A (0:02)

You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute, you're up half a million in soybeans, and the next, boom. Your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me? The revolution starts now. Starts now. We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it. Turn those machines back on. You are about to enter the Peter Schiff Show Me the Money. If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth. The Peter Schiff show is on. Know when they decided that they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness? Your money, your stories, your freedom. The Peter Schiff Show. Welcome, everybody, to another live episode of the Peter Schiff Show. The big story of the week is the war in Iran. And I've got a lot to say about this war. And, you know, I remember in the election, the most recent election, Donald Trump said, you know, if you vote for Kamala Harris, it's a vote to have a war with Iran. I remember hearing that a lot. A vote for Harris is a vote for a war with Iran. And I guess they were right in the sense that a lot of people did vote for Harris and we have a war with Iran. The people who voted for Donald Trump thought that Trump was going to end the wars. That was his big campaign slogan. No more wars. No more endless wars. No more wars in the Middle East. Donald Trump was a big critic of what happened with Iraq and all of our meddling in the Middle East. He said if he was president, none of this would have happened, that he's not there to start wars. His goal is to end wars. And in fact, what has been circulating on the Internet are a lot of the posts that Trump composed on then Twitter. Even before he was a candidate for president the first time, when he was a private citizen, he was very critical of Barack Obama and he even accused Barack Obama. He said that Barack Obama may start a war with Iran simply because he needs a distraction throughout the from his problems, because he was a failure as a negotiator because his popularity was tanking in the polls. And so Trump thought that maybe in order to solve this problem, he would start a war with Iran. Well, that is exactly what Donald Trump just did himself. Obama never actually did do that. I mean, not with Iran, but Donald Trump did. And, you know, I've been critical of a lot of Trump's economic policies, but at least one of the things that he did well in his first term Was he didn't start any wars. But unfortunately, he did not continue that in his second, because we are now at war with Iran. Now, I am opposed to this for a number of reasons. The first one is that it's unconstitutional. Now, you know that I am a big supporter of the Constitution, and I want our elected leaders to follow it. After all, they swear an oath to uphold, defend and protect the Constitution from all enemies, domestic and foreign. That's what they swear an oath to the Constitution. Not to the country, not to the voters. It's to the Constitution. That's what they're supposed to defend and support and protect. And the Constitution is very clear when it comes to declaration of war. So Article 1, Section 8 is where Congress is delegated its powers. And in Article 1, Section 8, I think maybe it's like Clause 13, or I forget the exact number, but it says that Congress has the power to declare war. Congress, not the executive branch, not the President. The President. His powers are enumerated in Article 2 of the Constitution. Now, Article 2 says that the President is the commander in chief of the army and the Navy. Now, they didn't have an air force back then, but obviously that would be included today. But it's our armed forces. He was or is the commander in chief, and he's also the commander in chief of, of the state militia to the extent that they are activated and called into duty to work with the United States. We don't really have so much in the way of state militias anymore. But the idea was that the President controlled the army and the Navy, but he was not given the authority to command them into war. So Congress had to do that. Now, once Congress declared war, well, now the President was in charge of carrying it out, and he was in charge of the military to pursue the war that had been declared by Congress. Now, why did the founding fathers not want the commander in chief of the army to be the one to declare wars? Well, because they were not fans of wars. They did not want war to be something that we entered into lightly. They did not want wars to be common. They wanted them to be rare. And they wanted to make sure that if the country entered a war, that there was some deliberation before we did it. They didn't want to have one man be able to just decide that the whole nation is going to war. You know, the framers did not want a king. They did not want somebody to just take us into war. And in fact, you know, the first President of the United States, and I talked about him, George Washington, I mean, everybody had a lot of respect for George Washington. Nobody was probably more respected than George Washington. Yet George Washington didn't have the power to declare war. It was the Congress, the Senate, and the House. They would have to declare it, because it's just not one guy. It's a group of men. Now it's a group of men and women. But they would have to decide if we are now going to operate under the precedent that any president could just declare war on any nation. This is a very dangerous position to be in. I mean, sure, Trump declared war on Iran. All right, we could take Iran. But what if Donald Trump wakes up one morning and is like, I think I'll declare war on China? I mean, that's a whole different ball game. Are we just going to go to war against China because Trump decides that that's what he wants to do? I don't think so. I mean, he could have a dream, and in his dream, God tells him, you shall go to war with China. And he wakes up and goes, I'm going to war with China. I don't want that. Trump needs to go to Congress and explain his dream and tell Congress, this is why I want to go to war. Let's have a vote on it. Because you're not going to find enough support in Congress. You