By definition, future human actions and the motivations behind those actions cannot be known ahead of time, or predicted with pinpoint accuracy. However, an understanding of immutable economic laws and the principles of Liberty can shine a light as to the general direction that we're heading in. Join us on what to expect in the coming year.
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Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Today, we're going to do something a little bit different.
We're going to talk about next year and what we might anticipate because there's a lot of unknowns out there.
And we've had quite a few people writing in and wanting to get an opinion about, you know, what should we expect next year.
Of course, nobody really knows the future, but good economic policies can help in telling us about the direction of an economy or the direction of the foreign policy, even though events are unpredictable and there are a lot of surprises.
So, Chris, what do we have to start off with?
It's great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Yes, the world is very complex, so we'll just do the best that we can to talk about some general trends.
We'll start with the economy.
And I am happy to say that last year we did pretty good towards the end of the year.
We could see starting around September that things were not going well in the economy and especially with the Fed.
And lo and behold, in 2020, we had a major, major correction.
And as unfortunately, as expected, the Fed came in.
They pumped money like never before.
The government is spending money like never before, with deficits and their debt.
So seemingly, in their eyes, they think they're making things better.
In fact, they are making things much worse by what they've done this year.
So once again, we have to circle back to there will be another major and even bigger correction that is ahead.
Will it be in 2021?
That's almost impossible to say.
But the Fed has created a giant mess.
The government has assisted them with their debt and deficits.
So, Dr. Paul, I am not optimistic about what is ahead for the economy.
How about you?
Well, I wish I could just say a few words and change your mind because I can't be very optimistic either.
But I still want to talk a little bit because now and then we do find some signs that the people are getting disgusted and they want changes.
But we're facing something the country, probably the world, has never faced before.
And I see that we're approaching, and it could occur this very next year, or at least we're seeing the beginning of it already.
And that is the end of the Keynesian experiment, which started a little many, many years ago.
And even before Keynes was around, there was an experiment with endless spending, endless inflation, endless government planning.
And it's never worked.
But right now, the more modern day Keynesian experiment, I think, is coming to an end.
The one thing that people don't realize is that governments are like people.
If governments live beyond their means, just as if you or I live beyond Beyond our means, or a company lives beyond its means, it eventually will live beneath its means because the bills will have to be paid for.
But the big problem is that the people who may have benefited and experimented with this type of an economy and made a lot of money, they're not necessarily the ones who have to pay the bills.
And what I see coming, I think it'll be clearly evident this coming year that the system is falling apart and the people are going to get angrier and angrier because the few at the very top, and some even say 0.1% of the people, are earning trillions of dollars now as the middle class is disappearing and the anger, the anger is growing.
So I think that it has already started.
It's going to get worse because policies aren't going to change.
And when you look at what we're facing, we're facing a crisis in the political system, too.
We have a judicial system that not many people believe in.
We have an electoral system that people are not trusting anymore.
And we have a financial system that is very, very shaky.
And the only thing that has been offered is more of the same, more drugs for the drug addicted.
And that is the economy is addicted.
And as we speak, the money is pouring out of the printing presses and going to the people.
And it helps.
The markets keep going up and people are unhappy.
They're going to pay their bills.
But I think that eventually the turning point will be, and we may see the beginning of that this year, is that the stimulus that is shoved out there, instead of seeming to help, it's going to do more harm.
Right now, you put out trillions of dollars and all say, I got more money.
I'm going to spend it.
And the statistics get better.
The data is not so scary.
But eventually that's going to change.
It's just like the inflation.
When the inflation occurred in the 70s, everybody was watching the CPI and the CPI.
And the more, and the people say, we don't have enough money, we don't have enough money.
Of course, then they put in more money and the problems get worse.
We're in the same situation now.
The economy is not exactly like it was in the 70s, but it's very, very shaky, very, very weak.
And artificially, it's been held together, especially in this past year, because the debt is just rising exponentially now.
And we had the conservatives in power.
Just under Trump, the national debt has gone up $10 trillion.
And it's bound to continue because right now there's a coalition that has built, and this will adjust itself because it looks like Biden will be the president.
But the coalition that ended up this year with this horrendous spending has been a coalition of Republicans and progressive Democrats.
And all they believe in is how do you satisfy the people and how can we con the people into believing that we are your saviors and they get the votes?
And they do, but they continue to make the economy a lot worse.
Some of the more specific things for next year in the economy, I would think the debt is going to continue to do exactly what it's doing, explode, and maybe have one of these bursts where everything just goes crazy and you have a crackup boom.
And that's always possible that we'll see that this year.
I think gold is going to respond and gold, though it has its ups and downs, they're very minor compared to stock markets and bond markets and other hedges.
