Peak Prosperity - Betting on an Uncertain Market

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Chris Martenson and Paul Kiker discuss election impacts on financial markets, BRICS de-dollarization, rising US Treasury yields, recession risks, and market volatility.

Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only. Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full. The markets are going up. Gold's going up. Rates are going up. Yields are going up. This is a whole new world.

We're really in uncharted territory at this point. The following is the audio version of a video released at peakprosperity.com. Visit peakprosperity.com to watch the video and to find other insightful content such as articles, discussion forums, and exclusive subscriber-only content. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Finance U. Today, we are going to be talking about what kind of an impact might the election have either way on the markets. We've got to talk about the outcome of the BRICS movement and the fact that gold is currently, as of this recording, at $2,800 an ounce. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about silver, too. But there are lots of looming signs of recession, and I think people need to factor those in as well.

Here to discuss all these cross-currents and many others, Paul Kiker of Kiker Wealth Management. Hey, Paul, good to be talking with you again here. Hi, Chris. Good to talk with you again as well. Wow, there's all kinds of moving pieces taking place in every sector of the economy and markets and society. It's a very interesting time. I understand that Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times. Yeah, well, speaking of which, you have a lot of clients. Have any of them called you this past week, maybe concerned about the election? Yes, they have. So that's one of the things that we do. It takes a while for a potential client to get in the door because I always keep room open. So if a client calls me, they can get in when they need to.

So I've had a lot of conversations with concerns about the election, the outcome, just wanting to have a conversation with somebody that's willing to talk to them about their concerns and address how we'll deal with things. So I've done a lot of time, had a lot of conversations, spent a lot of time just kind of holding hands, making sure people know that we're on top of it and going to make decisions as information unfolds in the days ahead. I know it's such a valuable service you provide in that regard. I mean, listen, it's uncertainty, right? Investing is never a certain adventure, but now it's getting harder and harder to sort of read the tea leaves because, you know, we have what's sort of reported to us, right?

So we see the headlines, Dow up 180 or whatever the number is. But we now know there's dark pools where a lot of trading happens. We can't see that anymore. We don't really know what the elephants are doing. We know that the central banks have preferred buyer programs at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, but nobody knows central bank reports what any of those purchases or sales on their spreadsheets or balance sheets. So we don't know what they're up to, but we sort of get the sense there's a lot going on out there. And so as we read the tea leaves this feels about as uncertain as anything um so as a reminder to anybody who wants to talk with paul and his team

just go to peakfinancialinvesting.com very simple form to fill out we're going to talk about gold hitting 2800 but first paul u.s treasury yields as we mentioned last time going up not down after the september 18th cut it is well you can see bitcoin kind of tracking also deciding to go up along with treasury yields if i look at those together would it be is there one way i'm interpreting this is the u.s has a spending problem and the markets whether that's treasuries Bitcoin, have decided the way they're going to fix that is by not fixing it and spending more? Is that an interpretation we could work with? That's an interpretation you could work with. I mean, think about it.

This has been an unprecedented little over 30 days since the September 18th Fed cut of 50 bips out of the blue. Yields have gone up. We talked about that last week. You're talking about that again, which is unprecedented. Yields are going up. So what is that telling us? It's telling us something we're going to know before too long. Gold is going up, hitting new highs again today. Silver has a big breakout following right after that. The dollar's going up. And what's interesting is in any environment, had you blinded me to where we are today and taken me back seven years ago and said, hey, Paul, here's the environment. You can trade gold and silver in equities, Fed cuts, rates go up dramatically. The move index, which is an indication of bond stress, is going

up. The dollar's going up. What would you anticipate that gold, the markets, are going to do? I'd say, well, they're going to be down because there's stress under the surface. But no, we've got a situation where the markets are going up, gold's going up, rates are going up, yields are going up. This is a whole new world. We're really in uncharted territory at this point. Except oil's been down for one of those cross-currency things. So when oil is down, that usually signals economic weakness, recession is coming. I don't know how to interpret that unless we want to put our other hats on and say,

maybe somebody is trying to like fortify the elections by keeping oil down, you know, unless we go there. The answer is that oil is sending a very different signal from equities right now. Well, and I'm glad you brought that up because oil is going down as well. And we know that the Biden administration used the strategic petroleum reserves to keep the price of oil down. But diesel consumption around the world is going down as well, which tells us less goods are being shipped and that prices are coming down. Well, when you look at the markets going up and you've got all these things that are taking place, everybody's trying to justify why in the world is oil prices so low. I mean, they look like they're ready to crash to the downside based on the charts that we're looking at. You've got diesel consumption going down. All of that tells us that we're either in recessionary territory or headed

towards recessionary territory, but the markets are ignoring it. It's not uncommon at the last part. I mean, we reached a high in November of 2007 before the 2008 calamity. And there were people like you and us that were warning people about the potential danger that was coming. So, you know, I've heard the argument that, A, it's new technology, new technology. Well, maybe new technology has a little bit to do with it, but this is a global phenomenon. This isn't just within the U.S. So that's a conflicting indicator there as well. And the sad part is, Chris, I mean, and I hear this time and time again, can we really trust the data that's coming out that makes everything look so great?

I hate to say that, but as individuals, we can reason this and take a look at it. But when you've got a lot of these computer trading programs that big pensions and big Wall Street and hedge funds are using that's based off the data in the past, they don't question the data. They just trade on the data. So my concern is you've got a situation where political influence has entered the markets, the data, to try to skew it in their behavior because anybody that goes and buys groceries or has a kid that's going to college or has to repair a car or has to pay for their insurance, health insurance, knows that the cost of living has gone up a lot higher than what the official CPI data says. So I'm concerned that at some point here soon, there's going to be a

Wiley-Coyote moment. We just don't know when that's going here soon, there's going to be a Wiley Coyote moment. We just don't know when that's going to be. Is that going to be six months from now? Is it going to be three weeks from now? Is it going to be this time next year? Something's going to break, and the markets are pricing in. And retail investors are euphoric with the expectation that, hey, this is the roaring 20s. We're going to go up 300% in the next five or six years.

I guess if you print enough money, that can happen. But there's still going to be some assets that are going to do better than others. Well, maybe they're right. Maybe this carries on until sometime around August 2029. Oh, that would be brutal. Yeah, right around then I'll throw in the towel i say we've reached a permanently high plateau i give up right you know and off we go um so so just to before i move on i want to i want to cover this though because this is just a chart from bloomberg i took this morning on on their markets and page and this is. And so when you see a number down there

that says like 51, which we see on the U.S. two-year treasury note, 51 means 51 basis points. A basis point is a hundredth of a percent. So there's 50 basis points to half a percent. So like you said, Paul, look from two-year, five-year, 10-year, 30-year, they're up around 50 basis points, about a half a percent all right that's in the last month and it's been more than a month since the rate cut but anyway they've just been moving up um pretty consistently so yeah the yield is now 4.27 percent on the 10 year uh the coupons hanging way back at 388 that's what they they're selling them off at. But if the price you'll get is below 100, which is at 96, 84. So, yeah, they're yielding fouraciously double-speaked 1984 style. She said, oh, the Treasury is going to step in with $30 billion of purchases this week on the off-the-run Treasury market.

