The rebel capitalist show all right guys. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to welcome someone back to the rebel capitalist show my good buddy in the gold space ronnie stuperlay did i get it right ronnie. That was almost perfect thanks a lot george. All right! Awesome welcome back to the rebel capitalist show buddy. Now you did an awesome presentation. The other day, updating us on your views of how things are looking from a macro standpoint, how it plays into gold and bitcoin, specifically, so, let’s just dive into that, and can you give us kind of the the 30 000 foot level of what you went over In the presentation and then we’ll get into the nitty-gritty sure well, the title of the presentation was all roads lead to gold, and i heard kiril sokolov said that once uh in a fantastic presentation and my wife and i we went to rome um in september uh, I call it contrarian, traveling and, and rome was almost empty. It was fantastic, you know no, no tourists at all uh. You didn’t have to stand in line to to go to the um, to the vatican, all the big museums, the colosseum. It was basically empty uh and i told my wife um who’s in the oil and gas industry, so so she cares a bit about commodities and my kind of stuff. I told her well. Rome now feels like attending a gold mining conference two or three years ago, because it was a ghost now it was so depressing um. So so that was kind of the the the light motif of the presentation and basically uh. It is a macro update, prepared um. I think one of the main takeaways is is, of course, inflation. We’Re currently writing a big report on on inflation. It’S called the boy who cried wolf. Another topic is, of course, where we are in the in the cycle for gold uh. We saw quite a lot of interesting developments recently. You know with warren buffett buying into berry gold, but also some some really big names like stan dragon miller, paul tudor jones um telling people well gold, but also bitcoin is is, is, is our favorite uh favorite currency? At the moment so um i can, i can read the brief summary. If you want sure uh we said um, we are starting with uh, with with two great quotes. Um. The first of all first is blessed, are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt uh, and the second is um from one of my most favorite um books. It’S called lords of finance. Monetary policy does not work like a scalpel, but like a sledgehammer – and i reread not only the world of yesterday by stefan zweig but also lords of finance over the summer, and it reminds me very much of what is going on uh in financial markets. At the moment, so the summary of the of the presentation is basically that the coronavirus is the accelerator of the overdue recession that heralds the dawn of a new monetary world order after the covet crisis comes the debt crisis rising price inflation is not a tail risk. Negative real interest rates are the new normal. The renaissance of gold in institutional portfolios has started. Mining stocks and commodities will be the major beneficiaries and are still largely under owned, and we think that gold, miners and also bitcoin are on the way to many many new all-time highs. So that’s it in a nutshell: uh all roads lead to gold yeah. So, let’s unpack that from a macro standpoint, why are you saying that? Well, i mean the thrust i think would be starting with just government debt, and now the fed or any central bank is really having to monetize the majority of the debt, that’s being issued by the the government and the the fiat currency. And even when you look at and so what’s interesting, i think is going back to 2008 to 2020, the majority of the quote: unquote, money printing was just the fed expanding the size of its balance sheet and the bank reserves, but we really were dependent upon the Commercial banking system to increase m2 money supply which, for the layman just means the amount of currency units that are chasing goods and services. But now that the that we have the fed monetizing the debt buying those treasuries with bank reserves and then the treasury spending that into the real economy you’re seeing m2 money supply go straight up. Well, if m2 money supply is going parabolic, how does that end? And the last thing i’ll add here is – and i don’t know that most people realize this – that the the deficit of the government, the united states government this year – will be almost five trillion dollars to put that into perspective. Between 1776 and 1996, the government accumulated about five trillion dollars over that year span, so we’ve attacked on in just one year as much as it took us to accumulate the first 220 years of our existence. So how does that not lead to golden bitcoin ronnie? I mean it does uh just look at uh at the charts um. Well, i think you know george there’s um for me honestly, it’s it’s been a fascinating year. I think you know uh. This is really for for everybody following uh financial markets, uh currency markets um. I think it’s it’s it’s really a special year because um when it comes to to monetary policy, but also to fiscal policy, all taboos have been broken this year. Yeah. I think that you know just the fact that mmt is nowadays something where basically everybody says well. Yeah – let’s just give it a try a couple of years ago that that was just the wet dream of some some uh left-wing uh economist sitting in the towers. Now it’s really going mainstream and stephanie kelton um, i think she’s she will become one of the most important economists. So so i think you know um in in in german, there is um. There’S the saying is the roof. The translation would be once your worldly reputation is in tatters. The opinion of others hardly matters. I don’t know if you know that quote, but it reminds me very much of uh fiscal policy, but also monetary policy. It is, we have reached um as a status where, basically, nobody cares anymore about those numbers. You mentioned u.s budget deficit um. Who can he really um, understand and comprehend? Those numbers is it’s 5 trillion? 