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So we're just collecting, you know, dividends through bonds and bond properties and

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waiting for the second leg of this
collapse to happen. And it absolutely,

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in my mind, has to happen. It has to happen. You're listening

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00:00:11,640 --> 00:00:16,600
to Carrie Letts's Financial Survival Network,
where you get valuable information. You just

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Survival Network now more than ever.
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Financial Survival Network now more than ever.

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Welcome you are listening to watching the
Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,

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00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:46,960
Carrie Lotts. Well with us is
our good friend Michael Pento. I want

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to find out Michael, when we
talked about a year two year and a

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half ago, you predicted exactly what
was going to happen bed raising rates,

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not turning back and the aftermath.
But now we've got a banking crisis on

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our hands, probably directly as a
result of the fence rappid rating creases.

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And where is that going to lead? Well, first of all, I

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have to know where you brought that
shirt, because I definitely want one Oh

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yeah, I could have arranged one
for you. It's a special Robert Graham

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shirt. So then you know,
the problem of the banks is very clear

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to me, and I knew there
was going to be a problem about a

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year ago, but I didn't.
I just I guess I didn't put all

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the pieces together. I went to
my local branch of my bank and I

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said, I'm going to pull a
substantial amount of money from you guys if

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you don't raise my deposit rate to
meet that of treasuries. This was before

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tea bills were about five percent.
But the fact of the matter is that

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the rate that banks make on their
assets you think about going back to two

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thousand and ten, most of their
mortgages are three, four or five percent

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carry. It's a big part of
especially these regional regional banks business is making

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loans. Well. If they raise
their deposit rate to match that what I

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can get in a treasury, they'd
be out of business because they be paying

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me more are my deposits, and
they're collecting on their assets, so they

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can't do it. So you know, I made the decision to walk,

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and I moved to a money market
fund, which treasury only, and I'm

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making five percent of my money instead
of five basis points. Now that's the

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case if I move my money from
a regional bank or to JP Morgan,

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I'm not going to accept five basis
points of my money. And you can't.

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You just can't raise your deposits.
You say, well, okay,

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why don't they veguts and why don't
the regional banks or JP Morrigan money center

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banks just raise the money they pay
and deposits to match the tebill rate.

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Well, they can't do that because
then they'd be bankrupt. That's the truth.

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So it's it's a bank walk,
bank run, whatever you want to

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say. That's what's really ailing these
banks. So they lose deposits, they

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lose deposits are reserves. They're losing
reserves through ut So they're in a lot

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of trouble. It's just taking a
lot, you know, it's just taking

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a little bit longer for this to
pan out. Kerry, do you know

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that in two years from two thousand
and twenty to twenty twenty two, the

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end two money supply went up forty
two percent in two freaking years. Now,

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the average in two thousand and nineteen, you know, the average increase

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in them two was four percent for
Adam, then it went up to forty

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two percent. So it's taken some
time to get that liquidity out of them

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of the picture. And then now
guess what else happened, Kerry. We

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had a few banks for in counting
go out of business. What did the

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FED do? They printed through the
bank term funding program four hundred billion dollars

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in two weeks. So when people
say, well, you know, Michael,

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you will write in two thousand and
twenty two about the market having a

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correction, that is correct. I
was. We saved our clients from the

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you know, the great preponderance of
that disaster. Twenty twenty three so far

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has been a very choppy market.
So if you look at AI stocks,

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they're doing fantastic. But if you
look at the equal weight SMP five hundred,

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unchanged on the year, if you
look at the Russell two thousand,

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unchanged on the year. So we're
just collecting, you know, dividends through

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bonds and bond propsies and waiting for
the second leg of this collapse to happen.

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And it absolutely, in my mind, has to happen. It has

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to happen because the FED is trying
to fight inflation and fighting inflation the way

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they have already done so on top
of the amount of debt that we have

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outstanding, and on top of the
record acid bubbles that we created that we

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have created. Not way the Fed
in the Treasury together guarantees us that we

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are going to have another massive leg
down in the economy, in the stock

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market. It's virtually guaranteed, in
my opinion and in my research, and

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the math and the data tells me
absolutely. Now it's been held in abeyance

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again because of the draining of the
Treasury gener all account, which is aided

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hundreds of billions of cash to the
economy. It's it's been held in advanced

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by the four hundred billion dollars printed
for the bank term funding program. But

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those things are going to end soon, and that's when you'll see the second

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leg. And that is a leg
gonna be my call, it should be.

