Lawrence Lepard: Fed Copying 2019 Repo Crisis Policy With 'Not QE' QE? Gold & Silver Next Leg Up?

Summary

Jason Burack of Wall St for Main St interviewed returning guest, author, gold fund manager at Equity Management Associates …

Transcript

Hi everyone, this is Jason Brack with Wall Street from Main Street. Welcome back for another Wall Street from Main Street podcast interview. We're recording this interview on Monday, December 15th, 2025. The US dollar gold price, it's up substantially again. It was quite a bit above 4,300 headed to 4,400. It's corrected a little bit before the jobs reports, I think, coming out in the next couple days. I think we're getting two jobs reports, the October one and the November one. The silver price has been on absolute fire lately. It's up to $64. uh it's just gapped up like enormously and there's rumors of just insane amounts of shortages and very very large players standing for physical delivery. Bitcoin prices corrected a little bit down to 86,000 but that's kind of normal over the course of uh the long term here with Bitcoin going through a lot of volatility boom and bust cycles and the stock markets are at or near all-time highs the US stock markets at least. Today's special guest is a returning guest and it's right on point here with the asset prices I just discussed. He released a book over the last 18 months called The Big Print: What Happened to America and How Sound Money Will Fix It. He also runs Equity Management Associates, which is a gold fund, and he he co-founded the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. Lawrence Leard, thank you for joining me again. >> Jason, it's great to be with you. I always enjoy our conversations. >> So, Lawrence, the liquidity situation, we we just hit before we start recording, uh, for listeners out there. So, everyone's talking about, you know, deflation and all that. The liquidity, the global M2, it hit $96 trillion uh recently, like uh Yeah. Yeah. an alltime high. 96 trillion of currency and credit just sloshing around. That's M2 all all over the place into US capital markets. But I want to get your thoughts on the macro situation because drone pow and you've been doing this a very long time. And drum pow gave a press conference uh late last week talking about interest rate cuts and not QEQ and I'm using air quotes here like the the Chris Farley Saturday Night Live SK you know Chris Farley where he has the glasses on and he's doing the the animated air quotes here. He's like it's not he's animated it's not QE but and then he was like we need to to add like tens of billions of dollars of of reserves to the commercial banking system. Does this remind you of uh the 2019 repo madness crisis? >> It really does. I mean, it's a little different in the sense that in that crisis, what happened was obviously the the repo rate blew out because um you know, bank conditions, monetary conditions became too tight and so they had to immediately respond and flood the system with money and they and they you know stopped they were doing at the time they were doing quantitative tightening. They stopped that they they started QE. They cut interest rates etc. So So yeah, there's a parallel there. Um although in this case they're trying to get in front of it a little bit. Um but I must say as we discussed before we turned on the camera on the uh recorder, you know, I was really surprised um at how quickly and how aggressively this came. I mean basically they trial ballooned it. This was the announcement was last Wednesday. They trial ballooned it about a week before that. you saw Bank of America and Goldman and a few other analysts were kind of talking about well they might be talking about some kind of a reserve management thing which you know it got leaked to those guys and they wanted to put the idea out there so the market get ready for it and they said and it might be something in the range of 20 25 you know billion dollars a month um and it might be in January those were kind of the that's the trial balloon well sure enough we come along we have the Fed meeting and it's not 2025 it's 40 uh and it's not January it's in two days [laughter] Well, well, all you all our listeners have to do, and I've been showing this on my social media on my ex profile, and I sent it to you, Lawrence, is go to the St. Louis Fed website and go look up reserves in the commercial banking system. And despite all that global liquidity, despite asset prices at those levels, I mean, there's serious credit problems, uh, banks, banking system problems, we're back to 2019 levels of reserves in the commercial banking system. So it's huge distortion because of fractional reserve banking and these banks and what uh private equity um pension funds insurance companies I think even were involved in this private equity um in excuse me in this uh private credit bubble uh apparently these insurance companies are holding a lot of this bad debt. >> Yeah. Well, there's there's not only a lot of bad debt and leverage in the system, but as you point out, you know, that we were seeing some strains. I mean, the um the sofa rate, which is standing overnight Fed funds repo rate, uh blew out over the interest on excess reserve rates a couple of times. And then the the standing repo repo facility, which they put in, by the way, after 2019 in order to try and address this kind of an issue, um but it hadn't been used very much, that got used a few times as well in the last few few months. And and you know, they've been trying to signal this and I I I think it's very interesting. I had a tweet about this where I just said, you know, what the Fed is trying to do is make it so like, hey, you know, nothing to see here, folks. No big deal. This is just some technical, you know, monetary plumbing stuff that we'll take care of and you don't have to worry about it. It's not QE. We're not printing money. >> They said they said the same exact thing in 2019. And if I remember correctly, Lawrence, um during the summer of 2019, the repo madness crisis, when they were saying the exact same stuff, oh, it's no big deal. It's not QE. I think the Fed's balance sheet didn't increase by a trillion dollars in three months. Um I don't have the exact numbers right in front of me but yes it started going up quickly but as you recall 2019 he pivoted when the when the uh um uh you know the overnight funds rate blew out. Um but then it really that was only a little bit before COVID which was March of 2020 and of course that's when it really got going. Um but yeah it went up I don't have the numbers right in front of me quite a bit when they did pivot. Yeah, >> we've discussed this too and I mean you've talked about this with stories with um with Ken Griffin from Citadel, right? That the 2019 repo crisis like the Fed was like, "Oh, it was um people exaggerated it like Bloomberg stole my term. They were using repo madness all the time um within a couple weeks after I started cuz I had one of the top financial channels back then and I was doing you know um these repo madness crisis. They papered over way more than was claimed. I mean, there was like I was getting messages from uh portfolio managers at investment banks in Korea that like basically the credit markets had frozen up that there was like Goldman Sachs portfolio managers in Korea and Asia like sending me messages that basically the Fed had to overnight there was emergency like Zoom calls and phone calls that they had to guarantee like credit markets all over the planet. So, they didn't actually print the money, but they had to uh issue back stops that they would print the money that they were issue guarantees. So, there was a ton of stuff behind the scenes. It was way way worse than the trillion dollar uh official Fed balance. >> Doesn't surprise me. I mean, they always try and make it sound like it's no big deal, but I mean, as as you and I have discussed so many times, this is just the nature of a system that's based on growing debt. And it when your debt is growing as rapidly as ours is and as the world's is, you you have to grow the money supply or else you can't service the debt. I mean, we saw it a little bit earlier this year too in another item where um as you recall, Argentina got into trouble and uh suddenly their currency came under serious attack and because we wanted Argentina in our camp, not China's camp, you know, we we immediately said, "Oh, no, no, don't worry." Bas came out said, "Don't worry, we're going to give Argentina a 20 20 billion swap line so they can defend the currency." >> And that's just official number. Yeah. 20 billion. I was say Yeah. two weeks later 20 became 40. >> Oh, really? I didn't even know that. I saw the 20. I saw paying attention. >> They said 20 and then it became 40 and for all we know it's 60 or 80. I mean >> it could be 100. Yeah. >> Yeah. They have offbalance sheet accounts. They have operators in the Cayman Islands. They've got the BIS. All these all these banks coordinate with one another. We know that, right? >> Well, the large US and European banks are also playing in the uh currency in the currency derivatives market over the counter. And so they could have leveraged bets on bad debt and they could have gotten bailouts too because they could have been betting on the Argentinian peso and they could have been caught with their pants down. I mean that's happened a lot over the years too. >> Yeah, no doubt. And and and so you know I mean the other things that are going on that I I think indicate speak to the problem that the Fed is trying to address um that are really to me big signposts in the macro land are you know the Japanese 10-year bond is making new record highs. I mean you