6 trillion. 10 trillion. I mean what is the? What is the big difference? So i think we that that was really one of the the major changes changes this year. I think the narrative surrounding deficit spending has completely changed, so there are no deficit, hogs anymore and and over here in europe, for example, um. The french said well um, when the whole thing is over uh. We won’t go back to the to the euro stability pact um. You know there was the the maastricht uh reference value of 60 um. Now we are, we are going to 102 next year and basically every country says well those stability criterias that we once implemented and there were basically something that we promised our citizens when we introduced the euro and ryan you’re talking about a debt to gdp ratio. Right. Yes, yes, yes, um 60 debt to gdp ratio, so so so so i think um. There are many signs that that that taboos were broken and and that we we are starting with a completely new chapter. Now, when it comes to monetary policy uh at my presentations, i often show this this fabulous book. It is called central bank, modern, central banking, simplified. I don’t know if you came across this one is: is that a joke, simplified [, Laughter, ]? Well – and it says the us government has a technology called the printing press, or today it’s electronic equivalent – that allows it to produce as many us dollars as it wishes at no cost um. I like that last part at no cost, and i got this this this book um when i still worked in the bank, somebody just sent it to me. I don’t know if it was a a a reader of dean, goldwith trust report and i said well, it looks interesting and i opened it and i said well modern central banking, simplified, it says print money, money print and on the last page it says: keep on Printing best thing about it, it sells, for, i think, 10 us dollars on amazon. So this guy writing this book he’s he’s a great businessman, but um you know. I. I think that this year basically showed up that the central banking is is basically um. It doesn’t work anymore. I think that we’re now really moving from financial qe to fiscal qe. I think this is the second big step that we saw and russell napier did a tremendous uh amount of work. On that basically says: um governments tried to circumvent um um. The the the money creation it’s going away from commercial banks and now, basically, due to uh government guarantees um. The government is more and more taking over the control of the money supply and – and you mentioned m2 – it’s growing at a much much faster pace than even in the 1970s, which was highly inflationary. So from my point of view, inflation will really become one of the most important drivers for investors over the next couple of years. What do you see the catalyst or – or you know, inflation’s tough, let’s, let’s narrow it down, because when you talk about inflation right there, i think we would both define that, as as consumer prices going up, because obviously that could be asset prices that can be the Dollar, going down or losing value against other currents, there’s a lot of different ways to look at it, but we’ll just focus on consumer prices going up and a lot of people would say. Well, yeah the fed actually did create consumer price inflation because the cpi is completely bogus and then there would be other people. That say you know well, they might have created inflation to a certain degree. Maybe the two percent that they’d admit to but um you know they didn’t create hyperinflation or something like the 1970s. So why can’t? If they could do qe for the financial industry, why can’t they do it for the average joe? You know why can’t we do qe for the people if we can bail out all of the big banks and the hedge funds, which they did. You know why can’t we bail out the average joe by just sending them two or three thousand dollars a month, and i think that you and i understand that that would most likely be more inflationary because it increases m2 money supply directly. What you’re talking about earlier with the government just going around the commercial banking system? But i don’t think a lot of people really understand how that works. They just think that qe is qe and whether it’s bank reserves being increased or you know them sending out stimulus checks. It’S really the exact same thing, but helicopter money is much much different. So and i and i’ll say one more thing here and i’ll. Let you take the ball and run with it. I think that, back in march, we went from there being a fed put, i think it was kind of psychological, but the fed comes out guns ablaze and we’re going to fix the repo market. We’Re going to do qe123 and the market goes up, because the market thinks that the fed has a backstop, but in march they did that the market still went straight down. The market didn’t recover until the government came out and announced all of their stimulus programs. So i think we’ve gone to a government put, but i think the case for gold and bitcoin here is that the government put increases m2 money supply directly, where the fed put might not [ Music ], yes well. Well, i think that you know the the big difference. Um 2008 2009 compared to 2020 is first of all that the measures taken by central banks were much much quicker, being uh introduced, um and much more aggressive, but this time around we also saw massive fiscal stimulus right very, very quickly. I think this is really the the big big difference and those numbers are staggering. I mean so far. Um monetary and fiscal stimulus this year has been 33 trillion us dollars. So so