920 I mean, just because we made the mistake of bailing out the banks in 08

00:45:57.700 doesn't mean that we should repeat the mistake by bailing out the airlines or the hotels.

00:46:02.840 And just because we made the mistake of bailing out Wall Street

00:46:05.520 doesn't mean we compound the mistake by bailing out Main Street.

00:46:08.860 Let's bail out nobody.

00:46:10.220 But why do we bail out?

00:46:11.820 Like, why do we bail out the too big to fail?

00:46:14.580 What is the—

00:46:15.000 Well, because obviously there's two reasons.

00:46:17.740 One is the politics of it.

00:46:20.180 You know, from—they're going to—the industries that get bailed out are going to recycle some

00:46:25.280 of that bailout money and line the pockets of the politicians that voted to bail them out,

00:46:29.300 right?

00:46:29.480 I mean, that's a quid pro quo that's going to happen.

00:46:32.660 But also when it comes to economics, right, you have the seen and you have the unseen, the effects.

00:46:39.220 And when a government bails out a business, the immediate benefits to those who receive the bailouts are there.

00:46:47.120 The company is there.

00:46:48.540 The jobs are saved.

00:46:50.260 And so—and the people who benefit from the bailout, they are known and they will vote for you.

00:46:57.200 But what you don't see are the negative consequences that are widely dispersed throughout the economy

00:47:02.960 where there's no political constituency for that.

00:47:05.600 But let's take one of these industries that get bailed out, whether it's airlines, right?

00:47:09.640 Let's say we didn't bail out airlines or, you know, any hotels or any of these companies.

00:47:13.820 The way the politicians want to present it is that if we didn't bail out these industries,

00:47:18.580 they would disappear.

00:47:19.560 Like, oh, we need airlines.

00:47:21.440 We need hotels.

00:47:22.740 We can't just let these countries go bankrupt.

00:47:25.080 These industries go bankrupt.

00:47:26.400 How will we get around, right?

00:47:27.940 See, that's the lie of the bailout.

00:47:30.380 Now, if the government didn't bail out the companies, they would go through a normal bankruptcy.

00:47:38.300 During a bankruptcy, the companies don't stop operating, right?

00:47:42.260 They continue to operate.

00:47:44.140 What happens is they don't have to pay their debts anymore, which is why they're in bankruptcy,

00:47:48.620 because of all the money they borrowed.

00:47:50.300 But they go through a bankruptcy.

00:47:51.920 And who gets wiped out?

00:47:53.820 The common stockholders.

00:47:55.180 The unsecured creditors.

00:47:56.480 There are investors who lose, but the businesses, to the extent that they have value, survive.

00:48:03.300 And new owners come in.

00:48:06.100 And more importantly, they're going to be more responsible than the owners who failed.

00:48:10.060 And the companies are not going to have all the debt.

00:48:12.740 The debt gets wiped out.

00:48:14.340 So now that the businesses no longer have all the debt, they can be more efficient.

00:48:18.920 They can offer a more competitive product.

00:48:21.340 They can lower prices.

00:48:22.400 Maybe they can pay better wages, because they're not hampered with all this debt.

00:48:27.160 Instead, we're keeping these companies alive by loading up with even more debt.

00:48:31.280 So they're going to be even less efficient.

00:48:33.700 And some companies need to shrink.

00:48:36.500 You know, the government is saying, we have to make sure that companies don't fire any workers.

00:48:43.060 Why?

00:48:43.720 What if they need to fire workers?

00:48:45.320 What if they have too many workers?

00:48:46.820 That's why they're not profitable, because they have to downsize their workforce to make the business competitive and reflect the free market demand for the products they're making or the services they're providing.

00:49:00.420 If we keep payrolls bloated, that is a waste of labor resources.

00:49:04.600 We're squandering those resources.

00:49:06.460 We need to free up that labor to go work someplace else where the market would direct it.

00:49:10.520 But now we're creating these zombie companies that are wards of the state.

00:49:14.740 And the cost to society of subsidizing these businesses far exceeds the benefits to the people who are being bailed out.

00:49:23.260 But again, that's the unseen consequence of government interference.

00:49:27.520 Let the free market function, and we will have an optimal allocation of resources, and we will all collectively benefit from a higher standard of living.

00:49:37.420 But we have the government interfering and diverting resources from where the market wants them to where the politics demand.

00:49:44.720 Everybody suffers because we have a lower quality of living, a lower standard of living, because we're increasing production costs and making the economy less efficient.

00:49:53.200 So let's just say we were to make that adjustment.

00:49:55.480 Let's say we are open to it.

00:49:56.680 Let's say we get somebody that's strong enough that can present that to the American people.

00:50:01.040 And let's just say he can convince 51% of people to say, I'm with it.

00:50:05.760 I'm with it.

00:50:06.500 Let's go through this process of allowing the too big to fail.

00:50:10.520 To fail, let's go through the process of, you know, me going back to maybe I can do 100% financing on a home.

00:50:17.780 Maybe it goes to 60% financing on a home.

00:50:20.520 If you don't have 40% of down payment on a house, you probably shouldn't own a house.

00:50:24.260 You probably should rent a house.

00:50:25.320 Let's just say we go through.

00:50:26.980 Yeah, Alec, who benefits, right?

00:50:29.400 Who benefits from government policy to guarantee mortgages?

00:50:33.280 It's actually not the person who's buying the house.

00:50:35.960 It's the person who has a house to sell.

00:50:38.700 Because by guaranteeing mortgages, the government is helping to prop up real estate prices.

00:50:46.080 If there was no government guarantee mortgages, right?

00:50:50.180 If individuals had to convince the bank to loan them money based on their own credit quality,

00:50:55.700 their own ability to repay, the banks would not be willing to loan as much money,

00:51:00.820 and they would want more collateral.

00:51:02.620 They wouldn't give you a mortgage with 3% down or 5% down.

00:51:06.500 They would want 20, 25% down, right?

00:51:09.060 And so if that happened, real estate prices would collapse, right?

00:51:13.880 So people would still be able to buy houses.

00:51:16.420 They just wouldn't have to borrow nearly as much money to do it because the price would be lower.

00:51:20.900 So maybe you can't afford a 20% down payment when the house you want to buy is $300,000.

00:51:26.280 But if the house drops to $100,000, you could afford to pay 20%, right?

00:51:30.540 You won't have all this debt.

00:51:31.940 The beneficiary of the policy is the guy who already owns the house who wants to sell it.

00:51:37.700 He can sell it for a much higher price if the government's going to guarantee the mortgage of the buyer.

00:51:43.380 But then you have a bubble.

00:51:44.860 You have a phony real estate market.

00:51:46.700 I want to have a real real estate market that reflects the free market, not government subsidies,

00:51:53.360 because the government now has to keep this whole pyramid going with more and more debt.

00:51:58.940 But yet it is going to be a very impossible political battle because right now, right,

00:52:04.660 the Republicans have already signed on to socialism.

00:52:08.140 They have basically agreed with the Democrats that we need big government, right?

00:52:12.480 And it's a logical thing, right?

00:52:14.960 See, the position that the Republicans have is inconsistent logically.

00:52:19.720 The Republicans are saying during good times, the profits should be privatized.

00:52:25.440 But during bad times, we need to socialize the losses.

00:52:28.740 So we need to have low taxes and limited government when times are good.

00:52:32.520 But when times are bad, we need massive government.

00:52:34.880 And we have to bail out everybody, even the rich.

00:52:37.340 That doesn't make any sense.

00:52:38.620 At least the Democrats can have a logically consistent, though flawed argument.

00:52:44.680 We need big government all the time.

00:52:46.300 If we need big government during bad times, we need big government during good times.

00:52:50.360 If we're going to socialize the losses, let's socialize the profits, right?

00:52:54.240 That's a consistent argument that I think is going to win, which is why I think that Trump

00:52:59.020 is going to be a one-termer, because I don't think he can out-promise Biden or whoever is

00:53:04.080 at the top of the Democratic ticket.

00:53:06.940 When it's a battle between two Democrats, the Democrats are going to win.

00:53:10.420 You're saying you don't think Trump beats Biden?

00:53:12.540 No.

00:53:13.100 And I thought Trump was going to beat Clinton.

00:53:15.120 Very few people did at the time.

00:53:16.720 Because the reason I thought that Trump could beat Clinton is because Trump was telling the

00:53:22.200 truth about how lousy the economy was, and he was promising a real solution.

00:53:26.780 Now he's going to try to perpetuate the same lie that didn't work for Hillary, although

00:53:31.160 now he's going to try to blame the problem on the coronavirus, and maybe that strategy will

00:53:37.160 work.

00:53:37.620 I mean, do you actually believe Biden is going to beat Trump?

00:53:40.160 But at this point, look, I don't think the Republicans can out-promise the Democrats,

00:53:45.060 because the election is going to be decided over who is going to give out the most free

00:53:50.340 stuff.

00:53:50.980 And I think the Democrats win that argument.

00:53:54.060 Now, what's going to happen is when we have a complete collapse of the economy, if we have

00:53:58.800 hyperinflation or complete implosion, and there is massive poverty, inflation is so bad that

00:54:04.140 they have price controls, and the minute they have price controls, you have shortages, you

00:54:08.220 have black markets.

00:54:09.540 I mean, it's going to be a complete disaster.

00:54:11.520 Then we can have a real campaign between, do we go all in on socialism?

00:54:18.900 Are we so broke?

00:54:21.120 Are we destitute?

00:54:22.260 Are we having this misery and poverty?

00:54:24.940 Is it because of too much capitalism and too much greed?

00:54:29.300 Or is it because of too much government, too much central planning?

00:54:33.520 Is it the bureaucrats and socialism that destroyed the prosperity that capitalism built?

00:54:40.120 Or did socialism build the prosperity and did capitalism destroy it?

00:54:44.860 And so do we need to be a nation of slaves or a nation of free individuals?

00:54:49.840 I mean, that's going to be the real debate between big government and freedom.

00:54:56.280 And hopefully, freedom can win that debate.

00:55:00.020 I don't know.

00:55:00.480 I mean, it's a tough call, you know.

00:55:03.100 But on record, are you saying Biden's going to beat Trump?

00:55:06.700 I think, well, I think Biden will beat Trump, or if Biden ends up not being the nominee for

00:55:11.580 some crazy reason, I think whoever is at the top of the ticket will beat Trump.

00:55:16.500 But I mean, is it a sure thing?

00:55:17.740 No.

00:55:18.040 I mean, I think that Trump's-

00:55:19.540 What's your percentage?

00:55:20.460 If you were to betting man, you're in Las Vegas.

00:55:22.200 What's your percentage?

00:55:22.900 I say he's 70, I think it's 70, 80% at least that it's going to be Biden.

00:55:28.400 Do you think 70, 80% is Biden?

00:55:30.420 Yeah.

00:55:31.160 Because we're still going to be in a recession in November.

00:55:34.420 So you're going to have a bunch of people voting during a recession.

00:55:38.080 And, you know, Trump promised a lot of people to make their lives better.

00:55:41.960 And their lives are going to be worse.

00:55:44.700 And, you know, are they going to vote-

00:55:46.380 Trump wasn't expecting a coronavirus.

00:55:47.900 Trump wasn't expecting a pandemic, though.

00:55:49.700 But he was going to lose even without this.

00:55:52.100 We were going to be in recession even without the coronavirus.

00:55:56.520 It was already starting.

00:55:57.700 The economy was already rolling over.

00:55:59.320 The bubble was already deflating.

00:56:01.160 So, yes, this may be his only chance, which is a reason why Trump may be incentivized to

00:56:08.240 keep the shutdown going longer and longer.

00:56:11.140 Because to the extent that everything is still shut down in November, it's easier to blame

00:56:16.400 it on the virus.

00:56:17.040 But let's assume that we try to restart the economy in May or June, and then we're still

00:56:24.220 in deep recession, which we will be by November.

00:56:27.720 It will be harder for Trump to blame the virus.

00:56:31.380 I mean, he will.

00:56:32.340 I mean, I think before the virus, he was going to blame the Fed.

00:56:35.300 But I think the voters are just going to blame Republicans, blame Trump.

00:56:40.160 And, look, they are not going to be able to out-promise the Democrats.

00:56:43.700 We're going to have a bidding war over who's going to give out the most free stuff.

00:56:47.640 Who do you think wins that?

00:56:49.680 You know, I just think when you have two people promising bigger government, the Democrats win.

00:56:57.140 It's not going to be an argument of less government versus more government or capitalism versus

00:57:02.800 socialism.

00:57:04.220 Socialism has already won the debate.

00:57:06.040 Bernie Sanders is now the mainstream of both political parties.

00:57:10.140 I mean, stuff that the Republicans are supporting today, even Bernie Sanders would have been too

00:57:14.860 embarrassed to recommend it six months ago.

00:57:16.780 Yeah, I don't know if I don't know if I see that happening because I don't think America is fully yet

00:57:24.200 comfortable for the concept of socialism to come in.

00:57:26.560 I think it's getting a big surgence because the last generation is the biggest generation ever.

00:57:30.340 You know, for the longest time, boomers were 76 million.

00:57:33.340 Now you've got a bigger generation that's got 80 to 83 million.

00:57:36.620 And they're younger.

00:57:37.340 You know how this works.

00:57:38.120 They have to go through their process of getting fired, getting married, losing jobs, losing

00:57:42.280 promotions, you know, and understanding what it is when you're working your ass off and

00:57:46.920 somebody else who isn't through politics gets promoted over you.

00:57:49.680 Then you say, I'm sick of this crap.

00:57:51.360 You know, I want to go out there and do my own thing.

00:57:53.240 We have to go through that.

00:57:54.880 But this is the part that this brings me to as you're talking about this stuff with re-election,

00:58:00.940 as far as Trump goes.

00:58:02.420 You're saying Trump wouldn't have won without coronavirus.

00:58:05.500 You're saying with or without coronavirus, Trump wouldn't have gotten re-elected.

00:58:09.920 Yeah, I don't think that Trump was going to win.

00:58:12.940 In fact, if you look at the politics of it, I mean, Donald Trump, I mean, he didn't win

00:58:18.180 in a landslide.

00:58:19.320 He won the Electoral College.

00:58:21.400 But if you look at the states that he won, he won by very narrow margins in those states.

00:58:27.920 Right.

00:58:28.220 And who were those swing voters?

00:58:30.220 I mean, these were probably Democrats that were tired of being lied to by the establishment

00:58:35.360 they knew that the recovery under Obama was phony, that it was just smoke and mirrors.

00:58:41.700 It was a stock market.

00:58:43.140 Right.

00:58:43.300 Donald Trump called it out.

00:58:44.680 Who cares about the stock market?

00:58:46.280 It's a bubble.

00:58:47.240 The Fed is doing that.

00:58:48.500 The economy.

00:58:49.280 I'm going to re-industrialize the economy.

00:58:51.240 Right.

00:58:51.400 I'm going to work.

00:58:52.520 The economy is a disaster.

00:58:55.020 It's been hollowed out.

00:58:56.080 I remember some of those last commercials that he ran about how the American economy

00:59:00.960 had been destroyed.

00:59:02.120 We had these huge trade deficits.

00:59:03.820 The trade deficits are bigger now than they ever were before Trump was elected.

00:59:08.240 None of the manufacturing has come back.

00:59:10.380 It's all been a lie.

00:59:11.920 The manufacturing sector is as weak as it's ever been.

00:59:15.300 So none of the substantive changes that Trump promised.

00:59:19.300 Did we get rid of Obamacare?

00:59:20.800 No.

00:59:21.260 We made Obamacare worse.

00:59:22.820 That's all we did.

