Are DOLLARS Good As GOLD?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Have you ever lost a million dollars of your own money in one transaction? Well, today's guest has. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Welcome to the Duster Mud podcast, episode 56. After 25 years of being in the air Force, Rich was a fighter pilot. We moved to the Ozarks in Missouri and started a first generation regenerative farm. And part of our mission is to create the best food that we can, and we like to talk about it. So on this podcast, the Dust from Mud podcast, we talk about food, freedom, and farming. Today we are going to focus on freedom. [00:00:35] Speaker A: We're welcoming back a guest. Mister Tim Arbeiter is joining us again today. Welcome, Tim. [00:00:42] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. Great to be here. [00:00:44] Speaker A: It really is cool to have you back on. And today we're going to focus the conversation on freedom. Shelley mentioned the three main priorities of the podcast, and it's been a while since we've touched on freedom really for a the focus of the entire thing, and we want to focus this one on freedom as it relates to finances and how finances can play a big part in freedom. So I started this whole thing with the idea that you lost a million dollars in a single transaction gone bad. Obviously, you come from a really rich family and, um, have millions to throw around, and that's how you lost that money. Or were you an enlisted Marine that put yourself through school and, and made some money? [00:01:31] Speaker C: Yeah, the latter for sure. [00:01:33] Speaker A: So tell us just real quick recap, Tim, if you would, for the folks that didn't get a chance to watch the first episode, just seriously quick on who are you sure? [00:01:43] Speaker C: So, grew up in a lower middle class family, six people, one blue collar worker. Struggled to make ends meet, but always had food on the table. We worked hard, went the Marine Corps after high school, did my four years, got out, went to college, got a degree, started earning more money than I thought I ever would, invested it, saved it, always lived below our means. I hear about people buying houses at three, four times their income. We never spent more than one and a half times our annual income on a house. So we always lived below our means and thought we're putting money away to hopefully secure our future and our children's future. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Yeah. What happened? [00:02:28] Speaker C: Well, entities decide to manipulate markets. I think the US and some of its allies decided they wanted to hurt Russia badly in the 2013 to 15 timeframe by dropping the price of oil. And it literally bankrupted several companies that I was heavily invested in. And as an equity owner, you are not first in line for any of the spoils after a bankruptcy. You're kind of at the bottom of the list. So we literally saw that big pile of investment just disappear. [00:03:04] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. [00:03:06] Speaker C: And we were 55 at that time. So I thank God that it happened when I was 55 and not 65, but, yeah. [00:03:14] Speaker A: So with that, it really does make sense that you have some fairly strong opinions on wealth, wealth preservation, on what to do with, with money. So that's, that's really where we, where we want to take this conversation today. I want to hit you with a quote that I haven't, I haven't shared with you before, so I'm interested in your reaction. This is a fairly recent quote from Aristotle. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Recent. [00:03:48] Speaker C: Aristotle Onassis. [00:03:49] Speaker A: But he's too. It is also in the interests of the tyrant to make his subjects poor. The people are so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for plotting. What does that mean to you, Tim? [00:04:07] Speaker C: It tells me that our leaders have listened to Aristotle. Okay. Because I think essentially, between the banks and the government, I think there is a conspiracy to rob from the people through inflation. And it keeps you so busy wondering where your next meal is going to come from that, yeah, you're looking to the government for solutions to your problem instead of realizing that government is causing your problem. Ronald Reagan said that many times during his campaigns. Right. Government's not the solution. Government's a problem. We've got to rethink this whole deal. [00:04:54] Speaker A: So what you're saying then is that in Aristotle's quote, the tyrant, you're saying basically our government then would be the tyrant in that quote. And, I mean. [00:05:12] Speaker C: I'm sorry to interrupt. [00:05:13] Speaker A: No, go ahead. [00:05:13] Speaker C: I think the tyrant can be the bankers every bit as much as the government. Although you would think that there is pretty close collusion between the banking entity and the government. They sort of are two hands that wash each other, in my view. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah. You often use the online handle anti fiat. [00:05:38] Speaker C: Right. [00:05:38] Speaker A: Talk to us a little bit about that and how that ties in with this. [00:05:42] Speaker C: Well, fiat currency allows governments to, at will, by whim, create currency and put it into the system which allows them to do things that they wouldn't otherwise be able to do if they had to rely on real money that has to be earned, manufactured, mined, grown. This is money that we now just most click into existence. So the government. [00:06:09] Speaker A: I have to interrupt you quick for just a second. But before I met you, Tim, real money was in my wallet. It was greenbacks. It was in different denominations from in my wallet, a one to a 20. [00:06:24] Speaker B: I didn't know the term currency. Fiat. