“America Is Breaking!” The Largest Wealth Transfer In History Is Happening Right Now | Peter Schiff

Trump has got it completely backwards. He says the world's been ripping us off. We've been ripping off the world. >> We will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. We rely on the rest of the world to save for us and lend [music] us money. It's going to be a collapse of the dollar. It is inevitable. The only question is when. What do you think would signal the true start of a dollar crisis? Well, I think it's it's started already. I think gold [music] at 5,000 is an indication that this is happening. >> Gold prices soared to a record high after US President Donald Trump criticized Federal Reserve. >> The world's central banks, they need something else to own in place of dollars and gold is the [music] obvious choice. >> In terms of Bitcoin The only demand for Bitcoin is speculators betting that the price is going to go up. But all that's going to change. The air is coming out of this bubble. Gold price prediction for the end of 2026. [music] Just one word. Peter Schiff, 2 years ago when we filmed with you, gold was $2,000 an ounce. Today it's 5,000. It's a 150% move upwards. Bitcoin when we filmed with you was 60,000. Today it's $66,000, which is barely flat. At what point do people owe you an apology? Oh, on Bitcoin? Well, look. First of all, most of the people that got in I don't know if it's most, but a lot of the people that got into Bitcoin early thank me cuz I got them into it. Not because I told them to buy it, but because I told them about it. And a lot of people um found out about economics. In fact, I just got one of the co-founders of um uh Ethereum just reached out to me recently just to thank me and let him let me know what a big influence I was on his life. And he said that if wasn't for me, he probably never would have bought Bitcoin. And he started buying it under $10 and then he started a big meetup group in uh in Canada where he met Vitalik, the other guy that you know, that started Ethereum. And they ended up starting Ethereum. But he said, you know, if it wasn't for you, I don't think there would even be an Ethereum. So I think a lot of this crypto stuff I didn't I mean, I'm not Satoshi, but a lot of the early guys that got into it, a lot of the creators of these other tokens, they did it because of me. They found out about economics because of me. I taught them about sound money, about the Fed, about inflation, all this stuff, Austrian economics, gold. And they ended up taking the knowledge that I gave them and it it they ended up at Bitcoin or Ethereum, wherever they went. But I got a lot of these guys started. So a lot of these guys thank me. Uh and a lot of them got very rich as a result of this. But I never really believed in Bitcoin from the first time I I heard about it. And yeah, it was a a mistake in hindsight not to have appreciated the fact that so many people could be dumb enough to buy it. But but they were. Uh and of course a lot of them weren't necessarily dumb. They just kind of saw the potential of suckering other dummies into it. You know, with the story. And some of them might have not even really known the difference between gold and Bitcoin. I mean, it's since I understood gold so well, I knew from the start what the fatal flaw of Bitcoin was. But a lot of people overlooked it. And so Bitcoin, you know, went up from nothing to recently $126,000. And sure, you know, I never encouraged people to buy it. And maybe some people didn't buy it because me and and they might have they may have made, you know, some money had they had they bought it. But Bitcoin for all practical purposes peaked out about 4 or 5 years ago. The the the high in Bitcoin in 2021 in November was 69,000. >> Mhm. It's lower than that today. 4 and 1/2 years later, it's lower. But in terms of gold, it's more than 60% lower. So most people who own Bitcoin today would be better off had they bought gold. Now, that's not the case for people who bought it 10, 15 years ago, but there's not that many of those. The majority of people who own Bitcoin bought it over the last few years and they would be better off had they not bought it. Had they listened to me and bought gold or silver instead of Bitcoin or anything else. I mean, they could have bought stocks, they could have bought whatever. They would have probably been better off than Bitcoin. And a perfect example of that is Michael Saylor, who is the most famous Bitcoin buyer of them all. He is the poster boy for Bitcoin buyers. He's bought or spent $55 billion buying Bitcoin for over 5 years. The average cost on all that Bitcoin that he bought is 76,000 and change. It's right now 66,000. So he's down what is that? 13%? Something like that? >> I mean, he'd have been better off just putting the money in a checking account. He's down. And and so obviously that was not a good thing to do. Now, MicroStrategy's strategy stock went up a lot because there were a bunch of fools, even more foolish than the people buying Bitcoin, were the people buying strategy. Because they were paying a 50% premium to buy strategy. And all he did is go out and buy Bitcoin with the money. So he did accumulate all this Bitcoin because people were dumb enough to overpay for his stock. But you know, now the stock's down 70% and it's got a long way to fall. Do you talk to Michael Saylor much? >> No. I you know, I I you know, I I was in the same room with him one time. We were at a we were at a party in in in Dubai. And I didn't really know what to say to the guy cuz I had just like posted on X that he was a fraud. He was saying something and I I called him like a fraud or scar And so I didn't really know like hey, how you how you doing, Michael? Cuz I had just like you know, said this stuff about him. So I kind of like didn't approach him. And he just kind of never he never approached me. So we were both in the same house, not too >> How recent was this? It was it it was uh we were there for um the it was a Bitcoin conference from uh uh Binance. And I would I was there I did the debate with CZ. Gold Bitcoin debate. And how many people were in this house? Like was it clear you were avoiding him or people coming up to him or no? >> walked right by him to get a drink. You know, I didn't But I didn't I didn't I could hear him You know, I could hear him talking from a while away. And all he was doing was pitching Bitcoin. I mean, he was like he was he's always on. Like he was, you know, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, you know, telling people buy it, you know, his all his BS. Um but no, I mean, I don't remember exactly how many people were at the party, 75, 100 people. I mean, you know, whatever. I mean, I mean, he knew I was there. But I you know, but I I had wanted to debate him. And I still, you know, want to debate the guy. But he won't agree to any debates, including, you know, at that conference. But I I've been to several conferences where he was there. In fact, at the the bigger Bitcoin conference that they had in Las Vegas last last summer, he mentioned you know, he had his keynote speech and he mentioned me twice. You know, so he talks about me, but he won't debate me. >> But is there anything that he could say to you that would change your mind on Bitcoin? Oh, no. There's just just no way. I mean, I mean, I I see right through this guy. I mean, everything he says is complete I I don't understand how people can listen to him and not understand how it's all >> Do you think Michael Saylor is smart? Yeah, I think he's I mean, I think he's probably got a higher IQ than I do. I'm not saying that he's dumb. I don't even know if he believes the nonsense that he says. He could just be a I think he does. We we filmed the podcast with him and I mean, he obviously was wearing a Bitcoin shirt and everything. And then we show up and then before and after the podcast as he's touring us his estate, he's like, man, yeah, this Bitcoin I mean, you know, Bitcoin is he's it's the way. It is the language. It is like the everything. >> Well, you you I think is what you got to prophesize it. It's like a cult. Like in you know, he's a cult leader, right? He's trying to got to get people into it. But you know, I mean, he compares Bitcoin, right, to Manhattan real estate now. I mean, he used to compare it to gold. Now he's he's he's on Manhattan real estate. But what gives Manhattan real estate value is A, yes, there's a scarce amount of it, right? Like but it rents for a lot of money. So if you own real estate in Manhattan, whether it's office buildings or residential or you know, shops, you collect a lot of rent. Right? That's what gives it the value, the fact that people will pay a lot of money to use your real estate. You don't get any money on your Bitcoin. He's not getting it collecting any rent because he owns Bitcoin. He doesn't get anything. Bitcoin doesn't deliver any real value. What do you say is the fatal flaw of Bitcoin? The fact that it has no fundamental value. The fact that you know, gold is a store of value because gold is a metal. It is a precious metal that doesn't decay, it doesn't, you know, lose its properties over time. Gold today is exactly the same as it was a thousand years ago and the gold will be exactly the same a thousand years from now. Doesn't matter what I do with it. It can always be melted back down and and and go back to exactly the way it was. Uh and gold is the most useful metal that we have. It's used for all sorts of things. And because of those unique properties that gold has that other metals, other commodities don't have, that that's the value. But one of the things that gold does really really well is serve as money. Because it's uh you know, it's divisible, it's portable, it's fungible. There all these qualities that it has that other commodities don't really have to that degree. Now, those are the qualities that Bitcoin copied. And said, "Hey, we're we're divisible, we're portable, we're fungible. We're scarce. Uh so, we're the same as gold." No, you're not, because you can't do anything with Bitcoin. It doesn't matter that I can give it to somebody else or that I can trade it. You could do that with any one of thousands of other digital currencies. You know, there are a lot of other ones that to me seem a lot more valuable than Bitcoin, and that at least they deliver some degree of privacy or anonymity, if that's what you want. If you want to transact in you know, in private without anybody knowing what you're doing, there may be some value there. But Bitcoin doesn't even offer that. Uh and now, you know, a lot of the things that people liked about Bitcoin, self-custody, okay. Well, most people now are buying ETFs. They don't self-custody. They They don't like There's no third party. Well, yes, there is a third party. MicroStrategy Strategy is a third party buying up all this Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin is now part of Wall Street. I mean, look at the president. The president, you know, is all in on Bitcoin, his whole family. They're mining Bitcoin. He wants to make the United States the the Bitcoin capital of the world. I mean, so it's no longer the type of you know, in your face, sticking to the man, self-sovereign, you know, ideal that a lot of the early, you know, adopters who you know, who listen to my podcast or my radio show got interested in Bitcoin. It's It's none of those things now. >> You say it's just a speculative investment now, or a speculative gamble is what you would call it. >> Yeah, I mean, look, to me people collect Bitcoin the way, you know, they collect, you know, cards, you know, whatever. They They're collections. And the reason that they collect Bitcoin is because they think that their Bitcoin collections are going to be more valuable in the future. What is the strongest pro-Bitcoin argument you've ever heard? If Bitcoin was some kind of a unique thing in that it was the only one, there were no other tokens, there was no other way, there were no other blockchains, it was the it really was scarce in a sense that it was the only one, you could kind of make an argument maybe that its lack of intrinsic value it doesn't matter because it truly is scarce. But again, it would still depend on the confidence that people have in other people constantly believing that it has value. That's not a strong argument, though. >> No, no, I'm There is no strong argument for Bitcoin. >> you've ever heard? I I mean, I can't remember. I've had so many people >> recently. I mean, you've talked to some big Yeah. You've heard some pretty strong I You know, most of the people understand, even in this industry, that the the real threat to Bitcoin now isn't all these shitcoins. It's tokenized gold. Because tokenized gold does everything that Bitcoin is supposed to do, but can't. And everything that Bitcoin can do, tokenized gold does better. And tokenized gold is much better than tokenized dollars, which is what, you know, a lot of the people in the stablecoin industry are focused on. But look at what the biggest stablecoin issuer, Tether, is doing. What is Tether doing? They have pivoted to gold. They're buying up gold, they're buying up gold a royalty companies, they're buying into gold retailers. Uh they are, you know, buying all this gold, and they're storing it in a mountain in Switzerland. Because they recognized that that's the future of crypto. It's gold. It's It's tokenized gold where the token represents ownership of real gold. That's what That's digital gold. I mean, I'm even participating to an extent, you know, I set up T Gold, you know, as part of SchiffGold. You can go to tgold.com and open up an account. We're not offering tokens yet, but ultimately, the gold that you own at T Gold, you'll be able to withdraw it in the form of a token. But even before you could do that, I'm going to allow owners to transact with one another, where you can, you know, send and receive gold as a medium of exchange. So, you can be paid in gold, you can pay in gold, not just save it. >> just keep a ledger or a log of that gold? >> internal That's an internal an account. But ultimately, you can withdraw uh your gold in the form of a token, and then put it in your wallet, and you can trade it on an exchange, or you can do a lot of things with it. Sticking to good nutrition is tough when you're short on time. With work, workouts, and everything else going on, it's just not realistic to cook every meal. 