The Charlie Kirk Show - Banking Crisis—The Tip of a Financial Iceberg? With E.J. Antoni and Michael Seifert
Aired: 2023-05-04
Duration: 31:22


=== Public Square and Economic Anxiety (09:16) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey everybody, Jan the Charlie Kirk Show.
[00:00:01]  Michael Seifert from Public Square.
[00:00:03]  Make sure you download that app.
[00:00:06]  Did Ukraine attack Russia?
[00:00:08]  Did we attack Russia?
[00:00:09]  Boy, I hope we are not.
[00:00:10]  Heading to war.
[00:00:12]  It's not looking good.
[00:00:14]  Nope, not looking good.
[00:00:15]  And finally, an economist walked us through the banking collapse.
[00:00:18]  If you have any economic anxiety, you're going to want to listen to this episode.
[00:00:22]  I want to thank Jamie from California for supporting us.
[00:00:24]  I want to thank Roseanne, charliekirk.com slash support.
[00:00:27]  I want to thank Mary Ann from Michigan.
[00:00:29]  I want to thank Yolanda from Kentucky.
[00:00:33]  I want to thank Kai from Indiana.
[00:00:36]  I want to thank Isaac from New Hampshire, charliekirk.com slash support, and David from Missouri.
[00:00:42]  Email me as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:00:44]  Buckle up, everybody.
[00:00:45]  Here we go.
[00:00:46]  Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
[00:00:48]  Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
[00:00:50]  I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
[00:00:54]  Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
[00:00:57]  I want to thank Charlie.
[00:00:58]  He's an incredible guy.
[00:00:59]  His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created.
[00:01:06]  Turning point USA.
[00:01:07]  We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
[00:01:16]  That's why we are here.
[00:01:19]  Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.
[00:01:29]  I mean, there is a lot of news when it comes to ratings going down, sales going down.
[00:01:38]  We're seeing a change in the economy.
[00:01:41]  And a company that is dedicated towards leading the way for the Patriot parallel economy is Public Square.
[00:01:49]  You guys should check out their website, publicsq.com.
[00:01:51]  More importantly, download the app.
[00:01:52]  And joining us now is the man behind Public Square.
[00:01:56]  Michael, you know, I was in Idaho Falls last week and I was in Florida before that.
[00:02:00]  You know what I did, Michael?
[00:02:01]  I opened up my Public Square app and I said, I'm only going to get coffee.
[00:02:05]  I'm only going to get, because when I'm traveling, I don't want to go support some LGBT trans thing.
[00:02:10]  And so we get our coffee, get our food from Patriots.
[00:02:13]  Michael, how are things going at Public Square HQ?
[00:02:17]  Charlie, things are amazing because of stories like you just shared.
[00:02:20]  So the last few weeks in corporate America have been absurd with Anheuser-Busch and with a lot of the banks prioritizing woke nonsense over financial stewardship.
[00:02:30]  Silicon Valley Bank donating $70 million to Black Lives Matter.
[00:02:33]  People don't trust our institutions anymore.
[00:02:35]  And rightfully so.
[00:02:36]  They've done nothing to deserve our trust.
[00:02:38]  Corporate America has abused the values that tens of millions of Americans hold dear for the last decade.
[00:02:44]  And so you're seeing patriot after patriot stand up and say, we're done with this.
[00:02:48]  We're going to go shop with businesses that love our country, love the Constitution, love our values.
[00:02:52]  They're pro-life, pro-family, pro-freedom.
[00:02:55]  And in the process, we're seeing the economy literally shift.
[00:02:59]  The right types of businesses are prospering.
[00:03:01]  They're seeing their profits surge.
[00:03:02]  We had a business yesterday that just said, I moved all of my Facebook and Google advertising spend away.
[00:03:08]  And I'm just prioritizing Public Square because I'm seeing better returns there.
[00:03:10]  And the people that are joining us from Public Square platform are actually friendly.
[00:03:15]  They love the country.
[00:03:16]  They're hopeful.
[00:03:17]  They're excited.
[00:03:17]  They're passionate.
[00:03:18]  And it's a win.
[00:03:20]  The alternate economy is a real thing, and it's emerging.
[00:03:24]  Yes, it is.
[00:03:24]  And thanks to people like you, it's becoming more and more of a reality every day.
[00:03:29]  Now, there's a story in Rolling Stone.
[00:03:31]  Companies that get woke aren't going broke.
