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Here’s What Experts Are Predicting for 2023. Get READY. · Man in America Podcast

• 0:02
  Seth Holehouse: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Man in America. I'm your host, Seth Holehouse. So 2022 was a crazy year. And as we're nearing the end of the year, we're looking forward to what can we expect in 2023. And I don't wanna be a doomsday kind of guy, but I think 2023 is gonna be a rough year.
• 0:22
  There's a lot of indicators to look at that. I think there's still great things on the other side of where difficulty lies ahead, but I also want to be very sober about what we're facing. I mean, if there's a hurricane coming, I don't want to tell you it's gonna be blue skies and go to the beach. I want to say, hey, why don't you go put some wood over your shutters over your windows, maybe go ahead and get that generator you're thinking about getting, etc. So there's an article I'm gonna be talking about today from Zero Hedge, which is really talking about what they think will be coming up in 2023, especially as it relates to the financial markets, which are really at the foundation of so much of what happens in our society.
• 1:01
  You know, like back in the 1920s, the Great Depression changed every aspect of our way of life. So we have to look at what's happening in the financial areas to understand how our lives could change. And so joining me today is Doctor. Kirk Elliott. We're gonna be digging into all this and more.
• 1:16
  So let's go ahead and welcome Kirk on the show. Kirk, as usual, it is so good to see you, man. How are you doing?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I am doing very well. Had a nice, relaxing, chill Christmas with family and much needed just rest and peace. And, you know, that's the reason for the season is is just understanding who our source is and and the peace and the hope and the joy that comes with that. And and, you know, kind of what you were just saying, 2023 is shaping up to be a really bad economic year for American around the globe, but there's hope in that too, and there's opportunity and and things that when we act with wisdom and guidance and knowledge and understanding that God gives us, we can have a smile on our face. And that's that's what I mean, because we're going to be talking about some pretty ugly economic data today, but I don't want people to hear this and say, Oh my word, there's no hope.
• 2:11
  There's always hope. Right? There's always hope and a light at the end of the tunnel, but I think there will be pretty pretty dark tunnel ahead.
• 2:19
  Seth Holehouse: Yeah. I agree. So I'll go and dive into this article. So pull us up. This is on Zerohedge, which and folks, if you're not following Zerohedge, this is my number one go to website for understanding geopolitics and finance cause the crossover of those two on here is fantastic.
• 2:35
  So and I'm gonna bear with me, I'm gonna read through a few portions of this article because the the author makes it very just concise in his points that he makes. He pulls a lot of data from other news resources as well. So the title of this article is The Mega Bubbles Have Started to Burst, and That Could Mean Unprecedented Financial Chaos Is Ahead. Now this was authored by Michael Snyder via the Economic Collapse Blog. He says, the Federal Reserve giveth and the Federal Reserve taketh away.
• 3:04
  In a desperate sorry, in a desperate attempt to help The US economy recover from the horrific economic crisis of 02/2008 and 02/2009, the Federal Reserve pushed interest rates all the way to the floor and kept them at or near the floor until 2022. During that same time period, the Fed also created trillions of dollars out of thin air and pumped it into the financial system. All this new money had somewhere to go and it created colossal financial bubbles that were unlike anything we have ever seen before. There were a few voices that were warning that all this foolishness would end up very badly, but those voices were mostly drowned out by those that were super happy that asset values were absolutely exploding. The Fed had essentially created the ultimate get rich quick scheme and countless Americans were more than happy to take advantage of it.
• 3:53
  And I'll throw a point in there like, you know, one thing is housing prices. Right? That was one of the biggest indicators I saw of that thinking, why is it that amidst COVID, we have this massive increase in housing prices? And this is exactly what he's talking about here. So the article continues, but in 2022 inflation started to become exceedingly painful and the Federal Reserve went into panic mode.
• 4:17
  The flow of free money stopped and the Federal Reserve began to aggressively hike interest rates. Everyone knew this sudden change of course by the Fed would crash the housing market and that's precisely what is happening. In fact, even the Wall Street Journal is now admitting that we are facing quote, a housing slump as severe by some metrics as that of 02/2009. Now he continues, our data point here is that sales of existing homes fell in November for a record tenth straight month. An economist at Fannie Mae and Goldman Sachs forecast they would drop below 4,000,000 in 02/2023, lower than during the 02/2011 housing bust.
