Latest / Financial Survival Network / What’s Really Inside Fort Knox? - Dr. Jonathan Newman #6250

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What’s Really Inside Fort Knox? - Dr. Jonathan Newman #6250 · Financial Survival Network

0:00
Speaker 1: I think it is very suspicious that they seem reluctant
0:04
Speaker 1: to allow an audit. They even seem reluctant to allow
0:08
Speaker 1: sitting US Senators to go into Ford Knox to see
0:12
Speaker 1: what's in there. So, I mean, it could be that
0:14
Speaker 1: all the gold is there and this is much ado
0:17
Speaker 1: about nothing, or it could be that they've been doing
0:19
Speaker 1: some sneaky things with the gold that we don't know about.
0:22
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0:50
Speaker 3: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
0:54
Speaker 3: Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Well, we got
0:57
Speaker 3: a couple of things to talk about.
0:58
Speaker 1: Here.
0:59
Speaker 3: Is the goal really in Fort Knox? And what about
1:02
Speaker 3: DOGE Is it going to make a difference. Well, Jonathan
1:06
Speaker 3: Newman is with us now from the Mesis Institute, and
1:10
Speaker 3: I highly urge everybody out there to go there. I've
1:15
Speaker 3: been going to that site since it went up probably
1:18
Speaker 3: twenty five clus to thirty years ago, and it's must
1:23
Speaker 3: reading if you're a libertarian or if you want to
1:26
Speaker 3: understand more about how the economy and how money really works.
1:31
Speaker 3: Jonathan Newman, research fellow at the Mesis Institute.
1:36
Speaker 1: Great to have you on. And so, first thing is
1:40
Speaker 1: the golden Fort Knox? Yes or no? Your opinion? I'm
1:44
Speaker 1: not sure. I think it is very suspicious that they
1:48
Speaker 1: seem reluctant to allow an audit. They even seem reluctant
1:52
Speaker 1: to allow sitting US senators to go into Fort Knox
1:57
Speaker 1: to see what's in there. So I mean, it could
1:59
Speaker 1: be the all the gold is there and this is
2:01
Speaker 1: you know, much ado about nothing. Or it could be
2:04
Speaker 1: that they've been doing some sneaky things with the gold
2:07
Speaker 1: that we don't know about, possibly loans or sales to
2:10
Speaker 1: other countries, who knows, And they might be worried about
2:14
Speaker 1: the pr fallout that would occur if the Treasury and
2:19
Speaker 1: the US government had had this gold on their books
2:22
Speaker 1: for so long, and so they've been saying the gold
2:25
Speaker 1: is there, and if it turns out that it's not there,
2:29
Speaker 1: or at least a good proportion of it isn't there,
2:32
Speaker 1: then that would sort of make the US government look
2:34
Speaker 1: a whire. People wouldn't trust the US government and there'd be,
2:38
Speaker 1: you know, some bad pr fallout there. So I think
2:41
Speaker 1: it's I don't know for sure if the gold is
2:44
Speaker 1: there or not, but it would be very interesting to know.
2:48
Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of an audit. Yeah.
2:51
Speaker 3: Well, the fact that they if it isn't there, and
2:54
Speaker 3: they've been lying about it for fifty years, is a
2:58
Speaker 3: big deal that anybody believes anything the government says anyway,
3:03
Speaker 3: But if they lied about the goal that's on the
3:05
Speaker 3: books and it has a market value many times, you know,
3:10
Speaker 3: almost seventy times what it's on the books for, and
3:15
Speaker 3: then for it to not be there, that would be
3:17
Speaker 3: the ultimate confidence killer in anything the government says or does.
3:23
Speaker 3: So my feeling is somehow they're going to find it there.
