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Speaker 2: Let's just assume everything continues on the way it is.
So it's gold, precious metals, bitcoin. What about the stock
market though, If we have an inflationary environment, real estate,
stock market, asset investing thrives.
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Speaker 2: Ed Welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Today we've got
a guest I haven't had on it in a while,
did a couple of conferences together. We kind of both
discovered bitcoin together. Name is Jerry Robinson. Follow the Money
dot com, Questions, comments, Klatcarrie LUTs dot com.
Speaker 3: Jerry, it's great to have you back. How's everything.
Speaker 5: It's going great, great to be here, Carrie. I sure
do appreciate being back on and it's good to see
you're just still kicking. You've been doing this for so long.
Some of the folks who are new to the to
your show should know you've been You've been at this
for a long long time.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you. Hey, thank you for that.
Speaker 2: You know, it's been fourteen years, if you can believe it,
over nine thousand episodes and I'm still I'm still going
just as strong as I was.
Speaker 3: New people always.
Speaker 2: Listening, and yeah, it's pretty wild.
Speaker 3: They got to tell you still doing it. Good for you, brother.
Speaker 5: I think we got started around the same time, about
twenty ten is when we started fallowdownty dot com. And yeah,
we kind of got started at the same time. Pretty interesting, right.
Speaker 2: We didn't we did. Yeah, it's amazing. I can't even
believe it, but here we are, and we're still We're
still giving the message out there still letting people know
that this is this is real, and it's getting more
real all the time. So the new administration, the more
things change, the more they stay the same. The hand
just rearranges the players in the game. Right, the king
is dead, long lived the kid.
Speaker 5: Well, we do have a new administration. You can tell
from the markets that there are certain sectors that really
like this outcome. There's other sectors that are not so happy.
And that's the way it always is. You know, had
we had a different outcome, had we had a Harris victory,
we would just be basically seeing a lot of inverse action,
you know. So basically, you know, it doesn't really matter
who is in office when you look at the longer term.
I have a great chart that I recently saw in
the wake of this election that just shows that anybody
who tries to play politics with their investments usually gets
you know, it can work. And I'm not talking about
strategic sector allocation. I'm not saying, Okay, we have a
we have somebody who's pro energy, so I'm going to
have a little more energy in my portfolio.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about that.
Speaker 5: There are people who actually freak out and just get
out of the market because so and so won, which
we've seen many times throughout the hit you know, throughout
the many different times, and when you look at that,
you'll see, well, that usually is a losing strategy. So
the way I look at this in this environment here
is not to you know, not to really freak out
about anything, but just to just to basically, you know,
be have prudent allocation, stay invested in the right things,
and don't let anybody shake you out. Don't let anybody
spook you into thinking that this time it's different or whatever.
And that would again either way, whoever wins, you always
have those voices that are trying to erode your confidence
in your long term investment strategy. And I don't think
a politician is really going to change, you know, the
long term investment strategy that we've laid out, and they
call them.
Speaker 2: A leopard never changes his spots, right, the leopard never
changes his spots, very true. So what do you do
about it? You know, things are crazier than ever. People
are crazier than ever. Markets are more volatile than ever
in many respects. I mean, hey, when we you and
I got together, their bitcoin was around twelve or twenty
bucks a piece. Now it's at most seventy five thousand.
I mean that is pretty amazing, isn't it. Bitcoin is
stunning all of the skeptics. It's stunning all of the
all of its opponents. We were talking about this off
the year, how you and I, you know, learned about bitcoin.
Speaker 3: Very early from.
Speaker 5: Someone who knew a lot about bitcoin very early, and
so you and I were blessed in that regard to
know about it so early. And it's crazy today because
when you and I were talking about bitcoin, say back
in twenty thirteen or whatever, you know, the idea that
there would be a proposed bitcoin strategic reserve, or the
idea that there would be you know, that we would
want to make America the bitcoin or crypto capital of
the world. I mean, this is absurd. You know, it
was just very early at the time, and so I
can't think of an asset class that has gained as
much institutional adoption so incredibly fast as the digital asset space.
