CW 985 - Prosperity in the Age of Decline, Preserve Wealth Through the Coming Business Cycles with Alan Beaulieu

Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome listeners from around the world and greetings from the Arctic Circle. Yes, I am very close to the North Pole. Almost caught a glimpse of Santa Claus and his elves. Just kidding, of course.

So we are at the ice hotel.

In Sweden on a venture alliance, or I should say adventure alliance trip. And it has been pretty spectacular, I think. I think everybody feels that way. A lot of bucket list once in a lifetime experiences the past few days and a couple more to come as we head to Stockholm. Today I slept and everybody slept in a room that was minus 5 degrees Celsius, which is equivalent to 23 degrees Fahrenheit. I did the conversion. I think I'm remembering correctly. The weather here has been, by ice hotel standards, spectacular. It has been perfect. I mean, it is sunny and gorgeous and you know, when it is sunny in a place like this, it is just glorious. The sky is so clear. It's. I just wish I could show you a picture of it. It is phenomenal. We are in one of the ice hotel rooms. We're in a regular room at the moment, which is just an icy room that's very cool looking with all kinds of ice sculpture. But the rooms that we stayed in were the better rooms. The problem is we couldn't record in that room because everybody keeps coming in and looking at them. During the day they open them up and then they close. Later in the day they let tours come in and visitors look at this because it's such an iconic place. I mean, this is such a truly unique hotel. There is a program on Netflix, can watch it and learn about the ice hotel in Sweden. But it's, it's amazing. This is, I believe, the original one. It's been built for 28 years. It melts every year and they build it again. I have a guest here with me, one of our members that is hesitantly agreed to come on the podcast. Carmen, say hello.

Hello.

She really didn't want to do this, folks, but I twisted her arm. Have you enjoyed the trip?

Oh, it's probably the best trip I've ever done. It's been amazing. Amazing.

Pretty much kind of a once in a lifetime thing.

Absolutely, yeah. It's just one of those things. If you come all the way here, then you want to do everything we've done. It's worth it.

Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. And the food has been interesting too. We've had some really interesting, like food and very gourmet. You know, one of the things. And you watch that Netflix documentary, I think, also on the Ice Hotel, they sourcing the food is a big job in the Arctic Circle, right?

Yeah. And, well, we didn't see it here, but from the show, they have areas, I think, close to the mines where they actually grow their own mushrooms and they just bake the local stuff here and they use that for the. For cooking. So it's amazing. And we got to try that last night, so that was great.

And reindeer meat.

Yes.

Which is. And we had moose. We had a five course dinner last night, I think. And we had reindeer, moose, and then salmon or some. Or arctic char, I think, anyway. Some fish. Yeah. And that's been great. And then the first day in Stockholm, we stayed at kind of a country type palace, actually. It's a palace that was built in 1630 called Rosersbergs. We did skeet shooting.

Yeah, that was fun, too.

That feels like a month ago.

I know. We've done so much. We've been busy, but it's been amazing.

Yeah. Tell us about some of these rooms now. The room you slept in, I mean, these sculptures in your room were amazing. You know, again, these art suites. Suite rooms at the Ice Hotel are open all day long during the day, and they close them at night because they become somebody's hotel room. But they open them for several hours during the day so people can look at them and tour them. And each room is done by a different artist. It takes two weeks to build it. And it's sculpted out of ice. It's truly amazing what they do. So tell us about your room. And then, like, what was your favorite room? I mean, they're all. It's like, hard to have a favorite.

It is hard. Yeah. I was lucky enough that I think my room was one of my favorites. It had like, snails type of theme and they had lights that change color and the icicles from the ceiling. Icicles with lights hanging from the ceiling. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable.

It's like a magical place to sleep.

It's like sleeping in art and, you know, somewhere where you never gonna find anything like this anywhere else.

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing. My room was called Daily Travelers. It was a really neat room. They had, like, sort of people etched out of the ice on the wall. What was your favorite? The space room.

The space room. I think it was my top.

That was pretty amazing. They had like two space suits etched in the wall. And then behind the bed, there was this globe etched out of ice. I mean, just. But it's hard to have a favorite. Like, some of these rooms have staircases etched out of ice.

I mean, incredible.