know 3 4 years ago this was almost a zero zero yielding bond. Now it's it's up over it's it's approaching two. It's right around two 2% a year. And and of course that was a fund a funding source for so many of these carry trades. You know, borrowing cheap yen, invest in carry trades. Um and of course that's going away. The other one that's important is that the German tenure, same thing. It's it's cruising towards new highs. Um and the and the UK guild isn't exactly looking great either. It's not quite as high as the other two. But you know, the the fact of the matter is that the bond markets are coming to realize that they are the sucker at the table. And and the reason they're the sucker at the table is that mathematically when you have a levered system like this, you have to create money. And of course, you know, the other thing we I'm sure it's where we're going to go next is that, you know, you've got this administration just, you know, more or less doing everything they can to indicate and and make sure that quote unquote more money is coming. And let's talk about what those things are. I mean, one is you put Steven Moran on the Fed board and he says he thinks that, you know, we're way too restrictive. He dissented in this last uh meeting, said he thought the cut should be 50 basis points, not 25. Um you've got President Trump saying he thinks interest rates should be 1%. You know, we're the best credit in the world, he says. Um you've got Kevin Hasset, the presumed new Fed chair, although it's interesting Worsh is kind of coming along strong because some people have warned about Hasset being too too much of a lightweight. Um and it's interesting Worsh is also a good friend of Bent. So it's possible that Wars will get it, not Hasset. But but in either case, um either one of them, I think, will will feel very pre a great deal of pressure. I mean, Hasset won't feel pressure because it comes naturally to them. But if it's worse, >> well, the they can't stop the yield curve from steepening, right? Which means a recession cuz we were we had an inverted yield curve. But for listeners out there, when you have a very long time frame of an inverted yield curve and then it steepens, then that normally predicts a recession. But the only way that that the Federal Reserve Bank in DC really the people planning the the the economy and government spending can um unsteepen the yield curve is by actually monetizing debt right and targeting the uh 10 20 30 year US treasuries and going out and buying those >> right and bet's been doing that by the way I mean it's been a you know whether you want to call it an operation twist or you know QE light I mean he has been changing the nature of what he sells he's been selling you know short-term bills um you know 2 months 6 months three month all those things and he's been using some of those proceeds to buy off the run 10 years. So, you know, it's kind of an operation twist. I mean, you know, my view is the tenure right now is at 42ish, maybe a touch under it. Um, and they just they can't have that thing get away from them. If that goes to five or six, it's game over. And so, you know, what they're trying to do is try to manage perceptions and manage, you know, the bond market to to be calm. But we saw, you know, when Trump did Liberation Day and and he quoted the bond market and the stock market both at the same time. If they push the wrong buttons, the bond market's going to break. And if the bond market breaks, they're going to have to come in. And you know, it's funny what what I said when this whole thing happened last week. I put out a tweet. And I said, "Well, here we go. You know, the big print is starting." And my my good friend Lyn Alden said, "Well, you know, I call it the gradual print." Because she's right. I mean 40 billion a month while it's a lot in old money terms today it's less um and so it's you know 480 billion a year I mean >> well they want to fight deflation though right because I think the important thing is that they've come out and said basically they don't want to allow deflation >> that's right that's right the the under the underarching theme is they they will not allow deflation but I don't think there are much risk of that I mean if most people who go out and buy things in the world today know inflation's not running at the 3% they claim it's running at I mean you know meat um insurance. There are a lot of things that are running well above 3%. And so, >> well, the necessities, yes, but then the discretionary items, does the consumer have the credit or the purch or the um cash flow, the free cash flow, the monthly income to go buy discretionary items. So, it's just created distortions like you said. So the necessities if people want the same lifestyle, they want um the normal lifestyle of healthcare insurance, car insurance, you know, they want to eat the same uh amount of food, the same type of calories, eat at the same restaurants or grocery shopping, like those things are up, but the discretionary items with the distortions, those things may fall because there might not be um credit or demand for those. >> No, that's absolutely right. I mean, you've got, you know, it's it's the worst of all worlds. You know, assets and certain things could fall in value while things that you absolutely have to have like food are are increasing in price. So it's and it's a K-shaped economy. I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, I've seen statistics that show that, you know, the top 10 20% of the country is doing all the buying. I mean, most of the country is just living, you know, on the edge subsistence wise. I mean, we've all seen the statistics. Most people couldn't have come up with $400 for an emergency. So, it's really a rather sad set of, you know, circumstances, Jason. And um but you know I I think that what what we can all take away from it is that you know mathematically they have to print more money and they will print more money. And so while I deeply respect Lynn and and her book and her view that it's a gradual print today I think the gradual print is going to morph into a big print. Well, let's see. Let's see who gets bailouts because um you know, I hope I'm wrong about this, but Sam Alman was in DC, you know, working [clears throat] his lobbying angle with him and his lobbyists trying to make sure he gets bailout money from uh both houses of Congress. So, that's OpenAI for listeners out there. And so, like they have the largest OpenAI has the largest cash burn rate in Silicon Valley history. I mean, like it's the the numbers just don't work for capex projections. They don't have a growing amount of paying customers. They actually have large amounts of cancellations. They get hit with all these capex bills. It it's not their business model is not scaling. Actually, they don't really have a business model right now. They're kind of doing innovation and even now it looks like Google and Chinese companies are surpassing them. >> Yeah, that's right. I mean, I as we talked about pre-show, I mean, I think that, you know, the what's going to happen and it's interesting because um you know, David Saxs of Cryptozar came out and said, "Well, no, no, we're not going to." I mean, Alman implied that he might need a bailout or might need a government backs stop. And Sax said, "No, no, no, we're not going to do that. You know, it's everyone's everyone's going to have to compete on their own," which is the right thing to say. But as a practical matter, you know, I think there there's a certain amount of thought in Washington DC and just in, you know, the US in general that we are in an existential fight with the Chinese over AI. And so it would not surprise me at all to see, I mean, and China pursues industrial policy. It would not surprise me at all to see, you know, the US pursue kind of quote unquote industrial policy and help help some of these people with their capex or with, you know, with guarantees or whatever it might be. And and of course, you know, there are those of us who would scream, "Hey, this is just like bailing out the banks in 2008." But the, you know, the counter from the other side would be, "No, it's not. This is strategically important and we can't afford to lose this race." So, >> I mean, yeah, like you said before we started recording and I've heard this mentioned too like unpublicly like national security. That's like kind of the blanket like, oh, national security, >> right? >> I mean, it's a really vague term. I Why not let >> Yeah. Why not let Microsoft or Meta go and buy OpenAI? let the share, let the valuation for OpenAI collapse and then Microsoft and Meta who are better run and have profits and free cash flow elsewhere from other parts of their business, they can go buy OpenAI and then we don't have to give a ballot. It's it's just sad how corrupt uh things are here in Washington DC with both political parties in Congress and in the White House. >> Yeah, it really is. I mean, it it's um you know, there's no there's no responsibility left fiscally or otherwise. And so um and you know really the the stock market has kind of become a policy tool and this is why you know Trump and Bant and and his his new Fed Governor Moran and and potential additional Fed governors you know they're they know very clearly that they have got to get the cost of capital down. I mean as you and I both know the interest expense right now in the US federal government is running at over $1.2 trillion a year. it's it's you know almost the largest line item and um as a result of that you know they could they could reduce their interest costs a great deal if they could get interest rates down and that's fine I mean bringing