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- [00:00]
Chris Cuomo
The budget battle could determine the midterms, and it is President Trump's biggest fight, and it's with his own party. I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo Project. This budget bill is going to go through different changes, and I don't even know how this is going to age. But right now, I can take you through what is the insider's guide to why this bill is just a ridonkulously difficult sell. And Trump may have made a huge miscalculation. Okay, first, let's start with what our basis of analysis is. Okay, the cbo. Here's what you need to know. All right? The CBO is as fair as it gets. It is the model, the Congressional Budget Office, for how to look at things in a nonpartisan way. We pay for it, okay? Congress appropriates the money for it. Congress oversees it, obviously, on the House and Senate side. So it checks every box, okay? They have no profit incentive. All right? It is staffed with a whole variety of people to please Congress. Right? So it's as good as it gets. So every time somebody says, oh, the cbo, they never know. Oh, they're terrible. That is one of two people, a private sector person who's just trying to say they're better than government read full of shit. Okay? Okay. And the second person is someone who just doesn't like the outcome. So this budget bill fails in a big way to do the only thing that matters. Okay? What is the big ticket issue for Trump and the Republicans? What have they kept talking about? The debt and the deficit. Right? Spending, spending, spending. What was the only good selling point of tariffs once we all learned that they weren't scaring anybody but our own pocketbooks? Revenue. Right? Because what were they going to use the revenue for? Billions and billions and trillions and zillions and millions of baby. What were they going to use it for? Pay down the debt and the deficit. Right? Then all of a sudden, Trump went quiet on it. You didn't start hearing him talk about debt and deficit anymore. Why? Because he knew he was asking for more spending in this bill. Now, look, I'm not an enemy of spending. It's about how much and why and where. Right? That's reasonable. And you guys like spending, right? Why? Because it's this services that a lot of people in this country need. Especially when you're talking about our biggest three pockets. Right? What are our biggest three buckets of budgeting? Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. A lot of people who need it, who paid into it, who depend on It. And that's why it's so expensive. Now, could you deal with those things? Waste, fraud and abuse and all these other. Yeah, but the idea that you're a work rule way of changing the budgeting reality of Medicaid is bullshit. It's a boogeyman, okay? It's less than 10% of people who get Medicaid or people who we understand can work and choose not to. It's a boogeyman, all right? It's like saying, oh, we got to cut the federal workforce. Like, it's so big. It's been like, the same for decades. These are boogeymen. They're. They're distractions to scare you. So let's look at what's real about this budget bill, okay? Now, here's what I care about most, has nothing to do with what anyone is talking right now, except the oddest ally, I guess. On this one simple point that I thought I'd ever have in my life, guess who brought up what I think matters most? Marjorie Taylor Greene. Okay, I laugh because she's a fucking joke, but here's what's interesting. She brings up that there's a provision in this bill, and there's always like, a million little things wrapped in bills that you don't know unless you're looking for it. And then once you know, it's usually too late. But there's a provision in this bill to not let states do anything to regulate AI for 10 years.
- [04:03]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
Why?
