Will 'Too Much Debt' Prove Fatal To The Global Economy? | Matthew Piepenburg

all these things from inflation to recession to quantitative easing quantitative tightening disinflation currency risk Bond risk risk asset Market risk Equity risk at all flows down from debt and debt all flows down from our policy makers not just at the FED but globally but in particular at the ECB the fed the bank of England the bank of Japan it is phenomenally risky and it's based on a monetary Theory which I think has bought us some prosperity and some Euphoria but we'll end with a hell of a hangover good welcome to wealthy young I'm wealthy I'm founder Adam Taggart continuing the plan of surfacing several of our best and still most timely interviews while I'm away this week today we turn to our interview with Matthew pipenberg commercial director at Matterhorn Asset Management AG gold Switzerland at the highest level the global economy's biggest challenge is dealing with the massive and exponentially increasing pile of debt that is built up in the era of Fiat currencies deficit spending and promised entitlements with no clear solution in sight and a track record of poor decision making by those in charge of the system how does this end other than badly this is one of the most important interviews I've had the privilege to record for wealthyon let's hear why that's great to be here Adam looking forward to it yeah it's going to be fun and Matt you have been a highly requested uh guest on this channel and so it's wonderful that you were able to finally join us here really appreciate you taking the time um look I've got a lot of questions here for you um a lot of them taken from your your recent piece that you released a few days ago um which is pretty excellent um before I jump into those specific questions though let me just start with a question I'd like to ask all the guests here at the beginning of the the interview which your current assessment of the global economy in financial markets a baffled cynical um concerned I think the the four-letter word that describes everything and if everything trickles down to is debt how it will be uh sustained or not sustained the mechanizations used to use lofty words to hide really really bad math and I think the lack of transparency and honesty about the ramifications of postponing a debt crisis with more debt which is just monetized with literally money printing out printed out of thin air that's not linked to an asset a chaperone or a service and so all these things from inflation to recession to quantitative easing quantitative tightening disinflation currency risk Bond risk risk asset Market risk Equity risk it all flows down from debt and debt all flows down from our policy makers not just at the FED but globally but in particular at the ECB the fed the bank of England the bank of Japan it is phenomenally risky and it's based on a monetary Theory which I think has bought us some prosperity and some Euphoria but we'll end with a hell of a hangover all right um You You Echo uh Lacey hunt former senior Economist of the Federal Reserve who we've had on this channel off in fact we just had him keynote our our online conference uh but a week and a half ago um and and you know Lacey has basically said look you know yes we're all distracted by this inflation problem we have right now and we need to get that under control but we had what seemed like an almost unsolvable debt problem before it arrived and now that's even worse and as soon as we get inflation under control we're going to have to you know get real about what's going on with debt again um as I hear you talk I'm reminded of the title of a um the Kevin Costner movie we found out Matt that you and I went to college around the same time in fact we went to the same College yeah and around that time Kevin Costner was in a movie called No Way Out uh and I'm curious uh if if you had to sort of put a movie title on the debt situation is there a more optimistic one than no way out or is this basically a a hole that we're not going to get out of um at least not without you know some sort of massive reset what was that other movie Hangover you know it was another series with you know with you know yeah there's no way out other than a massive hangover that we've postponed I've used that analogy there's many different analogies can kicking hangover martinis keg parties but we've been enjoying years of a fantastic frat party provided by instant liquidity when needed Whenever there was a hiccup and we've avoided any Hangover by constantly providing Bloody Marys just as that hangover is starting to come and I think a great movie title would be hangover because we're going to suffer a hell of a hangover we've just been able to postpone it with Optics and and you know Fiat money on demand and systemic liquidity or excuse me synthetic liquidity and it's absolute fantasy and it buys votes it buys time even buys a Nobel Prize for Bernanke it's absolute fiction to me it's completely disingenuous and unsustainable and again it's not even tinfoil had or Sensational we can get into the math of this you can we'll talk about it but the bond market is far more honest than a central Banker or a politician left right or Center or a governor of California or a mayor of Philadelphia or Chicago the bond market is telling us what we want to hear unfortunately the bond market is very boring you know looking at the implied volatility in the two-year futures or the yield on the two-year or the four-week treasury or the 10 year long duration no one wants to see this I understand it's complicated it's boring it's actually fascinating when you look under it without too comp too much complexity I mean a lot of people would rather watch Gwyneth Paltrow's trial about an ambulance Chaser and deer value because Deer Valley because they don't want to see this or they don't want to understand it I understand how that's so boring but it has massive ramifications for the quality of our life and not just for political debate or pundit debate on different macro themes it will and does hit the road eventually affects our lives it affects our ability to take care of our families to worry about our job security to worry about our mortgages or our tuition so these things seem esoteric and boring and they need to be made less boring and more transparent and not weaponized or partisan or political it just needs to be simple math and when we get into that which I hope we will I hope you know most of your viewers obviously all your viewers are very informed but it becomes mathematical rather than just pundit based or debatable it's simply it's simply going to end badly so yeah there's a hangover coming and there is no way out you know reset you know great reset QE pivot whatever you want to call it it's going to need Mouse click money to sustain our debt markets and to sustain are completely fed driven uh equity and credit markets now there's no natural price Discovery there's no natural supply and demand the markets have been hijacked by a central bank years ago and that's just what it is the Fed actively manages our economy like a portfolio but they're a bad portfolio manager and they've bought they've bought time through leverage they've bought time through lofty words and fancy diplomas and high position but you know if history isn't canceled in 20 years our kids or grandkids will read about the most epic failure monetary policy since 1971 really and certainly since 1913 when the Fed was in unimaculately conceived and brought into law under the pressure that Woodrow Wilson didn't want to sign by a bunch of banking cabals so now the we're about to hit you know serious Karma and you know timing that is kind of a mugs game but the math the bit's fairly fairly clear to me okay um and let's let's get into that math um I I love the fact that you know you're saying look this isn't a partisan issue but it's certainly you know been made one it's it's part of the whole political Kabuki theater that goes on here it's it's sort of the cycle that we're in which is that the the mugs running the system break it and then they're the same people who come in to rescue it and we're trapped in this uh you know the sort of Groundhog Day God we're just coming up with all these movie titles here yeah um but um but at the end of the day it's just not mathematically sustainable and we need to really understand that um there's also an element in here that maybe at the end we can reflect on which is I've opined at times that um you know a sort of this is sort of a comment on on the fact that we don't really teach financial literacy very well uh in this country um but that people have have we've sort of abdicated our agency as a society in in the financial system and in matters economic we just tell ourselves oh math is hard so we're just going to let these really smart people run the show and as you've said they've kind of proven again and again that there are no you know mental Giants here in fact they've got a pretty pretty poor track record um but you know we just say look it's it's above our pay grade as regular people and the answer is it's really it's really not all that tough you know the math isn't all that super complex um and we as a as a society just need to sort of get more involved right so you're nodding as I'm saying this