00:59:23.820 So, you know, and we perpetuated the same monetary policy that Trump criticized.

00:59:30.420 So the recovery under Trump was just as phony as the recovery under Obama.

00:59:37.620 And so I think the people who voted for Trump, because they kind of hoped that he would be

00:59:43.560 different when they realized that he wasn't.

00:59:47.100 Right.

00:59:47.380 That he was no different.

00:59:48.660 That nothing changed.

00:59:49.700 And then you have a Democrat promising Democratic Socialism saying, look, this is what's going

00:59:55.780 to help.

00:59:56.240 Right.

00:59:56.340 The government's going to give you this and give you that and do all this.

00:59:59.400 Those people may say, OK, I tried the Republicans.

01:00:02.700 I tried Trump.

01:00:04.020 That didn't work.

01:00:05.120 So now let me try this.

01:00:06.680 Right.

01:00:06.880 I mean, because it's always like things keep getting worse.

01:00:09.240 And then you want to vote for change.

01:00:11.380 And so I thought people would want to vote for change, not more of the same.

01:00:15.280 Yeah, it's going to be.

01:00:16.040 Here's here's what I predict.

01:00:17.260 Since you've been famous for making predictions, I'm going to make a prediction here for you.

01:00:20.280 OK, I'm going to join the Peter Schiff camp and make a prediction.

01:00:23.640 You said you made some good predictions.

01:00:26.200 You made some questionable predictions.

01:00:28.500 I think you said gold was going to get to 5000.

01:00:31.140 And what was it?

01:00:32.040 2012.

01:00:32.740 It was at 1700.

01:00:34.040 Today, I think it's around 1700.

01:00:36.000 But this is my prediction.

01:00:37.440 My prediction is I think Republicans and Democrats, true Democrats, JFK Democrats, not Bernie Democrats.

01:00:47.860 I'm talking like a Democrat of the 60s that was, you know, they had certain philosophies

01:00:53.380 where JFK today would probably not be a Democrat.

01:00:55.940 He'd be a complete different thing politically.

01:00:57.700 What about Lyndon Johnson?

01:00:59.240 Well, Lyndon Johnson is a complete different story to me.

01:01:02.020 I have a different opinion on him.

01:01:04.680 But this is what I think about today.

01:01:06.380 This is what I think about today.

01:01:07.980 I foresee a ticket like this taking place in the next two to three elections.

01:01:13.240 Here's a ticket that I think America is going to be more open to it than ever before.

01:01:16.980 I think we're going to see a president that's a Republican with a VP that's a dem or vice

01:01:23.800 versa, a president that's a Democrat and a VP that's a Republican.

01:01:28.860 And they're going to come out and they're going to say, listen, I'm not we're not comfortable

01:01:32.340 what's going on right now.

01:01:33.260 We just decided to bring one of each where he and I or she and I are going to debate it

01:01:37.440 out.

01:01:37.840 And we're going to try to make our best decisions because we're not going to get a third party.

01:01:41.960 Perot tried to do it.

01:01:42.940 It didn't work.

01:01:43.760 I think we may have in the next two or three elections somebody campaigning with a Republican

01:01:50.260 president and a Democrat VP or some of that taking place.

01:01:54.920 Now, it only happened once, I think.

01:01:56.540 Well, I mean, at this point, there's so little difference between the Democrats and Republicans

01:02:02.280 anyway that I don't even know how that even makes a difference.

01:02:05.920 There's very little daylight.

01:02:06.940 I mean, we have a third party.

01:02:08.760 The Libertarians have been there for a long time.

01:02:11.300 They're constantly they're on the ballot, usually in all 50 states.

01:02:14.460 The problem is the media ignores them.

01:02:17.520 They don't get it.

01:02:18.220 Their candidates don't make it into the debates.

01:02:20.160 And so the two parties really have a monopoly, a duopoly on power, whether you want to call

01:02:27.520 them Republicans or Demo-publicans.

01:02:29.660 And so they have a vested interest in maintaining that status quo of really one party that's

01:02:35.200 divided into two wings.

01:02:36.680 And so they're preventing any third parties from gaining any traction.

01:02:42.260 So that is a big problem.

01:02:44.020 But what you have to overlook is how are we going to get from where we are to what you're

01:02:49.120 talking about when we have to go through this complete economic Armageddon that is around

01:02:53.560 the corner?

01:02:54.300 We have a date with with destiny here.

01:02:56.900 We are going to have a financial collapse, much worse than 08, much worse when it's happened

01:03:01.860 now, when the Fed has to make that choice that I just described, either letting interest

01:03:07.680 rates skyrocket and letting the economy implode in a way that we've never seen before with

01:03:12.940 massive destruction, layoffs, bankruptcies, defaults, with no bailouts at all.

01:03:19.720 Remember, in order to do the right thing, nobody gets bailed out, even though it's going

01:03:22.900 to be much worse than it is now.

01:03:24.460 No bailout, no stimulus, nothing.

01:03:26.380 The government has to sit back because if it doesn't have the Fed providing the money,

01:03:31.680 the government has no money.

01:03:32.960 So the government is powerless.

01:03:34.360 All it can do is do what I said, which is to cut spending.

01:03:37.400 And it's going to be forced to cut spending because it's not going to have the money to spend.

01:03:40.660 Or how do we get through hyperinflation when we wipe out the value of our money?

01:03:45.740 I mean, imagine, imagine people who have millions of dollars in savings being destitute.

01:03:52.780 I mean, maybe they still have assets that have value.

01:03:56.240 They have a house, but they can't afford to maintain it.

01:03:58.780 They can't afford to pay the cost of repairs because, well, their savings have been wiped

01:04:03.260 out.

01:04:03.720 What happens when we destroy the value of our money?

01:04:07.160 So we have to get through this situation.

01:04:12.180 Either we destroy the dollar or we have a massive economic implosion.

01:04:16.120 And of course, if we destroy the dollar, the economic implosion is even bigger.

01:04:19.940 So we're going to have to get through this to get to the other side.

01:04:24.360 And so what is that process going to look like?

01:04:27.180 And what is going to emerge on the other side?

01:04:29.580 Is it going to be a return to free market capitalism that leads to the promised land of a higher

01:04:35.700 standard of living?

01:04:36.660 Or are we going to complete the road to serfdom?

01:04:39.120 Is America going to be a totalitarian nation with an all-powerful government?

01:04:43.020 I mean, it's a very scary prospect.

01:04:46.680 I mean, I can be hopeful that we make the right choice.

01:04:48.940 Do you think what America was founded on, it's almost a model and a system that's not

01:04:58.400 possible to last too long when the country gets bigger and bigger and bigger, meaning

01:05:02.700 it is a model that works well for a country of 30 million people, 50 million people, but

01:05:08.720 maybe not 335 million people.

01:05:11.160 No, it works great.

01:05:12.340 I mean, the founding fathers, I think they guessed that maybe it would last 200 years.

01:05:16.320 But the problem is the safeguards get eroded away, right?

01:05:24.920 That because of the elements of democracy that creep into the republic, once you get to

01:05:32.560 a point where people can vote themselves benefit from government, that's the beginning of the

01:05:37.520 end, right?

01:05:38.540 And it took a long time, and we created a lot of wealth as a republic, and it's taken a

01:05:44.400 while for a democracy to destroy that wealth, but that is human nature.

01:05:49.120 I mean, so maybe if we can one day change human nature, you know, greed and envy, and, you

01:05:56.980 know, a lot of people, too, who are skeptical of human beings, you know, they're skeptical

01:06:00.960 of capitalists.

01:06:02.040 They think that they're greedy businessmen.

01:06:03.700 That's fine.

01:06:04.780 Greed is fine when you're an entrepreneur because the only way you can make money in a free market

01:06:09.880 is through voluntary exchange.

01:06:11.900 Yes, you can cheat, you can commit fraud, and there's laws against that.

01:06:16.000 But to really succeed in a free market economy, your success is measured by how much you help

01:06:21.940 other people.

01:06:22.720 You have to convince them to buy your products or your services, and you have to provide

01:06:28.060 it better than your competitor.

01:06:29.720 And if you do that, and if you make other people's lives better, they will reward you,

01:06:33.740 and you'll get rich.

01:06:34.640 The problem is greedy people also go into government.

01:06:38.100 They go into politics, and there their greed can be very harmful because that's not about

01:06:42.580 voluntary interactions.

01:06:43.960 They have the power of government.

01:06:45.120 They can force you to do things using the power of the state.

01:06:48.660 And what happens is those greedy people, those evil people, go into government, and then they

01:06:52.800 enrich themselves by impoverishing others.

01:06:55.540 Capitalists enrich themselves by enriching others.

01:06:58.520 The bureaucrats enrich themselves by impoverishing others.

01:07:01.720 But they also help enrich certain people that perpetuate their incumbency.

01:07:08.520 And so they reward those that help them.

01:07:10.880 And it's an incestuous system.

01:07:13.120 And yeah, it's a problem.

01:07:14.540 The key is to limit democracy so you don't have all this voting for theft.

01:07:21.320 Voting is steal things from other people.

01:07:24.100 And if you do that, if you have liberty, if you protect private property, then everybody

01:07:29.860 will prosper.

01:07:30.600 And of course, people want to say, well, Peter, what about the poor people who fall through

01:07:34.620 the cracks?

01:07:35.660 Yes, let private charity help the poor people that fall through the cracks.

01:07:40.320 Because there's always going to be those people.

01:07:43.040 In a capitalist economy, there's far fewer of them because there's a lot more opportunity

01:07:47.140 and prosperity.

01:07:48.480 But when individuals voluntarily help other individuals, it's much more efficient than when

01:07:53.400 the government does it.

01:07:54.380 The government taxes somebody a dollar.

01:07:56.580 And by the time the money gets to the intended recipient, there's only 10 cents left.

01:08:02.140 Private charity, they collect a dollar.

01:08:05.160 They spend 10 cents.

01:08:06.680 And 90 cents goes to the people that need it.

01:08:09.880 So government is not efficient at anything, especially helping the poor.

01:08:15.780 The government creates the poor.

01:08:18.260 And then the government perpetuates poverty because the government wants people to be

01:08:22.980 poor because that's how they get them to vote for them.

01:08:25.800 It's, hey, you're poor and I'm giving you money.

01:08:27.860 Now I've bought your vote.

01:08:29.100 See, if it wasn't for me, you would starve because you wouldn't get these welfare checks.

01:08:33.040 See, that's the government.

01:08:33.680 The government cripples you and then claims credit for giving you a crutch.

01:08:37.520 The free market makes it so you don't need a crutch.

01:08:40.280 By the way, what are your thoughts?

01:08:41.340 I mean, I know you're more on the economy side.

01:08:43.000 Do you have any opinions on coronavirus and the handling of it, the shutting down, all

01:08:47.140 that stuff?

01:08:47.580 What are your thoughts about what's going on right now?

01:08:49.280 Yeah, I mean, look, I hear a lot of things.

01:08:52.500 And of course, I'm generally skeptical of anything that happens.

01:08:57.200 And I certainly agree that regardless, the government is using this situation to expand

01:09:05.460 its power and to diminish individual rights that will haunt us for a long time.

01:09:11.980 Just like 9-11, right?

01:09:13.800 The 9-11 was a tragedy, but the bigger tragedy was our response.

01:09:18.280 We did more damage to ourself with the Patriot Act and things like that, anti-money laundering.

01:09:23.420 We destroyed our liberties, not the terrorists.

01:09:25.940 The terrorists won based on the legislation that we enacted during the hysteria that surrounded

01:09:33.300 those attacks.

01:09:34.600 And we're still suffering.

01:09:35.560 We're still suffering a lower standard of living because of the way the government took

01:09:40.560 advantage and exploited that crisis to make the government bigger and to diminish our

01:09:45.640 freedoms and therefore our prosperity.

01:09:47.740 So the same thing is happening now.

01:09:49.420 And I am very worried about the rules that are going to be put into place as the economy

01:09:54.940 is reopened.

01:09:56.240 What are the new requirements that are going to be put on businesses that are going to undermine

01:10:02.820 their productivity, that are going to increase the cost of running a business and employing

01:10:07.400 people and serving the public?

01:10:09.200 What other rights are we going to lose going forward to give the government more power to

01:10:14.480 supposedly protect us from future pandemics?

01:10:18.900 But as far as the coronavirus itself, look, I don't know.

01:10:22.760 I tend to believe that maybe they're making a mountain out of a molehill here, that the

01:10:29.040 coronavirus may not be any worse than an ordinary influenza, that they're exaggerating the numbers

01:10:36.940 that people are dying that happen to have coronavirus.

01:10:40.800 And now we're blaming it on coronavirus when there are other factors that are as important

01:10:45.660 or maybe more important.

01:10:46.800 And that there's a lot of people who have the disease who are not in the statistics because

01:10:52.740 they have such a mild case of it that we don't know about them.

01:10:55.820 But if we actually, you know, looked at the whole population, that the percentage of death

01:11:00.680 is actually very small because we have so many people who have it who aren't even showing

01:11:05.780 symptoms.

01:11:06.200 So we don't even get them in the statistics.

01:11:08.420 So there's a good chance that this whole thing is overblown.

01:11:12.520 But I also get the fact that maybe it's not.

01:11:16.580 And a lot of us are just taking, you know what?

01:11:18.520 Even though I think it's a bunch of BS, I'm not going to take any chances.

01:11:22.740 You know, maybe they're telling the truth.

01:11:24.600 Maybe it is as bad as they're saying.

01:11:26.660 So you know what?

01:11:27.260 I'm not going to go out to the restaurants.

01:11:29.100 I'm not going to travel as much.

01:11:30.780 Just in case.

01:11:32.020 Even though I think it's probably BS and even though I think I'd probably be fine, you know,

01:11:36.500 who knows?

01:11:37.160 Maybe, you know, so they've got everybody so scared that even people like me who are like

01:11:41.880 looking at this, this is probably bullshit.

01:11:44.060 So then that means their formula of fear tactics is working on somebody like you who typically

01:11:48.880 questions everything.

01:11:49.800 Yeah, well, it's working all over the world.

01:11:51.600 I mean, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, why take any chances?

01:11:54.740 You know, it's like, look, you know, people, you don't have to.

01:11:59.040 There are a lot of things you don't have to do.

01:12:00.700 You could just decide.

01:12:01.660 I won't do that.

01:12:02.440 I mean, better safe than sorry.

01:12:04.820 Right.

01:12:05.060 And so if a lot of people are making these decisions, obviously, it's a huge impact on

01:12:11.880 economic activity where people are deciding that they have to alter their behavior.

01:12:16.800 And that's why I think that even when the government gives everybody the all clear, people are still

01:12:22.700 going to be nervous and they are not going to interact in, you know, social scenes to the

01:12:32.120 extent that they did before, at least for maybe a year or two.

01:12:35.280 Right.

01:12:35.760 And so that's going to have lingering effects on a lot of these businesses that have been

01:12:39.880 bailed out that are probably going to be in need of continuous bailouts.

01:12:43.720 But of course, the problem is when all the money that we're using collapses, right?

01:12:47.980 Everybody can get a check from the government.

01:12:49.720 But what happens when that check doesn't buy anything?

01:12:52.100 That's the crisis that's coming.

01:12:53.940 But what is that check?

01:12:55.160 You know, the check is nothing to a guy making 130 grand a year that's only got $93,000 saved

01:13:00.120 in a bank and he's going through his money very quickly.

01:13:03.920 That's not a lot of money.

01:13:05.000 Yeah.

01:13:05.480 I mean, the people who were higher earners who were living on the edge, right?

01:13:11.280 They were, you know, they're suffering.