- [04:04]
Chris Cuomo
Now, let me tell you what this did to me, okay? I have a really good friend, really good friend, all right? One of my, if not my oldest friend, one of my oldest friends. So I really trust this guy, okay? He is deep, deep, deep in the AI world, okay? And he said, you know, Doge was just about Elon Musk bringing in Palantir and the other AI guys to create databases, right? And I was like, that sounds so tinfoil hat. Like, what are you talking about? It was about cutting spending. Nah, what were they doing to cut the spending? How were they doing it? I said, well, they were using AI, But I mean, just because it's their tool doesn't mean that that's. It was somehow suspicious. He goes, no, they were going into all the different systems that mattered to them to figure out how to use AI to create databases on people. Now, I don't see that as patently frightening because they already do that. The government, everybody is taking our information all the time and selling it and trading it. It's like half the companies you deal with on E Commerce do that. Right. But AI may have had a bigger role for Elon Musk in terms of what he wanted to introduce into the federal corpus, the body of our government. And maybe there is something to it. And I had kind of dismissed it, even though this guy is my buddy and I do believe him and trust him until I saw this provision. Why wouldn't you want states to have any ability to regulate something for 10 years? Why would you ever do that? So then I started reading into what the provisions are. In fact, Greg, while I'm talking, Google why they did that in the budget bill. Ask ChatGPT, see what it says about itself. But here's the interesting thing. Why would we want a centralized, one way, one size fits all AI model when it's filled with so much unknown and risks and concerns? Why wouldn't we want as much potential regulation as possible? Very concerning to me. And I'm going to watch it. Okay? And when I asked the first couple of lawmakers about it, the Democrat didn't know what I was talking about. And the Republicans said, yeah, there's a lot of strange things in there. Like it's always about them. So Greg comes back to me and says they're worried about inconsistencies. That's why they don't want states to do it. I call bullshit. And here's why. They love that on every other issue, every state should have it its own way. That's the 10th Amendment. So 9th and 10th Amendment, depending on how you read the 9th, is the states. They're all their own thing. Why would you want to deny them their ability to do it their way? The way you do it with insurance, the way you do it with a woman's body. So it's okay for states to have different regulations and standards for how to treat a woman's body, but not AI. Suspicious, Inconsistent? Logically, yes. And what does that always tell you when something falls down and makes no sense? It's like the Democrats making fun of Trump with the taco acronym. Trump always chickens out. If you don't like the tariffs and don't want them in place, why would you tease him for chickening out? Aren't you tempting him to put them in and lock them in, which is exactly what you don't want. What does that paradox, what does that inconsistency show you? That it's not logical, it's not thought out. It's just to be nasty. It's just a gotcha. It's gratuitous. That's what this is. It doesn't make sense. We don't want all these different standards. Yeah, you do. You want it on our health insurance, our car insurance, our property insurance. Right. How we educate kids and how we regulate the idea that we have the right to a woman's body that you can have different standards on, but not AI. It doesn't wash. Something else is going on. Support comes from Mando. Here's what I know. If it's hot out, if it's warm out, if it's anything but cold out, I'm going to sweat. That's why I know all about Mando. They just launched something that takes sweat control to the next level. Introducing the Mando deodorant plus sweat control. Solid stick. Mando is unique. Double protection. You're going to get that odor control right, which you need, plus powerful sweat control. So you will sweat less and you will smell better. Mando's starter pack is perfect for new customers. Comes with a solid stick deodorant cream tube deodorant. Two free products of your choice. Like what? A mini body wash, deodorant, wipes, and free shipping for all of it. As a special offer for my listeners, new customers are going to get five bucks off a starter pack with our exclusive code that equates to over 40% off your starter pack. All you got to do is use the code. Cuomo@shopmando.com so let's talk about the realities of what's in this bill. Here's the headline. Okay, this bill adds to the debt and the deficit. Now, what they'll tell you is no income from tariffs and the excess revenue that will be generated by tax cuts will make up for it. The 2016 tax cuts did not pay for themselves. Google it. Okay, they didn't. And until you take in the pandemic paychecks and all the money that was dumped into the economy, that was the end of the analysis. Trickle down has never worked. The only part of it that is accurate is trickle. Because if you're just depending on people who make a lot of money to somehow make life better for you, you better be ready to get only a trickle of satisfaction. Now, the tax cuts are just a political make good for Trump with the wealthy. And it's upsetting to me, even though I will be a beneficiary of it, because I was hoping that whether it was in good faith or bad faith, the populist nature of him wanting to raise the realities of the many instead of just a few when it comes to production and what you have to pay to get access to this consumer market and how that could benefit wages and workers and realities going forward. I love that issue. I think it should be on the