Precious Metals: Strong, sustained bull case for gold and silver driven by central bank accumulation, institutional adoption, and the broader monetary “debasement trade.”
Gold Outlook: Guest argues gold’s multi-year rise reflects structural loss of confidence in fiat; long-run targets discussed include potential repricing in a reset scenario.
Silver Thesis: Silver’s supply/demand tightness and paper-market distortions could catalyze a major move; physical tightness and backwardation highlighted as key signals.
Silver Miners: Operating leverage cited as a major opportunity with many producers near ~$20/oz costs; profitability could surge if silver approaches $100, though energy costs are a risk.
Bitcoin: Positioned as complementary “sound money” with higher upside (alpha) but greater volatility; presented as part of a diversified hard-asset hedge.
Nuclear Energy: Structural power shortfalls, AI-driven load growth, and grid fragility underpin a bullish view on nuclear buildout as a critical long-term solution.
Market & Macro Risks: Elevated mega-cap tech valuations and “crack-up boom” dynamics raise fragility; potential pins include Japan stresses and a sudden loss of confidence in fiat.
Notable Mentions: JPMorgan (JPM) referenced in gold-market context and Nvidia (NVDA) as sentiment foil; overall stance favors hard assets over overvalued equities amid ongoing monetary debasement.
Transcript
Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only. Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full. Pretty soon, people are going to wake up and go, you know, it's not about blue red. It's about the people in power versus the rest of us. And guess what? You guys have it up and we are not going to take it anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, in a world where the elites in Washington are flooding our economy with trillions and what I call fake money, even fraudulent money, crashing the dollar potentially and robbing hardworking Americans blind. One man has been sounding the alarm for decades. And that's Larry Leard. He's been on the program before. He's a battle tested investor with over 40 years crushing it in the markets. uh former partner at Summit Partners, founder of Equity Management Associates, and a fierce advocate for sound money like gold and Bitcoin. And he's the guy who predicted the big print madness. That's the title of his most recent book, The Big Print. And now he's here to break it all down again with us. Hey, welcome to Finance You, everybody. I'm your host, Chris Martinson, and welcome back, Larry. So good to have you back on the program, >> Chris. I mean, as you know, our friendship goes back decades. And uh I wouldn't say I've always been successful. My career's had my career's had a lot of ups and downs. And being a sound money partisan has been a very very tough and lonely path. I say maybe until a little bit more recently. It would now appear that we're getting closer to the the endgame of this giant Keynesian fiat fiasco. So that's and that's somewhat sad. That's that's sad. It's satisfying, but also it's sad because the econ, you know, the country is not doing particularly well and a lot of people are hurting as you and I both know. >> Yeah. Well, I I have to confess um I'm not doing any victory dances uh with my gold and silver gains because I know what they mean. >> And I didn't want to be right, but it was obvious we were going to be right eventually. So, Larry, let's start with gold and silver. Let's start there. Gold first. Come on. Is it signaling something really massive, you know, we maybe ought to be paying more close attention to or or has it just merely been riding the liquidity wave that's been driving equities? >> Yeah. No, it's it's it there's more to it than just the liquidity wave, Chris, because it's up so much more than just the equities and the, you know, the other forms of liquid things and, you know, Bitcoin, which is kind of a liquidity, you know, widget. I mean, that thing hasn't been going up much at all. I mean, I I think what's going on with gold, there are obviously a lot of parties on the bid side. You know, just why is it going up? more buyers and sellers. Um, pretty obvious. U, we know central banks are buyers and I think what we're starting to see is institutions and wealthy individuals and others are becoming buyers as well. And I'm sure you've been watching the the press as I have as well. You know, it's now actually starting to get a label and a name. And what what used to be just us fringe hard money people is now becoming quote unquote, as JP Morgan calls it, the debasement trade, the monetary debasement trade. And so, [sighs] you know, I think you're seeing just more people. I mean, in my most recent quarterly report, there's a statistic in there, 40% of the investment advisors in the country don't have any gold, and another 20% have less than 2% gold. So, 60% of the country owns almost no gold. And the the number of people that own over 5%, it's like 6%. So, so gold has been an ignored asset class for a bunch of years. and the federal government and the recent behavior I think has really tipped over the the apple cart in terms of confidence in the dollar and the and the soundness of the monetary system and I I say that because you know okay we had inflation with co with you know with the scandmic um but you know pow tamped that down by raising rates and slowing down M2 growth and the 9% came down to three or 29 roughly and [snorts] of course we know all these numbers are wrong but they're directionally they're right and then what happened is um you know Trump got elected and they said we're going to balance the budget and hey happy days everyone believed it you know Doge is going to solve the problem. Well, guess what? Doge didn't solve the problem. You know, Elon's two trillion became one, then it became maybe a hundred billion, and who knows? It's not much now. The tariffs actually have brought in some revenue. The tariffs have brought in a couple hundred um billion a year of revenue. The problem with that is that they turned right around. They passed the big beautiful bill. >> Mhm. >> And that increases spending by three or 400 billion. So, so on balance, you know, the deficit really hasn't shrunk. Um, and we can get into the details the the weeds on that because I think they're cooking the deficit numbers. But leave that aside. You know, the deficit hasn't shrunk. I think what's happening is just more and more people are realizing that in this system as it's currently constructed politically, there's just no way out. They have to debase the currency. They they just have to print money to keep the system alive and to keep it going. And so the dollar of every unit of printed money buys less in terms of goods and services. Another way of saying that is just we have inflation or we're going to have more inflation. So I think it's just the world waking up to what you know us hard money folks have been screaming about for a long time and arguably you know we were early and a lot of in some of those years people said we were wrong and of course because it didn't work we kind of were wrong but turns out we knew we'd eventually be right and here we are. >> Well indeed so [clears throat] I I'm I I'm going to take exception not with what you said but but the way this has all been framed. So, one of the things I like to do is look at market sentiment and propaganda and nudging because we had we went through this with co all the nudging, right? You wouldn't want to kill grandma, would you? And all that stuff, right? >> So, I watch this all the time. So, check this out. So, look at this. Um, this is how Yahoo Finance put it yesterday. Gold sinks, Bitcoin plunges. They never say that about stocks, right? As debasement trade stumbles, right? And they of course report this with glee. And then right next to it was this one. Meme stock surge as investors pile back in. Right? Nice picture of donuts, right? So they just do this over and you see the nudging there. I'm just talking this from a linguistic standpoint, right? Like oh no. And by the way, >> a debasement trade makes it sound like we're front running something. We've been debasing our currency since 1971. >> Correct. [laughter] >> Obviously. But let's carry on. One more one more example. >> And then this was this was um Yeah, this was just yesterday. So gold was actually up at the time and they said dieh hard gold enthusiasts. Did you know that? You ever hear about the Nvidia enthusiasts? Well, gold enthusiasts hold their nerve despite plunging prices. >> Plunging prices. Oh gee. Yeah. Gold gold really plunged from 4,400 to 4,100. It was 4,100 a week or two ago. I mean, >> markets [music] are facing heightened uncertainty, and thoughtful portfolio management has never been more important. If your current strategy [music] relies solely on passive investing or diversification without active oversight, it may be time to consider a different approach. At Peak Financial Investing, we connect you with experienced wealth managers who actively manage [music] portfolios using disciplined, research-driven strategies designed to adapt to evolving market conditions. [music] Our focus is on helping clients navigate volatility with clarity and confidence. While no investment [music] strategy can guarantee results or eliminate risk, we believe that preparation and active management can make a meaningful [music] difference over time. Visit peakfinancialinvesting.com to schedule a complimentary consultation [music] and explore whether our approach aligns with your goals. I'm Dr. Chris Martinson and I am proud [music] to support Peak Financial Investing. This is not a guarantee of future performance, but [music] a call to take your financial planning seriously. Again, that's peak financialvesting.com. Investing, of [music] course, involves risk, including the potential loss of principle. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please consult with a qualified adviser before making investment [music] decisions. And and then I just took this this morning and they say they said here gold edges higher, you know, after two days of heavy losses. That's not edging higher. >> That's a pretty Whoa. Yeah, >> that's a pretty good move right there. So, it's just constant. I I just want people who are listening to be aware you are being psychologically manipulated if you live in the west because you won't read that kind of stuff in Vietnam or or China. >> No. >> Or >> Yeah. No. The the the powers that be for for decades really have tried to minimize and ignore gold. I mean, you know, gold bug, which is kind of what I am. Anyone who believes in gold, you know, they they called us gold bugs as though we're some kind of an insect. I mean, it's kind of a derogatory term. Mhm. >> And yet, you know, all I'm suggesting is that the constitutional form of money, article 1, section 8, you know, um that, you know, only gold and silver can be money. That's what we should return to, right? And >> you know, but but I, you know, it's look the and my book lays this out and I'm obviously, you know, trying to sell my book, not because I make money. you don't make much money in books as you know because you've written some but but because I want to spread the word and save people and protect them and >> you know the fact is that that the Keynesians have just brainwashed a lot of people and you know inflation has caused enormous pain in this country and and sadly I don't think that's going to stop it's not going to stop until we return to a sounder monetary system that's for sure >> well so this recent runup in gold though so it really began in 2022 yes it did >> approximately 6 months months after I think the stupidest thing ever done by anybody ever which was to seize Russia's sovereign reserves in February of 22, right? Um because that abregated that unilaterally broke I think the most important contract that exists out there which is we're going to accept we're going to be this world's reserve currency. You're going to take these obligations of ours under your books and oh at some point we may unilaterally decide to just do away with that. I've been tracking like you Larry gold too closely for too long and I had one chart that was just rock solid and that was negative real interest rates inverted compared to gold and they are just perfect little like just lock step right >> that broke >> that broke in 2022. So now they're saying oh gold enthusiasts in 2025 but I want to be clear this has been going on for about three years now hasn't it? >> Yeah correct. I mean back then the price was 200. Now the price was well 4,400 at the peak 4100 today. And yeah, it that was the that was the kickoff point and that was the point at which all of the BRICS nations said to themselves, you know what, if they can seize our reserves, how can we be buying that and keeping it as a reserve? We can't play that game anymore. And you you now see and and so as you know and you and I both know with the the petro dollar established in the 70s which had really you know come out of and given us so much power as the world's reserve currency, all these countries decided all right we're going to just start trading in our own currencies. So, you know, the Saudis will now accept yuan for oil and and rubles for oil and and um you know, if they don't want to hold that currency or they don't have equal things they want to buy and exchange back from the Chinese, they can just go to the Shanghai gold exchange and and buy gold with it instead of buying Treasury bills. In the past, you know, the base layer of of safe capital in the world used to be the US Treasury bill. It was the biggest, the best, the most liquid, uh and it was safe. But, you know, guess what? when you're a big even if you're a big country as the US is even if you have the reserve currency as we do although slipping fast >> if you behave like an emerging country you know you get emerging country results you know it's like play stupid games win stupid prizes right and so you know we confiscated the currency and then we started running deficits and then you know we started printing like crazy and I mean the examples were just were replete with examples I mean the most recent one I'm sure you saw it most your listeners probably did too you You know, we just decide, well, you know, Argentina is our friend. We don't want them to fall under China's influence, and they're having trouble defending their currency pegs. So, [gasps and sighs] you know, we need to buy $20 billion worth of their pesos. Oops. No, it's not 20. We need to buy 40. [laughter] And is the 40 going to turn into 80? Who knows? I mean, so it's just it's really no way to run a railroad, Chris. And uh um you know, so that is what it is. And it's sad, but there, you know, as you've been saying for many years with your great programs and your great teaching and, you know, your whole system and as I've been saying through my podcast and my book, you know, the protection for the average person is to print to own things they can't print, you know, and by the way, farms and the birkers are one of them. I mean, it's, you know, that's that's a good one, but gold's another one. Silver's another one. And I think Bitcoin's an emerging one, you know, and I know some gold holders don't believe in Bitcoin, and I get it, and there, you know, there are issues and risks and volatility, but I do. Um, I've done a lot of work on it, and I believe in it. And so, I think these these kinds of assets, and you don't, by the way, you don't need to be in Bitcoin to protect yourself. You'll do just fine with gold and silver. Um, but Bitcoin, I think, has a lot more alpha. >> Um, and so, you know, these are the kinds of things that people, I think, need to be made aware of. And you know that's people have asked me say, "Larry, why'd you write the book?" I'll tell you why I wrote the book, Chris. Maybe we did this in our last podcast. I think we've talked about it, but I >> Let's do it again. >> Yeah, I'll do it again. I'm sitting in my living room, my wife, we're watching some political show, which I hate watching, but she likes watching that stuff. And blue team and red team are arguing with each other. And I, you know, I don't like either of them. I'm a libertarian. The only politician I've ever really liked is Ron Paul. Anyway, and and they're arguing with each other, and they're arguing about really stupid you know, pronouns, you name it, all kinds of crazy stuff. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, "Guys, you are arguing about the color of the drapes and the house is on fire." And the part of the the part of the house that's on fire is the monetary system. And and you know, there there some good books out there on this stuff, but there hasn't been one written recently. And somebody needs to write a book that explains the monetary system and the Keynesian model and fiat currency in a way that an average person goes, "Oh, I get it. Now I see why we have inflation. Now I see why they're screwing me." And then better than that, I mean that's and that's the bad news. Some people said, "Well, Larry, you're a doomer." No, I'm not a doomer. I'm just an analyst who looks at the facts and and you know the I'm very optimistic and I'm very very very you know positive on where we will come out on the other end of this whole transition forth turning. I mean, we're going to go to sound money. Things are going to be really great, but but you know, we got to get there uh first. And so I thought, you know, somebody needs to write a book that explains it. So I started writing the book and I used my wife as a test case. She's super smart, but she doesn't. She's, you know, a writer and does a lot of other stuff and she's not monetary. I mean, she's not an econ major. And so I wrote it so that she, you know, somebody like her would understand it. And I started writing it and she's like, "Well, what's this Federal Reserve thing? I don't even know what that is." So I was kind like, "All right, well, I better, you know, so I creature from Jackal Island. I better explain it, you know." [laughter] So So I did. And and so that's, you know, that was the target segment that I aimed the book at. wanted any American or world citizen really, but I was thinking of the American market to be able to pick this thing up, read it, and go, "Oh, yeah, he's right. I get it. They're screwing us, and here's how. Here's why. Here's what we have to do to fight back. We got to try and elect politicians like, you know, Thomas Massie and Ran Paul and Ron Paul and people who believe in sound money, Warren Davidson, etc., and you know, Cynthia Lumis. And we've got to, you know, we've got to fix the system, right? Because if we don't, inflation's going to become the new problem that lasts for decades, right?" >> Yeah. that I'm just looking at that double hump inflation that that Torstston SL put out. Um >> Oh yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. >> Right. I'll find it in a second. Um but but for until I find it, what he's just saying, look, in the 70s we had this what they call double hump inflation, right? There was this big inflationary surge. >> Yeah. There were three big inflationary waves. Yeah. >> Yeah. Like 70 to 73ish, you know, and that was one reason. But then there was this second one that came along and there were variety of reasons for that, right? some policy errors, but also an oil problem and some things. >> But I think this is this era is tracking that really carefully. So these policy error errors right now like like [snorts] >> Powell cutting interest rates under political pressure and I know the two-year sort of dragging them there anyway, but cutting rates at a time when stocks were at all-time highs, gold's powering higher, Bitcoin's up there. There's all these signs of liquidity. Right. >> Right. Well, and and the inflation hasn't gotten anywhere near his target. And and by the way, that's a cooked inflation number, right? >> It's very bad. It's terrible. I I do believe Chapwood is a lot closer than CPI, >> correct? Chapwood, for people listening, >> federal government stats, as you know, John, you know, John's work. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Which would suggest we're actually still in high single digits to low double digits depending where you live. Right. >> And depending upon the category. I mean, I I have to say, you know, one thing that kind of is a mystery to me is that oil prices and gasoline prices have actually been pretty tame. I mean, I think that might be because the economy is a lot slower than everybody thinks, you know, but >> well, but food prices have obviously been highly inflationary. >> Well, [clears throat] I'm this guy. I believe that there have been shenanigans in a lot of our markets, particularly commodities, for a long time. >> Yeah. gold and silver. I think that's just being revealed the extent like like so just this last week um on Monday night we retreated to a 4 a.m. slam down in silver which saw 42,300,000 ounces go out in a 15-minute window. Right. This flurry of paper. >> Yeah. >> The very next day JP Morgan um had to inform their Indian customers they wouldn't be able to deliver anything till maybe November. >> So which is it? [laughter] We have 42 million ounces in a 15-minute window or there's none to deliver. You know, where are we in this story? >> Yeah. Right. And that and that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, it's backward. There's all kinds of pressure on prices. I mean, the premiums for for immediate delivery are very very high. Yeah. No, you're right. It's there's there's a there are a lot of shenanigans and you know, they are going these slams, as we used to call them, Mr. slammy is going to show up from time to time because >> you know the people who are in a position to do that the BIS and the central banks they can go in there and create paper contracts and just overwhelm the bitstat but I think what they're going to find is that ultimately at the end of the day you know it's the physical metal that counts and um you know I I saw a very interesting statisticy sheman had it on his site it was very useful that you know we're we're trading basically every day in London they're trading all of the silver that's produced in one given a year. So, we produce about 800 million ounces of silver a year. Okay, that's how much gets traded in paper on the London exchange. And the the the stock um that they have in London theoretically, and I'm I'm sure it's all really there is 140 um billion. So, it's about 7% of the total or maybe a little over that. And um but but they there was another number that said it was roughly 7% of the stock was the stock to to what was you know the claims and I was just like hang on a second you know this is this sounds like musical chairs to me. I mean everybody who thinks they own some silver might own a paper contract saying deliver silver but if they all ask for it at the same time there's no silver there at that price. And so so yes this to me has the feel of you know the Hunt brothers or the 2011 runup. And as you know, we just took out the all-time high price of 50. And if you look at the technical charts on that, I mean, I, you know, I mean, Michael Oliver, who's a very good technical analyst, he thinks silver doubles or triples from here. So, that puts us at 100 to 150. And I don't think he's wrong. I don't I I'm not sure about the 150, but I'm pretty sure we're going to go to 100 in the next year or two. So, um, which, you know, the implications of that for those of us who own silver mining stocks is just stunning. I mean, most of these companies spend about $20 to pull an ounce of silver out of their mine. So, you know, if they're selling at 30, which is where it used to be, well, they're making 10. That's nice. 50, well, guess what? Their profits just tripled. 