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- [00:03]
A
All right. Good morning, Doug. We're back. The world is still getting wilder and woolier by the day.
- [00:10]
B
Yeah, it is. Oh, I. I just noticed you're wearing a black T shirt and I'm wearing a white T shirt, which is not nearly as fashionable. White T shirts date Back to the 50s and 60s, the days of Marlon Brando and James Dean. They're no longer fashionable, but maybe you'll bring it back.
- [00:32]
A
You might bring it back, Doug.
- [00:33]
B
Well, Trump would like to bring back the 50s and 60s, so God bless him. I'm doing my. I'm doing my part with a white T shirt.
- [00:42]
A
That's right. That's right. So everything's kind of consumed with this Minnesota stuff that's happening now. It seems to, you know, it's, like, out of control. But we hear these conflicting signals. You know, Trump called Waltz, and then apparently they had a nice conversation. Then they agreed to sort of review the troops that were there or the number of agents that were there, but apparently it's just review. They're not really pulling him out.
- [01:08]
B
I mean, what's going.
- [01:10]
A
What's going on? What do you think about this whole situation now?
- [01:14]
B
It's probably smart negotiating strategy on Trump's part to make nice with Waltz and say they had a meeting of mine. It's just like he did with Mondami. But, you know, I can do that, too. Carry on a pleasant, productive conversation with a completely contemptible scumbag who serves no useful purpose on the face of the earth. I mean, you can do that if you have to, but it's like Trump doesn't experience any internal sense of moral outrage at having to do that in his position. So that's kind of indicating it to me. It's indicative of the fact that we're dealing. Trump is really a sociopath. There's just no question about it. Charming, good sense of humor, enjoyable to listen to him, but he's a sociopath.
- [02:09]
A
Yeah. You know, it seems to me it's like he loves public conflict but hates private conflict, because anytime he has individual interaction with somebody, it's always positive. Except for that one Zielinski outburst.
- [02:23]
B
You're right. Even after he's. He's called out the person as being a complete scumbag and said horrible things about him in public, but he gets together with them in private, and. And they're just the best buddies ever.
- [02:37]
A
What does that mean? What is that? What is that? That must mean something like, I think, is that just a negotiating tech? To me, it's almost like, you know, somebody who is afraid of actual conflict. Because what he could say is, hey, Waltz, here's the thing. We know that you're running a, you know, a racket there. There's a number of things we could have you charged with federally. If your jail, local jails don't start cooperating with ice, you should expect to have, you know, some agents at your door. Like you got to get your together like, you know, like that. That would be so much more effective than the shit talking in public.
- [03:13]
B
I agree and I would take the path that you just indicated. I think that's the better path to take. But that's not Trump. And anyway, we have a real situation, as they say in Minneapolis now with ice. And it's very interesting. These two killings. I watched the. Of course it's nice that we, that all the videos, it appears unlike videos in the case of Epstein and that all the videos here because the public was taking things on their taping things on their iPhones. So I watched all these things and read interpretations that others who watch them too said. And I've come to the conclusion that these were both murders actually on the part of ice.
- [04:12]
A
Wow, you're going to make some people mad by saying that.
- [04:15]
B
Oh, I know, I know, I know. People that are whatever the opposite of Trump derangement syndrome is where he can do no wrong. Look, Here's the thing. The people that were killed are scumbags. I mean, the world is, as far as I'm concerned, is probably better off now that both of them are gone. So I have no love for these people that were killed. But your personal feelings about Trump or about the people that were killed is irrelevant. The fact is, is that agents of this organization called ICE shot and killed people in a completely unjustifiable manner. And we can go over these two things and I'd love to hear a counterpoint from people on Friday telling me where, where I'm wrong about this. But look, in the first instance with, with that woman, Renee Good. Yes. So it appears the last thing that she said to an agent was, you know, something completely non threatening and semi friendly actually and wanted to drive her car off. It appears that an agent stepped in front of her and was bumped and pulled his gun and shot her. This is, this is a completely unjustified killing anyway. You don't, in a circumstance like that, there's no excuse for a law officer with an obviously unarmed woman. Yes, I know the car deadly weapon and all this, but that part was his fault. And then shooting her and then two more times Shooting her. I mean the guy was untrained, incompetent and trigger happy. There's no excuse he should be prosecuted for murder.