And that I think the gold will continue.
Gold has not been, you know, not been negative for me personally over the last 30 years because when I got interested in with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods, you know, they're going to print money like crazy and the dollar is going to go down in value.
And it has in gold then, since we've had our fare, gold has systematically done exactly as Austrian economists predicted.
It went from $20 up to nearly $2,000.
I don't think, I think the likelihood of gold being under $2,000 this next coming year, if it's under, it's going to be very, very slim and it couldn't go well over well over that because if there is the panic out of the dollar, and that's the big deal is when are they going to get disgusted and we lose control of the reserve currency of the world.
And of course, China is the threat.
Russia is not the threat.
And our own policy are a threat because we go out looking for problems.
But China's a big country and they're producing a lot and there's a lot of demagoguery going on.
And we hear a lot of noise about, well, the Chinese are investing here and there and they're doing things and they're beating us.
But they're always not accepting the fact that maybe the Chinese have benefited by the fact that we just printed the money and we spent the money and we gave them the money and now they're spending it.
And that's hardly all China's fault.
But anyway, that's the big political argument.
It's China's fault.
But in the meantime, I think they're going to be a lot stronger at the end of this year.
They will not have the reserve currency of the world, but they will be moving in that direction.
So I think systematically, just as the dollar in the last month or two has gone down, I think it will continue to do that.
But the prediction of when the whole thing collapses, nobody can do that because some unknown event is going to come along, some war is going to be started, and some panic will happen and the whole thing.
There's no foundation to what we have.
The foundation can come crashing down just anytime.
I think the driving force and the anger in this society is the maldistribution of the wealth in the country and the anger it elicits.
And this is not just our country going through this.
This has sort of been historic.
The peasants always finally get mad.
They might not understand exactly what's going on, but the rich do get richer and the poor get poorer.
And if you just look at it, just in this, you know, recent downturn, the three, Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos, their wealth has gone up trillions of dollars.
And the middle class and the poor, they have not had an increase in real wealth in 20 years, even though nominally they do, and some may do better than the others.
But overall, the middle class is shrinking.
And guess what?
If you could draw up a chart, as their wealth shrinks, the anger rises.
And that's why we're seeing disturbance in the street.
So I think we should expect a lot more disturbance in the streets.
There'll be a lot of excuses.
There's going to be coronavirus, the lockdown, and various things.
But the basic fundamental flaw is the economic system and the lack of protection of civil liberties and putting responsibilities on individuals.
So in a way, I don't think it's going to be a great year.
But in spite of all that, we can always look for those pockets of people who have had enough and they're throwing their hands up with no more, no more.
We're resistant.
We're sick and tired of all this.
But at the moment, the momentum is in the other direction.
The socialists have the momentum.
But I think strategically speaking, the people who understand what liberty is all about and free markets, economics, all about money, those numbers are growing and that's important because the opportunity will eventually be there to help rebuild the system because the current system cannot last.
So we have to remain vigil.
I think it's most important that people know and understand what liberty is all about and associate with others with the same belief and also trying to influence others.
So in spite of all the bad news, bad news has been around the world for thousands of years and people get by.
Unfortunately, there's so much suffering as these times pass and there will be suffering, which is one reason why I get involved because it's so unnecessary.
Wars Build Complex00:14:24
The wars that we fight in the economy and the wars we fight over coronavirus and the wars we fight over our civil liberties, it's all unnecessary if they would just accept some few basic principles which the founders tried to pass on to us.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
We'll move from one menace of society, the Federal Reserve, to another menace, and that's the military-industrial complex.
And on this show, we stand up for individual liberty and peace.
So every step towards liberty and peace, we will praise.
Every step away, we will challenge.
And it doesn't matter who you are, what party you belong to, or even if every single American supports you, if you move away from liberty, we will challenge it.
Now, with President Trump, he was a mixed bag over these last four years.
There were things that we praised him for and others that we criticized him.
One thing that we think he deserved some praise is with foreign policy, he didn't start any new major wars.
And at least with his rhetoric, he stated over and over that he wanted to bring the troops home, even though he was stopped by his people that were under him, amazingly.
He didn't bring the troops home, but his rhetoric was good, and his rhetoric was good with stopping the endless wars.
So tens of millions of people heard constantly over the last four years that the endless wars have to stop.
And I think that that was a positive.
Unfortunately, the swamp is still there.
The military-industrial complex is still there.
And one of their longtime time members is becoming president.
So I don't think in the coming years that Biden will be as favorable to us when it comes to foreign policy.
How about you, Dr. Paul?
Well, I think the policies, we have a pretty good idea what will happen because most of the people that were in the Obama administration are going to be with Biden and some even worse.
