Lawrence Lepard: Debasement Trade Goes Mainstream, Get Ready for the Big Print

Summary

• Market Outlook: Lawrence Lepard discusses the potential for a significant monetary policy shift, highlighting Jerome Powell's likely interest rate cuts and the broader implications for inflation and economic stability.
• Investment Strategy: The conversation emphasizes the importance of precious metals, particularly gold and silver, as part of the monetary debasement trade, which is gaining mainstream recognition.
• Precious Metals Performance: Gold and silver have seen significant price increases, with gold reaching $4,200 and silver hitting a new all-time high at $52, indicating strong market interest in these assets.
• Bitcoin Insights: Bitcoin is expected to follow the upward trend of gold and silver, with Lepard predicting a significant price increase, despite its current lag behind precious metals.
• Economic Risks: The podcast highlights concerns about the U.S. fiscal situation, including a $1.8 trillion federal deficit and the potential for increased inflation due to monetary policy decisions.
• Equity Market Analysis: Lepard acknowledges the overvaluation of the stock market, attributing it to the everything bubble fueled by cheap money, while cautioning about potential corrections.
• Historical Context: The discussion draws parallels between current economic conditions and past periods of inflation, suggesting a stagflationary environment similar to the 1970s.
• Future Outlook: Lepard envisions a transformative period leading to a return to sound money principles, potentially driven by technological advancements and a shift in monetary policy.

Transcript

We're going to see if Jerome Pal makes it to the end of his term without having to do another pivot. Um he's already he indicated yesterday he's probably going to cut another 25 bips again, which suggests to me that they can see that that things are things are in trouble in the in the economy and otherwise. And you know, with inflation at 2.9% headline and and realistically a lot higher than that, everyone goes to the grocery store and we all know that we're not at 2.9%. So, it's going to be very interesting to watch this unfold over the next, you know, 6 months. >> Lawrence Leard, author of The Big Print: What Happened to America and How Sound Money Will Fix It. It is so wonderful to welcome you back to the show. Great to see you again, Larry. Really appreciate you taking the time, especially given everything happening in markets right now. >> Thanks, Julie. It's it's really nice to be back with you. I enjoyed our last conversation and as you point out there's just so much going on right now. It's hard to keep up. >> It is hard to keep up and I loved our last conversation that would have been over the summer. Yeah. So four four months or so ago. The audience loved it. The comments um were so kind and positive which I always love and I love bringing on someone new for this audience because you were you were a viewer request and again you're back at a viewer's request uh via X. So thrilled to have you back on. Let's just let's just kind of start big picture where we always start. Um where we are today, the framework in which you were looking at the world markets. Um what do you make of what's transpired? Where do you see things headed? Because I got to say we are we're seeing that thesis that you laid out in your book start to unfold. >> Yeah, the book is kind of starting to look like it might be right. Although they haven't formally started a big print, the the market is sniffing it out. I mean, so I think the story since you and I last spoke is really that the precious metals have just caught fire um as part of what is actually being recognized by the mainstream now. They've even given a name to it. They've called it the monetary debasement trade. Um I think JP Morgan coined that and then Muhammad Alan tweeted it. And of course all the elites are acting like they've known about this for years and they've been in on it. Of course they're late to the party cuz you and me and I mean you told me you bought your gold way back in the early 2000 period. Um 2000 period. >> 2011. Yeah. >> Oh, 2011. Yeah. But but I mean, we've all been in this trade for a while. We've we've seen it coming for a while. And of course, now what's going on is the world's waking up. And as I actually say in my quarterly report, which will be out in the next couple of days, you know, the the trick to investing is to, you know, is to understand what's going to happen and to get there first and then to have everybody else agree with you. >> And and we've known that monetary debasement's a big issue here for a number of years. This is not something new to me. I wrote a book about it. Um but you know the world didn't really understand I don't think how important an issue it was until maybe sometime this summer. I mean I think when it started actually was in September. Gold had kind of it had moved decisively and I recall all the gold moves very clearly. it moved decisively from 2,00 to 2600 to 3,400 and then it kind of got stuck at 3,400 through the spring and summer and then um you know then late summer early September it broke out um from that 3,400 range and of course now it's 4200 and it's just marched relentlessly and probably even more importantly silver was stuck down in the $35 range and it's now at 52 and that's a new all-time high. The only other times it was above 50 or close to 50 were the Hunt Brothers episode in 2011, the last uh squeeze, you know, post uh post GFC. So, you know, the fact that the precious metals have woken up to the debasement, and I think that's what's really going on. Uh it's a big deal. Um and Bitcoin actually is is lagged to those two and hasn't moved nearly as much, but it's going to move further and harder when it starts, and that's coming soon in my opinion. But, you know, and and you know, you can see this in a lot of different ways, Julia. There are all these little data points that I think led to the gold market quote unquote sniffing this out. You know, I mean, let's let's just examine a few of those data points. You know, >> says we're going to run the economy hot. You know, Doge kind of failed. Um um you know the Federal Reserve governor resigns and uh Steven Moran who was the author of the Mara Lago accord is appointed. U Moran says interest rates are too high need to go down 200 basis points. Donald Trump says interest rates are too high need to be go down 300 basis points to 100. Uh Trump attacks the Federal Reserve and calls Jerome Paul a [ __ ] um or calls him too slow. um he fires a Federal Reserve governor claiming she cheated on her mortgage. Kind of looks like she did, but whether that's cause or not, who knows? That's in front of the Supreme Court right now. So, and then Powell's um term ends in May, and that's a really big deal, right? Powell has pretended he's going to be vulkar, wants to be vulkar and keep, you know, inflation under control, although he really hasn't done the job since we're still at a 2.9% CPI. And actually, it's higher than that, but that's what they report. Of course, they lie about the numbers. And um you know he uh he even he pivoted in the last Fed meeting. He took rates down 25 basis points. You know Moran wanted to take them down 50. Um and so I think what the market is smelling or sniffing out is that in May Powell's term ends. So he'll be gone with certainty and Trump will appoint somebody new and I think we can be you know there's a very very high level of certainty that that new person will be somebody who is very monetarily accommodative and we're going to see much lower interest rates and frankly we kind of have to because you know the the interest on the federal debt is now running at kind of a $1.2 trillion annualized rate and we just recorded a federal deficit of 1.8 trillion. So big big piece of that deficit is the interest. And if we can get the interest cost down, you know, then the the deficit will decrease. Now the flip of that though is that taking the interest cost down, the only way to do that is to probably end up growing the Fed balance sheet because the when the rates go down, the bond market's going to revolt. And it's interesting, we even got another little clue on that yesterday when Powell said, you know, that that maybe the runoff of the Fed balance sheet, maybe it was time for that to end. And they'd already taken it down a lot. They've taken it from I think 30 25 or 30 on the on the treasury side down to five. And the they kept buying the MBS's. I think it's close to 30. But you know there signs all the monetary plumbers you know the smart people on Twitter who follow this stuff are saying there are a lot of signs indicating that they're running out of