So those are Treasuries that have already been issued. They're out there. You might own some. I might. We decide to sell some off-the-run Treasuries into the market. And they're going to buy $30 billion those to provide liquidity support uh to the markets which is just a fancy way of saying the treasury stepping in because there aren't enough buyers for these things out there in the open market and they want to make sure there's a good bid because if there isn't yields go even higher um so so i think all these things

to me paul tell me that there's more buyers, sorry, more sellers than buyers out there, particularly on the long end of the curve. Yeah, on the long end as a professional. And I want to show another chart because it shows basically, you know, instead of the number decline, let me show you this. This is my interest rate chart window. If I can find it, hopefully that's it. Yeah. So you can see what is here okay so over here on the right hand side this is when the Fed cut rates so this is rates going back for a year what's interesting is look at this 10-year right here it's in brown I know

it's hard to see but it's up to 4.2 that 10-year had gotten down to about 3.6 that's just a massive move that's taken place there. And then in the black, you've got the 30-year treasury that had worked its way down, and this had moved up. So this just gives you an indication of how the market is basically revolted against this Fed cut. And then I didn't know that about the treasury secretary stepping in and announcing that extra liquidity so so that's going to cap yields in here if you're if you've got that that money coming in to absorb so if i understand that correctly they're buying their own debt with their money to be able to help keep yields down so effectively am i wrong in thinking that's yield curve control to an extent?

It is, or it's just that they need to make sure there's plenty of support out there on the long end because you don't want things moving in price too quickly because it sends bad signals. So I got this from Lawrence Lepard just today, a little bit earlier, and Financial Juice had posted to U.S. Treasury, we expect to buy up to $30 billion off the run securities for liquidity support. And attagirl, bring the cowbell. QE lives. It's kind of QE by another name, right? Yeah.

And I wrote in response to that, you can see just an hour ago, I said, oh, yeah, going to use that big pile of surplus cash the Treasury just has lying around. They never do. That's like Hunter Biden have a big pile of surplus cash the treasury it just has lying around they never do that that's like hunter biden have a big old pile of of uh crack lying around it's just not a thing you burn through it too quickly you know like what treasuries provide the treasury is a one-way liquidity machine it takes it in and uh it does not emit it anyway a translation obviously not enough buyers for some long-dated t-paper that's hitting the floor i think that's that's what we're seeing here um but they're still trying

to control it is kind of like quantitative easing now where's the treasury going to get those funds from it's obviously going to take cash it has because it usually throws out way too much paper so that it has enough cash to fund through to the next cycle whenever the next auction series hit. So it's a constant cash management problem. So they have extra cash for a little while. They're going to use some of that to go buy these 10 and typically, you know, usually 10 and 30 year paper. They're buying the long end to keep the rates down, but then they're not going to have that cash and they're probably going to spit that out on the short end so this is actually um kind of like if you remember it was called operation twist where you would you would throw you know

buy at one end and and and sell at the other end so they're really doing that they're trying to keep long rates down um it is and I think to avoid the dreaded, last thing you'd want is to have the whisper rumor start that the market is too thin for this paper. Oh, yeah, that would create disaster. Yeah. Anyway, that's what we were seeing. So some of the creaking, popping sounds,

seeing some of that stuff there. Where else could we go with this? Well, I was going to say, the one thing that I want to talk about, the reverse repo market gets really complicated. You can explain that in detail if you'd like. But there's been a lot of articles coming out. So a Goldman trader, Vincent Mistretta, has been riding on the reverse repo market and basically admitted that he doesn't have any singular explanation of what's going on. But he summarized in there, we've got record month-end settlements with exchanges. We've got a sudden spike in tightness in the repo market, which it spiked relatively dramatically here recently.

And then there's the belief that a Trump victory is going to lead national debt hired a lot quicker, which means more U.S. debt is going to be incurred, which is leading some to believe that the U.S. bond market is about to have some major moves. I am being very soft in stating major moves. He stated calamity, I believe, exactly was what he created. So it's one of the things that I'm concerned about. I've been talking to clients like, look, do you really want to tie your money up in a 20-year treasury right now unless it's a trade, right? Now, I get it for a trade. And unless you have rules on how you're going to enter that trade, you can make some funds in the short run you know just buying it sitting on the shelf at four and a quarter percent or what our rates are right now for that 20 year the 20 year is at 4.6 we're not in a world

where that makes sense in any way whatsoever we don't have any politicians that are really concerned about the national debt how fast it's growing we're isolating ourselves from the bricks on a global stage where that means less money is going to be reinvested back into treasuries. We're going to have less buyers that are out there. So if our government chooses to lead inflationary and the Fed's showing us that, hey, with things great, you're willing to cut rates a half a percent right now, just for whatever reason, and then immediately rates are going higher, which signifies you've made a mistake potentially, do we really believe that 4.6 for the next 20 years is going to do anything to protect you against inflation unless we dramatically change course? So I think it's a very dangerous thing to own longer dated treasuries

right now, because you've got to look at the actions that are taking place and you're carrying huge risk from inflation. So I'm a big believer in shortening up those maturities. I don't even like going out over 10 years, we know the U.S. government's going to go from effectively around $35 trillion in debt to about $55 trillion. I hedge that a little. It's going to be higher because that doesn't include a war or a recession or two, right? So that's just, that's like best case, $55. Worst case, $60? $65?

Pick a number. There's a lot of new treasury paper going to be hitting the tape. And like you said, if the bricks aren't there to soak it up, well, how does it get soaked up? Well, it's going to have to get soaked up with printing. And then you're in what's called financial repression where, hey, here are treasuries are yielding four, six. That's great. Unfortunately, inflation is seven, eight. You know, now what are you going to do? You're just stuck. You're just you're just going to be taking losses. Right. Which is engineered into the system. I wish more people understood this, Paul, that the Federal Reserve specifically engineers and picks winners and losers and so when it engineers financial repression which is giving you negative real rates of return it is saying

we're going to take from the many yeah and if there did something useful with that if we ended up with i don't know small modular nuclear reactors and in bright shiny like you know shopping centers we don't what we get is a few more billionaires when they do that um which uh i have i have my own points of view about not many of them have been all that positive for humanity no at this point isn't class for whatever reason so so i don't agree with that social engineering to take from the many to give to the few it's why i call the federal reserve the reverse robin hood organization they steal from that poor grandma in appalachia to make sure that ken griffin has a little extra in his paycheck this week that's what they actually do i wish

more people knew that because i think it ought to be debated and talked about um but that's very editorial so what are they going to do here They're going to have to print more anyway, though, aren't they? They're going to. I don't see any other way around it. And I want to show one other chart here that just came to mind, talking about longer-term picture of the 30-year U.S. Treasury. So this is the 30-year U.S. Treasury going back to 1984, 85. It's starting. You can see we were on this trend where rates were going down,

rates were going down, rates were going down. So that occurs from 1984 all the way to really 2023. Okay. So what, 10, 20, 30, nearly 40 years. What happens over that period of time, Chris, people start to abuse rates because you get in the situation like, hey, if you're a business and you get in too much debt, rates go lower, you can refinance here. And then if you get in too much debt, you can refinance here. And then all of a sudden we get down to this generational low where you can refinance debt and nobody's respecting that debt anymore. So you've got generations of financiers for corporations and individuals that have never seen long-term sustained increases in rates. And then you get this massive breakout here that has not reverted back down. I mean,

we're holding this level here. So my concern is, is what happens and what happens in the U.S. with the debt load that we have if we have a sustained increase from a long-term standpoint. And when I look at how this administration and other administrations prior to have isolated ourselves and ruined our integrity, our rule of law, and doing international business and having conflicts but still keeping the Swiss system utilized, the interbank system around the world, where you can have conflict, but you can still operate within the banking system. We're like spoiled little kids that are saying, if you don't do what we want, we're going to deliver as much pain as possible.

And to heck, I'd like to say to Hades, with what's doing what's right, you're going to have to bow to us or we're going to cut you out of the system. So why in the world is the rest of the world going to continue to fund this debt that we have when we're spending so foolishly? And we're spending for political purposes. We're spending for short-term gain. And I counsel individuals all the time. I tell them when I get them in high school and I get them in their 20s, I say, look, if you will make sacrifices now and you will save, say 15% of everything that you make, so what when all your friends are going and buying these really fancy cars that depreciate outside of that one period of time in 2020 that are going to depreciate? You're going to feel behind in the short run. But by the time you get in your 30s, you're going to have escape velocity and you're going to be able to do things that other people can't because you've made an investment into your future. And we have politicians right now that are making no investment into the future at all. They're spending now, now, now, now, now.