100. Oh my goodness. Right. So, so you can see why I'm kind of excited about some of these silver stocks. >> Well, that that's holding all things equal. I mean, if energy costs run away from them, >> right? That's exactly >> that could eat into that a little bit. But but I found it finally after much sort of searching. So So I Yeah. So for people >> uh watching at home uh here we have this first inflationary wave starts about 73, peaks at 75, comes down. Yay. But this second inflationary mountain comes over here and peaks out at about 791 1980. That's the last time silver had a big spike from the Hunt brothers. >> Um and so you know, listen, it doesn't have to match. It's kind of an eerie correlation. We see these charts all the time. Sometimes they work out. not always, you know, so it doesn't have to. >> But when I look at everything that's happening where Trump comes in, and I was pretty excited at first because we had Elon, we had Doge, we're going to finally get rid of all this schllock and I think frankly anti-American spending that was happening. Yes. >> Griffs and graphs, USAD, and then they just shut the program down and said, "We're not we're not doing topline savings. We're going to grow the bottom line. We're going to grow the economy." I'm like, "Okay, how are we going to do that?" print the money to get inflationary growth. >> Yeah. So, >> we're going to have that, but I think we're going to have an energy shock as well because of the AI stuff. Larry, I track this pretty carefully something. Yes. >> 35% increase in electricity costs over 3 years. And that's average. If you happen to live within 50 miles of a data center, you might have seen anywhere from a 100 to a 200% increase. >> Yeah. Yeah. The the the what's happened to the US energy grid has just been criminal. And the fact that we haven't been investing in solar, I mean, you know, China's building 30 or 40, you know, or I mean, nuclear plants um every year, you know, we're shutting them down. I mean, it's, you know, human well-being is, if you track human well-being for, you know, millennia, it's all driven by energy and efficient energy, right? I mean, we went from whale oil to, you know, to petroleum. We went petroleum to natural gas. Went natural gas to, you know, well, the next step really is going to be nuclear. We haven't done it and we need to do it or else, you know, we're going to run out of uh we're going to run out of cheap energy. And it's it's criminal, Chris. I mean, you know, you look at China. I I put a tweet out, I don't know, 6 months ago, 3 months ago. You know what? Ch the average Chinese consumer is paying 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Okay. What? >> Yeah. The average American consumer is paying 14 cents a kilowatt hour. So So if you're in China and you have an electric car, it costs you onethird as much to drive a mile as it costs an American. And that's if you're, you know, by the way, that 14 cents, that's is if you're in a decent state with good energy policies. As you and I both know, we live in Massachusetts, or at least in the summertime, I live in Massachusetts. I'm paying between 28 and 30 cents a kilowatt hour, right? >> Probably are, too, right? >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, >> it's punishing. It's punishing. >> It's punishing. And it's just it's it's ridiculous. I mean, it goes back to the stupid policies. I mean, you know, they were investing in their infrastructure and energy. We spent, you know, $8 trillion, you know, trying to win the Middle East so we could give it back. I mean, it's like, what? I mean, you know, the people running this place. >> Yeah. The people just running the the United States, >> it's just it's so broken and corrupt. I mean, the >> you know, it just needs to be it needs to be massively reformed, right? >> Well, I I agree and and um you know, energy is the lifeblood of any economy. And if you want to >> if you want a spoiler alert on this whole thing, just go look at Germany right now. It's imploding >> massively. Like the worst decline in energy intensive industry since the Great Depression. >> Yes. >> And you know what? MS comes along and he's busy destroying the country. And he said, you know, we need we need 500 billion euros of spending to keep doing the stuff that got us here in the first place. So it's just insane, right? >> Literally by the definition. >> Yeah. No, I mean it's Yeah, they are they are doing a lot of stupid stuff. Um their immigration policies are stupid. You know, it it it just I don't know. It's like there's a part of me it's you you kind of wonder if the West is committing suicide. It's it's nuts. I mean, it really is. >> Well, it kind of is. Or or is it is somebody help it it I I I wonder all the time incompetence or is this actually an attack? Right. Because it feels too coordinated sometimes for me. >> It does. And I mean certainly some of the people at the top benefit from these things they're doing that hurt the rest of us. So, um, yeah, I mean, look, I, you know, my my by line, my tagline on Twitter, and I, I borrowed it from Marty Benton. We both borrowed it from the show Heroes, you know, which was save the cheerleader, save the world. That's, you have to be a little old to remember that show. And fix the fix the money, fix the world. I mean, it's, >> you know, this that was back to the point of the book. I mean, they're arguing about the color of the drapes. The the monetary system is on fire. We are near the end game and it's really really important that people wake up and pay attention to that because the wealth transfer that's going to occur in the next 5 or 10 years from the people who own bonds to the people who own real things, it's going to just be stunning. I mean, you have to remember that in any hyperinflation, you know, there are people who are on paper extremely wealthy before the currency fails. And if the currency totally fails, and I'm not saying that's my base case, that's a little bit of my tail case, but if the currency totally fails, if you're wealthy on paper, you get wiped out. You're suddenly one day you're rich, the next day you got nothing. And um that's hard to cope with, you know, I mean, for for rich people, for anybody really. And I mean, the the the middle class and the lower classes in a certain sense um are protected by particularly if they're young and they have a working income. I mean, let's say you're a plumber. You know, your debt is your mortgage against your house. Your house is a real asset. You've got some savings. And if you put them in smart things like gold and silver, you're going to be fine. If you buy bonds, well, you're going to get wiped out on those. But at least you're young and you're a plumber and that's a necessary skill. And when the new currency comes around, you'll just repric in the new currency and you'll make money and you'll be good. But, you know, we're the people that are most at risk as I see it. And again, I wrote the book for them as the boomers cuz you know when you're 60, 70, 80, your ability to earn money goes down substantially. You don't have as much energy. You don't have as much intelligence. I know I don't. And and so so you know, you you got to be careful. And the nest egg you saved up, it's there to protect you until until you know and to protect your kids at some point. And so if you have it in the wrong place, you know, I think you're going to be hurt here in this next 5 or 10 years. And I feel like a lot of the country has it in the wrong place. I mean, you know, as you say, they're chasing meme stocks. They're chasing the MAG7. You know, my most recent quarterly report, which by the way is available on my website, EMA2.com, uh, talked about, you know, the MAG7 right now is trading at 48.5 times EBITDA. I'm like, what? I mean, IDA is earnings before interest taxes depreciation, right? Long-term average for that number in the in the, you know, equity market is something like 14. And, you know, 24 used to be considered really expensive. Well, that's at 45. So, you know, you're not getting a lot of value in stocks. And yet, you know, your average stock, you know, uh, advisor has told your average retiree, you know, the stock market is the only place to be and just buy the dip. And if you've listened to that since 2008, it's worked, right? Um, but there will come a day. Yeah. Exactly. >> Not just worked, but I mean, this is tech versus the S&P 500 relative. I mean, we've never been in nosebleleed territory like this. So, it's basically an all-in bet on on tech at this point. But to your point, this is where the great financial crisis bailout came. And this was all bailouts in here. People don't remember. It's like, "Oh, we had 2008, then there was 2020." No, no, no, no. If you were paying attention, there was 2011. >> Yeah. >> Operation twist. We had 2013, then 15, then 17, and then who remembers the great repo crisis of 2019? Like, this was all emergencies. >> All money printing. Yeah. And all all came as a result of money printing. I mean that straight up line that took the Fed's balance sheet from under a trillion to from 800 billion to at its peak it was 9 trillion. So it did a 10bagger. Now it's come back [laughter] down cuz he's he's tightened the you know money a bit and so we're in the high sixes now I believe. But >> but the point is yeah you know look you can make the I mean you want to make the price of anything go up. You want to make the stock market strong print money give it to people. Let them buy the stock market it'll go up. That's the good news. The bad news is go to the grocery store and suddenly the hamburger that you're buying for $2 a pound is now $10 a pound. And that's really that's the experience I know I've had in the past 10 years. So it's been it's been brutal. And the problem is that for half the country, they're not in a they don't have enough savings. They're just scraping to get by working two or three jobs, whatever it might be. And they don't have the assets that the wealthy have. And and so that's why the system is so incredibly unfair. Yet, that's why the wealthy and the political class work like crazy to protect the system because it works for them and they're robbing everybody else blind, you know. [laughter] And my book lays this out chapter in verse. I mean, it's interesting, Chris. I published the book on Amazon. It's done well. I've sold 45,000 copies, which I think >> Oh, that's very good. >> Yeah. I think in a book world that's okay. It's not it's not a, you know, blowout, but it's solid. Um, and I and I've approached a lot of publishers, right? And you know some occasionally I'll get a young editor like oh this is really good. I like it but it goes up the chain of command and you know it's pretty it's a pretty non-consensus book. I mean I I kind of don't pull my punches with respect to the powers that be and somewhere along the lines you know we kind of can't publish this. >> Well did you hear that interview with Richard Werner? >> Same story. I was to bring that up right. Princess of the Yen. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. >> Exact same story. He's got this killer book. It's number one in Japan. People love it. He brings it over here and they're like, "We can't touch this." >> Yeah. We're not going to touch it because you're kind of calling on the entire system, right? And >> so, I think I think that's kind of the story with my book. I mean, it it you know, and that's okay. I mean, I don't take it personally. It just is what it is. I mean, they've got their self-interest, I've got my self-interest, and and I'm trying to protect the average guy. >> So, yeah. >> Yep. Well, well, let's I mean, this is really monumental time here. And again, I'm not excited that it's transpiring. No dancing. [laughter] >> No, no dancing here, right? It's like that scene in the Big Short where Ben Ricks and the two guys are like, "Woo, we got it." And he turns around and he just rips him a new one and says, "Every 1% increase in unemployment leads to 40,000 suicides, >> right? Just just don'ting dance." And he was right. I mean, and you know, look, I'm not I'm not happy about the pain that all this is causing people, but sadly, you know, I um or you know, I am not happy. I observe that in light of that pain, in light of the problems that are going on, you know, like like most things, America, we'll eventually do the right thing. We will get to addressing this. I mean, look, Secretary Bassant, I think, is kind of a bright light in the administration, and he gets it. He's a gold guy. He says there's got to be a new Breton Woods. I just put something on my Twitter feed this morning that actually talked about the section of of you know one of the currency acts or the um um cryptocurrency acts that talked about maybe selling some of the gold and using it to buy Bitcoin. Um but what that but it talked about the you know more important things it talked about remmonetizing the gold. I mean Bent tweeted out yesterday that this higher gold price is actually a good thing. Now why would he say that? He would only say that if he thought that at some point in time, the US owns 261.5 million ounces of gold. They're going to remark that up a lot higher and use that markup as a way to defease the debt. And so, you know, I I think there are people in the administration who get it. I think Moran gets it. I think Trump gets it. I think Bent gets it. How it's going to unfold, it's really really hard to tell. There are so many moving pieces. But, you know, they they know. I mean, boiled down to its essence, Chris, the problem is we've created way too much debt, and we need to devalue that debt against real things. What does that mean? Well, you know, we need to the the currency that that debt is marked in, the dollar, has to fall in value against other real stuff, gold, silver, land, you know, and and and and commodities and and food. And so, and what is that? That just by its very nature, it's just inflation. So, you know, I mean, and and I say to people, too, you know, people say, "Well, what do you where are these prices going? Like, what's going to happen?" Well, I think gold could go to 10,000. I think silver could go to 100, 150. I think Bitcoin could go to a million dollars. Um, and that's the good news. What's the bad news? Well, that's all that kind of is a monetary reset. The bad news is gasoline's probably going to be $12 a gallon or $15 a gallon, right? I mean, it's, you know, take the inflation from today's level and keep compounding it. I mean, it adds up. I mean, you know, I was a teenager in the 70s. the last bout of inflation and I pumped gas for a while. It was 25 cents a gallon at the time. You know, that's a that's a far cry from today's $4. So, um, you know, so it's just it's just as simple as that. The money is broken and and it's going to, you know, it's going to take a certain amount of political will and foresight to fix it. But, I think we will fix it. I'm I'm a bull on America and I'm a bull on on humankind. And I think, you know, there are a lot of great things going on. I mean, the technology stuff, I talk about this in my book, too. Technology stuff is changing and saving the world. I mean, here you and I are, you know, hundreds of miles apart. We're talking, we're broadcasting to thousands of people. You know, you don't need to read the New York Times as a stupid liberal rag to figure out what the truth is anymore. You can find your own truth on the web. And uh, you know, and people are getting fed up with being fed the lies and the And so, you know, pretty soon, you know, a Thomas Massie or somebody who's a sound money person is going to run for president or Congress and they're going to get elected. They're going to win. And, you know, the Federal Reserve is going to get shut down. I mean, this I know this sounds crazy, but I think it's going to happen. It's going to have to happen because the pain will be large enough to drive to drive us in that direction. And again, I mean, I wrote the book because I really wanted to spread the word among people so they could, you know, at the margin they start thinking about this you know? I mean, it's like >> um and I mean very immodestly, Chris, I want the book to become Thomas Payne's Common Sense, right? When when the American Revolution started, you know, a lot of the country didn't know what the hell was going on. Didn't really care. I mean, if you're a farmer in, you know, upstate New York, I mean, do you care if the British are ruling? I mean, you don't see the British. they're not affecting you in any way, shape, or form. So, it was only like the 10% of the people near the coast where, you know, the Boston Massacre occurred or they were saying, "Hey, we get to stay in your house or we get to tax your tea or, you know, we're going to tell you what to do and you can't you don't have any representation." Those guys got really pissed off and said, "Let's go, you know, take on this empire." And so, you know, I I consider the people who are in favor of sound money, you know, we're we're the same group. We're like, you know, you guys have cheated us and we're really pissed off and [laughter] guess what? We're g we're gonna recruit a lot more people to our side and we're gonna bury you guys. You know, we we are going to return to sound money. So, that's that's kind of my dream. I don't know if we can pull it off, but you know, that's you got to have you got to have a goal, right? And I know, by the way, I know I know you're you know, I know you're a warrior in this fight. I mean, you're you're a little bit more on the health side, and I appreciate everything you did for me during the co experience. I mean, um you really opened my eyes on that. So it's just, you know, we're all kind of pushing back at this corrupt government leviathan that that has kind of hurt us a lot, right? So >> well, it's it's my view that um it's impossible to have a healthy functioning society if the glue you're using to hold it together is a corrupt system of money. >> Right? >> And when I say it's corrupt money, everybody needs to know this. By the way, in this day and age, ignorance is a choice. People have no excuse for not understanding what's happening with their money system or how that's screwing them over at this point in time. You don't want to know that. That's fine. >> You do is have an internet connection. You can figure it out, right? >> And a little curiosity and understand, of course, that that it's you're not only your right, but I believe your obligation as a citizen to know this stuff, right? >> Well, yeah. I mean, I look, I'm old. I'm 68. I mean, this is for my kids and grandkids, you know what I mean? At this stage, and I'm and I'm comfortable. I'm not, you know, lacking for foods, but but not everybody's in my in my position. You know what I [laughter] mean? In fact, a lot I mean, it's sad. You go to the grocery store, see people putting back because they can't afford. It's just really sad. >> Yeah. >> Oh, it's it's ridiculously uh expensive at this point. If you want to eat healthy, >> Yeah. >> you got to put a a multiplier on that on your grocery bill, right? If you want to eat, you know, good stuff. So, but when I say corrupt money, you know, most people like, "Oh, what do you mean?" You know, cuz we're down here in the trenches and we have to work for our money. But when the Federal Reserve prints money or the Treasury effectively prints money through issuing debt that then gets sort of um multiple mon multiplied in in the banking system that steals purchasing power from everybody. We call it inflation but but that's a theft. Right. So it's it's fundamentally a fraudulent corrupt act that some people do this and create a billion dollars and you and I could work 10 lifetimes and never even get close to that number. Right. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> It's fraudulent. So, how do you then put rules around it and you know the SEC will sort of admit it? You can't I don't think you can have if you want to have an honest, high integrity, truth-based society, I think you have to have sound money. >> Absolutely. There's just no doubt about it. And and the way, you know, I don't care how good the constitution is or what political system you have. The minute you enter, it's like it's like religion and state. They just should be separated. Money and state should be separated. You know, fine, you need a state. And the reason you need a state is you need courts and laws. I mean, you know, look, I want to have a government because I want criminals to go to jail, you know, and and I think we all and I'd be more than willing to pay 10% of my income to have, you know, good roads and criminals in jail, but that's really to me kind of those are the two things that government should do. All the rest of the stuff, forget about it. And messing around with the money, oh my god, it's just been an unmitigated disaster. And they've had 20% rates, which almost bankrupted my father. And they've had 0% rates, which created a whole new class of billionaires. So, you know, it it's just you can't make this up. And I'm pretty sure that 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, you know, the history books are going to say, you know, mankind fell prey to this this, you know, pedophile from England named John Mater Kanes and um accepted his theory of of why you had to continually grow the money supply to have a healthy economy to avoid the dreaded fear of deflation. And you know, if you really think about deflation, what it is, I mean, deflation is the cost of getting cheaper through through efficiency. And it's a really beautiful thing. I mean, would you argue against deflation in your technology, your computer, your cell phone? I mean, no. It's been fabulous. They get better and better and they're cheaper and cheaper. Um, so what's wrong with deflation in everything else? I mean, that's the way that's naturally what capitalism should provide is as we get more efficient, you get more for less. But when you have a economy and a system that's requires inflation, which a credit based system does, where the money is created out of thin air and the money is only created by issuing debt, well then by definition you have to have inflation. And so these two things are in conflict with one another and you know it it for some for quite some time we've managed to balance them and pull it along you know in a messy fashion with things like 71 etc. But but now I think we're just so far down the system. It's just too far gone. And we're going to resolve this for good. I mean, either we're going to go full commie and they're going to control everything, including the money, and it's going to be a really dystopian world, which I I pray won't happen. I don't think it will happen. Or their system's going to break and collapse and we're going to return to sound money and my kids and grandkids and your kids and grandkids are going to live in a beautiful world that has the benefits of all this technology and and you know, none of the none of the broken stuff that we're now seeing. >> Why do you think it it won't happen? Why what what's your optimism that we won't go down that dystopian digital prison CBDC path? Because I think that I think that there are enough people in America and in the world that think for themselves. I mean, I I look at, you know, the um you know, I look at the Red Wave. I look at, you know, I mean, we've still I look at the way half this country is armed. I mean, there's still the spirit of um you know, rugged independence and individualism. Now look, I mean, if if if all of our generation dies out before this gets fixed, well then it might go the wrong way is is my sense. But >> I don't think that's likely cuz Chris, we're in it right now. I mean, let's talk timing. You know, this is a fourth turning. Most people understand that model, which is to say that every 80 years, you know, you you enter a period where all the rules change. The last one was World War II. The one before that was a Civil War. The one before that was the American Revolution. So, we're in a forth turning in my view. And the subject is money, you know, sound money. And and we've we've gone as far as we can on the fiat money train. And it has to resolve itself. And if you mark the beginning as 20 2008, these things typically last between 20 years and 30 years, which would take us to 2028 early ending and 2038 late ending. I kind of I mark the middle point as the likely period where it's going to end somewhere in the 2030s. I think what will happen is it'll get we're going to have continued inflation throughout this presidency. Um I I think tragically and sadly um some people won't get it and the the blue team will come around and offer all kinds of you know handouts and goodies and and red team will win the next time because in a fourth turning you know if you're if your life sucks you often just say I don't care I want to vote out whoever's in. I'll try the other side even if they're if the other side has bad ideas. So then I think in 28 we'll get a blue administration and then they'll finish the dollar off. They'll go with UBI. They'll go with stemmies. they'll go with, you know, forgiveness of all loans. Um they'll try and do a CBDC, all of it. And it'll be really and inflation, it'll the dollar will basically die. I mean, if you think inflation is bad in the next few years when I think it, I think we'll have low double digit inflation in the next couple years, you know. Um at that point in time, we'll have, you know, 20 and 30%. I mean, the dollar will be failing. And and at that point in time, what I believe will happen is somebody will rise up and say, "Hey, you know, this is what's going on. This explains why it's going on, and we have to reset and reset the sound money." Now, there's some possibility this all could get shortcircuited if the Trump are really bold and do this reset within this 4-year window. And there's some talk that maybe they want to. I mean, as an example, Judy Selton Shelton said that Trump told her that he would maybe like to do a gold back treasury bond, you know, and that the the 250th anniversary July 2026 would be a good time to do it. This was reported by Andy Sheckchman in talking conversation with Judy. So, you know, all right. I mean, I I hope they do it. I pray they do it. It's the right thing to do. Um, will they have the political cover to do it and the guts to do it? I don't know. He's broken a lot of glass. Maybe he will, but I just don't know. Until it happens, we do not know. So, um, you know, that that would short circuit the bad path that I've talked about. But if we go the other way, I think we have, you know, the next administration's blue, inflation gets worse, and then we're really in deep But, but it's so obvious that, you know, uh, the team emerges that says this is the only way we can fix it, and it's to cancel out all this debt and return to sound money. You know what? [music] Gold and silver are my top choices to protect my wealth against inflation [music] and economic instability. Now, with all the monetary debasement and all these geopolitical risks going on, hedging your wealth has never been more important. [music] I recommend that everybody own some gold and silver, physical, in your hot little hands. [music] But what if you want to hold it elsewhere? Gold Core is an excellent choice and will rapidly and securely deliver physical gold and silver to your doorstep. 