table right up there with fundamentalism and extreme Islamism in terms of what we should be dealing with on a daily basis. But now this tax cut just shows that that's not what he's about. And the CBO says it. This bill adds to the debt and the deficit. Now, the reason it does that is that Trump doesn't give a shit about the debt and the deficit. He paid it lip service. And now you're seeing how he really feels. This is how he really feels. Johnson, the speaker of the House, doesn't feel this way. The conservatives don't feel this way. Most of his party doesn't feel this way. They just don't know how to say it. If this was a Democrat bill, they would be going apeshit crazy. But they can't, because there's fealty to party. They're a bunch of lemmings. So they have to do it all sotto voce. Only once in a while, you'll get a guy like the Senator of Wisconsin who is saying, I'm against it. I'm against it. This is crazy. And he's right. If you care about the debt and the deficit, and there are different schools of thought on that, it can last like this forever. I don't agree with that. But here's what the CBO found, okay? Again, this is the place that does it, all right? Increase in federal deficit of about $2.5 trillion over 10 years. Why did they do it over 10 years? This is a thing that you don't get to do and I don't get to do in my household budgeting. They always project out a bunch of years to magnify gains and to minimize losses. That's why they do it. They use time. And remember, 10 years, these guys aren't going to be there for all of it. You see what I'm saying? And that's the root of the problem, is that it's not really their responsibility. They're playing with somebody else's money and they're not dealing with what's going to happen on their watch. See what I'm saying? So two and a half trillion dollars over the next 10 years, okay? Why? Because you're extending the tax cuts, which is going to cut revenue, okay? Because you're doing tax credits for seniors, which, look, you can argue either way. The elimination of tax on tips, which you can argue either way, I think it nets up people's pay and it puts less wage pressure on employers. And I think there's something to be said for that. And there are other regulatory corporate tax measures that will bring it down. The provisions will reduce revenue and that will, you know, impact the deficit because you're still borrowing. Okay? Now the CBO projects that approximately almost 11 million people could use lose health insurance coverage because of cuts to federal programs. These are Trump's people, okay? So the cuts that they're doing hurt his own people. These people literally voted for what is now going to be painful to them. And I don't think they understood that. They thought he was going to go after the special interests and the rich and the corporate class, and they were wrong. Okay? Now look, Elon Musk has to know that coming out and shitting all over this bill is going to hasten his exit from maga, right? Yet he did it anyway, as I told you he would. Remember I said this will not last between the two of them. That Musk believes too many things that Trump doesn't or doesn't even understand. And here we are. Okay? Now again, their counterpart, their counterargument is going to be that it's going to reduce the deficit because of all these alternative economic assumptions, which is a nice way of saying fictional thinking about the power of tax cuts, okay? And that is the reality of what you need to know here. Look at the bill. Why are they increasing defense spending? Why did they never go after it with Doge? Because it's a sacred cow of the corporate class and of the powerful. Musk never even got to touch it. And it's no coincidence that that's where he gets a shit ton of his money. And then all the cuts are what, on your ass out of the domestic side of what helps people, okay? And that's why a lot of watchdog groups are saying that these long term investments that were made in human capital and infrastructure are being pulled back. They're trying to gut Biden's infrastructure bill, which all these Republicans were in favor of its ugly politics. Now another thing. Do you believe there's a housing shortage in this country? No, there's not. Not in terms of supply. There's plenty of supply. We can't afford it. That's the problem. And I'm not just talking about million dollar starter homes in the 200 biggest cities. That's a real story. But that's not just what it is. It's the ability to afford it because of help with financing. Okay? And one of the big problems in this bill is that people who need government help for housing like Section 8, they're going to cut that and you're going to have tens of thousands of low income Americans on waiting lists or without support, especially in high cost cities. So the places they need it the most, they may be able to get it the least. And that is going to add to the worst kind of pressure that you can have in life. If you think about it, other than hunger, it's housing, right? Hunger and housing. Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have food in your belly? Do you have clothes on your back? Right. Those are like the three kind of, you know, basic needs. And this is undercutting one of them. All right? And the short term continuing resolutions are killing us, these crs, because they create uncertainty for agencies and programs, disrupting the planning and often freezing funding at outdated levels. But that's the way they do it. They say, oh, we're not adding to the spending, we're just adding it like this. They need to find big ways to make more money for the government to pay down the debt and they have to find big ways to cut spending on things that cost a lot. Defense, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Is there going to be pain? Yeah. Is there going to be a political price? Yeah. But if you want to get it down, that's the only way. Unless you go and overtake China in a war and take over its Treasury. All right. And then pay yourself down. Not advocating for that. Okay. I also think it's stupid that. So the big problem with our spending is that during the pandemic a lot of things got ramped up. And not just pandemic specific funding, but assistance programs for people who are displaced because of COVID Childcare assistance, Medicaid, snap, all got huge boosts of funding. Now they want to pull all that back to pre pandemic levels. Look, I get it from a budgetary perspective, but it's going to cause a ton of pain. And you need to know that because when you're going to give a tax cut to the rich and you're going to make so many other people suffer, you're going to have a problem. And that's what this bill does. Now why can't the Democrats say what I'm saying right now and then give their ideas of where to cut and how to change Social Security? I'll give you one. Okay. I'll give you a few. Okay. Social Security 1. Remove the cap on income that is sheltered from the Social Security tax. Right now it's like $174,000. So if you make $400,000, you get 200, whatever, $26,000. That doesn't get taxed for Social Security. Why don't you tax it up until a million dollars? You know what would then happen with Social Security's problems? They evaporate for a generation. Now, you could raise the Social Security age, but I'm saying, why not do this? It's less onerous to people and you still get Social Security back. And you would keep that program solvent forever with this one change. Why doesn't anybody do that? Because rich people don't like it. But why don't the Democrats make that case and stake their claim instead of the taco bullshit and just saying everything Trump does sucks. Look, there's fair criticism. What he's doing with the deportations is stupid and it's overreach. It violates the Constitution in some cases, it's violating citizens rights in some cases, and it's going to hurt communities. Not everyone who enters illegally represents the same problem. But just saying it sucks, especially when you let the border get so, you know, porous, is not going to get you more traction with people. That's why Democrats numbers are in the toilet, even though Trump's numbers aren't strong, because they're not offering better solutions. They're just saying he sucks. Give better ideas of where to cut and get the spending down. Where are the Democrats ideas? Well, we're not in power right now. That's exactly when you need to be an idea factory, when you're trying to get back in. See, that's what I'm saying. I'm not trying to piss on Democrats. I'm trying to get us better ideas. And if we're going to be stuck with these two parties, we need them to perform optimally, not just sit by and watch the other one burn. That's how we got into this shitty situation. It's not going to get us out of it. This budget bill is a disaster for Trump. His own guys are against him on it, and he is not going to get it this way. Now, here's their problem. They're not going to want to give up the tax cuts because they think it's going to be bad for their constituencies. It's very hard to find Republicans who don't want to give tax cuts. But I will tell you, I've heard more now say that if there's going to be a tax cut, it shouldn't be for the top. It should be for the middle than I've ever heard before. And I think there's a chance that Trump is going to lose on the tax cuts, just a chance. But there's a really good chance that he's going to lose on the spending and it's going to be a big deal. And if the Democrats play it the right way, which is showing that they had better solutions, there were better ways to do this, would have gotten us to a better outcome. There's a huge win in it for them. And remember, I don't even know that they'll get done with the next budget cycle before the midterms after this one. So this is huge. And Trump may be about to get his biggest loss of his presidency and it's going to come at the hands of his own people. Support comes from Shopify. Starting a business is not easy, but I'll tell you what, it is not about what you do. It's about who helps you do it. You got to learn how to grow, but most importantly, you got to learn who to identify to help you grow. That's what I learned. And it turns out that when you have a successful business, it is because of the businesses you partner with to make yours a success. And that's what where Shopify comes in. If you want to sell things in the digital economy, you need to have someone who can help you make those transactions happen. And that is Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US household names like Mattel, Gymshark and to just startups and new brands that are just trying to get their foothold with the market. Turn your big business idea into Cha Ching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 a month trial and start cha chinging today at shopify.com Chris C. Go to shopify.com Chris C. Where shopify.com Chris C. Let's just cut through the noise, okay? The economy is up and down. It depends on the day. Banks are having problems, all right? Producers are having problems. Lenders are having problems. Inflation is eating away our savings. Gold and silver. Check the numbers. They've held value not just through this current crisis, but every crisis. But you can't buy the wrong stuff. There's a lot of shiny stuff there that winds up being more gilded than gold, okay? Shiny coins, high fees, low value. All right? Dr. Kirk Elliot is my partner for a reason. Real bullion. No games. Go to kepm.com cuomo and get straight answers. No Fee, no commitment, just you and a skilled consultant who understands precious metals answering your questions. Protect what matters before the next shock hits. So that's the problem. Problem with where Trump