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah, well, to you, they're fiat currency, money, they all are different things to me. Fiat I had heard of and was sort of like, okay, but currency and money were the same to me before we started talking. So talk just a little bit, because I think that nuance, simple terms, nuance matters for this discussion, talk just a little bit in your mind, the difference between currency and money, and then where the fiat plays into that. [00:07:04] Speaker C: Sure. So the function of money is, first and foremost, the preservation of purchasing power or wealth. If something does not maintain purchasing power, it's not really money, it's something else. And my favorite example is 1883. You walk into a store with a $20 gold piece, a double eagle. You plunk it down on the counter, you get a new Winchester rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition. Today, you could take that very same 1883 double eagle, and it has the purchasing power that it will get you, a Winchester rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition. It's just that it's now worth $23 to $2,400 instead of 20, because gold has held its purchasing power. That wealth is intrinsically in that gold. It can't be inflated away by the government at whim, by creating fiat currency like they do. So currency mimics money, but it does not retain purchasing power, because the government can, at will, by whim, just poof it into existence through the creation of debt treasury bills that they then auction off. And then money is magically created. But that's not even how most of the money gets into the system. Most of the money gets into our system through fractional reserve banking. And if you don't understand what fractional reserve banking is, go google it. But essentially, what it means is any money that you deposit into a bank can be rehypothecated multiple times through the banking system to where $100 becomes $1,000. And that's going on throughout the entire banking system. It used to be that the rule was 10% reserve had to be held as vault cash. Since, I think, 19. Since 2019, that reserve rule has basically been abolished, and banks can lend out 100%. Now, they don't lend out 100% because they have to have some vault cash. But we create a lot of currency in our system just through rehypothecation of deposits, relending the same dollars out over and over through the system. It's like if you and Shelley just lent each other money, you're both insolvent, but you're going to lend each other money back and forth and build up this funny money on paper wealth that really can't stand much of a test. [00:09:36] Speaker A: Wow. [00:09:37] Speaker B: Wow. [00:09:38] Speaker C: In a nutshell, that's how I see it. [00:09:40] Speaker A: So where does a gold or silver play into this, then? [00:09:47] Speaker C: Well, gold and silver have no counterparty risk. So if I own, say, an equity lyn energy cedral, that money that I made, that I invested in, that stock, is now being held by a third party. It's being pooled with other people's assets and rehypothecated in the system to create derivatives of derivatives. So we end up with this huge pile of. It's like if you had mirrors, you walked into the house of mirrors, and it's like, wow, there's six Shelley's in here. No, there's really only r1 Shelley. The other five are derivatives of Shelley. So you go into war thinking you have an army of x, and you really got much less than that. And that's what we've done with our currency. We rehypothecated the currency to the point where we've built a house of cards, in a sense. I don't know if that answers your question, but it's spooky. And what we've also done, and this you can learn about by reading David Rogers Webb's book, the great taking. I think you've been introduced to it. He outlines how, systematically, really, over the last 40 or 50 years, but in a big way. Since 2008, we have restructured the uniform commercial code, and we've rewritten the laws to make you not really the owner of something. You just have, we'd say, a right to something, but you don't really own it. And that's your deposits in banks, your deposits in brokerage accounts, they're all subject to seizure by the person that you've actually lent that money to. They're authorized to go rehypothecate your dollars. So you say, well, where's my money? Well, it's sitting in this account. No, it's not. There's a number on a piece of paper, on a ledger that says you have that. But any real asset, it's been pooled and rehypothecated multiple times. And that's the risk that everyone is facing globally. This is not just an american thing. This is globally. And so we've got a bubble that we've built that, and there are pins just all over the place, just waiting to pop the bubble. That's why I've moved more into physical assets. [00:12:19] Speaker A: Got it? [00:12:20] Speaker C: Land, led, silver, gold, food. [00:12:25] Speaker A: Do you see that? The government or the banking systems, those that are in charge of the fiat, do you tie their ability to manipulate that to freedom in your own life, is that a freedom thing? Because they're able to manipulate at will, it restricts or reduces your own freedom? [00:12:53] Speaker C: From