654: Sound Money Revolution: Protecting Wealth in Unstable Times with Lynette Zang

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit hartmanmedia.com.

Welcome to the Holistic Survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The Holistic Survival show is your family's insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently, to understand threats, and how to create the ultimate action plan. Sudden change or worst case scenario, you'll be ready. Welcome to Holistic Survival, your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman.

It is my pleasure to welcome a prior fantastic guest back to the and that is none other than my friend Lynette Zhang, now with Zhang Enterprises. And maybe we'll get to talk a little bit about her exciting new venture. And it's great to have her back. She's an expert on the economy, sound money, precious metals and so forth. You've heard her on the show many times before, and it's great to have her back. Lynette, welcome.

Thank you for having me back, Jason. It's good to be here.

It's good to see you again. First of all, gold has been on a run lately, and that is very exciting to all of the gold bugs in the world. Tell us what's going on with that. And one of the things I want to make sure we talk about today, Lynette, that we've never talked about is manipulation in markets. Many, many years ago, I became familiar with the group gata, the Gold Antitrust Action Committee. I'm sure you know all about them. I just want to make sure we cover that today because we haven't talked about it before. Too much.

Yes. So in the gold market, there's so many interesting things that are happening. You know, number one, when you're looking at the spot market, technically there's been breakouts. And even though that was suppressed by the manipulation, ultimately with the global central bankers really buying more gold than ever, including this first quarter of 2024, the highest on record, there's a tremendous amount of pressure on the price of gold. And once it does, a breakout of resistance, even though they can suppress it for a while, we're getting more and more of those breakouts. So on a global basis, we are seeing definitely. I mean, there's no fever like gold fever. And, you know, not just in the US but also in South Korea. In China, in many other places in the world. This is the part that's really exciting for me. We're seeing the younger generation really flocking to gold. We're seeing the public start to flock to gold, which means that they are losing confidence because of this global inflation. They're really losing confidence in the currency, in the system that's already in place. So there's a lot of technicalities, but it's also a lot of it is driven by buying. And we could totally see that in the physical only market, which is in the collectible market.

It seems like the COVID era inflation is really making younger people pay attention. I see all sorts of videos online with young people sitting in their cars complaining about how they just can't get ahead. And so that's probably bringing them around to sound money, isn't it? Certainly cryptocurrency is one option they're taking, taking advantage of. But also the metals, right?

Yes, absolutely. And that's really what gives me the most hope. Because quite frankly, I think what this country, what the world needs, not just the country, this is certainly a global issue, but I think what the world needs is a peaceful revolution back into sound money, gold and silver. And maybe that's what we're witnessing here. That's what I'm trying to promote, to be honest with you. That's what I'd like to see. You know, we need to have a seat at the table for this next monetary iteration or it's going to be even worse than what we've already experienced.

Sure, sure. So, Lynette, talk to us about gold price suppression and manipulation in the market. I think a lot of people would be very interested in knowing that because all of the arguments that the gold proponents have made for decades now have been quite accurate. And I really got interested in economics in many ways from those proponents that made these arguments about the Federal Reserve, about fiat money and so forth 30 years ago. I mean, that's what interested me in this topic. But the performance has, has been at times pretty good. But at times it's been kind of just muted. Talk to us about manipulation, if you would.

Well, you know, for one thing, it's really important for people to understand that gold is the primary currency metal. And so a rising gold price is an indication of a failing currency. And once you really understand that the currency is failing, you start to make different choices. So even overtly, like our central bank, Greenspan said quite famously, and I'm not gonna have the exact quote on my head, but he basically said well, what if we manipulate the price of gold? That impacts the psychology. And so perception management is a key tool of our governments and our bankers toolbox because they nudge you in the direction that they want you to go in. So for central banks and for governments, it benefits them to suppress the price of gold. And we've seen this time after time after time, people are thinking that Wall Street, Wall street is going to tell them what the true value of gold is. And that is a myth because they can create as much gold out of thin air with these derivative contracts, which are just big bets as they want to. And in fact, even before the central bankers got more involved in the derivative market, in 2009, the bank for International Settlements, unfortunately, I didn't know print screen at that time, but the bank for International Settlements declared on their balance sheet, because they tracked derivatives, that there were 62 for every one ounce of physical gold, for every one ounce of physical gold,. There were 62,000 derivative ounces of gold. 62,000.

