The Big Print Is Coming, Are You Ready for the Fallout? | Larry Lepard

Larry Lepard is a seasoned investor with over 40 years of experience and a leading voice for sound money. In this episode, we dive into his new book The Big Print and unpack why he believes the U.S. is already in a sovereign debt crisis. We discuss the debt doom loop threatening the economy, how the Fed’s endless money printing is setting the stage for collapse, and why 2008 marked a turning point in financial history. Larry explains why gold and Bitcoin are flashing red, how inflation is silently robbing savers, and what you can do right now to protect your wealth before the next big reset.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You just don't want to own things the government can print,
because the government's kind of set up to print, and
debasement's a necessary event more or less on a go
forward basis, I believe that if individuals do not have
you know, twenty five percent of their investable assets in
what I consider sound money and the three choices, they
will likely experience regret because I think that we will
have inflation, and those three assets are known to protect

(00:21):
you from inflation.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We got the two scenarios, either they print or they don't.
What would be your controversial prediction for like, say, the
next five years.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I think my controversial prediction is that this comes within
the next And when I say this comes, I mean
pretty serious monetary event.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
What about the plenty of skeptics out there who claim,
you know, the system's always been broken, and yeah, sure
it's broken. Of course, it's the Fiat system, but it
can just keep limping along. Like what's different this time?

Speaker 1 (00:47):
The debt, you know, at a rate higher than you
grow the GDP. Eventually the gap becomes so large that
the GDP can't support the debt.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
But my belief is it's too little, too late.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
The fundamental problem mark that I don't think most people
have really focused on is that just how big, how
large this bubble is, and it really got created as
a result of ZERP and a lot of free money.
The problem is when the cheap money goes away and
the money supply stops growing, you're one of two ways out.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Either it's all going to or you know, they're going.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
To Larry, You've been warning about the collapse of the
financial system for years.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Yeah, but like most people just don't see it.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
So what would you say is the single biggest sign
that we're already past the point of no return?

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's the debt
to GDP level. I think that being at one hundred
and twenty percent debt to GDP, running large, large fiscal
deficits that even those will not be able to fully fix,
and you know, being a point where it's very likely
that they're going to have to ultimately monetize a lot
of the debt and the bonds and the interest. We

(01:51):
are exhibiting a pattern that other, you know, countries in
the past have exhibited, and which is to say, you know,
the currency isn't is slowly but surely failing. We're what
I would call it kind of a sovereign debt crisis.
And I think the two factors, the two market factors
that suggest that's correct are you know, the price of
goal is at record highs hit another one today, and

(02:12):
bitcoin is just off a record high.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
It was at one o six.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
It's come back in, but you know it'll continue up
later this year. I think so those two things are
a warning sign to me that the you know, we're
getting to kind of quote unquote what I would call
the critical stage of monetary debasement and a and a
and a crack up in our financial system. And you know,
there are those who say that you can kick the
can down the road and everything's gonna be okay, and

(02:36):
you know they have they kick the can many many times.
They may be able to kick it again. But you
know what the book shows. There's a chart in there
by Brian Hurstman that shows that typically when countries get
to one hundred and thirty percent debt to GDP and
they're running and they're still running deficits, it's really hard.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
In fact, it's.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
It's almost there are no cases where the country has
gotten out of that without having either a big depression
or a montor Terry reset ie. High inflation, sometimes hyperinflation,
not always, but just high inflation at least. So I
think those things are coming, and they appear to be getting,
you know, more critical. I mean, they've they've done a
good job kicking the can. They had their reverse repo

(03:14):
thing that, you know, and Janet turned all the bonds
into short term bonds which were cheaper. But you know,
the inflation has not been fully tamed and in my view,
and the numbers are kind of showing that, and so
eventually the bond market's going to revolt in my opinion.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
So I think.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
We're kind of getting there mark now, you know, could
have been, it could be tomorrow, you know, it could be.
I'd give myself a two year window for it to
play out. But interesting today, I thought that the Fed
trimmed their quantitative tightening. I mean that was a signal.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
Right, Yeah, it's a crack for sure.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
You mentioned the data point of once a nation is
broken one hundred and thirty percent debt to GDP. Another
data point is that once a nation spends more on
its interest than it does on it's military.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Right, that's another good one. Yeah, that's what's a there's
a name for that. That's somebody's law. I can't recall
who now, but.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, yeah, so it's not just one data point, one indicator.
We have multiple indicators that are sort of flashing this
this red signal.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, Now, what about the plenty of skeptics out there
who claim, you know, the system's always been broken, and yeah,
sure it's broken. Of course it's the Fiat system, but
it could just keep limping along, like what's different this time?

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Well, again, it's it's the compounding effect of the debt
and the interest and the way you grow the debt,
you know, at a rate higher than you grow the GDP.
Eventually the gap becomes so large that the GDP can't
support the debt. So you know, in Vulkar, for example,
you know, solved this problem back in the early eighties
or nineteen eighty by raising interest rates massively, but he

(04:49):
also had a debt to GDP of thirty percent. You know,
we'd one hundred and one hundred and twenty five percent.
So I think it's I really just think it's kind
of numerical. Now, that doesn't mean we can't go to
one hundred and fifty percent, we could I mean, I
just don't know, but I would suggest that we're we're
getting close to the stage where it's going to be
a problem. I think the other thing we could discuss.

