CW 447: Bankruptcy & Strife on America's Horizon with Jerry Robinson Editor-in-Chief of 'Follow the Money'

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Welcome to the Creating wealth show. This is your host, Jason Hartman. This is episode number447. Thank you so much for joining me today and also thank you so much for all of the great reviews. I got scolded by one of our listeners the other day that I hadn't read his review on the air. So I promised I would share some of these reviews and I just want to do this real quickly so I won't take a long time. But I really do appreciate you writing reviews on itunes and stitcher radio and, you know, this kind of thing. I mean, of course we love your business and we love making money, but it's also just great to know that, you know, this advice matters. And the guests that we have on the show, we've had so many great thought leaders and experts. By the way, the one today is Jerry Robinson, who is author of Bankruptcy of Our Nation. Now this is the complete opposite. Don't say we don't have a big diversity of opinion here, folks, because you know we do. You know we do. It's the complete opposite of our guest, let's see, that was Peter Zehan who talked about the accidental superpower, complete opposite of episode 442. So we've got a diversity of opinion here on the show and we'll try to keep that coming. And, and you know, you can hear both sides of the story and you can decide who to believe. And you know it's not who to believe completely. Like this guy's right and that guy's wrong. There are bits of truth in each side, right? And so, so that's one of the great things about having a diversity of opinion. And Coco, my dog, you gotta stop walking around and making noise when I'm recording a podcast. It's amazing, folks. She'll just lay there in her new bed. She got a swanky new bed on Amazon.com for 18 bucks. Love it when you get a bargain, right? It's a really nice bed for 18. And I, I think I taught her not to chew this one up, so this one might just last. Anyway, complete diversity of opinion here. So you're gonna hear from Jerry Robinson today, some good stuff. And I hope you liked my Aunt Joanie on the last show and hearing about the, what, $25 million net worth just from real estate, not other things that they accumulated just in their old school investing style way. So I hope that interview was interesting to you. And one more thing on alignment, and you know that's the focus of the upcoming Meet the Masters event. It's empowerment and alignment. And I say that you get empowerment by setting up your business deals where they are aligned, where, where you are aligned, where you have win, win, win deals. Okay? So we're gonna, we're gonna dive deeply into that. But I just wanna give you one other example and I encourage you to negotiate with your property managers. I was talking with one of our great clients who you heard on the show before, Fernando, the other day, and he said that he thought, you know, the investment industry has matured so much and so many people are interested in real estate investing that it seems like there's just a lot of supply, a lot of business, if you will, supply of clients coming at these property managers and you know, they're kind of firm, sometimes they don't want to negotiate too much. But I say, see what you can negotiate. And you know, I don't think you should negotiate the fees. In terms of the basic property management fee, I think that's pretty reasonable, actually. I think getting anywhere from 6 to 10% depending on how they set up the deal and what other charges they have per month is not bad. Like, I don't object to that. I don't think that's a bad deal. But I have definitely noticed over the past few years that there's more nickel and diming going on with, with property managers. And one thing that I think is out of alignment now, I think my aunt Joan in the last episode, her late fee of just 25 dollars on a 600 or, sorry, 1600 dollar rent, which by the way is a lousy rent to value ratio, as you know and we discussed on that episode, because that's for a 400,000 or a $450,000 house. So, you know, Aunt Jones getting like 0.3. I mean, think of how much better we do and think how much your problems, if you have any problems. And we all do, and we all do occasionally with our real estate portfolio. Okay? So the problem free concept is a myth. It's a total myth. But think how quickly, you know, if you've got a property and you're listening to this and you've got a property that won't rent, it's not rented, and you know it's been on the market for a month or even more than a month, and you're getting stressed out. Why isn't it rented? Why isn't it rented? Well, all you have to do to rent it is just implement a California rent to value ratio or a Miami rent to value ratio, or a Boston or New York rent to value ratio or Washington, D.C. rent to value ratio, and your house will be rented in a, pardon the pun, a New York minute. Here's. Here's what I mean by that. Think of it. Okay, so Aunt Joan, on the last episode, who's got a good $25 million in real estate equity sitting around.

Is getting, you know, something like $1600 for a 400 or $450,000 house. So I don't have my calculator in front of me, but let's just call that a 0.3 or a 0.4 RV ratio. Now, if your property is worth $100,000 and you're wanting to rent it for, say, $1,000 per month, that's a 1% RV ratio. That's a great target. If you're getting near 1% a little bit, give or take. If you're getting, hey, more power to you, that's fantastic. But what if you offered that place for rent for 0.3? Heck, that's what pretty much everybody in California is getting is 0.3 RV ratio. Not 1%, just 0.3% or maybe 0.4, or in a rare, rare instance of 0.5 RV ratio. Okay? And if you want to check these out, all you have to do is go to Zillow and look at the zestimate for price and the zestimate, as they call it, for rent. And you'll see these RV ratios, they just hold up. It's amazing. Like anywhere in the world, my whole theory of rent value ratios pretty much applies. And I've told you before in prior episodes how I can be talking to someone who just rented a million dollar place in Miami. And I said, oh, let me guess. Your rent is 3,000 or 3,500 per month. And they said, yeah, that's exactly what we're paying. How did you know, Jason? Well, this is what I do, right? This is what I do. So I know this stuff. So back to that example of your hundred thousand dollar property and your thousand dollar a month rent target. Well, what if you offered it for $300 a month or $400 per month? 0.3 or 0.4. Yes. People would metaphorically line up around the block, right. To rent that property from you. So we know, folks, we know that every problem can be solved by simply lowering the price by getting closer to what zillions of people who think they're brilliant investors do in places like South Florida, you know, could be Fort Lauderdale, doesn't have to be Miami. Okay. South Florida anywhere. California, pretty much the whole darn state. New York City, you know, any of the northeastern cities, the higher priced areas of Chicago, all of these areas. That rent to value ratio applies. I mean, look the bottom of the market in terms of just renting a room, just a single room is pretty much 300, maybe $350 per month almost anywhere. Okay? So you know, if you've got a three bedroom, two bath house and you offered that for a three or a four RV ratio, you know, it would be gone in a New York minute and you'd be doing every bit as well. Is one of these silly investors that invested in these markets that don't make any sense. That's my point. Okay, on to reviews. So Derek, thank you for the nice reviews, folks. I really, really appreciate the reviews. So these are on itunes. I don't have the stitcher ones handy, but. But Derek wrote. Derek's from USA doesn't say exactly where. Five star review.

That this was a great episode about how to get the most out of a real estate investment. Useful stuff. Now I don't know which episode he was referring to, but the review was written November 16, so somewhere around there. Thank you, Derek, I appreciate that. And then Mike says, and by the way, the last names are shown on itunes when they have that as their name, their screen name on itunes, but I'm not reading the last names. So Mike, another USA listener, five star said, I never review things, but this podcast is simply too wonderful not to leave a review. Wow, that's awesome. The topics range from real estate investing to macroeconomics to health and science. The guests on the show are very impressive. Jason is an entertaining host and I really appreciate the balance of his shows. It's not all quote, you can do it.