3:26
Speaker 3: Maybe they all those bars they're shipping from London, maybe
3:29
Speaker 3: they'll have window dressing, they'll have gold bars stacked up
3:33
Speaker 3: in front. But US and Trump are promising an audit,
3:38
Speaker 3: So I just don't believe that it can come up
3:41
Speaker 3: negative because I don't think they would they would go
3:45
Speaker 3: there if the gold wasn't there.
3:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think obviously there's all sorts of things that
3:51
Speaker 1: they could do in this between times. So they've talked
3:54
Speaker 1: about an audit, they talked about going into Fort Knox
3:57
Speaker 1: to look at it, and so you're absolutely right. It
4:00
Speaker 1: could be that they're, you know, replacing gold that had
4:03
Speaker 1: already left Fort Knox. Who knows when? So I mean,
4:08
Speaker 1: I mean, that's another point on this is how true
4:12
Speaker 1: would the audit be if we if we're not even
4:15
Speaker 1: sure if the amount of gold has been stable across time.
4:18
Speaker 1: Of course we would only just see a one particular
4:21
Speaker 1: moment if the gold is there. One thing that people
4:24
Speaker 1: often talk about when they talk about the US's gold
4:28
Speaker 1: holdings is they talk about how it's a backing for
4:31
Speaker 1: the US dollar. I don't think that that's right. The
4:35
Speaker 1: dollar is this free floating piece of paper. It's not
4:41
Speaker 1: redeemable in gold. Not even US commercial banks can bring
4:47
Speaker 1: dollars to the Treasury or to the Federal Reserve and
4:50
Speaker 1: redeem it in gold. Four and central banks can't do that.
4:53
Speaker 1: Foreign governments can't do that. Of course, all of that
4:56
Speaker 1: ended or technically was suspended in nineteen seventy one by
5:00
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon. So we talked about this a little bit
5:05
Speaker 1: before we started recording, there's this question of like, what
5:08
Speaker 1: would happen in financial markets, what would happen to the
5:11
Speaker 1: demand for the US dollar if if it came to
5:15
Speaker 1: light that there's not as much gold as the government
5:18
Speaker 1: had been saying. And I think it really just depends
5:21
Speaker 1: on the circumstances. It depends on how much gold might
5:23
Speaker 1: be missing. If it's if it's huge, then there might
5:27
Speaker 1: be some serious concerns. We might see some change in
5:32
Speaker 1: people's demand, international demand for the US dollar. But if
5:36
Speaker 1: it's if it's something smaller, or if the US government
5:39
Speaker 1: is able to you know, handwave it away. This this
5:43
Speaker 1: transaction happened on this date and here's why. Then, I
5:46
Speaker 1: don't really see how this would severely diminish demand from
5:51
Speaker 1: the US dollar simply because the dollar isn't redeemable in
5:54
Speaker 1: gold anymore. Yeah, Christ, you might have it. You might
5:57
Speaker 1: have a different opinion.
5:58
Speaker 3: Just the idea that that they they could be lying
6:02
Speaker 3: about it all this time. It's going to look really bad,
6:05
Speaker 3: you know, Yes, yes, so we will see I guess
6:12
Speaker 3: the proof of the pudding, right yeah? Yeah, so could
6:17
Speaker 3: you imagine the it'll be a big stink if if
6:21
Speaker 3: it isn't there is. It's just saying something that they
6:25
Speaker 3: know isn't true for all these years and then being
6:29
Speaker 3: exposed that could be that could be a real problem.
6:33
Speaker 1: Yes, and that's why I think that the biggest risk
6:37
Speaker 1: from the government's perspective is sort of a pr nightmare,
6:40
Speaker 1: you know, being exposed for for the for a lie. Basically,
6:45
Speaker 1: a lot of this came up into into public conversation
6:49
Speaker 1: because the new Treasury secretary was talking about monetizing US assets,
6:54
Speaker 1: and so some people talked about, well, does that mean
6:56
Speaker 1: that the US is considering selling off its its gold
7:01
Speaker 1: assets are monetizing them in some other way, And so
7:05
Speaker 1: that's why people have taking a particular interest in the
7:08
Speaker 1: US's gold holdings, which are a big chunk of them
7:11
Speaker 1: are held in Fort Knox. You mentioned earlier that the
7:17
Speaker 1: value of the gold on the books is a lot
7:19
Speaker 1: lower than the actual market value, and that's because of
7:22
Speaker 1: this archaic rule that they set in place. The Treasury
7:28
Speaker 1: took the gold from the Central Bank from the Federal Reserve.
