President Trump had a very clear choice in front of him starting in January -- Try to save America, or try to save the bankrupt Empire that lives at the expense of the American people. The time had finally come, after 100 years of almost non-stop wars, to make the choice. It has to be one or the other. The American people overwhelmingly voted to "Make America Great Again" as it was before the Empire's endless wars -- drastically cut the government and free the American people. But President Trump chose to do the exact opposite, and the results throughout the economy and American society reflect his choice; in just less than a year.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Good.
We want to do a little discussion today on the economy.
I understand some of the business people aren't doing as well, but boy, I can find headlines.
If the headlines are leaning toward giving support to the administration, it sounds like everything's doing pretty darn good.
You know, we're working on stopping all wars and don't start any new ones.
We're working on cutting back on spending.
All these wonderful things are happening.
But we have discovered that's not necessarily the answer.
So if people have been concerned, you know, about the economy, which I have been, you know, for a lot of years, because I was always worried about this silly old thing called inflation.
People refer to inflation now as prices going up for commodities and for goods and services.
Inflation really is printing money for the government benefits to benefit the special interest.
And that has continued.
And I have continued to be interested in this.
It's for this reason.
I, for many years, have thought that a good way to gain a little protection was put a couple gold coins and silver coins in a piggy bank.
And maybe the price won't stay at $35.
I expected back there in 1971.
Yeah, it's bad.
What they're doing is they're closing the gold.
Gold could be, you know, 35, it could go to $100 or $200.
So even though it wasn't long, we realized that it was going to go a long way.
And that's the reason gold has become very special.
A lot of people are paying attention to it.
The people who paid attention to it over the years have done okay in building their protection.
But it's not like that opportunity is over because I still think that as long as there's huge debt, there's going to be inflation.
And the inflation by the Federal Reserve, printing money, devalues the currency.
And the ratio between gold and the Federal Reserve notes is always going to go up into the thousands now, which is amazing.
So this is one reason why we work with a company called Birch Gold Company, because they provide a service and they are in the gold and silver business, the precious metal.
And you can get some information from them because the information is to try to guide people in.
If they think an IRA account would be good to get around some of the government regulations, they give you information on this.
Anyway, if you want to learn more about that, the gold investments and silver investments, you can text, and I believe this is on the screen, text Ron 989898.
And Birch Gold will send you material.
They don't charge you for this, and they will work with you and they'll be glad to hear from you.
So once again, if you are concerned about what's happening, and if you believe that I believe that the deficits are going to continue, the money printing is going to go on and the dollar gold ratio is going to continue to go up.
Gold will become more valuable.
The paper, unfortunately, could go to zero, but I haven't predicted that because I hope we wine, you know, you get smart enough before that time.
So I think that that will be something that we'll have to keep an eye on.
But I want to give that telephone number out once again.
The text number is RON 989898.
And Chris, we do have a discussion today.
We will see how the employment rates are going because it depends on who you're reading, which TV station you look at.
Because if you want good news on how wonderful everything is, then we know where to go.
Anyway, Chris, what do you have on that?
TV Station Spin00:10:07
Yeah, we're not the TV, Dr. Paul.
Thank goodness for that.
We try to tell the truth as best as we can.
The TV has a very big agenda.
They're basically the mouthpiece for the government.
So whatever you want the government to know, you know, what they want you to think, go to the TV.
With President Trump, this first year has been a very rough one.
We needed government off our backs.
Instead, he gave us a ton of extra weight on our backs directly by taxing us to death with increased spending, deficits, tariffs, or taxes on us.
The debts, all of that has been exploded higher.
But even worse, or a very big part of it, it has been all empire all year long.
Right out of the gate, Iran, the terrible Gaza that we financed, Ukraine war.
Here we are in December.
Ukraine war, it's way past day one.
He still has not walked away from that.
And now there's a new target, Venezuela.
So it's been all-empire all year.
And as could be expected, when you're focused on trying to put the world under your thumb, the people at home who have to pay for it are just getting smashed.
You know, and the layoffs are the highest since 2020, which was the COVID years.
One headline that really bothers me was from Bloomberg, and it says that mom-and-pop business bankruptcies hit a record as debts rise.
I mean, if you're going to talk about making America great again, that's what made America great again.
You could go open a business, entrepreneurship, competition, innovation.
Mom and pops are going out.
That's how it's been my whole life.
I remember as a kid, I mean, how many there were.
And it was even better when my parents were alive.
There are shops everywhere.
You go and you start a business to serve your community.