Hype. He actually explains how and why real estate investing works, provides specific actions to help you get started, and offers contrasting views to help you be an educated investor. I strongly recommend this podcast to anyone who wants to get ahead. Thank you so much, Mike. What a nice review. I really appreciate that this one came and these look like initials. Dsm. Okay. And it's five star review. Really great insight on investing. It says, love what Jason is doing to help people in the investing space and to help them get creative as well as sharing all the scams and exposing them. And we'll continue to do that. I think that's one of my solemn duties, even when I do get threatening letters from attorneys. Okay, back to the reviews. So thank you for that review and we will continue to expose scams when we learn about them. And by the way, there are several I have not yet talked about, but I'll get around to when I'm up to. Up to it. Okay, so the next review, 5 stars again says great info. This is from Robert in the United Kingdom. Thank you, Robert. Not many great podcasts out there with the great stuff. This is it. Anyway, thank you very much for that. The next review, recommended exclamation point. Listening to Jason. Oh, and this is from Instagram fan008 in of all places, the Philippines. So we got someone from far away listening. And the nice thing about this little program I subscribe to that emails me all the reviews is it emails you even your foreign reviews. Did you know itunes users, that there is a different itunes for almost every country. It's kind of interesting. A lot of people didn't know that. And I'm sure that stemmed out of copyright laws and things like that. And also music preferences and language preferences of course too. So this one says recommended exclamation point, 5 stars. And it says listening to Jason as he shares strategies in real estate investing is like getting it straight from the horse's mouth. Very credible exclamation point. The show is a good guide to survive in the world of investing. Thank you for that. And the last one on this list is Always Learning something. And this is by podcast insider, so this must be a real podcast fan. Great show, super informative, always learning something new. Five stars. Thank you so much for that. And indulge me, listeners, before we get to our guest because this guest may depress you a little bit. Let me just read a couple more. This one is a four star review, so. Well, I didn't quite get five stars on that one. Let's see what he says this is by.

D. Lewis Martin. It's all clumped together as one word. But that's what I would make that name out to be, taste wise. I don't typically listen to shows about business and real estate but. But not because they are bad by nature. Just because it's not content that interests me. But in capital letters, Jason had a guest on show number 4:42. Who was that guest by the way? I can't remember. Gotta check that one out. It was a great conversation. It wasn't stuffy or boring. Both men had opinions and points of view that were interesting. It was a solid episode. 442. What was that? Oh, that was Peter Zeon, the Accidental Superpower. The opposite of today's guest. Okay, okay, the next review. There's only a couple more. Here is Guns versus Butter. This is by Eric. Eric Krueger from the USA. Five stars. Love it. Listen to 422 now. I don't know what 422 was. I don't have that one handy. Money education is so needed. Thank you for this. My pleasure. Thank you for the review. And then the next review says great. And this is by Brian, another USA listener. I enjoyed the property management episode. The show is well structured. Host is good. The host is good and I look forward to more well structured. I don't think I deserve that compliment, Brian, but thank you anyway. I'm going off on tangents left and right everywhere you look, but. But I'm glad you think it's well structured. I don't believe I deserve it, but I'll. I'll take it. So thank you. Ok, so the last review and then we will get to our guest. I promise is nobody does it better than Jason. Exclamation point, five stars. This is by Kev, DAV and some numbers. So that's probably Kevin I assume is what that name is. And it says Jason is great at what he does. I love how he's bringing in perspectives from people that are successful in various industries. So we'll keep them coming. Folks. Thank you for the great reviews. Please go write one if you haven't done so already. I finally started asking for them and I love what we're getting back. So thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Be sure to register for our upcoming Meet the Masters event. It is coming together. It's going to be awesome. It's about investor empowerment and alignment and how you can get your deals aligned. Here's the thing I didn't say when I went off on one of My tangents a moment ago. Late fees. Negotiate the late fees with your property manager. Some managers like to keep the late fees, and I really don't think now the property manager has to do some extra work when the tenant is late sometimes. Admittedly, I agree with that. But when you have a rental that's say a lower priced property that say it only rents for $750 per month and the manager is charging a $75 late fee and they keep that late fee and don't share it with you, the owner, I think you got to throw that deal out the window. I think you got to negotiate with your manager and say, look, you can charge a late fee even if it's 75. I think that's pretty high at 10%. Now if it's a higher priced property, 75 is fine. If it's more rent per month, but if the rent's 750 and they're charging 75 bucks, I think that's pretty, pretty high as late fee. Late fees are typically around, you know, maybe 6% somewhere in that range, 6% of the rental amount. So on that one, tell the manager they've got to split it with you. They want, they need to give you half of the late fee so that there's an incentive, number one, not to be dinging the tenant too much. Because remember, it's got to be a win, win, win. The third win is the tenant. You're the first one, the investor, then the manager, then the tenant. The tenant's got to win too, okay? You know, they're likely to stay longer if they're happier and they're not getting beat up too much on late fees. Remember on the last episode I mentioned our manager who's selling funds and stuff in the Phoenix market, Right? Our manager of my partner and I, one of our apartment complexes. And you know, he called me and he was really upset that he found out that they were charging $150 lockout fee to let the tenant back into their property when they lost their keys. And he said, how's the tenant gonna feel? How likely is that tenant to renew their lease and be a good happy tenant at your property if they're getting just totally beat up on fees like this? That's just not cool. Okay? So it's gotta be win, win, win. Alignment, empowerment. That's what we're talking about at Meet the Masters. It's selling out pretty quickly. We're gonna have another price increase here pretty quick because we have sold a lot of tickets to that event already. So@jason hartman.com in the event section and join as a member first and get a big discount on that, too. And by the way, our Cyber Monday sale runs for a couple more days here. Okay. So take advantage of, I think, what is it, 40% off all our digital products. It's the biggest sale of the year, folks. A lot of you have taken advantage of it. Be sure some more of you do that. Okay. Anyway, let's get to our guest, and that is Jerry Robinson talking about Bankruptcy of Our Nation. Here we go.

Hey. It's my pleasure to welcome Jerry Robinson. He is editor in chief of Follow the Money Quarterly financial newsletter and host of Follow the Money Weekly, and author of Bankruptcy of our nation, 12 key strategies for protecting your finances in these uncertain times. Jerry, welcome. How are you?

Oh, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, it's good to have you. Your book is fascinating, and I want to just kind of dive right in and talk about that.

What? Let's maybe start off with talking a little bit about the overall situation and then dive into some of the discussion on the petrodollar and what that means to people.

Sure. Well, I mean, the, you know, the book Bankruptcy of Our Nation I don't think is really a prophetic book. Whenever I wrote the book back in 2007, I was under the impression that we were going to be in for a major, major economic collapse. And I was desperately trying to get the book published so we could get the word out and no one would touch it. In fact, no one would even consider it until it was September of 2008. I was speaking at a conference out in Denver. I was talking about this very topic. In fact, the name of my topic, name of my speech was Surviving Financial Chaos. The market totally imploded In September of 2008, as you well remember. And when I got back from the speech that I was giving, had five missed calls from my literary agent, and he said, we have five offers for the book. And it was such an exciting moment for me. So we were able to get the book published. The publisher wanted to get it out very quickly. It came out just at the end of 2008, early 2009, and the book really breaks apart. What happened, what we thought was going to happen, and of course, what ended up happening with the whole economic crisis kind of explaining in layman's terms what really happened. And I think.

It'S unfortunate that so many people today.