space fiscal or uh balance sheet space and that they're ultimately going to have to print. So So I think you know the big print to me feels kind of imminent. Hasn't really entirely happened yet. Although there have been some signs of it. I mean, another thing that happened is the um um you know, Bent has been buying long treasuries. He's been issuing a lot of short-term treasury bills and then he uses those proceeds to buy the long Well, that's kind of shadow QE or Operation Twist, whatever you want to call it. In fact, I tweeted this morning, there's another chart out that just showed that, you know, actually the the Fed has increased even though their balance sheet has been shrinking on net. they've been shrinking the the the shorter piece and they've increased their holdings of the longer piece. Again, all in an effort to keep long-term interest rates down to keep inflation expectations contained. Um, and you know, my view is we probably seen the bottom of this inflation cycle. In other words, we went to CO took us to 9, Powell tightened, we came back down to 29. I'll bet 29 is probably the low print and that as soon as this accommodation starts, which could be as soon as this fall, if if something breaks or it will certainly occur in May of next year, you know, we're going to we're going to enter another inflationary cycle. So, that's that's kind of, you know, a long-winded big picture, but that kind of brings us up to where we are right now. And, you know, I know one of the things that's going on is a lot of Bitcoin maxis are like, "Hey, what the [ __ ] You know, gold and silver are really working. How come my thing's not moving yet?" And I've got a great chart on that topic that just shows that basically Bitcoin has a lag to gold. Um gold smells at first, then Bitcoin moves harder. So, so that's coming. Um you know, >> wow, what a great frame for the conversation. Let's let's stay on the Bitcoin topic real quick because Okay, so the debasement trade now you're saying like all of these Wall Street shops are now coming out and they're giving a name to something that you and many other folks um who might not be on CNBC all the time have been talking about. And so it's like, okay, now it's going to be like the magazine cover story or whatnot. Um, but I saw some headlines and I want you to rebut these saying that oh because Bitcoin has sold off or had like a crypto crash that it kind of refutes the debasement trade, if you will. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it, you know, it hasn't sold off that much. I mean, if you look at Bitcoin a year-over-year basis, I think we're still up over 70 or 80%. I mean, that's pretty damn good. Um, you know, this this last quarter, I think it was kind of flat compared to gold cuz gold took off and, you know, both they they trade together. They both represent sound money and uh and Bitcoin has traded much better than gold historically in terms of you know the amount that it moves but they tend to trade together and you know the the thing that I think a lot of people are having a difficulty with Julia is that they're they're doing this price bias thing and you know in a lot of assets this does make sense. you say, "Well, good God, the thing's gone up a lot in price. Surely it's going to correct or surely it's overvalued now and will come back down." And and that's not generally speaking. You know, there is some reversion to the mean on lots of financial assets when they get ahead of themselves. And and there could be a little bit of that here, but I think more importantly, you know, what's really going on is this is a a secular change in people's understanding of the world. And you know, people are waking up to the fact that, you know, nothing will stop the fiscal train as as Lynn said. >> Yeah. Nothing stops this train. Yeah. >> Yeah. And as they wake up to that, they think to themselves, well, shoot, you know, I've got to protect myself. And, you know, yes, some of us have and some of us have been loud about it, but frankly, we're a minority. You know, the I mean, I was I was just writing my quarterly some interesting statistics. US US total stock market cap is about $66 trillion. According to chat GPT, the total value of all the publicly traded gold and silver miners in the world is 800 billion. So it's not even one it's not even 1 billion and and we've got 66 billion market cap. I mean hell I think Nvidia has almost a you know um three or four trillion market cap three I think trillion dollar market cap. So my point is that, you know, everybody's on the AI stock market side of the boat and they're not really and and they think that Powell was going to be able to bring inflation back under control. And I think that's the the illusion that's being shattered. And as that illusion gets shattered, what I think happens is, you know, uh kind of what what we all in the monetary debation call Gresham's law. And people say, well, okay, you know, yeah, this money is fine. I'm making money, but um how should I store it? And if if they're in something that's melting, which the is the dollar, uh they need to get into something that's not going to melt because they can't print them. And that's Bitcoin and gold and silver are the three alternatives. So, um by the way, I'll just add parathetically. I mean, the silver move was really exciting to me. And I'll tell you why. Um you know, the in precious metals bull markets, you don't really have a bull going on until the silver price starts to move. it comes later and moves faster. And the silver market's a dinky little market compared to the gold market, but when it moves, it really moves hard. And so, you know, silver went from 35 to 52. I mean, it's up, you know, almost 100%. Not quite. Um, and my sense is it's going to 60, 70, 80, 90, 100. Not that far out. I mean, based on a lot of things like the silver to gold ratio and other ways of looking at it. And so, you know, that to me what that says is that we are really in the heart of this trade. And you know, people who say, "Well, yes, it's gone up a lot, therefore I'm too late." Well, yes and no. It would have been better to buy it a year ago. No doubt on all of these things. But in baseball terms, my partner and I, we talk about we kind of think, well, you know, this is probably the fourth inning, the third inning. Um, and let's let's be realistic. I mean, there will come a time when these things do get ahead of themselves. They do get overvalued. Um, and there's a there's there's something that blows up this trade that makes this trade not work. And whenever I describe this, when people come into my fund, I say, you know, they say, "Well, how could I how could if they're smart, they ask me, "How could I lose money here, Larry? How does this not work?" And there a lot of ways, but one of the things I always say is, you know, if the government gets responsible and starts to balance its books and we stop printing money to pay for the deficits, well, that's going to make this trade not work. And of course they laugh and I laugh and you laugh and we all know because we don't see any signs the government's getting responsible, right? The the big beautiful bill. I mean the government got a little bit responsible by putting in, you know, tariffs. Um and Doge tried to cut expenses. They probably at the end of the day only cut 50 or 100 billion. Um and the tariffs helped to probably bring in an extra 200 billion a year. But then the big beautiful bill is estimated to be between four three and 5 trillion over a 10-year window. some of that back in loaded and so you know basically um there's another we spent everything we're making on the tariffs and doge we're spending on the big beautiful bill and we just got the deficit it was interesting deficit for September fiscal year end of the government was just reported 1.8 8 trillion, same as last year. But if you read between the lines, they actually changed the way they accounted for certain things. And had they done it the old way, it would have been 2.1. So, you know, just this is another it's like it's like >> Oh, the deficit would have been even bigger. >> It would have been bigger. So, this is kind of like the inflation numbers of the BLS numbers. Do you know what I mean? And and by the way, I mean, that's that's another thing, right? I mean, just to add fuel to the fire, right? So, you're a foreign bond holder. you're thinking of investing in the US and you know you got a president who you know and look there's a lot of things I support this president on there's some things I don't but you got a president who basically said you know the the BLS revised all the numbers right and we all remember that and part that's what caused Powell to pivot but huge revisions you know indicating that you know they