Wow. What a fraud.

Yeah, right. And you know, it's worse than that because after that period of time, after the great financial crisis, which is not over yet, you know, central banks became a lot more involved in derivatives. Look at the derivatives in the FDIC insured banks against precious metals. And we're not really seeing all of the manipulation. So there are likely to be many, you know, forget the thousands, millions, billions, trillions of ounces of gold that does not nor ever will exist. And it's getting harder and harder. We've already hit peak gold, so there's less and less of it to pull out of the ground. So manipulation works. But what I want everybody to really understand, we will see it go toward its true form, fundamental value. That's the true value of gold, which is about holding your purchasing power intact over time. We will see that when confidence, when the public loses complete confidence in the system and then they try to regain it and they'll do those overnight revaluations where the currency will lose, I don't know, 97%, I think in Argentina was the last time in Argentina. But we're seeing these revaluations happen all over the world. And so what you'll notice is that you've got the official price, which is what we're seeing when we're looking at the spot market because it's so easy to manipulate. And then ultimately we don't have that here yet, but it's coming. You'll see a black market price as the government suppresses it. But then when they do that overnight revaluation, then you'll see it go up, I don't know, you know, 3,500% on its move toward the true value.

Of course they want to manipulate it. Of course they want to change the public perception. Of course they want to promote their fiat currency that's the main product of any government or central bank. But any more on how they actually do that and you know, and what, you know, groups like GAD are doing to stop them from doing that?

Right. Well, if you go to the CME or the lbma, if you go to any of these bullion banks and you look at the contracts on gold, that's all that spot reflects. So quite honestly, you know, when you look at the CME group, it costs the central bankers like 150 bucks to control 500 ounces of gold or 5,000 ounces of silver. Yeah, that's nothing. And so they can do this legally, right? Yeah, that makes not illegal because of course who writes the rules? But it's really simple. You just create a whole bunch of paper gold or dick digital gold that does not nor ever will exist. The markets read it as if it's real.

Right.

And you know, you also have to understand that that's about making a profit. When a dealer or a participant buys a gold contract, most of the time, I mean 99.9999% of the time, it's not about taking possession of the underlying gold. It is about that trading profit on the move in the spot price so they could push that spot price down, then rebuy the contract and that the contract goes up and they've made their profit. It is really not about the physical market. The public has been trained. I don't really get this, to be honest with you, but to trust what the stock market and the spot markets are saying, and that's not really true. So we have groups like gata, I'm definitely a proponent of sound money. We have the states that are moving back towards sound money, which is another thing that gives me a lot of hope, particularly when I saw recently that President Biden changed the status of marijuana on a federal level. You know, and that was because of all of the pressures on the states. But I think that with the advent of of the states particularly, that if we go through this grassroots effort and demand to have gold and silver back in our monetary system as sound money, then actually I think what we're going to find is that hopefully, and if on a global basis enough people convert their fiat money into sound money and hold it themselves personally, which means it becomes invisible to those that are in power. Well, then I think we have a shot at being part of the conversation on the new monetary system.

Yeah, very good. Okay, so that was great. You know, people need to understand that they've turned gold into fiat money. That's what Wall street has done. And they've got a giant propaganda machine with more advertising power than anybody in the financial world. In the health world, it's the pharma companies. It's kind of an equivalent. So. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Lynette, what else do you want to tell people about just what's going on in the world? I mean, things are pretty scary from geopolitical level.

