All Episodes
Previous Next
April 14, 2025 - Dinesh D'Souza
57:39
FIX THE MONEY Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep1062
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Coming up, I'll discuss why the Trump administration has no intention of forcing the return of alleged MS-13 gang member Abrego Garcia to the United States.
I want to consider the politics of the man who tried to burn Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's home.
And investment manager Lawrence Leppard joins me.
We're going to talk about how to fix the money in the context of his new book.
The Big Print.
Hey, if you're watching on YouTube or X or Rumble, listening on Apple or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel.
Hit the subscribe or follow or notifications button.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
America needs this voice.
The times are crazy.
In a time of confusion, division, and lies, we need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza.
Guys, I want to, in this opening segment, talk about two things.
One is the issue of the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego.
This is the alleged MS-13 gang member.
He was dispatched off to El Salvador.
To one of the prisons there under the aegis of the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele.
And a judge wants him brought back.
So I'll talk about that case.
The other thing I want to talk about is the attempted arson at the home of the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro.
And maybe I'll talk about that one first.
There was a guy.
Named Cody Balmer, B-A-L-M-E-R Balmer, who sneaked into the governor's residence.
Now, how he did that is a good question because governors have state police protection.
They have all kinds of security.
How on earth do you get into the governor's mansion?
That remains a security question unanswered, and I think it's going to require some review to see what went wrong here.
In any event, this guy was able to worm his way into the governor's mansion, and he set the whole place on fire and essentially burned it down.
If you look at photos, it's...
Kind of appalling, the degree of the damage.
Fortunately, Shapiro and his family, they were in the residence, by the way.
They were asleep, but the state police were able to rouse them, get them out of there, and they are safe, fortunately.
And there's a whole bunch of people right away who jumped on this and were like, these are the MAGA terrorists.
These MAGA terrorists need to be apprehended.
And then as people began to investigate this guy, Cody Balmer, They realized, no, this is actually not the case.
I've been looking at a bunch of articles from CNN.
There's an article on Al Jazeera.
And interestingly, these articles, what they say is that this guy, quote, hated Shapiro.
And there are some of the articles that say that he didn't like Biden.
Again, giving the impression that this guy must be some sort of a right-winger, some kind of a Trump supporter.
But as it turns out, he's not.
He's on the left.
We do know that he is a big Palestine activist.
And that actually makes sense, right?
Because Josh Shapiro is one of the few Democrats who is pro-Israel and strongly pro-Israel.
You remember that this may have been one of the reasons why Kamala Harris decided not.
To bring him on board as a vice presidential candidate.
She opted instead for Tim Walz.
Why? Because Shapiro had this reputation of being, quote, too pro-Israel.
And I think she was worried about alienating the Muslims, alienating the kind of Palestinian activists on the Democratic side.
Well, evidently, this Cody Balmer guy is somebody who disliked Shapiro in part, or at least in part, on account of his being Jewish and on account of his being pro-Israel.
Now, I also see a post from Tony Saruga.
Who says that someone has apparently done a search of Cody Balmer's phone and his mobile devices show that he was present for 39 Kamala Harris rallies.
He has been apparently present for Antifa BLM activity, pro-Hamas activity, pro-Palestinian.
Well, you get the picture.
If this is right, and at this point, I'm not verifying this myself.
I'm actually just transmitting what I'm reading.
It is the idea that this guy is clearly not somebody.
I think that's all I'm trying to establish here.
Clearly not somebody who is coming from the pro-Trump or MAGA camp.
Having discussed that, however, briefly, I want to turn to Kilmar Armando Abrego and whether or not he's going to be coming back from El Salvador.
Well, the short answer appears at this point to be no.
I say that because the Salvadoran president came just recently to the White House.
This is Nayib Bukele.
He was asked, is he going to return this guy?
And his answer was a very simple no, followed by a single word, preposterous.
It's preposterous that he's going to return Kilmar Abrego.
And frankly, he has the right to take that position, and he is the sovereign head of a sovereign country.
And no judge in the United States has the ability to make a foreign government do anything, to be honest, let alone to return this guy to the United States.
It looks like, based on that alone, Abrego Garceev's fate is sealed.
Now, there's some dispute about whether or not this guy is an MS-13 gang member.
It appears that he is.
And I say that based upon the identification of him as an MS-13 gang member.
By apparently another gang member.
And an immigration judge was apparently satisfied with this designation.
The Trump administration apparently made some error.
It could have been a paperwork error.
It was an error nevertheless.
And this guy got sent to El Salvador.
Now where is he from?
He's from El Salvador.
So it's not like he was, this is a guy from Venezuela or somewhere else who was sent to El Salvador.
He was returned.
To his home country.
He was an illegal in the United States.
Whether or not there was a paperwork error in his case, the truth of the matter is that he is a Salvadoran who has been returned to his home country to deal with him as they see fit, and they have seen fit to deposit him into a Salvadoran prison.
Now, the judge in the United States Was very unhappy with this, acted as if the Trump administration was derelict in its duty, and ordered that his return be effectuated.
Effectuated means make it happen.
It's your job.
You sent him.
You need to use your influence with the Salvadoran government to make it happen.
The Supreme Court then weighed in on this.
And the Supreme Court very significantly said, in a kind of a nuanced ruling, giving a partial victory to Trump, but also a partial upholding of the judge's decision, the Supreme Court basically said,
The Trump administration needs to facilitate this man's return, but not, quote, effectuate it.