is headed with this budget bill. Okay, there is pain train in play here. How many stops is he going to make on the pain train? We're going to see because his tariffs have created a situation that is kind of like this circular dynamic driving down our economic prospects. Now, sure, long term, maybe they could pay off, but short term, with this extra spending, it looks like he's adding pain in the near term, which politically could be the biggest loss of this new administration and be what carries into the midterms. Because remember, this is a whole other year until they get to do this again. So here's the problem with understanding what this means to us is so he's adding to the spending, it's adding to the pressure on our debt and our deficit, it's adding to our need to borrow. So it's adding to the interest rate situation, which is adding to the inflation situation. And how do you deal with that? What does it mean? Right. So let's put to the side the blame Trump or blame this party or that. That's. This is where we are. Okay, what does it mean that Moody's now downgraded us? What does it mean that inflation may go up and growth may go down? And what this spending means? And what does it mean in terms of your ability to buy, your ability to finance, your ability to save? And how do you deal with it from an investment perspective? Which is kind of what we should talk about a lot more, right? Which is, well, what am I supposed to do? I'm supposed to just sit back and watch all this? I don't control any of it, but it's having control over me. That's why I partnered with Dr. Kirk Elliot. Okay, Kepm Kirk Elliot, precious Metals. When I first heard about them, I was hooked on this reality show about gold mining. And I saw how gold kept going up and I was like, is gold even a thing anymore? Like, why? You know, I'd never really followed it. I'm not an inv. I used to work in finance, but not financing of gold. And I never thought about it. It seems like a different world, an older world, or it's what investors do and banks do and countries do, like, whatever. And I realized that when I started watching this show, gold was at like 1200 bucks. And then by the time I was done binging on the show, it was at 3,000. And I didn't understand why you look up kepm and I understand now why Dr. Kirk has been so successful. It's because he's given people access to a world that gives you security in times of uncertainty. And, man, if there is a theme for the Trump administration, it's gotta be uncertainty, and it's certainly roiled the markets. And now we gotta figure out what it means and what we can do about it, if anything, on a personal level. Right. I mean, because that's what matters most at the end of the day is how do I protect me and mine in this situation. So that's where Dr. Kirk comes in to help us understand, as my partner, what does this mean? Why is this happening this way, and what can we do about it? With no further ado, the man who helps us make do, Dr. Kirk Elliot. Dr. Kirk, it's great to have you again. Thanks for being available. I wanted to pick up on something we were talking about because there's been a change in the state of play.
- [27:14]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
Moody's downgraded our dollar.
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Chris Cuomo
Yeah, they were the last one to do it, by the way. You know, a couple of the other big agencies had already taken a bite out of our hiney, you know, over the last few years. They were the last ones. And they're, and they're, you know, maybe the best known name, but, you know, people kind of just shrugged their shoulders about that. Dr. Kirk, when Moody's did that and took us down one rung on the reliability ladder of rating, what did that mean to you in terms of investment strategy?
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Dr. Kirk Elliot
Well, it's a big deal because international capital flows follow safety generally. So if you're looking at a AAA status and we're now AA1, what's that gonna mean? It means capital inflows aren't gonna come in as quick. Well, Secretary of Treasury Besant said this is a lagging indicator. It's a nothing burger. Don't worry about it. What we're doing moving forward is gonna be great. I generally like what he says. I think he's a very smart treasury secretary. But I think this one is only half of the story. It is a lagging indicator. The debt is based on what we've already accumulated. But it's also Moody's wouldn't downgrade if they thought that we would be able to pay it back. Right. So it's also a forward looking indicator. And all of this added together says we've got a debt problem, we've got a deficit problem, we don't have enough income. And this is the role of Public policy and legislators everywhere. It's like, how do we increase revenue and decrease our debt? Right. None of these things happen overnight. So as we start to see these things unfold, to me the downgrade is going to do one of two things immediately and a couple of things more medium and long term. Immediately it's going to have a negative effect on equity and debt market because people invest based on perception. For example, if you're investing in any stock, let's just call it Alphabet or meta. It doesn't, doesn't matter. You say this company's great, they have great management, they have a great product, the economy's cooking and I want my investment to do well, 5, 10, 20, 30 years from now when I retire. So I'm going to invest in it. So what does that imply? It means all of your investments have continuity of future expectations in there. If there's ever a hurdle, people pull back the reins. You know, that's like, well, I don't know what's going to happen. I'm feeling scared. I'm just going to sit on the sideline defensively. I'm just going to sit in cash and I'm not going to do anything. This is how human