01:13:13.720 The people who are actually better off are lower income people who are now earning more

01:13:20.620 money being unemployed than they were where they had to work.

01:13:24.900 And there's a big difference between just getting a check and having to actually go to

01:13:29.080 work.

01:13:29.780 I mean, most people don't enjoy working.

01:13:31.480 Plus, you have the commute time and all the other ancillary expenses, and then they tax

01:13:36.240 you.

01:13:36.520 So there are a lot of Americans that are making a lot more money now that don't want the economy

01:13:42.900 back.

01:13:43.240 Why would they want their lousy jobs back when they're making more money and they have

01:13:47.140 more leisure?

01:13:48.700 And now a lot of them don't even have to pay their rent.

01:13:51.300 It's okay not to pay your rent.

01:13:52.900 It's okay not to make your mortgage.

01:13:54.640 And by the way, we're going to give you even more money than when you were paying your rent.

01:13:58.940 So this is a windfall for a lot of people who are going to want to perpetuate this gravy

01:14:03.480 train.

01:14:04.600 You know, and so a lot of these programs are going to be extended because now we've created

01:14:07.980 this constituency, just like with Social Security.

01:14:10.680 The government hooks everybody on a Ponzi scheme called Social Security.

01:14:14.640 Instead of having self-reliant people save for their own retirement, we tax the hell out

01:14:19.180 of them when they're working, and we tell them to rely on the government Ponzi scheme.

01:14:22.980 But once you've got a bunch of people who have none of their own retirement savings, and the

01:14:26.980 only thing they got is a government promise, nobody will touch that.

01:14:30.740 You create that third rail where you have all these voters that have been bought and

01:14:34.560 paid for because of Social Security.

01:14:36.520 We're now doing that now on a bigger scale by putting a lot of people on these programs

01:14:41.000 where their livelihood now is coming from the government, and we'll see if anybody has

01:14:45.100 the ability to take that away.

01:14:46.340 So you have that class of people that's actually making more money, not being productive, not

01:14:50.620 working.

01:14:51.580 The people who are in the middle are, yeah, the guys that were maybe making $150,000, $200,000,

01:14:55.940 a year, their unemployment is not supplementing their incomes.

01:15:03.920 But nobody should be getting these checks.

01:15:08.240 A, the government doesn't have the money, and printing the money doesn't mean that we

01:15:12.220 can afford it because the cost of printing that is too much.

01:15:14.840 But you're saying nobody should be getting these checks, Peter, when you say nobody should

01:15:18.000 be getting these checks, but we should trust the shutdown, that's a contradictory message

01:15:23.660 because if nobody gets the check, yet we do shut down, then if they're not getting money,

01:15:29.360 there's many-

01:15:30.200 Here's the thing.

01:15:31.140 Getting money.

01:15:31.980 If the state governments knew that there was no federal bailout money coming, would they

01:15:38.420 be shutting everything down as aggressively as they are?

01:15:41.300 Or would they be doing more of a cost-benefit analysis?

01:15:44.200 I think it's because everybody believes that we can shut down and the government's just going

01:15:48.740 to provide all the money, and it's like, okay, let's play it safe.

01:15:51.980 But if you have to realize that there is a financial cost of these shutdowns, then maybe

01:15:58.060 we can do it in a smarter way, which is what I said from the beginning.

01:16:02.280 Maybe it's the older people who are not in good health who have these other conditions

01:16:07.640 that should be quarantined, and young, healthy people should be going about their day.

01:16:12.400 And maybe, yes, we could wear masks and things like that, but we should have to make viable

01:16:17.500 economic decisions knowing the cost and benefit of every decision we make.

01:16:21.840 If we operate under the false premise that there's no cost because all this money is coming

01:16:26.380 from free for the government, then we're not doing the right thing.

01:16:31.060 And I think a lot of these state governments, too, that were already broke going into this

01:16:35.840 crisis because of bad decisions they made, they're now using this as an excuse to say,

01:16:40.220 oh, we need all this bailout money.

01:16:41.660 Oh, you have to give us this money now.

01:16:43.560 You can't let us go bankrupt.

01:16:45.060 It's kind of like a get out of jail free card for a lot of states and municipalities who want

01:16:49.320 to milk this for all it's worth.

01:16:51.060 In a way, I think they're kind of intentionally doing this to get more government money.

01:16:56.000 It's like the worse they can make it for themselves, the more money they think they're

01:17:00.000 going to qualify for.

01:17:01.360 So if nobody thought that there was free money and we had a cost, then I think we would have

01:17:07.020 a more rational discussion on what to do and whether or not people don't pay their rent

01:17:14.360 or don't pay their mortgages, all of these decisions should be made voluntarily by the

01:17:19.820 affected parties.

01:17:21.020 So landlords and tenants should make their own deal without the government.

01:17:25.580 Because look, let's say I'm a landlord and my tenant is unemployed and he can't pay his

01:17:30.680 rent.

01:17:31.240 In this environment, if I kick him out, am I going to get another tenant right away?

01:17:35.820 How long is my apartment going to be empty anyway?

01:17:39.140 And if the guy was a good tenant for years and years, there's value in that relationship.

01:17:44.040 Landlords and tenants will work it out.

01:17:46.520 They worked it out during the depression.

01:17:49.440 Roosevelt never said no one has to pay their rent during the depression.

01:17:53.660 It was a depression.

01:17:54.540 There was 25% unemployment and they didn't say you don't have to pay rent.

01:17:58.020 But landlords, some people couldn't pay their rent.

01:18:00.100 They worked it out.

01:18:00.880 So we can work stuff out, borrowers and debtors, employers, employees, they can work it out.

01:18:08.280 The problem is everybody's broke.

01:18:10.240 Nobody has any savings.

01:18:11.500 Whose fault is that?

01:18:12.820 The Fed kept interest rates so low for so long.

01:18:15.620 They punished savers and they rewarded debtors.

01:18:18.480 So we got a lot of debtors and no savers.

01:18:20.740 How much, I'm assuming you've read the book, The Creature of Jekyll Island.

01:18:27.480 I'm assuming you've read it.

01:18:28.660 How much credence do you give to that yourself?

01:18:31.620 Are you from the school of thought of, I don't know about the six men or whatever it is that they got together?

01:18:37.960 How much value do you give to that?

01:18:39.580 Look, you know, I do not believe that the Federal Reserve was started with bad intent, right?

01:18:49.180 And the Federal Reserve Act, the way it was originally proposed and adopted, was not a bad act.

01:18:58.340 It was not, right?

01:18:59.960 The reason that the Fed was created is prior to the Federal Reserve, a lot of banks issued their own currency,

01:19:05.980 which was all, and all of it was backed by gold, right?

01:19:08.120 But, you know, if you were out in California and somebody gave you a note from a Philadelphia bank,

01:19:13.920 how did you know the note was good?

01:19:15.300 I mean, there were a lot of different notes that were circulating at the time.

01:19:19.780 And the idea was, let's have one central bank that could rediscount all these notes,

01:19:24.740 take the notes, right, and reissue its own notes.

01:19:27.320 So the Federal Reserve note was supposed to be backed 100% by notes of other banks and 40% by gold.

01:19:33.960 And the theory behind the Federal Reserve, too, was to provide an elastic money supply.

01:19:40.520 And the idea at the time was that as the economy expanded and contracted, the money supply would mimic the economy.

01:19:47.460 So during good times when the economy was expanding, the Federal Reserve would create money.

01:19:51.980 And during times when the economy was contracting during a recession, they would shrink the money supply, right?

01:19:56.920 The opposite of what they do now.

01:19:58.180 So it was supposed to have an elastic money supply that reacted to the economy to kind of smooth out prices

01:20:05.380 and to have a better quality of currency that would be more recognizable.

01:20:12.020 And the original Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Reserve was prohibited from owning any U.S. government debt.

01:20:20.100 They couldn't own even treasuries.

01:20:21.740 That was not even allowed.

01:20:23.420 That was in the original act.

01:20:24.860 They couldn't do it.

01:20:25.680 So that act, as originally intended, was not bad.

01:20:30.060 The problem was the camel's nose under the tent.

01:20:32.900 The reason not to do it was because nothing stays good.

01:20:37.380 Once you allow a central bank to form, it gets corrupted.

01:20:41.200 And it happened right away because we established the Federal Reserve in 1913.

01:20:45.520 We got into World War I in 1917.

01:20:48.460 The minute we got into World War I, that's when the government wanted to use the Fed to help finance the war.

01:20:55.100 And so they amended the Federal Reserve Act during World War I to allow the Federal Reserve to own U.S. treasuries so that we could finance World War I.

01:21:04.980 See, they used the crisis, the emergency of a war that we never should have entered in the first place.

01:21:10.120 We should have minded our own business and never got involved in that war.

01:21:13.740 And had we stayed out of World War I, there never would have been a World War II.

01:21:16.860 But that's the topic of a whole other podcast.

01:21:19.080 But because we got into war, we were able to amend the Federal Reserve Act.

01:21:23.620 And here's an interesting fact that people don't know.

01:21:26.500 You want to know why we have a debt ceiling?

01:21:28.860 The debt ceiling came about at the same time.

01:21:31.840 Because what happened was politicians back in 1917 were worried, hey, if we allow the Federal Reserve to buy U.S. treasuries, what if the Fed runs big debts, right?

01:21:43.760 And so they said, okay, we'll have a debt ceiling.

01:21:46.280 We'll limit how much money the federal government can borrow so we won't have to worry about the Fed monetizing the debt.

01:21:53.180 But the problem with the debt ceiling is that they could raise it.

01:21:56.800 So we empowered the Federal Reserve to monetize debt.

01:22:01.560 And we imposed the debt ceiling at the same time, understanding how the two are related.

01:22:07.540 But then every time we hit the ceiling, we raised it.

01:22:11.120 Nobody ever had the guts not to raise the ceiling.

01:22:14.640 See, when I ran for Senate in 2010, that was my campaign.

01:22:18.200 I was going to be the vote to filibuster the debt ceiling.

01:22:22.300 The buck was going to stop with me.

01:22:23.580 No more increase in the debt ceiling to force the government to cut spending.

01:22:27.760 See, they always say we have to raise the debt ceiling because America always pays its bills, right?

01:22:32.520 If we don't raise the debt ceiling, we can't pay our bills.

01:22:35.340 The reason we raise the debt ceiling is because we never pay our bills.

01:22:38.660 We go into debt instead of paying our bills.

01:22:41.200 I wanted to force the country to pay its bills by not raising the debt ceiling, by saying, okay, no more borrowing.

01:22:48.100 So we got to pay our bills or admit that we can't.

01:22:50.600 We have to default or whatever, but we're going to start to be honest.

01:22:54.200 But that's how we got the debt ceiling.

01:22:56.300 So I don't think that it was created as a conspiracy for an evil purpose.

01:23:02.020 I think it's another example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions and why we never should have had a central bank.

01:23:09.500 Because the people who opposed the central bank, like Andy Daxson, who got rid of the first central bank, right?

01:23:16.180 It's because they understand the potential for abuse, right?

01:23:20.560 The founding fathers knew that paper money and central banking was a bigger threat to our liberty than the armies of other nations, right?

01:23:28.840 We destroy ourselves.

01:23:31.040 And I think money, central banking, also the Supreme Court has done a lousy job of enforcing the Constitution.

01:23:37.920 So they've let us down as that branch of government judiciary has been a big failure.

01:23:43.520 But the central bank, I mean, that has been probably the biggest problem with hollowing out our economy and placing us in this predicament that we're in now.

01:23:52.440 Do you believe the most powerful man in the world is still the president of the United States?

01:23:55.660 Well, obviously, the president has a lot of power, but probably the Fed might have even more power for now.

01:24:03.620 But that power is going to go away.

01:24:05.080 When the dollar collapses and the U.S. dollar is no longer the reserve currency, then the power is going to collapse with it.

01:24:12.380 I mean, we still have a military, obviously, but the Soviet Union had a big military.

01:24:16.800 What happened to it?

01:24:17.480 It crumbled, right?

01:24:18.480 Because the Soviet Union was also a mirage, the same as the United States.

01:24:23.300 I mean, you know, we exist based on debt.

01:24:25.120 It's a debt bubble, and it's the world that is financing it.

01:24:27.840 The world is making this possible by accepting the dollar as the reserve currency and living beneath its means so that we can live above our means.

01:24:35.440 The world has to produce extra so that we can consume.

01:24:38.480 The world has to save money and lend it to us instead of using it productively in their own economy.

01:24:43.320 So we're basically a parasite right now feeding off the global economy.

01:24:46.800 As soon as they realize this and want to extricate themselves from this, you know, relationship, then the power of the United States is going to implode.

01:24:57.560 So the most powerful person in the world today, you're saying, is the Fed, Powell, is more powerful than the president?

01:25:04.880 Well, I think if Powell did the right thing, you know, but, you know, Trump could do the right thing, too.

01:25:12.020 You know, Trump could Trump could stop the spending.

01:25:15.880 He doesn't have to sign these these government bailouts and these deficits.

01:25:21.800 I mean, all he needs, all Trump needs is a third of the Senate, a chunk of the Republicans to stand with him.

01:25:29.320 And he could shrink government.

01:25:30.760 I mean, Trump could do the right thing right now if he wants to.

01:25:33.160 The problem is he doesn't want to.

01:25:34.020 He won't get reelected, though.

01:25:34.540 He will not get reelected, though.

01:25:35.760 Well, who cares?

01:25:36.340 He's probably not going to get reelected anyway.

01:25:38.000 But why did we elect Trump?

01:25:39.880 But that's the system that's been set up in America, though.

01:25:42.480 The system in America is when you become a president on first term, don't push the envelope too much.

01:25:47.040 Push it on the second one because you know this.

01:25:49.320 It's not like I'm the first one telling you this.

01:25:51.140 If you push too much on the first one, you won't get reelected.

01:25:53.780 But you know what?

01:25:54.740 When they get reelected, they don't do anything either.

01:25:57.380 Look, if I ever had the opportunity to be president, I would not be planning on my second term.

01:26:04.900 Because you don't know if you're going to get one.

01:26:06.540 I would want to do it all in my first term.

01:26:09.500 And Trump had the opportunity for his first two years when he had the Republican Congress.

01:26:14.460 That's when he could have leveled the public and used his political capital to do the right thing,

01:26:19.680 to step above politics and to level with the American public.

01:26:23.400 Instead, as soon as he became elected, he became another politician.

01:26:27.080 And all he cared about was having a second term.

01:26:30.460 And he was willing to sacrifice everything that got him his first term in order to buy the second term.

01:26:35.300 Well, I mean, he had to debate this Russia deal for the entire time.

01:26:38.200 So that made it pretty annoying when you're going in and you're kind of trying to fight off something else.

01:26:44.240 But gold standard.

01:26:45.480 Okay.

01:26:45.700 I know you're a big fan of going back to the gold standard.

01:26:48.280 If we do decide to go back on the gold standard, how do we do that?

01:26:53.000 Well, we're going to go back on the gold standard eventually.

01:26:55.600 You know, it's not going to be our decision.

01:26:57.040 It's going to be the market's decision.

01:26:58.400 I think the world is likely to go on the gold standard before we do, even though we still supposedly have a lot of gold.

01:27:05.640 Because the U.S. dollar is now the world reserve currency.

01:27:09.160 Before the dollar was the reserve currency, gold was the monetary reserve.

01:27:13.940 Right.

01:27:14.180 And we changed that, you know, in Brentwood.

01:27:17.220 But the reason we were able to get the world to follow us onto the dollar standard was because at the time, the U.S. was the world's richest creditor nation.