Often try to formulate answers or solutions without firmly having a grasp of what the real underlying problems are. And so in the book, we lay out what these underlying problems are. That is fiat money, that is a debt based monetary system, that is fractional reserve banking. I mean, many of these things that are very faulty, they have terrible foundations, they cannot last, they're unsound, and over time they're simply going to break down. And that was the whole message of the book. The book goes on and explains how people can take actions to protect themselves, specific things that people can do. And so the book is a mixture of both what went wrong and what individuals can specifically do to insulate themselves from what we believe is still going to be a further downfall in the years ahead.

And what does that downfall look like when you talk about bankruptcy of our nation? I mean, obviously we create fiat money in mass quantities out of thin air. And we can get away with this for a few reasons. Number one, you know, every nation can get away with it for a certain amount of time, and then it ultimately becomes unsustainable and the country collapses. But the difference with the US is we have the largest military in human history. We have the reserve currency, at least for the moment. And, you know, several other factors that I think do make it pretty unique. So what does a bankruptcy look like? Does it look like a, a collapse of the economy? Or does it just look like, you know, we're inflating away this irresponsible spending that the government has been engaging in for so many decades and especially the last seven years. And most people are just impoverished by the inflation, while some are enriched by it who know how to play the game and invest for it. But what does the bankruptcy look like? What do you mean when you say bankruptcy, Jason?

What we usually refer people to is to look back to 1914 as opposed to where we are now, 2014. 100 years ago, you had a very bloated British Empire that was on its way down and everybody knew it. And then you had this ascending United States of America that was very disarticulated. It developed the Fed in 1913. It suffered from the panic of 07 before that. And then as we got Into World War I, Europe tore each other apart. And this really benefited the United States. The United States then emerges and enters this Roaring twenties era and then has this Great Depression. And then World War II, of course, is where United States really takes off. So it's really since the 1940s that America has really had the stranglehold, so to speak, on the global economy. And it has had that World reserve currency status. Well, it's similar to what's happening now. If we Fast forward from 1914 from that picture to 2014, we see something very similar. The American empire itself is bloated, it's overextended, it's all over the place. Our military is woefully underprepared for some of the challenges that it faces and it simply cannot afford to take care of all the things that it wants to take care of. It's over promised and now it's going to under deliver. That's exactly where the British Empire was 100 years ago and China is the new United States, so to speak in this picture where here we have China rising and you have all these complaints about, well, China certainly can't get much bigger or certainly it's going to implode or certainly it's going to have a problem. Well, that's what they said about the United states back in 1914 and no doubt it was a very disarticulated time for the United States. The US Dollar was still being formed and, and it was not nothing like it is now. It was still blocked out of many international financial markets. It took a while for the US to reach its state of ascendancy and then finally reach its peak, which really came back in the, in the 70s and 80s. Since that time we've been on the down, down trend, even though it may not feel like it. And we have countries like China that are now rising to take our place. It is simply the mechanism of history, Jason, that empires rise and empires fall. I think whenever you're inside of a declining empire, you tend to either A, ignore it because you think it. You know, maybe you can't see it because of the fog of war, or B, you think to yourself this is going to be the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world because it's a bit arrogant. You know, we all tend to think that our country and our situation is the most important in the whole world. Well, we expect the US to continue declining at a, not a precipitous rate, but at a aggravatingly sharp rate. Where I'll give you an example, is.

That worse than precipitous?

It is. Well, I'll give you a perfect example. If you have a choice, and this is terribly morbid, but let's think in the terms of empire. If you have the opportunity to kill the empire by throwing it off of a cliff or by rolling it down a steep grade and letting it hit every single rock on the way down and then it dies. Just throw me off the cliff. Off the cliff, right. And I think that's what most people would say. Just throw me off the cliff. Don't roll me down the hill and make me hit every rock along the way. And that's exactly what the US Is doing. It's rolling down that steep grade. This is a slow, steady decline. And it's going to be not just economically challenging and economically damaging, but it's also going to be, and we're beginning to see this now, psychologically damaging. Americans can't quite come to terms with the fact that other nations may be rising or that other currencies may challenge the dollar. They just can't seem to grasp that. And I. And I think that.

Well, yeah, I mean, look, I definitely get the idea of context. I mean, look, fish live in water, and I assume they probably don't notice the water. You know, we live in air. And thankfully, unless we live in Cairo or Mexico City, we don't notice the air, you know, and so. So you're right about that. I definitely see that. And there's this kind of arrogance and, you know, there's the fog of war and all that stuff. But, you know, it's so interesting because I would. This is such a contrast from the one. One interview I did yesterday with a guy named Peter Zehan, who used to work for Stratfor as a vp, and he wrote a book called the Accidental Superpower, the Next the Next Generation of American Preeminence. And. And. And just talks about how. Only because this is a relative issue, okay? America's a mess. I agree. And I agree that it's in decline, okay? But look at the rest of the world. My God, we may be mismanaged and doing all sorts of things wrong, but everybody else has got fiat money, too. And they don't have the reserve currency. They don't have the big military, they don't have the big brand name, and they don't have our geography, which I think cannot be underestimated. The geography. Well, go ahead.

Well, I'm just. Well, I think that's a good point. But again, think about America's military. I mean, America's military. The United States right now cannot afford it right now.

Oh, we got. We got to get out of everyone else's business. I mean, you know, this is just absurd acting. Acting like the world's policeman, you know, and it's usually not for humanitarian issues, as we would like people. People to believe. But. But, you know, that's neither here nor there. I Mean, we just gotta, we gotta. You know, Ron Paul is right. We've got to contract these military bases.

All over the world.

It's absurd. It is every sign of empire, just like you said. I, I agree.

You know, well, well, what makes it even worse, Jason, is the fact that it is too big. And yes, we are in too many places and yes, we have too many bases. But what, what the sad part of it is, is that China and other countries like it are the ones that finance it. So many people take great solace in knowing that. Well, you know, yes, we, we are pretty bad, relatively speaking, but when you look at the whole world in focus, I guess things aren't as bad as they could be. Well, the truth of the matter is exactly the opposite. It's worse than we can imagine. Because what we have built, we can't afford. What other countries have built, they can afford. What we have built, we need them to pay for. And when they get tired of paying for it, then what good is that? Military. What?

Well, so, so, so tell me about that. What happens when they get tired of paying for it? You know, I mean, certainly many people, including yours truly, have said, what happens when China stops buying our debt and Japan stops buying our debt? You know, and then, and then we've got to see, we've got to raise interest rates to attract investors. Well, our own, I mean, it's such a fricking Ponzi scheme. It's just, it's disgusting. But our own Federal Reserve just buys our debt instead. You know, I mean, what a scam. The whole thing's a sham, obviously, but you know, so what, I mean, you know, how does it look when that happens?

You know, this, this reminds me of the 2008 and 2012.

Presidential elections. We just had Ron Paul on the pro on our weekly program last.

Huge fan of Ron Paul.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he was on and we were talk. And one of the things I brought up to him was so bizarre is that all these people always tell, you know, all the conservatives, especially Republicans, they have this real fond saying. They say, well, I love Ron Paul's monetary economics. I just hate his foreign policy.