nature. So when people start to see these hurdles come up, they're going to pull back the reins and, and now we start to look at what else is going to be good. If somebody's looking for a flight for equality and a flight for safety, what do they look at? Well, I don't know if the stock market's going to do it. All these tariffs and everything else. We're looking at the geopolitical concerns, the wars and the rumors of wars and the inflationary pressures and what are we going to do with interest rates? People pull back the reins on what they've known to be true in the past. Right? So, so what do they then? Do they start to look for quality? They start to look for something that's real. They start to look for something that's tangible. This is why we've seen gold, for example, shoot through the roof over the last few months because of all the tariff talks. As people don't know what to expect, nobody knows what to expect. Right? So, so that goes up. Now we have some political softening on the tariffs, right? And China, the tariffs went from 145 down to 30. Here's where I look at this very pragmatically. It's like people will say, oh, this is going to be good, we're going to win. It's still a 30% tariff on Chinese goods. Everything coming in from China is still going to be 30% more expensive. When most of America is living at the margin already, hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, a 30% increase is going to be detrimental. This is going to be detrimental to the economy in the short term until we're able to fix some things globally. For example, when you look at free trade, you look at capitalism, people say, ooh, nafta, this was really, really great. Right? It's free trade. And all these capitalists were celebrating. It was good for Canada and Mexico and not good for America. Which is why the CEO of Ford was bragging about what they're going to do. We're going to increase production in Ohio and Tennessee because we're going to avoid these tariffs. It's like, wait a Second, you're a U.S. car company. Why aren't you already manufacturing in Ohio and Tennessee, for crying out loud? It's because of nafta. They're manufacturing in Canada and Mexico, right? So when you look at all of this public policy, tariffs are not just a way to generate more income from other countries that say, hey, we want to sell to the wealthy American consumer. And this is the price of admission is a tariff. It's also a negotiating tool. To do what? Bring jobs back to America. Right? So I look at this big overarching framework. Well, the problem is, over the last 40 years, doesn't matter what president we had, jobs have been exported overseas in exchange for cheap goods. Whenever you buy something, the jobs go to where it's being manufactured. So we have to retool, we have to rebuild, we have to retrain. That's not going to happen immediately. It's going to take some time. Right? So you've been following politics for like your whole life. And so whenever a president comes in, they say, we inherited the cesspool of an economy from the president before, right? And this usually goes on for four years. It's like, oh, everything that we see, it's like nobody takes ownership of their own junk. Right? So, but really this is true for a year because whenever you have a legislative action or anything, there's a lag time. It takes about a year to see the fruit on the tree from that seed that was planted. Right? So you can use that story for a year. But years, in years two through four, you better own your stuff. Right? So now everything that we're seeing, I believe in the economy right now is the hangover effect from previous administrations. So we'll see how Impactful. All of these things are going to be when we're entering into uncharted territory. So when we don't know, people have a flight for safety. This is why they've been going into gold and silver. Now, gold is different than silver completely. Right. So gold is a perfect barometer, Chris, for political instability. The more people distrust the government, the better gold does. Right. Central banks are gobbling it up like it's Pez candy. And. And silver is a manufacturing metal. 90% of the demand is manufacturing. Well, what kind of manufacturing? Solar power, nuclear power, military industrial complex batteries, electric vehicles, all electronics. Right. You look at everything that's needed in the world today, it demands silver.
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Chris Cuomo
Oh, so that's interesting. So gold is symbolic and representative for people, whereas silver is about its utility. And it's almost like more of a commodity like pork bellies or something like that. Like what's the demand of use of it right now? Whereas gold is in a little bit of a different class of what it means to people. It doesn't matter how many rings we're making, it's what it represents to people in terms of value. Because it was the anchor asset for currencies for so long for us until what, 1970.
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Dr. Kirk Elliot
Yeah, until 71. Yeah. When. When Nixon closed the gold window altogether for international settlement. I mean, the Federal Reserve act closed gold as a conversion into. Into dollars for people. For you and me, we couldn't go to Sears or Woolworths or whatever was around back then. Right. And exchange either 1 ounce of gold or a $20 bill. But. But countries could still trade back and forth and settle their debt in gold. That was closed in 1971. And everybody blames Nixon for the inflation that we've caused. But I understand why he did it. I truly do. So when he did that, we basically went to completely fiat based money creations, like money printed at whimsical just whenever you wanted to.
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Chris Cuomo
You didn't have to have the shiny stuff to back it up anymore.