01:27:27.160 We had massive trade surpluses or big creditor nation.

01:27:30.700 And we had all the gold.

01:27:32.560 We had all the factories.

01:27:33.720 We were the big producer of manufactured goods, low cost producer of everything manufactured was made in America.

01:27:39.280 So we had a powerful economy, a wealthy economy.

01:27:42.940 And the dollar was not only backed by gold, but it was convertible into gold.

01:27:47.120 Americans couldn't convert it anymore, thanks to FDR.

01:27:50.200 But foreigners, if you had $35, Federal Reserve notes, you would get an ounce of gold.

01:27:55.000 And so what we told all the central banks around the world was, hey, back your currencies with dollars instead of gold.

01:28:02.820 Because the dollar is as good as gold because $35 are one ounce of gold.

01:28:06.680 But the difference is, if you have $35, you can buy a U.S. Treasury and earn interest, right?

01:28:14.220 But still have a gold standard because we got your gold at Fort Knox.

01:28:17.660 And so the world made that deal with us.

01:28:20.720 But, of course, once they made that deal, we exploited it.

01:28:23.940 Because now, all of a sudden, we convinced the world to hold treasuries as reserves, to loan the U.S. government money so we could spend more.

01:28:30.380 But what really happened during the 1960s is we abused that.

01:28:34.780 We really started running big deficits.

01:28:37.040 Because we didn't have to have the gold anymore.

01:28:38.900 We could just print money.

01:28:40.160 And everybody was holding on to it.

01:28:41.720 So we had the Great Society, the War on Poverty, Vietnam, the Moon Mission.

01:28:46.620 We had the guns and butter.

01:28:48.360 And we printed all this money.

01:28:51.140 And then we started, you know, our creditors got smart.

01:28:55.140 De Gaulle and France, in particular, wanted his gold.

01:28:58.360 This is bullshit.

01:28:59.060 You don't have any, you know.

01:28:59.980 And, in fact, prices really started to go up because of all the money we were printing.

01:29:04.360 But the price of gold wasn't going up.

01:29:05.780 All the other prices were going up.

01:29:07.400 And so it was clear that gold was undervalued.

01:29:09.400 And so the world wanted their money.

01:29:12.060 And then we went off the gold standard.

01:29:13.800 Instead of doing the right thing, which would be to devalue the dollar officially to a point

01:29:19.020 that the gold price would make sense or to allow deflation so that prices would come

01:29:24.180 down back in line with a $35 gold price.

01:29:26.900 We did the worst thing possible.

01:29:28.340 We went off the gold standard.

01:29:29.960 And the price of gold went up to $850.

01:29:31.900 We had all the inflation of the 1970s.

01:29:34.180 We really, you know, had a terrible decade.

01:29:37.500 But even though the dollar got marked down dramatically, it lost two-thirds of its value

01:29:42.040 against the Swiss franc, the DMARC, the yen.

01:29:46.280 The dollar continued to function as the reserve currency despite the fact that it was backed

01:29:50.280 by nothing, right?

01:29:51.440 Now, once that happened, we really abused that.

01:29:54.180 Then we started running massive deficits because we didn't have to have any gold.

01:29:57.740 Everybody knew that we didn't have any gold.

01:30:00.180 And we just kept printing money.

01:30:01.600 And then we developed this completely phony economy, this service sector economy that

01:30:06.540 was based on the ability to print money and just send it abroad.

01:30:10.140 And the world sent us all their stuff that we didn't have to produce.

01:30:13.180 And now no one had to save anything because we could just rely on the foreign savings.

01:30:17.240 But when the dollar crashes, and it's going to because this system has screwed up the entire

01:30:22.140 global economy, then the world is not just going to anoint some other currency as the

01:30:28.880 king, right?

01:30:29.360 We're not going to have the euro as the reserve currency or the yen or the Chinese R&B, none

01:30:35.760 of that, right?

01:30:36.720 We're just going to go back to gold.

01:30:38.840 Gold works as money.

01:30:41.100 And gold is a viable reserve for currency.

01:30:45.300 And that's why a lot of central banks still hold gold.

01:30:48.740 And that's why central banks have been buying gold is because they are preparing for a return

01:30:54.920 to a gold-based monetary system that works instead of this fiat system that doesn't, but

01:31:01.100 that principally benefits the United States.

01:31:03.480 The United States benefited because we were the monopolist in the creating of the dollar.

01:31:08.400 We got to print them.

01:31:09.820 And so we got this extraordinary privilege.

01:31:11.640 But in the process, we have hollowed out our economy.

01:31:15.200 So when we lose that privilege, we're going to have a huge price to pay.

01:31:18.800 We are very vulnerable because of this system.

01:31:23.920 But in the long run, I mean, we'll benefit too from a return to the gold standard.

01:31:28.380 But that's what's going to happen.

01:31:30.840 And the way you go back to a gold standard is you simply announce that your currency is

01:31:37.800 now tied to gold at a particular rate.

01:31:42.420 And obviously, that rate is going to be a function of how much gold you have and how

01:31:47.560 much currency is in circulation.

01:31:49.900 But obviously, the gold price for the U.S. to return to a gold standard, at this point,

01:31:55.560 I don't know if it's $10,000, $15,000, $20,000.

01:31:58.420 I don't know where we have to fix the price of gold to make it work in dollars.

01:32:02.380 But we can do it.

01:32:03.440 But then once you get on a gold standard, you've got to stay on a gold standard.

01:32:08.980 That means the budget has to be balanced.

01:32:11.160 That means trade has to be balanced, right?

01:32:14.820 We can't run these big budget deficits.

01:32:17.300 We can't run these big trade deficits.

01:32:18.740 So now, all of a sudden, gold is going to force fiscal responsibility on our elected officials,

01:32:26.200 which is what they don't want.

01:32:27.480 That is the opposition.

01:32:28.940 That is why government doesn't want the gold standard, because they don't want that kind

01:32:34.240 of restraint.

01:32:34.760 It's like, dude, if you're at a high school prom, do the kids want the chaperones there?

01:32:40.380 Of course not.

01:32:40.940 They don't want the chaperones there.

01:32:42.200 They want to have fun.

01:32:42.960 They don't want the chaperones.

01:32:44.600 And so the politicians don't want chaperones at their prom.

01:32:48.740 They don't want gold ruining their party.

01:32:51.200 They want to be Santa Claus.

01:32:52.520 They want to get, they want to promise something for nothing.

01:32:55.000 When you're on a gold standard, you can't print gold.

01:32:58.540 It has to be mined out of the ground, right?

01:33:01.260 So then the question becomes to go back to gold standard, the history of it.

01:33:05.140 If you can help me out with this part here, I think it was what?

01:33:07.740 FDR went on gold standard.

01:33:09.160 He asked people to bring back the gold and they were, you know, compensating it all the way.

01:33:12.960 We were, look, we were on a gold standard from the constitution.

01:33:18.280 And in fact, the constitution established both gold and silver as money.

01:33:21.820 So we're on a bi-metallic standard, right?

01:33:23.900 So the dollar was actually defined as a weight of gold or silver.

01:33:28.980 That was the definition of a dollar, right?

01:33:31.300 It's a measurement of how much gold or silver that you have, right?

01:33:35.240 And that's where it came from.

01:33:36.180 And it was actually, it was named from the Spanish mill dollar,

01:33:38.720 which was a coin that was circulating around the time of the revolution.

01:33:43.780 And in fact, during the revolution, we did have paper money, right?

01:33:47.540 The government issued continental money that was actually backed by gold,

01:33:51.900 but they issued too much of it.

01:33:53.680 And it ended up collapsing and people got 10 cents on the dollar.

01:33:57.240 And it gave way to the expression, not worth a continental,

01:34:01.360 which is one of the reasons that the founding fathers,

01:34:03.620 when they established the United States, did not want paper money.

01:34:07.260 And so they specifically banned it.

01:34:09.360 If you understand how the constitution is written,

01:34:11.520 you'll see that paper money is illegal in the United States.

01:34:14.500 They said gold and silver are legal tender.

01:34:17.100 They said no state can make anything other than gold and silver legal tender.

01:34:20.440 And the only power they gave to Congress was the power to coin money,

01:34:24.200 which is gold and silver.

01:34:25.260 They didn't give Congress the power to admit bills of credit,

01:34:28.240 which is paper money.

01:34:29.260 And they denied that power to the states.

01:34:31.400 So there was no paper money.

01:34:33.760 And we had no paper money at all in the United States until the Civil War, right?

01:34:38.880 So we went until 1961, right?

01:34:42.420 Without any paper money.

01:34:43.740 So if paper money was constitutional, we would have had it before 1861.

01:34:48.680 So we got paper money in 1861.

01:34:51.160 And it was backed by gold.

01:34:52.800 The greenbacks that were issued were backed by gold.

01:34:55.320 And they challenged it.

01:34:57.920 There were several Supreme Court cases because people said,

01:35:01.040 hey, this is unconstitutional.

01:35:02.140 You can't print money even if it's backed by gold.

01:35:05.260 And if you read some of these Supreme Court decisions,

01:35:08.180 the reason they said it was constitutional

01:35:10.060 was not because of the monetary powers that were given to Congress.

01:35:14.080 Everybody knew that they had no power to print money.

01:35:15.920 They looked to the necessary and proper clause and said,

01:35:18.900 we were in a civil war.

01:35:20.060 It was an emergency.

01:35:21.540 And so it was an emergency wartime power.

01:35:24.480 If the government could requisition goods in a war,

01:35:27.820 they could requisition goods and give you a paper IOU.

01:35:31.140 So it was because it was a war and there was an emergency

01:35:33.880 that we were able to issue the paper money back by gold.

01:35:38.340 And then what happened was after the war ended,

01:35:41.160 they stopped doing it.

01:35:42.280 I mean, so the paper money didn't even come back

01:35:45.900 until the Federal Reserve brought it back in 1913, right?

01:35:50.540 And we were still on a gold standard.

01:35:52.280 I said, Federal Reserve notes had to be backed by real money.

01:35:55.060 In fact, Federal Reserve notes were not dollars.

01:35:57.440 Federal Reserve notes were IOUs, $4.

01:36:00.380 The dollars were the gold that the Federal Reserve had,

01:36:03.400 a coin, right?

01:36:04.560 That's a dollar.

01:36:05.460 An ounce of gold is a dollar, right?

01:36:07.620 A $20 gold piece, about an ounce of gold, is $20.

01:36:11.340 The dollar is the gold and silver.

01:36:13.400 The piece of paper, the Federal Reserve note,

01:36:15.940 which is why it's called a note,

01:36:17.660 is it's a note because it pays the bearer dollars,

01:36:21.480 the real money.

01:36:22.300 The notes aren't the money.

01:36:23.760 The gold and silver was the money.

01:36:25.300 So we were still on a gold standard.

01:36:27.440 And then what happened is when the depression hit,

01:36:30.900 right, stock market crashed.

01:36:32.160 And Roosevelt, I mean, Hoover made all his mistakes.

01:36:36.380 Hoover was like the George Bush of his day

01:36:38.500 with big bailouts and stimulus, his own version,

01:36:41.580 to turn that downturn into what became the Great Depression.

01:36:45.060 Had we handled the 1929 downturn

01:36:47.700 the way we handled the 1920 downturn,

01:36:50.380 had we done nothing,

01:36:51.620 had we just cut government spending

01:36:53.120 and let the free market work,

01:36:54.580 there never would have been a depression

01:36:56.800 and we never would have elected Roosevelt.

01:36:58.280 But because Hoover intervened for political reasons

01:37:03.140 and made the situation worse,

01:37:05.340 we ended up with Hoover.

01:37:06.900 And believe it or not, Hoover campaigned,

01:37:08.780 I mean, Roosevelt campaigned against Hoover

01:37:10.600 by campaigning against the deficits that he ran,

01:37:13.680 the big deficits,

01:37:14.640 and saying, you know, he's intervening too much.

01:37:17.540 He was like Trump.

01:37:18.480 He kind of ran criticizing

01:37:20.360 the big government policies of Hoover.

01:37:22.280 But then when he won,

01:37:23.320 he adopted the entire agenda with the New Deal

01:37:25.800 and made it even worse.

01:37:28.820 But one of the things that Roosevelt wanted to do

01:37:32.240 was he wanted to increase government spending

01:37:35.420 and the gold standard stood in the way.

01:37:39.180 So rather than just abandoning the gold standard,

01:37:42.140 he said, it's illegal to own gold.

01:37:44.520 Everybody has to turn in their gold, right?

01:37:46.440 So everybody turned in their gold.

01:37:48.100 They're not everybody, but a lot of people.

01:37:49.460 And the government gave everybody $25, right?

01:37:54.020 For an ounce.

01:37:55.800 And then as soon as Roosevelt got everybody's gold,

01:37:58.660 he devalued the dollar and said,

01:38:00.460 now you need $35 to buy an ounce of gold.

01:38:03.040 So that's how they took all that money

01:38:05.240 because they had to devalue the dollar,

01:38:07.500 but they wanted to get all the gold first, right?

01:38:09.640 And then they used that to fund

01:38:11.180 a lot of the government programs.

01:38:12.760 But we stayed on a gold standard.

01:38:14.560 Even though we devalued the dollar,

01:38:16.980 we stayed on the gold standard

01:38:18.500 and it was illegal still to own gold

01:38:21.700 because the government,

01:38:22.580 in order to get everybody's gold,

01:38:24.120 they had to make it illegal to own it.

01:38:26.040 And it stayed illegal to own gold

01:38:28.100 until the early, the 1970s.

01:38:30.320 It was illegal to own it.

01:38:32.640 But even when the government made it legal again,

01:38:35.740 and you could always own gold jewelry.

01:38:37.340 You just couldn't own it in a monetary form.

01:38:39.580 You can have a necklace made of gold.

01:38:41.600 You can have silverware, you know, made of gold.

01:38:43.680 But you just couldn't have a bar,

01:38:45.700 a bullion or a coin.

01:38:48.000 But certain collector's coins you're allowed to have, right?

01:38:50.880 They couldn't take your coin collection.

01:38:52.920 But what happened was when they made it legal again

01:38:56.780 to own gold, it wasn't remonetized

01:38:58.720 because now we were totally off the gold standard.

01:39:01.100 We didn't leave the gold standard completely

01:39:03.200 until 1971 when Nixon, you know, said that's it.

01:39:07.040 But the reason we went off the gold standard

01:39:08.660 was because Nixon had a choice.

01:39:10.120 Cut government spending, right?

01:39:12.880 Or sever the link to gold

01:39:14.760 because we were reaching the point

01:39:16.540 where we could not do it anymore.

01:39:18.200 We were going to have to act responsibly, right?

01:39:22.300 Or to continue to be reckless.

01:39:25.100 But the only way to do that

01:39:26.120 was to get off the gold standard.

01:39:27.400 But the politicians want to pretend

01:39:29.200 that, oh, the gold standard is bad.

01:39:30.900 The gold standard is good.

01:39:32.500 You know, they'd say, oh, if we're on a gold standard,

01:39:34.220 we can't stimulate the economy in a recession.

01:39:36.780 Exactly, because the stimulus doesn't work.

01:39:39.840 It's actually a sedative.

01:39:41.260 The government causes the recessions

01:39:43.400 with the policies that it uses

01:39:45.380 to get us out of the last recession.

01:39:47.360 And instead of allowing the free market

01:39:49.260 to cure the economy,

01:39:51.280 government intervention makes it sicker.

01:39:54.020 So if somebody does believe

01:39:55.600 that we're going to go back on gold standard,

01:39:57.160 would this be a good time to buy gold?

01:39:59.180 Absolutely.