• 4:59
  But on Wednesday, we got some more bad news. Pending home sales are one of the best leading indicators for where the housing market is going next. And at this point, pending home sales have dropped to the lowest level ever recorded. That doesn't sound good. So he continues and he also highlights the massive bubble in the crypto space saying that meanwhile, the absurd cryptocurrency bill that was created by the Fed's easy money policies has already imploded, which we're witnessing that almost daily now.
• 5:28
  There's new news coming out with crypto, you know, giant crypto firms going bust. So he kind of rounds out the end here. He says, so sadly, all the bubbles are starting to burst and 2023 is going to be a really painful year. Normally, a major economic downturns take place just about sorry. Normally major economic downturns take just about everyone by surprise.
• 5:50
  This time around, almost everyone can feel that really bad times are coming. The following is what Mark Zandy of Moody's Analytics recently had to say about this quote, usually recession recession sneak up on us. CEOs never talk about recessions, said Zandi. Now it seems CEOs are falling over themselves to say we're falling into a recession. Every person on TV says recession.
• 6:13
  Every economist says recession. I've never seen anything like it. He's right. We've never seen anything like this before. And that's because the coming crisis is going to be really bad.
• 6:24
  Many among the elite can sense that what is approaching will be truly nightmarish and so they've been feverishly preparing for the worst. And he goes and he talks about what the elites are doing. So he finishes here. He says, yes, things will soon get really crazy as global events spiral completely out of control. But that doesn't mean you should curl up into a fetal position and throw a pity party for yourself.
• 6:45
  When I was growing up, I was told that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. So get prepared for some really rough years ahead. The clock is ticking and just about everything that can be shaken will be shaken in 2023 and beyond. So, Kirk, what are your thoughts on that? There's a lot in there.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: There's a lot in there, and it's almost like a prophecy of gloom and doom, right? But it's not a prophecy. It's just reality that we're seeing these trends play out. So that author is right that that pending home sales are the best leading indicator for where the the market is going moving forward, the housing market. And and this is just common sense.
• 7:30
  Right? So when you have declining wages like what we've seen, you know, officially inflation, I'm talking about the official numbers, not the unofficial inflation, which is around hovering around 25%, but official inflation's at 7.1. So here's the thing. If wages would be growth of wages would be 7.1, You wouldn't even know there's inflation. Right?
• 7:52
  It's nothing. It's it's they cancel each other out. It's so if wages were up 5%, well, you'd be still have a 2.1% decline. Wages are not even at zero. Wages are declining by point 9%.
• 8:09
  So that's even a wider canyon that needs to be rectified. Right? So you have people that wages aren't keeping up with inflation. You've got rates that are going through the roof to try to slow down inflation. Right?
• 8:23
  So so these are all the fundamental underpinnings that are causing pending home sale sales to to come down. So we have to ask ourselves, can this be rectified anytime real soon? The answer is no. Because every policy that that we see coming out of DC is the opposite of what's needed for economic growth. Right?
• 8:45
  Because you look back during the Reagan years, during the Trump years, you had declining interest rates, declining taxes, and job creation. That causes the market to boom. That causes people to get hired. That causes people to spend. That causes housing prices to go up.
• 8:58
  Right? But right now, we've got rising taxes, rising interest rates to slow down inflation, and and people there's no job creation. In fact, there's job shrinkage. Not only job shrinkage with fewer people working as unemployment numbers continue to to soar. Now official government unemployment numbers don't show that, but they keep messing with the the the labor force numbers, right, which is they're pulling people out of the labor force because they say they're so discouraged they stopped looking for work.
• 9:27
  So therefore, we don't count them anymore, which makes unemployment look not as bad. But good grief, Seth, are those people still not working? Yeah. They're so discouraged they stopped looking for work. So you add all of this up.
