← Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
Col. Douglas Macgregor: Could U.S. Revalue Gold? Government Waste, Debt Crisis Looming, & Bitcoin as Real Store of Value
00:42:53
In this conversation, Col. Douglas MacGregor provides a critical analysis of the Trump administration's performance, particularly in domestic and foreign policy. We cover: Pervasive corruption within the government The inefficacy of institutions like...
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- [00:00]
A
There's discussion right now on the Hill, and I'm sure he's aware of it, of adding $200 billion to the existing defense budget. Everyone in Washington lives on Fantasy Island. If they're not on Fantasy island, they're on Epstein Island. What's the difference? And so you can't get them to see reality until reality runs them over.
- [00:24]
B
Welcome back to the show. My next guest needs no introduction. My most popular, my most requested guest on the podcast, Colonel Dougl. McGregor. It's so great to see you. Thanks for joining me.
- [00:36]
A
Always happy to see you, Natalie.
- [00:38]
B
Well, the last time we recorded it was Election Day, and you actually had some dire predictions, regardless of who got into the White House. So now that we're a few weeks into the new Trump administration, let's just zoom out. How would you rate or grade his performance so far?
- [00:53]
A
I think it's probably a B certain. In domestic affairs, it's too early to say he's moved in some good directions. I don't see evidence for a coherent strategy at home. I see an effort to do good things. So we'll have to see how that develops overseas. I think he deserves a flat F, which is very dangerous. It's dangerous for a whole range of reasons, because he continues to operate, I think, from a knowledge base that is almost indistinguishable from the false narratives spun up under the Biden administration over the past four years. That's a huge difficulty. So, you know, that's the way I would look at it at this point.
- [01:38]
B
Okay, some mixed reviews, then. Well, let's talk about doge, the Department of Government Efficiency. I would love to get your reaction on just the waste that we've seen exposed. And I'm really curious, like, how did. How did the government get away with brushing so much under the rug for so long?
- [01:54]
A
Well, first of all, there's legalized corruption. You have to look at the body of law that the Congress has created over decades that conceals all sorts of ways for them to liberate money from our pockets. So that's part of the problem. And no one on the Hill is capable of policing themselves. If you think that someone is going to pass laws or new regulations designed to restrict what they can do and how much money they can take, that's not going to happen. So what you have is a situation very similar to what I would say was what confronted Oliver Cromwell when he had to face the Parliament and finally decided, for reasons of absolutely unbridled corruption, the only way to save England from total destruction was to dissolve the parliament and govern the place. I think we're very nearly at that point. And, you know, that's very obvious when you look at usaid, National Endowment for Democracy. These were places where Congress could squirrel away vast sums of money that could then find their way not just to the wrong people overseas, to pursue an agenda of disruption and subversion in the name of liberal democracy, obviously, but also to squirrel away money that could be delivered to their sponsors, their donors, their backers, and to themselves. I think if we go into the Department of Defense, the Department of Defense will make USAID look like it's really well run.
- [03:25]
B
Oh, wow. Okay. Yes, I do want to talk to you about DoD, but were you familiar with USAID or have any comments specifically on the influence that it had overseas, including with foreign policy?
- [03:37]
A
Yes, I am, because I watched it over many years. Usaid, National Endowment for Democracy, were both instruments of subversion designed to produce color revolutions. And these places, wherever they were put, they tried to do something similar to what happened in Ukraine, not only in Georgia, but also in Belarusia. And I remember talking to people headed to Belorussia, the ambassador at the time and others in 2020. They were all fully aware of what they were there to do. It was an instrument of policy that was heavily subsidized by the US Taxpayer. It's not something the American people would have chosen to do, Natalie. It's simply a fact of life. So, yes, I was. And whatever we can do to defund these things and shut them down at this stage is very, very important, because you can't fix them. You know, this is the problem. It's not a question of, well, if we just tinker here or there, we can make modest adjustments and everything will be fine. These institutions are rotten to the core. They have to. They have to be dismantled and eliminated. And in the future, we can reexamine whether or not there is any virtue in any of it. But at this point, I would say there is none. So that's. That's a very good thing. The problem is moving into defense. Defense is much larger, much more opaque, much more Byzantine. And they are going to encounter. When I say they, I'm talking about Elon Musk and whomever he's working with going to encounter infinitely more resistance. And it will be interesting to see to what extent President Trump sticks with Elon Musk and backs him.