an economic perspective, it certainly is liable to. I mean, we can respond to the reality that we believe we see and try to minimize the loss of freedom, but if we just allow how we've been trained to think, to rule what we do, we've been trained to think. As you mentioned earlier, money is that piece of paper in my wallet. But if you look at the history of monetary systems, the very first example of paper money was almost 1000 years ago in China. And they blew it up. They blew it up. They printed too many of these paper things. They didn't have anything real behind it. I'm sorry. People figured out this is not real money. But this has happened repeatedly through history. If you look at the history of fiat currencies and you see there's like 900 of them and 850 of them have gone bust, and it's just a matter of time really, when, not if, because governments and human nature have not changed. Human nature is the same today as it was 1000 years ago. We're intrinsically greedy and selfish and power hungry. And if you give people an opportunity to exercise that and get a taste of that, they tend to run with it. It takes an extraordinary person to not fall into that trap. And if anyone thinks we have extraordinary people running the banks in the government, well then feel free to stay in the system. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:30] Speaker C: But I think any sober observation would tell you otherwise. [00:14:35] Speaker B: So you mentioned a minute ago, other countries in the past, there's nothing new under the sun. These types of things have happened before. What are some of the historical things that you were talking about? And are there any moments in history where the fiat currency and the fiscal assets were horribly lopsided? And what were those situations and what ramifications did it have? [00:15:07] Speaker C: Yeah, I think probably the one that's most significant and probably the best known, at least in the US, would be what happened to Germany, specifically the Weimar Republic after World War one. The Treaty of Versailles required the german people to pay reparations for world War one, and they were very onerous and it was bankrupting the country. So you've heard the phrase maybe borrow dollars, pay back dimes. Well, that's essentially what Germany did. They started printing deutsche marks and creating money, fiat money. It was paper money and they just printed it with reckless abandon. They had so many printing operations going, they were running out of ink. They got to where they were only printing on one side because they didn't have enough ink. They were printing on one side of the paper, the other side was blank at the worst of it. And initially during the war, people were hoarding money because they were uncertain about the future. So there was lots of money stuffed under mattresses and in hiding. But once the war was over and people thought, okay, it's not the end of the world, we can start spending again. They started spending, but the country had all this debt to pay back. So the currency started increasing just tremendously, to the point where at the end of World War one, an ounce of gold was 170 Deutsche marks. And by 1923, it was in the over 100 billion Deutsche marks per ounce of gold. Wow, that's hyperinflation. Not saying that's going to happen here, but it's an example of what can and has happened with paper currency that's not backed by anything other than the full faith and credit of the issuer. So, you know, the people in Germany that had gold, and there weren't many, because they'd been trained to trust the local currency, just like we are trained right from infant on to trust the money of the country. We marry the currency of the country that we're in. So to us, the dollar is money, but in reality, the dollar is currency. It's a representative of money. It used to be a fraction of metallic wealth, but no longer, obviously. So we see that we have what I think the total tax revenue for the year 2023 for the federal government was $4.5 billion trillion. I'm sorry, four and half trillion dollars. And the latest budget we've seen from the president is 7 trillion. So where's that deficit going to be made up? It's going to be made up by clicking money into existence and through bond auctions, rehypothecation. [00:18:10] Speaker B: They don't have to print it anymore. [00:18:11] Speaker C: They can just click it right. And so for every dollar that you earned and were paid at some point in the past that you've saved for future use is being made worth less and less. With every new dollar that's thrown into the system, there's more dollars chasing finite goods and services. So the prices go up. And now your $10,000 that you worked hard to save can now buy the equivalent of $8,000 worth of stuff. And we call that inflation. Inflation is technically the increase in the money supply. The rising prices is the symptom of the inflation. But we tend to think of inflation as increasing prices because the government wants us to think inflation is higher prices because they're not responsible for higher prices. The greedy businessman or the greedy farmer. [00:19:06] Speaker B: Right now, the grocery stores, the groceries are being. The grocers are being demonized for the price of the grocery. Oh, yeah. [00:19:18] Speaker C: And if rising prices is inflation, then you're the immediate proximal cause of my pain, because you're the one that's raising prices. But they're raising prices in response to an increase in money supply, which has caused all their inputs to go