And you know, he's right about his foreign policy. I mean, you know, if he would, if he would just pander a little bit, he could have won. If he would just say, look at, we'll, we'll hang out in Israel, we'll do everything we're doing for Israel and we won't let Iran get a nuke. You know, if you just would have Said that he probably would be president and the whole country would be better off.

Well, but take that logic. Take the logic of someone who says, I really like Ron Paul's in the Fed message. I like his sound money message. I just don't like his foreign policy message. When you take that and you add one plus one plus one, you get a very strange answer. And that is that how in the world can you finance our foreign policy without a Federal Reserve? In other words, they want to get rid of the Fed they hate, they want sound money and they want to keep dropping bombs on everybody. And you see, you can't, you have to have a Fed.

You can't do both.

You have to have a Fed in order to fund those wars.

So of course, and that's why the central bankers love war. And we're never going to have peace as long as the central bankers run the world. Because.

It'S more than the military industrial complex. That's just the first tier that everybody sees is somewhat obvious. The real complex is the government central banking complex. That's the real thing that creates the war. They have to have the war machine. They finance both sides. It's absurd.

People just don't think about it in terms of basic incentive. I mean, when I'm walking around in my own city, there's certain incentives that I have and there's certain incentives that I don't have. I mean, everybody in their own life can think of, why do I get up and go to work? I go up and go to work because I need money. And those are real basic incentives that we all understand. But many times we don't apply that same logic to things like central banks. What does a central bank want? It wants to loan money to a government. How do you loan money to governments? You create a demand for loans from the government. What's the perfect way to create demand for the government for a loan? A war. So, I mean, so when you really back up into it, what you just said is very correct, but it's because of the incentives. And many people don't think that far. They just, they realize that they're driven by incentives, but they forget that these guys who are Republicans, Democrats, central bankers, whatever the case might be, they have incentives too. And usually they're contrary to what is best for this nation going forward.

Yeah, no question about it. So what does the bankruptcy look like? Is it just inflation? I mean, not just that could be really bad, obviously. But when you say bankruptcy of a country, I mean, how does it look?

Look, America is unique in the fact that it does have more wealth on paper and even in physical form than many other nations. I mean, so we are very, very, very rich, relatively speaking. And again, that means that the bankruptcy is going to first take the form of a psychological pain. It's a psychological denial. It's no, China is not getting bigger, no, China is going to fail. No the Euro is going to crash, no.

The Middle east stocks can't possibly rise. No, you know, India is not going to rise because it's very America centric. So there's a psychological denial which will cause many people not to diversify their investments, not take advantage of foreign growth, and therefore they'll stay right here in the United States. And as that ship sinks, we're going to continue to see that psychological pain, but the actual physical and financial pain that's going to be inflicted is going to be, as you mentioned, inflation in the fact that we have printed so many dollars and there's so much demand for the dollar. Therefore the central bank has a permission slip to print money whenever we have a problem. Think about the Alan Greenspan doctrine. The Greenspan doctrine was this 1987, Alan Greenspan gets into the Federal Reserve, he's the chairman, and we have a big stock market crash. He cuts rates as the solution in 1994, the tequila hangover, he cuts rates. 1997 and 1998, the Asian financial crisis, Long Term Capital Management debacle, all that. The fed cuts rates. 2001, they cut rates. 2003, they cut rates. I mean, they just, it's all they do. And they print more money. And print more money. Well over time, once that becomes the solution to everything, then you become addicted to that solution. Well, here's the problem. If the dollar itself is not in demand everywhere like it is now, then you lose that permission slip to print money. Then you can't solve the problems of the nation by simply hitting the print button because there's nobody around the world who's willing to hold those. And that's how the whole thing works. If we can print the money and then get it out of the country, then we don't have that inflation. But what happens in a case like this is where you don't have that global demand for the dollar because maybe people want to hold Yuan, or maybe people want to hold Euros, or maybe they want to hold gold, something like that. Well, then they don't need as many dollars. And as that demand for dollars goes down, we also lose the permission slip to create an excess of supply. And here's the Big, big kicker here. If you live in an economy, Jason, that let's say that we live in this play economy or this fake economy, and it has a million dollars total supply. That's it. That's the total money supply. Well, you have no houses that cost $2 million. I mean, it's impossible. Everything has to cost less than a million dollars. In fact, it has to cost dramatically less because you have to spread everything out across that, just that amount. Well, that's in essence what we have done. We have driven up the amount of money and then we're surprised when our 401ks go up or when our house values go up or when we get a raise. In fact, where we are today, Jason, and this is that psychological pain I'm trying to explain, we live in a time now where the present must be the minimum. People are dissatisfied. If the market does not go up, something is wrong. If they don't get a raise, something is wrong. If their house value doesn't go up, something is wrong. If their IRA doesn't go up, everything. They're addicted to the present being the minimum. Everything has to be the minimum. Everything has to go up from here. And the problem with that is that it's completely unsustainable. A, it's not how things have worked throughout history because of the gold standard, and B, that's an unsustainable model. Things cannot continue to go up in value. So here's what we say, that as we see a decline in the demand for the dollar around the world and, and for U.S. debt, that's going to translate into an overall deflation in the US Prices. It'll begin with an inflation. You have all of these dollars come back from around the world. Perhaps it happens instantly, but I think it'll happen slowly. You have all these dollars flowing back, and then we have to suck them out. How do we do that? We suck money out of the system by raising interest rates. If you and I are driving down the road and we see a bank and they're saying, hey, we'll give you 8% a year for a CD, you know, we're hitting the brakes and taking all of our money out of the mattress and throwing it in the bank, that's how the banking community, that's how the banking industry sucks money out of the, out of the economy to prevent high inflation. And so what they'll do is they'll suck the money in through high interest rates. And that seems to fix the problem. But we have so much excess money that we're Going to have to keep doing that over and over and over again to where it's going to cause major problems with. You know, think about the trillion dollars we have in student loan debt. Think about the NS growing, think about all the credit card debt. Think about all the adjustable rate mortgages out there. I mean, it's just a mess. And so if you get higher interest rates, you know, that's going to be very devastating to people. And this present is the minimum kind of psychology where everything should go up that's going to be destroyed. And in fact it's going to be the opposite. Things will be declining and deflating back to a place of normalcy and back to a place of sanity. And that's, I think, going to be the hardest thing for people to understand is that things don't go up anymore. They just seem to be going down every year. And that's because we have too much money in the system. It's going to have to be reduced over time because the global demand will not always exist for it. And that means that housing prices, stock prices, you know, the amount you pay for or the amount you get paid when you go to work, all of those things are all factors based upon the amount of money in the system. And if the, if the money supply shrinks, so do all those values.

Right? Okay. So if the money supply shrinks, then we have deflation. If it expands, we have inflation. I mean, that's the general rule. As you know, Milton Friedman would have said, you know, money inflation is a, is, is and is always a monetary phenomenon or something like that is famous quote.

So you're saying that. I mean, I think the opposite will happen. Happen. I think that the, the government will print their way out of the irresponsible problem they've created. They'll just create more money out of thin air. And if other governments won't buy our Treasuries, you know, of course we'll, we'll attempt to throw our weight around and bully them into it, whether by, you know, trade agreements or visa requirements or maybe invading the country with the military and you know, whatever. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just, just saying this is what goes on.