It is very scary on a geopolitical level. And what's been really interesting, the IMF just did a report on how geopolitics is threatening global financial integration. Because what we've seen is a breakdown in the supply chains. Right. I mean, I was a new stockbroker in the 80s when everybody was talking about globalization and the advantages of globalization and really how that globalization, particularly the peg of the Chinese yuan to the US Dollars so that US Manufacturers could determine their profits because they didn't have to worry about that conversion risk from one currency to another currency. But really what we're seeing is they depegged. I think they did that in. Don't hold me to this, because I'm not looking at the graph right now, but I think that was in, like, maybe 2012 or 13, where the yuan depegged. And then after what happened in 2020 with the cerveza issue, we've seen a de globalization in supply chains, but at the same time, we've seen a speed up of globalization and integration in the financial system. So we are really all incestuously intertwined with the imf. And I personally think that this is the one that's gonna win the new currency. That's gonna win doing a universal currency like this big umbrella, because the IMF's currency, which is the SDR special drawing rights, is a basket of currencies, and they can put every single currency in that basket. So they're diligently working on a universal currency, and then that could translate easily into local currencies so that people do not understand that the power of the money that they're holding, and I'm talking about this kind of money and, you know, invisible money, cryptocurrencies, what have you. But the power has shifted to unelected officials at the IMF that are all treasury secretaries and central bank chiefs. And that scares the crap out of me. I want a component of gold in there. Because what gold does to governments is it requires fiscal responsibility. And we know they do not want fiscal responsibility.

Well, they can't. I mean, could we ever have a gold standard? Is that even possible now, given that the fiat money is so out of control? I mean, one ounce of gold would be a zillion dollars if there was a gold standard, right? I mean, is it even possible?

Well, actually it is possible. Now I'm not saying 100% gold standard. I'm saying some level in there that creates restrictions around the levels. And understand it wouldn't be backing the current system. The current system is dead. It died in 2008. And all you have to do to verify that is look at the purchasing power of the consumer. Because when they're talking about Wall street, you know what they're talking about is one currency relative to another currency. But every single currency, by design, its purchasing power value is being inflated away. The problem is not really for central banks, it's not about inflation because that's what they're tasked to manage. With interest rates though, we need to come back to that. The problem for the central banks is that there's virtually no purchasing power left officially. These are their official numbers. There's virtually no purchasing power left to inflate away. So we have to transition into a new system and get rid of all of the debt which was used to create all of this kind of stuff that has so much. I mean, this is $20 is obviously not real. Cause I think it's illegal to do what I'm doing with something that's real. But you know, and I don't know why, I mean, this is the value of it. It only has value because you're agreeing to work for it and using it as your tool of barter. But the question that I have, and we've talked about this in some of the meetings we've been together, is when it goes to zero, what do they do? That's about negative rates because they have to attack the principal. So that was the big test that they ran for so many years. And now in this fight against the inflation that they caused, you know, have you noticed that they keep saying, well, wow, we haven't seen this before. Wow, this is unique. Wow, wow, wow. No, it's because we're at the very end of this huge long term experiment. And the tool that they had, which were interest rates, that was the key tool, you raise interest Rates. If inflation is running hot, you raise interest rates. Fewer people borrow and spend. You want to inspire more inflation, you drop interest rates and more people borrow and spend. In this environment, when they talk about, you know, how tight they've made the economic climate, it's not true. Look at their own data. My favorite website is the Fred Fred, the Federal Reserve Education Department. And if you look at financial conditions, frankly, they are as loose as they have ever been.

So Lynette, reaching the end is a really interesting statement and it begs the question, how much longer can they kick the can down the road road on this, this fiat system and this debt bait system, this fractional reserve system that we have. Certainly people have been saying it's the end 50 years ago. I mean, you know, in the 70s, after, after Nixon, in 71, I mean, gold went through the roof, you know, through the end of the decade. And we all know the story there. But I think it's amazing and may amaze us more and continue to amaze us that they can just keep papering over this whole thing for a long, long time. How do we know when we are nearing the end?

