Peak Prosperity - Can Your Portfolio DOGE This?

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Chris and Paul discuss potential impacts of $2 trillion federal spending cuts, deflationary pressures, gold market movements, and economic implications for households and investments.Peak Financial Investing

Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only. Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full. For those who are prepared, this will be one of the greatest opportunities that we've seen in quite some time because the economy should start working normally again instead of artificially funneling to the companies that are supporting the agendas of the individuals who have been managing our money foolishly. 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. Kiker Wealth Management. Hey, Paul. Wow. Great to be here with you. Hey, I tell you what, things are moving so fast, I didn't even have to get a haircut this week. Just the speed of things moving, treading my hair up for me. It's amazing. Wow. Yeah, how do we make sense of all this? This is going to take a little to parse through. There's a few things I want to go through because I think these things, listen, I think everything that's happening was long overdue, completely necessary, and it could still have what people might experience as financial shocks, economic shocks, things like that. It has that potential. Let's be clear.

And right at the top of that list is the idea of what if under Trump, Doge, or any other mechanisms that if they managed to trim $2 trillion off of federal spending. Now, that just gets us back to pre-COVID spending. So it's not like, you know, we're rewinding to the dark ages, but that could have some pretty good impacts, couldn't it? I mean, that's 7% of GDP, like, and that's just off the top. There might be knock-on effects. Have you looked into this? Yes, I have. So, you know, one of the things earlier today, Nick and I had a conversation and somehow we went down that path going, okay, you know, my assumption is this is going to be deflationary. So I got to thinking, I'm like, okay, how can we explain this kind of to the

average person? So, and I can share the screen and the search. I just did a search. I said, okay, it's 2 trillion divided by the population. Okay. So how many people within the United States, approximately 330 million people that breaks down to about $5,999 per person, you know, per person. Now every person is not necessarily getting that. But that's money that has been working its way through the system. Well, then my question is, okay, how many, you know, what's the per household? What's the median income inside the United States? That's around $80,000 right now. And then what's the average number of people in the population within the household? It's 2.51.

So that breaks down to just under 15, somewhere between 14 to $15,000 for the average household. And imagine, you know, that extra 2 trillion, that's not, each household's not getting that money to spend, but that's equivalent to that being inside of those households. You know, if you're a family of four, that'd be closer to $28,000, $30,000. And that's just price pressures that's been coming into the economy. Well, what we're discovering, especially with what we see with USAID and some of these other areas, this has been filtering around to the connected politically. So these individuals are already way above the median household income United States.

And where's it going to go in the asset prices? So, you know, we need this pulled out of the economy. But you take that, the effects of technology on top of, you know, implementation of some of the AI tools that we have out there now for businesses. I still see this as deflationary or at least wringing the inflationary pressures out of the economy over the long term. Now, didn't Elon recently say to somebody kind of off the cuff remark, which is, I wouldn't be short long dated treasuries here, meaning long dated treasuries will go up in price, down in yield if this deflationary event comes. So it's like he'd already thought through or maybe been talking with Lutnik or maybe with Besant. He's talking with somebody, or he knows

this stuff because he's just that kind of guy. But he understands that if Doge is successful, money gets pulled out of the economy, we go into a recession or a deflationary outcome. And in such an environment, you don't want to be short, long dated paper, you would want to own it and be long it instead. Is that how you would interpret that? Correct. So as a matter of fact, we are seeing some undercurrents under the market. Stability, you know, TLT, which is the 20 year treasury is holding some support level from over the past year and looks like it's consolidating. So this is a really good area from our standpoint, not advice, just discussion about what we're

seeing as far as potential. What's the market telling us? So the market is telling us that at least for now, that downside pressure on treasuries, you know, yields going higher. So for those of you out there, an easy way to understand how bond yields affect bond prices, the longer the term, so 20 years, imagine a seesaw on the playground. So if rates go up, those bond values go down. So what investors can do is they'll try to short the bond market so that if rates go higher, they'll make money while those bond yields go down. So that's what Elon Musk is telling people is I wouldn't be shorting the bond market right now. Well, I remember when he came

out several years back and he was telling investors, I wouldn't be shorting Tesla. And Tesla really looked like it had kind of reached its peak at the time, was starting to lose momentum, went down for a couple of weeks, and then it just ripped the face off all the short sellers. So, I mean, he's had a good track record of warning people about information that he sees coming in the future. So looking at this right now, it was encouraging to us to hear him say that because we were already starting to lengthen our duration, which means in our fixed income portfolio, we're stretching out into the 15 and 20 year timeframe right now for the first time since 2021, where we shortened it dramatically

because we thought rates were going higher, which they did. We were very fortunate in that position. So I'm seeing the potential for deflationary pressures to arise over the next 12 months. Too early to tell. We don't know the future, but the weight of the information tells us that's a potential outcome if they can pull off what it looks like they're doing. And the speed at which they're moving is absolutely really hard to keep up with. Well, it is, and it's cutting across a lot of dimensions. But I think what's happening here, Paul, my framework for understanding this, I spent time in the corporate world. We have two businessmen. Normally, you have these career politicians like Joe Biden.

I don't think he worked a day in his life outside of Washington, D.C. Just a career politician. And that is a skill set, obviously. But we now have businessmen driving the ship. Now, if you take over, this is like a takeover of a company. We just bought a company. We peer under the hood and we're like, oh my God, this thing's a hot mess, right? We don't know if there's fraud here. We don't know what we're spending. We don't know how much we're earning. We don't know which divisions are positive for us and which are negative. So you go through what's called a zero budgeting exercise, right? A zero-based budget. And they just, I think that they just

froze everything. And now they're going to start like unfreezing it as they understand it. And that's going to actually be pretty bad for, because listen, we had decades of obviously just wasteful spending and going off in weird directions. And, you know, we've all heard the stories, $2,500 paper coffee cups for the Pentagon. It's gross, right? And that's why Bethesda has some of the toniest, priciest real estate in the world. That didn't happen because all those people are worth that much money.

There was a huge hole in our fiscal boat and they're going to plug it. Boy, that's going to cause some difficulties right away. And I think we got to look at this short-term, long-term. So I asked Grok to sort of help me think this through, and he's good at structuring stuff. But he said, look, short-term impact, reducing government spending could lead to a decrease in GDP. Not could, it will, guaranteed. I think 7%, it's about 7% of GDP would be $2 trillion if they do cut that. That's a pretty big recession.

But long term, if it leads to more efficient government and reduced wasteful spending, it could spur economic growth. Of course, freeing up resources for private sector. Maybe we have fewer stupid regulations that were just there to keep bureaucrats busy, et cetera. So I'm a big fan. I'm willing personally to take the short-term pain to get us back on solid footing. I think that's what's necessary. But I want people to be aware this could have a pretty good-sized impact on GDP,

therefore portfolios and allocations and things, yeah? It could. It certainly could. Well, and to add to the pain and add to the pressure here in the short run, we're better to deal with it now than we are to have this euphoria carry for another two or three years and it get weaker and weaker and weaker. We need to go ahead and have some control burns in the economy, which is hopefully what they're doing is the best analogy we can look at.

