Latest / Financial Survival Network / The Federal Reserve Is Screwed - Robert Kientz - #6428

Transcript

The Federal Reserve Is Screwed - Robert Kientz - #6428 · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Cary Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where you
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else. To
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: thrive in today's trying times, you need the Financial Survival Network,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: now more than ever. Go to financialsurvivalnetwork.com and get your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network, now more than ever.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: And welcome.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: You are listening to and watching the Financial Survival Network.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Cary Lutz.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Rob Caints is with us from Freedom Report. Rob, great
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: to have you back. So what are you focusing on now?
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: I assume interest rates, a lackluster gold sector, shall we say,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: lackluster being charitable, right?
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 0:52
  Speaker 5: Gold and silver are in a correction. I think it's
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: a mid bull market correction. but they're typical. They happen
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: every single time. I went and did a study probably
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: right after, I think January 31st was sort of D-Day
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: where silver went down, I think, 31% in a day
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: and gold was close to 10. And then they've been
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: drifting down. So I did a study and there have
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: been six times in history in which silver had corrected
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: that much. And every single time it was a mid
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: bull cycle correction or it was the correction right before
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: the start of a new bull cycle in which silver
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: would either reach new all-time highs or would go a
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: lot higher than where it was before that started.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: And similar with gold.
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: And so I think I really go back to what
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: I've been doing the last 17 years when I look
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: at it.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: I look at the state of the union.
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: And if I don't look at the world economy being
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: so great, I'm still bullish on gold and silver. And
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: I think there's every reason to be. I think there are,
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: because gold and silver are price and derivative markets, there
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: are technical reasons But I also think that, you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: the world's trying to figure out what's going on. I'll
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: just we'll just jump into the macro of it.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: J.P.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: Morgan came out with a paper last week in which
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: they're like, we don't know how to baseline the oil crisis.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: And J.P.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Morgan's probably the biggest commodity for sure.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: One of the best.
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: And they were like they threw up their hands. We're like,
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: we don't know.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: I think there's so much uncertainty that people are kind
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: of staying on the sidelines as well. But, yeah, tying
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: it in with what you mentioned, the over 5 percent
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: interest rates, that that's a killer. to the government because
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: of interest expense, and it's a killer to corporates because
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: the cost of capital rises.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: It's a killer to the people because most people finance
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: their house and their car, and some, the average household has,
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: I don't know what it is, $ 8, 000 to $ 10, 000 in
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: credit card debt or whatever the number is now.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Don't quote me on that.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: It's been a while since I've looked at it, but
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: it's always, you know, we're in rents.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Well over a trillion, right?
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: And you can see with auto loan delinquencies and stuff
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: like that that there's a lot of financial stress. I
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: don't think consumers have a ton more money left. Wages
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: aren't keeping up with inflation. The Fed raised interest rates
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: because they have to because everything's going up.
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: And they have to do that or else worry about
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: runaway inflation.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: Both bond rates and inflation, and that is going to
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: be an issue because it weakens the dollar. So the
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: Fed's doing what it has to do to try to
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: stabilize things and slow everything down. But, Kerry, it's almost
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: like no matter what they do, you know, we've had
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: this discussion before in your program, if they go either way,
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: the Fed is pretty much screwed in the long term.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: I think it's more just management of what they can
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: do now, trying not to let the system crack.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really what it's about, right?
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: How do we stop the system from imploding? And nobody
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: seems to have an answer to that, do they?
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: They don't.
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: You know, Trump and Besant, if you've been watching them,
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: they're calling for the digital economy. Trump and his son
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: have said everything needs to go digital. Trump and Besant
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: have been, did a press conference at the White House
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: sitting at Trump's desk where they were talking about stablecoins.
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: And what they're going to do is stick treasuries into
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: stablecoin wrappers. And that's going to be a way to
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: bring like liquidity from the digital economy into treasuries, try
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: to support it. But at the end of the day,
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: it's not really changing the underlying asset, the treasury. It's
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: still a big mess. And it may, you know, by
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: injecting revenue, it may new fresh new revenue. It may
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: temporarily bring down rates. But if the government has $ 40
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: trillion in debt.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: And they're running a $ 1.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: 9 trillion deficit, unless they balance the budget, stable coins
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: aren't going to solve the problem. The math still is
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: you're spending too much, and eventually people are going to
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: see the risk, and they're going to demand a higher
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: interest rate, and that will break the system. Because between
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: 2026 and 2036, at 4.5% interest, assuming all the bonds
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: roll to 4.5%, that's $ 16 trillion in new interest expense,
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: and now we're at 5%. So those zero interest rate
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: issuances they did for almost 10 years, or near zero,
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: you know, somewhere between zero and 2% are being rolled
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: at near than double the interest rate.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: That's bad.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: That's bad for sure.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That is bad. No question about it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: So as individuals, as an individual who's stuck in this
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: mess because of your government, what do you do? I,
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: you know, you try to get defensive on it and
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: it leads, I've been doing a lot of studies.