• 9:41
  The housing market is where people hold most of their equity and everything. Right? That's where most of where people's wealth comes from, is their excess that we've seen tons of excess in the real estate market over the last decade or two. Well, that's all diminishing and diminishing rapidly. In fact, just since May, '1 point '5 trillion dollars in home equity by homeowners has has evaporated.
• 10:07
  1,500,000,000,000.0 just since May. So now people are saying, our our we we gotta try to sell our house before this goes down any further, but nobody can afford to buy the house because of the inflationary pressures. They're living at the margin, and now the cost of borrowing has gone up so much that that they can't do it, let alone. Banks have zero liquidity on it. Right?
• 10:32
  Because as of July of last year, the federal reserve put the reserve requirement for all banks at zero. Banks do not have to have any capital on hand. If they have no capital on hand, they have no capital to lend. And with higher rates and lower wages, fewer people can actually even qualify for a loan. So so here's the problem.
• 10:53
  I don't see that that's changing anytime real soon. Right. Which is a huge economic indicator moving forward, that leading indicator, right, that there's problems ahead, that this tunnel is going to be a a dark one. Right. But But that's just one factor.
• 11:11
  There's more to the economy than the housing market. Right? There's the stock market. There's the bond market. There's everything that we buy like retail sales.
• 11:24
  Right? So retail sales are something that during the months of November and December always skyrocket every year because you got from Black Friday till the end of the year, people are buying stuff. Right? And this is where retailers make about 80% of their revenue for the whole year is during that six week span. It's wild.
• 11:45
  But this year, what happened? Nothing burger. I mean, sales just weren't there. Neither were at the big box retailers, at physical bricks and mortar stores, but neither was e commerce. You know, Amazon didn't have good Black Friday or Cyber Monday, and these things are just building up and building up to what I think is in conjunction with what this author had said, is this might be the mother of all bubbles bursting.
• 12:17
  Right? Because you you look at previous bubbles and and what happened. Well, we had one in 2,000, right, the tech stock market bubble. Well, what happened there? That was tech stocks being overvalued and the rise of the Internet, which everyone said, oh, the Internet's going to be the best thing ever.
• 12:33
  Right? Well, they were right. I mean, it changed the world. Right? But so you had companies selling for PE ratios that didn't even exist because there was no earnings.
• 12:45
  You can't have a PE ratio when the earnings part is zero. I mean, there was no earnings, but people were paying hundreds of dollars a share for for a company that wasn't even making any money. So that market burst and it was an 80% collapse over two and a half years. Eighty. It took people nine years to recover from that just to break even.
• 13:06
  Then you had the crisis that started in 02/2008 and in, like, 2011. Right? So this was a subprime lending bubble. This is closer to what we have now, right, is housing markets collapsing. People were getting money for loans that should have never gotten money for loans.
• 13:26
  It was started with AIG and their subprime lending mess, and you know what? That caused a ripple effect throughout all the economy and globally, and that caused a lot of things after that. Right? So whenever you have a big crisis, you've got government intervention that goes through the roof. Like in in February, you know, you had a financial crisis, then you had a a war, basically 09/11, and that started the international war on terror, and the Patriot Act followed that.
• 13:56
  Right? Complete loss of our freedoms. We're still dealing with it. Right? So February started.
• 14:03
  It goes 02/2009, ugh, housing market collapsed. You get the Dodd Frank bill that actually started to change the way that banks and financial institutions can collaborate with each other. And it started to cause these interest rate cycle and the cheap credit that we're seeing to try to stimulate the economy out of this. Right? So so this is why we have the problem that we have today.
• 14:27
  So let's look back.
• 14:29
  Seth Holehouse: I was gonna say yeah. Because I was looking at, like, the the bubbles, because actually that's very helpful for me is that you're looking at okay. So the tech bubble, that was something where you had an overvaluing of a of an asset, right, which were which were these tech companies that pulled a lot of money into them and it was a eventually the kind of music stopped and the reality hit and everything crashed afterwards. You had I think this same thing happening with your the real estate market, right, 02/2008, you had this overvaluing people were just giving away free money to get houses, The overvalue overvalue, the music stops, everything comes down. But it looks like from what I'm hearing in my own research that, like the bubble that we're experiencing right now is not just a sector bubble.