here um okay well look I want to I want to I want to share some of your words back with you here um to give you a jumping off point again they're from your excellent recent piece called titled Jitter cues uh to bond killers and other are villains destroying our world okay so you're not you're not pulling too many punches with the title like that um here's what you say as I look back on just the latest and entirely predictable hours days and weeks of waste occurring in the global debt markets in general and the U.S treasury markets and banking systems in particular the billions and trillions sloshing and churning through emergency swap lines Discount Windows and broken Financial systems almost defies belief for the last two years we've consistently shattered from the rooftops that quote the bond market was the thing and that when it eventually broke markets and innocent Financial lives would tilt towards implosion immediately followed by more centralized controls from the very policy makers who caused the crisis and then you begin to you go through and say look you know it's I'm not talking about a coming Bond crisis it's already underway you cite the the 2019 repo Market blowout there uh the The Sovereign Bond fall during the onset of the pandemic in 2020 the they're like overnight you know collapse almost to the UK guilts Market in 2022 which almost brought down their entire pension system uh and then here in 2023 we're seeing the weaker Banks so far at least the weaker ones really begin to buckle under the fed's recent you know policy reversal here um so you know let's talk about this the bond market really credit is the lifeblood of the global economy that's kind of the foundation that everything runs off of and you're basically saying it's in the process of breakdown at this trajectory yeah it's an overused phrase but you know the FED can tighten into the greatest debt bubble for as long as they want until something breaks I'd argue so many things have broken as you mentioned there's been three moments of complete dysfunction in the credit markets which if people understood credit markets should have been headline Coffee Talk news every day and that repo Market was the first the 2020 Sovereign crisis was the second uh the guilt implosion was the third that was last year and then early this year we've already come into the first quarter and now we're seeing this Silicon Valley Bank narrative the Silver Gate you know signature First Republic Etc they're all related they're all things that have broken as we're raising rates into a debt bubble when you raise the cost of debt when debt is the rotten wind wind beneath the wings of this so-called post-28 recovery when you hit record high debt levels to sustain record high stock Bond and real estate Bubbles and then you rate when you when you hit that by keeping rates repressed for years and print empty money uh to the tune of billions a month when you reverse that policy things start to break and of course something broke we can talk about silver you know Silicon Valley Bank to me it's just a metaphor it has nothing to do really with a 2008 parallel it Rhymes but it's very different but my point is uh the FED has put itself in a corner they can either raise rates and Destroy markets banks credit markets Equity markets Equity markets follow the debt markets because Equity markets depend on rolling over cheap debt and buying their own stocks and at low rates those games are over in a rising rate environment Powell has ended that that charade but at the same time as he's trying to fight inflation he's going to get a pyrrhic victory looking over the rubble of credit markets Equity markets and economies and of course smaller Regional Banks but it really does have a ripple effect into the into the Main Street economy too not just depositors at small Banks and so you know something has broken I think it's it's significant it's more of a narrative about how year after year headline after headline another thing breaks because our bond markets are so vulnerable and the fed and the politicals left or right some more vocifists and others will try to deny this with lofty words kind of like be calm carry on during the Blitz in London or World War II lots of lofty language to hide really really dangerous math again 31 trillion in public debt 90 plus trillion in Combined household public and corporate debt that's become an aberration and I said in that article it's like Hannah rent's book The banality of evil talking about the Holocaust when you're talking about millions of lives it almost becomes a banalized abstract and even for the people at the time they kind of turn their head or or even in history it's hard to kind of conceive of those kind of numbers is the joke if if I owe you a million dollars it's my problem if I owe you a billion it's nobody's problem it's your problem no one's going to pay it these numbers become abstract when you're talking about 31 trillion and by the end of this year probably 34 trillion in public debt which we don't have the GDP or the tax receipts to pay for and we'll of course let them monetize that debt by printing money in some form in some way mechanized uh artificial it's an abstraction it's a banality of mathematical and debt evil it's a it's a banality of currency evil it's a it's a banality of trillions and billions that mean nothing to anyone anymore they just kind of soon we have a debt ceiling we have a bond crisis we have an IOU uh we'll we'll pay for that with a mouse click at the Eccles building that works only for so long until you see cracks in the ice we've seen those prior cracks the repo Market the guilt markets the now this the regional Banks I think what we're seeing now is how many more cracks until the ice breaks beneath our feet and we have a bigger problem which can only be solved by either some artificial reset a global chapter 11 or more likely as yowan's been hinting all of last year despite Powell's puff chest puffing uh a pause in the in the aggressive rate hike Center return to the only solution we have because Ponzi schemes can't taper and that may sound like a massive simplification but what we have as monetary policy and this is something David Stockman said years ago is effectively a Ponzi scheme that's not an exaggeration you can talk about Sam bankman freed or you can talk about Bernie Madoff or you can talk about Bernanke Paul Yellen and Greenspan because what they do is they they issue ious for which they don't have the money we don't have the GDP the tax receipts the productivity the income to pay for those ious and when when the when the proverbial X hits the fan their last resort is always going to the FED Mouse clicking a few extra zeros when needed to pay for those debts believe me of sand banking freed or Bernie Madoff or any sticky fingered hedge fund manager would otherwise be corruptly put in prison had a money printer in their basement which they could legally use that would they would use it who wouldn't it's addictive and you know again remember Bernanke promised us back in 2010 qe1 was going to be temporary with no consequences you know this is just a temporary solution for Bank races just like Powell told us last year that you know inflation was going to be temporary they have to use words to to deny the math and again this goes to the theme of who do you listen to do you listen what Powell says or you listen what the bond market says when Powell raises rates when rates go up bond prices go down and yields go up and that's what happened in Silicon Valley Bank we won't get the weeds of it but basically their long duration treasuries lost value across the entire banking system anyone holding long duration treasuries lost 2 trillion in market value on the on the collateral those treasuries which are considered risk-free return but when measured against inflation it's return free risk and so these policies these measures by Powell have ramifications they they throttled the bond market they throttle the banking Market but let's keep in mind also last year 2022 all this talk about what a brave volcker reborn Superstar Powell is going to be remember Volker raised rates in the 80s or late 70s when our national debt was less than a trillion it was 800 billion 900 billion at the hot we're 31 trillion so we can't afford to raise the cost of that debt when our debt is infinitely higher than it was in the volcker era so for Powell to pretend to be volkers is frankly disingenuous right and it started her up but it's it's also more than four times what it was just going into the global financial crisis just going into exactly so we're talking about math that doesn't make sense if you just look at simple balance sheets and what did Powell achieve he reduced the balance sheet by 300 billion after all that talk last year all this QT that so shocked the Marcus the s p the NASDAQ the credit Market's got shellac last year s p down 15 the tech NASDAQ down 30 percent credit markets down we had the worst nominal returns in stocks and bonds in 2020 nominal together these are correlated assets they're supposed to be hedged they're correlated now stocks and bonds worst nominal returns since 1871 just passed our civil war so that proved that that little rate that little reduction in the balance sheet which is 300 billion which by the way just