those are really really big numbers. It was that worldwide. Yes, yes, oh wow, okay, um, so so so those are really big numbers and and and if you you know, um, for example, compare in inflation expectations, yeah tips, whatever um. If you compare it 2008 2009 to um spring of 2020, you can see that inflation expectations got up much much faster than in 2008 and 2009. So so so so i think you know uh for the next crisis. Whenever it it will happen. I think it. It won’t be a liquidity crisis. It will probably it will rather be a solvency crisis. I think, is at some point. Uh investors will really start questioning, um balance sheets and and and and credit credit rating. So so, after the covet crisis comes the debt crisis, but um coming back to to your question, i think that um, first of all, we we. We should not forget that um. Now, if we compare the current uh, the current narrative or the current mission of central bankers, it is a reverse paul, folker, paul folker back in the days his job 1979. His job was to kill inflation. Now, central bankers all over the globe are really desperate to create more price inflation. Now i think this this year, uh uh, was – was really special, as i’ve said, because um the federal reserve in in in august, i think they announced one of the biggest uh changes of their their policies, so they are moving now to this average inflation targeting, which Means back in the days two percent was basically the ceiling, two percent inflation rate. Now they want on average, two percent, but as inflation rates were undershooting over the last couple of years now, the federal reserve wants uh inflation rates to overshoot right, just to have an average at two percent so um that that basically means that we will see very Very low nominal rates uh until at least 2023 um. I think that um uh jay powell said we. What did he say? We’Re not even thinking about thinking about raising rates, so you have very low nominal rates, plus um the federal reserve being very, very aggressive and targeting uh inflation rates to overshoot. So this means negative real rates for the next couple of years, which is based on our research, and we wrote more than 3 000 pages of of research about gold. Negative real rates are the foundation of every gold bull market. Now i think when it comes to inflation um, i said at this presentation – and this was uh published, i think, um, beginning of november um. I had a conversation with with mark bristow, the ceo of berry, gold, uh and, and we were talking about the vaccine and he asked me – you know um once we get the vaccine, what’s gon na happen to the price of gold uh, and i told him well For the very short term uh, it is of course, negative for gold, but i think in general, once we get the vaccine. This is the best thing that can happen for gold prices um, because the big problem now is uh. You know this, this enormous uncertainty. Nobody knows uh uh. How 2021 will will will will will will be? Nobody is really making any any travel plans. Everybody is, you know, saving money. Everybody is very, very concerned making extremely conservative planning, but once we get the vaccine, i think this is going to change and and – and i really feel and and you can feel it on – in financial markets with uh value stocks coming back all the you know, the Cruise ships, uh um oil stocks, uh all those um um sectors that were basically beaten down through the covet crisis. They are now basically um coming back, but also talking to people. Everybody is getting a little bit bit more optimistic. So, from my point of view, of course, financial markets, especially equity markets, are always discounting the future of course, and i think that the stock market already tells us well covet, won’t be a big problem, uh in the second third or fourth quarter of 2021, and and I think um, it is completely nonsense. People telling us now well, people will um they’re spending habits and they they won’t travel too much anymore. I think this is nonsense. I think once this whole uncertainty um about you know, the health situation is out of the market. People will go crazy, they will go every weekend to. I don’t know to london to barcelona to las vegas, whatever they will go to every conference. I mean my wife always tells me. Isn’T there any any gold conference that you can go to um and everybody is? Is is really you know, nobody likes those zoom meetings anymore. So so i think once we’re really this this um this, this vaccine news gets uh into the market and people really gain confidence. I think the velocity of money, or as the austrian would call it the demand to hold money, will completely reverse. So basically, we will see an enormous amount of money that was produced now meeting um higher confidence and, from my point of view this this this. This sounds like like inflation and just one last word, just have a look at inflation. Sensitive assets have a look at gold and silver prices have a look at commodities base, metals, um, uh agricultural commodities, um inflation, protected um bonds at commodity, sensitive currencies like the australian dollar, but also the ruble um or the canadian dollar they’re, all all telling us inflation. So um, i think you know be careful what you wish for it might come true. This is something that that central bankers all over the globe should um should think about yeah a lot to touch on there. So, first i i want to make sure that or i want to encourage people because we’re talking about the demand side of the equation right there with people having money in their pocket. They get these stimulus checks. That’S got gone up. The pent-up demand, therefore, when they’re able to cut loose and they go out, there spend the money increases velocity, but i think people need to also consider the supply side