- [05:18]
B
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- [05:55]
A
But having said all of that, there's something else we need to understand. You know, if you, if you look at the structure of the banking industry and you see that we're headed into difficult territory, people will say, well, if we adjust this or that or the next thing, we could fix the banking system. Well, I think there's more to it than that. The same thing can be said for the Department of Defense. We need a radical change in, in national military strategy as well as in the structure of defense. That's going to meet with enormous opposition if anybody wakes up and tries to do it. Because that's made all sorts of people very happy, very wealthy. All you need to do is understand the seven counties that surround Washington D.C. which are the richest in the country. Drive through Great Falls, McLean, Potomac, Maryland and see all these magnificent, I think they call them McMansions and so forth. How were they built? Where did the money come from? Well, you have to look at the five, what I call state sponsored defense industries because really that's what we've done. We consolidated them all, then we made them state sponsored industries. So every time you try to cut something, you know, the, the warning flag goes, oh, you're going to eliminate an assembly line in York, Pennsylvania, oh, you're going to put this and this and this at risk. Makes it almost impossible to do anything useful. That's going to be very different from USAID and Ned, because usaid, at the end of the day, even though it has benefits to the wrong people here at home, it's external to the United States. Defense is very much a part of the society and a part of our budget. It's a redistribution center for income that's far, far, far more important to too many people. So without a new strategy and thus far, as I said before, it's a flat F overseas, we're actually doubling down on dumb ideas and making more conflict and more confrontations overseas more likely, not just in the Middle east, which is on the verge of a major regional war now, but also in Eastern Europe. And President Trump doesn't seem to understand that. You know, somebody questioned him about his what he wants to do in Gaza, and they said, you know, Saudi Arabia is utterly opposed and won't support this. He said, well, then we'll do it without them. I don't think that's a reasonable way forward when you're trying to maintain a policy position in a region that is still important to us. And we want good relations, not bad relations with all of the states. So that's a big problem right now. I don't see that being solved quickly, and I see that as inextricably intertwined with defense, because so much of defense spending is not just domestic. It also revolves around this external rationale. Oh, we have to be there, whatever country it is. We have to be in Germany, we have to be in Poland, we have to be in the Baltic States. If we're not there, oh, the world will end. They'll all be overrun by the Russians. All nonsense, but that's part of it. Oh, we have to have ships in the Straits of Malacca. If we're not there, the evil Chinese navy will close the straits and harm everybody. There's no evidence for that. But those are the kinds of rationales that are presented, and they resonate strongly with donors, and that means they resonate strongly with people in the Senate and the House. So that's a tough challenge right now. I'll be interested to see what they do.
- [09:27]
B
You're so right. And the average voter doesn't want us to be involved in so many of these conflicts and has great concerns about the military industrial con complex. But so, I mean, we spend more than $800 billion on the Department of Defense every single year, and we also rely really heavily on places like China for our military supply chain. So how do you see this actually reforming, or what would you do?