Yeah, yeah. There was one that it had just like the snow and the ice hanging from the ceiling, and it was just hanging there. I don't. I don't even understand how they did that, but it was incredible.

It is truly amazing. And then the embedded images in the ice, like in the chapel. They have a chapel here where they do weddings and stuff, and they have these embedded flowers embedded within the. I have no idea how they do that. It's truly, truly incredible. But how long you been real estate investing?

Well, it'll probably be two years now.

Two years. You've been to a few of our events before, right? You came to meet the masters in San Diego and then a couple others, I think too.

Yeah, probably it now between four or six events.

Yeah, yeah. Great, great, Good stuff. Where do you own properties?

Where are you investing right now? Just in Memphis.

Memphis only, huh? Yeah, Memphis just never quits. I have four properties in Memphis myself, and that is definitely one of our busiest markets. Indianapolis, pretty busy too. Those are places where we can still source some decent inventory. Any thoughts about the trip or about investing or anything? Let's wrap it up.

I probably will be talking about this trip for a long time because it's just been incredible. And then for investing, definitely something that I want to keep looking. I'm interested in looking at new construction and see if can change a little bit of what I have right now.

And your business, you have an Amazon business where you sell products on Amazon, huh? Yes. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, that's. You do really well with that. And then why real estate, though? Like, why invest in real estate? You've got your business. Your business does great. What's the real estate investing attraction?

It is all about cash flow and passive income.

Yeah, yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Talking on the podcast wasn't that bad, was it?

No, no, it wasn't.

She didn't want to do it, folks, but I talked her into it. Gonna get to our guest today. You're gonna love our guest. So stay tuned for that for a few minutes and be sure to join us in Philadelphia for our Creating wealth seminar in Philadelphia, that is, I believe, May 19, our first Northeast event for a big public seminar. We've done Venture alliance events there before. And then we've got Venture alliance the following weekend, Memorial Day weekend in New York City. So check those out@jason hartman.com.

It's my pleasure to welcome Alan Bolio. He is president at ITR Economics & Co author of Prosperity in the Age of Decline. How to lead your business and Preserve wealth through the Coming Business Cycles. Alan, welcome. How are.

You? Jason, thank you. And thank you for letting me be on your.

Show. It's good to have you on. Give our listeners a sense of geography and tell us where you're.

Located. Well, I lived in New Hampshire and traveled all over from there, but I have my roots here in southern New Hampshire. Beautiful part of the.

World. You just want to be near Bretton Woods, I guess.

Huh?

Yeah, there is that and grandchildren. Those are the two.

Draws. Good stuff. Good stuff. Of course, the Bretton woods agreement. Hopefully our listeners know what I'm referring to there. I think you do. Well. Good stuff. So business cycles. Business cycles are, I guess, you know, most pronounced in the Austrian school of economics, which I'm, I'm a believer. And you're a believer to a degree, as you say, you're not, you're not in favor of abolishing the Fed, you won't go that far, but generally a believer in the Austrian school concepts or you lean that way. We've had a bull market in stocks really for years now. I think a lot of people say we're living on borrowed time. I'm not sure I agree with that. And I'll tell you why, give you some, you know, food for discussion here. So when people talk about being scared about a business cycle shift that's eminent, they say, well, we've had this bull market, you know, for many years now and it's time for a correction. But we were so far in a low, that was such a trough we were coming off of that. I don't know if you can really measure from there when you talk about time, but would love to get your thoughts on that and, and just talk to you about the premise of the book and, and where we're going in general. So have at it. Whatever you want, wherever you want to take that.

One. All Right. Well, let's start with the stock market, and I think you bring up a good point. When you're coming off of that kind of trough, it's hard to always apply the rules of normality. I'm actually thinking there's, you know, a correction not far off, but not, not a bear market, which is a different item, as I'm sure we could have a series of corrections without entering into a real bear market. And that'll be enough, I think, when that happens to give people pause and to slow down some spending, especially since Americans have really drawn down on their savings accounts, there's not much left there. So when they feel their equity diminish in their 401k in their, you know, TV America accounts and so forth, I think that'll have an impact on the economy. Why? I think that's going to happen. That's a harder thing. As I look at my channel graphs, I see that signaling that we should be heading towards a correction. You know, it doesn't sound like it'd be a leading indicator to it, but the purchasing managers index from the ism, there's a rate of growth metric involved there that actually leads the stock market by a little bit. It's signaling there's a correction coming. So if that happens, it wouldn't surprise me at all. Jason, I'm sure you and everybody else on the planet would like to, you know, the disqualification that we all have. I can't time the market any better than anybody else can. I just can say there's something coming relatively soon, but I don't know if it's May 10th or June 12th. I would, I wouldn't tend to.