This seems like a splitting of words, kind of a semantic distinction, but I think the distinction is actually quite important.
To facilitate something means to enable it, to not stand in its way, to not obstruct it, to not block it, but it doesn't mean to do it.
To facilitate it means to enable something to happen, to clear the way.
But to effectuate means to put it into effect, to make it happen.
And what the Supreme Court is saying is that the Trump administration should not stand in the way, should facilitate or enable this man's return, but...
The Trump administration does not have to effectuate it, does not have to make it happen.
And further, the Supreme Court very clearly said to the district judge that you need to be respectful of the authority not only of foreign governments, which is obvious and doesn't even need to be said, but also the wide latitude and discretion of the executive branch.
In carrying out these kinds of things.
In other words, it is sort of not the judiciary's job to play executive, to quarterback the manner in which the executive deals with these problems.
The judiciary merely has to decide on legality, constitutionality, and...
In that sense, interpret the term facilitate, which was the term handed down really by the Supreme Court.
And the Trump people actually are taking this as a win.
They're basically saying that even though the Supreme Court didn't flatly say to the district judge, you know, butt out, it's none of your business, the Trump people are in the right, the Trump administration is saying we still won.
And we won for the simple reason that the judge...
Has no power to make us do anything.
The Supreme Court has merely said that we need to facilitate, which is another way of saying that we need to allow, we need to permit, we need to make it possible for this guy to be returned, but whether or not he is returned is in the hands of the Salvadoran government,
under whose authority this guy is.
And I think that really is it.
So now the judge is in an awkward position because the judge is going to have to say, I think the judge wants this guy back and wants to force the hand of the Trump administration, maybe wants to try to portray the Trump administration as lawless.
Perhaps even in a longer sense wants to set up a record in which a democratically controlled house after the midterms could go after Trump for somehow flouting the law, disregarding the law.
This is the game being played right now between the liberal judges and the executive branch under Trump.
But I think the Supreme Court has given enough...
A leeway, if you will, for the Trump administration here to say, no, we are not flouting the law.
We're not disregarding.
What the district judge is saying, we are operating precisely within the parameters of the court's decision, but the court's decision as clarified or modified by the Supreme Court.
So I take this as a win.
It's a narrow win.
I kind of wish the Supreme Court had been more clear, and more clear generally, not just in this case, but to the other judges, basically saying, listen, there can be legitimate issues of constitutionality, but
this I wish the court basically issued a generic back-off,
but it didn't do.
But nevertheless, I think it did seal the fate in its own way of Kilmar Armando Abrego.
Tariffs have thrown the global economy into chaos.
Potential widespread inflation tied to massive supply chain disruptions is weighing heavily on all of us.
But there's a silver lining that most people miss.
President Trump specifically exempted gold and silver bullion from the sweeping Tariffs policies are triggering significant financial chaos.
The administration preserved your ability to diversify into precious metals.
If you're concerned about your savings, I encourage you to have a free consultation with a birch gold precious metals specialist.
The first step is to text Dinesh, my name, Dinesh, to 989898.
You'll get a free, no-obligation information kit on gold.
Learn how to hold gold and silver in a tax-sheltered account.
We'll help you to convert an existing IRA of 401k into a gold IRA for no money out of pocket.
Debbie and I buy our gold from Birch Gold.
It's time you did too.
Birch Gold has an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Thousands of happy and thankful customers.
Text my name, Dinesh, to the number 989898.
Again, text Dinesh to 989898.
You can claim your free information kit on gold right now.
Debbie and I care about our health, and we're both doing really well.
A lot of it is thanks to a remarkable device that turns out to be a total game-changer.
We've integrated it into our daily exercise routine.
It's called Juvent.
Juvent Micro Impact.
It's based on the latest cutting-edge science.
It uses micro-impact frequency to promote joint health, improve bone density, boost circulation, even stimulate the production of stem cells in your body.
Crazy, right?
But it works, and all you have to do is stand on it.
I stand on it for about 12 to 15 minutes a day.
Debbie does the full 20 minutes, but that's it.
It makes your crinks, your stiffness, your aches and pains go away.
It can even add up to 5. You've got to learn about this new technology and there's a lot to learn.
It's not to be confused with some gimmicky vibration plates out there.
So check it out.
Go to juvent.com slash Dinesh to learn more.
That's juvent.com slash Dinesh.
They've got a great deal for you right now.
$500 off.
10-year warranty, financing options, even a six-week buyback promise because they believe in the product so much.
Juvent can change your life.
Again, check it out.
Go to juvent.com.
Guys, I have just read a fantastic book.
It is called The Big Print.
What Happened to America and How Sound Money Will Fix It.
It's available on Amazon.
Its author is Lawrence Leppard.
He's a professional investment manager.
He is also on X. You can follow him at Lawrence, L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E Leppard, L-E-P-A-R-D.
And the book again, The Big Print.
It's well worth reading.
It's an eye-opener.
Larry, thank you for joining me.
I really appreciate it.
Well, no, I appreciate it, Dinesh.
Thank you so much for having me on your show.
Long-time fan and admirer, and I'm honored to be here.
Well, it's a real pleasure to have you, and we're going to really enlighten people on a topic that's not often talked about enough, I don't think, because we're hearing a lot about tariffs and trade, and that's, of course, important, our trade policy, our trade deficits.
