Why Hard Assets Matter More Than Ever in Today's Economy

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1:42It's the financial system that's to blame, and we have the opportunity to fix it. And I think if Bitcoin didn't exist, I would be the hugest gold bug. I really would. But I think that one of the reasons that we're here is because of some of the flaws in gold's properties in a digital world, in a world where we're really just connected economies across the world. It's very difficult to transfer and settle gold. You have to verify that it's actually there. I mean, has anyone audited Fort Knox, for example, right? You can't just send it across the world in a matter of seconds and have it actually settle.

2:20But with Bitcoin you can. That's why I think it's a great comparison to say Bitcoin is like digital gold, because it takes the properties that ultimately led to papering over gold, led to the fiat system. You know, oh, you know, just trust us. We have it in our reserves, but we're going to paper over it and obscure it. And now all of a sudden we're in this world of fractional reserve banking where you have no money actually backing our currency, nothing of actual value. We don't have a gold standard. I think that's where things went really wrong. And unfortunately, I mean, we could take a step back and gold is certainly better than U.S.

2:56treasuries and its properties, but we live in a digital world. So I think we need something digital as a form of capital and as a hard asset going forward. Well, I've spoken about a true Bitcoiner. I have it all. I don't know why people, I mean, I started my own gold mine, you know, and I took it public and it's called capitalism. and I've made fricking millions off of it. So why don't everybody do that? I don't understand. So I talked to Bitcoiners, and Bitcoiners don't invite me to their conferences because I own gold, silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum. And I'm going, you don't have to make one right, the other one wrong.

3:36Each one has a different value system. I'd be buying silver up to yin-yang. I own lots of silver. I started silver mines. and silver is going to make the biggest jump ever. So I'd rather play that than make gold or silver or Bitcoin or Ethereum right or wrong. I just play the game. So that's why every time I talk to Schiff, he was trying to sell me some gold cufflinks once. I'm going, give me a break, Peter. Gold cufflinks may be gold, but they're not liquid. At least a Grugerrand is liquid. I can take gold and spend it anywhere. But I don't know why people make something right or wrong. One owned it all.

4:18That's my point of view. So that's why I invited you on this program. Because you speak for a generation that's a lot younger than mine. And the boomers are in serious trouble. Because when this stock market crashes, the S &P 500 crashes, the retirement's a shot. And Natalie, what I've been saying, which I'm not very popular for it, because these financial planners, they say the 60-40, 60 % stocks, 40 % bonds. I go, and the Japanese and Chinese are dumping our bonds. Wake up. You know, so that's why I'm very happy you're part of this program. And for the younger generation, I just ask people to keep an open mind.

4:58Each has a strength and a weakness. Well, the core theme in what you're saying is hard assets. You need to save in something that they cannot print and inflate away from you because that's what our world is based on, which is a system ultimately. I mean, if everything's built on debt, why not take out debt? You can leverage that debt, and that's how people have generated a lot of wealth for themselves. But the problem is, what if people are stopping to trust the debt that underlies everything, right? I think that we're moving from a world that relied on this one trusted reserve asset tied to a sovereign nation, which, by the way, is an IOU, paper promises.

5:37We're moving from that to a world that increasingly prefers neutral settlement again, because trust really has broken down and the system is getting more political and more fragile. Every time you print money, the rich get richer and the poor middle class gets... Anyway, what advice do you have for old guys like me? Well, I mean, I certainly think that everyone should embrace Bitcoin. That's why I wrote this book. The first half, you might be surprised that despite this title, the first half is not even about Bitcoin at all. The first half is about why you need to own assets, what inflation really is, how the Federal Reserve Bank works, how the banks print money, and why we aren't able to save easily anymore and why people complain today, right?

6:29They're working so hard, but they need three jobs and a side hustle to afford the house that the parents could afford on just one income. I think for a long time, markets behaved like capital and liquidity were the main constraints. But I think the constraints now are becoming physical again. They are commodities, they're energy, they're industrial capacity, they're supply chains. And those are the things you can't print. You can't print energy. That's what makes Bitcoin so great Because it's backed by energy and you can't print time, the time that it takes to make, you know, all the things that we actually need.