Okay, well, I think we're on the same page there. We're just, we're probably coming at it from different angles. What I'm saying is, is that we are going to see a period of great inflation. It's going to be a hyperinflation of sorts. But hyperinflation never lasts forever. It has to. It always ends in a period of great deflation and revaluation. So it'll begin as a period of inflation, but.

The rates will have to go up in correspondence with that. And the rates, we're not going to be able to get them high enough to be able to manage the excessive amounts of money. So even if they print money, if it doesn't leave the country, they're just going to be creating more inflation. So they'll have to raise interest rates. It's a vicious cycle. So it'll begin as inflation. There'll be a big response to the inflation. And then as they raise interest rates and as the economy grinds to a halt, then we move into a period of deflation because again, they don't have a permission slip to print money anymore. If the Chinese will hold the dollars and keep them out of our banking system, we don't have inflation. But if we print them, if the Fed prints them and they don't leave the country, that's inflation. You can't get rid of that. So they can print all they want to. If it doesn't leave the country, then you have inflation. Therefore they'll have to raise rates, and then that will stop working so they can keep printing like you're saying. But there will come a time when, if the money is not demanded outside of the country, they won't. They'll be smart enough not to hit it because they'll just be creating a terrible amount of inflation that will ultimately lead to a period of deflation as we move back to a level of sanity.

So I think one of the challenges when we're looking at this type of, very obviously the economy in the country is very complex, but then you take it to a global scale and it gets incredibly complex. And so what economists are trying to do is anticipate how people, countries, companies will react to various stimuli. And, you know, like in the past 10 years, almost every prediction I've made about the economy and the real estate market has come true, except one glaring mistake I've made. And the glaring mistake is interest rates. If you asked me in 2005, would we have, you know, significantly higher rates by 2008? Okay, I would have said yes, and I did, publicly. And so I was completely wrong about this. And the reason I was wrong is because it doesn't make sense. And this isn't just about logic and math. There's so much more going on here that is perverting the incentives. And one of the things that's doing that is, is this Giant government we have with its military and with the fact that it can kind of defy gravity and kick the can down the road. I mean, it's been doing it for a long, long time and it's really doing it now in insanely. But, you know, who's to say, Jerry, how much, you know, deficit and how much debt and how much unfunded entitlements for the future we can withstand? Is that number 17 trillion? Is that number 60 trillion or 220 trillion? I had Lawrence Cutlikoff on the show and he says unfunded mandates are 220 trillion with a T dollars. The whole, the whole GDP of the planet is only about 60 trillion a year. I mean, that's insane, right? And we would all agree with that, but it doesn't exist in a rationale world. I agree. If you do the math, you know. Absolutely. I mean, we should be sucking wind by now and having 25% interest rates. But it's not just math, you know, I mean. Thoughts?

Well, I would say that's certainly true. I mean, the interest rates being so low now, it, again, as you, you even use this word, it's distorting all. It's artificial, it's distorting incentives, it's distorting the overall market. It's hurting savers, it's hurting people who. It's punishing those who want to save. It's encouraging speculation. It's doing everything, everything that we did in 2007, we haven't learned a single lesson from. We're just repeating it over and over and over again. And countries get a few chances to do this, Jason. They don't get, they don't get a chance for. They don't get a pass forever. And you already have countries like China, Russia, India, the brics, nations who are coming together trying to say, look, we've got to come up with a different solution.

We, you can't blame them. We're exporting our inflation to them. They're the ones hit with it, not us. I mean, you know, we are a little bit, but, you know, it hurts them more. It's really unfair, you know, it really, it really is.

And it's becoming more exposed as to America's true intentions with all of this. I mean, you know, back in.

2000, September 24, 2000, it was the September of 2000, Saddam Hussein emerged from a meeting with all of his cronies and they had decided to take a gamble and move from accepting dollars for all of their crude oil to accepting euros about three or Four years later, he was hanging from a tree. And then you had Iran do something similar. You had North Korea do something similar. They said, we're not going to pay for anything except for we're only going to use Euros. We're only going to buy from people who sell in euro. And then you had Venezuela do the same thing. And then you have Bush talking about this axis of evil, these evil, evil countries. Who.

The people that don't participate in the Central Banking cartel are the evil ones. Right.

Conveniently, these countries are extremely evil. They have terrible human rights records, and therefore, we need to isolate them and call them the axis of evil. By the way, ignoring Saudi Arabia, who still publicly beheads people and still has terrible human rights. If you're gonna talk about human human rights, I mean, Saudi Arabia tops the list. Or China. But there was no mention of that, because China and Saudi Arabia understand how the drill works. You use the US Dollar and you don't fight back. Well, China has been fighting that. Russia has been fighting that. And you're beginning to see Russia now being labeled as a part of this axis of evil. It's an evil empire again, this colder war we're seeing. So it's all has to do with protecting our petrodollar system that we have built back. We built this back in the 70s after the Bretton woods system broke down. And so the petrodollar system now is breaking down before our eyes. Many countries are moving away from using oil for dollars and dollars for oil. Instead, they're looking for other things. China and Russia are using their own currencies when doing trade and oil. And see, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about, Jason. If. If everybody around the world must have a dollar in order to buy oil, then it creates that artificial demand for the dollar. And that's exactly what we've done. We've created an artificial demand for the dollar that didn't exist prior to the 70s. Everybody has to have it. They don't want to have it. They have to have it. Well, what happens when that goes away? Well, suddenly you've got to figure out what to do with all these trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. And if those things aren't going to be held by all these countries, they're going to have to come back here, and then we're going to have to decide either, A, everything that we have is now going to have to be worth more, or B, we're going to have to suck this money out of the system and raise Rates and that's going to. Cause, you know, it'll lead to a period of deflation. This is what I'm saying.

Okay, so. So let me just ask you about that before you go on. What you're saying is that basically if those dollars have to come back, that's because the US Is no longer the reserve currency. The dollar is no longer the reserve currency.

Yeah. There's no further demand. There's no need. I don't need to hold the dollar. I can hold my own currency because now I have other countries who are willing to take my currency for things instead of making me.

Convert to a dollar. And so because all of these nations around the world with a gun to the head artificially have to prop up this artificial demand for the dollar to buy things, it's created this permission slip for the Fed. Well, anytime we got a problem, we just print money. Well, that's fine. But what happens whenever these countries begin to trade in their own currencies? They don't have to keep the dollar around, so they send the dollar back, and when the Fed hits the print button, then it doesn't go anywhere. All the money stays in the country. And that's when the Fed, that's when the game is over.

Okay, so what would lead up to that? What would have to happen? And what you're describing is the dollar not being the reserve currency anymore, right?

Exactly. Yeah. It could take on a number of things that could happen. Number one, Saudi Arabia could suddenly decide that it no longer wants to use the dollar. It's tired of the U.S. it's tight. You know, it's going to have a new deal with China or a new deal with Russia. So you could see something like that. You could see. I think Saudi Arabia in many ways is the linchpin that props up the dollar more than people realize. Because.

Because we sent our economic hitman over there to do the job years ago. So, yeah, Saudi Arabia was a wasteland. We turned it into a semi modern country. I don't want to say it's modern. When they're cutting heads and hands off people, it's, it's despicable. But yeah, go ahead.