And it's really kind of made for this time that
was really kind of always the use case for bitcoin
was the fact that it served as this currency without
a government in a world where governments had become reckless
with their currencies, and so therefore, I think many people
are tuning in. We're seeing pension funds and endowments and
countries and corporation was the spot, Yeah right, who isn't?
And now with these, you know, when you remember the
whole point of bitcoin is the finite nature. I mean
this white paper which we just celebrated, I guess the
what is it the sixteenth anniversary or fifteenth anniversary or
whatever it was that, you know, again incredible that the
Federal Reserve would even notice an asset like this, it's
only been around for fifteen years or so, they would
even come on their radar, or that a president would
even come up in a presidential campaign some asset.
Speaker 3: That's just that new.
Speaker 5: Just absurd that you know, they would have that much
influence upon political campaigns and upon the central banks.
Speaker 3: It's incredible.
Speaker 5: But the primary benefit, or maybe the primary feature of
the Bitcoin white paper, aside from the fact that it
was this currency without a government where you couldn't haul
in the CEO of Bitcoin before Congress and make him,
you know, confess to this or this. You know, there's
just no CEO, but also the finite nature, and this
is what we're getting ready to see, and what we're
seeing now is the fact that you only have twenty
one million bitcoin. This story is is you know, this
has been going on since the beginning. But as these
spot bitcoin ETFs are you know, hoovering up these the
available bitcoin that are being mined as sovereign into tas
are buying bitcoin as endowments and corporates, corporations are putting
them in their treasuries. It's just we don't have any
assets like this. Yes, is gold finite, well to a
certain extent, Carrie, there is only so much gold, But
we don't really know how much gold there is really
because again we could always find more. When it comes
to silver, it's the same thing. We know approximately how
much there is, but at the same time you could
always find more. We don't have any assets to look
at to say there is no more. And in a
world where you have infinite you know, paper money being
created and just no cap on it at all, this
is becoming increasingly attractive to people who are waking up.
So I think bitcoin and gold are both going to
thrive incredibly underneath a Trump administration. If you go back
to the first Trump administration. Carry you remember, gold was
a star underneath the first Trump administration. You know, so
much spending that was going on, and gold was just
going up, up, up. I think we're going to see
something similar. The Wall Street Journal put out a piece.
Many people called it a hit piece if you were
pro trumpet. Others thought it was just an accurate portrayal.
But economists, we're looking at the spending proposed by Trump
and said, look, this is going to break the country.
I mean, this is absolutely incredible how much money is
being proposed to spend. Now, we don't know if he's
going to keep all those promises, but if he does,
then that's going to be really good for gold, and
I would say even better for bitcoin because of the
finite nature of bitcoin. So I think bitcoin and gold
two major winners for the next four years. I think
it's just kind of a given.
Speaker 2: Another way of saying that it's going to be bad
for the dollar, bad for interest treats, and bad for inflation.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, but yeah, yeah, true.
Speaker 2: So what if we trashed the income tax, went to
a consumption tax and tariffs and and Elon Musk does
or the federal budget, what he's done for automobile production,
which was cut the costs by you know, by orders
of magnitude.
Speaker 5: What would happen then, Well, I'm certainly no tax expert
or tax policy expert, but I do have some opinions, however,
informed or uninformed. But I've always liked, while you're here,
that's right, I've always liked the idea of a consumption tax.
I think that it quite frankly, makes a lot more sense.
You're you're actually incentivizing production and you're disincentivizing consumption. But
of course that's a dangerous thing to do for an
economy that's entirely built upon consumption, uh, to discourage consumption.
So in other words, it's kind of a double edged sword.
But I've always liked the idea of a consumption tax.
Uh that that that could have happen. I think we're
certainly going to see lower taxes. I think people who
are concerned about estate taxes can now relax a little bit.