in the last few weeks we've already lost that 300 billion in loans to these Regional Banks and FDIC extensions so all the work that we got for QT last year Well we saw the reaction of the bond in the stock market a two percent reduction in the FED balance sheet caused massive Ripple effects in our credit and Equity markets and frankly all the quote-unquote money that we tightened is already back in the system so there is a major thirst for liquidity a major thirst for collateral on the banks a major need to support the treasury market naturally it can't be done naturally there is no natural demand for uncle Sam's unloved ious and so regardless what Powell does this quarter or last quarter regardless what the fomc meetings or the bookings Institute or even what they say in Jackson Hole then that result is if no one else is buying our debt who's going to buy it and it's simple but it's going to have to be a Central Bank near you and again if we don't uh the consequences are going to be dramatic on our economy they're already dramatic in our banking system we can go into that but if we do pivot and and instantly liquidify the treasury markets and therefore the banking markets the bond markets the repo markets the euro dollar markets all these different exchanges even the derivative markets for which treasuries are collateral all these things rely on liquid treasuries if we if we liquidify them through Mouse click money we have the inevitable inflation or possibly hyperinflation people talk about inflation you know there are real issues about the war about covid about supply chain links but let's just keep it simple stupid we raise the M2 money supply by 14 trillion over the last decade plus that's why we have inflation it's very simple if I hand you a glass of good Bordeaux wine and we put a swimming pool of money into that glass of wine you know the the wine loses its flavor just like our currency has lost its punch it may be relatively stronger than all the other patients in the ICU it's still a sick patient it's still the inherent purchasing power of that currency like every other currency has lost so much value when measured against Real assets that it's it's openly obvious and again these things are not transparently discussed Adam these are these are boring things about currency risk about yields on bonds about supporting those bonds through printed money or Mouse click money how much is 31 trillion versus 35 trillion or 900 you know 909 trillion dollar fed balance sheet versus a four trillion dollar balance sheet they're just abstractions and if you saw yellin recently in front of the Senate it was embarrassing I was almost embarrassed for you Alan how little she understood about the extension of the deficit the rising of the deficit this year she didn't have the numbers in front of her and she's the treasury secretary and a former Fed chair so again when you're when push comes to shove when you're asked to look at hard numbers even our experts don't even fully grasp them and certainly the the average person through no fault of their own has I think uh less and less understanding I think more and more so now hopefully but you know for years it was just trust the experts I think that trust like trust in just about everything whether it's the media politics social identity politics partisan politics left versus right media trust in so many things is palpably changing right now in the U.S and certainly here in Europe uh it's a major loss of trust and that also has invisible hard to quantify ramifications to right uh and I was thinking maybe we'd get to this in a bit but let's touch on it briefly right now in many ways you may be getting a preview of what's still yet to come to American Shores right because there's a there's a lot of protests and just general civil unrest breaking out not just in France but kind of in all places around Europe right oh sure I mean obviously I mean I've lived in France over 20 years there's never a season in France was not a strike somewhere whether it's on the trains or on the highways or in the cities but you know right now there's a major social unrest uh in in Paris in particular about extending the the legal age for retirement from 60 to 62 to 64. there's concerns about pension risk there's concerns about currency risk it's a very political unrest but it all boils down to to money um and pension risk which you know smarter folks I mean including Michael burry or Raul Powell or David Stockman I've written about in a book about pension fund risk but that's real in Europe just as much as it is in the U.S and you know this goes to a theme that was in the article you mentioned which you're right most the time I talk about boring things like Bond spreads or volatility in the bond market or three sigma moves that we saw in U.S treasury and two-year treasuries a three sigma move according to MIT Scholars should happen once every 50 million years yeah isn't that crazy it's crazy you know and that that just came out by a Bloomberg Dan Ingalls and then the the spikes in the volatility the two-year and the two-year treasury we haven't seen that since it was worse than 2008 it was worse than 9 11. it was worse than 1987. the volatility and I used to be a bond Trader and I've talked to bond Traders this week you couldn't get a bid or an ass because the prices were moving so quickly 60 50 70 bips when you're talking about moving millions in their 70-bit moves that makes the market too volatile to trade you're looking at moments of real illiquidity which again we haven't seen since 2008 911 1987 and yet not really discussed in the headlines not making front page news that joke it's Gwyneth Paltrow ski accident not bond market two-year yields understandably Gwyneth Paltrow ski accents a lot more interesting than two-year yield volatility but when you actually see what that volatility means that when it's pointing toward again the bond market and the bond Traders and even if you look at something as boring as you know euro dollar Futures their pricing in a major pivot the end of this year they're seeing interest rates coming down because there's going to be an oh moment pardon my French there's going to be an uh-oh moment we can use that as a better word an uh-oh moment in the bond market and so the the market jocks the Bon jocks are already they're already pricing this in Powell won't talk about it but they know what we all know is it's not sustainable there's going to need to be magical money to support Uncle Sam's ious and therefore you're seeing this massive spike in the contract price of Euro euro dollar Futures again very boring stuff but what it really just says is there's no confidence in our bond market there's no confidence in our fed policy there's no confidence in our currency ultimately and so you know these things have to be known so people can prepare and I think you know and be informed I don't have an easy answer Powell doesn't have an easy answer we can talk about it I don't think there are that's what we're going to get into here but that's sort of why I started with no way out like there there is no painless graceful way to to change your behavior and go to something better we're going to have to have this hangover that you're talking about unfortunately yeah so um Matt you you this is great you're identifying a ton of tasks I I want to try to take this conversation down um but uh so to me you nailed it with this quote which is that Ponzi schemes can't taper right so you were just talking about confidence right like every Ponzi scheme is a confidence game right it runs on confidence when confidence runs out that's when it implodes right right so you know the challenge the FED is getting into is it it the cost of continuing the Ponzi is now threatening to be as big as the the pause the cost of of stopping the Ponzi right he's kind of trapped between the inflation dragon and and systemic instability Dragon right so um but but I I I I I I asked you about you know the the um I don't know what you want to call them riots uh demonstrations protests right now um because that is that so you know people I say this a lot on this channel people people there's two ways to change you can do it um proactively right you can you can project out mentally where things are going and say oh if I continue this Behavior it's going to eventually have a bad outcome let me start today before things get really bad right right being human beings we hardly ever do that right we just continue the status quo until the pain of continuing it outweighs the pain of changing right so that's the guy whose doctors told him you got to get in better shape buddy the guy says yeah I'll do that someday and he doesn't until he has the first heart attack right and then he's like oh okay right so you know all these these manifestations of the you know civil anger and stuff like that those are the signs of the system saying the status quo is getting too painful to continue you're right I'm sure most of those protesters don't really understand Central Bank policy they don't understand the euro dollar Futures Market or whatever right but what they know is wait a minute just Prosperity wise uh you know I'm being diminished here to a point now where it really hurts and I need to get out there and say that this is no longer working for me right