Make sure our infrastructure is in place to wrangle it up, control those fires as they're there, but allow some deflation to take place. Now, for the average individual, if you follow all of the good advice that you have for building your financial foundation, a minimum of 12 months worth of emergency fund, I believe right now that you should stretch out the 24 months, especially if you've got some really good profits in your portfolio. Harvest those now. Take advantage. You want to prepare for bad times before they get here. You don't want to go try to shop before the snowstorm hits the day before because everybody's waiting till the last minute. So if you're building resiliency in your portfolio by diversifying, pull some cards off the table. Stretch out to maybe 24 months in that emergency fund.

So what if you never have to use it? Now all of a sudden it becomes opportunity money. The second thing is really determine your exits before emotions take over. At what point do you need to put some stops on these positions that you have and pay attention to fundamentals? Because if we get back to wringing out of all of this excess out of the economy where they've been just throwing money everywhere for their own political gain and hoping that it's going to circle back to line their own pockets,

which is exactly why some of these politicians have these tens of millions of dollars and that worse, go look at the best neurosurgeon you know, unless they're just a really good speculator on the outside. They don't accumulate that type of net worth of these career politicians, and they still have an income that's substantially higher than what theirs are. They're having to do it the honest way, the neurosurgeon, not the dishonest way. So I think these have a lot of impacts. And I think that speculation and the higher class has moved into the markets. I think they've artificially supported the technology area, which has fueled the bubble that's there, the Magnificent Seven.

So, you know, I think go back to the year 2000, we had an 80% NASDAQ decline on the end of the internet bubble. And the internet has expanded since then. It was just investors were too giddy. So this could be a potentially dangerous time. But go back and remember, from 2000 to 2003, it wasn't the end of the world. The economy trugged along. The money flew into the undervalued sectors of the overall market, went back to value stocks again. And for those investors who were prepared and adaptive, not passive, but prepared and adaptive, turned it into an opportunity where most people were just riding their stocks over the cliff, hoping that things were going to get better sooner rather than later.

And by the time their hope were off, the massive part of the decline was done. So for those who are prepared, this will be one of the greatest opportunities that we've seen in quite some time because the economy should start working normally again instead of artificially funneling to the companies that are supporting the agendas of the individuals who have been managing our money foolishly. That's well said. Paul, we're going to take a quick break here and we'll be right back. Hello, everyone. I just wanted to take a quick break to tell you about Peak Financial Investing. Look, my whole goal in life is to help you be prepared, to help you be resilient, to have you have the freedom you need in order to live your life in the way you want to live it. And top of that list is financial freedom, making sure that the money you have

saved accumulates appropriately and isn't lost to some random process of market downturn or something like that. Peak Financial Investing is a place where we will connect you with our endorsed financial advisors who understand the world the way we do. You deserve to talk to somebody who is not going to look at you like a dog listening to white noise when you say, hey, should I invest in gold? Hey, you know, is the dollar going to be okay? Hey, are there any big risks here? Are there any bubbles we need to be aware of at this time? Great questions. So when you ask those, you deserve to speak with somebody who's got good answers, thoughtful answers, and knows, most importantly,

how they're going to respond nimbly as the world around them changes. Now, this is one of the periods of the most extraordinary changes we're going to see in market structure. China's coming up and rising. Geopolitical tensions are afoot. We have all sorts of realignments happening. The federal government is deficit spending like nobody's business. You know the Federal Reserve wants to get back to printing like crazy. We understand that gold is popping to all-time new highs. The story has changed. Your investment philosophy needs to be nimble and responsive to that.

So at Peak Financial Investing, we'll connect you with people who see the world that way, who understand how to run what's called a risk-man managed portfolio to account for all the changes that are coming. Because if the Hippocratic oath is first do no harm, our oath is first take no punishing irrecoverable losses. It's time to manage risk. It's time to understand how the world has changed. And it's time to make sure your portfolio of savings and wealth are there for you and can meet your needs all the way through your retirement. Now, back to our program. All right, and welcome back. Now, so Paul, that whole idea that we're going to get the economy back on sound footing, I like it. I have this view that maybe our economy has not been on sound footing since the great financial crisis when, by my judgment,

Ben Bernanke, they chose cheap fixes, right? They papered it over. They didn't allow the—like, listen, a bunch of banks and financial institutions should have gone, morally speaking, but also, technically speaking, should have gone bankrupt. And instead of allowing that to happen, because that would have been painful, and Ben Bernanke would have had to go to a party on Washington's, you know, K Street where there would have been some frowny faces and it would have made him unhappy. They bailed everybody out, right? And no lessons were learned. And now we have a worse, I think, a more hollowed out economy than we used to have. Doing the right thing is never easy. I get the

sense we got some people who are trying to do the right thing. Now, how that turns out, nobody knows. But I think it's the right path. But it's going to be like, none of us have actually really lived through a moment like this, have we? I'm not aware of one. I mean, I've read similar periods in history. But when have you had an administration come in and do with the speed that this administration had as quickly as they have what they said they're going to do? You know, and maybe that's crucial, Chris, because if we're having a hard time keeping up with it, imagine the arrogance of the deep state and thinking that they're never going to be caught with what they've done and the media outlets are going to cover for them and protect

them. I mean, if we had this conversation 10 years ago, people would think we're literally crazy, but now I'm going around and people are furious. They didn't know what USAID was. They had no clue that the treasury was just approving any request for payment that was coming out. And this is in an area where people are going, hey, my tax dollars, I've been struggling to make ends meet and they've been wasting our money this foolishly and collecting our taxes and fining us in every way and raising fees across the board and reducing government services. I think there's some shock. I think the markets are still shocked about what's taking place right now. But the average individual is starting to have some anger with this truth

come to light. And then you've still got, you know, the other side that's screaming, you know, you can tell how close they're getting to them having some consequences for their past behavior by how loud they're screaming. Well, this is an important point because markets consist of reality, but also perception. And the perception I have right now is that we're miles apart from how things have been run to how things I think are about to be run. Cards on the table, Paul, I'm total fan of let's run things in this much new, better way. But look at, I just put this out on the Signal Hour earlier today, USAID gave $4 billion to Pfizer. Now, why are my tax dollars going to grant money to one of the most profitable companies on the face of the planet, right? What do we do with the fact that 97% of all political contributions coming out of USAID, which is funded with my tax dollars, are going back to a given party, right? And what do we do with the idea that Politico,

as a very left-leaning organization, got $8 million of grant funding from USAID to help run stories and do basic propaganda? But worse than that, Paul, we know that USAID funneled over $40 million using various cutouts to Wuhan University, the Wuhan Institute of Virology. So people are mad about this, and that's part of the perception. What do we do if market perceptions change really quickly? I mean, that's some pretty spicy stuff right there. As far as I'm concerned, really, we paid for our own misery with COVID. That's terrible. Who was involved? So $8 billion goes to Pfizer through, through USAID. And then they,

4 billion, sorry, 4 billion. And then they're funneling the research out of Wuhan that calls all the profits to increase on Pfizer, and the government just funds Pfizer for all of the vaccine that they wanted to put out. So if you're any politician that knows that that flow takes place, well, buy all the options you can on Pfizer and profit from it. No wonder they're making so much money, because they know where these channels are coming from. Yep. But that's making it coming and going. It's a publicly traded company.