• 15:19
  It's not like we're entering into the bubble of like the housing bubble or the tech stock bubble or you know, you know, the bubble that might be in 80s. It almost feels like that right now, it's like an everything bubble or like the bubble itself is our is our currency is like our debt based currency that like before is like, okay, we gave too much money to the housing and now it okay, now it blew up. But it's almost like right now, they're just they're printing so much money and wasting so much money while simultaneously hiding the true reality of this. That's another thing I'm getting from hearing you talk is that they're actually not telling people what's really happening and they're fudging their numbers to make it look a lot better than what it really is. But eventually, as we know, truth always comes out.
• 16:05
  And so is it kind of like it right in understanding that, like when you say the mother of all bubbles, like this is like we're entering into a big bubble that's going to be bursting. And that's like the point this article is making is they're saying that most likely 2023 is going to be the year. I just interviewed Edward Dowd yesterday, actually, I haven't put the interview up yet. He said the exact same thing. He said, '2 next year 2023, we're going to see deep recession.
• 16:33
  And that seems to be echoed everywhere. So is my is my kind of elementary understanding of the bubbles correct? And that, like, right now we're living in the everything bubble?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: You're a % spot on, Seth. And and so is is Dowd. I mean, Edward Dowd is is a brilliant economist. Right? Just absolutely brilliant.
• 16:53
  And and we've talked before, and and we're in concert on this feeling because when you saw the collapses that we saw in the market from sector based bubbles, It wasn't everything that caused February. It was tech stocks. It wasn't everything in 02/2008, '2 thousand '9. It was subprime lending. But this one truly is an everything bubble because it's a debt based bubble, and debt is what caused the stock market to go up with all the influx of stimulus money.
• 17:20
  Right? Even and COVID amplified all of this. Right? Because you look at the amount of money, the trillions of dollars that there were, you know, bailout funds. Where did that go?
• 17:29
  It went into the stock market to keep it propped up, went into the bond market to keep it propped up, to keep our currency propped up. Right? All of that is debt based bubble. But here here's the problem. COVID was this global thing that that caused every country around the world to go to the printing press and print more and print more and have cheap money, lowered interest rates to keep their economy stimulated, whether it was in The United Kingdom, the Eurozone countries, Japan, China.
• 17:57
  All the countries were the same because manufacturing came down as nobody was buying, but all these countries still had entitlements to pay. They still had debt ceilings that they needed to raise to fund their government so they didn't have to shut down. Right? And we just saw that recently. Right?
• 18:13
  1,700,000,000,000 spending bill, stupid. Right? But it's like if we had money laying around well, if you had 1,700,000,000,000.0 laying around, well, so what if there's a $1,700,000,000,000 spending bill? You're just gonna spend what you have, but they don't have it. And they can't get it through tax revenues because people aren't working.
• 18:33
  People aren't spending. So sales tax revenues come down, income tax revenues. Now with real estate collapsing, property tax revenues are coming down. Government's methods for raising capital are diminishing, but yet they just passed a 1,700,000,000,000 spending bill. Where are they gonna get it?
• 18:49
  They're going to print it. That's how they're gonna get it, and that's gonna make inflation even worse. So this debt, that's debt. Right? And that's what they're gonna use to try to keep this thing stimulated, but it's not real.
• 19:01
  It's other people's money. It's devaluing our currency, which you keep doing that and you keep pushing forward this cycle. And what's ultimately going to happen? The rest of the world is no longer gonna want US treasuries because they're viewing it as a diminishing asset. We're treating it like monopoly money.
• 19:20
  When you lose demand for a currency, well, then you're forced to inflate or die. Right? Now we've we've masked this situation since the nineteen seventies because we've had a petrodollar, which meant all oil settlements globally are traded in US dollars. So that was built in demand for our currency. Prior to that, we had the Bretton Woods agreement in the nineteen forties, which made the US dollar the world's reserve currency.