right so I think we're going to see more of those symptoms break out around the world as people are just on that like oh well I want to go buy some eggs but Jesus Christ they're just I I can't afford them anymore right yeah yeah you don't need to be an economist or a pundit or a former hedge fund guy or an executive in Switzerland in real assets to to know that when when your purchasing power is disintegrated when inflation is hitting you especially at the middle class level something's wrong something feels off and then frustration stress anxiety employment concerns all those things snowball and I think this is something I've said in many times that you know again it's it's it's it's it's not an opinion it's historically confirmed that every debt crisis throughout history every debt crisis ends in well it ends in a market crisis which ends in a currency crisis which then leads to social unrest and at the end ultimately it leads to extreme control from the political left or the right extreme centralization when we could talk about that in banking sector in our social lives and our private lives Central Bank digital currencies they're all Cinemas we're seeing a tilt towards more and more uh centralization and control and social unrest is always a symptom and I used to think in college that economics was not nearly as interesting as history or philosophy or psychology and understanding the movements of History it's great or bad men and women who affect history it's greater bad philosophical movements but I realize at least from experience that something is bail and boring as economics and inflation and and and mathematical events really move history if you look at it they drive everything they're what all those people react to right exactly and so they're all connected they're all very important they're all ultimately human All Too Human because it affects our personal safety our sense of security our sense of trust you know Chairman Mao came in after inflation Napoleon came in after the National Assembly blew out the the French currency in 1789 Hitler Mussolini and Franco came in after inflation in the 30s in Europe almost all of Latin Americans regime changes and horrific stories from Argentina to Peru to Venezuela always happen in periods of inflation so inflation does matter monetary policy does matter Reckless drunk driving of our currency and financial system our banking system through centralized controls which Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson and you know Ludwig Van nieces warned of always kills the currency which always creates to inflation I even quoted Hemingway you can go from Thomas Jefferson Ernest Hemingway every time you destroy the currency system you buy short-term prosperity and ultimate ruin and part of that ruin he said three things this is Hemingway not a Fed chair not a politician fairly bright guy fairly Brave guy fairly troubled guy who spent a couple times in two world wars he said it you have you haven't you have inflation you have currency to basement you have War we're seeing that play out in real time right now and uh you know it's whether you're Hemingway or Powell you have to understand the power of math and I think again many people are starting to figure that out they don't need to understand euro dollar Futures they just know something feels wrong our debt's wrong there's too much control there's too many excuses they don't know who to believe anymore because the media like our currency and our fed and our policies are so weaponized now that people have a hard time even trusting me you must be selling your book must be gold a gold bug again I understand that there that that debate that open discourse which I'd love to see more of uh you remember the days of Gore Vidal and William Buckley you know two very different views but brilliant articulate and passion uh honest men trying to debate facts what we have now are are a lot of social justice Warriors or a lot of angry emotional people debating emotions they're not looking at the facts we've seen a death of facts in Tick-Tock science sound bites too yeah and small attention spans and so I think the more we can get facts unadulterated non-partisan or at least intelligently debated including views I might have I love a debate I would love to see someone give me better news than I'm providing and rather than try to beat that person in a debate I lean into the table I listen I'm trying to look for good news or Rays of Hope I just don't see it right now so the best we can do is prepare financially psychologically cynically for the ramifications of reckless driving really since uh since Greenspan came into office I could see him the patient zero of this but it really is since the Fed was created and since central banks you know took over uh our markets as Rothschild said give me a central bank and the power to control money I control the world money and the ship to purely fiat currency as well in that Journey right yeah exactly yeah all right um well look um so it sounds like to to steal Hemingway's words there that that you're what you're worried about in terms of sort of where this ends is currency debasement inflation and War um and and I I know you're you're looking for better news than that and I'd sure love to hear it too um but I think what you're saying is like it's just prudent for those of us who have studied history or are studying the markets can can project things out mathematically but those things are uncomfortably high from a probability standpoint and so we should be taking steps today yeah to at least say okay if they happen what can I do now to be less vulnerable to them um and we can talk in a bit about sort of you know you're a capital manager so we can talk about how you are trying to manage capital in this type of world but but before that so to your point about the Ponzi schemes can't taper right um from everything you've said I I it doesn't sound to me like you see a way that the FED can can find a way to magically avoid all this right at some point it's faced with the choice of you know I'm gonna die by fire or die by ice here right um yeah yeah I mean you know you you said what's my first thought for the world economy and I my answer was debt right and so the FED like the ECB or the bank of England or the bank of Japan or Powell for example because of all this debt surrounding him that he is that his institution has helped build because you can't solve a debt crisis with more debt 2008 debt crisis solution more debt paid for with printed money he's like a a kind of a blind man walking through a powder keg with a candle in his hand hoping not to hit anything and blow it up and trying to walk a very fine line with QE QT raising rates there's something to lower optically talk about controlling inflation maybe we'll have a higher Target inflation it will just misreport inflation all kinds of tricks and gains we all know on Wall Street that the CPI scale I always joke is as bogus is a 42nd Street Rolex we all know that it's bogus it's much higher if you use the scale that Volker use we're in much higher inflation than reported they can play with maybe a higher Target inflation rate they can play with even unemployment statistics Nick eberstadt has done a great job of showing the fiction behind our employment data and the fiction by our CPI data and these again this is not Sensational it's not tinfoil had it I've got no horse in that game it's just trying to to be as candid as I can again happy to be challenged we all are thirsty for blunt open honest math right now and so you know what can we do and what will Paul do he has very little options he is walking through a powdery keg of debt with a candle and he doesn't have good options and I think his quarter is narrowing and narrowing and the piles of open gunpowder are higher and higher yeah exactly yes yeah so that's where I wanted to go here just to sort of ask you to pontificate here and nobody knows right so you're more than welcome anytime you want to come back on and and give us an update as as events develop from here uh Matt giving you that open invite but but what do you think is the end game here right it's at some point the central banks are not going to be able to you know um lie cheat or steal you know a way to Kick the Can further down the road um and and so maybe two unfair questions to ask you to pontificate on one is how does this break do you think did they think they eventually choose the the hyperinflation or the route that leads to high inflation and currency destruction because it's the it's always the politically palatable one in the moment itself or do we have a voker moment or something like that where we just try to break you know uh break the system and yeah it's going to get bad but then we can build atop the rubble when the dust settles and do something more sane going forward and sorry to make that such a long question but do you have any sort of gut feel on the timeline of this right in other words like is this going to be the rest of our lifetimes that we're going to be just sort of sloshing through all this and guys like you and I who are in our 50s are probably not going to see the new dawn or is this something that might happen a lot faster yeah it means a lot in those questions and I'll try and really be specific in the answer in