That is still going down the drain in all for just consolidating into big companies that are tied to the government.
You know, and President Trump, speaking of 2020, since the layoffs are as big as they were then, he was president then.
And that was the COVID shutdowns, which again crushed the mom-and-pop stores back then in 2020.
Go into Walmart.
There's a disease out there.
Go into all the big places where you could be with thousands of people.
You little guys, you go out of business.
So very bad first year, Dr. Paul.
It's showing up.
They could go on TV and tout whatever they want, but we know how it is in the real world.
You know, the monetary inflation has been around for a long time.
So a lot of people who understand the money issue, especially those who have been introduced to Austrian economics, realize and can predict that the distortion of lower interest rates, you know, feeds the desire to spend more money and subsidize the government and the special interest.
But the monetary inflation, you know, will initially seem to be beneficial, but the people recognize the inflation of the prices.
You know, when the prices go up, then they get very worried about it.
You know, it started here, I guess, a couple of years ago.
The previous president was still there, still in office.
And the administration then, when the prices kept going up a lot longer significantly, they had to have an explanation.
And they said that this is not too bad.
This is still like sticky inflation.
It's sticking around.
And that's an understatement.
It sticks forever as far as I'm concerned because you can't erase, you can adjust and pay the bills and pay for the mistakes made.
But it does hang around.
And so, even though it started many, many, but while the whole effort started way back in 1971, it's been continuous.
But the current surge has been, you know, a couple years.
So this is the sticky inflation.
But you know what I think it is?
I think it's not, they don't explain exactly what sticky inflation is.
I look at it as that the inflation is stuck together with super glue because boy, when it comes, it may prices may go up and down and it'll be distortion.
But overall, the problems of inflation, distortion of interest rates, it stays for, you know, in many ways, some things never go back.
We don't go back to automobiles being less than $1,000, this sort of thing.
And once those prices go up, they don't go up in a straight line and stay there.
They go up and down and up and down.
But overall, if you take 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, well, take the cost of education.
I paid $350 a semester when I was in college for my tuition.
Well, I don't know what it is there now, but it's not going to be $350 because it doesn't stay there.
Even though you cut back on the printing of the money for a while, it will not save it.
Once you get these levels, it takes a long time for new money to find its way through the economy and affect all prices and all interest rates.
And it's very, very hard.
If it affected everybody equally, if everybody's salary went up, everybody's prices went up, and they were equal, you know, people say it would be so bad, but it doesn't work that way.
It's a sinister type of process that throughout the ages, it's something that the politicians always yield to the temptation of an easy rally because the immediate effect of the inflation is a benefit to somebody.
And the beneficiaries who have the greatest motivation for this are the people in government because they spend the money and that's how they stay in government.
Take care of their friends and then go to the government.
Well, we can't tax anybody.
They're sick and tired of taxes.
Well, we'll print the money.
So that's the reason that 1971 came, where even a very weak link to gold had to be severed to let go and let loose what we've had since 1971.
And this is what we're seeing, consequences of that.
And we're seeing this now in the job losses.
But I think these statistics are distorted.
And if they're bad, that means they're much worse.
And it's something that is with us.
And it cannot be solved by tinkering.
It can't be solved with, I saw a statement today.
Well, maybe the money we're collected from the tariffs will lower our income tax.
Well, good luck.
When the government spends, it has to find things and distort things.
So, this is one reason we spend so much time talking about this issue.
And now we see something that people are starting to realize.
They're starting to realize about the foreign policy.
We're spending too much money overseas.
And now you see, when you look at it, there are job losses, even though they're not exactly reported in the media.
You still say, well, an unemployment rate's down, and they will fudge money.
But there are serious problems out there.
So the inflation, the distortion will have to have a correction.
And that's what the market does.
They will correct this by causing people to have to liquidate debt.
And that then leads to the unemployment rates going up.
Today, we're talking about a very special area where unemployment is going up.
Chris.
Yeah, Dr. Paul.
And unfortunately, the inflation is going to get worse before it gets better, if it gets better, because President Trump has wanted lower interest rates and more money printing this whole year.
He was bashing Powell, and now I think Hassett is his name.
And they're going to lower rates.
And boy, prices are going to follow upwards.
And the problem with all this is by the time four years are up, Trump is rolling out the red carpet for the Democrats.
I mean, this is usually what happens with Republicans.
We had H.W. Bush, we had Clinton after him, and then W. Bush.
You know, no nation building W. Bush before he was elected.
Obama, you know, it adds fuel to bring these leftists in.
