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Okay, your son and daughter in
law just came to you and they're asking

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you advice on their finances. This
is what they make, this is what

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they spend, this is what they
have in debt, this is their debt

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service and all that. And it
was done in the size numbers that most

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people can wrap their arms around.
And what people said was, why tell

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them they got some problems, they
need to cut spending and all that.

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And then I flipped the page after
going through a lot of that, it

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showed them all we did was at
a bunch of zeros. This is a

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national dint. This is the federal
government, and they're all like miles of

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gate going. I didn't realize it
was that bad. And Carrie, that's

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the problem. People don't realize how
bad it is. You were listening to

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Carrie. Let'sa's financial survival network where
you get valuable information you just can't find

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anywhere else to thrive in today's trying
times. You need the Financial Survival Network

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now more than ever. Go to
Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get your free

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newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network
now more than ever, and welcome.

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You are listening to the Financial Survival
Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz.

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Well, the economy, what's it
going to be? We in recession?

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Our rates coming down, inflation?
Is inflation going to stay up there

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and get worse or is it going
to improve? And what are your alternatives?

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What do you do when your dollar
just isn't going as far as you

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wanted it to and how's that going
to affect your retirement? Well, our

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good friend Brad Williams, financial expert, is with us now. Brad,

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it's great to have you back.
So, first, economy, recession,

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is it here? Is it coming? If it's coming, when is it

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coming? You often point to a
little blue glass globe that I have on

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my desk and tell my clients that
that's the closest thing to a crystal ball

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I have. But our government and
the Fed has gotten so good at this,

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uh, this dance around everything that
it's murky because of the policy prescriptions

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they always put in. I think
we're seeing indications. You know, people's

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people may be getting raises in their
paycheck, but they're not commensurate with what

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their increases and expenses are. So
you know, as we see fuel maybe

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go down, we've seen it come
down. What a lot of people don't

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realize is is that's also it's not
just the cost of the fuel. That's

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an indicator that maybe people aren't using
as much of it. And if they're

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not using as much of it,
then they're not getting out and about and

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doing things and buying things and all
those things required for a consumer driven economy

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life we have all right, So
demand is down, well, it's it's

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hidden by inflation by the cost of
everything going up, isn't it. Yeah,

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it is. And we see we
see gold going up. It's you

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know, it's hitting new eighs and
that is an indicat too, of people's

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fear bitcoin. You know, we're
starting to hear some things in bitcoin.

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I'm getting people asking me more and
more about bitcoin. And I don't recommend

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investing in that. I'm not saying
you shouldn't. That's just not something that

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that I'm licensed to recommend. So
you know, I just tell people you

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do what you do, what your
heart tells you. But you know,

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I'm not sure you know how how
bitcoin works. But a bitcoins and indication

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that people are losing faith in the
dollar, and you know, we are,

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we are the world power because we
are ostensibly the richest nation. We

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have the military power, and so
a lot of people will pay our interest

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rates for our dead instruments, our
bonds and treasuries because it's cheap insurance for

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the for the defense umbrella we provide. Well, the question we got to

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ask ourselves is you know what happens
when our military gets too expensive. Our

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interest rates this year are going to
cause our service on the national debt to

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exceed our defense budget. And that's
a scary thought, certainly is. And

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the only alternative is to monetize QE
to infinity right exactly. And you know,

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and then we have all these We're
in an election years, so we

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get all these ridiculous proposals, like
you know, the president that was doing

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a speech, I think it was
yesterday, we was talking about he wanted

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to give free community college to all
and you're not gonna have to pay for

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it. Well, yeah, you
are, your kids, your grandkids.

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We have lived in a society that
has been so affluent for so long that

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we've forgotten that somebody's going to have
to pay the credit card bill at some

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point in time. You can't just
take cash advances and put things on the

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credit card for infinity yeah, sometimes
you got paid back. Well, that's

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what we've and doing, right.
And you know, and with bitcoin,

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they have this thing every couple of
years called the having where right, the

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amount of the bitcoin that can be
mined is cut in half from like nine

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hundred and fifty coins a day now
to like four hundred and seventy five.

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What if the Federal Reserve did a
halving and they said every six months,

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the amount of dollars that we create, we're going to cut in half.