[00:03:33]  They're more profitable than ever.
[00:03:34]  This is half true.
[00:03:36]  They cherry pick.
[00:03:37]  But what they are saying is legit, Michael, is that we as conservatives are not doing the boycott thing nearly as well as we should.
[00:03:44]  That's why alternatives are necessary.
[00:03:46]  There are some companies that are definitely feeling the heat, right?
[00:03:48]  Budweiser definitely feeling the heat.
[00:03:50]  I mean, but there's other companies like Jack Daniels, which is pro-drag.
[00:03:54]  If any of you guys drink Jack Daniels, I don't.
[00:03:56]  I don't know why anyone would do such a thing, but it's pro-drag.
[00:03:59]  And Carhartt, right?
[00:04:01]  Total pro-LGBT.
[00:04:03]  But like, you know, here's another example, right?
[00:04:05]  How many in the audience right now use Campbell's Soup?
[00:04:09]  Anybody or have Campbell's Soup, right?
[00:04:11]  So Campbell's Soup is telling you we hate the traditional nuclear family.
[00:04:17]  So watch this Campbell Soup advertisement where it's a boy being raised by two dudes.
[00:04:22]  Play Cut 100.
[00:04:25]  Dun, Cooper, I am your father.
[00:04:37]  No, no, no.
[00:04:38]  I am your father.
[00:04:44]  That's got to be the worst fader ever.
[00:04:46]  Campbell's Star Wars Soups.
[00:04:48]  Now, some people might find nothing wrong with that, but it's just part of a theme where they're a lot of salt on the nuclear family, and we're seeing more and more advertisements like this.
[00:04:59]  So, Michael, the argument you're making at Public Square, we're going to have an example after example about this, is stop sending your money voluntarily to people who hate you.
[00:05:08]  That's exactly right.
[00:05:09]  And actually, it's interesting you just showed that Campbell's ad, Charlie, because there is a campaign as we head into Mother's Day right now for multiple corporate entities that have said you can opt out, quote unquote, of Mother's Day this year.
[00:05:22]  And they're claiming that it's because Mother's Day can be a painful time for many.
[00:05:26]  And so, corporate entity after corporate entity is saying, We're actually just not going to celebrate Mother's Day this year.
[00:05:31]  It's subtle, but it is an absolute assault on the nuclear family.
[00:05:34]  It's very timely and relevant.
[00:05:36]  They want to decimate everything that has made this country pure and wonderful.
[00:05:41]  And so, when you have Campbell Soup and all these other corporate entities saying, you know what, we're just going to kind of distort your view of what a family should be.
[00:05:49]  You naturally feel like a family should be a mother and a father, and they're trying to distort that.
[00:05:54]  You add that on top of some of the really blatant examples of the last few years.
[00:05:58]  Pampers, actually, which is one of the most popular diaper companies in the country, Pampers, a few years ago, stated that the new face of Pampers would be a gay couple, two dads.
[00:06:08]  Those are not the people having babies.
[00:06:10]  They're not able to have babies.
[00:06:11]  I mean, yeah, they benefit from people that are not in that lifestyle by definition.
[00:06:17]  Exactly.
[00:06:18]  Christian conservative moms from the Midwest, those are the ones that are having the most babies per household.
[00:06:23]  And so, why would Pampers decide to put a British gay couple as the face of their brand when they could have their actual brand consumers represented?
[00:06:32]  It's because they want to throw a wrench in the value system that has established this country and has led to success and prosperity for years.
[00:06:40]  That's right.
[00:06:41]  And look, none of us are guiltless here.
[00:06:42]  I'm an offender of this.
[00:06:44]  You know, when I'm traveling, sometimes it's just, it's kind of like, hey, Google it or whatever.
[00:06:48]  Just go get a Starbucks, right?
[00:06:49]  I got to be better about this.
[00:06:51]  And I've tried my best.
[00:06:52]  Michael, I imagine that right-wing coffee shops is one of the fastest-growing parts of the public square community.
[00:06:58]  Am I right?
[00:06:59]  We have over a thousand on the platform, just coffee alone.
[00:07:03]  There are so many alternatives, Charlie.
[00:07:04]  And I hear often people say, you know what?
[00:07:07]  What's the point?
[00:07:08]  Why would we even try to shop our values?
[00:07:09]  Because look, they own Apple, they own our computers, they own our cars.
[00:07:12]  Like, we just can't detach.