• 19:47
  So so there's always been built in demand for the dollar, which allowed us to print. But now with with the emergence of the BRICS nations getting rid of the petrodollar system and and the emergence of now central bank digital currencies, which are crazy intrusive on our personal freedoms, This is their answer. This is worse than Dodd Frank in 02/2009. This is worse than the Patriot Act. The the I think what we see coming, their answer to this financial problem is central bank digital currency, which will do nothing.
• 20:25
  Yeah. Nothing to fix it except eliminate our freedoms because all transparency, all privacy goes the way of the Dodo bird. And if you step out of line with your digital social profile and what people the government wants, well, then they have the ability to shut you off from buying or selling. So so here's where some of Clinton's old advisers say never let a good crisis go to waste. Right?
• 20:49
  So so this crisis, being the mother of all crisis, people are not gonna have money. They're going to be clamoring for anything. They're they're not gonna be able to pay their bills. Their their energy costs are going through the roof. The cost of oil and gas are going through the roof.
• 21:06
  The stationary pressures, the cost of borrowing is going up. And now stimulus money is either gonna have to stop, and then that kills the economy overnight, or they're gonna have to ramp it up. Right? And that turns us in without built in demand for our currency, without a petrodollar, that that puts us in the same playing playing field. Argentina Yeah.
• 21:30
  Cyprus, Greece, where there is no tangible backing to the currency. There is no built in demand. And when you print international favor for your currency is gonna go away, and you are on the verge then of a hyperinflationary scenario like every other country. So by you, I'm I'm meaning The United States. Right?
• 21:48
  So all of us have to live within the confines of this playing field that the that the government is playing for us, laying out there. We have to play cards with the deck that's dealt with us. Right? Well, this is what we have, but but there's gonna be solutions, but there's more to it. I mean, good good grief.
• 22:07
  So three days ago, and this goes in alignment with the article that you just you just read. Right? So three days ago, Dmitry Medvedev, former president of Russia, came out with some eerie predictions for 2023. I mean, creepy. And if you Google it, the predictions for 2023, some of them are just political speak.
• 22:31
  Right? And and there's just some guy's opinion. Right? But he was former president of Russia. He's Putin's top adviser.
• 22:36
  So some of the stuff, though, that he said to listen to because oil is Russia's number one commodity. They are the world's largest producer of oil. They happen to be one of the BRICS nations. Right? So Medvedev said in 2023, the price of oil was gonna hit a hundred and $50 a barrel.
• 22:56
  Right? So okay. This was his prediction. It's like, interesting. He they know oil, so therefore maybe worth listening to a little bit.
• 23:05
  But then the next day, so two days ago, Putin comes out with a statement. And this goes back to December 3, the g seven nations, which would be The United States, the big manufacturing countries in Europe, Japan, you know, the largest seven economies in the world, basically put a cap on Russian oil of $60 a barrel. And and so you and I actually talked about this, you know, three three, four weeks ago when this happened. And what was our analysis? It's like, if I were Putin, I just wouldn't play.
• 23:38
  It's like, okay. You gotta put a cap on. I'm just not gonna sell it to you. This is what we said. And sure enough, two days ago, that's exactly what he said.
• 23:45
  He said, so anybody who's signed the dotted line on this accord starting February 1, we are not going to sell oil to any of you. So what does that mean? Low supply, still the same amount of demand, prices are gonna go through the roof. So that happened the day after Medvedev made his eerie prediction. It's like, oh my word.
• 24:06
  What does he know? What does that mean for the other predictions that this guy made? Right? When that one obvious, low supply, high demand prices for oil are gonna go through the roof. So by by looking at that, what does that mean for all of us, and how does that tie into your article about real estate?
• 24:24
  Well, oil is used for production in everything, literally everything. Obviously, oil and gas prices are gonna go up at the pumps if if prices double. Oh my word. We look at the damage that's already caused, and if it doubles from here, it's gonna be insanely bad. What about the the cotton shirt that I'm wearing?
• 24:45
  Well, that doesn't have oil in it. But, yeah, but the machine that that made it does, the loom has grease in the gears and everything else. Right? Transportation costs through the roof. Everything uses oil.