Well, of course, that, that'll be a very big shock, I think, for many Americans when they see bombs falling on Saudi Arabia because they've always thought that Saudi Arabia was somehow different than all of the other Islamic terrorist regimes that are over there in the Middle East. They've always thought Saudi Arabia was our buddy. They didn't realize that it was just a backroom financial deal that as soon as it goes wrong, the bombs are gonna fall. I mean, the United States hates Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia hates the United States. That's no secret. But what is a secret is why we like each other. We like each other because they take dollars for oil and they don't complain about it. And they turn around and take those dollars and they invest them in U.S. bonds. It's called the petrodollar recycling. It's been going on for years. And so Saudi Arabia gets the whole thing and they get all the benefits. But you've got groups like ISIS now running around saying Saudi is the great Satan, they want to take it down. And so over time, when this royal Saudi family, which has really buddied up with America, when they lose power or when they change their minds, the whole balance of power in the Middle east changes and the demand for the dollar certainly goes with it. So the US is playing a very dangerous game, trying to manage all of its relationships around the world, trying to keep peace with the right people and trying to continue to fight the other people. And in the long run, it's all going to break down.

So Saudi Arabia, okay, let me ask you one thing about that. So one thing you didn't address in that equation, which I agree with so far, is the fact that Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle east is about to lose its biggest oil customer. Because we are probably going to become an actual oil exporter pretty soon. I mean, the US is so much richer in terms of oil than we ever realized. And then Canada of course is too. I mean, the US is going to be energy independent. I mean, granted it might be with fossil fuels, but to the chagrin of the Obama regime. But you know, we, we are rich in natural resources, as you mentioned earlier, and we didn't even know it until fracking came along and, and oil sands technologies, tar sands. So, you know, who cares about Saudi Arabia? You know, they're gonna, they're, they're just gonna have the rest of the world a bunch of smaller customers after we're gone.

Well, maybe, I mean, the way to look at it perhaps differently is to say that, you know, somebody like Saudi Arabia.

They create an artificial demand for the US dollar because they sell their oil in dollars and because they do it, other OPEC nations do it. So it's kind of a domino theory. If the US begins exporting oil and doesn't need Saudi Arabia anymore, then why would Saudi Arabia choose to sell all of its oil in dollars? Why not sell it in yuan? Why not sell it in a different country currency where somebody's actually going to give them a benefit. And so that's the thing. We can sell all of our oil in our own currency, but if we lose all of our buddies around the world who are agreeing to doing the same thing, we're still in the same boat. So we have to, in other words, we have to have a global demand for our debt and we have to maintain a global demand for our currency. If we don't, then we implode. And I think that's the, that's the risk that's facing Washington right now. They have to maintain this demand globally for both. And if we, and this is the double edged sword of the oil exports that we have. Yes, we certainly have an oil renaissance happening here, albeit it's shale, it's not pure conventional oil, but nevertheless, we are still exporting that and we're going to be able to export it and we're going to do very well with that. But again, that just basically shoots all of our friends in the face who have been agreeing to take our currency for everything. So if we're now their challenger, they lose their incentive to continue to prop up our currency. So again, it's one of those things where it's a real difficult thing for the United States. And it's really going to be interesting over the next decade to see how Washington handles this going forward. Especially all the oil you just brought up. That's a whole other can of worms.

Yeah, yeah, it certainly is. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure. That is definitely for sure. The other wild card, Jerry, that I think it's worth discussing just for a moment is that, you know, of course these countries are probably pretty disgusted with the US spending and the exporting of inflation. I mean, you know, China sells stuff to us, we buy it and then we depreciate the value of the currency. So we force the them to sell things on sale to us for less than they thought they were getting, which is, you know, definitely not a cool deal for them. But you know, it's not like the US is going to sit idly by and let the whole world just decide they're going to trade outside of the dollar and, you know, not go with the, the Bretton woods plan and then the Petrodollar plan.

I mean, you know, we're going to do something about it, right? We're gonna, we're gonna throw our weight around and say, hey, look, you know, if you're not gonna trade in the Dollar. Then we're gonna. We're gonna pressure you somehow. Maybe we'll. Oh, yeah, maybe we'll blow up your satellite. Maybe we'll, you know, and this is not a friendly game. Okay. You know, or. Or maybe we just won't buy as much from you. Or maybe we'll impose tariffs or visa requirements. Or, you know, you can hurt other countries in a zillion different ways and pressure them in so many ways, you know?

That's right. That's right. Empires don't have friends. They have subjects in America.

Good point. Yeah.

And America is no doubt an empire, whether, you know, maybe a reluctant empire, but it's an empire. And. Yeah. I mean, countries around the world, when they decide to make a change and the United States tries to woo them back, they're going to have to do better than they have already. I mean, for example, the United States has been over there messing around and, you know, with its Asian pivot, it's over in the South Asian area, Southeast Asia, and it's been brokering deals, especially the one that's made all the headlines, the ttp. And there's been a lot of concern about the fact that China has been left out of that trade agreement. And so the United States has really just kind of shot itself in the foot. It's really not doing a great job of reaching out and embracing the emerging countries. It's been very selective with the ones that it's befriending. And China and Russia have been picking up the slack, and they have been forming relationships with many of these other emerging nations. So you're really kind of developing this bipolar world, one that supports NATO and the US and the west, and another that supports this BRICS kind of development. And I think that's where you end up. You end up in a place where somebody's going to have to choose sides, that the US has kind of lost its ability now to kind of come across as an honest agent or an honest broker. I think its hand has been shown. Everybody knows now. I mean, not only that we're spying on the. We're spying on all of our creditors. You just go down. You go down the list and you think, gosh, when does the blowback really hit the United States? I don't even think we've even seen the blowback from the Snowden affair. I think Americans themselves are still trying to figure out what that even means. I don't think many people even know how to process that, let alone the companies around the world, the foreign corporations who have been targets of that there will be blowbacks.

When you say that, do you mean NSA spying that Snowden revealed to the world?

Yeah, I should clarify. Yeah, I'm referring to the NSA spying, you know, that's been going on, you know, for so long and we really haven't. I mean, imagine, Jason, if we were to find out that China were, you know, was actually aggressively, you know, looking at us through our television screens as we sat and watched TV on the couch. I mean, wouldn't we be a little upset about that? Wouldn't we have a little more distrust about China? Wouldn't we be a little more concerned? It's almost as if America just says, well, deal with it. You know, that's just tough. We just gotta protect our own. And they don't realize that these nations have feelings and they have, you know, they also have their own share of wisdom. And they're gonna say, this may not be the, the best thing to be hanging out with America, the way that they're proceeding. And I think over time, you're going to have a severe blowback from that. We're already beginning to see that in the technology industry, that many of our big tech companies are running into problems because of the nsa. So I think it's just this long, slow grind, Jason, that we continue to see this downward spiral. I don't think it's a. Off the cliff or we run into a brick wall and it's all over. I don't subscribe to that theory. I think it's a slow grind.

A terrible slow process that is humiliating both psychologically and financially. Our standing in the world is already being questioned now. I mean, there's so many different things we could talk about, but yes, it is. I think that's where we're heading.

Okay, good points. So what should people do? We've talked about extensively about the problem and, you know, in hundreds of other episodes, I've done the same. But. But what. What's the best game plan for one to protect oneself against the, the, the problems we face?