They're supposed to take the profits that they have, peel back a percentage of that to re to reinvest back into research. It's not our taxpayer responsibility to do that for those companies. It would be different if we had to support these companies because they weren't profitable enough to be able to offer things that we needed that impacted us for the better. That's just egregious. That's, that's, isn't that something? That's egregious. That, that actually makes me really angry. Yeah, it should. It should, right? That's okay to be infuriated about this because it's infuriating. Somehow they, you know,

they funnel, they, they, they funded our own demise and then made money off of both sides of that. It's just, it's just awful. It's awful. So you take the average small business out there that has regulations that have been coming through to raise the barrier of entry. And most of the regulations that I've seen come through in our industry has really nothing to do with protecting the investor. Oh, they're going to tell you this great story that it's going to protect the investor. But what it's doing is basically setting a regulatory moat around the big firms. So it's much harder for advisors to leave the big firms to go open their own independent shops. So now you've got, you know, basically it's rare

to find individuals like us. There are people out there, but you have to take these sacrifices and endure a lot of great pain initially to get your independence because of all the costs in the regulatory structure that are easy for these big firms at the expense. So, I mean, I'm not saying the government should give businesses money in any way whatsoever, but just imagine if they had have given the same support to the average small business around the country, the middle class would not have been decimated. Correct. Correct. You know, I just did an interview with Ed Dowd. It'll be coming out just right after this one. And he said, listen, you know, the COVID era was just great if you were extremely rich or extremely poor. Both of those, the middle class, though, picking up the tab for the whole thing,

right? Your eggs are $13 a dozen now or whatever, right? So we had to pick up the tab. And of course, that caught on to a bunch of people. Now, Paul, I think something really seismic is happening, and I don't know how to interpret it yet, but I want to get your look at it, because this is big. To me, this is a huge deal. Look at the price of gold here. We've talked about it a few times. Let me get my little lasery pointer thing out.

So this is right here in February of 22, which is when the United States government, in its infinite Biden wisdom, froze Russia's sovereign assets and gold took off. But something has been happening really, but this is just 2025 alone from 2600 ish, 2650 at the open of 2025. To while we're closing in, we just tagged 2900 last night for a brief bit, and it was 2,892.90 when I took this picture. And that's Paul. Paul, that comes with this idea that in two months, for people who don't know, 500 tons of gold is a lot. 40,000 good delivery bars, those are the big ones, right? Those are the big heavy ones, you know? 500 tons of gold came out of Europe and came to the United States. That's amazing. That's amazing.

And Comex, under the vaults in Manhattan and Delaware, now has 1,040 tons stashed in its vaults, which are the same as all the Swiss gold. So an entire country worth of gold now sitting in comics, which normally just has sort of trading volumes in there. Wow. Look at these red bars of the amount. Look at this. Look at this stuff.

Massive amount. Like, look at this. This is from December and this is 2025 right right here right whoosh this looks like a panic to me paul this is this is normally how these vaults change over time that that's what it looks like look at this that's massive somebody is emergency stockpiling gold in the United States. Why? That's a good question. I don't know. You know, there are a couple of things that I can speculate on. Go ahead. You had a thought. Well, because it's about to be rainbows and skittles and unicorns. I don't think it's going to rainbows and skittles and unicorns.

Probably not. We're going to say maybe it's not that. I mean, all I can come up with, Paul, is it's the opposite of that. Somebody's stockpiling gold because there's some kind of an emergency that we haven't been told about, and you need gold for that particular emergency, whatever that is. There's something that people know out there. So there's a couple of things that I can think of. Based on pulling, if they're able to pull $2 trillion of just recluse spending out of the economy, that's deflationary in the short run. I'm seeing signs that, like Elon Musk said, wouldn't be short the bond market right now, treasury market. But what if this has greater knock-on effects, right? So one of the things i'd ask rock is what happens if seven

percent of the gdp two trillion dollars is pulled out now it messed up a couple of questions that i asked so you can't take this but it's like the knock-on effects could be for every dollar that's pulled out five dollars is impacted the gdp puts you to a 20 to 25 percent uh that's huge be for a recession that's borderline great recession depression type type material will that happen i don't know i don't know but the reality is is now what if we're running into default risk what if this money has been propping up so many institutions and you're going to have a chain effect that's going to ripple around so investors are deciding hey i want physical

possession of that gold. So if there is a lot of bankruptcies or if this is so severe that it triggers something in the derivatives market, similar to what we worry about with the great taking, you know, you're better off to hold it there instead of having it in a position to where the bankers could have leased out more gold than what they have. And you fighting with somebody else to try to get that goal. That's one potential. The other potential. Hold the other potential. I want to build on that for a second, because this is, that's what this, for me, the reason, so this is big, this is big money, right? This isn't the guy, you know, this isn't you and me going down to the store and buying some coins.

This is big money, okay? So we're going to talk about big money for a second. Why does big money suddenly want to hold gold, which is, of course, a monetary asset, a tier one, Basel III, it's a tier one asset. Why would you want to hold gold? Well, you might if you lost faith that your money sitting in a bank account was going to be honored in some way, shape, or form, but you still wanted to hold money. Now, we can't have cash. It's not like you can just call up somebody and get $6 billion in cash if you're a family office, right? What do you do? Gold is the only monetary asset I know that you can hold if you're worried about something like, well, the great financial crisis, right? Bear Stearns fails a little later. Lehman

Brothers fails. Banks lose faith with each other. They all reel in their operations. It's terrorizing. They don't know if we're about to see the, you know, the monetary light at the end of the tunnel as we pass into the netherworld. They don't know. Everybody's scared. This could be big money saying we're scared or we've lost trust. Like we know something you guys don't know, and it relates to institutional solvency. That's a possibility. Okay. So I was just building on your first point.