• 24:57
  Plastics are all petroleum based. Right? So so you look at this. We think inflation is bad now, Seth. I don't think we've seen the middle or the end of it yet.
• 25:08
  When prices are gonna continue to rise like that, now you've got political economic warfare happening because of stupid government decisions and and Putin. Can't say that I blame the guy. I would do the same thing if I were him. It's like, what? You're putting a cap on our oil when oil right now is $79 a barrel, and you're only gonna let us charge 60?
• 25:29
  Well, we're just not gonna sell it to you.
• 25:30
  Seth Holehouse: Exactly.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I would do the same thing. Yeah. Right? So so you've got all this garbage going on, and you've got a $1,700,000,000,000 spending bill that the lame duck congress passed. It's like in what world does that even make sense?
• 25:48
  Right? It's like, not let the next congress who's gonna have to deal with the ramifications of it vote on their own? But yet the lame duck congress says, okay. We're gonna spend $1,700,000,000,000. Now you who remain after us, you get to deal with it.
• 26:01
  But there's so much earmarks and pork in that thing. Right? So stupid things like 7 and a half million dollars for president Carter's library. It's like, fine. If he wants a library, let him pay for it.
• 26:16
  Why do we have to? Why do we have to pay $4,000,000 for a pool at the Covina High School? Shouldn't that be done through a mill levy or the voters in that school district? How did that make it into a federal bill or or the rock and roll museum in Cleveland? K.
• 26:31
  It's a cool museum. Right? Federal taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for it.
• 26:36
  Seth Holehouse: No.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: And there's stuff like that all over. It's like this is an assault on respect for humans. Right? When these politicians say, okay. You're gonna have to pay for all this garbage that nobody else wants.
• 26:50
  And I'm not saying that a museum is garbage. If if people want it, that's awesome. But I don't wanna pay for something. I don't wanna pay for, even though I love salmon, you know, millions of dollars for a salmon reintroduction into the nature act. It's like, what?
• 27:06
  It's like, let the people in that industry pay for it. Don't pass this on to everybody else. So you've got stupid policies that are gonna cause more inflation, more debt. This massive debt is the bubble that's bursting. It's not a housing bubble that's bursting.
• 27:22
  It's not a bond bubble
• 27:23
  Seth Holehouse: that's bursting.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: It's not a stock market bubble that's bursting. It's a debt bubble that impacts all
• 27:29
  Seth Holehouse: of the is underpinning every single aspect of our society. It's in the tech industry. It's in the housing industry. It's in the auto industry. It's in the personal finance, personal credit cards, the lending.
• 27:42
  It's it's everything. It's it's the entire system. So where is the golden lining to this, the silver lining? We know I would say for one thing is just awareness of this is coming. Like, to me, that's like the one of the greatest blessings is that it's like, you know, it's like you you know, Noah, he saw the storm before the storm arrived.
• 28:06
  You know what I mean? So he's like, I'm gonna build an ark. And everyone's like, okay, you're you're conspiracy theorist or whoever, and it starts raining. It's like, oh, okay. You know, we'll see what happens.
• 28:14
  But I think that that's one thing it's also important to remind ourselves because if you go on mainstream, MSNBC or whatever, wherever it is you're watching your financial news, Wall Street Journal, these conversations aren't taking place. You know, you might have an article saying that well, CEOs are talking more about recession, or you have some data points with the housing market, but no one's talking about this stuff at this level. And I think the fact that we are talking about it, that in of itself is a blessing because you you see the storm as it's arriving. You're you're not seeing it because it's already hit, you can't do anything about it.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Right. And and this is why I I am willing to face the music for sounding like a one hit wonder or one trick pony. Right? Because you and I talk about silver and and precious metals every single time we talk because it's not like it's the only investment out there. There's stocks.
• 29:06
  There's bonds. There's mutual funds. There's real estate. There's gold, silver. There's there's all kinds of options.
• 29:11
  But sometimes I get pigeonholed into being just a gold and silver guy. I'm not. When when you have foundations that that that promote growth, economic growth, Like, during the Trump years and Reagan years, you had lowering taxes, lowering interest rates, and job creation. If we were to have that, then the stock market would make sense. It's not that I'm against stocks.