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Um but no, I I I the people who buy Bitcoin, most of them, the vast majority, buy it because they think they're going to get rich. They They think the price is going to go way up. And the only way the price of Bitcoin can go way up is if other people decide to pay more for it. But those people are buying it for the same reason that you're selling it. They think it's going to go up. So, they have to buy it with the expectation of they'll find somebody else who will pay even more than they did. And the name of that is called the greater fool. Right? Everybody is hoping that there's a greater fool than than they are who will pay a higher price for what amounts to nothing. >> true for anything? Housing to some stocks. No, no, it's not. >> Even precious metals. Someone's hoping I'm going to buy gold at 5,000, it'll be worth 10,000 because they're going to print all this money, and I'll make money from it. >> No, no, well, but there you're just preserving your your purchasing power. But yes, a lot of people buy a stock or a piece of real estate because they think the price will be higher. But it's not because some greater fool is going to buy it. If I buy a a stock in a company, and the company expands its business, and has more sales, and has more income, the company is worth more than it was when I bought it. So, the new buyer would naturally have to pay more because the company is more valuable. It's generating more profits, it's paying higher dividends. Same thing if I buy a piece of real estate, and while I own it, the rental income goes up. I can charge higher rates because now maybe more people have moved into the area, there's more demand. I was smart. I bought, you know, recognizing that there was going to be people moving into the neighborhood, whatever. And so, the property became more valuable between the time I bought it and the time I sold it. So, I can sell a stock or a piece of real estate at a higher price because it's inherently more valuable. Bitcoin never becomes more valuable. It doesn't throw off any income, doesn't pay rent, it doesn't pay you dividends. It's just a token. Uh and you know, the supply is what it is, right? It's not, you know, it's not becoming more scarce. It's pretty much almost all the Bitcoin that are ever going to be here are pretty much already here. Um and so, it's just a function of somebody will somebody being willing to pay more money than I did for the exact same thing that I bought. So, it hasn't increased in value since I bought it. It's exactly the same. The only thing that's changing is the price. And if you're just buying something simply because you hope the price will go up even though it hasn't become any more valuable, just become more expensive. That's the greater fool. Now, you can say, well, what about gold? Gold doesn't have any any income. Right, but gold is a metal that's used. And you can think, well, what what do jewelers need to pay to buy gold? What do computer manufacturers need to pay to buy gold who need gold, you know, in their chips? Or what is central bankers have to pay who gold to back up their currencies? I mean, one of the things that's happening right now among central banks is they want to get rid of the dollar. They have too many dollars and we're creating too many. We have too much debt. So, the world central banks are now trying to divest of dollars because they recognize that even though they can earn interest on those dollars by buying treasuries, they're not going to keep pace with the rate at which the dollar is going to be depreciating. So, they need something else to own in place of dollars and gold is the obvious choice. And so, there's central bank demand. You have all this real demand. So, when you're buying gold, you know that you're going to have that demand in the future coming from industry, coming from central banks. You're not going to have that. The only demand for Bitcoin is speculators betting that the price is going to go up. There's no underlying user who needs Bitcoin. Uh anybody who wants Bitcoin, I hear people say, but you can you know, you can use it to send money across borders. You can do the same thing with stable coins. You can do the same thing with tokenized gold. What the hell do you need Bitcoin for? You know, and there's all kinds of other crap tokens that will do what Bitcoin does. So, there's the the only thing that's unique about Bitcoin is it's got a bigger cult. And and and it's got a higher market cap. But all that's going to change. Like I I think if you look at where Bitcoin is now, the air is coming out of this bubble. The only time I I went out on a limb and I thought Bitcoin had peaked because all all the time was going up, I kept conceding, look, I don't know how high this thing can go. It can go to 5,000, it can go to 10,000, go to 50. I said, I don't know how it's not worth anything. So, the fact that it's you know, got a price, you know, obviously people could pay more. But after it it got to that 69,000 peak back in 2021 and it sold off to about I don't know, 15, 16,000. And people were saying it's going to 100,000. I said, look, it's not going to go to 100,000. I thought it had kind of peaked out or maybe it would double top. I didn't think it would get to 100,000 at that point. Donald Trump won and it went to 100,000. Now, I think had Donald Trump not won, I don't think we ever would have seen 100,000 on Bitcoin. But I think all of the hype that accompanied that and that's really what enabled Saylor to buy so much, all these other copycat crypto uh uh uh you know, companies, treasury companies, all the ETFs that came out, you know, all the demand was that Trump is going to make us the Bitcoin capital. We're going to have a strategic reserve. You got to buy Bitcoin cuz the US government is behind Bitcoin. It's going to be pushing Bitcoin. And that hype enabled the price to rise. But I think a lot of the smarter holders took advantage of that to sell. I think a lot of the guys that helped bankroll Trump's campaign, get donated a lot of money to get the Bitcoin president knowing that this would happen. I think they sold into the the mania. And and now, you know, you've distributed the tokens much more broadly. You have a lot of people who own these Bitcoin ETFs. Uh I think they're I mean, they're not true believers. I think I think they're going to sell. You've also got a lot of people now that have borrowed against their Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the collateral now for a lot of loans. This is ridiculous. So, I think now we've peaked. I I I think the high is in in Bitcoin. Uh it's headed lower now. I think that the next point of support on the way down is going to be around 50,000. I think once it breaks 50, it's going below 20. That would be over an 80% drop from the peak. We might have a bounce from 20. Maybe go from 20 to 30 or four people get excited again and then it'll go down to 10. You know, I I I I think it's you know, it's now just about the air coming out of the bubble. And eventually, I think strategy just goes out of business. I think they're going to be forced to liquidate all their Bitcoin. Uh I think I think they're going to ultimately have to stop paying the dividends on on the preferreds uh and they're just going to crash. The the whole thing is going to implode. >> Speaking of Trump, I'm curious. Trump went on Truth Social in December and he called you a Trump-hating loser and a jerk for saying that prices are still rising and he told Fox to fire whoever booked you. You then challenged him to a public debate on the economy. I'm really curious, did Trump ever respond to you? No, but I didn't look, I said Trump or his delegate. I mean, I knew it was a big ask to get the president of the United States to debate a lowly guy like me. But I was willing to debate anybody that he you know, just just an an intern. Anybody he had. You know, of course, I would also I would love to debate you know, like any of his top guys in his cabinet. I mean, I I I I I would go for a commerce secretary or the treasury secretary. I'm happy to debate those guys. I think I would mop the floor up with them. Uh but no, nobody wanted to challenge me. But What are you noticing now though in terms of rising prices? Because inflation did technically come back a little lower than expected recently. >> [snorts] >> No, you know, first of all, I don't put much stock into the way the government measures it with the CPI. I think if you understand what inflation is, which is the expansion of the money supply, money supply is expanding. It's expanding quite briskly, unfortunately. Um the Fed is back to QE. Uh they don't admit it's QE, but that's exactly what they're doing. So, the balance sheet is growing again. Uh money supply. And the Fed has been cutting rates. Uh it has been expanding credit. That's also inflation. Uh the government is trying to shove more credit into the economy. They're using the GSEs to get more money uh into the economy by buying up uh mortgage-backed securities. Uh so, they're inflating. Um you can see prices rising. It's not just precious metals. Look at industrial metals. Look at copper hitting a record high. Look at you know, other prices. Agricultural commodities are moving. Oil is finally started to move. Oil's now more than 20% above where it was at the low in December. We're at the highest in 6 months. So, I think that's turning around. We're going to start to see higher gas prices, but food prices have continued to rise. I mean, sure, you can point to eggs or something. The president always likes to grab a couple of items that went down in price. But overall, if you go to the grocery store, your your your bill is higher than it was a year ago. I mean, even the government's CPI numbers will show 2 and 1/2, 3% price increases. But remember, these are price increases on top of prices that were already very high. What what consumers need is real relief. They don't need prices to keep rising only more slowly. They need prices to fall. We need that because they went so they went up so much, they should come back down. But no, they continue to go up. But Trump was wrong, but unfortunately, I think he scared the out of Fox and Friends because nobody will return my emails anymore. They act like I don't even exist. I guess they're afraid to put me on. But it just shows you that you know, Trump can't handle any criticism. You know, I mean, first of all, I did that interview from what that same trip. I was in Dubai. I did it from my hotel room. It was like I don't know, 5:00 in the evening. It was like 5:00 in the morning. The president he's he's awake watching Fox and Friends at 5:00 in the morning. Who the hell else was watching it? And he goes ballistic, right, on Truth Social, which they they they ought to rename it. I said cuz it's not there's nothing truthful on Truth Social. It's lies, right? Lie Social. But he hears me on Fox and he goes ballistic. How dare Fox News have somebody on that criticizes me? Now, wait a minute. Isn't it supposed to be Fox News? Right? I mean, is it just a propaganda arm of the Trump administration? That's what he wants. He doesn't want Fox News having objective economists on to render an opinion. And if you watch Fox News, there's one guy after another just singing Trump's praises, kissing his ass, right? Talking about how great he is. >> Okay. >> Have you They can't have one guy on there? One guy? And I actually endorsed him. I'm not like a typical, you know, no never Trumper. I said, yeah, vote for the guy. I thought he was better than Harris. Now, sometimes I I second-guess that. But but you know, Do you still stand by that decision? Well, I mean, it's hard to say what Harris would have done, right? Had she won. But look, there are some things that Trump have done that I like. But overall, he's he's doing a lot of bad stuff, unfortunately. >> he done that you've really liked? Well, you know, you know, he he he's there are some regulations that have been eliminated. You know, he's toughened up on the borders. So, it's not like a sieve. Um you know, he he pushed back against the whole, you know, political correct woke nonsense. Um cancel culture. Although, he tried to cancel me. I mean, so he's a little bit hip hip hypocritical there. You know, when he you know, he couldn't take any criticism. Uh and he wants to have me fired or have the booker fired. Have you ever spoken to Trump? Yes. Personally? Yes. Where was that? In a concert. Oh, was it Imagine Dragons? >> No, not [laughter] Imagine Dragons. So, I was in New York. I think it was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. It was like like they were like performing. Like this is like probably 20 years ago. And so, I come into the concert and in the row right in front of me is Trump and his daughter. And I was with a friend who knew him and so, we said, "Hello, this is my friend Peter Schiff." Oh, nice to meet you Mr. Trump, whatever. So, that was it. I mean, I doubt Trump remembers it because who the hell was I? I was nobody, right? Well, actually I mean, I had a little bit of reputation by I mean, I because I was I was still going on like CNBC. I was Dr. Doom. So, I wasn't exactly nobody, but I I you know, I wasn't I didn't have my own hit TV show, The Apprentice or whatever. So, you know, but I met him that but that was the only time I met him. But you know, I just was at Mar-a-Lago last week. I went to a party there. Who's Who invited you to a party? Did they not remember the feud that you had? >> No, but it wasn't like I mean, it was Latino Wall Street. Uh What is that? It's a a organization. And they had that at Mar-a-Lago? >> Yeah, yeah. And they invited you? They did. They they honored me. Well, they gave me a an award last Last time I was there, they presented me with this uh award, which was nice. >> I'm I'm Puerto Rican. Really? Well, you're in Puerto Rico, aren't you? I feel like I remember you telling us that and I just >> I'm a Puerto Rican Jew. Like Juan Epstein. Uh what percentage Puerto Rican are you? I'm 100% Puerto Rican. I live in Puerto Rico. W- >> [laughter] >> But like like ethnicity Well, what's What does that mean? My ancestors weren't from Puerto Rico. I moved here 9 years ago, but I've lived here for the last 9 years of my life. My kids are growing up in Puerto Rico. Uh so, we're Puerto Rican. >> What is the main reason you live in Puerto Rico? The weather. Ah. >> [laughter] >> No, it's I live here for I I live here for the parties and you know, you know, for the >> lifestyle for the lifestyle, for the community. I've got a lot of great neighbors. You met one of my neighbors uh earlier today. >> Yeah, you have fantastic neighbors. >> [laughter] >> So, it's a very close-knit community and there is the added benefit of no taxes. We do have that here? Yeah, well, not no taxes, but very low taxes. >> even realize I was Puerto Rican. >> you have 4% income tax and 0% capital gains tax. So, it's a pretty good deal. This episode is in partnership with Airbnb. So, Graham and I just got back from a trip to Austin and Puerto Rico and in both places we book stays on Airbnb and literally every single time we travel these days, we stay at homes on Airbnb. And if you're big on traveling like us, anytime we're away, the home just ends up sitting unused, but it can actually be generating extra income by hosting on Airbnb. So, you guys may not know this, but at one point I actually hosted on Airbnb a spare bedroom in my house and it ended up being far easier than I expected. 