[00:07:13]  And my simple rebuttal is: we will never be able to conquer those giants, those behemoths and monoliths of industry, unless we start somewhere.
[00:07:22]  And one of the easiest places to start is with a cup of coffee.
[00:07:26]  Starbucks, not only are they pushing this trans agenda, a few years ago they announced that they would actually fund their employees' abortions and like a 401k match, like many employers do for their employees, where they actually match your 401k contribution.
[00:07:41]  They will do the same for donations to Planned Parenthood.
[00:07:43]  So if an employee donates 3% of their salary to Planned Parenthood, Starbucks will actually match that.
[00:07:48]  They've been on this ideological terror for the last decade, and it's so easy and simple to say, you know what?
[00:07:54]  I'm actually unsubscribing from that corrupt system.
[00:07:57]  There are literally over a thousand coffee shops and coffee alternatives on Public Square.
[00:08:01]  You can go there.
[00:08:01]  What's great too, Charlie, is many of the alternatives on our platform, A, are way better because Starbucks burns their coffee and it's gross.
[00:08:07]  And B, they'll give you discounts to shop there.
[00:08:10]  And so you can actually receive incentive for spending money in your alignment with your values.
[00:08:13]  So it's as easy as starting with a cup of coffee, and we encourage every single person that loves the truth in our country to just start there.
[00:08:19]  You know, I feel like sending out one of those nauseating tweets that those Hollywood people send out when they apologize for doing nothing wrong.
[00:08:27]  I was caught on an open mic saying something I shouldn't have said.
[00:08:30]  I'm very offending, offended.
[00:08:32]  You know, I'm very sorry for doing the audience, you know, offending the audience.
[00:08:35]  That's how I feel when I go to Starbucks.
[00:08:36]  I got to be better.
[00:08:37]  I will be better and do better.
[00:08:39]  And it's like, okay, great.
[00:08:40]  So I'll be honest, the Starbucks thing, I got to do better at.
[00:08:43]  But Public Square is helping me with that.
[00:08:45]  So everybody, take out your phone, Apple App Store, download Public Square.
[00:08:49]  And you might say, oh, Charlie, you know, it doesn't make a difference.
[00:08:52]  You're wrong.
[00:08:52]  It does.
[00:08:53]  There's so many options out there.
[00:08:54]  Just in my local neighborhood, I found new coffee shops, new title companies, new mortgage companies, new wealth managers, new restaurants.
[00:09:01]  I mean, restaurants are the easy one, right?
[00:09:02]  There's so much competition in restaurants.
[00:09:04]  In fact, I found out that there was this amazingly good restaurant near where I live, and they are more right-wing than I am.
[00:09:10]  I mean, holy, moly.
[00:09:12]  And we made friends and I met them on Public Square.
[00:09:14]  It's good stuff.
[00:09:15]  Everyone, download Public Square.

=== Kremlin Theory and Reckless Escalation (06:32) ===

[00:09:16]  We don't.
[00:09:17]  Michael, we'll talk to you soon.
[00:09:18]  Thanks so much.
[00:09:19]  Sounds great.
[00:09:19]  Thanks, Charlie.
[00:09:20]  You bet.
[00:09:24]  Look, are you concerned about the American K-12 education system?
[00:09:27]  Are you worried about what your children and your grandchildren are learning or honestly not learning in school?
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[00:10:36]  Here's what we know: two unmanned drones looked like they attacked the Kremlin in Moscow yesterday.
[00:10:42]  According to Russia, the strike, which seems to have caused a fire inside the building, was an attempted assassination of Vladimir Putin.
[00:10:50]  They say the attack was terrorism and will justify with retaliatory action.
[00:10:54]  In theory, this could justify their own attempts to kill Zelensky, or for that matter, other Western leaders.
[00:11:00]  Now, I just, I don't think this is Ukraine.
[00:11:05]  I just don't.
[00:11:06]  I think the most likely outcome is this is a false flag by the Kremlin.
[00:11:12]  But we'll see.
[00:11:13]  Maybe I'm wrong.
[00:11:14]  The U.S. and Ukraine both deny any involvement in this strike.
[00:11:17]  Basically, they're accusing Russia of launching a false flag attack on itself.
[00:11:21]  Elon Musk endorsed that theory himself on Twitter the other day.
[00:11:24]  We don't know for sure what happened.