had been doctorred for political reasons beforehand and of course then what Trump did was he fired the woman who was running the BLS right but you know you're a foreign creditor you're looking at investing in the United States you got the president firing the guy who's keeping the numbers because the numbers aren't what the president wants to see. I mean, does that really inspire confidence in the fact that you're getting honest numbers out of the company or out of the country? I mean, so it's it's that kind of thing that just, you know, the the US sadly is kind of behaving like an emerging an irresponsible emerging market. And historically, when we've seen compan countries behave that way, it leads to a lot of inflation. Oh, I missed another one that happened recently, too. It's a big one. There's so much going on. Um, you know, we sent $20 billion to Argentina, right? Why not? Argentina is blowing up. We, you know, we want them in our camp, not China's camp. So, they need to defend the peso. Great. We've got $20 billion for that. Where's that coming from? We're going to print it. So, you know, there's just these kinds of things one after another are the reason why I believe you're seeing just this relentless bid in alternative forms of money, silver and gold. Um and and and and that bid is coming for Bitcoin, but as I say, you know, and I've got a chart on this um that you know that there's a there's generally a lag that shows that shows the difference. This was done by my partner David Foley. It's a brilliant chart. So this goes from 2018 to 20 end of 2020. Well, no actually not not current. So interestingly enough, you'll see at the right hand side that so the yellow line is the price of gold >> and the orange line is the price of Bitcoin. And please note that the scales are very very different. In other words, um you know um the Bitcoin scale is is much larger than the gold scale and Bitcoin's crush gold, but but in terms of general areas of movement, they've gone in the same direction. And if you look over here more recently, what you see on this chart, the price of gold is 34 3,400. Well, that's cuz we did this in August. Um and now it's up off the end of the chart. It's at 42. And the price of Bitcoin here was I think one almost 120. And it's actually that the the Bitcoin line is now or no, it's it's about where it was. Yeah. 1 110. Okay. Which is about where Bitcoin is right now. But here's the thing that's interesting. Let's go back to the beginning. So 2018, right? You've got these two lines kind of tracking together. Not much going on. And then, you know, the the the repo blowout and and POW pivot and a lot of other things in 2019, even before CO forced gold to start moving and Bitcoin was just dead, just sat there, right? Um and then you know late 2019 more more gold movement again. Bitcoin's just dead. And you know then then CO erupts and they both go down sharply. Gold actually even more more sharply than Bitcoin. But they both go down sharply in March of 2020. And then then gold takes off pretty substantially because everyone's like, "Okay, this is a big print." And it was the first it was the second big print after the 2008 version. But notice how Bitcoin was just kind of flat, right? Just didn't do much at all. Was kind of stuck in this $10,000 range. And then suddenly it woke up and it went to 60,000. So yeah. Yeah, gold it was nice. Gold had gone from 2,000, you know, um or no, I'm sorry. Gold had gone from uh you know, call it 1,500 to 2,000, which nice move, don't get me wrong, but Bitcoin went up 6x. Okay. And then then POW then then FDX blows up. So Bitcoin corrects a bit back down in line with the gold thing. Then it goes up again, you know. So then then POW starts tightening in early 2022 and Bitcoin because it's more sensitive to liquidity goes down much harder than gold but gold goes down but then notice again Bitcoin start or gold starts to turn up there's a little lag and then Bitcoin kind of follows and it's not a perfect correlation but the point is that often gold like like here's an example gold Bitcoin was trending down in 2024 all through the year and yet gold was trending up and then gold broke out and then Bitcoin waited a while and then boom it went even harder, Right. So, it's interesting to me this is taking place because I, you know, I I can guess or I can see what I believe is the next move, which is um you know, Bitcoin's about to go to 250. So, um it's uh so I so to those Bitcoin bulls who are frustrated and looking at the gold people thinking, "Oh man, I wish I were over there." And it's funny, I've had some Bitcoin >> and you can you can be both, too. You can have Bitcoin and gold. Sometimes it feels like they're like at each other. Yeah, >> that's the whole point. They shouldn't be fighting. We're all on the same team, which is sound money. There's a role for both. If you don't like the volatility and you don't want as much upside, fine. Gold works. You know, it'll protect you to some degree, >> but you know, Bitcoin is going to crush it in terms of overall performance as it has in the past. So, so anyway, that's that's kind of what I see out there. And um you know, it's um it's it's very interesting times. I mean, we're going to we're going to see if Jerome Powell makes it to the end of his term without having to do another pivot. um he's already he indicated yesterday he's probably going to cut another 25 bips again which suggests to me that they can see that that things are things are in trouble in the in the economy and otherwise and um you know with inflation at 2.9% headline and and realistically a lot higher than that if you if you counted it honestly I mean I I know everyone goes to the grocery store and we all know that we're not at 2.9%. So, um, you know, it's it's going to be very interesting to watch this unfold over the next, you know, 6 months. >> Gold keeps setting new all-time highs, but price appreciation isn't the only way to profit from owning gold. Monetary Metals is redefining the future of precious metals investing. Instead of paying to store gold, imagine getting paid to own it. With Monetary Metals, you can earn up to 4% on your gold paid in physical gold. That's right, your ounces grow each month, not just your paper balance. A yield on gold paid in gold means you're stacking more ounces every single month. And you still benefit if gold's prices rise. You're earning more gold every month and enjoying potential price appreciation at the same time. Go to monetary-medals.com/jullia to learn more and see how you can start earning 4% on your gold paid in gold. >> Let me ask you about just maybe asset prices more broadly. Let's talk about the equity markets. um stocks near alltime highs. I think last time you and I talked about like an everything bubble. We've had other guests who've talked about this everything bubble. >> Cheap money has kind of fueled this everything bubble. >> I want to get your latest on that where you think we are in that scenario and presumably it's going to burst, right? Take it that way. >> This is an area where I've been dead ass wrong. I mean, if you look at I really blown the call in the stock market because I've been a bear on the stock market for a bunch of years here and I've been just wrong. It just keeps reing. >> You just stay out of it at that point then or >> Well, yeah. I mean, I I've been out of it and most except for gold and silver mining stocks. I've been out of it for quite some time, but I was even buying puts and on it and stuff. I've lost a lot of money shorting the market. Stupid. But, you know, it is what it is. I mean, it's it is by any historical metric, this is indisputable. By any historical metric, it is very overvalued. And it is a function of, you know, the everything bubble and the fact that they distorted the money supply with, you know, Zer and QE and everything else. But but the you know what I've learned the hard way and what I believe to be true is that these you know these markets can be irrational and this kind of stuff can go on a lot longer than you realize. Um and arguably even in my last quarterly letter and these are free on my website by the way these quarterly letters. In our last quarterly letter we described something called the crackup boom which is to say you know people just buy everything because it's going up and they they borrow to do so because they know they're going to pay back in depreciated currency. And so, um, you know, what what happens to the stock market? I don't know. I really don't. I'm I'm not smart enough to figure it out. It could continue to go up along with gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Um, it could, you know, contract severely. I think if it contracts severely, um, that would be pretty negative