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If you've considered hosting, but need some help, find a co-host at airbnb.com/host. So, what is one basic economic belief that people have that is completely wrong? Like one of the main most pervasive economic beliefs. One of the one of the most biggest ones is we're already discussing, which is inflation. Because the vast majority of people think inflation is prices going up. That's what they think inflation is. That's not inflation. Inflation is the money supply expanding, the supply of credit expanding. That That's what's being inflated. The word inflate literally means expand. That's the root of the word. But the government did a very good job in recent years of confusing the public as to what inflation means so that they can blame inflation on the people that raise prices. Government never accepts responsibility for creating inflation. They blame the greedy businessman who raise prices. Um or the you know, the they're blame blaming Putin. Putin was you know, raising prices. It's the government that expands the money supply. That's the inflation. As a result, people have to raise their prices. Workers have to you know, get more wages because everything costs more. But the government gets the ball rolling. Uh but you know, so people don't understand. If people knew what inflation was, then they would know the cause. Because it's the government that's expanding our money supply. Do you think AI though could be deflationary and this could bring the cost of a lot of things down? Well, again, AI doesn't contract the money supply. But is AI something that would result in lower prices? Of course, because AI used properly makes people and businesses more productive. And when you're more productive, your costs go down. And when your costs go down, you you can charge less. Prices come down. I mean, capitalism is a force to lower prices. That's what capitalism does. It It It creates abundance out of scarcity. You have more stuff. And the more stuff there is, the less expensive the stuff becomes, right? So, the natural tendency is for prices to go down. Now, government steps up and creates inflation and destroys the value of the money. And that makes prices go up. It's the inflation. But you know, if it if it wasn't for capitalism, prices would be going up even more. But a lot of people don't realize that. Let's say prices go up by 2%. But if the government hadn't created inflation, they would have gone down by 2%. That's 4% really inflation because I got robbed of the 2% price cut and now I have to pay 2% more. So, I'm paying 4% more than I otherwise would have paid had the government not created the inflation. Because sometimes inflation doesn't just cause prices to rise, it prevents prices from falling. Now, the government will try to tell us, "Well, we have to do that because falling prices are bad. We can't have falling prices." Why not? What's wrong with falling prices? Everybody wants lower prices. Everybody wants stuff to be cheaper. >> The argument is falling prices create further falling prices because if even a small subset of people just wait, prices fall even further, which causes more people to slightly wait even if it's just an extra month or two. >> But they're not going to wait. I mean, if you're hungry, are you going to eat now or if you think the hamburger is going to be cheaper next month, are you going to wait? Or you just going to buy it? I think with stuff like food, not necessarily, but I think with stuff like Well, what about all right. or major purchases, I think. >> a new car. Yeah. >> Your other The car you got now doesn't really work. You got to get to work. You got to You got to you know, you got to take your kids to school. Are you going to get the car when you need it or you say, "You know, if I wait a month and maybe if we walk or ride our bikes for the next month, I could get that car for 100 bucks cheaper." Are you going to wait? >> even if even a few percent of people do. >> Just a few percent. No, no, they peop- There's something There's a time value, present value. Having something now is worth more than having it later. Mhm. Right? So, if I thought something was going to be one or two or 3% cheaper a year from now, I'm not going to wait a year. I'm not going to go without food or gas or you know, if my air conditioner breaks down, I'm not going to think, "Gee, if I wait a year and sweat it out, I might be able to get the air conditioning." No, I'm going to buy it. But you know what I'm going to hope? That if I ever need another air conditioning, I'm going to hope the price is lower. >> give you an example that I see all the time and it's with the stock market. When stocks fall, people think, "Oh, I'm just going to wait because it'll be even cheaper." >> Because that's That's a different thing. You're trying to make an investment. So, it doesn't If I buy a stock next week, that's okay. I can wait. It's not a consumer good. Consumer goods, people buy it when they need it. Now, it is true that sometimes people don't buy something and they wait for a lower price. But that's because they can't afford it. And I and I have all kinds of examples. I I remember the first time that I went into a store, I think maybe it was like a you know, a Best Buy or something and I saw a high-def TV for the first time in my life. Now, you you're so young, every TV you've ever seen is HD. But I went in and I saw the first HDTV and I I was amazed that the picture. Like I would to me it was like this is like looking through a window. Right? Mhm. And I obviously would have liked to have bought that TV. But it was like 10,000 bucks, which even what back then I you buy a car for $10,000. So, as much as I liked it, I didn't want to buy it because it was too expensive. So, I had to wait for them to be able to make these TVs cheap enough so that I could afford it. Um and there's nothing wrong with that. But, if if that TV that was the cheapest you know, HDTV and the price had gone up, right? Same thing, look with cell phones. When cell phones first came out, I mean, you don't remember when they But, most people didn't buy cell phones when they first came out. They were way too expensive. Not only were they expensive to buy, they were expensive to use. In fact, when I first got my cell phone, I I barely used it. If somebody called me, I can't talk about myself. It's because I would wait for the weekends or the night time when the rates went down. But, the reason that everybody has cell phones now is because they got cheaper. Right? When prices go down, more people buy things, not less people, more. You know, and and so, prices falling are a good thing. And, you know, cell phone companies make more money now selling cheap cell phones than they did 20 years ago selling expensive because they sell more of them. And they make it up on volume. So, the whole idea that businesses need rising prices is wrong. Consumers don't need rising prices. Everybody wants If I went to somebody, "Hey, do you want your kids college tuition to go up or down? Yeah. Do you want your gas bill to go up or down? You want your grocery bill to go up or down? Hey, you need to have take a vacation. You want the airfare to be cheaper or more expensive? I mean, everybody wants stuff to be cheaper. The This is such that the government needs to make sure that prices go up every year. Why do we need to make sure prices go up? I want prices to go down. That's how standards of living go Are they ever going to let prices fall? Because it seems like they want interest rates now down to as close to zero as possible, which would just make prices keep going higher. Well, they they they they want low interest rates because everybody's got so much debt, especially the government. The government's got more debt than anybody. So, they need low interest rates. But, the economy needs high interest rates. That is the fundamental problem. The The biggest problem with the US economy underlying it is not enough savings, not enough capital investment, too much of borrowing and consumption and speculation. And that has been a a function of low interest rates. Interest rates have been kept artificially low for a long time. And that has screwed up this economy. What we need is higher interest rates that will discourage all this consumption and borrowing, reward people for saving so that we can rebuild our savings, and make the investments in the plant and equipment that we need to produce more stuff. But, of course, this would also require massive cuts in spending. Not only would families have to spend less, but the government would have to spend a lot less. They have to start cutting back on social security, on Medicare, on Medicaid, on on national defense. Everybody would have to cut spending if interest rates went up. That's why they keep interest rates down. But, the only way they can keep interest rates down is by creating inflation. Uh and so, inflation is the tax we pay in order to keep interest rates low and government spending high. We get all this inflation. But, like when they talk about there's an affordability crisis, the reason everything is so unaffordable is because government is so expensive. Every time you buy something, you're paying for government. The cost of government is embedded in every price. Do you think that there's any malice involved with trying to keep inflation high because, as people say, inflation really only helps the wealthy, the people that own assets instead of those who don't? Do you think there's there's any possible thing going on there? Well, I I don't know that it's malice so much as self-preservation. And these politicians >> think it's intentional for potentially that reason or do you think it's >> they're look, they're just trying to kick the can down the road. I mean, they they don't want to rain on the parade. You know, they don't you know, Trump even just recently, you know, even though he talks about housing affordability, he said he doesn't want home prices to come down. Well, isn't that how you make homes affordable? You let the prices go down. He said, "No, he doesn't want prices to go down." In fact, he said he wants housing prices to keep going up because he wants the people who own houses to get richer. But, what about the people who need to buy them? Right? So, what does he want to do? Well, let's let let them borrow more money. Let them go deeper into debt so they can overpay for homes, which is asinine. You know, the We need to let home home prices go down. They never should have gone up as much as they did. The only reason they did it because the Fed had interest rates at zero. The Fed inflated another housing bubble. And Trump wants to make sure the air doesn't come out. But, when you have a bubble, the sooner it deflates, the better. The longer it grows, the more damage gets done. Just like with the Bitcoin bubble, it would have been a much better had this thing popped years ago. But, because it's grown so big, so many more people are going to lose money in Bitcoin. And it's not just the people that lose money buying Bitcoin. Look at all these ridiculous companies that have been created that are going to go bankrupt. Look at all the money we've wasted on these companies, all the resources. I mean, we have really damaged our economy by focusing so much of our capital and our resources in crypto. And a lot of that now is because of the interference of the Trump administration picking winners and losers, which the government shouldn't do because they pick losers. And that's exactly what Bitcoin is. It's a losing in industry. It's not going to survive. All this crypto is a bunch of nonsense. Uh but, now you had the government misdirecting capital to it. So, everything that that we're doing now is all about kicking the can down the road. Makes the problems worse, but they hope that they don't blow up, you know, until after the election. So, it's somebody else's problem. What do you think would signal the true start of a dollar crisis? Well, I think it's it's started already. I think gold at 5,000 is an indication that this is happening. Foreign central banks uh expressing a preference for gold over dollars and foregoing the interest that they would earn on those dollars. But, I think what you're going to see is the crisis expanding not just gold, but in foreign exchange. The dollar was down last year, but not that dramatically. You know, I mean, it was down, you know, maybe 5% 5 10%. I think it'll be down more than that this year against other currencies. And I think this is going to snowball as the dollar really starts to fall. And that's going to put a lot of downward pressure on the bond market, which means upward pressure on interest rates. And that's going to cause the Fed to really panic to try to stop interest rates from rising by creating even more inflation to buy up the bonds that are being dumped on the market. And that's when uh the crisis really could get out of hand. We get an all-out run on the dollar uh with very adverse consequences. I mean, much much more severe than the 2008 financial crisis. And I think today people are ignoring what's happening in gold the way they ignored what happened in subprime because I remember when the subprime market blew up in '07 and you know, we were short subprime, so we made some money on that trade. But, I had been predicting this for years that it would blow up. But, I knew that it wasn't just a problem with subprime mortgages. I knew that the entire housing market was resting on a foundation of cheap credit and and just subprime was just the weakest link of that chain, but that, you know, they were all going to go. And and but, what did you know, the Fed say, Ben Bernanke and everybody else Wall Street? Don't worry, it's contained to subprime. And I was saying, "No, it's a tip of an iceberg. You you have no idea what's what's beneath the surface here." And I was right. You know, we ended up with a financial crisis cuz it wasn't contained to subprime. Well, what's happening in gold is a similar warning. Uh but, not about the credit quality of mortgages, but the credit quality of treasuries. It's the US government uh that is in question, not just subprime or mortgage borrowers. And this is the warning that is being ignored. People just think, "Oh, don't worry about it. Just It's a It's a bubble in gold." You know, uh but, the subprime warning, you know, predated the financial crisis by about a year. You know, you had about a year to realize that it was going to hit the fan. And what happens if the