← The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
455: Philip Diehl—Flying Over the Hump
01:52:26
Mike chats with Philip Diehl, the 35th Director of the U.S. Mint and the man behind the most successful coin program in American history—the 50 State Quarters. They talk about the surprising history of the U.S. dollar coin, how a coin gets designed...
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- [00:04]
A
Hey, guys, it's Mike Rowe. This is the way I heard it. My guest today is Philip Deal, the former director of the US Mint. A former director. He was the 35th director in all of history of the US Mint. This guy is so interesting in so many different ways. You'll hear us mention a. A meeting in Liechtenstein. And it's the truth. I met Philip Deal in a bar in Liechtenstein with another former director of the US Mint named Ed Moy. And these guys today both work with U.S. money Reserve. In fact, Philip Deal is the current president of U.S. money Reserve. And full disclosure, I do some work with U.S. money Reserve. This is not a commercial for them in any way. It wasn't paid for them. I just want to get that out of the way. But my meeting in Liechtenstein with Philip Deal over a civilized cocktail turned into one of the most interesting conversations I can remember having by accident. And I've had a few. Yeah, you have. And so he was just one of those guys. I said, you know, if we ever become friendly enough, I'm going to invite him on here. Because the thing is, Chuck, you. You really can't talk about currency without talking about history. And you can't talk about history without talking about politics. You can't talk about politics without talking about, in his case, God, everything from social anthropology to some very arcane liberal arts majors that brought him. He's such an interesting cat with such an interesting job at this point in his life. And it's just a ton of experience sitting there, you know. But as the US Mint director, he's responsible for some pretty cool things.
- [01:49]
B
The Sacagawea coin, Right?
- [01:51]
A
Number one. But really, what I.
- [01:53]
B
We didn't spend a ton of time on this, but the 50.
- [01:55]
A
The state quarters. Yeah, that was his deal. Yeah. Like, play on his name.
- [02:00]
B
His name is Deal.
- [02:01]
A
His name was Deal. Yeah. What's the deal with Deal? Right, the deal.
- [02:05]
B
That should be the title of the episode.
- [02:06]
A
That's not a bad title. What's the deal with Deal? Although he spells his last name, I think. D, I, E, H, L. That is correct. Yeah. It doesn't matter how you spell his name. You're going to like him and you're going to learn a bunch of stuff, including why the actual title of this episode is Flying over the Hump.
- [02:26]
B
Yes.
- [02:27]
A
Look, he talks of his dad a lot. And his dad flew a. Flew the route in the Second World War over the Himalayas, Burma, into China and back. One of the more hazardous routes to fly, and they called it Flying over the Hump. And you'll hear Philip talk about he's a sucker for a good metaphor. And in some way, shape or form, it sure seems like we're all flying over our own metaphorical hump. Chuck, you know what I mean?
- [02:53]
B
Yes, I do.
- [02:54]
A
We're all running a little low on gas. We're up there, the air's thin. People are shooting at us. Wow. Wait a minute. I've been meaning to warn you about some things in your future. Yeah, it's gonna get sporty for you.
- [03:06]
B
Okay.
- [03:07]
A
What a fun conversation. Careful. You might learn something about diversification and gold and precious metals. And also, full disclosure, I wanted to bring him in here because we just raised a fair amount of money for the foundation with these Trades of America coins that were minted over in Germany and designed in Liechtenstein, where I met the 35th former director. And it's all explained why you had to go to Liechtenstein in order to do that because a lot of people are irritated that you did. Yes. Yes. I mean, do you guys really think I didn't want to make a coin honoring the American worker in America? Of course I did, but it can't be done. And we'll explain why as we fly over the hump with Philip Diehl right after this. Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for Microworks, thanks to the generosity of my friends over at American Giant and the excellent taste of listeners like you. Currently, a limited line of Microworks clothing is available at american-giant.com and the proceeds benefit our next round of work ethic scholarships. Like everything else American Giant, the Microworks garments are made entirely in this country by men and women who care deeply about helping us reinvigorate the skilled trades. This is a terrific company. They've been walking the walk for 16 years. I've been with them the whole time because they prove day after day that it's still possible to make a quality garment at a fair price in these United States. I appreciate their commitment to American manufacturing and American jobs. And I appreciate their desire to help us raise money with Microworks T shirts and sweatshirts@american-giant.com Mike. Go there now and buy something awesome, even if it's just a simple American made T shirt to help us close the skills gap. The quality is second to none. Use code Mike. Get 20% off your order at american-giant.com Mike. That's american-giant.comMike. american Giant, American made. American Giant, American made. Hey, thank you so much for making the time to do this.
- [05:31]
B
It's my pleasure. I've been Looking forward to it.
- [05:33]
A
Well, I've been wanting to do this for, I guess it's 18 months now. I think we met in Liechtenstein.
- [05:40]
B
That's right. Yep. Yep. I got to check another box on countries that I've traveled around the world. I've never been there before.
- [05:48]
A
How many. I mean, are you really keeping track? And how many is it?
- [05:51]
B
It's 24 now. That's good. Yeah. Pretty good.
- [05:54]
A
Pretty good. So we were in Liechtenstein. I was invited over there by US Money Reserve, a company that you happen to preside over. Is that the correct way to put it?
- [06:04]
B
Yeah. Yeah. President. You're the President presiding. Yeah.
- [06:07]
A
Yes. And I was there to investigate the process whereby precious metals can be turned into highly coveted rounds and bars for investments and for 401ks and for IRAs. But just for people who just love it, there's such an interesting passion that informs your chosen field. You're, for the record, a former director of the US Mint.
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B
That's right.
- [06:34]
A
That would have been under Clinton.
- [06:36]
B
Clinton, Yep.
- [06:37]
A
You guys still in touch?
- [06:38]
B
Not much. The Mint director is several rungs down the ladder. My son thought that, you know, he was my boss and I talk to him every day, but he had better things to do.
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A
What's it like you're the director of the U.S. mint? I mean, it's a job I think most people are aware exists.
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B
Right.
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A
But I can't imagine that anybody could accurately, like, write down your responsibilities.
- [07:08]
B
Yes, that's right. And that's because people don't really understand what the US Mint does. They think it produces the nation's coins, circulating coins, and that's it. That's what they really identify. And that's true. That's a very big part of the US Mint's, you know, writ. But also the Mint has several other lines of business. It produces bullion coins that compete in world markets. Gold, platinum, silver and palladium now. And we do. We sell those all. And I still talk about, as we being the United States Mint as though I'm a part of it. Because I think it's sort of like being a Marine. You're never an ex Marine.
- [07:47]
A
An Eagle Scout.
- [07:48]
B
Yeah, that's right. And so that's one line of business. Collectibles is another. Precious metals and base metal collectibles. Really big market in the United States. But one of the things I did was I took it globally. We ended up having distribution network for collectible coins for the World Cup 1994 matches here in the US then and 96 Olympic coin programs. And so that gave me three years to develop an international distribution network. And then the other thing that most people don't know is a line of business at the US Mint is we protect the facilities of the mints and Fort Knox. People think that the gold is controlled and protected by the Federal Reserve, but it's not. It's our job at the US Men.
- [08:39]
A
What does it look like protecting gold? Are you talking about human resources deployed with deadly force and guns and such? Or barbed wire, Constantine. Is it buried? Like, how do you protect the gold?
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B
It's all that. However, it's not like the atrium that you see in Goldfinger.
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A
Don't wreck it.
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B
No, that destroyed all of the. Some of the mystique. We got the mystique back, though, because of all the armaments and. And the. And the facility was placed right on the edge of an armored division fort, and so that the goal was to hold off any kind of attempt to penetrate the grounds until the armor could arrive.
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A
Now, are we talking about Fort Knox?
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B
Fort Knox, yeah.
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A
And is that still the primary facility where the chunk, a big bulk of the gold is?
- [09:35]
B
Yes, that is at Fort Knox. And.
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A
And it's really there, the gold?
- [09:39]
B
Yes, it's really there. I can attest to it, and I have no doubt whatsoever that it remains there, even though I haven't been there in a few years.
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A
What does it look like? I mean, I assume we're talking about hundreds, thousands of tons of gold.
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B
Just thousands of tons. Yes.
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A
I mean, I've been in some vaults.
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B
Yes.
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A
Before, surrounded by, I think, maybe a billion dollars in gold.
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B
Right.
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A
This is more.
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B
Yeah, this is more. It's not pretty. I mean, it's, you know, a vault. The whole building is a Works Progress Administration building, so it dates from the mid-1930s. So it's not an architectural gem. You know, it's certainly not on the inside.
- [10:23]
A
It's got that welcoming, Soviet style.
- [10:25]
B
Yes.
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A
Enter if you dare.
- [10:27]
B
Yeah. The American style. The Soviet style. Yeah. The American interpretation. Yeah. It's the force. It's the professionalism of the police force. It's the concertina wire that surrounds the place with a lot of open terrain between it and the building. You know, it's the spotlights that can be turned on at any time. If you ask, you know, whether or not there's ever been a penetration, they'll say no, but that's not exactly true.
- [10:58]
A
Really.
- [10:59]
B
Yes. There have been a few occasions where drunk soldiers have climbed the fence trying to avoid being caught, not realizing that they're at the depository. And so wait a minute.
- [11:14]
A
Trying to climb out or trying to climb in?
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B
Trying to climb in to get back into the base after, you know, returning late.
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A
I see.
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B
And so that has happened a few times, and they don't get very far. And it's a tough lesson.
- [11:30]
A
When we met in Liechtenstein, full disclosure, I think it was at a hotel bar, and it was getting late in the evening, and I had a series of questions that I was wanting to ask you kind of on the nose, but we wound up talking instead. And Ed was there, too. Ed Moyne.
- [11:49]
B
Right.
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A
Another Mint director, my colleague. Yes. Yes. And you two together. It was almost overwhelming. It was very difficult to talk about currency without talking about history. It's very hard to talk about history without talking about geography, hard to talk about geography without talking about philosophy. And somehow or other music gets all wrapped into it. The two of you together. It was just. It made me wish there were cameras with us that night. And I just. I mean, if this conversation goes as planned, I want people to have a better understanding of what role currency plays in their life beyond the business of transactions. There you are. And there's. There's Ed, there's me, and there's a billion dollars of precious metals all around me now.
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B
That looks nice.
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A
Yeah.
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B
That's a good presentation.
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A
It's crazy. Well, that's when I was trying to figure out, honestly, because I've been. I won't say suspicious, but I just didn't understand the difference between things like ETFs and physical gold and how you get physical gold into an ira. We can get into all that stuff, but to kind of stay on the same. Why is Fort Knox still relevant? Why is gold still important when there's no gold standard? And when did that leave, and what did that mean?