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And I would say thirty to fifty
percent drop in the in the equity

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averages, and I say that that's
what would happen if it was left unfettered.

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But who knows? Who knows Kerry
what Jerome Powell will do? You

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remember, he's fighting inflation at the
same time, we had a couple of

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banks go under and he immediately create
you know, he bailed out the entire

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banking system with this BTFP brother.
He didn't even blink an I. So

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you know what happens if I'm correct? And later this year, you know,

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full winter of twenty twenty three,
we have the second leg unwind and

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all my I have a twenty point
model that says that's absolutely still in the

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cards. That's absolutely going to happen. And then the Fed starts lowering interest

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rates significantly and re enters QE.
Not this QE light. The BTFP is

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a QE light because it's just a
loan. It's not a permanent monetization of

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debt. But what if he comes
back and he says, you know what,

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the BTFB program is permanent, here
comes from QWE and we're going back

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to zero. Well, here's the
problem. He's gonna be doing that when

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inflation is still at least two times
it's target of two percent. So what

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is it? So here's here's the
conclusion I reach. We're either going to

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have a deflationary recession slash depression,
or we're gonna have runaway inflation. I

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just don't see anyway. He Powell
has to decide what he wants and at

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what time he wants it. But
we're gonna we're probably gonna have them both.

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First, we're gonna have that depression
recession and and and uh, disinflation

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deflation, and then we're gonna have
the intractable inflation. So what's the world

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gonna look like after this happens here? Well, if anybody ever have any

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faith in the in the in the
Treasury or the Federal Reserve to maintain in

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low taxes, low interest rates,
and low inflation, they're in for a

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route awakening. If you thought that
the current environment that we have is one

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of artificial construct you're one hundred percent
correct. The Fed and the Treasury control

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everything. The massive manipulation and interest
rates that we've seen since two thousand and

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eight has been unprecedented globally. It's
been a global nightmare when it comes to

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free markets, and you haven't seen
anything yet if I'm correct, Because they're

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gonna talk, you're probably looking at
something that looks more like Japan, where

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you just say I'm capping the ten
year note at two percent, and I'm

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going to print unlimited amount of funds
to keep it there. Well, watch

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out, watch out dollar, and
watch out for inflation to rise to a

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level that's never before been imagined.
I say it's of America. I hope

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that's not the case, carry because
the actual, the real thing that we

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need and desperately desire here to happen
is for a cathartic depression to normalize asset

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prices. In other words, the
home price to income ratio right now is

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much higher than it was in two
thousand and five. The cost of the

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average mortgage and interest payment is higher
today that it was at the start of

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the Great Recession in the Great Housing
Bold. Well, that's an untenable situation.

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I mean, home prices are unaffordable, especially at first time home buyer

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level. So we need home prices
to drop substantially. And I hate to

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say that because I have my own
two houses and I bought them at the

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you know, well, I sold
one at the top, but I bought

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two at the peak, and I
knew I was doing that because not every

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decision is a financial decision, but
they have to come down to a price

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that or a level that can be
supported by the free market stock prices.

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Kerry, I mean a AI is
the whole thing. You know, AI

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is the big thing. But we
were talking in the pre interview. If

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you take out Microsoft, Apple in
Video, Google or whatever the hell they're

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calling it now now alphabet Facebook or
Meta. You know, Meta didn't work,

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so now maybe maybe he'll change his
name from Facebook to Meta to AI.

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I don't know, Zuckerberg. But
if you take those stocks out,

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the equal weight SMB by owner is
flat on the year. The Russell two

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thousand is flat on the year.
So it's only a very small handful of

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stocks that are bubble isious because of
the latest thing wall streets attack, you

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know, attracting suit, the shiny
thing of AI. But AI's been around.

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AI's been around for decades. I
mean, ask IBM and it's Watson.

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You know it's been It's been around
for decades. It's nothing new.

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Um, So look at bond prices, look at you know, we had

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a situation where bonds, bond yields
were negative seventeen trillion dollars worth. The

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bonds were negative throughout the world.
If you have a three great, humongous,

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a triumvirate of bubbles that have never
existed concurrently and to this degree in

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history. So yes, we're in
big trouble. And if you don't have

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an investment philosophy that navigates between disinflation, deflation and intractable inflation, you're gonna

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you're gonna be hurt. I mean, if you're in a sixty forty portfolio,

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Kerry, and you own bonds in
intractable inflation, I don't care what

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bonds your own, you're gonna get
destroyed, just like you did in twenty

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two. And if and if you're
short stocks at that time, you're gonna

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get destroyed. However, if you're
long AI in a deflationary depression, you're

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gonna get even more wiped out.
So it matters where, it matters what

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you own and when. In other
words, active management. So the stock

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market when inflations raging could go higher
still, right, uh, innominal terms

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00:11:09,039 --> 00:11:13,399
absolutely nominal and nominal terms absolutely in
real terms. You know, listen,

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00:11:13,600 --> 00:11:18,480
you look at the look at the
what happened in any hyper inflationary economy.