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What do you think that would?
Oh? Well, and you go back

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to when we came out of that
high inflation time. You know, whenever,

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whenever the government does something to solve
a problem, they oftentimes exacerbate the

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problem. I was old enough to
remember that the WIN program, I think

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it was under fool quip inflation now
now, yeah, and all the things

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that you know, the government did, Like you know, they wanted to

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freeze the cost to certain cuts of
meats. Did what did the butchers do?

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Well? They created new cuts of
meats. They weren't regulated, you

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know. I mean, so the
one thing you got to say about our

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economy and our people is that typically
we figure ways around the government. I

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mean, oftentimes people say, well, the government did good under this president.

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Well, the question is, did
they do good under that president because

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we figured out ways around his policies, or did he take barriers down to

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allow us to So government either puts
barriers up to the economy or they take

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barriers down. And what Rayan did
was he took barriers down. Now,

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it also started with Walker, you
know, really really tightening up. Interest

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rates went up, you know,
and the money supply decreased. But what

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happened was they stayed the course and
we're able to come into the eighties with

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a strong economy after the first couple
of years. And that took discipline,

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It took adults in the room.
The problem we have in Washington now is

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we got no adults in the room. Yes, how do we get some

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back in the room, that's the
question, that's right. Well, so

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when you look at it, some
of the indicators, you know, even

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China is starting to worry about gold. You know, they're limiting, uh,

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the mar or they've raised the margin
requirements, they're limiting price swings.

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They're doing the same on silver because
they're afraid of precious metals and uh,

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because that that's always been the store
of wealth. Now I'm not telling everybody

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to go out and buy a bunch
of gold. I'm just saying you probably

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ought to have a little in your
portfolio as an offset. And I'm talking

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about the hard metal, not the
paper. You know, maybe some silver,

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that type of stuff. It's a
good hedge. But you don't look

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at those as investments. You look
at them as a store of wealth.

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And and that's where a lot of
people I think go wrong is they watch

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the they buy gold, and they
watched the price of it go up and

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down. They get nervous. We
didn't buy it for that reason. You

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bought it to stick in your safe
and forget about it. And that's the

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reasonable way to look at it.
But if our government doesn't start getting it

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spending in line, then we're going
to go the way of Britain. You

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know, they exhausted themselves in World
War Two and came out of World War

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two being taken down from the throne
of the world power. Yeah, well,

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all empires eventually die, right,
That's exactly right. And we've been

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blessed for a long period to be
a strong, a strong government in spite

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of all our flaws. And you
know, one of the beauties of our

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government is that our founding fathers when
they wrote that document, they made it

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hard to make hard shifts in either
direction. You had to go through legislative

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process and all that. Well,
now you know, the executive branch is

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figuring out how they just say,
Okay, we're just going to do an

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executive order and get around that.
Then we don't have to you know,

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then we don't have to pass that
law. And that's danger, yes it

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is. And that's led to all
sorts of imbalances and government power between the

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courts, the executive and the legislature. And well we all know that.

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So so what are you supposed to
do here? Well, what I what

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I tell people is and because I
deal primarily with retirees, it's all about

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income and you know, looking at
at at bonds and things like that to

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provide you that retirement income that's consistent
because you're you're not gonna be able to

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count on growth, you can't.
I guess the way I put it is,

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we want to look at how we
can live off the eggs and not

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the chicken. And as we're in
these volatile markets, these people that are

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that are counting on their portfolio to
grow a certain amount so they can take

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a certain amount of income. Are
creating a cancer that's going to ultimately eat

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their portfolio. So people have when
they switch into that retirement mode, they

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need to switch their thinking and their
investment strategy. Now, you know,

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somebody like my daughter, who is
who's my oldest daughter, thirty two,

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she should have a long term approach
to investing. In fact, I tell

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a lot of young people like that, it's you know, buy an S

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and P five hundred five and don't
even open the statements. Just keep funding

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it and then you know, twenty
years from now, start paying attention.

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You know, do the right things, but don't watch the markets go up

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and down and try to time it. You're in there for the long run.

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But when you get to retirement,
you can't play that game. And

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so because you don't have the time. So when I counsel people about what

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next is, let's look at things
that provide income. You know, maybe

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like I said about gold, having
a little store goal for for you know,

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things get really bad, but you
know it's it's really hard to predict

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what's coming because we're in unprecedented times. We've never had this much debt and

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it's it's kind of scary because it
creates a lot of instability in the world.