- [13:10]
B
Mm. Well, you know, that today is a really good example. What's been happening over the last two years in the gold market is a really good example of why gold remains relevant as it has for thousands of years and the circumstances under which it's clearly relevant. It's been relevant for thousands of years because it is the only asset that has been recognized for thousands of years worldwide, under all kinds of circumstances and all kinds of cultures, as this reliable store of value. And really what we're talking about, you know, there are terms that we use in this business that I think, you know, sort of fly by people. What do we mean by store of value? What we mean is that it does when other assets are crashing in value, like real estate or stocks or bonds or like Treasury Bills which have been the most reliable store of value along with gold for decades and decades. When those are crashing, gold typically holds its value or goes up in value. And sometimes you get a little head fake from gold. Gold for example, and we've seen this multiple times, but in the 2008 financial crisis, gold initially fell in value along with other asset classes. And the reason why that happens is because of margin calls. Investors buy stocks on margin and when they get a margin call, they have to sell assets. And sometimes gold is among the assets they have to sell to cover the margin. But right after that occurs, then you see gold rally. And gold continues to rally as the worst happens in stock markets and real estate.
- [15:11]
A
But long before we had the currency system that we have today, and really long before any organized country had figured out, had a trade in what I guess we'd recognize as currency, we were still obsessed with gold. Yes, it seems to be like there's something weirdly eternal about it. And where did that come from, you reckon?
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B
Well, it came from some unique qualities about gold. One is that it doesn't tarnish, so it retains its beauty. Also it.
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A
What's the word? Luster.
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B
It's luster. Yeah, exactly. It retains its luster. And so that is part of the magic and has been part of the magic. Also it's malleable. It doesn't, you know, distort easily, but it can be reshaped into jewelry, for example, and the combination of the ability to easily change it into jewelry and with that luster and gives it a special attraction as well. The other thing is that it's rare and it can't be counterfeited. And so you have a situation in which a highly sought after product is rare. In that context, then you know, it becomes very special. And there's nothing, there's no other metal like that, I guess.
- [16:41]
A
I mean, not to over romanticize it, but if you're looking at a gold chain on somebody's neck or a gold watch, or really any number of other things, who knows what that was a hundred years ago.
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B
That's right.
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A
Or a thousand.
- [16:54]
B
Yes, yeah, that's right. There is some romance to that. And here in the west we really think of jewelry as being a high priced, high margin product. But gold in East Asia is sold in jewelry form, but at a very small markup above the spot price of gold. And that's usually how gold in a retail market is sold. Instead of as bullion, it's sold as jewelry and it is weighed before it's sold. And the Merchant will actually check on the that the spot price at that time on a handheld device and sell you jewelry at a small margin above spot price.
- [17:46]
A
When NetSuite started advertising on this podcast just a few years ago, they had 25,000 customers all over the world, from startups to major corporations, and a solid reputation as a reliable ERP. Today, they have over 43,000 customers, and they continue to grow every month. I don't know how many of those customers came from this audience, but I'm guessing more than a few. And the reason is simple. Netsuite by Oracle is now the number one ERP out there by far. Now, if you don't know what ERP stands for, you probably don't need NetSuite. But if you run a business, you know how valuable it is to get your accounting, your financial management, your inventory, hr, everything onto one fluid platform. It's critical today more than ever, because if you get that right, you'll close your books in days, not weeks, and you'll spend less time looking backwards and more time actually building your business. Learn more@netuite.com Mike and while you're there, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning Learning. You don't have to be a CFO to do that, but it's an eye opener and it's free. You can get yours@netuite.com Mike, that's netsuite.com Mike, that's netSuite.com netsuite.com netsuite. Yes, netsuite. I said netsuite.com you said netsuite.com slash. Mike, why do you know as much as you do about this topic and how much of your experience predated your appointment as a Mint director? Like what? How does a guy like you turn into a guy like you?
- [19:40]
B
Well, yeah. Good question. My wife asked that. My wife for 52 years, I said, honey, you've been here the whole time.
- [19:50]
A
52 years of age or 52 years of togetherness?
- [19:52]
B
Togetherness.
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A
Now, I don't want to pry.
- [19:54]
B
No, I'm sure she feels like it's 100 years of age. Well, I knew nothing about coins. I never collected anything. Maybe some baseball cards. I knew nothing about coins and coinage and numismatics. I could pronounce numismatics, but that is hard.
- [20:10]
A
Look, I. That's one of those words I looked at in print for a while.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And I just thought, you know what? It's better not to attempt.
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B
Yeah. Really. It's a real tough one. Yeah.
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A
What about the definition of that. What is that of a numismatist? Well, the news, whatever the word is that you were trying to say you were in trouble. Numismatics.
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B
Yeah. Is the field of coinage collection and study. And a numismatous is a collector, Somebody who collects coins. Yeah, yeah. So it's one of those inside terms that, you know, is designed to separate the wheat from the shell.
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A
Well, I've seen it, like I said in writing all over the place, but about 10, 12 years ago, I met a new Ms. Whatever it is, new Ms. Numis. Numism.
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B
Numismatist.
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A
Numismatist.
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B
There it is.
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A
Who was involved in a salvage operation on a ship called the Central America.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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A
Which went down off the coast of North Carolina back in 1840 something or other. You know the story?
- [21:17]
B
I know a little of the story. Yeah.
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A
It's coming back from the gold fields after the gold rush. Ship was full of prospectors, many of whom had their gold sewn into their clothing. Wells Fargo had a. Had a safe on the ship. Yeah, the whole thing went down. I mean, it was basically America's Titanic. Yeah, before the Titanic, of course.
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B
I mean, hard to swim in a suit like that.
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A
Oh, I mean, everything. I mean, 550 men, most of the women got in boats, but an absolute ship ton of gold, a shipload wound up on the bottom. And boy, when they found that, what a story that is. And it's gold fever. Plus treasure hunting, plus pirates, plus new mismatches running amok all over the place. Anyway. Yes, the obsession with the coin, that's what I want to.
- [22:13]
B
And so I didn't know much about this business before I came into it. And why did I go to the US Mint? It was a very unusual path for someone like me. I came out of the 60s and the early 70s and I had a passion for making change in the world. And pun intended.
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A
Come on.
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B
I'm not a hippie, but because I grew up in Texas and I went to a small liberal arts college in Texas, So, no, I was not a hippie. You know, I was sort of mobilized by the civil rights movement and, of course, Vietnam War. Sure, I was fortunate. My number came up, you know, 287 or something like that. And in the lottery, so I always said, you know, women and children went before me. But my roommate, he drew a 13. And that was one of the remarkable things about my generation, those of us who are in college, was we had that experience in which we sat around in the dorm and watched television and watched ourselves be separated from those who were going, those who might go, and those who, like me, knew we weren't going to go by draft. And it's one of those indelible moments in my mind that I think has largely been forgotten in the culture of how that really did separate us. So I was mobilized early on and I chose political science as my field. I stayed in it do a career that took me to this University of Texas at Austin for a master's degree and Stanford University where I went to get a PhD degree before I realized that I was losing income. Every lifetime income, every time, every month that I stayed and I went back to work in practical politics.
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A
What was your major?
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B
Texas.
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A
Would you study at Sanford?
- [24:05]
B
I was political science.
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A
Political science the whole time?
- [24:08]
B
Yeah, I took some. I wasn't very popular. I was on a full fellowship. I wasn't very popular because. Because I had my differences with the department. And so I took two classes outside the field. One was in religious existentialism, of course, where I. Yes, of course.
- [24:25]
A
I mean, what self respecting political scientist doesn't want, you know, to read Kierkegaard. Yeah, the Unexamined Life. Yeah, exactly.
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B
And that course really was important for me. In fact, I. I loaded my son, my first son, firstborn, with the name Soren out of respect for Kierkegaard. Yeah. And then I took a course in organizational theory that was taught by a Stanford business school professor and that also really transformed my thinking.
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A
Wait, wait a minute. The course was called Organizational Theory.
- [25:00]
B
Organizational Theory, yeah.
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A
Under the imprimatur of philosophy or like.
- [25:06]
B
No, it was, it was actually in the anthropology department. He held dual professorships in anthropology and the business school and he was outstanding. Those two were by far the best professors I had in undergrad, graduate school, either place.
- [25:26]
A
I. This is a question I would ask anybody when they say something like that. Is it. Did you know it then or did it take some time to look back to realize the impact that a professor like that. You knew it was happening?
- [25:40]
B
I knew it was happening. And those two courses were transformational in very different ways. One was highly disruptive in the existentialism course, as you can imagine. And the organization theory course gave me tools that I've used my whole life, a whole new set of tools.
- [26:02]
A
Like what?
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B
Well, systems theory and understanding. And I have sort of a. I have sort of a natural systems approach and that I'm not real linear in my thinking. I tend to surround a subject in order to grok it. And. And so that gave me the tools to use along with what my sort of Instinctual approach to learning was.
- [26:30]
A
Did you say grok it?
- [26:31]
B
Yeah, grok.
- [26:32]
A
Like, did you. You're referring to the AI machine as a verb?
- [26:37]
B
Well, actually, the origin of that world, that word is from a book called Strangers in a Strange Land, a piece of science fiction written by.
- [26:48]
A
Not Lazarus Long, but Heinlein.
- [26:51]
B
Heinlein. Robert Heinlein. Yeah, yeah. Strangers in a Strange World. And that's the origin of the word grok. So I've been using that word. I read that book in eighth grade and I've used that word since then.
- [27:06]
A
Wait a minute, now it's popular. Do you think grok means to understand something deeply and intuitively, almost as if you become one with it?
- [27:14]
B
Yes.
- [27:15]
A
Heinlein is 61. Science fiction. Stranger in a Strange Land. Okay. Do you think that was great?
- [27:22]
B
That was confirmed.
- [27:23]
A
I love that he's getting faster. Chuck is. I mean, he's getting faster and faster with it.
- [27:27]
B
Every now and then, blind squirrel finds a nut.
- [27:28]
A
You know what I'm saying?
- [27:29]
B
Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna be real careful, though, with every.
- [27:32]
A
Yeah, be careful. There's. There's all sorts of things you can find on there. I love that you had an eighth grade teacher in 1960, whatever it was, who thought you should read that in the eighth grade.
- [27:46]
B
It wasn't a teacher. My older brother, seven year older brother read it and it was sitting on his desk and I picked it up and I became a huge Heinlein fan. And then, you know, Asimov and Clark.