up. [00:19:36] Speaker A: So in the United States, our constitution states that the. The states cannot make their own money, but they can use gold and silver as. As money. Right? That's the coinage clause, the coinage clause. [00:20:00] Speaker C: I think I'd rephrase that a little bit and say that the Constitution says that states can't make currency, okay? [00:20:06] Speaker B: They can't have their own currency. [00:20:07] Speaker C: You can't have paper, fiat currency, currency. But if you want to have your own money, it has to be gold or silver coin. [00:20:14] Speaker A: And Missouri is contemplating that. Senate Bill 100 has passed. It's now on to the house to basically allow for gold and silver to be money in the state of Missouri. And what do you see with that? Do you think that's good or bad or. I know Utah has done it. Arizona has. Has got some form of it. Like where? Where is that important? What does it matter? [00:20:51] Speaker C: I think ultimately it's a good thing. It's recognizing the reality of the difference between money and currency. But I could play devil's advocate and say it might actually force the hand, the invisible hand to do things, to. To squash that bug before it can ever really become something that can threaten the invisible hand. [00:21:17] Speaker B: In your opinion? [00:21:19] Speaker C: I would say a conglomeration of the central banks, the bank of international settlements in Basel. The too big to fail banks, they. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Would not treasury estates to begin to use gold and silver. [00:21:36] Speaker C: They lose control. You know, they want to maintain control over you. And a great way to maintain control over you is to control your form of barter or your form of money. [00:21:48] Speaker A: So one of the things in the Senate Bill 100 for the state of Missouri is that you could use gold or silver to pay your taxes, to pay your debts to the state. Like, the state would have to accept it as form of payment. Do you see that? Like, talk with us about how that would act in a wealth preservation, generate freedom for us in a state like Missouri? Let's pretend that it passes. How would that promote freedom for us Missourians. Missourians. [00:22:25] Speaker C: And specifically as a landowner or homeowner where you have to pay taxes, you obviously can be taxed out of your land or your house through not necessarily a concerted effort to get your property by raising the taxes, but just the fact that they're inflating the currency supply. And if you're retired, especially, you've got this finite pool that you've saved up and you're not getting the benefit of pay raises because the currency is being inflated. But if you're holding gold and silver, gold and silver have shown over time that they are a hedge against inflationary effects. So if the money supply doubles and the tax rate doubles, I'm pretty sure my gold and silver is going to double or something very akin to that. [00:23:17] Speaker A: Right. Its value as related to the currency. [00:23:22] Speaker C: If you look at it as an exchange rate sort of thing, you know, because gold is real money. JP Morgan. Right. Everything else is credit. So, yeah, I don't look at gold as being worth certain amount of dollars. I'm saying I can buy the same thing with this piece of gold that I could buy with this many dollars. [00:23:39] Speaker A: Got it. [00:23:39] Speaker C: And, you know, I have gold that I paid $1,800 for just a year and a half two years ago. That's now worth, quote unquote, $2,400. [00:23:55] Speaker A: If. [00:23:55] Speaker C: I can use it. So it's a, it's a bet in a sense, because there's no guarantee that the government isn't going to say revisit 1933. [00:24:07] Speaker B: What happened in 1933? [00:24:09] Speaker C: Well, for the non historians, FDR signed an executive order that made the ownership of more than a few ounces of gold illegal. You had to turn the rest into a bank. [00:24:21] Speaker B: In the United States? [00:24:23] Speaker C: In the United States of America. Back in the good old days, when we actually embraced the Constitution, as opposed to today, where most people can't spell constitution, let alone care what it says. [00:24:37] Speaker A: So when did that go away? [00:24:39] Speaker C: 1974. Gerald Ford became president. And amazingly, which is a testimony to how effective the government runs schools are at keeping people ignorant about certain things. Gerald Ford, president of the United States, did not know that it was illegal for Americans to own gold. [00:25:01] Speaker A: Wow. [00:25:01] Speaker C: And when he learned that, he went, that sounds crazy, why wouldn't Americans be allowed to own gold? He rescinded the order. And so 74, I can't remember what month sometimes, but remember what happened just three years before. [00:25:17] Speaker B: I was going to say, but something. It was significant in 1971, though, August. [00:25:21] Speaker C: 15, I remember that day. I remember watching Nixon on tv talking about these speculators who are trying to harm the US and harm the dollar, and we're going to get those rascals, we're going to temporarily suspend the convertibility of the dollar reserves that foreign countries are holding into gold, because up until that point, if a country owned us treasuries, they could bring those treasuries in at maturity and say, I want my gold, and we had to pay it. And I think between the end of World War two and 1971, the US lost roughly half of its gold reserves to that scheme, basically. But those countries