- [09:50]
A
Well, first of all, let's go back to your initial statement. They think we need to be overseas. When that's not really true, you have to attack the narrative. The fundamental narrative has to be exposed as false. If you can't expose it as being false and demonstrate to people clearly that Americans are instinctively correct, what counts most is what happens here, not what goes on overseas. And point to the reality that, no, these countries are not existential threats to us, but the drug cartels, the open border, the criminality that springs from all of that, the illegal human trafficking that is an existential threat to our republic, not Russia, not China. People say, well, you know, the Chinese are doing this or that, everything else. If you want to stop the Chinese doing things you don't like, you need to take the following actions. Number one, close the border. Nothing gets in anymore. And the second part is you've got to secure our ports and our coastlines. Right now, there are as many illegal human trafficking incidents in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, as you're going to find down on the border, up on the Great Lakes. We. It's, it's like a sieve up there for drugs and illegal human trafficking. Same thing on the border with Canada and Washington State. Those things have to be dealt with. Then you look at the Chinese in your country and ask the question, why are they where they are? I mean, this goes all the way back to the Clinton era. Some of you may remember, under Bill Clinton, there was this, you know, outrageous event involving a Chinese scientist at Los Alamos who had gained access to all sorts of nuclear secrets involving new nuclear weapons and, and so forth. Everybody was shocked and amazed. And suddenly Bill Clinton had to give money back to the Chinese who had tried to fund his campaign. Or, in fact, did. You know, this has got to stop. That's what you have to put an end to. You don't go to war with them. You simply stop those things. And by the way, the Chinese are not going to find that surprising at all. The Chinese are. You know, compare it to someone who sits in a room and you leave cash on the, on the desk and then you leave the room. Well, the Chinese says, if you're dumb enough to leave the cash there, I'm going to steal it. Takes the cash and goes out of the window. Well, this is, this is the stupidity that we have been guilty of for so long. We can stop that. We can absolutely stop. What we can't do is we're not going to be able to tariff them into submission. That's not going to happen. We're not going to out build them or out manufacture them. They have more manufacturing capacity today in China than North America and Europe combined. So we need to wake up and smell the coffee on that, on that particular point. And then the question is, when does anything really happen that makes a difference? And I think, again, we got to go back to the economy and the financial system. And I think, as I'm sure your viewers who listen to other very brilliant financial analysts, one of whom is Alastair McLeod, I don't know if you've had him on to talk to him, but his commentary over the last month or two about events In. In the London Metals Exchange. And the gold inventories, they're priceless. You need to watch that, because what's happening in London is going to eventually happen here. London's bluff is being called. The banks there are not solvent. The gold is not on hand. What does this mean? Well, I think it means the end of the United Kingdom, financially and economically, very shortly. I'm surprised they're still doing anything over there. I think Starmer will be gone. There'll be a huge shakeup in that country, no doubt. People like Mr. Ludnick and others, the Secretary of Commerce, I'm sure Mr. Bessemen, is probably also trying to do this. They're trying to figure out how to backstop it, you know, and it's important because the dollar has a huge profile in Europe, and we know that all of this is connected. So first London, and then the question is, what happens here? And how long does it take before that meltdown finds its way to the United States? When that occurs, all bets are off. That's when you begin to see the opportunity for massive change. Because right now, you can't get the President to talk about reducing defense. In fact, there's discussion right now on the Hill, and I'm sure he's aware of it, of adding $200 billion to the existing defense budget. Everyone in Washington lives on Fantasy Island. If they're not on Fantasy island, they're on Epstein Island. What's the difference? And so you can't get them to see reality until reality runs them over. I think that's where we're headed. So Alastair McLeod's given the best explanation of the gold side of things. Then you go back to the usual suspects that have pointed to the obvious. What's wrong here? And again, you know, when I've talked to audience. By the way, I really miss you up in Vancouver. I'm sorry you weren't there when we went to the Resources and Investment Conference, because a lot of things came up again. And of course, you know, bitcoin is. It sort of takes a beating. People want to discredit it, and they don't understand that once you get past the precious metals, given where we're headed with virtually everything else, the only other plausible storage of value is bitcoin. And that's going to become clear.