dollar breaks? Where do people go? Well, I mean, they're they're going to gold. They're going back to their own currencies. They're buying real assets. But, the important thing is what happens to America? What happens to our economy? Because our economy is is predicated on the dollar's reserve status. It doesn't work. If we can't run trillion dollar a year trade deficits, it doesn't work. Because we don't have the factories anymore. We don't have the infrastructure, the supply chains, the trained workers. We rely on the rest of the world to produce what we can't. And because we don't really have any savings, we're all in debt, we rely on the rest of the world to save for us and lend us money. And and so, when the world doesn't do that anymore, when it's no longer willing to supply us with goods and lend us money, what do we got? How does this economy function? Uh because, you know, you look at what Who are the biggest employers in America? Uh, FedEx, UPS, Walmart, Amazon. Like, what do those companies do? They transport and sell imported goods. Well, what happens when we can't afford to import the goods anymore? Well, there's nothing to drive around. There's nothing on the shelves are empty. So, all those workers lose their jobs at the same time that consumers can't buy anything. Um, you know, we're we're we're a service sector economy. But, that only works so long as we can outsource the manufacturing. Well, we can't do that if the world doesn't want our dollars anymore. The only way the world's going to trade with us is if we have something to trade other than paper. We'd have to have products. See, the the the reason that countries export is to import. Your exports pay for your imports. But, we're able to import without exporting because people want our dollars. Well, when they don't want our dollars anymore, then we we got to make stuff. But, you can't just, you know, make stuff the way you print money. You making stuff requires real capital investment. It requires the factories and the infrastructure that we don't have anymore. We had it 100 years ago, 50 years ago. We don't have anymore. It's gone. And it's going to take a long time to rebuild it. Now, maybe AI and robots, maybe that'll help, you know. I don't know how, you know, what the timeline is there, but we've got a lot of work to do. But, we are in for a rude awakening because Trump has got it completely backwards. He says the world's been ripping us off. We've been ripping off the world. We've been living off the world. We've been riding on a global gravy train. You know, they're the ones that have gotten the short end of the stick. And that's why I think that as the world dumps the dollar, there's going to be an economic boom outside the United States cuz I think that we have been a burden that the global economy has been forced to bear. Especially a lot of the emerging markets, you know, the BRIC nations. They have borne a lion's share of that burden. And I think when the dollar collapses, this is going to let loose an economic boom because what's going to happen is all of our purchasing power is transferred to other people. So, all the factories that produce all the goods, they keep pumping stuff out. The difference is Americans don't get it. People in other countries get it. Their lives are now better. They have more stuff. They have greater purchasing power. And when the world stops financing our debt, they're not going to stop saving. They're just going to use their savings in their own economies. They're going to invest in expanding their own productive capacity. So, the world's going to have more goods and more investment capital. And we're going to have fewer goods and less investment capital. So, what do Americans get? Much higher prices, much higher living uh interest rates, and a much lower standard of living. The world gets lower prices, lower interest rates, you know, a higher standard of living. So, the the that's why my whole investment strategy is is investing abroad. I've been I've been anticipating this for a long time. It finally started. Last year was the first year that international investing You look at my uh my global dividend payer strategy. Did 62% return last year. This is not my gold strategy. This is dividend paying foreign stocks. 62%. I've got a mutual fund, too, that people could buy no load any any discount broker. Did the same thing. It's It's It's based on that separately managed account strategy. And already this year, I forget where we're up, 13, 14% year to date. The S&P is basically flat. >> Yeah. This is something I've been telling Jack. I remember 2 years ago, I'm going to say it. For the longest time, I've been 35% 65% uh international US. And I got made fun of so much because my international did nothing. It was flat. It would just pay its 3% dividend, nothing. This last year, I'm up like 40% on my international. It's finally paid off. Yeah, and it should This is just the beginning. This is not the end. This is going to be going on for years. This is a major rotation that just started out of US assets, out of US stocks, out of US bonds, out of the US dollar. Uh, you know, our markets are still very expensive compared to the rest of the world. You get much better value uh by investing abroad. And now you you know, you're going to ride this wave of of of money just getting sucked out of the US. Have you made most of your money just investing in buying and holding gold? Look, my net worth right now is significantly impacted by my my precious metals holdings. My not just physical, but mainly mining stocks. Um, that was probably the biggest increase in my net worth last year was because mining stocks tripled and I had a lot of money in mining stocks. But, the money that I got to buy those mining stocks came from my business. >> Right. So, if I didn't have an income, I wouldn't have had the money to buy those stocks. So, for most of my life, I was generating more money earning money. But, last year was the first year really in a while >> the first year that I made more money on my investments than I than I than I really made on my current I mean, a lot more cuz I had, you know, it was such a big move. Um, but, you know, I didn't sell anything. So, all this is on paper, right? I mean I mean I you know, Are you tempted to sell any of it and just take your >> No, not I I still think Look, I I've been buying the dips when they So, there's a big shakeout, I'll I I bought more last year, you know, I But, more recently, I was putting a lot of money into oil stocks, which are now making 52-week highs. I I I got great buys on oil stocks few months ago. Uh, I put more money into emerging markets cuz I'm so overweight personally now in in in mining stocks because of the big big increase. But, for people that I, you know, talk to today, new clients, I absolutely think they need exposure to these stocks. I don't think they're expensive. In fact, even though these mining stocks have tripled, they're cheaper now than they were before they tripled because they're much more valuable businesses when gold's at 5,000 than when gold was at 1,500. And it's not just that gold's at 5,000. It's that it's going to keep rising. You know, and so the that's not factored into these stocks. And the the cheapest stocks are some of the smaller companies. My gold fund, the Euro Pacific Gold Fund, EPGI X, you should be loading up on that because we have about a third of our portfolio in these really small companies that I think are just going to go ballistic cuz I think what's going to happen with these small companies is the big companies are going to buy them because they need more resources and it's too expensive to go exploring and drilling. Why not just buy out these little companies? They have so much money right now. They are literal gold mines, but they they have never had this kind of cash flow when, you know, the cost of mining gold, maybe it was 1,500 an ounce and maybe now it's 1,800, but you were getting, you know, 2 years ago, you were getting 2,000. Now you're getting 5,000 for the exact same thing? I mean, how many other businesses are able to double or triple their prices and keep selling? Is there a price though if gold hits you just say, "Hey, maybe it's a little overvalued right now, I'm going to sell it." Like if it were to hit 15,000 tomorrow, is there a level where you just say, "All right, this doesn't make any >> going to hit 15,000 tomorrow. But, if it did, yeah, maybe I'd I'd sell some I mean, but, you know, I I mean, gold doesn't Bitcoin? Well, I would definitely not buy any Bitcoin. I wouldn't buy any Bitcoin. But, no, actually, if gold hit 15,000 tomorrow, it'd be because we were in an all-out dollar crisis. And so, the question is if I sold my gold, what would I buy? I mean, I might not want dollars. I might sell it for Swiss francs. I might sell it for stocks, right? Cuz it could be like the dollar is just imploding, you know, and it's going to it's like a uh you know, like a hot potato. Like you know, or musical you you don't want to get caught with it. Uh, if that were to happen, I mean, something would have to be seriously going on. Isn't the dollar crisis reversible? Like, could we change course? I think I think we've got to gone past the point of no return. You know, I think that maybe the big beautiful bill kind of cemented it. I mean, when when Trump was elected with a mandate to cut government spending. I mean, Elon Musk was almost going to be a co-president. He was going to be leading the Department of Government Efficiency, right? It's almost an oxymoron cuz government can never be efficient by by definition. But, there was a real mandate to cut government spending. And what happened to Elon Musk? They ran him out of town. And the first thing the Republicans did was increase government spending. You know, the national debt just hit 38.7 trillion, I think, yesterday, up 2.6 trillion since Trump took office. A little over a year. $2.6 trillion increase in the national debt. Um, and and and the message that this sends to the world is America will never do anything about this runaway deficits because the only hope was Trump and the Republicans. And they they didn't deliver. Yes, they were critical of Biden's spending. Yet, when they had an opportunity to cut that spending, they did not. In fact, they increased spending above the levels that Biden had. And they cut taxes. Uh, so they expanded the big deficits that they inherited, made them bigger. So, creditors know, "Okay, the Democrats are never going to cut spending. I mean, the the Democrats love government. They want to spend money. Why would they stop? But, the Republicans, who are supposed to not like government, they they won't cut spending, either. So, if the people that don't like government want to spend more, the people who love it will never spend more. So, what hope do we have? None. Um and so, this is all we can have is a crisis. We're we're going to keep on spending money until we can't do it anymore. And we're going to keep on borrowing money until we can't. And and the crisis is what's going to stop it. Um it's going to be a collapse of the dollar. It is inevitable. It is unavoidable. Um the only question is when. It's not a question of if, but a question of when. And it's been a question of when for a while. Yeah. But, I think that we are significantly closer. You know, I think that not only what Biden did with the sanctions against Russia, which created a political incentive to get out of the dollar, but Donald Trump took it up quite a few notches with all the tariffs, which of course Americans pay the tariffs, but they are a nuisance because it interferes with free trade. I mean, let's say there's a company in Canada that's was selling goods to America, and now Trump puts these big tariffs on Americans who want to buy Canadian goods. This Canadian company is not going to sell as much stuff in America because the Americans can't afford to pay the tariffs on top of the goods. So, it's harmful to Americans cuz now goods that they used to be able to buy are too expensive. But, now this Canadian company is like, what are we going to do? Our customers can't afford our products anymore. So, they have to find new customers. So, it's disruptive. They'll find it. They'll get They'll figure out how to get along without us, and they'll be better off. But, it's a nuisance. But, Trump is lecturing everybody, telling everybody, you know, they're screwing us over, they're ripping us off. You know, the world doesn't like to hear this nonsense, especially when it's the other way around. But, I think maybe the straw that broke the camel's back was not um what happened in Venezuela, but the threat to invade Greenland. The fact that Donald Trump openly spoke out loud for weeks about the US invading Greenland, about us trying to buy it, but if we couldn't buy it, we're we're just going to take it. I think that was a real, you know, eye-opener for the rest of the world. And up until then, I think the world viewed America as a benevolent force for world peace, for good. That yes, we had this big military, but that was good because it would be used to defend freedom, to defend the world. When Donald Trump raised the possibility of using our military to take Greenland by force, a completely peaceful country that is no threat to the United States, but Trump said, we need it, we want it, and we've got the might, and we're going to take it. I think that was a a real wake-up that the world says, you know what? We got to do something about America. They got too much power. We can't keep financing this. Because if it wasn't for the world, you know, holding the US dollar as a reserve currency, and lending us all this money, and supplying us with all these goods, we could not have this big military. We couldn't afford it. We can't pay for it. And so, the world is like, you know what? We got to stop subsidizing this. They're too big. They're too powerful. Uh and and if they move away from the dollar, they will collapse the economy, and we're going to have to slash our military spending. We're going to have to pull back a lot of troops because we won't be able to afford to pay them, to supply them. Uh and we're going to be dealing with, you know, riots in the streets. I mean, we're going to have a lot of problems. We're not going to be able to worry about what's happening in Greenland when they're rioting, you know, in the cities because they can't people can't afford food. And, you know, they they can't afford electricity. 