- [06:21]
A
And you know, one of the excuses they say is that I hear the, the kind of, the counter argument is that, well, you know, this guy was dragged not long ago by a car and had 33 stitches from some injury. So it's like his, you know, as if the past event that had nothing to do with this one justified his actions, you know.
- [06:44]
B
Well, perhaps it makes it somewhat more understandable, but it doesn't justify it in any way.
- [06:49]
A
Exactly.
- [06:50]
B
He should have been placed on administrative leave until he was clearly no longer PTSD or whatever the hell the problem is. But his unfortunate history is, is no excuse for killing somebody. I think it's was a cold blooded murder. Well, you know, not murder one. There was no premeditation on it, but no, especially somebody that's a law officer. No excuse for that at all.
- [07:18]
A
So yeah, there's, there's one thing. It's, it used to be that the, you know, you're held, you should be held at a vastly higher standard if you have, you know, that kind of, if you're given that authority position. Yeah, right. You're not a lower standard, but actually a far, far higher standard than the general public would have.
- [07:38]
B
Yeah, I mean, yeah, the woman was an annoying, but she wasn't hostile that I could determine. Unlike her, her wife or husband. I presume it was her husband who was also a biologist.
- [07:53]
A
Straight. Get it straight.
- [07:55]
B
That's right. Who was bad tempered, nasty. But she's got nothing to do with it. That's irrelevant too. So anyway, I, I, I, I don't think the world is going to miss Renee. Good. But what's his name should be prosecuted for murder because you have to make an example with these people so that they don't do it again.
- [08:19]
A
Yeah, yeah, yes. So, so, and then, and then let's talk about the second situation and then the implications with all of this. I mean people would say for the second situation, listen, if you're going to go fuck with the police and you've got a gun, what do you expect to happen? Now, I agree this is true. If you, you know, if you have a go mess with the cops. I almost expect to, you know, they're going to put you down. They're going to, you know, they're going to demand total subservience one way or another. That's just the way that they work like the, but the, the morality of it all is a Different question. So what's your take on the second situation?
- [08:56]
B
Well, I think anybody that wants to carry a gun, either concealed or open, should be able to do so. But look, I've been a gun guy for my whole life, basically, and have a lot of pistols and I don't carry because, well, they're heavy and they're clunky and they're uncomfortable. That's one reason I don't like to. I don't want to put myself in threatening positions, which, of course, that can happen anytime, whether you want to or not. But look, arming up before a demonstration where there can be lots of cops around, I can see how we can make an argument for being armed, but it's not a very good argument, frankly. So I think it's stupidity on his part and the gene pool is being cleansed from that point of view. The other thing is that it always points out that he's a nurse and at a VA hospital and all this type of thing. But apparently this is a problem guy. So it's not like he was a really sweet, nice, good guy. I mean, he was basically an asshole. So I don't care about this guy, quite. Quite frankly. But I do care about the fact that what happened is that. Well, haven't looked at the video in the last 24 hours. So correct me if I'm recalling this incorrectly, but, you know, he's. He's there with seven agents or officers, whichever they are around him, and one of them, they pull him to the ground for whatever reason. Was he smarting off to him? I don't know.
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, he was kind of. He was kind of pushing them. He was getting. He was getting in their faces. And then they got. It started to get physical, and then as soon as it started to get physical with the cops, you know, like, they must dominate.
- [10:57]
B
Yeah, exactly. Threw him to the ground. One of them noticed that he had a gun, took it from his holster and is walking off with the gun. So the guy is unarmed at the time. He wasn't brandishing it. He wasn't looking to massacre the cops. And of course, this is another thing. People in the Trump administration in and around it are all presenting it like this guy was a hired killer. Well, that's. That's not the case. Nomi. What's her name? What? Chris. Christy Nomi. What's her. What's the name of that gnome?
- [11:34]
A
Yeah, no, Christy Gnome.