[00:11:25]  Everything related to the Ukraine war is a whirlwind of lies on top of more lies, and then that's funding and underwriting the lies.
[00:11:32]  But we have three possibilities.
[00:11:33]  First, maybe Ukraine or the Biden administration or both are lying and they did try to assassinate Vladimir Putin.
[00:11:39]  If so, that's such a reckless escalation.
[00:11:41]  I wouldn't put it past them.
[00:11:42]  Maybe they did it.
[00:11:43]  Putting us once again in danger of nuclear war, of this proxy war that we should not be involved in.
[00:11:48]  Alternatively, maybe this really was a Russian false flag.
[00:11:52]  That's terrible news, regardless, because it shows that Russia is itself laying the groundwork for more aggressive action and escalation, despite our leaders assuring us that this war is contained.
[00:12:03]  And finally, maybe there is some unknown third-party action here, Poland or the UK or internal elements or the Russian military.
[00:12:13]  Or fourth, it could just be a vigilante roughly or loosely associated with Ukraine.
[00:12:20]  That doesn't seem as likely.
[00:12:21]  But in that case, it doesn't matter because both sides are going to blame each other.
[00:12:25]  I mean, Murky is an understatement as a way to describe this.
[00:12:32]  But was our own CIA involved?
[00:12:34]  I don't know.
[00:12:34]  Was this done by the Ukrainian government?
[00:12:40]  And the United States and Ukraine are disavowing.
[00:12:43]  I don't trust them.
[00:12:43]  So maybe they were.
[00:12:45]  By the way, I don't trust their own government when it comes to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Nord Stream pipeline bombing.
[00:12:53]  But they also said Putin wasn't even there.
[00:12:57]  And so if it was a false flag, wouldn't they do it if Putin was nearby?
[00:13:02]  The whole thing is very strange and very suspicious.
[00:13:07]  And so let's play some tape on Ukraine because this war is ongoing and we're funding it.
[00:13:14]  We're underwriting the entire thing.
[00:13:17]  And again, we are not receiving answers as to what success looks like.
[00:13:24]  When can this thing be over with?
[00:13:26]  When can we wind this down?
[00:13:28]  No, instead, we're getting the opposite.
[00:13:30]  We are getting increased escalation.
[00:13:33]  And so it's probably unlikely that Ukraine would do this.
[00:13:37]  But I wouldn't put it past it at all.
[00:13:41]  Whose personal national interest is it in to bomb the Kremlin with a drone?
[00:13:48]  Kui bono is qui bono is the Latin phrase.
[00:13:51]  Who benefits from this?
[00:13:53]  Well, quite honestly, Russia benefits the most.
[00:13:56]  We're really supposed to believe that Ukraine or the United States would send kind of this like makeshift drone to the Kremlin.
[00:14:04]  Now, in all fairness, maybe this is a working theory.
[00:14:10]  Maybe Lady Graham took over the drone control operator in the suburbs of DC and just started to go full Rambo and was like, I'm a senator and you're not.
[00:14:24]  Lady Graham was basically pseudo-playing a video game with a drone and redirected it.
[00:14:30]  That's a working theory.
[00:14:33]  Lady Graham has wanted, he called for Putin's assassination.
[00:14:41]  Lady Graham has gone on television and has called for regime change.
[00:14:44]  So maybe it's Lady Graham playing with the joystick.
[00:14:51]  Who knows?
[00:14:53]  It's a mystery.
[00:14:54]  That's a working theory.
[00:14:59]  But it remains to be unclear to me of who benefits the most.
[00:15:03]  Who benefits the most is the Kremlin.
[00:15:09]  Because nobody died and it was kind of like an amateur thing.
[00:15:12]  And then if they want to continue to build domestic support for their war, it's probably the most likely scenario.
[00:15:20]  And look, I am not a military logistics expert by any means.
[00:15:26]  I find it hard to believe that an errant drone can go hundreds of miles from Ukraine untouched, undetected, all the way to the Kremlin and bomb the parliament.
[00:15:36]  Again, I'm not a military logistics guy.
[00:15:38]  I just find that really hard to believe.
[00:15:43]  Look, you did the tough thing during the Chinese coronavirus.
[00:15:46]  You paid your people and pulled your business through the pandemic.

=== Regional Banks and Federal Bailouts (15:32) ===

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[00:16:48]  Joining us now is Dr. Antoni, economist from the Heritage Foundation and fellow for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
[00:16:55]  Dr. Antonio, welcome back to the program.