And I think if the American people really understood, if they really understood, if they weren't divided, if they didn't go, oh, you're that side of the aisle, and oh, you're that side of the aisle, and we got together and we focused on those issues about how horrific inflation is to the average individual from a long-term standpoint, we wouldn't allow this to continue, but unfortunately we are. Well, indeed we are. Well, indeed we are. I'm looking here to see if I can find it. I can't find it right now. But when you really look at where that government spending is going, a lot of it's just out of control right now. It's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, interest payments, right?

Can't really cheese on any of those at this particular stage. So even if they wanted to, I've seen some really interesting things where, you know, Elon is convinced that he could get $2 trillion in savings with a little government efficiency, right? Maybe he could, right? But if you did save $2 trillion, that's like, I'm going to make a number up in my head. Call it 7-8% of GDP? Something like that? It wouldn't be that popular.

No, it would not be that popular at all. It would cause a recession. People would get thrown out of work. If they were government employees, they'd throw a hissy fit. Yeah, it wouldn't be good. Well, we've reached the point where there's no pain we either take a little bit of pain now and rip the band-aid off or we have excruciating pain later and well and i always say this like if you're if you're going to take a fall make it from the third rung of the stepladder not the tenth you know. You know, now's better than later. Trust me. You know, but nobody seems to have that mindset in D.C.

So and this really isn't a big part of the dialogue right now. I haven't seen either party really make an issue out of it. Nobody's asking questions during the one debate we had. Right. You know, but this should be something that everybody cares about. Like, what happens if the U.S. government does not get its deficits and deficit spending ways under control? And I think that's what we're starting to see in gold. We're starting to see in treasuries. It'll have a big impact at some point.

It will. And I think you're going to see, you know, gold starting to run. Silver has, you know, is finally starting to break out. But commodities in general are broken down. But commodities, I think, and this is not a recommendation for anybody to go buy. This is just an observation fundamentally. They are generationally underpriced, especially for the direction that we're headed through. And I think there's concern that there is a recession right around the corner. Markets are ignoring it, but commodities, oil and other factors are pointing to the potential of that to occur. The recession that's going to have been coming for two to three years, people are

just tired and I think they've thrown in the towel that it's not going to happen. That is the most dangerous position that somebody can be in when they stop paying attention because it hasn't happened yet. But we're still slowly working in that direction. So I think on the other side of that, commodities are going to be probably one of the most an asset that people are going to look back and say, I wish I had bought a lot more. Not saying now's the time to do it. I'm just making an observation. Well, let's get to commodities in a second. But first, I think we're actually in very recessionary territory. Obviously, we would be if the government wasn't deficit spending at the

level it is. I also think that back to this inability to trust things, Paul, I think that the markets and the government data, it's just not believable at this point in time, right? But it's not just U.S. equity markets, as you and I have talked about. I think the German market is still, I don't know what it's smoking, but it's crazy. Let me see if I can find that real quick, because this is just insane to me. So this just gets reported today that Volkswagen, as promised, is closing down its factories for the first time in history, 10% of its workforce. Why? Because Germany's not only probably in a recession, but the biggest economy in the EU is committing suicide, they say here. And they did that because,

you know, letting the Nord Stream pipelines get bombed and making their energy prices go up. Germany's probably in a recession at this point in time um and yet when we go and we look at um you know prices for german shares that just bouncing along all-time highs it just amazes me so uh it doesn't matter i guess it doesn't matter anymore you know stocks we buy them for other reasons um so the psalm which i don't actually know what what uh goes into it but a lot of people post it says here that it's this orange line whenever it ticks above this one half mark here this percent mark every single time in history going back to 1960 it's been associated with a recession and we're there again so maybe this time is different you got that uh job openings which is you know a measure of

strength how many jobs are open but unfilled took a dip here in covid came up it's been coming down pretty heavy which looks like this which is um looked at another way it's just this is a close-up of that but this is a shocking downward revision and uh job opening so we're back at an eight-year low um we kind of have to go back to the um you got to go way back to find that level um and then uh we're seeing this bank stress that I think people need to know about a little bit. Maybe we should talk about that and FDIC limits and things. But, um, this is a series of articles about how AAA rated bonds.

So that's AAA. That's there. There aren't that many AAA bonds to be added anymore. No, you got treasuries. You got maybe a couple of, you know, maybe Apple like like, senior bonds. But these were AAA. AAA, Paul. Remember from, let's all rewatch the big short. You got your ratings agencies, your Standard & Poor's, and your Moody's are like, oh, they'll downgrade these after people take losses on them, which is of no help.

But of course, that's what's going on. These were specific bonds that were floated and issued against real estate deals. So this is a case of 1407 Broadway right down in Manhattan's storied Garmick District. Big old 43-floor tower. The owners took out $350 million. So they cashed that out. Backed by the building's rental income. Triple-A rating score.

Whoops, not working out. Actually taking pretty big hits on that. And then investors, another AAA rated chunk of debt were informed they wouldn't be getting their interest payment. Whoops. They're now foreclosing on the building to salvage wherever they can of their investment. If they get 50 cents on the dollar, they'll be lucky, I would bet, at this stage. In Chicago, same story. in chicago same story san francisco same story so these are things that haven't happened since the great financial crisis so just some creaking and popping sounds but what

do you think about having a triple a rated bond that tanks do you know how horrible that is so when you when you buy a triple a rated bond you get a lower yield because the fact that it's triple a is the safest thing that's out there and there's supposed to be a rating agency that comes out and says okay the outlook has changed we're going to cut that down just a little bit so this thing kept triple a rating all the way up to implosion i mean that's just, that's criminal on the rating agencies of what it did to the investor. So you lose your, you're going to lose your capital. How much of it determines until they go through the bankruptcy process and you sacrifice the yield in the interim period. So, so that, that, that's a horrible situation to find investors in. That's

what bothers me about where we are right now. We're seeing all kinds of things like this and hearing stories that are out there. And there's nobody in any of these agencies that are actually working for and serving the individuals. And that's one of the reasons why one of the rules that I have, Chris, for all of our research providers, their only source of revenue is the fees that I pay them. And we pay them a lot of fees each year. So they're on the same side of the table as me, because if they're not successful in the research that they're providing for us, that makes it harder for us to be successful for what we're doing for the clients. You know, so none of this double

dipping, we don't get into any of this double dipping. We're going to pay you for the research and you're not going to have any other business on the side because we want to make sure you have skin in the game. But obviously that's not the case with those AAA rated agencies because there's so many layers of fees that are going to be kickbacks that'll go to the major firms that are underwriting them. And I mean, I remember there was one corporate company that I was with and they used to sell a lot of bonds and it was great because, because, well, I say it was great looking at the time. It was great looking back. It was really bad. You know, they're marking these things up three to 5% and they're selling them to their customers from their own inventory. And they're

going, Oh, you don't pay us a commission. You know, it's just part of built in there where their competitors are having to sell the same bond with a three to four percent markup on the other side of that. And it didn't have to be fully disclosed, like the total amount didn't have to be disclosed. I think all of that should be disclosed to protect the investor and lay bare the conflicts of interest that are there. Because if a customer is working with somebody, they don't bare the conflicts of interest that are there. Because if a customer is working with somebody, they don't know the conflicts of interest, then that's unfair to them. It's easy for them to be taken advantage of.

And that's why so many people have been scarred by advisors and institutions out there that serve themselves at the expense of their client. I don't know how we make sense of this, though. I mean, this is a current view of the U.S. stock market. This is the S&P 500. Here it is coming off of those lows in November of 23. It has just been nothing but up. And here we are.