7:02You can make money out of thin air. And that's why I think hard assets are not just an inflation hedge. That's not the only story. They are really a geopolitical hedge and they're in necessity now. So, Michael, as an oil man, how much oil is in Venezuela? Well, Robert, thanks for having me on the show today. And I think there's about 280 billion barrels to 300 billion barrels, which is probably the number one oil reserves in the world. I think out of the 14 fields that Venezuela has, about 11 of them still has over 50 to 60 percent of their remaining reserves. and so there's a lot of oil there to be produced as far as on that it is a heavier crude but the good thing about it is most of our refineries were set up originally to handle heavy crude because here in the United States we have most of our oil is a very light crude so they take that crude and they blend it with the heavy crude which extends our reserves so you know you can certainly see why Trump wanted to go after Venezuela obviously going after the oil and And, you know, what better deal for Trump than try to control the most oil reserves in the world, right?

8:20So, Michael, are you in line to take over to start drilling in Venezuela? Well, I have drilled in Argentina, you know, and I had a concession in Argentina, which we sold to Shell Oil back in the early 2000s. So I love doing business in South America. I have looked at some deals in Venezuela a long time ago. And so, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, there's a lot of opportunities there. So it just depends on, you know, what's going to happen with the government and what kind of assurities you're going to get. And how much truth do you think it is that Trump wants to cut the oil from China off, Venezuela to China?

9:04Is that possible or is that this rumor? Well, I think that's one of the main reasons why Trump wanted the oil in Venezuela. I mean, you know, he did something very similar with the, you know, with the canal and in Central America. And so he is trying to push, you know, China out of the out of our continent. And and I think he has an ulterior motive about getting Cuba back as well. So, you know, Cuba.

9:36I think he he's trying to control both sides of the of the continent there. Yeah. It's like I said, we shouldn't be laughing, but there's something entertaining about it. So let me ask you this. We have to take this in consideration. In 1920s, a key player was Exxon. ExxonMobil invested$767 million of dollars in Venezuela. The money went into pipelines, refineries, and infrastructure. And then when Chavez took the power, he kicked off all the American companies and he steal all the oil. So this is a kind of payback. Yeah. And by the way, you know, it's what's war about is about oil. So it's always about the oil.

10:28Right, Mike? That's correct. And in fact, you know, when Chavez took over, I think he kicked Conoco out. And then Conoco sued, you know, the Venezuelan government and ended up with the Venezuelan government still owns Conoco over$8 billion. And that was one of the things they were talking about. So, you know, the Americans, you know, they've spent a lot of money. And we here in the United States and in South America, especially in Venezuela. So I think we can ramp up production there pretty fast from what the president of Chevron was saying. They've been on the ground there. They're the only company that's been able to continue to operate there.

11:13But they're saying that they can increase production by about 50 % within the next couple of years. So there's a great opportunity in Venezuela and other parts of South America that I think this is just going to have a ripple effect. And Fernando can probably talk more about that than I can. But as far as for the oil business in the U.S. and South America. And also, Mike, last week, this administration decided to invest in Peruvian Navy$1 billion in the warships, modernizing the Navy base. So it's going to be amazing. It's not only Venezuela, it's also Peru, different countries where President Trump is recovering the Americas because we don't understand why Russia, Iran, Chinese people were inside Venezuela.

12:09This is South America. So President Trump make a strategic decision to get back to South America as part of the Americas leading that. And Iran is loaded with oil too, right, Mike? That's correct. I mean, I think they're the number three producer. So, and it's Trump. He's going to go after the one producer and the number three producer. Oil is the lifeblood of the economy. Without oil, there's no civilization. And I think so we can laugh about all this stuff, but there seems to be a method to Trump's madness here. so Moses led people to the promised land but there was no oil in it

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15:51So here we are, 2026. We have this Hormuz incident hanging on there. Oil is driving the world again. Oil is fertilizer, everything. and our national debt is at an all-time high. And we're at war in one of the most critical areas of the world. And you were talking about oil earlier. It's in everything. And how do you get people to understand? We're not just talking about gasoline. We're not just talking about diesel. We're talking about a whole range of products, from plastics to aluminum, sulfuric acid. I mean, everything that you could think of is bound up with petroleum. and no one in this country really understands the gravity of the situation that we confront today globally.