- [28:02]
A
Arthur C. Clark, Bradbury, maybe. Clark especially.
- [28:06]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:07]
A
Out of that.
- [28:07]
B
Childhood's in. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and the foundation series, all those I loved, I devoured those.
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A
But in the eighth grade, you know, I mean, I had an eighth grade teacher who assigned us Lord of the Flies.
- [28:21]
B
Yeah.
- [28:22]
A
Which, you know, I mean, we read it and then we talked about it, like, in the eighth grade.
- [28:27]
B
Yeah.
- [28:28]
A
And I don't think you're allowed to read that in the eighth grade today. I wouldn't think so. And definitely not. I mean, those ideas were so. They were just so big.
- [28:37]
B
Yes. Yeah, exactly. They were huge ideas.
- [28:41]
A
Yes.
- [28:42]
B
That caught the imagination of me in eighth grade. And there weren't very many other kids in Lubbock, Texas, in my junior high that were reading those guys. A lot of that had to do with the fact that I was reading it because my older brother, who was in college already at that point and who was a true intellectual, was reading it.
- [29:03]
A
Now, is my timeline totally screwed up, or is Buddy Holly in the mix?
- [29:06]
B
Yeah, Buddy Holly's in The mix he and I share had the same homeroom in Lubbock High School. No kidding. Yeah. Not at the same time.
- [29:14]
A
Right.
- [29:14]
B
Well, but yeah, he was a few years older than me. I was also influenced in my music choices by my seven year older brother, so Johnny Mathis, Andy Williams, you know, all that cadre. And so I was, you know, moving to Lubbock, I was like a fish out of water. I didn't know who Buddy Holly was and I liked Ricky Nelson, not Elvis Presley and all that stuff. And so I had my head turned around, but yeah, yeah, Buddy Holly.
- [29:46]
A
So how do Buddy Holly. Organization theory, Stranger in a Strange Land, how do these things conspire to birth a future director of the U.S. mint?
- [30:00]
B
Hmm. Well, it is a mixed bag, isn't it?
- [30:04]
A
It's a crooked road for sure.
- [30:05]
B
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I talk about, you know, I laugh and talk about my checkered past. I have done so many different things in my career. And I started working when I was 14 years old there in Lubbock, Texas. My family owned a small family motel, 22 rooms, had a little restaurant. It was U shaped like those are on one of the roadways coming in going out to Clovis Road. There was nothing between us and the North Pole but barbed wire and tumbleweeds. And when the cold fronts would come through, those tumbleweeds would end up in our pool, in the hotel pool. And so. And as the older son at home, it was my job to pull them out. And tumbleweeds are pretty light until they soak up a bunch of water. And I was a skinny kid, I was a little kid. And I learned the value of work early on. And to get over my resentment of having to do it, I found ways to make it, if not fun, at least tolerable.
- [31:12]
A
Sure.
- [31:13]
B
And I didn't really have any choice in the matter. But looking back on it, I wouldn't exchange that experience for anything. I worked pipeline construction. My dad was a pilot for a pipeline company and he got me my first job after my freshman year in college. And I worked three summers and one fall, a total of one year in pipeline construction as a swamper on a side boom machine. Just a basic laborer. I was promoted to being a bending machine operator where you bend been these huge links of pipes. And that was really crucial to me because it allowed me to prove myself among men.
- [31:55]
A
To other men or to you?
- [31:58]
B
To myself.
- [32:03]
A
Of all the unauthorized jingles I've written for sponsors over the years, I think this one hits the nail on the head. Pretty well. Come on and build a submarine, why don't you build a submarine? Simple, right? The maritime industrial base is currently building and delivering three nuclear powered submarines every year to the US Navy. That's every year for the next 10 years. And to make that happen, they're hiring 250,000 tradespeople. 250,000. I'm talking about incredibly stable AI proof careers just waiting for anyone who wants to learn a skill that's in demand and start a career with some actual purpose. Additive manufacturing, CNC machining, metrology, welding, pipe fitting, electrical. It's all spelled out for you@buildsubmarines.com. this is where all the hiring is happening and you really do need to see it to get a sense of just how much opportunity is out there. That's buildsubmarines.com. feel free to sing along. Come on and build a submarine. Why don't you build a submarine@buildsubmarines.com?
- [33:18]
B
You know, it was ultimately to myself, that's what motivated me. If I just wanted to prove myself to other men, I wouldn't put up with it. I was proving it to myself and I was transforming myself. There were habits in the family that I didn't like and doing that work gave me the discipline to change myself. And so, you know, it was fantastic and it set me apart in my generation, I think, having done hard physical labor where I not only won the admiration of other men who worked hard physical labor and skilled, I mean, you know, there are a lot of skilled workers there too.
- [34:06]
A
So do you remember a time when that realization really hit home? I'm referring to the moment where I think so many people are brought up to look at work in silos. You know, manual grunt work, hard work here, intellectual, thoughtful, cerebral work here. Yeah, right.
- [34:26]
B
Yes.
- [34:27]
A
And then all of a sudden, for me, I remember being up in the Bakken and seeing the first horizontal drilling that I'd seen where pipes are sent down over a mile and then they bend.
- [34:40]
B
Yes.
- [34:41]
A
They bend them underground.
- [34:43]
B
Yeah.
- [34:43]
A
And like the chemistry and the science, it's fracking. Yeah.
- [34:48]
B
You're talking about.
- [34:49]
A
I'm talking about fracking. It is mind boggling. It's a miracle of human flight. Thought combined with brute force.
- [34:58]
B
Yes.
- [34:58]
A
And I find that kind of intoxicating.
- [35:01]
B
Yes too.
- [35:02]
A
Because I, I, I don't know why we've worked so hard to separate the two.
- [35:06]
B
Yeah. That's one of the things that I learned was, and you've put your finger on it, I'm a different animal. And there was a beauty to Hard physical labor that I came to appreciate. And where I really came to appreciate it was when the way I got to be a bending machine operator was the crew consists of the guy who drives the side boom, the bending machine operator, and two guys who handle the pipe well. And typically, sometimes you'd have somebody who was, who really knew what they were doing in that job to go along with you. And lots of time you had the, you know, some kid who was on the basketball team at Texas Tech or the football team. And once I got on the inside, then I enjoyed, like the rest of them did, running those guys off because they couldn't keep up with us.
- [36:01]
A
And so what's more dangerous, the guy who doesn't know what he's doing or the guy who doesn't want to be there?
- [36:09]
B
Well, they're usually the same guy, you know, they're usually the same guy. If you have somebody who doesn't know what they're doing but is paying attention and is wanting to learn, then great, you know, but that's not typically what you have. That was me. That was me when I started out. Although I have to say that the first job I was on was on a crew like this in which it was a father and two sons and me. And I was like a fish out of water in that crew. I mean, they knew exactly how to do their job. And I was lost. I didn't have the slightest idea. It was the very first job I had on the pipeline and I thought I was going to be fired. And I almost was fired. They ended up giving me another job that I could do. And then later on, I proved to myself that I could do this. These are hard jobs in which you're running all day long and you're guiding an 80 foot piece of pipe down as fast as a side boom can go in order to get it to the bending machine and bend it and then running it back into the. Onto the right of way. And then at some point, then you pick up the vending machine and move it down the right way and keep doing it.
- [37:25]
A
The thing that interests me so much about what you're describing is that like so many dirty jobs, there's a satisfaction, I think, that comes in always knowing how you're doing. And you always know how you're doing because you have eyes and you can see the progress right in front of you. I want to kind of linger on it for a little bit because I know when we snap forward, we're going to talk about the team you assembled at the US Mint and that team and that crew would need to function in ways that are probably somewhat comparable to what you're describing in now, but for the fact that you probably didn't have the visual reminder of how you're doing at every turn.
- [38:04]
B
Right.
- [38:04]
A
You're in the government, for God's sakes. You're like.
- [38:06]
B
You're.
- [38:06]
A
You're dealing with more Kierkegaardian ideas and theory, organization theory.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah.
- [38:13]
A
This is so different than that.
- [38:15]
B
Yes.
- [38:15]
A
This is the brute reality of bending pipe and connecting civilization.
- [38:21]
B
Yeah, well, and. But there's the beauty in it. And the beauty in it was crucial to me in the moment because, well, the way I got to be the bending machine operator was we ran off the other laborer who's, you know, not caring. I always have to watch out for him. I just said, you know, it makes my job easier if I don't have to watch out for him. And then the Bender machine operator took off for another job, and the head of the crew was the side boom operator. And he went to the boss and said, you should give this guy the bending machine, and he can do all three jobs, but if he's going to do all three jobs, you got to pay him the higher salary of the bending machine operator. And so we went to the union, to the head of the union. This is in Arizona, and he said, okay, I'll look the other way. He doesn't have that card.
- [39:13]
A
Give me a year.
- [39:14]
B
Where are you in 71?
- [39:21]
A
God, I'm so tempted to ask you to riff on the way work has changed. That kind of work in particular, the way a corner could be cut, the way compliance maybe was a thing, but maybe it wasn't the biggest thing all of the time.
- [39:38]
B
Oh, yeah, right.
- [39:39]
A
How things get done. I'm eternally interested in that and the way they change in the course of a single lifetime.
- [39:47]
B
Yes.
- [39:48]
A
Yeah.
- [39:48]
B
You know, I can really address that more in my experience at the United States Mint, because we took the mint 40 years in terms of its manufacturing ethos and the technology we used. Over the course of five years, we jumped at 40 years ahead.
- [40:09]
A
And modesty aside, how much of that was a result of your own force of will?
- [40:15]
B
Yeah, that was. I mean, I drove that.
- [40:18]
A
And how much of that driving was presaged by bending pipe?
- [40:26]
B
No, the work ethic. Very much the work ethic was part of that. As we accomplished, as we hit all these marks at the transformation of the US Mint, people would say, well, can't we take a break after celebrating? And I'd say, yeah. Come back tomorrow and be ready.
- [40:48]
A
Go home and take a break.
- [40:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. And so I was driven to prove some things over the course of my career. And there were things related to values, deeply held values. One of the things that really resonated with me in the Kierkegaard course was I discovered my ethical DNA, my religious DNA in that course. I sort of stood out in that class. And I say that because that's what the professor said. And the reason was because I was discovering, I was tracing my own DNA, my intellectual and values DNA in that course. So Kierkegaard is really hard to understand because he seeks to hide the meeting. He makes you work for it. So there's the work ethic again. But it wasn't that much of a mystery to me. I got it. I understood what he was doing and why he was doing it that way.