- [15:27]
B
Well, I want to get to gold and bitcoin. But first, let's just get into the math for a second, because we were talking about Doge. We have just under 5 trillion in tax receipts that we brought in in 2024, that was our revenue. But we are running these massive structural deficits. HHS is spending 1.8 trillion. Social Security is more than 1.5 trillion. Our gross interest expense is running 1.4 trillion. Right now. Veterans Affairs 400 billion. So we're spending so much more than we're taking in. And there was a great quote from one of my favorite analysts, Luke Roman, in his last newsletter. He said, if you assume these federal receipts stay flat and assume the annualized spending continues, the US could cut the Department of Defense by 100% as well as cut all other federal spending by 100% and the US would still run a 140 billion dollar deficit. So doge is going to, quote, need and need a bigger boat. What are your thoughts on that?
- [16:23]
A
Well, first of all, Luke is right. But the issue is not to cut 100%, it's to cut it all. You know, if you, if you're trying to go forward without courting collapse. Right now, we're courting collapse. Luke is right. We're on a, you know, a train that is moving high speed down the side of a mountain trying to reach the station at the bottom. And they're never going to make it. They're going to careen into the ravine and it's all going to be destroyed. So that's the first thing. But you have to show your creditors that you have the will and the resolve to make prudent cuts. If we could do that, then I think we could avoid the 100% meltdown which Luke is talking about. And he's not the only one, as you know. And he's absolutely correct. I think it's Guntlager, I think, is the other gentleman I listen to a great deal. He's, he's on the same sheet of music. So what do you do? What the President needs to do is what no president wants to do. You cut defense by 50%. Now, why do you do that? Because it's the largest chunk of discretionary spending. That's first of all, what you can do. That has to happen right away. Then you have to take on entitlements. And you'll recall that this is not a new problem. I remember listening to a number of people 20 years ago talking about the thousands of programs, at least 2,000 programs, all of which were designed to be temporary, all of which became permanent entitlements, none of which have achieved the goals they were designed to achieve. That's going to be hard. But we've got to hit those. And at the same Time, we've got to admit, you know, not everybody's going to get Social Security anymore. So where are you going to cut it off? Do you cut it off at age 50 and say, if you're under 50, forget Social Security? If you're under 60, you forget Social Security? I don't know what the answer is. In other words, you grandfather out, you know, the boomers. But that's going to happen. You can't sustain it. It's not workable again. Social Security, by the way, was a temporary fix under FDR that became permanent. Now then, when you go into Medicare and Medicaid, you know, the corruption there as well as everywhere else is just staggering. So what do you do with it? You've got to dramatically scale it back and you've got to come up with new ways of doing business. But that requires dramatic change. And despite what anybody says, nobody really wants dramatic change. Everybody in Washington wants to be a little bit pregnant. They want to stand up and say, see, we're doing all we can, but this child's never coming to turn. We're going to. We're going to stop that as soon as possible. But look, we're making progress. Don't you see that's not going to work this time? They're going to be overwhelmed. So I would predict that we won't do anything. We'll. We'll just motor down the side of the mountain until we careen into the ravine. And then everybody will start pointing fingers at everybody else. And then you'll see massive numbers of ships that are brought back to the United States in the Navy and mothballed. You know, that's what we'll have. We'll do. They'll just sit in port. There's nowhere for them to go. Can't pay them. Then they'll do the same thing with aircraft. You know, we'll have armed services that will shrink of necessity at a point in time when we're going to need them here at home. I don't know how that's going to be. I don't know how they're going to manage that, because the army and certainly Marine ground troops, you're going to need those at home. Because we're going to deal with a lot of civil unrest. And I'm not arguing for martial law. I'm simply stating the truth. Unless you're willing to sit and watch your cities destroyed and let crime run rampant, which is pretty much what we've done here the last several years, you're going to need those forces with the police to maintain some degree of civil order. Nobody wants to admit that. Nobody wants to go there. So I wish I could say someone will make measured decisions to address the spending that Glue is talking about. Because if you did that, then your creditors would say, well, we can, we can see that you're serious and we'll grant some leeway and freedom of maneuver. We'll forgive some of it and so that we can keep you going because the world doesn't want us to careen into the ravine. Nobody wants that. But we seem hell bent determined to do it because we don't want to tell the American people the truth.
