One of the greatest ironies in America, of all places, is that politicians have the citizens cheering on the raising of taxes on themselves. How so? Well, whenever the government spends money it doesn’t have, that the Federal Reserve counterfeits into existence, that’s a tax. It’s called inflation! The tax is paid by higher prices for the things we buy. When you go to the supermarket, remember the $6 Trillion "Covid Relief.” We’re still paying for that “relief.” When government “slaps tariffs” on another country, that’s a tax on the American consumers! Americans have bought into the “I’m from government and I’m here to help,” line, and we’re paying dearly for it.
And thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is co-host Chris Rossini.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Happy Friday.
Great to be with you, Dr. Very good.
Well, we have a few things we want to talk about today.
We generally talk about at least gold and why people should look at gold as an investment and protection against the madness of Washington.
And then you and I usually pick out an economic subject to go over.
And today we want to spend some time because it's been in the news about tariffs and protectionism and all the fallacies that are related to that.
And yet it looks like it's one of those deals that's bipartisan.
Those are the kind you have to really worry about because the bad stuff is always bipartisan, whether it's going to war or supporting the Federal Reserve or spending money, it's bipartisan.
So we want to talk about that a bit.
But gold's been in the news.
Gold's been doing having a lot of activity.
I shouldn't say doing a lot.
It's doing real well.
Well, it's doing well in protecting, I guess, what's doing very badly, and that is the dollar is going down in value because our system of government, economic and military system, demands that we spend money, don't pay for it, print the money, and that devalues the currency.
And that's why the dollar weakness is what we talk about, although we call it watch the gold price, because that's the best measurement of what they're doing to our money.
And one thing has been in the news, it's been there actually for a couple years, warning and talking about it, but it's much more noticeable now, and that is the movement of gold from the West to the East.
And that's generally, you know, United States, the Western, the Western countries, Europe as well, moving toward China and Japan and these other countries because they have more confidence and they're more anxious to take care of their needs by believing in gold.
But the enthusiasm for gold as being money was too hamstrung for a country and a government that had adapted many, many years ago, more than 100 years ago, with our Federal Reserve system and all the benefits, temporary, that we got by having the World Reserve Currency.
And that gave us license to spend beyond our means and look like we're getting wealthier.
But it was all based on debt, and that's what's coming to fruition now.
And that is why the countries that are aware of the importance of gold are buying gold while our government is not paying much attention to it.
Why Gold Matters00:16:10
And, you know, even the trade problems that we have today, and Chris and I will be talking about that a little bit more, when you have these trade wars going on, it generally pushes prices up.
And it's usually our consumers get hit.
And people will say, boy, yeah, that causes, now we're having more inflation.
Well, not exactly, because if you just had the tariffs and the sanctions and all as the culprit, prices would go up, but it technically is not inflation.
But inflation causes the incentive to do that, so it's a mixture.
But what happens is the prices are going up because of protectionist attitudes that we have, but it's also going up more significantly because they're printing too much money.
And the two sort of feed on themselves, and that's why the American people are very disgusted with what's happening right now.
There was a calculation recently made that said that for a family of four, it takes $177,000 a year to take care of that family.
And that's the median amount.
So there's a lot under that number, a lot higher than that, that they have to spend.
But just that number is significant.
And that's why people are very upset about what's going on.
And I saw a statistic that said that they did a whole thing about what are the people worried about for this campaign, a presidential campaign.
And at the bottom of the list was foreign policy.
And I got to thinking, well, if somebody has a job to explain it, how about all the money we spend?
And we get hints that people are concerned because when you look at how much money we send, you know, whether it's to the Middle East, to Ukraine, or whatever, trillions of dollars that we spend and waste on that.
And so that's economic.
And yet they say the people aren't worried about economic policy.
And rightfully they have other things to worry about.
They do worry about the borders and immigration and their cost of living.
But they need to see the connection of this, the overall policy that we have.
And this to me is a very important subject, and the reason I've been talking about it for a good many years.
But it's also the reason that we partner with Bernard Gold Group, because there's a way to protect against this.
Not perfect, there's nothing perfect, because some people had gold at the beginning of the Depression, and yet that was the first thing Roosevelt did, take the gold away from the people.
We don't want them to have the benefits.
We want the government to have the benefits.
