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

22 Mar 2026 · 2 h 8 min · 58 chapters

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

Podcast Title

The Iced Coffee Hour Hosts: Graham Stephan and Jack Selby Guest: Peter Schiff Episode Air Date: [Insert Date] Episode Duration: Approximately 1 hour 45 minutes

Episode Overview In this episode, Peter Schiff discusses the current economic climate in America, addressing topics such as inflation, the value of gold versus Bitcoin, and the impending dollar crisis. Schiff shares his perspectives on wealth transfer, capitalism, and the future of investment strategies.

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Key Themes and Discussions

  1. Wealth Transfer and Economic Predictions
  2. Schiff emphasizes that the U.S. is undergoing the largest wealth transfer in history.
  3. He believes that economic conditions are deteriorating, leading to a potential dollar crisis.
  4. Schiff predicts gold prices could reach $5,000 by the end of 2026, suggesting a significant rise in gold as a safe-haven asset.
  1. Gold vs. Bitcoin
  2. Gold:
  3. Schiff argues that gold retains intrinsic value due to its physical properties and historical use as currency.
  4. He asserts that gold's value will continue to rise amidst economic instability.
  • Bitcoin:
  • Schiff remains skeptical about Bitcoin, arguing it has no fundamental value beyond speculation.
  • He believes that most Bitcoin investments are driven by the hope that others will pay more, describing it as a “greater fool” theory.
  • He mentions that many investors would have been better off investing in gold instead of Bitcoin over the past few years.
  1. Economic Misconceptions
  2. Schiff discusses common beliefs about inflation, clarifying that inflation is the expansion of the money supply, not just rising prices.
  3. He criticizes government policies that he believes contribute to inflation and economic instability.
  1. Political Landscape and Criticism of Trump
  2. He discusses his public feud with Donald Trump and critiques Trump's economic policies, stating that they are misguided.
  3. Schiff believes that the government’s approach to the economy is ultimately damaging and leads to crises.
  1. Investment Philosophy
  2. Diversification:
  3. Schiff advocates for a diversified investment strategy focusing on foreign stocks and precious metals.
  4. He suggests a minimum of 5-10% in physical gold and 10-25% in mining stocks for average investors.
  • Long-term Perspective:
  • He emphasizes the importance of having a long-term investment strategy, particularly in times of economic uncertainty.
  1. Future Outlook
  2. Schiff predicts that as the dollar weakens, other economies, particularly those in emerging markets, will thrive, leading to a shift in global economic power.
  3. He believes that America’s reliance on the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is coming to an end.

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Key Takeaways

  • Economic Crisis: Schiff views a U.S. dollar crisis as inevitable, arguing that the current economic structure is unsustainable.
  • Value of Gold: He continues to advocate for gold as the best hedge against inflation and economic downturn.
  • Critique of Bitcoin: Schiff strongly critiques Bitcoin’s speculative nature and remains unconvinced of its long-term viability as a store of value.
  • Investment Strategies: Schiff encourages listeners to maintain a diversified investment portfolio, focusing on real assets rather than speculative investments.

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Conclusion This episode provides a deep dive into Peter Schiff's economic insights, contrasting his views on traditional assets like gold with contemporary alternatives such as Bitcoin. Schiff’s candid remarks reveal his concerns regarding the future of the U.S. economy, making a compelling case for a return to fundamental investment principles.

For more on this episode, visit [The Iced Coffee Hour](https://www.instagram.com/icedcoffeehour) and check out Peter Schiff's work at [europac.com](https://europac.com).

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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The Dollar Crisis Begins

0:30 to 1:26

Peter Schiff discusses the impending collapse of the dollar and its implications.

“He says the world's been ripping us off.”

Gold vs. Bitcoin: An Analysis

1:26 to 3:19

The discussion shifts to the value of gold compared to Bitcoin in today's market.

“Peter Schiff, two years ago when we filmed with you, gold was$2 ,000 an ounce.”

Peter Schiff's Influence on Crypto

3:19 to 5:36

Schiff reflects on his impact on early Bitcoin adopters and the crypto landscape.

“So a lot of these guys thanked me and a lot of them got very rich as a result of this.”

Critique of Bitcoin's Value

5:36 to 7:58

Schiff critiques Bitcoin's lack of intrinsic value compared to gold and real estate.

“The average cost on all that Bitcoin that he bought is$76 ,000 and change.”

The Future of Cryptocurrency

7:58 to 12:30

Discussion on the potential future of cryptocurrencies and the rise of tokenized gold.

“I still, you know, want to debate the guy, but he won't agree to any debates, including, you know, at that conference.”

Speculative Nature of Bitcoin

12:30 to 14:02

Schiff concludes with thoughts on Bitcoin as a speculative asset and its comparisons to gold.

“You say it's just a speculative investment now or a speculative gamble is what you would call it.”

The Rise of Tokenized Gold

14:02 to 14:59

Learn how tokenized gold is positioned as a superior alternative to Bitcoin.

“Because tokenized gold does everything that Bitcoin is supposed to do but can't.”

Critique of Bitcoin Value

17:13 to 20:27

Understand the critique of Bitcoin's value proposition and its market behavior.

“So of all of the millions of supporters of Bitcoin, you don't think that there's any merit, any reason that one could have that makes any logical sense whatsoever to support Bitcoin?”

Gold vs. Bitcoin Demand

20:31 to 21:34

Explore the differing demand dynamics between gold and Bitcoin.

“And you can think, well, what do jewelers need to pay to buy gold?”

The Collapse of Bitcoin's Value

21:35 to 24:25

Evaluate predictions about Bitcoin's market future and potential declines.

“There's no underlying user who needs Bitcoin.”
Show all 58 chapters

Debating Trump and Rising Prices

24:25 to 28:00

Hear insights on inflation, economic debate challenges, and responses to Trump.

“I think that the next point of support on the way down is going to be around 50 ,000.”

Trump's Influence on Media and Criticism

28:00 to 29:50

Explore how Trump reacts to criticism and affects media dynamics.

“But unfortunately, I think he's scared the shit out of Fox and Friends because nobody will return my emails anymore.”

Personal Encounters with Trump

29:50 to 32:06

Peter Schiff shares his personal experiences meeting Trump and the context around it.

“Well, you know, you know, he's there are some regulations that have been eliminated.”

Living in Puerto Rico: A Unique Perspective

32:06 to 32:58

Discuss the reasons for living in Puerto Rico, including lifestyle and taxes.

“I moved here nine years ago, but I've lived here for the last nine years of my life.”

Understanding Inflation: Myths and Realities

34:14 to 36:48

Debunk common misconceptions about inflation and its true meaning.

“So what is one basic economic belief that people have that is completely wrong?”

The Role of AI and Capitalism in Price Dynamics

36:48 to 41:48

Explore how AI and capitalism influence price trends and economic behavior.

“But if the government hadn't created inflation, they would have gone down by 2%.”

The Need for Higher Interest Rates

41:48 to 42:00

Discuss the implications of low interest rates on the economy and the need for change.

“Why do we need to make sure prices go up?”

The Economic Dilemma: Interest Rates and Spending

42:00 to 43:18

Explore the complex relationship between interest rates, consumption, and the economy's health.

“which would just make prices keep going higher.”

The Political Influence on Housing Prices

43:19 to 44:34

Discuss the implications of political decisions on housing affordability and debt.

“And so inflation is the tax we pay in order to keep interest rates low and government spending high.”

The Risks of Economic Bubbles and Government Interference

44:35 to 46:04

Understand the dangers of economic bubbles, particularly in housing and crypto markets.