(05:09):
I'm sure you're very familiar with it, and James has
talked to us.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
About as well. It's just the.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Nature of the kind of the doom loop where you know,
higher interest expense means they have to have a bigger deficit,
and bigger deficit means they have to sell more bonds.
They're selling bonds into a market of a certain size,
you have more to sell, and the size is only
an a certain size. Interest rates are going to go up,
and uh that interest rate, that higher interest costs then

(05:35):
flows back to the foot. You know, the federal budget
deficit gets bigger, so you gotta sell more bonds, and
you know, as you can see, it's it's what you
know we've called the debt doom loop, where it's reflectively
getting worse.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
And so you know, I mean that could change.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
I mean, if interest rates came down a lot, or
if deficits came down a lot, we'd be going in
the other direction, and it you know, it'd be a
different it would be a different equation. And I know
there's some and I think the market getting a lot
of people are hoping that this dose thing is going
to solve the problem, and it's a step in the
right direction cutting back on expenses. But my belief is

(06:09):
it's too little, too late.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
Hey, I want to take a break just real quick
to let you know that the Bitcoin Conference is coming
up May twenty seventh through twenty ninth in Las Vegas.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
Now, look, it's not just about bitcoin.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
This is the largest most culturally relevant event in the
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for the fourth year in a row with lots of
people from entertainment to politics, through money and everything else.
It's super important to get to these events because this
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You can't do that from home, you can't do that
watching videos. So come hang out at the Bitcoin Conference

(06:41):
May twenty seven through twenty ninth. Save some money and
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So check out the code down below and hopefully I'll
see you in Vegas. Well, wouldn't it be a damned
if you do, damned if you don't scenario where if
they were to bring the deficit down into check, then

(07:03):
we have massive deflation, which is the opposite.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Well, that's right, you know, as as Luke, you know,
Growman so intelligently points out, you know, okay, fine, so
you want to spend some more less money and bring
then you're gonna have a recession, and then maybe the
stock market's gonna come down, and then tax receipts are
going to fall. And so one could actually argue that
that dose, you know, even if it works, it won't
work because it'll it'll put the economy into a downturn.

(07:26):
I mean, the fundamental problem mark that I don't think
most people have really focused on, is that just how big,
how large this bubble is. And it really got created
as a result of ZERP and a lot of free money.
And so we had two very big instances of ZERP.
One was after eight from eight to fifteen, and then
we have another one that started in twenty nineteen and
went until Pile started raising rates in twenty twenty two

(07:49):
and so when you have that much free money, low
cost money, you know, financial actors and others take it,
borrow it, cheap price prices, use it to buy assets,
lever up, and it becomes reflexively upward. The problem is
when the cheap money goes away and the money supply
stops growing.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
You know, you're you're one of two ways out.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Either it's all going to collapse, I'll uh in nineteen
twenty nine when you go into a depression, or in
order to prevent or two thousand and eight when we
would have gone into a depression if they hadn't printed money,
or you know, they're going to print the money to
solve the problem. And historically, looking at the you know,
the facts and what the feed has always done, you know,
I think that faced with a you know, a big downturn,
arguable depression, huge unemployment, you know, as they said in

(08:30):
oh wait the ATM's not working, or printing the money
with the risk of inflation, they will always choose print
the money versus the alternative. That's that's certainly been the pattern.
It could change, no guarantee that it happens, but it
seems likely that that's what they'll do.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
I want to talk about those two dates specifically, but
let's go back a little bit further back in time.
I mean, you wrote the book, the Big Print. I
can see it there on your shelf behind you with
the orange book. Maybe you have a copy on your
desk you can hold up for the camera.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Yeah, I do. Here, I'll hold it up to you, which.

Speaker 4 (08:58):
Is flying off the books.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
L was right there.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
The Big Print just came out for audio books. So
go ahead and just get that audio.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
About a week on audio, we're just finishing up.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, probably by the time this video comes out, it'll
be ready to go. But you know this is ah really.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know you mentioned both gold and bitcoin here, two
different technologies, if you will, but both sort of trying
to solve a similar problem, which would be, you know,
a life raft from debasement, right right, And so you
know you've you have you have were partners in a
bitcoin in the Big One Opportunity Fund, and you've also

(09:34):
had a gold fund for a long time, so you've
sort of been on both sides of protecting yourself against
this debasement for a long time.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (09:42):
So I guess, like, when when.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Did you realize that this this whole financial system was
a scam, was doomed to fail, and you need to
start setting up these life rafts.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
Well.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
In nineteen ninety eight was the first wake up call
when they built out LTCM. But you know, and and
the and the dot com, the house, you know, the
dot com bubble. You know, I knew they printing a
lot of money to allow that to ocur and keeping
rates too low, but so so then a little bit,
and then it got worse during the housing bubble in
the two thousand and three you know when when the
dot com bubble burst and green Spence reaction was let's

(10:12):
take rates from you know, six percent down to one percent,
and you know, he suggested everyone take out a home
equity line of credit. You know, they blew a housing
bubble to cover up for the dot com bubble bursting.
And I guess what really radicalized me, Mark, I mean,
it made me just And at the time I was
managing a gold fund.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Of course, pre two thousand and eight, there was no bitcoins.
It wasn't even a choice.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
But when two thousand and eight came and they went
to QE and zup and very aggressively printed money, bailed
out the banks, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
That was a huge wake up call for me.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
I mean, and at that point I became very very
much radicalized for sound money. I mean, prior to that,
my investing career was investing in technology and technology businesses,
and which had done pretty well. You know, there's a
lot of technical technology companies that grew from you know,
nineteen eighty two thousand and three or so. But when
when eight came around, they started printing money. And at

(11:04):
that point in time, I said, all right, this is
totally different. There's going to be there's debasement in our future.
I thought, you know, it was gonna happen much more
rapidly than it happened they you know, we can get
into the kind of details of that, but but basically
I pivoted, and that's when I started running the Gold Fund,
where I was focused exclusively on gold and silver and
gold and silver mining companies because you know, I and

(11:26):
I wasn't aware and O eight, I wasn't aware a bitcoin.
I mean, very few people were. I became aware of
it soon thereafter and bought some in twenty thirteen. But yeah,
so so that was really the event and and and
and the interesting about that event that I think a
lot of people don't always focus on. Is okay, So
the OWA, it's a crisis, and you can argue you
got to do funny things in a crisis to keep

(11:47):
things going.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
I get it. But they took it to zerp. You know,
in eight and a couple of years later.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Things you know, they weren't booming, but they were stable,
and one would have thought they might normalize and go
back to, you know, where they were before, but they didn't.
They kept interest rates at zero from twenty eight to
twenty fifteen, seven years and in fact, as you know,
we had negative interest rates in Europe and there were
eighteen trillion dollars of negative bond, negative yielding bonds. I mean,
you had to pay people to take your money, which