01:39:59.920 Look, we can't go back on a gold standard

01:40:02.120 at the current price of gold.

01:40:04.340 The price of gold is going to have to be

01:40:06.660 much higher than it is today.

01:40:09.380 Why is that?

01:40:10.400 But because look at all the money

01:40:12.300 that's in circulation.

01:40:13.300 I mean, look, the other way to do it

01:40:14.940 is if the price of everything else goes down.

01:40:17.020 So if we allow complete deflation,

01:40:18.820 if we allow prices to collapse

01:40:20.480 and gold stays the same,

01:40:22.100 then it can still work.

01:40:23.760 But it has to do with relative.

01:40:25.460 And in deflation, the government would destroy

01:40:27.480 a lot of the money that's in circulation.

01:40:29.440 So we can go back to a gold standard

01:40:31.460 through massive deflation.

01:40:33.000 I just don't think that that's politically expedient.

01:40:35.640 I think the easiest way to go back to a gold standard

01:40:37.920 is just to revalue the one price of gold up

01:40:40.820 to match everything else.

01:40:43.640 But either way, if you own gold,

01:40:45.780 you win either way, right?

01:40:47.180 If the price of gold goes up, way up,

01:40:49.940 then you have more purchasing power.

01:40:51.540 If the price of gold stays the same

01:40:53.320 and real estate crashes, stocks crash,

01:40:55.800 then you still have more purchasing power.

01:40:57.740 You can still buy more stuff with your gold.

01:41:00.080 So regardless of how we go back to a gold standard,

01:41:02.600 if you have more gold now, you are the winner, right?

01:41:06.320 The central banks that are adding

01:41:08.340 to their gold holdings now,

01:41:10.140 their nations will be winners, right?

01:41:12.340 It's the central banks that were dumb enough

01:41:14.040 to sell their gold

01:41:15.020 that still haven't bought any back.

01:41:17.760 Those are the ridiculously foolish decisions.

01:41:20.540 You're a pro-gold guy.

01:41:21.500 So then the other question would be,

01:41:23.360 when is it bad time to buy gold?

01:41:25.680 Well, look, as a trader, look,

01:41:27.780 obviously after a big spike,

01:41:29.740 it's probably not the best time to be a trader.

01:41:32.360 But as far as, if you don't own any gold,

01:41:35.660 the best time to buy some is right now

01:41:37.780 because it's like, you know,

01:41:39.100 what if you don't own any insurance?

01:41:41.240 You know, what if you have a house?

01:41:43.180 When's the best time to buy your insurance policy?

01:41:45.240 Just go on, buy it

01:41:46.240 because you don't have insurance.

01:41:47.780 You know, if you have a family that depends on you,

01:41:50.460 you don't have life insurance,

01:41:52.060 when's the best time to buy it?

01:41:53.540 You better buy it now, right?

01:41:55.000 I mean, now if I knew exactly when I was gonna die,

01:41:58.660 well, then I could buy it the day before.

01:42:01.340 But since you don't know that, right?

01:42:03.320 Gold is insurance.

01:42:04.560 So you need to have it.

01:42:05.740 You need to own it.

01:42:06.520 So if you don't own any gold,

01:42:08.540 you buy some today.

01:42:09.780 Doesn't matter the price.

01:42:10.800 Now, do you buy all that you can afford?

01:42:12.880 No.

01:42:13.320 Keep a little powder dry.

01:42:14.820 Buy some more if it goes down.

01:42:16.580 And in the future, if you have more money,

01:42:18.680 like people should have five or 10% of their money in gold.

01:42:21.020 But as they earn more money,

01:42:22.580 they need to buy more gold, right?

01:42:24.080 Because now you have a bigger portfolio

01:42:25.580 that you need to protect.

01:42:27.700 So, you know, my company is Shift Gold.

01:42:29.620 I think I got the best prices.

01:42:31.240 If you don't believe me, just shop around.

01:42:33.020 Don't buy numismatics.

01:42:34.400 You know, that's not a gold investing.

01:42:36.280 That's a coin collector.

01:42:37.760 This is not the time to start a coin collection.

01:42:39.860 You just want to own bullion.

01:42:41.140 That's the cheapest way to acquire gold or silver.

01:42:44.720 So people should do that.

01:42:46.060 You know, and I think the mining stocks

01:42:48.260 are really good investments

01:42:49.120 because I think that they don't reflect

01:42:50.660 what's gonna happen.

01:42:51.940 That's more speculative.

01:42:53.340 But I think, you know, people should be buying.

01:42:54.960 And I've been telling people to buy gold

01:42:56.660 for over 20 years.

01:42:57.920 When I started recommending it as a broker,

01:43:00.300 gold was under $400 an ounce.

01:43:03.220 It was actually under $300 for a while,

01:43:04.840 but I didn't really start buying it for my clients

01:43:06.860 until it was in the threes.

01:43:08.400 I started buying silver.

01:43:10.120 It was under five bucks.

01:43:11.740 It's around 15 now.

01:43:13.060 It got as high as $50 in 2011.

01:43:16.340 I think it's going much higher than that

01:43:17.820 in this bull market.

01:43:19.300 So are you more Bitcoin or are you more gold?

01:43:21.560 Well, I don't have any Bitcoin at all.

01:43:24.380 I mean, I don't think the cryptocurrencies

01:43:26.720 are going to work.

01:43:29.240 I think they're fool's gold.

01:43:30.460 I think that they're speculative vehicles.

01:43:33.060 I think there are a lot of people who think

01:43:34.520 that Bitcoin is gold

01:43:36.500 because it's replicated some of the properties

01:43:39.480 that made gold a better money

01:43:41.560 than other commodities that have functioned as money.

01:43:43.860 But it misses the point,

01:43:45.460 the most important point of any money

01:43:47.860 is its intrinsic value.

01:43:49.280 The reason that gold worked as money

01:43:52.100 is because of the inherent value of the metal,

01:43:54.720 its properties as a metal,

01:43:56.640 and the fact that it has so many uses.

01:43:59.440 It's the most useful metal on the planet,

01:44:01.720 whether it's for conducting electricity,

01:44:05.420 all the other applications it has

01:44:07.460 that makes it such a good metal for jewelry

01:44:09.500 or other applications.

01:44:12.620 Gold is valuable,

01:44:14.200 and gold can store that value indefinitely,

01:44:16.460 which is why it's so good as money.

01:44:18.800 And it has other properties

01:44:20.020 as far as its liquidity

01:44:21.940 and its divisibility

01:44:23.160 and its durability

01:44:24.080 and its immutability.

01:44:25.620 And there's a lot of things,

01:44:26.620 a lot of characteristics

01:44:27.420 that make gold better money

01:44:28.740 than salt or cattle

01:44:30.700 or, you know,

01:44:31.740 or wampum or cigarettes

01:44:33.200 or different things

01:44:33.980 that could function as money.

01:44:35.420 But what gives paper money value

01:44:38.500 is the real money that backs it up, right?

01:44:40.480 Because fiat money

01:44:41.120 doesn't have any value on its own

01:44:42.400 unless it's tied to something real.

01:44:44.440 But Bitcoin has no actual value.

01:44:46.940 There's,

01:44:47.600 you can't do anything with a Bitcoin.

01:44:49.520 There is no real world demand for Bitcoin.

01:44:52.700 Yes, you can sell it to somebody else,

01:44:54.660 but they'll only buy it

01:44:55.840 if they think the price is going to go up.

01:44:57.400 But somebody will only buy it from them

01:44:59.020 if they think somebody will pay more.

01:45:00.760 But the minute you run out of greater fools,

01:45:03.200 the pyramid implodes.

01:45:04.480 And that's really what we have.

01:45:06.040 I feel badly for a lot of people

01:45:07.540 who are going to lose a lot of money

01:45:08.700 who have bought into this pyramid.

01:45:11.440 But a lot of people who got in early

01:45:13.760 who are smart enough to get out

01:45:16.280 will make a lot of money.

01:45:17.620 If they're smart enough to convert that,

01:45:19.720 those paper profits into gold,

01:45:21.420 then they'll keep the money.

01:45:22.660 They'll keep the purchasing power.

01:45:24.040 You've been an entrepreneur before

01:45:25.100 multiple times.

01:45:25.740 You have businesses.

01:45:26.780 You've done well for yourself,

01:45:28.240 whether it was companies.

01:45:29.280 I mean, I've read somewhere where,

01:45:30.900 I think for like a three-year span,

01:45:32.660 your salary per year,

01:45:33.760 you were making somewhere around $17 million a year.

01:45:36.060 I don't know if that's accurate or not,

01:45:37.400 but it's said that you've made

01:45:39.020 some legitimate money.

01:45:40.600 You've done well for yourself.

01:45:41.900 Well, all the money I've made

01:45:43.900 has been legitimate.

01:45:44.880 I haven't stolen it.

01:45:46.040 When I say legitimate,

01:45:47.240 I mean, believe me,

01:45:47.920 I've interviewed mobsters.

01:45:49.040 I don't mean as mob money.

01:45:50.480 I'm talking about like,

01:45:51.900 you've made money.

01:45:52.820 Like you're not somebody that has opinions

01:45:54.640 that just wrote a couple books.

01:45:56.880 You've made money,

01:45:57.580 and then you started giving your opinions.

01:45:59.340 Yeah, look.

01:46:00.480 This is the question I was going to ask you.

01:46:02.180 If you're the 35-year-old Peter Schiff today,

01:46:04.680 you're running a small business,

01:46:06.120 you've got employees,

01:46:07.800 you've got, you know,

01:46:09.480 the challenge you're facing with shutting down.

01:46:11.900 What would the 35-year-old Peter Schiff

01:46:13.980 be doing in today's economy?

01:46:16.560 Well, I mean, you know,

01:46:18.460 if I had my business,

01:46:21.500 which, you know,

01:46:21.820 my business was very small when I was 35.

01:46:25.140 That's perfect.

01:46:26.200 That's the person that,

01:46:27.160 I want that person's counsel.

01:46:28.740 I could have easily,

01:46:29.640 remember,

01:46:30.100 the first two years that I ran my business,

01:46:33.060 I didn't even earn any money.

01:46:34.320 I had no income.

01:46:34.960 I had to spend all my revenue

01:46:36.840 on my rent,

01:46:38.560 on my salaries.

01:46:40.120 And the reason I was able to go into business

01:46:42.100 is because I had personal savings.

01:46:44.480 And how did I get personal savings?

01:46:46.120 When I worked for an employer

01:46:48.600 like Searson Lehman,

01:46:49.660 like we discussed,

01:46:50.760 and I earned money,

01:46:52.220 I didn't spend most of it.

01:46:53.540 I saved it, right?

01:46:54.960 And so I was able to use my savings

01:46:57.500 to start my own business,

01:46:59.160 and I was able to survive on those savings

01:47:01.500 and some profits I had from an investment.

01:47:04.200 I had invested early on

01:47:05.340 in some cellular phone deal,

01:47:06.560 and I made some money there

01:47:07.480 back in the days

01:47:08.460 where they were lotterying off

01:47:09.540 the sell signals.

01:47:10.920 So I had some income from an investment.

01:47:12.560 I had some savings from work,

01:47:13.920 and that was able to tide me over

01:47:15.440 for a couple years

01:47:16.040 where I earned no money.

01:47:18.300 And I started a business.

01:47:20.360 But, you know,

01:47:20.800 so I was already used to earning no money

01:47:23.180 at one point.

01:47:23.740 I mean,

01:47:23.940 if I would have maintained,

01:47:26.620 as I've always had,

01:47:27.720 I've always maintained my business

01:47:29.280 in a way that I can go without revenue.

01:47:32.400 That I, you know,

01:47:33.220 and as an entrepreneur,

01:47:34.580 as a businessman,

01:47:35.600 that is a risk that you take

01:47:37.220 as an entrepreneur

01:47:38.480 is you may not get any money,

01:47:40.040 but you may have to be on the hook

01:47:42.240 for all kinds of costs.

01:47:44.500 And so that's part of what you do

01:47:46.360 as a business

01:47:46.900 is that you have reserves.

01:47:49.120 And I've always operated my businesses

01:47:51.100 where if I don't earn any income,

01:47:53.820 I'm fine.

01:47:54.620 I can cover my overhead

01:47:57.020 with my past income.

01:47:59.040 I can use that, right?

01:48:00.400 Now, obviously,

01:48:01.300 taxation diminishes people's ability

01:48:03.320 to do that,

01:48:04.400 but you can still do that.

01:48:05.880 But, you know,

01:48:06.900 I would not be looking

01:48:08.180 for a government bailout.

01:48:09.920 Look, I didn't take any of this money.

01:48:11.640 Look, I could have signed up

01:48:13.800 and I could have got a bunch of money.

01:48:16.300 I have several businesses

01:48:17.300 that have employees

01:48:18.420 that I have no intention of firing,

01:48:19.880 so I could have got all this free money.

01:48:21.600 But the problem is, you know,

01:48:22.720 I knew I didn't need the money,

01:48:25.080 so I didn't want to say

01:48:26.220 to the government,

01:48:26.740 I need the money.

01:48:27.600 But look, I don't want to pay taxes.

01:48:29.440 I'm in Puerto Rico now, right?

01:48:31.000 When I was making a lot

01:48:32.320 of that big money back then,

01:48:34.920 I was half of it

01:48:35.560 was going to the government.

01:48:36.580 So I made a lot of money,

01:48:37.960 but the government took half.

01:48:40.060 Now the government's not taking any,

01:48:41.540 at least the federal government

01:48:42.420 or very little of it.

01:48:44.220 And so, you know,

01:48:45.640 now I'm able to keep what I earn,

01:48:47.420 but I'm earning the money.

01:48:48.280 I'm earning it legitimately

01:48:49.400 by providing services

01:48:51.220 that people are voluntarily

01:48:52.940 paying me to provide.

01:48:54.860 You know, my main business

01:48:56.100 is asset management

01:48:57.160 where I manage people's money

01:48:58.520 through individual accounts,

01:49:00.180 through my mutual funds,

01:49:01.540 which people can, you know,

01:49:02.460 go to yourpacificfunds.com

01:49:04.160 to check out my mutual funds

01:49:05.320 or yourpacificcapital,

01:49:06.880 yourpac.com

01:49:07.760 to look at having accounts with me.

01:49:09.600 I have a bank here,

01:49:10.560 yourpacificbank,

01:49:11.460 you know, we shift gold

01:49:12.220 where we sell gold.

01:49:13.120 So I'm in the market

01:49:14.680 competing with other gold companies.

01:49:16.400 You know, I compete

01:49:16.880 with other broker dealers

01:49:18.300 and banks

01:49:18.980 and asset management companies.

01:49:20.020 And obviously,

01:49:20.900 there are people

01:49:21.440 who choose to do business with me

01:49:22.940 when they could do business

01:49:25.260 with somebody else,

01:49:25.960 but they choose

01:49:26.440 to do business with me.

01:49:27.900 But I think something

01:49:28.780 that's very powerful, though.

01:49:29.720 You said something

01:49:30.180 that's very powerful.

01:49:30.880 I think the small business owner,

01:49:31.940 the entrepreneur can take that.

01:49:33.440 It's not what you're doing today

01:49:35.920 that matters.

01:49:36.560 It's what you did a year ago,

01:49:37.960 two years ago,

01:49:38.580 three years ago

01:49:39.080 to prepare yourself

01:49:40.040 for a crisis like a time like this

01:49:42.340 where you can at least survive

01:49:43.380 during times like this.

01:49:44.620 Yeah, and people forget,

01:49:46.940 you know,

01:49:47.140 when everybody thinks

01:49:47.820 it's easy to be the businessman,

01:49:49.820 like, oh, it's not fair.