interest rates down at the short end would be fine I mean in in a sense but it will lead to money supply growth it will lead to more borrowing you know it probably will y lead to more steepening on the long end because everyone knows that M2 will accelerate and grow and um and then of course that's going to have to lead to yield curve control because as we discussed discussed earlier, you know, you can't have a five or a 6% yield on the 10-year, the US 10ear. It just doesn't work. Um, and so, you know, I I I see a lot of inflation in our future. Um, and I see, you know, I've said long I've said many times this decade reminds me of the 70s. We were going to have waves of inflation. You know, it went co came we went from zero to nine. We come from 9 to three. These are the stated numbers which are inaccurate but >> oh they printed way more money and from the three or four years from 2020 to like 2022 2023 way more money globally was printed than people realized the money supply growth. >> Absolutely. And so you know so now you know okay so Paul tries to be vulkar for a while he wasn't successful at it but he did get the rates to come back down and there was a time if you look at the chart you and I both looked at it where M2 actually did decrease slightly. Um but of course that you know that's just not sustainable because you've got to have growing money or else the debt collapses. So you know it's it's um it's a real mess we find ourselves in and um as you know investors and citizens I mean I think there there two things we can do. One we can protect ourselves in terms of what we invest in. We can invest in things they don't print. And then I'd say as citizens what we can all do is we can lobby for and advocate for sound money and for a return a reset and a return to sound money. um you know a gold standard, commodity based standard, bitcoin involved in some way, whatever. But some form of sound money is an absolute necessity and a balanced budget or else this thing's going to run off the rails. I mean it's already kind of running off the rails. It's going to get worse. >> Well, yeah, you mentioned Japan. I mean, all these big economies, whether it's China, European Union, Japan, the US, they all look in bad shape. Do you think that Japan's going to have to sell US treasuries, a large amount of them, in the near future to defend their currency or save their banking system? Or do you think that they're going to come up with some other type of creative financing? Are they going to use that other permanent repo facility because there was two that were created in early 2021 for central banks? Are they just going to put their treasuries as collateral? They just going to draw a swap line? What do you think is going to happen with the US? >> Yeah, that's a it's a fascinating question, right? Um, look, the the the optics of them selling their treasuries would be really really bad. Um, and so I just kind of wonder, I mean, and and we're at the stage now where, you know, they're holding this thing together with, you know, bailing strings and wax. I mean, it's a real mess. And so you mentioned swap line. It would not surprise me at all if if there's kind of an off thereord swap line between the US and Japan wherein we are lending them money to buy our treasuries and and somehow that's not even getting reported anywhere. >> Well, well actually let me add to that Lawrence. So a lot of listeners don't know and there's an old speech that on the gold antitrust action committee website from years ago. There was a vice president at the New York Federal Reserve Bank and he actually said that as part of the G7 agreement post World War II during the Marshall Plan and others that the G7 countries, they all don't have to declare this. They have ironclad currency swap arrangements with the G7 central banks. They don't even have to announce it publicly. >> Yeah. >> Though he said it in the speech, it's an old Gata article. You can look it up on the Gold Antitrust Action Committee website. >> Yeah, it that doesn't surprise me. I mean I I you know it's it's what you know JeanClaude Junker said you know when it gets ser as a central banker when it gets serious you have to lie. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Right. >> Well there's been a lot of that since 2008. >> Yeah. And uh and and you know you can bet that right now it's serious. And so um but I you know my sense is the problem is too large to sweep under the rug and that eventually you know what we're seeing I mean I'll tell you what's telling you Jason that that I'm right about that are the price of the precious metals right? I mean, look at, you know, what's happened to gold and what's happened to silver, you know, basically since Doge failed. I mean, you know, everything was somewhat contained when Trump came in and he talked about, all right, we can balance this budget and Elon said 2 trillion, no problem, which is a joke. They said 1 trillion, no problem. Well, of course, at the end of the day, you know, what did they say? Maybe 50, 100, you know, >> I think they got 200 billion if you count some of the contracts that were going to go into effect and they were cancelled. So, I we we'll give them 200 billion. So, that's >> give them 200. they're they're running a 18 deficit and you give them 200 and then you know correctly in my view I think I think the tariffs are actually a smart thing. I think you know putting a tax on consumption particularly foreign consumption in order to you know reshore a lot of our manufacturing I think it's a good idea. Um it wasn't done really gracefully. I mean he he he went too hard and things collapsed and he backed off but but you know the tariff revenue right now I think is running about $30 billion a month. So that's 360 a year. So that's really good. So, you would think to yourself, okay, Doge cut a little bit out, the tariffs cut a little bit out, and I know the sense just bragged about how good this month was deficit-wise versus the prior year. Um, you know, I don't know that it's all very lumpy and so I'm not sure that really matters. But, you know, we need more data to see, but the you know, yes, they they they brought in some more revenue and they took and they could cut some expenses. The problem is Congress turned around and passed the big beautiful bill this summer and uh you know, all those Liberty Caucus people and and etc. who were determined, you know, to make things tougher. Trump bullied him in the cave. And the only two who hung on were Thomas Massie and Ran Paul. And of course, he's demonized them as >> he wants to fund their opponents in in >> Yeah, exactly. He wants to primary him and get them out of there. And so, you know what? And so, what does the big beautiful bill mean? Well, the big beautiful bill, um, depending upon who you believe and how you score it, is between 300 and 500 billion in additional spending every year. So, you know, okay, yeah, we're getting tariff income. That's good. Maybe we doed a little bit out of there. That's good. But we turned around and we committed to spend more um in the big beautiful bill. So, you know, >> for for the record, I'm not in favor of the tariff income, but I think they put it in place of like a VAT tax because what half the country, 50% of the Americans don't pay an income tax. So, they put that in. So, it's like they're trying to figure out ways to tax people, but it's disproportionately hurt um middle class consumers or lowerass consumers and in small businesses the tariffs have. And then what these large corporations got exemptions. So that hasn't helped the economy either. You add in what HBN1 visa applications and artificial intelligence software the company switching over and that's causing what um a lot of job losses in the real economy. >> Well, that's right. And that's that's going to represent a problem as well. I mean, you think you know, you think we've got trouble now. I mean, it's very hard to predict how a AI will affect the employment picture, but you know, I don't think there's anybody who thinks AI is going to increase the demand for employment. I mean, it's >> well, maybe 10 maybe 10 or 20 10 or 15 20 years from now, it'll create new industries, but in the short term, yeah, I agree with you, creative destruction. I think I think there's going to be a lot of job losses, >> right? And so once again, in a highly leveraged economy with a lot of, you know, with a lot of debt, um, you start, you know, you start running up unemployment and job losses. And I mean, that's what's so troubling, Jason, that, you know, we're running this $1.8 trillion deficit right now. We just finished the September year. And, you know, the stock market's at record highs. Employment is basically healthy. You know, we're not um I mean, there's nothing has quote unquote really gone wrong. you know, I mean, and so we get a lot of tax income off the capital gains from those stocks. So, you know, what happens if and when, heaven forbid, the stock market rolls over or heaven forbid, you know, the the employment market rolls over as a result of AI slowing down, you know, we could see a real nasty nasty situation where, you know, you're going to have a lot more in social costs and you're going to have less revenue and and, you know, a $1.8 8 trillion deficit which is about 6% of GDP could be you know could look like a 12% deficit you know like what we had in '08 or what we had in 2020 and course all of those all of those deficits represent strain on the bond market and and we already know the bond market is under strain because they just addressed it by printing more money. So, you know, >> wouldn't you say the rise in the stock market though, the rally? It's not