(12:13):
is insane. So it was really a big distortion.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Isn't that?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Because during that period they were just faced with so
much deflation, which the Fed, the central banks cannot have deflation.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
And so I think that's right.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
They weren't trying to stimulate the economy. I mean, I
guess you could say they were, but more really what
they were trying to do is get some inflation back,
and there was just nothing They could almost do. And
that might have been probably a combination of technological gains
as well as efficiency gains from that, but as well
as the globalization as well.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
I think that's right.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
I mean, they weren't seeing the growth and they you know,
things were punk, and they were afraid. They're terrified of
you know, if they made money any tighter, they might
go back into a deflationary downturn.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
I think that's correct.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
But I think that's an important thing to pick out
and the reason why I want to go back in time, Larry,
because you know, you're you're at the gray hair, You're
at the battle scars to prove it, and so you've
been You've been paying attention to this for a long time.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
And if you look back to previous market crashes, if you.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Want to go back to the seventies and you know
what happened there, you know, in the nineties, the two
thousand NatCom bubble.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
Et cetera.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
I feel that two thousand and eight everything changed, and
I think like the way that I look at it,
and I don't have quite the experience that you do,
although I've been through a few.

Speaker 4 (13:24):
Few, uh you were around a few butt kickings. If
I might say, But what I'd say is.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
That tell me what happened?

Speaker 4 (13:30):
Yeah, I think I think.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
You know, there's so many analysts today that want to
talk about the forties and the seventies and da da
da da, But I feel like everything sort.

Speaker 4 (13:38):
Of changed in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
And if you don't, if you don't understand that, it
doesn't really help you see the future. And so what
changed in two thousand and eight? Will you tell me?
What do you think changed in two thousand and eight?

Speaker 4 (13:48):
And why? Why is two thousand and eight? It's almost like.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
An ADBC kind of a thing, like, why is it
different now after two thousand and eight?

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, Well, it just the FED just took steps that
they had never taken before, or at a scale that
they had never taken before. It became very clear that
they just were going to do everything possible to prevent
any form of natural deflation or correction. I mean, you know, look,
the depression was a bad thing based on the credit
bubble that had been built up into nineteen twenty nine.

(14:17):
And you know, Bernaki wrote his thesis on how he
never wanted to have another depression, and therefore, you know,
no matter what it would take he was going to
choose inflation and monetary debasement over a natural correction. And
as von Misis has said, you know, when you have
a credit bubble and a burse, you know, the correct
thing to do is to just take the pain and
you know, reset at some new level you know, lower

(14:39):
and there's a downturn. But the Fed decided, no, we're
not going to do that. We're not going to liquidate
all these bad investments, this malinvestment. We're going to try
and prop them up with free money. And you're right,
that's when it changed. I mean, I'm mark O eight
is the period where the you know, kind of the
fourth turning really got going, you know, and I think
this fourth turning is all about, you know, what is

(15:00):
money and how is the monetary system going to operate?
And it's what's and again that kind of goes back
to why I wrote the book. I mean, I was
watching the debate last year with you know, Team Blue
and Team Red yelling at each other, and I felt,
I just I felt enormous frustration because I thought, to myself,
these guys aren't focusing on the underlying problem. You know,
the underlying problem is the money's broken and you know, so,

(15:24):
so would you say that's a we're all here to
try and fix, right.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
So would you say then, like you know, previous crashes
the seventies, the nineties, two thousands, they were sort of lettering,
letting the pain sort of set in. They're letting the
let the de leveraging sort of happened. But in two
thousand and eight they just realized that it's it's too big,
you can't do that.

Speaker 4 (15:44):
We're not going to accept it.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
And so it was really a fundamental shift of the
psychology of what they're willing to take.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
I think that's absolutely right. I mean, look at the
SNL crisis was in nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one, excuse
the events and nineteen ninety nineteen ninety one, and you know,
they've they've liquidated all the snls and they've sent guys
to jail, and you know, it was a big credit bubble,
and they just let itself correct, and that was how
it should be done.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
You know. Ninety eight they kind.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Of did a quasi bailout because LTCM blew up and
all the New York banks would have been bankrupt. But
they got together and provided swap lines to them and all,
you know, they all participated, but that that was kind
of the that was the precursor. And the book talks
about this how two thousand and eight was something the
banks could push it as hard as they did in
two thousand and eight because they remembered nineteen ninety eight,

(16:35):
you know, and so they knew that, you know, if
they got too far over their skis, the FED would
come save them like they did.

Speaker 3 (16:40):
In ninety eight. Yeah, but each one's gotten bigger, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
And what it looked like to me was in two
thousand and eight they also were going to let it
run its course. So we saw like in two thousand
and six, like housing, which is a really good bell
weather for the economy, housing starts were down like twenty
eight percent. Yeah right, But we didn't see any bailouts
started until like thirty you know, thirty months later or
something like that. Even when Bear Stearns collapse, which is

(17:05):
you know, sort of known to be the trigger of
this whole collapse, it took seven months to get answered.
It's like almost like they were letting it and then
it just got two carried away, like okay, this is it.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
They went in with the big wazukahs, and.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Now it's so levered up they can't even let it
deleverage a little bit, not even like a two thousand
and eight level.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
I think that's extremely accurate, that's right.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
I mean, you know, the basically there's a level at
which they will not let the stock market go down
below or the interest rates go up above. I mean,
and we saw that in March of twenty twenty with
the COVID example, the stock market falls, everything's no bid,
you know, all the leverage is unwinding, and boom. You know,
Paul comes in with the total bazooka and they print
five trillion dollars in an eighteen month period.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
On the on the flip side of that. Even more recently,
in September of twenty three, the ten year yield went
above five percent, which I think is kind of the
red line. You know, they just feel like, we can't
have interest rates above five percent or else the leverage
will eat itself up across the collapse. And so you know,
within three weeks you saw twelve Fed governors come out
and say, well, we're done raising rates, and of course

(18:06):
the ten year calmed down. I went back down into
the Forest low force. So yeah, they they're you know,
it's very much on a hair trigger, and it's a
very leverage system. And that's why although Powell you know,
pretends that he's got it all into control and that
everything's going to be fine and you know that we're
going to recover and come out of this whole thing,
my guess is he's just counting the days until he
can get out of there in March of next year

(18:27):
when his term is over. Because you know, the third
FED mandate, and I talk about this in the book too,
is is to keep the financial system operating, you know,
when things break.