Yeah. And to add on to that first point, the great thing about gold is it has no counterparty risk. If you have it physically and you can store it in a place that you know that it's going to be correct, that it's not going to be leased out, there's no counterparty risk. If you buy Southern Company, not recommendation as a stock, just an example. The argument is they're Georgia power, Alabama power, Southern Company power. Oh, we have to pay our power bills. Yes, we do have to pay our power bills. But if you had deflation severe enough and the cost of living went down enough, like it did during the Great Depression, Southern Company still has debt. They've still levered money that's out there. So theoretically, they could go bankrupt. You lose all of your shares. You lose

your bonds. Maybe the assets are sold up. the bondholders would get something where the stockholders wouldn't. But you can have an absolutely devastating event to where you lose everything there. So gold has no counterparty risk. So if we have deflation and the cost of living goes down 50%, that means houses go down 50%, your income goes down 50%. Anybody who is in debt is in trouble. They're bankrupt, unless they've got enough capital to survive that. Gold could go down too, but the difference is it'll still maintain the purchasing power and you don't have to worry about losing at all because there's no counterparty risk. I mean, that's one thing that makes it the safest asset. It also protects you in case you had a currency collapse too. So if you had to take it personally versus cash, let's say they could get $8 billion of cash, right? They're sitting on 800 million. Let's just use that. Well, now you got to worry about what happens if you have a fire,

what happens if, you know, both of them could be stolen. But what if, what if you're in a situation where a fire gets out of control, your government fails you because they haven't put the right infrastructure in. That's gone. Gold's going to melt. You might not have a pretty bar, but you still got something. The other hand is if we had a currency crisis, so let's say Trump just decides, hey, I don't want to have this pain. We're going to print money like crazy, and you have a currency crisis and hyperinflation

ensues. Well, gold can protect you against both extremes versus that cash. So cash has one optionality. If we have deflation, that's good. It's not in the banking system. But if we have hyperinflation, you can kiss the purchasing power of that money gone. Gold is flexible enough to jump on both sides. I'm not saying it's the perfect asset, but at the extremes, it is one of the most flexible assets to protect an investor. Agreed. Agreed. Now, you know, you and I, let's talk about option two. There could be some sort of monetary fiscal accident. We've talked about this before, but for anybody who hasn't seen

those episodes, Janet Yellen, in her infinite trollishness, left a big old goose egg for the incoming Trump administration, right? Paul, so we hit the debt ceiling and we're going to have to navigate that debt ceiling, which is always this sort of political drama and there's, you know, gamesmen, brinksmanship, all that. But with one of the most fractured political landscapes I've seen, so that could be extra fireworky. And then you had that, Samantha LaDuke had that thing, that chart that showed, I don't have it with me right now, but it showed $9.2 trillion of refinancings, refundings in the Treasury market. So we're going to have huge amounts of demand on the Treasury market this year, just never before seen levels. And that's without any additional deficit spending.

Okay. So that's pretty big. And then on top of that, Paul, we got to connect it to this Kevin Malone on Twitter, showing it breaking news, the federal reserves reverse repo facility, a little wonky, but I'll tell people what that is in a second, hit its lowest inventory in 1385 days today. Do you know what's coming? He asked. And I drew that blue line to show you because the treasure, the, the, that call-out box covered it up. But that's been going away. So this has been stealth QE.

So the Federal Reserve has been very, you know, very proper, winding its balance sheet down. On the back of this, $2.5 trillion of reverse repo stuff was out there liquefying the markets, and they've been drawing it down point being that when they draw that down paul this is what's been buying all those treasury on the run issuances right so who's so that's gone like like the big buyers so who's who's gonna buy the fed is still technically winding its balance sheet down this is gone who's gonna buy that's a good connection and i have that chart the samantha leduc chart just to share with them perspective on the opposite side here yeah we called this the middle finger chart right yeah yeah that was perfect you said middle finger chart i'm glad it wasn't drinking thanks janet yeah so you look at

this what's the plan uh Basant, as she says? But just to put this in perspective, I mean, that's a big middle finger, FU, that Janet Yellen left the Trump administration. Okay, so across the X-axis, those are years. That big middle finger is in this year, which is 2025. The Y-axis is trillions. So that's $9-wh-whatever-trillion of just refundings, right? This is debt that came due. We're rolling over our car loan. We're rolling

our credit card to the next month. That's a huge number. Thanks, Janet. Somebody's going to have to contend with that. And not only that, look at how much we have come and do out to 2031. I mean, every homeowner took advantage of low interest rates and they wanted to tie up as long as they could. And that's kind of frozen the housing market right now. So if your average American citizen is smart enough to stretch out their mortgage at two and a half percent interest rates, why in the world is somebody that's running the Treasury that came from the Fed not taking advantage? You should have this way out here. Even then, you shouldn't because you've got that risk. It should be spread out. This should look like a bell curve where it's

small here and it increases out there so that you don't run into a situation like this. This is just fiduciary criminality as far as I'm concerned. Vandalism, at least. So, okay. So, all right. So, well, what is, okay, what does this mean, right? First up, that's liquidity in the marketplace. So, first thing I think of, Paul, is it could lead to a credit crunch, right? So, that's mostly money market funds, but it's also bank cash. They run out of cash to buy U.S. Treasuries, okay? That leads to lower market liquidity. It's just a thing, tightening credit markets. And so we had a liquidity crisis. There's two types of crises you can have in the banking system. One is a solvency crisis. So that's when your Silicon Valley bank is just, they're no longer solvent, right? Or you could just have

a liquidity crisis where technically people are still solvent, right? Or you could just have a liquidity crisis where technically people are still solvent, but they need huge volumes of money liquefying and flowing through the system for it all to work reasonably well. So this could be either a credit or a liquidity crisis. Both those things could happen here. I mean, we've lived through this before. That's 08, 09. We know what that looks like. And a credit crunch has the possibility to seize the economy in the short run. But, you know, and what do you do if you're Trump at this point? Okay. You're wringing out all of this excess spending right now. There's so much euphoria. So back in 2016, when Trump was elected, this consensus was he's going to be bad for the market. You know, the market tanks initially

after the election results, and then it rips from that to be bad for the market. You know, the market tanks initially after the election results, and then it rips from that point, you know, forward. You know, half the population that was supportive of him, especially in real estate, they were so excited because things kind of picked up from that standpoint, and then other investors were euphoric. So we're coming into this situation now, and the consensus on the street is Trump's going to be great for the markets, and we're seeing that.

So you get a little bit of a sell-off. December has a sell-off, which was kind of needed into the end of the year. Then you get the trade war sell-off, and that's over real quick, but there's been massive amounts of money that has flown into risk assets. So investors are investing from a standpoint of, of course, Trump's going to be great for the economy. But the one thing, if they're wringing this excess out of the system, they're shutting off these payments. And what is it? One of the papers, the news came out, I didn't get the chance to dig into it, you know, had trouble with their funding and come to find out that USAID was circling money back around. You probably- Oh, that was the Politico story again. Politico, that's right.