• 29:33
  I'm against them for right now because those fundamentals aren't there. It's the opposite. And what's a scary thing is that when people are starting to operate out of a state of fear, they're gonna do stupid things. Right? Because fear causes either inaction, which means you're gonna sync with the ship if you do nothing when the economy changes, or it causes you to make the wrong decision just out of fear.
• 29:59
  It's like this this knee jerk reaction to try to be safe. And so so in that sense and in that vein where the government steps in and says, we've got a solution. Right? Little do people know this solution of central bank digital currencies, is going to be their solution that they think it's going to strip away all of our freedoms. But in faced with this, it's human nature.
• 30:25
  People will willingly give up their freedoms in exchange for perceived peace and security.
• 30:29
  Seth Holehouse: Exactly.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: It doesn't even have to be real peace and security, just perceived. And this is the era that we're moving into, but there is a silver lining to this and it's actually silver, right? It's like an important choice of words, but it is because over the last sixteen weeks, the last four months, silver's up 33%. It was $17.97 an ounce in August. Today it's like 24.
• 30:58
  That's up over 30% in sixteen weeks. But sixteen weeks does not make a trend. Right? It's just sixteen weeks. So I decided to look back.
• 31:08
  It's like, okay, well, it has it been over the last few years. I mean, you go back to the year February when silver was $4 an ounce. It's like, all right, well, it's averaged 11.7% a year growth for the last twenty two years. Pretty consistent. That's awesome.
• 31:23
  Right? But over the last three years, you go back to March of twenty twenty, silver was $11.91 an ounce. That was two and a half years ago. Today, it's 24. That's up 98% in February.
• 31:39
  It's averaging 38% year growth. This is the immediate and more near term trend that we're on because of the inflationary pressures. Right? Because of the there's consequences to actions, both good and bad. The consequences of mismanaged government policy printing without discretion, interest rates hikes to actually slow that down, people not working, paying people to stay home, all kinds of government red tape and bureaucracy and administrative rulings.
• 32:10
  And this is this is insanity that now we have to face the music, but this can be a good song. Right? This can be an amazing dance for people if they allocate accordingly. Who would be sad about 98% growth in an asset over the last two and a half years growing up 38% a year. Nobody.
• 32:31
  Who would be sad about having investment that has gone up over 30 in the last sixteen weeks when normally people say, oh, 30% in a year is amazing, let alone sixteen weeks. Right? So this is why it's not gonna last forever. Silver won't go up forever. Gold won't go up forever.
• 32:48
  Stocks don't go up forever. Things don't go down forever either, though. Right? So this is where these cycles and we navigate through this and we get to a point where we can have financial freedom even though our other freedoms are eroding by the minute our finances don't need to. Right?
• 33:06
  So so I'm a I I love to look at cycles. I love to look at trends. That's what economists do. Right? This is what Edward Dow does.
• 33:13
  This is what Martin Armstrong does. Right? We we look at these things because history has a tendency to repeat itself because of human psychology and what happens when markets get overbought or oversold, right, and people start to act differently. This is why we can identify trends. Right?
• 33:31
  So there's a cycle. Financial problems lead to economic problems. Economic problems lead to political problems, and political problems lead to geopolitical problems. Right? So here's where financial problems ultimately could lead to war.
• 33:45
  Right? And so let's play this out really quick. Right?
• 33:47
  Seth Holehouse: So
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: financial problem. Banks don't have any money. People are living at the margin they can't spend. So that leads to an economic problem, right, of now what do we do with these tax revenues? There isn't any tax revenues.
• 34:00
  The economy as a whole is suffering. So then it becomes a political issue. It's like, how do we get out of this? Well, let's just print money like there's no tomorrow. Let's let's let's go.
• 34:09
  That cost consequence now is interest rates have to rise to try to slow down that inflation. All of this devalues the dollar. Well, who's who holds most of our dollars? China. Right?
• 34:21
  So and and other countries. So they're dumping US treasuries. When you print money and devalue the currency, it's like stealing money out of somebody's wallet. Well, that somebody's wallet happens to be the largest manufacturer in the world. The head of the BRICS nations has a large military with nuclear capability and now is vying for the world's economic superpower by bringing in all these countries, getting rid of the petrodollar.