necessarily because of AI, although big tech big tech does have good profits, but the other 493 companies in the S&P 500 are not doing well. So, it's just what the MAG7, the big tech companies that are dragging the index higher. But wouldn't you say that the stock market is rallying because of that um global liquidity, the M2 at an all-time high, 96 trillion give or take right now uh globally, and then also the weak dollar. So that's also factoring into a higher asset prices. >> I think that's right. I mean, I think the stock market is rallying because people basically, you know, buy the dip and, you know, in a in a crackup boom where there's more money coming into the system. A, you know, there's a lot of indexed money that just automatically goes into the stock market. Doesn't necessarily mean it's good value. It's very, very, very overvalued on any historical metric. But, you know, if we're going to continue to print money and and part of the policy choice is that we're going to print enough to keep the stock market going up, well, people aren't stupid. They're going to buy and hold the stock market and they've been rewarded for doing it. So, and I'm not saying that's going to change anytime soon. I mean, I've I've lost plenty of money trying to take short positions in the stock market because it's overvalued. And, you know, I've stopped doing that. I I prefer now just to bet on, you know, the inflation that will come as a result of all the growth in the money supply. And that's >> well you can make an argument that the best short on the stock market or other things has been gold. So if you're a foreign central bank you're probably not buying uh US stock market shares. You're you've been cost averaging gold for the last increasing amount. >> You're right. I mean if you don't if you don't believe in the stock market the best way to express it in my opinion is to buy gold or silver >> because um you know they're they're going to benefit from the same monetary debasement. they'll benefit even more and they're not historically overvalued if you look at them compared to central bank balance sheets or money supply or a lot of other things. I mean, you know, I've got one study that shows that, you know, if we if we went back to the meth the method we used in the 70s to, you know, divide the money supply by the number of ounces we own, we own 261.5 million ounces allegedly. Um, you know, gold should be $90,000 an ounce and it's not. So, and that and that I'm not suggesting we're going to go there. not obviously, but what I'm what I'm trying to point out is that's how much paper money has been created. You [laughter] know, there's a lot of paper money out there and uh and gold is anti-paper. Gold represents a gold is the thing you turn to when you lose faith in the system. And what's going on, I think based on, you know, the failure of the the general failure of Doge, the general inability of Congress to control spending, um you know, etc., is that people are losing faith in the system. They're losing faith in the currency. And and it's just math. It's not this isn't even it's not really even a a judgment call or a political issue. It's just mathematical. You know, the money supply has to grow or the thing will collapse. And you know, look, they could let it collapse. I mean, that's 29. You know, okay, fine. We're not going to, you know, we're not going to um continue to expand the money supply. Let's let everything collapse. But, you know, I think the average politician faced with let it collapse versus deal with inflation later. will always choose deal with inflation later. >> Oh, governments hate deflation. I mean, there's a good Mises Institute Institute article about the politics of deflation. I mean, that means that asset prices fall, companies fire employees, tax receipts, whether that's um consumer spending in the real economy at restaurants, bars, shopping, or capital gains taxes, those all collapse, property taxes collapse, people can't pay those. So, politicians generally over the last 150 years, they hate deflation. Exactly. And so, you know, and and I talk about that a lot in my book. I mean, deflation is a good thing, but I mean, rapid deflation is not a good thing, but mild deflation as a result of increased productivity is a very good thing. But, you know, canes, you know, and and governments have ignored that and they've done it because it keeps them in power and and makes people who are close to the money printer rich. I mean, it's these are the people we callires because they're able to borrow cheaply and buy buy assets. the rest of us have to go, you know, I mean, the average I mean, I was just talking to a guy who's running for um Senate up in Massachusetts, guy named John Deon. Really good guy. He's going to take on Marky. He might have a chance of winning. And um you know, one of the things he wants to do is is uh install usery laws. I mean, there are credit cards now, Jason, that are like 35% rate of interest. I mean, you know, and everyone says, "Well, yeah, you got to have that kind of rate to take the credit risk out of it." No, no, no. You just shouldn't be allowed to do that. I mean, that's that's the mob, right? I mean, somebody borrows something borrows money at that kind of a rate, I mean, they're just they're never going to get out from underneath it. So, >> well, they were calling uh bankers in 2008, the financial crimes, remember there was Occupy Wall Street, they were calling them banksters. So, there was all those bankster cartoons back then, but you know, then that kind of died. Uh that kind of went away after a couple years. The the bankster people calling them banksters. So, uh but now they have what? Payday loans, all those things. And the really high interest credit card >> debt even Yeah. And pay on pay over time on a lot of goods and services. More of that than there used to be. Yeah. >> Well, I mean, they're doing buy now pay later. The younger millennials are doing buy now pay later for like fast food, for Chipotle, burritos. >> Yeah, I heard that. I I couldn't believe that. That seems crazy. >> Well, they don't. That's because they don't teach investing or personal finance business classes or entrepreneurship in schools K through 12. They teach you how to be a good socialist. And [laughter] >> yeah, >> speaking speaking of which and and yeah, and the people in New York have have figured that out and they they elected a socialist and I think they're going to be sadly disappointed that he can't deliver what he's promised. But, you know, that's that's the problem when you have a system that's this broken, you're going to pingpong back and forth between two sets of crazy policies, you know, and I mean I as as bad as this administration is in some respects, in other respects it's not as bad. And um you know I fear that in four years you know team blue is going to win and they're going to look at all the gold and silver guys and all the bitcoin guys are going to say hey you're ruining our beautiful monetary system you know we need to tax you at 90%. Right. >> I think there'll be people leaving the country by then. I think >> very very possible and that's that's part that's one of the great use cases for Bitcoin. It's a lot easier to take a lot of money out of the country in Bitcoin than it is in gold. Gold big and heavy. But yeah, I mean it's, you know, the the the thing is is is in trouble and it's kind of falling apart and um it's rather sad, but it is what it is and it it was it wasn't any one particular thing that did it, you know. I mean, it wasn't 1913 or it wasn't 71 or it wasn't glass steel, but it was a cumulative number of things that have led to where we are today. >> And I would also argue that the gold prices really started to move after the Russia sanctions. So you saw the amount of monthly gold purchases they about doubled. So basically the the countries have taken the philosophy that >> if we piss off DC they can just freeze or confiscate 300 billion in reserve assets of Russia and their interest payments on their treasuries were taken and used to fund the other side of the war. Um we can't trust DC anymore because they just do bad policies or if we piss them off, you know, they'll just put sanctions or steal our assets or or do regime change. like it looks like Venezuela now looks like there's going to be full regime change soon. >> Yeah, that I think I think you're absolutely right. You're spot on. I mean, you know, that's the reason why gold has been doing so well, particularly visav Bitcoin, which is an alternative form of sound money, is just that there's such an enormous sovereign bid for it and people understand it and trust it more than they trust Bitcoin still. So, it it's really quite extraordinary. I mean, gold, I think, is up 64%, you know, this year. I'm not sure it's ever had a year when it did that. Or maybe the one year in 7980 when it went from, you know, 500 to 800 briefly or 400 to 800 briefly, it did as much. But but the point is it's it's it's quite extraordinary. And what it tells me is that we really are watching a change of the gu changing of the guard monetarily and and you know, the dollar and fiat currencies are now in the pretty advanced stages of failing. >> Um you know, >> I I want to ask you now about uh gold stocks relative to the gold price. So, you're a gold fund manager. You've had you've had outperformance years where you made hundreds of percent returns. You've had years where gold hasn't done well and you've you've lagged. Are the gold stocks starting to price in the gold price at 3,3500, $4,000 an ounce gold, or do you think a lot of these gold stocks are seriously lagging the net present value of future