So as soon as the government got the gold, they switched the so-called price of gold from $20 up to $35 an ounce.
So it's one of those things that protection is hard to come by.
But the whole idea, whether it was in the 70s or currently, a lot of people who had not thought about it a whole lot about how to protect their wealth and their income and their savings are thinking about that now.
And they can get away with that for a while.
They can use up their savings, and that ties them over.
And they say, oh, I hope things get better.
And then they can also say, we can borrow money, and that works for a while until the end that is approaching will push interest rates up.
And that's where we are.
We're at that point where the interest rates are going up.
The people are hurting very badly.
This is the reason why protection and protecting wealth that has been earned and saved, how do you do this?
Because if it's just in, say, the Dow Jones average, which is booming right now, is not going to keep doing that.
It's either going to be depreciated by the inflationary factor, and $1,000 stock might be still $1,000, but it won't buy anything, or it'll crash, and nobody knows exactly what will happen.
But there could be, you know, right now I see that we're, you know, in a situation where there is a recession, and it's called stagflation.
We have prices going up and see that the economy is getting weaker.
Now, the reason I bring up the subject of Birch Gold is the one approach that they've had, and many are joining, and it's become very popular, and that is to switch to a gold IRA account.
And that's their expertise.
And if one has IRA or 401k, they'll facilitate how that is switched over into an IRA because there are some regulations on it.
If you switch over into a gold IRA, that can be done, you know, a lot easier than one might think.
And that's the reason that we work with Birch Gold, and we have a line where you can dial and find out more about it.
And that is, it's a text line.
And if you text Ron at 989898, you will reach Birch Gold.
And they will send you materials to further explain this effort to try to protect wealth with the use of the precious metals in an IRA account.
So that's the advice I would like to give.
And I imagine a lot who are listening and I'll have done it.
And some people might say, well, the gold went up tremendously today.
Isn't it too late?
No, it's really just the beginning of what has to happen to iron out all this mess we have.
So if that is the case and you have not done it and you would like to, just text Ron, 989898, and they will send you this material.
There will not be a cost to this.
And I think that it's worthwhile.
Conditions are such that it will give some people a little bit better way to rest about what's happening.
But ultimately, we have to do something with the monster that created this thing.
Surviving it is important because ultimately there has to be people who survived the economic crisis, the moral crisis, the political crisis to help put it back together again.
Because the patchwork isn't just going to come on a daily basis and we're going to rebuild the republic in a sound currency.
So it is important to get as many people as possible who are protected and really understand the principles of liberty because I personally think protecting liberty should be our biggest investment.
But once again, I'm going to give you that number and that is text Ron 989898 and find out how you can get some of the free materials to help you start an IRA investment account.
Chris, we're going to talk today a little bit about tariffs.
And I mentioned in the opening that tariffs, tariffs are so bad, and I know you understand who gets really the bad shot at this.
But the tariffs are bad because it pushes prices up.
But those prices are going up because of bad policy, which adds fuel to the fire of the inflation of the devaluation of the currency.
And that's why we're living in an age where I think the best monitor for me on a day-to-day basis, and it's been that way since 1971, is watching what the markets are saying because there's still a lot of market activity.
Government's always interfering, but they want to know the market will help tell you whether what they think about the dollar, what they think about interest rates.
The government will regulate, and they say we'll rig their interest rates.
We know how to do it.
We have great computers at the Fed, and they can tell us exactly what to do, which is a farce.
I think, Chris, what we need is a little bit more freedom.
Absolutely, Dr. Paul.
Yes.
We all know how bad Americans are struggling.
We see it all the time.
We see the statistics, the debt levels, people don't have savings.
But, you know, our taxes never go down.
You could definitely count on that.
And we know we're taxed to the hilt already directly, whether it be income and state and property, taxes, capital gains, inheritance.
The list is endless of all the direct taxes.
But there are taxes that don't even have the word tax in them, like inflation.
Inflation is a tax on us.
Tariffs are a tax on us.
Us.
You know, we're told that the tariffs are on the other nation.
No, it is our money that goes to Washington, D.C. That's how tariffs work.
And this is from a government that spends way more than what they even take in taxes.
They're $34 trillion in debt.
Now, how is that going to be paid?