“Let them go deeper into debt so they can overpay for homes, which is asinine.”

Warning Signs: The Dollar Crisis and Its Consequences

46:05 to 48:51

Learn about the indicators of an impending dollar crisis and its potential fallout.

“I think gold at 5 ,000 is an indication that this is happening.”

The Future of America's Economy and Trade Dynamics

48:52 to 51:26

Examine how the decline of the dollar could reshape the American economy and its trade relationships.

“You had about a year to realize that it was going to hit the fan.”

The Shift in Global Investment Strategies

51:27 to 53:12

Discover the importance of international investments amidst a changing economic landscape.

“I don't know what the timeline is there, but we've got a lot of work to do.”

Investing in Mining Stocks: A Personal Account

53:13 to 55:40

Hear about the personal investment strategies in precious metals and mining stocks.

“I've been anticipating this for a long time.”

Gold Market Insights and Predictions

56:00 to 57:44

Learn about the current state of the gold market and future predictions.

“But for people that I talk to today, new clients, I absolutely think they need exposure to these stocks.”

The Inevitable Dollar Crisis

57:44 to 1:00:07

Explore the factors contributing to the impending crisis of the US dollar.

“Well, I would definitely not buy any Bitcoin.”

Global Perception of America’s Military Power

1:00:07 to 1:02:36

Understand how America's military actions affect global perceptions and economics.

“But the Republicans who are supposed to not like government, they won't cut spending either.”

Conspiracy Theories Around Fort Knox

1:07:17 to 1:10:00

Delve into the controversies and theories surrounding Fort Knox and its gold reserves.

“In terms of having a reserve, though, with Fort Knox, what's been going on with conspiracies that there's no gold there, that maybe the gold had at some point been removed or replaced?”

Gold as Money vs. Bitcoin

1:10:00 to 1:11:40

Explore the value of gold as a medium of exchange compared to Bitcoin.

“See, most people, when you're using gold as money, as opposed to using gold in industry, you don't actually need the gold.”

Generational Investment Perspectives

1:11:40 to 1:13:20

Discuss generational differences in investment choices between gold and Bitcoin.

“they don't have the wisdom, and they're making a lot of mistakes buying Bitcoin.”

The Future of AI and Investment Strategies

1:13:20 to 1:15:00

Analyze the potential impact of AI on investments and economic factors.

“But let's say Bitcoin just falls to$1 ,000, which I think is still a lot of money for nothing.”

Motivation and Wealth Growth

1:15:00 to 1:16:40

Reflect on personal motivations for wealth accumulation and education in economics.

“And, you know, I think I think I think it's just going to take more like decades, not years.”

Bitcoin and Government Regulation

1:16:40 to 1:18:20

Examine the relationship between Bitcoin, government actions, and capitalism.

“And I'm going to remind everybody that the government was a big part of the scam and that it's not about capitalism.”

Historical Context of Taxation

1:18:20 to 1:20:00

Understand the evolution of taxation and its impact on capitalism and wealth distribution.

“They come into an economy and they screw it up with regulations and subsidies that distort capitalism, that create problems.”

Wealth Tax and Its Implications

1:20:00 to 1:21:40

Discuss the potential consequences of implementing a wealth tax.

“Well, because most people won't have to pay it.”

Government vs. Free Market Efficiency

1:21:40 to 1:23:20

Evaluate the efficiency of government services compared to free market solutions.

“a much higher tax rate than Rockefeller and Carnegie were originally paying.”

The Inefficiency of Government Services

1:24:00 to 1:25:00

Learn why services provided by the government are often of lower quality and higher cost.

“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.”

Peter Schiff's Political Aspirations

1:25:00 to 1:26:40

Hear about Peter Schiff's past campaign and his views on running for office again.

“I mean, you know, it was a waste of money.”

The Challenges of Truth in Politics

1:26:40 to 1:27:40

Understand the difficulties of winning elections by promoting truth and freedom over promises.

“They want free stuff, even though they don't realize how expensive the free stuff is.”

Capitalism's Enduring Spirit

1:27:40 to 1:28:40

Explore how capitalism has historically prevailed despite government challenges.

“And, you know, and 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.”

Societal Advancements Through Capitalism

1:28:40 to 1:31:00

Learn how capitalism has led to significant advancements in human living standards.

“You know, they didn't have air conditioner.”

The Role of Wealth in Society

1:31:00 to 1:33:00

Discover why wealth disparity exists and its implications for society.

“to afford a welfare state was because they were capitalists first.”

The American Dream Reimagined

1:33:00 to 1:35:00

Examine the original concept of the American Dream and its significance today.

“And there are a lot of people that don't make a lot of contributions.”

The Flaws in Welfare Dependency

1:35:00 to 1:35:50

Understand the issues surrounding government welfare and dependency.

“You could go from the mailroom to the boardroom in America.”

The Future of Money and Jobs

1:35:50 to 1:37:00

Discuss the potential future where AI could redefine jobs and the concept of money.

“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?”

A World Without Limitations

1:37:00 to 1:38:05

Speculate on a hypothetical future where all desires can be fulfilled instantly.

“It's all, it's created in, out of the atoms in the atmosphere.”

Exploring Wealth and Motivation

1:38:05 to 1:40:02

The discussion delves into the lives of billionaires and the desire for change beyond wealth.

“Because in theory, that's what everybody's life would be like, because, you know, nobody would be limited by their resources.”

Concerns About the Dollar and Bitcoin

1:40:03 to 1:41:04

Peter Schiff shares his views on the declining dollar and Bitcoin's future as an investment.

“I don't think that Bitcoin is going to deliver the type of dollar hedge that people believe.”

Investment Philosophy: Preparing for Crisis

1:41:05 to 1:42:50

Schiff discusses his long-term investment strategies amid economic concerns and the importance of diversification.

“are even bigger now than when I first started preparing.”

Critique of Bitcoin Investment

1:42:51 to 1:46:32

A critical analysis of Bitcoin as an investment compared to traditional assets like gold and silver.

“As I said, I've added energy, more into energy and more into emerging markets recently.”

Assessing Past Investments

1:46:33 to 1:52:01

A discussion on successful and unsuccessful investments, highlighting the importance of portfolio management.

“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.”

Investing Journey: Stocks and Dividends

1:52:01 to 1:53:55

Learn about the balance of winning and losing investments in stocks.

“But I, you know, I have a number of stocks.”

Crypto vs. Traditional Investments

1:53:56 to 1:54:48

Understand the fundamental differences between crypto and traditional investments.

“Well, I mean, you made money in Dogecoin.”

Predictions and Economic Insights

1:54:49 to 1:57:00

Gain insights on gold prices and market predictions from Peter Schiff.

“All these exchanges, the miners, there's a rate there, right?”

Family and Financial Responsibility

1:57:01 to 1:58:35

Discover Peter's thoughts on supporting his children and financial independence.

“Well, he doesn't have much to go all in with.”

Personal Success and Influence

1:58:36 to 2:01:03

Explore Peter's journey of hard work and how he influences others.

“What about$100 million to never talk about gold again?”

The Value of Work and Enjoyment

2:01:04 to 2:05:55

Learn about the importance of hard work and enjoying what you do.

“if foreign stocks continue to outperform U.S.”

Guest Introduction and Podcast Discussion

2:06:20 to 2:07:26

The hosts introduce guest Peter Schiff and discuss podcasting routines.

“hit the like button and we'll link to all your information down below in the description, including your Twitter, by the way, which I really appreciate.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00LifeLock, how can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't. One in four taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refund, though. I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. LifeLock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to$3 million in coverage.