are only exercising their right to insist on. [00:26:11] Speaker B: So whatever he did that 1971, would that be considered, like, not the first, but one of the first weaponizations of the dollar bill against other nations? [00:26:27] Speaker C: You know, I call it a default on the Bretton woods agreement. We defaulted. And you could say it's essentially a weaponization because you're going back on a treaty, an agreement, a rule. People were willing to invest in the dollar and hold reserves in the dollar because the dollar was as good as gold, because the dollar was tied to gold and all other fiat currencies were tied to the dollar. So there was this unbroken chain of gold valuation that was supposed to be through our currency system. When we refused to allow that convertibility, we were defaulting on the agreement and telling the world that the dollar was no longer as good as gold. And we knew that because we were no longer willing to trade the dollar for gold. If I was printing dollars and I knew the dollars were backed by gold and they were as good as gold, I wouldn't have a problem converting them because then I knew I could go turn my dollars, that I'm getting back into gold somewhere else. But if, you know, you're playing a game and you're violating the. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Wow. [00:27:39] Speaker C: Yeah, very wow. So, you know what happened after 71, after Nixon took us off the gold standard? Henry Kissinger, genius that he is, figured out, I credit him. I think he was largely to credit for this. He went to Saudi Arabia and basically convinced the Saudis to enter into the petrodollar deal. And you, as a former, you know what that means? That means the full power and might of the US military is now behind you. It's going to keep your kingdom intact, it's going to keep you wealthy in perpetuity. The only requirement is all your oil has to be sold in dollars, forcing every nation in the world that wants to come buy Middle east oil to convert their currency into dollars first, which creates an artificial demand for dollars, which props the value of the dollar up. So now that the dollar's not convertible to gold, it's not good as gold, but you've got to have the dollar to get oil and the whole world ran on oil, which is why I was invested in oil companies and oil. [00:28:47] Speaker B: Right. [00:28:48] Speaker C: You know, back in. [00:28:49] Speaker B: That's a sure bet. [00:28:50] Speaker A: Back. [00:28:50] Speaker C: Back when I had, you know, so it worked and it has worked until, you know, I mean, I think Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein are both honestly dead today because they made noise about selling their oil and currencies other than dollars. And so we took that as an attack on the dollar and we found ways to put them in a corner, subdued, turn them into a bad guy and eventually get rid of them. I think it, you know. [00:29:22] Speaker A: So, ty, what's happening right now with BRICs plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus and doing oil deals outside. [00:29:34] Speaker C: Of the dollar, there's a lot to unpack there. I mean, first off, we have managed to keep inflation at bay despite huge currency printing because we've essentially exported our inflation to the rest of the world. So I've seen it variously stated that the US enjoys about a 20% to 30% boost in our level, of our lifestyle because of the petrodollar. Without the petrodollar, without the ability to print currency, we would all be much poorer and have less stuff than we do. Who's paying for that? Pretty much everybody else in the world. I mean, we've got 350 million people here living better because 7 billion other people are living not quite as good as they otherwise would. So the rest of the world has a vested interest in trying to sort of level that playing field a little bit. And I think what we see the BRICS doing is not subtle, it's overt. And they're very vocal about de dollarization. They don't want to be dependent upon the dollar. And you have China buying oil in yuan, you have Iran selling oil for other currencies. I mean, of course we've had Iran on a list of don't do business with them forever. [00:31:11] Speaker A: China's not listening to our list. [00:31:13] Speaker B: Yeah, China's not listening to our list. [00:31:17] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:31:17] Speaker C: Yeah, it is very interesting that China and Russia, who are obviously the two mainstays and India, is quite an economy as well and growing and going to become more of a player globally. [00:31:30] Speaker A: So Brics, Brazil, Russia, India, China added South Africa. [00:31:35] Speaker C: Correct. [00:31:36] Speaker A: Now we've added a few more countries with more countries in line. [00:31:40] Speaker C: Yes. And, you know, I mean, to me, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates becoming part of BRICS. I mean, you look at those are all three major oil producers. Iran has the 11th or 12th largest, strongest military in the world, just ahead of Israel in terms of the rankings. So they're not insignificant militarily. They're not insignificant from a standpoint. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Energy. [00:32:16] Speaker C: And if you're a student of history, you know that the Persians are pretty smart, clever people who, you want them as your friend, not your enemy, if at all possible. I mean, one of my life mottos is, I'd always rather have friends than enemies. [00:32:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:32] Speaker C: I mean, try to be a friend, you know, I mean, it doesn't mean you have to agree with everything and, like, everything about somebody, but it's sort of what our founders said, right. Avoid these foreign entanglements. Do business with everyone, but don't get into their business and don't let them into yours too much. End up with trouble. I think there's some wisdom there that we haven't retained. [00:32:58] Speaker A: So take it forward. Being able to do petro deals now outside of the dollar. You know, we've heard some in the news talk about the de dollarization and the end of the petrodollar and stuff. So if we take that forward, is it just a. Okay, we now lose that 20% to 30% bump in our United States lifestyle? So what, I mean, so it, okay. [00:33:30] Speaker C: If we hadn't re hypothecated and created derivative bubbles, maybe you could get by with just 20 or 30%. But the fact that we've used so much leverage and so much gearing in our financial system, it's going to be a lot worse than that. And frankly, what we're seeing happen is we create our deficit spending money through issuing securities, debt instruments. And if you look at the treasury auctions, there's a thing called a tail. Okay, so when the treasury auctions off bills, they say, okay, we're going to auction off $100 billion at 4%. And people come in and say, okay, I'll buy this many dollars of your debt for 4% interest. But perhaps it stalls at $90 billion, and no one else is willing to buy that debt at 4%. So now the treasury has to come in and juice the rate up a little bit and say, okay, how about 4.05%? Any takers? Well, you get another couple billion, and then it stalls. And then you say, oh, how about 4.075%? You know, and so everything above the 4% issue rate is called a tail. And if you look at the trend of the tails, the tails are getting. [00:34:53] Speaker B: Longer, longer, and bigger and bigger, higher. [00:34:56] Speaker A: So what that tells us is that less people are willing the faith debt, right? [00:35:02] Speaker B: The faith has been lost in whether or not they'll, which is exactly what. [00:35:06] Speaker C: You would expect to happen if a company is insolvent and struggling to pay its bills. [00:35:12] Speaker B: The bank doesn't want to lend, and. [00:35:13] Speaker C: Their business model is looking like it's kind of not really working. And that business goes out for a loan at the bank. [00:35:20] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:21] Speaker C: And the bank's looking at you, gone. I mean, you're gonna have to pay me 10% your junk bond status. And that's the trend. Now, can we reverse that? Sure, maybe, you know, but the trend is not our friend. The trend is definitely not our friend. [00:35:39] Speaker A: So let's wrap this up, tie it back into how you are running your life with wealth preservation and tied into freedom and not being beholden to that system. [00:35:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And that's a pretty complex, you know, thing. And it's. It's really a living sort of deal. Right. [00:36:04] Speaker A: You're. [00:36:05] Speaker C: Yeah, you're always sort of reassessing where you're at, what you need to do. [00:36:09] Speaker A: Sure. [00:36:10] Speaker C: And of course, I'm. I'm behind the eight ball on, you know, I'm living in one city, my property's 85 miles away. I'm still working a full time job. I'm trying to get my place built out. I wish I was out there already. [00:36:26] Speaker B: Me too. [00:36:28] Speaker C: Yeah. But what I'm really doing is I'm de dollarizing. [00:36:32] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:36:34] Speaker C: To cut right to the chase. I'm de dollarizing. I look at the dollar as something I don't want to hold because the. [00:36:43] Speaker B: Tool that you have to have, it's. [00:36:45] Speaker C: The currency of the realm. [00:36:46] Speaker B: Currency. [00:36:47] Speaker C: It's what I'm paid in. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:36:49] Speaker C: But I don't want to accumulate dollars because I don't trust the people that are running the business of the dollar. Of the dollar. I think they're destroying the dollar. They're making the dollar less attractive to the rest of the world, and eventually that's going to hurt us. You know, if you think about America as founded, I envision Fortress America, right? Fortress America. We've turned it into empire America. So when you do that, you open yourself up to all the risks that come with being an empire. Ask, you know, the British about that, right? Always somebody trying to knock you off your perch. You've always got insurrections going on in various places. And what has made America the empire? The first and foremost thing is the monetary system. Then that enabled us to build the strongest military in the world. And we use that military like a club sometimes to try to get people to stay in line. It's a threat. It's a deterrent. Right. We like to think of it as a deterrent for peace and for prosperity, but the rest of the world looks at it and says, yeah, for your peace and your prosperity, but what about ours? And if we're going to be realistic and reasonable people, we have to. We can't ignore the rest of the world to our, you know, we can't be that short sighted and greedy. So I'm not sure. I probably went off on a bit of a tangent there, but that's fine. [00:38:22] Speaker A: I think if we had to characterize our position, our moves, we would be right there with you in a de dollarization, I think, not as much focus