01:49:51.440 You know, the workers,

01:49:52.460 you know,

01:49:52.760 they need to share in the profits.

01:49:54.720 The workers don't share

01:49:56.060 in the risks.

01:49:57.420 You know,

01:49:57.780 when people take a job,

01:49:59.700 right,

01:49:59.820 the easiest thing you could do

01:50:01.340 is accept a job

01:50:02.900 from somebody else

01:50:03.640 because now they are on the hook

01:50:05.160 with paying you, right?

01:50:06.540 They have to figure out

01:50:07.560 how to cover the pay, right?

01:50:09.260 You get a guaranteed salary, right,

01:50:11.980 where the employer

01:50:12.720 is going to pay you

01:50:13.680 every Friday

01:50:14.900 or every other Friday,

01:50:16.540 whether he's got a profit or not.

01:50:18.140 When you own a business,

01:50:19.720 you are the last one to get paid.

01:50:22.060 That's right.

01:50:22.400 You only get paid

01:50:23.260 after you've paid everybody else.

01:50:25.160 You've paid your workers their wages.

01:50:27.700 You paid the landlord the rent.

01:50:29.620 If you borrowed money,

01:50:30.620 you paid interest to your lenders, right?

01:50:32.980 Only if there's something left over

01:50:34.600 do you make any money.

01:50:35.920 And that is the risk

01:50:37.080 that the entrepreneur

01:50:38.360 is rewarded for taking

01:50:40.120 because you set a business.

01:50:41.460 You have no idea

01:50:42.260 if you're going to succeed or fail.

01:50:43.460 And so if you succeed,

01:50:45.340 you need to be paid for that.

01:50:47.300 But you also then are responsible

01:50:49.300 as you're making money

01:50:51.320 not to just spend it all.

01:50:53.700 Workers, okay,

01:50:54.620 if you're going to live

01:50:55.240 paycheck to paycheck,

01:50:56.400 that's on you.

01:50:57.360 But if you're the employer

01:50:58.620 and you're living paycheck to paycheck,

01:51:00.280 you're putting all of your workers at risk.

01:51:02.280 You're putting your whole company at risk.

01:51:03.900 So you don't do that.

01:51:05.260 You save your money.

01:51:06.360 But you know,

01:51:06.720 you have the Federal Reserve

01:51:07.680 and the government coming in

01:51:09.040 and encouraging debt,

01:51:10.600 encouraging leverage,

01:51:12.200 screwing up the system.

01:51:15.000 But the entrepreneur deserves

01:51:16.660 what he earns.

01:51:18.360 But if he's not responsible enough

01:51:21.020 to be a steward of capital

01:51:23.500 and prepare for potential downturns,

01:51:26.760 which always come,

01:51:28.100 then the free market will clean house.

01:51:30.640 And what happens is

01:51:31.600 you learn by example.

01:51:33.540 When people go bankrupt,

01:51:35.160 not only does that send a message

01:51:36.680 to the person who went bankrupt,

01:51:38.240 but to all the other people

01:51:39.480 of what you don't do.

01:51:41.140 Here's an example of what not to do.

01:51:43.400 Because if you run your business like this,

01:51:45.240 you can lose your business.

01:51:46.520 You can go bankrupt.

01:51:47.620 But what we're doing now

01:51:48.700 is we're rewarding the people

01:51:50.080 who were reckless

01:51:51.480 by bailing them out.

01:51:52.660 And then we're telling the people

01:51:53.780 who weren't reckless,

01:51:54.860 you were a bunch of chumps.

01:51:56.060 Why were you saving for a rainy day?

01:51:57.900 Just wait for the government

01:51:58.920 to bail you out.

01:52:00.100 We're going to do the same thing

01:52:01.120 with the state governments.

01:52:01.980 If we bail out all these states

01:52:03.680 that should fail,

01:52:05.260 not only are we sending

01:52:06.120 the bad message to those states,

01:52:08.180 keep acting irresponsibly,

01:52:09.840 we're telling the responsible states

01:52:11.600 you're a bunch of morons.

01:52:12.720 You guys are idiots

01:52:13.560 for acting responsibly.

01:52:15.820 Cut taxes.

01:52:16.700 Very weird.

01:52:17.200 Income spending.

01:52:18.200 Because why should you be frugal?

01:52:19.940 Because you're just going to be bailed out.

01:52:21.580 We're going to just tax the other states

01:52:23.040 to cover your profligacy.

01:52:24.900 Very weird.

01:52:25.440 I mean, you saw Harvard

01:52:26.120 took $8.55 million check themselves

01:52:28.800 from the bailout.

01:52:30.780 And Lakers took $4.6 million.

01:52:32.580 And then after a bunch of people

01:52:33.480 talked smack to the Lakers,

01:52:34.460 they gave the money back.

01:52:36.120 And they said,

01:52:36.860 yeah, we don't need the money.

01:52:38.300 By the way, 30 seconds.

01:52:39.780 Peter, who were you in high school?

01:52:41.040 If I was in high school

01:52:42.840 with you, 16 years old,

01:52:43.920 who was the 16-year-old Peter Schiff?

01:52:45.760 Well, you know,

01:52:46.400 my father had a lot of influence on me

01:52:48.900 as far as my thinking,

01:52:50.060 Erwin Schiff,

01:52:50.880 and understanding economics,

01:52:52.880 Austrian economics,

01:52:54.540 Ayn Rand,

01:52:55.300 you know, the Constitution.

01:52:56.940 So I had a lot of

01:52:59.080 my political philosophy

01:53:01.120 even back then.

01:53:02.520 Just like my oldest son,

01:53:03.960 who's now 17.

01:53:04.640 You know, he's done a lot of reading.

01:53:06.780 And because of me,

01:53:07.680 I put him on the right path.

01:53:09.260 And then he's, you know,

01:53:09.960 kind of traveled pretty far

01:53:11.560 down that path himself.

01:53:12.740 So I've had my political feelings

01:53:17.740 and my economic understanding

01:53:18.840 for almost my entire life.

01:53:20.700 And so I do have a lot of respect

01:53:22.320 for people who didn't have

01:53:24.280 the advantage that I did

01:53:25.340 of having a father like I had.

01:53:27.020 Because a lot of people

01:53:28.100 start out when they're younger,

01:53:29.720 they're very socialist,

01:53:32.140 which is a natural thing to be,

01:53:34.340 you know,

01:53:34.900 because you're ruled

01:53:35.900 by your emotions

01:53:36.720 and you're caring.

01:53:38.420 And you don't have

01:53:39.360 the real world experience

01:53:40.420 to understand

01:53:41.340 all of the negative consequences

01:53:44.820 of all the well-intentioned programs.

01:53:47.280 So a lot of people

01:53:48.660 start out as a liberal,

01:53:50.480 start out socialist,

01:53:51.680 and they have to learn.

01:53:53.180 They have to evolve.

01:53:54.060 They have to experience life

01:53:56.340 and then get experience

01:53:59.060 and intellect and learn

01:54:01.200 to realize that all the ideas

01:54:03.340 they had when they were young

01:54:04.300 were wrong,

01:54:05.220 that they were well-intentioned,

01:54:06.760 but wrong.

01:54:07.700 Because intentions

01:54:08.740 isn't what counts.

01:54:10.240 It's the outcome.

01:54:11.260 That's what liberals

01:54:11.980 still don't understand, right?

01:54:13.640 They can have a well-intentioned law

01:54:15.680 like the minimum wage

01:54:16.780 and not understand

01:54:18.020 the unintended consequences

01:54:20.360 of impoverishing the people

01:54:21.800 that you're trying to help,

01:54:22.740 of throwing people out of work,

01:54:25.080 of making it impossible

01:54:26.240 for low-skilled people

01:54:28.860 to get skills

01:54:29.920 and earn more money.

01:54:30.820 I mean, people can't get behind,

01:54:32.920 yeah, but this guy

01:54:33.580 is not earning enough money,

01:54:34.660 so let's just pass a law

01:54:36.460 so that he'll earn more

01:54:37.820 and not understand

01:54:38.880 the consequence of that law

01:54:40.260 is that he earns less

01:54:41.320 or he earns nothing.

01:54:43.640 And so other people

01:54:45.900 have had to make that evolution

01:54:48.800 of thought, right?

01:54:50.300 They started off over here

01:54:51.900 and they had to come over here

01:54:53.360 on their own.

01:54:54.620 I started off here.

01:54:55.840 I was already here.

01:54:56.820 So I have more respect

01:54:58.060 for people who had to make

01:54:59.280 that journey, right?

01:55:00.680 Who had to question

01:55:01.920 what they once believed

01:55:03.920 and overcome that,

01:55:05.580 which, you know,

01:55:06.040 and there's an old political saying,

01:55:07.460 right,

01:55:07.560 if you're not liberal

01:55:08.300 by the time you're 22,

01:55:09.260 you don't have a heart.

01:55:10.300 If you're not a conservative

01:55:11.300 by the time you're 28,

01:55:12.240 you don't have a head.

01:55:13.880 And those sayings,

01:55:14.960 they're free.

01:55:15.320 And that's why

01:55:16.480 a lot of people on the left

01:55:18.200 think that conservatives

01:55:19.640 or libertarians

01:55:20.480 are mean, right?

01:55:22.060 Because they're just

01:55:23.400 against these programs

01:55:24.700 because they're mean.

01:55:26.060 It's not that we're mean.

01:55:27.680 It's that we understand

01:55:28.860 that they don't work,

01:55:30.580 that they backfire.

01:55:31.720 See, the liberals

01:55:32.340 don't understand that.

01:55:33.140 They actually think

01:55:33.940 the programs work.

01:55:34.980 So that's why conservatives

01:55:36.280 don't think liberals are mean.

01:55:38.180 They just think they're foolish.

01:55:39.680 But liberals are convinced

01:55:41.240 that conservatives

01:55:42.020 are actually mean,

01:55:42.980 bad people,

01:55:43.940 that they want to deny

01:55:45.240 all this government help.

01:55:47.860 What we're denying

01:55:48.840 is the problems

01:55:50.320 that that health creates,

01:55:51.680 the dependency

01:55:52.580 and the poverty

01:55:53.400 that it perpetrates.

01:55:54.700 The liberals just haven't

01:55:55.680 had that epiphany yet.

01:55:57.000 They never made that journey.

01:55:58.680 Their kids,

01:55:59.300 they never grew up.

01:56:00.240 They're like little kids

01:56:00.900 that believed in Santa Claus

01:56:02.000 and now they're adults

01:56:03.020 and they still believe.

01:56:04.220 I love that part,

01:56:05.620 by the way.

01:56:06.200 And by the way,

01:56:06.640 your father,

01:56:07.300 the more I read about your father,

01:56:08.440 your father is a very,

01:56:09.600 very unique human being.

01:56:10.960 What he did

01:56:11.760 and his level of conviction

01:56:13.200 in certain areas,

01:56:14.220 a lot of respect

01:56:15.680 for that man.

01:56:16.900 I can only imagine

01:56:17.940 what it was like

01:56:18.680 being around him

01:56:19.340 and he's sharing

01:56:20.300 his philosophies with you

01:56:21.580 and his teachings with you.

01:56:23.740 I bet that was...

01:56:24.640 He was a great guy,

01:56:26.060 a patriotic guy,

01:56:27.640 really, you know,

01:56:28.900 did what he thought

01:56:29.660 was right for his country

01:56:30.700 and he paid

01:56:31.260 the ultimate price for that

01:56:32.740 as dying

01:56:33.580 as a political prisoner

01:56:34.500 in the United States,

01:56:37.580 which political prisoners

01:56:38.800 do exist here.

01:56:39.620 My father was one of them.

01:56:41.280 He was in prison

01:56:42.160 for his politics,

01:56:43.020 not because he was a criminal.

01:56:45.140 But yeah,

01:56:45.580 his books live on.

01:56:46.800 You know,

01:56:46.920 you've got his website,

01:56:48.040 paynoincometax.com

01:56:49.200 is still there.

01:56:50.200 I have some of his books

01:56:51.360 at shiftbooks.com.

01:56:52.860 Some of his books

01:56:53.440 you can download for free

01:56:54.580 on the internet.

01:56:55.260 You know,

01:56:55.420 his book,

01:56:55.820 The Federal Mafia,

01:56:56.840 we still have copies of it

01:56:58.520 at Shift Books,

01:56:59.620 but it was actually banned.

01:57:01.400 There's only been two books

01:57:02.880 in the history of America

01:57:04.300 that were ever banned

01:57:05.440 by the federal government.

01:57:06.360 The first one was Fannie Hill,

01:57:08.060 which was banned

01:57:08.760 at 18-something

01:57:09.620 for being pornographic.

01:57:11.440 The next one was

01:57:12.180 my father's book,

01:57:13.020 The Federal Mafia.

01:57:14.400 So it's a trip.

01:57:15.040 I don't know if it'll ever

01:57:15.660 make it on a trivial

01:57:16.460 pursuit card.

01:57:18.960 That's hilarious.

01:57:21.100 You know,

01:57:21.660 but Galileo said in 1600,

01:57:23.500 he says the earth

01:57:24.420 revolves around the sun

01:57:25.920 and they arrested him.

01:57:27.020 So a lot of...

01:57:27.500 Yes, my father used to point

01:57:28.920 to Galileo a lot,

01:57:30.060 not to equate himself

01:57:31.600 to Galileo

01:57:32.360 to say that I'm as smart

01:57:33.460 as Galileo,

01:57:34.660 but just the fact

01:57:35.700 that when people would say,

01:57:36.540 well, Erwin,

01:57:37.480 you went to jail.

01:57:38.680 Well, that doesn't mean

01:57:39.340 he was wrong.

01:57:39.940 He would say,

01:57:40.300 Galileo went to jail.

01:57:41.720 He wasn't wrong

01:57:42.560 just because the government

01:57:43.660 put him in jail

01:57:44.380 for saying something

01:57:45.360 doesn't mean that

01:57:46.120 what he was saying

01:57:46.720 was wrong.

01:57:47.740 And so my father said things

01:57:49.040 that he believed were right,

01:57:50.040 and I think many cases

01:57:51.100 were right,

01:57:51.940 but the government

01:57:52.540 put him in jail

01:57:53.180 for expressing those opinions.

01:57:55.220 Anyways,

01:57:55.780 respect your pops, man.

01:57:56.760 And it's good

01:57:57.460 that the legacy

01:57:58.300 continues on with you

01:57:59.580 and you're pushing

01:58:00.280 the envelope.

01:58:00.880 I want to do

01:58:01.300 a speed round with you.

01:58:02.300 I'll give you a name.

01:58:03.200 Tell me the first thing

01:58:03.900 that comes to your mind.

01:58:04.760 I'm going to give you a name.

01:58:05.600 Tell me the first thing

01:58:06.240 that comes to your mind.

01:58:07.340 Milton Friedman.

01:58:08.360 He's a great economist,

01:58:09.360 but I disagree with him

01:58:11.200 on money.

01:58:13.440 Ronald Reagan.

01:58:14.500 The first president

01:58:15.740 I voted for,

01:58:17.240 but I was very disappointed

01:58:18.540 in him,

01:58:19.760 and I voted libertarian.

01:58:22.020 I voted for,

01:58:22.680 I think it was Ron Paul

01:58:23.480 when he ran for re-election

01:58:25.480 because Reagan,

01:58:27.860 and I had a poster

01:58:29.100 of Ronald Reagan

01:58:29.720 on my dorm room wall

01:58:30.940 as a freshman at Berkeley.