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: You're asking me what I was looking into. I've been
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: sort of a bold, macro guy. But lately, I've been
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: doing these deep studies. I'm using a combination of my
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: traditional techniques of going to websites and pulling data by
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: having AI help me. And I double-check everything I pull.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: If I go to AI and say, give me stock
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: returns discounted for CPI inflation, it'll do the work for me.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: I just double-check it. But I've been doing these deep studies,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: and it's interesting that since 1971, I knew Gold has
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: really stood up to the stock markets, even with reinvested dividends.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: Because of inflation, the.
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: Thing that's so equal about inflation is you can have
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: great compound yearly rates on a stock market or in
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: any investment. Let's say it's 10%, right? No, let's say 15.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: The example I did was 15%. And I took 2010
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: to 2006.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: So I did a couple of time series.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: 1971 and then 2010.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: Because 2010 is when NASDAQ That broke out for a reason.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: Another study I did.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: But since 2010 to 2016, the last 16 years, when
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: you back out inflation, the S & P and the
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: Dow haven't done great. And the only thing really positive
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: net of inflation is the NASDAQ. And I did two
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: inflation measures. I did regular CPI and I did shadow stats. Shadowstats.com
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: is run by John Williams, who's a classically trained economist.
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: His degrees are in. And all he does is he
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: uses the 80s methodology across the board. And I like
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: that because you can compare apples to apples and you get.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: Rid of the hedonics and geometric weighting and substitution and
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: all the other stuff that the government does to try
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: to convince you the fact that you have a declining
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: lifestyle is actually the same lifestyle, which it's not. So
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: I looked at both.
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: Measures and the Nasdaq has barely beaten gold, but gold's
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: beaten everything else, including bonds. And I'm looking at this going, well,
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: why would you invest in anything else than gold and
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: maybe speculate a little bit in tech? because gold's your
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: stabilizer and it always, I don't care about CPI inflation,
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: whatever the consumer's experiencing, gold always captures that over time.
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: And it was funny that looking at it going, yeah,
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: I've always been a gold guy and I know I'm
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: biased towards that. But the longer, the more I look
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: into it, the deeper I look into it, the longer
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: I go back, it's clear that the best asset for
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: anybody to own is gold. Silver doesn't fit that anymore, Kerry,
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: because it ran last place in these studies. It was
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: under the stock markets because of its volatility.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: And silver investors aren't going to like me for saying that, but.
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: Silver's too volatile to be considered a wealth-preserving asset.
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: It's a speculation.
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: And because it's used industrial, it's treated like a commodity.
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: It does well when gold does well, but it doesn't
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: follow the same script. So the top of the heap
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: is NASDAQ. If you reinvest your dividends....
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: That's a big if.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: A big if.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: And if there's never a pullback, which there hasn't been
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: a big one since 2010, minor ones. But at what
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: point is the AI bubble going to burst? At what
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: point are all these price to earnings.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: Multiples on the Magnificent Seven going to come back down
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: to earth? Maybe they never do, but I.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: Did another study last year on... going recession to recession,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: and every recession brings with it new winners. So I'm
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: not assuming that whenever we get to the next recession
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: that Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon are going to remain top
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: of the heap because usually you have new ones come up.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: So there's risk in the stock market. There's a lot
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: of rotation in those companies for that reason. I mean,
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: just from a safety and ease perspective, gold really beats them.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: So to answer your question, I always say physical precious metals.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: I don't make recommendations for people. I'm not a financial advisor,
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: but going forward, I'll probably.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Do 80-20-80 gold.
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: 20% silver and then maybe invest in some businesses and things.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: But I wouldn't touch real estate right now. I did
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: a big study on real estate. I wouldn't touch that
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: with a 10 foot pole over the next five to
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: 10 years. And I wouldn't touch a bond. I know
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: the 5% is attractive, but if it keeps going up,
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: it just devalues your face value and makes it likely
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: that you won't be able to get your principal back
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: unless you hold it for 20 years and wait till
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: this is all over.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: So that's where I go with it.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Who's buying those bonds now?