discounted cash flows close to the current spot price of gold? >> It's a great question, Jason. It's a and there's a little bit of a complicated answer. Okay, so a year ago, let's go back a year ago. A year ago, gold stocks were just criminally undervalued. I mean, it was just insane how cheap they were. Okay, most of the major indices and my fund are up about 150% this year. So, so more or less, you know, the things that I own, that my fund owned, have doubled in value this year. So, you know, one would naturally think, okay, therefore, you know, they're not as cheap anymore, and they're probably not as cheap anymore. I mean um but um one of the things that happened at the same point in time is that the gold price you know went from the 2600 area to the 4400 area and a lot of these companies have big capital expenditures which you know produce streams of gold for 10 years at rates which are reasonably well fixed. I mean they go up with the cost of electricity the cost of explosives the cost of labor but that that tends to go up like 10% a year not 65% a year like the price of gold did. And so so the so the margins are just insane right now. They're all making a ton more money. And so you know the answer is obviously they're not as cheap as they were a year ago on an absolute basis. Um but my sense is they're still on the cheap side of the ledger because of the growth and the earnings and the operating leverage that they have. Um you know and and trust me there will come a day when they will not be cheap anymore. I mean you know I I look at them in a lot of different ways. You can look at them compared to Pab. You can look at them compared to a multiple of EBITDA. You can look at them compared to the resources in the ground. Lots of different things. But, you know, they're still on the cheap side of of fairly valued. Not not as cheap as they were a year ago, but on the cheap side. And and that's if gold stays at 4,400. Now, if they go back down to 2500, well, then they'll be more expensive, obviously. But, you know, in my view is gold's going to 8,000. So, they're still pretty damn cheap. I I I guess to answer your question, I feel very very confident that if you look at this as as a baseball game with nine innings, potential to go into extra innings, but let's not count on that. You know, I think we're in about the third inning, second or third inning. So, I I you know, my fund did well this year, but I'm pretty sure it's going to do very well next year, too. Now, at some point, I'll tell you what, when when everybody in the brother is talking about gold stocks, when the shoe shine boy is recommending gold stocks, when my fund is up another 200% from here, and things are trading at 20 times EBIT DA, and they're doing stupid acquisitions and all the kinds of crazy they did in 2010 and 2011, okay, at that point in time, they won't be so cheap, and I might actually be selling them a lot. Um, even though I fundamentally believe in that this is a 10-year, you know, bull market for gold. Um, you know, these things breathe, right? They go up and they come back in. They go up and they come back in. And so, you know, I I I still think we're in the period of they're going to go up. They're still they're still cheap and they're likely very likely in the next year to go up, but when they double again from here, eh, you know, mitzomeo. I mean, I'm not I'm not going to be pounding the table like, oh my god, these are insanely cheap. They'll be cheap if gold goes to 10 grand, but we don't know that for sure, right? I mean, I think it's going there, but getting to 10 grand in my view could take a few years. So, >> well, I have people asking me for long-term price targets for gold and silver because they're up so much, be like, is this it? How much higher can they actually go? And I'm just telling them like look if the Japanese yen if they're going to monetize all their government debt and the Japanese yen is going to go bonkers and they're going to do an insane amount of QE or increasing amounts more of QE monetized debt. The US is going to cut interest rates and do bailouts for OpenAI and a bunch of other bailouts for the data center companies bailouts for that. And then they're going to also, you know, fund a lot of other government programs and spending, run huge budget deficits, devalue the dollar, and then the European Union and China are going to do similar types of debt monetization for government bonds. You know, just create currency. The that's why probably why the global M2 is where it is, right? There's a lot of debt monetization and bailouts hidden. That's what the why the number is parabolic and why the liquidity ends up here in the US. If they're going to keep doing that, we can't set a long-term uh all-time high price target for gold, saying once gold is at, you know, 6,000 or 7,000, then that's it. There might not be a long-term price target. You tell me when when the governments are going to stop this reckless behavior. >> Yeah, that's the that's the hard thing, right? I mean, so so like if they were going to stop it now, maybe it's fairly priced or, you know, I I I easily see gold at 10,000. I easily see silver at 100 to 150. I mean, I feel like those are falling off a log likely to happen in the next 12 months. E, you know, 18 months at the worst. Um, beyond that though, tell me what the government's going to do. How much money? I mean, it's, you know, these numbers could go to infinity. Now, you know, the problem with that is that, you know, gasoline will be $1,000 a gallon, too. So, I mean, that's that's really we're talking massive hyperinflation, currency failure. That's not my base case. Well, that I the conspiracy theorist in me is like that's probably why they're kind of they're anticipating doing the bailouts for this and that's why they're going to go take the oil from Venezuela. [laughter] >> There's no doubt they want to keep the price of oil low because oil is a big in, you know, a big component of the inflation statistics. So, you know, I mean, and the good news is that, you know, what I've read about the oil industry, you know, they've really gotten so much more efficient. They're just really really good at finding oil everywhere and at fracking and the you know the modeling and all you know >> well but they're running out of the tier one acreage though in the Peran basin. So I think that's why they're starting to panic is yes they've improved the technology but there's only so much uh high quality lowcost oil reserves in the Perian and so once we're we're through all the tier one in the Peran basin then we're on to what deep water and that's substantially higher cost oil. >> I totally agree with you. I completely agree with you and I I don't I don't dispute that over time the price of oil is going to go up and that oil is relatively cheap right now. I'm just um you know I'm I'm more with Bloomberg on this where you know that it's I I think that um I think they're if you want to play inflation you want you believe in commodity inflation I think they're easier plays you know I think gold and silver are probably the easiest I think copper is in there probably as well you know based on all the AI buildout and the building going on in China um you know and and these things have been structurally underinvested in for 10 years I mean that's a big thing that people don't realize and this is why people say well how far could these gold stocks run. Well, I mean, let me just give you an example, a data point. I mean, it was in my last most recent quarterly report, which is on my website and it's free. You know, I I think about 60% of the country um they looked at Bank of America looked at brokerage account, but 60% of the country has effectively 0% allocation to gold. I mean, zero. And you know, and then the other 40%, I mean, the number of people have more than a 10% allocation is like 10%. So, you know, if people come to realize that gold is really performing better than everything else, which this year it has. I mean, gold stocks have and gold, they both beat the stock market by quite a bit. You know, there's a lot of money that can come into this. And let me give you another data point. You know, Morgan Stanley, as you know, forever and ever said 60% stocks, 40% bonds. That was the model that they had this year. And this shocked me. It must have shocked you when you saw it, too. They came out this year and they said 60% stocks, 20% bonds, 20% gold. >> Lock said more than that. and he's a bond fund manager. Jeff, but but Jeff Gunlock's a libertarian though. Jeff Gunlock, he has a small gold funding. He's a libertarian. So, he's seen, you know, the global M2 and what these other governments besides the US are also doing with government bonds and he's just shaking his head. >> Yeah, he gets it. But, but here's my point. I mean, I think there's 7 trillion plus dollars in the Morgan Stanley financial, you know, network of of, you know, client money that's being managed. And somebody did the math and said, gosh, if if if 20% of that, you know, all of a sudden came into gold, which of course it won't, but if it did, you know, the price of gold would have to go up 30 or 40% to accommodate that move. I mean, and so, so my point is, you know, we're still kind of early in this whole transition period. And I think, you know, we're not talking about a one or a two-year flash in the pan here. We're talking in my view about a secular trend with currency failure, monetary debasement, government, you know, malfeasants that's going to take, you know, two to 10 years to to figure out. And so, you know, now now don't get me wrong, there is a risk to this trend. The risk is the government gets