01:58:32.640 Yeah,

01:58:32.860 you know,

01:58:33.020 and his cowboy hat.

01:58:34.040 In Berkeley.

01:58:35.220 You know,

01:58:35.520 I was a big Reagan guy,

01:58:36.780 you know,

01:58:37.600 and as a kid,

01:58:39.040 I mean,

01:58:39.180 I love Reagan,

01:58:40.460 but I was disappointed

01:58:42.140 because Reagan promised

01:58:43.340 to get rid of

01:58:43.980 the Department of Energy

01:58:44.740 to the Department of Education,

01:58:46.280 cut government spending,

01:58:47.240 and he made the deal

01:58:49.180 with Tip O'Neill

01:58:49.900 and government spending

01:58:51.320 went up

01:58:51.780 and the deficits went up

01:58:52.800 and that frustrated me

01:58:53.940 back then.

01:58:55.040 We got the tax cuts.

01:58:56.360 That was the easy part.

01:58:57.560 We didn't get the spending cuts

01:58:58.760 and initially,

01:58:59.540 there was a deal

01:59:00.180 that he made

01:59:00.560 with Tip O'Neill.

01:59:01.400 It was supposed to be

01:59:01.980 two dollars

01:59:02.620 of tax cuts

01:59:05.040 for every dollar

01:59:05.740 of spending cuts,

01:59:07.500 rather,

01:59:08.040 you know,

01:59:08.260 for the tax cuts

01:59:08.980 and we never got

01:59:09.640 the spending cuts,

01:59:10.300 so I was disappointed,

01:59:11.920 but I still thought

01:59:13.760 Reagan was a great man

01:59:14.880 and he tried,

01:59:16.780 but somehow he got

01:59:17.580 to Washington

01:59:18.160 and he got corrupted

01:59:19.520 by that swamp.

01:59:21.120 Alan Greenspan.

01:59:22.920 He was the ace of spades

01:59:25.080 in the deck

01:59:26.080 that created

01:59:26.580 the financial crisis,

01:59:27.500 so I guess the word

01:59:28.560 for him is traitor.

01:59:29.820 That's the word

01:59:30.520 I think of

01:59:30.980 because I really liked

01:59:33.080 Greenspan

01:59:33.680 as a kid,

01:59:35.220 you know,

01:59:35.440 because Greenspan,

01:59:36.420 he wrote that

01:59:37.120 brilliant piece

01:59:38.600 in Ayn Rand's book,

01:59:40.480 Capitalism,

01:59:41.260 The Unknown Ideal,

01:59:42.720 Gold and Economic Freedom,

01:59:44.100 and I still have,

01:59:45.580 you can go to my website,

01:59:47.540 Shift Radio,

01:59:48.940 and I posted up there

01:59:50.620 two letters

01:59:52.780 that Alan Greenspan

01:59:53.960 wrote me

01:59:54.560 in 1987

01:59:55.600 when I was

01:59:56.880 in my 20s.

01:59:57.740 See,

01:59:58.480 he had just become

01:59:59.420 Fed chairman

01:59:59.960 in 87

02:00:00.800 and then we got

02:00:02.040 the stock market crash

02:00:03.140 in October

02:00:03.720 and the first thing

02:00:05.600 he did

02:00:05.940 is he cut interest rates

02:00:07.020 and I thought that,

02:00:09.260 wait a minute,

02:00:09.740 you're doing

02:00:10.180 what you criticized

02:00:11.180 the Fed for doing

02:00:12.020 in 1929,

02:00:14.380 you're making

02:00:15.260 the same mistakes,

02:00:16.220 right?

02:00:17.080 And so I wrote him

02:00:17.880 a very nice letter

02:00:18.760 and he wrote me back,

02:00:21.280 you know,

02:00:21.660 on the Fed,

02:00:23.160 you know,

02:00:23.480 the Fed sent me

02:00:24.100 the letter,

02:00:24.640 it was,

02:00:25.160 you know,

02:00:25.660 stamped,

02:00:26.180 you know,

02:00:26.340 because the Federal Reserve

02:00:26.960 is not part

02:00:27.520 of the government,

02:00:28.200 right?

02:00:28.440 So they have to pay

02:00:29.220 for a stamp,

02:00:29.820 it's not like

02:00:30.280 a government agency,

02:00:31.060 it's private,

02:00:31.660 so they have to buy

02:00:32.860 a stamp

02:00:33.280 when they send you

02:00:33.840 a letter.

02:00:34.300 But it was his signature,

02:00:35.280 he sent me a letter

02:00:35.840 and he kind of explained

02:00:38.120 why he was doing

02:00:40.000 what he was doing

02:00:40.580 and I didn't,

02:00:41.660 I didn't like

02:00:42.460 the explanation,

02:00:43.360 but I said,

02:00:43.820 but you know,

02:00:44.260 and I wrote back

02:00:45.360 and then he wrote me again.

02:00:46.580 But basically,

02:00:48.260 what Greenspan said

02:00:49.340 is look,

02:00:49.740 it's better to do this

02:00:50.900 and cushion the blow

02:00:52.120 in the short run

02:00:53.040 than to let the market,

02:00:54.640 you know,

02:00:55.060 he basically,

02:00:55.740 he basically laid out

02:00:56.940 everything he was going

02:00:57.840 to do

02:00:58.300 for his tire tenure,

02:01:00.180 which was long,

02:01:01.380 as far as trying

02:01:02.940 to ease the short-term pain

02:01:04.380 and he,

02:01:05.320 and I knew

02:01:06.960 it was a mistake,

02:01:07.700 I knew as a,

02:01:08.420 you know,

02:01:08.840 youngster

02:01:09.260 that Greenspan

02:01:10.400 was making a mistake

02:01:11.640 and I knew he knew it too

02:01:12.800 and,

02:01:14.580 and you know,

02:01:15.000 when you listen to

02:01:15.580 Greenspan talk today,

02:01:16.880 I mean,

02:01:17.080 he sounds,

02:01:17.780 you know,

02:01:17.900 he's predicting

02:01:18.500 stagflation like me

02:01:19.860 and he was always saying

02:01:21.180 the debts were too big

02:01:22.260 and we're borrowing

02:01:22.900 too much money,

02:01:24.000 yet he enabled it.

02:01:24.900 I mean,

02:01:25.060 he was criticizing

02:01:25.940 the deficits

02:01:26.540 as he was the biggest

02:01:27.900 enabler

02:01:28.420 of the deficits

02:01:29.360 by keeping rates

02:01:30.560 artificially low

02:01:31.500 and trying to prop up

02:01:33.400 and sustain,

02:01:34.160 and sustain bubbles.

02:01:35.480 So I was very critical

02:01:36.580 of Greenspan

02:01:37.820 in my book.

02:01:39.680 You know,

02:01:39.920 I said he was the,

02:01:41.080 the real architect

02:01:42.500 of the housing bubble

02:01:43.820 and the,

02:01:45.440 the primary reason

02:01:47.360 that we had

02:01:47.960 a financial crisis.

02:01:49.720 Richard Nixon,

02:01:50.880 one word.

02:01:53.240 Well,

02:01:53.680 I already used trader,

02:01:55.420 you know,

02:01:57.140 you know,

02:01:58.000 disaster,

02:01:59.800 Keynes,

02:02:00.160 I mean,

02:02:00.560 he,

02:02:00.860 I mean,

02:02:01.300 he,

02:02:01.640 he was the one

02:02:02.520 that said we're,

02:02:03.280 you know,

02:02:03.600 we're all

02:02:04.340 Keynesians now,

02:02:06.780 took us off

02:02:07.540 the gold standard,

02:02:09.500 you know,

02:02:09.700 imposed wage

02:02:10.760 and price controls,

02:02:12.240 terrible,

02:02:12.800 terrible policy.

02:02:15.240 And,

02:02:15.980 you know,

02:02:16.320 I mean,

02:02:16.640 he was,

02:02:17.440 you know,

02:02:18.300 he,

02:02:18.420 one of these,

02:02:19.020 you know,

02:02:19.240 Rockefeller Republicans,

02:02:20.320 he represented everything

02:02:21.520 that was wrong

02:02:22.360 with the Republican Party

02:02:23.560 that Ronald Reagan

02:02:24.300 tried to fix.

02:02:26.440 You know,

02:02:27.100 and,

02:02:27.300 and,

02:02:27.720 and the reason

02:02:29.000 that we got Reagan

02:02:29.860 was because Carter

02:02:30.800 was such a disaster,

02:02:31.800 but Carter simply

02:02:32.840 expanded the policies

02:02:34.780 that he inherited

02:02:35.500 from Nixon.

02:02:38.400 And,

02:02:38.880 and Nixon just expanded

02:02:40.240 on,

02:02:40.820 on,

02:02:41.080 on what was happening

02:02:41.880 under Johnson.

02:02:42.520 And,

02:02:43.020 you know,

02:02:43.160 so it was a perpetuation

02:02:45.000 of that,

02:02:45.880 of that type of economy.

02:02:47.260 and Reagan took us

02:02:48.700 away from that

02:02:49.180 for a while.

02:02:50.400 But yeah,

02:02:51.000 no,

02:02:51.200 he was a bad Republican.

02:02:53.240 He helped give Republicans

02:02:54.260 a bad name

02:02:54.980 and,

02:02:56.220 and,

02:02:56.400 and,

02:02:56.680 and,

02:02:56.980 and,

02:02:57.220 you know,

02:02:57.460 took us off the gold standard,

02:02:58.760 which again,

02:02:59.400 was one of the worst

02:03:00.380 political decisions

02:03:01.620 that was made.

02:03:02.340 And by the way,

02:03:02.840 my father,

02:03:04.100 my father testified

02:03:05.300 in the Senate

02:03:06.960 in 1968

02:03:08.360 against

02:03:09.580 going off

02:03:10.960 the gold standard.

02:03:12.080 And,

02:03:12.560 you know,

02:03:12.980 the Secretary of the Treasury

02:03:14.040 and the Secretary of the Federal Reserve,

02:03:15.760 or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve,

02:03:17.720 testified in favor of it.

02:03:19.960 And,

02:03:20.520 they said

02:03:21.500 that if we went off

02:03:22.360 the gold standard,

02:03:23.380 the dollar would rise in value

02:03:24.860 and the price of gold would fall.

02:03:26.620 My father

02:03:27.440 said that

02:03:28.380 the opposite would happen,

02:03:29.520 that the dollar would lose value,

02:03:31.140 the price of gold would go up,

02:03:32.420 and inflation would surge.

02:03:33.920 Right?

02:03:34.540 My dad was the only one

02:03:35.580 that was right.

02:03:36.100 He knew exactly

02:03:36.860 what would happen

02:03:37.480 if we went off the gold standard.

02:03:39.180 And the Secretary of the Treasury

02:03:40.580 and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve

02:03:42.320 were 100% wrong.

02:03:43.880 So,

02:03:44.080 at least we have that consistency.

02:03:45.760 Because now,

02:03:46.680 the current Secretary of the Treasury

02:03:48.540 and the Fed Chairman

02:03:49.340 are 100% wrong.

02:03:51.320 And my father's son

02:03:52.480 is out there

02:03:53.160 sounding the alarm

02:03:54.320 on what,

02:03:55.300 on what the real consequences

02:03:57.040 of these policy mistakes

02:03:58.280 are going to be.

02:03:59.240 So,

02:03:59.580 Frederick Hayek.

02:04:00.700 And my father did what you,

02:04:01.860 my father was an insurance agent.

02:04:03.360 He,

02:04:03.540 he went to Congress.

02:04:05.440 I like him even more now.

02:04:06.460 Yeah,

02:04:06.640 he was insurance.

02:04:07.340 And see,

02:04:08.000 this is the reason

02:04:08.660 my father understood money.

02:04:10.240 Because my father went to Congress

02:04:12.060 and said,

02:04:12.680 I sell money

02:04:14.200 for future delivery.

02:04:16.080 People are buying

02:04:17.000 insurance policies for me

02:04:18.600 where they're paying premiums today

02:04:20.600 to collect benefits tomorrow.

02:04:22.960 And therefore,

02:04:23.840 the value of money

02:04:24.980 is very important

02:04:26.000 to my business.

02:04:27.760 Because I'm selling money

02:04:29.580 for the future.

02:04:30.820 And so,

02:04:31.160 what it buys,

02:04:32.200 its purchasing power

02:04:33.200 is very important.

02:04:34.340 And that's why

02:04:35.000 he didn't want

02:04:35.640 going off the gold standard.

02:04:37.040 because his customers,

02:04:39.240 his clients

02:04:39.880 were paying premiums

02:04:41.440 in gold.

02:04:42.640 He didn't want them

02:04:43.360 being paid benefits

02:04:44.480 in paper

02:04:45.120 because if he didn't know

02:04:46.820 what the paper

02:04:47.300 was going to be worth,

02:04:48.540 he knew it.

02:04:49.220 It would depreciate,

02:04:50.180 which is exactly

02:04:50.800 what happened.

02:04:52.160 One word,

02:04:53.120 Frederick Hayek.

02:04:54.540 He's a great man.

02:04:55.800 Okay.

02:04:56.320 Ludwig von Mises.

02:04:56.820 Great economist.

02:04:58.400 Ludwig von Mises.

02:04:59.780 Same thing.

02:05:00.600 Brilliant,

02:05:01.080 brilliant man.

02:05:02.240 Michael Burry.

02:05:02.960 Well,

02:05:04.640 you know,

02:05:05.280 I did,

02:05:06.500 you know,

02:05:07.080 I mean,

02:05:07.440 he's a smart guy too.

02:05:09.220 You know,

02:05:09.700 I had the same trade on

02:05:10.900 as Mike.

02:05:11.760 I didn't get as much

02:05:12.520 recognition.

02:05:14.700 And I didn't,

02:05:15.520 you know,

02:05:15.720 I didn't,

02:05:15.980 you know,

02:05:16.760 so I think he's a good guy too.

02:05:18.880 You know,

02:05:19.100 and I like him.

02:05:20.740 But,

02:05:21.220 you know,

02:05:21.400 it would have been nice

02:05:22.540 if,

02:05:22.720 you know,

02:05:23.720 a little bit more people

02:05:24.880 in the mainstream

02:05:26.280 would have recognized,

02:05:27.700 you know,

02:05:29.320 my understanding

02:05:30.620 of the housing bubble.

02:05:32.540 You needed a movie.

02:05:33.820 You needed a movie.

02:05:34.460 Yeah,

02:05:34.480 I didn't get,

02:05:35.280 you know,

02:05:35.600 I didn't get it.

02:05:37.360 I didn't get in a book.

02:05:38.400 I didn't get in a movie.

02:05:40.260 But,

02:05:40.800 you know,

02:05:41.000 I was there.

02:05:41.740 I mean,

02:05:42.060 you know,

02:05:42.340 I think I was the one

02:05:44.200 giving the lecture.

02:05:45.180 He,

02:05:45.460 you know,

02:05:45.700 you watch the movie.

02:05:46.700 He attends.

02:05:47.260 I was giving the lectures

02:05:48.600 about the housing bubble.

02:05:50.220 I was writing articles

02:05:51.720 in 2002,

02:05:53.800 three,

02:05:54.400 four,

02:05:54.700 five,

02:05:55.300 writing about the bubble,

02:05:56.740 writing about the mortgage market,

02:05:58.400 writing about securitization,

02:06:00.140 writing about subprime,

02:06:01.320 saying it was going to collapse.

02:06:03.080 It was going to implode.

02:06:04.120 It was a bubble.

02:06:04.700 I was the guy

02:06:05.360 trying to convince everybody.

02:06:06.840 I remember that.