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Now, in terms of having a reserve, though, with Fort Knox, what's been going on with conspiracies that there's no gold there, but that maybe the gold had at some point been removed or replaced? >> Well, you know, it's hard to believe there's no gold there, but what's very interesting about the whole thing is that in the in the early days of the Trump administration, there was a lot of talk about auditing Fort Knox, about going down there. >> Yeah. And all of a sudden, crickets. Like, no one talked about it. And so, the question is, why? Why were they so gung ho about doing an audit? And then all of a sudden, it's like the forbidden topic. Nobody will even mention it. It never comes up. That's a little curious cuz it makes you think that maybe somebody said something to the president, like, we probably shouldn't do the audit because, you know, it's not there or it's not all not there, and that's going to be a big problem if the world knows it's not there. And it would be a big problem. Uh so, the fact that the whole thing just got buried under a big rug, uh makes you think that there's something going on. This is one of the positives about Bitcoin is that you can verify it, though, on chain. Yes, you can verify how much nothing everybody has. Yes, that's, you know, and gold is easy to verify, too, if if you allow it. Right? Yeah, you need an audit, but yes, I understand that if I have gold, if I have Bitcoin in my wallet, you can verify it. Now, if you have tokenized gold, you can verify that, too, but again, to verify that the gold is actually behind the token, somebody does need to go in there and like count it. And, you know, somebody reputable. So, yeah, that is one of the things that is good about Bitcoin and interesting about it is that you could verify it. But, I said, look, you're very you're verifying how much nothing I have. So, what, you know, when people say, oh, look how easy it is to transport Bitcoin. Yeah, because you're transporting nothing. It's not It's not hard to trans In fact, Bitcoin doesn't actually get transported. It Bitcoin doesn't go anywhere. You know, it just one wallet has it, and now another. It's not like the Bitcoin goes from my wallet to your. The Bitcoin doesn't go anywhere. It's just we just change the wallet address that's assigned to that Bitcoin. But, if you're dealing in nothing, then yes, it's easy to transport it. Gold is real. It has substance. And so, yes, you do have to transport it. But, the beauty of tokenized gold is I don't is is there, I don't have to move the gold. See, most people when you're using gold as money as opposed to using gold, you know, in industry, you don't actually need the gold. You just need to own the gold, and you need to be able to transfer that ownership to whoever you're doing business with. And so, when you tokenize gold, that improves gold as a mean of exchange. It makes it even better than it was in the past because I don't have to give you my gold. I just have to give you the proof that I own the gold. And the minute I give it to you, now you own that gold. You know, now if you actually need the gold for some reason, you could get it. If you decide to become a jeweler, and you want, you know, you want some gold, you could actually go get your gold. But, if you don't need the gold, you can use the gold to buy something that you do need. And the person who's selling you that will take your gold. But, what do you think about your son buying Bitcoin though? But, he's not buying it anymore. I mean, he bought some [laughter] years ago, but he's completely lost interest in Bitcoin. >> How did that affect your relationship with him because I saw you called him brainwashed? >> He was. >> buying Bitcoin. He was brainwashed, you know, I mean, I look, all the young kids, you know, I I I I get into these debates. I had another one uh just the other yesterday, I think, with Anthony Scaramucci. And, you know, they always like to say, "Look, it's the young kids, you know, yes, all the old people in our generation were buying gold, but, you know, it's the the young generation, the kids who are buying Bitcoin." And I'm like, "Yeah, exactly. But, I'm not going to take my investment advice from a bunch of kids." You know, kids make mistakes. They're they're they're new, they're young, they don't have the experience, they don't have the wisdom. Uh and they're making a lot of mistakes buying Bitcoin. Now, when a lot of the 20-somethings, you know, grow up and they're my age, they they they they'll know better. And one of the reasons they'll know better is they'll remember how much money they lost with Bitcoin, you know, and the best time to lose money is when you're young. Did your son make or lose money on Bitcoin? He made money, but he's pretty much sold the Bitcoin that he had. But, he did make money in it, yeah. Would you rather have one Bitcoin right now or 1 oz of gold, but 100% you had to hold on to both for 5 years? Oh, well, obviously, if I had to hold on to them both for 5 years, I would I I think the ounce of gold would be worth more. But, obviously, if I could sell right now, I would I would take the Bitcoin. I would immediately sell it. Uh but, I you know, maybe if you gave me that Bitcoin, I could find a way to hedge it somehow. >> [laughter] >> I could I could I could short something or get some kind of derivative instrument because, yes, there is a high market price. Right now, Bitcoin is 60 what, 6,000? And and gold's only 5,000. But, Bitcoin is going to continue to lose value relative to gold. Eventually, it won't have any value whatsoever. But, you know, I I I I no longer think Bitcoin is going to zero anytime soon. I I get that there's enough people in the cult now that will buy it and will ascribe some value to it. But, let's say Bitcoin just falls to $1,000, which I think is still a lot of money for nothing. But, if Bitcoin falls to $1,000, it's certainly a long way from zero. But, if you bought it at $100,000, that's not going to be much of a consolation. Well, it's not zero. Okay, but you lost 99% of your money. I mean, even if you lost the last 1% at that point, it wouldn't be that big a deal. So, I think for all practical purposes, for most people who own Bitcoin, it may you know, it may as well be going to zero. They're going to lose almost all of of their money. What is your son investing in now? I heard he's getting big into AI. >> That's it, right. He's not investing in anything. I guess he's just investing in his career or trying to, you know, trying to work. But, yeah, he's very much into AI. And, you know, he was into gold I he was into gold and silver before he got into Bitcoin. And so, he lost interest in gold and silver when he discovered Bitcoin. And then, he lost interest in Bitcoin when he got into AI. Cuz he kind of thinks that, look, AI is going to lead to such massive efficiencies in production that prices are going to collapse because everything is going to be virtually free. So, he doesn't think there's any reason to have an inflation hedge because everything is going to be so cheap in the future. Do you agree with him or what do you think? Well, I do agree that in the future, things will be a lot cheaper and a lot more abundant. He just thinks the future is years away, like 1, 2, 3 years away. I don't think that it's going to happen that quickly. Even though what's happening with AI and the technology is certainly evolving very quickly, and it's getting a lot better very fast, I don't see that it's able to translate into that kind of productivity in that short a period of time. You know, I think I think I think it's just going to take more like decades, not years. And uh you know, but I think there will be some benefits in the near term, just not to the degree that that he seems to believe. Are you still as motivated now as you were maybe 30 or so years ago to grow your net worth, or do you think that your growth motivation has dwindled a little bit? Well, I mean, my net worth is high enough that I can pretty much do most of what I want, or maybe all of what I want cuz I don't I don't my needs are not that that great. Um So, what motivates you to continue? Well, I mean, I want the business to grow cuz I do ultimately I'm going to sell, cash out, and and and kind of retire. So, obviously, want to get as big an exit as I can from the business. Um but in the meantime, I think I'm I'm doing a lot of good just educating people about capitalism, uh about economics, about money, about gold, about Bitcoin. I think I'm I think I'm doing a big service letting people know because, you know, when Bitcoin collapses, there's going to be a lot of people in government that are going to try to blame capitalism. And they're going to be saying we need a lot more regulation to protect people from scams like Bitcoin. And I'm going to remind everybody that the government was a big part of the scam. Uh and that it's not about capitalism. It's not a failure of capitalism. I mean, yeah, I mean, people in a free market, people can do foolish things with their money. That's that's, you know, that's freedom. You're free to make mistakes. And you know, I've never wanted to prevent people from buying Bitcoin. I just thought it was unfortunate that so many people were. Um but people have a have a right to buy it, and they need to, you know, bear the consequences. Now, what I don't like is the fraud that I think I believe that exists in Bitcoin. I think a lot of people have been defrauded into buying it. I think, you know, the media uh has kind of conspired with a lot of the uh companies in the space that, you know, they buy these ads, and then the media comes out and endorses their stuff. I think there's a lot of stuff going on. A lot of things have been misrepresented that ultimately, I think, will be settled in the courts. I think there's going to be a lot of lawsuits after Bitcoin collapses cuz the people that lost money are going to be suing the people who made money. Because, look, a lot of people will have made money in Bitcoin. But, the way people made money in Bitcoin is because other people lost it. It's It's a transfer. They're you're the people are not creating any actual value. They're just taking the money from the people who bought it and who are going to be stuck holding the bag. So, the people who made a lot of money are going to get sued by the people who lost a lot of money. Do you think capitalism is becoming less popular? It is, and that's because we have less capitalism. I mean, capitalism gets a bad rap when it's infected with socialism. And that's what the government does. They, you know, they they they they they come into an economy and they screw it up with regulations and subsidies that distort capitalism, that create problems. And then, they blame those problems on capitalism. And the solution is, well, we just need more government. And that just makes the problems even bigger, which is great for government cuz now they have something else to blame on capitalism. And so, it always ends up that government gets bigger and bigger, and we have less and less capitalism. You know, when you have maximum capitalism, maximum freedom, uh you have the highest possible standard of living for the greatest number of people. Uh and that that's what we need. You know, we need, you know, free market capitalism. We need to limit the size of government uh to the greatest degree possible. Like, you know, Donald Trump likes to talk about, you know, the heyday of America. And he's right. When he talks about the what they call the Gilded Age, 1880s, 1890s. He says, "America was never as rich on a relative basis as we were back then." And that's true statement. And we had more economic growth back then. But, the government only spent about 2% of our GDP. Now, it spends, you know, more than 10 times that. So, we were rich because government was tiny. Now, Trump says we were rich because we we had tariffs. No, we were rich because the government was so tiny, All we needed was tariffs. We didn't need an income tax. We didn't need a payroll tax. We didn't have any of this stuff. So, we were rich when government was small. What do you think about a wealth tax? Yeah, well, why is it Why is it gaining so much popularity? Well, because most people won't have to pay it. I mean, that's the problem with democracy, right? People are in favor of the taxes that they don't pay. So, if you go to the public and say, "Hey, let's tax the billionaires." Well, how many billionaires are there? Thousand, right? Almost everyone's going to say, "Yeah, let's tax them." But, you know, that's the reason we have an income tax. People don't realize that. So, you know, we didn't always have an income tax, right? We passed an amendment, the 16th amendment. And um 1913, we got an income tax. The reason we have an income tax is because the government said, "Hey, let's tax the rich." Right? And And before we had an income tax, the main source of revenue was tariffs. See? And the government said, "The tariffs are paid by the middle class and the poor. If we have an income tax that the rich will pay, we can get rid of these tariffs." >> [snorts] >> So, the reason that the income tax was so widely supported was because nobody was going to pay it except Carnegie and Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. I mean, and it was a tiny tax. Two, three percent on the top not even one percent, even a small percentage. But, of course, as soon as the government got the income tax, they kept lowering the increasing the rate, applying it to more people. By the time we got to the Second World War, everybody was paying the income tax. All the middle class. The middle class by the Second World War, the the middle class was paying much more a much higher tax rate than Rockefeller and Carnegie were originally paying. So, the government screwed you over. So, the same thing would happen on a wealth tax. They get They get the tax in by saying, "We're just going to tax the billionaires." But, before you know it, they're taxing everybody. That cuz that's how it went with the income tax. But, they had to amend the Constitution to allow for an income tax. They'd have to do the same thing to allow for a wealth tax. Uh because an income tax was a direct tax and they need to apportion it. They didn't want to apportion it, so they amended the Constitution. Taxing wealth is not the same thing as taxing income. And taxing wealth is also a direct tax. You want to tax wealth? Well, you better amend the Constitution because you can't just levy a tax on wealth. Is there a ideal tax rate to pay? Well, for income taxes, I'd say the ideal rate is zero. I don't think there should I think that's a horrible way to tax. But, who funds, let's just say, schools, police, roads, infrastructure? >> government doesn't doesn't even get involved. It shouldn't even get involved in any of that stuff. That stuff is for local governments. Um so, And military would be another one, right? >> we don't we don't Yeah, we don't need as big a military as we have. I think I think we spend too much on the military. But, yeah, the military is pretty much what the federal government is