responsible. I always tell new investors in my fund, I say I say, "What could go wrong?" What goes wrong is that the government starts getting responsible and balancing the budget. They laugh. They howl. We all do. Okay? But stranger things have happened. You know what I mean? And things are headed towards MMT with both debt monetization or a version of MMT with basically both political parties here. >> Well, that's right. Well, and UBI and you see you see I mean that's we haven't talked about it. You see Trump saying, "Well, we're going to give everybody who like makes less than 100,000 $2,000 STEMI check." I mean, so we've already tested the STEMI thing and we know everybody likes that, right? I mean, >> and then the thousand child birth savings account or investment, >> right? There's that. There's that, too. Yeah. So, and it's kind of like these are all fun things to hand out to voters and maybe they you get votes that way, but you know, they don't increase the fiscal responsibility. They don't make the the currency sounder, right? >> Well, but if you if you're a central banker and in the past you're running a uh trade surplus, you have foreign exchange reserves and you would recycle into US treasuries and you're seeing Trump say all this stuff that we're just going to print money, we're going to do bailouts for open AI, we're going to bail out all the data center companies, we're going to give like every child born an extra thousand. You're like, "Okay, I'm going to be dollar cost averaging gold each month." That's kind of that's and that's what the central bankers are saying. >> That's what they've been doing. That's exactly what they've been doing. Yeah. No, they're not stupid. They're they've been doing that and and totally understandably so. So, yeah, it's um you know, until I see a change in those trends, I'm of the view that that being in sound money assets is the right place to be, the highest, you know, the highest probability of an asymmetric return. And that you know if you if you don't want to take the risk of the stocks I mean you can just own the metal you can own gold you can own own silver you know if you want to take the stock risk that's fine too those can you know give you they can multiply the returns but they're stocks are stocks I mean the company management teams can screw it up and then of course over on the side which some gold people like some don't I happen to like you know there's Bitcoin which I believe is kind of emerging as digital gold and even though it's kind of in the dumps right now or people think it's in the dumps I think that you know when I look at the important metrics on Bitcoin the number of wallets continue to grow, adoption continues to grow, use cases continue to grow, and the the power of the network as measured in the global hash rate continues to grow. So, >> I think what a lot of new people that are coming into Bitcoin, Lauren, sorry to interrupt you. I want to add to your points here. I I've been covering Bitcoin for listeners out there new to my channel. I've been covering it since 2011. I'm friends with Trace Meyer. I knew Trace Meer before he joined the Cipher Punk email list and bought any bitcoins. And I could tell you like every three or four years when people give higher price targets on Bitcoin, it's going 200 250,000 stuff like that. It tends to go through, you know, huge correction. It looks like we're in a correction, but Bitcoin goes through. Lawrence, you've been through these cycles before. Boom and bust cycles about every 3 or four years like clockwork. We wipe out a lot of the weak hands. We bottom out somewhere substantially lower than the um the all-time high and then it goes sideways for a while or in a trading range and then it rallies again. >> I think that's exactly right. And we're just seeing another one of those cycles take place right now. And you know, I don't know if we're at the bottom here in the 80s or if it's in the 70s. I don't think we're getting to 60. But, you know, honestly, I don't really care cuz I don't trade it. And I take a very very long-term perspective. And I, you know, looking at the power law and some of the other good things that I outlined in my book. you know, I I have a very high level of confidence that, you know, come a year or two from now, it'll be at 120 or 150 or 200 and and it'll just continue to kind of grow because the adopt, you know, all those other metrics I talked about, wallets, usage, addresses, hash power, they're all growing. And so, until if they were to stop growing, I I could I could accept that. Oh, hang on a second. Maybe people are losing interest in Bitcoin. It's not working. But I don't see any of that. I see everything I look at all the indicators, you know, the usage indicators, what I call dogs eating the food, you know, there more dogs eating the food. So, you know, all right. >> And there's a h there's a having coming up next year, right? And is there one? >> Yeah. Right. Well, is it next year or is it the year after? I don't remember when the next one is, but yeah. I mean, yeah. And at some point, the the amount coming out is going to be scarce. Although, you know, honestly, the issuance right now is at 8/10 of a percent a year is pretty low. And you know that that used to kind of drive the four-year cycle and I think the four-year cycle is kind of dead. Um I think it's much more now driven just by speculators and you know people getting levered up. I one of the things that I think has made the price pretty soft right now. I studied it and there's some people who look at the stuff onchain. You know just like gold and other things there were a lot of levered players and a lot of paper bitcoin that got created in the last year or two. >> Well, especially with this the tether stuff. Yeah. Too. I can't I can't really understand all the stuff that Tether's buying. I mean, they're buying a bunch of gobblelygook. >> Yeah, they're buying gold. They're buying a football team and yeah, a bunch of stuff. [laughter] >> Yeah. I mean, it's Look, that's a whole different story. I I I'm not I'm not a bear on them like some people are, but um but the point is that that you know, there are fiat games. I mean, and and this had to happen. I mean, Bitcoin has now entered the mainstream. we have a huge ETF or two and um you know they're they're going to continue it's going to continue to test people and as you say the weak hands will get shaken out and you know there'll be people there some high-profile people who said they've sold recently and okay fine you're entitled to do that but I'm I'm you know when do you okay and and and I think they believe in it long term they think well I'll buy it back cheaper well when and first of all you sell it you got to pay 23% capital gains tax if it's longterm and then second of all you know you might not get a chance to buy it back cheaper And one thing that's interesting, and this I think you'll like these statistics, Jason, it's um I I found this by reading a great book called Bitcoin 1 Million by Fred Krueger, which I highly recommend. If if Bitcoin went up 800% between 2020 and 2026 or 2024, five kind of so 8x, right? If you missed the top 10 days, 10 days, you were down 23%. Isn't that amazing? I mean, it it kind of trades like a wild animal with what Bitcoiners call these god candles. And so, you know, someday, like I think there are a lot of people right now looking at it at 80 something and saying, "Well, you know, if it gets to 60 or 70, maybe I'll buy it." And they don't. And and it gets to 60 or 70, think, well, it's going to 50 or 40, whatever. Um, you know, they're going to wake up one day and it's going to be 110 going to 130. >> It's mentally uncomfortable being a contrarian, you know, buying when there's blood in the streets. But I mean, you've done that. You've done that over a career with your gold stocks. I mean, you were buying stuff. We were we were having discussions in the past. You were talking about producing gold companies at one time's cash flow. And now that they're up enormously. >> Exactly. And it's, you know, it's painful when you're doing it, but it's it's, you know, if you know what you own, you know, understand the underlying in it, and you're willing to be patient. And that's that's the biggest thing, Jason. I mean, I I I caution everyone who's listening to this is I am not a trader. I am a very long-term fundamental investor that believes in compounding. And so, you know, and I whenever I recommend Bitcoin to a friend, I say, "Look, they say, "How much should I buy?" I say, "Here's the here's the test. Buy the buy the amount where if it went down 50%, you wouldn't freak out and you'd be thinking to yourself, "Oh, great. I get to buy more cheap." Instead of, "Oh my god, I made a mistake. I got to sell it." Because it's gone down 50% plenty of different times. And it may do it again here. I mean, the high was 120. You know, maybe we'll get to 60. I don't think we will, but we could. And >> yeah, it's very difficult to pick exact tops and exact. >> Yeah, exactly. Who knows? And and my view is, you know, at some point in time, if gold does a blowoff here into the 5,000s and a few more of my gold stocks go up three or 4x, you know, hey, I may sell a few of those to buy some Bitcoin at 70 if it if it gets there. I don't know. for for a commodities investor. It's just easier though to to tell um when it it's a good contrarian buy because you know platinum and palladium uh up until the rally the last six or seven months they were trading below the production cost. I mean you could have gotten platinum and platium sub $1,000 and no one wanted I mean I was like telling I was interviewing Rick Ru and Alden um Greg Weldon a