Well, actually, we're seeing all the signs of it right now because there are those repeatable patterns that happen every single time we're going through this transition from one fiat money system into the next one. And I'm old enough to remember what it was like in the 70s where you have things that go on, okay, you have wars. Do we have some wars that are raging in the world right now?

No questions.

Yeah, maybe even World War Three. Right. And say that we're already have already entered that. We have issues around civil rights, women's civil rights as well. We have high inflation, we have stock markets plunging, which every time they do that, what do they do? They crank up the money printing machine to keep it going. And so they had more room because there was more purchasing power left in the currency. So I take it back to that because rapid inflation makes people notice. Right. And you so aptly pointed out earlier about the younger generation sitting in their cars. The American dream is dead. We are now at a point, you know, in my parents generation, my mom was born in 1915, my father was born in 1910. Right. And so all of those generations, the next generation that came in did much better than the previous generation because for a while inflation really does work. But you get to a point and we hit that actually in 97, where inflation was no longer economically stimulative. It was to a few, but for the masses that really shifted. And so you know that you're in the end when you had no more purchasing power to inflate away. Just look at the purchasing power chart, the official one. You know, it's worse than what they're going to let you.

Of course.

Yeah, right. So that's how you know we're seeing all of the signs that you always see. All of those patterns around currency regime shifts. The level of debt is at nosebleed levels. It is not payable, forget sustainable. It hasn't been sustainable in a long time. Because what we're also doing with our debt is we are compounding interest, I think officially through 2023. And again, I don't have this graph in front of me, so please don't hold me to this, but we're running deficits of what, according to that graph. Oh, please pull it up, because I know I'm going to be wrong. But something like 1.3 trillion or something like that. And yet we're servicing 34 trillion in debt. 35.

And to make matters worse, now that the Ponzi scheme is truly revealed, where it's kind of. It's not really a Ponzi scheme by definition. Okay, But I just have to say. But it's kind of a reverse Ponzi scheme almost, because the interest in the debt is now the largest cost. That's insane. Okay. We have to increase the debt by $3.6 trillion per year without even giving out more goodies. You know, so that's. That, I would say, is a sign that, you know, the jig is up. Right. You know, but what was 1997? I haven't heard that reference before. What happened in 97?

You look at the monetary velocity, and that's the number of times that money changes hands. And it peaked in 1997. And even at 2013, it was the speed at which the money was changing hands was slower than it was during the depression in 33. So when you look at that graph and we can send it to you, but when you look at that graph, you just see it going down. A little blip up here. Down. Little blip up here. Down. And I always felt that one of the key ways that I would know when the hyperinflation has begun is in a shift in how quickly money changes hands. Right? And a little blip up is not a pervasive move up, but we have had a major pervasive move up. So I personally believe that we are already on the cusp of the hyperinflation. And the only thing that's holding everything together and preventing that. Hyperinflation is the confidence of the public to the currency. And I think that that is eroding really rapidly once the public loses confidence in the currency as witnessed by all of these more buying of the physical metal markets. Right. We're seeing this happen around the world. So I think the jig is up. And I think that those two factors, even just alone, let alone all those other factors, is telling you that we are at the end. But I can't give you an exact date.

Yeah, nobody can define hyperinflation. If you would. There's no real like academic definition for it. I know, but what does that mean to you? What percentage of erosion of wealth does that mean every year?