of the equation. We’Ve had these lockdowns and if we go through a second or third wave, whether it’s legit or not, i’m not here to debate that. But it is what it is, and the governments will most likely take more draconian measures which reduces the amount of supply or the supply of goods and services. It cuts down on the supply chains. So you have that effect as well. So, yes, people want to go out there and spend, but they’ll have a lot fewer choices which will bid up the prices on what few choices are left even more i’ll. Give you a great example. I just uh flew to vegas over the weekend and there was an airline that it’s kind of like a semi-private airline. You fly out of phoenix to vegas and right now they only have routes to vegas and burbank, but prior to covid they had 14 or 15 different routes to all these different cities. So all those flights are now gone. So if we flip the switch and go back to like after a third like the spanish flu, you know and and uh after three waves, it’s gone, then you’re gon na have a lot less choice which drives prices up. Even i mean lumber has gone up. It’S quadrupled uh over the past few months and that’s with the some of the lockdown still in place. So i want to encourage people to think about that. But then the next thing, i’d like you to touch on ronnie is this idea of yield curve control, and i i read an article the other day that brainerd is one of the top candidates for the the treasury for biden and she’s, a proponent of yield, curve Control, if we get inflation going up in the future, then that means that interest rates will tend to go up as well. At least the market will be trying to push interest rates up, but if the fed comes in and says no, no, we can’t have that because those interest rates will crush the economy because we’ve got consumer debt at all-time highs. We’Ve got government debt corporate at all all-time highs, so we can’t afford higher interest rates, but the only way that they can do, that is to buy the bonds, but they got to print the money to buy the bonds. Then how? How does that work with your inflation uh expectations? Well, i think i, if, if people at some point should should should realize uh that um that real rates are are deeply negative, um and – and you know at the moment there is, i think, 17 trillion uh of bonds trading at negative yields. So it’s it’s a guaranteed loss, um and i think jp morgan had the number for real rates. I think that 32 trillion of bonds are trading at at negative real rates, basically yeah um. So so at the moment i think many many market participants are getting a bit uh concerned regarding inflation uh. So so i think it’s it’s not a super contrarian uh topic uh anymore, but but i think if we, if we hit inflation numbers at four or five percent – and this is, for example, uh what russell napier, whom i really really uh enjoy reading and listening to And and he’s one of the greatest strategists out there uh with a tremendous amount of um of of of great calls and – and he has been a deflationist and he became an inflationist this year. So so i think that um. You know that at some point there will be an exodus uh from those bonds um. If inflation really becomes a concern, you think the fed buys them to keep the rates down on the long end of the curve. Well, i think they will have to buy them. Uh and and and i think the whole discussion about um yield curve control. It was really a big topic in uh in early summer and then it’s it’s yeah. It kind of fell to sleep and the federal reserve said no, it’s it’s something that we’re considering um, but now i think with with with brayner. If, if she really um should uh succeed powell, then i think it will be implemented and – and i think, there’s uh. The the best bet is that um, the balance sheet of the federal reserve uh, will not shrink and that the growth rate will uh will further grow. It’S it’s it’s i i often say it’s. It’S interesting that people care so much much about flattening the curve and exponential functions when it comes to covet cases nowadays, but nobody is talking about those exponential growth rates when it comes to to uh balance sheets of or monetary aggregates. So so so so i think this this traditional 60 40 uh portfolio, construction, um that we all had to learn – and you know if you study for the cfa this is like the holy grail. This is something that uh perhaps worked in the past, but it won’t work in the future and and therefore we showed that in one of our reports the average investment advisor is nowadays 54 years old. So in his professional career he never experienced the problems that you have when, when you are managing portfolios in a highly inflationary or even stagflationary environment or a deflation, no just no deleveraging in general, exactly exactly so, so i think that it’s it’s it. It makes sense to to follow strategies of emerging market managers, for example, because you know, if you’re a money manager in in brazil in turkey, whatever inflation is just something normal for you and it’s it’s interesting that for them, for example, they’ve got completely different views when It comes to government bonds uh, but also, of course, when it comes to currencies and when it comes to gold. So so so i think that really inflation will be the main driver for gold and – and i think when it comes to um institutional demand. I think this is really something that that i’m experiencing at the moment. This is people that that haven’t called me in ages saying. Well, you know you want to come around and and or do a zoom meeting um you know what did you do? The last couple of years you aren’t you this gold guy uh and i said yeah um. I am uh, let’s talk about it, so so i think many um, especially like wealth managers, um family offices. They are slowly waking up