WTF? The Government Just Announced Reverse PRICE CONTROLS
Summary
Reverse Price Controls: The podcast discusses the U.S. government's introduction of reverse price controls, setting price floors across various industries, which is a significant shift from traditional price ceilings.
Strategic Industries: The Trump administration's policy targets strategic industries, initially focusing on rare earths, with potential expansion to other sectors like electric vehicles.
National Security Justification: The government justifies these controls as necessary for national security, aiming to ensure self-sufficiency in critical materials and industries.
Central Planning Concerns: The host expresses concern over increased government control and central planning, warning of the potential slippery slope towards socialism and economic fascism.
Market Efficiency: Criticism is directed at the government's ability to pick winners and losers, highlighting historical inefficiencies and unintended consequences of such interventions.
Political Bias: The podcast urges listeners to define a "line in the sand" to prevent blind allegiance to political parties, emphasizing the importance of questioning government actions regardless of political affiliation.
Manufacturing Jobs Narrative: The host challenges the narrative that China has taken U.S. manufacturing jobs, suggesting that the perceived decline is a result of inflation adjustments rather than actual job loss.
Webinar Promotion: The episode concludes with a promotion for an upcoming webinar on investing in financial bubbles, offering strategies used by hedge fund managers and a special discount for attendees.
Transcript
Hello fellow Rebel Capitalists. Hope you are well. Excuse me. Boy, I got something caught in my throat. And there's a good reason why. Because I cannot believe what I am reading today in the news that the United States government has just announced reverse price controls. That's right. Reverse price controls. You guys know what price controls are? We had them in the 1970s. We had them in the 1940s. And this is when they put a limit as to how high prices can go. So, let's just say the cost of a bottle of water is $2 right now. They say, "Okay, we're putting price controls, so we cannot raise the price of water any higher." But what the government is doing now is they're saying you can't lower the price. In fact, if the price of water is $2 right now, well, that's way too low. That's way too low. So, we're going to put a price floor on water and the minimum you can charge for water is going to be $5. Reverse price controls. So, now they're putting in price floors. You may be asking yourself, "What on earth, George, is going on? This has to be fake news." I wish it was. I wish it was. So, let's go over to CNBC and we're going to go over what exactly is happening and their justification for doing this and if it makes sense and obviously the unintended consequences and obviously the slippery slope this puts us on. So, let's do the screen share. We've got that going. Okay. And we're going to fire over to CNBC right here. In fact, let me zoom in for you guys. I mean, it's it's just unbelievable that we're at this point in the United States. I mean, I never thought that I would see anything. Well, I shouldn't say that because I thought that we would probably see price controls, but I sure as heck didn't think that we would see price floors, reverse price controls. But, but here you go. Here you go. Trump administration will set price floors across range of industries. Range of industries. Now for a lot of people that might have heard about this, they say, "Well, it's just about rare earths. It's about rare earths." Well, initially, sure, but then what? So, maybe it's rare earths today. Maybe it's I mean, who knows? Who knows what this? It's probably electric vehicles tomorrow because if you're going to make this argument for rare earths, you could make it for a lot of things. You could make it for BYD and that's the electric car company that's basically subsidized by the Chinese government. So like here in Colombia, if you want to buy an electric car, the cheapest way to do it is BYD. And you just say, "Okay, thank you Chinese government for subsidizing the price of this new BYD that I can buy." Say, well, they take over market share. Okay, well that's a costbenefit analysis we have to do. But where does this end? Where does this end? Right? You say, "Oh, well, George, it's just because this is about national defense. This is a an issue of national defense." Okay. Well, fine. But but who determines what is a a national defense priority? Who who who gets to decide? And it might be the Republicans now, but maybe it's the Democrats in the future. And we just keep expanding this definition of what we have to do in order for our our the the national interests of the American people as determined by the government. So, let's keep going here. But I know a lot of people are going to be in favor of this because they're going to be like, "Well, we it's it's a national security risk and we have to have control. We have to be self-sufficient in these rare earths because they go into this and they go into that. They go into this and they go into that." And so the only way that we can compete with that the awesomeness of central planning is if we completely abandon free market capitalism and we have central planning of our of of our uh central planning for ourselves. And hopefully our central planners are just better than their central planners. So we'll just duke it out on the stage of central planning. And this is but then a lot of the people in the mega crowd will say, "Oh, no, no, no, no. We're about free market capitalism. This, no, no, no, no, no. We're all about capitalism. We're all about free markets." But in this particular case, we've got to have a little central planning. So even if that's your argument, what I want to encourage you to do right now is ask yourself, where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? And I'm not saying there isn't a line. I'm not saying that you're wrong. Now, I don't share your opinion, but that's fine. We can agree to disagree. But what I think you have