Speaker 4 (18:37):
It's probably the most important mandate, right exactly.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
I mean it's yeah, I mean manday one too is
inflation and full employment. I get that, But you know
the real thing is, you know, we got to have
you know, if things start collapsing in for this big
leverage tower that we built starts to fall down, you know,
they got to come in with the money. And of
course that's why the FED was originally established, because the
bankers back in nineteen oh seven came close to blowing
up and JP Morgan saved them, but they said, we're

(19:04):
not gonna let that happen again, let's get the government
to backstop us. And uh and therefore they created the FED.
So so yeah, and it's I think the reason you
asked earlier. You know, how do we know what's happening now?
We don't know exactly, but we can see that the
size of the interventions is getting larger and the timing
is getting quicker. I mean, Bernaki, as an example, took

(19:25):
the FED balance sheet from nine hundred billion to three
trillion over about three three years roughly. You know, Powell
took it from you know four somewhere at three seven
just below four to nine in eighteen months. I mean
it was like, bang, five trillion dollars, let's just do it,
you know, Yeah, a lot of money. Yeah and yeah, good, I.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
Was gonna say. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
And as I mentioned, I mean, from the time Bear
Stearns collapse, took seven months to get a bell out,
but in twenty twenty three when we see three banks collapse,
they had a ball out in six days exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
And that's that.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
You know, they're all they're very much you know, the
very much aware of the fragile nature of the system.
And you know, they have one tool, which is a
printer and they will use it, which is the name
of the book, right, the big print, because we've had
two big prints. We had one in twenty twenty, we
had another in twenty eight. I had a little one
before that in nineteen ninety. But and you know, I

(20:18):
think that each one is going to kind of get bigger,
and each one chips away at the foundation of trust
in the government and then the Fed and in currency.
And so you know, anyone who saves capital has a
choice in places to put it. They can put it
in bonds, that can put it in stocks, they can
put it in gold, they can put it in bitcoin.
And to me, you know, big market indicator that we're

(20:40):
at trust is rapidly you know slipping is you know,
Bitcoin at one oh six it was, you know, come
back there soon, and gold at thirty it's like thirty
fifty now, I mean, which is stunning to me. Actually,
I knew gold was going up, but it's gone up
faster than I even anticipated.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
And I think that's just because.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
More and more people are coming to the realization that
you have and that I have, that is the system
is broken and there's there's not an easy way out.
There's not an easy way back. I mean, and we're
going to have to return to some kind of a
sound money system here at some point.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Yeah, you know you you know a lot of people
are maybe caught off guard looking for a big event
to come.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
They've been told over.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
And over and over the dollar's gonna die into the
dollars coming and blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (21:24):
I remember a few months ago, I had Buddy call
me up.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
I forget what the news trigger was, but he saw
something on the news and he and he, you know,
texted me Mark, Mark, I need to.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
Talk to you. You know, is this all going to collapse.
I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and my money's gonna buy
half as much you know stuff, And I said it
already has, like in the.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
In the last five years, you can buy half as
much house, half as much gas, half as muchey, Right.
So it's like everyone's waiting for this big event to
come that they're going to lose half of their money.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
But I was like, you already did just lose half
of every money.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
So maybe they don't understand that is that I know
you wrote the book The Big Print sort of as
a public service announcement you know, you said you sort
of want to mainstream to kind of understand what's going on.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
Is that the message? What is the message you're trying
to get through?

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Yeah, well, the message I'm trying to get through the
books divided into two parts. The first part is why
the monetary system runs the way it does and how
it's broken. And I try and point out how unfair
it is that certain people can borrow very cheaply and
other people have to pay twenty five percent for credit
card interest rates, and so I try to point out
that the system has been constructed to benefit people who

(22:28):
know how to game it and actually benefit from inflation,
you know. And I want to get the average citizen
angry with the fact that they're being silently robbed through
this inflation and they know it, and that's why there's
so much political dysfunction. I mean, they know it because
they go to the supermarket and things are costly or
much more costly, and yet their wages aren't going up,
and so they're getting squeezed, and of course that makes

(22:49):
them angry. And so Team Red blames with Team Blue,
and Team Blue blames Team Read. But neither one of
them is looking at the fed and blaming the real
source of it. I mean, money supplies, you know, went
up forty percent in two years in the COVID pandemic.
And that was basically like saying to anybody who had
worked for you know, twenty thirty years, had some savings,
We're just going to cut the value of savings by

(23:10):
forty percent.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
I mean, it's just it's it's terrible. And so I
want to first explain that to people so that they
don't fall for the politicians who are saying, well, it's
the greedy corporations.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
No, it's not, it's the federal Reserve.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
And then once I explain that, of course, you know,
they'll maybe be angry and maybe you know, that's a
depressing message. I hate to deliver bad news, but it
is what it is. But then I want to deliver
the good news, which is there are ways to protect
oneself from that. In fact, there are even ways to
benefit from that, and of course those that leads you
to golden bitcoin more particularly bitcoin, because it's it's more

(23:42):
asymmetric than gold, and it really you know, on a
bitcoin standard. People who've been living on a bitcoin stand
have been saving all their money in bitcoin. You know,
there's a great metric in the book that just shows
the price of a house in bitcoin. And even though
the nominal price of a house has gone up over
the past you know, ten years, the number of bitcoin
it takes to buy a house is going on down substantially.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, so or Or said it in another way, not nominal.
But the US dollar value of the house went up. Well,
that's correct, but the bitcoin price went down.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
It's all because the dollar is getting to be worth
less and less per unit, obviously, right.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
I think if people just understood that everything is a trade, right,
everything's a trade. So I could trade a house for labor,
I could trade a house for oil or gold, or
oranges or rice or bitcoin or dollars or yen or whatever.
And when you start so, then you start going, well
how much is it an oil or gold or rice
and not just US dollars. You start to kind of

(24:38):
see this a little bit more clearly that way. But
I think sort of what you laid out, as you said,
sort of the bad news is like here's how the
system works and sucks.