terms of what to expect again you drink 20 martinis you will have a hangover you swim way out past the Big Surf without a surfboard or lease you're probably gonna drown if you uh you know if you play with uh with too many weapons with no training you're gonna get injured and at this point there is no solution to the debt unless we pivot at some point and it's not a question of Q2 Q3 or Q4 the FED will pivot when we have another 08 or another March of 2020. remember 2012 we printed more money in a period of 12 months than we did in the prior eight years that was not a market recovery that was a counterfeit solution to to a real problem which was openly inflationary and hidden behind a lot of bad math but Powell I think you know thinks he can be volcker but he also isn't stupid he knows he's really raising rates right now so he has something to lower when the recession that they denied that they redefined becomes too hard to deny inevitable I think we're either in a recession now or clearly on the border one but that even won't be enough for him to pause what will happen I think is we'll see it where the pain is always most visible and making the most headlines when you see it like an 08 moment or a 36 drop in in March of 2020 which would have been 50 60 70 percent drop had they not printed trillions in a matter of weeks and months that was appalling and behind the scenes of the coveted crisis and the PPL checks and the stemi checks and all that what we really saw was a backdoor another 2008 bailout of the bond market that again not making the headlines it was I will get in the conspiracy theory where they engineered or whether they exploited a crisis to benefit but it really was just another bailout because no one wants to see another too big to fail bank or corrupt bond market or banking practices or Wall Street get bailed out again nothing better than to try and sneak that bail in and that kind of trillions in liquidity that a humanitarian crisis like covet which again smarter people than me Pro or con can debate about the sincerity or insincerity of the covet narrative but it was a backdoor bailout so your question I think what the the FED will do right now Powell I think needs negative real rates and inflation to inflate away debt he'll optically pretend to fight inflation but you can't fight six or nine or ten percent inflation with five or six percent interest rates what he's really doing is raising rates so he has something to lower when there is a recession or a market crash he tried that in 2018 we have short memories throughout 2018 they tried to tighten and raise rates throughout 2018. I was in the south of France at Khan on Christmas Eve it was a disaster markets tanked by 2019 we went into a pause and a pivot my markets and the bond markets and stock markets can't handle Rising rates eventually something breaks so to your point what will happen something will break more than Silicon Valley Bank something will break bigger than First Republic or silvergate which are appalling for other reasons we're talking about a major disinflationary move in the in the risk risk asset markets when that happens power will reach into the only tools he has which is more money Printing and more rate reduction and that will be inherently inflationary the solution it's a doom loop it's a doom Loop the solution is always going to be synthetic money on demand which is inherently inflationary so he's trying to fight inflation can't do it can't do it if you really wanted to do it to be like any family I say this all the time you and your wife sit down honey we can't put our kids to show it's too expensive can't buy the Porsche too expensive we have to tighten our belts we can't live on a Visa Mastercard and an Amex in your mother's help we have to tighten our belts we have to face austere we have to focus on productivity we have to get better jobs better income that's what every American has to do in real time because we don't have money print vendors in our basement but our government won't do this I had a long conversation with Grant Williams about this the lack of responsibility and accountability the FED will always blame you know War viruses extraneous events when the when the mirror is right in front of them it's very simple who's to blame for this there's no accountability I find that uh criminal almost if not super super unethical but again they're politicians they need spin they won't take accountability when was the last time we any of us saw a central Banker say maybe that extra 8 trillion on the FED balance sheet was a bad idea maybe modern monetary Theory which was a fringe concept when you and I were in college or grad school is now mainstream it's an absolute fairy tale anyone knows this a 10 year old would know if you explained it that you can solve a problem by creating money out of nowhere and paying for it with no actual value so you know at some point The Narrative breaks but you know they're in a doom Loop they'll print the other option of course Adam is they could do a reset a global chapter 11. I'm not talking about Klaus Schwab type of reset but you'll if you you may or may not have noticed I wrote about this in 2020 it was so obvious like a cavity to a dentist they were exploiting the covet crisis the IMF did it first then the bankrupting international settlements then the FED but they were already telegraphing almost like a psyop like a CIA program they were already telegraphing in 220 in the height of the covet crisis that covet was like World War II this is a debt crisis we haven't seen since World War II and we need to come together and think about maybe a centralized digital currency or some way to monetize this debt it's not our fault God knows it's not our fault not the big Banks and they were comparing covid which wasn't plenty of pleasant for any of us for a lot of different reasons a lot of different cynical reasons but to compare kova to World War II as an insult certainly to a European American or anyone lives overseas where 80 million people died in cities like Rotterdam London uh Frankfurt Dresden obliterated all of the Ukraine Russia the Crimea the death like you can't imagine you cannot compare we'll War II economically or human terms to covid no matter what you think of covet for the IMF to do that to kind of plant that comparison to create that fear to to justify again no accountability for Central Bank policy blaming it on some virus or now of course Putin very debatable issue Putin solinsky whatever we won't get into the weeds of that but there's always someone else to blame when it's so simple it's right in front of you it's money printing gone wild which is what David Stockman warned about long before covid long before Putin long before supply chain disruptions it's very simple you're adding buckets of water to a glass of wine you're killing the currency you're creating inflation and you're hurting people and you're creating social unrest and distrust and so when there's distrust they have to create some kind of new fear narrative so there's no one blames them because the biggest fear of any corrupt leadership left right or Center is people being informed and aware of how accountability is accountability yeah imagine yeah and when it's What's um what sort of creates makes this sort of a vicious cycle right is you know they create these problems as you're saying and they do everything to deflect you know their own responsibility and role in it but but when the the symptoms of the problem really emerge at full and strength the populace says well then give me more stimulus right we're still at the point where we're asking for what we're asking for more alcohol right from the over generous bartender right so yes they need to embrace austerity we're be increasingly having to just be forced to embrace it because it cost a living and our real wages are still going down but what we're asking for right is more proficacy and um I I think that there's uh I I put the blame with the central planners I understand why the trying to put food on the table is asking for help here yeah but until we have sort of a realization in the shift that you know what like some form of austerity living within our means is really what we're going to need to have a long-term sustainable uh you know better tomorrow out of all this um you know until we stop asking for these guys to do what we do what they're doing we're probably just going to get more of the problem this is what I'm saying yeah it's a very good point it's easy to point the finger at people like Powell or Bernanke are yelling or Greenspan and it's true they deserve it but we all also ourselves got addicted to easy money I saw in the 90s or the NASDAQ bubble and the post 08 bubble I saw it lead up to the subprime crisis you know who doesn't like a handout who doesn't like low rates What markets don't low rates give us Rising markets and Rising rates give us low markets you can go long or short based on a simple Trend indicator or a yield on the 10-year but you're right we all love a tailwind and when the FED is giving you one giving you instant liquidity giving the economy the liquidity it needs to sustain itself you know we're all suddenly experts in in stocks and bonds or digital currencies or whatever sexy trend is the of the of the month of the week and yet we get to