0:17Graham Stephan:I'm so relieved. No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud-paying American. Not anymore. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast. Terms apply. 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 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?

0:52Well, I think it's started already. I think gold at 5 ,000 is an indication that this is happening. Gold prices soared to a record high after U.S. 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 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.

1:25Graham Stephan:Gold price prediction for the end of 2026. Just one word.

1:38Graham Stephan:Peter Schiff, two 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 sixty six thousand dollars 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 because 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 found out about economics. In fact, I just got one of the co-founders of Ethereum just reached out to me recently just to thank me and let me know what a big influence I was on his life.

2:32And he said that if it 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 Canada where he met fatala 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 they ended up at Bitcoin or Ethereum, wherever they went.

3:22But I got a lot of these guys started. So a lot of these guys thanked me 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 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 they were. 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, since I understood gold so well, I knew from the start what the fatal flaw of Bitcoin was.

4:11But 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 they may have made some money had they bought it. But Bitcoin, for all practical purposes, peaked out about four or five years ago. The high in Bitcoin in 2021 in November was 69 ,000. It's lower than that today. Four and a half years later, it's lower. But in terms of gold, 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.

5:08The 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 five years. The average cost on all that Bitcoin that he bought is$76 ,000 and change.

5:51It'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 so obviously that was not a good thing to do. Now, MicroStrategy or 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 now the stock's down 70 % and it's got a long way to fall.

6:34Do you talk to Michael Saylor much? No. I was in the same room with him one time. We were at a party in Dubai. And I didn't really know what to say to the guy I guess I had just like posted on X that he was a fraud. He was saying something and I called him like a fraud or a scar. And so I didn't really know like, hey, how you doing, Michael? Because 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 to. How recent was this? It was, it was, we were there for the, It was a Bitcoin conference from Binance.

7:22And 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? Were people going up to you and saying - No, I actually walked right by him to get a drink. You know, I didn't - Did you nod at him? I could hear him talking from a wild away. And all he was doing was pitching Bitcoin. I mean, he was like, he's always on. Like he was, you know, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, you know, telling people buy it, you know, is always BS. But no, I mean, I don't remember exactly how many people were at the party, 75, 100 people.

7:55I mean, you know, whatever. I mean, I mean, he knew I was there, but, you know, but I had wanted to debate him. 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've been to several conferences where he was there. In fact, at the bigger Bitcoin conference that they had in Las Vegas last summer, he had his keynote speech and he mentioned me twice. 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 no way. I mean, I see right through this guy.

8:36I mean, everything he says is complete bullshit. I don't understand how people can listen to him and not understand how it's all bullshit. Do you think Michael Saylor is smart? Yeah, 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 complete fraud. We filmed a podcast with him. And I mean, obviously he was wearing his 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, Bitcoin, it's the way. It is the language.

9:11It is like everything. Well, I think you got to prophesize it. It's like a cult. Like, you know, he's a cult leader, right? He's 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 on Manhattan real estate. But what gives Manhattan real estate value is a yes, there's a scarce amount of it, right? But it rents for a lot of money. So if you own real estate in Manhattan, whether it's office buildings or residential or shops, you collect a lot of rent. That's what gives it the value, the fact that people will pay a lot of money to use your real estate.

9:56You don't get any money on your Bitcoin. He's not 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. Gold is a store of value because gold is a metal. It is a precious metal that doesn't decay. It doesn't 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 go back to exactly the way it was.

10:36And 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's the value. But one of the things that gold does really, really well is serve as money because it's divisible, it's portable, it's fungible. There are 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 divisible, we're portable, we're fungible, we're scarce, so we're the same as gold. No, you're not because you can't do anything with Bitcoin.

11:18It 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 private without anybody knowing what you're doing, there may be some value there. But Bitcoin doesn't even offer that. And now, you know, a lot of the things that people liked about Bitcoin, self-custody. OK, well, most people now are buying ETFs.

11:52They don't self-custody. They don't like there's no third party. Well, yes, there is a third party. MicroStrategy 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, that's all in on Bitcoin, his whole family. They're mining Bitcoin. He wants to make the United States 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. on my radio show got interested in Bitcoin.

12:30It'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 they collect cards, whatever, their 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 really was scarce in a sense that it was the only one.

13:12You could kind of make an argument, maybe, that its lack of intrinsic value 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. There is no strong argument. What's the strongest you've ever heard?

13:40Graham Stephan:I mean, I can't remember. I've had so many people. You've talked to CZ recently. I mean, you've talked to some big. You've probably heard some pretty strong. Look, most of the people understand, even in this industry, that the real threat to Bitcoin now isn't all the shit coins. 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 a lot of the people in the stablecoin industry are focused on. But look at what the biggest stablecoin issuer, Tether, is doing.

14:32What is Tether doing? They have pivoted to gold. They're buying up gold. They're buying up gold royalty companies. They're buying into gold retailers. They are buying all this gold and they're storing it in a mountain in Switzerland because they recognize that that's the future of crypto. It's gold. It's tokenized gold where the token represents ownership of real gold. That's digital gold. I mean, I'm even participating to an extent. I set up T-Gold as part of ShiftGold. You can go to T-Gold.com and open up an account. we're not offering tokens yet but ultimately the gold that you own at tgold you'll be able to withdraw it in the form of a token but even before you can 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 say you just keep a ledger or a log yeah Yeah, that's just an internal account.

15:37But ultimately, you can withdraw your gold in the form of a token and then put it in your wallet and you can trade it on an exchange. 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. That's exactly why today's sponsor, CookUnity, has become such an easy part of my routine. It's the first meal delivery service where you get meals made by award-winning chefs delivered fresh and ready to eat.

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17:05Once again, that is 50 % off your first order. Just go to cookunity.com slash ICH or click the link down below and use the code ICH50. So of all of the millions of supporters of Bitcoin, you don't think that there's any merit, any reason that one could have that makes any logical sense whatsoever to support Bitcoin?

17:26Graham Stephan:And is there anything that could happen to Bitcoin where you would say, hey, I'm wrong? Well, I mean, look, I mean, it's obviously not a function of price because it's gone up a lot since I first started criticizing it. But no, the people who buy Bitcoin, most of them, the vast majority, buy it because they think they're going to get rich. 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.

18:08And the name of that is called the greater fool. Everybody is hoping that there's a greater fool than they are who will pay a higher price for what amounts to nothing.

18:19Graham Stephan:But isn't that true for anything? No. From housing to some stocks. No, no, it's not even precious metals that someone's hoping I'm going to buy gold at 5 ,000 or be worth 10 ,000 because you're going to print all this money and I'll make money from it. No, no. Well, there you're just preserving 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 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.

19:03So 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.

19:45Bitcoin never becomes more valuable. It doesn't throw off any income, doesn't pay rent, it doesn't pay your dividends. It's just a token. 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. And so it's just a function of 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.

20:30Now you can say, well, what about gold? Gold doesn't have any income. Right, but gold is a metal that's used. And you can think, well, what do jewelers need to pay to buy gold? What do computer manufacturers need to pay to buy gold who need gold in their chips? Or what do central bankers have to pay who need gold to back up their currencies? I mean, one of the things that's happening right now among central banks is they wanna get rid of the dollar. They have too many dollars and we're creating too many. We have too much debt. So the world's 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 gonna keep pace with the rate at which the dollar is gonna be depreciating.

21:16So they need something else to own in place of dollars. And gold is the obvious choice. And so there's central bank demands. 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. anybody who wants Bitcoin, I hear people say, but you can, you know, you can use it to send money across borders. You could do the same thing with stable coins.