for the overall economy and for spending and and for deficits. I mean, you know, it would mean lower tax revenue for the government. The deficit would blow out. Um, and so if all of that happens, my suspicion is that the the policy response to all of that is is to print to print more money to, you know, to um I mean, we know what happened when the dotcom bubble burst in 2000. Ben Bernaki took interest rates to 1%. And, you know, he Greenspan and he were talking about, you know, take out a heliloc, borrow against your house, you know, and that created the housing bubble. And so, you know, this is no way to run a railroad, but what they tend to do is when the economy slows down, you know, if the employment mandate becomes more important to them than the inflation mandate, um they're going to cut rates severely. And uh and that's fine. I mean, it won't necessarily work, but you know, it will allow a lot of people to refy. It'll inject more money into the economy, but that in turn will also create inflation. And so >> we're we're in kind of that worst of all worlds which is you know the 70s where we had stagflation and I've been saying for quite some time that I think this decade and this is a mistake I think a lot of investors are looking at I think this decade is going to be like the 70s on steroids and so you know if you look at the 70s carefully what you see is stock market wasn't a terrible place to be. There was one big correction in 734 7234 went down 30 or 40%. But in general, stocks kind of stumbled along sideways to trending up, but by comparison, sound money things in an inflationary world, which we had, sound money stuff went up incredibly quickly. I mean, gold and silver and and um oil were the three best performing and then the stocks that produced those things, they were the three best performing categories throughout the 1970s. And it was discovering that that actually led me into this gold and silver fund that I now manage. Um, so, you know, I think that I think a lot of people, and this is where I wrote the book, too, for this reason. I think a lot of people sadly have, you know, they're they're they're looking at short-term stuff and they're making their investment decisions. And, you know, since since arguably since 1980 and certainly since 2008, stock market investors have been trained to buy the dip. You know, it's just buy the dip and it'll always come back. I mean, I go to my gym and I I I work out with a lot of guys my age, a lot of them very wealthy, and they have advisors. All their advisors say, "Yeah, when every time the stock goes down, it's opportunity to buy more." And they do. And you know what? It's worked for them. And and I get it. And and if if conditions stay the same, then it might continue to work. But what I would argue is there's some chance that conditions have changed and they will not stay the same. And that, you know, this inflation thing is is real and persistent and going to get worse. And if that's the case, eventually that buy the dip strategy will stop working. We we won't be in a defl that strategy work because we're generally in a deflationary world and deflationary trend. We still are. Technology and AI bring deflation. But in turn, we've got a credit structure and a government system that absolutely requires inflation to function. And so, you know, if we don't if we don't keep things growing creditwise, it's going to look like the 1930s. And you know, Ben Bernaki in his famous speech explained that to us that they've got a technology called a printing press and they can solve that. So, so >> hence the big print that would be coming. Yeah. >> So, they're going to try and solve it. Yeah. And that's my sense. I mean, it's, you know, all this is, all this is dreadfully wrong and it's no way to run a railroad. My, you know, my book talks about that and I have a chapter on policy response. I even have the, you know, the I have the speech the president should give. >> I think chapter 22 you have the speech. >> Yeah. Here's the speech. Here's what the president should come out and say. Look, guys have been following the wrong model. We got to change it if we do this. And you know, it's it's not look, it's not it's not all doom and gloom. I've been I've been I've been accumulant. I'm not a doom merchant. I'm just an analyst of the facts. And you know, the facts suggest that when you're in this kind of a situation like other emerging countries have been, you know, there's the way to resolve it, the only way to really resolve it is through inflation. And whether it's very high inflation or, you know, medium inflation over a long period of time or whatever, we we've got to inflate. I mean, we did it after World War II. We had the same debt to GDP after World War II and we inflated and grew our way out of it. And, you know, maybe that's what happens this time. Or maybe there's a monetary reset. Or, heaven forbid, maybe, you know, my tail case, you know, we we just go straight to hyperinflation. I mean, you know, if if if blue team wins in 2028 and Stephanie Kelton becomes Treasury Secretary and Andrew Yang is president or vice president and they put in UBI and we start handing out G goodies to everybody and printing money like crazy, you know, the dollar will completely fail. And uh you know, is that are those things going to happen? I don't know. I mean, I I I it's I think it's a possibility. Um because the politicians I mean and they test ran it, by the They test ran it through CO. I mean, they now know how to wire money directly to your bank account. You know, they now the PPP gave money to businesses. I mean, you know, it's it's if they if they choose that response again, we're going to get very very high inflation. So, we'll just have to see. I mean, it's the hardest part to to do. The hardest thing to predict as an investor is what the policy makers and the people that are, you know, running this stupid system are going to do. But um what we do know is and we can we can lean on that you know the math and the trends which suggest that no matter what they do it's it's likely it's highly likely to be inflationary and so in light of that you know I know I I know historically that the right way to protect yourself from inflation is to own real assets that that have limited supply so >> that they can't print. >> Yeah. That they can't print. Right. >> So is the base case for you in the thesis um it's a stagflationary environment as you mentioned like 1970s on steroids. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> We have a lot of boomers who watch, so they'll remember Gen X as well. Most my audience is Gen X and Boomer. So, >> it was awful. Yeah, it was just awful. There's >> I I've heard about the gas lines. >> There were gas lines. I mean, >> your license tag like every even all that stuff. And >> but the numbers were all different. I mean, the gasoline was 25 cents a gallon, you know. >> But yeah, no, it's it was I mean I and I remember it quite clearly in the late '7s. Everybody thought, you know, we'll never solve inflation. I mean, it's it's just it's going to be here forever. And, you know, Paul Vulker, you know, put that put the kibos to that idea. You know, he had to take rates to 20%, which almost bankrupted my father. But, um, you know, I mean, and that's, by the way, that's the whole notion that's just broken here. the the notion that the Federal Reserve should be setting the interest rate which the price of money the interest rate you know it's like it's like a policy a bunch of policy makers setting a price that should be determined by the free market right interest rate should be set at the balance between savings and investment and should be set by the free market and so you know these these bananas at the at the Federal Reserve I mean you know they've they basically you know they've had rates as low as zero which is just ridiculous it's a tutology I mean if money pays zero yield it has zero value. Um, and they've had him as high as 20%, which you know, nearly bankrupt my father. I mean, when Vulkar did that, some farmer, you know, drove his tractor to Washington DC with a shotgun and tried to walk inside the Federal Reserve to kill Vulkar. I mean, it was, you know, it's pretty rough times. And, you know, and it's all just because they're running the system that benefits them at the expense of the rest of us. And and I lay that out chapter and verse in the book. >> Yeah, I'll read it. Um, you said at its core, our monetary system is broken because the price of money is set by a banking cartel, the Federal Reserve. Think about it. 12 voting members of the Federal Reserve Board decide periodically what the price of capital interest rate should be. 12 humans in a country of more than 330 million Americans have immense