now, and this is a great sign and, and you know back in 2011, basically all the private bankers said you should have at least five to ten percent gold in your portfolio. Now we’re still far away from those numbers, but right, but it has started yeah rick rule was saying the exact same thing. The last time i interviewed him, but i i want to go back. It’S very fascinating because you’re in europe and you’ve got a much more. I think broad view of how money managers allocate capital – it’s we get very us focused here. We just look at bridgewater or we look at any of these other. You know uh chanos or any of these big guys that you see on cnbc and we get. We assume that those are the only people who are allocating capital, but to your point, it’s not true. They’Ve got money managers in argentina and brazil and turkey and places that experience a lot of inflation. So how do you see the typical? What does the typical portfolio look like in those places compared to other places like the united states, or maybe even europe, where they think that inflation is dead? Um? That’S that’s a good question. I would say that um that over here in europe, where in general, i think the allocation in inequities is significantly uh lower um. We don’t have too much history of of investing in in in stocks. Unfortunately um, because people still think it’s it’s kind of risky and volatility is, is something evil. I love volatility. I i think it’s it’s it’s it’s fantastic um, but but unfortunately we tend to be um very conservative, which is, from my point of view not conservative, holding um, mostly the government that uh in our portfolios, even with negative rates. Yes, because so far it worked. Uh pretty well, and – and you know, if you bought the the hundred a hundred year, uh austrian bond uh, it looks like uh like a tech stock or like bitcoin. I i mean the chart is: is it’s crazy yeah just just to clarify there? What ronnie’s talking about is the the price of the actual spawn, not the interest rate stays the same, but yeah the the the price goes up. If interest rates overall in the marketplace go down relative to where the bond was issued, yeah. So so i think one really big trend uh over here george is esg um. This is like the big buzzword and and from my point of view, it’s um yeah. I i think it to to some degree it’s a big marketing gag um. I think uh, those um this whole green, washing things that i’m seeing it concerns me uh. I i think that uh in general, if you have to do if you’re, investing in commodities, um you’re a bad guy, now um people miss that uh commodities are pretty important for our economy and and and that it’s a highly capital uh intensive sector. So so, if you basically cut um the capital allocation and and and the access to capital markets for for companies in the oil and gas industry in in in coal, in copper extraction in in gold and silver uh at some point, um supply will will will fall Significantly – and i have to tell you know, opening up a mine nowadays is almost impossible, so i think you know it will come back like a boomerang, because supply will will will diminish and prices will skyrocket, so um esg is a big topic has had, has massive Consequences but george w what i think you know um is really fascinating. I think the big winner of 2020 is asia. I mean uh the news of of this um uh free trade zone, which um basically um [ Music ] affects 30 of world gdp. I think this is really big news. Uh and most people don’t don’t care too much about it. Also. The fact that china is is coming out of the crisis um, basically, first and and and based on my my contacts in china and in asia in general. It seems that that they, they really dealt with the crisis, pretty well um, so i think 2020 is also a year for for for asia and as a as a european i’m, sometimes a bit um frustrated. Uh. Of of all the developments um that i’m seeing in asia versus this still stand over here in europe, okay, so let’s so we look at the portfolio in europe for an asset, allocator, typically heavyweight uh, heavy uh bonds in the u.s, probably equities. How would that differ from, let’s say turkey or where i’m guessing they’re, probably more into gold and real estate? And then let’s go into this new free trade zone, because i don’t think a lot of people, especially here in the united states, know anything about this. So it sounds like big news that we should all understand better. Well, george, i i did presentations and i don’t know how how many countries are all over the world and – and i think i really got the the the best and the hardest questions uh in the q and a session in turkey – really those people they. They know everything about gold. It was really really fascinating because of course i mean if you, if you’ve got such a weak currency and and and if inflation is such a big topic for you um. Obviously you care about uh uh how to save money in a in a in a sound currency, and i mean it’s no coincidence that that gold, but also bitcoin um, are you know. The perception is, is completely different in in venezuela or are in argentina. So so i think that um countries like turkey have got a completely different uh culture when it comes to gold, but also over here in in austria and in germany and in switzerland. Um. If you have a look at the numbers, uh, the typical gold allocation is easily compared to the united states or or or the uk and – and i think that you know over here – we are still our our monetary dna is is – is still uh affected by by The hyperinflation um, while while in the us i i think, the the great depression which was deflationary um and i think everybody should read uh mary rothbard’s book about the great depression because it tells the real story um. But but i think this. This explains why you’re getting from your from your aunts or