- [41:49]
A
What was the exact quote from Kierkegaard? The unexamined life is not worth living. Yeah.
- [41:54]
B
Yeah. And. Oh, there's a number of them. Of course, he's well known for. For fear and trembling and also for the leap of faith. That is.
- [42:06]
A
That's a good one.
- [42:06]
B
Yeah. The leap of faith which has entered the vernacular.
- [42:10]
A
I wonder if Hunter Thompson borrowed or took Fear and Loathing from Fear and Trembling.
- [42:15]
B
Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, well, I would bet he did. There's a twist in that. That is so Hunter Thompson.
- [42:22]
A
There's a twist in everything. Thompson. Yeah. Now, did he impact your life? I'm just going back to your 60s roots and this journey from a pipe bender to a sort of an idealist.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah.
- [42:35]
A
To somewhat of an intellectual, I suppose. And were you reading Thompson? Did you like to him late?
- [42:41]
B
I came to him late as well. Well past his. I had a lot of makeup to do because I grew up in Lubbock, Texas, and because I identified so much with my older brother, he was in a different generation. He grew up in a. My family was in. I was born into a family that lived in Highland Park, a suburb of Dallas, one of the richest zip codes in the country. Now, then probably as well. I don't think they had zip code yet, but they would have. And so he went all the way through school into. All the way through his junior and high school at this fantastic school and this very well to do district that was very stabilized. My family went through a progression of downward social mobility and that. And that's another thing that really transformed me. I think if I had grown up like he did in Highland Park, I know I would have ended up a very different Person.
- [43:46]
A
Wait a minute. Thompson grew up in Highland Park.
- [43:49]
B
No, no, my brother.
- [43:49]
A
Oh, okay.
- [43:50]
B
I'm sorry. I changed.
- [43:52]
A
You are a nonlinear thinker.
- [43:54]
B
Yeah. The. The transition here is that I was. My older brother transformed me. I looked up to him. So I was really outside of the mainstream even before I got to Buddy Holly.
- [44:05]
A
Right.
- [44:05]
B
And so. And so Hunter Thompson, you know, I came to later when I got into the 70s.
- [44:13]
A
This is why Heinlein matters and books matter. I remember. I've known Chuck 45 years. This guy here.
- [44:21]
B
Wow.
- [44:21]
A
And one of the first books.
- [44:23]
B
He doesn't look old enough to trust me. Thank you. Thank you, Philip.
- [44:26]
A
Thank you. Go ahead, take the mask off. Show them what's showing. What's under there? No, in your old apartment. Years and years ago. I think that's the first time I saw Hunter Thompson's book. It was Fear and. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Las Vegas. Yeah. And I. Gonzo journalism. Right. And.
- [44:44]
B
Yeah.
- [44:45]
A
What's the great quote? Somebody's. I think. I think it was the music business, or it might have been the entertainment business, but he called it a. A long plastic hallway, a cruel money trench where pimps and thieves run free and good men die like dogs. The entertainment industry. Yeah. Yeah. Which, you know, it holds up.
- [45:08]
B
Yeah. So anyway, it sounds like World War I.
- [45:11]
A
Talk about a trench. Yeah. All right. Well, I actually do want to ask you about the first and Second World War and the Peloponnesian wars, too, and the Trojan War, if we can get to it. And the War of the Roses and the Crusades. Because money.
- [45:25]
B
Yes.
- [45:26]
A
Like, is there ever a war that started that wasn't somehow the result of a financial drama? Dumb. Every year on the fourth Thursday of November, we gather around the dinner table with friends and family to share a meal and give thanks. As traditions go, it's hard to beat Thanksgiving. But my friends at Good Ranchers are wondering, why wait till the last Thursday of November to share a meal with the people you love and give thanks for all you have? So they've started a fun little promotion called Back to the Table. And it works like this. Gather round the dinner table with the people you love tonight or tomorrow night and share a meal. Take a photo, make it interesting. Post that photo under Stories on your Instagram page backtothetable, and tag Good Ranchers. Every Thursday between now and Thanksgiving, Good Ranchers will reward their favorite photos with a free ham. Who doesn't love a free ham? Especially from an American farm. I subscribe to Good Ranchers because all their beef and meat and pork come from farms and ranches in this country. That's important to me. So too is the cost and the convenience of having the best steak money can buy delivered straight to my door every month along with a free gift. In fact, Good Ranchers is offering free meat for life to all new subscribers, along with a $40 discount. When you use code mike@goodranchers.com, that's code mikeodranchers.com welcome back to the table. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch. Get Good Ranchers now.
- [47:16]
B
Oh, money was always involved. I mean, I have really, as I've gotten older and have had the time, I've done much more and deeper reading in history and going back 3,4000 years. Whereas before, as I was coming up, I was much more interested in American history and European history. The short answer to your question is no. I mean, every war has involved a significant financial component, but I think it's important not to short shrift other forces that drive war. Religion. I mean, there were hundreds of years in which. Which Europe was wracked by wars of religion. Unless we know that history, then we don't understand the ground from which America grew. The separation of church and state that was so fundamental to Jefferson and the other founders wasn't some philosophical point of view they had. It was their knowledge of how many millions upon millions upon millions of Europeans had died in wars of religion. Until finally the slaughter was such that neither side could prevail and they were forced to reach some kind of an accommodation.
- [48:46]
A
It went splat, essentially.
- [48:48]
B
Yep.
- [48:48]
A
Just fought themselves to exhaustion.
- [48:51]
B
Yes. And so out of that experience, and that is one of the things that, you know, so powerful about the American story is the, our ability to apply the lessons of history and grow a little bit wiser by it. Yeah. And you know, the, the people who, the men and women who we're celebrating still today, from the greatest generation, my father was one of them. One Distinguished Flying Cross. Flying the hump.
- [49:25]
A
Flying the hump?
- [49:26]
B
Yeah, flying the hump.
- [49:27]
A
Explain what that means.
- [49:28]
B
Flying Burma, China and flying supplies into the Allied troops over the Himalayas. I didn't really. I had no interest in my dad's story, you know, when I was growing up. But I, my son went into the Air Force Force, and I got a call from his commanding officer asking me if I was willing to provide the keynote address at the ball, the Air Force Ball that year. And I said, well, first of all, there's a keynote address at a Ball. What is that?
- [50:02]
A
That sounds exciting.
- [50:03]
B
Yeah.
- [50:03]
A
Honey, get in here. It's time for the keynote.
- [50:06]
B
Yes. And I said, I bet those are short. He says, no, you know, the last one was like 56 minutes. I said, I said, okay, I think I can beat that. And so I went and I did a lot of research on my dad's. What my dad's experience would have been like flying the. The Hump. And I learned a lot about the heroism. And I also learned how he had applied this natural gift he had at dead reckoning and that I knew from my youth. Incredible how my dad always knew where true north was. And so of course, the Japanese would fly, you know, would use radar beams and such to fly planes into mountains and such. And my dad was never fooled by that.
- [50:55]
A
So he just. What a. What a gift that is. Have you sidebar. But it's a very short book called Longitude. Have you read it?
- [51:04]
B
I'm not familiar with that. No.
- [51:06]
A
You can read it on the flight, on the way back. It tells the story of the search for longitude. We always knew latitude.
- [51:14]
B
Oh, yes, I've seen this book.
- [51:16]
A
But longitude was tough because to calculate longitude at sea, you needed to know what time it was wherever you were. And there were no timepieces in the day that could accurately keep the time at sea because of the motion. So the race to find a simple calculus for longitude was global. There was a massive prize put up for it, and the race to get this prize is so epic. But a guy like your dad probably could have figured it out because you always know where true north is. It's amazing.
- [51:48]
B
Yeah. I got into my dad's head more. I knew because I lacked in interest, which I regret I didn't quiz him enough for some of his stories. But one of them was these guys flew around the clock. You know, they'd get out of one plane and they'd unload and fly back and they'd load up and that's when they'd have their chance to rest and get out of the plane when they were loading back up. Because when they unloaded, they just pushed stuff out of the plane. Yeah, because there's gunfire always around. Around the airfield.
- [52:22]
A
Because things aren't exciting enough flying over the Hump. It's best to be up for a few days straight with people shooting at you to really get the juices flowing.
- [52:29]
B
Yeah, exactly. So he told me this story about how he was captain and typically the captain would take off and then turn it over to the co pilot and he'd take a Nap during that period of time, the co pilot would fly for some period of time, and they were flying all the time. And so my dad nodded off, and his head was over toward the side of the window, and in his sleep, he thought he heard a change in the pitch of the engine. And he was so tired that he didn't want to wake himself up, but he did. And he saw the Himalayan plane 100ft beneath him. And, you know, he turned and looked at the co pilot, and co pilot was asleep. And he turned and looked at the navigator, and the navigator was asleep. And so he just took it off autopilot and, you know, raised the altitude and put the autopilot back on and told the co pilot, hey, it's your turn.
- [53:26]
A
Went back to sleep and went back to sleep.
- [53:28]
B
And I said, dad, you didn't report him? And he said, oh, heavens no. It would have destroyed his life. And I didn't understand the context that these guys were pushing the limits of human endurance. You know, they understood each other and they had each other's backs.
- [53:47]
A
This was the point I was trying to make before. There's no model for it. There's no playbook for it. But, you know, the business of turning a blind eye to a. An HR issue on a pipe bending crew. Yeah, right.
- [54:02]
B
Yeah.
- [54:04]
A
It's just a matter of degree we're talking about.
- [54:06]
B
Right.
- [54:06]
A
It's not so different than nodding off, you know, on a combat mission and then not reporting. Right. It's just. It's like this idea that there's. There's compliance, but, you know, there's judgment also.
- [54:21]
B
Absolutely.
- [54:22]
A
And there's this giant human condition going on. And I'm sure we'll find a way to apply this to. To life at the Mint as well. But all of these things. This is what happened in Liechtenstein, folks. 18 months ago. It was like. It's very difficult to have a linear conversation with you, but it also wouldn't be very satisfying because all of this is just so agitating. And right here, look, this is how your company, basically, we wound up getting in business together. Not because I thought it was a good idea to diversify my 401k with some precious metals, which, full disclosure, I did. And I appreciate that. Thanks very much. Whatever.
- [55:03]
B
Sure.