There was concern about that sunset provision. I think people
who are concerned about their tax brackets going up don't
need to worry about that now. I think I think
we know that taxes are going to be low but
at the same time, even though you and I may
like that, I mean, everybody likes lower taxes, we just
remember that, well, how are they paying for all the
things that are going to be doing. You had mentioned
the Musk efficiency or getting rid of the waste and
government efficiency program. Well, you know, even he admits that
if they implement something like that, it could cause some
real serious dislocations in the economy for a period of time.
Speaker 3: So necessary, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, undoubtedly, it's like a cold, you know, or
like a flu. I mean, you kind of got to
get rid of it. You got to cleanse the system.
And I'm okay with that idea. I mean, I think
we do need to experience it. We definitely needed cleansing
in terms of our But again, you know, I think
it's easier said than done because again, once again the
key part to keep in mind carry is that no
one has told us what they're going to cut. Now
we hear things like we're going to shut down this
department of this, you know, of education or whatever. Now
that's all this stuff is easier said than done. It
works fine on the campaign trail, but actually implementing these.
Speaker 2: Things about it that you shut down the Department of
Redundancy Department.
Speaker 3: Sure, why not?
Speaker 2: You know, why not redd? They're all redundant. I could
he just a federal budget by about a third with
one session of chat GPT I did, Yes, said what
are the top one hundred agencies to get rid of?
And it put out agency after agency after agency that
I never even heard of, you know, the betteral Monument
and Research and Commission. I don't know what they're searching
monuments for, but crazy agencies here. That just shows the
government's completely out of control. And the only way you
know to bring something under control is you either got
to cut it, or you got to sedate it, or
you got to do something kill it.
Speaker 5: Well, one of the largest areas Carrie, that we could
really save money is the war machine. Yeah, the Department
of Defense, the Pentagon, which still can't pass an audit
after years and years and years. I'd say take the
knife to the Pentagon. But again that's unlikely in a
Trump administration. And that's why that's what causes some people
to be concerned, is that, you know, the idea of
cutting the waste of the Pentagon. I mean I've talked
to people who are you know, you know, relatively high
up in the military over the years, and they've told
me horror stories of the waste.
Speaker 3: We've all heard these stories of the wasst the general
is lining their pockets.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's incredible waste. And and so you know, to me,
that's where I would start. I wouldn't start with education.
I wouldn't start with you know, poor people's food or anything.
I would start with, you know, the military.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is the most obvious thing.
Speaker 5: And I may have I haven't really followed the Trump
campaign very much through this whole process, so I can't
really say that they've brought it up or not brought
it up. But I don't recall hearing them saying we're
going to slash the military or we're going to slash
the waste in the military. So I have a feeling
that I have a feeling that this is going to
be billionaires deciding who should get money, and usually they
think another billionaire should get money, so surprise, and so
I'm a little concerned as to who's going to lose
and who's going to win.
Speaker 2: You know, so we know probably who's going to lose,
and that's going to be the American public. One way
or the other. Even if the intentions really are good,
which I believe they are, it's still this is the
turning the aircraft carrier around. Right. The only beneficial thing
is basically Trump figured out he found all the people
in Washington that he couldn't trust, right, and he's going
in there with an agenda. And you know, the day
that he goes into office, a thousand executive orders will
be filed. I guarantee you, there's no question about that. So,
but you know, let's just assume everything continues on the
way it is. So it's gold, precious metals, bitcoin. What
about the stock market though, If we have an inflationary environment,
real estate, stock market, asset investing thrives, right.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And when you go back and you look at say
Trump and at his administration the first four years, he's
the first guy since President's has Grover Cleveland, I guess
that has actually had to come into office even then
come back. And so this will be an interesting novel,
sort of a novel thing for our generation anyway, to
see somebody come back. He actually has experience. He's been
out for four years. He's had a lot of time
to think about things that could that could you know,
could be good. We'll see there's a lot of angst
around his presidency. You know, not just here in the
country but everywhere. There's a lot of unpredictability. In some
ways that's good. In some ways that may not be good.