Do you see any sign of potential looming recession there? I sure don't. None. The market's not giving us any indication that it's worried about anything going forward. The only thing that I can see here recently is NASDAQ's been struggling a little bit with trying to break out, or the NASDAQ 100, which is what I watch more so than the NASDAQ, has been struggling with, let me go back, it doesn't... I got it up right now, so it's about to double top or it's got to really power through here to go higher.

Yeah, it's going to take a lot of energy to get through there. And it's waffling. We're still below the July highs and waffling back and forth in here. So it's waiting on something. Not a lot of concern there, though. No. not a lot of concern even in the small caps um surprising to me this is usually your canary in the coal mine right here particularly with rising interest rates i don't get this either i don't know don't know what they i don't know what what's what's happening here anymore. Meanwhile, if you did look at energy and we put up crude oil here, we look at it over, say, the weekly, it's just been, that's just trending down the whole way through.

I think some of this is psychology. I really do. So in working with people for the past 26 years like I have, I've had the benefit of getting to learn from people's mistakes, see people make mistakes when I've tried to warn them not to, and where I believe we are right now, the markets have been resilient no matter what, and the feds have bailed everybody out for quite some time. So those people that have been concerned, there's the few that have had the resiliency to just stay conservative, right? They don't have a strategy that can help them know when to play offense and

when to play defense. And they haven't met somebody, an advisor that they feel comfortable with. So they're just sitting in there. They're feeling pain because inflation's wearing on them. You've got other individuals that are just trying to keep up with the Joneses. They're seeing their neighbors making a killing in real estate. They're seeing all this money on the markets. They're trying to learn. And the financial media, which is more like the financial

entertainment or the financial sales piece of, you know, begins with C and ends with C with two letters in between. I don't know if I can say that without getting you in trouble or not, but, you know, it's constantly things are great, things are great, things are great. And I think there's a lot of desperation out there. And I believe that people have been, have come to their breaking point where they're at the maximum risk of making major lifelong financial mistakes because they've become complacent and they're closing their eyes and plugging their ears and mentally going, I hope this works out. I'm just going to go all in right now. And I think that's what's taking place right now. I think people have felt like those that have been

warning them have been crying wolf. They haven't been crying wolf. They've not been lying. They've actually seen the wolf at the edges, but because the lack of honesty and the numbers that are coming out that are being manipulated for political purposes makes those that are watchmen on the wall trying to warn these people about the calamity that's coming look like fools, when in reality, they're the only ones that care about those that are out there to try to make sure that they're going to be okay and get through this. So what people need to understand is when you're in the times of lack of honesty, you have to have a strategy, and you have to navigate it, and you have to navigate it and you have to be more diligent

now than you've ever been in the past. Because I believe that with what's taken place with the creaking and popping under and the complacency that's in the markets, this is the point of maximum risk. Now, there's no way of knowing when it cracks. It could be next week. It could be six months from now. I could build the argument we're going to carry momentum into the spring, and then everything's going to come apart next fall. We don't know. The information will unfold as it is, but you have to have a strategy so that you can make consistent decisions going forward

because downside risk, if they don't pull off a perfect shot and a perfect landing in this environment, and one thing tilts to the right or the left, we've got a lot of chaos coming. It may be the bond market that blows up. That's going to be horrible for retirees. It's going to be horrible for those people that have been seeking the highest yield because they're scared of the market. It could be that 2022 was a warning to tell us to get our houses in order and make sure we're in good shape because bonds and stocks went down in 2022. And if we're headed down this path where they're going to let inflation take off, we're going to see some of that. I think bonds will be worse, but stocks should go down as well. You know, Paul, one of my favorite sayings is Leonardo da Vinci saying, learn how to see, realize everything connects to everything.

So what we're talking about here is markets and portfolios and wealth, and that's very important. My strength is my curse. I talk about all sorts of things because I see how pieces fit together. As much as I knew, it was still shocking to me to discover this year the extent to which our food companies in cahoots with the farm of the regulators, etc., had been specifically creating and engineering our foods to be addictive, hitting that bliss spot of fat and sugar and salt to hijack our wiring, our evolutionary wiring to get people to eat more

than they should. And so that food company sells more, but this is awesome because it puts people into these metabolic disasters that then allow the pharma companies to sell more pills. And if that doesn't work out, you got the hospitals on the back end with the insurance companies, you you know putting in stents and replacing things and these and all this and that but but i was really shocked because once i i saw this and it was exposed to me um i realized wow uh this is this isn't this is dark right the same regulators we kind of hope are on the job and making our markets appear fair i'm like well they didn't do it over here when it of hope are on the job and making our markets appear fair i'm like well they didn't do it over here when it when health was on the line right they're not doing it over here when when you know people's well-being is on the line what's more important than that so

everything connects to everything uh oh i just need to announce we are having a food webinar at peak prosperity um and i'll do my usual thing paul i'll i'll find the right experts i'll we'll get them all together i'll organize everything but the point is i want people to be healthy you know and i know there's ways to get healthy i know you have have experimented with eating differently and i have experimented with eating differently and it makes a big difference, right? So for people who want to get your brain fog out of the way, get your energy back, lose a few pounds, never hurts. This, this is going to be absolutely geared for you. And, um, and, and, uh, two,

two people I hope really show up to this ball, the parents, you got to set these, these, um, habits correct in your children. I know it's easier to do the Lunchables, the Fruit Loops, but what's easy now is expensive and harder later and not the right thing for them. So I know there's parents who really care. They're going to want to hear this. And the second is geared for me, which is like I'm a stubborn guy and I'm like, if you want me sick, I'm going to get healthy. So for anybody who doesn't want to be a pawn in the sick care industry system, this is going to be for you. But I know you've had your own experience on the eating journey too. It makes a difference, doesn't it? Hey, it's incredible. And for you listeners that are out there, I'm going to be a little

more hard sell on that. I would highly encourage you, you've got to sign up for the webinar. And I am so excited about this webinar coming out. I was telling Chris because in conversations that we've had, I picked up a little bit of information on who was going to be in there. And I'm like, you know what, I'm just going to go ahead and start trying it. So I'm not going to lay out whatever, but it has dramatically changed my health in several ways just over three weeks. And I eat pretty clean anyway. But it's funny because eating is much cleaner. My skin is cleaner.

My blood pressure has dropped, son. I've had no fried seafood, seed oils. And my thing is on Fridays, I would be like, I'm going to go get me a fried chicken biscuit. Like that was just the best thing. And I haven't had one yet, but I also did kind of carb overload one day and felt horrible for the next day. So Holly and I both are like sitting around and we're researching everything we can. And we're telling everybody that we can, you guys sign up for the food, um the webinar that chris is putting out because y'all know how chris does stuff he does it excellent he does the research he brings in wonderful people in there so there's the pitch uh sign up for it because i think it's going to be life-changing for those that that just follow it i mean for me it has

been already and i haven't i don't even have all the information to dive in and really apply it to our lives so i'm i'm looking forward to it well here's the thing it's not as hard as as people think right this isn't a diet it's it's more like a change in eating patterns right but it begins with understanding what all's going on in the food system. So I just recorded a little promo for it, but this was my prop, okay? So these are some tortillas, but Evie and I, you know, they say carb-friendly, right?