- [11:37]
B
She should be dismissed immediately for having gone on the air and mouthing off before she had the facts in her position. I mean, she was hearing things from her employees on the ground and repeating them slavishly. But what happened is that after the nurse was disarmed, he was shot once, and then there were 10 other shots. So, I mean, this is murder. You can't fire 10 shots at an unarmed man who's already been thrown on his. This is completely unacceptable. So once again, this has got to stop. But there's a reason for it. When we looked it up earlier, you looked it up that the number of ICE agents has, what, gone up by over 100% since Trump has been in office. And you'll recall that they were reaching out, trying to recruit people, offering $50,000 bonuses to go to work for ICE. So what kind of people are they getting? They're getting hyper aggressive people that are untrained, that came out of nowhere, giving them guns, military style uniforms. I mean, this is exactly the wrong way to go about it. I mean, they're basically rounding up the same kind of people, bottom of the barrel types that the SA did rounded up in Germany in the 20s because ICE has been called Gestapo or SS. Well, that's inaccurate because the Gestapo were highly trained sociopaths, but they were intelligent, they were smart, they were thoughtful, as were the early ss. But the SA were just street thugs, brownshirts is what they called them, the Sturmitelung. And there were hundreds of thousands of them. And they were just lowlife thugs. And that's who we got with ice. Especially when you're recruiting these people from out of nowhere at the last moment. And there's no excuse for shooting an honor man who's on the ground 10 times. I don't care what else they say.
- [14:01]
A
That's all right. And, and so you can look at these instances, you go, okay, that guy was stupid. That woman was stupid. They shouldn't have been there. They had bad intentions for being there. They are, you know, there are all kinds of problems with them. You know. No, you know, the world might be better off without them. Like all those things could be true. And yet the, the, the problem with this is the trend of where it's going, right? I mean, isn't that, I mean, of course, the specific incidents you pointed out, the particular problems, but the thing that makes you want to stand on that principle, I guess that each one of these were wrong is because if you take away that principle, what happens?
- [14:46]
B
And apparently it seems to be coming out. What I read in news reports is that there have been about 10 other instances of ICE shootings in the last year. And in every Instance, the charges have been dropped. That's not the way it works. Cop shoots somebody, you treat them basically the same way as if there's a civilian shoot. This should be a full investigation by an outside agency. It's not an administrative thing within the agency where they're all buddies and they want to know. It's not the way it should work.
- [15:21]
A
Yeah, I'm trying to see the total number of shootings. Actually, I thought that there were more than that that occurred. How many? So, so this is, so the principle is, is that the authorities should use, you know, should use great restraint and, you know, and they're not. And they're, and they're protected and encouraged, it seems. Although Trump did kind of waffle a little bit on some of that when he was, when, you know, it was pushed, when it, when it was, when he was asked a question. I mean, where, so the early statements were, you know, unlimited immunity or something like that is like what JD Vance said for the first guy, you know.
- [16:06]
B
Yeah.
- [16:06]
A
But the second one, at least, Trump was talking about as a tragedy and, you know, stuff like that. But the problem is if in the.
- [16:14]
B
The word tragedy is overused tragedy, something that happens to a, a heroic person that suffers that kind of loss. So it's got to be a better word than tragedy. But. Sorry to interrupt.
- [16:27]
A
It was a, it was a fuck up.
- [16:30]
B
That's what it was.
- [16:32]
A
Yeah. So there have been a few dozen ICE related shootings with, with under 10 deaths since Trump's second term began in 2025.
- [16:42]
B
And none of them have really come out before this thing and these things in, in Minneapolis. Yeah, the, the authorities decided not to prosecute. So the, you know, the miscreants in ICE get to skate and everybody hears about it through the grapevine. So of course they get more aggressive and more violent because these people that would join ice, certainly the recent recruits are overly aggressive and untrained and probably get hyped on wearing military type uniforms and being heavily armed. So what's going to happen is this is bad news, but what's going to happen is that if ICE is not severely reined in, it'll keep growing and after Trump's out of office, it'll still exist because It'll have what now? 25,000. Trump will probably bring it up to 50,000. So how do you get rid of these people? You fire them all at once? I mean, it's like the sa, Right.
- [17:55]
A
And I think that what surprises me is that people who support, as I do, the deportation of all of these illegals that have come into the country can't see the, you know, just a few years ahead, the consequences of this. Yeah, that's what surprises me. It's like, you don't, like, just imagine if Biden had this, if, if these guys existed under Biden, like, you know, I would, you know, I mean, the DOJ was already really hard on, on Trump supporters during that time period, the JSEC people and all that. Imagine if they had a grab and bag, you know, legions of grabbing bad guys.
- [18:38]
B
That's right. They grab people off the streets, they're masked and they bag them. I mean, this is, this is completely unacceptable. So ICE has got to be thoroughly and totally reformed, but you got to get rid of all these illegal immigrants. If, if you don't have a right to be in the country, you gotta go. So.