Trump has a tax plan that is now part of his legislative package, the one big beautiful bill, as he calls it.
And I'd love to hear your thoughts about that.
But I also want to open the door to a third related aspect of...
of economic policy, and that is the subject of your new book.
So maybe I'll start by just asking you, how are you feeling about this kind of new economic terrain with the new administration?
Yeah, so as a general rule, Trump is a disruptor, and I think he's got the best interests of the country at heart, and I think he's moving in the right direction.
As an investor and an analyst, I mean, I can criticize some things and applaud other things.
This might not have been done in the most graceful way possible, but that's not to say it didn't need to be done.
And as you know, Dinesh, as we've spoken so much about, you know, the trade and tariffs, that's one part of the equation.
But there's another part of the equation.
Of course, he's working on this, too, by the way.
But there's another part of the equation that's terribly important, and that is the monetary aspect of the equation.
And that's, of course, what my book is about.
And that's really what I'm all about, which is, you know, a lot of the problems that Trump's trying to address, you know, the wealth inequality, the unfairness, you know, the way the country's been hollowed out in terms of manufacturing, immigration, all those things, spring or come from or are related to the fact that we have unsound money.
You know, that we went off the gold standard in 1971, which was really a crime, and that we haven't been able to return to it or get anything close to that.
And in fact, The Federal Reserve has been out of control, and the problem is continually getting worse.
And so the thesis of the book is that America is broken, and the reason we're broken is that the money is broken.
The money is unsound.
And I think Scott Bessette, his Treasury Secretary, I think he knows this.
He understands that he's a gold guy.
I think the President knows this as well.
And just going from where we are to where we ought to be isn't going to be simple.
But the point is that what I would say, and what I think this book helps people to piece together, is how the monetary piece interweaves with all the other, the political and all the other things he's trying to do, which I applaud.
Now, am I right, Larry, that the fiscal policy, trade policy, those are in the hands of Congress and the President, but monetary policy, for the most part, Is in the hands of the Fed,
which is to say the Federal Reserve.
And while the president has a role in nominating people for the Fed, the truth of it is that those guys serve pretty long terms.
There's a complex kind of setup of the Federal Reserve.
It's kind of the central bank with a lot of regional banks that are now members of the Fed.
So talk a little bit, when you talk about unsound money.
People may not be sure what exactly you mean by that.
Do you mean that the money that we are using is rapidly diminishing in value and why is that?
Well, that's a great point and that's exactly what the book talks about, Dinesh.
The Federal Reserve is really a cartel set up by the banks to protect the banks and to enable and empower the government to take freedom and liberty away from us.
I'm a large Ron Paul supporter, ran a couple of ads for him when he ran for president back in 08. And, you know, the Fed is really a problem.
We need to end the Fed.
And you're correct.
The president really can't, you know, fire the Fed chairman, or at least we don't think he can.
Maybe the Supreme Court will rule otherwise.
I know Trump's trying to ask for that.
But the monetary policy set by the Fed is broken.
And the reason it's broken...
Is that we've had a continual string of situations where the people who constructed the system bail themselves out.
And so in 2008, I think most of the country knew that what happened there was really wrong.
You know, people lost their houses, their jobs, the economy tanked.
There was enormous pain.
And yet Wall Street was bailed out.
The Fed printed the money necessary to bail them out and give them $20 billion.
2008 now seems like a long time ago, but it's really not that long ago, and the country remembers.
And by the way, since then, they've done more of the same.
They did it when Silicon Valley Bank failed.
They did it in COVID.
They've done it multiple other times.
And so this printing money to solve problems, which is what the government does to maintain the power and control that they have over the rest of us, is what causes all the inflation.
And so the left will say, well, It's the greedy corporations that are causing inflation.
Of course, there couldn't be anything more untrue.
That's a complete lie.
It's the Federal Reserve printing money that is causing inflation.
And so if we want to get to the core of the problem, which I think a lot of us caused the decline in America post-World War II.
And in 1946, we were a great country.
Today, we still are a great country, but not so much.
There's been a lot of stuff that's gone wrong.
And if we want to address it, we've got to address the monetary policy, in my opinion.
Isn't it a fact, Larry, that between 2008 and then COVID, that the Federal Reserve has printed so much money that something like one out of every five dollars in circulation was quite literally made or manufactured?
I think it's actually even worse.
I think it might be two out of five, Dinesh.
If you look at the COVID example, the money supply, M2, grew by 40% in two years.
40%. And that's why our grocery bills are so high.
That's why everything is so damn expensive.
You know, there's only a certain amount that the economy can produce in terms of goods and services.
And Keynesians, the people who run the system, the Federal Reserve and all the left, they believe that printing money is pain-free and that it's a good thing that you should do it.
And the fact of the matter is that's not true.
Monetary and fiscal discipline is what built this country.
Printing money is a form of screwing your kids and your grandkids.
It's a way that we're borrowing from the future.
We're eating the seed corn.
And the Bible says you've got to reap before you sow.
And if you eat the seed corn, you're not going to have anything to sow.
And so that's kind of how we've gone down the wrong path.
The book, I think, tries to do a good job of outlining how we got there because, you know, it was subtle.
It's not like someday, well, 71 wasn't subtle.
That was a big deal.