• 34:46
  See, this all started with a financial problem. Right? And these play out, and this is where we are in the cycle. And this is why if you don't do something when this is right in front of us and this is where we are with the cycle, and you and I have talked about this before, but it's like, boy, the fourth turning happening right underneath our nose. Right?
• 35:10
  It's an amazing book by Neil Howe. And this is societal change blended with economic change and political change all at the same time. This is where I think we are for 2023. And I'm not the kind of guy that makes predictions because people who make predictions are generally wrong. Right?
• 35:28
  So what I'm doing is I'm just identifying the trends, and we're just playing those out. This trend that we're on right now with political, you know, instability, with inflationary pressures, it's gonna continue on with interest rate cycles that are continue on. These are current trends that are going to continue on. What are the consequences of those actions? Those consequences are deep recession, like what Edward Dowd says.
• 35:54
  These consequences are gold and silver going through the roof because that's what happens when you have inflationary pressures and political chaos. So when you understand this, Seth, it's so easy to then navigate through it. I shouldn't say easy. It's easier Yeah. To navigate
• 36:11
  Seth Holehouse: through At least you have a
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: map to
• 36:12
  Robert Kiyosaki: look at.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You have a you have a road map for success, and this is what we try to help people with every single day is strategically mapping out that road map to get you out of the path of the hurricane. Because like you started the show, if there's a hurricane coming, it's like, okay. That's bad news. The economy is bad news.
• 36:32
  We're not glorifying in that bad news. We're giving people an option to get to safe ground. And that's what's exciting about what we do is we're putting ourselves out there. And and we have people that love us. We have people that hate us all the time because when you speak truth, that's what happens.
• 36:49
  Right? So so but when we put yourself out there, you're helping people. And this is where we can really make a difference, not just in your life now, but for future generations of you, right? When you shore up your finances and your retirement and your legacy, it spans multiple generations or it can sink, right? We don't want it to sink.
• 37:12
  We do not want it to sink. We've worked too hard to make it sink. Right? So but we don't have to. We don't have to settle for that.
• 37:18
  Seth Holehouse: Exactly. Yeah. So folks, if you wanna reach out to Kirk, I I recommend it. You know? And I'm not a financial adviser, but I would say now is the time.
• 37:28
  If you if you've been waiting, if you've been on the edge of this, now is the time to take that step, move some of your money. That's the thing is that it doesn't have to be a lot. Say it's only 10% of what you have. Say say it's $10,000 thrown into silver as a as a safety net. That could be transformative in the future.
• 37:44
  Right? So folks should give you a call. Your phone number is (720) 605-3900 or visit goldwithseth.com. And both the phone number and the link are gonna be in the description for the show. So get (720) 605-3900 or goldwithseth.com.
• 38:05
  At least just just call and just ask some questions. Right? Because whether it's, you know, putting things in you're putting your money into silver, whether it's buying a generator, investing in solar, digging a well, installing a fireplace, you know, stocking up on food storage, stocking up on guns and ammo, These are all steps that we can take right now. And we can we can take them right now. And the worst case scenario is that nothing happens.
• 38:32
  Right? Like, so the best case scenario, right? Sorry, is that nothing happens. And that's, it's like, okay, well, we've we've got this extra food now and we've got this extra, you know, silver set aside, we'll convert into something else or we have extra ammo. So anyway, yeah.
• 38:45
  So Kirk, it's always a pleasure having you on. And, of course, there'll be a lot to talk about in the New Year. Have a wonderful holiday, you know, finishing up your holiday season and your hope you had a very Merry Christmas as well. So it's just it's such a pleasure having you here, Kirk.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Likewise. Have an amazing, safe, and peaceful New Year, and look forward to bringing more hope to a world that's that's dying and needs hope right now next year. And so enjoy the rest of your week, Seth, and everybody who's watching, and I look forward to being with you again next week.
• 39:18
  Seth Holehouse: Alright. Thank you, Kirk. Take care.