- [55:03]
A
It's because you said we've got this valor and victory series of coins that are honoring the greatest generation, and there are only a few thousand guys walking around now who are 100 years old who fought in the great battles of this war. And Mike, would you be interested in presenting These coins to a few of these old men. And it took me, I don't know, maybe a quarter second, maybe a half second. I was like, hell, yeah. And so listening to you talk about your dad, did that somehow inform the company's decision to move forward with a project like this and talk about how currency can honor courage?
- [55:49]
B
Yes.
- [55:49]
A
Because that's such a big part of what you guys did here.
- [55:53]
B
Yes. Oh, absolutely. The program was born out of, number one, a commitment inside the company to public service and honoring people with public service. And that is something that is close to my heart, because half of my career has been spent in business and half of it has been spent in public service. And I mean service not simply working for the government. And there are a lot of people like me who worked in the service of the public. So that was really crucial to me. And also what was crucial to me is that there's a legacy that. A really complex and multifaceted legacy that the greatest generation handed to us. And some of that legacy we talk about all the time. I mean, we celebrate it in. In movies and we romanticize it, and we honor men and women who really understand that they don't deserve the honor or they feel like they don't deserve the honor, but they accept it as representatives of their kind.
- [57:17]
A
I would go so far as to say the men that I gave these to, including at the Naval Memorial, the top guy there, I think they understand the need for us.
- [57:34]
B
Yes.
- [57:34]
A
To thank them.
- [57:35]
B
Yeah.
- [57:36]
A
You know, I mean, just a few hours ago, a guy named Johnny Joey Jones, was sitting right where you are. He lost his legs in Afghanistan. And he's written this great book called behind the Badge. And it's very difficult for him to talk about. It's hard for him to talk about him.
- [57:54]
B
Yeah.
- [57:56]
A
But he understands that people need to come up to him and thank him. And so there's a real grace, and you find it in guys like that. But I found it in the men that you sent me out to present these to as well. Even at 100, 101 years old, it never goes away.
- [58:16]
B
Yes, yes, yes. And this is a role that coins have played throughout the history of coinage. And it's something that I didn't really appreciate. I was like. When I went to the Met, I was like most Americans, coinage are a tool. They're means of conducting commerce. Symbolism of them, the beauty of them. None of that meant anything to me. It was only after I was educated by my customers who, like you say, have passion for coins and the art, the Art of coinage that I began to understand the enormous symbolic value of coinage and how throughout history that humans have understood that symbolic value. That's why the images of kings were on coins. You didn't find everyday people on coins. You had kings. And when the next earlier king was decapitated, one of the first things the new king did was put his head on the coins. So.
- [59:21]
A
So the mints were busy.
- [59:22]
B
Yeah, the mints were busy. Yeah, the mints were busy. And this is something that Thomas Jefferson understood when he wrote the. When he basically created the United States, met one of the first agencies of the federal government after the ratification of the Constitution.
- [59:39]
A
That was Jefferson, too.
- [59:40]
B
That was Jefferson and Hamilton, one of the last times they worked on, collaborated on something together. But Jefferson, at the same time Jefferson was writing in committee the Declaration of Independence, at the same time, he was working on his theory of coinage. And the United States Mint is a product of that intellectual endeavor.
- [60:03]
A
What was his theory of coinage in a nutshell?
- [60:06]
B
Well, as you can imagine, it was. He sought to democratize commerce through coinage. And if you ever dealt with currency that is not decimal, where you have to memorize how the units of measure relate to each other, then you get a sense for how complex it was for uneducated people to, you know, basically people who couldn't read or write to conduct business. And in the United States, it was further complicated because multiple national currencies circulated at the same time. So you might be doing change between one currency and another currency, and they're not in decimals. So what Jefferson sought to do was to create coinage that even people who had never really gone to school could conduct business with by having the decimal system.
- [61:11]
A
So a penny, a nickel, a dime, a quarter relates to a dollar in a different way that. Like a pound or a shilling or a pence.
- [61:18]
B
Yes, yes, that's exactly right.
- [61:21]
A
That was revolutionary.
- [61:22]
B
Yes, it was. And you can't help but wonder if that level of complication was a feature, not a bug, of currency systems.
- [61:32]
A
Keep the people stupid.
- [61:33]
B
Yep. Yeah, exactly. And so Jefferson would have none of that. And so the coinage system that he was designing at that time was based on, you know, his insights into the democratization that he sought. And one of the things that he also. And Washington got into this. Washington. And Jefferson, of course, was Washington's first secretary of state. And Washington had a role in selection of his first mint director, who was the greatest Met director in the country's history. Sacrificed his life, basically.
- [62:14]
A
Who was that?
- [62:15]
B
His name's Rittenhouse and is Rittenhouse Square.
- [62:19]
A
Named for him in Philadelphia.
- [62:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [62:22]
A
I lived there.
- [62:22]
B
Yes. Yep.
- [62:23]
A
For a summer.
- [62:24]
B
Yep. And so. And Washington refused to have his visage put on the nation's first coins. He said, no, that's where kings go and I'm no king. And as a result, there's never been a living president placed on an American coin. And it wasn't until early in the 20th century before any president was depicted on a coin.
- [62:53]
A
Wait, so Jefferson's theory of coinage and his theory of governance basically are hand in glove.
- [63:05]
B
Yeah, they grew out of the same ground.
- [63:07]
A
Yeah, that's exactly like the wine he grew as well.
- [63:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
- [63:11]
A
This guy was really a show off, man. He really just, he just couldn't stop.
- [63:16]
B
Can you, who can you do? Kennedy said that he was at a dinner in which there are many, many, you know this line. Kennedy was at a dinner in which he was speaking at the White House in which there were all these eminent figures and which he said, there has never been a time at the White House in which there had been such great intellect at the table since Jefferson dined alone. And so he put a lot of thought into it, and Americans really. And he also understood that a nation's coinage is an expression of its sovereignty. And if other nations coinage was circulating in the nation, there's questions about the nation's sovereignty. And so there were all these sort of practical, pragmatic reasons for the foundation of U.S. mint, and then all these powerful symbolic reasons as well that all came into play in the spirit of.
- [64:22]
A
The hopscotch that we've clearly engaged back to the mint. You said that you basically did 40 years of work in five.
- [64:31]
B
Yes.
- [64:32]
A
So in what condition was the mint when you inherited it? What was broken and under your tutelage, what was fixed?
- [64:44]
B
So everything was broken. There's really, I, I'd have to really work to figure out something that wasn't broken. Jeez. Well, it was like, I, I, I.
- [64:58]
A
Don'T want you to throw anybody under the bus, but who's responsible for that? Yeah, I mean, was that just bit a little drip, drip, drip of like just casual chronic indifference, or did one guy just go in and just screw the pooch?
- [65:09]
B
Well, let me, let me say this. My predecessor, David Ryder, only had the position for a short period of time because George, he was an appointee of George H.W. bush. I came in as a Clinton appointee, and so he had to make room for me. So he was only in that position for a couple years. I came over to take a look at the job before I decided to take it. And he gave me a fantastic introduction to the challenges of the place. He's still a good friend.
- [65:44]
A
Yeah.
- [65:44]
B
You know, Republican, Democrat, disagree on a lot of things. Ed Moy is a Republican and Democrat.
- [65:51]
A
And to be clear, this is not to make this a commercial, but US Money Reserve is a commercial enterprise, and at the top of the food chain are two former directors of the US Mint from different sides of the aisle.
- [66:03]
B
Yes.
- [66:04]
A
Yeah, I like that. I like these. I like you guys, you know, but I just think that's another reason I wanted to have you on full disclosure. I just don't. I don't know many Republicans and Democrats who genuinely seem to not only respect and like each other, but, like, hang out often.
- [66:23]
B
Yeah, we really do. I did not know Ed before he came into the company. I might have met him before, but I'd never spent any time with him. So. And I'd been at the company for several years, and so I didn't know what the situation was going to be like, what it was going to feel like, and was this going to be a point, counterpoint sort of relationship. But Ed and I have become really good friends, he and I, and we are constantly discovering how much we agree in certain areas. Certainly around. I'm kind of a fiscal conservative for being a liberal Democrat, but. But I believe in responsibility. I believe in, you know, we should be responsible with our budgets.
- [67:09]
A
Well, you certainly believe in consequences.
- [67:11]
B
I believe in consequences.
- [67:12]
A
I mean, you're. You're a consequential man. And this is a consequential commodity. This is a product, and it has massive implications.
- [67:23]
B
We know and we understand that's something that Ed and I share, and that is we understand the significance of those consequences, not just for the nation. I mean, you know, that's kind of where we come from, from the big picture financial world, but also for individuals. We can look ahead. We both have this ability because we've been at the high levels of the government. We've been around these issues for a long time. And now because we are so immersed in what the implications are for individuals, we can look down the road a little bit. And I think we have more credibility in talking about why precious metals make sense to people, many more people than you know, than who have considered precious metals being important.
- [68:13]
A
See, I don't think I'm just going to move this real quick. I don't think. Let me say it like this. I think there's a big difference between buying something and being Sold something. And, you know, the investment world is complicated and consequential, and obviously precious metals play a big role in it. But the thing that attracted me to your company, it was this idea that gold still feels kind of nonpartisan. It feels kind of agnostic.
- [68:47]
B
Agnostic, yeah.
- [68:49]
A
It just is what it is. And everybody kind of agrees more or less, on its significance. Maybe there's some disagreement over the degree to which it should be held or how it should be deployed. I can't speak to that. But I do know, and this is really a confession, and not to make this about me or hijack it, but when we were in Liechtenstein 18 months ago, and when we first, you guys told me about this Valor and Victory series, that's when I was like, wait a minute. What else is egalitarian and agnostic? What else do my friends on both sides of the aisle agree with? Like, work ethic is a thing.
- [69:28]
B
Yep.
- [69:29]
A
The trades. The importance of the trades. So you guys, let me run with this. You. You minted this Trade of America coin. And I don't know how up to speed you are, but we. These things sold out to raise money for my Work Ethic Scholarship Foundation. I know. In, like, hours.
- [69:48]
B
Yes.
- [69:49]
A
It went fast. So, shameless pluggery aside, I kind of feel like underneath all of this are some big themes that can unite the country, at least for a little while, in polite conversation.
- [70:06]
B
Yes.
- [70:06]
A
You know, a shared history, a shared coinage, a shared respect for pipe bending and hard work and Buddy Holly and all these things. So, Amalie, am I just reading way too much into all of it or just.