And I don't want to pick on this brand, but I'm sure they're fine people. But this is the ingredient list here, right? I got a PhD from Duke in in this field and i'm like i can't pronounce some of these words right but this that isn't the important point the important point is that right here uh the expiration because we didn't eat them they just been sitting i went through my pantry paul this is june 2024 this is six months ago wow and there's no mold there's no mold so i have a new ruler if black metal won't eat it i don't either right i mean it's like think about that like they got black metal

growing on the inside of the chernobyl sarcophagus because it figured out how to eat gamma radiation i mean this stuff is pretty awesome you've seen the black metal growing on sheet rock right which is like what could you eat you know something like it's not growing on this stuff and and like so it's i i think you know the base rule is now if it isn't food don't eat it because i'm pretty sure i'm not going to get you know paul i'll get off of this interview and i'm going to go to the kitchen i'm not going to say hey eby give me some monosodium glutamate i'd like a big plate of that we're saying red dye number 10 can you get me you know i'm not that's not food you don't go and ask for that stuff it's in there but you know anyway so this is going to be good you know

we're going to talk about all the context it's kind of like what we did with the great taking webinar right which is like here's everything you need to know and here's some things you can do about it because information without action useless but um i'm pretty excited by this because everybody i know who's gone down this journey has said big improvements, right? It has been for us. Sleeping. And I'm not even doing the full thing. And I think you just released the, didn't I see an email that you released the speakers

that are going to be a part of the webinar, right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So, and, you know, we've listened to Ken Berry a lot here recently leading up to that. And it's been, it's been life-changing for us in the short run. He's a great guy. And I know it's going to be the case long term. I enjoyed listening to him as well.

And my wife does too. So we've just gotten to where, like on the webinar, what we're going to do is I've set my TV up where we can see it, watch it on the web. So we'll just sit at home in the afternoon, sit down and watch the webinar when it comes out or the day that it comes out. So I'm looking forward to it. And of course it'll all be recorded. And so people could access it whenever they want or rewatch specific modules or whatever. That's how we, how we put that together. So, but I'm really excited because it's going to make a big difference. I think we're all going to need our health. Obviously you always need your health, but but i mean i think it'll be even more of a determinant of success as we go forward um because you know we haven't really talked about

it yet paul but we're recording this what six days before the election um coming up every indication is that no matter how it turns out one group or another is going to be a little disappointed um with unknowable impacts from that. I'm reasonably certain that if Trump wins, we'll see more potential chaos on the back end of that. But, you know, we don't know. We don't know how fair. We know there's already shenanigans in the electoral process, election process. We know that we know that there are a lot of ways that this could be lawfare. This had to create just huge amounts of uncertainty, obviously.

How do you think what do you think happens in the markets, you know, with all that uncertainty? So my my anticipation based on what Vegas is betting, you know, I love watching the Vegas spread on football games. They're pretty good. They're not great, but the betters are kind of anticipating that Trump's going to win. The markets seem to be anticipating the Trump trade investments that Trump's going to win. And I'll tell you quite frankly, I mean, I'm, there was a democratic Senator in our area, good man passed away probably 10 years ago. And I have a lot of relationships around and I've seen a lot of people that this is the first time they're ever voting Republican in their lives.

And they're like, they're like, look, we're not voting specifically for the man. We're voting for the hope of an agenda with RFK and Tulsi Gabbard and everybody that's associated on Trump's side now versus the other. They're concerned and they've had conversations around it. But at the same time, I'm seeing a near panic on the other side. I would say the other side, on the Democratic side, conversations, you know, because I know so many people around town and I can have those conversations without them getting mad at me or me getting mad at them. I mean, had somebody essentially they weren't yelling at me, but they were yelling over their concern about, you know, what's going to happen if Trump wins and just how hard it's going to be. So I don't know what's going to happen on the other side of it.

I mean, based on anecdotal evidence, I've seen all kinds of people that have come out and flipped sides from the Democratic to Republican this side just because of what's taken place. And then I'm also seeing people that are ignoring all of these concerns about election integrity. I mean, I don't understand why you could end up in court over questioning whether your vote actually counted or not. Something is wrong there. No, obviously. So, you know, I don't know how this goes on the other side. I would anticipate that you're going to see a royal tantrum from the left if Trump comes out the winner in this election. And you're showing polymarket there.

That's actually what I was talking about. I couldn't think of the name. Yeah, yeah, I dug it up for you there. I mean, there's $2.5 billion of volume that have gone through it. So there's some heavy betting. I do tend to trust the betting. It's basically two-thirds, one-third chance

of Trump winning versus Kamala Harris. So, but again, these are odds of winning. So it's just two thirds, one third. One third is obviously not zero, but still you can see the trend has been really widening almost to its widest point since she announced, you know,

that this was sort of like when people were getting used to both candidates. I do think that, so it was interesting. I just talked with David Russell. I think that'll come out tomorrow. He's the CEO of GoldCorp, and it turned out, I mean, he's in Dublin, Ireland, got the accent, all that. He's European, right?

So it turned out he'd watched the Rogan-Trump interview, and I i said what'd you think and he said you know it's like i didn't i didn't really expect to like the guy that much and he he sounded reasonable like he hadn't spent a lot of time actually digesting how trump speaks he thinks he has some weird idioms and he's kind of an odd speaker but he's like sounded pretty normal you know? And so that was interesting to see a European perspective on the whole thing, you know? That's interesting. I was actually about to bring that up because we went down to my son-in-law's white coat ceremony for medical school this weekend.

So I had my mother in the car and my wife and, and I said, all right, I'm driving. We're listening to the Joe Rogan Trump interview. So it was a four-hour drive. It was a three-hour interview. And my mother, at the end of it, about halfway through, she's like, you know, I genuinely thought he was a a-hole was her term. I started laughing at her. Mom, really? Mom? She said, yeah.

She never uses language like that. I turned around and looked. She said, keep your eyes on the road. But she said, she said, I genuinely enjoyed that interview. And she said, you know, what's interesting is he clearly made the comment. I'm not running again. You know, and the other side, she said, I've heard so many people say he wants to be a dictator and he clearly made the comment. He said, look, this is my last election. That's it. You know, and Joe did a really good job of bringing him back to point, you know, and Trump gets into his weave as he talks about. And of course, Holly was like, can he not just get to the point? So the first, I'd say first

20 minutes of the interview was a little hard to listen to, at least for Holly and my mom. But after that, they were glued like we stopped fill up with gas and stretch your legs and i purposely left it off for a few minutes and mom and holly both about the same time said hey i want to finish that interview turn it back on and i was like oh interesting yeah all right so yeah so i thought it was well done and and and what 25 million views in the first 24 hours that may be a game changer for politics going forward. Cause I would give anything to have to sit and listen. Cause I want to listen to both sides. I'd like to see Kamala sit down with Joe Rogan and talk for three hours, unscripted,

unedited and see how it goes. Yeah. And I think they should be able to, uh, you know, this is your job. Um, this is a job interview. You should be able to sit down and credibly talk about the key facets of the job. And I'm really annoyed with how sort of big politics has decided they don't need to bother us little people with details. Right. crazy big sweeping things right like eight times this past month i've heard kamala or one of her supporters talk about how they're really excited to see an uh um what do they call it uh an opportunity economy she's going to build an opportunity economy right now i've studied economics i'm like what tonight what what is that what even is it right saw some hollywood starlet talking about how excited she was for this opportunity economy that's going to come along i'm like what is that right you know i would love to know what that is now uh i was having this conversation with a client the other day when i went independent from corporate America back in 2003, January 1st, 2004, I made

that leap. Today, there's no way that I could make that leap because the barrier of entry has gotten so high. Really? The burden of regulation has gotten so high that if somebody wants to leave one of those corporate firms before they're a relatively large size office, they're going to have to come join somebody like us. So what I have seen is if you want to get an opportunity economy, stop protecting Wall Street and stop protecting the big corporations and stop taking their money because what they're doing is they're lobbying to raise the barrier of entry to the small business to capitalize on their business. I don't blame them for doing it, Chris. I mean, that's business, but our politicians are supposed to watch out for the people.