Well, I'll tell you, you know, I, I have an interesting story to share. I was living in, in Texas. I was living in Houston, Texas, of all places. Very big, big city. It's not where I'm originally from, but I went down there to business, was down there for some time and about, oh, I don't know, just a few years ago, something in me just really convicted me and, you know, I'm sure it was the Lord. And I just sensed that I had to get out of Houston and Get out into the middle of nowhere. And so my wife and I began doing research. We said, where will we move? Where will we go? And we started looking and we figured out, we decided to move to northwest Arkansas based upon all these different factors that we kind of did a little bit spreadsheet. We really got kind of nerdy about it, but we really wanted to figure out where's the best place to go for us and for our situation. We moved up here. We got a mini ranch. We got. We have. We built a garden. We were slowly getting off the grid. We have wood burning fireplaces or wood burning stoves. And all of our buildings out here, we have. We're slowly getting off the grid with water, with a well. I mean, we're doing everything that we possibly can. Because, Jason, I think not just the financial things that we've been talking about are a threat to the American people, but at the same time, some of the punitive damage that's going to come to America is not just going to come through the barrel of a gun. It's going to come through a cyber attack that shuts down your whole electric grid, or it's going to come through a cyber attack that takes down your bank. It's going to come through a cyber attack that takes down your local utilities. And so currently, local utility companies, Wall Street Journal has been reporting on this ad nauseam constantly about how many of these public utilities here in America are dealing with unbelievable amounts of cyber attacks from China, Russia and other places like that, Iran. And so eventually one of those are going to succeed. I think it's imperative for people to be ready. If they're not, if they are currently living in a city, I think they can certainly take precautions. There's some good books out there on urban survival. I'm sure you have some good materials as well.

Hey, I do a whole show on it, the holistic survival show. So there you go. There's a lot of. A lot of great resources. And, you know, one of the things I want to stress, Jerry, is that this is not. This is not nutty, okay? I mean, it's nutty if you spend your whole life on it and you make it everything you do, but just, you know, basically for about two or three hundred dollars per person in your household, you can gain a huge edge in. In just prudent, rational preparedness. This is not difficult to do, okay? Even if you live in a city, you know, it's. It's like the old. The old story of, you know, two hikers, they. They're they're hiking in the woods and they see a bear. And, and, and, and one of them, they, they start running away from the bear and, and you know, you've heard this trite, you know, story. It's a cliche, okay? And one of them stops to, you know, tighten his shoelaces and the, and the other says, hey, what are you doing, man? Do you got to keep running? And he, and he says, and he says, forget about your shoelaces, tightening them. You can't outrun a bear. And he says, I don't need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you. Right? And, and that's really what it is. As vicious as that sounds, you just need to outlive or out survive the people around you. Because, you know, when you do, the resources will, will, you know, there will be resources available left over to some extent at least. So, you know, I think, I think three days is the first magic number, and then three weeks is the next one. Because three, it's three days. Water is, you know, you're gonna die if you don't drink for three days, okay? And, or you're gonna get close and, and food. It's three weeks is the number. And then, you know, have a ham radio for communications off the grid, you know, just some really simple stuff, you know, this is not difficult.

No, no, it's really not. And it's really, as you pointed out, it's not nutty. I think what's nutty is buying into the whole idea of the American dream and thinking that somehow that, you know, that we're not facing real serious issues and problems. I think, you know, being awake and aware to that is vital. What are some of the things we do, Jason? We teach something called the five levels of financial freedom. It's completely free. People can log on to our website and see it there. It's FTM.

Give out that website.

Yeah, it's FTM daily dot com. That's FTM. Like follow the money ftmdaily.com five levels and there they can.

What are those five levels?

Those five levels are the same five levels. What they are is they're five steps. They're kind of large steps with some micro things inside of them, but they're kind of the big planks, these five steps that we have taken, my wife and I to financial freedom. So we call them the five levels to financial freedom. And we went from, you know, literally from a one bedroom apartment to, you know, where we are now. And we're much better off now. Than when we were. And we use, we use these five levels to get there. And they, they involve A diversifying your savings, B diversifying your investments, C diversifying your income sources. And also along with that are basic, as you mentioned, preparatory type of actions. We talk about the need for having a go bag. We talk about the need for having food and water storage. We talk about the need for people to actually invest in a portion of their savings, not actually invest, but take a portion of their savings and diversify it. Give you one example, we have something called what we call dsl. It's our diversified six month liquid savings reserve. Most people tell you hey, you should have three months of liquid savings or maybe even six months of liquid savings. Well, we agree, but we did a back test in a study that showed that if you will take that savings and not just throw it in US dollars, but if you'll diversify it, you can really get a lot more bang for your buck. We did a study that went back 25 years that showed that if you had put your money just in three take your six months of liquidity and threw it in three month T bills and just kept reinvesting them over and over again, or if you had taken that same six months liquidity and put one third of it in the T bills and then taken the other third and put it into stable foreign currencies and taken the other third, the final third and put it into gold and silver for a period of 25 years, the return is just outrageous. And that's, and that's even. We even took out some of the extra gains in gold and silver just to make sure it wasn't being jacked up by that price, the price gain in metals. So that's one thing. We diversify our savings. We also diversify our investments with something we call pace. It's precious metals, P, A is agriculture, C is commodities and E is energy. So we talk about those areas as ways to diversify our investments against some sort of inflation. And then we also teach the absolute importance, and I think this is one of the most important things for people today is to diversify their income streams. I don't know how many people I've met over the years who have one income stream, maybe two income streams. The average US family today in America here is three income streams. Usually mom and dad have an income stream and then there's usually some sort of CD or money market account that throws off pennies and interest and that's usually their three income streams. And then they hope to get A few more by the time they retire. Well, we teach the importance of having many, many income streams. And so we have a income university at our website where you can learn 22 different income streams how to create them. Now, some people have more time than money and other people have more money than time. So some people may not be able to get all 22 income streams because they don't have, you know, the ability. But if you have time, you can always trade it and receive money. And if you have money, you can always take that and enhance its returns and do better as well. Some people will tell you they don't have either. And those people usually have their priorities backwards. Some people will say that they, that they, that they have both. And that's of course a great place to be if you have both time and money. But all 22 income streams cover, you know, all of those different, you know, situations whether you have too much time but no money or a lot of money but not a lot of time. You know, there's plenty of things that everybody can do. And I think that oftentimes we get so obsessed with trying to pay off debt and I think that's a good thing. But oftentimes we forget that we can add on new income streams.