But all of the other steps towards the system that's so broken and unsound right now, most people don't remember them or they haven't studied them or they haven't been in the financial markets the way I have for, you know, 40-odd years.
And so I wrote the book to try to explain from the standpoint of somebody who's a professional that's been in this market and seen it.
Just why it's all gone so wrong and how it is controlled by the other side.
I mean, they gaslight us and they lie to us about everything.
And so if you read the book, I mean, the book is structured in two parts.
The first part is the problem, the monetary problem.
The second part is the solution, returning to sound money.
And in the monetary problem part, I really try and point out how the excesses and the abuses have just gotten worse and worse and worse over time.
You know, to the point where I actually believe there's some risk that the currency may someday fail.
I pray it won't, but the way that some of these people are behaving, it could.
And so, you know, protecting yourself with forms of sound money and things that the government can't print, you know, gold kind of being at the top of the pile, but there's some others as well, including Bitcoin, which I believe in.
I know some gold holders don't, but I think eventually they'll come to see it more like I see it.
But protecting yourself by owning things the government can't print, you know, property, gold, silver.
And to some degree, Bitcoin.
I think that makes sense.
It makes a lot of sense.
And the book lays that out.
And I tried to do it in a way, Dinesh, it's not a textbook.
It's my story.
It's easily told.
It's written for a lame.
And I had a lot of people read it who knew nothing about finance or economics, who would, generally speaking, wouldn't want to read a book about anything related to the monetary system, which is pretty dull.
But I've told it kind of like a thriller and kind of like, hey, look, here's how they've taken advantage of this, guys.
And here's what we got to do to take the power back.
So it's kind of a call to arms for how we can fix things.
I found the book just extremely both easy to read, well organized.
And not only that, but initially when I noticed that you have a lot of charts in the book, but the charts are all simple.
These are not the kind of textbook type of charts.
No, not at all.
Rather, what you can do is you just can visually see very easily what is going on.
And so the charts kind of support the text, and the text supports the charts.
And so it's a real eye-opener.
Let's take a pause.
We'll be right back with Larry Leppard, the book, The Big Print, What Happened to America and How Sound Money Will Fix It.
As we age, we're all dealing with more aches and pains Thinning hair, wrinkling skin, even our nails start to get more brittle.
I want to tell you about an amazing product Debbie and I put in our morning coffee every day.
It's called Revive.
It's Revive from Brightcore Nutrition.
This easy-to-mix, multi-collagen powder helps strengthen your bones and your joints.
The best thing about Revive is it works from the inside out.
It's also going to help you rejuvenate your skin, help you grow back thicker, healthier hair and strengthen your brittle nails.
Revive contains five types of collagen, hyaluronic acid, biotin and vitamin C, which works synergistically to make you feel and look better.
It's all natural, non-GMO, and 100% made in the USA.
Just for my viewers and listeners, a great deal.
25% off with code Dinesh by going to mybrightcore.com forward slash Dinesh.
So it's mybrightcore.com forward slash Dinesh podcast.
But there's a special incentive.
If you call an even better deal, 50% off your offer and free shipping.
So go ahead, give him a call.
Here's the number, 888-927-5980.
Their educated staff will talk to you.
They'll make sure that Revive is right for you.
The number again, write it down, 888-927-5980.
Numbers don't lie.
The impact that Balance of Nature makes every single day is astounding.
You can see the numbers for yourself on their website.
Balanceofnature.com.
But listen to these few stats concerning Balance of Nature's worldwide success.
More than a thousand success stories reported each month.
Wow. Hundreds of thousands of customers worldwide.
Millions of orders delivered each year and billions, yes, billions of these.
Fruits and veggies in a capsule.
These are fruit and veggie supplements consumed by people who have decided to start living and feeling better.
Now there's only one number.
Missing here, and that's you.
Do what I did.
Add yourself to these numbers.
Start taking Balance of Nature's whole food supplements like so many others around the world.
And here's another number that might get your attention.
35%. Use my discount code, AMERICA.
You get 35% off plus free shipping and their money back guarantee.
Here's the number to call.
800-246-8751.
Again, 800-246-8751.
Or go to balanceofnature.com.
When you use discount code America, you get 35% off and free shipping.
Guys, I'm back with professional investment manager Larry Leppard.
Follow him on X at Lawrence Leppard, L-E-P-A-R-D.
And the book we're talking about is The Big Print.
Larry, you mentioned before that whenever there's inflation, the government, and this is Congress, this is sometimes the executive branch, they point their finger at rising prices and they often will blame the so-called greedy corporations.
Now, when I think about it, it seems to me...
That, first of all, there are a lot of prices in our country that mainly, I think, as a result of technology are in fact coming down, right?
The prices of TVs have come down.
The prices of phones have come down.
The prices of a lot of newly developed and advancing technology, those prices have actually...
So you could potentially raise the price of a car, or you could raise the price of this or that.
You don't have the ability to raise prices generally across the entire economy.
That's a great point.
Right? And if prices are rising kind of the way the sea is rising, it's got to be that somebody's...
I think the liberals would say that everybody's conspired to do it, but I get your point.
And it's a good one.
And what you're saying, really, is that the only way for the sea to rise is for people to put more water into the ocean.
That's exactly what's happened.
The Federal Reserve has got a big tap, and they just open it up and let the new money...
Right, right, exactly.
And you tied this historically to the abandoning of the gold standard.