- [19:01]
A
But even Trump, Trump's been really backing off of that, at least in his public statements recently. Do you see that?
- [19:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, he, well, it's because he's a man without any moral center, without any philosophical principles. So of course they'll blow with the wind. Lots of bluster.
- [19:16]
A
I mean, it's like another taco.
- [19:21]
B
Yeah, it's another taco. So this is, this is very concerning. So. But we're just, we're headed towards something like a civil war.
- [19:31]
A
Yeah. Just one quick thing and news item here says so. During Trump's second term, there have been at least 17 to 20 incidents with civilians killed or wounded. But there are no known cases where ICE or border patrol of officers have been criminally charged over on duty shootings during this period.
- [19:51]
B
Yeah, they all get to skate. It's internally handled and of course, word spreads within those organizations. I figured, hey, that's the way things are. We can do what we want, could.
- [20:03]
A
Even be praised, you know.
- [20:06]
B
Anyway, the best, the best way to get rid of all the illegals is to not have any, any welfare, no Medicaid, no welfare, no snap, none of that stuff. So there's no active inducements for them to be here. That's the first step.
- [20:25]
A
Yep. And after that, debank them all to bank them. You know, like, you make it so that it's hard for them to get by. You know, you got to have money to get around in the U.S. and you know, even if they're working illegally.
- [20:38]
B
Debank them and it should be impossible for them to vote, which would disincentivize the Democrats for wanting to bring them in. So all of these things, I don't know if Trump is doing any of this stuff, frankly, no.
- [20:50]
A
And you know, and he could be applying his, you know, this bully pulpit. That's his thing. And you know, getting these, the changes to the voting laws passed like that, that's would seem to be the, the highest priority. Like you know, ch. Those have. If those are changed then that kind of, that, that makes it far more likely that the Republicans will hold on to the House and Senate and that know Republicans would be elected in the future. So. But that I've never, I haven't heard him say anything about it at all.
- [21:21]
B
Well, it's one of the problems that stems from having a, A narcissistic megalomaniac who has no personal philosop. Phil. Philosophical center being a.
- [21:32]
A
He.
- [21:33]
B
He's on. Look, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And he's really got a huge amount of power where everybody around him is basically a lick spittle and bends the knee. All of them. All of them do.
- [21:49]
A
Yeah. And for all those people who are mad because you love Trump, let me just say that, that the problem when Trump does stuff you like like, I like it too. But the problem is he's not, if he's not reliable because he doesn't stand for anything really, then he's dangerous.
- [22:08]
B
Yeah, yeah, he's very, very dangerous.
- [22:12]
A
Well, there's one moment he could be doing something that's good and the next moment do something that seems so contrary and is obviously bad for you. And you know, we just, and people just look past that stuff because of the things that he's, they agree with.
- [22:26]
B
You know, I should, I should go on one of those prediction sites. I haven't done that yet. To see what kind of odds I can get because I, I'd like to put money down that Trump is not going to finish out his term.
- [22:40]
A
Yeah, I think that, I mean he's burning through political goodwill with what he's doing. I mean we have a, one of our VIP members is part of these Monday calls that we have every week with the VIP group and he lives in Minneapolis and you know, certainly supports Trump or supported the Trump agenda, the MAGA agenda. And you're describing the situation in Minneapolis as being like really bad for the community there, incredibly divisive, taking people that, you know, we're not talking about the Somalis in this situation and no Somalis are involved in any of these videos I've seen, by the way either. You know, it's, it's, it's all white people and, but it's basically pushing them down further and further away from each other. You Know if you're on the right, it's, it's like, hey, you should be able to kill these people fine. You know, and the other side is like, oh my God. You know, this is like, you know, we have to keep all these ISIS so bad. We must protect all of the illegals. I mean, you know, it's like it's being, it's this, it's, it's dividing people in a way that is. He can just watch it be so disruptive to his city. He can see it in front of him and he supports the deportation 100, you know, so yeah, it's. What a disaster situation.
- [24:00]
B
Yeah. Well, background music for all this stuff should be the Rolling Stones Street Fighting man, which is absolutely one of their best songs. And it's very time appropriate now anyway. It is.
- [24:11]
A
So that one thing, obviously Doug, you're well known for your, for being a supporter of gold for many decades now, gold hit a new all time high. What do you make of what's going on with the gold and silver market right now?