Well, I mean, they say officially it's 50% inflation a year, but understand that it's compounding. So even today when they're talking about all the. The inflation print came out lower across the board. It's still compounding. Those prices are just going up a little bit slower for the moment. But 50% inflation is official. But what level of pain would we be feeling way before that at the 10%? What level of pain were we feeling at that 9 or 8% official? And what would it feel like at 20% or 30%? And who does that really hurt and who does it help? Because it does help. Some, oh, definitely have the ability to hold their purchasing power. You know, what is that K shaped recovery? What is the recovery? That division between income and wealth inequality is higher than it was back in 1929 before that stock market crash. So we've already watched a tremendous amount of wealth transfer and risk transfer from the few to the many. Right. Look at how many insiders are bailing out. And now what we've seen consumers with the highest level of expectations for that stock market in the last three years. We gotta keep that stock market up. Because when you open your 401k or your IRA statement and doesn't look bad and it's gone up, you're going woo hoo, yay. But it's covering up that loss of purchasing power on the currency.

There's no question that this is a game of wealth concentration and it is working for the elites and it is most definitely hollowing out the middle class and hurting the poor. The poor get the government aid, though. At least they have that. The middle class doesn't get anything. They just get completely screwed. So that's what happens. Lynette, really interesting stuff for sure. In terms of that inflation that leads to civil Unrest, it leads to distraction mechanisms. You know, we all saw the movie years ago, which everybody should watch again. It's, it's now what I call an old movie, but from the 90s, it's called WAG the Dog. Okay. Remember that? I'm sure you saw it and that's a really important movie for people to see, especially with all of the geopolitical stuff going on. And you've talked before, and you know, I want to get this before we go today. You've talked before not just about the conventional wars that are going on, but the cyber wars and the wars we can't see, the currency wars. Tell us your thoughts on this.

Well, you know, it's true and many think that it's in the cyberspace where World War 3 is already being fought. You know, it's never what you can see that is as much as dangerous as what you cannot see. And I believe that there is a war against the public as well. And we can win this war if we move into sound money, into money that truly is outside of the purview of these central banks. But we need a boots on the ground war because that's what people see. They don't see the cyber war and so they're not as distracted by that until frankly, this is true with all of it, until it's too late to do anything about it. Right? That's the whole point of being prepared. Food, water, energy, security, barterability, wealth preservation, community and shelter. And frankly, Jason, community for me has become the single most important thing because as you know, I've been working on my urban farm here since 2010 and on my bug out since 2021. So, you know, I've been working on this for a very long time and I have a really dedicated community around me that's helped me build all of this. We don't have that luxury anymore. When you ask when, I can't tell you the exact day, but history, I mean, there's 4800, more than 4800 times when this has happened to fiat money, government backed currencies. And so we need to really develop community and make this a concerted effort ASAP on both a local level so that you can secure your security in all of those mantra pieces, particularly food and water, which are things we cannot live without. Right? So we need to come together in a local community to help us get through and support each other. Bring your talents, bring your skills, go learn some new skills. Where do you do this? Go meet your neighbors, go to a farmer's market, go to a community garden. Garden, go to meetups. You'll be able to meet like minded people. But also on a global level, we have to come together, you know, and again, it's just a peaceful revolution. There does not need to be any violence just to convert this crap into this good sound money. This good sound money. If enough people do that, I mean, I can tell you, I give away a lot of that for when babies are born, for weddings, for graduations, for all sorts of things.

Yeah, good stuff. Lynette, I gotta ask you, when you really pound on sound money, there are so many people out there who think, as Greenspan said, which is ridiculous, by the way. I want to preface this with saying it's obnoxious comment. He said gold is a barbarous relic. Right. Wasn't that Greenspan that said that?

I think that's not what he said before or after. But yeah, while he was fit.

Right, right. And he's promoting his product, which is fiat money. And by the way, when it comes to GRE Span, he was a complete sellout because he was good friends with Ayn Rand back in the day. And you know, they used to meet in their group in their apartments called the Collective when they lived in New York City. And he just completely did an about face for his career. You know, it was just such a sellout. It's awful. But cryptocurrency, bitcoin especially. Do you like this at all? Do you think it's, you know, terrible? Do you think it's okay? Are you kind of neutral on it? Where, where do you stand on that?