[00:16:58]  Walk our audience through the historical significance of the bank collapses that we've seen so far this year, and it's probably not over.
[00:17:06]  Your thoughts?
[00:17:07]  No, not by a long shot, Charlie.
[00:17:09]  And listening to that live read you just did, I kept reminding myself of the line from JP Morgan where he said, gold is money.
[00:17:17]  Everything else is just debt.
[00:17:19]  And we're seeing that.
[00:17:21]  We're seeing that in real time today.
[00:17:23]  All of these promises that have been made, whether it's to an investor, to a consumer, to a financial institution, whatever the case may be, people are realizing that these things are not as guaranteed as we thought they were, whether that's the dollar or an investment, you name it.
[00:17:40]  In terms of context, though, one of the things people have to remember is that when you look at all of the banks that failed in, let's say, 2008, and you add up those deposits, and then you compare that to the failures we've seen thus far in just the last few weeks, we've already surpassed that level.
[00:17:57]  So the fact that we've had three of the four largest bank failures ever happen relatively recently, right?
[00:18:05]  It's literally just been a few weeks.
[00:18:07]  It's been this rapid crisis.
[00:18:08]  That's right.
[00:18:09]  Exactly.
[00:18:10]  I mean, this is really, really bad, and it is going to get worse before it gets better.
[00:18:15]  Absolutely.
[00:18:17]  So what does worse look like?
[00:18:19]  I mean, because we have a fractional reserve banking system, worse could be the collapse of the American banking system as we know it.
[00:18:28]  That's apocalyptic and catastrophic, but is that out of the equation?
[00:18:35]  Probably.
[00:18:36]  And the reason for that is not because things are fundamentally sound.
[00:18:40]  They're really not.
[00:18:41]  The systemic interest rate risk that the Federal Reserve has created over the last three years is quite literally unprecedented, not just in American history, but possibly in human history.
[00:18:52]  But the real reason why the just total collapse of the banking system probably is impossible is that the Federal Reserve, with the exception of literally only one time in its history, never fails on the side of deflation.
[00:19:05]  They always fail on the side of inflation.
[00:19:08]  So as these banks continue to get into trouble, what will we see?
[00:19:12]  More bailouts, which means more liquidity infusions, which is just a fancy way of saying printing money, which is inflationary.
[00:19:19]  Yeah, so that's the question, right?
[00:19:20]  So the Fed actually did the opposite yesterday.
[00:19:22]  They raise interest rates modestly.
[00:19:26]  So is your prediction that maybe this summer or going into the winter, they're going to reverse course and they're going to say, just kidding, you're going to have 7% to 10% inflation for the rest of your life.
[00:19:39]  It's better than collapsing the system.
[00:19:43]  I mean, at some point, there's only so many levers that they can pull, and the cheap money seems to be the only one they want to.
[00:19:51]  What is your reaction to Jerome Powell's decision yesterday?
[00:19:54]  Oh, my reaction to his decision is the same it has been for all of his rate hikes.
[00:19:59]  Too little, too late.
[00:20:00]  The Fed kept rates way too low for way too long.
[00:20:03]  And in terms of forecasting, though, I mean, this Fed has proven to be nothing if not unpredictable.
[00:20:09]  Powell is the same guy who told us that a 75 basis point hike was off the table and then delivered four in a row.
[00:20:16]  So, you know, the idea that we can somehow guess what he's going to do next, I think unfortunately, is just kind of a fiction at this point.
[00:20:24]  We know what they should do.
[00:20:25]  What they should do is they should normalize interest rates.
[00:20:27]  They should normalize the balance sheet.
[00:20:29]  But you're absolutely right that yesterday raising rates was the reverse of quantitative easing.
[00:20:35]  It was quantitative tightening.
[00:20:36]  But the Fed has been trying to have its cake and eat it too.
[00:20:40]  What I mean by that is they are, with the one hand, doing quantitative easing, but then with the other hand, doing quantitative tightening.
[00:20:47]  And the whole goal of that is to basically still create money for the government to spend, but to limit how much that money can actually get out into the banking system and multiply through fractional reserve banking.
[00:21:00]  And so if you can do that, if you can square that circle, then you create all the money the government needs, but you minimize the inflationary impact.
[00:21:07]  There's a key problem with that, though.
[00:21:09]  They are literally paying banks and hedge funds and other financial institutions like money market accounts to they're paying them to keep their money parked at the Fed so that it can't be lent out to consumers.