Well, we all know it's not going to be paid, but as long as this monetary charade goes on, that has to be paid with taxes, either inflation or directly.
But the politicians have gotten so good at this that they actually have the Americans cheering the raising of taxes.
Think back to COVID, you know, that horrendous $6 trillion CARES Act.
We had a show before it saying prices are going to skyrocket.
You can't have the Fed print all this money, but oh, people needed that COVID relief, and they got it.
And look, we're years later, and we're paying for it with all these higher prices that are surrounding us.
So it's the same thing, but people cheered it on, that CARES Act.
It's the same thing with these tariffs.
They cheer it on.
They think they're going to go get that other country.
No, the tax is on you.
You know, so the politicians are very slick, but the American people still have not figured out that they are not here to help.
They are not our helpers.
They will portray themselves that way, but we are always going to pay a very steep price.
Very good, Chris.
And when these problems that Chris just described aren't dealt with, the market will deal with it and try to solve this problem.
But it usually ends up by tinkering because, you know, as Chris mentioned, the likelihood of the Congress all of a sudden come along and changing their tune and balance the budget and the printing presses slow up or the computers, it's just not going to happen.
But what they do is they resort to other trickery.
And one is, you know, placing on tariffs because trade becomes more difficult when it's based on debt, borrowing, and a currency that does not have a fixed value.
That's why under the gold standard, everybody knew what a dollar meant.
Today, that isn't the case.
So trade becomes a problem.
And that's why they drift into solving trade problems and these spending outrages is to balance things with putting on tariffs.
And the country that becomes the empire and owns the reserve currency of the world, they're a little bit more powerful like the United States has been since World War II.
And a country like that can get away with a lot for a long time, but eventually it destroys itself.
And then they'll resort to bullying other countries and trying to just spend our way out.
And just look at how these appropriations go into the trillions of dollars.
And, well, we'll put, you know, and now other countries are competing with us.
They're competing in the currency markets.
They're competing in the financial markets.
The whole works.
So they're saying that what we have to do is we have to put, we're still powerful.
We still have that big army out there.
So we're going to have to put sanctions on people.
We put sanctions on them.
We tell them what to do.
And then we add on to its tariffs.
And all of a sudden, though, there's a pushback.
And that's what we're seeing now.
And the biggest pushback is now coming from the BRIC countries as well as especially China and Russia.
They're fighting back because they're seeing the shortcomings of what is happening for their country.
So the tariff words, and it's a big issue in the presidential election right now.
Trump has not been a champion of free markets.
On some days, he sounds like, oh, yeah, he's a little bit less aggressive than the Democrats.
But no, both sides have supported the tariffs and the protectionist measures.
And that is the problem.
So that's why bills keep getting passed.
And that's why they don't deal with the real problem, which is deficits and printing money.
So that keeps going.
And this tariff war is getting very, very difficult to solve because, you know, Trump might say, oh, well, as soon as I get there, I'm going to double the tariffs on China.
I'll teach him a lesson.
Then the next day or two, you'll hear an announcement from the opposition say, oh, guess what?
We're going to raise the tariffs on so-and-so.
And then, since we live in an age of nihilism and you don't have to tell the truth because that confuses people.
And so they say, well, I don't know what they're going to do, but they will go back and forth and they will fight and they think they will get benefits.
And the one thing that they don't realize is the apparent benefit that seems to come by keeping some item out, you know, from being brought into the United States.
Something has to adjust it.
How are they going to get what they need to get?
And it itself will push prices up and add fuel to the fire of inflation.
And that's where we are today.
And it looks like it's not going to go away.
Maybe there'll be something come about and some wisdom will strike a few people.
And one of the candidates for president that wins might have a more common sense approach to free trade.
But now nobody talks about free trade because they think it's detrimental.
And yet, free trade, to me, is a moral issue.
Because the way I look at it, I simplify it, maybe overly so.
But if a person earns money and they pay their bills and they have money left over and they want to save that money or spend it, they have a right to spend it any way they want.
So if the product comes from China, why do you take the right away from that to buy it from China?
And they say, well, they're undercutting our people because right now it's the automobile.
They're undercutting our costs and things.
Well, the motivation should be to improve the product and be competitive.
And then they'll say, well, that's not what they're doing.
They're undercutting and we're in trouble.