And we could only imagine who's going to follow Trump.
It'll probably be pretty bad.
But the biggest betting market, Polymarket, they have the Democratic Party 80% odds of them taking back the House in 2026.
This is a consequence of the Republicans.
They campaign like us, like libertarians.
And then once the election is over, they're worse than the Democrats.
And it constantly upsets people.
And we don't want Democrats any more than anyone else.
But the Republicans do it.
They pretend that they're libertarians to get in there.
And then, boy, once that voting's over, there are totally different people.
It's a totally different Trump after that election than the one that was campaigning.
A very entertaining campaigner that got all those mom and pops that are going out of business to go out there and support him.
So the Trump administration is going to pretend otherwise.
The TV is going to pretend otherwise.
Credit Cards and Market Distortions00:03:55
But it's not going to work any more than it worked.
You know, they were telling us, oh, no, Biden is fine.
Biden is fine.
Everybody knows Biden was not fine.
Everybody knows that the economy is not fine.
So pretending otherwise is not going to work.
Well, very good.
And you know, there's a new term that has come out because the people are finding it more difficult all the time.
People are losing jobs.
Prices are still going up.
And they just had a buying season for Christmas coming up.
And it was decent because people bought a lot of things, but they're running out of money.
And they don't have many answers because just taxes won't happen.
But they've come up with a new term, buy now, pay later.
And it's sort of getting more notice all the time.
And I guess a lot of people do this.
You know, there used to be something called layaway, and that was not exactly like buy now, pay later, because the credit card system is still there.
And some people think this is really a good deal.
I saw one article today, positive impact of financial inclusion provides a credit coupon.
Buy now and pay later.
This is good economic policy, which makes no sense whatsoever.
The market is designed to correct the mistakes of government, and that is get interest rates down, liquidate debt, liquidate the malinvestment.
And everything the government does and the special interest they do is to try to prevent this.
And there's reports now that people are in such bad shape that they're using their credit card because the credit cards aren't as regulated as going to the bank and getting a loan.
But you can run up your credit cards and people are financing their groceries and their gasoline.
They get a smaller tank of gas, pay less, put it on their credit card, and just limp along that way.
But the problems are building.
And these are bad signs for what's happening where the people are resorting to this.
And besides, actually, the credit card is, you know, probably arguing the case and provide the case for what the market needs to do and what government ought to pay attention to.
Because it's the market rate of interest that is distorted by government that causes malinvestment and making all these mistakes and all this nonsense we have.
But they do this in order to make sure that people will keep spending.
And this is what they do.
So if you look at it, the credit cards are trying to say, you know, we can't keep loan on money.
It's higher risk.
So what does that do?
That pushes interest rates up.
But it's not subsidized with government because governments don't let interest rates to go up for anything if they're fitted to a constituency.
But when they go up on the credit card, guess what?
The credit, I was amazed how I looked up to find out what is the average interest on credit card.
It said 20 to 30.
I said, that has to be a typo.
But I looked around and it's huge.
And yet the people still, you know, they don't have any options because they've been taught.
I mean, the constituency of people coming out of our universities and out of our government, you know, they say this is okay.
This is good.
And just like Nile, they say, it's Kushkook.
Buy now, pay later.
This is an economic plus for some people.
Coalition Building Against Negatives00:09:29
But anyway, the negatives will come.
There is no way to stop it other than the fact people should pay serious consideration to making sure that they're protected the best they can.
And I still believe it's in precious metals.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish with my closing thoughts.
Yeah, empires go broke.
You know, we do our best to try to put out good ideas.
And there are a lot of American people, I'm sure, that don't want this, but they feel helpless, you know, because we want the government to do the right things to turn it around.
But empires, they don't do that.
Because at this stage of the game, they're so corrupt with so few exceptions.
And the ones that are the exceptions, they want to kick out of the government.
But they're so corrupt and so compromised with these Epstein files and everything else that we don't even know about that we're asking the wrong people to do something that they're just not going to do because they're corrupt and compromised.
So when the economy goes bad, here's the next concern, is a major war, because that's what FDR did.
His New Deal was such a disaster that you had to get the attention onto someone else, and it's foreigners, you know, and Trump, I'm sure, would do this because his economy is not good.
And go point the finger at the bad guy that's not located here.
And they do that through war.
And war does not make it better.
It's not like, oh, war saved.
No, the people, it was sacrifice.
They're building bombs.
Bombs were no good.
You're sacrificing your kids.
You know, you weren't producing prosperity.