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GoldCore offers a range of investment options from gold and silver coins and bars to self-directed IRA. Again, all with fully segregated and secure storage. Take control of your financial future today with Gold Core, where investing [music] in precious metals has never been easier, more secure, or more transparent. Remember, Peak Prosperity followers get 6 months of free storage. So, sign up now at peak.fan/goldcore fan/goldcore to secure your 6 months of free storage. Again, that's peak.fan/goldcore. Yeah. So, so let let's take the sweep of history. So, 1913 Federal Reserve is formed. John Maynard Kanes comes along with his crazy perpetual inflation ideas. That sort of all gets enshrined. It breaks in 1971. >> Yes. >> We get taken off the gold wind, you know, the gold window slam temporarily by Nixon. We're still there. And of course, it's off to the races. Now, it's not just federal debt. People talk about 38 trillion, but can we talk about the fact that our the United States has 104 trillion total debt, and that doesn't include unfunded, underfunded, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, IUs, right? So, that's extra. Multiply that by some other whole number, two or three. Okay? So, they did all of that, and then you know the gold history as well as I do that that they did everything they could. There was the London gold pool. There was the Washington Agreement. They did everything they could. And this is the chart. This just came up on Bloomberg. And this really caught me because what we're looking at here, everybody, this blue line shows the amount of gold as a percent of official global reserves was about 70% in 1980. Came all the way down to 10%. It is not money. And it is just not money. All the way until about 2020. And it starts creeping back up again. And I think you can see where we're going here, Larry. These student lines are going to cross. And if we get that blue administration you talked about, >> they have actually crossed. I could be wrong in that. Depends. I'm not sure what data they're measuring. I've seen another chart that shows those lines almost touching one another. But yeah, I think >> but that's I mean can we talk about that cuz that is like we're not talking like oh there's some things happening in gold. >> That's seismic right there. Oh yeah. What's happening? >> Yeah. No, that's huge. I mean, look, you know, as I say, we we started off the program talking about why is the gold price going up and, you know, and the reason is that everybody is coming to the consensus that they can never stop printing money. It's it's really that simple. I mean, I've read about all the hyperinflations that have occurred and and I've talked to people actually have lived through them. The South Americans seem to have a large number of them. People in Brazil and Argentina and I mean, recent memory, right? Ecuador and um you know hyperinflations or very high inflations occur as everybody in this crackup boom as everybody comes to know that the government can never stop printing money and they just don't want to hold the money anymore. They just they get it and they immediately spend it and of course that's what happened in Weimar. I mean they were you know their their stories of how they were changing the prices between the time you sat down for dinner and the time you left the restaurant. Right. >> This this is one of my favorite charts I came across on on Twitter a couple weeks ago. >> Yeah. you know, and and so we're here from 1918, this is the Weimar inflation, the the wheelbarrows of money and all that. And so gold rises pretty smartly from maybe one gold deutsch mark to maybe 12 >> over a couple years. Oh, and then a huge correction. This must have been miserable. Oh no, gold is dead. I can hear the Yahoo Finance headlines. Oh no. >> And then ah it's going nowhere. And then oh no, it's it's effed right here. And then it's gonna collapse. But this is a log chart. So every one of these that went from a single Deutsch mark 5 years later it was worth a trillion. >> Well the Deutsch mark it became worthless and that's a hyperinflation then and that you know sadly Chris that could occur. I mean that's not I it's my tail case but it's I'd probably put it at a 10%. The reason I think it's up 10% is I do believe that before we get too far down I mean there are other people smart people who know that even in the government including guys like patent and um and before we get too far down that road you know I think we'll have movement to solve this problem but um but we you know we got to go sadly we got to go down the road I mean I I don't think I mean like if somebody came in today and said you know what we're going to devalue all this debt and reset gold to $30,000 and go to a gold standard everyone would look at them like they're crazy and say, you know, what are you talking about? You can't do that. Why do you need to do that? I mean, you know, the the the problem will only get addressed sadly after inflation gets a lot worse. And so, you know, when inflation's really really bad and every it's the number one problem in the country. I mean, right now, I had this in my quarterly report as well. There's a chart that shows um making ends meet is the top concern. They list all kinds of thing concerns that you might have in your family. you know, I mean, health and sa personal safety and, you know, all these different I mean, making ends meet was like the top by a huge measure. Just everybody's feeling the economic pinch. And sadly, if what we're describing continues and gets worse, which I think it will, that's going to become even bigger and bigger. And so, you know, as that occurs, we're going to just have to push the politicians to, you know, to to reform the damn thing. I mean, that's that's the only way out of this mess. And so, um, you know, I hope and pray that, you know, we don't have to endure too much pain before they wake up and say, you know what, we got to fix it and here's how we're going to do it. And I think, >> well, I honestly don't don't know how to do that at this point. Um, because on the one hand, you have to continue the inflation thing and hope that it doesn't get away from you into some hyperinflationary spiral. That's one edge of the chasm. The other edge, which is a knife edge right now, is deflation, where all of those bad debts suddenly get resolved, which is a capital D depression. And so there's not a politician alive who's going to take that path willingly. >> Well, that's exactly right. >> So, what would you do? I mean, what would you do? Let Larry, you are now fed chair. I just anointed you. Like, is there is there a path? Is there any path at all that could actually rescue the dollar? If you go in my book, there's a chapter in there. By memory, I think it's chapter 26, but I don't know you can find it. Um, that I call policy response that addresses that. And I I I actually drafted out the the the statement I would give if I were president. And basically I think yes I know what I would do. I would say look folks we've been wrong we've been following the wrong inflationary model. In fact before we started we talked about how you know the notion of unlimited growth in a planet that has fixed resources that's stupid. I mean you just it's ridiculous. I mean we you've got to it doesn't work. And so this this Keynesian notion that we have to continually grow or else we die is is wrong. And what we really need is great honesty and efficiency. And you know, fiat money does not give you either of those two things. It's dishonest and it's not efficient. And so I would I would say to the country, we've operated for far too long on the wrong model and we are going to make a one-time very painful change to that model. We are going to issue a new dollar. It's going to be backed by gold or silver or Bitcoin or some combination of all these. And 10 old dollars is equal to one new dollar. and you'll get paid back, you know, your your you know, I mean, so so we'll effectively have devalued all the existing outstanding debts and and by the way, we'll have devalued a lot all of the outstanding wealth and those people who own, you know, wealth that gets remarked in the new dollars like silver, gold, land, you know, Bitcoin, etc. will be much better off than those people who don't. And on a go forward basis, we're going to have a balanced budget amendment. Um, and the government's not going to be even allowed to create debt. we're just going to, you know, have this fixed supply of money and the price of gold will be the price, you know, gold will be the numer or bitcoin will be the numeration of the two. Um, but but we're not going to allow the Federal Reserve to control the money supply because it's not necessary. It is. I mean, that's the thing. I I mean, I think our kids kids will say, "I can't believe these people who are theoretically capitalists let a committee of 12 people in Washington DC, the Fed board, you know, set the price of capital." I mean, that's price fixing. It doesn't work. Everyone knows that. You know, you if you have price fixing, the Soviet Russia tried that, right? Fix the price of corn. >> Well, guess what? You fix it too high, you know, and you know, you get way too much corn. you fix it too low, you get no corn. You know, it's like it it just doesn't work. So, um yeah, I that's that's what I would try to do. I mean, with respect to the Fed, I'd shut it down. I don't think we need a Federal Reserve. I really don't. I think if if we were on I mean, this is what Jackson did. He threw out the Second Bank of the United States and we were on a gold and silver standard at the time. And um you know, everyone everyone shits on the gold and silver standard. Well, guess what? The living standards of Americans from 1789 to 1913 improved more rapidly than they ever have in the history of the world. I mean we had real growth, real, you know, productivity, real efficiency where, you know, the the living stands were going up 67% a year. I mean, it was unbelievable, right? And that was all on a sound money standard. And yet the Keynesians would have you believe that the gold standard called caused the depression or the gold standard was a bad thing or that gold is a barbarous relic or this is all in my book. I mean they've they you know it's what you were talking about earlier. I mean they the people in the positions of power who try and control the narrative so that it benefits themselves have told us all a bunch of lies. I mean this is what happened in co right? You know you know there are no decent alternative therapies like Ivormect. I mean, I was taking the horse paste out of right right from the veterinarian, right? There are no decent alternative therapies. And the reason they told you that is cuz they wanted to have the emergency right to produce their poison and sell it to you and jam it down your throat. I mean, it's the same thing is true in the monetary sphere. And that's, you know, that's what's gone on. And and like I say, I mean, you know, the Fed, the Fed employs thousands of PhD economists who tell them what they want to hear about how, you know, they they should be setting the price of money, and they're just all dead ass wrong. They're all doing useless work. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. >> Yeah. Well, I love this idea. Say if if the Treasury said, "Hey, the Federal Reserve appreciate what you're up to, but you're a private cartel. You serve people and serve interest. We're going to start issuing Treasury money directly. It's a gold back bond. It's whatever." But it's it's And now now we have what capitalism thrives on, which is competition. >> Exactly. >> And if I get to choose, and you Larry, you know, you're going to pay me for some service I've provided. I'm going to choose the goldback thing. And you're going to like you're going to everybody's just going to get rid of their Federal Reserve notes until the Federal Reserve straightens up and flies right and treats their product like it's got real competition and it has to be believable. >> Exactly. And and and and is the way they're constructed, they can't and won't do that and so they'll fail and that'll be a beautiful day. I mean [laughter] that'll be a really beautiful day. >> Well, it'll be really painful though and I I do worry that a lot of people are going to get hurt. >> That is right. And I you know I do too. But um you know all we can do is all we can do. I mean I you know I didn't I didn't set up the Fed in 1913. Neither did you. You know I didn't temporarily go off the gold standard in 1971. Neither did you. You know I mean we're just we're just subjects in this grand experiment. Um and all we can do is you know we have our voices and we have our beliefs and we communicate. You're doing a great job with your work and your channel and your books and you know your whole program. And you know, my small contribution to the the effort was to write my book because I felt like somebody needed to explain it to every the average person. And you know, um I mean, the one thing we do have in our favor, Chris, that makes me think we'll win. You asked earlier said, "What makes you sure we'll win? It won't go all dystopian." Well, one, I'm I just tend to be somewhat spiritual, and I think in the end, there is a, you know, a god or, you know, a higher power that that is looking out for us. And I and I and I look at the the arc of human history and we've always ultimately gone in the right direction, which is not to say there have been some ugly chapters along the way. >> Um and and we've also got them vastly outnumbered. That's and that's a really powerful thing. There's power in numbers. And so, you know, the people who benefit from this system, it's a small number. >> You know, the people who are being screwed by the system, there are lots of us, right? [laughter] So, you know, I don't like their odds, right? Now, you know, they've they've tried to gaslight us and they've lied to us and they've kept us stupid and fighting with each other over stupid like blue red, right? All those things have allowed them to maintain their power. >> But guess what? You know, pretty soon people are going to wake up and go, you know, it's not about blue red. It's about the people in power versus the rest of us. And guess what? You guys you guys have it up and we are not going to take it anymore. you know, so that's >> that's what I that's why I'm I'm optimistic. >> Well, I I I love that optimism. I think it will sort itself out. I mean, the the framing I've been using for a while is it's basically good versus evil, which is up, down. It's not left versus right anymore, which has a spiritual component to it. >> And and I kind of came to that slowly, but then all at once when I realized that that evil was the best descriptor I could find for what these people were doing. >> I agree. >> Because evil just likes to destroy things. It likes to decay things. It tears things down really effortlessly. It doesn't know how to build >> it about it. It only cares about itself too. It doesn't care about the grow the greater humanity. Right. >> Right. >> And that explains what I saw in the healthcare space, the finance space, the this space, all that. Okay. So, but given that um the pendulum does swing back and forth right now, I think you were recently talking about and writing about this crackup boom. Equities just, you know, magically, effortlessly powering higher. Not my first bubble, so I know what I'm looking at. But I'm wondering um in your mind, can we talk about potential pins and and I I'd like to I think what I'm seeing in Japan is a potential pin. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> What are you seeing there? >> Oh, there are a lot of pins. I mean, you may be more aware of the Japan situation than I am. I know their 30-year bond is fading. I know they're starting to have inflation. I mean, they've got more debt to GDP than anybody else in the world, although they've got a closed economy and they do run surpluses in the government and in their trade deficit. So the US is in a worse economic position. They also have a large savings culture. Um yeah, you know, they're what do I see as pins? Oh, I mean they're just they're they're laying around all over the place. I mean the government, you know, the stock market, the chart you showed earlier about how overvalued it is. I mean, look, having stocks go up is almost become part of national policy. My book talks about it, how Greenspan kind of first realized that, you know what, I can do whatever I want. As long as I get the stock market higher, everybody's happy. So, I'm just gonna, you know, whenever things aren't going well, I'm just going to pour more whiskey in the in the in the jar. Um, I So, I think the stock market bursting is a potential pin. Um, I think AI, um, you know, starting to replace jobs and having more people unemployed. I mean, you know, AI works against AI is deflationary. Um, and it but and it works against a system that requires inflation. I mean, everybody whose job gets replaced by AI, I mean, they're going to have a mortgage. They're going to have a car payment. What are they going to do? Well, again, the government's probably going to have to send them a check, you know? I mean, I found it interesting. I mean, wasn't it interesting that, you know, in spite of running enormous deficits when we started to get this additional income from the tariffs, Trump's first instinct was, well, maybe we should do some STEMI checks for the American the lower income Americans who are hurting. I you I understand it. I mean, I lower income Americans really are hurting. But, good God, man. We haven't even come close to balancing the budget. And you're talking about sending out more stim checks. I mean, um, so I I don't really know. I mean, it to me to me it is an incredibly fragile situation that kind of reminds me from what I've read in history of the 1929 situation. And uh, I'm not suggesting we're going to have that kind of a crash, but you know, when you use debt to fuel consumption and you pull it forward and eventually the debt can't be supported, I mean, you know, as you point out, things can collapse. And I mean and I you know it's so funny like like the housing market right you know the the story was the housing market could never collapse. Well in modern times it hadn't but I had a grandfather who you know the house he wanted to buy in 1929 cost $30,000. He couldn't afford it. Um in 1933 he bought it for 10. So you know it went down 66%. You know during the depression because everybody and their brother was scrambling for cash. And um now you know that could and should happen again based on the credit and debt structure we built up. The difference this time is that we have a man named Bernaki who gave the helicopter speech which says we have a technology called a printing press and the Federal Reserve has literally vowed that they will never let deflation happen again. And you know translating that that means they will print whatever amount of money is necessary to prevent a deflationary collapse. Okay, that's fine. Print the money guys. But the question then becomes what's that what's the value of that money? You know what's the underlying value of that money? is Parker Brothers can also print Monopoly money and you can buy as many Monopoly sets as you want. And if that bought real stuff, you know, you'd be rich with your Monopoly money, but you know, as as [clears throat] we all know, one of the critical values of money is that it be somewhat scarce, you know, and and and limited in supply. And uh uh fiat is really proving that, you know, it's always been not scarce and it's getting increasingly so. And and that's again the point I think it's very important. I'm sure most of your listeners already know this uh Chris, but just it's getting worse. You know, we're compounding. We've added 11 trillion in debt in 10 years. I mean, we just crossed the 38 trillion level. I mean, we'll be at 50 trillion before you blink an eye. Do you know what I mean? And so, you know, that that that we know about cuz um I'd love to get your take on this. I'm a little conspiratorial, but um Elon Musk is doing his Doge stuff and then he has this remarkable one minute interview where he says, "Hey, we found magic money machines inside the US government, not inside the Federal Reserve. They found servers that were emitting payments, right?" >> Wow. >> And he said they found 14 of them, right? They were scattered. There was one at HHS, there's one in Treasury, there's 11 in the in the DoD. So he said these were they found these servers that were just emitting payments, right? And when he says magic money machine, now this is a guy who started PayPal, so he presumably understands reconciliations and balance of payments, he's probably not a dummy, you know, but he basically said these things, he said it flat out, these are machines that create money when they emit the emit the check, which means it's not T reconciling on the back end somewhere. Now, maybe he misspoke, but he got canned very shortly after that. And then just this last week, >> did you hear that they suddenly discovered that the Cayman Islands had $1.7 trillion dollar >> of treasuries? Whoops. Where did >> I get I'm a little suspicious about that. Is it possible that somebody's offshoring and buying debt? >> I'm with you on the conspiracy theorist. I mean, remember, you know, I mean, in the Pentagon, remember when the Pentagon had like a 2.6, you know, billion dollar overrun that trillion? >> Yeah. They couldn't they couldn't account for where it went. I mean, >> yeah. I mean, so, and we know that in suppressing gold and silver, you know, they they they had Cayman Islands accounts and they just I mean, when you've got a printing press, I mean, why and and thinking thinking about how dishonest the US government has been. Do we really think they wouldn't use that printing press to just create money that's somehow off the books? I mean I mean, I know from talking to people in the military, I mean, they were shipping pallets of $100 bills over to the Middle East to bribe warlords and and do other things. I mean, were those really being accounted for? I don't know. I mean, I you know, I would guess not, right? I mean, so so yeah, there's there's I mean, and and if you look at some of the older executive orders, you know, that talk about how they don't have to disclose certain things if it's in quote unquote the national security interest, right? Well, you know, um, if you think the price of gold could represent a threat to the dollar and you've got to print a bunch of dollars to sell short gold and you got to fund the account that does that in the Cayman Islands with those dollars and absorb the losses and it's all off the balance sheet or off the books. I mean, is that sound possible to you? It sure does sound possible to me, right? >> It's national security. You can justify anything. >> National security. I mean, here's another good one, Chris. I love this one. So Trump comes in and Bazan comes in and they're like, "Hey, you know what? We go has a good thing. We're going to audit Fort Knox, right? I mean, this is like [laughter] this is like the Epstein list, right?" And then, you know, somebody obviously pulled them aside and said, "Uh uh, sir, uh, we got to talk a little bit about this Fort Knox idea [laughter] because uh, and I I I know most of the monetary people in the country, in the world. I mean, I know a lot of them. I know a guy in London who very old school monetary guy used to work for Chase Manhattan, worked for David Rockefeller. This guy knew people who were in the Johnson Treasury um department. So this is in the 1960s, okay? And he said he had direct conversations with people who worked for Johnson in Johnson's Treasury Department who said when the London Gold Pool was playing out from 63 to 68, Johnson got suckered into sending gold to London from Fort Knox to help with the gold pool and they didn't record it. They didn't announce it. They didn't. It was all under the table. And then when it didn't come back, Johnson just lost his Just went absolute apeshit. And that's part of the reason why he did the acts he did surrounding silver at the time. And so, you know, look, is there gold in Fort Knox? Obviously, because Bent took his, you know, hooker wife down there, you know, and and and had the pictures of him standing with the gold. But, you know, is is all the gold that we believe there? >> Wait, you meant you meant Minutuchin, right? >> I'm sorry. Yeah. Minutuchin. That's who I meant. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Who did I say? >> You said Bent. >> Oh, I said Bent. Yeah. No, I didn't mean Bent. No, Bass's gay. [laughter] Yes. Yeah, I went Minutuchin. Yeah. took his hooker wife down and you know and and so so yeah, Fort Knox is is compromised. There's just no doubt. In fact, there are some smart monetary guys. Vince Lansancy is one of them. He's on Twitter quite a bit. Um he he's he's very strong believer that actually the the bid in gold right now is actually the US government trying to refill its coffers. And it it does sound logical. I mean, there were some huge shipments out of London and Switzerland back to the US. And so, you know, and I mean, one of the Trump boys has done some ads for gold and talked about how much his dad loves gold. And so, you know, and you've got um, you know, you've got Lutnik who's a Bitcoiner. You've got, you know, Moran who's a Bitcoiner, and you've got Trump who's, you know, supported Bitcoin and so forth. I mean, you've got people in there who I think are aware of these issues, and, you know, I mean, my I'm extremely hopeful. I mean, this this recent Bent comment just has me really really intrigued where he said the price of gold going up is a good thing. I was like, whoa. Because he knows he's got to remark the debt against something and the only choices are gold and Bitcoin and Bitcoin's not big enough yet. So, he's really got to do it against gold. And you know, so as as Luke Roman, a great macro analyst, lays out, I mean, you know, we could wake up one morning and the government could say we're returning to a gold standard and the reference price is $20,000 and we stand ready to buy or sell, you know, gold and silver at that price. And >> well, and let let's talk about that because um to be clear, it's 4,100 as of right now. math in my head, assuming those 261 million ounces actually are there in the Fort Knox system, that's only a trillion bucksish. >> Well, that's right. That's six months of deficit spending right now. >> Every 4,000 uh dollars in the price of gold brings you in a trillion. So, you'd have to go up to, you know, to to start making a real dent in the debt, you'd have to go to 20, 30, 40, you know, thousand an ounce. I mean, I think there's another in my book, I have this chart as well. It's really good work. It was done by Brent Johnson, a friend of mine that runs San Diego Capital. Um, you know, he went through and he looked at what it would take to cover the entire US monetary base. What price of gold would allow the US, you know, gold held, assuming we have it, to cover the US monetary base. He came up, and this was a while ago, a couple years ago, so it's out of date because we've spent more since then, but it was $90,000 an ounce. So 90,000 is a long way from 4,100. So which and all that I mean, and I'm not saying we're going to 90,000. I'm not calling for that as a prediction. What I'm saying is we printed a lot of money and if we want to return to a sound money standard, there is going to be an enormous I mean enormous adjustment of the price of sound money as compared to the price of fiat such that those people who own fiat are almost going to feel like they got completely wiped out. I mean, you know, imagine having a million dollars in Treasury bonds and after this whole reset is over, it buys you the equivalent of $50,000. You know, it'll it'll buy you a $50,000 car. And in turn, you know, imagine having $10,000 in gold and after this whole reset, it buys you the equivalent of $100,000 worth of stuff cuz it's gone up 10x. I mean, you know, gold at 10,000 to me is just falling off a log. And you know, where it goes, I we just don't know. There's so many moving pieces and they keep printing money. So, the numbers always keep getting bigger. But, um, but I but I do know I mean I have a fund, I have investors, I have people I talk to a lot of gosh, I can't buy it. It's gone up so much. It's a double from 20. Like, no, no, no. You got don't don't use this price bias. You got to you got to think about the bigger issue of how much fiat is there, how much gold is there. We're still very very much in the undervalued camp. If you look historically over a 100red-year time frame, [music] >> today's markets are more volatile than ever with ongoing economic and geopolitical [music] uncertainty. Navigating such environments requires thoughtful, adaptive strategies, not a one-sizefits-all [music] approach. At Peak Financial Investing, our registered investment advisory firm connects clients with [music] experienced wealth managers who focus on active portfolio management. These professionals use evidence-based strategies [music] designed to respond to changing conditions, not outdated formulas, but customized [music] approaches grounded in research, discipline, and risk awareness. We believe in open, informed conversations, including discussing tools like precious metals and diversification as part of a broader [music] financial strategy. Every investor's situation is unique, and our advisers tailor their guidance accordingly. Visit peakfinancialinvesting.com [music] today to schedule your free consultation and explore how proactive management can support your financial goals. I'm Dr. Dr. Chris Martinson, proud to work [music] with Peak Financial Investing and my support reflects my professional views. I encourage you to take control [music] of your financial future by making informed decisions. Yeah, I've I've done some quick math and um I I you know, people like, "Oh, gold's overbought. It's too high." I'm like, "No, no, it's badly underowned because it's still under it's about a percent, maybe 2% of of total wealth held by the top 10% of families. They have about a hundred trillion dollars of investable financial assets. So if they wanted to just move 5% into gold, which I think would be irresponsible. I think they should be at a higher number. Um not financial advice, but just sort of a directional educational comment there. But okay, that's 5 trillion. How big is the total investable US gold market? Well, it's about a trillion right now, right? Because the Fort Knox stuff is not for sale. Yeah, it's >> it's actually a little bigger than that. Chris, let me let me correct on that. So, so if you take all the So, they're probably between 180,000 and 200,000 tons in the world. And it's hard to tell cuz the records go back quite some time and some of it's been lost in shipwrecks. But pick the midpoint of that 190,000 tons. If you multiply that times today's price, I think you come up around $27 trillion worth of gold in the world. But, but and this is a big butt, probably seven or eight of that is in museums and antiquities. So, you know, you're not going to we're not going into all the museums of the world and melting down, you know, the the Egyptian masks that are made of gold, right? So, that that's untouchable. And then probably of the balance, let's say there's 20 trillion of balance, probably 10 of that is around a woman's neck somewhere in the US or India or China or whatever, which is available for sale eventually. Don't get me wrong. If gold goes to 100,000 an ounce, I'm guessing there's some people who are going to sell their jewelry to to melt it down and get money. But if you if you want to take the bars and coins, which I consider to be what I call investable bullion, you know, it's probably 10 trillion dollars today is kind of my number. So, um that's a pretty small number. >> Yeah. I I was making a comment, Larry, that how much was available in the US. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's much smaller >> because I feel like once once the great gold repricing starts happening, you're going to find for it's not leaving China. That was a oneway. >> Great. No, no, that's a you make a very good point because and and by the way, I mean most people listening this already know this. The Chinese say they've got a couple thousand tons of gold. We say we've got 8,000. The Chinese have multiples of that. I mean they have for they have an export law that any gold mine in China can't leave the country. That's that's law. And we can see the records. Most of the gold in the world gets refined in in Switzerland. Not all of it, but a lot of it does. And and most of the gold makes its way through London or Switzerland at some point in time. And we can see the shipment records from London and Switzerland over the last 20 years. China, in my estimation, probably has, you know, 15 to 25,000 tons of gold, which is more than the US allegedly has at 8,300. So, um, yeah, it's, um, you know, there's not that much gold out there and it's it's very very rare and and compared to fiat stuff. I mean, there's a great chart one of the Bitcoin guys did called, um, the Jesse Meyer did it, and it shows total financial investable assets in the world, and this includes real estate now. So, this has housing and and commercial real estate is about $900 trillion. So that's you know call bonds a couple hundred trillion stocks a couple hundred trillion gold 27 trillion bitcoin 2 trillion very small um and real estate's about 450 trillion okay so that's all what what people would consider to be things that they invest in so the gold market you know as you point out in the US it might be one worldwide available maybe 10 but you know if that n I mean 10 10 over 900 I mean it's it's barely a percent do you know what I mean and So if if some piece of of that 900 says, you know, like the bond market for example, there's a $200 trillion bond market in the world. Okay. Well, someday those guys are going to wake up and go, you know what? Yeah, you guys are going to pay me back my principal, but it's not going to buy I don't want these bonds anymore, [laughter] right? You know, some of that 200 is going to come chasing that 10, you know, or if you really want to get excited, some of that 200 is going to come chasing and you believe in Bitcoin, chasing that two trillion of Bitcoin. Gosh, you know, Bitcoin could go up a couple X from here easily. So, you know, it's it's definitely um you know, it's definitely a shift that's taking place and I to me it's just it's very obvious and very easy to see and and I you know, and I have a great deal of confidence that it's happening. But, you know, as as you showed in that chart, I mean, there'll be swings. I mean, you we'll go to 4,400, then we'll you know, gold plunges. >> Yes. >> Oh, no. >> Oh, no. Gold's going down. And you know, we're we're at 4,100 right now. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all if gold went to 3500. Not at all. It's extended. But >> but at 3500, it'd be a screaming buy because I feel like in a year or two it'll be five or six. So, yep. >> You know, you you are here on this chart, but but so I'd love to get your your take on this because um inflation is a monetary phenomenon, Milton Friedman, right? And I believe in that. And so, we're going to have inflation that's baked in the cake. There's nothing we can do about that. Deficit spending, all of that. Martin Armstrong says that when you get to a hyperinflation, it's when there's a comprehensive loss of faith, >> correct, >> in the government's ability to do anything other than than be feckless and continue doing what they do, right? So, it's a faith issue. So, those are harder to call because I can run numbers and I can get a pretty close guess as to what we're going to have for inflation based on what I'm seeing. >> I can't call this other one because I don't know what's going to cause people to suddenly wake up one day and think like you and me. Cuz let's be clear, if the top 10% of families suddenly woke up with your mindset, >> they >> I think we get this chart, you know, by the end of the year. >> I think that's probably right. Yeah. And I think that's probably right. I mean, I think all we can do is observe the slope of the line. And, you know, um I mean, I remember back in 7980 when it was doing it, a lot of people thought the dollar was going to fail. But, you know, Vulkar had a lot more space cuz that was only 35% of GDP. and he was willing to take rates to 20%. And so, you know, he quote unquote saved the dollar, which is why he's such a hero to many people, not to me, but what he should have done, well, he he was he was really a goat cuz he was at the table in 71. And what they should have done is let gold price float rather than go off the gold standard. They should have just re devalued the dollar downward in gold terms. But, [snorts] um, yeah, no, that that's a very tricky thing. I mean, it's like um, you know, one day the Silicon Valley Bank was a very sound bank. There were no problems, right? And then, you know, they sold some bonds and there was a big discount on the bonds and some sharp pencled analyst did the math and said, "Oh my goodness, they got a lot of these bonds and they took a loss on this amount and if you run that through on the oh my god, you know what? I don't think this bank is solvent anymore." And he called up a few of his venture capital friends in the valley and they kind of called each other and they said, you know, this bank is in trouble. And in one day, $46 trillion flew out of that bank. I mean, it was like almost half the deposits in one day. I mean this was you know this was uh you know the Bedford savings and loan Jimmy you know Jimmy Stewart on steroids right I mean and and so you know we live in a very very interconnected world and uh everybody knows everything instantly and can get online and and learn and so you know I mean and Jim Rickards has done some great you know kind of game theory on this I mean we could wake up one morning what would you do if you woke up one morning and suddenly the gold price was $8,000 an ounce and you said okay that's not good um maybe I'll buy something. You went to your coin dealer and said, "I can't get you any. There's there's none for sale, you know, and and it'd be like, "Oh, Well, what's the Bitcoin price?" Well, the Bitcoin's at 400. Oh, well, it used to be at 100. I know. You know, and you could buy that, but you do you really want to pay 4x what it was a week ago? I mean, that would tell you the currency is failing that that everybody has kind of decided. I mean, it it it goes to the suddenly then gradually thing. I mean, you know, there there a lot of great models for this. It's kind of criticality of systems. I know you know this cuz you're, you know, a PhD in this but you know, it's it's like an avalanche, right? I mean, you know, the the corners keeps getting bigger. It keeps snowing. Nothing happens. Boom. It releases. It all comes down, right? Um, you know, you're in a you're in a theater. You smell a little smoke. Ah, it's nothing. You know, one guy's just having a cigarette. No, smell more smoke. Oh there's a lot of smoke in here. This place on fire. We got to get the out of here now. Right. I mean, that's kind of the model. You're in the You're on the Titanic, right? Well, we hit we hit an iceberg. It's not really a big deal. We'll be fine. You know, this ship can't sink. Well, yeah, it can. And and so, you know, these I I think this Fiat system shares the characteristics of those other three models I described. Um and I I tell you what, if that's the case, when when you're looking at price, if if I'm right about that logic, um does it matter what you paid for your price in the lifeboat on the Titanic? I mean, okay, so I bought gold at 300, I bought at 1,000, I bought at 2,000. I paid 3,000 for some, you know, not that far back. Um, you know, today it's 4,100 to you. Do you want it or don't you stay in fiat or buy the seat? You know, [laughter] I mean, that's that's kind of the model I look at right now. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I don't want to be I don't want to be accused of being a doom merchant, okay? I'm just doing an analysis. I'm just I'm just looking at history and thinking I mean, you know, sometimes these patterns repeat themselves and so you know, hey, do you take all your money and put it in gold and silver or Bitcoin? Probably not. Do you have zero in this inflation hedge in a world where the monetary authorities are out of control? That's a really bad idea in my opinion. That is investment advice. I'm willing to say that on the record, right? And so then you got to just decide, okay, there's a long way between zero and 100%. You know, I mean, here's a guy Ray Dio, right? Super successful investor, one of the best hedge fund managers ever, built Bridgewwater Associate, and he's saying he thinks most people should have 20% of their investable assets allocated to gold or Bitcoin, you know, because he sees a monetary accident coming. I mean, he's not a stupid man, you know, and he's willing to say it publicly. And so, you know, I I think when you start hearing this from a lot of really good investors, Paul Tudtor Jones, another brilliant hedge fund manager, self-made billionaire based on watching markets his entire life, same story. You know, uh, sound money is a really important issue. You know, gold and Bitcoin are are the leaders in that category, right? So, um, yeah, it's, um, to me it's, you know, I'm just I'm just out here trying to scream at the masses and say, "Hey guys, wake up, you know, wake up." because I know you know if all this happens um I don't want anybody to say hey how come you didn't tell us about this right I >> I just want to build on what you said there because um I also bought gold at 300 and 500 I've been buying all the way along right and so somebody says gosh I don't know it's too high I said every single time I bought gold it was a difficult decision >> right it >> it's just never it's people look they look back and they go oh well that was an easier decision to make at 2000 like no it wasn't same decision you're facing Hey, just as hard. >> I remember it all. >> I dipped down to 600 and I bought some. I thought, God, I hope I'm doing the right thing here. Do you know what I mean? >> Looking backwards, it's like, duh. >> Yeah. >> It's hard though. I mean, it's, you know, you got >> I mean, these short-term moves throw people off the long-term scent, and that's that that makes it difficult. Does make it difficult. gold. >> Well, and I want to reinforce, we started at the beginning and and as we close, get towards the end here, but I just want to reinforce for people right now. Gold at this moment of this taping is up $93. And so, let's count how many articles we now have on the front page of Yahoo Finance talking about gold. Oh, none. There's zero. >> There's sins of omission and commission. They just omit. They just don't we just forgot to talk like like if it was down they'd have articles all over it and gold bugs and >> well the thing the thing to keep in mind there's another explanation for that Chris in my view on Wall Street and CNBC and all those guys they just don't make any money buying and selling gold they make money buying and selling stocks and and those are the people the people who sell stocks advertise on their networks and and they're very much driven by their business model and therefore you're just never going to see you know them being supportive of this alternative. it just doesn't happen. And that's that's just it's as simple as you know their their salary depends on not being that way. So >> I get I get it. But I just want to alert people that if you're subconsciously absorbing the scenes of commission and omission, it will take you off the scent. >> Absolutely. >> You know, and somebody wants you off the scent cuz they don't make money at it. I get it. >> It's not It's just not easy. I mean, it's, >> you know, it's it's it's difficult. It's difficult when you're being lied to about everything. But here's the thing. sites like yours, sites like Tucker, sites like, you know, Rogan, all kinds of websites, zero heads, you name it. I mean, um, I mean, thousands and thousands of people are coming out and exposing the lies that are inherent within the system. I mean, Trump, I mean, Bobby Kennedy, I mean, you name it. There are a lot of people who are calling out the And as you said, I thought you said something earlier in the conversation that was really important, which is there's no excuse for not being educated about what's going on today. You can take college courses online. You can get so much information online for free. All you need is a computer and an internet hookup. And most people can afford that. And so, you know, you have to self-educate. Um, you know, it's like the Darwin Awards. I mean, you know, self-educate or else, you know, your progyny are not going to be as well off as they should be. Um, yeah. >> Well, I I don't really take the greed fear angle as much either, but I I do think that I'm clear about this, Larry. Um, we're at one of those moments in history. >> Yeah. >> Where great fortunes will be made and lost. >> I think that's >> and when the dust settles, some people will be standing relatively, you know, unscathed or well off or relatively well off and other people are going to wonder what the f happened. >> Yeah. >> And how they missed it. >> I think that's right. I I I feel the same way. And I, you know, and I don't want to be dancing. I mean, and I don't I wouldn't wish what I think is coming for the world. I really wouldn't wish upon the world. I I don't but you know I didn't set up the system. I didn't form the Federal Reserve. I didn't you know I wasn't John Maynard Kanes. I wasn't Richard Nixon. I mean I'm just I'm just an American who you know lived in what's a great country in in so many respects but I've seen it kind of go down the wrong path. And I you know I'm pleased that there are some politicians who are trying to put it back in the right direction. Um but you know it's it might be it feels a little bit like too little too late and on the particularly on the monetary front and therefore I think we're going to have to go through a real forged you know forged in crisis kind of situation. Um but but I you know the good news is that once we do that things will get better quickly. I mean one of the more interesting articles I read was a story of Ecuador and how it went through hyperinflation in 20200 and it was brutal. I mean hyperinflation is just awful right? I mean, your money becomes worthless. And yet, right after they did that, they they pegged their currency to the dollar, which was relatively strong in 2000. And everything recovered incredibly quickly. I mean, it it was kind of like, you know, if it's just the money that's broken and then you fix the money and you go back to a sound money, people kind of self-organize. You know, they go and they do productive and they pay each other and they trade and inflation's not a problem. And, you know, I mean, systems, you know, economic systems. Capitalism as an economic system. It works really well. I mean, we have the highest standard of living that's ever been known in human history as a result of capitalism. Um, it's just a broken form of capitalism today. It's crony capitalism where the people controlling the money printer are taking advantage of the rest of us. And so once we once we store it back to true capitalism where the money is sound, things will get better. They'll get a lot better fast. And everyone will wonder like, well, how could that have been so bad? Well, it was bad cuz we were following the wrong ideas. You know, we thought we thought, you know, we could print and spend our way into prosperity and you just can't do it. Yeah, you just can't do it. >> Well, those are excellent closing words. Uh Larry, how can people track you and where do they go to follow your stuff? >> Well, I make a lot of noise on Twitter. Just my name, Lawrence Leart. So, you can follow me there and I try and comment mostly negative about investment banks. I have a website uh called ema2.com, equity management system. I run a fund. Uh it's accredited investors only 200k minimum. Um and uh you can go to but you can go to my website and there I write a quarterly letter with my partner David Foley. We just kind of talk about what we see going on and what we think the trends are. It's free. It's usually about 20 pages long. If you scroll down to the bottom of the website, you can enter your email. We'll never spam you. We only send the website out four time or the letter out four times a year. But that just gives you commentary. Yeah. Um, go to the bottom of that, Chris, just so people can see the button because a lot of people come to me and they say, "Hey, put me on your list." I'm like, "You can do it yourself, right? Subscribe to our newsletter." >> Yeah. Yep. Press that button. Put in your put in your email. Check. I'm check that you're not a You don't have to put in your name, just your email. And we don't care about your first, last name. Just check it. It'll ask, "Are you a are you a person?" You say yes. You don't even have to do a little capture thing. And um, you know, every four times a year, we'll send you our best thoughts on investing. So, um, yeah, that's it. And um the other thing I would I would say obviously I'm just because I think it's a good tool for helping fellow citizens understand what's going on and how we can why it's broken, how we can fix it. This is the book. It's called the big print. What happened to America? How sound money will fix it. It's uh no publisher has touched it. Not a surprise. It's on Amazon. It's in hard copper hard copy, paperback, Kindle, and audio. Um, and if you can't afford it, send me an email and I'll try and figure out a way to get you a discounted version of it. So, um, because I really want the word to be spread around. Um, because the sooner we get everybody to understand what the problem is, the sooner we'll have a sound money movement and the sooner we'll return to a system of sound money and that will truly make America great again. Um, there'll be other things as well, but in my opinion, this is probably the most critical. So, >> I agree 100%. So I support that entirely. [music] Emma Ma2, that's the number two.com and um it's lepard l a r d. [music] Um Lawrence Leard at on Twitter. So Larry, thank you so much for your time today. Let's do this again soon. >> I I you know, we've known each other for decades. I always enjoy talking to you and and uh you know, same >> I I really I love what you're doing. So let's let's just keep fighting this battle.