Yeah. So if you're shutting all this down, what's the best thing to provide capital for that funding is a market sell-off and scare, and that's going to pull some money back into those treasuries maybe to get that funding. I'm not saying I would do it just for the sake of making that hurdle a little bit easier. But if you've got an economy that's artificially inflated because of all of this government irresponsible spending under the justification of we've got to keep the markets up because it will trickle into the rest of the economy, go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off now. Get it out of the way. And those that are over leveraged are

going to get what they deserve and unfortunately it's going to hurt a lot of investors that just don't know how to do anything else besides passively hang in there because they've just that's what they've been trained over the years yep all right well if this if this is true and this runs out and we have all this refinancing that has to happen and we have a debt ceiling crisis, you know, and, and, and, uh, you could have your credit crunch. The other thing is we'll get volatility, um, which is code speak for sometimes prices go down. They never talk about it as volatility when they go up, Paul, it's the funniest thing ever. I do though. I have to tell clients, you know, even when the market's going up we're on offense you

know that inevitable pullback usually scares the fool out of of some investors because for nine you know 90 percent of 80 percent of a bull run investors are absolutely terrified it's the last 20 percent that they're fully convinced that it'll never go down again and then they then they want to buy the debt the 80 prior to that i'm usually having to handhold and saying look volatility is your friend in this environment because that's what scares everybody out when everybody's not scared anymore that's the point that we want to leave and um and that's one thing that i'm seeing in the gold market right now i mean i've been shocked a couple of times about gold consolidating and breaking higher.

But the fact that, you know, we recommend, this is not a recommendation to everyone out there. It's only for individuals that have looked at their circumstance and that it does make sense. But, you know, holding approximately 10% physical gold from a long-term standpoint. I'm still having to talk people into that. I'm still having people say, well, I feel that that's a little uncomfortable to me. And we talk it through, you know, and I'll develop a plan to get them there. When the time comes that people are going 10%, that's all. Can I have 20 or 30 and I'm having to talk them back, right? That's the point where I'll start getting worried about the gold bull market.

But these breakouts that we've seen over the past week, I don't know what it's telling us, but it's speaking something. We just can't understand it yet. But we'll find out six to nine months from now. But this is a huge breakout in gold. And especially there's no euphoria. There's no momentum. There's no conversation about it.

That's the point. That's the interesting thing. I mean, I ran into, I'm trying to come up with a name so I can, I ran into an individual the other day that we've talked about gold for quite some time. And they've been a buyer. And they're like, what do you think? It's too high. You know, I've got some more money. I'm like, we had a big breakout. You know, buy some more from a long-term standpoint.

But it's too high. And I know what will happen because in 2012, that same individual is ready to go all in and we're getting the sales signal. And I'm like, look, you know, it's time to – I'm grabbing him by the belt and pulling him back saying, you know, slow down. Do the opposite of how you feel sometimes and that will help you be a better investor. Well, what do they say, right? Bull markets climb that wall of worry, right?

Yes. So same conversation. I've talked with a few people. Nobody's calling me up going, laser eyes, Chris, new high for gold, right? There's like none of that cheering. It's not happening, right? That's when you find you're closer to a top and I'll have a different conversation when that happens. But we're still at the wall of worry. Same conversation, like seems kind of high. I don't know. Kind of wish I'd bought a little while ago. That is the classic wall of worry by pattern. You know, wish I'd bought it then. Not now. And then later they'll be going all in at 4,000, 5,000 an ounce, both hands, both feet. And we might be, you and I might be having a

different conversation going, I don't know. Right. So that's, that's classic. But so that feels bull markety to me too. Right. Just the sentiment, like nobody's crowing about this. Nobody's, nobody's emailing me. Nobody's calling me. My Twitter feed is almost dead silent on the subject. It's right. I'm not seeing much there either and that that's when that's this is the basis of how those move you know another thing that's interesting to me is is um you know we build a gold mining strategy and we rolled that out not too long ago similar to some of the other strategies so i've been really watching uh the gold miners and what's interesting about this breakout is we're starting to see some breakout in some of the gold miners, the stronger relative strength. Now, we're not talking about breakouts to all new time highs because they've been so overlooked and investors, God bless those

investors who have stayed in the mining space for quite some time. It's just not gained momentum. Gluttons. But it does look like there's some momentum that's beginning to build under the surface. Not a recommendation to go into that space, but that's a little different this time on the breakout. I'm seeing a few things under the surface that look like this could not only be the metals, but you can have the miners come behind it. The next thing we'll need to see is silver follow through as well. Well, it's starting to poke. It's starting to get a little frisky.

It was just over 33 earlier today, and that's a surprise stealth climb from 23 just not that long ago but i i still think this is the story right hundreds of tons suddenly show up in in the u.s at the same time prices just keep going up and up and up and up what are we that's uh from 26 to 20 29 300 i 300. I don't know. What's that? 10% from the beginning of the year? Yes. Yes. Somewhere around. I've got that number somewhere. That's not bad considering it's barely February. And then, and then we have all this stuff going on. I know there's going to be volatility, you know, but here's the, here's the surprise part of this story that we got to talk about. This is the yield curve. So we see the interest rate here at one month, two months, three months, six months, one

year, two years, three years, five years, seven, 10, and 30 years. And what's interesting to me, Paul, is that the 10-year, three-month spread is just 9.6 basis points, 0.096%. Just like, ugh, yeah, like no spread, no difference. Do you want to lend the money to the government for one, two, sorry, three months or 10 years? Same price. Okay. But the Fed's been trying to get that one-month, two-month, three-month rate down, particularly the one-month rate. It's pushing on that. It's pushing on it hard. Well, what if there has been

like a buyer of last resort out there that's about to go away? What if this has been helping the Fed achieve its rates policy? What if money market funds say, no, we're going to need a higher rate, you know, in order to be interested in treasuries? We're going to need to see more. I think they might, they could have trouble on the short end. If they get into that trouble, Paul, prediction's very easy. They'll print. What do you do when you wake up and you read the headline? Fed starts QE again.

And Jerome Powell says, we're only doing it because things are still good. Right? You know, it's going to be something like that. The first thing I'm going to do is look at the price action of every commodity that's out there i'm gonna look at yields i may potentially move short some of the yields from a long-term standpoint move aggressively in the commodities because we're at the point that if they come out and like that right now the the embers of inflation are still working under the surface and it could get out of control and now you, you know, doesn't really matter

how much the Trump administration cuts out of the spending. You know, those other inflationary pressures are going to more than make up for it. So I'm curious to see how this unfolds. I mean, a lot of it has a political dimension I can't analyze because I just don't know. I don't know what backroom deals they make. I don't know how they operate, but I could easily see a stalemate really not being a good thing when you've got $9.6 trillion of refundings that have to happen and a debt ceiling that's looming and there's not a buyer of first resort cranking out there called the reverse repo market, et cetera. So that could get spicy. We could see that volatility happen. I have one other possibility too. Oh, you have a

response to that? No, go ahead. It's another thought that came up going back to 2008, but I'll bring it up in a minute. So I'll end it there. Okay. Well, I'm still trying to make sense of why so much gold suddenly went from Europe to the US. And it's not just, Paul, it's a lot. It's a lot lot remember germany wanted 300 tons back from the new york fed they made the request in 2013 and we had to read all these articles like oh it's so hard and they have to like get planes and security guards and they'll have to find a forklift i don't know they were it took four years took them four years to get their 300 tons back then i wake up and they're like oh yeah we just pulled 500 tons out of Europe. You know, we just, you just put it on planes and brought it here. Like no big deal.