We're losing jobs.
And it's sometimes politically a hard sell to make.
But I'll tell you, it's something that has to be done because ultimately the tariffs eventually will undermine trade and it will push prices higher and it will not help us in any way that I know.
If it does help somebody say, oh, no, we had protectionism on this item and this was beneficial.
It's going to be short-lived.
But if you want to live in a free country that's prosperous, get a sound currency, make the government live within its means, and I'll tell you what, that will be moving in the right direction.
We'll need a lot more attention given to that.
Bounds of Democracy00:04:36
Very good, Dr. Paul.
Yes, you talked about how either candidate Trump or Biden, you know, they're not for free markets.
That's because our system, our democracy, it's called, is very corporatist.
It's crony corporations and very tightly organized interest groups.
That's what our democracy is.
We know from COVID, they gave corporations immunity for those jobs.
Immunity.
Imagine.
And then they started forcing people to take it.
You know, we all know the results of that.
So that's an interest group, big pharma, do this to the American people for our benefit.
Tariffs are just another form of that.
It's just different corporations.
Tax the American people for our benefit.
And they do it.
Now, how is a president supposed to choose?
There's all these different corporations.
Who do you put tariffs for?
Well, they're going to choose the ones that they think will benefit them as the president.
You know, that's how it works.
So the president has his interests served.
The corporation has his interests served.
The only one that never has their interests served is us, the American people.
But that's how our democracy works, regardless of who you vote for in November.
It's going to be corporations and interest groups, and the president will decide which one is best for me, and they'll all benefit for themselves.
So it's a shame that it's this way, but a lot of, you know, and I'll talk about this later, a lot of Americans want this, and that's the bad part.
Good.
You know, the principle of empire is important because when a country is able to achieve that position of being, you know, an empire, and the biggest in the world, it could throw its weight around.
It can have economic power, and they put on the sanctions, and they do certain things to serve the interests of the empire, as well as the military power.
The military power goes along with it, and they can back it up with that.
And that can go on for a long time until that empire oversteps its bounds.
And it's not like this is a theory.
It's history because empires don't last forever.
They last sometimes longer than other times.
But they usually, you know, do better when they have a sound currency and they live within reason.
But eventually they overstep their bounds most of the time in foreign operation.
And I think that's where we are now.
We're overstepping our bounds and we're reaching out and doing things that we shouldn't be doing and it doesn't fit the situation.
And people are getting restless, not only the competitors that we have around the world, but the people here at home are getting restless.
And that, of course, is some of the motivation for what's going on in economics because I mentioned the BRICS group, the group that wants to start a new currency.
And they're using it to some degree.
And I mentioned gold is drifting away from this country.
So there's lots of preparations being made to replace what we have, the special place we have as the issuer of the reserve currency of the world.
And the same way with the military.
Yes, we still have a lot of bombs and we finance everybody, it seems, and sometimes both sides of the wars that are going on.
That just can't last.
And right now, I think that the more we do, I believe some of these things, well, we do it for national defense, and they'll say, Raw, you're not for national defense.
That's not American.
We have to support these positions.
But the whole thing is, is empires self-destruct.
They extend themselves too far.
They spend too much money.
They undermine the currency.
The bankruptcy causes problems at home.
The people become disgruntled.
And all kinds of terrible things happening because the people won't say, well, what really is wrong?
Why were we successful as a country, United States, a couple of hundred years ago, 150 years ago?
Well, the conditions were different.
The currencies were different.
And we had different attitudes.
But right now, I think things are becoming unglued.
And just what happens in the next six months or a year, totally unknown.
I happen to think that there will be some very bad times ahead.
And the one thing for sure is nobody knows what month that's going to start.
But I think the crack in the empire is already there.
It's evident.
Crackup Boom Warning00:05:50
And that's why the warning should be out there.
And that's why people should think about protecting themselves, both in the sense of personal wealth as well as protecting and understanding the cause of liberty.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I will finish up with my closing thoughts.
Yes, the only true way, lasting way, that American companies can be competitive is to cut the size of government severely.
And all the regulations.
You know, the subsidies, the tariffs, the licensing, the red tape that is everywhere.
It even trickles down to my local level.
Where I live, you need a permit to have a garage sale.
You have to go pay them to sell your junk.