don't want one person to just be able to decide on a whim, I'm taking America into war. That is a very dangerous thing. Now, a lot of people say, but presidents are allowed to have military action. Sure. That's different than declaring war. First of all, obviously, if we're attacked by somebody, the president can call up the military to defend the country. But we have this War Powers act, which a lot of people think gives the president's power to declare war. It doesn't. The War Powers act that a lot of people want to cite actually was written to limit the power of the presidency. Not to expand it, not to give the president more power, but to clarify the powers that he has and the power that he doesn't have, or she is to declare war. Now, let's look at some of the recent actions that the president took, like when he went into Venezuela for Maduro to capture him, he didn't declare war on Venezuela. They said, this is a police action. We're trying to arrest the guy. He's been charged with all these crimes. So we're just bringing the army down there to help arrest this fugitive, this criminal. It's not a war. We're just capturing this guy and bringing him to justice. Right. So that's a little bit different. But what about seven months ago when we had Operation, I don't know, Hammer, whatever it was, where we bombed Iran's, you know, nuclear capabilities, you know, to smithereens, or we obliterated them or demolished them. I forget exactly how Trump described it, but we completely destroyed all of their capabilities with respect to nuclear. Right, we did that, but that wasn't war. Trump, after we bombed this facility, he made it clear that this is all we were doing, that as long as Iran didn't do anything, we were going to leave it alone, that this is not war, this is not regime change. We're not going to invade the country. We're not going to keep bombing. We had this specific thing we needed to do. We don't want war. We just want to make sure that you don't develop nuclear weapons. We thought there was a real threat based on our intelligence. We had to neutralize it. And it's not war. And so you can argue that, well, whenever you bomb a country, it's kind of an act of war, because, I mean, if somebody bombed us, that's what we would think. But Trump at least made it clear that the intent of the action was not to go to war with Iran. The intent was simply to demolish the capability of that institution, Installation, and then mind our own business. And so there, he didn't need congressional approval because, hey, he said we had an imminent threat. I used my authority as commander in chief to extinguish that threat, and I don't want to have war with Iran. And there was really no expectation that that event would lead to a war. But what just happened with the bombing of Iran? Trump has already laid it out cold that this is a war. The objectives are to completely obliterate the existing Iranian government. I mean, we've already killed the ayatollah, and I'm not shedding any tears for this guy. But the point is, Trump has made it clear that the goal is to wipe out the existing government completely, to annihilate all of their military capabilities, to destroy their navy, to decimate their army, to basically get rid of all remnants of the current regime and just leave basically a vacuum in place for the Iranian people to fill whoever they want. Right. It's gonna be up to them. But Trump has made it clear that the current government will be obliterated, and every soldier who doesn't surrender will be killed. Right. We're gonna just destroy the place completely. Well, how is that not war? How is that not A complete and total war against Iran. Of course it's a war. Well, the president just can't decide that we're going to go to war with Iran. The Congress has to declare war, which has not happened. So this is a completely unconstitutional war. Now, even if I believed that the war was right and the war was just, and Trump's decision was the correct one, I would still oppose it on constitutional grounds. Because the number one thing that should be the most important is, is the Constitution. And following the Constitution because you swear an oath to uphold it, protect it, and defend it. And Donald Trump has violated his oath. He did not get a declaration. Now, there are people that are gonna say, but, Peter, if he had to go to Congress, we would have lost the element of surprise. What element of surprise? I don't think anyone in Iran was surprised that we attacked them. Maybe they didn't know the exact date. I mean, they were probably pretty sure it was gonna happen on a weekend because Trump likes to do stuff when the markets are closed. So they were probably, you know, every weekend, they probably were getting worried that something was gonna happen. But all the, you know, we had moved all these ships into the waters there. I mean, we were making a lot of noise that we're gonna go into Iran. I mean, look at what the odds were on the betting markets. I mean, it wasn't like a long shot. There was a lot of money that was being bet on the fact that we were about to attack Iran. And so given the fact that everybody knew that an attack was coming, for what purpose did Donald Trump not go to Congress and say, look, Iran is a big threat, and here's why. And I think it's in the national interest of America that we declare war on Iran and bring it to a vote. Deliberate it. Why not? I mean, if there really is a legitimate case for war against Iran, then make it to Congress. And I would imagine that our elected officials could put politics aside and vote their conscience. Vote is this war really worthwhile? And, of course, a lot of people might look back at our track record when it comes to wars and realize it's not so good. Right? I mean, every time we go to war in the Middle east, we're told it's gonna be quick, we're gonna accomplish our objective, it's gonna be over, it's gonna be great. When does that ever happen? When has it ever worked out that way? Yeah, I get it that the ayatollah is a bad guy. The ayatollah before him was a bad guy. Now, when The Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini. I forget the names of these ayatollahs, they sound the same. But the prior ayatollah came into power because of a revolution. The people didn't like the Shah. They got rid of the Shah and they brought the Ayatollah in. The Ayatollah was worse. By most measures, the Iranian people were better off under the Shah. Not that he was a choir boy, but the ayatollah was worse than the Shah. Now, Trump's idea is let's get rid of this ayatollah and take our chances with whoever comes next. Well, you know, there's an old saying, the devil you know. And how do you know that even if we succeed in destroying this regime, how do we know that the regime that replaces it won't be even worse? We don't. We have no idea. I mean, Trump even said, look, you know, I'm not nation building. The Iranians have an opportunity to do the right thing. All right, well, maybe they do the wrong thing. That's the problem. And you know what's going to happen, too, is there's going to be a lot more resentment. There is a very good chance that whatever government follows the government that's there now will be even more hostile to the United States than the one that's there. After all, who knows how many people we're going to end up killing in this war. They're not all soldiers. There's a lot of innocent civilians that are collateral damage. And they have brothers who are going to be pretty pissed at the United States for what happened now. Also too. Oh, let me take a quick commercial break. I got a lot more to talk about this topic, so stick around. I'm coming right back. If you're running any kind of business, whether you're selling products online, managing inventory, or just trying to keep your operations organized, you know how complicated it can get juggling multiple software platforms that don't talk to each other. That's where today's sponsor, Odoo, in Odoo is an all in one business management platform that brings everything together in one place. We're talking website building, E commerce, inventory management, accounting, CRM. All integrated and working seamlessly together. No more switching between disconnected tools or dealing with data that doesn't sync properly. What I really appreciate about Odoo is just how scalable it is. You can start with just what you need, and as your business grows, you simply add more applications. And here's the kicker. The first application is Completely free for life, including unlimited hosting and support. After that, it's just $24.90 per month to access all of their applications. Compare that to paying for multiple separate platforms and you'll see why so many businesses are making the switch. The interface is very intuitive and the automation saves you from many of your repetitive tasks and everything is configured for your location. Taxes, currencies, regulations, all handled automatically. So if you want to start streamlining your business operations and actually save money doing it, check out Odoo using the link in the description. All right, so we're talking about this unconstitutional war with Iran. And again, even if I supported the concept of this war, I would be against the fact that it is an illegal war because it is being waged without the authorization of Congress. And again, this is in contrast to, you know, selective use of force, use of military for specific purposes that do not amount to all out war. But when your objective is to completely annihilate the other country and eliminate their government entirely and eradicate all of their military capabilities, I mean, that's war. I mean, I don't know how else she would describe it, and I don't care if some other president in the past did something similar. The whole idea was that Donald Trump was going to change that. He was not part of the old guard, neocon, warmongering Republicans. He was something new. You know, he wasn't going to do all this. That's why a lot of people voted for him, because he was opposed to, to these wars that seemed to only benefit the military industrial complex that were championed by the chicken hawks in both the Republican and the Democratic Party. Right. He was supposed to drain that military swamp, keep America out of war, not bring us into war. But even if I supported it, which I don't, I, I would be against it on principle because of the Constitution. But also the US Government has a history of lying to the public about why we were in war. I mean, remember weapons of mass destruction? We had to go into Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction. And if we did not go into Iraq, well, Saddam Hussein was going to unleash this arsenal on America. And so to prevent mass destruction in America, we needed to invade Iraq. Now, it turns out that was all bs and I'm pretty sure the US Government knew it was BS when they were telling us about it. But they need some pretense. They had to tell us, you know, an excuse why it was imperative that we go after Saddam Hussein. Was he a bad guy? Yeah, sure, he was a bad guy. But that doesn't mean we need to get rid of him. And did the situation get better because we got rid of him? Not really. In many cases, it got worse. But the American public was lied to, and Donald Trump knew we were lied to. He talked about it. And so now we find ourselves in another Middle east war with Iran. Are we being told the truth? I doubt it. I mean, first of all, Donald Trump doesn't have a very good track record when it comes to the truth. I mean, he lies about almost everything. And I've talked about a lot of his lies, including the recent lies at the State of the Union. So given all of the lies that I know that Donald Trump has told, I mean, I'm not actually going to give him the benefit of the doubt on Iran that he's now telling the truth. When you have a history of lying, you're not very credible. And in fact, Marco Rubio, right, he was at a press conference, and he basically let the cat out of the bag, maybe inadvertently, and there was a lot of blowback. So what happened was in this conversation, and I believe Rubio was telling the truth here. And I think this came out, you know, from other