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Shorting stocks is a really bad idea. That's why I have five sectors in

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my in my investment spectrum. They
range, you know, from deflation and

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depression to intractable inflation, which is
when you have high inflation but no economic

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growth, so real growth plummets and
and real stock prices go nowhere but down.

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But in nominal terms, you know, shorting of stock in nominal terms,

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00:11:41,519 --> 00:11:45,679
you're gonna lose money, don't you
don't. Don't tell the guy that

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00:11:45,679 --> 00:11:48,159
you you know, the guy you
borrow the stock from. But yeah,

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we'll wait a second. Is down
in real terms, doesn't matter. You're

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00:11:50,759 --> 00:11:56,600
lost. Yeah, yeah, you're
paying nominal dollars in your losses. So

159
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but then when it flips to deflationary, which and inevitably will do, right,

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00:12:07,679 --> 00:12:11,080
then you clean up shorting. Oh
then you cleaned. Yeah, that's

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why it's very important to have an
accurate model that measures and maps the economy

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00:12:16,919 --> 00:12:22,080
like I have. Um and listen, my gut feeling, Kerry is to

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get massively short the market. I
would love to be massively short the market

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00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,279
right now. I think our short
positions right now, total of grant we

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00:12:31,399 --> 00:12:37,120
have a grand total believe about three
or four percent net in not net short,

166
00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:41,679
just in total shorts in my portfolio. But we're long bond and we

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00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:46,519
log bond proxies in a big way. So think you know, utilities think

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00:12:46,519 --> 00:12:52,799
about defense stocks, think about you
know, treasury bonds. So why am

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00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:54,960
I not more short because the model
tells me it's not time to do so

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00:12:56,159 --> 00:13:00,600
yet. I mean, I want
to see the high yield spreads blow out,

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00:13:00,200 --> 00:13:03,759
set financial conditions tightened, not loosen, and it still that happens.

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00:13:03,799 --> 00:13:09,960
I'm going to stay with the data
rather than my feelings. But when those

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00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:13,960
things change, and my model predicts
they will later this year, that's when

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I'll jump on this on the opportunity. In the meantime, I'll just be

175
00:13:16,799 --> 00:13:22,879
happy collecting a significant amount of dividends
in a safe matter. All right,

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00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:28,279
So play it's safe for now.
I'm surprised that the stocks overall, when

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you filter out the thang are actually
flat. I think they're doing pretty good

178
00:13:33,720 --> 00:13:37,440
staying flat. Well, it's because, like I said, you had that

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00:13:37,519 --> 00:13:43,480
forty two percent increase in money supply
that's bubbling around out there. You had

180
00:13:43,480 --> 00:13:50,759
the Treasury General Account which is being
drained to keep the the the interest payments

181
00:13:50,799 --> 00:13:54,480
and the checks coming from the government. That's new money. That GGA is

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00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:58,039
new money. It's almost it acts
like QE. And then you had that

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00:13:58,039 --> 00:14:03,600
four hundred billion or increasing the Fed's
balance sheet over two week period, which

184
00:14:03,639 --> 00:14:07,519
is you know, starting to be
eating eating away now, so it's you

185
00:14:07,559 --> 00:14:09,639
know it's been delayed in March.
You know, you look like a hero

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00:14:09,799 --> 00:14:13,480
if you' say, Michael, you
know you're correcting. You're correct up to

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00:14:13,559 --> 00:14:16,879
twenty two and then you said,
oh, look, large things are starting

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00:14:16,879 --> 00:14:22,240
to fall apart. The banks's banking
system was failing, and and uh and

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00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:24,679
the stock market was faltering. Well
guess what it would have been a really

190
00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:30,679
bad idea at that time to increase
your shorts because of what the Treasury and

191
00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:35,039
Fed we're doing. I think that
ends because eventually you're going to raise the

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00:14:35,080 --> 00:14:37,799
debt ceiling, right, Kerry,
Eventually you're gonna do it. I mean

193
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:43,159
I would be I mean, what
are the two things these two powers in

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00:14:43,279 --> 00:14:48,600
DC, the red and the blue
Republicans and Democrats, where do they care

195
00:14:48,679 --> 00:14:52,720
most about power? You're staying in
power, right, That's what they're all

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00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:58,480
about. So I mean, eventually
raise the debt ceiling. It's gonna come

197
00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:03,480
with pretty trench spending cuts though,
otherwise it'll never get through the House.