16:39The rest of the world is figuring it out, but we haven't figured it out. Yeah, the biggest thing, in my opinion, is fertilizer. You know, that grows food. And if that, you know, prices are high enough as it is without loss of food. Well, I was talking to some friends in India, and I concluded that we are in the process of reversing the Green Revolution right now. If this drags on, and I think it's going to drag on for a few more weeks, it's going to take us years to recover from the damage we've inflicted on ourselves. We're going to face famine in many parts of the world. I want to ask you a question because we're at, and I'm also an oil guy, so I use a lot of money to buy oil in America, in North Dakota and Texas.

17:27So here we are, 2026. Again, we're stuck in Hormuz. And again, the issue seems like oil. I would argue there's no reason for war between the United States and Iran at all. Just as a side note, and this will be of interest to you, given your background. When General George Marshall met for the first time with the British Imperial General Staff after Pearl Harbor, this would have been in January, February timeframe of 1942, they met to coordinate efforts, obviously, since we were now in the war. The British were always anxious to get us into their wars, and they'd gotten us into the second one. And he walked in, I think, with a dozen men.

18:11And the British walked in with 50 or 60. The British were carrying suitcases with charts and maps. They laid them out on the table globally, and they pointed to everything that they wanted to control when the war ended. That included all of the oil, all of the harbors and all of the countries that had oil. And then it also included coal mines. And, of course, not surprisingly, iron. everything that makes us a modern civilization that contributes to our prosperity. They had identified all of it. We walked in with nothing because we were there to, quote unquote, beat the Germans and the Japanese.

18:58That was it. That's been our problem for a long time. And when you look at Iran right now, we're so busy trying to make Israel great again at the expense of the American people by fulfilling the wish list of Mr. Netanyahu and those who work with him, then we've lost sight of what's really in the American national interest. And we've lost sight, once again, of the criticality of doing business and avoiding war. We used to think war was destructive. Wars breed inflation. I don't care where you go, what you do, and how long you fight, you breed inflation. It comes with a package. So people, I thought, had learned, let's not get into this sort of thing.

19:45But we've done it. And I think right now, if you said, what's the purpose of the war? The answer would be, we're going to destroy Iran. Well, what happened to regime change? Well, that didn't work. OK, well, no regime change. And what about the air and missile campaign for three weeks? Well, they were supposed to collapse. That didn't work. So now what are you going to do? Well, we've got to destroy them. We've got to bring them to their knees. Really? And how does that help us? And oh, by the way, Iran is not alone. Iran has Russian friends and Chinese friends. And I would argue more friends than that.

20:24And every day they have more friends. And now our so-called partners in Europe are finally waking up and discovering that they don't have to be vassal states anymore. They don't have to do everything we tell them. And they figured out there's nothing for us to win down in the Persian Gulf. What they want to do is get the Gulf operating again and do business. But we don't seem to want to do that. I think the Zionist billionaires who ensured that Donald Trump won his reelection the second time around are demanding war. Everybody right now is saying, well, you know, So gas prices are up a little bit, but we have a lot of gas here, so we don't have to worry.

21:09Then understand, oil is a fungible commodity. Just because you think you've got more of it than other people do doesn't mean it's going to get cheaper. I'm sure the boys in West Texas are happy and a few other places. But let's be frank. The American consumer is screwed. It's going to be$7 or$8 a gallon pretty soon. And if you live in Germany, you're already paying$11 a gallon. And the Irish, you know, look at Ireland. It's kind of the canary in the coal mine. It's a little island. The Irish there have no more diesel. They can't run the diesely. This is just a disaster on a scale we can't imagine.

21:44And then it's back to what you were saying. What about all the other products? We're talking about industries shutting down. Since when we're in financial trouble, we go to war. How close to World War are we? It's already begun. We're there right now, right? Yep. It's begun. There's going to be a... I tell everybody, Google up Franklin Roosevelt seizes Japanese assets. Just Google it up. You'll get history today. On July 24th, 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt seized all Japanese assets in America. You know why? Those dirty Japanese invaded French Indochina. You mean Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam?