Talk a little bit about the gold standard, because I don't think most people today haven't lived under a gold standard.
They don't really know what that even means.
And so when you say the gold, it seems like a relic from the past.
But yet, for centuries, gold did provide a kind of ballast or measure.
Absolutely. The book points this out.
I think it's important to understand.
The founding fathers understood that paper money, fiat money, was fraudulent and it was a problem.
And that's why Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, they said only gold and silver can be money.
So that's what our written Constitution started with.
And for many, many years, we lived under that standard with a few exceptions.
They would occasionally suspend specie payments or greenbacks during Civil War.
But, you know, that was a sound money standard that could not be violated.
And if you look at the book, there's a really great chart that shows that from the early 1800s all the way up until World War I, inflation was very, very tame.
There was almost no inflation.
The only inflationary periods were wars, 1812 and the Civil War, a little bit during the Spanish-American.
But anyway, the long story short is that that began to change with the 20th century and the creation of the Federal Reserve.
And the Federal Reserve was really kind of an inflation engine that protected the banks and did it by printing money through the back door, you know, what we now call quantitative easing.
And then, of course, but we were still on a gold standard to a degree, although Roosevelt confiscated gold in the 30s.
And we even remained on an international exchange gold standard after World War II.
And think about it.
People say the gold standard is a real relic and it's anachronistic, etc., etc.
Yet, on a gold standard, We built the most prosperous country in the world, the leading country in the world on one form or another of a gold standard between 1789 and 1946.
So the gold standard is so bad.
Well, then how did the country do so well when we were on a gold standard?
And we actually did fairly well in the 50s, 60s and so forth.
I mean, you know, nothing's perfect.
And then the Vietnam War sprung up.
And, of course, that's what led to abandoning the gold standard.
You look at that chart in the book, what happens is, of course, inflation, it's a hockey stick.
And as I said in the book, most people alive today don't even know what it's like to live without inflation.
Because, you know, unless I was born in 57, unless you were, you know, as old as I am or older, inflation has just been a part of your natural life.
And, of course, it's gotten worse and worse.
So the gold standard, and by the way, you know, they say they call us gold bugs and they criticize, you know.
I mean, they call gold people conspiracy theorists, right?
But it turns out we're right.
And that's a way of kind of denigrating an argument that hurts their power over the rest of us.
And so, you know, we have to realize that they're just lying.
The gold standard is actually a really good thing.
But that's, of course, not the way that the government or the people who benefit from the system that we currently have would portray it.
They portray it as the opposite.
You said something quite astonishing a few moments ago, and that is you said that there was virtually no inflation or very limited inflation over not a decade, but over the period of almost a century.
From early in the 19th century all the way to early in the 20th century.
And by the way, this was to some degree true not just in the United States, but there were other countries.
European countries had the gold.
Great Britain, for example, had the gold standard.
And so Great Britain soared to enormous prosperity under the gold standard.
The United States became the largest economy in the world under the gold standard.
And what you're saying is that the reason that they started the Federal Reserve in 1913 was not to stabilize the currency or to fight inflation.
On the contrary, it was a mechanism to not only create a bank cartel, but wouldn't it be true to say also that it was a mechanism to create a handmaiden for the federal government?
So as the government spent money, they could, quote, find money by printing it.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
That's the key to the whole equation.
I mean, the Federal Reserve is anti-American.
You know, it's unelected.
It's appointed by Congress.
They can't be fired.
It's just plain, and it's totally unfair.
And when the Fed was established in 1913, they were only supposed to lend good collateral at high rates for short periods of time to prevent bank failures.
That's how they sold it to us.
Literally, a year after they sold it to us, World War I broke out, and we had to get involved because of globalism and the international spirits of the time.
And basically, the Fed was the mechanism for funding that.
What they did was they sold Liberty Bonds at 3.5%, but they let the banks borrow from them newly issued money at 3%.
So the banks got a half a point of profit on everything they borrowed, and the Liberty Bonds paid for the war.
Okay, that's the good news.
The banks make money from the government's point of view.
The government gets its war funded.
What's the bad news?
The bad news is that the level of prices pre-World War I and post-World War I went up 100%.
100%. The price of everything doubled, Dinesh, because of World War I. And, of course, that led to all kinds of problems.
There were lynchings and race riots and labor unrest, and Ponzi did his scheme in 2019, and even the Chicago Black Sox was a 2019 event.
And then, of course, the liberals and the progressives, they thought, oh, you know what?
We got a problem here.
You know what the problem is?
The problem is alcohol.
And so they put the Volstead Act in place and said we had to go dry and blah, blah, blah.
So yeah, I mean, messing around with the money supply like the Federal Reserve does creates many more problems than it solves.
They sold it to us as a, oh my, the banks would fail and that would be really awful and we can't have that.
And in fact, that's not what it was.
It was...
It did prevent the banks from failing, but at a cost of the entire population is going to pay to let those bankers make excessive profits and to let the government, the people in government, do what they wanted to do with our money.
It was just an abomination.
And that's 1913, and that's over 100 years ago, and it's only gotten worse over that 100-year period.
And wouldn't it be accurate, Larry, to say that if we think of recent history and we highlight some of the key events, going back, let's say, to the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the Iraq War,
the massive spending in the wake of the 2008 crash, you mentioned COVID.
Really, none of this would have been possible, would it, if it wasn't for having the government...