Let me comment on the debt thing for just a moment if I may. And I know we're kind of wrapping up here, we've been going a while but you know, one of the things few people really understand, you know, deeply and my listeners do because I've talked about it for so many ahead prior episodes. But it's, it's the idea that in an inflationary environment, and we both think we are going to see some significant inflation, okay, in an inflationary environment, debt actually transfers wealth from lenders to borrowers. Borrowers are actually enriched by debt because they pay the debt back in cheaper, cheaper dollars. And if you look at what happened in the Weimar Republic, you know, where lenders, you know, and borrowers and the way they interacted together, you just see and then, and then when you put the debt against a commodity that has universal need and my love is real estate. And so, you know, I love getting a 30 year mortgage below the rate of real inflation on low priced real estate. Estate, okay, that's necessity housing, not luxury housing at all. And you know, that throws off cash flow the day I buy it. But then the debt is debased by inflation. I call this thing, I created a little trademark term. It's a mouthful. It's inflation induced debt destruction and it's it's just an amazing phenomenon. It's like the hidden wealth creator. Yeah. And, and then you have a commodity like precious metals as a commodity, you know, because think of what little houses or apartment buildings are made of. They're made of copper wire. That's commodity. Lumber, concrete, petroleum products, glass, steel. You know, these are all things that are traded globally, not indexed to any one currency. And you know, I just think that's such a good equation. And then, you know, have some metals and some other things and preparedness too, of course. But, but like, I wouldn't totally rush to pay off debt unless it's consumer debt. I like the mortgage debt because that's being paid by someone else. I don't, I don't pay my own real estate debt. My tenants.

I think that's a really good strategy. We mentioned that too. The one caveat with that is to make sure that, you know, your audience or whoever who follows that advice.

Locks it in on a fixed interest rate.

Oh, most definitely. Never adjustable rates.

Because if you have an adjustable rate, it works against you actually, you know.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You're gonna, you're gonna get payment shock when, when the inflation finally does hit and the rates go up. But you know, who knows how long they'll kick that can down the road? But yeah, I mean, you know, when you're borrowing, I'd say real inflation now, it's always understated by the government. Real inflation now is probably, you know, 6 to 8%. Okay. In reality, although the government would have us believe it's much lower. And so if you can borrow at four and a half percent for three decades, like someone takes out that mortgage today, they're not going to make the last payment, or I should say their tenants not going to make the last payment until 2044. Do you know how much inflation we'll probably see in the next three days?

Oh, sure.

It's insane.

Well, and you know, Jason, I mean, you know, I'm an economist. I do a lot of investing. I'm a real estate investor. And you know, people who are.

I didn't know that. I'm glad to hear it. You like real estate?

Oh, sure, yeah. It's one of our income streams that we love, you know, and we've built many different income streams. And I love rental real estate and I love, as you said, that 30 year mortgage. I would take a 40 or 50 year mortgage.

Oh, I'd take a 200 year if I could. Yeah.

Unlike Dave Ramsey and other people who say don't have don't have any debt at all. But, but we, but we do like the whole concept of real estate. But many people think today, as you well know, are very happy to borrow as much as they possibly can. Some of the wealthiest people I know are borrowing to the hilt at fixed interest rates.

Oh yeah, yeah. And, and borrowing specifically against a commodity that has universal need like housing.

Exactly.

You know that's, that's a great deal. And, and of course it's the most tax favored asset in America too. And you know, we don't even have time to go into that one. But you know, taxes are, you know, the modern version of slavery, so. Oh sure, yeah, yeah. If you, if you want to really lower your tax bill, own a lot of long term, buy and hold income property.

I agree.

Just, just prudent, non sexy boring stuff. And in markets that don't make the headlines, it's not going to be Southern California, you know, it's, it's going to be, you know, you own, own stuff in Texas and Georgia and Tennessee. You know, these are great markets. We love.

Well, you know, many of the things that we teach over at our website include things like options trading for people who, you know, maybe want to do that. Rental real estate, for sure. We also talk about affiliate marketing. I mean we have again we 22 different income streams. So you know, anybody out, anybody who out there who's just wanting to add another income stream on, you know, that's, that's what we love to do. We love to help them.

Yeah, yeah, good stuff, Good stuff. Really, really good. Jerry, give out your website again.

Yeah, it's f FTM like follow the money. FTM daily.com and just remember from the.

Nixon Watergate days, Deep Throat said follow the Money. So, so there you go. Yeah, yeah, good stuff. And, and the book is on Amazon with four and a half stars, good reviews and any closing thoughts?

I would just tell people to, you know, really keep their eyes open right now. This is a, you know, I expect the market overall to probably, probably do fairly well as we head into the end of the year and as we head into the next year. This is historically from the Stock Traders Almanac and from all the investors, you know, all the different cycles that we've studied. This is usually the best time to be in the market this third and fourth year of a presidential election or of candidacy and the presidential cycle. And so the third and fourth year are often great times to be in the market. We also offer at our website a market barometer. We were able to step aside and get out of the market market before the collapse. And I really do pride our system on catching that. I expect to see another major collapse. I don't expect it to come within the next year. I think we're still a couple of years out, but we don't really guess at that. We have a system that tells us called our market barometer. And it has a great track record going back all the way to the 1929 crash. We back tested it. And so people who want, you know, maybe they have money in a 401k or an IRA and they say, you know, I don't want to sit through another one of these major collapses. Well, we have a market barometer that is available at our website that people should definitely check out. It's. It's a. Jerry.

Jerry, I gotta say, I'm a little surprised that you're a stock market fan. You know, I call it the modern version of organized crime. And, you know, a conservative guy like you, I would think that you wouldn't be too in favor of the stock market.

Yeah, the stock market has been really, really good to me because I'm a trend trader. And so I trade with the trend. And so when the market goes down, I make money. And when the market goes up, I make money because I use options and I use, you know, inverse ETFs and leveraged ETFs. And so it's been really good to me. So it doesn't really matter what the market's doing. I don't really root for the market to go up. I just root for the market to move. Because if the market moves, I make money. And now when the market's stagnant and stays in, kind of moves in a sideways motion. Okay, yeah, you're right. It's probably the, you know, bad place to be. But when it's going up and when it's going down, you know, I can't complain. I like the market at that time.

Good stuff. Well, Jerry Robinson, thank you so much for joining us today. The book again is Bankruptcy of Our Nation. And check it out on Amazon and all the usual places. Appreciate you joining us.

It's great to be here. Thanks, Jason. I've never really thought of Jason as subversive, but I just found out that's what Wall street considers him to be. Really? Now, how is that possible at all? Simple. Wall street believes that real estate investors are dangerous to their schemes because the dirty truth about income property is that it actually works in real life. I know. I mean, how many people do you know, not including insiders who created wealth with stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Those options are for people who only want to pretend they're getting ahead. Stocks and other non direct traded assets are a losing game for most people. The typical scenario is you make a little, you lose a little and spin your wheels for decades. That's because the corporate crooks running the stock and bond investing game will always see to it that they win. This means unless you're one of them, you will not win. And unluckily for Wall Street, Jason has a unique ability to make the everyday person understand investing the way it should be. He shows them a world where anything less than a 26% annual return Disappointing? Yep, and that's why Jason offers a one book set on creating wealth that comes with 20 digital download audios. He shows us how we can be excited about these scary times and exploit the incredible opportunities this present economy has afforded us. We can pick local markets untouched by the economic downturn, exploit packaged commodities investing and achieve exceptional returns safely and securely. I like how he teaches you how to protect the equity in your home before it disappears and how to outsource your debt obligations to the government. And this set of advanced strategies for wealth creation is being offered for only $197. To get your Creating Wealth Encyclopedia Book 1 complete with over 20 hours of audio, go to jasonhartman.com store if you want to be able to sit back and collect checks every month just like a banker. Jason's Creating Wealth Encyclopedia series is for you.

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. All rights Reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews. Please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email mediaartmanmedia.com Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc. Exclusively.