Speaker 4 (24:46):
Hopefully you're angry, but it is what it is. It
also sure sort of shows like the inevitability of what's coming, right.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
I think, So, I mean, I you know, look, I
try to game theory out how I could be wrong,
and you know I've been wrong somewhat. I mean, I
thought in two thousand and eight that was the big
one and we were going to go to serious inflation,
and I was wrong. They changed the rules, They started
paying excess money and access reserves. The banks held the
money back, and we got an asset bubble, not really
a consumer inflation bubble. But you know, and I've often said,

(25:16):
people looking at investing in any of the funds I'm
involved with, you know, the one thing that could make
this thesis of monetary debasement not be true is if
the government balanced its budget and you know, got serious
about you know, allowing money to be fairly priced.

Speaker 4 (25:32):
God to that or zero.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
So right exactly, I mean thank you for saying that.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
I mean, you know, I mean to balance the budget,
they would have to more or less cut the big
categories by fifty percent. And boy, you know, think about
that politically. You know we're going to cut Medicare and
so security by fifty percent. I mean, that's not going
to get through and defense, same story, interest rates, I
mean those are hard to cut, you know, unless the
Fed drops rates, because the market determines them in many

(25:58):
many senses. So yeah, it's sadly, it's it's you know,
Kaines counseled, I mean, Knes was, in my view of
kind of a false prophet, and he counseled that, you know,
don't worry about doing these things to stimulate demand and
get the economy healthy today. And the effect in the
long run may not be good, but in the long
run we're all dead. Well okay, fine, he is, but

(26:20):
here we are, and the long run has kind of arrived.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
And then you look.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
At your glance at history and you see that in history,
you know, the you know, when when countries get to
this condition where they have this munch of debt to GDP,
you know, it generally doesn't end up well. I mean,
there's got to be some kind of a reset, and
it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad scenario.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
I mean it could be.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
If we had enlightened politicians, we could you know, we
could do a structured reset. I mean Roosevelt did a reset.
He you know, he grabbed the gold, which I thought
was bad, but he also devalued gold, which made nineteen
thirty four the best year of the depression in terms
of performing economic performance. And you know, the the problem
is pretty simple, Mark, as you know, we just got
too much debt. We've used too much debt unproductively, and

(27:07):
it's sitting out there weighing on us. And you know,
we've got to We've got to get debt and GDP
more in balance. And the only way to do that
it is either write off the debt or let the
debt collapse, which is very deflationary, somewhat of a depression,
or to inflate you know, the money and let GDP
grow in nominal terms a lot, so that without growing

(27:27):
debt at the same amount, so that the balance between
debt and GDP is much more manageable. Yeah, that's those
are your two choices. And and a good policy maker,
we could figure this out. It would be painful one time,
but then we'd be back on a sound money standard
to be good. But sadly, in a prior podcast today,
I was talking to somebody and he said, yeah, but Larry,
as you know, what are the odds that we're going

(27:48):
to have an enlightened policymaker is going to figure that out?
And I said, well, you've got a good point. You know,
the average politician doesn't really respond to something until it's
a crisis.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
You know.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Well, the problem is with you know, obviously there's a
I think that the constitution of the American way is
the best government we've ever seen. But at the same time,
there's deficiencies like having a four year window for example, right,
so everyone sees way too short term to go through
that pain to wet they you know, not being in
power to see the benefits the shade of that tree
that they planted, right kind of a thing. So I think,

(28:19):
I think, you know, what you lay out. The way
I look at it is like there's not a way
to fix it. This is what happens when you're on
a fiat money system. So that's the inevitability I was
talking about, the you know, to the dilemma of either
you know, continue printing or let it crash is the
reality of that fiat money system. So I think then

(28:40):
you have sort of a couple things like number one,
do they let it crash or they let it inflate.
The way I look at it is most people would
much rather see their retirement accounts and their house and
all their assets go up even if the cost of
gas and food goes up, opposed to seeing their retirement
accounts and housing crash crash down if it meant gases

(29:01):
a little bit cheaper. So I think everyone would take
the inflation number one. So I think that, and the
Fed's sort of proven that.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Yeah, people like rising numbers even Yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (29:09):
I think so My base case is they continue printing.
Then the next.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Question becomes, is it some inevitable event where like the
point of no return, it all falls apart, or is
it the law of diminishing returns where each new dollar
of debt gets us less growth than the one before it,
And then you know, we used to get fifty cents
of debt to get a dollar growth. Today we get
a dollar debt to get forty cents of growth, and eventually.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
We get twenty cents.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
It's even less or less. Yeah yeah, and then.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's what's going on. I mean,
the debt just it's not working, and you know, the
the currency will fail, and that's what we're kind of
you know, and you've discussed it many times.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
You're very good on it. Is the whole Gressrom's law issue.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
The currency will fail when people realize they can, when
a large body of the people using the currency say,
you know what, the can just never stop printing. And
so maybe we'll transact in dollars because everyone accepts the dollar.
But point nobody's going to save in dollars. The bond
market is going to go away because everyone's going to
know that the bond market is a sucker's play.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
You know. Yeah, And and and.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
In turn, you know, the investments that are sound or
you know, bitcoin and gold are going to just soar
and value visa via the dollar. And that's we're kind
of seeing the early days of that. And I think
that's going to continue and get more intense, you know,
unless they reverse the government spending.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
You know, So we I want to I want to
break this down into two sort of buckets. We sort
of have like the retail and then the institutional sovereign side.
So like from the from the retail side, I mean,
wouldn't you think that most people already understand they're not
supposed to save in dollars? I mean, like they've been taught,
you know, you get a good.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Job, Yeah, I mean yeah, I think so, I mean
think a lot I think the average American you know,
is probably saving in real estate, right.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
They're saving in their house.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
That's the biggest asset, you know, and they realize that
government can't print houses and so it you know, and
so it's going to go up with inflation, the cost
of replacing it, et cetera. The negative there, as I
point out in the book, and as you're very aware
of too, is just the state has a first claim
because they can charge property taxes, right, and you know,
you can't move the house, and so you've got to
pay tax on the house.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
If you don't pay the tax, they take it away.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
So so it's not as pure an investment as a
neutral currency that cannot be printed.