22:30Are you calling it French Indochina? Well, we're in 26 other countries too. We're in Algeria and Morocco. And again, you could Google it up. History Today, mainstream magazine. Remember, the Great Depression's going on. The Great Depression. The Dutch East Indies and the United Kingdom. Dutch East Indies? What the hell are the Dutch doing in Indonesia? Oh, the same thing with the Depression. Sun never sets on the British Empire. Stealing everything. The United States, the Dutch, and the English cut off three quarters of Japanese trade. They stole their money and cut off 88 % of their imported oil.

23:14They only import 98%. Okay. They had no oil. You cut off their trade and you stole their money. I can't understand why they bombed Pearl Harbor a couple of months later. Right. So, Gerald, let's get up present time. What's going to happen? That's what we want to know. Because right now, the biggest secret being held is people are dumping bonds to buy gold. Yep. Nobody's talking about that. Yep. And the financial planners are telling everybody, oh, buy bonds because they're safe. Well, Japan and China's dumping our bonds and they're buying gold. What do you know about that? You're 100 % correct.

23:54I say World War III's already begun. And I'm concerned about nuclear because there's that thing called the Samson option, where Israel says if they lose, they go nuclear. And they have between 200 to 400 nuclear warheads. So how does a person protect themselves? As soon as I understood what you were saying, I said, okay, I spent a million dollars to buy oil in North Dakota. And when the price of oil went up, I get richer. That sounds mercenary, but it's better than being a victim. So if you're sitting in North Dakota right now, and they're bombing out there in Iran, and China is not our friend, definitely, and Russia is not our friend.

24:44Russia is the gas station of the world. What does an American do sitting in North Dakota? Again, what I suggest is what you're saying. You buy the futures. And again, gold and silver to me are very, very good. And oil prices are just going to keep spiking if this war keeps going on. And again, they say one thing and another thing happens. And they're doing it to me by the facts to keep oil prices down as low as they can. And the market's going up, but they're not going to work. so if you're the trans guy what do you see over the horizon what's coming next we have we already took out manduro and maduro in venezuela we have a marxist as city uh mayor of new york mandami we have a marxist governor of arizona and jobs are leaving arizona leaving the governor of California, they're leaving in droves to go to Florida.

25:51People are just running from Marxism all over the world. What do you see happening? Because that's how I see it. I'm a former U.S. Marine. I went to military school. I don't see it as good. I see we're at war big time all over the world. I don't. How are we going to pay for it? Again, we're not. And that's what it's going to bring down. That's what I'm saying. The death of the dollar is coming. We became the United Kingdom. By fighting these wars and keeping it going, rather investing in the country. And again, I got to tell you, everywhere I drive, potholes everywhere. The bridges are rotten.

26:30We have to rebuild our nation. That's the way you rebuild the economy. And to me, that's not what's happening. And the payment on national debt is more than we spend on war. Do you know what I mean? We're the biggest debtor nation going. What recommendation do you have for the average guy sitting in North Dakota? Again, why do you say guns gold in the getaway plan? But again, what you're doing is you're telling the people exactly the right way with oil. And again, we don't give financial advice, but gold and silver to us are the ways to go. This thing is just going to keep getting worse.

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27:49This capitalism was an economic system where dollars were backed by gold and the government had very little involvement in the economy. It worked by market forces. The heyday of capitalism was back in the 19th century, before World War I. But after World War I, Europe went off the gold standard temporarily. That created a global credit bubble that blew up in 1930. The Great Depression then led to World War II. World War II, 60 million people died. But at the end of World War II, we ended up with the Bretton Woods system, with the dollar as a global reserve currency. And the dollar was pegged to gold.

28:34And that lasted from 1945 up until 1971. And then at that time, Nixon broke the link between dollars and gold. And we started evolving into a different kind of economic system. Capitalism became corrupted. And rather than the economic system, capitalism, which was driven by saving and investment, our system, our economic system evolved into something entirely different. I call it creditism, because creditism is driven not by saving and investment, but by credit creation and consumption. more credit creation and more consumption. It requires more and more credit to be created year after year to keep this U.S.