Understand. Right, right. Or even, or even which year. Yeah. It says a prediction game is pretty tough. It definitely is. There are a lot of factors here, and we've so far just talked about the stock market, not the, really the broader economy. But where do you think we're going? I mean, are we in for inflationary times or deflationary times or what? What's coming.

Next? Okay, well, we think in the near term the global economy is just going to cool a little as we finish this year and head into 2019, especially the first half of the year. Nothing significant. Just, you know, it's been pretty hot and it's just going to cool some, which will pull back the inflationary pressures for a little bit. But overall, I'm on board with an inflationary decade ahead. As we get to the 2000s, I think labor rates are going to be flying that more people Working will make for more consumption, which will increase the demand poll, as I'm sure you know. And then that increase demand is going to bid up price of commodities and you know, all of that just spells inflationary.

Pressures.

Yeah. And with the debt of the United States, you could even expect that as interest rates rise in the future, on the basis of normal inflation, we could find that the dollar weakens some which creates more inflation. And all in all, we could be looking at a, at first a very virtuous inflation trend which will prize all millennials. They don't have any idea what that is. And then we'll get to an unvirtuous non virtuous inflationary period late in the 2020s that'll lead to that Great Depression that we talk about in our book. It'll be a great time to retire for all of us baby boomers. My gosh. We'll have nice high interest rates, but it will be difficult on those that are left.

Working. Nice high interest rates, meaning you can earn from your savings high interest rates. You want high interest rates when you're a saver, obviously, but if you're a debtor, it's nice when they're low.

Right? Yeah, exactly right. Variable debt are going to be unhappy while all of us that are just living on fixed income or 401ks and IRAs and the rest are going to be happy as can.

Be. So you talk about the virtuous and non virtuous inflation cycles. So you say that inflation is coming. We're going to see fairly significant inflation. At first it's virtuous, then it's not virtuous. Tell us a little drill down on that a little bit if you.

Would. Sure. When inflation's at 2.5%, 3%, 3.5%, it's enough to get the Fed's attention so that they'll nudge up interest rates, but not so much that it'll cost the economy any real harm. I mean, if they nudge up 100 basis points and then they nudge up another 50 basis points and we're talking one year and then the next year, you know, that doesn't any real harm to the economy. As we cruise along at that kind of inflation, businesses are raising prices, which everybody should be thinking, how am I going to raise prices as we go into the future? And they can cover their labor increases, they can cover the commodity increases and inflation hides a multitude of sense and it allows businesses to just kind of continue on and be happy when inflation gets steeper and the Fed has to react more significantly. All of a sudden, people, ordinary people, are faced with some buying pressures. Their wages may not be keeping pace anymore. They may be finding that that car is just too expensive. The home prices have gone out of reach, especially with interest rates going up as far as they have. The affordability index is down. All those kind of things begin to compound. So that's an unfriendly part of the inflation cycle, Always near the end, always followed by a correction in the economy. It's a lot like.

Breathing. Right, Right. You know, inflation, though, really does benefit people who own real estate with lots of debt because it'll cause the price of the real estate to go up in value and the debt to go down in value. Essentially, you're paying the debt back in cheaper dollars, of course, which is the same business plan the country is engaging in on and, you know, with paying debt back to China and Japan, for example. Right, right. And it seems like you can really kind of bank on inflation because it seems like a very good deal for governments who like to spend money, you know, and that seems like a very good business plan for them. Would you.

Agree? It is. They have their market incentive for wanting some inflation just for the reasons that you said. The problem comes that that's a dangerous game to play. And historically, I can't think of an instance where somebody inflated themselves out of.

Debt.

Right. And the danger there is.