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00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:07,279
So McCarty, if McCarthy wants to
hold on to a speakership, he better

199
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:11,960
put a bill to that back to
the House. The one that they passed

200
00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:16,120
was good, right they did.
That will never survive the Senate wasn't even

201
00:15:16,159 --> 00:15:20,480
put for a vote. But when
they change it, when they agree,

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00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:24,519
when McCarthy and Biden agree, it
better have some you know, pretty sharp

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00:15:24,600 --> 00:15:30,799
spending cuts deep and trench and spending
cuts cuts. Otherwise it'll never go through

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the House. If it gets through
the House, it'll get through with Democratic

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votes and mccarty'll be out. That's
the end of him. And good if

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that's the case, good riddance to
him. Yeah. Well, it's a

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kabuki dance, right, a lot
of the form over substance. But you

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know that the it's like Beijing opera, you know, you know in the

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end that the workers are going to
triumph in a Beijing opera, actually peaking

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opera play that you watch in China. And now it's just farce. But

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at one time it was taken very
seriously. So this isn't just the US

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happening in a bubble here. This
is the whole world basically getting slammed,

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right, and the inflated deflated.
Right. This is everywhere in the in

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the world. There's no high from
this. There you know, there's there

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has never been a time in history
you had isolated banana republics suffer inflation.

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We have never had inflation this high
concurrently in Europe and Japan and China and

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the United States. It's just never
happened. You look at the record,

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I mean, if you want to
count for it accurately, United States inflation

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was at a record high twenty percent. Yea. Europe was suffering the same

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thing. Japan has a you know, they have a twenty a fifty basis

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point ten year note, so one
half of one percent ten year note JGB

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with inflation above four and a half
percent. It's ridiculous crazy, you know,

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severely negative real rates. And we
know that that is a bad thing

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for the economy. Uh, you
know, normalizing interest rates. They kept

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talking about that for years, Michael. They never did it. I would

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argue, maybe we're getting closer to
a normalized the interest rate now, although

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you take into account the real rate
of inflation, it's not even close now.

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So if you look at the CPI, for the first time in since

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two thousand and ten, we have
a real Fed funds rate if you deflated

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for consumer price index, but you
you have to look at the short on

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how negative of One of the parts
of my model we're talking about is the

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real Fed funds rate. Um,
the real the real Fed funds rate dropped

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to a sharply I mean never before
even imagine negative rate in two thousand and

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twenty two and stayed there for a
while. You know, we know it

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wasn't just here, it was you
know, all over the world we had

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negative Like I said, seventeen trillion
a negative interest rates. The global debt

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now stands at three hundred and five
billion dollars. This is not my imagination.

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This is Institute of International Finance.
Okay, three hundred and five trillion

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dollars. That is forty five trillion
dollars high, forty five trillion dollars higher

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than it was three pandemic and twenty
five percent higher. This is as a

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percent of GDP. Now, I'm
not talking about nominal debt anymore. Three

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00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:32,200
owner and five trillion is nominal.
If you adjust it for GDP, global

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00:18:32,240 --> 00:18:37,200
debt is now twenty five percent higher
than it was in two thousand and eight.

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00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:41,960
Now, if five and a quarter
percent interest rate on the Fed funds

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00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,920
rate in two thousand and eight sent
the economy crashing, we're back there.

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00:18:45,039 --> 00:18:48,359
Carry We're at five point one percent
on the effect of fence funds rate,

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00:18:48,359 --> 00:18:52,839
and we got there a lot faster
than ever before in history. Took us

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00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:55,359
one year to get there from zero
to five and a quarter. In other

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00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:59,599
words, the amount of debt that
we have is unsustainable when interest rates are

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00:18:59,599 --> 00:19:04,200
that high above inflation and inflation.
I think, by the way I've been

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00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:07,039
and I've been, I think you
and I debated about this a little bit.

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I said that the rate of inflation
would be coming down, So disinflation

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not that inflation is not that the
prices you pay in the in the grocery

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store are going to come down.
I said, the rate of change.