It was only after the war that America was relatively unscathed that we were able to produce.
But during war and producing, you're producing for war.
It's destruction.
Today, we don't even produce anything for war.
So, you know, that adds to the thing.
But the politicians are going to want to distract from their disasters here into war.
And that concerns me because that's not going to be good for us.
We're just going to have to suffer even more with, you know, perhaps even people trying to hurt us.
You know, so that's why all the propaganda that we hear, you have to be against it, against it, against it.
They're going to try to fear you into going into another war.
But if there's enough public opposition, it'll make them think twice.
Very good.
You know, Chris has touched on this and presented some good numbers on what's going on in small businesses.
I'm going to reiterate the figures on November for unemployment, small business job losses, they thought it would be around 10.
So when they don't meet, when those things happen and the numbers don't come in as they had planned, it makes news.
And they were a lot more than that.
There were 32,000 losses in November.
But it was all smaller people.
The big guys are still doing quite well because they can live with higher prices and things much better than the smaller companies and the individuals.
But there's still some good news around about the momentum.
Yes, the momentum, we talk about the momentum of the bad stuff, and it's going to come.
We know about it.
We ought to prepare for it because it takes a long time to clean up a mess like this, balance the budget, and have sound money and restore liberty to our people.
So that's a bigger deal.
But you have to take bits and pieces best you can when it comes along.
But there are things going on that I think are good.
For instance, there's been a growing interest in the American people and coalitions being built about getting out of these wars.
I mean, we were promised we would end these wars, but that's not happening.
But the American people statistically now are saying, why are you spending all this money on Ukraine and the Middle East?
And now we're down there trying to start a war in Venezuela.
And so the people are talking about that.
You know, it took years for people to really start talking like that during the Vietnam War era until the people got fed up and it finally ended.
And also, people ignored what was going on in Afghanistan.
That took 20 years for the people to get upset enough to tell the government that enough is enough.
But I think those things are very positive.
Changing foreign policy, I think, is a big thing.
But also, I think internationally, not so much with the United States and our Federal Reserve, they're not inching.
They're way back to where the dollar was a kinkpin because there was always a relationship to gold.
But that, of course, doesn't happen anymore.
So the BRECS group of countries and governments that want to move it along and have a relationship of the currencies to gold, they had some news out on that today that they are starting to spend more time moving that along and including gold in it.
So there's a lot of central bank buying of gold.
And I think that's good.
Of course, I really want the people to own the gold.
In a truly libertarian free society, you don't have a definition like the founders gave us.
Only gold and silver is legal tender.
And after that, we weren't supposed to have a central bank issuing paper money.
So this is, but right now, the movement internationally with more central banks buying gold and even some cryptos are at least talking about the gold issue.
And I think that's good.
A lot more people are thinking this way than they did with our Great Depression in the 30s started because nobody really cared about gold because there was deflation at that time.
So this to me, I think is good.
There's a desire for some coalition building in Congress.
Unfortunately, the Grand Coalition in Congress is not even up to speed with the coalition of some people outside of Congress because the coalition, there's always been some.
And when I was in Congress, we worked with them.
That is, those who called themselves progressives generally had a better opinion on civil liberties and peace than did better than the conservatives.
But now there's a coalition building, but the people have to come together.
It's some money.
And that, I think, is what happens when people get disgusted with some issues.
All of a sudden, the parties become less important.
But those in office, the party is the only thing they can talk about because that's their bread and butter.
That's how they stay in office.
And they have to participate until they can't participate.
There's not much left.
So I think there's every reason to, in spite of our worries, there's a reason to believe that we're moving in the right direction with some people.
And still, there's still support for these ideas.
And quite frankly, I think it's necessary because not doing anything under these conditions will just make things that much worse.
And one thing for sure is we can't keep doing what we're doing now.
The market is too powerful.
The market is always insisting on making corrections.
And that's what these downturns and depressions and recessions and inflation are all about.
The market trying to say, wise out, folks, your policies aren't doing well.
So we'll do our best to try to explain what those policies should be.
But people say, well, that's too complex.
Ron, what do you do?
How do you do it?
What do you do?
What should we do first?
I think if people are interested in trying to sort it out, we have a pretty good guide.
Not perfect, but pretty good.
It's the Constitution.
And everybody takes an oath to office to follow it.
I can't understand how they get away with defying the Constitution so often.
That bipartisan ship is the negative part because that's how most of the stuff gets passed in Congress.
But we will do our very best, very best to continue to spread the message of peace and liberty.