21:52You could 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 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 think if you look at where Bitcoin is now, the air is coming out of this bubble. The only time I went out on a limb and I thought Bitcoin had peaked because all the time was going up, I kept conceding, look, I don't know how high this thing can go. You can go to 5 ,000, you can go to 10 ,000, you can go to 5 ,000.

22:29I said, I don't know. 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 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 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 companies, treasury companies, all the ETFs that came out.

23:25So, 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 because the U.S. 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, donate a lot of money to get the Bitcoin president, knowing that this would happen, I think they sold into the mania. And now, you know, you've distributed the tokens much more broadly. You have a lot of people who own these Bitcoin ETFs.

24:10I think they're, I mean, they're not true believers. 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 think the high is in in Bitcoin. 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.

24:52You know, 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. I think they're going to ultimately have to stop paying the dividends on the preferreds and they're just going to crash. The whole thing is going to implode.

25:11Graham Stephan: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 an intern, anybody he had. Now, of course, I would also I would love to debate, you know, like any of his top guys in his cabinet.

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25:53I mean, 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. But no, nobody wanted to challenge me.

26:06Graham Stephan:But what are you noticing now, though, in terms of rising prices? Because inflation did technically come back a little lower than expected recently. 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. The Fed is back to QE. They don't admit it's QE, but that's exactly what they're doing. So the balance sheet is growing again. Money supply. And the Fed has been cutting rates. It has been expanding credit.

26:42That's also inflation. The government is trying to shove more credit into the economy. They're using the GSEs to get more money into the economy by buying up mortgage-backed securities. So they're inflating. You can see prices rising. It's not just precious metals. Look at industrial metals. Look at copper hitting a record high. Look at other prices. Agriculture commodities are moving. Oil has 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 six months. So I think that's turning around. We're going to start to see higher gas prices.

27:20But 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 bill is higher than it was a year ago. I mean, even the government's CPI numbers will show two and a half, three percent 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.

27:58They should come back down. But no, they continue to go up. But Trump was wrong. But unfortunately, I think he's scared the shit 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 that same trip. I was in Dubai. I did it for my hotel room. It was like, I don't know, five o 'clock in the evening. It was like five in the morning. The president, he's awake. watching Fox and Friends at five in the morning.

28:34Who the hell else was watching it? And he goes ballistic, right, on Truth Social, which they ought to rename it, I said, because 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?

29:18Talking about how great he is. They can't have one guy on there? One guy? And I actually endorsed him. I'm not like a typical, you know, never Trumper. I said, yeah, vote for the guy. I thought he was better than Harris. Now, sometimes I second guess that. But but, you know, I still stand by that decision. Well, I mean, it's hard to say what Harris would have done. Right. And 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. What has he done that you've really liked? Well, you know, you know, he's there are some regulations that have been eliminated.

29:58You know, he's toughened up on the borders. So it's not like a sieve. You know, he pushed back against the whole, you know, political, correct, woke nonsense, cancel culture, although he tried to cancel me. I mean, so he's a little bit hypocritical there, you know, when he you know, he couldn't take any criticism 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. Imagine Dragons? No, not Imagine Dragons. So I was in New York. I think it was Crosby, Steele's, Nash & Young. It was like they were performing. This is probably 20 years ago.

30:44And 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 he 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 a reputation but I mean I was I was still going on like CNBC I was Dr. Doom so I wasn't exactly nobody but I you know I wasn't that I didn't have my own hit tv show The Apprentice or whatever so you know but I met him now but that was the only time I met him but you know I just was at Mar-a-Lago last week.

31:26I went to a party there. Who invited you to a party? Did they not remember the feud that you had? No, but it was, look, I mean, it was Latino Wall Street. What is that? It's just an organization. And they had that at Mar-a-Lago? Yeah, yeah. And they invited you? They did. Yes, they honored me. Well, they gave me an award. Last time I was there, they presented me with this award, which was nice. Are you Latino? I'm Puerto Rican. Really? Well, you're in Puerto Rico, aren't you? I feel like I remember you telling us that. I'm a Puerto Rican Jew, like Juan Epstein. What percentage Puerto Rican are you?

32:02I'm 100 % Puerto Rican. I live in Puerto Rico. But like ethnicity? Well, what does that mean? My ancestors weren't from Puerto Rico. I moved here nine years ago, but I've lived here for the last nine years of my life. My kids are growing up in Puerto Rico. So we're Puerto Rican. What is the main reason you live in Puerto Rico? The weather. Ah. No, it's, I live here for, I live here for the parties and, you know, for the lifestyle, for the community. I've got a lot of great neighbors. You met one of my neighbors earlier today.

32:40Graham Stephan:Yeah, you have fantastic neighbors. Yeah. So it's a very close knit community and there is the added benefit of no taxes. Would they have that here? Yeah, well, not no taxes, but very low taxes. I didn't even realize I was a Puerto Rican. Yeah, like 4 % income tax and 0 % capital gains tax. So 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 could actually be generating extra income by hosting on Airbnb.

33:19So 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. The setup was straightforward. Everything ran smoothly and it turned into a genuinely great experience overall. And guys, I am being so honest. It is genuinely a phenomenal way to make some extra cash. If you have spare bedrooms in your house, just put them on Airbnb. You'll make some money. It is so easy. It's quite

33:41Graham Stephan:enjoyable, I highly recommend it. Now, if you've ever thought about hosting but weren't sure how to handle it if you're away, Airbnb now has the co-host network. With this, you could partner with a vetted local co-host with hosting experience who could take care of the important details for you. So you see, a co-host can help manage reservations, guest communication, and even provide on-site support so everything goes smoothly while you're away. This makes hosting a lot more manageable when you travel. It's also just a great way to earn some extra cash for future trips or just home projects. If you've considered hosting but need some help, find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host.

34:14So 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 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'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.

35:00Government never accepts responsibility for creating inflation. They blame the greedy businessman who raised prices. Or they're blaming Putin. Putin was 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 get more wages because everything costs more. But the government gets the ball rolling. 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.

35:37Graham Stephan: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 can charge less. Prices come down. I mean, capitalism is a force to lower prices. That's what capitalism does. It creates abundance out of scarcity. You have more stuff. And the more stuff there is, the less expensive the stuff becomes.

36:27So 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 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.

37:09Because 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.

37:28Graham Stephan: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 are you just going to buy it? I think with stuff like food, not necessarily, but I think with stuff like cars or houses or major purchases. purchases. All right. You need a new car.

38:01Graham Stephan: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 a hundred bucks cheaper. Are you going to wait? I just think even if even a few percent of people do, just a few percent. No, no. There's something, there's a time value, present value. Having something now is worth more than having it later. 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.

38:41I'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.

38:59Graham Stephan:I'll 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 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 have all kinds of examples. I remember the first time that I went into a store, I think maybe it was like a Best Buy or something, and I saw a high def TV for the first time in my life.

39:48Now, you're so young, every TV you've ever seen is HD. But I went in and I saw the first HD TV and I was amazed that at the picture, like I would, to me, I was like, this is like looking through a window. Right. And I obviously would have liked to have bought that TV, but it was like 10 ,000 bucks, which even back then I could 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. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if that TV, that was the cheapest, you know, HDTV and the price had gone up, right?

40:34Same 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 barely used it. And if somebody called me and said, I can't talk about myself. It's like, cause I would wait for the weekends or the nighttime 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?

41:08And 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 expenses 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? 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 take a vacation. You want the airfare to be cheaper or more expensive?