02:06:07.660 That,

02:06:07.960 that,

02:06:08.300 that,

02:06:08.600 that,

02:06:08.740 that,

02:06:08.800 so it,

02:06:09.300 you know,

02:06:09.760 I didn't get convinced.

02:06:11.060 I was the one,

02:06:11.760 for all I know,

02:06:12.380 he,

02:06:12.580 he,

02:06:12.880 he heard me.

02:06:13.960 I don't know how he eventually,

02:06:15.400 how he's initially got on.

02:06:16.960 He's the most guy.

02:06:18.120 He's an interesting guy,

02:06:19.120 by the way.

02:06:19.320 I was sending out

02:06:19.740 hundreds of emails

02:06:20.880 to all the newspapers

02:06:22.080 for years.

02:06:23.900 Again,

02:06:24.140 watch that mortgage banker speech

02:06:25.780 on YouTube

02:06:26.440 in 2006.

02:06:28.240 And I,

02:06:28.640 and I was at that convention

02:06:30.460 in 2005 too.

02:06:32.000 I wish,

02:06:32.600 I wish I had that on tape.

02:06:33.980 They don't have that one.

02:06:34.760 I have the 06 one,

02:06:36.160 but I told the same story

02:06:37.540 in 2005 about the bubble.

02:06:39.280 Write a script,

02:06:40.380 let somebody do the movie.

02:06:42.080 This Michael guy's a low-key guy

02:06:44.020 who can't stand the camera

02:06:45.500 and he got the movie.

02:06:46.720 Jerome Powell.

02:06:47.800 Well,

02:06:48.060 he's another disaster.

02:06:49.640 I mean,

02:06:50.240 you know,

02:06:51.880 he,

02:06:52.200 he's,

02:06:52.620 he's,

02:06:52.940 maybe he's the fall guy.

02:06:54.240 I don't know.

02:06:54.600 This could be the,

02:06:55.380 it all,

02:06:55.880 all comes down.

02:06:56.840 I mean,

02:06:57.280 Yellen got out of Dodge.

02:06:58.680 Bernanke got out of Dodge.

02:07:00.600 You know,

02:07:00.840 Greenspan.

02:07:02.080 Mnuchin.

02:07:03.740 Well,

02:07:04.200 I mean,

02:07:04.480 he,

02:07:04.660 he,

02:07:04.960 he's another one.

02:07:05.820 He's another fraud.

02:07:06.820 I mean,

02:07:07.140 you know,

02:07:07.720 Arthur Laffer.

02:07:09.700 My penny.

02:07:10.880 I just think the penny he owes me.

02:07:12.820 AOC.

02:07:13.520 But I mean,

02:07:14.320 it's not just the Laffer curve

02:07:15.600 on that napkin.

02:07:16.440 Of course,

02:07:16.700 you think of that.

02:07:17.400 But I just think of the,

02:07:18.520 the,

02:07:18.840 the fact that he,

02:07:19.680 that he welched on that,

02:07:20.540 that,

02:07:21.160 and that he doesn't want to acknowledge,

02:07:22.560 you know,

02:07:22.680 he still doesn't want to admit that he lost.

02:07:25.020 Because he,

02:07:25.880 see,

02:07:26.260 Laffer was too partisan when Bush was president

02:07:30.000 to recognize that we had a bubble.

02:07:32.120 And that's the mistake a lot of Republicans make.

02:07:34.380 They think if there's a Republican president

02:07:36.080 who's cut taxes,

02:07:37.300 they have to pretend that the economy is great.

02:07:39.740 They can't tell the truth

02:07:41.180 that the economy is bubble.

02:07:43.540 But I,

02:07:44.100 as I was warning people back then,

02:07:45.940 when the bubble pops,

02:07:47.160 then you have no credibility.

02:07:48.180 If you're a cheerleader for the bubble

02:07:49.880 because there's a Republican president,

02:07:52.460 then what do you do when it pops?

02:07:54.600 You know,

02:07:54.860 and that's the problem now with Trump.

02:07:56.620 I mean,

02:07:57.000 I,

02:07:57.320 I voted for Trump.

02:07:58.620 I told people that he,

02:07:59.760 to vote for him over,

02:08:00.640 over Clinton.

02:08:01.260 But I was very critical of him

02:08:03.240 the minute he started making mistakes.

02:08:04.980 I didn't want to look the other way

02:08:06.660 just because he was a Republican

02:08:08.160 and not a Democrat

02:08:09.040 and pretend that he was doing good things

02:08:11.280 when he was doing bad things.

02:08:12.880 And he was,

02:08:13.400 and we had a great economy

02:08:14.440 when we just had a bigger bubble.

02:08:16.200 AOC.

02:08:19.060 America's future.

02:08:20.060 Hopefully not.

02:08:20.920 But,

02:08:21.120 uh,

02:08:21.560 Bernie Sanders.

02:08:22.080 She's just epitomizes

02:08:23.580 everything that's wrong

02:08:24.740 with this country.

02:08:25.740 And it's the reason

02:08:26.840 why we're not supposed

02:08:27.780 to be a democracy.

02:08:28.560 If you want to know

02:08:29.420 why the founding fathers

02:08:31.020 created America as a republic

02:08:32.460 and not a democracy,

02:08:34.060 AOC.

02:08:35.600 Ray Dalio.

02:08:36.820 Oh,

02:08:37.120 well,

02:08:37.440 you know,

02:08:38.120 he's a smart guy,

02:08:40.400 a very wealthy guy.

02:08:42.120 Uh,

02:08:42.400 you know,

02:08:42.640 one of my neighbors

02:08:43.360 in,

02:08:43.720 uh,

02:08:43.960 in Connecticut.

02:08:45.200 Uh,

02:08:45.560 but yeah,

02:08:45.980 no,

02:08:46.180 he's,

02:08:46.540 you know,

02:08:46.820 I,

02:08:47.100 I,

02:08:47.340 I agree with a lot

02:08:48.440 of what Ray says,

02:08:49.200 but then there,

02:08:49.900 you know,

02:08:50.140 there,

02:08:50.280 there,

02:08:50.640 there are things

02:08:51.520 where we disagree.

02:08:52.340 I mean,

02:08:52.520 I'm,

02:08:52.800 I'm,

02:08:53.080 we're not friendly,

02:08:53.880 but I,

02:08:54.160 I know,

02:08:54.540 I know of him.

02:08:55.520 Are you,

02:08:55.780 by the way,

02:08:55.960 are you related to Adam Schiff

02:08:57.300 or no,

02:08:57.600 you guys are not related?

02:08:58.840 No,

02:08:59.060 no,

02:08:59.180 no.

02:08:59.400 In fact,

02:08:59.560 I joked that I,

02:09:00.640 I got to have to change my name.

02:09:02.100 You know,

02:09:02.240 it's like,

02:09:02.580 he's really,

02:09:03.300 he's really screwing up the name Schiff,

02:09:05.200 you know,

02:09:05.560 and I'm not related to Jacob Schiff either,

02:09:08.580 the banker.

02:09:09.120 A lot of people assume that I'm related to,

02:09:10.980 although coincidentally,

02:09:12.200 my grandfather's name was Jacob Schiff,

02:09:14.900 but it was Jacob Schiff,

02:09:16.180 the carpenter,

02:09:17.120 not Jacob Schiff,

02:09:18.440 uh,

02:09:18.720 the banker.

02:09:19.200 I mean,

02:09:19.340 I would have loved to inherited some of that Schiff money.

02:09:22.560 Uh,

02:09:23.020 you know,

02:09:23.300 my,

02:09:23.480 my,

02:09:23.700 my branch of the Schiff family,

02:09:25.540 uh,

02:09:26.120 wasn't that successful.

02:09:27.700 Uh,

02:09:28.060 you know,

02:09:28.420 you inherited,

02:09:29.560 a good part of the,

02:09:30.540 the,

02:09:30.800 the,

02:09:31.120 the Schiff mindset,

02:09:32.780 your,

02:09:32.920 your pops.

02:09:33.520 Well,

02:09:33.680 I learned that.

02:09:34.480 Yeah.

02:09:34.620 You don't just get that by osmosis.

02:09:36.520 Yeah.

02:09:36.880 My dad had to,

02:09:37.900 had to teach me stuff,

02:09:38.860 but I,

02:09:39.220 I mean,

02:09:39.420 once your mind is open,

02:09:41.120 I mean,

02:09:41.780 it's amazing how much you can learn once you're,

02:09:45.560 when you're not brainwashed.

02:09:46.800 I mean,

02:09:47.060 the problem is we send these kids through these government schools.

02:09:50.120 And so by the time they're 22,

02:09:52.520 they've been so thoroughly brainwashed,

02:09:55.420 you know,

02:09:55.680 that it's so hard for them.

02:09:57.020 I mean,

02:09:57.320 even their common sense is gone.

02:09:59.380 By the time they graduate.

02:10:00.860 So not only are these college degrees,

02:10:03.080 you know,

02:10:03.660 so expensive,

02:10:04.580 they're so completely worthless because you end up graduating,

02:10:07.040 knowing less than you knew before you enrolled.

02:10:10.080 So,

02:10:10.480 uh,

02:10:10.820 Peter,

02:10:11.340 are you still,

02:10:12.000 uh,

02:10:12.080 would you consider yourself a betting man?

02:10:13.640 I'm not a big gambler.

02:10:15.120 I mean,

02:10:15.380 I,

02:10:15.540 I mean,

02:10:15.860 I,

02:10:16.120 you know,

02:10:16.340 I mean,

02:10:17.100 are you,

02:10:17.420 I enjoy,

02:10:18.220 I enjoy,

02:10:20.300 uh,

02:10:20.800 uh,

02:10:21.360 gambling,

02:10:22.040 you know,

02:10:22.280 but are you willing to bet an ounce of gold?

02:10:24.500 You said 70 to 80% Biden.

02:10:26.500 Yeah,

02:10:27.180 I think,

02:10:27.680 I think Biden is probably going to win.

02:10:31.320 Uh,

02:10:31.700 you know,

02:10:32.260 do I,

02:10:32.660 I mean,

02:10:32.940 would I be willing to bet an ounce of gold?

02:10:34.800 I think the odds are in my favor,

02:10:37.060 but they're not so overwhelming in my favor that it's like,

02:10:40.020 ah,

02:10:40.300 you know,

02:10:40.560 this is the best bet I want to make with an ounce of gold.

02:10:43.620 I've got various ounce of gold bets going around here and there.

02:10:46.540 I collected on one just recently from a conference I did where I,

02:10:51.160 we,

02:10:51.260 we made a bet of an ounce of gold in January of 2019.

02:10:55.800 And I bet the next move the fed would make would be a rate cut.

02:10:58.880 And the other guy better rate hype.

02:11:00.580 And of course,

02:11:01.140 everybody thought he was going to win.

02:11:02.700 And I ended up winning because the fed cut.

02:11:05.320 Is this a bet you're willing to make in this area or no,

02:11:08.140 this is not too high.

02:11:08.900 I mean,

02:11:09.060 I can make it with you.

02:11:10.260 I mean,

02:11:10.460 it's only an ounce of gold.

02:11:11.980 I,

02:11:12.240 but you think is though,

02:11:13.280 I hope here's the problem.

02:11:15.580 I would rather see Trump win.

02:11:17.860 So I hate to,

02:11:19.280 I hate to make a bet and then like hope to win it.

02:11:22.680 You know what I mean?

02:11:23.220 Cause I,

02:11:23.780 I just,

02:11:24.340 I just,

02:11:24.960 I,

02:11:25.340 even though I know it's going to be difficult if Trump wins,

02:11:28.860 even though I know that it's going to implode around him,

02:11:32.320 it's just that Donald Trump for all the mistakes he's made and all the

02:11:37.300 things he's done wrong,

02:11:39.180 he still has a better chance of eventually doing the right thing.

02:11:43.280 Then,

02:11:44.020 then,

02:11:44.400 then,

02:11:44.500 then,

02:11:44.820 then,

02:11:45.020 then,

02:11:45.280 then,

02:11:45.300 then,

02:11:46.080 then,

02:11:46.300 then,

02:11:46.540 then Biden or whoever's going to control Biden.

02:11:49.080 I mean,

02:11:49.260 if Biden's next president,

02:11:50.440 let's face it,

02:11:51.240 he's not the president.

02:11:52.200 He's just,

02:11:52.740 he's just the mouthpiece.

02:11:54.540 Somebody's going to be pulling those strings,

02:11:56.380 but he can't sell.

02:11:57.380 You,

02:11:57.580 you need charisma nowadays.

02:11:58.860 Once the camera came out,

02:12:00.140 you need charisma.

02:12:01.000 Like if Cuomo was out there,

02:12:03.060 Andrew Cuomo was out there,

02:12:04.280 be a different story because he knows how to sell and command present.

02:12:07.180 Peter,

02:12:07.500 thank you for being a guest.

02:12:08.740 And if you want to follow some of his content,

02:12:11.100 make sure you go follow him then.

02:12:12.200 He's got a YouTube channel as well.

02:12:13.860 You can see a bunch of content there too.

02:12:15.280 yeah,

02:12:16.220 the shift report on YouTube or shift radio for my podcast.

02:12:20.180 My listeners have been growing,

02:12:22.080 but you know,

02:12:22.760 I need more and more people to listen.

02:12:24.980 I've been saying that since the Corona virus has come on the scene,

02:12:28.520 that the only thing spreading faster than that virus is economic and financial ignorance.

02:12:33.240 And you're helping to do something about that.

02:12:35.780 I think I got the anecdote,

02:12:37.340 the cure for that ignorance.

02:12:39.880 And so the mainstream media has got everything wrong.

02:12:42.940 Everything the government is doing is wrong.

02:12:44.480 Everything the federal reserve is doing.

02:12:46.300 If they only would do the George Costanza,

02:12:49.200 I just do the opposite.

02:12:50.720 You know,

02:12:50.880 we would be in much better shape instead of they're doing what they think is right.

02:12:54.200 But I'm,

02:12:54.940 I'm coming out there and doing these podcasts and talking about what's happening in the financial markets,

02:12:59.840 in the economy and telling the truth about it and kind of unspinning what,

02:13:05.900 what the nonsense that people are getting on a daily basis.

02:13:08.940 Now,

02:13:09.700 I think you got to keep doing it.

02:13:10.900 I think you got to keep doing it.

02:13:12.320 You got to keep doing it more because there's many other audiences.

02:13:14.480 They need to keep hearing you.

02:13:15.740 Peter,

02:13:16.000 again,

02:13:16.620 thanks for being a guest for coming out.

02:13:19.080 Thanks everybody for listening.

02:13:20.220 And by the way,

02:13:20.660 if you haven't already subscribed to value payment on iTunes,

02:13:23.620 please do.

02:13:24.400 So give us a five star,

02:13:26.160 write a review if you haven't already.

02:13:27.640 And if you have any questions for me that you may have,

02:13:29.900 you can always find me on Snapchat,

02:13:31.760 Instagram,

02:13:32.500 Facebook,

02:13:33.040 or YouTube.

02:13:33.600 Just search my name,

02:13:34.620 Patrick,

02:13:35.100 but David,

02:13:35.620 and I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.

02:13:40.280 With that being said,

02:13:41.200 have a great day today.

02:13:42.280 Take care everybody.

02:13:43.040 Bye-bye.

02:13:43.620 Bye-bye.

02:13:43.940 Bye-bye.

02:13:44.080 Bye-bye.

02:13:44.440 Bye-bye.

02:13:49.320 Bye-bye.

02:13:51.540 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - July 22, 2020

Episode 497： Economist Blasts The Fed, Stimulus, Bitcoin & Makes Bold Predictions

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