[00:21:21]  But you're looking at regional banks right now that can't compete with the Fed in terms of interest rates.
[00:21:27]  And so people are pulling all of their money out of those banks in a deposit flight and parking it at the Fed.
[00:21:33]  The Fed is literally helping to kill all of these regional banks right now and therefore consolidate the banking sector into just into just a few big banks.
[00:21:42]  Yeah, so I made the argument earlier this week, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, and BOA, the big three basically, they're not worried.
[00:21:52]  In fact, this is going to be easy pickings for them, right?
[00:21:55]  Now, why would those three banks be immune from the same sort of deposit flight?
[00:22:03]  What is JP?
[00:22:04]  Is it just volume?
[00:22:05]  Is it size?
[00:22:06]  Is it that JP Morgan and BOA have corporate accounts as well, not just mom and pops that might engage in deposit flight?
[00:22:14]  Why would BOA, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan somehow be exempt from such action and panic?
[00:22:23]  Well, we can throw Citi in there too, right?
[00:22:26]  But the other problem is that these very large banks have been identified as SIBs or systemically important banks, which is, again, basically just a fancy way of saying if you do anything wrong, if you guys get into trouble, we, the federal government, will come bail you out.
[00:22:40]  And so you have nothing to worry about because we have socialized your losses, but privatized your gains.
[00:22:46]  And as a result of that, these banks are largely immune from runs because depositors and investors alike know that things really can't go south because the federal government is there to backstop it.
[00:22:59]  Contrast that with the messaging we have seen, particularly from Janet Yellen, on regional banks.
[00:23:04]  And there, what she has said is basically just her rhetoric has waffled back and forth.
[00:23:09]  It has gone from saying we will guarantee all deposits to no, we're sticking to that 250 cap and then back and forth.
[00:23:16]  And so that has exacerbated the deposit flight because people don't really know how the federal government is going to react here.
[00:23:24]  But I will say, of those big ones, I'm actually getting very concerned about Bank of America because they seem to have much more of the systemic interest rate exposure that the regional banks have.
[00:23:35]  And then the one last point why these larger banks are largely immune from these runs is they have so many more depositors with small accounts who are guaranteed by the FDIC.
[00:23:47]  And so they're not looking at a large percentage of their customer base pulling deposits out of fear of a lack of FDIC coverage.
[00:23:55]  So that's such an important, interesting analysis.
[00:23:59]  I mean, the way I see it is we could see dozens of regional banks collapse before the end of this year with really no end in sight.
[00:24:05]  Is that a fair prediction?
[00:24:07]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:24:08]  I mean, it could very well become a weekly routine that every Friday, essentially, the FDIC is swooping in to take into receivership another bank.
[00:24:17]  And then at the 11th hour before stocks open on Monday, one of the big banks agrees to take on that bank's balance sheet, like what we just saw happen with JP Morgan.
[00:24:26]  Yeah, but it depends on how healthy that, I mean, no one wanted to buy Silicon Valley Bank, right?
[00:24:31]  And so that took the federal government to come in.
[00:24:34]  And you're exactly right.
[00:24:36]  I mean, what is SCIB is the, I mean, that's just another word for fascism.
[00:24:40]  I'm sorry.
[00:24:40]  It just is.
[00:24:41]  I mean, that's what this is.
[00:24:42]  This is the government choosing winners and saying that there's no moral hazard whatsoever to the downside of your, you make a mistake, it's fine.
[00:24:52]  Taxpayers will catch you.
[00:24:56]  Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.
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[00:25:57]  So, Dr., I think Senator Lankford made a great point.
[00:26:00]  We don't have the tape here, but basically said to Janet Yellen, we're not going to, he says they're worried that the federal government is encouraging behavior by basically people are now going to remove their deposits from regional banks because they don't see the same sort of federal government backing automatically of every regional bank.
[00:26:22]  Is that a fair concern?
[00:26:24]  Absolutely.
[00:26:25]  100%.
[00:26:26]  I really think that's spot on.
[00:26:29]  Again, if you're somebody who's got less than that $250,000 threshold, then your deposits are guaranteed everywhere anyway, so it's irrelevant.
[00:26:36]  But if you're a business, if you have a large cash balance, which a lot of these regional banks, that's how they sustain themselves on those small business accounts, then you're getting the rug pulled out from under you, both as a depositor and as a regional bank.