41:45I mean, everybody wants stuff to be cheaper. This is such bullshit 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? No.

41:59Graham Stephan: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 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 biggest problem with the U.S. economy underlying it is not enough savings, not enough capital investment, too much borrowing and consumption and speculation. And that has been a function of low interest rates.

42:36Interest 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 national defense.

43:12Everybody 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. 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 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?

43:46Because 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 any possible thing going on there? Well, I don't know that it's malice so much as self-preservation. And these politicians are just intentional for potentially that reason. Or do you think it's just trying to kick the can down the road? I mean, they don't want to rain on the parade. 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?

44:21You 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 them borrow more money. Let them go deeper into debt so they can overpay for homes, which is asinine. You know, we need to let 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.

44:55But 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 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.

45:31And 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 industry. It's not going to survive. All this crypto is a bunch of nonsense. But now you had the government misdirecting capital to it. So everything 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 until after the election. So it's somebody else's problem. What do you think would signal the true start of a dollar crisis?

46:08Well, I think it's started already. I think gold at 5 ,000 is an indication that this is happening. Foreign central banks 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. I mean, it was down 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.

47:00And 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 the crisis really could get out of hand. We get an all out run on the dollar 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.

47:46But 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 just subprime was just the weakest link of that chain, but that, you know, they were all going to go. 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 the tip of an iceberg. You have no idea what's beneath the surface here. And I was right. You know, we ended up with a financial crisis because it wasn't contained to subprime. Well, what's happening in gold is a similar warning, but not about the credit quality of mortgages, but the credit quality of treasuries.

48:33It's the U.S. government 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. It's a bubble in gold. But the subprime warning predated the financial crisis by about a year. You had about a year to realize that it was going to hit the fan.

49:01Graham Stephan:And what happens if the dollar breaks? Where do people go? Well, I mean, 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 dollars 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.

49:53And 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? because you look at who are the biggest employers in America? FedEx, UPS, Walmart, Amazon. What do those companies do? They transport and sell imported goods. But 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 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 reason that countries export is to import your exports pay for your imports.

50:58But we're able to import without exporting because people want our dollars. Well, when they don't want our dollars anymore, then we got to make stuff. But you can't just, you know, make stuff the way you print money. 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. I don't know what the timeline is there, but we've got a lot of work to do. But we're in for a rude awakening because Trump has got it completely backwards.

51:37He 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. 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. Because I think that we have been a burden that the global economy has been forced to bear, especially a lot of the emerging markets, 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.

52:20So 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 gonna have more goods and more investment capital. And we're gonna have fewer goods and less investment capital. So what do Americans get?

52:57Much higher prices, much higher interest rates, and a much lower standard of living. The world gets lower prices, lower interest rates, a higher standard of living. So that's why my whole investment strategy is investing abroad. 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 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 discount broker did the same thing.

53:36It's based on that separately managed account strategy. And already this year, I forget what we're up, 13, 14 % year to date. The S &P is basically flat.

53:45Graham Stephan:Yeah. This is something I've been telling Jack. I remember two years ago, I'm going to say it. For the longest time, I've been 35%, 65 % 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 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 U.S. assets, out of U.S. stocks, out of U.S. bonds, out of the U.S. dollar. You know, our markets are still very expensive compared to the rest of the world.

54:28You get much better value by investing abroad. And now, you know, you're going to ride this wave of money just getting sucked out of the U.S. Have you made most of your money just investing and buying and holding gold? Look, my net worth right now is significantly impacted by my precious metals holdings, not just physical, but mainly mining stocks. 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 that i that i really made on my current i mean a lot more because i had you know it's such a big move um but you know i didn't sell anything so all this

55:34Graham Stephan:is on paper right i mean i mean i you know are you tempted to sell any of it and just no not i still think look i i've been buying the dips when they so there's a big shake out 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 I'm making 52-week highs. I got great buys on oil stocks a few months ago. I put more money into emerging markets because I'm so overweight personally now in mining stocks because of the big increase. But for people that I talk to today, new clients, I absolutely think they need exposure to these stocks. I don't think they're expensive.

56:15In 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. And so that's not factored into these stocks. And the cheapest stocks are some of the smaller companies. My gold fund, the Europe Pacific Gold Fund, EPGIX, 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. Because 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.

57:00And 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 have never had this kind of cashflow when 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 two 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

57:30Graham Stephan: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 alright well it's not going to hit 15 ,000 tomorrow but if it did Yeah, maybe I'd sell some. But, you know, I mean, gold doesn't. 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.

58:04I might sell it for stocks. Right. Because it could be like the dollar is just imploding, you know, and it's going to it's like, you know, like a hot potato, like, you know, or musical. You don't want to get caught with it. if that were to happen. I mean, something would have to be seriously going on. Is the dollar crisis reversible? Like, could we change course? I think we've kind of gone past the point of no return. You know, I think that maybe the big, beautiful bill kind of cemented it. I mean, when Trump was elected with a mandate to cut government spending, I mean, Elon Musk was almost going to be a co-president.

58:45He was going to be leading the Department of Government Efficiency, right? It's almost an oxymoron because government can never be efficient 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. And the message that this sends to the world is America will never do anything about this runaway deficits.

59:34because the only hope was Trump and the Republicans. And 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. So they expanded the big deficits that they inherited, made them bigger. So creditors know, OK, the Democrats are never going to cut spending. I mean, the Democrats love government. They want to spend money. Why would they stop? But the Republicans who are supposed to not like government, 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.

1:00:18So what hope do we have? None. And so this is all we can have is a crisis. 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 the crisis is what's going to stop it. is going to be a collapse of the dollar. It is inevitable. It is unavoidable. 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. 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.

1:01:13I mean, let's say there's a company in Canada that 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 because now goods that they used to be able to buy are too expensive. But now this Canadian company is like, shit, 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 figure out how to get along without us and they'll be better off.

1:01:48But 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 what happened in Venezuela, but the threat to invade Greenland. The fact that Donald Trump openly spoke out loud for weeks about the U.S. invading Greenland, about us trying to buy it. But if we couldn't buy it, we were just going to take it. I think that was a real eye-opener for the rest of the world.

1:02:37And 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 real wake up that the world says, you know what? we got to do something about America. They got too much power.

1:03:28We can't keep financing this because if it wasn't for the world, you know, holding the U.S. 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. 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.

1:04:08And 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 people can't afford food and, you know, they can't afford electricity.

1:04:22Graham Stephan:Now, when Jack and I first started the iced coffee hour, we had to learn everything on the fly. I'm talking figuring out the best cameras to use, the best lenses, the best editing equipment, how to get guests and sponsors. Every day was a brand new challenge. And that's why if you're starting or growing your own business, you know how valuable today's sponsor is. And that would be Shopify. Shopify is basically an all-in-one business platform. They power millions of businesses worldwide from major brands like Mattel and Gymshark to everyday entrepreneurs that are just getting started. And here's just an insane fact.

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1:07:07Graham Stephan:So if you want a system that supports your business, scan the QR code on the screen or click the link in the description to learn more about Relay. Thank you again to Relay for sponsoring this episode and now let's get back to the podcast. In terms of having a reserve, though, with Fort Knox, what's been going on with conspiracies that there's no gold there, 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 early days of the Trump administration, there was a lot of talk about auditing Fort Knox, about going down there.

1:07:48Yeah. 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 because 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. So the fact that the whole thing just got buried under a big rug makes you think that there's something going on.

1:08:37Graham Stephan: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 count it and 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.