supposed to be spending money on. But, just about everything else is supposed to be handled by state and local governments. And, you know, that's where the schools should be paid for. Although, I prefer private schools. I think private schools do a much better job of educating kids than government schools. Uh they do it for a lot less money and the quality is a lot better. You know, anything that the government does is going to be expensive and low quality. So, that's why you want the government to do as little as possible. You know, I don't know if you ever ride on private roads, but they're always nicer, they're in better shape than the government roads. Um because we have to You know, there's nothing that's for free. See, people like it when government provides stuff cuz they don't think it costs anything. They think they're getting something for free. They're not. It's more expensive. Anything that you get from government is going to end up being more expensive than what you would get in a free market. Because when you're you're buying something in a free market, you're buying something from a guy who's trying to make a profit and who faces competition. And so, he is motivated to give you a good deal. He's working his ass off to earn your business, to provide you with what you need in its highest quality and at the lowest possible cost. But, when government provides you with something, they couldn't care less whether you like it or not. You're stuck with it. There's no profit motive. They don't give a damn. They're not going to be efficient. And so, you never get good stuff when you get it from government. People just haven't learned that lesson. Uh so, you you know, whatever it is, food or clothing or shelter education, health care, all of this will be better, more readily available, and less expensive if we allow the free market to provide it. Anytime we assign a function to government, we are going to settle for lower quality and higher cost. Would you ever want to run for office of some sort to try to make a positive impact or is it just a lost cause? Well, I tried once. I tried I ran for Senate in Connecticut. But, um I would not do that again. Not probably not. I mean, it you know, it was a waste of money. I wasted my own money. >> How much did you spend? Well, myself, a little over a million. But, I raised a couple of million from donors. Yeah. So, that was a waste, right? Cuz I >> Yeah. But, um >> What was the main thing you campaigned on? Uh my main issue was going to be I wanted to uh you know, be the filibuster to stop the debt. I I I wanted to I didn't want the debt ceiling to go up. I wanted to stop raising the debt ceiling to force the government to cut spending. So, it was more about I was you know, I wanted to stop the spending, get the budget balanced. Uh was like you know, a main thing, you know. You would have been the filibuster guy. I would have been the guy Yeah, I would not I They would have had to drag me out of that Senate. Uh but I you know, and I would have you know, gotten the camera. I would have you know, really laid into everybody else. Um but yeah, I mean, I you know, I I I It would have been interesting if I could have won. I didn't even win the primary. So, you know, I didn't So, >> I think you'd have a better shot now. Yeah, I mean, I I I don't know. Better? Maybe, but not necessarily like an actual chance. Um I I mean, cuz there's so much I have so much of a record of the things that I said that would just be used against me in um in 30-second sound bites that Peter wants to take away your social security, your Medicare, all this stuff. I mean, so, it's difficult to to win an election when you're telling the truth and you know, you're not giving away free stuff. You're you know, you're you're just promising freedom, right? People People don't want freedom. They want They want free stuff, even though they don't realize how expensive their free stuff is. So, it would be very difficult for me to win an election in the environment that we have now. But, obviously, look, Javier Milei became president of Argentina running on a similar type of message that that I would be running on. And it took a lot for Argentina to elect Milei. I mean, years and years of of of empty government promises that it made the situation worse and worse and worse. So, I mean, if things got bad enough in America, and they're going to get pretty bad, but if they got bad enough, then there may be a situation where I could win. But, things would have to be really, really bad before people would give up on all these government promises and solutions and say, "You know what? Let We need to try something different." Um and you know, and and I I do a good job of explaining capitalism and why it works and why it's the only way out of the mess that the government creates. What are you optimistic about for the future? Well, look, I'm optimistic that capitalism over time will prevail against government and freedom will ultimately, you know, we've had throughout history, look, we have a lot of stuff today that nobody had 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 300 years ago, despite all these big governments and all these crises and all these collapses, humankind has improved. You know, average Americans today have things that wealthy people in the past couldn't even imagine, you know, I mean, you know, when people didn't have running water. They didn't They They They didn't have electricity. They you know, they they they they they you know, they they couldn't take a hot shower. You know, they they didn't have air conditioner. They you know, they they didn't have music. Uh you know, the the stuff that we have Yeah, you had that music, you had to go find a concert. You know, you know, people didn't have you know, you know, stereos that we have or high fidelity. Uh you know, so, we we have all this stuff. We have cars, you know, we don't have you know, the streets aren't you know, we have sewage. I mean, you know, we we we have all these advances. I mean, and then you know, now we're going to get robots and all kinds of We have cell phones and all kinds of things. So, humans are going to keep creating stuff. They are going to overcome whatever barriers governments put in their place. The key is to remove as many of those barriers as we can, minimize them, so that we can accomplish even more. We can accomplish it sooner rather than later. Um and it's a big world. I mean, even if things get really bad in America for a while, they could get really good in other places. You know, I mean, yeah. Uh you know, there's capital Capitalism is part far more pervasive today around the world than it than it's been. You know, even though not many places have pure capitalism like America was and even America wasn't completely pure, but we were we were very close in the time period that the president speaks about. Which country has the most capitalism right now? Well, you got probably look like a Singapore even though they have you know even in Hong Kong which is part of China. Um Uh but you know, I mean there's even a lot of capitalism in mainland China in certain in certain areas of the economy. There's a lot of freedom. There's a lot of entrepreneurship uh going on. Um more so than there is than there is here. Um but you know, I think you know, even the countries that had a lot of socialism like you know, Norway, Sweden you know, the pendulum is swinging in the other direction. They they've been lowering their taxes, getting rid of capital gains, getting rid of the estate tax. You know, they've been moving in the in in the other direction uh because they saw the harm that they were creating with the welfare states that they had built up. But the reason countries like Sweden were rich enough to afford a well a welfare state was because they were capitalist first. If you if you're socialist first, you never go anywhere. You're just you know, you're trapped in poverty. But you know, people you know, people are always envious and resentful. I mean one of the things about capitalism is it doesn't produce equal results. There are some people that are going to be a lot richer than other people and they deserve to be richer. They they did more. They produced more. They contributed more and so they made more. Uh but there are always people that resent that and and politicians feed off of that envy. Hey, this guy is rich. That's not fair. You know, let's take some of his money. You need all this stuff. Why should this guy and they end up killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Like you know, you know, people are always I don't want somebody to get rich. Uh you know, like uh uh you know, they talk about like health care. Why should somebody get rich off of people being sick? Well, you know what? I'm totally happy. I mean I want the guy that cures cancer to get really really rich. Because then I won't have to die of cancer. I mean, don't we want somebody to think hey, if I can cure cancer, I'm going to be rich. I want a lot of people thinking I can get rich if I can cure cancer cuz that's the best way to get it cured. Have smart people trying to get rich and you can't resent the fact that the guy that cured it got rich because if he couldn't get rich, he wouldn't have cured it. Right? Peo- people have are motivated by by self-interest. But there's nothing wrong with that because if you pursue your self-interest, then you're pursuing everybody's self-interest because everybody benefits from what you create from what you invent. That's what that's the reason you can get rich. You can only get rich if you come up with something that a lot of people want and that they're willing to buy. So you're rewarded in proportion to how much you've helped people. Now yes, you can you can also get rich. You can be a criminal. You can steal money, but that that's different, right? But if you're going to get rich in business honestly then you're you're being you're being rewarded for the contributions that you make. And there are a lot of people that don't make a lot of contributions. They don't start businesses. They don't invent anything. They don't do anything. So why should they be rich? Right? But the politicians pander to those people. Oh, you know, you should have this. You're entitled to this. You're entitled to that. Nobody is entitled to anything. You know, you're entitled to freedom. You're entitled to be left alone. But you're not entitled to take things from other people and you're not entitled to elect people who will steal for you. Right? If it's wrong to steal if it's wrong for me to steal your money it's also wrong for me to vote for somebody to steal your money and give it to me. It's the same dynamic. It's just as morally wrong. When you're saying that I could just imagine like an American flag flapping behind you. [laughter] And some eagles. >> yeah, and eagles like soaring >> what you call it America. Pro-American music playing swelling and And that was a powerful message because all four of my grandparents came to this country to be free. They didn't come because they wanted welfare or food stamps or housing supports because none of that stuff existed. They came because America was where they could be left alone. Where the government was not in their way. Right? The government didn't give them anything other than freedom. They knew that if they came here and they worked hard that they could succeed. That was the American dream. The American dream was not owning a home. Some realtors made that crap up. The American dream was that anybody no matter how you know, meager their their their they they started no matter where they came from no matter who their parents were anybody could be rich. Anybody could make it in America. You didn't have to have connections. You didn't have to know the right people. You didn't have to be born uh to nobility or with a silver spoon in your mouth. You could go from the mail room to the board room in America. You could go as high as your own ambition and hard work could take you. Right? That's the kind of country that I want to live in. Not a country where everybody's trying to get free stuff from the government. Everybody's looking for you know, handouts and you know, even Kennedy Kennedy I mean he didn't you know, he wasn't the greatest example, but he said ask not what your country can do for you, but what you could do for your country. But today everybody's asking. Everybody what can my country do? I mean look at Man Dammy. How does he get mayor of New York? Free groceries, free you know, free buses, free housing, right? All all about what is the government going to give me? Well, the government doesn't have anything. People don't understand. Government has nothing that they don't take. So when you're asking the government to give you something, you're asking the government to take it away from somebody else. Are you ever afraid that maybe you might be wrong and that the dollar stays strong, Bitcoin goes to 500,000, AI fixes the economy and gold stagnates? Well, Of all those what would that mean? Of all those things, I say the only thing that possibly could happen is AI. If we can somehow like my my son thinks. Get a get out of jail free card from AI. I I just don't expect that to happen. But that's more likely than than Bitcoin outperforming gold. But um Like do you think Elon Musk saying that in the next 10 years that money is going to be meaningless because anything we could ever want is just going to appear. We could make anything happen. So you use for money anymore. I think at some point in the future that may be the case. Um but 10 years seems a little bit optimistic that it could happen that quickly. But you know, the interesting thing about it the government would oppose stuff like that cuz they'd say oh, it's going to create all this unemployment. Well, yes, but that's a good thing. Peo- people don't want jobs. They want jobs so they can get things. If they can have the things without the jobs, then screw the job. I'll just take the stuff. >> you think most people would be doing all day if they didn't have a job? Well, if they didn't have a job and everything came from you know, so I I I guess like you know, we all have we all carry around our cell phones, right? All right. So let's say a world where I have my cell phone and I just you know push a button and I ask for you know, a car and I tell it what kind of car I want. I push the button and there's the car. It's all at it's created in out of the atoms in the atmosphere and you know, I want oh, I'd like a new house. I'd like a boat. I'd like my own jet. I'd like everything I want. I just push like I have you know, like from I Dream of Jeannie and Major Nelson. Whatever we want, we just ask our genie and it magically appears. You know, if we could live in a world like that where everybody can have