- [20:53]
B
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- [23:07]
A
Well, I think you and I have talked before about the 10 year treasury and they managed to pull back from the dreaded 5% mark. So it went from 4.8 something down to 4.6 and maybe a little lower right now. It's temporary. It's not a, it's not a permanent solution. And you're right, ultimately they're looking at the alternatives. The alternative number one is what you just described. We'll just keep on doing what we're doing and then we'll try to see how we can manage to navigate through these troubled waters. If we need to make some modest changes on the edges, we will. That's option number one, the preferred option. Option number two is we make radical cuts in spending and then we go to the creditors hat in hand, which, by the way, we did during the Depression under fdr. It was called restructuring the debt. We defaulted. Okay, so option number two is, you know, something in that neighborhood, a soft, what I would call a soft default. You're going to restructure. You go to the creditors, you make your deals, you demonstrate your seriousness. That's not going to be easy, won't be pain free. You're going to have civil unrest, active civil unrest that you're going to have to deal with. And then the third one is, you know, what do you do? Nothing. And you go under. Now they think they can do number one. I think number one becomes number three over time. It's just going to slow the pace, but it's still going to catch up with you. You're still going to go into the abyss. Option number two is the best, but I see no evidence for anybody wanting to do that. If you, if you think about President Trump and you look at his behavior, his mentality, he's always in search of a win. Now this man is a marketing genius. He knows how to sell things. That's what he is. But we're not selling anything right now. We're not marketing anything we don't want to sloganeer our way through this. It can't be done. This was the comment this morning from, or I guess late last night, from the Russian government. We have had no contact with President Trump or anyone in his team. We've seen no substantive, you know, plans or suggestions. We see nothing but sloganeering when they're serious and they want to meet, and we're certainly receptive to it. But right now, sloganeering is not a solution. Well, sloganeering is what we're doing across the boards in every area. And that's why Musk is popular and the President loves him because he's found all of this money. Well, that's great. But as Luke points out, you know, that's, you know, that's not impressive, despite appearances. And that's not a long term solution. It's bigger than that. I don't think President Trump wants to do that. He doesn't see a win in it. A win is what keeps him in power, he thinks. Win, win, win. Here we won. Well, we deported the Venezuelan gangs. Great. Is the border secure? No. Have we begun organizing the complete closure of the border to criminality? No, we're still dealing with onesies and twosies, and every time something comes up, see, it's a win. We found these bad people and we've excommunicated them, expelled them, deported them. Great. Well, we've got millions that we're going to have to deal with. What's your plan for that? We still have an enormous illegal human trafficking problem, and it's not just on the border. It's all over the place. As we know, right now, they're making more money from illegal human trafficking, specifically children, hundreds of thousands of them moving out of the country or moving into the country than they are from drugs, which is horrific. So, you know, what are we doing there? And now we're talking about, well, we'll punish the cartels. Well, that's fine. But as soon as you lob a missile or a bomb at the cartels in Mexico, your borders are still not secure. They have infinite criminal networks inside the country. Are you prepared to deal with the problem inside the country? Because it's inextricably intertwined with what's happening in Mexico. I don't see a coherent plan to deal with these things. And so I'm afraid that what Luke says is, is accurate. And at the end of the day, that's where we're going to end up. In the abyss. I hope not, but I just don't see a willingness to Stand up and say we can't go on like this.
- [27:40]
B
Well, you mentioned earlier and we talked about it in the last show, the idea of safe havens like gold, bitcoin. I wanted to talk about gold for a moment because when we're talking about discussing that dilemma that the Treasury Secretary has and who's going to buy our debt and our balance sheet impairment as a country, there's actually talk about us revaluing the gold. Do you think that they could do that? I actually just learned recently that our gold is still marked on the balance sheet at $42 an ounce, yet it's hitting all time highs. I mean if we were just to value it Mark, mark to market, that would be a great windfall for the United States, wouldn't it?