1:09:21But I said, look, you're verifying how much nothing I have. So when people say, oh, look how easy it is to transport Bitcoin. Yeah, because you're transporting nothing. It's not hard to transfer. In fact, Bitcoin doesn't actually get transported. Bitcoin doesn't go anywhere. You know, it's 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.

1:09:59But the beauty of tokenized gold 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 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 medium 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. Now, if you actually need the gold for some reason, you could get it.

1:10:41If you decide to become a jeweler and 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?

1:10:58Graham Stephan:But he's not buying it anymore. I mean, he bought some 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. For buying Bitcoin. He was brainwashed. You know, I mean, look, all the young kids, you know, I get into these debates. I had another one just 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 it's the young generation, the kids who are buying Bitcoin. And I'm like, yeah, exactly.

1:11:33But I'm not going to take my investment advice from a bunch of kids. Kids make mistakes. They're new, they're young, they don't have the experience, they don't have the wisdom, and they're making a lot of mistakes buying Bitcoin. Now, when a lot of the 20-somethings grow up and they're my age, they'll know better. And one of the reasons they'll know better is they'll remember how much money they lost with Bitcoin. 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.

1:12:13Would you rather have one Bitcoin right now or one ounce of gold, but 100 % you had to hold on to both for five years? Oh, well, obviously, if I had to hold on to them both for five years, I think the ounce of gold will be worth more. But obviously, if I could sell right now, I would take the Bitcoin. I would immediately sell it. But maybe if you gave me that Bitcoin, I could find a way to hedge it somehow. I can short something or get some kind of derivative instrument. Because yes, there is a high market price. Right now, Bitcoin is$6 ,000 and gold is only$5 ,000. But Bitcoin is going to continue to lose value relative to gold.

1:13:00Eventually, it won't have any value whatsoever. But I no longer think Bitcoin is going to zero anytime soon. 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.

1:13:58They're going to lose almost all 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. 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. Because he kind of thinks that, look, AI is going to lead to such massive efficiencies and production, that prices are going to collapse because everything is going to be virtually free.

1:14:37So 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 one, two, three 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.

1:15:18And, you know, I think I think I think it's just going to take more like decades, not years. And, you know, but I think there will be some benefits in the near term, just not to the degree 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. My needs are not that great. So what motivates you to continue? Well, I mean, I want the business to grow because I do ultimately, I'm going to sell, cash out and kind of retire.

1:16:08So 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 and that it's not about capitalism.

1:16:47It's not a failure of capitalism. And yeah, I mean, people in a free market, people can do foolish things with their money. That's freedom. You're free to make mistakes. I've never wanted to prevent people from buying Bitcoin. I just thought it was unfortunate that so many people were. But people have a have a right to buy it and they need to 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 has kind of conspired with a lot of the companies in the space that, you know, endorses their stuff.

1:17:31I 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 because 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 a transfer. 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.

1:18:14Do 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. That's what the government does. 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 because 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.

1:18:56But, you know, when you have maximum capitalism, maximum freedom, you have the highest possible standard of living for the greatest number of people. And that's what we need. You know, we need, you know, free market capitalism. We need to limit the size of government to the greatest degree possible. like you know donald trump likes to talk about you know the heyday of america 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 two percent of our gdp now it spends you know more than 10 times that.

1:19:42So we were rich because government was tiny. Now, Trump says we were rich because 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.

1:20:01Graham Stephan:What do you think about a wealth tax? Why is it gaining so much popularity? Well, because most people won't have to pay it. I 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 that's the reason we have an income tax. People don't realize that. So we didn't always have an income tax, right? We passed an amendment, the 16th Amendment. And 1913, we got an income tax. The reason we have an income tax is because the government said, hey, let's tax the rich.

1:20:48Right. And before we had an income tax, the main source of revenue was tariffs. 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. 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, a smaller percentage. But of course, as soon as the government got the income tax, they kept lowering their increasing the rate, applying it to more people.

1:21:29by 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 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 the tax in by saying, we're just gonna tax the billionaires. But before you know it, they're taxing everybody. Because 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 because an income tax was a direct tax and they need to apportion it.

1:22:10They 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 an 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.

1:22:34Graham Stephan:But who funds, let's just say schools, police, roads, infrastructure? Well, first of all, the federal government doesn't even get involved. It shouldn't even get involved in any of that stuff. That stuff is for local governments. So, you know. Military would be another one. Yeah, but we don't need as big a military as we have. 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.

1:23:07Although I prefer private schools. I think private schools do a much better job of educating kids than government schools. 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. Because we have to, you know, there's nothing that's for free. See, people like it when government provides stuff because they don't think it costs anything.

1:23:40They 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 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.

1:24:17You'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. So, you know, whatever it is, food or clothing or shelter, education, healthcare, 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're going to settle for lower quality and higher costs.

1:24:52Graham Stephan: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 ran for Senate in Connecticut. But would you ever do that again? Not probably not. I mean, you know, it was a waste of money. I wasted my own money. How much did you spend? Myself, a little over a million. But I raised a couple of million from donors. Yeah. So that was a waste, right? Yeah. But what was the main thing you campaigned on? My main issue was going to be I wanted to, you know, be the filibuster to stop the debt. I wanted to, I didn't want the debt ceiling to go up.

1:25:33I 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, it 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, 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, it would have been interesting if I could have won. I didn't even win the primary.

1:26:05So, you know, I didn't. I think you'd have a better shot now. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Better maybe, but not necessarily like an actual chance. I mean, because there's so, I have so much of a record of the things that I said that would just be used against me 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 win an election when you're telling the truth and you're not giving away free stuff. You're just promising freedom, right? People don't want freedom. They want free stuff, even though they don't realize how expensive the free stuff is.

1:26:50So it would be very difficult for me to win an election in the environment that we have now. But obviously, look, Javier Malay became president of Argentina, running on a similar type of message that I would be running on. And it took a lot for Argentina to elect Malay. I mean, years and years of empty government promises that had 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, we need to try something different.

1:27:40And, you know, and 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.

1:28:29You know, I mean, you know, when people didn't have running water, they didn't have electricity. You know, they couldn't take a hot shower. You know, they didn't have air conditioner. They, you know, they didn't have music. You know, 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, you know. So 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 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.

1:29:12So 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. 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, you know, there's capital. Capitalism is far more pervasive today around the world than it's been. You know, even though not many places have pure capitalism like America was and even America wasn't completely pure.

1:30:00But we were we were very close in the time period that the president speaks about. Which country has the most capitalism right now? I don't know, you got proud to look like a Singapore, even though they have, you know, even in Hong Kong, which is part of China. 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 going on 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've been lowering their taxes getting rid of capital gains getting rid of the estate tax you know they've been moving in 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 welfare state was because they were capitalists first.

1:31:05If you're socialist first, you never go anywhere. You're just, you know, you're trapped in poverty. But, 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 did more. They produced more. They contributed more. And so they made more. But there are always people that resent that. 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.

1:31:38Why should this guy? And they end up killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Like, you know, people are always, I don't want somebody to get rich. You know, like, 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 because that's the best way to get it cured.

1:32:16Have 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? People are motivated 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 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.

1:32:53Now, yes, you can also get rich. You can be a criminal. You can steal money, but that's different. But if you're going to get rich in business, honestly, then 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? But the politicians pander to those people. Oh, you should have this. You're entitled to this. You're entitled to that. Nobody is entitled to anything. You're entitled to freedom. You're entitled to be left alone.

1:33:28But you're not entitled to take things from other people and you're not entitled to elect people who will steal for you. 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.