Have a money printer sitting right by its side.
Because think of it this way.
If you didn't have the money printer, you would have to go to the American people and say, we want to fight the Vietnam War.
It's going to cost so many billions or trillions of dollars.
And we need to get that out of you from taxes.
In which case the American people would say, no way, go take a hike.
So if you didn't have the ability to print money...
The government's ability to raise revenue would be greatly limited, wouldn't it?
Completely agree, and I think that's one of the most important points about sound money.
Ron Paul said, it's no coincidence that the century of central banking, which was 1913 on, was also a century of war, because central banking allows governments to fund war.
As you pointed out so well, if the government came to all of us and said, you know, we want to go and make Southeast Asia...
You know, safe so that another domino doesn't fall towards communism.
But your taxes need to go up 40%.
I think they all would have gotten voted out of office.
And so that war wouldn't have occurred.
And so, yes, I mean, and this occurs over and over again.
I mean, we wasted $8 trillion in the Middle East, you know, chasing phantom terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.
You know, during the same time frame, China was investing in their infrastructure and getting more productive.
It's just, it's tragic how poorly the elites of this country have managed our country post-World War II.
It's just, it's absolutely tragic.
It makes me so sad.
Such a great country.
Still is.
The remnants still here.
And we can set it right.
We can fix all this, Dinesh.
We're going to fix all this.
But we've got to educate everybody to understand the real, true nature of the problem.
And Trump has done a lot of that.
Don't get me wrong.
He's done a lot in the right direction.
But there's more to it than everything he's told us so far.
There's this monetary component.
It's interesting.
He's mentioned that he supports a gold standard.
Besant is a gold guy and supports a gold standard.
So it could be something that's in the back of their heads as a plan.
But at some point in time, it's going to need to be surfaced.
And at some point in time, there might be people arguing against it.
And I think it's very important that we build a big coalition.
Of Americans who are the remnant, who understand where we went wrong when we created the Federal Reserve, and they stand up and they vote for sound money people.
And that's why I wrote the book, really, more than any other reason.
I want my kids to live in a better country, a sound money country.
And the only way that's going to happen is if more people understand it.
And again, most people just do their job, take care of their family, and want to live their life.
So they're not going to be versed in monetary economics and all the bullshit that these guys, I mean, these guys, this is a very sophisticated fraud that they pulled on us.
And, you know, and they use big words and big language.
And Jerome Powell gets up there and says, we're doing all this on behalf of the American people.
He is lying through his teeth.
And this book lays it out in excruciating detail how badly they're lying through their teeth.
I think this is the key because when you hear all these terms, like you mentioned one, quantitative easing, I think it numbs the mind of the American people.
They don't really know what's going on.
The book, guys, is the big print.
I'm talking to Larry Leppard.
We are going to do one more segment.
When we come back, I'm going to ask Larry to talk about how do we get sound money.
I want to focus on two things, gold, but also something else that Larry calls digital gold.
We'll get into the details when we come back.
My pillow is extending the mega sale.
It's a sale on overstock, on clearance, but also on brand new products.
It's your chance to grab some incredible deals on some of my pillow's most popular and newly released items.
For example, save $40 on the new spring my pillow bed sheets available in any size and any color.
Debbie and I use these.
We love them.
The luxurious sheets are designed for maximum comfort and breathability.
They're perfect for a great night's sleep.
Looking for a meaningful gift?
Save 30% on the...
Brand new My Crosses, inspired by the one Mike Lindell has worn every day.
For over 20 years, these beautifully crafted crosses come in both men's and women's designs and are proudly made in the USA.
Get the six-piece bath or kitchen towel sets, just $39.98.
Initial quantities are low, so don't wait.
And don't forget the best-selling standard MyPillow, now just...
$17.98.
Plus orders over $75.
Ship free.
Call 800-876-0227.
Again, it's 800-876-0227.
Or go to MyPillow.com.
Don't forget to use the promo code.
It's D-I-N-E-S-H, Dinesh.
Guys, I'm talking to professional investment manager Larry Leppard.
Follow him on X at Lawrence Leppard, L-E-P-A-R-D, the book.
Check it out, The Big Print.
Larry, we're talking about the need, the desperate need, really, for sound money and the problems that are created by the Federal Reserve.
Essentially... Printing money, oceans of money that devalue the money that all of us have in our wallets and in our savings accounts.
How do we get sound money?
We hear about gold, and you discuss gold in your book.
You also discuss Bitcoin, which you describe as, and others have described it also, as digital gold.
Talk a little bit about the virtues of gold, what makes it good money, and then talk about Bitcoin.
So gold is money.
Gold has always been money.
At least for 5,000 years, mankind has deemed gold to be money.
And that's because it comes from the earth.
It's limited in supply.
And I almost like to think of it as God-given money.
And it's limited by the geology of the earth's surface.
And it's divisible.
It's easy to verify.
It has all the right qualities of money.
And money, by definition, to be money has to be scarce.
It doesn't have an alternative use.
I mean, you don't burn it up the way you burn up oil.
Oil couldn't be money because you're burning it all the time.
So gold is perfect money given to us by God.
The thing I would make an argument for, and I hold a lot of it, and I've been a gold stock fund manager for years, and I call it analog sound money.
And I think we need to return to a form of sound money, and a gold standard would certainly serve that role.