- [28:17]
A
The first question is can we do it? I suppose we can. The second question is what happens if we do it? What does it really mean and how will that, what will be the impact overseas? I don't know. I do know that right now there is no plan among the BRICS nations. And you know, BRICS is growing very, very rapidly. There is no plan among the BRICS states to develop their own currency but they are committed to backing everything with gold. So there is a tendency right now for people around the world to say I put my faith in American fiat currency that's not backed by gold or do I go to BRICS where currency will be backed by gold? Well, I guess I'll go to brics. I think that's the dilemma right now that we confront. Punishing brics. Attacking BRICS is not going to work. It's not going to make any difference at all. If anything, it'll accelerate the determination to replace Swift, replace all those institutions with new ones because they don't want to be under our thumb. So to tell you frankly, could it be done? I suppose so. Should it? That's another issue. I don't know. First of all, I don't even know how much gold we've got, right?
- [29:33]
B
We need an audit for sure and.
- [29:35]
A
Nobody wants to audit it. Remember Ron Paul years ago said let's audit the, let's audit the Federal Reserve. Not just Federal Reserve, but let's audit the gold holdings.
- [29:45]
B
Right.
- [29:45]
A
You know, I want to walk through, walk down the aisle in Fort Knox. The last time we saw the inside of Fort Knox was in some James Bond movie. You know, nobody's been in there. I never got in there and I served at Fort Knox twice. So I'd love to know what's actually there. I'd Also like to know what's under the banks in New York City, which is what we're dealing with now in the city of London. Is everything there? So to, to go to your second question, I think the audit is unavoidable. If you're going to do what you just suggested, there has to be someone who can confirm what the gold holdings are. I don't know that anybody wants to go there right now.
- [30:26]
B
Well, the writing seems to be on the wall that this US dollar centric system that worked for us for quite some time is coming to an end and there might be a return to a neutral reserve asset. So obviously I think of gold or Bitcoin, we what do you think is going to happen going forward? How will this play out?
- [30:45]
A
Well, I guess I should stop and think or get my bowl of water out like Nostradamus did under the full moon and try to see into the future. But I can't. So I can't answer that question. I don't know. And you're better off talking to somebody like Luke Gromen and certainly Alistair McLeod. I think Alistair is a very hard nosed realist and he'll probably give you a really tight, well argued answer that is indisputable. So I would, I would defer to somebody like Alistair McLeod. And of course there's James Grant, there are some others out there who are equally gold oriented. When I was at the conference, I was asked, you know, what do you think about the future and the dollar and everything else? And I said, anything that comes out of the ground is going to be extremely valuable. And I mean anything, anything that grows, if it's food, if it's minerals, precious metals, whatever it is, hard assets will be everything. And I think that's the world we're headed into now. And how we cope with that is anyone's guess. Because we're back to what have we really got? Let's inventory and find out. Nobody wants to do that. And that's what's happened in London with the Metals Exchange. So we're slowing deliveries, slowing deliveries of gold. Why would you do that? In the past those kinds of deals have been negotiated and executed within a few days. All of a sudden now it's weeks before we could do anything. That raises ominous feelings all over the world. People are beginning to wonder. Remember there used to be a tunnel between JP Morgan and across the street, the so called Federal Reserve and the banks and nobody ever knew what was really going through that tunnel, how much gold has gone through it, which way did it Go where is it? I think we don't know. And so I'm very reluctant to answer that.
- [32:42]
B
Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm looking forward to speaking with Ron Paul, who Elon Musk is considering, I think, to head up an audit of the Federal Reserve. He obviously wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve. If anyone's read Dr. Paul's work. I wanted to ask you about Bitcoin because there has been talk of potentially a strategic bitcoin reserve. And Trump is the very first bitcoin friendly president. Do you think that this could happen?