from your grandparents, where you’re getting little gold coins or silver coins here for every birthday or or christmas, and so on, so so this is definitely for us. It’S just normal to have uh um. I don’t know ten fifteen percent in in in physical gold, okay yeah that means coming back to to to asia. It is called the the regional comprehensive economic partnership and they started negotiating already in 2013, um and and now basically announced uh that that they will sign it uh. India is not participating yet um, but but they might at some point if, if perhaps the government should change um and this uh is basically the world’s largest free trade agreement representing 30 percent of global gdp, without any us involvement – and now i i don’t know yet What the monetary gains will be, but of course the political gains are enormous, because normally countries that trade with each other um kind of like each other and don’t don’t fight wars, so um will definitely um. I think it’s it’s a big step and and george. We are writing about the de-dollarization um of the world, this. This really big trend um for many years already, and – and i think you know – free trade agreements, but also bilateral um, um, uh, uh um, accounting between countries. You know circumventing the us dollar. I think these are all signs that um, probably the best days for the united states are, are might be behind. I mean we’ll see i i just just one thing regarding uh the the whole polarization in the united states. I i just read this number and i couldn’t believe it according to paul by erasmus reports, 34 of voters believe that a civil war is likely in the next five years. Now, of course, this is super pessimistic, but it tells you a lot. I mean 34 in the united states think that a civil war is possible in the next five years. It tells you quite a lot and – and it seems that it’s uh definitely a rising tail risk. Oh, absolutely absolutely, and you know i’d like to get your opinion because you, you travel so much and talk to so many, not only high net worth individuals but but money managers. What are your thoughts right now on eastern europe, russia and the middle east? And the reason i say that is because i i see kind of this political narrative that, whether it’s coming from you know, justin trudeau in in canada or the world economic forum, with this great reset, where they want to completely change they. You know they dress it up to be. We want to improve capitalism, but if you really read what they’re saying they’re really saying, we want less free market, we want more kind of this centrally planned, controlled economies, but and also they want a very uh heavy push towards green energy. So i’m not saying that’s good or bad. I will say that i would prefer that if we have a push towards greed, energy, it come from the free market and from entrepreneurs and from the bottoms up type of uh approach, instead of it being thrust upon us by the overlords but uh. If you look at kind of that whole green, a great reset agenda, you look at countries like russia, the saudi arabia, the middle east uh. They they really don’t benefit from that. In fact, they it’s quite the opposite, because they’re so reliant upon natural resources, commodities and more specifically, oil and then the eastern european countries. I think a lot of people are still alive today that lived through the communism socialism, whatever you want to call it, and i i would assume that uh, you know if the people in germany and on austria can relate and remember and they’re still required to be In walmart, germany and here in the united states about the great depression that that that, as far as socialism would be hardwired into their brain, that listen, we want nothing to do with anything that resembles a centrally planned economy and therefore they would avoid this kind of Great reset agenda more than say the west. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well. Well, i think this uh. This is a very important thing that you’re bringing up um. I once attended a conference in in bratislava um in in in slovakia and and we went there on the boat, my my partner mark walick and i and and we we traveled with uh jim ricketts um, because he did a presentation in vienna and and we went To this conference – and he said you know it’s it’s about austrian economics and uh chima asked us, you know, do you think it’s gon na be big and we shouldn’t? We don’t know and we went there and you know it was it was packed. There was like so many young people and, and they were all extremely eager to to to learn and find out more about uh about the austrian school about libertarianism. It was really fascinating, while over here in vienna, um. If you go on the street and ask you know who is hayek, most people will say well, selma hayek. Nobody knows friedrich august von hayek who, who won the nobel prize for economics in 1974 by the way? So so it is definitely something that i’m experiencing we’re attending lots of conferences. You know uh organized by libertarians by austrian economists in eastern europe uh. If you go to poland, if you go to prague wherever you go to, the crowds are first of all they’re they’re much younger than over. Here, um and they’re, they’re, bigger and they’re, really enthusiastic and – and it just tells me well, they know how socialism feels and, and they want uh. You know they want capitalism, they want to be free, um, they want, they want liberty and they did. They want um to to, to you, know, have a better life and and and and uh lay the foundation for a better life for your kids and and and therefore i think this is a definitely something that that we’re seeing um uh in eastern europe and and And therefore, i think also from an investment standpoint, um very interesting growth rates still