on precious metals. Ours is real. I would use all caps real real estate and all caps live stock. Not stock markets, but real estate and live stock we see as tangible things. And as you pointed out at the beginning, obviously it could be taxed right away from us, but we see it as a real thing, at least for us at this time, at this moment in our life, as a place to preserve our wealth, rather than holding it in an account somewhere with a number assigned to it. [00:39:16] Speaker C: Yep. So a month ago, a month and a half ago, I had 20% of my net worth in gold and silver and platinum. Today it's 26%. And it's not because I bought anything. [00:39:29] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:39:29] Speaker B: Wow. [00:39:30] Speaker C: It's all appreciation, price appreciation. And, you know, I'm not a soothsayer, and I don't give financial advice because I'm not licensed to. [00:39:40] Speaker A: This is not financial advice. [00:39:41] Speaker B: This is not financial advice. [00:39:43] Speaker C: Not financial advice. [00:39:43] Speaker B: Please take someone who's licensed, but please. [00:39:46] Speaker C: Give some thought to what we've done with the dollar. And look at, you know, the dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power versus gold just in my lifetime. 99%. [00:40:07] Speaker B: Wow. [00:40:08] Speaker C: So, you know, do you really want to hold dollars. [00:40:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:12] Speaker C: More than you have to. [00:40:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:14] Speaker C: So. [00:40:15] Speaker B: Right, like, you have the currency of. [00:40:17] Speaker A: The realm of the tool. [00:40:19] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think that's why, you know, going back to your. Your question about paying taxes with, with metal, that's where, you know, if we've de dollarized and for good reason, and we're holding metal, the more you can do with that metal, the better. Now, I'm pretty sure I could come over to your farm and buy food with gold or silver. I think you'd probably go, yeah, absolutely. We can work it. We can work a trade out. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Right? [00:40:48] Speaker C: Can I go to Walmart today and do that? No, no. Costco is selling gold, right. [00:40:56] Speaker A: If you can find it, they're sold out. [00:40:57] Speaker C: They sell out but that's an interesting first little step. You know, they're saying, you know, we're going to. We're going to sell gold. And someone made a comment on a YouTube video here today, this morning, I saw it. They said something about, I don't feel guilty anymore about all that money I spent on gold a couple weeks ago. And my comment to them was, you did not spend money on gold. You traded fiat currency for real money. [00:41:25] Speaker B: That's huge. [00:41:26] Speaker C: That's the way to think about it, in my opinion. Now, I want to be real clear. I don't think anyone should spend money, trade currency for money that they can't afford to be without. You have to buy food day by day. You have to pay bills day by day. You know, I move currency into money that I don't need to use. [00:41:52] Speaker A: You don't need to pay your bills right now, right? [00:41:53] Speaker C: Yes. It's like if I die and all that is still sitting there. Great. It was an insurance policy. It's preserved purchasing power, and my heirs will benefit from that, so. But you don't want to. I'm sorry. You don't want to get caught, right. Converting all your fiat into metal, and then you have an emergency and you need fiat. [00:42:15] Speaker B: And they don't take metal at the hospital. [00:42:17] Speaker C: Well, but you can convert that metal right back to fiat just like that. Sure. But here's the thing. You're doing it under duress, and if the price is down at that moment, you're losing. You're losing. So you. You want to be able to control when you do that. Going back to fiat, back to the. [00:42:33] Speaker B: Taxes thing, though, that could be huge for people like us. That if he was willing to pay for food in, and he had gold or silver, whatever the precious metal was that he was using and that we were willing to accept, if we can pay our taxes with that, we can now confidently say, yes, we'll take that. Because I know I keep my land. [00:42:59] Speaker A: It's not just that I like this shiny thing, right? It's that I can use it. [00:43:04] Speaker B: It's tenable. I can actually use it as to pay for something. And taxes are the way that you continue to keep your property in this. [00:43:13] Speaker C: Country currently, I suspect that there will always be people who are generating fiat currency income who are also going to be willing to buy your gold and silver. There will always be people who have looked at the history and said, yeah, I need to be diversified. I need to not hold all of my savings in fiat dollars. I need to get some of it into something that I can hold, that has no counterparty risk, that has a history of preserving purchasing power. So I don't think you'll ever be caught. And that's one of the beauties of precious metals, is throughout all of human history, they've had value. They've always been money. I mean, it's like to call it God's money. I mean, whether you believe in God or not, gold and silver are mentioned numerous times in the Bible. It was money way back in biblical times, and it's been money ever since. And, you know, when you think about how these metals are formed, you know, the collision of stars, supernovas, it