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Of the rate of change. So
if they were rising at nine percent last

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year, they're only rising at five
percent this year. That's still disastrous for

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00:19:29,799 --> 00:19:33,599
someone who couldn't afford the eggs when
they were up from nine percent, now

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00:19:33,599 --> 00:19:36,559
they have to pay another five percent
on top of that. I'm using eggs.

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00:19:36,559 --> 00:19:40,839
But you understand what sure, We're
not getting falling prices, which is

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00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:44,880
deflation. We're getting disinflation. I
would like to see deflation, because there

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00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:49,720
will be at It would be a
necessary cathartic occurrence to have the gravitational forces

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of deflation bring down debt levels,
bring down asset prices to be to a

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level that can be supported by the
free market. That is what we desperately

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need to happen. That would be
healthy in the long run. Carry But

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00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:11,039
but it's untenable to politicians because you'll
you'll have a period of time truncated I

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would hope and pray where you would
have deflation and a depression. Oh you

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00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:18,599
know, people can't you people can't
do this. They can't do that.

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00:20:18,640 --> 00:20:22,480
They can't go out and needed restaurants. You know, Come on, Kerry,

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00:20:22,799 --> 00:20:26,799
listen. This is what we even. This is the situation we have

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00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,039
engendered. There's no help, there's
no In other words, there's no easy

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00:20:30,079 --> 00:20:33,759
way out of it. You're gonna
have breadlines because people don't have the money

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00:20:33,799 --> 00:20:38,599
to pay for bread. Or you're
gonna have bread lines because people's money that

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00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:45,319
they have doesn't equate to enough for
a loaf of bread. Yes, I

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00:20:45,359 --> 00:20:49,480
don't see how you avoid this.
Because of this massive artificial construct of record

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00:20:49,480 --> 00:20:56,200
debt and record asset prices that must
be addressed, it's gonna be a cataclysmic

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00:20:56,279 --> 00:21:00,119
event for the world. Governments are
gonna have to like stop writing checks with

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00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:04,359
sony money, with inflated currency.
Kerry, you know, I'm not you're

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00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:08,559
you're not You're not talking hyperbole here. I'm not being hyperbob hyperbolic. Here.

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Listen, if you look at the
you know, fifty percent of the

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00:21:11,839 --> 00:21:17,480
country doesn't have five hundred dollars.
They're living paycheck to paycheck. And I

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00:21:17,519 --> 00:21:18,880
don't know how all this. There's
a lot of statistics out there to say

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00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,240
it's seventy percent of the nation is
living paycheck to paycheck. I don't have

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00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,680
all the statistics right at the top
of my head and my fingertips. But

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00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:32,599
if you look at data on how
that middle class and under are suffering,

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00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:34,400
you know, um they call it
um. What do they call it?

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00:21:36,279 --> 00:21:41,960
The retailers when when stuff walks out
the door, they call it. They

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00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:45,359
call it shrinkage? You know what? You know, that's the euphemism for

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00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:48,279
what it really is. It's called
theft. Right, Why can't we just

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00:21:48,279 --> 00:21:51,720
say it's not shrinkage. You know, it's not coming out of a cold

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00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:56,559
shower. It's not shrinkage. It's
death and theft. Is that record proportions

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00:21:56,599 --> 00:22:03,000
because people cannot afford to consume what
they need for the basics, and that's

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00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:07,319
going to get a lot worse if
we continue down this road of pursuit of

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00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:11,799
inflation. So if Powell says,
as this inflation morphs into deflation and as

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00:22:11,799 --> 00:22:18,400
the recession becomes a depression and becomes
fully manifest, if he says, I'm

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00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:22,000
going to start printing money again,
and i am going to open up the

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00:22:22,039 --> 00:22:26,680
BTFB and taken all assets, even
mortgage backed securities and junk bonds from banks,

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00:22:26,839 --> 00:22:30,640
and even the shadow banks can throw
their stuff at me, and I'm

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00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:33,440
going to tet lower interest rates.
He could do that. He very well

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00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:37,319
may do that. In fact,
I think he will do that as the

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00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:41,160
situation becomes dire. But that does
not solve the problem, because inflation is

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00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:45,559
not going to stop at nine or
twenty. That's the problem. Grry.