- [70:17]
B
No, no, I think you're absolutely right. The trades, we have a growing appreciation, especially those of us who aren't very good with our hands. I'm not really good with my hands. And I have a great appreciation for people who are. And being able to find them in a work environment in which we are way short on the number of. Of tradespeople that the country needs. And one of the good things that comes out of that is that wages are going up. Because of that, they need to go up more. And we need to do a better job at encouraging young people to go into the trades to understand what the advantages are, the economic and lifestyle advantages are of going into the trades. I was listening to a program this morning about how frustrated so many young men are about their inability to start families because. And they're living at home or they're bunking up with two other guys. And the trades represent this opportunity to create that the life that they Want. There's been way too much emphasis placed on going to college and getting a college degree and going to become a lawyer. Lawyers have, what, the highest suicide rate of any profession?
- [71:44]
A
It's right up there with dentists.
- [71:45]
B
Yeah. And so there's been all this misdirection for American youth. And part of that has to do with just the fact that the culture has looked down on or hasn't approved, appreciated the role of the tradesman.
- [72:02]
A
Why do you suppose that's happened? And I ask because I'm asked twice a week by people writing articles about why we waged a kind of war on the part of the workforce that we rely upon. Why do we grow to resent fear, the thing we rely upon?
- [72:26]
B
Yeah.
- [72:27]
A
Tell us the matter with us.
- [72:28]
B
Yes. Well, I think our parents and grandparents deserve some of the credit for that because they tell the story of how hard they work in the trades. So you don't have to. That was a very consistent message to my generation.
- [72:46]
A
Want something better for my kids.
- [72:48]
B
I want something better for my kids. And the fact of the matter is that the trades are not the trades that my grandparents worked in. I mean, there's a skill level, a technology level that goes way beyond that. But there's this tarnish that has remained on the skills trade that I think has been really hard to knock off.
- [73:16]
A
Chuck, find. I take it back. I am going to make it a shameless plug. Find the obverse of this Trades of America coin. It's on usmr.com mike.
- [73:29]
B
Okay.
- [73:30]
A
I just want people to see it up close because it's such a great bookend. You just use the word tarnish and we started with the word luster.
- [73:39]
B
Yeah, right.
- [73:39]
A
I think they're opposites, you know, so a lot of what we have to do reputational wise, is. Is shine them up, you know, but not in a sales job. It's an honest. I think that the myths and misperceptions and stigmas and stereotypes that surround certain types of investments also surround certain types of jobs, and they surround certain types of education. And we are in a constant war for PR mindshare in virtually everything. So what I loved about that. And you can find the opposite one, if you wouldn't mind, too, the guy.
- [74:20]
B
Oh, I thought you.
- [74:21]
A
This was the one that you. Obverse and reverse are complicated. It's heads and tails. Typically, obverse is heads, obverse is heads, reverse is tails. But typically that might be the obverse because it. For reasons I don't understand, but the front of the coin is the one I want to see. Okay, here it comes. Standing next to it because there you've got no tarnish. That's lustrous. Yes. That's five ounces of silver. We tried to capture with a visage and with a posture and with an attitude. You know, I didn't want to go full works project on it, but how in a coin, and how close do you think we came with this to kind of checking the aspirational box while paying some sort of tribute to all of it?
- [75:07]
B
Oh, I think it's great. In representing the dignity of work and the product of that work. That's the thing that for me, the dignity of work was crucial. That show, you know, proving to myself that I earned a place among men.
- [75:24]
A
To be weighed and measured.
- [75:27]
B
To be weighed and measured. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Like. Like precious metals. Exactly. And so I think it does a beautiful job of representing that this is something that's going to be an enormous challenge that's coming around the corner. It's happening already. And that is, how are you going to maintain people's dignity in the face of AI? What work are people going to have that allow them to earn that self respect? And for me, that has been crucial. And it's one of the things that I tried to teach my sons. And they are successful in making their career. You know, that's one of the proudest thing any parent has, is that their children can go and be successful in the world, you know, and they're old enough, they're in their late 30s and 40s, where they'll probably be chased by the AI bug as they go up in their lives, but they're not younger, where they're already in the battlefield.
- [76:28]
A
Well, no crystal balls, and I won't hold you to it, but, you know, how do you handicap this? What do you think the answer is? Where are we going to find dignity? What will work look like? And is there going to be some sort of counterbalance? If so much of what's coming has the word artificial in front of it, what's the corollary? Authenticity. And how are we going to find that and how valuable is that going to be? Wow, I just brought it back to gold accidentally. But like, what is the real and the eternal and the unchanging thing in a future that seems to be defined by artificiality?
- [77:05]
B
Yeah, well, it's all about purpose and finding means by which people find their purpose. And work is one of those ways in which we found purpose. I certainly did. And it's one of the ways that I transform the US Meant me and others who shared those values.
- [77:23]
A
Way to bring that back. Because last we left, that old Rittenhouse had just brought you up to speed. Everything had crapped the bed. Nothing was working the way it was supposed to work.
- [77:32]
B
Yes.
- [77:33]
A
What'd you change and how'd you fix it?
- [77:34]
B
Well, when I went over to the Mint, I was handed a remit, and that was to fix the financial management mess at the Mint. And I'm good with numbers. I know how to balance a budget. But our situation was enormously complex. And the reason was because Congress, in its wisdom, had written into law this spaghetti mess of financial relationships and fund relationships that made it impossible for the US Mint to survive an independent audit. US Mint was one of the first federal government agencies back in the 90s to be subjected to a financial audit. Independent audit. Now all government agencies are. And we failed it. Not because there was money leak in all of the the place. It's just that they couldn't even pressure test it to see if it was.
- [78:32]
A
I mean, we all understand the irony of a Mint failing an audit, right?
- [78:36]
B
Yes. Right. And there was no way of fixing that without passing law through Congress. Good luck with that. Even then, it was so difficult. And those were the beginning days. It was right at the time of the Gingrich revolution, in which Republicans and Democrats started going their own way and, you know, to a degree, hadn't been in the past. So that was the first thing that was handed to me. The second thing that I adopted was a major customer service initiative. And the reason why I chose customer service is that my philosophy as I walked in the door was that you have to strip the insulation off of an organization and shovel them in front of their customers. Right. So that the customers can tell them what they think.
- [79:25]
A
Right.
- [79:25]
B
And there's no place to hide. They have to respond to it.
- [79:29]
A
Radical transparency.
- [79:30]
B
Yes, Exactly. And so. And we had. I mean, people. Customers would order a collectible coin and wait nine months to receive it. And so we set out, you know, the standard of, you know, I guess the first one was six weeks. Go from nine months to six weeks, which was an embarrassment, but it's a start.
- [79:55]
A
Sure.
- [79:55]
B
And there's a whole new numismatic press that covers the Mint. And they all laughed at that possibility. And my team didn't think it was possible. And when they achieved it, we all celebrated. And I said, great. Okay, four weeks.
- [80:09]
A
I'm sorry, Phil, just a quick sidebar. What percentage of the Mint's purpose slash business is selling coins to customers? I don't Think most people will have a concept of this?
- [80:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, depends on how you measure it. If you measure it in terms of units produced, tiny fraction. If you measure it in terms of the value of the coins, then a much larger percentage. Because of course, we're using multi precious metal coins as opposed to just, you know, circulating base metal coins. If you talk about the amount of time required of staff and staff resources, then getting close probably to 50% of the energy that is consumed by the agency. And especially in those early days when things were so chaotic, a lot of the reason why it took so much time was because nobody could get a straight answer to any question. And it was because none of the information systems were reliable. People had tried in good faith to deliver information to management and got burned as a result of it being wrong. And under that kind of environment, people, people learn, you know, there are a lot of hammers around and the nail that sticks its head up is going to get pounded. And so the biggest challenge I faced, and I didn't realize this at first, this was a piece of wisdom that came to me later. The biggest challenge in the transformation of any organization is culture. Changing the culture of an organization is the hard work of leadership. And the only way you do that is by example. My philosophy was, I don't mind you making a mistake. If we're doing something new, you make a mistake, don't make that mistake a second time right now. Raise the level of mistakes we make. And the other thing was, don't hide anything from me. If something goes wrong, I want to be the first one to know about it. And sure, itself, I ask you about it, I need to know the truth.
- [82:21]
A
How big was your department personnel wise?
- [82:23]
B
Well, the mint was about 2,100 people with facilities in Philadelphia, Denver, West Point, New York, San Francisco, and then in Fort Knox and the headquarters in Washington.
- [82:38]
A
D.C. it's a big job.
- [82:40]
B
Yeah, it's a big job. And when I went in, we had big labor problems. The Denver Mint, where the national president of the AFGE worked, they had demonstrators outside the Denver Mint. Of course, government, federal government employees cannot strike. So that was as close as they could come to a strike.
- [83:03]
A
I think Reagan explained that in fairly stark terms. Yeah, he did.
- [83:06]
B
Yeah.
- [83:07]
A
Sent a message.
- [83:08]
B
Yeah, he did. He sure as hell did. And that got through. So they weren't striking, but they were disruptive. And they were disruptive in Philadelphia too. And so I talked to my management team to try to get a handle on what it was. I mean, when I worked pipeline construction, I Was a member of a union. I got a story. I can tell you about how I was recruited. I was a member of a union. And so as a Democrat, you know, I didn't want to have trouble with my union just on principle.
- [83:40]
A
Sure.
- [83:41]
B
So I went out to Denver to meet with this guy, and he looked like this mountain man. Came out, you know, from. From the woods. And. And I discovered talking to him that, oh, yeah, he's better than most labor attorneys. He knows his business. And so finally, at the end of this long conversation, I said, well, what do you guys want? And he laid out four things. And they all seem so small to me that this is what we've been fighting about, these four things. And I said, you got them. Okay. And when I went back and told my team, my management team, they were appalled. What'd you get in exchange? I didn't ask for anything. These all seem reasonable. And they just thought I was so naive. And I told my deputy who I hand picked picked, and we were a fantastic team. Longtime treasury civil servant. Of course, I was a political appointee. And I told him that what they don't understand is that I've bought trust with this guy and we're not going to have problems there anymore, and he's going to be able to call me and talk to me. And the other thing that we learned was that, you know, sometimes political executives find their career, civil servant managers not very cooperative and, you know, in getting the vision. And so when you have facilities spread over the country, it's hard to know what is actually happening. And the union could tell me what was actually happening. So they were sort of my fifth columnist among management. And so, you know, and we ended up winning all kinds of awards for labor management.
- [85:25]
A
You changed the culture.
- [85:27]
B
So we changed the culture. And we started with labor, and we started with customer service representatives, the people who actually faced our customers. Initially, the coin collecting and bullion customers. Later on, the numismatic. I mean, the circulating coinage customers, which is the Federal Reserve Bank. They were our customers, but also the American public indirectly through our distribution channels. That was a crucial, transformative program because it led to the Sacagawea Golden Dollar, which was a huge success when we launched it.