get into that as well so it creates a moral hazard at every level understandably I think it's fine if the average retail investor wants to take advantage of a tailwind and part of the reasons we have these conversations is to warn them though that these Tailwinds have very dangerous turning points yeah and if if you're no one can time a market you can get caught in short squeezes you can get a long Vol it can be very scary but you you got to kind of know when you're near a top and near a bottom no one buys at the bottom and sells at the top it's always the opposite but we're all clearly near a top question is how do you prepare for that in your portfolio or what assets are safe and that's a whole other conversation too but yes the moral hazard is not just on small Banks like you know or depositors like svb or big Banks like the central bank or the bis the moral hazard affects investors across the board sophisticated unsophisticated we get used to this keg party we don't want it to end so give us more uh we can make fun of Powell but we've all profited from him as well right to some extent and uh so that's a very good point Adam yeah I mean every investor and not every but most investors there are rooting for the pivot oh great they're going to go back to the way it was right and then then yeah every year and I just buy the dip right and yeah it's funny that um that was a bank term funding program that kind of came out during the Silicon Valley thing it was nothing like tarp but the joke was that was the btfp they were calling it by the freaking pivot that's what the signal was and that's what the euro dollar people say it's not next week next tomorrow but the markets are pricing in the pivot again markets no more than what Powell is going to say and I think uh that's an important Point great and let me just ask you about that so you you said that look at some point something's going to break somewhere and that's what's going to force Power to Pivot so the market is is pricing in a pivot this year it's pricing in several rate Cuts this year yeah does that mean that the market is expecting something systemic to break badly enough to force Pal's hand there and if it if it is then why are stocks still where they are right now why are they not getting repriced downwards because presumably some systemic break like that is not bullish no I mean there but that goes to the moral hazard most first of all many investors are just stuck in passive uh risk parity portfolios that somebody in the corner or online runs for them and it's mostly stock Bond diversification they're just riding this wave and they keep their head in the sand and most advisors tell them don't worry if there's a correction they always correct they always bounce back so just ride it there's a lot of things wrong with that philosophy but nevertheless uh yeah why are markets so high despite the fact that everyone's um you know everything looks so bad again it is because there's a moral hazard that when when things get really bad the FED will do what it has always done since 2008 and every dip you could buy it in every even major correction or a downturn including March of 2020 there's nothing the FED can't fix so if you can bite a stick through even a 36 percent you know drawdown like we saw on March 20th 2020 the FED will save us so we love and hate the Fed and again if they save us that just means we're gonna have hyperinflation so the 20 you made on your s p will be eaten alive in real terms by the inflation it's running up running uphill in roller skates but I think you know again this goes to REM you know memories are short and fantasy is long and no one wants to think about Sensational tinfoil had in reality or math but remember again you and I were teenagers but when the Nikkei crashed in 89 or you know at that time in in Japan everyone thought well how can we get hurt if we're all crossing the road at the same time we're in this together we're going to be fine well the Nikkei crashed 1989 that was well over 30 years ago it has not recovered its size right I'm not saying that we're going to have a nikkei-like crash this year although the markets are pricing in a major rate cut because of pricing in a Major Market disaster but right or wrong remember all bubbles pop the last bubble to pop is always a currency bubble without exception period timing that is very hard you got to look at again look at the signals from the bond market but assuming that all bubbles pop and the currencies are the last to pop how could you prepare yourself but Nikkei crashed over 30 years ago if you were 70 over 30 years ago you never got that money back if you were 25 fine you want to wait it out so how you manage this risk how you think about the future is very different depending on your personality your age your profile but if we have a nikkei-like crash which we will unless we print more money and have hyperinflation there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be very very hurt and that's where again the reality of the economy the reality of your personal life actually becomes the real issue here not Bond spreads indicators euro dollar Futures yield curves it's just you don't have any purchasing power you don't have a portfolio that was valued the same next year as it was last year you don't know what to do you don't know who to trust you don't know what it signals to look at you don't know how to prepare so you trust you trust the drunk drivers at the wheel of the FED which has create a moral hazard that they can be trusted so far since 2008 they've kept us above our nose just above water or then some created the greatest risk asset bubble I've ever studied or seen and I've seen the NASDAQ bubble I got a profit off that IPO it made me a very independent Man by accident so I'm all in favor of bubbles but you gotta also know their dark side and you gotta also know you got to think about that again there is no exception all bubbles pop the only way I think theoretically you could keep this bubble from popping is very simple you monetize it with mouse click money but that just creates a whole other set of problems with inflation so technically you could have have a market That Never Dies deficits without tears but you can't avoid the inflation so pick your poison a necessary austerity moment in the markets or the the absolute murder of the purchasing power of your currency be it a Euro a dollar a Yan a Juan a Frank a peso and uh we joke about banana republics in South America Central America America's balance sheets it's a Banana Republic we're just the world Reserve currency but eventually and as we're seeing massive signals of dedolarization and a whole other theme even America like Rome like Mao like China like Napoleon like the great powers of the 30s even those Empires collapse always because of a debased currency always that again sounds Sensational like I get it sounds crazy or at least not in our time but it's already happening what Hemingway warned about currency inflation War isn't down the road it's right now it's already happening it's just a matter of degree of how much worse it gets you and I have no idea whether the war in the Ukraine escalates or not that's out of our hands 365 planes were just sent over when we talk about zelinski and the crimney it's not zelinski it's NATO he doesn't have an Air Force that's called a duck a duck this is not Ukraine against Russia it is a proxy war against Russia whatever you think of it I'm not gonna get to that debate but let's just be honest of what it is let's have an open debate again same thing with markets unlike politics though markets are more honest that's my point from the very beginning the bond markets are more honest the yields are more honest you can track those regardless of what the FED does you can see the direction of the market by you know how the bond markets and the asset classes react and again that doesn't make you perfect Market timer but it opens your eyes real fast and again without getting into the weeds of Silicon Valley Bank at the end of the day why didn't they go to a discount window why didn't they go to a dealer why didn't they take out a 90 million loan on 100 million dollars worth of collateral it's not about the banking risk it's about the fact that no other Banks wanted to help Silicon Valley Bank and no Discount Windows or rent or loan against them because they the actual issue wasn't just long duration risk in their treasuries the actual risk was their collateral their loans right their loans are 30-year mortgage nobody wants them that loan is a symbol of the economy and that loan is no longer valuable because the FED raised rates into a debt bubble and ruined the value of that long-term duration paper so again it's not about Banks it's not about loans it's about the faith in the economy it all trickles down to the economy that economy is where Mr and Mrs Smith you me and everybody listening that's where the real world is worrying about their portfolios worrying about their job stability worrying about their kids education we're in about the 10 000 in their checking account then they only buy worth five thousand next year in terms of purchasing power those things are boring but meaningful they're not nearly as exciting as what's on Netflix tonight but they affect our lives and that's why the