1:33:53Graham Stephan:Some eagle. Yeah, an eagle like soars over you. Well, that's what built America. Pro-American music playing, it's swelling. 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 they're they're they're they started no matter where they came from no matter who their parents were, anybody could be rich.

1:34:53Anybody 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 to nobility or with a silver spoon in your mouth. You could go from the mailroom to the boardroom 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. And 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.

1:35:23But 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 Mandami. How does he get mayor of New York? Free groceries, free car, you know, free buses, free housing, right? 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.

1:35:51Graham Stephan: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, 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 son thinks, get out of jail free card from AI. I just don't expect that to happen. But that's more likely than Bitcoin outperforming gold. But - 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 or we could make anything happen?

1:36:38Graham Stephan:Yeah, I mean - No use for money anymore. I think at some point in the future, that may be the case.

1:36:48But 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 because they say, oh, it's going to create all this unemployment. Well, yes, but that's a good thing. People don't want jobs. They want jobs so they can get things. if they can have the things without the jobs and screw the job i'll just take the stop what do you

1:37:13Graham Stephan: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 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 what kind of car i want i push the button and there's the car. It's all, 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 pushed like I have, you know, like from I dream a genie 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, you know i guess people would be enjoying themselves i don't know i mean i think just you know they would just what would you do if you could have whatever you want i mean i don't know i think i think at the beginning it would be really interesting a lot of fun but i think after a few months of that maybe six months to a year you get antsy i don't know i don't know 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 i guess you'd have to talk to some of these billionaires and say, hey, what's, you know, what's your life like?

1:38:36Because in theory, that's what everybody's life would be like, because, you know, nobody would be limited by their resources. If you, if you've got a hundred billion dollars, right, 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, cause in theory they could do that, but they're motivated beyond that though.

1:38:57Graham Stephan:Yeah. I guess change the world. They want to do, but I guess, but I guess once everybody can have everything they want, I don't know if there's anything left to change. Assuming that everybody now lives forever and nobody gets old, you know, 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, we can just do whatever we want because it's all energy and there's no actual matter or space.

1:39:37We're all living in a computer. That could be it right now, though. Yeah, but if 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. You have to wait for the next simulation, the upgrade. But, no, I don't know. But, I mean, based on your question, I don't think that I'm wrong about about the dollar. I think the dollar is 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 because I think a lot of people bought Bitcoin for the same reason that I bought gold.

1:40:17And I think they made a mistake. I think they're on the wrong horse. For a while, that horse was running fast, but I think it's pretty much going to the glue factory. I think it's out of the race. 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 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.

1:41:02But what caused me to have the concerns that drove that strategy, all of those problems are even bigger now than when I first started preparing. So that has just reinforced the idea that I'm right in what people need to own. And, you know, I have my strategies. I have five mutual funds that I manage. And they are specifically designed to thrive in the global economy that I believe is in the process 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 will do well with inflation. and with a dollar devaluation, de-dollarization.

1:41:54So you want to own physical precious metals. You want to own foreign stocks. 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 funds. You can go to Shift Gold and get some gold and silver 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 percent of your portfolio is gold? Well, my portfolio right now, 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.

1:42:37And 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 other stocks that I have. 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 the thing is it took so long, I had so many opportunities to buy the dips. They kept crushing these stocks. The most recent one was after Trump was elected. We had a big drop in gold stocks.

1:43:18So, you know, I bought more. 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 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. shorter duration. But I have very little invested in the United States personally. I have some energy stocks in the U.S., a couple of other stocks, tobacco. My personal portfolio is very, very light on U.S.

1:43:58And the only tech stocks I have are outside of the U.S. What is that term called? It's like Pascal's Wager, is it? Is that what they call it? I don't know. 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 uh 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 and it's like great job you did it right and if if you do believe in it and you were wrong where it's not a thing it's like it's not well there you're just well i think the only religion i mean that that would apply to is like christianity exactly but christianity is you know it's like all or nothing like either you accept um jesus and go to heaven or you don't and go to hell yes and and and that kind of um but you know ultimatum is you know i mean people could say hey all i have to do is accept them and i'm i'm you know what do i got to lose um but judy is judaism doesn't even have that we don't have of that ultimatum.

1:45:05It's like, you know, you believe in God, you don't believe in God. It's not like God is vindictive. I mean, if there's a heaven, everybody goes. It's not like he's like, oh shit, you didn't believe in me. You're going to hell. That's to me that, you know, but I get what you're saying. I'm bringing it up in terms of Bitcoin. It's like in the offhand 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 Bitcoin could end up making sense.

1:45:42That 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 watch the financial news and that's all they discuss. The biggest advertisers are Bitcoin crypto companies.

1:46:25I 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 it 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. Because 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 i don't 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.

1:47:33You know, Bitcoin made a lot of money before anybody owned it, right? 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.

1:48:09I think the money that wants in is already in. The people that haven't bought Bitcoin didn't buy it because they don't want it. And now it's about getting out and preserving 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 have like 3 % Bitcoin. What prices did you, what's your average cost of all your Bitcoin? Probably about this.

1:48:45Graham Stephan:So you're about even on your Bitcoin? I would say I'm about, I might be up slightly, but I've been dollar cost averaging since 2017. Yeah, and you're not even ahead doing that. 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 when it was 126 a few months ago. But a lot of times you go to a casino and you're up. Just as fast as it goes down, it can go back up and back down again. Or it can go down even faster. 100%. You know, I mean, and it's not just that, you know, you didn't lose too much on Bitcoin.

1:49:23if it's your buddy, 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 a hundred grand into Bitcoin and you still have about a hundred grand, but maybe had you put that into gold and silver and average it, you'd have 200 grand. So you're out a hundred grand because you would have 200 grand.

1:49:44Graham Stephan:Yeah, but a lot of those are in hindsight. Well, no, I was telling people, No, I was telling people in real time, don't buy Bitcoin, buy this. But you could have been telling people buy Bitcoin at$30 ,000 and then sell Bitcoin at$120 ,000. Yeah, well, look, would have, could have, should have. 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, I'd 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. I would like not to do that. Well, that's the one thing at least I've told you, look, look at Bitcoin as a crapshoot.

1:50:28Maybe you'll win, maybe you'll lose, but don't put money in that you can't afford to lose. 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. That's his advice.

1:50:52Graham Stephan:I got some rapid fire questions for you. In one word, gold or silver, if you could only own one forever. Oh, 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. There's a few stocks that I've done really, really well with that have gone up 20 times or more. I think I did one that was 50x. But the problem is I didn't have enough money in it. I didn't have that much money. Do you know how many stocks they were? The one that I had a stock that went from like 25 cents to 50 bucks. What stock was it?

1:51:38It was called Hurricane Hydrocarbons. And then it became Petro-Kazakstan 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.

1:51:55Graham Stephan:Wow. But that's just one. I didn't put much money. I never bought any more of it. I bought it years ago. But I, 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 five years ago. So there are stocks that go up. 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 winners have to outnumber my losers.

1:52:32And 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's the beauty of owning real companies that are businesses that pay dividends because you earn from dividends.

1:53:09And then what I do with those dividends, because as I invest them in other things, so I get to compound my dividends by buying more stocks that now pay more dividends. Well, I didn't hear anything that is 150X or higher. Well, no, I've never - Because I did actually get 150X, put$100 in a Dogecoin, got out 15 ,000. Yeah, I've never been involved.

1:53:32Graham Stephan:I bought the watch, actually. The Dogelex, as we call it. I've never been involved in crypto. So I never had - You've never experienced what it's like to make 150X. Oh, yeah. I've never done that. I know people that have done that, right? Right. But, you know, no. And that's not an endorsement of Dogecoin. Let's just make it 100 % clear. I do not endorse Dogecoin. 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.