The thing I would make an argument for, and I know there are probably some gold people listening to this who will disagree with me, but I ask them to try and keep an open mind, is that there's an invention has occurred, which is Bitcoin, which I call digital gold.
And the reason I call it that is that gold is valuable because it's limited in supply.
The supply grows at 1.7% a year.
When Bitcoin got invented, and that's really what it was, it was an invention.
The people who invented it created a system, a network system distributed that provides what I call digital scarcity.
There are 21 million Bitcoin in the world.
There will never be any more.
There aren't quite 21 yet.
We're working toward that number as we mine it.
But there are 19.9 out there now.
So most of it's been fully distributed.
And when you own a Bitcoin, you own a digital entry in a ledger.
And if you think about what money is, it really is just mutual obligations.
You don't touch all the cash you hold in your bank account.
You just have a digital entry in your bank account.
And so what Bitcoin has done is it's kind of made a digital gold-like thing.
And because it's immutable, which means it can't be altered over time, which means that it's trustworthy.
People, the market, individuals have come to accept it as gold.
Now, the first thing most people who are gold people react to is it can't be money if you can't touch it, if it doesn't have an alternative use.
But I disagree with that.
Money, again, is just an obligation or a ledger.
Before gold existed, people lived in caves and they had tablets and they made markings that said, you know, I have five of this, you have three of that.
So that's a ledger.
That's not anything physical.
Money is, in my view, it's a ledger.
And then the second thing is people look at Bitcoin and they say, well, it's fraud because it's crypto.
And they're right.
There's a ton of fraud in the crypto space.
And so it's really sad the way a lot of people have looked at a Sam Bankman Freed or all the crypto bros who are selling these pump-and-dump meme coins and saying, oh, that's all bullshit, solid money, sound money, can't be that kind of stuff.
And they're right.
But what they're missing is that in all of that noise, it's like somebody, a friend of mine described it as, it's like, you know, one person has an iPhone and then a lot of other people have photographs of iPhones.
And, you know, gold is the iPhone that works.
And all the crypto stuff, those are just fakes.
They're photographs of iPhones.
And so one needs to come to understand that.
And once you do, you recognize that there are actually a lot of sound technologists behind this whole thing.
And then you recognize that we're moving towards a digital world where, you know, transaction time counts and, you know, try to move a billion dollars of gold around the world quickly.
That's pretty hard to do.
But, you know, you can transfer a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin in 10 minutes.
So and you realize that as we move into a more digital world, it makes sense that we would have a digital form of sound money.
And that's what Bitcoin is.
And so and again, the book.
I try to explain it in terms that anyone can understand.
I really try to keep this simple.
And I challenge anyone to read the book and not come away.
And I present all the counter-arguments.
I present all the fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
I mean, I get that there's a lot of, you know, people are scared of Bitcoin.
And all I would say is, please keep an open mind and read the information and make your own decision.
In my opinion, it is a very, very good sound money choice.
In terms of just raw price appreciation, gold is going to continue to go up because the government's going to keep printing money.
And so the value of each ounce of gold measured in government units is going to get higher.
Gold's at $3,200 now.
I mean, I think gold will be at $5,000 and $10,000 someday, not that far out.
Bitcoin, similarly, there are 21 million of them.
The price of it is going up.
And I think it's going to continue to go up.
And the reason for that is this fixed supply.
And as the money gets debased, it's going to go up.
But there's another reason that's important to focus on, and that is everybody in the world has known about gold for a long time.
It's not like gold is some new mystery.
Gold's been out there forever as sound money.
Bitcoin's only been around for 16 years, and many, many people haven't heard about it.
But as the word spreads, very much the way we went from having no cell phones to everyone has a cell phone, I think what's going to happen is we're going to go from a small number of people owning Bitcoin to everybody realizing, hey, this is a good...
Sound money choice.
I need to own some Bitcoin.
And so that demand, so you've got two curves pushing it higher.
The fact that the government can't stop printing money and the fact that more and more people are going to use it.
And we see that every year.
The number of Bitcoin users and use cases and transactions, they're all growing.
And so to me, it reminds me very much of the Internet, Dinesh.
I was an investor in the Internet in the early days.
And I remember Paul Krugman saying, this thing's useless.
It's a fax machine.
Who cares?
And I was like, yeah, it is kind of clunky.
You've got to put a phone in a modem and, you know, the green screen and all that kind of stuff.
But you could see how it was going to get better.
And I think the same is true with the Bitcoin technology.
It's just going to keep getting better.
It's going to be more widely used.
So, again, and the book will walk you through this.
Even if you're scared of Bitcoin or skeptical of Bitcoin, I just say be an open-minded person and read the facts and then make your own choice.
You know, I've got a lot of clients who say, I don't want to own any Bitcoin.
It's too risky for me.
Fine. It is volatile.
I get that.
You know, saving gold.
That's great.
But what I try to say to everybody is, you know, there's so much optionality in this Bitcoin.
By optionality, I mean upside versus downside.
You can only lose 1x what you put in.
You could make 10x.
That everybody should have a little bit.
And so the way you deal with the volatility, I mean, if you put 2% of your net worth into something and it goes down by half.
Well, okay, so you're down 1% of your net worth.
But if it goes up by 10x, you just made a 10% return on your entire net worth.
So it's very asymmetric in that way.
And so I think people should pay attention to it.
The book is The Big Print.
And Larry, one of the things I learned here is that very often when people look at money, they don't realize that money is different than other...