Demographics. Yeah. Which is the next thing I was going to ask you about because you've got a chapter in your book about, about the demographics driver. Boy, Demographics are a seriously important issue nowadays because we have this coalesce, I guess you all, you've always had it. But first of all, the, the demographic cohorts are so much larger than they used to be. You know, the baby boomers being such a giant cohort and then the millennials being even slightly bigger than the baby boomers by about 4 million people. You know, people are living longer and the impact is wide ranging. Wide ranging. Retirement age is still way too low. There's just no way to pay the bills on Social Security and.

Medicare. You know, you summed it up nicely. And I'll give you another fact, if I may, that right now in America, there are 40 million baby boomers drawing down on Medicare and prescription drugs in 12 short years. Just 12 years, that number goes to 70 million.

People. So from 40 to 70 million.

In 12 short years, we say, now how are we going to pay? Wow. Imagine the problem 12 years from.

Now. Yeah. And you can, and you can bet on that. Because it's as sure as the sun rising tomorrow. You know, you know those people are going to be 12 years older and you know how many people. So that's from 40 million to 70 million. Almost double in 12 years. Wow. We can't pay today. Go.

Ahead. Yeah, that's exactly it. And then I'm going to add in because you, you brought up something else about the debt. Made me think of this. Jason, thanks for bringing it up. Japan's demographics are worse than.

Ours. Oh.

Yeah. Japan's demographics are such that their population declines every.

Year. Japan will not exist in 50 years. It will not exist. You can't exist. You can't be a country if you don't have kids. Okay. You know, you just.

Can'T.

So now factor in, and I'm sure you already have, you probably, you know, step ahead of me. Here they are the second large foreign holder of U.S. treasury. As their tax base erodes and they need yen to take care of their aging population, the easiest thing to do is to sell those Treasuries. So as they sell Treasuries and sell Treasuries to convert dollars to yen, essentially that puts upward pressure on state's interest rates because we have to compete now against our own Treasuries in the world market. And flooding the market with any commodity automatically lowers the value. Think sinking dollar, higher inflation, higher interest rates. So Japan's demographic problems become a real financial problem. The United States, because we allowed ourselves to become this huge debtor.

Nation. Well, in Japan is the biggest debtor nation. I mean they're just. Japan has more debt than anybody. Right. Or at least any major country. It's insane. That debt to GDP ratio of Japan is mind boggling. It's so bad. But you know, like what is Japan going to do though? They're just going to pay higher rates and everybody's going to keep swallowing their debt.

Really? No, no. I think sooner or later, maybe I'm the first dumb to fall. Perhaps in that Great Depression scenario. Economies can't keep going under those conditions you just described. So manufacturing begins to go offshore. They don't have a lot of natural resources. Young people, they have chase opportunities elsewhere. So we end up with an island nation that's a wonderful place, great people, but can no longer support themselves. And that's the end of civilizations when that happens. Happens, Right, that's an over.

Exaggeration. Yeah.

Right. That's the point.

Across. Yeah, sure. But it's true. It is. You know, and interestingly, Japan doesn't really have a Whole bunch of assets to sell. Like, you know, the. A country that's large, like the U.S. if we got into trouble, we could just sell some stuff, you know, like the ports, maybe Dubai will buy them. You know, that kind of. That kind of idea. Right. And, you know, Greek, Greece, selling some islands to get out of their mess. And, you know, it's just. It's just.

Crazy. Well.

What. Tell us more about demographics, though. So we talked about Japan, we talked about the U.S. of course, there's more to it in both. But, you know, you also look at Europe. I mean, Europe is over, Russia is over. Japan is over. The US Is this nation of immigrants now. So it's not declining in that sense, but certainly it's a huge change in the population. What does the song all mean is we have the graying of America, but then we have all these young people coming up into a rather anemic employment market overall. I mean, I know unemployment is very, very low, and that's wonderful, but it doesn't really measure underemployment. People with philosophy degrees working in. In food service business, that doesn't work very well with big student loan debt especially. What are we going to.

Do?

Well, I do have a doctorate in philosophy, so I'm not working at food.

Service. Well, that's. That's good. That's good. Hey, listen, I think philosophy is a noble thing. It's one of my favorite topics. That's why I picked it. But, you know, there's not a lot of jobs in philosophy if you're not going to be a professor. Okay.