7:32
Speaker 1: In exchange, they gave the FED gold certificates, and those
7:35
Speaker 1: gold certificates are the ratio of the gold certificates to
7:40
Speaker 1: the amounts of gold It was based on I think
7:42
Speaker 1: forty two dollars and twenty two cents per ounce, and
7:45
Speaker 1: that was a further deterioration from the previous exchange ratio
7:48
Speaker 1: of thirty five dollars an ounce. And even before that,
7:51
Speaker 1: the dollar price dollar exchange ratio was even lower. So
7:56
Speaker 1: there were over the twentieth century there was this repeated
8:01
Speaker 1: devaluation of the US dollar uh in reference to gold.
8:06
Speaker 1: And of course that was that was because the US
8:08
Speaker 1: had been spending so much, they had been printing so
8:10
Speaker 1: much money, and in order for them to not have
8:13
Speaker 1: all of the gold flee under the breg Woods Agreement,
8:18
Speaker 1: they had to, you know, do these reevaluations. They and eventually,
8:24
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before, Nixon finally closed the gold window.
8:28
Speaker 1: And so now, like I said, we have just this
8:30
Speaker 1: piece of paper that's not redealable for anything. And so
8:34
Speaker 1: I think one thing that's you know, good about this
8:37
Speaker 1: story being in the news people are thinking about it
8:40
Speaker 1: is hopefully people will realize that the US government has
8:45
Speaker 1: co opted or taken over money. They've really monopolized money
8:50
Speaker 1: in banking in the United States. Uh So, here at
8:53
Speaker 1: the Mesa's Institute, we may teach and promote Austrian economics,
8:57
Speaker 1: and one of the main principles is that, you know,
8:59
Speaker 1: money is a creature of the market that people decide
9:03
Speaker 1: to you know, back in barter times, people were exchanging
9:06
Speaker 1: goods for direct use for goods for direct use, and
9:09
Speaker 1: then they eventually happened upon this great way to facilitate
9:15
Speaker 1: their exchanges actually get what they wanted out of the
9:17
Speaker 1: market by switching to a medium of exchange. And so
9:21
Speaker 1: the emergence of money came from the market. And so
9:24
Speaker 1: throughout really human history, not just us history, what we
9:27
Speaker 1: see is that governments they really covet the ability to
9:31
Speaker 1: manipulate money. They want the ability to inflate, They want
9:34
Speaker 1: the ability to print up as much money as they
9:37
Speaker 1: want to because it allows them to expropriate resources from
9:40
Speaker 1: the private market economy. And so if people are talking
9:44
Speaker 1: about this because this is in the news, I think
9:46
Speaker 1: it's a good thing.
9:48
Speaker 3: You know, they say, the greatest power that a sovereign
9:52
Speaker 3: has is the ability to print money, because that controls everything.
9:57
Speaker 3: It gives them the ability to control everything through printing money.
10:02
Speaker 3: Rothbard often discussed competing currencies the ability to get the
10:09
Speaker 3: government out of it, and in effect that's what we had,
10:13
Speaker 3: like you always think back to the Wild West where
10:15
Speaker 3: they got all the gold in the vault, but nobody
10:17
Speaker 3: wants to carry it around, so they pass out warehouse
10:20
Speaker 3: receipts effectively, which becomes a negotiable currency.
10:26
Speaker 1: All of that. So what do you think the idea.