to do is have a line in the sand where you're like, "Okay, I I can be all about the Trump administration doing this for rare earth, doing this for this, this this this in the name of national security, but once they cross this line, no matter what type of rationale they use, now all of a sudden I I'm I'm no longer a fan or I'm no longer going to support this because now we've crossed a a line that I that is predefined that is completely uncomfortable to where I in my mind have determined the riskreward doesn't make sense that now all of a sudden we're on a slippery slope that I don't want to be on regardless of what benefit the Trump administration is selling me on or whatever type of fear fear they're trying to instill in the national public as to why you have to give us more power. You have to give us more control. If you don't, those those smelly yellow people, they're they're just hiding right around the corner like the boogeyman under your bed. And if you don't give us all the power and the control, then in 10 years, we're all going to be speaking Chinese or or just some something like this, right? But you have to have a line in the sand because if you don't have that line in the sand, what happens is you keep go giving the government inch by inch by inch by inch by inch by inch and the next thing you know you wake up and you're like, "Wow, how did we get here? The government controls everything." And if you sit there say, "Oh, George, you're taking things to an extreme. You got to have a little government in there somewhere." Okay, fine. But again, just make sure you've got that line in the sand because this is ramping up as far as government control and government planning in the overall economy. This is ramping up very very quickly. Very quickly. No one can deny that. Even if you think this is a good thing. So to make sure that this doesn't lead to where I'm worried that it does lead to, I think we all have to have that line in the sand. So if the government crosses now all of a sudden I'm going to go from supporting the government to pushing back and whoever is supporting this, I'm not going to vote for them because that's my line in the sand. I think that is the most important message of this entire video. But let's keep going here. So key talking points, the US has to use industrial policy to compete against non-market. So in other words, what he's saying is we're just not good enough to compete with the central planners. We're just uh free market capitalism just isn't good enough to compete with socialism and communism. It's just not. So it's it's an it's a good idea. free market capitalism, but we can only use free market capitalism if the country that we're doing business with is also free market capitalists. That this makes no sense. That this is this makes absolutely no sense. But that's his argument. We just can't compete with how awesome China is at central planning. The Trump administration will set price floors across a range of strategic industries. again, who defines what is strategic and what isn't? And I if you don't have that line in the sand like we talked about earlier, then you just become uh a you just become a bias political sheep that whatever Trump says or whatever Bent says, you're just on team red, so you just sit there. Uh yeah, okay, okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, whatever Trump says. whatever Bent says cuz I'm on team red so I'm just going to rationalize as to why this is the right thing to do. That's a position you don't want to be in and as a society we don't want to be in that position. Even if you support this, you've got to decide, well, at some point they can, they might not, but they can do something that I am going to criticize and I am going to push back on. And if that person, whether it's Bent, whether it's whoever, whatever politician, not that you can vote for Bent, but whatever politician, I'm not going to vote for that person. And I'm going to let them know that I think this is dangerous. and I'm going to let them know that they've gone too far instead of just being a a political bias just lemming that just follows what oh well Trump says this okay well just march when you're facing non okay we talked about that I'm just looking at the highlights here so we're going to set price floors this is and the forward buying to make sure that this doesn't happen again and we're going to do it across a range of industries. Who knows what the industries will include, but I can guarantee you that it's going to be more and more and more and more and more and more and more every single year because that's how these things always work out. That's the slippery slope that you're on. And by the way, I mean, we'll get into this in a moment, but think about the unintended consequences here. Even if you think this is a good idea, do you think this is just going to happen in a vacuum? And do you think the government picking winners and losers, have they been pretty good at that in the past? Answer, no. They've been horrible. The government is a horrible allocator of capital. They are a horrible entity when it comes to picking winners and losers. They always create more problems than they solve. Always. So maybe this time it's different, but the odds are that it's not and they're going to pick a a lot of these winners. They're going to go bust. It's not going to be economically viable. It's going to create all these downstream problems that no one can even see right now because it's it's it's not a market solution. And what we're doing right now is China is creating all those problems for themselves to where the world benefits from it by getting the cheaper stuff. And we're saying, "No, no, no, no, no. You're shooting yourself in the foot too much, China. We want to shoot ourselves in the foot as well. That's what's going on here. Bananas. Bananas." And listen to this. So, here is just one of those unintended consequences that anybody that's objective could have predicted. The US also needs to set up strategic mineral reserve. Didn't see that one coming, Bent said. and JP Morgan Chase just happened to have volunteered. Well, wouldn't you know it. Now, first of all, what is JP Morgan