- [24:29]
B
Well, I'll repeat again, as I often had, relative to other things, it's no longer cheap, which it has been for my whole lifetime, but I can't say that anymore. So there's something new and different going on. And I'm of the opinion that because the world financial an economic situation is so unstable and so distorted that gold has reached a new equilibrium level different than has been the case in the past. So it's not a bubble, it's not panic buying on the part of the public. Public is completely uninvolved with gold. As far as I can tell, nothing going on there. All the buying has been on the part of central banks who want to dump the dollar for all kinds of obvious reasons. But you dump the dollar, what are you going to replace it with? Another fiat currency which is probably even, almost certainly even worse. That's why they're buying gold so and so for different reasons along with gold.
- [25:37]
A
So yeah, silver right now it's $113 and gold is at 5280. Just a reminder, 10 days ago, I bought some gold for four, six hundred dollars. 10 days ago.
- [25:53]
B
Yeah, good move. Good move, Matt.
- [25:55]
A
Yeah, but it felt like if it felt like it's so expensive, just. You said the same thing. It's no longer cheap. And it, well, it looks like it was cheap. It looks like it was cheap. Now in reverse, you know, that's, you know, that's the times we're in where things are moving so quickly now.
- [26:10]
B
Well, in my case, am I going to buy any more gold? Yeah, well, it depends, but there's, you got to figure out what's the best thing, the cheapest thing to do with money as it comes in.
- [26:25]
A
Well, because you have a such a solid foundation, physical gold, I've got a lot of it.
- [26:30]
B
So yeah, marginal disutility is the concept. Yeah. So. I think it's, I think it's going higher for good reasons and silver is going higher for different reasons because people forget that up until the mid-60s the US government owned 2 billion ounces of silver. It liquidated all of them. Then it took, confiscated, basically took all the silver out of coins which freed that to the silver market. That's basically all gone too. And for the last five years or so there's been a deficit of use, industrial use over newly mined silver. So the world's been living out of silver inventory for the last five. A totally different situation from gold where all the gold that's ever been mined basically is above ground and available. Not true with silver. So they're different situations, which is interesting because those are, they're both forms of money.
- [27:40]
A
So you said if you're gonna, you would put new money into gold today probably because of, you started to say, and I interrupted you because you already have a solid foundation in gold. So you wouldn't put money, probably wouldn't.
- [27:52]
B
Buy today marginal, marginal disutility. And you know, when it comes to silver, okay, it's an industrial metal. And because it's the most reflective of light and the most conductive of electricity and heat of all the metals, it's got a great high tech future. But like any commodity, if the price goes high enough, substitutions will be made. And I'm not just talking about other metals like copper and aluminum. At some point, for instance, nanotechnology and carbon fibers will replace silver in a lot of its current applications. And God knows how many other technological breakthroughs can be made at perhaps very low cost that will replace silver too. No tree goes to the sky and that includes silver. And maybe at above a hundred dollars it's becoming marginal in, in many applications maybe.
- [29:01]
A
Yeah. Frank Giusra published an essay which we republished on Crisis Investing where he said that the, you know that the, in solar panels, which is a gigantic consumer of silver, it's, the price is irrelevant, up to $134. I don't know where he got his numbers on that, but that's what he said. So, you know, there is a point where basically people start to get innovative and trying to figure out other solutions beyond just using silver, so.
- [29:29]
B
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I, I hate to treat gold and silver, the metals as speculative favorites anymore, but I'm very, very favorably inclined towards gold and silver mining stocks where there's no institutional buying to speak of. Well, a few people like Eric Sprott, of course, who's made multiple billions of dollars on these things, and a few other people like him that run funds, but they're trivial, they're almost meaningless in, in the vast world of, of investment. So the institutions are uninvolved in gold and silver stocks for lots of reasons we could talk about and the public is uninvolved in them, but they've still, I mean we've done really well like just in the last month, the stocks that were listed.
- [30:24]
A
Yeah, our portfolio in our Crisis Investing newsletter is up 20% in the last month. And you know, I mean, gold's up a lot during that period too. Gold's up 15% and. But some of the stocks in the portfolio are up as much as what was the biggest one? Was it, sorry, I just lost it? 65% was the large gainer in the last month. But there's, you know, others in the 50s and 40s that are in there. So yeah, obviously this is, this is where the, the real speculative action is, is in these, in these specific stocks.