Fix the Money, Free the World – Peak Prosperity
Summary
Transcript
Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only. Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full. Pretty soon, people are going to wake up and go, you know, it's not about blue red. It's about the people in power versus the rest of us. And guess what? You guys have it up and we are not going to take it anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, in a world where the elites in Washington are flooding our economy with trillions and what I call fake money, even fraudulent money, crashing the dollar potentially and robbing hardworking Americans blind. One man has been sounding the alarm for decades. And that's Larry Leard. He's been on the program before. He's a battle tested investor with over 40 years crushing it in the markets. uh former partner at Summit Partners, founder of Equity Management Associates, and a fierce advocate for sound money like gold and Bitcoin. And he's the guy who predicted the big print madness. That's the title of his most recent book, The Big Print. And now he's here to break it all down again with us. Hey, welcome to Finance You, everybody. I'm your host, Chris Martinson, and welcome back, Larry. So good to have you back on the program, >> Chris. I mean, as you know, our friendship goes back decades. And uh I wouldn't say I've always been successful. My career's had my career's had a lot of ups and downs. And being a sound money partisan has been a very very tough and lonely path. I say maybe until a little bit more recently. It would now appear that we're getting closer to the the endgame of this giant Keynesian fiat fiasco. So that's and that's somewhat sad. That's that's sad. It's satisfying, but also it's sad because the econ, you know, the country is not doing particularly well and a lot of people are hurting as you and I both know. >> Yeah. Well, I I have to confess um I'm not doing any victory dances uh with my gold and silver gains because I know what they mean. >> And I didn't want to be right, but it was obvious we were going to be right eventually. So, Larry, let's start with gold and silver. Let's start there. Gold first. Come on. Is it signaling something really massive, you know, we maybe ought to be paying more close attention to or or has it just merely been riding the liquidity wave that's been driving equities? >> Yeah. No, it's it's it there's more to it than just the liquidity wave, Chris, because it's up so much more than just the equities and the, you know, the other forms of liquid things and, you know, Bitcoin, which is kind of a liquidity, you know, widget. I mean, that thing hasn't been going up much at all. I mean, I I think what's going on with gold, there are obviously a lot of parties on the bid side. You know, just why is it going up? more buyers and sellers. Um, pretty obvious. U, we know central banks are buyers and I think what we're starting to see is institutions and wealthy individuals and others are becoming buyers as well. And I'm sure you've been watching the the press as I have as well. You know, it's now actually starting to get a label and a name. And what what used to be just us fringe hard money people is now becoming quote unquote, as JP Morgan calls it, the debasement trade, the monetary debasement trade. And so, [sighs] you know, I think you're seeing just more people. I mean, in my most recent quarterly report, there's a statistic in there, 40% of the investment advisors in the country don't have any gold, and another 20% have less than 2% gold. So, 60% of the country owns almost no gold. And the the number of people that own over 5%, it's like 6%. So, so gold has been an ignored asset class for a bunch of years. and the federal government and the recent behavior I think has really tipped over the the apple cart in terms of confidence in the dollar and the and the soundness of the monetary system and I I say that because you know okay we had inflation with co with you know with the scandmic um but you know pow tamped that down by raising rates and slowing down M2 growth and the 9% came down to three or 29 roughly and [snorts] of course we know all these numbers are wrong but they're directionally they're right and then what happened is um you know Trump got elected and they said we're going to balance the budget and hey happy days everyone believed it you know Doge is going to solve the problem. Well, guess what? Doge didn't solve the problem. You know, Elon's two trillion became one, then it became maybe a hundred billion, and who knows? It's not much now. The tariffs actually have brought in some revenue. The tariffs have brought in a couple hundred um billion a year of revenue. The problem with that is that they turned right around. They passed the big beautiful bill. >> Mhm. >> And that increases spending by three or 400 billion. So, so on balance, you know, the deficit really hasn't shrunk. Um, and we can get into the details the the weeds on that because I think they're cooking the deficit numbers. But leave that aside. You know, the deficit hasn't shrunk. I think what's happening is just more and more people are realizing that in this system as it's currently constructed politically, there's just no way out. They have to debase the currency. They they just have to print money to keep the system alive and to keep it going. And so the dollar of every unit of printed money buys less in terms of goods and services. Another way of saying that is just we have inflation or we're going to have more inflation. So I think it's just the world waking up to what you know us hard money folks have been screaming about for a long time and arguably you know we were early and a lot of in some of those years people said we were wrong and of course because it didn't work we kind of were wrong but turns out we knew we'd eventually be right and here we are. >> Well indeed so [clears throat] I I'm I I'm going to take exception not with what you said but but the way this has all been framed. So, one of the things I like to do is look at market sentiment and propaganda and nudging because we had we went through this with co all the nudging, right? You wouldn't want to kill grandma, would you? And all that stuff, right? >> So, I watch this all the time. So, check this out. So, look at this. Um, this is how Yahoo Finance put it yesterday. Gold sinks, Bitcoin plunges. They never say that about stocks, right? As debasement trade stumbles, right? And they of course report this with glee. And then right next to it was this one. Meme stock surge as investors pile back in. Right? Nice picture of donuts, right? So they just do this over and you see the nudging there. I'm just talking this from a linguistic standpoint, right? Like oh no. And by the way, >> a debasement trade makes it sound like we're front running something. We've been debasing our currency since 1971. >> Correct. [laughter] >> Obviously. But let's carry on. One more one more example. >> And then this was this was um Yeah, this was just yesterday. So gold was actually up at the time and they said dieh hard gold enthusiasts. Did you know that? You ever hear about the Nvidia enthusiasts? Well, gold enthusiasts hold their nerve despite plunging prices. >> Plunging prices. Oh gee. Yeah. Gold gold really plunged from 4,400 to 4,100. It was 4,100 a week or two ago. I mean, >> markets [music] are facing heightened uncertainty, and thoughtful portfolio management has never been more important. If your current strategy [music] relies solely on passive investing or diversification without active oversight, it may be time to consider a different approach. At Peak Financial Investing, we connect you with experienced wealth managers who actively manage [music] portfolios using disciplined, research-driven strategies designed to adapt to evolving market conditions. [music] Our focus is on helping clients navigate volatility with clarity and confidence. While no investment [music] strategy can guarantee results or eliminate risk, we believe that preparation and active management can make a meaningful [music] difference over time. Visit peakfinancialinvesting.com to schedule a complimentary consultation [music] and explore whether our approach aligns with your goals. I'm Dr. Chris Martinson and I am proud [music] to support Peak Financial Investing. This is not a guarantee of future performance, but [music] a call to take your financial planning seriously. Again, that's peak financialvesting.com. Investing, of [music] course, involves risk, including the potential loss of principle. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please consult with a qualified adviser before making investment [music] decisions. And and then I just took this this morning and they say they said here gold edges higher, you know, after two days of heavy losses. That's not edging higher. >> That's a pretty Whoa. Yeah, >> that's a pretty good move right there. So, it's just constant. I I just want people who are listening to be aware you are being psychologically manipulated if you live in the west because you won't read that kind of stuff in Vietnam or or China. >> No. >> Or >> Yeah. No. The the the powers that be for for decades really have tried to minimize and ignore gold. I mean, you know, gold bug, which is kind of what I am. Anyone who believes in gold, you know, they they called us gold bugs as though we're some kind of an insect. I mean, it's kind of a derogatory term. Mhm. >> And yet, you know, all I'm suggesting is that the constitutional form of money, article 1, section 8, you know, um that, you know, only gold and silver can be money. That's what we should return to, right? And >> you know, but but I, you know, it's look the and my book lays this out and I'm obviously, you know, trying to sell my book, not because I make money. you don't make much money in books as you know because you've written some but but because I want to spread the word and save people and protect them and >> you know the fact is that that the Keynesians have just brainwashed a lot of people and you know inflation has caused enormous pain in this country and and sadly I don't think that's going to stop it's not going to stop until we return to a sounder monetary system that's for sure >> well so this recent runup in gold though so it really began in 2022 yes it did >> approximately 6 months months after I think the stupidest thing ever done by anybody ever which was to seize Russia's sovereign reserves in February of 22, right? Um because that abregated that unilaterally broke I think the most important contract that exists out there which is we're going to accept we're going to be this world's reserve currency. You're going to take these obligations of ours under your books and oh at some point we may unilaterally decide to just do away with that. I've been tracking like you Larry gold too closely for too long and I had one chart that was just rock solid and that was negative real interest rates inverted compared to gold and they are just perfect little like just lock step right >> that broke >> that broke in 2022. So now they're saying oh gold enthusiasts in 2025 but I want to be clear this has been going on for about three years now hasn't it? >> Yeah correct. I mean back then the price was 200. Now the price was well 4,400 at the peak 4100 today. And yeah, it that was the that was the kickoff point and that was the point at which all of the BRICS nations said to themselves, you know what, if they can seize our reserves, how can we be buying that and keeping it as a reserve? We can't play that game anymore. And you you now see and and so as you know and you and I both know with the the petro dollar established in the 70s which had really you know come out of and given us so much power as the world's reserve currency, all these countries decided all right we're going to just start trading in our own currencies. So, you know, the Saudis will now accept yuan for oil and and rubles for oil and and um you know, if they don't want to hold that currency or they don't have equal things they want to buy and exchange back from the Chinese, they can just go to the Shanghai gold exchange and and buy gold with it instead of buying Treasury bills. In the past, you know, the base layer of of safe capital in the world used to be the US Treasury bill. It was the biggest, the best, the most liquid, uh and it was safe. But, you know, guess what? when you're a big even if you're a big country as the US is even if you have the reserve currency as we do although slipping fast >> if you behave like an emerging country you know you get emerging country results you know it's like play stupid games win stupid prizes right and so you know we confiscated the currency and then we started running deficits and then you know we started printing like crazy and I mean the examples were just were replete with examples I mean the most recent one I'm sure you saw it most your listeners probably did too you You know, we just decide, well, you know, Argentina is our friend. We don't want them to fall under China's influence, and they're having trouble defending their currency pegs. So, [gasps and sighs] you know, we need to buy $20 billion worth of their pesos. Oops. No, it's not 20. We need to buy 40. [laughter] And is the 40 going to turn into 80? Who knows? I mean, so it's just it's really no way to run a railroad, Chris. And uh um you know, so that is what it is. And it's sad, but there, you know, as you've been saying for many years with your great programs and your great teaching and, you know, your whole system and as I've been saying through my podcast and my book, you know, the protection for the average person is to print to own things they can't print, you know, and by the way, farms and the birkers are one of them. I mean, it's, you know, that's that's a good one, but gold's another one. Silver's another one. And I think Bitcoin's an emerging one, you know, and I know some gold holders don't believe in Bitcoin, and I get it, and there, you know, there are issues and risks and volatility, but I do. Um, I've done a lot of work on it, and I believe in it. And so, I think these these kinds of assets, and you don't, by the way, you don't need to be in Bitcoin to protect yourself. You'll do just fine with gold and silver. Um, but Bitcoin, I think, has a lot more alpha. >> Um, and so, you know, these are the kinds of things that people, I think, need to be made aware of. And you know that's people have asked me say, "Larry, why'd you write the book?" I'll tell you why I wrote the book, Chris. Maybe we did this in our last podcast. I think we've talked about it, but I >> Let's do it again. >> Yeah, I'll do it again. I'm sitting in my living room, my wife, we're watching some political show, which I hate watching, but she likes watching that stuff. And blue team and red team are arguing with each other. And I, you know, I don't like either of them. I'm a libertarian. The only politician I've ever really liked is Ron Paul. Anyway, and and they're arguing with each other, and they're arguing about really stupid you know, pronouns, you name it, all kinds of crazy stuff. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, "Guys, you are arguing about the color of the drapes and the house is on fire." And the part of the the part of the house that's on fire is the monetary system. And and you know, there there some good books out there on this stuff, but there hasn't been one written recently. And somebody needs to write a book that explains the monetary system and the Keynesian model and fiat currency in a way that an average person goes, "Oh, I get it. Now I see why we have inflation. Now I see why they're screwing me." And then better than that, I mean that's and that's the bad news. Some people said, "Well, Larry, you're a doomer." No, I'm not a doomer. I'm just an analyst who looks at the facts and and you know the I'm very optimistic and I'm very very very you know positive on where we will come out on the other end of this whole transition forth turning. I mean, we're going to go to sound money. Things are going to be really great, but but you know, we got to get there uh first. And so I thought, you know, somebody needs to write a book that explains it. So I started writing the book and I used my wife as a test case. She's super smart, but she doesn't. She's, you know, a writer and does a lot of other stuff and she's not monetary. I mean, she's not an econ major. And so I wrote it so that she, you know, somebody like her would understand it. And I started writing it and she's like, "Well, what's this Federal Reserve thing? I don't even know what that is." So I was kind like, "All right, well, I better, you know, so I creature from Jackal Island. I better explain it, you know." [laughter] So So I did. And and so that's, you know, that was the target segment that I aimed the book at. wanted any American or world citizen really, but I was thinking of the American market to be able to pick this thing up, read it, and go, "Oh, yeah, he's right. I get it. They're screwing us, and here's how. Here's why. Here's what we have to do to fight back. We got to try and elect politicians like, you know, Thomas Massie and Ran Paul and Ron Paul and people who believe in sound money, Warren Davidson, etc., and you know, Cynthia Lumis. And we've got to, you know, we've got to fix the system, right? Because if we don't, inflation's going to become the new problem that lasts for decades, right?" >> Yeah. that I'm just looking at that double hump inflation that that Torstston SL put out. Um >> Oh yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. >> Right. I'll find it in a second. Um but but for until I find it, what he's just saying, look, in the 70s we had this what they call double hump inflation, right? There was this big inflationary surge. >> Yeah. There were three big inflationary waves. Yeah. >> Yeah. Like 70 to 73ish, you know, and that was one reason. But then there was this second one that came along and there were variety of reasons for that, right? some policy errors, but also an oil problem and some things. >> But I think this is this era is tracking that really carefully. So these policy error errors right now like like [snorts] >> Powell cutting interest rates under political pressure and I know the two-year sort of dragging them there anyway, but cutting rates at a time when stocks were at all-time highs, gold's powering higher, Bitcoin's up there. There's all these signs of liquidity. Right. >> Right. Well, and and the inflation hasn't gotten anywhere near his target. And and by the way, that's a cooked inflation number, right? >> It's very bad. It's terrible. I I do believe Chapwood is a lot closer than CPI, >> correct? Chapwood, for people listening, >> federal government stats, as you know, John, you know, John's work. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Which would suggest we're actually still in high single digits to low double digits depending where you live. Right. >> And depending upon the category. I mean, I I have to say, you know, one thing that kind of is a mystery to me is that oil prices and gasoline prices have actually been pretty tame. I mean, I think that might be because the economy is a lot slower than everybody thinks, you know, but >> well, but food prices have obviously been highly inflationary. >> Well, [clears throat] I'm this guy. I believe that there have been shenanigans in a lot of our markets, particularly commodities, for a long time. >> Yeah. gold and silver. I think that's just being revealed the extent like like so just this last week um on Monday night we retreated to a 4 a.m. slam down in silver which saw 42,300,000 ounces go out in a 15-minute window. Right. This flurry of paper. >> Yeah. >> The very next day JP Morgan um had to inform their Indian customers they wouldn't be able to deliver anything till maybe November. >> So which is it? [laughter] We have 42 million ounces in a 15-minute window or there's none to deliver. You know, where are we in this story? >> Yeah. Right. And that and that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, it's backward. There's all kinds of pressure on prices. I mean, the premiums for for immediate delivery are very very high. Yeah. No, you're right. It's there's there's a there are a lot of shenanigans and you know, they are going these slams, as we used to call them, Mr. slammy is going to show up from time to time because >> you know the people who are in a position to do that the BIS and the central banks they can go in there and create paper contracts and just overwhelm the bitstat but I think what they're going to find is that ultimately at the end of the day you know it's the physical metal that counts and um you know I I saw a very interesting statisticy sheman had it on his site it was very useful that you know we're we're trading basically every day in London they're trading all of the silver that's produced in one given a year. So, we produce about 800 million ounces of silver a year. Okay, that's how much gets traded in paper on the London exchange. And the the the stock um that they have in London theoretically, and I'm I'm sure it's all really there is 140 um billion. So, it's about 7% of the total or maybe a little over that. And um but but they there was another number that said it was roughly 7% of the stock was the stock to to what was you know the claims and I was just like hang on a second you know this is this sounds like musical chairs to me. I mean everybody who thinks they own some silver might own a paper contract saying deliver silver but if they all ask for it at the same time there's no silver there at that price. And so so yes this to me has the feel of you know the Hunt brothers or the 2011 runup. And as you know, we just took out the all-time high price of 50. And if you look at the technical charts on that, I mean, I, you know, I mean, Michael Oliver, who's a very good technical analyst, he thinks silver doubles or triples from here. So, that puts us at 100 to 150. And I don't think he's wrong. I don't I I'm not sure about the 150, but I'm pretty sure we're going to go to 100 in the next year or two. So, um, which, you know, the implications of that for those of us who own silver mining stocks is just stunning. I mean, most of these companies spend about $20 to pull an ounce of silver out of their mine. So, you know, if they're selling at 30, which is where it used to be, well, they're making 10. That's nice. 50, well, guess what? Their profits just tripled. 