sources. So it wasn't just Rubio, but I think what he said was that Israel let Trump know that they were going to attack Iran. Hey, I'm going to give you the heads up. Going to attack Iran. Now, the US Would have known that if Israel launched a preemptive attack on Iran, that Iran would retaliate not just against Israel, but against the United States. And according to Rubio, once they knew that Israel was going to attack Iran and that America would be dragged into the war because we would surely be attacked by Iran in retaliation that we made the decision, we might as well go into, why wait to get attacked? Let's just join Israel and let's just fight this war right now. When he said that, that didn't go over very well in the media or with the Democrats, because all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute. So Israel started the war? We didn't start the war. You know, we just kind of like got quartered into it because Israel decided to fight it. Why didn't Trump just tell Israel to back off? No, don't start a war with Iran. Let us keep negotiating. But this is what Rubio said. This makes sense to me. It makes sense to me that that's how it happened, because I can't imagine Donald Trump deciding, hey, what should we do? Let's have a war with Iran. Plus, you know, we had just said that seven months ago. We obliterated all of their nuclear capabilities. For years and years and years, they were nowhere near having a nuclear weapon. So what was the urgency? What was the rush? Why did we have to have this war? It makes sense to me that Rubio was telling the truth, that that's why Israel decided, for whatever reason, Israel says, look, we're attacking Iran, and that's what got America to do it, too. But this did not go over well. So Trump. I was listening to a press conference earlier today, and Trump was specifically asked, hey, you know, did Israel call the shots here? Is Israel the reason we had a war? And so Trump said, no, no, of course not. In fact, if anything was the other way around, like, we pressured them. And then they said, well, then why did we have the war? And Trump's answer was, well, I had a feeling that Iran was going to attack us. And because I was sure they were going to attack us, I wanted to attack them first. I had to beat them to the punch. Because if we would have just sat around waiting for Iran to attack us, maybe they would have done a lot of damage. We would have lost more lives. So knowing that Iran was about to attack us, we attacked him first. Now, to me, that makes no sense. I don't believe that for a minute. The only way that Trump could have felt that Iran was going to attack us was because Israel had already told Trump that they were going to attack Iran, and he knew that Iran would attack is a retaliation. But Trump said, no, no, no, that's not how it happened. Independent of that having nothing to do with Israel, Trump just thought, Just thought on his own, I think the Iranians are going to attack the United States. They want to declare war against the United States, so let's beat them to it. There is zero chance that they would have done that. I mean, first of all, they know the military capabilities that we have. They know we have this huge presence now in the Gulf. We moved all these ships in there and all these military in there. Why the hell would they want to start the war? It makes no sense. Especially since if they had launched the attack first, they would not. I mean, not that they look good, but they would look even worse if they were the aggressor. And then America would look a lot better. It's like, oh, you know, we were attacked by Iran, we got no choice. We got to defend ourselves. We got to fight back, right? So we would have had the high ground on the war. If we would have allowed Iran to attack US and then we could have retaliated. And in fact, you know, Iran is attacking US Military facilities in other countries, like in Saudi Arabia, which has pissed off the Saudis. Now, I don't think there's any way that Iran would have just launched missiles to our military bases in Saudi Arabia preemptively and risked, you know, war with Saudi Arabia. I think the only reason that they did it is because we attacked them first. So I don't think Trump is telling the truth. I think to the extent that he did have a feeling that we were going to be attacked, it's because he knew Israel was going to attack Iran. Because absent that, there is no reason on earth that Iran would just out of the blue decide that it's going to attack the United States. And what I think should happen at this point, now that Trump has said that there should be some kind of demand. All right, let's see the intelligence. What did you base your feeling on? Why were you so sure that Iran was about to attack us? I mean, after all these years and, you know, when Donald Trump went on television and he told the American public about all the bad things that the Iranians did, most of them happened a long, long time ago. Donald Trump knew about all of these things when he was running for office. So why did Donald Trump say, you know, when you elect me president, one of the first things I'm gonna do is declare war against Iran because of all these bad things they did in the past, because all those things were still there. We're going to war with Iran because of the hostages from Jimmy Carter days, but he knew about that. So we're just being given one lie after another about this war. Now, what are some other possible reasons for Trump to launch this war? Because he's got to know that this is not going to go over well with a lot of people. It's like George Bush, Herbert Walker Bush, his read my lips, no new taxes. He gets reelected or elected on a platform that I'm not going to raise taxes. And one of the first things he does as president is signs a big tax increase. Well, that's why he was a one termer. The public didn't like being lied to. When you say read my lips, I, I'm not going to raise your taxes. And then you raise taxes. That's a pretty hard thing to get out from under. Well, Donald Trump got elected. No more wars. I'm going to stop the