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Look at what's going on with a
lot of these countries that are looking

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to create their own basket of currency. So far hasn't worked. But if

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look, the IMF is warning,
the warning of the United States, they're

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warning Congress, they're warning the president, and how long can they go unheeded

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for? And you're exactly right.
I did a I did a presentation once

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at a client event where I took
the federal budget and I took a lot

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of zeros off of it and put
it in terms of, Okay, your

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son and daughter in law just came
to you and they're asking you advice on

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their finances. This is what they
make, this is what they spend,

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this is what they have in debt, this is their debt service and all

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that. And it was done in
the size numbers that most people can wrap

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their arms around. And what people
said was, why tell them they got

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some problems they need to cut spending
and all that. And then I flipped

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the page. After going through a
lot of that, it showed them all

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we did was at a bunch of
zeros. This is a national this is

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the federal government, and they're all
like mouths of gate going. I didn't

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realize it was that bad, and
Garry, that's the problem. People don't

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realize how bad it is. Yeah, yeah, yep, unbelievable. They

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see those zeros and you know,
you can pull up the deck clock.

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I'm sure you have. You know
that website that keeps clicking, But those

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numbers, there's so many zeros there
that people just they just they blank out.

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They just blank out, you know. But if we just you know,

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and we got a presidential election coming
up, people need to quit voting

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based on what somebody on some network
is telling them, which most likely is

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not even true anyway, or it's
an exaggeration. And look at Okay,

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what is this person really going to
do? You know, if they're in

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office now, what have they done? Are things better? You remember that?

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When when was it? Ronald Ray
said? Are you better off than

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you were four years ago? Okay? He got what forty nine states?

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And uh he lost one state in
the district of Columbia. Totally changed the

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electoral man because people felt it and
they understood it. I think we're getting

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close to that, but I'm not
sure if we're very here, it looks

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to me like we could be.
But hey, you know, and Trump

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was in office last time, he
ran up the deficit by six trillion,

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So you know, is he going
to be a born again fiscal conservative and

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really cut this the stuffing out of
the budget. I mean kind of you

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like the guy that they just got
in Argentina and mule Yeah. Yeah,

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yeah, he's he's really taking the
knife to it. Yeah, and you

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saw his speech. Cut cut cut, cut, yeah, grat you know

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what to understand that that's that's right. And so what happens You're sitting there

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at the table with your wife and
you're going over your bills and you're paid,

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and you know, and things are
not moving in the direction you want

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them to go. What do you
do? You say, Okay, we

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don't need the cable, all right, let's get rid of the cable.

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You know, we don't need this, we don't need that. Okay,

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you know, we need to confine
eating out once or twice a month.

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You start cutting things and being realistic
based on the cash flow you got coming

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in. You don't go now,
we can just float some bonds. Oh

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yeah, easy, easy to be
easy, right, that's right. Yeah,

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all right, So hey looking ahead, so gold we like, is

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there anything else? I mean,
do you trust any other currency, any

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other foreign the stock market here?
I think, you know, it's always

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good to have some in an international
as long as they're good companies. You

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know, I'm a I believe in
a balanced portfolio in that respect. I

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think right now what people ought to
look at is looking at good quality company

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that pay dividends, because even in
a down market, if they got a

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consistent history of paying dividends, they're
going to get paid, they're going to

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get rent on their money. Okay, and so at least and in reality,

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00:15:11,039 --> 00:15:16,120
when you look at it long term, check out the dividend performers versus

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just a straight growth, you'll get
a surprise. Yeah all right, hey,

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Rot, appreciate you coming on talking
about these issues with us. Where

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is the best place to find you
these days? Well, the best place

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is my website, which is www
dot ask Bradwilliams dot com. If you

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got a financial question, just ask
Brad Williams. All right, Brad,

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well, well, certainly keep that
in mind when we get a question coming

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up, and you guys out there
should also you've got a question for Brad

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myself. The email address is kl
Atcarrie Lutz dot com. You'll find a

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link to brad site in the show
that to this interview on Financial Survival Network

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dot com and will you there.
Please sign up for your free newsletter,

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Brad Pleasure. We'll talk to you
again real soon. Always a pleasure.

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Thank you, thanks for listening to
Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your solution

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00:16:07,279 --> 00:16:12,960
to today's trying times. For the
latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com.

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Financial Survival Network now more than ever,