Right. So obviously different story going on, but here's why I think maybe if, if there's, if there's an institutional failure out there, I would submit there's a good chance it's somebody in Europe. Well, that's why you would flee Europe. The only other thing that makes sense from fleeing Europe is potential tariffs, but on that capital coming back in here, but I don't understand the parameters of the tariffs enough to know, or sanctions on other, but coming back into the U.S., that's like, I want to get out of Europe and I want to come over here. So any of those, Deutsche Bank, ING, of course, in this the second time for ING, 2008 hit them hard, ABN Amro. I mean, the knock-on effects of that would be really a credit crisis.

Well, I mean, it could be. You know, European banks have a long history of getting in trouble during financial crises. But again, this is just astonishing. We went from about 17 million ounces up to 33, almost a full doubling, a full doubling of the amount of gold held from 500 to over 1,000 tons. That's a huge amount. I've got another chart that put it in perspective in a short run that I wouldn't mind sharing with you here by Garrett Goggin, CFA and charter market technician, which that's one of the things I want to finish getting at some point in the

future. So Comix Gold Deliveries, 2.9 million ounces. Last time this happened was never. And I like this because it's 2000, 2004. And here is the chart right there. Whoa, look at that. But it, but it does put it in perspective. Just this that's Chris, as you're saying that that appears to be panic. It's saying something for it. Absolutely. It's sending a message, whether we're reading it right or not remains to be seen right right but it's not nothing it's not just like it can't it paul's

not just tariffs right if you're worried that there's going to be 10 25 more on imported gold that comes through europe you know what you bring it in through another another vector or you don't even worry about it because you're JP Morgan. You have vaults in London. You have vaults in the U S you don't really care, right? If a client says they want gold, you're like, great. It's in London. How much do you want? No tariffs.

It's not really one of those things. It's I get tariffs. If you make widgets and you need raw materials and intermediate goods, I get tariffs. If you're talking, you know, your oil and your refinery and it comes from Canada, gold is different, right? Yes. Yes. Well, I want to show a chart and kind of talk through just typically how things happen. So let's look at gold here in the short run. And I follow in today mostly, but I follow the OUNZ, which is the Banach Merck Gold Trust. So this is the spot,

but it's 100% physical gold. So this is what I track.'s 100 physical gold so this is what i track now what i have on the screen here is this is the symbol this is relative strength up here price but this is a support and resistance levels so red is typically support and then green is going to excuse me red is resistance and green is support so after that move in march last year gold kind of hit this level hit this level again that became support of a floor for it to move higher so a short-term you know resistance at the top back in late october early november we work around and we consolidate i was expecting a lot more struggle to break through this price because this breaks us out to new highs. I mean, we had no problem breaking through that resistance and have cleared to the top side.

And I think, Chris, was it a loose track of time? So it was maybe a spring of last year where we talked about the big breakout that occurred back then. Yeah, so spring of last year. So this was what, January, February of of 2024 and we had talked about this weekly chart where it broke out oh yeah so you know this was major resistance at that point that broke and then we what i what i perceived to be a bull flag and then another bull flag and we've broken out from here and then you know and this momentum is continuing to turn up you've got on balance volume is getting higher so you know and we're still not in that traditional bull market but but i was shocked at just how clean and even then this was just not really major resistance

minor resistance but you've cleared through very quickly so well paul differences in that lower chart, you see that resistance? That's the BRN resistance, big round number. That was 2,000, wasn't it? Yes, it was. I don't know why, but big round numbers always, like, I don't know. They're just, I don't know what it is. They're harder. So I would imagine BRN is 3,000 this time.

We'll see. That's kind of what the anticipated target would be and this is just an anticipate when you see these physical deliveries they're you know let's let me have it and they're pulling it out of comex and then or you know out uh back into the united states and then you're having prices follow through like that that tells us there's demand behind also the the taking of that physical gold so somebody knows, or they're panicking over something potentially because you and I and maybe 10 other people could pull all our gold and it's not even going to put a blip on that screen. This is big money pulling this.

Is it sovereign wealth funds? I don't know. Are they worried about sanctions from this administration? I don't know. But they want to have it in their hands. That's such an important point. So the way it works in comics is you buy futures, right? It's a piece of paper, notional, and most of them settle for cash. But some people have the option of settling in cash or taking delivery. This is called standing for delivery. February, the last delivery Stanford delivery date is going to be February 26 this year because of how the calendar days fall out. The first two days you could possibly stand for'm out here in the cheap seat so i won't find out what happened this week till a little bit later but um but that was astonishing to me that that is a monster number and that represents what you were saying somebody said you know

that's cute you having that gold in your vault there i think i'd like to have it instead four million ounces that's huge if my math is right approximately 10 billion 800 million yeah 10 billion 800 million just had 11 billion dollars just left the vaults just like people showed up and put it in the trunk of their fiat and drove off yeah well maybe not a fiat it'd be scraping going down the road. These are Beamers and Ferraris and things, Cybertrucks. I don't know. But anyway, no, this is really big.

It's seismic, and I do think it's telling us something. It's not just suddenly a couple of rich people decided to have gold yesterday, and here we're reading about it. It's something more than that. Well, and I think there's still shock that's taking place. I mean, I'm shocked by the speed at which this administration is moving. I'm shocked at the information that they've been able to bring out at this point already. And, you know,

I remember when I first got in the business 26, 27 years ago now, I was like, I remember the older, the more experienced individuals being a little cynical, right? So it's hard to shock in a lot of cases, but they're moving so fast right now, and the information's coming out. And I'm still operating under the thesis that we're going to have a lot of volatility here in the interim period back and forth as investors are digesting this, similar to the top that occurred in the year 2000. Does that mean that the market's going to peak in May like it did back then or later in the year? I don't know. It could be this month. It could be next month. But there's still that impulse from investors because of the consensus.

It's just an excuse that Trump's going to solve things and he's going to be great for the economy. Well, what's necessarily great for the economy may not necessarily be great for the markets, okay? Because the middle class has been eviscerated and the top 10% have become much wealthier. So we could still have a backdrop to where if these tariffs work, if these loopholes to where it's so much more profitable to produce goods in China, yeah, that may be inflationary short run. But if that manufacturing comes back into the United States and we're reinvesting into our infrastructure, making our roads better, making our grid more resilient, right? Instead of sending billions of dollars overseas to tell somebody that there are not two genders. I can't come up with a good idea right now that's appropriate for me to say.