[00:26:52]  Yeah, and so this could get out of control wildly.
[00:26:56]  And I suppose one of the questions people have then is, where should I keep my money?
[00:27:02]  And I guess there's no really good answer to that.
[00:27:04]  I mean, you can feel free to offer investment advice if you want, but what are the principles?
[00:27:10]  What does economics teach us of where your dollar bills should land in a time like this?
[00:27:16]  Sure.
[00:27:16]  Well, so I have to say, counsel always tells me, they always yell at me like, yeah, I can't give investment advice.
[00:27:22]  So we're not going to do that.
[00:27:23]  But what I will say is, if you have under, again, under 250, which is 90-something percent of depositors, you're fine.
[00:27:30]  There's no worry.
[00:27:31]  It doesn't matter where your money is.
[00:27:32]  If you're over that amount, you have a couple of options.
[00:27:35]  You can literally just split up your deposits among different banks.
[00:27:40]  As long as you're under that 250 threshold at any one particular institution, you're fine.
[00:27:44]  So you can have 250 in Wells Fargo, 250 in JPMorgan, for example, and 100% of your deposits are covered.
[00:27:51]  There are also different services you can buy where these different financial firms will do that for you, where they will split up your deposits.
[00:28:00]  But most people don't fall into that category, so I wouldn't worry about it from that standpoint.
[00:28:04]  But in terms of the actual value of the dollar, if people are concerned about their dollar, look for things that have intrinsic value.
[00:28:13]  You know, a really great piece of advice, I think, is to go back to the 1970s and look at periods when we had low economic growth and high inflation, which is what we're going into right now.
[00:28:25]  And just look at the kinds of investments that did well during that time.
[00:28:29]  Let history be your guide.
[00:28:32]  And the type of investments.
[00:28:33]  Land does well almost always when there's more dollar bills than there is value.
[00:28:38]  I want to play a piece of tape here.
[00:28:43]  So we'll just talk briefly about this, but I'm sure you're an admirer of inflation.
[00:28:50]  Let's, I'm not inflation, admirer of Milton Friedman on inflation.
[00:28:53]  Play cut 39, please.
[00:28:55]  Inflation is just like alcoholism.
[00:28:58]  In both cases, when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first.
[00:29:05]  The bad effects only come later.
[00:29:07]  That's why, in both cases, there's a strong temptation to overdo it, to drink too much and to print too much money.
[00:29:15]  When it comes to the cure, it's the other way around.
[00:29:18]  When you stop drinking or when you stop printing money, the bad effects come first, and the good effects only come later.
[00:29:25]  That's why it's so hard to persist with the cure.
[00:29:30]  So, Doctor, about a minute and a half remaining.
[00:29:32]  I wish more politicians understood Milton Friedman.
[00:29:38]  I agree 100%.
[00:29:39]  And, you know, Charlie, this is where, and I haven't quite worked this out entirely, so forgive me for doing it on the run here on your show.
[00:29:45]  But this is where there's almost a moral component to inflation, and not simply just the fact that it is essentially the government stealing people's savings, earnings, and wealth, but there's a moral component in the sense that the temptation to do it lies in the fact that, as Milton Friedman just said, the good effects come first and the bad effects come later, which is a pretty good explanation for why any man ever sins.
[00:30:09]  The good effects come first and the bad effects come later.
[00:30:14]  That's well said.
[00:30:14]  Dr. Antoni, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:30:17]  Really appreciate it.
[00:30:18]  Thank you for having me.
[00:30:20]  Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.
[00:30:24]  Look, you can print money overnight, but it takes years to dig yourself out of it.
[00:30:28]  And the Uniparty in D.C., Republicans and Democrats together have done this.
[00:30:32]  It's so disappointing.
[00:30:34]  We do not have a fiscal opposition party in this country.
[00:30:37]  We should, but we don't.
[00:30:39]  And now we're going to have to go through a financial, economic, and fiscal reckoning.
[00:30:45]  My guess is the Fed is going to inch up on rates, inch up on rates, and then they're going to back off and they are just going to start lowering rates.
[00:30:53]  And basically, that will be a signal to all of you that 10 to 15% inflation is here to stay.
[00:30:59]  Just get used to it.
[00:31:01]  Every single year, you just have to get used to it.
[00:31:08]  Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
[00:31:10]  Email us your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.
[00:31:13]  Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.
[00:31:18]  For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.