Speaker 3 (31:27):
And the two there are really only two choices.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
There are well three if you count silver, but the
two large choices you know, golden bitcoin, and government can't
print them. And so you know, what the market is
telling us is that more and more people are reaching
the conclusion that the government is trapped. And you're starting
to hear this from really mainstream people, even FIAT people
who are on the other side, you know, they all say,

(31:49):
even J Powell said it. I mean, I never had
this on my Bengo card J Paul says, our fiscal
path is unsustainable.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
I'm like, okay, guy, that's great. I agree you're right.
So why are you enabling it? You know?

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(32:54):
So we have that on the retail side, so most
people know that they should be savings. They're buying the house,
they have their paychech being deducted going into their four
oh one k's or whatever. Then we have the more
sovereign institutional side, and I think we've you know, to
the point you made earlier about you know, we have
to sell treasuries into a you know, not unlimited market.

(33:15):
But we have seen a pretty big shake up, you
know in that sort of store value sort of the
gold market, if you will, most recently with you know,
you mentioned earlier gold jump into three thousand, but really
a big shake up in like where the gold is
even being stored, like how it's being moved with the
giv Lbuma over to the US. Do you think that shows,
you know, what China's doing with the Shanghai Gold Exchange

(33:36):
and what those what those are doing, that that there
is something even bigger being known and sort of being
maneuvered in behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
I really do.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
I mean, I think the clues in the gold market
are substantial. As you know, the country lived on a
petro dollar standard, and you know five years ago, ten
years ago, ninety five percent of the oil was traded
on a dollar standard. But when we grab the Russian assets,
that changed and now I understand the you know, the
dollar only accounts for maybe sixty percent of oil sales,
and the balance is in you know, other currencies because

(34:06):
people don't trust the dollar, and then those other currencies,
if they have an access with the supplier, you know whatever,
they're converting that access into gold. And so you do
see the Shanghai gold exchange volumes going up quite a bit.
You see a lot of gold being imported into China.
You see a lot of central banks buying gold. You
see a lot of people asking for their gold back
and for you know, what I call repatriation. You've seen

(34:28):
it in the United States, even where there have been large,
large shipments out of London and Switzerland to the United
States in physical which suggests that there are people, whether
they be you know, and some people have argued that
it's the US government that's possible. I kind of doubt it,
but you know, there's certainly probably billionaires in the United
States who are thinking to themselves, gosh, I don't trust
this currency as much, and you know, holding GLD, which

(34:48):
is a gold etf that has really has claims on gold,
so it's kind of paper gold saying now you know what,
maybe maybe you just give me the ounces. Yeah, and
those of US who are in the gold market know
that for many, many years they create more pay per
claims than they had underlying ounces of gold. And so yeah,
we're starting to see tightness. So these are all you know,
they're not they're they're clues. They're kind of smoke, you know,

(35:10):
coming out of the windows or out of the side
that indicate that maybe there's a real fire. And of course,
you know, you want to see a mass excess towards
Gresham's law. You know, if Trump goes and the audits
Fort Knox and the gold's not there, you know, now
my guess is for national security reasons, if it's not.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
There, they'll lie about it. They have to.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
But but the point I'm trying to make is that
there there is a bid for gold, and people are
losing trust and faith in the government, and so I
think that BID's going to continue.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah, I made a video talking about that potential audit
of the fat of the Fort Knox. First of all,
there's conflicting information that they say, no, they do audit
every year, but we haven't seen that publicly. But I
think I think the flip side is what if they
found more gold then not less?

Speaker 1 (35:53):
What if they now they are those that argue that
we've grabbed gold. I mean, I know, we took the
gold out of a rock, and I think we took
the gold out of Libya. They're pictures of soldiers with
you know, bringing it out.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
So yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
That's also equally bad because then that shows why is
the US stockpiling more gold. They don't have their own confidence,
their own currency, So it's like almost damned if you do,
damned if you don't.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
And I think we saw in the futures mark with
that backwardation, which meant people were appelling it wanted to
pay more for gold today than gold for future gold
in the future.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
So all these things indicate there's a tightness in the
gold market. There's just no doubt about it. I mean,
gold is not behaving the way it has in the past.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
I mean it's in a relatively brief period of time,
you know, going up from you know, two thousand to
three thousand, that's quite a big move, you know, and
that's in less than a year. It's actually just about
a year's time, because it was about twenty seventy twenty
twenty seventy in early last year, and now it's you know,
three thousand plus, so it's a thirty three percent move
in a year that's one of the best years in

(36:47):
gold of all the years ever. I mean, I don't
think there's been many years bigger than that.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Well responded to that forty percent increasing the money supply.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Well, that's that's a part of it, for sure. I mean,
that's a part of it. I mean, and it's to me,
it's a signal. It's telling us something not to be ignored.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
You know. So in your book The Big Print, you
lay out a playbook for like surviving this whole financial mess. Yeah,
what's the one step that everyone should be thinking about
taking where tomorrow?