I think it was a Trojan horse myself. I read the 1996 paper on how to create a mint, and it seems awfully coincidental to me that bitcoin came out in January of 2019. Quantitative easing, which postponed this, came out in March of the same.

Well, I think you mean. I mean, bitcoin was before that. You mean it had a big run in 2019? Is that what you mean to say?

Oh, I meant 2009.

I'm sorry.

Thank you very much. Yes, it did have a big run before that. It was 2009. So I think that it was a Trojan horse to get people used to it. And they need to, to your point, let these things run. Cause that's how they make these transitions. They've gotta get eyeballs, they've gotta get adoption. And the way that they do that is by making people feel like it's a really good thing. So, you know, the way I feel about it is most people that are into cryptocurrencies other than trading them, have a similar kind of desire to people that buy gold. In other words, they want to be outside of the system.

Same goal.

I would think that Bitcoin is a really good example of just the opposite. I mean, do you think it's outside of the system?

Well, I think it's outside of the fiat system, unless it, as some say, you know, some believe in the theory that it was actually created by the CIA and, you know, is. Is completely a Trojan horse. I don't know. You know, none of us really know. That's the reality of it.

Okay, Right. No, nobody really, really knows. But it's not outside the system. Look at the adoption by Street. It's been turned into another product for them to sell and trade. Like everything else, we are at a level of 100% financialization where absolutely everything, everything, everything has been turned into a financial product for trading. So I don't know who's going to survive. I can look on the bank for International Settlements, the largest bank's money flower, and there's a section in there, a small section for private cryptocurrencies. And I can see the advantages in a lot of these technologies. I personally do not know which one is going to survive and which one's going to be fully integrated into the system and what might be truly outside of the system. And does it have the ability to survive? What I know is when they put out cryptocurrencies, they represent gold, silver, or platinum. Why? Right, because that's what's in our DNA that has thousands and thousands of years of proof of being outside of the system. That's why central bankers don't like it. Because you hold it, you own it outright. It runs no counterparty risk. I still see a lot of counterparty risk in terms of crypto, but I can see some. Some good parts about it, too. This story is not finished yet. And so for me, I am most comfortable sitting in this relic that has proven itself.

This Barbara's relic, right?

Give me this barber relic. And also look at what the central, the global central bankers are doing. Why are they buying more gold than they ever have in history since they started to record it? Because they want to retain their freedom and their choices and their power and their position. Isn't that the same reason why we all should be buying it and owning it and holding it?

Very good question, Lynette. No question about it. Give out your website and maybe a word or two on your new venture.

Oh, absolutely. Well, the new venture is Zhang Enterprises and Our website is lynettezang.com and are you ready for this phone number? Because I love it. 8, 3, 3, G L, D Z A, N G. Is that a great number?

It is very difficult to get phone numbers like that. Yeah.

Oh, we. We got it. So that's 3, 4. It's 833-345-9264.

Just.

Just to translate it. But you can Find me on YouTube and Twitter, both Helenette Zhang as well as Instagram and Facebook inetzang. And we really support communities and sound money on a global basis. That's really what we're about. But we also execute. I've been studying currencies and currency life cycles since 1987. So we are executing the original Lynette Zhang sound money strategy. And everybody needs to have a strategy and it should be it puts your goals first and then your circumstances and what you have to work with. But we are here to be of service. I am so, so proud of my community members in Zhang Enterprises because we are all here to be of service and we definitely work very closely together.

Lynette Zhang, thanks for joining us again.

Thanks for having me, Jason. It's good to see you again.

Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss any episodes. Be sure to check out this show's specific website and our general website, hartmanmedia.com for appropriate disclaimers and terms of service. Remember that guest opinions are their own and if you require specific legal or tax advice or advice in any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. And we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to itunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you're using and write a review for the show. We would very much appreciate that. And be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.