But as far as the market goes, the way I
see it is that when you go back and you
look at the first forty years of Trump, you see
that technology and I want to say it was I
used to have this memorized, but I remember it was
technology was the best performer. And then which is surprising,
and then the second one was consumer discretionary, these two
sectors of the S and P five hundred, which kind
of makes sense. And that when you think about the
time frame when you look at Biden, what you know
what the top sector has been under Biden. It's actually energy,
which again is somewhat surprising as well, because you you
would kind of think those would be reversed. But it
all makes sense when you consider the back of the
historical backdrop for both of their terms. But when we
look forward for Trump, I think that technology is going
to continue to be a big, big winner. Innovation is
simply bipartisan and that's fortunate for us because we want
to see continued innovation. I think innovation will continue regardless
of what happens, even if we you know, some people
will say, hey, we're going to we're going to inter
a depression. Well, even in times of great depression, you know,
innovation continues, and so innovation I think is just going
to continue. We're going to see lots of incredible things
going to move forward, AI, I think, and quite frankly,
you go ahead, it's incredible what is done.
Speaker 2: I'm going to just read you a little something about
Grover Cleveland's second term. Sure, and let's said he was
a big anti corruption, populist guy. He was against tariffs
his first term. Cleveland's second presidency began with optimism, but
quickly confronted the severe economic realities of the time. While
they returned with a clear vision for reform and stability,
the economic foundation was faltering. Shortly after he took office,
the United States faced one of its most significant economic crises,
the Panic of eighteen ninety three, which would shape his
entire second term. History doesn't rhyme, but it sure does echo,
doesn't it, Jerry?
Speaker 5: That certainly could happen, That could I mean, the economy
we're facing now is it's very precarious. As you and
I both know, we've been saying for years, this is
not a good situation that we're in. One of the
concerns that I have now that the presidency is over
is I've been saying this now for a couple of months,
and I'm getting this sense that it's going to happen,
and I'm really hoping it's not. But in the wake
of this election, now that everything's there, the honeymoon is
going to now go on for a bit of time.
Speaker 3: But I'm thinking sometime.
Speaker 5: You know, in the next month to maybe maybe after
his first hundred days, who knows, maybe we're going to
see the credit rating agencies come out and downgrade US
once again, the United States. There is appsbsolutely no path
forward that is sane. There is no path forward that
any creater rating agency could look at America and say
this is.
Speaker 3: All going to be fine. There's no scenario.
Speaker 5: So because there's no scenario where things can get better
without drastic changes. Well, use, like you said, we may
see some drastic changes, but that could create and royal
the markets, royal the economy, and then again people would
then say, well, where's my fifty cent bread? You know,
where's my dollar gallon gas line? I was promised to
lower inflation. So, in other words, the expectations of the
people also kind of play a part in this and
and right now. And that's my concern about the whole
Trump campaign, quite frankly, is that I think there's been
unrealistic expectations about what to expect from this economy. You know,
the idea that you don't like, you know, six dollars milk, Well,
you know that's kind of tough.
Speaker 3: I mean, look at.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get used to it. I mean, if you
don't like three dollars gas, I mean I don't know
what to tell you. I mean, you got you got
some of the lowest tax rates that we ever had.
They and with Trump gets in of course, which he is,
they're going to go down. So this this is a
recipe for some sort of disaster. And while I think
Trump is going to goose the markets, I mean, look
at what happened to find look at just look at
day one of what happened with the Trump victory, and
you get a pretty good glimpse of what's ahead. Bitcoin
hit a new all time high when people were saying,
when's bitcoin going to hit a new all time high?
We're just waiting for it.
Speaker 3: When did it? When did it happen?
Speaker 5: The day that Trump won election? Pro as well is
pro just a pro crypto and so there you go.
So now you see very likely to have a We
just did a show called the Bitcoin bull Market Fall
Money podcast people can listen to, and it's all about
the pro crypto policies of the president. That absolutely is
going to be huge. We're going to see, I think,
quite frankly, we're going to see a massive bubble in
crypto that's going to be completely unsustainable.
Speaker 3: It's going to be absurd.