- [33:06]
A
Yes, I think it can. I think it probably will. And I also think that bitcoin will continue to fall and when the stock market crashes, I think bitcoin will go down with it. The stock market will not recover because it's grossly overpriced and it's going to take years for us to recover from what's coming. But bitcoin will recover. It'll recover and I think it'll recover quickly. And so it will be this store of value in addition to gold and silver, that is indisputable. So I think that will happen again. I'm, I'm not Nostradamus. That's my view. That's my gut. And, and I would urge people to think in those terms. But I think President Trump was quite serious when he said we're going to look at a bitcoin strategic reserve. So is RFK Jr. So I think we'll see something like that emerge.
- [33:58]
B
It's so interesting. So it seems like you think there's some sort of crash that we're headed towards that's unavoidable. It's going to crash risk on assets, going to crash stocks, temporarily bitcoin. But whenever that happens, and the last time we saw was obviously 2020 being the very significant crash from, from the COVID 19 pandemic. They inject stimulus, they just increase the balance sheet, they drop interest rates, they manipulate manipul. So don't you think that's just going to happen again? Or do you see essentially what some authors and analysts are predicting, which is that you can only do that for so long and eventually there's going to be one last big print and then the whole system's going to unwind and have to reorder into something completely different?
- [34:43]
A
Well, I think we have to go back to where we started with the 10 year Treasury. How long can you artificially suppress that interest rate?
- [34:52]
B
Mm.
- [34:53]
A
Because who is going to buy your debt? Increasingly, almost nobody. How much of it do we own, you know how much toxic debt is sitting on the Fed's books. That's something else that Ron Paul has been talking about for years. My view is that we will be unable to suppress those interest rates and we will break the 5% ceiling. If that happens, it's game over. We can't service the debt. Which goes back to the argument right now for moral courage. Where's the moral courage to say we've got to make profound cuts now? Someone will say, well, what if your profound cuts don't work? I can't answer that, except to say, then you'll get Armageddon. But if you don't try the cuts first and try to restructure your debt with your creditors, Armageddon will come quicker, faster, and be more devastating than it will if you try to cut and streamline your government and take the tough medicine. Nobody wants to tell the American people, I'm very sorry, but you're living in a bubble, a bubble of artificial prosperity. It can't go on anymore. And so I'm going to adopt the following measures. Nobody wants to say that, but that's desperately needed and the sooner we do it, the better off we'll be.
- [36:15]
B
Right. Well, and even Scott Besant has said before that there needs to be some sort of reordering on a global scale in terms of the economy. He's hinted at that. So that's why I said earlier, I wonder if there's just something they're working on behind the scenes, whether it relates to revaluing gold or even something strategic like Bitcoin, because something, they need to come up with something or, or else they're essentially incentivizing everyone to move away from Treasuries as that risk free asset because they, they're very risky now. Right. We're just going to keep debasing. They carry a lot of debasement risk, if not now, also some default risk.
- [36:52]
A
So very interesting. I think you've just summarized it beautifully. First of all, I think Scott Bessemond is a very good man. I think he's trying very hard to do what makes sense, but he's now confronting, as we talked about at the outset, the political realities that seem to, you know, operate against common sense and, and national need. He has to have a president that understands that and will work with him to do something substantive. I'm just not sure that the ruse of revaluing gold is going to provide the way out. You know, I just, I can't, can't even speak to that because I'M not an expert in the area. That's a question that should be directed to someone like Alistair McLeod, whose views I. I strongly support. Of course. Now, understand Alistair McLeod is not friendly to Bitcoin, but I also attribute a lot of that to the age group. You know, most people in my age group want nothing to do with it. Okay. That's their privilege. But I think they'll regret it down the line because all the boomers are heavily invested. Where, whether they realize it or not, all these pension funds.
- [38:01]
B
Yeah.
- [38:01]
A
Where is all the pension fund money? In the stock market.