- [36:11]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
No, now they had dirty stuff to back it up because we changed from a gold standard to the petrodollar. So now it was pretty much oil that was backing our currency. Right. But from that moment on, inflation persisted. But I understand why he did it. He told France, he said, yeah, you want your payment back? You want it in gold? No, we're keeping our gold. We're going to give you our stinking dollars back. Right. So. So that's why he did it. I get why he did it, but it did have an unintended consequence of Massive amounts of inflation. Just since 1971, our dollars lost 90% of its value. 90%. That's what happens when, when politicians can have a printing press and say, we don't have any, have any tangible backing. We're just going to print our way out of everything. So no matter how policy looks, we can identify what causes things to go up. And here's a simple, simple thing about inflation. When you print money and there's no tangible backing, it devalues your currency. It takes more of that junk currency to buy a good or a service. That's inflation. You just have to spend more of it to buy something that's real. Like, let's say you're China and China's sending us Barbie dolls. And they say, hey, America, you keep printing your money like it's like water. We want more of that because you keep devaluing it. So instead of $10 for a Barbie, we're going to charge you 20 or we're going to charge you 30. This is how international trade works. When you devalue your currency, everything else is going to cost more expensive. Well, what do you pay with devalued currency? Anything that's a thing. I don't care if it's a bicycle or groceries or eggs or gold or silver or oil or anything. So things go up with inflation. We're in an inflationary world. Why not invest in something that's a thing as opposed to. That's going to go up as opposed to something where in times of turbulence, uncertainty, turmoil, change like we have right now, companies are uncertain about the impact of tariffs. Are we going to be able to stay in business? What about the inflationary pressures? What about it that people are living hand to mouth every month? Are they going to keep spending and companies can go out of business tomorrow and it goes to zero. Gold and silver being a tangible asset, there's a cost, an inherent cost to get it out of the ground. It can never go below what it costs to get it out of the ground. So you have downside risk. But while you're doing. All we're doing here is basically looking at the trends today. It happens to be silver. Maybe five years from now, it happens to be gold. Maybe 10 years from now, it happens to be the stock market again, because everything is booming, right? All that we need to do is be wise stewards of what we have, use our brains and try to put some of these puzzle pieces together and say, how can we minimize our risk, maximize our return, grow in times of uncertainty? And this is what gold and silver offer right now.
- [39:16]
Chris Cuomo
Dr. Kirk, thank you very much for helping us understand what's happening right now and what we can all do about it. That's very empowering. Thank you.
- [39:25]
Dr. Kirk Elliot
You're welcome. It's my pleasure. It's always an honor to be with you.
- [39:34]
Chris Cuomo
Well, now it makes more sense. But the problem is how do you make dollars and cents? How do you invest over. Greg didn't like that joke, but I don't care. I'm holding onto it and I'm going to say it again. It may make sense, but how do you use it to make dollars and cents? Because. And here's why I'm saying it. And he can laugh as much as he wants. People keep cashing in on this uncertainty. Have you noticed that the market goes up, the market goes down all of a sudden? Have you seen on Quiver Quantitative and the other tracking apps of congressional trades how much activity there was during this turbulent time of tariffs up and down? Why were they trading so much during that time? And all these people that Trump was telling what to do and when not, and all this and people making money and spying it up and down. What are we supposed to do? This budget bill could be the biggest black eye for Trump in this administration. It could carry right into the midterms because he is doing the one thing he can't do while with tariffs, which is add to the debt and the deficit with spending. He is throwing all the balls in the air at once. And I don't know that anybody can juggle well enough to do this. So that's why you got to be watching this and that's why you got to be armed with information and insight about what you can do to protect yourself and your family and your investments right now. So thank you to Dr. Kirk. Thank you to you for subscribing and following and letting me lay out for you where the concerns are so that at least you're operating with a reasonable sense of why this is happening and what you can do about it. I'll see you at NewsNation, 8pm 11p Eastern every weekday night. Thank you for being here. Thank you for joining me on the substack where you can get this podcast ad free if you want it. And you can get a lot of other content about wellness, my fitness strategy and what I'm doing for my long Covid and what you can do for any Covid related illnesses that you have. And if you want to embrace your independence, get the free aging gear. I use the money from it to crowdsource contributions from all of us that I'll tell you about. Thank you very much, my brothers and sisters. The problems are real, but we can deal with them, so let's get after it.