- [31:01]
B
And what's going to happen, especially as a lot of these mining companies start releasing their earnings, which up until now have been based on two thousand, three thousand dollar gold or thirty dollars, maybe forty dollars silver at most, their earnings are going to explode and they're going to be buying back shares and they're going to be paying dividends and it's going to get the attention of the institutions. They'll start moving, word will spread at cocktail parties. Eventually the public's going to get involved. So these stocks have, they've done really well, but they've barely moved relative to what I think they're going to do.
- [31:40]
A
You know what, and the thing is, because golden gold and silver prices have moved so much that they're actually cheaper than they were a year ago.
- [31:48]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
- [31:51]
A
So even though they moved up, there's, it hasn't even begun. So if you're interested in these stocks, go to Crisis Investing and upgrade as a paid subscriber. Each month we publish an issue. You can get the back issues immediately. You'll be able to see everything that's in the portfolio as soon as you do it. So if you're interested, you have not.
- [32:10]
B
Missed the boat, actually, you missed the bottom. Okay. It's rare that you ever catch a bottom, but we're in a strong uptrend now and they're still really cheap. So get on.
- [32:24]
A
Big opportunity.
- [32:25]
B
Yeah, it's a big opportunity. It really is.
- [32:28]
A
Meanwhile, the dollar seems to be collapsing. It broke Bullet beneath. It broke. Bull below this 15 year trend line. I, I saw somewhere that they said that its recent fall in a single day was like a three Sigma event. You know, it's decrease, I mean, and then Trump comes on, they ask him about the dollar and you remember what he said.
- [32:52]
B
He'S happy about it, or words to that effect.
- [32:55]
A
He says it's good, the dollar's good. Now what does it, what does that mean? What do you think he means?
- [33:00]
B
Further proof that Trump is an economic ignoramus. He really is. And I say that, as I've said before, somebody who's, you know, he's charming, he's fun to listen to, he does some good things, no question about any of that stuff. But there's a good chance he'll wind up really destroying the US economy as we're on the edge of the greater depression anyway. You know, you got to recognize that Americans have all their savings, all their investments, everything in dollars. But if the dollar loses 30% of its value, everything Americans own loses 30% too, relative to everybody else in the world who's not holding dollars. So sure, we can ramp up what industrial capacity we have because it's cheap for foreigners to buy. Great. But it's like giving away your assets in a fire sale for no reason when you destroy the currency.
- [34:07]
A
Right. But it seems like they feel like they have to. It's been almost a stated policy, or it has been a state of policy to weakening the dollar since the administration first came in. They don't really brag about that publicly, but I mean, it's, it's been the policy. It lost 10% last year, you know, in, in, in the basket, you know, dxy, you know, and, and I guess in, in terms of gold, it lost a hell of a lot more than that. But in order to get rid of the debt, you know, and to try and turn the economy around, it's like the dollar is going to get crucified in the process. It's the only, I think it's the only way out.
- [34:45]
B
Yeah, I mean, obviously they don't want to default on the debt. So if you inflate it out of existence, that kind of default part of the equation. But as the dollar loses value long Term interest rates are going to go a lot higher. So they're caught between a rock and a hard place. They're caught between Skilla and Charybdis. There's no way out. Actions have consequences. And it's taken a lot longer for them really to evidence themselves. But I think gold and silver are the new plateau for that reason.
- [35:21]
A
You don't mean a plateau as meaning the top. You mean as in like a, A new era.
- [35:27]
B
No, exactly. Yeah, it's. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [35:31]
A
You know, and just, just to give an example of what the right answer would be with the economy, I strangely enough, I probably use Zimbabwe as an example. You know, it went from 138 inflation in 2023 to its current inflation is 4.1%. And why is that? Well, they backed their currency, at least a version of their currency in gold.