bond markets in history and Cycles are important they're not easy but they're not that hard and again it doesn't mean take my opinion or my books or my articles look at other people's but what's amazing now is there's a lot of consensus whether it's Ray dalio in the U.S or me in Switzerland or whether it's Lacey hunt or Daniel Martina Booth or Dave Stockman or good intelligent courageous journalists they're all trying to say the same thing and again we're not saying we are the truth we're saying we are honest about what we think and that's what's missing in the media that's what's missing in politics and that's certainly what's missing at the Central Bank honesty it doesn't have to be genius just be blunt just be blunt for God's sakes let's give us some some real simple math and uh that's what I'm driven by now because it's it's it's it's so important to our lives right now we're in a historical turning point right now that is not an exaggeration it's already in our lives in real time so it's not even postulating or speculating it's actually happening to us right now well you're a preacher to the choir that's actually a big part of a mission of why I created Wealthy on in the first place was to sort of have this platform for this kind of honest uh fact-based dialogue and of course it only works if we get smart people like yourself who have the courage to come on and just say hey look this is I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you this is just what it is right yeah um so okay so all the Mr and Mrs Smith's uh of Main Street that are watching this video right now and have listened to this interview you know I'm sure are saying whoa Okay so that's a really challenging future that Matt has laid out for us here um you know what should we consider doing about it if we just don't want to become you know unwitting collateral damage to what's coming and of course your day job is managing capital and then priority number one is preserving it and then party number two is trying to prudently grow it in this environment if that's possible how are you looking at you know the the decision making and portfolio allocation in this environment yeah and this is where again and completely understandable this is where the cynics will say well here comes the honest expert suddenly selling his book and they're going to question that and I I I need to be aware of that I I always say my colleague and I've been talking about gold for years or precious metals or real assets or commodity cycles and portfolios we're not trying to sell a book we're selling conviction or this is my opinion and we'll talk about I'll answer the question but I think it's important not to be cynical it doesn't mean believe every word I say but this there's I could be a Goldman Sachs selling bonds for a fee I don't want to do that most of us could be doing that but I don't believe in those bonds I didn't do that when I was managing funds and I I came to precious metals and real asses only because in in this particular environment you've got to own an asset that can't be printed or manufactured at will that has a kind of an infinite you know infinite duration but finite site you know finite uh Supply and so no I'm not gonna say just go out and buy gold you know go buy buy gold from us it's not that simple gold is not sexy it's not a speculation asset I don't think it's the sexiest thing that every client or every person listening should be buying I just see it as currency insurance for uh occur currencies that are already dying and I'll just say in real simple terms you know I when I was in high school I played baseball and if we had a really good pitcher or the other team had a really good pitcher we knew who was going to win the game who was pitching who was pitching we had to go play Through the Motions nine innings six Innings looking at my watch sitting on third base waiting for the seven but if we had the right pitcher we were gonna win and it's really hard to say in anything in the market said you're certain of something in fact the only thing that worries me is just how certain I am I don't know a lot of things I can't time a market I do know that since 1971 when Nixon took away The Chaperone of gold from the currency that since 1971 every major currency has lost at least 95 percent of its value and measured against a real asset like physical gold again whether you believe in gold or not just look at the math there's all kinds of cycles and Trends and gold can go up and down it's not Bitcoin doesn't have a standard deviation of 170. I just know this like I knew I had a good picture or a bad picture I'm gonna win or I'm gonna lose I know that gold is going to ensure my purchasing power better than a wand a dollar a peso a franc or a Euro that's all I know that doesn't mean everyone should put everything they have in Gold my first thing is just it's a mathematical fact that currencies have lost 95 of their value since the we closed the gold window in 71. that's just objective fact doesn't talk about volatility and prices I own gold like every one of our clients as is insurance against banking risk and currency risk it's just that simple and I feel high conviction to say that in terms of other things you can do again own assets that can't be printed at will by a corrupt Central system there's a lot of talk about Bitcoin or digital currencies there's all kinds of risk all kinds of greatness the philosophy behind digital currencies there are many who I don't have to be a gold fanatic or gold bug which I think is a cheap term for people who understand gold but I don't have to be a gold bug and have to hate Bitcoin or other digital currencies I think Bitcoin has is a major existential threat to the powers that be for a lot of good reasons and that's why I think there's risk in it but there's certainly arguments be made that Bitcoin is another alternative currency to an openly dying Fiat world I think Bitcoin is coming under a lot of pressure from Central Bank digital currencies power politics Etc I have no interest or desire to see Bitcoin and investors get hurt I'd love to see them make more money I'm jealous of them I wish I had bought it at ten dollars like everyone else but I I worry about the volatility and the long-term uh use of it but I would be thrilled to see Bitcoin succeed I worry that they are a real threat though uh to the powers that be into this trend towards such like digital currency and therefore have has a Target on its back oh absolutely it's too smart it's smarter than the fed that's the problem Bitcoin is too smart uh and uh there's other problems but that's the main problem but that's a high class problem but it still has risk for investors the other thing I would say getting away from real assets and again it's not just gold and silver there's all there is I'll send you a chart after this so you can put it up there it's probably the most important chart of the decade it was provided by a good friend of ours Ronnie sterpolo he's an advisor at Matterhorn he's wrote the in Gold We Trust report he's one of the smartest guys out there that's an amazing annual report he puts out yeah it's brilliant he's brilliant he's modest and humble but he's absolutely genius and he certainly knows the real asset space I'll send you the graph he called the most important graph in the decade it's just the commodity Cycles again Buy Low sell High get out of asset bubbles get out of Fiat currencies get out of tops and and think longer term not month-to-month day to day quarter to quarter and when I send you this chart it's just simple stupid you get at the bottom of a commodity super cycle that's where you want to be if you're an investor as opposed to a Trader if you're a Trader you have your own signals you have your own volatility you have your long shorts you have your options you have your kelter bands your Bollinger Bands if someone's a Trader that's a different conversation but for investors who don't have time to learn everything it is about being a professional Trader just buy low and sell High get out of assets that are overpriced get out of risky assets get into solid boring things that preserve purchasing power and get into at least have some portion of your portfolio in the commodity cycle that's going to be maybe painful in the short term but it's trending clearly up into the north that's my advice I would also recommend to people that are listening you know talk to their advisors most advisors are consensus thinkers because they can group together in a bull market and then blame extraneous events in a in a bear Market on something that they didn't see I'm very cynical about the standard rias I've seen too many I've seen too many hedge fund managers I've invested in that were full of whatever but I think I would really really start to question the risk parity portfolio whether that's 60 40 70 30 as we've been warning for years stocks and bonds are no longer hedged assets they're correlated assets so that what worked for our fathers and grandfathers or even us prior to 2008 those type of portfolios are only good in the Tailwind they're absolutely brutal in a headwind they correlate to zero and so your your bond market won't save you uh your bond allocations won't save you as we saw from junk bond to investment grade last year in 2022 just a horrible