Chase know about setting up a strategic mineral reserve other than it's going to be a total boondoggle where they're going to be the middleman and they're going to get in there and they're going to take a cut of everything. It's just like every other single government boondoggle even if the intentions are good. And I'm not saying they aren't, but even if the intentions are good, the net result the net result is very rarely. In fact, often the opposite of what the initial intentions are. But the difference is getting from A to B. You're just putting money in the back of all the cronies. It's just crony capitalism. Even if that's not the intention. JP Morgan Chase, give me a break. I mean, when you're sitting there, if I were to ask you, even if you're in favor of this, hey, we should set up a strategic mineral reserve. Who do you think we should put in charge of that? Oh, I know. How about Jamie Diamond? Because he knows so much about commodities. I mean, come on. What are we doing here? It's so blatantly obvious. And here we go. So now they're going ahead and they're referencing this deal they did a while back with MP materials and that the United States took an equity position. Why? Has anyone ever asked that? Like why? Okay, I get it. Set the price floor. I get it. The government's going to come in and buy 90% of whatever whatever it is they produce at this price to make sure it's profitable so the company can stay in business. I get it. I get it. I get it. But why do we take an equity stake? Why? That that doesn't do anything to achieve the stated objective which makes me think that maybe there's an ulterior motive. And it says and right here Bent says the US could take equity stakes in other companies. Well, sure. Why not? Why not just take an equity stake in every company? then every single company we have can't go out of business and therefore we'll really compete with China if we can't go out of business if you take away the loss part of profit and loss and then think about how strong our economy is going to be and how self-sufficient we'll be right here says I wouldn't be surprised when we get an announcement like this in China with rare Earth, you realize we have to be self-sufficient. Self-sufficient in what? And who defines what we need to be self-sufficient in? Rare Earth. Okay, great. Great. I think there's a good argument for that. But where does this stop? Why don't we need to be self-sufficient in manufacturing, you know, pl xyz this underwear? Why don't we need to be self-sufficient in manufacturing underwear? You say, "Oh, George, that's taking it that's ridiculous. Now you're just taking it to an extreme." Okay, well, fill in the blank. Because what happens is the government, it's just inch by inch by inch. Look, if I would have told anybody in the whole MAGA crowd in 2024, hey, do you think we should take an equity position in Intel? Do you think the government should take an equity position? They would not have just said no. they would have said, "Oh, hell no. Hell no." Because it was Biden. But now all of a sudden, if Trump's doing it, well, actually, this is a great idea, George. This is a great idea because it's all about our national security interests. It's all This is a national security risk. It is. And then you sit there and say, "Well, would you have been supportive if Joe Biden would have done this?" Well, uh, yeah. No, because Joe Biden would have been doing it for different reasons. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. And here you go. The Trump administration will not take stakes in nonstrategic industries. Okay. And again, who defines what a non-strategic industry is? Like, aren't aren't jobs important? So if if if any industry is uh employing people in the United States, why don't we just make it illegal to buy those goods or services from another country? Because these jobs are obviously very strategic. I mean they have to have money to spend, right? And that filters through the whole economy and that benefits everybody. So where does this end? And the answer is it doesn't end. It doesn't end. That's why this is so dangerous and that even if you agree with this, that's why you've got to have that line in the sand. So you don't just blindly follow anything the government says just because it's your team saying it. So now what what does this whole boogeyman about China? What does it go back to? It really goes back to the jobs. It's the manufacturing jobs because whether it's rare or I mean this is all just kind of layers on top of that core issue and that core narrative is that China is cheating. China is doing this with trademarks. China is doing this stealing information. China is doing this. China is doing this. China is doing this. And what what it boils down to is they are they the narrative is they've taken all these manufacturing jobs and therefore we this free market capitalism doesn't work. It doesn't work because look they're just their central planning is so awesome that it's just taking away all our manufacturing jobs. That's really the core of the the issue here. So now I I I thought I would put that to the test because it's one of these things that you hear so often you you just assume it has to be true. But what I found in doing these videos is very often things that are just said over and over and over again so much that they're assumed to be true are often completely false. Let me give you an example. Let's go over to a study from the Federal Reserve. This was 2017. Is manufacturing declining? So manufacturing share of employment. Look at this now. First of all, was this a result of China? No. No. Even if this was happening, China, what are you talking about? China just came onto the scene here in maybe the 80s, the 90s. Look at the trend. The trend is the exact same. The trend is the exact same. Look at the manufacturing share of nominal GDP. see any difference in the trend going back to 1947 for heaven's sakes. So from 1950 to today's date or excuse me from 2015 it's pretty much the exact same trend. Now look at this manufacturers share of real GDP. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute here. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is a flat line. How is that possible? Because what happens when you adjust for inflation, not just the overall inflation rate, whatever the government says it is, for GDP, for nominal GDP, but you do it compartmentalized by manufacturing. So let me show you, let me give an example. So right right here while prices have for manufacturing have grown just two 2.2% per year on average prices on average for the overall GDP have gone up 3.2 too. You see what's happening here, guys? So, if the prices or the price adjustment, the actual price adjustment that's applicable to manu the manufacturing component of GDP, if that's going up at let's just say 1% per year, but the inflation rate for the overall economy for GDP is going up at 5% per year. Well, you fast forward 10 years, 20 years, and guess what's going to happen to n the nominal share of manufacturing as a total of GDP? It's going to go down, of course, because this GDP is inflating at a higher rate than the prices that are applicable to manufacturing. So then once you adjust for that and make everything equal, so you're comparing apples to apples, voila, you get this. So basically what we've done, or at least there's a very good argument that we have created this massive boogeyman, massive boogeyman. China's taking all of our manufacturing, all of our highpaying manufacturing jobs. Okay, maybe some, but then we're creating manufacturing jobs in other areas, right? So maybe they're taking the underwear making jobs. Okay, but we're creating robotics jobs or Tesla making Teslas or something like that. You see, to where there is disruption, but on aggregate total, especially when you adjust for the proper rates of inflation, you don't really see that much of a change. But what we do is we take these charts and then we build this entire narrative which even based on these charts doesn't make sense because China kicks in in the 1990s for heaven's sakes. It doesn't kick in in the 1950s. So what we're doing right now is we're basically saying yes, we want more central planning. Well, we have to have more central planning. We have to we have to give the government more and more and more and more control which by the way they'll still have even when Bent is gone and even when Trump is gone the government will still have that control and that power but we have to give it to them because if we don't give it to them then we can't compete with China and they're going to take all of our manufacturing jobs. So based on a false narrative, we are going straight down the path of socialism, of economic fascism, or maybe more accurately of a much more centrally planned economy. And we're doing it because of a narrative that ironically is fake news. It's fake news. So the you always have to do a costbenefit analysis. So what is the benefit of doing all of these things? Well, I it doesn't seem like there's that much of a benefit at all because if you go back to 1950 and compare apples to apples, there wasn't that big of a problem to begin with. It was just a problem that everyone talked about so much that everyone just believed that it's true to a point where they they whip themselves up into an emotional frenzy. because they don't even go back and look at this. Right? So the point here is the upside is very low but the downside is massive massive. So, at the very least, at the very least, even if you agree with this because it's a national security issue or a national security risk, please, I'm begging you, if you are someone that truly believes in freedom and liberty and you truly believe in the benefits of free market capitalism and small limited government, please just ask yourself, where's my line in the hand. Where is my line in the sand to where if the government that I support, the Trump administration, I love them. I love Trump. But where's that line in the sand that if he crosses it, you're going to go from supporting to pushing back and voting for someone else? Because we have to have that line or else we're just going to be the lemmings that are the sheep, the cattle that are just being marched off to slaughter to anyone that's on our team that says the solution is X, Y, and Z. And that's extremely dangerous. Extremely dangerous. Let's look just right here. How do we get here? How do we get here? Look at this. Government spending is a total GDP. So if you combine state and local, and this goes back to 2018, it's much higher now. It's closer to 50%. But even back then is around 40%. How did we get here? This was step by step by step by step by step. The baby steps, baby steps. And every single step along the way, they had a great reason. They had a fantastic reason. Whether it was a national security risk, whether it was a flood, whether it was a war, whatever it was, they had a great reason for expanding the scope of government. and expanding the control of the state. But what happens is every single little reason eventually leads to an economy and a society that's totally controlled by the government if you don't put your foot down and if you don't have that line in the sand. All right, guys. I'm doing a webinar that's uh going to be August 29th. Josh will put a link in the description. This webinar is a free training where I'm going over how to invest in financial bubbles. And there's three contrarian strategies that the hedge fund managers that I know use to invest in financial bubbles to make sure they not only survive, but hopefully continue to build wealth and thrive. And I'm going to be outlining those step by step in great detail on this webinar. And for a bonus, everyone who attends the webinar, I'm giving them a $500 coupon code for Rebel Capital Live 2026, an event you're not going to want to miss. That takes the price all the way down to 99 bucks. So, this is a no-brainer. You've got to attend this webinar. And if you follow the link in the description or the link that Josh just post, uh, you go straight to a page gives you some more information and where you can register for free. All right, guys. On that bombshell, enjoy the rest of your afternoon. And as always, make sure you're standing up for freedom, liberty, free market, capitalism for heaven's sakes. See you in the next video.