That's to be expected because they were interventionists.
They did cause more problems.
That will continue and it will get out of control.
Just think of Libya and Syria that Hillary got involved in and a problem still linger.
Yet at the same time, when Trump tried to bring the troops home, Republicans and Democrats got together.
You don't have a right to move these troops around.
So, they don't even understand that, you know, under certain president is in charge of the military.
It's pretty amazing that we have come to a system where nobody says boo if the president starts the war on its own without a declaration.
But if he decides to end the war and bring troops home, which he has a constitutional authority to do as the commander in chief, they yell and scream.
So, the bipartisanship is just terrible on foreign policy.
But I see it also as an opportunity because we're going to have to face this, and that is bringing together coalitions.
And on principle, and there are still some principled Democrats and principled non-interventionist Republicans and libertarians.
And there's no reason why that coalition can't be built when the failure of the system, just like the failure of the economic system, the failure of the foreign policy.
And when I think about the effort that Tulsi Gabbert has made, she's a progressive Democrat, but she's willing to work and talk with us about a different foreign policy.
I have for years worked with Dennis Kucinich on this.
And even though we wouldn't agree with all the economic things, I think war is such an important thing that never for a second did I ever think I was selling out by working with people like this.
You don't have to sell out your beliefs if you build coalitions with people who have beliefs themselves and the beliefs overlap.
That's what I think should be done.
And that's why I think libertarianism and the cause of liberty is something that can be built on once it's realized that everybody benefits from liberty because you get to use it any way you want as long as you don't hurt people.
And I think the coalition can build.
I think we're up against the wall.
They'll be very, very powerful the next year.
They're going to get the budgets passed.
And even anti-war people always seem to justify the spending of the military money.
And that's the case with a lot of the Democrats who speak a good game, but they always still vote for the budget.
So the deep state is very powerful.
They have the control and the influence on the monetary system, controlling the deficit financing.
But the deep state is also very influential in the foreign policy and agitating for types of policies that lead toward protectionism, antagonism, and threats around the world.
And I think that that's going to get terrible that what we really face here in the next year is because of the turmoil within our judicial system and our political system, that somebody might come along and sneak up and start a major conflict.
I don't think that it's going to be something like the start of World War I or World War II, but it could actually even be worse because there's so much modern technology that can happen, and it's also not as controllable.
And that's the reason I think this whole issue of peace is a very big one, but also one that gives us an opening to get other people to work with us.
The military industrial complex is very, very powerful, and they're controlled by Republicans and Democrats.
And that's why I think it would be foolish for anybody now to make a prediction: well, we're over this.
Trump did a reasonably good job, even though at times we weren't sure exactly where he was coming from.
But like Chris pointed out, you know, the body bags were a lot less.
And it was the Congress sometimes that was agitating for war.
So it has to do with the people.
When people get sick and tired of it, the war's in.
And I keep thinking about the Vietnam era.
Just think how many people died over that because of the foolishness of the military industrial complex run by Republicans and Democrats.
Took all that time.
Nearly 60,000 Americans were killed for an undeclared war.
And people finally, the people rose up and said, no more, no more.
And it finally did end.
And now we're trading partners with Vietnam.
Why can't we do that first?
Start trading with people and not have to go through a ward to have proof of nothing.
So I think that the main thing about foreign policy, we all should be vigilant and be willing to speak out when our government's going in the wrong direction.
And that, of course, is one of our problems right now because it's getting more difficult, especially if you want to give an opinion that seems to be controversial and doesn't fit the status quo and it goes into the social media.
You know, there's too many vetoes of that, too much censorship.
So we have to be creative in getting our message out.
And if it's always based in a moral tone and a moral justification, the message can spread because I really believe truth wins out, unfortunately, only after a lot of pain and suffering.
So let's do our best to prevent that from happening.
Yes, very good, Dr. Paul.
We'll finish up the show discussing the elephant in the room, and that is the whole Corona situation.
I read and I hear some people think, well, now that Biden's in, we should get some let up on the lockdowns and all the fear-mongering.
But, you know, there's part of me that I'm not so sure about that because just when you think about the authoritarian mindset and the unprecedented powers that they grabbed over this year, they're going to be very resistant and hesitant to give those up.
This is what they dream about, and now they've got it.
So I don't know what will happen there.
And when it comes to the masks and all the fears, you know, the Ron Paul Liberty Report, we've probably done 100 shows proving you don't need this mask and you don't at least don't need to be forced to wear it.
But it's become so conditioned and that even the truth doesn't seem to matter.
So it's a big mystery to me what will happen.
With that being said, when you look at the ideas of liberty and history, that's also a mystery.
You know, liberty can come out of nowhere, you know, if it catches people at the right time in their minds.