And we're reinvesting back in here. That could be unbelievably good for the middle class, but not necessarily so good for the markets in the short run. So I believe that we're getting into a period of time where the adaptive investor, you know, if commodities take the lead, the U.S. markets has been the only game in town for a while. If commodities take the lead because of that or because of inflation, whatever the reason is. Some of the international markets are ridiculously undervalued. Value stocks were decimated last year.

So for the adaptive investor, that's okay if this comes because that volatility and that leadership change in the markets, if you're in a position where you can adapt and take advantage of it, you're going to thrive. You may be hurt. You might get some bumps and bruises, but you've got a couple of Band-Aids instead of being in the ICU for six months. So I think we're on the verge of unbelievable opportunity

for the adaptive investor who's willing to think about the potential outcomes and be able to move confidently instead of just going, hey, what are you doing? What are you doing? And what are they telling me that I need to do? And so, you know, I don't know when, especially if unemployment goes up, I think the tailwind of passive investing that's just, you know, doesn't care about cash flow, doesn't care about the valuation. They're just buying because, you know, that's what I'm told to do. If that tailwind for the markets leaves, I think we could be in for a pretty volatile time. That's an educated guess based on what we're seeing take place right now. And by volatile, you mean things

go this way? Oh, yeah, volatile down. There's a difference between bouncing back and forth. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm a scientist, Paul. Volatility, it goes both directions. But in markets, volatility means things going down. Yeah, that's right. Right.

The volatility index goes up, gets higher. Volatility goes up only when stocks go down. And when stocks go down, the volatility index goes up, gets higher. Volatility goes up only when stocks go down, and when stocks go down, the volatility falls. So if you were trained only in the markets, you would come to believe that volatility means things going down. Correct. Correct. And that's what everybody's- It's not accurate. Well, I wish I had that cycle of investor emotions. I don't have it on the computer in here today. But the reality is when this thing cracks for the average investor, they're going to tell themselves, I'm a long-term investor. I'm going

to wait until I get back to the highs. Market will just about get there and then it takes another big leg down. And then, oh, I'm a long-term investor. And they deploy all the capital that they have left there because they can't imagine any other outcome than the markets to continue to work their way up or the Federal Reserve to come in and bail the markets out. And they may very well do that. I mean, I assume at some point they're going to print enough that's going to crack our currency, and then that's a whole other ball of wax. But that normal emotional roller coaster and cycle of investor emotions is the thing that makes it nearly

impossible for them to reduce risk and harvest profits because they assume they can pick the top. It's impossible to pick the top or the bottom of the market. Somebody's going to get it. It's probably fairly contrarian play to say, I think long rates are going to go down and we're about to enter deflation. And I don't care about your $13 eggs because I'm seeing that rental markets are crashing all over the place. So again, to point to two things, one would be the great taking webinar. I think everybody ought to look at that because the great taking could get activated if things get volatile enough here. I worry, Paul, as one of those, we had multiple options. Option three for me is that people want gold who are big players because they know the great taking is about to get

unleashed or something like it, right? So that's a possibility. If anybody, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to peakprosperity.com. We have all kinds of things there and you would look into the great taking. We've got a button there. You can click and find it. It's really important to understand as an investor, at least if to look at it and say, nah, that's junk. I don't believe it. But you should take a look. It's good work. It's built on the work of David Rogers Webb and put a lot into that.

So, Paul, I haven't had a sophisticated investor come to me yet and say that's junk. Here's why. Like nobody's poked any holes in it. I've had people say that's scary. I don't had a sophisticated investor come to me yet and say that that's junk. Here's why. Like nobody's nobody's poked any holes in it. I've had people say that's scary. I don't like that. I haven't anybody say, nah, you got that all wrong. So we got that going on. And then I guess the other part of that would be, well, we should just talk about, you know,

how would we position for this? I'm starting to get, all right, I think there's a deflation coming. I think that means that there's probably better prices in the future. I think you should be running a very careful risk-managed strategy right now. Personal, just my opinion on this whole thing. Because I do think that if we get into this deflationary thing, which will be a shock to people who are not expecting it, this is also something that's coming out in the Adoubt interview. You know, interesting story.

It's his story, but I'll tell it. He said that they had had this model, he and his partner, and he's a very quantitative guy, big quant dude. And they had this model. It's backdated forever. And it just doesn't have drawdowns. It just doesn't. And so they started running it. And wouldn't you know it, the last two years it had drawdowns.

And they're like, this is wrong. Yep. What is happening with our model? So they peeled the whole thing apart, put it back together, looked at it, and came. They're like, oh. Our model had not had any historical thing to include the impact of bringing in millions and millions of people across the border and giving them stimmy checks and money that they just spend right away. So that drove a lot of inflation. It drove rents up. There were a lot of perturbations. Their model didn't have that.

So they updated the model. They took a look at it, ran it again. And the model says even just stopping the flood, the flow of people across the border is going to be deflationary. And if we reverse that flow, it's extra deflationary. And most people aren't ready for that. No, and it makes sense because you remove two million people at that level, especially if they're getting government assistance, that's going to fuel rental prices to go higher. If they're able to sign in for college and you're bringing everybody around the world without looking at them to sign in for college, you're crowding out U.S. because a lot of those countries are giving grants. That raises prices for rents around the colleges. It makes sense that that's deflationary.

Yeah, I got to find this. I got to find this because I just saw this. I'll talk about the great taking real quick while you're there. I will encourage individuals to watch that because it's impossible for me in the period of time that I have with clients to sit down and, you know, even in a two hour meeting to explain all of the intricacies around the great taking. So one of the things that I would recommend you watch in that video, you can learn the risks, you can learn different opinions that are in there. I actually spend a lot of time just talking about the big picture, because it is pretty scary. You know, you need to look at the big picture, develop a plan, determine where you need to be, and you're going to fit into one of four categories. So when somebody, every individual that I've talked to, every client, someone that has become

a client that's watched that video, they were better prepared for the conversation that we had. So when we went through looking at their situation, I'm like, okay, you can afford to do X amount that's over here from a long-term standpoint to protect yourself. This is how much you need in the system. So now that you've got this here, let's maximize our protection and utilize different account types through SIPC coverage. And it helps for you to know that because whether you're working with us or someone else, just to protect yourself better to go in and learn how I can structure things from a standpoint. So what if you have five accounts, if it's a partial great taking and the SIPC and FDIC, Security Investor Protection Corporation, and FDIC for the banks

is still there, well, you have made yourself more resilient if it's not a complete system wipeout. Because what if it's like, look, hey, this thing occurs. We've got to reset the system so that we can start it again. We're going to backstop FDIC. We're going to backstop SIPC. Well, what if you're an individual that has one and a half million in a single account and you could restructure it to where now you can, instead of a half a million dollars of SIPC, you've got one and a half million. Well, now you might have one and a half million if absolute, you know, not worst case, but the best worst case scenario. And perfectly legally, right? I mean, this is how

it's structured. They have to be certain account types and, you know, right? And you just say, oh, well, I could clearly have it in these three account types, right? Individual, joint, whatever. That's just how the rules are. So why not play safely? It sure is. So it's like when I talk to clients and, you know, if they have property, I'm like, do you have an umbrella policy on your farm? Okay. And they're like, no, why would I need that? I'm like, well, what if one of your kids' friends are over there playing and something happens? You need an umbrella policy to protect yourself. $2 million umbrella policy costs you a couple hundred bucks a year and it provides that shelter. Well, maybe it won't happen, but if you have it, that's the most valuable thing that

you could own as far as an insurance policy. So you implement these things and maximize SIPC, maximize FDIC. And if you've got so much money that it's hard to maximize FDIC, then go to Treasury Direct and buy treasuries directly so that you don't have to rely on FDIC. Those are little things that you can learn in the webinar and other information and hear both sides of the story. So in my opinion, it is well worth the investment to, because you're better educated and you're a better investor. Thank you.