influence over financial markets. Our founding fathers would be appalled. >> Yep. That's Yeah, I I couldn't say that's a great quote. I'm glad you pulled that out because >> Yeah, that was yours. didn't have it at the top of my head, but it's Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's just it's nuts. It's absolutely nuts. And and you know, and that's why I mean, you know, so you get the people on the left who are arguing about about billionaires and wealth inequality and all that stuff. And I'm very sympathetic to that because some of that money that they those billionaires have gotten is very much ill gained. I mean, some of it's not. Some people have really added value and built great businesses, but some of them they've just gotten it through financial engineering. And you know, I mean, you and I, if we want to borrow money, we've got to go to a credit card company and pay 25%. Or maybe if we're if we're creditworthy, we can buy a house and now you pay 7% for that. That's really the only leverage the average human can get. But if you're on Wall Street, you know, you could borrow at the Fed funds rate. When the Fed's fund rate was zero, you could borrow 50 bips and you could turn around and use that to, you know, place a carry trade where you'd earn 10%. I mean, it was a one-way ticket to becoming silly wealthy. And you know, and it was even worse than that because they benefited insiders in the whole game. I mean, in 2008, it's one of the anecdotes in my book I really like, and I I wrote the book in part to remind a lot of young people who probably weren't there when it happened, some of the [ __ ] that went down. I mean, this is an amazing story, right? So in 2008, they were so desperate to get people to buy assets that they um went to the head of Morgan Stanley and they had his wife set up a special purpose vehicle to buy um to buy distressed assets and they loaned her, you know, somewhere between$100 and $200 million nonreourse. Okay, non-reourse. uh which means that if she lost the money, she didn't have to pay it back and she put up a couple million dollars on the basis, you know, to to underneath it and then she went and bought assets with that. I mean, this is this is the the wife of the chairman of an investment bank borrowing from the Federal Reserve, hundreds of millions of dollars at an incredibly low rate. I mean, how is that not just a gross abuse of power, crony capitalism, etc. And no doubt all those things worked out for her and she became very wealthy as a result of that. He and her, they became very wealthy as a result of that trade. And I'm not just making this up. I mean, this is well documented. >> You can go read there's a piece on it, too. Like I'm just looking Matt Taibbe Matt Taiibbe and the Rolling Stone hat. I remember when he used to write for Rolling Stone. >> Google Matt Taib Matt Taibbe Rolling Stone The Real Housewives of Wall Street. >> Yeah. And it was from the the um Federal Reserve term asset back securities loan facility, TAL. You do cover your book. >> Yeah. >> Isn't that amazing? Yeah. So, I mean, come on, guys. I mean, this is a fair system, you know? I mean, how, you know, the average the blueco collar worker, did he get to borrow money from the Fed at a low rate with non-reourse? I don't think so. I mean, it's just I mean, we should be marching in the streets with torches and pitchforks. We really should. I mean, it's disgusting. >> I think a lot of people >> I think a lot of people like intuit it. Um, they sense it, but you Yeah, you're And I got to say you're one of the things I really enjoyed about your book um is the narrative in it. And I feel like you also got a lot of financial history and also you you referenced so many other great folks in there too. So it makes for like okay well I want to go read Luke Groman for the trees and now I want to go read um well and you should get them on your programs. I mean you got to get saved. >> We had Luke on recently. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean look I'm the first to say that that book is not original in many respects. I mean but what I you know there are great ideas in there. I mean Safe got me going on Bitcoin with his book the Bitcoin standard. Lynn's book is outstanding. Luke is a great macro analyst. I mean, all these people what I what I what I think I've done though, and I will take credit for this. I think I'm pretty good at it, is I kind of pulled it all together in a way that the average person could read and understand because I've given those books to other to average people. A lot of they bog down. They're kind of like, I don't get this. I don't, you know, where they going here. And I tried to make it explainable. And the way I did that, actually, Julie, you'll appreciate this is, you know, my wife who was a writer and it's very non-financial. And I, she was my test case. I just said, "Hey, read this and do you understand this?" And you know, it was pretty funny. We got started and she's like, "Hang on a second. What's the Federal Reserve?" And I was kind of like, "Oh, yeah. I get it." You know, the average person doesn't know what the Federal Reserve is, so I better explain it. Right. >> Yeah. >> And you know what? And like some of us, it's like we're I don't know if we don't know the right question to ask or we're embarrassed or afraid to ask, but that's it's what's amazing about the book is it's literally for anyone. >> Absolutely. Well, and and and by the way, that not knowing what to ask and I mean, and they're making it confus. It's all very very intentional. Do you know what I mean? On the part of the people, I this system benefits a certain set of people and you know they they they're like the overlords and they're like, "Oh, you know, okay, all you peons, you know, surfs, you don't need to understand this stuff. Leave it to us. We're you know, we're financial professionals. We've set this system up and you know, we know what we're doing and you don't." And uh it's it's really condescending. I mean, the notion that that they have some superior knowledge and that they deserve to sit at the top of this pyramid. >> Yeah. One of my I I mentioned this the last time you were on the show, but um I love the opening of the book where you're at HBS speaking. You went to HBS. You're in a room with a a bunch of other folks and you were the one who like called him out on it. No one else >> no one else said anything. >> I got to tell you, my I had butterflies in my stomach and I was definitely the turd in the punch bowl and I was I it very much conflicted with my mother's view that, you know, if you don't have something nice to say about somebody, don't say anything at all. But I on the other hand, I just felt like I just couldn't resist it. And the reason I couldn't resist it, Julia, is they were up there kind of bragging and crowing about how what they did in 2008 was righteous and genius. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Just just a fabulous thing without really examining the underlying premise that 2008 should never have occurred if they didn't have a corrupt system and that all they did was bail out their friends. I mean, if if they had really let capitalism prevail, all those people would have been bankrupt. I mean, Twitter is a really interesting thing and it's a great leveler and Lloyd Blankfine who used to who ran Goldman Sachs throughout that whole thing and Goldman Sachs was infinitely bankrupt. I mean, um, if if they hadn't had the insurance from AIG and then they hadn't had the bailout, I mean, they would have been completely bankrupt. And of course, Lloyd got bailed out and Goldman went on to become worth a lot and Lloyd made hundreds of millions of dollars. He's probably a billionaire today. You know, I know for a fact he bought a $60 million house on Long Island. And um, you know, and he used to get on Twitter and hold forth on all these subjects. And every time he would do that, I would reply to him and say, "Hey, dude, shut the [ __ ] up. You know, you were bankrupt in 2008 and we bailed your ass out. We don't care what you have to say." And I would do I literally followed his account and I did that on every single tweet he made. And eventually he just stopped tweeting because I thought he deserved it. Do you know what I mean? I mean, it's like, come on. You know, you get to hold forth on what the policy of this country should be when you corruptly made, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars because the the taxpayers bailed you out. No [ __ ] way. Shut up. Just shut up. So anyway, >> they also you also point out too in the book like I want to say you maybe you were short during that time and they changed the rules of the game. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Know I look I I come at this honestly and I suffered you know um Yeah. Just I mean and but but you know that happened to a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people, you know, they they sold them these mortgages on subprime on these houses and they'd inflated the housing prices. They were telling everybody housing prices would never go down and so, you know, people were taking out second mortgages. I mean, you know, the big short and the stripper who had six houses and all that stuff and, you know, and then and then they rugpulled it and all these people, I mean, it happened to my my sister and she wasn't gambling or anything else. She just needed to sell a house after the housing prices had collapsed and and she basically lost her house to the bank and and so you know this this was yeah it's the the rules change the rules for the banks and the elites and the people who are financial operators. That's one set of rules and that's why they're billionaires and very very wealthy in many cases. And then there's the rule for the rest of us which is you know tough [ __ ] Um, you know, there's a one of my favorite memes in there was the picture of the the of the of the garage door from uh an Iraqi vet who had spray painted on his garage door. Uh, three tours in Iraq um or foreclosed three tours in Iraq but no bailout for people like me. And I thought, you know, that's right. >> Yeah. >> Guy served our country for three tours and um and lost his house. I mean, it's just it's sad [ __ ] It really is sad. >> It really is. Um, let me ask you, this is just like came to mind more about like the dynamics of the market today. Um, short selling for example. I had this conversation with Tommy Thornton. Um, he's amazing. I love him. >> And he was saying that uh if you look at the basket of like the Goldman Sachs hedge fund shorts, like it's up 38% because they I guess shorts have gotten squeezed out of the market. And what I understand from my conversations, short sellers actually play a really important role in the ecosystem of our markets. I know people get a little upset in the comment section. Oh, they're just jealous because they're shorting, they're losing money. But when you do have a big correction or selloff, those are the natural buyers, >> right? >> Do you think like I don't know where I'm going with this exactly, but is that like a risk of like not having the shorts there anymore or I don't know if >> possibly. I mean, yeah, possibly. I mean it's it's you know the yes it is actually a risk. I mean the markets have become kind of frank in markets. I mean you've got you know Mike Green's pointed out you got kind of this passive bid passive bid. Yes. >> Yeah. Mike Mike Green. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's just always there. And you know the the markets have become fairly reasonably detached from the underlying fundamentals. If you look at any of John Husman's work or if you look at the Buffett indicator of the size of the market compared to GDP. I mean, you know, we're at most by most valuation metrics, we're at record levels. I mean, if you look at Jeremy Grantham, who's, you know, Grantham May on Otterloo, very brilliant investor, um, called the last two or three bubbles and he's convinced this is one as well. Um but even he will say he just doesn't know if and when it's going to burst and and it doesn't necessarily have to burst on in nominal terms because you know if if we have a very very severe inflation you know the mark I mean remember owning a stock is owning a claim on the profits of a business >> and the business isn't going to go away presumably no matter what happens if it's a good business and and you know the the the profits if the currency changes the profits will repric into the new currency. So there's there's an argument for owning stocks even in a currency event. I mean I think in Weimar the people who own German stocks pre-Wimar if you own stock in Mercedes-Benz I was it was impossible to find the data because it happened in the early 1920s but you know I what I've heard what I read was that you know you you still own the shares of Mercedes-Benz and there was probably a time frame when your investment was down a lot or nobody would buy your shares but they reset the you know they reset the currency they got back on a gold standard. the country grew again and I'm guessing that your shares of Mercedes would have held on to their value because it was still a company that was operating whereas if you'd own German bonds or German currency you got totally wiped out. >> Yeah. Inflation benefits those asset holders. >> Yeah. So it is it is an asset and we all know that in big cases of hyperinflation you know and the the famous charts are or Zimbabwe, Venezuela and and Weimar stock markets went crazy. They went straight up. They had crackup booms. Now, if you measured that value in currency, local currency terms or or not if you used the if you deducted out the currency effect and compared it to gold, you really didn't make any money. But, but you actually did kind of hold some of your purchasing power because they did nominally go up. So, it's tricky. Stocks are tricky in a in a currency event. Um, bonds are bonds are death in a currency event. And, you know, in my view, obviously, I've said it earlier, the the best things in a currency event are currencies that can't be printed. Mhm. >> So, >> um >> yeah. Um this is just more of a side comment, but I loved this quote you had in your book around inflation from Daniel Webster around inflation is the shest way to fertilize the rich man's field with the sweat of the poor man's brow. Like, I feel like that's a quote that stands the test. >> Isn't that something? I mean, it's not like, you know, it's like everyone thinks, Julia, it's like we're reinventing the wheel here. I mean, this is this is a tale as old as time. And as I think Luke Gman has said it best, I mean, you know, to to understand investing in today's world, the best thing to read aren't financial reports today. They're to read is to read history books >> because this is a sovereign we're in a sovereign debt crisis. And the last sovereign debt crisis occurred around 19 well around basically World War I kicked off the last sovereign debt crisis. And you know, you had hyperinflation in Poland and Germany and Russia and a lot of places. And and you had severe inflation in France. You had Britain went off the gold standard. uh the United States had a doubling of its uh of its uh uh price structure. It CPI went up 100% in that time frame. I mean that was the first well there have been many big big prints but you know probably the first one was the war of 1812 but let's skipping those you know civil war there was a big print which was you know the green back but the first US the first modern US big print was when the world war broke out and they were pushing liberty bonds and they couldn't figure out how to sell them and so they did a really neat trick and I describe it in the book they went to the banks and they said hey bank you buy this liberty bond and uh we'll loan you the money to buy it at 3% % and then they paid 3 and a.5% on the liberty bond and so the bank made 50 basis points. >> They're arbitrageing it. Yeah. >> No no risk. So the bank basically subsidi they subsidized the banks and the bank created the credit which is how all money does get created x and the hilo from the bank. It just it's a it's a bookkeeping entry and you know more or less they doubled the money supply from 16 to 20. And in that same time frame, prices doubled. And you know, you had the Chicago Black Sox in 1919, you had Ponzi in 1919, you had, you know, a huge racial attack in Kansas in the same time frame. You had an enormous increase in lynchings. You had enormous labor strife, huge strikes all over the country. Um, you know, when you take when when you have massive inflation, it tears at the social fabric of a country. It just does. And um you know the 70s were a very turbulent decade. Um you know same story and uh you know and and sadly we're we're in my view we're in a decade that's going to it's going to have massive inflation. >> And some call me a doomster for saying that >> and I say no it's just an analysis of what's happened historically. you know when you do these you know if you take these following steps you get the you know this following outcome and that's that's not doom that's analysis >> yeah to say and by the way I also want to say for those who say I'm negative is you know we're going to fix this Julia this is going to get fixed at some point in time and we're going to get back to a sound money standard and there's so many great things happening both in technology and AI and everything else world's going to be a great place you know but but