So. No, you're absolutely right. I think the answer to your question is more encouraging than you might think, because wages are going up in. We have a consulting practice here at our economics, and every single client we have in every single industry that we look at, they can't get enough people. They're bidding up for qualified people. So the thing is, we have to create labor Right. For the jobs, which means less college, more skills, more career education, as opposed to college.

Education. And I think Trump is so right on that. We really need vocational skills schools.

Again. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And we need to honor it. We need to sell it. We need to make it, you know.

A. We need to make it okay. It's. There's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. Someone's got to make widgets, you.

Know? Yeah, exactly.

So.

Absolutely. So. And. And I think those millennials are actually going to have a better wage increase than a lot of people think. And the other thing I'm excited about with Millennials. You know, I know it's easy to make fun of them, but the reality is people thought they'd always live downtown. They're getting older, they're having their one or two children, they're leaving downtown, they're going to suburbia. And they do. They rev up the economy. You know, they buy houses, fences, cars, pets, all the things that go with.

Suburbia.

Right. And they want children more than my generation, baby boomers wanted children. So that's a. Those are really positive things. They're buying cars. People said, oh, they'd never buy cars. They're the largest leasing group of automobiles in this country, and most of them are SUVs. I mean, these people are amazing. They save, they have budgets, they. They know what they want in life. I'm a real fan, and I think they are.

Secret. I agree. I think millennials are oddly frugal. And look, why wouldn't they be? Right? They saw their parents get burned in the economy and the housing market during their most formative years. Right. A lot of them were moving because of foreclosure. You know, I mean, so that impacts someone, especially in your, your teenage years. Right, right. It's very interesting. But, you know, interestingly, you say they're the largest group leasing cars, and about 36% of them are the buyers in the, in the home buying market now, too. But as a ratio now, that might just be because their numbers are so large. I mean, within. When there's 80 million of them, they're going to impact anything because their numbers are so large, but as a percentage of their own number, to me, it feels like they're not buying as many homes as, say, you know, the maybe boomers, I would think, in terms of relating to their, their own cohort. I'm not saying overall in the.

Marketplace. Sure. Well, Jason, I understand what you're saying, but I would ask you to look at millennials in two segments. The 30 to 35 year old versus the 25 to 30 year olds. Yeah, they are very different.

People. Yeah, I.

Agree. One group of different people. And I, and I don't know the number, and perhaps you can educate me. But that 30 to 35 group, I've been feeling, they're much more dynamic than that statistic might.

Indicate. That's the problem with calling millennials a millennial. It's a, it's too broad a brush. Because John Burns, the real estate researcher, he spoke at our last conference and he's been on the show too. And, you know, he said, look, Mark Zuckerberg's a millennial and so is my 18 year old daughter. They have nothing in common. Common. So you know.

It'S not a. Yeah, right. You talk in your book about the five sources of inflation. Can you tell us a little.

Bit about that in broad terms? We've already mentioned several of them. There's the increased wages which is going to create inflation. There's a likelihood of the debt of the United States and the debt of China leading to some devaluation of the dollar which creates some inflation. We think there'll be commodity inflation because of, of demand. Inflation also is very difficult. It doesn't seem that way. And it can be skewed by world events like China brought some disinflation and deflation to the world and so we didn't see any for a while. But through history, in our records go back to the 1400s, there are these major swings in inflation and we're just due. So one of the major causes is the business cycle. And as Jerry Ford once said, one of my favorites, the pendulum will swing circle. We're just due to see some inflation and millennials again. We're back to that group because we've been in a long quiet period. They won't have any idea how to live in a period of inflation. Even the 10 year burst that that is, they won't.

Understand. That's interesting. You know, I haven't had anyone really say that before, but it's a very good point you make. A millennial doesn't really know what inflation.

Is. Yeah.

Right. A Gen Xer and a baby boomer certainly do. I mean they were, they lived through the 70s even if, you know, even if the Gen Xer was very young then. Yeah, that's quite.

Interesting. So our job has to be to teach them. When I get an opportunity to speak to groups, if they're millennials there, and I always encourage them, go find somebody that's older than you and pretend you care about their stories. But listen to what they say about inflation.