It is. Thank you. I put a lot of work into that and I know you did too. So it's really important if only to reject it. But please take a look at it. So I want to get back, Paul, I'm going to finish out here with this idea of the deflation. And it sort of comes to us courtesy of Denver. So look at this. 18 months after buying the property for $9 million, Denver, the city of Denver, is now going to sell it for ten dollars progressive mayor math right you know why they're selling it for ten dollars because let me go down to to the second

story i gathered here um nearly 20 000 new apartments built last year in denver multifamily largest quarterly rent decline on record at minus 3.6 percent vacancy rate spiking to 7.5. Another 15,000 new apartments is expected to come online this year. And by the way, a whole lot of people who were going to be occupying those are going to be back in their home countries. Because... Trendyagua, right? I saw that they started some raids in Aurora. Thank goodness they were terrorized. I know some people that are in that area, and they were terrified of that group. Yeah. So at any rate, I don't know that people are ready for that, a minus 3.6% per quarter. So that's a double-digit annualized.

Obviously, what's that closing in on? 15%, 14% annualized. That's a big deal. And, you know. It is. And you showed the number in a podcast a couple of, within the past week or two about how the South seems to be a little bit overbuilt back to the levels we were in 2008. Not so much in the Northeast, right? But I mean, that's the risk. We've seen commercial properties, the commercial, you know, your big office properties had massive deflation last year.

These have to work their way through the system. And, you know, this is just something that happens in normal economies. And I hope that Trump, there you go, I hope Trump allows this process to unfold. Hey, and go back and think, Obama's first year was the financial crisis. I mean, the market just tanked in 2008, but it was rising into 2012. And I think the American people, as much pain as we get, if we get back to where there's innovation, the government boot on our neck is gone, it's going to more than make up for it from a long-term standpoint. The middle class will thrive again. And, you know, you and I talked about it last time.

I don't have any more analysis around this, but we've been hearing consistent rumblings out of Trump and Musk, excitingly out of Musk, not only talking about maybe we don't need this income tax thing, because if you're Trump and you want people to have more money in their pockets, but you can't make eggs go down directly and you can't do anything about auto insurance, you can cut their income tax so that they it's just that's that's like inflation going down, at least from his perspective. And then Musk said, yeah, and hey, why not? Why not property taxes are an abomination. The idea that you have to rent your property from your local government is actually a communist

concept. In China, nobody owns property. They only rent it from the government, 99-year leases or whatever the terms are. But still, you rent it from the government. So do I. I think it's fundamentally, you know, it's just not right. And particular people who are over the age of 65 who've paid in, they shouldn't be getting clobbered because local school district can't figure out how to have their scrub div three. You know, if they're lucky football players playing in an SMU quality, 50,000 person stadium. Right. Which happens all the time in Texas, I hear, right? You know,

I understand your kids are special and all that, but maybe not that special. But I think, yeah, we're going to have to have those hard conversations again, which is now on the table because of Trump and Musk are like, hey, maybe this doesn't make sense to do it this way. I think property taxes, we ought to have a conversation about those. I think we should too, because I will tell you, the counseling that I do, kind of volunteer counseling for individuals, and I try to help older individuals that, you know, they may be in their mid-70s, early 80s, bad financial decisions, just didn't prepare enough, and they need a little bit of help. The greatest pain that they have, if they've been able to pay off their

home, is their property taxes and their insurance. And it's one thing if you take the risk on the insurance you're going to lose the whole asset but at least you can take a chance there if you can't afford to pay your property taxes the government's going to seize it they're going to sell it for the taxes on on the courthouse steps if you don't pay the person uh the taxes plus the 10 or whatever interest is on top of it, then you're going to lose that home for pennies on the dollar. It is not right. And it's one thing if it was set at these individuals, you know, 20 years ago, but it continues to go up each year so that your local governments can foolishly spend the money. Well, they're taxing in unrealized gains. You're this 80-year-old person. You bought your home for $37,000. You paid it off in 1981. You might be paying taxes on a home that's worth,

according to your local government, $370,000, right? Why are you paying taxes on unrealized gains? I thought that was a bad thing. When it comes to stocks and wealthy people, like, oh, no, you couldn't do that. That would be morally wrong. Well, we do it every day to people in their houses and we do it to elderly people when we know we're going to kick them out of their houses because they're going to have to lose their homes to an auction on the courthouse steps. It's just it's wrong. It's morally wrong. And Chris, in today's society, they don't have a voice. They're not going to be interviewed by the media because that doesn't fit the narrative that the media is trying to push. They don't know how to operate

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook in most cases, or if they do, they struggle in the typing and the communication. They don't have a voice. And society is moving so fast, people just don't know this, but it's an egregious thing that we're doing to our elderly. And, you know, of many of them, the people who laid the foundation for the, you know, the blessings that we have in our society today, it's just not right. Totally agreed. Well, Paul, I think that's our time for today. So I'm going to call it there. Remind everybody that if you want to talk with Paul and his amazing team, you're going to go to peakfinancialinvesting.com, fill out a simple form. Somebody will be back to you in 48 hours. And if you're interested in doing that, you do it soon because Paul has a very busy calendar and schedule at this point in time because he leaves an appropriate amount of time for all his existing

clients. And thank you for being here and doing what you're doing. Thank you for your time today, Paul. It's my honor. And for those of you that doing. Thank you for your time today, Paul. It's my honor, and for those of you that want to get in, I encourage you, please don't get frustrated. You can jump straight to the planning meeting. I am keeping extra capacity in there, and if it's appropriate for us to work together, you will be a part of that capacity in there now,

so we can drop it up in. It's just we've got to take care of those clients that we have. They're family, and you may end up becoming a part of the family, but, you know, I'm just setting the parameters to make sure we do it right. So please be patient. It will be worth your time. There's no cost for that consultation. And, you know, by God's grace, my number one plan, when we get done with that planning analysis, you'll have some ideas, whether we work together or not, that can, can hopefully make your future path better. Thanks for that, Paul, and have a great rest of your week, and we'll be back with you next week. Thank you, Chris.