So if you gave small businesses the same funding capabilities that Wall Street has the ability to get, we would be the most innovative, most blessed, most technologically advanced for the individual, not just for the military, society on the face of the earth. You know, and I still remember a day I was talking about it not too long ago. You know, I remember walking into the local bank when I was in college and I had to borrow. I didn't have the money because we qualified for the national championships at the last minute in water skiing. And I needed to borrow $700. So I walked into the bank on my signature, borrowed $700, paid it off after we got back. But they don't do signature

loans at the bank anymore. They don't do things like that. It doesn't matter how much your integrity is, and all that does is raise the barrier of entry so that these big corporations can capitalize on business. So unless she's willing to get rid of all of the stupid government regulations that are out there, not all of them are stupid, to be fair, but to get rid of the government regulations, how in the world is it going to be an opportunity economy? I guarantee you, without knowing the details, and there may not be any details, that the opportunity economy comes with a lot more regulators. We're going to tell you we're going to protect you, but we're going to do exactly the opposite.

I've come to the conclusion that whatever they tell us, exactly the opposite is what they mean. Well, I mean, let me take it down to, I mean, so clearly something that we've done is sort of, this is, I think Joseph Tainter talked about this in the collapse of societies, right? And it's about the over-complexification. So at the height of Rome, they had bureaucracies that would make your eyes water, same as we do now, right? And the bureaucracies take a life of their own and they begin to promote regulations to justify their jobs. And so they have more jobs because now there's more

regulations. And so it just keeps going that way. And nobody ever goes timeout. How are these particular rules enhancing society? Like, cause I agree. Sometimes you need a few rules. It's fine. Right. You know, I would like to know that when I put gasoline in my car, it's gasoline, not water. Right. Fine. You know, I get it. Um,, you know, here's an example. I'll give you a fractal all the way down. I live in a tiny town, right? If eight people show up at the town hall meeting, it's a big one, you know? You know, I think we have 1,300 total residents, 700 households, just tiny little New England thing, right? I didn't know this because I was talking with a former select person. He's like, oh, we break the rules here all the time i'm like why what he said state law or it might be federal i can't remember

um that at every meeting they have to have somebody who speaks spanish in on the meeting translating for everybody and you have to have a sign language interpreter you have to right and it's just a rule there's no rule with an asterisk in a coda that says if you have a deaf person you know can you accommodate them work it out you know nope rule right and he said that would kill us if we had to hire uh you know those two extra bodies for every one of our meetings right yeah would just kill us because you know we fight over whether we're getting new tires on the truck this year for the fire department or you know know, three years from now. That's a, that's, so anyway, all these rules, you know, uh, and, and I think we're going to have to have a conversation about that at some point, cause they are built against prosperity.

If you understand small and medium enterprises are the backbone. Yes, they are. They are. And that's where, you know, and that's the thing about small and medium businesses. They don't hide behind attorneys. They don't use lawfare. They're not, I mean, they'll defend themselves if they have to. And quite frankly, most of those businesses pay out, their business owners are not making a hundred times what the average employee is because they understand the value. And that's one thing about my, my team here, Carrie's worked with me for 20 years.

Renee has worked with me for 20 years, Brittany, 15, Dylan, 11. Now John, uh, eight or nine, we've added a couple of new ones, but they mean just as much to this business as, as, as I do, quite frankly, and they're a core part of it. They've helped build it, and they get compensated for that. So, you know, that's the unique thing. I believe that if we had a lot of small businesses and regional businesses instead of these big corporate, you know, conglomeracies, that people would actually make more because the owners recognize them as a part of a team instead of just some number in another city that is trying to help them get paid more by the shareholders

that will never see the individual. Well, I'm kind of hoping maybe we can start to turn the corner. I think there's a lot of reasons that we've ended up where we are, but part of it is just, I think people, myself included, have just sort of like let it happen and here we are. But we got some fixing we're going to have to do now. I mean, obviously, if we don't, we could ignore the federal deficit spending for a bit longer, but we can't ignore it forever. And like you said earlier, if you can't ignore it forever, your choices include a little bit of pain today relative to the massive amount of pain you'll take tomorrow. So as a grownup, I hope we would say, let's get, let's take care of this today, you know? So I'm kind of hoping we get some, some return back to that, you know? I was a little excited by the Chevron defense getting struck down, right?

So that was a good thing. If people don't know, that's Supreme Court where basically Chevron sued and said, this is weird. This is a law that's been passed. But it wasn't a law that was passed. It was a rule that was administered as if it were a law by an agency um that's not how this works and it's a constitutional issue which is why it went to the supreme court they agreed they said yeah you you should if you want if you want laws

you're gonna have to pass them right there's a lot of rules on the books that could come off of the books you you know, because it was just some bureaucrat that decided to expand the rule base. And here we are. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there's so many things that we could do in the interim period, and hopefully that'll stand and people will understand it so they can continue to fight. But I mean, just cut the waste out of government, cut the certificate thing. Like there are some things that you need a certificate in, but bring back the internships, right? I mean, I don't have to have somebody have a college degree to be able to do. Now, you have to have a college degree to have a license that I have.

But you can work as an internship, and if you're a smart individual, you can be trained better through that internship than you are by having to spend tens, if not hundreds of thousand dollars to get an institution. They have a right place. But we've gotten to the point where it seems more to protect the profits of some of these institutions that are not necessarily doing what's right for the individual. They're not equipping them for the future. And then, hey, Javier Millay in Argentina has shown us that you can gut a whole bunch of stuff in the government

and still run just fine. So it'd be nice if we... Even better. It'd be nice if we could, yeah, even better. It'd be nice if we could run that experiment here, quite frankly. Well, I totally agree. And, you know, this is exciting time, I guess, on that front. So we get

to maybe have the big conversations we should be having, which are, what are our actual priorities? Wait, what do we try to achieve here? You know, I would like to leave behind a better country and that are quiet lives of despair that we're hearing about. And that's because and falling birth rates, right? Those are all indications that people have kind of like not really seen a future that makes makes them super excited. And that could be turned around. That's you know, that's the actual conversation we should be having. I wish when we had our, I really lost faith in our media big time, right? But when they do hold these debates, they should be asking those questions. Hey, candidate A, candidate B, tell us why, what is your vision for where the country is going to go and how you're going to get there? And if they say something really lame, like, oh, we're going to have, you know, an opportunity

economy for everyone. You just say, okay, what does that mean? Right? You follow up. Tell me exactly what that looks like. Don't give me just this, you know, smoke and mirrors. Tell me exactly. Yeah.

Hey, you said something I'd like you to repeat if you can memorize it. Because I actually recorded it, put it in my clip, and then I've just been talking to so many people I haven't memorized it. But in your scouting report the other day, you gave a definition of an integrity that I thought was the most profound definition of integrity. I was standing in the garage working on something, and I was talking to you. I said, Chris, that's incredible.

Holly come running out. She said, who are you talking to? I said, I'm talking to Chris. I'm talking to Chris. So can you share that again with everybody? Because I want everybody to hear that. It was it's just a way of saying it that I thought oh, saying what I mean, meaning what I say. My words match my actions. These are the truth. Those are forms of integrity. But the highest form of integrity, when you are fully standing in that highest form, you stand ready to be completely reeducated at any moment in time so you think you know everything about how the world works how markets work how how you think you know something and then new data comes in a person of really high integrity just reorients around that because that's the reality and the reason that means you have integrity because a lot of people mistake integrity meaning i'm like an oak tree i'm

unbendable that's not it you are so solid in who you are as a person that you haven't identified with whatever that thing is that you thought you knew you just you're solid as a person so that when new data comes along you get re-educated right away right so um can i give you a quick example of what that might look like? Yes, please do. All right. So this is going to guaranteed anger a couple of parents out there. And I'm sorry in advance. So and this was a moment where I got reeducated instantly.