wars. I'm against all these wars. And then what does he do? He starts a war. Now, obviously, Donald Trump himself doesn't face any consequences for breaking this promise because he is not going to run for reelection like Bush. This is his second term. But Republicans will be held accountable for this betrayal. And I think it's going to be another reason why the Republicans are going to do very poorly in the midterms is going to be because a lot of disillusioned Trump supporters are not going to be happy about this decision. Now, maybe if the war is over very quickly and it's a big win, and maybe it won't be so bad. As an American and as a human being, I hope that this war ends quickly and I hope it could be a success. I just happen to have a pretty good understanding of our lousy track record when it comes to these things. And so while I could be hopeful that we get a swift and positive resolution, history is not on that side. And in fact, if you look at Donald Trump's objectives that he has stated, complete regime change, I don't even see how we accomplish that just by dropping bombs. I don't see how you avoid sending troops on the ground into Iran. And if we do that, if we end up occupying Iran with a bunch of American troops, how are we going to withdraw? I mean, that's the problem. We get into these quagmires and we can't get out. And, you know, you open up a can of worms, which is what we did, you never know what the hell's in that can. Right? These sayings are there for a reason. Like, you disturb a hornet's nest, you get stung. I mean, history does not look good for the odds of this being over very quickly and this being a big success. But why might Donald Trump have done this? Well, I think one reason is a distraction because that's exactly what he said Obama was gonna do. He thought that a great way to distract people from a failed agenda, from falling poll numbers, is to invade Iran. He already believed that, and so that's maybe what he did. Quince has the everyday essentials I love with quality that lasts. Lightweight cashmere sweaters, short sleeve Mongolian cashme, cashmere polos, linen bottoms and shorts, tees in 100% Pima cotton and European jersey linen. These are the versatile pieces that make a wardrobe actually work season to season. Quince works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing. They only partner with factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. Quint, I'm genuinely impressed with the golf pants I recently got from Quince. They look and feel great and the price is unbelievable. For the quality, stop over complicating your wardrobe. You don't need a closet full of options. You need a few pieces that actually work right now. Go to quince.comgold for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it and you will. Now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Q U I n c e.com Gold for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Gold in a world full of noise, long term thinking stands out on the Capital Ideas podcast, Capital Group leaders explore the decisions that matter most in investing, leadership and life. It's a rare look inside a firm that's been helping people pursue their financial goals for more than 90 years. Listen to the Capital Ideas podcast from Capital Group, published by Capital Client Group Inc. Safeway and Albertsons have made saving easier than ever with great savings on family favorites this week. 16 ounce sweet strawberries are two for $5 member price. And don't miss the incredible deal on Signature select boneless skinless chicken breast value packs for $2.97 per pound limit. One plus medium avocados or mangoes are five for $5 member price. Fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in. These deals won't last. Visit Safeway or albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Trump's red hot economy was already cooling rapidly. The GP numbers were collapsing, jobs were disappearing. Inflation was picking up already even before oil prices jumped. You know, now we're trading at about 74, $75 a barrel. That's still pretty cheap, but not as cheap as it was. And oil prices were already up close to 20% on the year before we declared war on Iran. Now they're up closer to 40%. Not quite, but they were going up anyway and they were going to continue to go up. But I think now with the war, Trump has another scapegoat. I mean, he has the Fed, he's got the Supreme Court, and now he's got this war. Because if the economy gets much weaker, we go into recession. If inflation gets a lot higher, which it's going to anyway. But Donald Trump can say, well, it's because of the war. We had this great economy, but the war screwed it up. Now obviously Trump decided to fight the war. So that may not work so well if you blame it on a war that you started. But of course, Donald Trump could say, I had no choice, we had to fight the war, because if we didn't fight it, Iran was going to attack us, they were going to nuke us, whatever. And so I had to do it. I didn't want to do it. I had this great booming economy, but unfortunately, we had to fight this war. And the price we're paying for this war is this recession and this high inflation. So blame it on the need for a war, because if the economy was going to tank anyway, if inflation was going to be bad anyway, and he had nothing to blame it on, well, at least now he's got an excuse, right? So might as well start a war. The other reason is to get the headlines. There is this movie called Wag the Dog, and I forget who was in it. I saw it a long time ago. But it was about a situation where the government, hey, let's start a war. Because then the war is going to be all everybody talks about. What was everybody talking about before the war? They were talking about the Supreme Court striking down his tariffs and what a mess that was going to be. They were talking about the Epstein files. They were talking about people in the Trump cabinet that were implicated that were in the Epstein files. Right. It was a big story. No one's talking about it today. No one talks about Epstein yesterday. All the media coverage now is about the war. So