WTF? The Government Just Announced Reverse PRICE CONTROLS
Summary
Transcript
Hello fellow Rebel Capitalists. Hope you are well. Excuse me. Boy, I got something caught in my throat. And there's a good reason why. Because I cannot believe what I am reading today in the news that the United States government has just announced reverse price controls. That's right. Reverse price controls. You guys know what price controls are? We had them in the 1970s. We had them in the 1940s. And this is when they put a limit as to how high prices can go. So, let's just say the cost of a bottle of water is $2 right now. They say, "Okay, we're putting price controls, so we cannot raise the price of water any higher." But what the government is doing now is they're saying you can't lower the price. In fact, if the price of water is $2 right now, well, that's way too low. That's way too low. So, we're going to put a price floor on water and the minimum you can charge for water is going to be $5. Reverse price controls. So, now they're putting in price floors. You may be asking yourself, "What on earth, George, is going on? This has to be fake news." I wish it was. I wish it was. So, let's go over to CNBC and we're going to go over what exactly is happening and their justification for doing this and if it makes sense and obviously the unintended consequences and obviously the slippery slope this puts us on. So, let's do the screen share. We've got that going. Okay. And we're going to fire over to CNBC right here. In fact, let me zoom in for you guys. I mean, it's it's just unbelievable that we're at this point in the United States. I mean, I never thought that I would see anything. Well, I shouldn't say that because I thought that we would probably see price controls, but I sure as heck didn't think that we would see price floors, reverse price controls. But, but here you go. Here you go. Trump administration will set price floors across range of industries. Range of industries. Now for a lot of people that might have heard about this, they say, "Well, it's just about rare earths. It's about rare earths." Well, initially, sure, but then what? So, maybe it's rare earths today. Maybe it's I mean, who knows? Who knows what this? It's probably electric vehicles tomorrow because if you're going to make this argument for rare earths, you could make it for a lot of things. You could make it for BYD and that's the electric car company that's basically subsidized by the Chinese government. So like here in Colombia, if you want to buy an electric car, the cheapest way to do it is BYD. And you just say, "Okay, thank you Chinese government for subsidizing the price of this new BYD that I can buy." Say, well, they take over market share. Okay, well that's a costbenefit analysis we have to do. But where does this end? Where does this end? Right? You say, "Oh, well, George, it's just because this is about national defense. This is a an issue of national defense." Okay. Well, fine. But but who determines what is a a national defense priority? Who who who gets to decide? And it might be the Republicans now, but maybe it's the Democrats in the future. And we just keep expanding this definition of what we have to do in order for our our the the national interests of the American people as determined by the government. So, let's keep going here. But I know a lot of people are going to be in favor of this because they're going to be like, "Well, we it's it's a national security risk and we have to have control. We have to be self-sufficient in these rare earths because they go into this and they go into that. They go into this and they go into that." And so the only way that we can compete with that the awesomeness of central planning is if we completely abandon free market capitalism and we have central planning of our of of our uh central planning for ourselves. And hopefully our central planners are just better than their central planners. So we'll just duke it out on the stage of central planning. And this is but then a lot of the people in the mega crowd will say, "Oh, no, no, no, no. We're about free market capitalism. This, no, no, no, no, no. We're all about capitalism. We're all about free markets." But in this particular case, we've got to have a little central planning. So even if that's your argument, what I want to encourage you to do right now is ask yourself, where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? And I'm not saying there isn't a line. I'm not saying that you're wrong. Now, I don't share your opinion, but that's fine. We can agree to disagree. But what I think you have to do is have a line in the sand where you're like, "Okay, I I can be all about the Trump administration doing this for rare earth, doing this for this, this this this in the name of national security, but once they cross this line, no matter what type of rationale they use, now all of a sudden I I'm I'm no longer a fan or I'm no longer going to support this because now we've crossed a a line that I that is predefined that is completely uncomfortable to where I in my mind have determined the riskreward doesn't make sense that now all of a sudden we're on a slippery slope that I don't want to be on regardless of what benefit the Trump administration is selling me on or whatever type of fear fear they're trying to instill in the national public as to why you have to give us more power. You have to give us more control. If you don't, those those smelly yellow people, they're they're just hiding right around the corner like the boogeyman under your bed. And if you don't give us all the power and the control, then in 10 years, we're all going to be speaking Chinese or or just some something like this, right? But you have to have a line in the sand because if you don't have that line in the