um. I think you know the the the uh most of the companies are doing a tremendous job, i’m seeing uh cheap valuations. I i think that when it comes to emerging markets, uh eastern europe is is probably something that um many investors tend to forgot. Forget everybody is just focusing on on on asia and latin america. Perhaps but i think investors should have a closer look at at eastern europe um now when it comes to the great great reset um. First of all, i couldn’t believe my eyes when i saw that um. The title of the 2021 um conference is the great reset and and and i wrote an email to my friend willa middle coupe, who wrote the book the big reset a couple of years ago, and i said congrats uh. Your sales numbers will probably skyrocket um. But i think you know never waste a crisis uh and, and – and this is what we’re seeing now, i think um as i’ve said, all taboos have been broken and and and if you follow twitter stuff, like universal basic income like helicopter money like mmt, like a Debt cancellation um: this is something that that is really becoming mainstream and and and many friends of mine who don’t care too much about economics and and and reading all this historical stuff. They say yeah, let’s, let’s just give it a try, it might work. I think it’s a pretty um dangerous experiment but um. I i think that it’s, it’s really the side, guys that we’re seeing now, unfortunately, yeah and the people they just don’t understand history. They don’t understand the the downside there. They can only see the the benefit and they completely ignore the cost so with. I know, we’re probably running a little short on time here. So in the closing moments or the closing minutes here, can you walk us through what you see as an ideal portfolio or how you’re investing for yourself? I know that you’re you’re bullish on gold and uh in bitcoin, but you talked about commodities and i think that’s something that’s very interesting, because we we look at the charts. If you look at commodities compared to asset prices or more specifically the s p, you see that commodities are at historically low levels. Going back to i mean the early 1900s in the united states and they’re very unloved people just uh. Look at it like! Oh it’s! It’S never going to come back, it’s um, they just look at the demand side of the equation and they forget the supply side. Just like they’re doing with the demand you know with more currency units and forgetting about the supply, goods and services. So can you walk us through maybe more specifically, what you’re looking at even for your own portfolio as far as commodities i mean, is it just? Is it oil? Is it uranium? Is it copper, is it uh what what else is out there and and what do you, what are you most bullish on and maybe not so much um? Well, i think i agree, probably the most hated asset class um. I did a big presentation in in in spring um and – and i said you know, gold always moves first, then it’s a silver market, then it’s energy and then it’s a broad commodity, complex, and i said i i said you know we are pretty bullish, commodities and And i was, i was ridiculed. It was like if i would tell my wife, i don’t know um, let’s do a samba or a cha-cha-cha dancing class yeah because i just come on. I mean that’s, that’s that’s such an absurd idea and that that that you know that that confirmed my view and – and i think that a great investment uh it shouldn’t be easy at the beginning. It should really really hurt in your stomach and and perhaps give you a sleepless night, and you know, buying commodities in in spring. Wasn’T too easy, and now we’re seeing a copper price is doing very, very, very well. I think a correction would would be good for the market, actually we’re seeing agricultural uh commodities doing uh really well we’re seeing the energy markets really waking up, and i mean uh oil is trading above 40 dollars and we’re still um. You know demand is still pretty weak and we’re still kind of in the in the worst recession since the great depression or whatever um. I wonder where, where oil will be trading when uh, when when when next year, everything is going crazy and i i honestly i have to say i’m i’m i’m super excited about uh uh uh the next year. I think it’s it’s gon na be a crazy year, because um people will try to compensate for what they what they missed this year. Um. I think, once we’ve got all this uncertainty that i described once it’s it’s it’s out, um. I think you know save it. Savings rate will plummet uh. I think people will um yeah, we’ll just want to make up for for all those things that they couldn’t have uh in in in the year of 2020.
Skyrockets – and you know who who, who i talked to, who agrees with you wholeheartedly is: is townsen he’s been talking about that as well? Our buddy eric townsend with macro voices and – and you know so so so if we go really from monetary qe more to fiscal qe – that that should really be positive for um. For for commodities, you know politicians will come up with so many new deals. A green new deal and infrastructure new deal whatever new deal. Then i think commodities are super. Under-Owned um, i don’t know any big asset managers that that really are invested in commodities at the moment and they’re as you’ve said, generationally cheap. So so i like the co commodity complex we’ve got a uranium fund. For example, we’ve got our inflation diversifier fund. Did you take all running? No, no. We don’t have a coal fund uranium, which is also quite controversial, because people who don’t have a clue about it so so so you’re uh you’re investing in nuclear bombs or what you should do your homework but um. You know what what what really makes me um super bullish is, is bitcoin um, you know a friend of mine, and – and this is i thought it was really fascinating, because