it takes the heat off of that. If Trump didn't like Epstein, didn't like the tariff stuff, the Supreme Court going against him didn't like the weakening economic data, all those reports, now all they do is talk about the war. And there's another reason, I think, that presidents like wars, apart from the fact that it enriches the military industrial complex and they get a lot of donations there. You know, it's not an accident that all these defense contractor stocks went way up, right? Because now they're making a bunch of money because they get to supply us with all the ammunition, all the arms. You know, we keep blowing stuff up. That means we have to buy new stuff that we could blow up, right? So the companies that provide us with the stuff that blows up, right, their profits blow up. But one of the things, or one of the reasons that presidents like to be wartime, presidents is people tend to want to support a war because they want to be patriotic and they want to support the troops. I mean, how could you not support the troops? I mean, they're just doing what they're told, right? The troops don't declare the war, but if the commander in chief sends them into war, they're in war. And so if you don't support the commander in chief, it's almost like you're not supporting the troops. And people want to support the troops. They want to be patriotic and they want to support the commander in chief. And so a lot of times a wartime president can be popular because of the war. People want to rally around him. Now, the reason that that may not happen with Trump is because he was so against these wars before he started it. He specifically campaigned about how we were misled into conflicts in the Middle east before. And he was not going to do that. He was going to put America first. He wasn't going to go get entangled in all these foreign wars. He wasn't part of that neocon establishment. He wasn't like Dick Cheney. And now he goes ahead and does exactly what Cheney would want him to do. So I don't know that he's going to get the type of support. Now, there's a faction of the MAGA crowd that will support Trump no matter what. But there's a limit to how many of those die hard MAGA guys there are. And I can already see some of the people, some of the comments out there, they're not buying this. They don't see the necessity of this war. They don't see how Iran suddenly was an eminent threat when the threat doesn't seem any greater than it was at any point in the past. And Donald Trump had no interest in a war with Iran, especially since they just told us seven, eight months ago or six months ago, it never was that we bombed to, you know, obliterated their nuclear program, and we set it back decades or whatever. So after we did that, Iran should have been less of a threat than it was before. Yet all of a sudden, we had to go to war, right? And we need to have regime change. Who cares what the next regime is? We just got to get rid of the one we got now and just take our chances on whatever comes next. So Trump's gonna have a lot of problems. The economy is going to get worse. Remember, it was gonna get worse anyway. Inflation was gonna get higher anyway. That's going to happen. But the war is going to make all those things worse because the war needs to be paid for, which means bigger deficits, means more Fed money, printing more inflation. And the war will be disruptive. It's already disruptive in the oil market. It's already disrupting shipments in the Straits of Hormuz, which are basically closed now because Iran says It's going to sink any ship that tries to cross. So the ships obviously don't want to go through. The insurance companies are like, look, we're canceling your insurance. You go through, you know, and you sink, you know, don't put in a claim. Now, earlier today, Donald Trump came out and said the US Government is going to now insure all these ships, which seems like a very dangerous thing to do, because if we know the ships are going to get sunk, what's the point of insuring them? I mean, and I don't know about. I don't know why the captains would even want to maneuver the ships through, because maybe they're going to have autopilot so the ships can go through without any human beings. And then any of them that get sunk, the United States just has to write a check and we have to cover it. Seems like an asinine policy to me. Although Trump also said that maybe we're going to have a naval escort and we're going to escort each ship. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know if that's going to protect the ships, if they're an easy target. But oil prices are higher, obviously, and they're going to stay higher throughout the length of this conflict. Now, the President says it'll be a week, it'll be two weeks, it'll be four weeks. Look, I remember when the Russia, Ukraine war started years and years ago. It was supposed to be over quickly. Yeah, there's no end in sight for that. How long were we in Iraq? How long were we in Afghanistan? All these places that are supposed to be quick in and out, it never happens. You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. Why should we expect a different result with Iran? I don't. I mean, I can hope we get a different result, but I'm not going to expect it. And also, I know we're not being told the truth. Trump is not being honest about why this war was started. And once you catch them in a lie, I mean, who knows how many other things they're lying about. And Trump lies about so many other things. Why would he be honest about this? So all this is bad anyway. The market reaction so far has been very muted. You know, the Dow was S and P was barely down on Monday. Right. Started Sunday night because the war started on Saturday when all the markets were closed. The only market open was was Bitcoin, which originally sold off down to about 63,000, but then it bounced back and the stock market barely went down. Gold, gold, which closed last week on Friday at about 5250. Gold rallied above 5400 initially, but it really couldn't make a new high. It didn't get above 5,500. Silver rallied, but I don't know if