10:28
Speaker 3: Of letting cryptocurrencies battle it out against the US dollar.
10:33
Speaker 1: I think that would be good. I mean, really, anything
10:36
Speaker 1: that removes government involvement in money in banking or anything
10:40
Speaker 1: that poses a threat to that is a good thing.
10:43
Speaker 1: If I had my way and I just deleted the
10:46
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve and deleted government involvement in money in banking overnight,
10:52
Speaker 1: I have no idea what would happen in terms of
10:53
Speaker 1: like what money people would settle on. Would they go
10:57
Speaker 1: back to gold, would they go to silver, would they
11:00
Speaker 1: go to cryptocurrencies. That's my answer to all of those
11:04
Speaker 1: sorts of questions is just let the market decide. Let
11:07
Speaker 1: the market decide what they think is the best medium
11:10
Speaker 1: of exchange for them to conduct their business. I'm glad
11:14
Speaker 1: you mentioned Rothbard. There's a great book, and the Mesa's
11:17
Speaker 1: Institute is running a promotion right now, and so your
11:20
Speaker 1: viewers might be interested in going to mesis dot org
11:23
Speaker 1: Slash my Money. And if you go there then you
11:26
Speaker 1: can get a free copy of Rothbard's book What Has
11:29
Speaker 1: Government Done to Our Money? And in that book, it's
11:31
Speaker 1: very accessible, very easy to read, and you can get
11:34
Speaker 1: a free copy and it explains explains how money originated
11:38
Speaker 1: on the market and how governments have taken it over
11:41
Speaker 1: and all of the horrible consequences of that, not just
11:45
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, but like I said, throughout human history.
11:48
Speaker 1: So once again that link is mesas dot org, ses
11:52
Speaker 1: dot org slash my Money.
11:54
Speaker 3: All right, excellent and okay, So the idea of letting
11:59
Speaker 3: the crypto is back out against the US dollar, getting
12:02
Speaker 3: the government out of the money printing business. It's going
12:05
Speaker 3: to take a disaster for that to happen. Let's face it,
12:09
Speaker 3: They're not just going to willingly relinquish their power over it,
12:14
Speaker 3: because then I would, you know, how would the Senate
12:18
Speaker 3: and the Congress be able to set up NGOs and
12:21
Speaker 3: get all this money they had no power to actually
12:25
Speaker 3: do things that were outside the constitution.
12:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if that sort of thing started happening,
12:31
Speaker 1: where there was some sort of crisis event and people
12:33
Speaker 1: started switching to crypto instead of the US dollar. I
12:37
Speaker 1: think what we would see is that the Federal Reserve
12:39
Speaker 1: would would finally roll out there their coup de gras
12:44
Speaker 1: US dollar, which is the central bank digital currency, and
12:49
Speaker 1: they would throw that out there is like this is
12:51
Speaker 1: this you know, government authorized, government backed. It's the same
12:55
Speaker 1: thing as the US dollar, but it's also crypto. But
12:59
Speaker 1: I think you we should reject that, We should oppose
13:01
Speaker 1: that with every biber of or being, because you know,
13:04
Speaker 1: that would that would truly be the death of sound money.
13:08
Speaker 1: That that because even in our current system, we have
13:12
Speaker 1: you know, a tiny little check on the banking system
13:16
Speaker 1: through the use of cash, physical cash. So if if
13:21
Speaker 1: everybody decided to run out and get you know, cash
13:25
Speaker 1: out of their checking accounts, then you know, that would
13:28
Speaker 1: bring the banking system to its knees obviously. And so
13:32
Speaker 1: that's just you know, one way that the population has
13:34
Speaker 1: this sort of check. But if we go to a
13:36
Speaker 1: cashless system with cbd c's where you can't you can't
13:40
Speaker 1: even withdraw it, you can't pull it out of the
13:42
Speaker 1: banking system. Uh, then you know, the we we've lost
13:47
Speaker 1: all semblance of of monetary's freedom. Yeah, I have a
13:50
Speaker 1: good point.