Speaker 3 (37:16):
Yeah? Great?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
So So, I mean, as you and I both know,
and we work on the fund and advise our clients.
I mean, the first thing I say is, you just
don't want to own things the government can print, because
the government's kind of set up to print, and debasement's
a necessary event more or less on a go forward basis.
And so you know that means that you know that
that takes away bonds, and it takes away just cash
and so forth. So you want to be in things

(37:38):
the government can't print in real estate obviously qualifies to
said earlier get the tax issue. You know, I believe,
and I say it in the book, and it's not
investment advice. It's not invest advice here, but I just
make a statement that says that I believe that if
individuals do not have you know, twenty five percent of
their investable assets in what I consider sound money, and
the two choices are gold and well three choices, gold, silver,

(38:00):
and bitcoin, they will likely experience regret because I think
that we will have inflation, and those three assets are
known to protect you from inflation. And I'm not saying
you gotta put all your money there. I'm just saying
that if you don't have anything there, and I know
people a lot of people who have a ton of
stocks and some bonds and no gold, no bitcoin, and
I just don't think that's the right balance of you know,

(38:21):
risk and reward in an environment that's likely to be inflationary.
A lot of people have that balance mark as you know,
because we did have a big deflationary period from eighty
to you know, twenty twenty, and technology is deflationary, so
you know, as Jeff points out, I mean, we've got
this conflicting system where the technology is creating deflation, but
the monetary system must you know, requires inflation. And it's

(38:44):
it's at the meeting of those two that the problem
has occurred, right, you know. So it's it's tricky and
it's going to be volatile, and but so I I
you know, I suggest people you know know, understand what
they own and and try to understand that everything they
buy could could go up or down. But that you
don't want to get rid of the forms of money
that can't be printed, because the odds are very high

(39:06):
in my view that the government resolution of this will
involve printing money. Yeah, and so they can't print bitcoin.
They're twenty one million of them. They can't print gold.
It's growing the supply, but only at one point seven
percent a year.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I want to take a break real quick and just
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build your knowledge, build your skills, but you need to
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(39:41):
you name it, they'll be there.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
So come check it out.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Save some money with my code Mark Moss or I'll
put a link down below if you use my code
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meetup just for you and some of my friends. So
let me know, use that code, save some money, send
me a message and we'll get you in the private meetup,
and I hope to see you in Las Vegas. So,
I mean, you know, we got the two scenarios. Either

(40:03):
they print or they don't. We've talked about the inevitability
of that. I think the timing is obviously the big
thing in question. I know you disagree with a lot
of people online. I'm curious what your bold predictions are
if we'd like talk about the collapse, like how does
this all play out, and maybe what would be your
controversial prediction for like, say the next five years.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah, So, I think my controversial prediction is that this
comes within the next eighteen months to two years. And
when I say this comes, I mean I mean a
pretty serious monetary event. I think the stock market is
going to roll over. I think it's very overvalued. I
think that when that starts to happen, tax receipts will
go down, unemployment will go up, people will start screaming,

(40:47):
the feder will be forced into cutting interest rates, and
we will see an environment you know, inflation will not
necessarily come down, even though they'll be less demand. There
will be inflation in certain pocket scenarios. I mean, you know,
you look at like, you know, the union, the longshoreman
junion just got a ten year sixty percent price bump,
or you know, so there are a six year sixty

(41:08):
percent price bump, so it's ten percent a year. So
inflation once the history shows inflation once started, it's hard
to reverse it. So I think we're going to We're
going to see more inflation. And my view is that
then what will happens. The bond market will start to
revolt and they'll realize they're the sucker at the table,
and in light of that, they will start to sell
bonds and so interest rates will go up. So the

(41:29):
three things I look at on an everyday basis are
the ten year interest rate, the price of gold, and
the price of bitcoin. And I think when we see
when we see the interest rates going up, when we
see the price of gold going up, when we see
the price of bitcoin going up, all of those things
will indicate that quote unquote the money is in the
advanced stages of failing. And by the way, the stock
market might go up, I mean, there's it's such a

(41:49):
thing as a crack up boom where at least a
stock does I mean, in hyper inflationary economy, stock markets
have gone up, and they do that because the stocks
represent a claim.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
On a business.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
But but the purest play for monetary debatesement are these
forms of money that can't be printed. And I think
that it'll come to a head where the FED will
then be forced to say, well, you know, we can't
pay six percent interest rates on thirty six trillion dollars
worth a debt that would truly bankrupt the government. So
we're going to need to buy the debt. And so
that means back to QE and maybe dropping short term

(42:22):
rates down, so they and then funding a lot of
the debt short term, so that instead of paying you know,
for the three point five they're paying now, that goes
back down to two or something. And as a result
of all of that, you know, we get into a
situation where you know, okay, that that the FED buying
that they buy that with newly printed money, the FED
balance sheet gets a lot larger. FED balance sheet right

(42:42):
now is in the seven trillion range. The bond market's
thirty six trillion US treasury bond market. So if the
US treasury bond markets suddenly all revolted and said, you
know what, we're not holding this, we know you guys
are going to debase us, We're going to sell it
all to U FED, Well, the FED would have to
conjure up thirty six trillion dollars and add that to
the seven that's already on their balance sheet. Well, that
thirty you know, the money supply isn't that large that

(43:03):
that would that would more than double the existing M
two money supply, so you know, which would be massively
inflationary and just compound the problem. And so and then
you get into the whole Gresham's law event where you know,
everybody realizes, oh my god, this money is buying less
and less every day, and gold is going up every day,
and bitcoin is going up every day. If I want
to protect myself, I've got to buy some of those

(43:25):
or you know, real estate or real things. I mean,
it's it's a crack up boom based on you know.
I mean in the Weymar example, you know, people were
buying anything they could buy. They'd get paid, and they'd
immediately buy something because they knew it was going to
cost more in the future. Yeah, that's that's Gresham's law, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
Yeah, crack And I think I think we've got a
decent chance.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
And I know a lot of people argue with me
online Sam, with Dumer, and I've been wrong, and I
have been I thought it would happen faster than that's happened.
But I believe this could happen in the next few years.
I think, you know, the the problem the bubble is
quite large. I've watched a lot of these bubbles, and
you know the notion that Trump can kind of let
the air out of the bubbles slowly and manage his.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Way through that. I that's in my experience, that's not
how bubbles work.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Once they once they get pricked, everybody sees the pattern
and says, oh, let me out. I mean when the
stock when the when the dot com stocks burst. Even
a good company like Cisco, which was a great company
making all the routers for the Internet.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
You know, it fell eighty percent.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
In value and it's never come back, right.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Right, and and so you know, I mean, I think
that once people realize that the mag seven, you know,
and the economy is slowing down, the mag seven is
not as magnificent as everyone thinks. You know, the rush
for the exits is going to get you know, crowded,
and you know, then then we'll have the downturn and
it becomes reflexive. I mean, in the same way that
leverage makes businesses and economies do well on the upside.