100. Oh my goodness. Right. So, so you can see why I'm kind of excited about some of these silver stocks. >> Well, that that's holding all things equal. I mean, if energy costs run away from them, >> right? That's exactly >> that could eat into that a little bit. But but I found it finally after much sort of searching. So So I Yeah. So for people >> uh watching at home uh here we have this first inflationary wave starts about 73, peaks at 75, comes down. Yay. But this second inflationary mountain comes over here and peaks out at about 791 1980. That's the last time silver had a big spike from the Hunt brothers. >> Um and so you know, listen, it doesn't have to match. It's kind of an eerie correlation. We see these charts all the time. Sometimes they work out. not always, you know, so it doesn't have to. >> But when I look at everything that's happening where Trump comes in, and I was pretty excited at first because we had Elon, we had Doge, we're going to finally get rid of all this schllock and I think frankly anti-American spending that was happening. Yes. >> Griffs and graphs, USAD, and then they just shut the program down and said, "We're not we're not doing topline savings. We're going to grow the bottom line. We're going to grow the economy." I'm like, "Okay, how are we going to do that?" print the money to get inflationary growth. >> Yeah. So, >> we're going to have that, but I think we're going to have an energy shock as well because of the AI stuff. Larry, I track this pretty carefully something. Yes. >> 35% increase in electricity costs over 3 years. And that's average. If you happen to live within 50 miles of a data center, you might have seen anywhere from a 100 to a 200% increase. >> Yeah. Yeah. The the the what's happened to the US energy grid has just been criminal. And the fact that we haven't been investing in solar, I mean, you know, China's building 30 or 40, you know, or I mean, nuclear plants um every year, you know, we're shutting them down. I mean, it's, you know, human well-being is, if you track human well-being for, you know, millennia, it's all driven by energy and efficient energy, right? I mean, we went from whale oil to, you know, to petroleum. We went petroleum to natural gas. Went natural gas to, you know, well, the next step really is going to be nuclear. We haven't done it and we need to do it or else, you know, we're going to run out of uh we're going to run out of cheap energy. And it's it's criminal, Chris. I mean, you know, you look at China. I I put a tweet out, I don't know, 6 months ago, 3 months ago. You know what? Ch the average Chinese consumer is paying 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Okay. What? >> Yeah. The average American consumer is paying 14 cents a kilowatt hour. So So if you're in China and you have an electric car, it costs you onethird as much to drive a mile as it costs an American. And that's if you're, you know, by the way, that 14 cents, that's is if you're in a decent state with good energy policies. As you and I both know, we live in Massachusetts, or at least in the summertime, I live in Massachusetts. I'm paying between 28 and 30 cents a kilowatt hour, right? >> Probably are, too, right? >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, >> it's punishing. It's punishing. >> It's punishing. And it's just it's it's ridiculous. I mean, it goes back to the stupid policies. I mean, you know, they were investing in their infrastructure and energy. We spent, you know, $8 trillion, you know, trying to win the Middle East so we could give it back. I mean, it's like, what? I mean, you know, the people running this place. >> Yeah. The people just running the the United States, >> it's just it's so broken and corrupt. I mean, the >> you know, it just needs to be it needs to be massively reformed, right? >> Well, I I agree and and um you know, energy is the lifeblood of any economy. And if you want to >> if you want a spoiler alert on this whole thing, just go look at Germany right now. It's imploding >> massively. Like the worst decline in energy intensive industry since the Great Depression. >> Yes. >> And you know what? MS comes along and he's busy destroying the country. And he said, you know, we need we need 500 billion euros of spending to keep doing the stuff that got us here in the first place. So it's just insane, right? >> Literally by the definition. >> Yeah. No, I mean it's Yeah, they are they are doing a lot of stupid stuff. Um their immigration policies are stupid. You know, it it it just I don't know. It's like there's a part of me it's you you kind of wonder if the West is committing suicide. It's it's nuts. I mean, it really is. >> Well, it kind of is. Or or is it is somebody help it it I I I wonder all the time incompetence or is this actually an attack? Right. Because it feels too coordinated sometimes for me. >> It does. And I mean certainly some of the people at the top benefit from these things they're doing that hurt the rest of us. So, um, yeah, I mean, look, I, you know, my my by line, my tagline on Twitter, and I, I borrowed it from Marty Benton. We both borrowed it from the show Heroes, you know, which was save the cheerleader, save the world. That's, you have to be a little old to remember that show. And fix the fix the money, fix the world. I mean, it's, >> you know, this that was back to the point of the book. I mean, they're arguing about the color of the drapes. The the monetary system is on fire. We are near the end game and it's really really important that people wake up and pay attention to that because the wealth transfer that's going to occur in the next 5 or 10 years from the people who own bonds to the people who own real things, it's going to just be stunning. I mean, you have to remember that in any hyperinflation, you know, there are people who are on paper extremely wealthy before the currency fails. And if the currency totally fails, and I'm not saying that's my base case, that's a little bit of my tail case, but if the currency totally fails, if you're wealthy on paper, you get wiped out. You're suddenly one day you're rich, the next day you got nothing. And um that's hard to cope with, you know, I mean, for for rich people, for anybody really. And I mean, the the the middle class and the lower classes in a certain sense um are protected by particularly if they're young and they have a working income. I mean, let's say you're a plumber. You know, your debt is your mortgage against your house. Your house is a real asset. You've got some savings. And if you put them in smart things like gold and silver, you're going to be fine. If you buy bonds, well, you're going to get wiped out on those. But at least you're young and you're a plumber and that's a necessary skill. And when the new currency comes around, you'll just repric in the new currency and you'll make money and you'll be good. But, you know, we're the people that are most at risk as I see it. And again, I wrote the book for them as the boomers cuz you know when you're 60, 70, 80, your ability to earn money goes down substantially. You don't have as much energy. You don't have as much intelligence. I know I don't. And and so so you know, you you got to be careful. And the nest egg you saved up, it's there to protect you until until you know and to protect your kids at some point. And so if you have it in the wrong place, you know, I think you're going to be hurt here in this next 5 or 10 years. And I feel like a lot of the country has it in the wrong place. I mean, you know, as you say, they're chasing meme stocks. They're chasing the MAG7. You know, my most recent quarterly report, which by the way is available on my website, EMA2.com, uh, talked about, you know, the MAG7 right now is trading at 48.5 times EBITDA. I'm like, what? I mean, IDA is earnings before interest taxes depreciation, right? Long-term average for that number in the in the, you know, equity market is something like 14. And, you know, 24 used to be considered really expensive. Well, that's at 45. So, you know, you're not getting a lot of value in stocks. And yet, you know, your average stock, you know, uh, advisor has told your average retiree, you know, the stock market is the only place to be and just buy the dip. And if you've listened to that since 2008, it's worked, right? Um, but there will come a day. Yeah. Exactly. >> Not just worked, but I mean, this is tech versus the S&P 500 relative. I mean, we've never been in nosebleleed territory like this. So, it's basically an all-in bet on on tech at this point. But to your point, this is where the great financial crisis bailout came. And this was all bailouts in here. People don't remember. It's like, "Oh, we had 2008, then there was 2020." No, no, no, no. If you were paying attention, there was 2011. >> Yeah. >> Operation twist. We had 2013, then 15, then 17, and then who remembers the great repo crisis of 2019? Like, this was all emergencies. >> All money printing. Yeah. And all all came as a result of money printing. I mean that straight up line that took the Fed's balance sheet from under a trillion to from 800 billion to at its peak it was 9 trillion. So it did a 10bagger. Now it's come back [laughter] down cuz he's he's tightened the you know money a bit and so we're in the high sixes now I believe. But >> but the point is yeah you know look you can make the I mean you want to make the price of anything go up. You want to make the stock market strong print money give it to people. Let them buy the stock market it'll go up. That's the good news. The bad news is go to the grocery store and suddenly the hamburger that you're buying for $2 a pound is now $10 a pound. And that's really that's the experience I know I've had in the past 10 years. So it's been it's been brutal. And the problem is that for half the country, they're not in a they don't have enough savings. They're just scraping to get by working two or three jobs, whatever it might be. And they don't have the assets that the wealthy have. And and so that's why the system is so incredibly unfair. Yet, that's why the wealthy and the political class work like crazy to protect the system because it works for them and they're robbing everybody else blind, you know. [laughter] And my book lays this out chapter in verse. I mean, it's interesting, Chris. I published the book on Amazon. It's done well. I've sold 45,000 copies, which I think >> Oh, that's very good. >> Yeah. I think in a book world that's okay. It's not it's not a, you know, blowout, but it's solid. Um, and I and I've approached a lot of publishers, right? And you know some occasionally I'll get a young editor like oh this is really good. I like it but it goes up the chain of command and you know it's pretty it's a pretty non-consensus book. I mean I I kind of don't pull my punches with respect to the powers that be and somewhere along the lines you know we kind of can't publish this. >> Well did you hear that interview with Richard Werner? >> Same story. I was to bring that up right. Princess of the Yen. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. >> Exact same story. He's got this killer book. It's number one in Japan. People love it. He brings it over here and they're like, "We can't touch this." >> Yeah. We're not going to touch it because you're kind of calling on the entire system, right? And >> so, I think I think that's kind of the story with my book. I mean, it it you know, and that's okay. I mean, I don't take it personally. It just is what it is. I mean, they've got their self-interest, I've got my self-interest, and and I'm trying to protect the average guy. >> So, yeah. >> Yep. Well, well, let's I mean, this is really monumental time here. And again, I'm not excited that it's transpiring. No dancing. [laughter] >> No, no dancing here, right? It's like that scene in the Big Short where Ben Ricks and the two guys are like, "Woo, we got it." And he turns around and he just rips him a new one and says, "Every 1% increase in unemployment leads to 40,000 suicides, >> right? Just just don'ting dance." And he was right. I mean, and you know, look, I'm not I'm not happy about the pain that all this is causing people, but sadly, you know, I um or you know, I am not happy. I observe that in light of that pain, in light of the problems that are going on, you know, like like most things, America, we'll eventually do the right thing. We will get to addressing this. I mean, look, Secretary Bassant, I think, is kind of a bright light in the administration, and he gets it. He's a gold guy. He says there's got to be a new Breton Woods. I just put something on my Twitter feed this morning that actually talked about the section of of you know one of the currency acts or the um um cryptocurrency acts that talked about maybe selling some of the gold and using it to buy Bitcoin. Um but what that but it talked about the you know more important things it talked about remmonetizing the gold. I mean Bent tweeted out yesterday that this higher gold price is actually a good thing. Now why would he say that? He would only say that if he thought that at some point in time, the US owns 261.5 million ounces of gold. They're going to remark that up a lot higher and use that markup as a way to defease the debt. And so, you know, I I think there are people in the administration who get it. I think Moran gets it. I think Trump gets it. I think Bent gets it. How it's going to unfold, it's really really hard to tell. There are so many moving pieces. But, you know, they they know. I mean, boiled down to its essence, Chris, the problem is we've created way too much debt, and we need to devalue that debt against real things. What does that mean? Well, you know, we need to the the currency that that debt is marked in, the dollar, has to fall in value against other real stuff, gold, silver, land, you know, and and and and commodities and and food. And so, and what is that? That just by its very nature, it's just inflation. So, you know, I mean, and and I say to people, too, you know, people say, "Well, what do you where are these prices going? Like, what's going to happen?" Well, I think gold could go to 10,000. I think silver could go to 100, 150. I think Bitcoin could go to a million dollars. Um, and that's the good news. What's the bad news? Well, that's all that kind of is a monetary reset. The bad news is gasoline's probably going to be $12 a gallon or $15 a gallon, right? I mean, it's, you know, take the inflation from today's level and keep compounding it. I mean, it adds up. I mean, you know, I was a teenager in the 70s. the last bout of inflation and I pumped gas for a while. It was 25 cents a gallon at the time. You know, that's a that's a far cry from today's $4. So, um, you know, so it's just it's just as simple as that. The money is broken and and it's going to, you know, it's going to take a certain amount of political will and foresight to fix it. But, I think we will fix it. I'm I'm a bull on America and I'm a bull on on humankind. And I think, you know, there are a lot of great things going on. I mean, the technology stuff, I talk about this in my book, too. Technology stuff is changing and saving the world. I mean, here you and I are, you know, hundreds of miles apart. We're talking, we're broadcasting to thousands of people. You know, you don't need to read the New York Times as a stupid liberal rag to figure out what the truth is anymore. You can find your own truth on the web. And uh, you know, and people are getting fed up with being fed the lies and the And so, you know, pretty soon, you know, a Thomas Massie or somebody who's a sound money person is going to run for president or Congress and they're going to get elected. They're going to win. And, you know, the Federal Reserve is going to get shut down. I mean, this I know this sounds crazy, but I think it's going to happen. It's going to have to happen because the pain will be large enough to drive to drive us in that direction. And again, I mean, I wrote the book because I really wanted to spread the word among people so they could, you know, at the margin they start thinking about this you know? I mean, it's like >> um and I mean very immodestly, Chris, I want the book to become Thomas Payne's Common Sense, right? When when the American Revolution started, you know, a lot of the country didn't know what the hell was going on. Didn't really care. I mean, if you're a farmer in, you know, upstate New York, I mean, do you care if the British are ruling? I mean, you don't see the British. they're not affecting you in any way, shape, or form. So, it was only like the 10% of the people near the coast where, you know, the Boston Massacre occurred or they were saying, "Hey, we get to stay in your house or we get to tax your tea or, you know, we're going to tell you what to do and you can't you don't have any representation." Those guys got really pissed off and said, "Let's go, you know, take on this empire." And so, you know, I I consider the people who are in favor of sound money, you know, we're we're the same group. We're like, you know, you guys have cheated us and we're really pissed off and [laughter] guess what? We're g we're gonna recruit a lot more people to our side and we're gonna bury you guys. You know, we we are going to return to sound money. So, that's that's kind of my dream. I don't know if we can pull it off, but you know, that's you got to have you got to have a goal, right? And I know, by the way, I know I know you're you know, I know you're a warrior in this fight. I mean, you're you're a little bit more on the health side, and I appreciate everything you did for me during the co experience. I mean, um you really opened my eyes on that. So it's just, you know, we're all kind of pushing back at this corrupt government leviathan that that has kind of hurt us a lot, right? So >> well, it's it's my view that um it's impossible to have a healthy functioning society if the glue you're using to hold it together is a corrupt system of money. >> Right? >> And when I say it's corrupt money, everybody needs to know this. By the way, in this day and age, ignorance is a choice. People have no excuse for not understanding what's happening with their money system or how that's screwing them over at this point in time. You don't want to know that. That's fine. >> You do is have an internet connection. You can figure it out, right? >> And a little curiosity and understand, of course, that that it's you're not only your right, but I believe your obligation as a citizen to know this stuff, right? >> Well, yeah. I mean, I look, I'm old. I'm 68. I mean, this is for my kids and grandkids, you know what I mean? At this stage, and I'm and I'm comfortable. I'm not, you know, lacking for foods, but but not everybody's in my in my position. You know what I [laughter] mean? In fact, a lot I mean, it's sad. You go to the grocery store, see people putting back because they can't afford. It's just really sad. >> Yeah. >> Oh, it's it's ridiculously uh expensive at this point. If you want to eat healthy, >> Yeah. >> you got to put a a multiplier on that on your grocery bill, right? If you want to eat, you know, good stuff. So, but when I say corrupt money, you know, most people like, "Oh, what do you mean?" You know, cuz we're down here in the trenches and we have to work for our money. But when the Federal Reserve prints money or the Treasury effectively prints money through issuing debt that then gets sort of um multiple mon multiplied in in the banking system that steals purchasing power from everybody. We call it inflation but but that's a theft. Right. So it's it's fundamentally a fraudulent corrupt act that some people do this and create a billion dollars and you and I could work 10 lifetimes and never even get close to that number. Right. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> It's fraudulent. So, how do you then put rules around it and you know the SEC will sort of admit it? You can't I don't think you can have if you want to have an honest, high integrity, truth-based society, I think you have to have sound money. >> Absolutely. There's just no doubt about it. And and the way, you know, I don't care how good the constitution is or what political system you have. The minute you enter, it's like it's like religion and state. They just should be separated. Money and state should be separated. You know, fine, you need a state. And the reason you need a state is you need courts and laws. I mean, you know, look, I want to have a government because I want criminals to go to jail, you know, and and I think we all and I'd be more than willing to pay 10% of my income to have, you know, good roads and criminals in jail, but that's really to me kind of those are the two things that government should do. All the rest of the stuff, forget about it. And messing around with the money, oh my god, it's just been an unmitigated disaster. And they've had 20% rates, which almost bankrupted my father. And they've had 0% rates, which created a whole new class of billionaires. So, you know, it it's just you can't make this up. And I'm pretty sure that 10, 20, 30, 40 years from now, you know, the history books are going to say, you know, mankind fell prey to this this, you know, pedophile from England named John Mater Kanes and um accepted his theory of of why you had to continually grow the money supply to have a healthy economy to avoid the dreaded fear of deflation. And you know, if you really think about deflation, what it is, I mean, deflation is the cost of getting cheaper through through efficiency. And it's a really beautiful thing. I mean, would you argue against deflation in your technology, your computer, your cell phone? I mean, no. It's been fabulous. They get better and better and they're cheaper and cheaper. Um, so what's wrong with deflation in everything else? I mean, that's the way that's naturally what capitalism should provide is as we get more efficient, you get more for less. But when you have a economy and a system that's requires inflation, which a credit based system does, where the money is created out of thin air and the money is only created by issuing debt, well then by definition you have to have inflation. And so these two things are in conflict with one another and you know it it for some for quite some time we've managed to balance them and pull it along you know in a messy fashion with things like 71 etc. But but now I think we're just so far down the system. It's just too far gone. And we're going to resolve this for good. I mean, either we're going to go full commie and they're going to control everything, including the money, and it's going to be a really dystopian world, which I I pray won't happen. I don't think it will happen. Or their system's going to break and collapse and we're going to return to sound money and my kids and grandkids and your kids and grandkids are going to live in a beautiful world that has the benefits of all this technology and and you know, none of the none of the broken stuff that we're now seeing. >> Why do you think it it won't happen? Why what what's your optimism that we won't go down that dystopian digital prison CBDC path? Because I think that I think that there are enough people in America and in the world that think for themselves. I mean, I I look at, you know, the um you know, I look at the Red Wave. I look at, you know, I mean, we've still I look at the way half this country is armed. I mean, there's still the spirit of um you know, rugged independence and individualism. Now look, I mean, if if if all of our generation dies out before this gets fixed, well then it might go the wrong way is is my sense. But >> I don't think that's likely cuz Chris, we're in it right now. I mean, let's talk timing. You know, this is a fourth turning. Most people understand that model, which is to say that every 80 years, you know, you you enter a period where all the rules change. The last one was World War II. The one before that was a Civil War. The one before that was the American Revolution. So, we're in a forth turning in my view. And the subject is money, you know, sound money. And and we've we've gone as far as we can on the fiat money train. And it has to resolve itself. And if you mark the beginning as 20 2008, these things typically last between 20 years and 30 years, which would take us to 2028 early ending and 2038 late ending. I kind of I mark the middle point as the likely period where it's going to end somewhere in the 2030s. I think what will happen is it'll get we're going to have continued inflation throughout this presidency. Um I I think tragically and sadly um some people won't get it and the the blue team will come around and offer all kinds of you know handouts and goodies and and red team will win the next time because in a fourth turning you know if you're if your life sucks you often just say I don't care I want to vote out whoever's in. I'll try the other side even if they're if the other side has bad ideas. So then I think in 28 we'll get a blue administration and then they'll finish the dollar off. They'll go with UBI. They'll go with stemmies. they'll go with, you know, forgiveness of all loans. Um they'll try and do a CBDC, all of it. And it'll be really and inflation, it'll the dollar will basically die. I mean, if you think inflation is bad in the next few years when I think it, I think we'll have low double digit inflation in the next couple years, you know. Um at that point in time, we'll have, you know, 20 and 30%. I mean, the dollar will be failing. And and at that point in time, what I believe will happen is somebody will rise up and say, "Hey, you know, this is what's going on. This explains why it's going on, and we have to reset and reset the sound money." Now, there's some possibility this all could get shortcircuited if the Trump are really bold and do this reset within this 4-year window. And there's some talk that maybe they want to. I mean, as an example, Judy Selton Shelton said that Trump told her that he would maybe like to do a gold back treasury bond, you know, and that the the 250th anniversary July 2026 would be a good time to do it. This was reported by Andy Sheckchman in talking conversation with Judy. So, you know, all right. I mean, I I hope they do it. I pray they do it. It's the right thing to do. Um, will they have the political cover to do it and the guts to do it? I don't know. He's broken a lot of glass. Maybe he will, but I just don't know. Until it happens, we do not know. So, um, you know, that that would short circuit the bad path that I've talked about. But if we go the other way, I think we have, you know, the next administration's blue, inflation gets worse, and then we're really in deep But, but it's so obvious that, you know, uh, the team emerges that says this is the only way we can fix it, and it's to cancel out all this debt and return to sound money. You know what? [music] Gold and silver are my top choices to protect my wealth against inflation [music] and economic instability. Now, with all the monetary debasement and all these geopolitical risks going on, hedging your wealth has never been more important. [music] I recommend that everybody own some gold and silver, physical, in your hot little hands. [music] But what if you want to hold it elsewhere? Gold Core is an excellent choice and will rapidly and securely deliver physical gold and silver to your doorstep. 