13:51
Speaker 3: You know, basically the way things are now, though, bank
13:55
Speaker 3: runs are pretty much impossible because, uh, you know, basically
14:01
Speaker 3: you could go pull your money out of one bank
14:03
Speaker 3: that you think is in trouble, but all they're going
14:06
Speaker 3: to do is give you a check, not going to
14:08
Speaker 3: get currency, right because if you want to get more
14:11
Speaker 3: than like ten thousand dollars, you've got to make a
14:13
Speaker 3: reservation months in advance for it. I'm exaggerating a little bit,
14:18
Speaker 3: but you can't really get rid of this stuff. And
14:23
Speaker 3: this is a real problem. So because bank runs are
14:26
Speaker 3: always according to mesis, and historically we're a check on
14:32
Speaker 3: bank's recklessness of lending and of embezzling gold. Part of
14:38
Speaker 3: the problem why we got into this central banking is
14:42
Speaker 3: all these banks would get gold and they print their
14:45
Speaker 3: own money and then find out that you'd have an
14:51
Speaker 3: emperor has no close moment, right, So that was problematical.
14:56
Speaker 3: So government to the rescue.
14:58
Speaker 1: Right Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the story that they
15:01
Speaker 1: like to tell, which is that really what happened with
15:06
Speaker 1: fractional reserve banking, which is this topic that we're discussing.
15:11
Speaker 1: People didn't like it, people didn't like the instability, the
15:13
Speaker 1: inherent instability of it, and so one way that the
15:16
Speaker 1: government realized that they can get a win win situation.
15:19
Speaker 1: Of course it's win for the government and win for
15:21
Speaker 1: the banking system is by cartializing the banking system. And
15:25
Speaker 1: of course that cartel is just the central bank. So
15:29
Speaker 1: now the central bank is in charge of regulating the
15:32
Speaker 1: banking system. They're the ones who set minimum reserve requirements, which,
15:36
Speaker 1: by the way, they've been pushed down to zero these days.
15:39
Speaker 1: They've replaced it with other monetary manipulation measures like paying
15:43
Speaker 1: interest on reserves, and so really the evolution of the
15:50
Speaker 1: banking system, it's the problems with it aren't because it's
15:55
Speaker 1: like this free market. The problem with the fractional reserve
15:58
Speaker 1: banking is not like, you know, there's all these you know,
16:01
Speaker 1: greedy bankers who who are you know, fleecing the American public.
16:07
Speaker 1: What happened was that the government monopolized it. And so
16:10
Speaker 1: now we've just institutionalized all of those inherent problems with
16:15
Speaker 1: fractional reserve banking. And the win for the government obviously
16:19
Speaker 1: is now they're the sole issuer of the money unit.
16:23
Speaker 1: So now that the US government can print up as
16:26
Speaker 1: much money as they want to finance all their spending
16:29
Speaker 1: which by the way, allows them to impose this subtle
16:33
Speaker 1: secret tax on everyone through price inflation. So, I mean,
16:37
Speaker 1: everybody knows that if you print up too much money,
16:39
Speaker 1: you cause price inflation. Well the people. What many people
16:43
Speaker 1: don't really realize is that's actually a tax. That that's
16:46
Speaker 1: a way for the government to spend money that they
16:48
Speaker 1: haven't collected, collected in taxes U and then you know,
16:52
Speaker 1: they sell the debt to primary dealers. Those primary dealers
16:54
Speaker 1: still to the Fed, and the Fed purchases the debt
16:57
Speaker 1: with newly printed money. That's just an expropriate and it's
17:00
Speaker 1: just removing real resources from the private economy and giving
17:03
Speaker 1: it to the government. So everybody, everybody understands that taxes
17:09
Speaker 1: are bad. You don't like taxes. Taxes are unpopular. Even
17:11
Speaker 1: politicians understand this, and that's why they really cove it,
17:15
Speaker 1: and they really love the ability to print money. It's
17:17
Speaker 1: because they're allowed to increase the size and scope of
17:20
Speaker 1: government without the necessary prerequisite of raising taxes. Exactly, it's
17:26
Speaker 1: this stealth tax.