So there's always reason to be optimistic because things can reverse just as quickly as they went downwards.
So that I remain optimistic with that, and especially because of the work that we do every day.
And I know that our listeners try to help and try to spread the message as best as they can.
So there's always room for optimism because out of nowhere, good things can also happen.
Dr. Paul, how do you close the show?
Very good.
You know, the resistance is building.
We see signs of it.
We report it on the Liberty Report all the time.
People standing up to it and getting attention, even though social media won't allow all that information to get out.
But more and more people are standing up and they're being hailed as heroes.
And yet at the same time, the number of people who will challenge some of that won't wear a mask in the store and just almost everybody else in the store is yelling and screaming and they're hysterical over the whole thing.
That still exists.
But so it is a contest going on.
I think it's a truth against the demagogues.
And there are days when I become more optimistic.
And the big challenge is, why do they do all these things?
But you could ask the same questions about hot war.
Why did we have this war in the Middle East and all these other places?
It didn't make any sense.
People died.
It cost a lot of money.
We didn't win anything.
We lost everything.
And so I think this whole attitude about the coronavirus has a real challenge to it.
Do they do these policies like lockdown and create unemployment and then create trillions of dollars to take care of the unemployed?
Do they do it because they're outright stupid or they do it because there is a plan and a conspiracy?
And I think there are people who would like to see this whole thing crumble.
The radical Marxists and fascists, they do.
They like to take over when there's chaos.
And I think the chaos is going to build.
And yet the resistance is building.
That is still up for grabs.
And I think that people will finally wake up and start resisting because it just doesn't make any sense.
Our other problem, though, is when we see such disruption, if you rely on the electoral system and the judicial system, all of a sudden it gets very frustrating.
Just think of those years, three, four years that the Republican Party and especially Trump had to put up with Russia, gay, which was all based on lie.
And look at now that so much is being told now about the Biden's in the controversy there.
And I guess nobody has the exact thing because it hasn't gone to court, but it doesn't like it ever will go to court, even though there's a lot of suspicion.
There's been a lot of suspicions about the election, yet that has not yet been decided.
So it's the kind of thing that sets the stage for a lot of animosity and hatred.
You know, no matter which way this election goes and what's going to happen, what the results are, there's going to be build-up anger, just like in the economy, there's built-up anger because of the discrepancy, you know, in the wealth.
And people surely can get emotional and upset about the hot wars that gone around the world because, you know, so often when I would oppose the Middle East wars, you know, I'd be challenged for patriotic reasons.
I'd be challenged because I didn't like the military and all the nonsense.
That attitude changed.
And then later on, I benefited by taking a stand.
But in the meantime, we will have all of that.
And right now, and the noise and the media covers all the people who say, well, if you don't do as we tell you to do and wear a mask, whether it's proven to help or not, we're going to ridicule you and have you lose your job and do a lot of other things.
So it's something that is pretty weird on how this on how this spreads because there's a lot of psychological things that go on that people panic.
You know, it reminds me of the extraordinary popular delusion and the madness of crowds that was written way back in 1841 and just how crowds go mad are like in tulip mania.
And there's a lot of that happened.
So this whole idea, and the only thing they have to do is, see, you guys don't care.
Why Belief Matters00:02:01
You're pointing out that there's nothing wrong.
But people do die.
And it is, of course, correct.
But liberty dies too if you don't have accurate tests and there's so many fallacies.
So, yes, you can die from diseases, but is the solution, you know, government getting involved and regulating every bit of our lives, locking people down, impoverishing people, and then inviting in a system which participates in the transfer of wealth and the destruction of the middle class onto the very wealthy already there who's making money off the military-industrial complex and also off coronavirus.
So, those problems are going to exist as far as I'm concerned.
The solutions are out there.
It's mainly for each and every one of us to know and understand what personal liberty is all about, where that liberty comes from, and being able to stand up for it and present our case for it.
Because, for practical reasons, people should be accepting the principles of liberty.
And I think people have to believe it's in their best interest to do this.
Wars generally have ended like Vietnam.
It ended because they finally figured, you know, it's in our best interest to end this war.
Why didn't they look at that in the Middle East?
Why didn't they say it's in our best interest not to get involved?
And I think we have to apply that to economic policy as well as the war and the coronavirus and this sort of thing.
So, it's an ideological struggle.
I think that struggle is going to be there, and it's going to be talked about this year as always.
I think it's going to be more significant and more important than ever.
So, I just invite more people to pay attention and realize that natural God-given rights are understandable and defensible.
And therefore, I think that could solve a lot of our problems.
And I want to go ahead and finish by just thanking our viewers today for tuning into the Liberty report.