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GoldCore offers a range of investment options from gold and silver coins and bars to self-directed IRA. Again, all with fully segregated and secure storage. Take control of your financial future today with Gold Core, where investing [music] in precious metals has never been easier, more secure, or more transparent. Remember, Peak Prosperity followers get 6 months of free storage. So, sign up now at peak.fan/goldcore fan/goldcore to secure your 6 months of free storage. Again, that's peak.fan/goldcore. Yeah. So, so let let's take the sweep of history. So, 1913 Federal Reserve is formed. John Maynard Kanes comes along with his crazy perpetual inflation ideas. That sort of all gets enshrined. It breaks in 1971. >> Yes. >> We get taken off the gold wind, you know, the gold window slam temporarily by Nixon. We're still there. And of course, it's off to the races. Now, it's not just federal debt. People talk about 38 trillion, but can we talk about the fact that our the United States has 104 trillion total debt, and that doesn't include unfunded, underfunded, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, IUs, right? So, that's extra. Multiply that by some other whole number, two or three. Okay? So, they did all of that, and then you know the gold history as well as I do that that they did everything they could. There was the London gold pool. There was the Washington Agreement. They did everything they could. And this is the chart. This just came up on Bloomberg. And this really caught me because what we're looking at here, everybody, this blue line shows the amount of gold as a percent of official global reserves was about 70% in 1980. Came all the way down to 10%. It is not money. And it is just not money. All the way until about 2020. And it starts creeping back up again. And I think you can see where we're going here, Larry. These student lines are going to cross. And if we get that blue administration you talked about, >> they have actually crossed. I could be wrong in that. Depends. I'm not sure what data they're measuring. I've seen another chart that shows those lines almost touching one another. But yeah, I think >> but that's I mean can we talk about that cuz that is like we're not talking like oh there's some things happening in gold. >> That's seismic right there. Oh yeah. What's happening? >> Yeah. No, that's huge. I mean, look, you know, as I say, we we started off the program talking about why is the gold price going up and, you know, and the reason is that everybody is coming to the consensus that they can never stop printing money. It's it's really that simple. I mean, I've read about all the hyperinflations that have occurred and and I've talked to people actually have lived through them. The South Americans seem to have a large number of them. People in Brazil and Argentina and I mean, recent memory, right? Ecuador and um you know hyperinflations or very high inflations occur as everybody in this crackup boom as everybody comes to know that the government can never stop printing money and they just don't want to hold the money anymore. They just they get it and they immediately spend it and of course that's what happened in Weimar. I mean they were you know their their stories of how they were changing the prices between the time you sat down for dinner and the time you left the restaurant. Right. >> This this is one of my favorite charts I came across on on Twitter a couple weeks ago. >> Yeah. you know, and and so we're here from 1918, this is the Weimar inflation, the the wheelbarrows of money and all that. And so gold rises pretty smartly from maybe one gold deutsch mark to maybe 12 >> over a couple years. Oh, and then a huge correction. This must have been miserable. Oh no, gold is dead. I can hear the Yahoo Finance headlines. Oh no. >> And then ah it's going nowhere. And then oh no, it's it's effed right here. And then it's gonna collapse. But this is a log chart. So every one of these that went from a single Deutsch mark 5 years later it was worth a trillion. >> Well the Deutsch mark it became worthless and that's a hyperinflation then and that you know sadly Chris that could occur. I mean that's not I it's my tail case but it's I'd probably put it at a 10%. The reason I think it's up 10% is I do believe that before we get too far down I mean there are other people smart people who know that even in the government including guys like patent and um and before we get too far down that road you know I think we'll have movement to solve this problem but um but we you know we got to go sadly we got to go down the road I mean I I don't think I mean like if somebody came in today and said you know what we're going to devalue all this debt and reset gold to $30,000 and go to a gold standard everyone would look at them like they're crazy and say, you know, what are you talking about? You can't do that. Why do you need to do that? I mean, you know, the the the problem will only get addressed sadly after inflation gets a lot worse. And so, you know, when inflation's really really bad and every it's the number one problem in the country. I mean, right now, I had this in my quarterly report as well. There's a chart that shows um making ends meet is the top concern. They list all kinds of thing concerns that you might have in your family. you know, I mean, health and sa personal safety and, you know, all these different I mean, making ends meet was like the top by a huge measure. Just everybody's feeling the economic pinch. And sadly, if what we're describing continues and gets worse, which I think it will, that's going to become even bigger and bigger. And so, you know, as that occurs, we're going to just have to push the politicians to, you know, to to reform the damn thing. I mean, that's that's the only way out of this mess. And so, um, you know, I hope and pray that, you know, we don't have to endure too much pain before they wake up and say, you know what, we got to fix it and here's how we're going to do it. And I think, >> well, I honestly don't don't know how to do that at this point. Um, because on the one hand, you have to continue the inflation thing and hope that it doesn't get away from you into some hyperinflationary spiral. That's one edge of the chasm. The other edge, which is a knife edge right now, is deflation, where all of those bad debts suddenly get resolved, which is a capital D depression. And so there's not a politician alive who's going to take that path willingly. >> Well, that's exactly right. >> So, what would you do? I mean, what would you do? Let Larry, you are now fed chair. I just anointed you. Like, is there is there a path? Is there any path at all that could actually rescue the dollar? If you go in my book, there's a chapter in there. By memory, I think it's chapter 26, but I don't know you can find it. Um, that I call policy response that addresses that. And I I I actually drafted out the the the statement I would give if I were president. And basically I think yes I know what I would do. I would say look folks we've been wrong we've been following the wrong inflationary model. In fact before we started we talked about how you know the notion of unlimited growth in a planet that has fixed resources that's stupid. I mean you just it's ridiculous. I mean we you've got to it doesn't work. And so this this Keynesian notion that we have to continually grow or else we die is is wrong. And what we really need is great honesty and efficiency. And you know, fiat money does not give you either of those two things. It's dishonest and it's not efficient. And so I would I would say to the country, we've operated for far too long on the wrong model and we are going to make a one-time very painful change to that model. We are going to issue a new dollar. It's going to be backed by gold or silver or Bitcoin or some combination of all these. And 10 old dollars is equal to one new dollar. and you'll get paid back, you know, your your you know, I mean, so so we'll effectively have devalued all the existing outstanding debts and and by the way, we'll have devalued a lot all of the outstanding wealth and those people who own, you know, wealth that gets remarked in the new dollars like silver, gold, land, you know, Bitcoin, etc. will be much better off than those people who don't. And on a go forward basis, we're going to have a balanced budget amendment. Um, and the government's not going to be even allowed to create debt. we're just going to, you know, have this fixed supply of money and the price of gold will be the price, you know, gold will be the numer or bitcoin will be the numeration of the two. Um, but but we're not going to allow the Federal Reserve to control the money supply because it's not necessary. It is. I mean, that's the thing. I I mean, I think our kids kids will say, "I can't believe these people who are theoretically capitalists let a committee of 12 people in Washington DC, the Fed board, you know, set the price of capital." I mean, that's price fixing. It doesn't work. Everyone knows that. You know, you if you have price fixing, the Soviet Russia tried that, right? Fix the price of corn. >> Well, guess what? You fix it too high, you know, and you know, you get way too much corn. you fix it too low, you get no corn. You know, it's like it it just doesn't work. So, um yeah, I that's that's what I would try to do. I mean, with respect to the Fed, I'd shut it down. I don't think we need a Federal Reserve. I really don't. I think if if we were on I mean, this is what Jackson did. He threw out the Second Bank of the United States and we were on a gold and silver standard at the time. And um you know, everyone everyone shits on the gold and silver standard. Well, guess what? The living standards of Americans from 1789 to 1913 improved more rapidly than they ever have in the history of the world. I mean we had real growth, real, you know, productivity, real efficiency where, you know, the the living stands were going up 67% a year. I mean, it was unbelievable, right? And that was all on a sound money standard. And yet the Keynesians would have you believe that the gold standard called caused the depression or the gold standard was a bad thing or that gold is a barbarous relic or this is all in my book. I mean they've they you know it's what you were talking about earlier. I mean they the people in the positions of power who try and control the narrative so that it benefits themselves have told us all a bunch of lies. I mean this is what happened in co right? You know you know there are no decent alternative therapies like Ivormect. I mean, I was taking the horse paste out of right right from the veterinarian, right? There are no decent alternative therapies. And the reason they told you that is cuz they wanted to have the emergency right to produce their poison and sell it to you and jam it down your throat. I mean, it's the same thing is true in the monetary sphere. And that's, you know, that's what's gone on. And and like I say, I mean, you know, the Fed, the Fed employs thousands of PhD economists who tell them what they want to hear about how, you know, they they should be setting the price of money, and they're just all dead ass wrong. They're all doing useless work. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. >> Yeah. Well, I love this idea. Say if if the Treasury said, "Hey, the Federal Reserve appreciate what you're up to, but you're a private cartel. You serve people and serve interest. We're going to start issuing Treasury money directly. It's a gold back bond. It's whatever." But it's it's And now now we have what capitalism thrives on, which is competition. >> Exactly. >> And if I get to choose, and you Larry, you know, you're going to pay me for some service I've provided. I'm going to choose the goldback thing. And you're going to like you're going to everybody's just going to get rid of their Federal Reserve notes until the Federal Reserve straightens up and flies right and treats their product like it's got real competition and it has to be believable. >> Exactly. And and and and is the way they're constructed, they can't and won't do that and so they'll fail and that'll be a beautiful day. I mean [laughter] that'll be a really beautiful day. >> Well, it'll be really painful though and I I do worry that a lot of people are going to get hurt. >> That is right. And I you know I do too. But um you know all we can do is all we can do. I mean I you know I didn't I didn't set up the Fed in 1913. Neither did you. You know I didn't temporarily go off the gold standard in 1971. Neither did you. You know I mean we're just we're just subjects in this grand experiment. Um and all we can do is you know we have our voices and we have our beliefs and we communicate. You're doing a great job with your work and your channel and your books and you know your whole program. And you know, my small contribution to the the effort was to write my book because I felt like somebody needed to explain it to every the average person. And you know, um I mean, the one thing we do have in our favor, Chris, that makes me think we'll win. You asked earlier said, "What makes you sure we'll win? It won't go all dystopian." Well, one, I'm I just tend to be somewhat spiritual, and I think in the end, there is a, you know, a god or, you know, a higher power that that is looking out for us. And I and I and I look at the the arc of human history and we've always ultimately gone in the right direction, which is not to say there have been some ugly chapters along the way. >> Um and and we've also got them vastly outnumbered. That's and that's a really powerful thing. There's power in numbers. And so, you know, the people who benefit from this system, it's a small number. >> You know, the people who are being screwed by the system, there are lots of us, right? [laughter] So, you know, I don't like their odds, right? Now, you know, they've they've tried to gaslight us and they've lied to us and they've kept us stupid and fighting with each other over stupid like blue red, right? All those things have allowed them to maintain their power. >> But guess what? You know, pretty soon people are going to wake up and go, you know, it's not about blue red. It's about the people in power versus the rest of us. And guess what? You guys you guys have it up and we are not going to take it anymore. you know, so that's >> that's what I that's why I'm I'm optimistic. >> Well, I I I love that optimism. I think it will sort itself out. I mean, the the framing I've been using for a while is it's basically good versus evil, which is up, down. It's not left versus right anymore, which has a spiritual component to it. >> And and I kind of came to that slowly, but then all at once when I realized that that evil was the best descriptor I could find for what these people were doing. >> I agree. >> Because evil just likes to destroy things. It likes to decay things. It tears things down really effortlessly. It doesn't know how to build >> it about it. It only cares about itself too. It doesn't care about the grow the greater humanity. Right. >> Right. >> And that explains what I saw in the healthcare space, the finance space, the this space, all that. Okay. So, but given that um the pendulum does swing back and forth right now, I think you were recently talking about and writing about this crackup boom. Equities just, you know, magically, effortlessly powering higher. Not my first bubble, so I know what I'm looking at. But I'm wondering um in your mind, can we talk about potential pins and and I I'd like to I think what I'm seeing in Japan is a potential pin. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. >> What are you seeing there? >> Oh, there are a lot of pins. I mean, you may be more aware of the Japan situation than I am. I know their 30-year bond is fading. I know they're starting to have inflation. I mean, they've got more debt to GDP than anybody else in the world, although they've got a closed economy and they do run surpluses in the government and in their trade deficit. So the US is in a worse economic position. They also have a large savings culture. Um yeah, you know, they're what do I see as pins? Oh, I mean they're just they're they're laying around all over the place. I mean the government, you know, the stock market, the chart you showed earlier about how overvalued it is. I mean, look, having stocks go up is almost become part of national policy. My book talks about it, how Greenspan kind of first realized that, you know what, I can do whatever I want. As long as I get the stock market higher, everybody's happy. So, I'm just gonna, you know, whenever things aren't going well, I'm just going to pour more whiskey in the in the in the jar. Um, I So, I think the stock market bursting is a potential pin. Um, I think AI, um, you know, starting to replace jobs and having more people unemployed. I mean, you know, AI works against AI is deflationary. Um, and it but and it works against a system that requires inflation. I mean, everybody whose job gets replaced by AI, I mean, they're going to have a mortgage. They're going to have a car payment. What are they going to do? Well, again, the government's probably going to have to send them a check, you know? I mean, I found it interesting. I mean, wasn't it interesting that, you know, in spite of running enormous deficits when we started to get this additional income from the tariffs, Trump's first instinct was, well, maybe we should do some STEMI checks for the American the lower income Americans who are hurting. I you I understand it. I mean, I lower income Americans really are hurting. But, good God, man. We haven't even come close to balancing the budget. And you're talking about sending out more stim checks. I mean, um, so I I don't really know. I mean, it to me to me it is an incredibly fragile situation that kind of reminds me from what I've read in history of the 1929 situation. And uh, I'm not suggesting we're going to have that kind of a crash, but you know, when you use debt to fuel consumption and you pull it forward and eventually the debt can't be supported, I mean, you know, as you point out, things can collapse. And I mean and I you know it's so funny like like the housing market right you know the the story was the housing market could never collapse. Well in modern times it hadn't but I had a grandfather who you know the house he wanted to buy in 1929 cost $30,000. He couldn't afford it. Um in 1933 he bought it for 10. So you know it went down 66%. You know during the depression because everybody and their brother was scrambling for cash. And um now you know that could and should happen again based on the credit and debt structure we built up. The difference this time is that we have a man named Bernaki who gave the helicopter speech which says we have a technology called a printing press and the Federal Reserve has literally vowed that they will never let deflation happen again. And you know translating that that means they will print whatever amount of money is necessary to prevent a deflationary collapse. Okay, that's fine. Print the money guys. But the question then becomes what's that what's the value of that money? You know what's the underlying value of that money? is Parker Brothers can also print Monopoly money and you can buy as many Monopoly sets as you want. And if that bought real stuff, you know, you'd be rich with your Monopoly money, but you know, as as [clears throat] we all know, one of the critical values of money is that it be somewhat scarce, you know, and and and limited in supply. And uh uh fiat is really proving that, you know, it's always been not scarce and it's getting increasingly so. And and that's again the point I think it's very important. I'm sure most of your listeners already know this uh Chris, but just it's getting worse. You know, we're compounding. We've added 11 trillion in debt in 10 years. I mean, we just crossed the 38 trillion level. I mean, we'll be at 50 trillion before you blink an eye. Do you know what I mean? And so, you know, that that that we know about cuz um I'd love to get your take on this. I'm a little conspiratorial, but um Elon Musk is doing his Doge stuff and then he has this remarkable one minute interview where he says, "Hey, we found magic money machines inside the US government, not inside the Federal Reserve. They found servers that were emitting payments, right?" >> Wow. >> And he said they found 14 of them, right? They were scattered. There was one at HHS, there's one in Treasury, there's 11 in the in the DoD. So he said these were they found these servers that were just emitting payments, right? And when he says magic money machine, now this is a guy who started PayPal, so he presumably understands reconciliations and balance of payments, he's probably not a dummy, you know, but he basically said these things, he said it flat out, these are machines that create money when they emit the emit the check, which means it's not T reconciling on the back end somewhere. Now, maybe he misspoke, but he got canned very shortly after that. And then just this last week, >> did you hear that they suddenly discovered that the Cayman Islands had $1.7 trillion dollar >> of treasuries? Whoops. Where did >> I get I'm a little suspicious about that. Is it possible that somebody's offshoring and buying debt? >> I'm with you on the conspiracy theorist. I mean, remember, you know, I mean, in the Pentagon, remember when the Pentagon had like a 2.6, you know, billion dollar overrun that trillion? >> Yeah. They couldn't they couldn't account for where it went. I mean, >> yeah. I mean, so, and we know that in suppressing gold and silver, you know, they they they had Cayman Islands accounts and they just I mean, when you've got a printing press, I mean, why and and thinking thinking about how dishonest the US government has been. Do we really think they wouldn't use that printing press to just create money that's somehow off the books? I mean I mean, I know from talking to people in the military, I mean, they were shipping pallets of $100 bills over to the Middle East to bribe warlords and and do other things. I mean, were those really being accounted for? I don't know. I mean, I you know, I would guess not, right? I mean, so so yeah, there's there's I mean, and and if you look at some of the older executive orders, you know, that talk about how they don't have to disclose certain things if it's in quote unquote the national security interest, right? Well, you know, um, if you think the price of gold could represent a threat to the dollar and you've got to print a bunch of dollars to sell short gold and you got to fund the account that does that in the Cayman Islands with those dollars and absorb the losses and it's all off the balance sheet or off the books. I mean, is that sound possible to you? It sure does sound possible to me, right? >> It's national security. You can justify anything. >> National security. I mean, here's another good one, Chris. I love this one. So Trump comes in and Bazan comes in and they're like, "Hey, you know what? We go has a good thing. We're going to audit Fort Knox, right? I mean, this is like [laughter] this is like the Epstein list, right?" And then, you know, somebody obviously pulled them aside and said, "Uh uh, sir, uh, we got to talk a little bit about this Fort Knox idea [laughter] because uh, and I I I know most of the monetary people in the country, in the world. I mean, I know a lot of them. I know a guy in London who very old school monetary guy used to work for Chase Manhattan, worked for David Rockefeller. This guy knew people who were in the Johnson Treasury um department. So this is in the 1960s, okay? And he said he had direct conversations with people who worked for Johnson in Johnson's Treasury Department who said when the London Gold Pool was playing out from 63 to 68, Johnson got suckered into sending gold to London from Fort Knox to help with the gold pool and they didn't record it. They didn't announce it. They didn't. It was all under the table. And then when it didn't come back, Johnson just lost his Just went absolute apeshit. And that's part of the reason why he did the acts he did surrounding silver at the time. And so, you know, look, is there gold in Fort Knox? Obviously, because Bent took his, you know, hooker wife down there, you know, and and and had the pictures of him standing with the gold. But, you know, is is all the gold that we believe there? >> Wait, you meant you meant Minutuchin, right? >> I'm sorry. Yeah. Minutuchin. That's who I meant. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Who did I say? >> You said Bent. >> Oh, I said Bent. Yeah. No, I didn't mean Bent. No, Bass's gay. [laughter] Yes. Yeah, I went Minutuchin. Yeah. took his hooker wife down and you know and and so so yeah, Fort Knox is is compromised. There's just no doubt. In fact, there are some smart monetary guys. Vince Lansancy is one of them. He's on Twitter quite a bit. Um he he's he's very strong believer that actually the the bid in gold right now is actually the US government trying to refill its coffers. And it it does sound logical. I mean, there were some huge shipments out of London and Switzerland back to the US. And so, you know, and I mean, one of the Trump boys has done some ads for gold and talked about how much his dad loves gold. And so, you know, and you've got um, you know, you've got Lutnik who's a Bitcoiner. You've got, you know, Moran who's a Bitcoiner, and you've got Trump who's, you know, supported Bitcoin and so forth. I mean, you've got people in there who I think are aware of these issues, and, you know, I mean, my I'm extremely hopeful. I mean, this this recent Bent comment just has me really really intrigued where he said the price of gold going up is a good thing. I was like, whoa. Because he knows he's got to remark the debt against something and the only choices are gold and Bitcoin and Bitcoin's not big enough yet. So, he's really got to do it against gold. And you know, so as as Luke Roman, a great macro analyst, lays out, I mean, you know, we could wake up one morning and the government could say we're returning to a gold standard and the reference price is $20,000 and we stand ready to buy or sell, you know, gold and silver at that price. And >> well, and let let's talk about that because um to be clear, it's 4,100 as of right now. math in my head, assuming those 261 million ounces actually are there in the Fort Knox system, that's only a trillion bucksish. >> Well, that's right. That's six months of deficit spending right now. >> Every 4,000 uh dollars in the price of gold brings you in a trillion. So, you'd have to go up to, you know, to to start making a real dent in the debt, you'd have to go to 20, 30, 40, you know, thousand an ounce. I mean, I think there's another in my book, I have this chart as well. It's really good work. It was done by Brent Johnson, a friend of mine that runs San Diego Capital. Um, you know, he went through and he looked at what it would take to cover the entire US monetary base. What price of gold would allow the US, you know, gold held, assuming we have it, to cover the US monetary base. He came up, and this was a while ago, a couple years ago, so it's out of date because we've spent more since then, but it was $90,000 an ounce. So 90,000 is a long way from 4,100. So which and all that I mean, and I'm not saying we're going to 90,000. I'm not calling for that as a prediction. What I'm saying is we printed a lot of money and if we want to return to a sound money standard, there is going to be an enormous I mean enormous adjustment of the price of sound money as compared to the price of fiat such that those people who own fiat are almost going to feel like they got completely wiped out. I mean, you know, imagine having a million dollars in Treasury bonds and after this whole reset is over, it buys you the equivalent of $50,000. You know, it'll it'll buy you a $50,000 car. And in turn, you know, imagine having $10,000 in gold and after this whole reset, it buys you the equivalent of $100,000 worth of stuff cuz it's gone up 10x. I mean, you know, gold at 10,000 to me is just falling off a log. And you know, where it goes, I we just don't know. There's so many moving pieces and they keep printing money. So, the numbers always keep getting bigger. But, um, but I but I do know I mean I have a fund, I have investors, I have people I talk to a lot of gosh, I can't buy it. It's gone up so much. It's a double from 20. Like, no, no, no. You got don't don't use this price bias. You got to you got to think about the bigger issue of how much fiat is there, how much gold is there. We're still very very much in the undervalued camp. If you look historically over a 100red-year time frame, [music] >> today's markets are more volatile than ever with ongoing economic and geopolitical [music] uncertainty. Navigating such environments requires thoughtful, adaptive strategies, not a one-sizefits-all [music] approach. At Peak Financial Investing, our registered investment advisory firm connects clients with [music] experienced wealth managers who focus on active portfolio management. These professionals use evidence-based strategies [music] designed to respond to changing conditions, not outdated formulas, but customized [music] approaches grounded in research, discipline, and risk awareness. We believe in open, informed conversations, including discussing tools like precious metals and diversification as part of a broader [music] financial strategy. Every investor's situation is unique, and our advisers tailor their guidance accordingly. Visit peakfinancialinvesting.com [music] today to schedule your free consultation and explore how proactive management can support your financial goals. I'm Dr. Dr. Chris Martinson, proud to work [music] with Peak Financial Investing and my support reflects my professional views. I encourage you to take control [music] of your financial future by making informed decisions. Yeah, I've I've done some quick math and um I I you know, people like, "Oh, gold's overbought. It's too high." I'm like, "No, no, it's badly underowned because it's still under it's about a percent, maybe 2% of of total wealth held by the top 10% of families. They have about a hundred trillion dollars of investable financial assets. So if they wanted to just move 5% into gold, which I think would be irresponsible. I think they should be at a higher number. Um not financial advice, but just sort of a directional educational comment there. But okay, that's 5 trillion. How big is the total investable US gold market? Well, it's about a trillion right now, right? Because the Fort Knox stuff is not for sale. Yeah, it's >> it's actually a little bigger than that. Chris, let me let me correct on that. So, so if you take all the So, they're probably between 180,000 and 200,000 tons in the world. And it's hard to tell cuz the records go back quite some time and some of it's been lost in shipwrecks. But pick the midpoint of that 190,000 tons. If you multiply that times today's price, I think you come up around $27 trillion worth of gold in the world. But, but and this is a big butt, probably seven or eight of that is in museums and antiquities. So, you know, you're not going to we're not going into all the museums of the world and melting down, you know, the the Egyptian masks that are made of gold, right? So, that that's untouchable. And then probably of the balance, let's say there's 20 trillion of balance, probably 10 of that is around a woman's neck somewhere in the US or India or China or whatever, which is available for sale eventually. Don't get me wrong. If gold goes to 100,000 an ounce, I'm guessing there's some people who are going to sell their jewelry to to melt it down and get money. But if you if you want to take the bars and coins, which I consider to be what I call investable bullion, you know, it's probably 10 trillion dollars today is kind of my number. So, um that's a pretty small number. >> Yeah. I I was making a comment, Larry, that how much was available in the US. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's much smaller >> because I feel like once once the great gold repricing starts happening, you're going to find for it's not leaving China. That was a oneway. >> Great. No, no, that's a you make a very good point because and and by the way, I mean most people listening this already know this. The Chinese say they've got a couple thousand tons of gold. We say we've got 8,000. The Chinese have multiples of that. I mean they have for they have an export law that any gold mine in China can't leave the country. That's that's law. And we can see the records. Most of the gold in the world gets refined in in Switzerland. Not all of it, but a lot of it does. And and most of the gold makes its way through London or Switzerland at some point in time. And we can see the shipment records from London and Switzerland over the last 20 years. China, in my estimation, probably has, you know, 15 to 25,000 tons of gold, which is more than the US allegedly has at 8,300. So, um, yeah, it's, um, you know, there's not that much gold out there and it's it's very very rare and and compared to fiat stuff. I mean, there's a great chart one of the Bitcoin guys did called, um, the Jesse Meyer did it, and it shows total financial investable assets in the world, and this includes real estate now. So, this has housing and and commercial real estate is about $900 trillion. So that's you know call bonds a couple hundred trillion stocks a couple hundred trillion gold 27 trillion bitcoin 2 trillion very small um and real estate's about 450 trillion okay so that's all what what people would consider to be things that they invest in so the gold market you know as you point out in the US it might be one worldwide available maybe 10 but you know if that n I mean 10 10 over 900 I mean it's it's barely a percent do you know what I mean and So if if some piece of of that 900 says, you know, like the bond market for example, there's a $200 trillion bond market in the world. Okay. Well, someday those guys are going to wake up and go, you know what? Yeah, you guys are going to pay me back my principal, but it's not going to buy I don't want these bonds anymore, [laughter] right? You know, some of that 200 is going to come chasing that 10, you know, or if you really want to get excited, some of that 200 is going to come chasing and you believe in Bitcoin, chasing that two trillion of Bitcoin. Gosh, you know, Bitcoin could go up a couple X from here easily. So, you know, it's it's definitely um you know, it's definitely a shift that's taking place and I to me it's just it's very obvious and very easy to see and and I you know, and I have a great deal of confidence that it's happening. But, you know, as as you showed in that chart, I mean, there'll be swings. I mean, you we'll go to 4,400, then we'll you know, gold plunges. >> Yes. >> Oh, no. >> Oh, no. Gold's going down. And you know, we're we're at 4,100 right now. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me at all if gold went to 3500. Not at all. It's extended. But >> but at 3500, it'd be a screaming buy because I feel like in a year or two it'll be five or six. So, yep. >> You know, you you are here on this chart, but but so I'd love to get your your take on this because um inflation is a monetary phenomenon, Milton Friedman, right? And I believe in that. And so, we're going to have inflation that's baked in the cake. There's nothing we can do about that. Deficit spending, all of that. Martin Armstrong says that when you get to a hyperinflation, it's when there's a comprehensive loss of faith, >> correct, >> in the government's ability to do anything other than than be feckless and continue doing what they do, right? So, it's a faith issue. So, those are harder to call because I can run numbers and I can get a pretty close guess as to what we're going to have for inflation based on what I'm seeing. >> I can't call this other one because I don't know what's going to cause people to suddenly wake up one day and think like you and me. Cuz let's be clear, if the top 10% of families suddenly woke up with your mindset, >> they >> I think we get this chart, you know, by the end of the year. >> I think that's probably right. Yeah. And I think that's probably right. I mean, I think all we can do is observe the slope of the line. And, you know, um I mean, I remember back in 7980 when it was doing it, a lot of people thought the dollar was going to fail. But, you know, Vulkar had a lot more space cuz that was only 35% of GDP. and he was willing to take rates to 20%. And so, you know, he quote unquote saved the dollar, which is why he's such a hero to many people, not to me, but what he should have done, well, he he was he was really a goat cuz he was at the table in 71. And what they should have done is let gold price float rather than go off the gold standard. They should have just re devalued the dollar downward in gold terms. But, [snorts] um, yeah, no, that that's a very tricky thing. I mean, it's like um, you know, one day the Silicon Valley Bank was a very sound bank. There were no problems, right? And then, you know, they sold some bonds and there was a big discount on the bonds and some sharp pencled analyst did the math and said, "Oh my goodness, they got a lot of these bonds and they took a loss on this amount and if you run that through on the oh my god, you know what? I don't think this bank is solvent anymore." And he called up a few of his venture capital friends in the valley and they kind of called each other and they said, you know, this bank is in trouble. And in one day, $46 trillion flew out of that bank. I mean, it was like almost half the deposits in one day. I mean this was you know this was uh you know the Bedford savings and loan Jimmy you know Jimmy Stewart on steroids right I mean and and so you know we live in a very very interconnected world and uh everybody knows everything instantly and can get online and and learn and so you know I mean and Jim Rickards has done some great you know kind of game theory on this I mean we could wake up one morning what would you do if you woke up one morning and suddenly the gold price was $8,000 an ounce and you said okay that's not good um maybe I'll buy something. You went to your coin dealer and said, "I can't get you any. There's there's none for sale, you know, and and it'd be like, "Oh, Well, what's the Bitcoin price?" Well, the Bitcoin's at 400. Oh, well, it used to be at 100. I know. You know, and you could buy that, but you do you really want to pay 4x what it was a week ago? I mean, that would tell you the currency is failing that that everybody has kind of decided. I mean, it it it goes to the suddenly then gradually thing. I mean, you know, there there a lot of great models for this. It's kind of criticality of systems. I know you know this cuz you're, you know, a PhD in this but you know, it's it's like an avalanche, right? I mean, you know, the the corners keeps getting bigger. It keeps snowing. Nothing happens. Boom. It releases. It all comes down, right? Um, you know, you're in a you're in a theater. You smell a little smoke. Ah, it's nothing. You know, one guy's just having a cigarette. No, smell more smoke. Oh there's a lot of smoke in here. This place on fire. We got to get the out of here now. Right. I mean, that's kind of the model. You're in the You're on the Titanic, right? Well, we hit we hit an iceberg. It's not really a big deal. We'll be fine. You know, this ship can't sink. Well, yeah, it can. And and so, you know, these I I think this Fiat system shares the characteristics of those other three models I described. Um and I I tell you what, if that's the case, when when you're looking at price, if if I'm right about that logic, um does it matter what you paid for your price in the lifeboat on the Titanic? I mean, okay, so I bought gold at 300, I bought at 1,000, I bought at 2,000. I paid 3,000 for some, you know, not that far back. Um, you know, today it's 4,100 to you. Do you want it or don't you stay in fiat or buy the seat? You know, [laughter] I mean, that's that's kind of the model I look at right now. I'm not saying that's going to happen. I don't want to be I don't want to be accused of being a doom merchant, okay? I'm just doing an analysis. I'm just I'm just looking at history and thinking I mean, you know, sometimes these patterns repeat themselves and so you know, hey, do you take all your money and put it in gold and silver or Bitcoin? Probably not. Do you have zero in this inflation hedge in a world where the monetary authorities are out of control? That's a really bad idea in my opinion. That is investment advice. I'm willing to say that on the record, right? And so then you got to just decide, okay, there's a long way between zero and 100%. You know, I mean, here's a guy Ray Dio, right? Super successful investor, one of the best hedge fund managers ever, built Bridgewwater Associate, and he's saying he thinks most people should have 20% of their investable assets allocated to gold or Bitcoin, you know, because he sees a monetary accident coming. I mean, he's not a stupid man, you know, and he's willing to say it publicly. And so, you know, I I think when you start hearing this from a lot of really good investors, Paul Tudtor Jones, another brilliant hedge fund manager, self-made billionaire based on watching markets his entire life, same story. You know, uh, sound money is a really important issue. You know, gold and Bitcoin are are the leaders in that category, right? So, um, yeah, it's, um, to me it's, you know, I'm just I'm just out here trying to scream at the masses and say, "Hey guys, wake up, you know, wake up." because I know you know if all this happens um I don't want anybody to say hey how come you didn't tell us about this right I >> I just want to build on what you said there because um I also bought gold at 300 and 500 I've been buying all the way along right and so somebody says gosh I don't know it's too high I said every single time I bought gold it was a difficult decision >> right it >> it's just never it's people look they look back and they go oh well that was an easier decision to make at 2000 like no it wasn't same decision you're facing Hey, just as hard. >> I remember it all. >> I dipped down to 600 and I bought some. I thought, God, I hope I'm doing the right thing here. Do you know what I mean? >> Looking backwards, it's like, duh. >> Yeah. >> It's hard though. I mean, it's, you know, you got >> I mean, these short-term moves throw people off the long-term scent, and that's that that makes it difficult. Does make it difficult. gold. >> Well, and I want to reinforce, we started at the beginning and and as we close, get towards the end here, but I just want to reinforce for people right now. Gold at this moment of this taping is up $93. And so, let's count how many articles we now have on the front page of Yahoo Finance talking about gold. Oh, none. There's zero. >> There's sins of omission and commission. They just omit. They just don't we just forgot to talk like like if it was down they'd have articles all over it and gold bugs and >> well the thing the thing to keep in mind there's another explanation for that Chris in my view on Wall Street and CNBC and all those guys they just don't make any money buying and selling gold they make money buying and selling stocks and and those are the people the people who sell stocks advertise on their networks and and they're very much driven by their business model and therefore you're just never going to see you know them being supportive of this alternative. it just doesn't happen. And that's that's just it's as simple as you know their their salary depends on not being that way. So >> I get I get it. But I just want to alert people that if you're subconsciously absorbing the scenes of commission and omission, it will take you off the scent. >> Absolutely. >> You know, and somebody wants you off the scent cuz they don't make money at it. I get it. >> It's not It's just not easy. I mean, it's, >> you know, it's it's it's difficult. It's difficult when you're being lied to about everything. But here's the thing. sites like yours, sites like Tucker, sites like, you know, Rogan, all kinds of websites, zero heads, you name it. I mean, um, I mean, thousands and thousands of people are coming out and exposing the lies that are inherent within the system. I mean, Trump, I mean, Bobby Kennedy, I mean, you name it. There are a lot of people who are calling out the And as you said, I thought you said something earlier in the conversation that was really important, which is there's no excuse for not being educated about what's going on today. You can take college courses online. You can get so much information online for free. All you need is a computer and an internet hookup. And most people can afford that. And so, you know, you have to self-educate. Um, you know, it's like the Darwin Awards. I mean, you know, self-educate or else, you know, your progyny are not going to be as well off as they should be. Um, yeah. >> Well, I I don't really take the greed fear angle as much either, but I I do think that I'm clear about this, Larry. Um, we're at one of those moments in history. >> Yeah. >> Where great fortunes will be made and lost. >> I think that's >> and when the dust settles, some people will be standing relatively, you know, unscathed or well off or relatively well off and other people are going to wonder what the f happened. >> Yeah. >> And how they missed it. >> I think that's right. I I I feel the same way. And I, you know, and I don't want to be dancing. I mean, and I don't I wouldn't wish what I think is coming for the world. I really wouldn't wish upon the world. I I don't but you know I didn't set up the system. I didn't form the Federal Reserve. I didn't you know I wasn't John Maynard Kanes. I wasn't Richard Nixon. I mean I'm just I'm just an American who you know lived in what's a great country in in so many respects but I've seen it kind of go down the wrong path. And I you know I'm pleased that there are some politicians who are trying to put it back in the right direction. Um but you know it's it might be it feels a little bit like too little too late and on the particularly on the monetary front and therefore I think we're going to have to go through a real forged you know forged in crisis kind of situation. Um but but I you know the good news is that once we do that things will get better quickly. I mean one of the more interesting articles I read was a story of Ecuador and how it went through hyperinflation in 20200 and it was brutal. I mean hyperinflation is just awful right? I mean, your money becomes worthless. And yet, right after they did that, they they pegged their currency to the dollar, which was relatively strong in 2000. And everything recovered incredibly quickly. I mean, it it was kind of like, you know, if it's just the money that's broken and then you fix the money and you go back to a sound money, people kind of self-organize. You know, they go and they do productive and they pay each other and they trade and inflation's not a problem. And, you know, I mean, systems, you know, economic systems. Capitalism as an economic system. It works really well. I mean, we have the highest standard of living that's ever been known in human history as a result of capitalism. Um, it's just a broken form of capitalism today. It's crony capitalism where the people controlling the money printer are taking advantage of the rest of us. And so once we once we store it back to true capitalism where the money is sound, things will get better. They'll get a lot better fast. And everyone will wonder like, well, how could that have been so bad? Well, it was bad cuz we were following the wrong ideas. You know, we thought we thought, you know, we could print and spend our way into prosperity and you just can't do it. Yeah, you just can't do it. >> Well, those are excellent closing words. Uh Larry, how can people track you and where do they go to follow your stuff? >> Well, I make a lot of noise on Twitter. Just my name, Lawrence Leart. So, you can follow me there and I try and comment mostly negative about investment banks. I have a website uh called ema2.com, equity management system. I run a fund. Uh it's accredited investors only 200k minimum. Um and uh you can go to but you can go to my website and there I write a quarterly letter with my partner David Foley. We just kind of talk about what we see going on and what we think the trends are. It's free. It's usually about 20 pages long. If you scroll down to the bottom of the website, you can enter your email. We'll never spam you. We only send the website out four time or the letter out four times a year. But that just gives you commentary. Yeah. Um, go to the bottom of that, Chris, just so people can see the button because a lot of people come to me and they say, "Hey, put me on your list." I'm like, "You can do it yourself, right? Subscribe to our newsletter." >> Yeah. Yep. Press that button. Put in your put in your email. Check. I'm check that you're not a You don't have to put in your name, just your email. And we don't care about your first, last name. Just check it. It'll ask, "Are you a are you a person?" You say yes. You don't even have to do a little capture thing. And um, you know, every four times a year, we'll send you our best thoughts on investing. So, um, yeah, that's it. And um the other thing I would I would say obviously I'm just because I think it's a good tool for helping fellow citizens understand what's going on and how we can why it's broken, how we can fix it. This is the book. It's called the big print. What happened to America? How sound money will fix it. It's uh no publisher has touched it. Not a surprise. It's on Amazon. It's in hard copper hard copy, paperback, Kindle, and audio. Um, and if you can't afford it, send me an email and I'll try and figure out a way to get you a discounted version of it. So, um, because I really want the word to be spread around. Um, because the sooner we get everybody to understand what the problem is, the sooner we'll have a sound money movement and the sooner we'll return to a system of sound money and that will truly make America great again. Um, there'll be other things as well, but in my opinion, this is probably the most critical. So, >> I agree 100%. So I support that entirely. [music] Emma Ma2, that's the number two.com and um it's lepard l a r d. [music] Um Lawrence Leard at on Twitter. So Larry, thank you so much for your time today. Let's do this again soon. >> I I you know, we've known each other for decades. I always enjoy talking to you and and uh you know, same >> I I really I love what you're doing. So let's let's just keep fighting this battle.