Speaker 5: Okay, lots of scale, lots of scamer's coming out two.
Speaker 3: Two thousand bitcoli.
Speaker 2: It's gonna triple to quadruple and which is a great opportunity.
So you buy a little bit. Now I don't have
a lot, but what I have has gone up fifty percent.
I just was buying a little bit every single Sunday
and finally I hit my target number and I just stopped.
And I did that over the course of like a
couple of years, and now I just stopped and I'm
just watching it because it hit my target number. Another
thing in Grover Cleveland's second term, there was unrest in Hawaii,
so he sent an investigator over to look at Hawaii.
Speaker 3: And guess what he found out. Our investigator.
Speaker 2: You're going to love this, because we forget about history,
especially our own. He found that there had been a
coup of the ruling queen, the queen of the uh
Hawaiian the Polynesian tribes there that was backed to improperly
by the United States. I mean, the stuff never gets old, Jerry,
it does.
Speaker 5: And it reminds me of Stephen Kinzer, who we've had
on the on the Pole my packcast a few times.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've had Stephen Kinzer on before.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: He wrote a great book. He wrote a break great book.
Speaker 5: I think it's called Overthrow, where he goes through and
he just talks about all of these different episodes, including
Hawaii in the late eighteen or the late nineteenth century
in Iran and you know, all of these different things.
What a great book and what a great what a
great guy who's really exposed a lot of that. You know,
when we think we think about what else a Trump
administration might be, what we might see again, look at
Day one, you see financials were one of the biggest beneficiaries.
Speaker 3: Why is that.
Speaker 5: Well, again, financial corporations like Blackrock and J. P. Morgan,
they're always looking for somebody to loosen the regulations, and
that's what Trump is going to bring. I mean, here's
what we can pretty much know for the next few years.
Your taxes are not going to go up very likely.
If they do, it's going to be very strange. You're
also going to see financial regulation, you know, get dumbed down,
and so there's going to be a lot of scams.
There's going to be a lot of people getting fleeced
by big banks, all kinds of that kind of stuff
we're going to see. I think we're going to see
some of the biggest bubbles we've seen in tech and
an AI because again, when the when you know, what
what do they say when the when the wolf's away,
the chickens play or whatever, and so you know, the
idea is.
Speaker 3: Play.
Speaker 5: But you know, you know this idea that that you know,
the cops kind of off the beat for the next
four years, and so all of those industry we were paying.
Speaker 2: Off anyway, yes, taking off a few hundred Bucks a
week and a the Scotch and a box of cigars
for Rismiss, he's now totally off the beat.
Speaker 5: Yes, And there are two industries that I personally don't
invest in. I just I just have a moral situation
whereas I don't want to invest in them.
Speaker 3: But they include, uh, you know.
Speaker 5: The military industrial complex, which I think is going to
do great under Trump, just as it did last time.
So I think that's going to do great because again
we're not going to touch them, We're going to we're
going to find other places to cut. And then also
the private prison complex, which again I despise, but nonetheless
we've already seen those kinds of stocks really accelerate. The
other thing that I think we'll see do well or in,
you know, the industrials. We've already saw the Dow hit record.
In fact, the Dow was the best performing index I
think on the on election day or in the wake
of even more than the Nasdaq, even more than the
S and P. And a lot of that had to
do with companies like New Core or Domestic Steel. So
I think, you know, I think these steel companies, there's
a lot of industrial copanies are going to do well,
I think it's going to see a lot. What's going
to fail, what's not going to do well well. The
first one that comes to mind is clean energy. Clean
energy got hammered whenever we saw the election results. Yes,
clean clean energy is a space that I've long hoped
to see succeed and it is succeeding. But you know,
with all kinds of red tape and then a mess,
it's a total mess. And then the other one that
that at first I when I when when I first
saw the election results, I thought, I thought about cannabis,
and I thought, you know, that's been a tough market.
Speaker 3: Uh, been very tough market. That's that's to say the least.