Right. So I grew up at a time and you can still read articles now that say and there was a point of pride in our little parent circle was like, oh, my baby started sleeping through the night at eight weeks. Oh, mine was at six weeks. Like, oh, you're so lucky, right? How'd you do that? You know, I followed the Farber method or whatever it is, or I, this Wall Street Journal article, you know, you just got to be tough for a few nights. The kid cries it out, but you hang tough. And then eventually they just, they start putting themselves to sleep. It's better for everybody, right? That was the model i held actually raised my own kids that way so then i read this this other thing that says oh actually if you look at it babies are wired the first thing we all know this you know what babies can do first under control the very

first thing they can do they can smile oh that's right way before they can say mama data or even reach for a bottle they can smile and the reason for that is their first job is to bond is to wire that connection with mom in particular so they did these experiments where they they called them the blank face experiments where mothers would just hold a blank expression as their toddlers tried to connect with them and it was so terrorizing they terminated the the experiment because after 20 30 seconds these kids would go into absolute anics right wow evolutionarily the reason for that is is that your job babies human babies are born the most helpless of any animal we know about right horses

are running within minutes. Cows are up on their feet in minutes, right? We're first two, three years, dude, we are like useless, right? So you can't get left behind on the side of the trail when resources get tight. So first thing I'm going to connect with you, you know? So, so that's what babies do. So now we're back in the crib. We've got the sharper image, fluffy clouds and and mobile and we've got the rights. You know we

Perfect thing we love our child. We're gonna get him to cry through the night. You know what we're actually doing in that moment They are protesting as they cry because they're worried that the worst thing that their evolution has just told them they got left by the side of the trail They've just been informed that they are unlovable they've just been they've just discovered that their bonding routine didn't work this is highly traumatic to infants and so everything i thought i knew and even raised my own kids when i came across this i said oh that's a bad thing we shouldn't do that i didn't fight it right if i was lower integrity i'd be like angry about that no i did this and my kids

turned out right and i would like be i would be trying to defend it but you get the new information and you go oh yeah that makes sense okay that's how it is so you'd switch right, we've known as a nation for decades that aluminum as an adjuvant in vaccines harms children, creates chronic health conditions. We've known it. It's been in the data. And people haven't done anything about that. These are the lowest integrity people you can imagine. That's exactly right. The Federal Reserve knows that when it prints, it's specifically rewarding these people and harming those. Right. It's a very low integrity position. So that's why I really care about it. And this articulation is you have when you are of the highest form of integrity, you stand ready to be completely reeducated at any moment in time.

That's that's the highest highest version I know about. I love that definition. That's why I was so amazed by it, because you had this gift, and normally I wouldn't tell you this, but listeners need to hear it, because I'm around you enough to know you had this gift for seeing straight through to the heart of things, and communicate it very eloquently. So I had always thought that it took humility to be able to adapt, right? And it does to an extent. And it takes courage, which it does to an extent. But that integrity gives you the humility and courage to get there. So the way you explained

that to me was just profound. I'd never heard it that way. I think it makes the most sense. And I challenge everybody out there to, to apply that to their lives because you did such a great job explaining it. And that's really what we want is the integrity to pursue the truth, no matter the consequences. Absolutely. And by the way, that, that came to me from my, my mentor, Peter Gallant, who has since passed on. But he was one of these guys who tuna right off the bowsprit, you know. And then he kind of realized that he didn't want to kill fish professionally for the rest of his life, so he switched gears. Anyway, he'd done so many different things, but his last arc of life was he was a therapist,

and he just, boy, there was not a thing you could tell him that would be in any way shape or form come across any resistance where you he would say you have any moral like tone about that i mean he'd been there done that seen it all right so i had complete faith in this guy and uh and he would just tell it like it is and that one that yeah he worked on me on that one. That's good. Well, his gift is still giving on because through you, it's impacted me. I've sent the video clip of that to the kids, you know, a little screen recorded thing. Yeah. And the kids were like, that's powerful, dad. And so, so hopefully it'll impact everybody else out there as much as it did. I, cause that's what we need more of. That's what we need more of today. And unfortunately, it's not in the halls of power. I'm sure there's some there, but maybe the consequences are raised up. But but, you know, we need to support that and live that in every

aspect of our lives. I agree. Just more integrity would be great. Yes, we got to return to it. I think that's what our country was founded on. And I know that you can't build things without a very high integrity system underneath it, right, with good people running it. And you know what? Maybe everything just sort of like decays over time and institutions, just how things go. And here we are, sort of late stage Roman Empire moment. Maybe it's typical but i know people are hungry paul for high integrity and to not have to live this way

and to not have to be forced to um you know how does solzhenitsyn put it live not by lies the number one thing that that really corrodes a person's soul is to be forced to live a lie, to repeat a lie, to participate in a lie. They do that. That's what the communists did on purpose was force people to participate in lies because they knew that that was a soul-freshing thing. And that's the point, right? The whole exercise. So live not by lies is what it comes down to. That's right. Jordan Peterson makes a comment along the lines that if you live by lies and you you lie, you know, you're trying to force the outcome, which is not a good thing.

But then it distorts your entire worldview, because if you live by lies and you embrace those lies, you cannot see the truth because your whole worldview is distorted. So take, what is it? Those drunk goggles that you, they give people put on. That's, that's similar to what it's like in your view of the world. You can't see the truth if you're living by a lie. So we need, we need more truth and we need, and we need to protect freedom of speech here. Bad ideas will go away, and bad ideas will hurt people. You know, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words hurt, but you know what hurts worse than anything is when somebody who cares about you loves you enough to look at you and tell you the truth, and that truth hurts, right?

When you hit it and it hits home and you're like, oh, yeah, I did behave like that. That's what hurts. And I think that there's a lot of society today that knows that they're living a lie and they don't want along with hypocrisy and double standards and all that stuff. Right. So so we've gone through this arc now where there's a lot of people very afraid of the truth. They don't want it coming out and they'd rather label it misinformation, disinformation, malinformation. The exact definition of malinformation is it's information that's technically true, but it otherwise contradicts official policy at this point in time that's horrible right it isn't it right yeah so what's interesting is um i really don't like it but but if there's bad speech out there right i don't care right it doesn't bother me right so i'll give you an example um there was this whole thing i don't know how prominent it is now but but for a few years and I was worried that it was a

three-letter agency psyop experiment but there was a bunch of people out there going on and on about the flat earth right the earth is flat nobody was writing articles about how dangerous this misinformation was and oh my gosh what would happen if somebody grew up and they believed this but they were a rocket scientist and they programmed the rowing code and astronauts went into the sun right they didn't like nobody cared because we could objectively look at that and people like okay people can hold that let those people come out let them try and explain themselves the cure for bad speech is more speech not less right yeah i i don't care you know because i choose not to engage with that particular point of view.

And it doesn't bother me in the slightest. People can hold conventions about it. They could sell swag. They could set up websites. I don't care. It just doesn't bother me in the slightest. It didn't me either. And the truth will always come out in the end, right?

If the truth will, a lie can sound great. sound great. It's like candy in the short run, but the long-term consequences are terrible. So freedom of speech allows foolish ideas to fall by the wayside and the truth to find their way through. That flat earth thing's a really good idea. I mean, a good explanation. Of course, you know, there was that one guy, I feel sorry for him, that was so convinced that he was going to prove it that he strapped himself to a rocket and went up into the stratosphere, right? Did you hear about that? And he died on the way back down. I can't remember all was trying to prove a theory that he thought was right. And those things are going to happen. But that doesn't mean that you choose not to have free speech that is out there. Well, if I could have talked to that unfortunate gentleman, I would have explained that he could have used a weather balloon as a starting point with a camera strapped to it. There might have been he might have taken a step too far uh as a first step yeah so turns out rockets are tricky yeah and it was something like

that a rocket i can't remember what it was but i remember yeah and somewhere but um yeah yeah yeah and that's the thing and that's that's my responsibility to people that we're working with is all look i don't know what the future, but what I can tell you is that we're going to make adaptations and we're going to, we're going to surround ourselves with people that have vested interests in those clients that we serve. We're not going to navigate it perfectly. Nobody is we're in uncharted territory, but the difference between coming out of a calamity with a few bumps and bruises versus several less limbs or a quadriplegic is the difference between a wise path and a foolish path. And unfortunately,

we're headed down a foolish path right now in the markets and the economy. There's a way that seems right to a man that in the end it leads to death. It may look great right now to be saying that this time is truly different. We don't have to pay attention to fundamentals and we don't have to pay attention to mathematics. It may be different for a while, you know, but the thing is, is when I say we've learned to play the game by the rules that are forced upon us, that's really what we have to do. We have to adapt because it may be different this time for a little longer than what it was in the past. It may be different this time that we break all of the prior records by 20 or 30 percent or whatever that is. But basic mathematics, just like gravity, you can suspend gravity for a period of time. And let's say you escape gravity.