not until we've solved this problem that's why We're in We're in the fourth turning though and it's that >> exactly >> fourth turning from the monetary perspective. We talk about we've had on the show. Yeah. >> That's exactly what this is about. We have a monetary >> we will enter the first and we will enter that first turning with new systems and that's the springtime >> and sound money and I mean it's going to be fabulous. In fact, I'll lay out I think you might enjoy this. I'll lay out a model that I gave. Um, I was just at an event up in New Hampshire, a really fun event, um, with a bunch of Bitcoiners and, uh, they said, Larry, lay out lay out your your model for the next, um, you know, the next 10 years. I mean, how's this going to unfold? I mean, we're in one hell of a mess and where are we going here? And I'll I'll just lay out what I'd said because I think it's an interesting thought. And I this this probably won't happen this way. Not even close. But but this is my opinion. So, the next three years will be very highly inflationary. It'll get worse. they'll have to print more. Um the Federal Reserve will fail. Um and you know there's going to be a lot of strife as a result of that inflation. Maybe the stock market collapses we print to address that etc. I don't know about that part but but there'll be inflation. It'll be bad really bad. And in 2028, rather sadly, uh, red team will lose because blue team will come along and promise all kinds of goodies and stemmies and, you know, taxing the billionaires and, you know, the and and half the country will buy it sadly. Um, and so blue team will come in and they will finish off the dollar. They will uh do UBI, they will do yield curve control, they will keep interest rates artificially low. Um they'll have Stephanie Kelton as the Treasury Secretary and you know the woman who thinks that deficits and and printing money doesn't matter. >> Modern monetary theory >> modern monetary theory and and they will literally kill the dollar. It will you know and by so by the end of that time frame so they get in in 2028 by 2032 which actually happens to kind of coincide with about the general length of a of a fourth turning. We will be kind of a failed country experiencing super high rates of inflation arguably hyperinflation. Bitcoin, gold will be 10 to 100,000. Bitcoin will be you know 1 to 10 million and um you know it's it's it'll be bad for many people. Um at that point in time, Michael Sailor will be the richest man in the world at that point in time. At that point in time, Michael Sailor will step forward. He'll be um what is it? He'll be 68, about my age now. He's 60 now. And um and he said he's going to give all his Bitcoin. He's just going to let the keys expire. and he's not in this. He's he's he's in this um to be a historical figure in my view and I know him not really well, but I know him enough to I think get where he's going. And he's going to step forward. He's going to be a modern-day Thomas Jefferson and he's going to say, "Guys, here's how we went wrong. Here's the history of it." He's going to have all the receipts. He's going to walk through the history and he's going to say, "We need to return to a sound money standard and we need to do a massive reform of the Constitution. We need to have term limits. We need to have a balanced budget amendment. we need, you know, and there'll be 10 other things that'll come along. Then he's going to go to China, Russia, the rest of the world and say we need to make peace and we need to totally denuclearize. Um he's going to go to the United States and say we need to do a Marshall plan for nuclear power to keep energy costs low because that's what creates wealth in a society. And he's going to have this whole plan laid out in 2032. He's going to win. And when he wins, >> what do you mean? You think he's going to run for president? >> He's going to run for president and win. Yeah. >> Interesting. He's and and and Michael Sailor is going to save America. That's that's my vision of what's going to happen here in 2032. Michael, >> have you talked to Michael about this? >> I have not actually. I haven't had a time to sit with him personally and talk with him about it. He might say I'm full of [ __ ] I don't know. I can't say that he's endorsed this in any way, shape, or form. And I'm only doing this based on kind of my reading, yeah, >> of who he is and what the situation will call for. >> But the timing will be perfect. He'll be the right age. He's still young enough to do it. He'll bring in a lot of Bitcoiners around him to help him. I hope I'm one of them. And uh and he's going to completely reset the system and um the fourth turning will be over. We'll be on a sound money standard and we will rebuild America and the world on sound money. And >> why why Bitcoin memory? What's that? >> Why Bitcoin and not gold? >> Because it's better, Julia. It's just much better. It's I mean gold is gold has got lots and lots of flaws. It's hard to move, hard to verify, hard to store. I mean, we live in a digital age and it's just it's an antique. I mean, it's it's a form of sound money and it's not going to disappear tomorrow, but um it's, you know, it's going to be demonetized in Bitcoin terms very severely over time, very much the way silver has been demonetized in gold terms. And so, you know, the same thing will happen with with with gold. And and by the way, that'll also advantage America versus the countries that bet on gold. I mean, you know, China and India, for example, have made the wrong bet on gold, just like they did with silver back in the 18th century or 19th century, late 19th century. And so, um, you know, America is a technology leader. Um, we're a Bitcoin leader and, um, you know, it'll that'll be a good thing. And by that point in time, it'll seem totally normal to own Bitcoin. Everyone will own some, um, and everyone will understand what it is. Uh, right now, nobody gets it. Um, not I shouldn't say nobody, u, but the percentage of the population that gets it is relatively small, >> which is why, once again, why I wrote my book. So, >> I mean, if you, you know, it's, you know, instant settlement, um, algorithmically sound, fixed in supply, you know, Michael's right when he said to Laura Shin, he said, "Laura, it's going it's going up forever, Laura." And he's right. He's absolutely right. And that the reason that he's right about that is that um you know there's a fixed supply of it and so it really only can go up you know forever in in terms of things which are not fixed in supply or another way of saying it is the price of everything is going down forever in Bitcoin terms in a deflationary world. >> I have a question um fixed supply going up not everyone has Bitcoin right now. Um, so would that could that set us up for a system that would also just be inherently like have like inequality because like you're going to have people who are like very very rich already with Bitcoin if it becomes like the new kind of monetary system like >> Yeah. >> Not saying everything needs to be equal, >> but what will happen is those rich people will spend it and everybody else will get their share of it. It's it's that's like saying, you know, that that gold is the is is the form of money that rich people have now and and those people are going to be insanely wealthy. I mean I mean yes there will be some transfer from those who own the wrong asset to those who own the right asset. I mean that occurred in Weimar Germany. You know the people who had gold or farms you know came out very well. The people who had bonds they were wiped out. Um but if you take a look at what it means for the average person you know it doesn't mean that much one way or the other. If they if you don't have a lot of assets or your only asset is your house. your house will hold its value in new terms because it's a place you can live and you know your basically your mortgage will probably be easier to pay off because it'll been massive inflation. So, you know, for the average I mean the average person say say you're a plumber and your your biggest asset's your house. You can still do plumbing services and you just get paid in Bitcoin on a go forward basis >> and you know you're suddenly you'll have something that you can save in that won't be debased. You know the the government won't be stealing 8% from you every year which is kind of what's happened you know for 50 odd years since we went off the gold standard in 1971. I mean the government you know the inflation numbers are are cooked but you know the M2 numbers are not. You can see that the government has more or less stolen seven or eight% from all of us every year for the past 50 odd years and and that will no longer happen. And that's a really and that the implications