(44:50):
You know, ask anybody who's got too much debt. When
you know, when you've got too much debt and your
income doesn't go up, you know you're in trouble.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
You know, things have to get sold quickly on the downside. Right,
That's how it works.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Just to just to be clear here, though, if I'm
hearing this correctly, what you think in the next eighteen
to twenty four months is your controversial take that the
markets roll over, the bond market revolts, which is a
deflationary pulse that forces the Fed to do the big print,
and then we see a massive and so sort of

(45:22):
like a twenty twenty on steroids of a quick V dip,
so a quick crash into a massive inflationary.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
I think that's right.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
I think that's right, and the economy keeps running. I mean,
you know, one could actually argue that the FED, in
trying to fight inflation was kind of doing the wrong thing.
I mean, Luke Roman has actually made the argument that
we should just let inflation run hot for a bunch
of years until we get that to GP at the
right place.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
I'm not entirely sympathetic to that argument, but I mean,
the problem really is too much debt, not enough GDP,
and so the resets needed.

Speaker 4 (45:54):
You know, I'm I'm I see, I see.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
I agree with your viewpoint because I believe it's inevitable.
I think, in my opinion, i'm more optimistic, so i'd
say it's probably a lot further out. I think there's
a chance. Inflation is the only way. That's the nature
of the system. So it's like, not about what we feel.
That's what this system is.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
It's an inflationary death based system.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
This is mathematically assured, right.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Yeah, it's just the severity and the speed.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Totally agree, And I look, I've been wrong a lot.
I could be wrong again.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
I was just gonna say I'm a little bit hopeful.
I'm a little bit hopeful.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Because what the Trump and Elon if you will kind
of administration is doing those one thing cut expenses. But
more specifically, what I'm focused on is taking all the
red tape off of the economy. We just saw like
twenty seven EPA regulations get pulled back twenty seven and

(46:49):
so like, I think that we're about to see a
massive repeal and they've said they've said as much, and.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Per Trump's first term, I believe.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
He'll do it a massive appeal to all kinds of
regulations that are hamstringing. And I think if we could
unleash the American economy and maybe yeah, create a little
bit more inflation, like ease monetary conditions and unleash the economy.
At the same time, it doesn't fix the system. The
system is inherently right bad.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
No, I mean you could there's a scenario that says
you could just have an inflationary growth.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Right and we just muddle along. We just muddle along.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah, And I'm very open to that scenario being the
one that occurs.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
But it doesn't change the fact that home prices and
gas prices and all other aspects will continue will continue
to income.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
There is no there is no stop inflation scenario from
what I can see, and I think you would agree with.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
That, right. And the reason why I wanted to just
throw that out there is because whether it's extreme like
you see, or maybe more drawn out like I see,
it doesn't change what's happening. And what's happening is asset
prices are going going to exceed your your rate of income,
and you have to take protection either way.

Speaker 3 (47:59):
That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Well, and yes, and things we will have to have
some inflation, so your life will become more expensive, right,
a matter in almost any scenario. So yeah, and the
slope of that curve, I don't know, you don't know,
None of us really know. I mean, I look, I hope.
I don't hope for bad things. I hope we hold
together as a country, solve these problems. I hope, you know,

(48:22):
we get incredibly productive as a result, as you say,
of getting rid of this deregulation and some of the
other things that they're doing. Those are all very positive steps.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of all
of that. I'm just what I'm wondering is back to
Lyn's point of nothing stops this train. You know, I
look at Dosee and I say, well, okay, they want
to cut you know, and Elon's a dreamer and he's

(48:43):
a brilliant entrepreneur. It's taken huge risks he made them work.
But he also tends to be ahead of himself. I mean,
he said we'd have full self driving cars in twenty eighteen,
you could run them out of taxis. Well that didn't
exactly happen in twenty eighteen is now seven years ago.
Now to his credit, though, you know, I wrote in
a Tesla recently, it'srett damn close to full self driving.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
I was impressed. You know.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
He said he could eliminate the two trillion dollar deficit,
and anyone who really carefully looks at it just says
not without chopping everything in fifty percent, because you know,
the eighty percent of it's baked into Social Security, Medicare, defense,
and interest.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
I mean, even if.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
You cut all the rest of it, you still are
only cutting about a trillion dollars. Yeah, so it's a
you know, there's a there's a real problem. We've you know,
I mean it was sad what what COVID did was.
I mean, and this goes back to kind of you know,
eight and even two thousand. You know, what starts off
as being an emergency measure becomes the new base, and
it's almost like a ratchet effect. I mean, government spending

(49:40):
pre COVID was like four to seven. It went to
six seven, five, and it hasn't come back down. And
I mean, I get it. Okay, it's a crisis. We
got to help people find let's spend a lot of money.
But why not once the crisis is over, let's bring
it back to where it was and that that part
just doesn't happen sadly.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah, yeah, all right, Well that's a good place to
end it. We're going to wrap it up there, Larry,
thanks so much for taking the time.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
The Big Print. If you want to understand.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
What's going on, don't just take the bullet points we
talked about here, get the book the Big Print. We'll
link to it in the show notes down below. And
if you want to learn how to protect yourself, Larry's
got a gold fund.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
We'll link to that.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
We also have a bitcoin fund, took an opportunity fund,
we'll link to that down below if you'd like to
find out ways to protect yourself.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Very well, they had a great year last year, and
really it's dampling some of the volatility and bitcoin and
finding some other great opportunities around it.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
So it's highly recommended.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
Yep, all right, Larry, thanks so much.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
Okay, thank you. Mark really enjoyed Sena