- [35:56]
B
Yeah. And it is interesting because when I was in Zimbabwe, I don't know how many years ago last. I've been to Zimbabwe and Rhodesia before it many times, but I met with Gideon Gono, who was the president of the Central bank of Zimbabwe. And the largest building, tallest building in Harare is the central bank building. Which I thought was kind of funny, you know, that people that were printing the money and destroying the currency because one of their few accomplishments is they printed a $100 trillion bill which is the largest number ever put on a piece of currency in the world. So anyway, I got to know Gideon reasonably well, had dinner at his house several times and we got together and one thing he gave me was a paper he wrote that he was. That he gave also to President Robert Mugabe, who subsequently joined the choir invisible, talking about a gold backed Zimbabwe dollar. So you'd think that Gideon would have been a blithering idiot signing his name on the $100 trillion bill, but he's actually a, a smart guy who understood these things. So in any event, okay, inflation, monthly inflation has dropped tremendously in Zimbabwe to about the level that Melee has dropped it in Argentina because Malay's made some mistakes along with all the other good things he's doing, but. Yeah, exactly.
- [37:34]
A
And actually I, I'm not sure if this is an annual inflation number or if this is the monthly inflation number. When I said it was 4.1%. I'm just not sure from this work must be monthly.
- [37:45]
B
I mean, Argentina talks about 4% inflation. They're talking monthly.
- [37:49]
A
That's true. Probably is, but. But it just shows you this is the course that the US will follow eventually. Like Gideon, he knew the right answer is that you had to have sound money. He knew it was the right answer. Even though he, he, he created notes with a number on them that is literally unfathomable. You know, he signed those, he knew the right answer. But there wasn't the will to do it until after all of this economic devastation over many years that they finally woke up and they decided to start doing the right thing there with the goldback currency. So the, the US will have to face this reckoning at some point whether Google on kicking and screaming or not. Right. Isn't this the end? Doesn't have to go this way.
- [38:37]
B
I don't think anything is going to change in the US for the next three years. Assuming that Trump is still in office or people that believe the things that he does economically well. So we've got a rig for heavy weather. Right.
- [38:51]
A
But eventually doesn't you think it will get to a point where there's so much economic despair caused by this Ponzi scheme money system we've got that eventually there's no choice but to go back to gold or something like that?
- [39:04]
B
Yeah. Because I'm of the opinion that we will be using gold in day to day commerce. Well, maybe not the coins, but pieces of paper that are directly redeemable at a fixed number of ounces or grams of gold in the future. It's the only answer. It is.
- [39:23]
A
Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. One last thing I had for you just was just talking about the fact that the consumer economic confidence is now at the lowest in 12 years now. You know, you were on that panel with that financial advisory firm or whatever where they had all these business leaders and business leaders talking about how good business was, you know, and then so that was a kind of just not, you know, a focus group rather than a survey. This is like a survey, but it just shows you the difference between the consumer mindset, I think and the business leader mindset at this point where you know, they're polar opposites, it seems they.
- [40:07]
B
Are just like these level of the stock market is one thing, but the balance sheet of the average American is another. Of course these things will line up. If at some point, and I'm sure it's gonna happen, the stock market crashes, that'll be interesting to behold.
- [40:27]
A
Yeah, these, these like these bifurcations must be reconciled at some point and when it happens it's going to be wild.
- [40:36]
B
But in the meantime it's happy days for us. Because I don't know about everybody else, but the people that have been buying gold and silver and the gold and silver stocks and frankly, the other stuff that we've recommended should be pretty happy campers.
- [40:53]
A
They really should be. I don't know. You cannot be. I mean, I more hear more often than not from everyone in our and of our subscribers is that the performance has been so good it makes them nervous. And I can echo that. I. That's the way I feel too, because I. It's, it's, you know, in many cases, if you have a year where you're up 30, it's considered a good year, you know, but, you know, my portfolio is up over 30 this year to date. You know, I mean, it's just wild. Yeah, it's wild.
- [41:26]
B
You know, an old saw in the stock market, but a very wise one and a very correct one is be right, sit tight. So the trend is your friend, be right and sit tight. And this is a time we just sit tight with these mining shares.
- [41:42]
A
Okay, well, let me just. The last thing to wrap up. If you're interested in subscribing to Crisis Investing, I'll put a link at the bottom. We have 20% off offered that I sent to people who are on our free newsletter list that's open for another about 36 hours from now. So I'll put a link, 20% off annual subscription, if you'd like it. And with that, Doug, I'll say thanks very much and we'll talk to you on Friday for Q and A. I'm.
- [42:08]
B
Sure there will be some reactions to what we had to say about the murders in Minneapolis.
- [42:16]
A
Yeah, I imagine. Well, imagine. Okay, well, we'll see what they say and we'll be back on Friday. Thanks, Doug. Appreciate it.