everything that they want instantly for free I I you know, I guess people would be enjoying themselves. I don't know. I mean I think just you know, they they would just what would you do if you could have whatever you want? I mean I don't know. I think I think in the beginning it would be really interesting, a lot of fun, but I think after a few months of that maybe 6 months to a year, you get antsy. I yeah, I don't know. What would we have to I don't know. I don't I I guess I mean I mean there are some people that are wealthy enough that they really can do that. They just can't push the button, but they can buy anything they want. So you I guess you'd have to talk to some of these billionaires and say hey, what's you know, what's your life like? Because in theory that's what everybody's life would be like because you know uh nobody would be limited by their resources. If you if you've got a 100 billion dollars, right? You you pretty much can get whatever you want. You know, you know, um and so you know, I don't know. I mean so what are they doing all day? You know, cuz in theory they could do that, but >> they're motivated beyond that though. They want to change the world. They want to do But I guess it but I guess once everybody can have everything they want, I don't know if there's anything left to change. Assuming that you know, everybody now lives forever and nobody gets old you know, I I don't know. I mean but you know, but all this stuff you know, I mean if humanity is around in a million years if we haven't blown ourselves up, I'm pretty sure that life will be something like that. If maybe we won't even be in physical bodies anymore. So maybe none of it will even matter if we're just living in in just thought where we're you know, we could just do whatever we want because it's all energy and there's no actual matter or space. We're all living in in in in like the and a computer. That Right now though. Well, yeah, but if I I'm I'm bound by gravity and all kinds of things. I can't do whatever I want in this simulation. It's kind of a lame simulation. >> to wait for the next simulation, the upgrade. But, >> [clears throat] >> no, I don't know. But, I mean, I'm in in base your question, I I don't think that I'm wrong about about the dollar. I'm I think the dollar's going down. I don't think that Bitcoin is going to deliver the type of dollar hedge that people believe. I think that's unfortunate cuz I think a lot of people bought Bitcoin for the same reason that I bought gold. And I think they made a mistake. I think they're on the wrong horse. Um for a while that horse was running fast, but I think it's pretty much going to the glue factory. I think it's it's out of the race. Um and you know, we'll see what happens after this crisis. I think the crisis is inevitable. What's not inevitable is what happens next, you know, how how America reacts to the crisis, what we do. So, what's your investing philosophy [clears throat] for 2026, 2027, and what would you recommend for the average viewer out there? Well, I mean, it's the same strategy that I've been recommending for years and years because I've been preparing for something that still hasn't completely happened. But, what caused me to have the concerns that drove that strategy, all those problems are even bigger now than when I first started preparing. So, that has just reinforced the idea that I'm that I'm right in what people need to own. And you know, I have my strategies. I have five mutual funds that that I manage. And they are specifically designed to thrive in the global economy that I believe is in the process of of unfolding. So, you want to have foreign stocks, emerging markets. You want to have investments that are tied to a lot of commodities and that will do well with inflation. And it with a dollar, you know, devaluation, de-dollarization. So, you want to own physical precious metals. You want to own foreign stocks. You know, I mean, pretty much my entire investment strategy, it's all laid out. So, people can go to my website at europac.com, look at my look at my funds. You can go to shiftgold and and get some gold and silver and and and be prepared. And a lot of the investments that worked well when the bubble was inflating are not going to do well as the air comes out. What percentage of your portfolio is gold? Well, my my portfolio right now, it's it's pretty big. Mainly the miners. And a lot of it is because of the appreciation. I was about 50% mining stocks a couple of years ago. And now they've gone up so much, I'm more like 70 to 80%. So, I'm trying to bring that down by building up the rest of my portfolio, not by selling my gold stocks so much as adding new money into the the other the other stocks that I have, you know, and as I said, I've added energy, more into energy, and more into emerging markets recently. But, I made a big bet on these gold and silver stocks, and I didn't even think I would have so much, but thing is, it took so long. I had so many opportunities to buy the dips. You know, they kept crushing these stocks. The most recent one was after Trump was elected. We had a big drop in gold stocks. So, you know, I bought I bought more. Um But, you know, I think people should have probably 5 to 10% at a minimum in like physical gold. And then they should have maybe another 10, 20, 25%. I think still in mining stocks because I think they're that still that cheap. I think there's so much potential there. And then the rest should be more diversified dividend paying stocks. You know, you can have a little bit in some foreign bonds. Uh shorter duration. But, I I I I have very little invested in the United States personally. I have I have some energy stocks in the US. Couple of other stocks, tobacco. I don't I I I My personal portfolio is very very light on US. And The only tech stocks I have are outside the US. What is that term called? It's like Pascal's Wager, is it? Oh, no. Never heard of it. In terms of religion where it's like you don't know if you should believe in Christianity or not or Judaism or not. But, if you don't believe in it and you're wrong, the consequence is extremely bad. Whereas, if you do believe in it and you happen to be right, then it's like great job. You did it right. And if if you do believe in it and you were wrong, where it's it's not a thing. It's like you it's not like you lose much. Well, there you're just Well, I think the only religion, I mean, that that would apply to is like Christianity. But, Christianity is, you know, it's like all or nothing. Like either you accept >> [snorts] >> Jesus and go to heaven or you don't and go to hell. >> Yes. And and and that kind of you know, ultimatum is, you know, I mean, people can say, "Hey, all I have to do is accept him and I'm I'm, you know, what the heck what do I got to lose?" Um but Judaism Judaism doesn't even have that. We don't have that ultimatum. It's like, you know, you believe in God, you don't believe in God. It's not like God's vindictive. I mean, if there's a heaven, everybody goes. It's not like he's like, "Oh, You you didn't believe in me. I'm you're going to you're going to hell." That's That's that to me that that that that, you know. But, I get what you're saying. >> it up in terms of Bitcoin. It's like in the off-hand chance that you were wrong, wouldn't it make more sense just to write off a small percentage of your portfolio to say, "Hey, look, if I'm right, so be it. It's just a couple percent. But, if I am wrong, then Pascal's Wager as it pertains to bit Yeah, that would end up making sense. That That logic would have worked in the beginning when Bitcoin was a dollar, right? When I first learned about it, it could have been, "Look, take a chance. Maybe this thing really catches on, right? What do you got to lose? Throw 10 grand at it. Big deal, right? You know." So, yes, I mean, I could have done that back then. But, today, the idea that I should throw some money in it just in case, it's already huge. Everybody already knows about Bitcoin. I mean, who doesn't know about it? It's all people talk about. You know, you watch the financial news and that's all they discuss. The biggest advertisers are Bitcoin crypto companies. I mean, we have a Bitcoin president. We have a Bitcoin cabinet. I mean, we have a crypto czar. I mean, so it's not like this small little thing where I'm going to get in on the ground floor. I'm going to take a shot. It's already huge. But, so no, I don't buy the idea that I should just throw some money at it just in case because I think the odds of Bitcoin going up dramatically from here are just so remote that it's not even worth the gamble. I'd rather take that money and gamble on something else. Cuz even like even if Bitcoin goes to a million, which I don't really think it's going to do. I mean, it's a little over 10x. It's not so much that, though. I think it's if everything else goes down a lot. But, I don't think the stuff that I own I don't think I don't think the investments that I own Look, most of the investments that I've owned, in fact, almost all of them have outperformed Bitcoin over the last four or five years. Some by a lot. So, why do I want Bitcoin? I mean, big big You know, it's like, "What have you done for me lately, Bitcoin?" You know, Bitcoin made a lot of money before anybody owned it. Like when when when there were barely any people who owned Bitcoin, people were making a lot of money. But, over the last several years, when lots of people own it, they're losing money. And they always have to go back. "Oh, Bitcoin is the best performing asset. It's beating the S&P." Yes, if you go back to the beginning, but it's not the best performing asset this year, last two years, last three years, last four years. Not even close. So, I think it's changed. I don't think Bitcoin is going to be the best performing asset. I just think it's going to keep falling as money is trying to get out. I think all the money that wants in is already in. The people that haven't bought Bitcoin didn't buy it cuz they don't want it. And now it's about [clears throat] getting out and preserving what's, you know, what they got. Some people still have a profit now. They can get out and keep their profit. Other people have a loss. They can get out before they have a bigger loss. But, a lot of people are just going to be stuck. They're just going to watch it just collapse. I mean, you guys own Bitcoin? Is that the deal? >> I'm 7% Bitcoin. I'm like 3% Bitcoin. What what prices did you What's your average cost of all your Bitcoin? >> Oh, probably about this. I I So, you're about even on your Bitcoin? >> I'm about I might be up slightly, but I I've been dollar cost averaging since 2017. >> Yeah, well, if you were dollar cost averaging into gold or silver, you'd be way up. Dollar cost averaging into Bitcoin has been a bad deal for you. Yeah, I'm still positive a little bit, but I was quite up Well, who cares about 26? Well, yeah, but you were up a lot. But, but my logic is that as it goes down, it could go back up and back down again. >> Or it can go down even faster. You know, I mean, and it's not just that, you know, you didn't lose too much on Bitcoin if it's you're about even. What you lost is the opportunity to have made a lot of money had you bought something else. So, let's say you threw, I don't know how much money you have. Let's say you threw 100 grand into Bitcoin and and still have about 100 grand. But, maybe had you put that into gold and silver and average and you'd have 200 grand. So you're out 100 grand because you would have 200 grand. >> in hindsight. Well, no. I was telling people No, I was telling people in real time, don't buy Bitcoin, buy this. Um but you could have been telling people buy Bitcoin at 30,000 and then sell Bitcoin at 120. Yeah, well. >> and you would have made Yeah, well, look, woulda coulda shoulda. But what if now you have your Bitcoin and what if a year from now it's lower still and gold is 7,000. >> Then I could tax loss harvest. Well, what I'd [laughter] rather have gains than tax loss. Of course. But for me, it's an amount that I've invested where I'm okay writing it off to zero. I would like not to do that. Well, that's the one thing at least I've told people, look, look at Bitcoin as a crap shoot. Maybe you'll, you know, win, maybe you'll lose. But don't put money in that you can't afford to lose 100%. In contrast to Michael Saylor who tells you to put all of your life savings into Bitcoin and then go into debt and buy Bitcoin. Oh, if you have some extra organs, sell those and buy even more Bitcoin, right? What That's his advice. You know, I got some rapid fire questions for you. In one word, gold or silver if you could only own one forever. Uh well, I mean, silver will generally outperform gold in bull markets, but over time you're probably safer with gold. Best investment you've ever made. Ooh. Um there's a few stocks that I've that I've that I've done really, really well with that have gone up, you know, 20 20 20 times or more, so I 50 I think I did one that was 50x. But I didn't The problem is I didn't have enough money in it. I didn't have that much money. >> they were? The one that I had a stock that went from um like 25 cents to 50 bucks. What stock was it? It was called Hurricane Hydrocarbons and then it became Petro Kazakhstan and it got bought out. But I think my biggest gainer right now that I still own unrealized, I just didn't put enough money in it, is a company called Delta Electronics. I think I invested 29,000 and it's worth almost 2 million. Wow. But that that's just one I didn't put much money I never bought any more of it. I bought it years ago. But I had you know, I have a number of stocks I had one that I put 250 in that's worth about 4 million. So I had put more It wasn't as good It was a nice kick from that little and that was only 5 years ago. So there are stocks that go up. Uh so I think the best investments I've had were stocks, but some of the worst investments I've had were stocks. I bought stocks that went bankrupt. I lost everything. So, you know, but you know, it all comes out in the wash. The key is that my my winners have to outnumber my losers and what I what I win has to beat what I've lost. But you know, on my overall stock portfolio, I've collected a lot of dividends over the years. So a lot of the stocks that I own were bought with dividends from other stocks. In fact, there were stocks that I own that I've owned for like you know, 20 years where I've collected dividends that are three, four, five times what I paid for the stocks, right? I've been paid a lot more over the course of time than I actually put into the stocks. So that that's the beauty of owning real companies that are businesses that pay dividends because you earn from dividends. And then what I do with those dividends cuz is I invest them in in other things. So I get to compound my dividends by buying more stocks that now pay more dividends. Well, I I I didn't hear anything >> [clears throat] >> that is 150x or higher. >> I because I I I did actually get 150x. Put $100 into Dogecoin, got out 15,000. >> I've never been involved >> actually. Rolex is what they call it. I've never been involved in crypto. So I I I never had >> Never experienced what it's like to make 150x. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've never I've never done that. I know people that have done that, right? But you know, I know I And that's that's not an endorsement of Dogecoin. Let's just make it 100% clear. I do not endorse Doge. >> Well, yeah, well, I mean, you made money in Dogecoin, a few other people obviously made money in Dogecoin, but that's because other people lost money in Dogecoin. That's, you know, the thing about the companies that I invested in, the fact that I made money doesn't mean that somebody else had to lose money. They didn't. The companies are more valuable now than when I first bought them. Uh the dividends that I got didn't come out of anybody's pocket. They came out of the earnings of the company. People bought the products and the services of these companies and that gave them income and I earned that income. Nobody lost anything. But in crypto, all that happens is the money is transferred from the buyer to the seller. So some people win because other people lose, right? That's not how you create wealth by just moving money around, right? It's just all gambling, right? That's how a casino works. Some people win money because other people lose money, but the house always wins. And ultimately, there is a house. All these exchanges, the miners, there's a rake there, right? So there it's actually a negative sum game because there is a cost to play. Gold price prediction for the end of 2026. Just one word. Higher. Give a price. You said one word, higher. One price. One number. One number. I don't Look, I don't know. I think gold will top 6,000 this year. I you know, it's at 5,000 now. I I don't know, you know, it could be a lot higher. It It depends on a lot of factors that are beyond my control. But I think gold is going a lot higher. Uh and it could go a lot higher this year, but maybe it goes a lot higher next year. What about S&P 500? Yeah, you know, I think it's going to go down in terms of gold. What it does in terms of dollars, you know, it's probably more likely to rise than fall. Um the Nasdaq might be more likely to fall than rise. I think there's a lot of expensive stocks there. But I've been saying the same thing about the S&P for the last 25 years. I think the price will go up in dollars but down in gold and that's exactly what's happened. The S&P The Dow I know the Dow cuz I know the numbers. The Dow is down 75% over 25 years priced in gold. Even though it's gone from 10,000 to 50,000. It's It's less valuable. You have less gold now if you sell your stocks than you did in in 1999. Um and and and and I've been saying the same thing since then that stocks would go down priced in real money. >> Who's the bigger threat to the economy? The Fed, politicians, or the American consumer? Well, I mean, probably the Fed. The Fed has probably done more damage. I mean, the consumer is just, you know, what it you know, he's just buying But the Fed The Fed is The Fed is I mean, the institutions that I think that have done the the most damage are the Fed and the Supreme Court. Uh I mean, I I think Congress has done a lot of damage, too, but had the Fed done its job and the Supreme Court done its job, Congress and the president would have done a lot less damage. If your son called you and said, "Dad, I'm going all in on Bitcoin. I got a good feeling about this. What do you say?" >> Well, he doesn't have much to go all in with, so he really wouldn't be able to >> say it's He's going all in. You're going to flex on him basically. Let's just say, [laughter] "Bar Mitzvah, I just want Bitcoin." Well, I I don't know. I mean, obviously I would try to talk him out of it. Like if my son said, "Hey, I'm thinking about jumping off a bridge, you know, I'm tired of life and I you know, I I I you know, I I'm just going to end it all." I would try to I would try to talk him out of it. So if he tried to commit financial suicide, He would no longer be your son. No, he'd still be my son. He would just be broke. But he's already broke. I mean, he doesn't have much. >> [laughter] >> I mean, he's trying to work in San Francisco and trying to, you know, try you know, he just got out of college, so he doesn't really have much. I mean, Yeah. But what Does he not just like ask you for money? Yes, of course he asked me for money. And I >> you say? I No. But no, I do I do provide money. I help I pay rent and I help you know, I do provide I still support him mostly. He should be When I was his age, I was already supporting myself. Do you think So do you think he'll just kind of be like waiting until like you end up just being, "All right, here's a bunch of money" or something? Or do you think like is he wondering when will his >> Yeah, I hope I hope I want him to earn his own money. I want all my kids to earn their own money. I mean, they're going to get money from me eventually, but they need to earn money. They need to learn the to be responsible. They need, you know, I mean, the problem is you can't, you know, you just can't give your kids a bunch of money. Um and they'll, you know, you know, there's [snorts] an old saying, you get get give your kids enough money to do something, but not enough money to do nothing. And it's important. I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know what I would have been like if I I inherited nothing. My my my I got not I didn't get a nickel from My my dad didn't have any money. >> you more motivated though to not have any sort of backstop that you just had to do it yourself? Like more grit. Maybe. I don't know. But I mean, I mean, I knew I had to cuz if I didn't make it, I wasn't going to get it. I mean, I wasn't going to I you know, I've never inherited anything I didn't have an a rich uncle or an aunt. Nobody's ever given me a nickel. So what whatever I have, you know, I'm I certainly didn't marry into money. You know, I married out of money. Would you take a hundred million dollars right now to never publicly talk about the economy ever again? I don't know. I mean, decent amount of money. What about a hundred million to never talk about gold again? Again, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's these are weird questions. >> [laughter] >> Because it's a lot I mean, I have more than that. So, but I mean But it is a lot of money even for, you know, I mean, I'm not a billionaire yet. So, I mean Yet? >> Yeah, I will be. I'm getting close. Do you have a specific I mean, Google we Googled it. Google says you're at like 900 million and you're probably >> Google doesn't How do Google The only thing that I've ever seen if you Google my net worth Peter cuz if you go Peter Schiff and Google it, just say Peter Schiff one of the top things is net worth. So, a lot of people are cuz you know, are curious about what my net worth is. And the only thing that I ever see is like 70 or 80 million. Oh, I saw like a 900 million. >> And yeah. I see higher. Well, but that figure came from my Senate disclosure in 2010, which was about my net worth in 2010. Um I've made a little money since then. >> [laughter] >> So, but but I don't you know, obviously I don't publish it cuz I'm not I don't have it you know, I don't own stock in publicly traded companies. Uh so, whatever it is it is. What difference is it if people know that you have 500 million dollars or a billion dollars? I don't know. It's just not none of anybody's business exactly how My kids don't even know how much I have. But I mean But all I said is I'm not a billionaire, but I think I will be. But you know it it just all depends on if I'm right on the markets, right? If the if if the markets completely reverse right now, then I probably won't be. >> [snorts] >> But if the markets do what I think they're going to do. If the dollar continues to fall for the next few years if uh foreign stocks continue to outperform US stocks the way they did last year, mining stocks, then I think in a few years I'll I'll get there. You know. What's a one-sentence tip that every single viewer watching right now should follow to become rich? Work hard, you know, believe in yourself, you know you just you know, don't let people tell you you can't do something. Stick to things, you know, you got to you know, you you got to be all in. I mean, what I mean, I I used to work uh you know, from the minute I got up till I went to sleep. And that there there was no weekend. I mean, a weekend was just a more opportunity to work. Uh when you're just getting started if you're trying to run a business. And and people you know, a lot don't appreciate how hard entrepreneurs work. You know, people just take for granted oh, they've always been rich. They've had no people they work their ass off. You know, in the beginning. Do you ever wish you took it easier? Uh I mean, not really. Um I mean, I I I can take it easier now. Um you know, people say hey, you got to stop and smell the roses and I think I smelled a few along the way. Um But I think I made a lot of difference. I mean, I know I hear from people every day uh how much I've influenced them uh over the years. How many people would be socialists but for me, you know, and I got them young and I got them to understand capitalism and um you know, I mean I [clears throat] mean, I so I've made a big difference in the lives of a lot of people. Mhm. Much more so than you know, your typical stockbroker. Right? Who's you know So, uh and that's that's satisfying. That that I and that's one of the reasons that I that I that I keep doing what I'm doing cuz I know that I continue to impact people. And I know that you know, I go to these events like I go to the um the big the the crypto events. Nobody poses for more selfies than me. Right? People even though I'm the one guy there that doesn't like Bitcoin. All those Bitcoiners want to get their photo taken with me because I influence them. Uh because you know, they respect me even though I don't like like you know, their their shitcoin. Um But all the Bitcoin promoters are you know, they're not you know, people they're walking right by them to to to come to come up to me. Uh because you know, I I've I've meant something in their lives. And um so that I mean, you know, you it's hard to you know, put a put a value on that. Cuz a lot of that I mean, I just just you know, I don't get paid for that. I just do that. Um But yeah, but it to get back to your question, you people just you know, just have to be motivated and and and work. And and don't be lazy. And you know, all I I An important thing though is if you're going to go into business, you're going to do something try to enjoy what you're doing because it'll be a lot easier to work hard if if you enjoy it. Um You know, and so you know, you got to figure out what you're good at and what you like. And if if they're the same things, then then you're lucky. That's what Logan said. That's what Logan said. The exact same thing. So, you're the exact same as Logan Paul. Guys, you heard it here first. [laughter] Well, I'm Peter Schiff is the exact same thing as Logan Paul. And coincidentally, neither of you guys own Bitcoin. >> Maybe I said that. Yeah, this is true. >> that on Impulsive and I and then he repeated it. But that could have been a sale. But I I definitely can tell that Logan enjoys what he does. >> Mhm. And he's makes a lot of money doing it. You know, and he he like he's he's made a lot more money at his age than I did. I mean, when I was Logan's age or I mean, and his brother now, Jake has made more money than Logan. But I mean, I I I I mean, I didn't I didn't even make my first million until I was 30 over 30 to get a million. I mean, so I mean, these guys have made a ton of money. I don't even know if any of them are 30. I don't think they are. They're Logan Logan just turned 30. He just turned 30. Yeah, yeah. So, these guys have had incredible success at a very young age. And I think it's great. I mean, I think they're great kids, you know, I mean, and um They earn their money because people are entertained by what they do. People give them money. People voluntarily buy that they're selling. Right? They didn't they didn't they're not stealing the money. People out you know, but they they they get a lot of people that enjoy what they're doing and they're willing to pay a little bit of money. And you make a little money from a lot of people turns into turns into quite a bit of money. Well, Peter, thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. What a timely episode too. Yeah, I know. Thank you guys so so much for watching. We're out here in Puerto Rico. Flew all the way over here, Las Vegas to Austin, Austin for a few episodes, Austin to Atlanta, Atlanta to Puerto Rico, then tomorrow we're flying all the way back. >> And we're doing this for you guys. And we are so endlessly grateful that you guys tune in every Sunday and sometimes on a Wednesday for a midweek episode to listen to us yap. That's why you got to subscribe, hit the like button, and we'll link to all your information down below in the description. >> Yeah, I know. Including your Twitter by the way, which I really appreciate. I get your tweets all the time. >> And I write my I compose those myself. It's not an AI bot or anything. >> as we walked in here, I kind of screen peeked at your phone. I looked at it and I thought you were you had maximum also maximum what do you call that? Lookage. You were zoomed in like >> [laughter] >> 700%. So, all you could see was your text box. >> know, I mean, my I'm 60 almost 63, right? I can't I can't read it if it's really small. >> if that's how Trump tweets. Like he's maximum like font size on his phone. >> at a time. God, [laughter] thank you so much for watching. >> He does that fast, but how How long you guys staying in Puerto Rico? We're leaving tomorrow morning. Oh, okay. Well, all right. Well thanks for stopping by. Thank you. >> And yeah, hopefully your audience will check out my podcast. I'm doing one later today. Hopefully I have the voice. I'm doing my own podcast uh >> It's 8:00 It's 8:00 p.m. Right right right Oh, well, I'm going to do it at 9:00. So, I have to eat and then I have to do my own podcast and I got to figure out what I'm going to say. Although I usually don't know what I'm going to say until I start saying it. I kind of like talk until you know, talk for now. So, that's Peter Schiff Show. So Awesome. Thank you guys. Check out Peter Schiff Show. Thank you guys for watching so much. 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