of that it's really hard to see the implications that how good they are. I mean the other related thing that's going to happen that's going to be very very good is how's a government going to pay for a war. I mean who you know these governments they you know look the average person Julia I mean do you want to go kill people? I know I don't you know do I mean go ask a 100 Americans who wants to go to some foreign country and kill people. I mean you only the psychopaths are going to say they want to right >> and so you know war is just going to become a thing of the past um because no government's going to be able to afford war. Not which is not to say there won't be crime and which is not and also not to say there won't be psychopaths. there still will and you know we'll need good government to enforce laws and order you know so that we get you know the criminals among us and it'll prevent them from preying on the rest of us but most of the world doesn't want to kill each other and um you know and yet we've still got nuclear armed countries and you know saber rattling amongst big powers and and I think I think that's that's all going to become we're going to enter a new enlightened age that's all going to become a thing of the past in my view people going to look back at just how barbarian it all was I mean it'll be you know our kids our grandkids look back and be like I mean like you and I today like like they they bled George Washington right they thought you know he was dying and they thought the right thing to do was to bleed him you know in order that was a medical treatment at the time right and you and I look at that and say god that was [ __ ] stupid you know but they did it right and and you know right now we're you know we're setting interest rates and you know we feel like we got to have a big strong defense and you know we got to spend all this money on weapons and all that and people are going to look back and say those people were primitive they were just they were archaic I mean we don't need to do that anymore more. And >> can we fix our debt situation though? Like our I'm just looking right now. Our debt 37.6 trillion. >> Yeah, we can fix it easily. Just it's it's worth it's worthless. It's it's denominated in dollars and the dollars are worthless. Guess what? We're out of debt, >> right? I mean, that's how it that's how it happens. I mean, now, you know, if you hold those bonds, obviously you're not going to be feeling great. But, um, you know, the the the underlying basis of a moral society is sound money. The book talked about that. I had a chapter on morality and >> Judy Shelton writes about that in her book. >> Exactly. Judy's great. I love her. She's she's fabulous. And she's she's proposed a gold back bond. And in fact, Trump even said um to her that, you know, that's something he might do on the 2026th anniversary of the United States. >> 250th. Yeah. The 250th is next year. >> Yeah. Right. And he even said maybe we'll do a goldback bond for that. I mean, look, it's a great idea. I mean, we also should do bit bonds. That's another great idea that Andrew Hon has talked about. I mean, there are a lot of things we could do, but you know, we should be building a strategic Bitcoin reserve, but you know, but I'm a little mixed on some of that cuz to be honest with you, I don't think these big central governments have been particularly responsible. And so, I'm not sure I want to see them doing things that make them more powerful. I mean, I think part of the model that the world will operate under as we go forward and we evolve as human beings is a much more distributed system, you know, where we don't have these big centralized pieces of power. I mean, the book talks about how, you know, it was I mean, centralized power was great and it got going because Ford invented the assembly line and he realized that through using capital and and a centralized system, you could be efficient and that was great and it created, you know, the industrial revolution, put us all in automobiles, made the world what it is. And we hit, in my view, we hit peak centralization in the World War II. We got so powerful, so centralized that we figure out how to slaughter 50 million people in six years. Right. I mean, wow. That centralization [ __ ] That's really great, isn't it? We killed a lot of people. And to me, that was peak centralization. And ever since then, we've been coming down the other side of that slope. I think, you know, the nuclear bomb scared everybody enough to realize that, oh my god, we were so centralized and so out of control that we could eliminate the entire planet. And that was mutual assured destruction. Then the Soviet Union fell. So hopefully that went away. But there's still a lot of nuclear armed powers. And basically as we come down the other side of it in the book as the book talks about the microprocessor saved us because you know it allowed you and I to do what we're doing right now. I mean we're in different parts of the country. We're talking live. We're communicating with thousands of people and you know you are the New York Times. I mean in the past I had to listen to what the New York Times told me was the truth and it wasn't cuz you know there were women and men in there that lied constantly. And so, you know, so here we are and and and so this decentralization is also what's going to save us. The internet is going to save us. Decentralized money, decentralized algorithmic money is going to save us. And technology is going to save us. And thank God. I mean, they're all in my view, they're all kind of god-given. Um because, you know, the that old system, I don't need to have another war where we slaughter, you know, 40 or 50 million people. We just don't need to do it. >> I could not agree more. Um, Larry, it's been so great having you on. Before I let you go, let's leave this audience with some parting thoughts. Anything that you want them to think about, I guess, recapping the conversation on you want to own those hard assets, sound money, still in baseball terms, still early innings here for gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Um, but anything that you want to leave this audience to think about and anything you want to plug too? I know you said you have your quarterly, your book. >> I plug the book. Um, you know, um, obviously I just think the best thing we can do is try to educate as many people as possible about what's coming. Um, because I think there'll be a big difference between those who make the savings in sound money and those who don't. So I, you know, the book is kind of a warning. Um, and that's that's really, you know, all I would say. The only other thing I would add if, you know, if you enjoy this or you're interested in this commentary, um, I have a website. I I run a fund that's a gold and silver mining stock fund and um I have a website uh the name of the firm is Equity Management Associates. The website is emma2.com. Um and every quarter my partner and I write a free quarterly um update on macro and investing and so forth. And if you scream down scroll down to the bottom of that page, you can actually sign up your email for that update. Um and we'll never spam you. It's just we only send the update out every quarter. Um, and those are on historically going back, you know, years and years. Our our reports are there and and I'm actually writing one right now that'll probably be out in the next three or four days. I'll put it up on Twitter, too. But, um, that kind of talks about these things that we're just discussing. So, um, you know, and all I would say is I just I think sound money is the most important issue of our age. And so, I I would just try and encourage everybody to become educated about sound money. And then as you do uh to help your friends and neighbors become educated about sound money because I think the people who are educated about it will will you know be in a better position than those who are not. And I and I hate to see people suffer and and sadly and this is where I am a bit of a doomstor. I mean this system is broken. There's going to be some this people are suffering now. I mean the lower the lower cortile is really suffering. The lower half is suffering and sadly there'll be some more of that until we fix it. But but the good news is if my vision of Michael Sailor is president and 32 is right, we you know 32 is only 7 years away. So um we don't have long to wait. >> Lawrence Leard, author of the big print. Thank you so much for being so ingenious with your time, all of your knowledge, your ideas, your wisdom, helping us all learn. I really enjoy it. >> I did too. This was fun. Um this is our second time together, but I look forward to our next conversation. Really appreciate Nice joy.