You have to learn this.

It's a.

Must. Ask them about gas lines and waiting in line for gas for three hours, all this great.

Stuff.

The good news there is of course, Jason, that we're not going to have that worry again in the United States. That's one of the things it's so excited about. By the way, you just lit me up. We actually produce 96% of the energy that we consume in this country. And you know, we buy from Canada, largest foreign Mexico, second largest, third largest in Saudi Arabia. We actually refine Most of the Saudi oil, we use very little internally. We sell the refined products back out. Now we at this point really don't need the Middle East. And it's just a place you and I have never seen before. And because of who you are, I'm sure you know that, but maybe not everybody listening does. We had a tanker go, 700,000 barrels shipped to the Middle east from the United States and I fell out of my chair and I was like, I never thought I'd live long enough to see that happen. But we actually shipped oil to the Middle east and just happy as could.

Be. Alan, I'm so glad you brought that up because isn't it amazing that all of the fear mongers and in the 70s were talking about peak oil and here we are, right? It's just. And you know, I was thinking about this just last night, walking my dog. You know, I don't know if people realize, certainly a millennial doesn't know. But just in general, I want to remind everybody, the world, I mean, I grew up in Los Angeles. Okay. The world used to be a much darker place at night. This is a small thing maybe to some, but you know, I remember when I was a kid, the freeways didn't, you know, the lights were out on the freeways and you know, there was just. Everything was about an energy shortage and conserving energy and Jimmy Carter would say, wear a sweater and you know, turn your thermostat off. And you know, it's just funny how that's.

Shifted. Oh.

Yeah. We live in such an abundant.

World. Brownouts holding.

Blackouts.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And now we have solar, we have geothermal, we have wind, we have coal. Gas, of course, still some coal. But you know, the mix is just wonderful. And I like to tell people that if you wanted a golden age, I mean, how can you look beyond this? All the energy we would need stable, which attracts businesses from overseas to the United States. Low cost, stable energy base, they come.

Here. And it's not just everything you said, it's also the efficiency of the things that use the energy has increased dramatically. I mean, look at LED lights and think how significant the LED light revolution really is. You know, with 8 watts, you now have equivalent of 100 watts of energy usage. Right? And. But the same result, some would argue a much better result. And so the energy efficiency of all of these items we use, I mean, it's just skyrocketed. They use so much less energy than they used to, whether it be cars or appliances or anything. It's really amazing. It's an amazing time to be alive, you know? Yeah, it really.

Is. And fractional horsepower motors have had a lot to do with that in the construction. I mean, everything is absolutely true and largely goes unappreciated, by the way. But it is truly a great time to be here and a great time to be part of what's going to be coming for the next 12.

Years. Alan, one of the things I'm always telling my listeners is you must watch old movies and old TV shows. You just must do that, even if you don't like them. Just to see how the world used to be. Just to see how scarce many things used to be. You got to watch old TV and movies, you know, you just must. It's a requirement, you know, to just get.

Engaged. No, that's fantastic advice. I never thought of that. But you're absolutely.

Right. And I'm not even saying that old. I'm just saying from the 70s or 80s even, you know, and then go from there, you know, I hate.

To tell you, Jason, but that is that.

Old. Well, I'm not saying you have to watch them from the 30s or the 40s.

Okay.

Yeah, well, you're right. Those would be.

Unrecognizable. But, yeah, yeah, that's.

True. Certainly you're right. To get an appreciation of the past and where we are now. People ask me why I'm excited about where we're going. It's three things. It's energy, it's manufacturing in this country, and it's millennials. If you can't get excited about those, it's because you don't want to be. Because the winds are favorable for us right now. I can't quote the source. I really wish I could, but a recent study and appeared in Harvard Business that showed that before the tariffs. So it's better now. But before the tariffs, the cost of manufacturer was only 1% more than the cost of manufacture in China. Fifteen years, nobody would have believed that possible. But our gains. How can you not be excited about our future? I just get bothered when people are down on manufacturing the country. I go, really? Where do you get your.