Well, you get into the outer space. If you don't have the correct equipment to protect you, you're dead anyway because you can't breathe and you can't sustain. You can't grow anything. So there are certain rules that happen in our world, seasons that we go through, cycles that we go through. The Bible, you know, from Alexander Solzhenitsyn, I would encourage everybody to read his book. That's one of the heaviest books that I have ever read. And there's so many ridiculous lessons that are there. I mean, I'd read it voraciously for a couple weeks, and I'd set it down and go, I can't do this anymore. I need a break.

Because it's terrifying. It's terrifying because we can see it in our society today. This isn't something that's never happened before. This is something that's happened in the past. That's why there's wisdom in history. And that's what we pay attention to. Because if there's one role that I have on the, uh, that, that I believe that I hopefully answer to a higher power for it. So I'm not going to get it perfect, but if I can help get those that we have the opportunity to serve through this with with a few bumps and bruises and and in the right path by being diligent and focusing on them and helping them find the wise

path then there's nothing else better that we could do in our lives and that's what you're doing people too that's that's why it's just such an honor to be associated because, you know, I see you do it here and your scouting reports and the the the feedback we get uh people are just thrilled thrilled to be working with you and your team um getting there's actually somebody there at the other end of the line who cares um and uh uh yeah just the whole way you go about it is is just fantastic so really happy to be working with you on that that's our honor it really is really is yeah i've got this big hippocratic oath in my head which is you know first do no harm but it's like first take no losses you know it's just like like let's just not let's be as smart as we can but of course you know we got to pivot we got to be you know that's why we have to do this on a

weekly update and you and i talk all the time and i'm constantly scouting because i think we have to be really nimble right now so i love that you have a strategy that's nimble right it's rule-based but it's nimble too uh i think that's just the right kind of approach for this environment where look we don't know what's going on but we're at a really weird period of history and i mean 100 years people look back it'll look like a blink of an eye it's going to feel like it took forever to drag out. But this is where there's a regime change coming. I mean, if it's King dollar becomes sort of like Prince dollar on its way to pauper dollar, you know, it's a big deal. When you go from a unipolar world to multipolar, things change pretty dramatically.

So I think that's what we're starting to see personally, is that there are these big changes coming and they terrify a lot of people. Those people get shut down with anxiety. They won't make a decision. They get the tunnel vision. You know, you get to that point of the market cycle where people won't even open their 401k statements because they don't want to know what they say, right? That is an approach. But instead, I think there's another approach, which is keep your head up as high as you can, follow as many people as you can.

Nobody's going to get it just right. And just do the best you can using your experience to figure out what's going on and how you're going to respond to that. Yeah. Well, and I changed my signs back here in the back. Invest your plan, not your emotions. You got to have a plan. And this is a period of time when emotions get high, your plan will help. And training and strategy, you know, it's kind of like if you can get, I remember my daughter first got on the court in basketball.

I had taught her a bunch of things and she's in eighth grade and the high school coach's wife is sitting beside me and I was, I'm like, Katie, come on. I looked at her and I said, how come she can't figure that out? And she said, she's thinking she hasn't learned it enough to react. And that's the difference. We're getting into a period of time where, where I and my team have put so much effort into where you don't have to think in the midst of the turmoil because you've already put in the effort to be able to react. That's why knowing a plan and having a plan is so important. And that's why it can make a huge difference by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your plan. And that's one thing that we've learned over the years and implemented

and adaptations as time goes along. Hey, I will throw one wild card out there that goes in this to wrap up. I do want to state. So you're talking about how things are changing. And I want to read the quote here. This had to do from the BRICS summit. And I want to get right down to the quote if I can find it. So, all right. So President Putin stated at the recent summit talking about Washington's big mistake of weaponizing the dollar.

So this is at the BRICS Plus Summit and the Global South all got together, and they're growing like crazy. He said the dollar remains the most important instrument of world finance, and using it as a means of achieving political goals undermines confidence in this currency and reduces its capabilities. He also stated on de-dollarization. Now, they did make it clear that they're not considering introducing a single currency yet, but he said, we're taking individual steps one after another. As regards finance, we did not drop the dollar. They're not saying we're dropping the dollar right now. The dollar is the universal currency, but it wasn't us. We were banned and barred from using it. And now 95% of all external trade of Russia is

denominated in national currencies. They did it to themselves with their own hands. They thought we would collapse. So, you know, it didn't collapse them, but it's driven the BRICS and the other countries to come together to solidify themselves, to protect themselves against the weaponization and political influence and lack of integrity by our leaders that are out there. So that's another game changer that investors are going to have to deal with. And, you know, it's funny because our strategy will implement currencies in there when we need to. It's only a nine-month period of time in the past 15 years that we used them. But during that nine-month period of time, it was one of the single best allocations that we made in the portfolio.

So you've got to have a strategy that can allow you to adapt because if this global environment is changing and the dollar loses, and I don't see them stopping at this point, Chris. I just don't. When a bully pushes somebody too far, they have to make decisions and either alter their circumstances or stand up and fight. And it doesn't look like they want to stand up and fight at this point, but they're altering their circumstances to reduce the power that the U.S. has over them in attempt to weaponization of our U.S. currency. So that's a game changer in the future. I don't know how fast it unfolds, but they're continuing to take steps and announcements with BRICS Pay being rolled out here recently. And they've stated, we're not trying to dethrone the dollar. We're just trying

to free ourselves from the system and the ability to abuse it upon us. And I'd do the same thing. I would too. We all would if our banks started weaponizing their political views upon us. And I'd do the same thing. I would too. We all would if our bank started weaponizing their political views against us. That's the best way that we can understand it. We would find alternatives. Well, my business has not used PayPal since they put out this little terms and condition thing that said, oh, we'll fine you 2,500 bucks if we think you have to hold the wrong worldview. I was like, yeah, we're not using you anymore. Um, the next year I got all these cold calls from PayPal saying, can we get you back? I was like, no. Classic example, classic example. Um, we're at the end of our time. So

with that, for anybody who, again, if you want to talk with Paul and his incredible team, really amazing. First, get in line a little bit, I guess, but go to peakfinancialinvesting.com. That's peakfinancialinvesting.com. Fill out a simple form, and somebody from Paul's team will get back to you soon. I know that's been going very well. You've had a lot of contacts with people, and it sounds like you've made some good connections and found some good folks and some good folks have found you. So I'm happy to facilitate that in any way I can. Hopefully I'm a blessing to those that we meet because because it's been a blessing for me to talk to people that understand why what we do.

And and I have the ability to demonstrate it and and show them their strengths and weaknesses and the path that they're on and make wise adaptations and develop plans. All right. For everybody else listening, we'll be back next week and there will be an election under our belts. We'll see what that feels like. And so we'll be reviewing that. Hopefully we know who won. I doubt it. But anyway, somehow I doubt that.

That would be too easy. So with that, thanks for listening, everybody. I'm Chris Bartenson of PEAT Financial Investing, Paul Piper of Kiker Wealth Management. We'll be back with you next week. And be well, be safe, and have a safe election. you