- [86:06]
A
What's a huge success mean?
- [86:08]
B
Means we distributed it through the banks because they had had this nasty experience with Susan B. Anthony. It was this huge failure. They were stuck with it on their hands. They were unwilling to launch this new Sacagawea Golden Dollar. So I called up the Walmart lobbyist in Washington and invited him to come over. And he and I agreed. He was new, so he. He didn't know what couldn't be done. So he and I struck up a deal where we would launch the Golden Dollar in every Walmart and Sam's store across the country at the end of January in 2000.
- [86:53]
A
Is that it that we're talking about?
- [86:54]
B
No, that's the 50 state quarters.
- [86:56]
A
Oh, okay. Yeah.
- [86:57]
B
And so that was yours, too.
- [86:59]
A
Was that yours?
- [87:00]
B
Yeah, that was mine, too. I almost got fired by treasury for that program. That's a different story. But. And hugely successful. Raised $2.6 billion for the American people straight into the general fund of the Treasury.
- [87:13]
A
Okay, now what's that?
- [87:15]
B
So that's the Sacagawea Golden Dollar. And we launched that in January of 2000. Everybody thought it was going to be this huge failure. People lined up before the stores opened and around the block at Walmarts and Sam's clubs all over the country.
- [87:32]
A
Why?
- [87:33]
B
Because they love the image. And we captured the moment with this coin. Undaunted Courage, the book by Stephen Ambrose, was very popular at the time. And of course, he told the story of Sacagawea. And there was a gifted artist, engraver who ended up up. I did not know this at the time. I had nothing to do with this. Also from love. And she. Yeah, talk about small world. She did the Vietnam War Memorial on the Mall, Right. Glenna Goodacre. And she did this design. And everybody agreed this was the great design. We loved it. But I ran into trouble at treasury because a new south side. Silly stuff is because, oh, Sacagawea was an unwed mother. We're going to celebrate her.
- [88:28]
A
Believe that, actually. Yeah, I can believe it.
- [88:31]
B
You know, that was on the left, and then, you know, there were complaints on the right. And so it was all these stupid issues. But the thing is that I could get support from both Republicans and Democrats because there were powerful Republicans who were from the west who had connections to her tribe. And so which tribe was Sacagawea from? She was. You know what? This is going back 25 years of my life.
- [88:58]
A
Chuck, go back. I got a question about the reverse, too. Go ahead.
- [89:03]
B
So it ended up that I was able to get the support of a crucial Republican senator who did not like me for a prior opposition to something that he wanted to do. But I went in and I made the pitch to him. I think he probably admired the fact that I came in to talk to him about it. He had members of her tribe in Minnesota, and he said, well, if you put that design on the coin, I'll support you. And so when I went to the Treasury Department to. To sell it to the Secretary of Treasury, Secretary Rubin, I kind of went over, and not in a whisper, but in a very low voice so that all the staff members who were whispering, why we shouldn't do this, I told him that Senator Grams said that he would support it if you chose that one. Now, Grams was important because he sat on the Finance Committee, the Banking Committee, that has jurisdiction over all of Treasury's business.
- [90:08]
A
Yeah.
- [90:09]
B
And so Secretary Rubin looked up at me and said, thank you.
- [90:14]
A
So the stakes, again, the consequences of that are billions of dollars to the American people.
- [90:18]
B
Yes.
- [90:19]
A
I need to understand the reverse. You got yourself a turtle there with a wolf howling at the moon, and it appears to be a turkey. These were all consequential for reasons I assume you can explain.
- [90:30]
B
I have no idea. This is after my time. They changed the reverse. In fact, I think they passed a law that provided for an annual change. The reverse.
- [90:40]
A
Oh. So just to mix it up a little bit.
- [90:43]
B
Yeah. To mix it up. Yeah.
- [90:44]
A
So, I don't know, Chuck, you'll hate this, but I. I'd like to see the Susan B. Anthony failure for a moment.
- [90:50]
B
Well, why wouldn't you want to say that?
- [90:52]
A
Well, I'm. Because we're talking about pr. We're talking about. We're talking about marketing, about selling and buying, you know, through the lens, in this case, of a Mint director. I'm just. I'm so interested to know why Susan B. Anthony failed.
- [91:10]
B
Yeah.
- [91:11]
A
What did they get wrong?
- [91:12]
B
Yeah. Oh. Show the image and it'll jump right out at you.
- [91:15]
A
I can't wait to see it. Here it comes.
- [91:18]
B
Okay.
- [91:19]
A
Oh, that's too bad. Oh, it's too bad that I got it quickly enough.
- [91:25]
B
The design. So multiple failures here.
- [91:33]
A
Multiple failures.
- [91:35]
B
Yeah. So the coin looks like it's not round, but it is round. And it is round, which means that if you have sight problem and you reach in your pocket feels like a quarter. It's about the same size as a quarter. Quarter. A little bit different, but it.
- [91:52]
A
Yeah, close enough.
- [91:54]
B
Same color. Same color as a quarter.
- [91:56]
A
Yep.
- [91:56]
B
So. And in fact, this came out in 1980 and became part of the Reagan Carter political campaign. It was called the Carter Quarter because, of course, that was a period. The previous period of high inflation. And so the implication being that that's really only worth a quarter.
- [92:17]
A
You need a dollar to get a quarter. Yeah.
- [92:19]
B
Yeah. And so it became politicized.
- [92:22]
A
Yeah.
- [92:23]
B
Also, it's not the most attractive. Can I say this, I can't stop you, man.
- [92:31]
A
I can't stop you. Don't work for the government anymore. You say whatever you want.
- [92:34]
B
But let me. Here's the, here's the thing is that they set up the engravers sent up picture. Yes, she is rather mannish, isn't she? Is that line.
- [92:48]
A
I've said it, but.
- [92:50]
B
So the engravers sent up a realistic image of Susan B. Anthony and the secretary at the site at times said let's make this a little more attractive. So they did. And then they ran it back.
- [93:04]
A
Did they? Did they?
- [93:05]
B
Yeah, and then they ran it back by Susan B. Anthony's family.
- [93:09]
A
Chuck, find the original.
- [93:11]
B
Yeah, they ran it back by Susan B. Anthony's family and they said, no, we want something that really depicts her as she is, okay? As she was. And so, you know, it wasn't a popular design and it was so easily.
- [93:24]
A
Confused with a quarter that's such a form function. One follows the other depending. But a quarter in your pocket, that feels like a dollar is a mistake. Yes.
- [93:37]
B
Yeah.
- [93:38]
A
So somebody somewhere. I'm not looking to throw anybody under the bus, but you know that multiple.
- [93:43]
B
Design failures, part of it is the result of Congress's involvement. Being a mint director is like having a board with 536 members of them and half of them want to tear each other's throats out. You know, I report to the Secretary of the treasury but I have these 536 people who many of them have a lot more interest in American coinage than the Secretary of the treasury does. He's running the world economy. So that, you know, and the reason why Senator Grams was not happy with me before I walked in the door to convince him that this was the right program was because he had attempted to pass through committee a dollar coin bill that would. Would have recreated all of the previous failures of the Susan B. Anthony. There was no learning whatsoever. And my attitude was not on my watch. I'm not going to repeat this failure on my watch.
- [94:43]
A
Look at, I mean, there it is, the quarter versus the dollar.
- [94:47]
B
Yep. Yes. Yeah.
- [94:50]
A
What in the world were they thinking? And by the way. What? She kind of looks like Washington backwards, doesn't she? She does. You know what?
- [94:59]
B
Yeah. It's like they could be the, the.
- [95:01]
A
Same model sat for both the coins. Washington looked in a mirror and said, oh no, his, his hair is better though. That is true. So why is our money at a glance so dog on boring compared to say so many failed banana republics? You know, bright festive dollars, different sizes. I mean how come all our papers the same size?
- [95:29]
B
I got a story on that too.
- [95:30]
A
All right, good.
- [95:31]
B
So before I was Mint director, I was. I went in.
- [95:35]
A
Excuse me. I want to be respectful of your time. I could talk to you for hours. But you.
- [95:38]
B
I'm good. I'm having fun.
- [95:40]
A
All right, great.
- [95:41]
B
So I go in the first day of the Clinton administration as Chief of staff, the U.S. treasury Department to Secretary Lloyd Benson. And one of the first briefings I get is from the Secret Service, which at the time was part of the Treasury Department. And they wanted to give me a briefing on the super bill, which was the counterfeited $100 bill that was virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. So this is back in 1993, February probably of 93. And if I were telling this to you two years later, I'd have to kill you. But it's not a secret now. But. So they were, they were telling me this story. God, I look so young. Look at you. You look so young.
- [96:31]
A
Who's that guy?
- [96:32]
B
Really? So they're looking at a picture of Philip and President Clinton.
- [96:40]
A
For those just listening. Yeah, I'm just saying if you're just listening, you should get over to YouTube, man, this is some video that's going to change your life.
- [96:48]
B
So they asked to come in, gave me a briefing. There's very senior people at the Secret Service. So I thought this was going to be interesting. And they explained to me, I'd never heard that there was this super bill that they thought at the time was coming out of Iran that was virtually identical to the American$100 bill and that they were all, all over Europe and it was this huge problem. And I said, well, how did they get the, the equipment to, you know, basically replicate the US $100 bill? And they said, oh, we send it over to the Shaw. We supplied the Shah with all the equipments of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing basically. And so that didn't go well. And so this would have been in 93, so what, 10 years after the revolution in Iran. And I said, why haven't we done anything about this in a decade? I mean, how long have we known about this? And he said, oh, we've known for five or six years. And yet no change was underway to American currency. And American currency was generations behind other countries currency incorporating anti counterfeiting technology. And the reason was that I came to figure out was that nobody championed it in the government. And without a champion, nothing happens. And with a champion, nothing happens. Yeah, in the federal government it's become more and more that way. But as we all know on coinage and currency, everyone is not nervous about something going wrong. And Susan B. Anthony was part of that lesson was there were people at the Mint who wanted nothing to do with any change in coinage because people were savaged in the Mint for the failures, many of which were not their doing. And they had been giving bad marching orders.
- [98:55]
A
So first, do no harm when it comes to coinage.
- [98:58]
B
Well, do no harm to myself. Well, that's, that's really what it was, is. And it was as though when I started talking to people about changing, you know, doing a dollar coin, it was as though this disaster of the Susan P. Anthony had happened the day before yesterday.