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: Well, that's the other thing is foreign investment has cratered
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: quite a bit. I think in some of the shorter
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: term issuances, something like 67 to 70% since last year.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: In the 10 year, not quite that much, but foreigners
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: are not buying as much. And what's happening is that U.S.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: funds are buying more and then the Fed is monetizing
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: some and that's made up for the difference. But the
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: reason bond rates are rising is there is all of
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: these people to take this on, onto their books are
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: saying you have to have higher rates, which means there's
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: less demand.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: The foreign demand's falling. That's one of the main reasons.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: The other thing that I found was the very short-term
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: demand treasuries were offering actually when compounded, when you kept
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: recycling your money back in, would give you a higher
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: rate of return than the 10 year. And that's been
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: the case since I think about 2024. So for the
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: last couple of years, the 10 year was not really
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: returning what the very short term ones were.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: And so it's now.
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: The yield curve has to flatten because it doesn't make
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: sense why you get a higher rate on a short year.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: That's a yield curve inversion.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Totally. Yeah.
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: And that hasn't gone to the two year yet, but
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: it's in the ultra short things that you can get
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: that has a higher return.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: That's where everybody was going. That's where all the demand
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: was going.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: The problem is this government has to roll over their
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: 10 years for all that debt or 10, 20, 30
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: typically is how they do it.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: And those rates are all above five. So the government
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: has an issue there that the rates are.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: Going to have to come up to attract that capital
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: or else the Fed's going to have to monetize it
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: all or at least a.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Big chunk of it. Yeah. What choice do they really have? Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: Because the other way to go is to let the
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: system go bust.
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: And if they do that, then we're all in deep trouble.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: They can't just do that, right?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: No.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: No.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: All right. So it's gold, to a lesser extent silver.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: What about cryptocurrencies? They haven't been doing so great.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, crypto is sort of lost. And if you're a...
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: believer in the original bitcoin if you believe that it's
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: decentralized money that it's going to have a 21 million
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: token limit all those things but i think what happened
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: was the market voted and said bitcoin you.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: Don't really live up to gold or even bonds at
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: this point because or the stock markets obviously i don't
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: think people are buying as much and it's got a
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: bunch of problems there is their centralization of power within
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: the infrastructure.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: So definitely it's been co-opted right Yeah, it's being co-opted
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: by Wall Street.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: It basically has. I was at Bitcoin Nashville a couple
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: years ago when Trump spoke. And I listened to him
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: announce that they were going to put Bitcoin and gold
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: in a sovereign wealth fund.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: And that was cool. I was watching him on stage.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: But the guy that spoke before him was one of
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: the lead developers for the Bitcoin protocol.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: And he was saying we have several existential threats.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: And one is decentralization of mining power because who mines
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: it gets the biggest benefit. It's kind of like whoever
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: creates money in any system gets the biggest benefit.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: That's called the candle.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: They always do, right? It's so funny.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Called the candle on effect.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: And also, the original Bitcoin, it's not the original, but
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: what people call Bitcoin now is actually a fork of
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: the original. But what people call Bitcoin now, it's small blocks.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: And so it makes it with small block, just to simplify,
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: it means you can only send so much at a time,
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: it congests the network and it raises overall fees because
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: it's congesting the network. It becomes a flow problem. And
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: there are all sorts of problems with Bitcoin for that reason.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: The other one is if we only had Bitcoin crypto,
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: I think it would still be doing well. But we
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: have all these other copies and offshoots that there's only
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: so much money in the world.
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: And so there's.
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: Less money flowing into BTC Bitcoin than there is Ethereum, BSV, Zano,
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: all these other duplicates.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: So true.
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: So I don't know how Bitcoin recovers.
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: I'm sure it'll do well during the next recession. People
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: are going to put money in, but it almost seems
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: like it's not about Bitcoin being the lead horse anymore.
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: It's about Bitcoin being some sort of bridge into some
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: sort of digital economy that I think is going to
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: look much different in five to 10 years than it
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: did when Bitcoin started. So I think Bitcoin gets credit
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: in the crypto space for being the original, but I
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: don't think that BTC is going to end up being
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: king of the hill long-term.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: And that's normal with technologies. A lot of times the
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: leader is tech.
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: I mean, look at AOL, look at all these companies
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: that used to be leader, IBM even looking at leader
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: in tech and.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Look at their roles.
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Their roles have changed so much.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: No, you're spot on. Look, Microsoft was the leader. I mean,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: they still are in terms of market cap and installed
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: base and various other factors, but they're not in terms
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: of leading tech.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: It's kind of.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: Tesla, AI, XAI. You know, Google has stayed up there.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: I should say Alphabet. But where did NVIDIA come from, right?