1:54:13They 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.

1:54:52And ultimately, there is a house. All these exchanges, the miners, there's a rate there, right? So it's actually a negative sum game because there is a cost to play.

1:55:04Graham Stephan:Gold price prediction for the end of 2026. Just one word. Higher. Do you have a price? You said one word, higher. One price. One number. One number. I don't know. I think gold will top 6 ,000 this year. You know, it said 5 ,000 now. I don't know. You know, it could be a lot higher. It depends on a lot of factors that are beyond my control. But I think gold is going a lot higher. 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, it's probably more likely to rise than fall.

1:55:45The 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, I know the Dow because I know the numbers. The Dow is down 75 % over 25 years price in gold. Even though it's gone from$10 ,000 to$50 ,000, it's less valuable. You have less gold now if you sell your stocks than you did in 1999. And I've been saying the same thing since then, that stocks would go down priced in real money.

1:56:22Graham Stephan:Who's a 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, he's just buying stuff. But the Fed is, I mean, the institutions that I think that have done the most damage are the Fed and the Supreme Court. I mean, 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.

1:57:03Graham Stephan:what do you say? Well, he doesn't have much to go all in with. So he really - Let's just say he's going all in. So you're going to flex on him, basically. Bar mitzvah, I just want Bitcoin. Well, 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. I'm tired of life and I'm just going to end it all. 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. I mean, he's trying to work in San Francisco and trying to, you know, he just got out of college, so he doesn't really have much.

1:57:46I mean, yeah. Does he not just like ask you for money? Yes, of course he asks me for money. And what do you say? No, but no, 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 to be, all right, here's a bunch of money or something. Or do you think like, is he wondering when will his, 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.

1:58:24They need to learn 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 you know there's an old saying you 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 i inherited nothing my god i didn't get a nickel from my dad did that make you more

1:58:51Graham Stephan: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 because if i didn't make it i wasn't gonna get it i mean i wasn't gonna i you know i've never inherited anything i didn't have a rich uncle or an aunt nobody's ever given me a nickel so whatever i have you know i certainly didn't marry into money you know i married out of money will 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$100 million to never talk about gold again?

1:59:30Again? I mean, I don't know. I mean, these are weird questions. Because it's a lot. I mean, I have more than that. But it is a lot of money, even for, you know. I mean, I'm not a billionaire yet. 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. Google doesn't. how to Google. The only thing that I've ever seen, if you Google my net worth, Peter, because 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 curious about what my net worth is. And the only thing that I ever see is like 70 or 80 million.

2:00:10Oh, I saw like a 900 million. Yeah. I see higher. Well, but that figure came from my Senate disclosure in 2010, which was about my net worth in 2010. I've made a little money since then. So, but I don't, you know, obviously I don't publish it because I'm not, I don't have, you know, I don't own stock in publicly traded companies. So whatever it is, it is. What difference is it if people know that you have$500 million or a billion dollars? I don't know. It's just 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.

2:00:50But, you know, it just all depends on if I'm right on the markets, right? If the market's completely reversed right now, then I probably won't be. 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 foreign stocks continue to outperform U.S. stocks the way they did last year, mining stocks, then I think in a few years, I'll get there. 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, just, you know, don't let people tell you you can't do something.

2:01:32Stick to things, you know, you got to, you know, you got to be all in. I mean, I mean, I, I used to work, uh, you know, from the minute I got up till I went to sleep and there was no weekend. I mean, a weekend was just a more opportunity to work when you're just getting started, if you're trying to run a business and people, you know, 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? No, I mean, not really. I mean, I can take it easier now.

2:02:10Um, 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, you know, I mean, I mean, so I've made a big difference in the lives of a lot of people, much more so than, you know, your typical stockbroker, right? Who's, you know, so and that's that's satisfying that I and that's one of the reasons that I that I that I keep doing what I'm doing, because I know that I continue to impact people.

2:02:58And I know that, you know, I go to these events like I go to the. The crypto events. nobody poses for more selfies than me and 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 shit coin um but all the bitcoin promoters are they're 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, I've, I've met something in their lives. And, um, so that, I mean, you know, it's hard to, you know, put a, put a value on that.

2:03:40Cause 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 did get back to your question. People just, you know, just have to be motivated and, and, and work and, and don't be lazy. And, you know, 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, 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 you're lucky. That's what Logan said.

2:04:22That's what Logan said.

2:04:23Graham Stephan:The exact same thing. So you're the exact same as Logan Paul. Guys, you heard it here first. Well, I'm sure. Peter Schiff is the exact same thing as Logan Paul. Maybe I said that. Coincidentally, neither of you guys own Bitcoin. Maybe I said that. Yeah, this is true. Maybe I said that on Impulsive, and then he repeated it. But that could have been it, too. But I definitely can tell that Logan enjoys what he does. and he's makes a lot of money doing it you know and he look 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 his brother now jake has made more money than the logan but i mean 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 just turned 30 he just turned 30 Yeah.

2:05:15Yeah. 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 shit 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. little bit of money and you make a little money from a lot of people turns into a 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 and tomorrow we're flying all the way back yep and we're doing this for you guys.

2:06:13And 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. Yeah.

2:06:19Graham Stephan:That's why you got to subscribe, hit the like button and we'll link to all your information down below in the description, 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. As we walked in here, I kind of screen peeked. You had maximum, also maximum, what do you call that? Lookage. You were zoomed in. It's like 700%. So all you could see was your text box. Well, you know, I mean, I'm 60, almost 63, right? I can't read it if it's really small. I wonder if that's how Trump tweets. He's maximum font size on his phone.

2:06:57Thank you so much for watching. He does that fast. But how long are you guys staying in Puerto Rico? We're leaving tomorrow morning. Oh, okay. 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. It's 8 p.m. Right, right. Oh, well, I'm going to do it at nine. It's dinner. 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.

2:07:29So that's Peter Schiff's show. Awesome. Thank you guys. Check out Peter Schiff's show. Thank you guys for watching so much. Until next time.

2:07:34Graham Stephan:By the way, if you enjoyed this episode, we just posted our next one early for members. So if you click the join button, you could literally begin watching our next episode right now. Really hope you enjoy it.

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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:09 - Gold price prediction accuracy
00:07:57 - What would change his mind on Bitcoin?
00:12:21 - Best pro-Bitcoin arguments
00:15:16 - Sponsor - CookUnity
00:16:44 - Could he be wrong about Bitcoin?
00:24:41 - Trump feud
00:29:19 - What Trump got right
00:32:28 - Sponsor - Airbnb
00:33:44 - Economic beliefs people get wrong
00:43:11 - Is inflation intentional?
00:48:31 - What happens if the dollar breaks?
00:54:07 - How Peter Schiff built his wealth
00:57:50 - Can a dollar crisis be reversed?
01:03:53 - Sponsor - Shopify
01:05:27 - Sponsor - Relay
01:06:48 - Fort Knox conspiracy
01:13:31 - Peter Schiff's son's investment strategy
01:15:02 - Do you still have a growth mindset?
01:17:43 - Is capitalism becoming unpopular?
01:24:22 - Would he run for office?
01:27:20 - Future investment opportunities
01:29:35 - Most capitalist country
01:35:21 - Could he still be wrong on Bitcoin?
01:41:49 - Portfolio breakdown
01:43:31 - Gold vs Bitcoin debate
01:50:23 - Rapid-fire questions

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