it got to about 95, $96 an ounce, nowhere near the highs. And then silver went negative on yesterday and gold lost more than half of its gains and the stock market recovered. It was barely down. Now today there was a bit of a delayed reaction. At one point the Dow was down 1200 points, but it closed down less than half that. And you know, it's down a little bit today tonight, rather, I'm talking the Dow's off, Dow futures off about 150 points, but the Dow is still above 48,000, not that much below 50,000. The stock market has really not priced anything bad in. It's still priced for near perfection. The market is extremely overvalued. So the war is not going to be good for the market. And you know, even if oil prices, I mean, oil prices go up a lot, we're not going to be able to have a meaningful increase in domestic output. The oil industry is not going to be able to ramp up capacity that quickly. And they're not going to do it unless they believe that the oil prices are going to stay high. If they believe it's just a short term spike, they're not going to invest the money so that by the time the oil comes to market, the price has gone down and now they're losing money on every barrel. Because we're a relatively high cost producer, we're already producing the low cost crude. Anything that we can produce cheap, we're already producing. So if we have to get the more expensive oil, we're not going to do that unless the price is not only higher, but the oil companies have to believe that it's going to stay higher. So it might take a while for that to sink in. If everybody thinks this is all just about the war and it's going to be over quickly. So we're going to be looking at much higher prices. This episode sponsored by you beauty. Looking for skincare that actually delivers transformative results. Yubeauty combines breakthrough science with simplicity. The multitasking resurfacing compound replaces multiple steps with one powerful yet balanced formula designed to visibly brighten smooth and even skin while helping minimize the look of pores, dark spots and fine lines. And it's gentle enough for sensitive skin. Add their super hydrator for up to 48 hours of multi level hydration that leaves skin looking plump, dewy and glowing. Streamline your routine and see the difference for yourself. Shop now@youbeauty.com early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning because early gets you closer to the action. So don't be late. Book your next vacation early on VRBO and save over $120. Rise and shine. Average savings $141 select homes only Gold prices, after not going up very much yesterday, got killed today. Gold at one point was down. That was down over $300 or $250. But the interesting thing was it really held 5,000. I don't think gold traded below 5,000 today got close, but it didn't get below. And as I'm talking now, it's back at about 5150. Silver got shellacked. I mean, it was down like 10 bucks. Silver has been very, very volatile recently, but as I'm talking It's still about $82.70. So even though it's been very volatile, it's still miles above the old $50 breakout. Now a lot of gold and silver stocks got killed today. They were down 10%, 12%, 15%. They cut those losses basically in half. But they shouldn't even be going down because $5,000 gold and $80 silver are prices in which these companies are massively profitable and the profits are much higher than what anybody expected they were going to be a year or two ago. Yes, the prices are up, but they're not up nearly as much as they should given the impact that these higher prices have had on their earnings and their earnings outlook. But the reason I think that you had this sell off today and partially yesterday is just a classic buy. The rumor sell. The fact it was pretty obvious to everybody, which is why there was no reason not to have a vote in Congress. The whole world knew, including the Iranians, so there was no need to worry about spilling the beans by debating a war in Congress. The reason that Trump didn't go to Congress is he was pretty sure that Congress would not vote for this war, so he had to just wage it on his own. But since everybody knew that war was coming in some form, we were going to do something. I think that a lot of traders bought gold thinking, okay, we're going to invade, attack Iran. That's going to be good for gold. It's going to be disruptive to the economy, the markets. I'm buying gold, I'm buying silver. So people got bought in Anticipation of this event. And then when the news came, they sold, right? Gold couldn't make a new high above 5,500. And so the people who bought it at 4,900, 5,000, 5,100 took profits. Classic. And that's why the markets went down. Gold stocks even more volatile. Maybe some people thought that the price of gold would go up if we attacked Iran. And so they decided to buy gold stocks. And when we did attack Iran, they sold those gold stocks. This is what traders do. But the reality is investors could ignore the noise and if anything, just take advantage of the opportunity that the traders are creating. Because the war is bullish for gold. It's bullish for gold not just because it's bearish for the economy, but because it's inflationary. Why is it inflationary? Because politicians always pay for wars through inflation. The last thing they want to do is make a war even more unpopular by asking the public to pay for it. The politicians are not going to say, you know, we're fighting this war and wars are expensive, and so we have to raise your taxes so we can keep supplying the troops. People don't want that. In fact, you remember when Bush went to war, not only did we not raise taxes, we cut taxes. And in fact, and this is George W. Bush. And in fact, what George Bush said is, you know, we're going to war, but you gotta make sure you don't stop shopping. We don't wanna let the Iraqis know that this war is interrupting our shopping spree. So go out and buy stuff, right? Really show those Iraqis what we're made of. Rip out that charge card, Go to the mall. Spend, spend, spend, Right? The opposite. When we went to World War II, what did FDR tell