sand, what happens is you keep go giving the government inch by inch by inch by inch by inch by inch and the next thing you know you wake up and you're like, "Wow, how did we get here? The government controls everything." And if you sit there say, "Oh, George, you're taking things to an extreme. You got to have a little government in there somewhere." Okay, fine. But again, just make sure you've got that line in the sand because this is ramping up as far as government control and government planning in the overall economy. This is ramping up very very quickly. Very quickly. No one can deny that. Even if you think this is a good thing. So to make sure that this doesn't lead to where I'm worried that it does lead to, I think we all have to have that line in the sand. So if the government crosses now all of a sudden I'm going to go from supporting the government to pushing back and whoever is supporting this, I'm not going to vote for them because that's my line in the sand. I think that is the most important message of this entire video. But let's keep going here. So key talking points, the US has to use industrial policy to compete against non-market. So in other words, what he's saying is we're just not good enough to compete with the central planners. We're just uh free market capitalism just isn't good enough to compete with socialism and communism. It's just not. So it's it's an it's a good idea. free market capitalism, but we can only use free market capitalism if the country that we're doing business with is also free market capitalists. That this makes no sense. That this is this makes absolutely no sense. But that's his argument. We just can't compete with how awesome China is at central planning. The Trump administration will set price floors across a range of strategic industries. again, who defines what is strategic and what isn't? And I if you don't have that line in the sand like we talked about earlier, then you just become uh a you just become a bias political sheep that whatever Trump says or whatever Bent says, you're just on team red, so you just sit there. Uh yeah, okay, okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, whatever Trump says. whatever Bent says cuz I'm on team red so I'm just going to rationalize as to why this is the right thing to do. That's a position you don't want to be in and as a society we don't want to be in that position. Even if you support this, you've got to decide, well, at some point they can, they might not, but they can do something that I am going to criticize and I am going to push back on. And if that person, whether it's Bent, whether it's whoever, whatever politician, not that you can vote for Bent, but whatever politician, I'm not going to vote for that person. And I'm going to let them know that I think this is dangerous. and I'm going to let them know that they've gone too far instead of just being a a political bias just lemming that just follows what oh well Trump says this okay well just march when you're facing non okay we talked about that I'm just looking at the highlights here so we're going to set price floors this is and the forward buying to make sure that this doesn't happen again and we're going to do it across a range of industries. Who knows what the industries will include, but I can guarantee you that it's going to be more and more and more and more and more and more and more every single year because that's how these things always work out. That's the slippery slope that you're on. And by the way, I mean, we'll get into this in a moment, but think about the unintended consequences here. Even if you think this is a good idea, do you think this is just going to happen in a vacuum? And do you think the government picking winners and losers, have they been pretty good at that in the past? Answer, no. They've been horrible. The government is a horrible allocator of capital. They are a horrible entity when it comes to picking winners and losers. They always create more problems than they solve. Always. So maybe this time it's different, but the odds are that it's not and they're going to pick a a lot of these winners. They're going to go bust. It's not going to be economically viable. It's going to create all these downstream problems that no one can even see right now because it's it's it's not a market solution. And what we're doing right now is China is creating all those problems for themselves to where the world benefits from it by getting the cheaper stuff. And we're saying, "No, no, no, no, no. You're shooting yourself in the foot too much, China. We want to shoot ourselves in the foot as well. That's what's going on here. Bananas. Bananas." And listen to this. So, here is just one of those unintended consequences that anybody that's objective could have predicted. The US also needs to set up strategic mineral reserve. Didn't see that one coming, Bent said. and JP Morgan Chase just happened to have volunteered. Well, wouldn't you know it. Now, first of all, what is JP Morgan Chase know about setting up a strategic mineral reserve other than it's going to be a total boondoggle where they're going to be the middleman and they're going to get in there and they're going to take a cut of everything. It's just like every other single government boondoggle even if the intentions are good. And I'm not saying they aren't, but even if the intentions are good, the net result the net result is very rarely. In fact, often the opposite of what the initial intentions are. But the difference is getting from A to B. You're just putting money in the back of all the cronies. It's just crony capitalism. Even if that's not the intention. JP Morgan Chase, give me a break. I mean, when you're sitting there, if I were to ask you, even if you're in favor of this, hey, we should set up