uh over here it it. It took us basically three years to launch our crypto fund, which combines digital and physical gold uh with an options overlay. So so we use the enormous volatility um um by writing options which which, which really makes sense in in in highly uh volatile uh asset classes. Like like silver, but also especially bitcoin um and from a legal point of view, the narrative, if you go to a big bank or an institutional player, it’s still, okay, bitcoin is a thing for for criminals and the dark web and stuff like that. So so this is really the first thing that comes to the mind of a um, mostly older, guy um, being responsible for the yesterday location. But but what we really sense at the moment is that the smaller houses that are not that bureaucratic that have got um flatter hierarchies, they are waking up, so we’ve got lots of interesting meetings and and and and – and i think this is really 2020 will really Be an important year for bitcoin, because i think this is really the year where we see a transition into traditional asset management, a friend of mine and – and i love it because um it just tells you how how creative, um investors and and and capitalists are um. He said he, the the compliance department and risk management really gave him a hard time buying bitcoin and he tried it. Every couple of weeks said you know i just want to buy like two or three percent for one of my fans. I said no, it’s not possible. It’S too risky and i said just two or three percent i mean uh. It makes sense just from a correlation point of view. No, it’s not possible. So what did he do? He bought a stock micro strategy and – and you probably heard that um the ceo of microstrategy, he bought like 500 millions uh worth of bitcoin um mike michael sailor. I think he is his name, so so so so he bought that basically, as a um yeah as a as a bitcoin allocation, he bought this stock. Now the compliance department was happy, but, but i think you know, george, you know with with um legends like paul. Tudor jones, but also probably the greatest investor, ever stanley dragon miller, now being really really bullish bitcoin. I think this is really a sign that that that it has arrived in traditional asset management, so um yeah, that’s that’s ronnie. I don’t know if you know this, but i was in st bart’s for like two or three months and uh. If you’ve ever been to st bart’s, you know that pretty much every person there’s a hedge fund manager. I know that hendry is living there right, yeah yeah. I was hanging out with you and i was hanging out with a lot of his buddies and you know: they’re all investment, bankers or hedge fund managers and uh. You know you go out and have a few beers with these guys or go to dinner. Go to lunch, go out to snorkeling and i can tell you that every single one of them is talking about two things and that’s gold and bitcoin. Now. Well, is it a crowded trade yet um? No, i don’t think so, but but i think you know it is very similar when it comes to to gold, but also bitcoin. I think we’re we’re not in this first phase of the trend, not in this accumulation phase where it’s super contrarian. I think we’re now in this public participation phase, where, where people are really waking up and and just one but but we are not in this – is parabolic move uh uh yet where, where everybody is going crazy and and and only buying private placements of of of Some small uh, australian, uh, uh exploration companies or you know all those uh, altcoins or [ __ ] coins, yeah they’re, not doing so well. It is really bitcoin. That is that is so so strong this time compared to 2017. But but really one thing that came to my mind when i had a look at some charts uh, it is kraka boom like like ludwig von mises, uh uh explained it and perhaps on a final note, uh, i’m sorry. I think we we we’re talking for for almost an hour, but but i really enjoyed – and i hope that you too, i i just uh – i i picked uh human action from my from my bookshelf and in human action. Uh mises writes about the uh the crack up boom, which is qatar’s trophem hoss in in in german. He writes, but then, finally, the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly. A breakdown occurs. The cracker boom appears everybody is anxious to swap his money against real goods, no matter whether he needs them or not, no matter how much money he has to pay for them within a very short term time, within a few weeks or even days, the things which Were used as money are no longer used as a media of exchange, they become scrap paper. Nobody wants to give away anything against them, russian’s law yeah. So so i think the term crack up boom will be a term that we’ll hear much much more often over the next couple of months. I think so too buddy all right. We will leave it there, ronnie for any of my viewers who want to find out more about what you do or the amazing reports you write with your business partner. Where can they go to check that out? Well, our webpage is incrementum.li uh, which stands for liechtenstein. Uh we’re publishing the in gold. We trust report um now for 14 years, published in german in english, but also in mandarin. So the chinese edition will be published in a couple of of days. Uh we’re publishing gold chart books. We’Ve got a book uh austrian school for investors, um, yeah and and and actually basically, all of our research is available for free, because we want to inform and educate people about sound money and how to protect from inflationism. So have a look at our webpage. We’Re pretty active on twitter at ron stewarlem and we’ve also got a youtube channel with uh yeah, our presentations and and some interviews all right buddy. I appreciate your time can’t wait to do it again. Thank you very much.
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