the American public to do? Stop spending money, save your money. Buy war bonds. Not only did we raise taxes to fight the Second World War, and we raised them massively. Huge tax increase. I mentioned this before. The withholding tax was introduced as the victory tax. Before World War II, nobody had income taxes taken out of their pay. It was only because of World War II that the government started taking taxes out of people's pay. And most of the people who paid income taxes during the war paid no income taxes before the war. For average Americans, the income tax was introduced to pay for World War II, but not only were Americans commanded to pay higher taxes for World War II, then the government said, you know what? The money that we didn't take from you in taxes, please loan it to us by buying our war bonds, right? You got to loan us money because the taxes aren't enough to pay for the war. You got to lend us money, too. So Americans paid higher taxes and they bought war bonds. So what did they stop doing? They stopped spending. They didn't go out and buy stuff. They didn't eat in restaurants, they didn't buy stuff in stores. They stayed home. In fact, the women went and got jobs. They went and got Rosie the Riveter. They went to work in the factories because their husbands who worked in the factories were in Europe, they were in Japan. They were soldiers. So the women had to work. They had to give up their lives as housewives and go to a factory. So the whole country sacrificed to pay for World War II. No American has been sacrificed to pay for any of these wars. We've been told to just keep on spending, keep on borrowing. The wars are free. That's one of the reasons we're able to fight all these wars is because nobody thinks they cost anything. They cost a fortune. We're talking now about the, you know, the cost of living, the affordability crisis. The reason that things are so unaffordable is because the government spent so much money. And part of what the government spent money on were wars. And we're paying for all these wars through higher prices. Every time you buy something that's more expensive, the reason it's more expensive is because you're also paying for the cost of government. It's embedded in the price of everything that we buy. And this war is going to mean that everything we buy is going to be that much more expensive because we're going to have to pay for the war. But anyway, so the war is bullish for gold. So ignore this pullback. You want to buy the dip in gold, buy the dip in silver. Obviously you can go to shift gold and do that. The mining stocks again sold off a great opportunity to buy more mining stocks. Emerging markets also have gone down because the dollar has gone up the last couple of days. Dollar index is now back around 99. But I don't think this is going to be the start of a new bull market in the dollar. We were de dollarizing before the war, and the world is going to continue to de dollarize during and after the war. In fact, there's a chance that this war could diminish America's status in the world if it isn't over quickly. If the Iranians manage to hang in there and this thing drags out, I think that diminishes the power that we project. So we've got a lot to lose, not necessarily a lot to gain, but I would be buying the pullback in foreign stocks. This is an opportunity, I think all of my strategies go to europact.com and talk to the representatives, look at my funds that have all pulled back as a result of this the last couple of days. But US Stocks I don't think have dropped nearly enough. I think U.S. stocks were already overvalued before the war and I think they're even more overvalued now that we're at war, other than maybe the defense contractors, which benefit everybody is going to lose as a result of this war. And so I would be selling U.S. stocks. But that doesn't mean you're getting out of stocks completely because you're buying foreign stocks. You don't want to hold cash because inflation is going to destroy that. And by the way, U.S. treasury yields have risen, risen so far. So even though there was a move into the dollar, that did not stoke a move into Treasuries. So rates have moved up, not down, along with oil prices. So it's a, it's a, it's a bearish outlook for the markets. Anyway, I'm going to comment more again about this. Probably going to wait till Friday and do another shift Gold Friday market wrap. Of course, when I did the market wrap last Friday, little did I know that later that night, early Saturday morning, that we would be at war. So obviously I had no advance warning of that. And so that was not a topic of the Friday market wrap. And so I did expect the price of gold to go up on Monday. It did, but not for the reasons that I thought. But then we got this sell off, which I think was completely a function of buy the rumor, sell the fact. But it has now created an unexpected buying opportunity and my guess will be that prices will be substantially higher by Friday when we do the market wrap. So we'll find out if I'm right or if I'm wrong on Friday. And I'll also bring you up to date on any more information that has come out with respect to the war. So make sure if you're not currently a subscriber to the Shiftgold YouTube channel to go and subscribe to it so that you get an immediate alert when I am doing that live podcast on Friday after the US Markets close for the week. Bye for now. Working across teams is tough, but Asana helps you handle it. That's because Asana is where humans and AI coordinate, work together. AI can spot roadblocks and assign work in a snap, so everything and everyone stays on track. That's how work gets handled. That's Asana. Visit us@asana.com that's a s a n a dot com. If you're early in your career and looking for insight, inspiration, and honest advice, listen to the Capital Ideas podcast. Hear from Capital Group professionals about leaning into the differences that make you unique, making decisions that last, and what it means to lead with purpose. The Capital Ideas Podcast from Capital Group. Available wherever you listen. Published by Capital Client Group, Inc.