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: You know, that became the all time leader. Apple is
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: still like now Apple's number two. Who would have thought
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Apple would be number two?
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: I did a study on that, if you don't mind.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: This will take just a minute. But I was looking
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: at when I was talking to you about how Nasdaq
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: beat gold since 2010. The only thing that really has
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: inflation adjusted, even with the dividends.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: The, what I was, why did NASDAQ blow up? And
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: I looked at like the top thousand, if you take
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: out the magnificent seven and you go the next top thousand,
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: they're not doing so hot.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: The weighted average capital is 90 cents or 700. Yeah.
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: And the returns are seven to nine. So they're losing
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: money every time they tried to expand, whether it be
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: borrowing or buying back stock or issuing a dividend, whatever
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: goes into that cost of capital. But the magnificent seven
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: and the, What I found when I was researching this,
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: all the stories that were written, the analysts and all
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: that kind of stuff, once you own a function of technology,
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: it makes it very hard for competitors, one, to overtake
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: you because people adopt it. Think about when you say, well,
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: go search something on the internet. Well, it used to
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: be Netscape, right? Or Microsoft Explorer. Now we're Googling it.
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: Google's a brand name. There are other search engines, but
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: it owns search engines.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: NVIDIA owns Google.
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: Most relevant chips, it's not the only player, but it's
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: by far the strongest in the U.S.
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: For your companies. And Microsoft and Apple own hardware, software.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: Microsoft has its tentacles in a lot of things, but
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: that's the hardware, software play. The Magnificent Seven basically represents
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: ownership of the infrastructure and functionality of the Internet. And
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: once you do that, the cost of capital falls dramatically.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: And your margin on business expansion is basically, your cost
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: of margin is basically zero. In other words, you have
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: this runaway effect where as long as they don't make
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: really stupid business decisions, no one's ever going to catch.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Up with them. Yeah, that's really good.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: Screwing up.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Big time. Big time.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Like, how do you get an Apple, you know, where they...
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: You know, the iPhones, even though they aren't necessarily the
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: market leaders in their segments, like Apple computers, they're an also-ran. Honestly,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: the iPhones far eclipsed by the Android platform. And, you know, really,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at all the Apple products on my desktop here,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: and yet they still manage to make more money at
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: it than anyone else.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: They do. That's remarkable.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Tablets, they're probably up pretty high because the Android tablets.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: But then again, when you take into effect the Chinese,
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: the cheap Chinese tablets and phones, nobody else is making
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: any money on it. It's like Tesla with EVs. They're
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: the only ones that have figured out how to consistently
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: turn a profit on an electric vehicle. Nobody else can
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: do it, even the Chinese. are losing money. You know,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: they don't need profits because it's subsidized. Anyway, off the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: beaten path, but your point is absolutely, it's the moat.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: It's the Warren Buffett moat.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: And, you know, you might say, well, Google has its
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: own operating system, but everybody uses Microsoft.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: That's what it comes down to. That's right. All right.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Rob, tell us where we find you, how we connect
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: with you on the web.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: Just go to the Freedom Report. I think it's youtube.com
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: forward slash freedom report. On X or Twitter, it's freedomrpt.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: On Substack, it's freedomrpt.substack.com. And also just a quick shout
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: out to my nonprofit. I'm the executive director of SoundMoney
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: Trade Association. I'm running the first ever trade association, which
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: is connecting like the entire supply chain for gold and silver.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: We have 17 companies that are members, including AppMex, which
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: I think is either number one or number two online.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: Andy Sheckman from Miles Franklin has joined us. Lynette Zang
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: has joined us. Sound Money Wallet and.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: A lot of others.
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: If you're a gold or silver company, come to smtassociation.org.
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: Give us your information, request information, and we'll see about
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: getting in. And the reason that's important, Kerry, is the
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: previous organization I was involved with, which is a civil organization,
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: Citizens for Sound Money, We're one of the ones that
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: were getting legislation passed. We got Florida legislation, Missouri legislation,
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: and we helped in three or four other states. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: so if we're going to have gold as a legal
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: tender option, as a voluntary option, not mandatory, then we
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: need to build it. So step one is passing law.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: Step two is building out.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: The infrastructure for this to happen. So if anybody's interested,
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: just reach out to me and I'll give them more information.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: All right, man. Love it.
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for what you're doing. Any questions for Rob, myself,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: KL at KerryLutz.com. We answer all questions. Any comments on YouTube,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: I read everything, so feel free to. And I appreciate
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: you coming on. Rob, we'll talk to you again real soon.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Cary.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Cary Lutz's Financial Survival Network, your
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Financial Survival Network, now more than ever.