Speaker 5: Uh. And But I but I also was thinking about
it yesterday and I recalled somebody actually brought this my
attention that RFK Junior, who Trump has been saying, hey,
I'm going to let him loose on our healthcare system,
has been very pro cannabis. So and and Trump is
also hinted that way. So many people right now you
see cannabis stocks, they've been hammered. I'm wondering if that's overdone,
and the fear there might be a little too extreme
because I'm of the opinion that we've almost got this
cannabis thing to a bipartisan solution where we might actually
see just a federal tax upon it, and then they
just say medical is fine. I can see why recreational
might be a problem. You know, I live in Arkansas,
and they have medical cannabis here, and I like the
way they do it here, Carrie. When I go to
other states like Oklahoma, it's like billboards everywhere. You know,
it's pretty crass, and you know, when your kids are
seeing it, you're like, I don't know, I don't know
if I really want this. But when in Arkansas, everything's
low profile. There's no billboards that I recall seeing. It's
very low profile, the signs are small. So think I
think there's a right way and a wrong way to
do this, And I think eventually we'll get to a
place where the federal government's going to bless medical cannabis
and just have a federal tax and just leave it
at that and then let states decide on the recreational side.
I think that's probably what's going to happen, and I
don't think we're too far off from that. So I
think there's some opportunity in the cannabis space. Yeah, that's
that is the best way.
Speaker 2: If Florida just turned down the proposition for recreational and I.
Speaker 5: Think that was the right move. I personally, you don't
want to become a tourist state for this stuff. You know,
it's it's.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: You go to Nevada, you can go to you know,
Colorado became early. You know, the kind of the tourist state.
These these states are ready for that. Let them handle it,
you know, in your local state. I think medical is
a fine solution for people who need it. It's better
than opioids, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The problem with the recreational is that once they legalize it,
people just do it out.
Speaker 3: In the open.
Speaker 2: And yeah, cities that are just a cloud of marijuana smoke. Yes, Seattle,
like Denver, like New York City hasn't exactly been implemented
the legalization.
Speaker 3: That's the fact.
Speaker 2: The legalized and any scheme should have severe penalties for
people doing it out in the open, all right. It
should be in the privacy of your own home or indoors,
not outdoors. And any public intoxication we need to up with.
We already have a lot of enough statutes for ever.
All right, you can't be in public intoxicated.
Speaker 3: That is agreed. Yeah, I feel the same way.
Speaker 5: So I really like the medical cannabis laws that we
see here. Like I said, I said in Arkansas, they've
kind of fumbled it quite a bit here.
Speaker 3: They took them forever to roll it out.
Speaker 5: But the way they've done it so far, I've been
pretty impressed with it, especially as I go to other
states and see how they've handled it. I think the
longer term solution for this is a medical cannabis solution
that's blessed by the federal government. Pay us our federal taxes,
the tribute recre yet to pay us a tribute recreational.
You want to do that, that's up to the states.
They can decide if they want to do that, but
medical should be the federal mentioned. Just leave it alone
and move on and deschedule this thing, or reschedule it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's time to rethink the whole drug thing. Addiction,
both for alcohol and for drugs, make it hit a
public health issue, not a criminal justice thing. Everybody who's homeless,
who's a drug addict or an alcoholic eventually winds up
in jail. They will since they have to steal the
support their habit, steal to buy their alcohol, and eventually
they wind up being treated in jail. And that is
the worst therapeutic environment for somebody who's really mentally ill
and needs help. Not confinement where they might need confinement,
but not inhumane punitive confinement. They need rehabilitative confinement. Yes, absolutely,
they need to be restored and rehabilitated and not treated
like a you know, a murderer or something along these lines.
All right, Jerry, so he's great. Catching up with you,
been too long, Will catch up with again soon. Follow
the Money dot com. That's the website. Questions comments for
Jerry myself kl at krieluts dot com. You'll find a
link to the show notes in the show notes of
this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com.
Speaker 3: To Jerry's site. Jerry, We'll talk to you and soon
be well.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much, thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's
Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For
the latest, go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival
Network
Speaker 3: Now more than ever