bunch of other guests about platinum and platium miners back then the the miners were in trouble because they were running at losses and it was below the cost of production. people like, "No, I don't want it. I don't want it." >> Yeah. No, that's exactly that's that's always the way it is, right? And yet everybody who bought in that time frame is now probably up 100%. >> And you know, honestly, I mean, as I said, >> same for silver. I I remember silver like I'm sure you like silver sub 25. I mean, like I I had people sending me messages like entire pages. How dare you say anything nice about silver? How dare you interview silver experts? Like literally writing me manifestos like calling me names. nasty stuff. >> Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And and and yet here we are. And the thing that's a little tricky here is, you know, I mean, you missed the first part. I mean, people coming in, I mean, I've had a lot of friends call me up. I mean, I've been talking about this for 5 years, so it's not like it's not like I've changed my view on any of these things, but of course, they all knew I was the gold and silver guy. And so, they call me up and they're like, "Oh you're right. You know, should I buy them now or am I too late?" And, you know, answering that's a complicated question. Well, you should have bought them a year or two ago when I told you, but that's okay. You didn't do that. And my view is, you know, you should average into them now because I still think we're in the third inning. You know, that's kind of how I see it. I >> I want to ask you about geopolitical risk. So, the producing gold and silver miners, what their their gross profit margins are around 50% and an all-time high, close to an all-time high, I think, even better than the 1970s bull market. Yeah. Because the energy prices are weaker now, >> right? >> So, I want to ask you about geopolitical risk. Uh, which countries do you think are are safe to invest for mining? Which ones are are you looking at for opening up? Are you starting to look at Bolivia now since it looks like Bolivia may install someone similar to Javier or Malay or are you avoiding uh certain countries right now for geopolitical risk? >> I' I've never been a Bolivia fan, although it, you know, I've got some friends who are and it may work out okay. I've never been an Ecuador fan, although Lendine has made a ton of money there. Um, I actually am more positive on the African nations than most people. I don't think the problems there are as bad. A lot of people avoid minors in Africa. I mean, I'm kind of with Rick Rule in the sense that, you know, actually every single jurisdiction is risky because these things are going to be just money pots, right? I mean, and cash flow streams. And so, you know, the temptation, I mean, even the Canadian government, the US government, the Australian government, you know, generally considered safe jurisdictions. I mean, they're going to want to tax these things or put royalties on them or maybe even confiscate them, you know, in a national emergency, right? So, so I'm not sure there's ever really any safe jurisdiction for miners. I just >> Well, I I think what Molly did confiscating it was a mistake. I think these governments should maybe want to uh negotiate maybe a higher royalty tax or something like that. But if they confiscate a mine, I mean, all the foreign direct investment the mine companies will pull out, they won't get any more investment dollars. So, you confiscate one mine and that's it. That's exactly right. And they can't so they can't really do that. But but you are seeing I mean we've got several countries who have increased their royalties for just the reasons you're talking about. I mean and and it is a problem. It's always a risk. Now you know I mean the average ASIC all in sustaining cost of pulling an ounce out of the ground worldwide it's kind of in the 15 $1700 range. So actually the margin you talked about is actually bigger than 50%. So 44. So if it cost you 1,700 to mine an ounce and you sell it for 4,400 that's even more than 50%. So, the business is just extraordinarily profitable right now and and set to get more profitable because I think when gold right now is in a little bit of a triangle, it looks like it's going to break out to the upside. And the measured the measured distance on that suggests we're going to 5200. I mean, I think in the next 4 to 6 months. So, I mean, a $5,200 gold price at a $1,700 a I mean, good god, man. These things I mean, that's why I think these stocks just have more to go. I mean, they're up. Yeah, they're up a lot. But um you know this is and this is the way this industry works. I mean it's it's an extreme it's feast and famine is extremely highly levered industry tied to the price you know and and by the way if ever there comes a time when you know all these fiscal situations get fixed and people don't want gold as much and the price of gold starts to get squishy these miners are going to get killed. They're just going to get crushed. I mean we saw >> I I don't think I don't think these uh governments are going to get religion anytime soon. Um they seem to be going the opposite way. >> I just want I just want to I just want to point out the risk cuz people look at this think oh my god this just easy money and you know yeah kind of but >> well we had a bare market for 15 or 20 years where where everyone just made fun of us and said like only morons buy gold and silver. >> That's my point. That's my point. I mean in 2011 everyone thought it was easy money too. And guess what? That was just before gold price got soft and they rugged us and and all of this stuff just got destroyed. So, you know, I've seen it long enough now to understand that it is cyclical and there are two sides to it and I'm not necessarily sure I'm going to be holding these things for 10 years. I mean, it's going to be case by case and we're going to just have to see how things develop. I mean, the good news is, you know, we get to watch what these governments do and, you know, I mean, if look, if we go if if blue team wins in a couple years and Stephanie Kelton is the Treasury Secretary and UBI, Andrew Yang brings in UBI and the MMT people get control of it. I mean, >> AOC is president. Yeah, >> AOC is president. [laughter] I mean, gold's gold's going to $40,000 an ounce. Okay. I mean, I mean, you know, 20 to $40,000. That's the good news, right? The bad news is, you know, hamburgers are going to be $150 and gasoline's going to be $20 a gallon, right? I mean, it's it's right. I mean, >> there may not be free speech and anyone that says anything bad about the dollar and we'll have and we'll have a million other social Yeah. We'll have a million other social problems because, you know, everybody and their brother will be angry and pissed off and doing Yeah. No, it's it'll be it'll be one hell of a mess. But the point is that um you know we we just can't tell what these governments going to do but we but we can watch very carefully and you know as every card gets turned over you get more information and you say all right you know I mean I remember in the beginning of this past year when I was like oh do is going to save us we're good we don't need gold we're going to balance the budget and money the bas I was telling you to be cautious to be cautious about that because of how things work in DC that they weren't going to be able to cut the amount of uh funds that um I mean they did expose a lot of the stuff with the US aid and the corruption, but they they didn't cut nearly as much. They did expose the waste, fraud, and abuse. They just couldn't cut because that's unfortunately how things work in DC is even when you expose fraud and you expose felonies that the people who committed the felonies don't end up going to jail and they just figure out how to move like the charity fraud or the other fraud to somewhere else. >> Yeah. No, that's exactly right. I mean, I think very well said. I mean it's >> well I've been here 25 years and I know a lot of government employees and I know a lot of consultants a lot of lobbyists. >> I was listening to another pod a friend of mine and he said you know the one thing about Elon is he's not stupid. You know he he tried to do Doge. He got in there he looked he looked around and it took him three months to figure out this is pointless. You know I can't [laughter] I can't do it. >> Well I I spoke to people like it's in the archives there and I spoke to him in emails. So I spoke with Jack Abrammoff for two hours. I mean like people forget he was the top lobbyist. Um, and I I spoke to him for 2 hours on the phone and on like a old Skype call years ago, like 10 years ago, and he straight up told me like he was not the only one doing all that stuff. He was like, "Lots of people, lobbyists, Republicans and Democrats were doing what I was doing." He was like, "I just got caught." And he they made him an example cuz he was a Republican. >> So, >> the whole system is there's a documentary out if our listeners want to see it. It's a really old one. It's like from 2008 or 2009. It's called the best government money can buy about lobbying. And it shows that large corporations get thousands of percent return on investment for every dollar they spend on lobbying. And it's the best ROI of anything is on lobbying. >> Yeah. No, I um Yeah, exactly. So, so um you know to add to your points there Lauren about the governments you know uh balancing the budget I mean maybe an emerging market country if they get in financial trouble maybe unless um President Trump decides oh I'm friends with Malay here's a swap line that um the taxpayers didn't vote on that Congress didn't