isn't something you can just sort of snap into existence like dollars. So it's always going to be very limited. And the fact that it's so distributed and it takes so much work, resources and resources, time, energy, you know, petroleum, machinery, manpower. I mean, just to under fine it, to smelt it, to mint it, there's a lot of work and energy embodied in a gold coin. And then you add in, you know, the durability and, you know, all the things that make gold so unique. And truthfully, platinum takes all the gold things and doubles down on them. That's why platinum to me is so interesting. It's denser than gold, it's more resistant to corrosion than gold, it's harder than gold. And the above ground stock of platinum is roughly one 15th that of gold. [00:45:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:26] Speaker C: So there's not a lot of platinum above ground. Interesting. Yeah. There was talk at one point that our, our government was going to mint a trillion dollar platinum coin, right. And deposit it in the treasury. [00:45:40] Speaker A: Right. [00:45:40] Speaker C: To help balance the books. That idea was actually floating. [00:45:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. As ridiculous as makes so much sense. [00:45:48] Speaker C: But if, you know, not very satisfying. But platinum something else that people might want to investigate. Yeah, sure. [00:46:00] Speaker B: Wow. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Well. [00:46:02] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sorry. And it's half the price of gold right now. Less than half. It used to be double the price of gold. So there's been this huge inversion because of, I think primarily platinum was an industrial metal and with Ev's coming out, needing much less platinum for catalytic converters, and so people are thinking, ah, 20 years from now, we may not even be burning fossil fuels, we're not going to need these catalytic converters. Hence the platinum substrate for these catalytic converters can be gone. So that supply demand equation has caused platinum to go down. But I think it could just as quickly. Interesting back up. So anyway, wow, speculation. I wouldn't put a lot into it. [00:46:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:46] Speaker C: But as a diversification. [00:46:49] Speaker B: I. Yeah. [00:46:50] Speaker C: You know, I bought my 1st 2oz of platinum just in the past month. Nice. I've resisted for. For quite a while, and I finally said, yeah, I just, you know, I just need to buy a couple ounces of it. [00:47:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:02] Speaker B: Super interesting. It's been a great conversation. [00:47:05] Speaker C: Seriously. [00:47:06] Speaker B: And another education. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Wow. [00:47:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:09] Speaker A: And really, each time we talk about it, it becomes more tangible to me how this ties into freedom. And, you know, we all often, especially us, when we think of or discuss freedom, we're thinking of and discussing the military. [00:47:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:28] Speaker A: And, I mean, spending 25 years there, it's like, it makes sense that that's where we would go. But really, finances are really significantly tied to freedom. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Our freedom, I think it starts in our wallet and in our bank accounts, and it's eroded quickly. [00:47:46] Speaker C: Yeah. It's a great way to control people. [00:47:48] Speaker A: Really having a thought about it. Yeah. The tyrants. Keeping the people poor so that they're busy. [00:47:58] Speaker B: Really busy and working. [00:47:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Allowing the banks to control your currency issuing and through inflation and deflation, basically robbing the people blind and getting rich. [00:48:12] Speaker B: While they're doing it, I guess. [00:48:13] Speaker C: Yeah. It's a real thing. [00:48:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Goodness. [00:48:17] Speaker C: And, you know, the key to any operation like that, and I think the great analogy is getting the sheep in the paddock. You know, you have to kind of fake them out a little bit. And, you know, we get herded into a certain direction by the institutions, whether it's educational institutions, the banking institutions. I think it's worthwhile pausing and just asking, you know, how has this worked out in the past for people when they've allowed themselves to be controlled in this way? I just. Before we stop, I just want to say it's really exciting seeing the growth of the channel. You know, you guys are providing a service to the community, not just with the food that you grow, but with the messages that you bring. I think they're making people think, and hopefully in a way that makes them more secure, more healthy, better able to thrive. And that's what we want, a thriving community. And so, congratulations on what you guys are doing with your channel. Thank you. [00:49:18] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. It's very kind. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Thanks. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll have you back again. I'm certain of it. [00:49:27] Speaker C: Certain. [00:49:28] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Thank you. [00:49:31] Speaker C: You're welcome. [00:49:32] Speaker B: And until next time. Bye, y'all. [00:49:34] Speaker A: Bye, all. Bye.