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00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:48,319
Yeah, all right, Well,
you've summed it up quite well. Got

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00:22:48,319 --> 00:22:52,000
to put a lot of credence in
what you say, because you've been right,

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00:22:52,559 --> 00:22:56,160
like I say, right on the
money for the past year and a

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00:22:56,240 --> 00:23:00,119
half. I'm not sure that's where
that's going to leave the world, where

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00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:03,319
it's going to leave the United States, and where it's going to leave you

307
00:23:03,400 --> 00:23:07,920
and I But I guess so we'll
have to get through it. Well,

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00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:14,039
listen, here's the problem. Um, if you're someone who owns multiple homes

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00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:17,559
and has a lot of money in
the stock market, you know inflations like

310
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,279
uh, huh okay, where's inflation
go first? It goes into the hard

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00:23:21,319 --> 00:23:22,720
assets, you know, it goes
into the real estate and stock prices.

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00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:26,759
Um, that's good for me,
good for you, Kerrie. Um,

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00:23:26,799 --> 00:23:30,559
Well, what about the people who
do the working in this country, the

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00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,640
living and working and dying. I
think, I think I sound like Jim

315
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,000
Stewart a little bit. But to
be honest with you, you can't have

316
00:23:37,039 --> 00:23:41,880
a viable nation without a vibrant and
healthy middle class. Um. And it

317
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:45,720
doesn't work when you have intractable inflation. I mean, you look at history

318
00:23:47,079 --> 00:23:51,359
and show me an example of a
of a of an economy that suffers high

319
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:55,640
inflation that functions very well. Yeah, it doesn't. It just doesn't happen.

320
00:23:56,599 --> 00:24:00,880
It doesn't happen. So we mister
Powell, if you're listening to mister

321
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:04,519
Lutz in this program, I wish
you would. Let's get on with reality

322
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:08,240
as fast as possible. Let's shrink
the balance sheet from where it was nine

323
00:24:08,279 --> 00:24:12,160
trillion now it's eight point four,
eight point three. Let's get it back

324
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,680
to where it was, you know, even if it was four and a

325
00:24:15,759 --> 00:24:21,440
half trillion, where it was pre
pandemic. Let's get it there. Let's

326
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,200
fast as bossible. Let's suck up
some of this excess money. The gamblers

327
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:29,440
on Wall Street that you know that
are buying anything that has AI. The

328
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:33,039
algorithms say AI. Oh, let's
go. Let's let's run up Microsoft ten

329
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:37,880
points. You know, let's get
rid of the gamblers on Wall Street and

330
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:44,720
let's provide for a real healthy economy
based on markets. And in the long

331
00:24:44,799 --> 00:24:48,039
run you'll be very satisfied and happy
you did it. You're here. I

332
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:51,920
mean, if you look, if
they'd let the markets function for the past

333
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:56,279
sixty years, the economy would be
three or four times its current size.

334
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,960
We wouldn't be having this discussion.
But he called, just tell us where

335
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:03,160
we find you, how we connect
with you on the web. So if

336
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:07,720
you have one hundred thousand dollars to
invest in your US citizen, you could

337
00:25:08,079 --> 00:25:11,279
open up account at pentoport and I'll
put you in the I deck portfolio.

338
00:25:11,319 --> 00:25:15,839
Inflation, deflation and economic cycle portfolio. If you don't have that, and

339
00:25:17,319 --> 00:25:21,200
if you're you know, yeah,
fifty dollars a year, I'll give you

340
00:25:21,559 --> 00:25:23,839
my weekly podcast which gives you some
of my thoughts, like you here on

341
00:25:23,839 --> 00:25:27,519
this program, some data and thoughts, a general view on what you should

342
00:25:27,559 --> 00:25:32,480
do to protect yourself. All right, Well that's all we can ask or

343
00:25:32,519 --> 00:25:34,839
I appreciate it. Michael, always
great having you on. Got a question

344
00:25:34,839 --> 00:25:38,680
for Michael myself about this or anything
else, shoot me an email k l

345
00:25:38,839 --> 00:25:44,759
at kryltz dot com. Make sure
you click the link to Michael's site and

346
00:25:44,839 --> 00:25:48,279
the show that's this interview on Financial
Survival Network dot com. Sign up for

347
00:25:48,279 --> 00:25:52,640
your food newsletter. Michael, always
a pleasure. We'll talk to you again

348
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,759
real soon. Great stuff. Carry
thanks for listening to carry Lets's Financial Survival

349
00:25:56,839 --> 00:26:02,400
Network. Your solution to today is
trying times. For the latest, go

350
00:26:02,519 --> 00:26:08,000
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