17:28
Speaker 3: Yes, we all feel it, but some of us feel
17:31
Speaker 3: it differently because the banks get the newly freshly printed
17:35
Speaker 3: money before it's filtered its way into the system, so
17:40
Speaker 3: they get the old the purchasing power, and then the
17:44
Speaker 3: money circulates and the rest of us get the inflation.
17:47
Speaker 3: But on the flip side of that, we get to
17:50
Speaker 3: pay back the banks in depreciated dollars.
17:52
Speaker 1: Right, Well, that's true. Yeah, So, as you're pointing out,
17:56
Speaker 1: there are winners and losers, and of course one winner
17:59
Speaker 1: is the government and another winner is the banking system itself.
18:02
Speaker 1: But this is something that the Austrian school in particular
18:06
Speaker 1: is very good at explaining and emphasize when we talk
18:10
Speaker 1: about monetary theory. When we talk about the effects of inflation.
18:16
Speaker 1: It's not like there's just this level rise in all prices.
18:20
Speaker 1: What happens is that the new money enters into one
18:23
Speaker 1: person's cash balance first, and they're able to acquire goods
18:27
Speaker 1: from the market at the same prices, or maybe just
18:32
Speaker 1: they slightly outbid other people. And then the people who
18:36
Speaker 1: sold the goods to that person they now have higher
18:39
Speaker 1: incomes than they otherwise would have without the money printing,
18:42
Speaker 1: and so you get this like rippling out effect where
18:45
Speaker 1: the money sort of spreads through as people are exchanging it,
18:49
Speaker 1: and they're bidding up prices as a result because they
18:52
Speaker 1: have more money in their pockets than they did without
18:54
Speaker 1: the money printing. And so that's the actual process by
18:57
Speaker 1: which prices rise. One thing that we talk about a lot,
19:02
Speaker 1: especially when we're contrasting the Austrian theory with the likes
19:06
Speaker 1: of the monitors theory from Milton Friedman, we talk about
19:10
Speaker 1: that very fact that there's not just this level rise
19:13
Speaker 1: and prices, and in fact, what happens is there's a
19:16
Speaker 1: total redistribution of resources towards the source of the new money,
19:20
Speaker 1: which explains why we have winners and losers, and it
19:24
Speaker 1: also explains why the government loves doing that sort of
19:27
Speaker 1: thing because they benefit obviously as a result totally.
19:31
Speaker 3: And so finally, and one other thing I wanted to
19:35
Speaker 3: mention is Trump says I'm going to bring down prices
19:38
Speaker 3: by bringing down the cost of energy. And it's putting
19:41
Speaker 3: the cart before the horse, because the cost of energy
19:45
Speaker 3: is higher, its high because of inflation. Inflation isn't caused
19:53
Speaker 3: by the high price of energy. The high price of
19:55
Speaker 3: energy is caused by inflation by increase in the money supply.
19:59
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you're exactly right. And this is something that
20:03
Speaker 1: it's been a really terrible phenomenon, especially over the course
20:09
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, there was this change in the
20:12
Speaker 1: definition of inflation where people started to define or talk
20:16
Speaker 1: about inflation just like it's a level rise in prices,
20:20
Speaker 1: and in fact, even more recently people use the term
20:23
Speaker 1: inflation to describe any sort of rise in price. But
20:26
Speaker 1: of course the original definition and the one that accords
20:30
Speaker 1: with economic theory and monetary theory, is the one that
20:34
Speaker 1: says inflation is an increase in the money supply. And
20:37
Speaker 1: so because of the change and the definition of inflation,
20:41
Speaker 1: you get people making errors like the one you just describe,
20:43
Speaker 1: where they say that the cause of price inflation is
20:49
Speaker 1: an increase in the price of some other good like energy.