Things and other commodities because other commodities have a use, right?
In other words, I eat an apple, I live in a house, I drive a car, but you don't own money.
For its intrinsic value.
You own money because it does certain things for you.
And you mentioned some of those, right?
It's a medium of exchange, which means I can trade it for other stuff.
It's a store of value, which means that I can hold on to my money and spend it like five years later.
And hopefully it's going to hold its value, even though we know that our physical dollars don't hold a value all that well.
And what you're saying is that gold...
Has served well, not because of its intrinsic value.
True, some people like to have gold jewelry and so on.
Gold has that alternative use.
But nevertheless, gold is served as money because it serves the functions of money.
And I think what you're saying about Bitcoin is there's this new thing that's come along.
It's about 13 years old.
I don't think, am I right in thinking that Bitcoin...
Is not the first digital money in the sense that people have been sending digital money, right?
Isn't PayPal digital money?
Isn't Venmo digital money and Zelle?
Aren't there all kinds of digital when you pay your credit card?
Yeah, the way I put those, those are digital payment rails, you know, wire transfer.
I mean, back in the old days before, you know...
I mean, people sent wires that had money in them.
I mean, Western Union was a money transfer agency, right?
So there are a lot of digital payment rails that have existed for a long time.
There was never a digital asset.
Everything was always denominated in dollars.
And you are correct in saying, and this is important, Dinesh, because I actually missed Bitcoin in the early days.
And the reason I missed it...
Computer scientists were trying to solve this problem for many, many years.
I mean, this has been worked on, you know, for 10 or 15 years.
People were trying to create a digital cash form of money to compete with the dollar.
And each attempt failed.
And it failed because of something wrong with the technology that, generally speaking, led to, you know, double spending and inflation and the whole thing collapsed.
You know, when you learn about Bitcoin, what you'll see is that there are all these different things.
You know, it's like any other new invention.
There are all these experiments that were tried and failed and tried and failed.
I mean, think of the times that Edison tried to create a light bulb, but so many times it eventually succeeded or the Wright brothers tried to fly.
You know, until they figured out they put a camber in the wing and they're going to get lift.
And then eventually they put it all together.
And that's what happened with Bitcoin.
You know, eCash, DigiCash, eGold, bMoney.
I mean, there were four or five different instances of people attempting to do this.
And then eventually somebody kind of cracked the code and said, okay, we need a difficulty adjustment.
We need, you know, all kinds of things that are in there that take time to learn about.
And you realize, oh, my goodness, this is really, they cracked the code.
They've got something that's, you know, that's going to last, that's going to make it.
And in the early days, I was aware of it in the early days.
I started buying it.
I was quite concerned that it was going to fail.
I thought, well, anything based on a computer can either be copied or fail.
You know, and there was the whole MySpace argument that, you know, this was going to be Facebook would replace MySpace.
There'd be a better currency that would come along.
And that's still somewhat of a risk.
But, you know, given the size of the network now and the number of users, it's kind of like saying, well, is somebody going to replace Google because of Metcalfe's law and the network effect?
I mean, if everyone uses it, everyone keeps using it.
Somebody can start a competing.
You know, currency, maybe even with some features that are the same or better, but who's going to migrate from this one to that one unless the case to do so is compelling?
And so this one's really, it's deeply entrenched, and I think it's kind of, you know, it's game over for digital currency.
This will be the digital currency of the future.
Larry, I think what you've done is you've sort of pulled the curtain here on the world of Bitcoin because you've referred to a bunch of things and people need to do a little bit more of a deep dive here, right?
Because what happens with money in general, but specifically with Bitcoin, is that...
It's a kind of an education.
You need to know something about monetary history.
You need to know something about the gold standard, about the Fed.
I think you need to know something about human psychology.
You need to think a lot about what you mean by money.
And you also need to think about why you save money.
And what do you do about the fact that your money is...
And you need to think about the technology.
You know, it didn't fall into place for me until I actually met a lot of the technologists and I read a lot of the technology books.
And I was like, oh my goodness, how did they think of that?
You know?
And I mean, and so, you know, I was probably like, I mean, imagine you're an American and suddenly you see an airplane.
You know, like, how the hell did they do that?
Exactly. Man can't fly.
Well, guess what?
Somebody's flying.
How the heck do they create a digital form of money that can't be compromised, that can't be cheated on, that can't be broken, that can't be hacked, that's worked successfully for 16 years?
How do they do that?
I was talking to some guys.
I was giving a talk.
And these are very sophisticated real estate guys and oil guys.
And I was just laying out some of the basics of Bitcoin and of digital money.
And one of the wives kind of scratched her head and she goes, you know, what are you saying, Dinesh?
You're saying that some guy like...
Invented money on the internet?
She could not wrap her head around it.
And I think this creates really the need for your book is that it unravels this otherwise complex subject in a thoroughly understandable way.
Guys, I've been talking to investment manager Larry Leppard, the book, The Big Print, What Happened to America and How Sound Money Will Fix It.
It's available on Amazon.
Get it?
Larry, thank you very much for joining me.
Thank you, Dinesh.
I really enjoyed speaking with you, and I hope your audience takes the time to learn about the importance of sound money, because I really do believe it's how we'll fix America.
And I agree.
Thank you for joining me, Larry.
Thank you, Dinesh.
▲
Export Selection