performance of the bond market at the same time that you know Equity markets were getting crushed again should have been a headline worst nominal returns in stocks and bonds since 1871. the volatility in the last couple weeks in the treasury market worse since 2000 um uh since 9 11 2000 what 2001 September 11th 911 that was a pretty big headline 9 11 but the markets were volatile then Marcus Revival in 2008 Market cervaldo on the in the flash crash of 87 and yet just last week none of this stuff made the headlines in the mainstream media among pundits and among Bond Traders and among folks like us we talk about it but again people would rather watch Netflix but these what happened in Silicon Valley Bank wasn't 911 but what the market says what the markets says is uh oh oh and again we saw that in the repo crisis we saw in the guilt crisis we saw in 2000 there's been so many I told you so's that when when and if and I think short of printing trillions more which is inherently inflationary when and if we have another uh-oh moment no one listening including us can say we didn't know better that's it you don't have to agree but I think the warning signs are there and one thing I've learned having made and lost money in my life and I've done both brilliantly I've lost more than I made many times the way to get the way to be rich is not to lose money it is not to lose your wealth wealth preservation Egon says it over and over it's not just a phrase it's a it's a way of life you make money by not losing money every time I invest in a hedge fund manager I didn't invest in the ones who told me all I was going to make what the prognosis was what the projections were I always listen to the manager who said these are the risks I'm worried about first this is where you can lose money this is where I see risk in my portfolio they were honest they were thinking more about risk than reward because everyone looks great in a Tailwind everyone looks smart when they're on the trend but the real smart money always is thinking risk first not reward always looking like a lawyer what's gonna what's gonna get me like that famous line in The Big Short where are you going to screw me yeah right using you know and I think people need to think more defensively and think 30 years out not three weeks out and and be cynical and by the way again don't trust everything I'm saying or anyone else that you interview but put it all together think for yourself okay consensus thinking is almost gone today in America and he kind of consensus view of reality and everything again politics media entertainment social justice Warriors cancel culture World culture based bias whatever there's so much mess it's hard to trust anyone I get it but I think try critical thinking look at math draw your own conclusions look at not just crafts look at history listen to people you agree with and disagree with including gold including silver including hard assets including cryptos but be critical thinking take a little time and your viewers already do that that's why they're here but I think the sad part is the vast majority of Americans trust too much or don't look enough at what's going on trust their leaders and that that doesn't make them stupid they're trusting people but sadly they're not critically thinking enough or they're not cynical enough as they could be when it comes to their portfolios and some people don't even have portfolios they just have checkings accounts with money in there and that's the saddest of all right because inflation's eating away at that every day it's an invisible tax it always hurts the poor more than the upper class that's history sadly they're always the plankton for wall Street's whales you know always the first to get drafted and the first to get hit in the downturn always the plankton for wall Street's whales that's such a great line um I I hate the fact that it's so spot on um Matt this this has been wonderful I I literally could go on for another couple hours with you and I'm sure people are going to be screaming in the comments Adam why didn't you but I I promised you a certain amount of time and we you already generously gone way over it um in in beginning to wrap up here Matt for folks that have really enjoyed this discussion and perhaps this might be their first real introduction to you where can they go to follow you in your work yeah it's an easy URL uh Egon Von greyers and I um are writing articles every week on goldswitzerland.com very simple gold switzerland.com the name of our Enterprise is Matterhorn asset management and we we only deal exclusively and uh physical precious metals gold and silver primarily stored in the safest fault in the world it's like a James Bond movie you got to see it's hidden deep in the Swiss Alps um most of the gold we buy is direct from the refiners 70 of the gold in the world is refined in Switzerland and so we get the finest highest quality goal but I think far more smart and important than Egon and eyes we have this huge staff behind us that Brokers and transports and does the logistics and holds the gold in a truly Safe Way outside of the banking system because for years Egon was way ahead of this we never trusted the banking system whether that was Lehman or Credit Suisse small banks in Switzerland or small banks in Silicon Valley we've always been I think prescient and distrusting um the the major commercial Banks and currency risk and political risk so you have to hold I think physical gold outside of your own jurisdiction but in a safe private Vault and the counterparty risk is always the Vault so it has to be a good Vault and what Egon put together decades ago is really I think we think it's the best way to hold gold outside of the big commercial banks that I would never hold my gold at a major Commercial Bank that's a whole other story but yeah so it's just gold Switzerland and we're called Matterhorn Asset Management okay great and when we edit this mat I'll put up the URL to Gold Switzerland there so folks know exactly where to go we'll put a link in the description to below thanks um all right well look um Matt this has been fantastic um I just want to do a couple quick housekeeping notes as we we say goodbye to folks here you did a really good job you're going to end up getting some sort of fruit basket or spiff from the financial advisors that that Wealthy on uh endorses because uh these guys are sort of exactly the type that you were saying you should look for in an advisor which is they they prioritize risk management first yeah right now it's all about okay first Do no harm by trying not to lose anything and then what can I potentially prudently do on on top of that um folks uh if you've listened to this interview you know Matt has just explained why this is such a challenging time uh for investors particularly the independent regular retail investor here and um so highly recommend as I always do um most people especially if you've got real lives that demand your attention and you can't be watching all these swirling storm clouds that Matt's talking about that you find a good financial advisor good professional financial advisor who takes into account all of these macro issues that Matt's been talking about uh uses those to create a a personalized you know portfolio strategy for you but then actually helps you execute it as you know the shoes are dropping along the the path here if you've got a good one who's doing that for you great stick with them but if you don't or if you'd like a second opinion from one who does just schedule a free consultation with one of the financial advisors that wealthyon endorses just go to wealthion.com fill out the short form there uh it's totally free no commitment to work with these guys it's just a public service they offer like Matt they're just trying to help people make decisions to prudent themselves more sorry position themselves more prudently now in advance of what's likely coming all the things that Matt talked about now secondly just a reminder if you missed our online conference from a week and a half ago where we had Lacey hunt and a bunch of those other greats like Danielle di Martino booth and Stephanie pomboy and Michael Pento and Rick Rule and a lot of the names that Matt mentioned here earlier um don't worry if you missed it you can still buy a replay video of the entire event all the presentations all the live q a by going to wealthyon.com conference and if you've enjoyed having met on this program half as much as I had and Matt it's been wonderful I'm very serious about you having an open invitation to come back on this program anytime you want so folks if you'd like to see that please support this program by hitting the like button then clicking on the red subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it Matt this has been an absolute Joy even though we talked about some heavy things thank you so much for coming on Adam was my pleasure really was thanks I talk a lot but I hope it was helpful oh it was wonderful I know I can already tell the great feedback we're going to get from this so thanks so much everybody else thanks so much for watching thank you

Channel: Wealthion

Views: 70,926

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Id: HFEOTQQKNa8

Length: 69min 26sec (4166 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2023