20:52
Speaker 1: But that doesn't make any sense because then you're saying
20:55
Speaker 1: the cause of a rise in prices is rise in prices,
21:00
Speaker 1: but that doesn't make any sense at all. And in fact,
21:02
Speaker 1: there's nothing that could cause a general rise in prices
21:06
Speaker 1: except for an increase in the money supply.
21:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, totally, So it's a misconception and people don't
21:14
Speaker 3: really get it. Hey, finally, Doge, what's your take on, Doge?
21:18
Speaker 3: Is this like a noble effort or is it doomed
21:21
Speaker 3: to failure?
21:21
Speaker 1: Oh? I don't know if it's a if it's a
21:23
Speaker 1: noble effort or not. I'd have to, you know, look
21:26
Speaker 1: inside the minds of the people who are who are
21:28
Speaker 1: running in But I'm cheering it on. I think it's
21:30
Speaker 1: it's wonderful, it's a it's a sorely needed restructuring, sorely needed,
21:36
Speaker 1: you know, a bit of chaos in Washington, d C.
21:40
Speaker 1: It's nice that they're finally getting a taste of the
21:42
Speaker 1: Roman medicine in terms of, you know, the destruction and
21:45
Speaker 1: chaos that they've been leashed on the rest of the economy.
21:48
Speaker 1: But like, if you think about it, we've had this,
21:51
Speaker 1: you know, steady rise in government spending, tons and tons
21:56
Speaker 1: of increases in waste, and all of that was through
21:59
Speaker 1: falling the political process. Status quo just keep going on
22:05
Speaker 1: as normal. And of course there's a big spike up
22:07
Speaker 1: during crisis periods, but the overarching trend is for government
22:12
Speaker 1: spending to keep increasing, and of course you get all
22:14
Speaker 1: these new agencies, you get all these new programs, grants
22:17
Speaker 1: for all sorts of things. And so the fact that
22:20
Speaker 1: you know, dog is it in there calling out all
22:22
Speaker 1: of these obviously wasteful programs, all of these obviously wasteful
22:27
Speaker 1: and nonsensical uses of taxpayer money. I think it is great.
22:32
Speaker 1: I think it's great for, like, in a pr sense,
22:35
Speaker 1: people are actually questioning the allocation of spending by the
22:41
Speaker 1: US government. I think it's great in a in a
22:44
Speaker 1: practical sort of sense because like we would not have
22:47
Speaker 1: been able to achieve these decreases in spending without you know,
22:52
Speaker 1: sort of like the hammer that Elon Musk represents. And
22:56
Speaker 1: so it's great. Like, my only criticism of it is
22:59
Speaker 1: that it's not going far enough. I would like to
23:01
Speaker 1: see whole departments, whole agencies, you know, totally eliminated, and
23:06
Speaker 1: hopefully that's on the horizon. But you know, I'm true,
23:08
Speaker 1: I'm on.
23:09
Speaker 3: I think it's coming usaid, you know, all the money
23:13
Speaker 3: going out to everybody one organization. I was disappointed that
23:17
Speaker 3: I didn't see on the list, and that was messas
23:19
Speaker 3: dot org and Messa's University. How come you guys didn't
23:23
Speaker 3: get any money. We don't accept any government money.