And there's places where you need a permit to have a lemonade stand.
This is the mentality that has infected our entire society.
So of course you're not going to be competitive in the world.
You're all wrapped up in red tape everywhere, and there's millions of bureaucrats that are taking all our money.
So the solution to this, now this is going to last until it doesn't last anymore, but our job is to put out the right ideas and you need free markets.
But politicians definitely don't want free markets.
Where are they going to get their power, their sense of power from?
They like to tell people what to do.
And corporations do not want free markets.
Where are they going to get their special privileges from?
Now, unfortunately, most people think, oh, those big corporations, they would love to have free markets.
No, absolutely not.
You know, they had their chance in 2008 and 2012 when Dr. Paul ran.
You know how many big corporations rallied to his side?
About zero.
They do not want free markets.
They want this because they get their special privileges from the politicians.
So unfortunately, a lot of people, they think government regulation is good.
You need it.
Well, we have it.
And I guess the best thing we can say is enjoy it while it lasts.
Very good.
You know, the individual considered to probably be the greatest of the Austrian economists.
And there are many great ones.
But the one that identifies with that description is Mises.
And he had a theory about how conditions that we're experiencing now, how it can end.
And if you don't change your way, it will end that way.
And he described what he called the crackup boom.
That total confidence is lost in the status of justice of the government, security, the functioning of money, the prices.
A couple of recent examples probably as a crackup boom would be Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
And that is people see the currency and it starts going up, you know, doubling, tripling, and quadrupling and getting into the billions of billions.
It gets ridiculous that so everybody in the meantime, and it goes rapidly at the end, is get rid of it, get rid of it.
So they buy stuff and it just infiltrates everything.
So it's inflationary in the sense that there's so much, but that usually ends.
Now, I don't think that we're there, but I think we're taking a step in that direction.
And I dread the thought that there will be a, it could be a crackup boom here in this country.
It would be so devastating.
And the way this gets started, the temptation is real easy to satisfy the special interest, worry about the, don't worry about the debt, keep spending, and it could go on for years and decades, and it seems like it'll work forever.
Oh, this time it's different.
We can have a soft landing, and we'll have a soft landing.
Think going to be okay.
So, we're in a period of time where the economy is weakening, even though people will still be in denial.
But there's a lot of statistics to show that the economy is not as healthy as politicians might claim.
So, that stagflation prices are going up even though the economy is slowing.
The solution to this, by the conventional wisdom of the economists now, is well, what we need is to really slow them up, catalyze a bad recession or depression, and then that will decrease demand, and then prices will drop and we'll get rid of inflation.
They think of just punishing it rather than saying, Well, why don't you get rid of the cause?
You know, like get rid of the cause, which is the deficit and the printing of money.
Because if the stagflation continues, it goes into a condition called the inflationary depression.
You have a depression, it's bad, and everybody knows it, but that's when it's getting very, very dangerous.
And we will see that.
I think we'll expect to see that.
Hopefully, we'll be wise enough.
And I just have a hard time believing that the United States will be dumb enough to allow this to go so far that we have the total crackup boom, which is the total destruction of the dollar.
Most of the time, many times in the past, countries in this situation will finally cut back and they end as an empire.
The British could be put in this category.
The pound still exists, but it's not the old pound, it's not the currency of the world.
And so, there are different ways that this can go, but I think it's very, very dangerous because the conditions are getting worse.
The Message of Liberty00:01:28
And on top of all this, we had this invasion that has occurred.
People thinking that our prosperity will never end because most of the world is messed up with this type of economic policy because people are coming in, and some of the people in our own government just opened up the doors.
Come on in, we're rich, we'll take care of you forever, and we'll just punish those rich people there still in this country.
And that is inviting problems and trouble, and we have to realize that it could come.
That's why we need more people protected from this catastrophe in a financial way, and more people understanding why free trade and deficits and fiat money is all worthwhile, and we can solve our problem.
So, we do need some very serious thinking about this, and that's why we spend some time at the Liberty Report trying to get that message out.
And yet, we're still very grateful for our opportunities in this country because we still have enough freedom to have a program like this where we can talk to thousands of people, and people are interested.
But it's not going to be automatically protected, and that is why we work real hard at the Liberty Report to spread the message of liberty, which we so strongly believe in.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.