a strategic mineral reserve. Who do you think we should put in charge of that? Oh, I know. How about Jamie Diamond? Because he knows so much about commodities. I mean, come on. What are we doing here? It's so blatantly obvious. And here we go. So now they're going ahead and they're referencing this deal they did a while back with MP materials and that the United States took an equity position. Why? Has anyone ever asked that? Like why? Okay, I get it. Set the price floor. I get it. The government's going to come in and buy 90% of whatever whatever it is they produce at this price to make sure it's profitable so the company can stay in business. I get it. I get it. I get it. But why do we take an equity stake? Why? That that doesn't do anything to achieve the stated objective which makes me think that maybe there's an ulterior motive. And it says and right here Bent says the US could take equity stakes in other companies. Well, sure. Why not? Why not just take an equity stake in every company? then every single company we have can't go out of business and therefore we'll really compete with China if we can't go out of business if you take away the loss part of profit and loss and then think about how strong our economy is going to be and how self-sufficient we'll be right here says I wouldn't be surprised when we get an announcement like this in China with rare Earth, you realize we have to be self-sufficient. Self-sufficient in what? And who defines what we need to be self-sufficient in? Rare Earth. Okay, great. Great. I think there's a good argument for that. But where does this stop? Why don't we need to be self-sufficient in manufacturing, you know, pl xyz this underwear? Why don't we need to be self-sufficient in manufacturing underwear? You say, "Oh, George, that's taking it that's ridiculous. Now you're just taking it to an extreme." Okay, well, fill in the blank. Because what happens is the government, it's just inch by inch by inch. Look, if I would have told anybody in the whole MAGA crowd in 2024, hey, do you think we should take an equity position in Intel? Do you think the government should take an equity position? They would not have just said no. they would have said, "Oh, hell no. Hell no." Because it was Biden. But now all of a sudden, if Trump's doing it, well, actually, this is a great idea, George. This is a great idea because it's all about our national security interests. It's all This is a national security risk. It is. And then you sit there and say, "Well, would you have been supportive if Joe Biden would have done this?" Well, uh, yeah. No, because Joe Biden would have been doing it for different reasons. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. And here you go. The Trump administration will not take stakes in nonstrategic industries. Okay. And again, who defines what a non-strategic industry is? Like, aren't aren't jobs important? So if if if any industry is uh employing people in the United States, why don't we just make it illegal to buy those goods or services from another country? Because these jobs are obviously very strategic. I mean they have to have money to spend, right? And that filters through the whole economy and that benefits everybody. So where does this end? And the answer is it doesn't end. It doesn't end. That's why this is so dangerous and that even if you agree with this, that's why you've got to have that line in the sand. So you don't just blindly follow anything the government says just because it's your team saying it. So now what what does this whole boogeyman about China? What does it go back to? It really goes back to the jobs. It's the manufacturing jobs because whether it's rare or I mean this is all just kind of layers on top of that core issue and that core narrative is that China is cheating. China is doing this with trademarks. China is doing this stealing information. China is doing this. China is doing this. China is doing this. And what what it boils down to is they are they the narrative is they've taken all these manufacturing jobs and therefore we this free market capitalism doesn't work. It doesn't work because look they're just their central planning is so awesome that it's just taking away all our manufacturing jobs. That's really the core of the the issue here. So now I I I thought I would put that to the test because it's one of these things that you hear so often you you just assume it has to be true. But what I found in doing these videos is very often things that are just said over and over and over again so much that they're assumed to be true are often completely false. Let me give you an example. Let's go over to a study from the Federal Reserve. This was 2017. Is manufacturing declining? So manufacturing share of employment. Look at this now. First of all, was this a result of China? No. No. Even if this was happening, China, what are you talking about? China just came onto the scene here in maybe the 80s, the 90s. Look at the trend. The trend is the exact same. The trend is the exact same. Look at the manufacturing share of nominal GDP. see any difference in the trend going back to 1947 for heaven's sakes. So from 1950 to today's date or excuse me from 2015 it's pretty much the exact same trend. Now look at this manufacturers share of real GDP. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a minute here. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is a flat line. How is that possible? Because what happens when you adjust for inflation, not just the overall inflation rate, whatever the government says it is, for GDP, for nominal GDP, but you do it compartmentalized by manufacturing. So let me show you, let me give an example. So right right here while prices have for manufacturing have grown just two 2.2% per year on average prices on average for the overall GDP have gone up 3.2 too. You see what's happening here, guys? So, if the prices or the price adjustment, the actual price adjustment that's applicable to manu the manufacturing component of GDP, if that's going up at let's just say 1% per year, but the inflation rate for the overall economy for GDP is going up at 5% per year. Well, you fast forward 10 years, 20 years, and guess what's going to happen to n the nominal share of manufacturing as a total of GDP? It's going to go down, of course, because this GDP is inflating at a higher rate than the prices that are applicable to manufacturing. So then once you adjust for that and make everything equal, so you're comparing apples to apples, voila, you get this. So basically what we've done, or at least there's a very good argument that we have created this massive boogeyman, massive boogeyman. China's taking all of our manufacturing, all of our highpaying manufacturing jobs. Okay, maybe some, but then we're creating manufacturing jobs in other areas, right? So maybe they're taking the underwear making jobs. Okay, but we're creating robotics jobs or Tesla making Teslas or something like that. You see, to where there is disruption, but on aggregate total, especially when you adjust for the proper rates of inflation, you don't really see that much of a change. But what we do is we take these charts and then we build this entire narrative which even based on these charts doesn't make sense because China kicks in in the 1990s for heaven's sakes. It doesn't kick in in the 1950s. So what we're doing right now is we're basically saying yes, we want more central planning. Well, we have to have more central planning. We have to we have to give the government more and more and more and more control which by the way they'll still have even when Bent is gone and even when Trump is gone the government will still have that control and that power but we have to give it to them because if we don't give it to them then we can't compete with China and they're going to take all of our manufacturing jobs. So based on a false narrative, we are going straight down the path of socialism, of economic fascism, or maybe more accurately of a much more centrally planned economy. And we're doing it because of a narrative that ironically is fake news. It's fake news. So the you always have to do a costbenefit analysis. So what is the benefit of doing all of these things? Well, I it doesn't seem like there's that much of a benefit at all because if you go back to 1950 and compare apples to apples, there wasn't that big of a problem to begin with. It was just a problem that everyone talked about so much that everyone just believed that it's true to a point where they they whip themselves up into an emotional frenzy. because they don't even go back and look at this. Right? So the point here is the upside is very low but the downside is massive massive. So, at the very least, at the very least, even if you agree with this because it's a national security issue or a national security risk, please, I'm begging you, if you are someone that truly believes in freedom and liberty and you truly believe in the benefits of free market capitalism and small limited government, please just ask yourself, where's my line in the hand. Where is my line in the sand to where if the government that I support, the Trump administration, I love them. I love Trump. But where's that line in the sand that if he crosses it, you're going to go from supporting to pushing back and voting for someone else? Because we have to have that line or else we're just going to be the lemmings that are the sheep, the cattle that are just being marched off to slaughter to anyone that's on our team that says the solution is X, Y, and Z. And that's extremely dangerous. Extremely dangerous. Let's look just right here. How do we get here? How do we get here? Look at this. Government spending is a total GDP. So if you combine state and local, and this goes back to 2018, it's much higher now. It's closer to 50%. But even back then is around 40%. How did we get here? This was step by step by step by step by step. The baby steps, baby steps. And every single step along the way, they had a great reason. They had a fantastic reason. Whether it was a national security risk, whether it was a flood, whether it was a war, whatever it was, they had a great reason for expanding the scope of government. and expanding the control of the state. But what happens is every single little reason eventually leads to an economy and a society that's totally controlled by the government if you don't put your foot down and if you don't have that line in the sand. All right, guys. I'm doing a webinar that's uh going to be August 29th. Josh will put a link in the description. This webinar is a free training where I'm going over how to invest in financial bubbles. And there's three contrarian strategies that the hedge fund managers that I know use to invest in financial bubbles to make sure they not only survive, but hopefully continue to build wealth and thrive. And I'm going to be outlining those step by step in great detail on this webinar. And for a bonus, everyone who attends the webinar, I'm giving them a $500 coupon code for Rebel Capital Live 2026, an event you're not going to want to miss. That takes the price all the way down to 99 bucks. So, this is a no-brainer. You've got to attend this webinar. And if you follow the link in the description or the link that Josh just post, uh, you go straight to a page gives you some more information and where you can register for free. All right, guys. On that bombshell, enjoy the rest of your afternoon. And as always, make sure you're standing up for freedom, liberty, free market, capitalism for heaven's sakes. See you in the next video.