News? Well, I agree with you. And you know, of course, 3D printing is a giant revolution. I used to talk about that all the time. And, you know, it hasn't impacted, like, it hasn't gotten into everybody's house yet, but it will. But, you know, it's certainly being used in manufacturing and, and, and mostly in modeling and prototypes. I mean, that's gotten so much cheaper to Produce prototypes now and then, you know, prostheses, you know, you need an artificial hand. Here you go, 3D print it. You know, it's truly, truly amazing. And, and the quality of all the products we buy are so much better than they used to be. It's just an amazing, amazing time. Gotta ask you a couple questions though. Do you have millennial children? I'm.

Curious. I.

Do. Okay. All right. Okay. Are you a fan of, you know, either. I don't want to necess necessarily to say Trump, but maybe the Trump tax plan. It sounds like you're a fan of the tariff concept, but I just want to.

Hear. Actually, I'm.

Not.

Okay. I'm not a fan of the tariff. I'm anti dipping. Let me give you a quick answer to that. I think blanket tariffs are dangerous and they invoke problems. And anytime you do something like a tariff, you're just inviting the law of unintended consequence to come around and bite you somewhere and there always will. You can put tariffs on solar panels, somebody's going to lose their job. In this case, thousands of people are likely to lose their job. You're protecting others. It's just impossible to gauge all the reactions to that. So no, I'm not a fan of blanket tariffs, to be.

Sure.

Okay. As far as the tax plan, which was your question. Yeah, lots to like. There is a lot to love in there. It simplifies, shortens and makes it more understandable. All good things, except for the fact that it's not going to come create what they wanted to create. At least I don't think so. You know, if it was to create cash, businesses were awash in cash before, they were still not spending it. Just because you give them more cash, it's like pushing on string. The Fed tried that with tarp. And then you can write off faster, which is great, but you're not going to part with that half million for that machine X just because of that. And if you do, you're only going to buy one, you're not going to spend a million because you can write off two. So I think they're overestimating the value of the tax plan. We looked at this at ITR Economics and historically you can get a little bang for your buck for a short period of time and then the benefit is gone. You know, we may get that little bit, but these 10 year projections, these seven year projections, you know, that's just economic theory, most of which is useless. So sorry for the long answer. You got me going again. You're Good at getting me going.

Jason. No, that. That's fine. I love it. I love it. I just think that always, always reducing taxes and reducing the size of government is just always a good thing. So I like it. I'm quite excited about the Trump tax plan. I think it's great. It's not everything I wanted, but. Or everything anybody wanted, but. Or even what he wanted. But I think overall it's going to be really good for the economy. And that's why I think we can, you know, see this business cycle kind of drag out a lot longer than many expect. But, you know, we'll see where we go. We will definitely see. Hopefully the Fed.

Won'T. Let's talk in a year. We'll talk in a year and see what.

Happened. Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully the Fed won't get too aggressive on those rate increases, but right now it looks like they're going to be pretty aggressive, so we shall.

See. Mr. Powell is a different.

Man. Yeah, he definitely is. Anything I didn't ask you or anything. You just want to share as you wrap it up for the audience. And please give out your website and tell people where they can find the book in your other.

Work. Okay. The book is available through Amazon, like every other book ever written. You can just Google the name Prosperity in the Age of Decline, or Google my name, Alan Bollier. And really the two Allens. I mean, and we're the economic one. It's pretty easy to find. Our address is itreconomics.com really simple. You're also going to find that what we push in the book and what we do when we talk to people is that it sounds terrible to say Great Depression and it will be terrible for a lot of people, but if you're prepared, it's the best opportunity of your life. You can do more for your family, you can do change your business, you can get aggressive. You can be great and philanthropical and help people, and you can be, you know, just a wonderful human being while you're making a fortune because you were prepared for what happened in the Great Depression. And you can use it for food or you can use it for greed, but the reality is it shouldn't be viewed as this zombie apocalypse. We have too much of that on tv. It's a dramatic economic change that if you're prepared for, you certainly can prosper through. Thus the.

Title. I couldn't agree more. You know, there's no such thing as a bad economy. There are just changing economies. And if you adapt, opportunity is everywhere. So, yeah, no question. About it. Alan, this has been a fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for joining us today. Happy.

Investing. It's been really my pleasure. And thank you, Jason. Take care of.

Yourself.

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