- [99:14]
A
Yeah.
- [99:15]
B
And this is one of the things that I learned that my job as the Mint director was to protect my people from the ambitions that we had that would inevitably lead to failures. I said that in a committee hearing in Congress. I said, there's one thing that I can promise you will happen if you give us this authority, which was unprecedented, and that is we will make mistakes. And, you know, faces just sort of froze. What did he say?
- [99:47]
A
Well, what you were saying is we're going to take risks.
- [99:49]
B
Yeah. Yes.
- [99:51]
A
And Sacagawea was a risk and you hit it out of the park. And, you know, all of this is worth it to me simply to imagine people lined up at a Walmart to buy your product.
- [100:05]
B
Yeah.
- [100:06]
A
That's really what you did.
- [100:07]
B
Yes, that's right.
- [100:08]
A
You know, under the auspices of the US Mint. That's amazing, Chuck. We're gonna go a little long. Don't panic. I think we've already gone a little long. Well, he's okay. And I'm fascinated, really. Just too two topics left. You said the word, and it was up there in big letters. It's trust.
- [100:25]
B
Right.
- [100:26]
A
I just want to talk quickly about trust. How you. Well, what your opinion is in terms of, like, if trust is the Christmas spirit in elf. Right, right. And there's a thing that says, how much? Like, where's our trust level right now?
- [100:42]
B
Right.
- [100:42]
A
It feels like it's pretty low to me.
- [100:44]
B
Sure is.
- [100:44]
A
And so your thoughts on trust in our institutions and what that means in the world of currency, investments, satisfied customers and so forth?
- [100:54]
B
Yeah. Okay. Trust. I felt like my part at the US Mint was really centered on trust building. Trust building among employees, trust building with our stakeholders, on Capitol Hill, with our customers. It was all about building trust and sort of old fashioned this way. A lot of people would disagree with this, but I think in the End. Trust in institutions comes down to trust in people, that it's built on trust in people. And I believe that trust is built on two things. One is, is talking candidly to people. That doesn't mean undiplomatically. It doesn't mean you have to yell the truth at them.
- [101:47]
A
Friendly bluntness.
- [101:48]
B
Yeah. And people can appreciate that. And especially when you choose teachable moments in which to interact with people like that. So one of the trust breakers, I believe, is talking off of talking points. All of us can smell talking points coming out of somebody's mouth. And so I try to avoid that. Doesn't mean I don't have them. But typically I've written down points that I would have said I just need to be able to remember them. But as you can tell, I can talk a blue streak without any talking points. The second thing is making and keeping promises. That is the key to trust building, and that's the last thing people expect. That was my magic formula on Capitol Hills, is I'd walk in without a hidden agenda. I'd tell them what my agenda was, I'd tell them what I intended to do, and then I'd go do it. And sometimes I'd fail, and I'd come back. And I said, we gave it our best shot, but we're going at it again. Again.
- [102:56]
A
Swing and a miss. Yeah, we're still up.
- [102:58]
B
And so, you know, I think if I had to boil it down to two points, those would be the two points.
- [103:05]
A
There's a line buried in a terrific poem, I'm sure you know, by Robert Service, called the cremation of Sam McGee, which says, a promise made is a debt unpaid. I think, speaking on behalf of a lot of my fellow Americans, we understand the importance and the value of a second opinion. But we have been thrust into a world where our experts always seem to disagree. Our medical experts disagree. Our political, our elected officials disagree. Our best investment advisors, they disagree. They disagree about everything. And it's not just that they disagree. They disagree with so much certainty. Yeah, they just seem so damn sure, Phil. Everybody seems damn sure about everything.
- [103:54]
B
Yes.
- [103:54]
A
So, I mean, in a world where, and I couldn't agree more, those are the building blocks of trust. But those blocks have been taken out of the bottom of the Jenga Tower. And so how can the average person. What advice might you have for somebody who just doesn't have the time to do the homework, to figure out how to remove their own kidney? It's going to have to decide on the right doctor or the right investment advisor. Etcetera, Say something that the average person can hang on to and feel smart about.
- [104:28]
B
Okay. Number one for me is anybody who tells me something's a sure thing can't be trusted. Anybody who acts like they know everything, nobody does, so they shoot their credibility with me. The more people that I'm consulting with live up to their limitations and draw lines and say, this is what I know, this is what I don't know. Here's where they come together. Those people have credibility for me. So I'm not looking necessarily for someone I can trust that has to be proven, but somebody with credibility. I'm looking for somebody with credibility, and that's a little easier to determine. And of course, part of credibility is, you know, having references and being able to talk to people who have done business with that person.
- [105:27]
A
Yep.
- [105:28]
B
So that's crucial.
- [105:30]
A
Vulnerability, humility. All the ilities it seems, are in short supply. All right, my last question is kind of a personal one. When I wrote about this Trades of America coin and told the USMR story and how we'd work together, everybody loved every single thing. But what just chapped people's ass. And this is probably my fault, because on this podcast we try and find sponsors who make their things in this country. And I talk very favorably about the willingness to try and do that. We had to make a Trades for America coin in Germany, and I did the best I could to explain to people the relationship between legal tender and a company like US Money Reserve and the restrictions of the US Mint and so forth. Yes. But in the end, I realized it's like, am I being persuasive? Am I being an apologist? I think I understand why we couldn't do it here. But just in simple terms.
- [106:33]
B
Okay, so as a former director of the United States Mint, I would have wanted this coin produced in the United States.
- [106:42]
A
Yes, please.
- [106:42]
B
You know, just if it had been possible at all.
- [106:45]
A
Yeah.
- [106:46]
B
But there are a couple problems. First of all, there's a matter of definition. Legal tender indicates it's a coin, and a coin, in order to be a coin, it must be legal tender or have been at some time in history of a sovereign government. And if it's not a coin and legal tender of a government, sovereign government, it is a metal. And so when you see these things being tossed at the 50 yard line and football games being called coins, you know, those aren't coins. Those are medals or medallions.
- [107:21]
A
Medallions. Right.
- [107:23]
B
So, number one, we won the coin, not a medal. Number two, the designs on this coin are spectacular.
- [107:33]
A
They are.
- [107:34]
B
And there is no minting facility in the United States that could approach the quality of these coins.
- [107:42]
A
Which brings us back to Liechtenstein.
- [107:44]
B
Yes, cit. Yes, to cit. And they could. They're one of the very few in the world that could do it. And then the third thing is the United States Mint doesn't produce coins for any nation or any entity other than the United States government unless you have.
- [108:00]
A
An act of Congress, basically.
- [108:02]
B
I mean, it'd be virtually impossible to get it through Congress.
- [108:06]
A
I'm busy, Phil. I got a lot going on. You know, I mean, I guess I could have called you guys and, you know, I guess I could have got to the President somehow and said, please, I really need this coin beta here. But no, it just seemed easier not to not do that.
- [108:20]
B
Yes. And these guys are, as you know, are real professionals. I mean, they are masters at their work. And I had never, until you and I went there 18 months ago, I'd never had a chance to tour their facilities. I had never seen minting facilities and engraving facilities like CIT has mind boggling. So I was very impressed. And I can just tell you, no one here in the US and certainly not the United States Mint, could approach this work.
- [108:51]
A
I'll land the plane here because really, watching those. The excitement of the people both at BH Meyer and at CIT is the same kind of excitement you would see in a tradesman who had figured out how to bend a pipe a mile down that technology. When I pitched this, like, I kind of soft pitched the idea because I really wasn't there to do that. But I couldn't help myself. When I was there, they were so excited and listening to Germans or Lichtensteinians or whoever they are, you know, talking to me in broken English about their enthusiasm for the work and their enthusiasm for the trade and their own trade.
- [109:37]
B
Yes.
- [109:38]
A
I even said to one of the guys over there, totally tongue in cheek, but I'm like, look, on my show, like, I did a lot of artificial insemination on farms and things, and would it be possible to mint a coin? Me with my arm all the way in a cow? He's like, is this possible? Yes. Yeah, we could do that. I don't know if he should. And so, like, that's my life. I can do that. I don't know if I should.
- [110:05]
B
Yes.
- [110:05]
A
But I was certain that we should do this. And I just want to close by thanking you. We raised well over $100,000 for work ethic scholarships with this coin. And if you guys are game, like the idea of doing versions of these for plumbers and. And pipe benders.
- [110:23]
B
Yes. Yeah.
- [110:24]
A
And electricians. And getting it down to a price where people could buy a handful and give them to the tradesperson in their life who made it. How great would that be?
- [110:34]
B
That would be great.
- [110:36]
A
So just tell me who to call a congress and I'm going to get on this now.
- [110:38]
B
Call me. I'll get it done.
- [110:40]
A
All right, Philip.
- [110:41]
B
Deal.
- [110:41]
A
You've been very generous with your time. Thank you for making the trip. And I'm such a fan of what you're doing. Again, not to make it a shameless plug, but if people want to see you really doing what you do today in the way of getting the advice and the history and explaining this whole world, the best place to go to.
- [111:06]
B
See you in action is usmoneyreserve.com and we have tons of educational material. And if you get tired of me.
- [111:15]
A
Then there's a lot of other people.
- [111:18]
B
There's a lot of expertise, not just about coinage, but how to invest in precious metals and IRAs. That is really straightforward. Not very many people know about it. There are of course, federal government rules. But it's really straightforward. And all of that is available, you know, at the click of a mouse.
- [111:39]
A
Yeah. Well, look, it's a free education. It's been a real privilege for me to help just deliver some of those materials on your behalf. It's terrific company. Please give Angela my regards. I will when you see her. And thank you again for making the time. I learned so much. You're welcome back anytime.
- [111:59]
B
It's always fun. Thank you very much, Mike.
- [112:02]
A
If you're done, please subscribe. Leave some stars.
- [112:07]
B
Ideally five.
- [112:11]
A
Five. Lousy little.
- [112:17]
B
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- [112:55]
A
The best nuts work nice.
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B
Jeffrey, you heard them. T mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch? Dude, my work here is done. The 24 month bill credit is on experience beyond for well qualified customers + tax and 35 device connection charge credit send and balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs 1099.99 A new line minimum 100 plus a month plan with auto PayPal taxes and fees required Best mobile networking US based on analysis by Ooklab Speedtest Intelligence data 1H 2025 Visit t mobile.com Marketing is hard.
- [113:28]
A
But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great.
- [113:33]
B
You love the host.
- [113:34]
A
You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to libsynads. Com. That's L I B S Y N Ads. Com. Today.