approve but the the majority of um you know the US is probably not going to be constrained by that unless the world reserve currency is removed from us. Well, that's right. I think that's exactly right. But I think I think, you know, it's it's interesting. I mean, people say, "Well, do you think the dollar is going to go down?" Well, yeah, but I you know, all of them are going to go down. I mean, it's I mean, I think the real the real story here is that we are in, you know, for the first time in 100 years. The last time this happened was kind of around World War I when everyone went off the gold standard the first time. um is we're in a sovereign debt crisis and the governments have proven incapable of managing the currencies and so as a result of that gold has stepped in and is kind of filling the blank and um >> exactly and all you have to do and we were talking about this in past interviews Lawrence go and look up the gold price in not just the US dollars that was actually the last uh uh gold price to go up a lot was the dollar gold price now it's going parabolic but go and look up the gold price in Japanese yen or these other currencies, Australian dollars. It is >> the Turkish Yeah. The Turkish L. The Brazilian reality. Yeah. No, it's >> so it is. Look, it is what it is. Um and you know, all we can do is you know, we're just sailing on these rough seas. We just adjust the sales. Um but I I feel like, you know, I wrote the book because I wanted people to understand and and I want to show people how broken it is, why it's broken, and then I wanted them to understand how they can protect themselves. and they and they should try to protect themselves. And then and then to the degree that we all want to be civically minded, you know, we should basically try our hardest to, you know, support, you know, politicians, you know, um Warren Davidson, Cynthia Lumis, Ran Paul, Thomas Massie, I mean, people who believe in, you know, restoring sound money to the country because that's the core the core of the problem is that the money's broken. Um, you know, that's the title of Lynn's book, you know, broken money. And, um, you know, until we >> now they're printing, now they're printing the money to subsidize what the budget deficits and bailouts and social program spending and what infra quote unquote infrastructure or quote unquote national security. It's just going to be probably bailouts for uh, big tech companies or or your friends. >> All of that. All of that. So, it's um you know, it's a it's an unfortunate set of circumstances, but we are where we are. And um you know, they they tend to gaslight us and tell us. I mean, I I think it's hilarious Trump recently said, "We've got no inflation, you know?" Right. >> Well, I mean, he did a 180. I I want to say the first like six weeks he got into the White House there in this term, he said he didn't care about the stock market. And I think someone said, "Look, if you let if you run these policies and you let the stock market crash, >> the the US tax uh treasury finances, the tax receipts are going to collapse." I think someone explained to him the math and be like, "Then things are going to be even worse." >> I think that's right. I think that's absolutely right. And that's why I think he's thinking, you know, Hasset, he wants Hasset because Hasset will take rates down a lot, but the bond market, a lot of people in the bond market have come to him and said, "You do that and that we're going to we're going to blow up." And so that's why maybe Wars is going to get the job instead of Hasset. We'll see. >> Yeah, they start cutting rates rapidly, Lawrence. I think we'll see 5,000 gold probably in sub 18 months. We might see it in 12 months if if things get crazy enough. >> Yeah, I think that's right. It's absolutely right. >> Well, we almost hit 4,400 and [laughter] so every time people I mean there's a bunch of people going on Business TV that don't understand any of the macro stuff. They haven't bought your book. They haven't bought Lyn Alden's book. They think you and me are crazy people and they've been calling tops in gold and silver now since silver was at like 30 $35 and since gold was at 2500. They've been calling tops every couple weeks and they won't talk about their bad track record of calling tops on gold and silver. So they've been totally wrong. They do not understand what's actually happening with the macro that you spent the time explaining in in your book. >> Yep. I think that's correct. Well, why why aren't you on uh business TV more then? So, you should be on business TV then explain this stuff instead of the talking heads that are uh pumping up with the the AI socks and and uh a lot of that stuff. >> I don't know. I mean, I you have no idea. Uh you know, my sense is that the message I deliver is is pretty anti-establishment and therefore the establishment TV people are not going to put me on. And that's fine, right? Well, I want to thank you so much for your time today. Please tell my listeners more about your gold fund and the Bitcoin opportunity fund and your book. >> Oh, thank you very much. Yeah. So, well, the book is called The Big Print. It's on available on Amazon. I've sold about 50,000 copies of it. Not quite getting close to that. Um, it's hard coverver, paperback, uh, EPUB, and also audio version. Um, I have a website that the company I run is called Equity Management Associates. And we've got a a fund that we manage, uh, where if you're accredited investor with $200,000 minimum account, um, you can invest in in the things we invest in with us. Um, and, uh, the website is EMA2, edward Markalpha the number two.com. You can see all our past quarterly newsletters are on there. They're free. You can actually sign up on there if you want and get us. We'll send you the newsletter. We we'll never spam you, so whenever it comes out, we send it out. Um, and then, uh, Bitcoin Opportunity Fund is something that David Foley, myself, and James Lavish, uh, and some others, Mark Moss set up, uh, a couple years ago, and that's similar. It's a monetary debasement fund, but with a heavy emphasis on Bitcoin, not gold. Uh, whereas the fund I run at Equity Management Associates is, you know, 90 90 plus% gold with a little bit of Bitcoin. The Bitcoin opportunities the other way around. So, um, and then, as you know, and most people know, I'm I'm a I'm a big loudmouth on Twitter. I'm no fan of the central banks. I think the central banks are really what's caused all this trouble. Uh, and you know, this all for me, this all kind of started and grew out of, you know, Ron Paul's movement back in 2008 to end the Fed. [laughter] And he wrote a great book with that title, end the Fed, which uh it's kind of old book now, but it's still very, very relevant. I reread it as I was writing my my own book, and I I I recognized just how many things in there he had absolutely right. So, go back and pick up Ron's book. Um, if we could end the Federal Reserve, I think we could make the situation much better. >> Well, it looks like the Fed's going to be the any um what faked veil attempt to say that the Fed's independent. I mean, it looks like Trump's going to merge that with the US Treasury. He's going to install what? A puppet Fed governor that's going to do whatever he wants. So, at least this term for Trump potentially it could be even more bonkers with interest rates cut and bailouts and debt monetization and QE or but they won't call it QE. I mean, like we've seen that with the repo crisis from 2019. It looks like the Fed's following the same playbook now. They're not going to call it QE, but the Fed's balance sheet's going to increase. They're going to give the commercial banking system reserves. People forget. So, everyone calls it, you know, publicly the the nickname, what the Fed is the Federal Reserve Bank. So, one of their priorities is the reserves of the commercial banking system. I have to keep reminding, you know, professional money managers. They seem to forget that point. >> Yeah, that's absolutely right. So it it's just really sad that that's one of their priorities because they just keep repeating you know the talking points that the Fed only cares about inflation and employment. But even Jerome Powell just admitted I think he looked it up on chat GPT he looked up a way to dance around the word stagflation right because remember he was saying what 12 months ago or something like that that there wouldn't be any stagflation but then didn't he just admit a couple days ago that there was stagflation? >> Uh more or less but he didn't say it in those terms. Yeah. [laughter] Well, yeah. I mean, like, I I actually would have respected him more if he said, "Look, like, look, I we screwed up." Um, there is tag inflation now. [laughter] There's higher inflation than we thought. There's unemployment in the real economy. Uh, with, uh, you know, the visa applications and companies are firing because the consumers not spending or, um, AI automation is, uh, causing people to lose their jobs. I would have respected him more if he actually admitted, you know, Maya, we screwed that up. >> Yeah, I agree with him. I mean, he has he has said a couple of times that he's he's in a real pickle. I mean, he's he's indicated that. >> Yeah, I wouldn't want to be drone pal. Uh, if I was him, I'd be I'd be happy to retire. Yeah, >> he you can tell. I mean, he is just he he he regrets the day he took the second term and he and May can't come fast enough for him is my view. >> Yeah, I totally agree. He just wants to go relax and go watch uh his Washington Capitals uh season tickets uh at the home. >> Yeah. and and declare and say that he did the right thing when he was there. Yeah.