23:26
Speaker 1: And of course, uh, the government wouldn't even want to
23:30
Speaker 1: give us any money because you know, we the message
23:33
Speaker 1: and our mission is totally contrary to the missions and
23:36
Speaker 1: the goals of the US government. But also you know,
23:39
Speaker 1: we don't we don't want the government's money because it
23:42
Speaker 1: comes with strings attached. You know, that would that would
23:45
Speaker 1: cause us to be able to uh that would cause
23:47
Speaker 1: people to think that, you know, we're somehow compromised. But
23:50
Speaker 1: one thing that the Mesa's Institute is great at is
23:53
Speaker 1: we have this uh you know, uncompromising stance on on
23:58
Speaker 1: on being anti government, you know, in favor of free markets,
24:02
Speaker 1: in favor of sound money. And so yeah, you're you're
24:05
Speaker 1: absolutely right. The Mesa's Institute was nowhere to be found
24:09
Speaker 1: in the USA documents and.
24:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, obviously you don't just talk the talk, you
24:18
Speaker 3: walk the walk, and that's really important in this day
24:21
Speaker 3: and age.
24:22
Speaker 1: Well, hey, appreciate you coming on.
24:25
Speaker 3: And uh everyone from the thesis is always welcome on
24:29
Speaker 3: this show because, uh, these ideas like have just kind
24:34
Speaker 3: of been locked away. I found them. I went to
24:37
Speaker 3: Pace University in New York City, and I have this
24:40
Speaker 3: in my bio on my website that I kind of
24:43
Speaker 3: stumbled into this dark back alley of the library and
24:47
Speaker 3: there was like every single Austrian economics book from Human
24:52
Speaker 3: Action and all of Rothbard's books, and Percy Greaves.
24:56
Speaker 1: And Hyek and you know, it was like an i
24:59
Speaker 1: op an herd to me.
25:01
Speaker 3: And interestingly enough, the person that really got me into
25:04
Speaker 3: it all was Milton Friedman from his epic, uh epic
25:09
Speaker 3: work Free to Choose book and the the series on PBS.
25:17
Speaker 3: Interestingly enough, I wonder if PBS would ever broadcast that
25:22
Speaker 3: show in this day and age.
25:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good question, of course. You know, I
25:26
Speaker 1: mentioned some some difference it is between Freedman night monetarism
25:31
Speaker 1: in the Austrian school earlier. But of course there's there's
25:34
Speaker 1: no denying that he was a great, uh, very articulate
25:38
Speaker 1: defender of free markets. There's there's a lot of agreement, uh,
25:42
Speaker 1: just you know broadly within you know, free the free
25:44
Speaker 1: market camp. So yeah, that's great that you were able
25:47
Speaker 1: to find that, you know, treasure trove of books from
25:49
Speaker 1: Thesis and Rothbard in Percy Greeves. Yeah, yep.
25:53
Speaker 3: And I read Human Action and the you know, it
25:56
Speaker 3: would probably be easier to read it in this day
25:58
Speaker 3: and age because you have an online dictionary. You can
26:01
Speaker 3: just pop up all these words that you will not understand,
26:04
Speaker 3: and I have pretty good vocabulary, but things like praxeology,
26:09
Speaker 3: I had no idea what the heck that meant, but
26:12
Speaker 3: highly recommended, as is the site mesas dot org where you, Jonathan,
26:18
Speaker 3: and so many of your colleagues really work tirelessly to
26:23
Speaker 3: educate the public on what's really going on, and you
26:28
Speaker 3: to be applauded and appreciate everything you guys have done.
26:32
Speaker 3: If you got any questions, Jonathan myself, shoot me an email,
26:35
Speaker 3: Klatkerrie lets dot com sign up, free free newsletter, Financial
26:40
Speaker 3: Survival Network dot com sign up, and mesas dot org
26:43
Speaker 3: they send out daily missus. You can get a multiple
26:47
Speaker 3: mailing list, podcasts, et cetera. Highly highly recommended if you
26:51
Speaker 3: care about figuring out what's really going on here, not
26:55
Speaker 3: what the politicians are saying.
26:57
Speaker 1: Jonathan, be well, thanks for coming on, Thanks for having me.
27:00
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
27:04
Speaker 2: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
27:08
Speaker 2: Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than ever,