- [38:05]
B
Right.
- [38:06]
A
Good luck.
- [38:07]
B
Right. And we really do. We rely so heavily on those tax receipts. And President Trump will stop at nothing for the stock market to stay high. All right, before we start to wrap up, I did want to touch on tariffs for just a moment, because the last time we talked about them, you said they just won't work. Although it does seem like every time Trump mentions them or threatens them, he sort of gets his way. And people love the idea that the tweet that he had where he said he's going to tax other countries to enrich us as OPP to heavily taxing Americans. But what do you think about the tariff action so far?
- [38:40]
A
What's. You know, normally what I like to say is that President Trump told everyone that he was going to build the wall between Mexico and the United States and make the Mexican government pay for it. How's that worked out?
- [38:55]
B
Right.
- [38:57]
A
So I would dismiss that out of hand as nonsense. He's also talking about Canada and Mexico. This is the Western hemisphere. We are the hegemon here. What's changing is the hegemonic position of the United States. Globally. We are no longer the global hegemon. That's the message from Moscow, from Beijing, from Tehran, from Riyadh, from virtually everywhere. So I don't place much faith or confidence in the notion of that you can treat Canada or, excuse me, treat China, India and other great powers the way you would treat Canada or Mexico. And remember, I think, what was it last year? We had a trillion dollar trade deficit and China had a trillion dollar surplus. We are no longer the indispensable market. That's the bottom line. We are an important market. And yes, everyone would like to do business with us, but we're not indispensable. And if we insist on this behavior, they'll move away from us because they can go elsewhere. China can go elsewhere, doesn't absolutely, desperately need us. We need to understand that we're not the center of the universe. And the sooner we come to terms with that, the better off we'll be. Natalie.
- [40:17]
B
Right. We're no longer the economic powerhouse. We produce almost nothing. We're net consumers. So that brings me to my last question. Given everything we've talked about, given what we see out of Trump's administration and Doge, the issues with the treasury and this potential financial Armageddon, I mean, what, what's the takeaway here for the average person who's watching this, who's just doing their best, going to their job, trying to make it for their family? What's the takeaway?
- [40:44]
A
Invest in cash, gold and bitcoin, number one. Number two, ask the question, where's the strategy? What's the strategic goal? Where? What's the long term approach that we're going to try and make work? It's the questions that you asked at the beginning. You know, what are we trying to preserve? What are we trying to achieve? You know, I've asked these questions over and over and over again. What are you trying to achieve with Russia? Well, I think we want to achieve peace and prosperity in Europe and Russia. Oh, no, we want to punish Russia. What? Have you lost your mind? We're going to punish China. That's insane. It's not going to work. You're not going to punish India. You're going to, you're not going to punish Malaysia. You know, come on, let's wake up. We live in a different world today. I haven't seen that settle in yet. And that's something that has to come home to the President of the United States and his inner circle needs to come to terms with that. I think Scott Bessement is ideally placed to deliver that hard message to the President. I hope he does because I don't see it coming from anywhere else at this point.
- [41:55]
B
Well, it'll be interesting to see how all these tectonic plates keep moving. Thank you so much for your time. Colonel Douglas McGregor again, just my most popular guest. Everyone always wants to hear from you. So thank you for always taking the time to join me on the show. I will have a link to our country, our choice and your work in the show notes. And thank you. We hope to see you again soon.
- [42:14]
A
Great. Natalie, nice to see you again. Give my best to Sam.
- [42:18]
B
Thank you so much for checking out this episode of Coin Stories. Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you don't miss any new episodes. If you can, turn on those notifications and leave us a positive review, it really helps the show grow organically. With new listeners. We have a free weekly newsletter. You can sign up@thenewsblock.substack.com and remember, this show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing should constitute as official investment advice, and you should always do your own research. I'm always open to feedback and guest suggestions, so please feel free to reach out at info@talkingbitcoin.com. i'll see you next time.