Peak Prosperity - Finance U: Our Economic Future Hangs In The Balance

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Paul and I discuss a few of the major economic topics that were evaded and avoided during the Trump-Harris debate. We deserve a discussion and some answers because of the gravity of the situation.

Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only. Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full. It's getting harder and harder and harder to get your assets outside of our U.S. currency or outside the country. Like, it's just getting harder because the Patriot Act, several other things, they're closing those doors. The following is the audio version of a video released at peakprosperity.com. the Patriot Act, several other things. They're closing those doors. 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 to this episode of Finance University. I'm your host, Chris Martinson. And hey, we're back with Paul Kiker of Kiker Wealth Management. Paul, good to see you today. Good to see you today. Great to get a chance to fellowship again. Well, absolutely. And so much to talk about. I've got this completely full sort of set of bookmarks and things to sort of review with you but first i was a little underwhelmed with the debate last night because you know what there's big policies i really care about so you and i have discussed this in the past that last year or earlier this year the u.s treasury department came out with this really important thing, an annual report, and they said the United States is insolvent, right?

Huge liabilities, insufficient assets. But more importantly, they said, and I'm quoting here, current policy is unsustainable, which is about as strong as a bureaucratic enterprise could ever get in their language. But let's decode that. Current policy, that means laws that have been put in place everything we think we're going to spend for the this act the that act the whatever current policy is unsustainable by unsustainable they mean wow this thing's going to break someday right and so obviously in a debate the debate moderators who were totally biased by ABC, it was terrifyingly biased, but nobody asked the question.

There was not a single question about that idea that we have $35 trillion in debt, we're headed in the wrong direction. And the question I would have asked is, listen, it's clear that we're on this unsustainable course. The Treasury Department itself says so. What are you going to do about it and if you're not going to do anything about it explain why you think it should fall on the next administration to have to do something about it because somebody's going to have to do something about it so why isn't it you and i want both of them to have to answer that question because it's i care i don't want to leave behind a financially monetarily ruined country um but that's where we're at they talked about cats j6 stuff but not stuff i cared about i care about

inflation monetary policy spending reckless spending debt yes well the you know that then that's going to make people start thinking i was was so disappointed and poor Holly had to tolerate me hitting the pause button and saying this should have been answered this way. There should have been more preparation there and they should have called it out. It was embarrassingly biased on the moderators. And it was just like an entire try to gotcha moment. And I was really disappointed that Trump didn't address several things from healthcare to others that he could have knocked it out of the ballpark if he'd have been prepared for that. So I get it that it's a hostile environment, but you're right going to the base foundation. They didn't even ask the questions that should be asked. I mean, those are very important issues and And the current trajectory, even if Trump was prepared for that, he could have brought that up and said, look, what are you going to do different? Why haven't you changed this trajectory while you're in position of power now? So I was ridiculously disappointed. Yeah, agreed. That's a great

summary. I mean, here's something that I thought would have been a slam dunk, easy to care about, is the fact that auto insurance prices are up 54% under Harris and Biden. 54%. I would have been happy if they were up 0% because I'm a 0% kind of guy. I don't understand why these things have to go up at all. But 54%? Are you crazy? That's insane. And it would have been illuminating to find out if either

or both candidate understood what the dynamics were and how you would address that right because there's underlying reasons so do they understand economics at all do they understand how this works at all right but nothing just chirping crickets but everybody cares about that right you know they do well you know and and and I was debating it with Holly after it was over because it took me a little while to go to sleep. I was just so frustrated and disappointed. You know, what I'd really like to see is just put them in a room, give them some topics, and let them hammer it out. If it's two hours that they talk, I don't want moderators in there trying to debate and fact check. Do all that after it's over. Let them sit there and talk

it out because a couple of things that we would need to see in that in the long form is get the moderators out of the way and let's see how they can negotiate with each other to get along because in that position you're going to have to be able to put down your animosity toward the other party or other individual or your feelings to work towards what's best for the nation. And I would love to be able to see them do that. And then the American people can really see what's going on. But, you know, the problem is, is the media wants to be, I wish I could think of how Jordan Peterson explained it here recently, just talking about one of the most sinful things that we could do is fall into the pride of our intellect.

You know, it's like they they feel like they need to control because the average American is just not smart enough to really understand that. That's how they see the average American. And they're missing the great diversity, the great strengths and benefits of every single American brings to the stage and they have to control it for whatever reason. And it's wrong. It's sinful. And it's it's embarrassingly foolish, quite frankly. Well, I have speaking of all the people unprepared last night, the moderators wildly unprepared, didn't have the right questions, but their fact checks just got fact checked and they were wrong about a lot of them. Like, how do you how do you get these things wrong? But they did. They got them wrong over and over again. So it really speaks. It's almost demoralizing, Paul, because what we're talking about now is like a level of competence is like we can't protect a presidential designee in a simple environment. We can't fact check simple things like we don't share simple landscape anymore. And so this is why I'm a little worried about this, particularly from a financial standpoint. Monetary economic standpoint is we're facing down some really, really big challenges.

Right. And unfortunately, what kamala is promoting and i still don't know what trump's promoting because he says he's going to be different but last night would have been a great time to explain exactly how it didn't happen but maybe it's coming but camel at least has said oh we're going to solve people not affording houses by giving everybody 25 grand to buy a house like oh boy doesn't understand the basics right houses go up by 25 grand that's all that happens exactly right that's like it's very easy to sort of explain that but but they don't like somehow we have a level of incompetence where you have to fight past that one idea which means there's just it's what is it it's the dumbing down of america we're just so

dumb that the journalists think they have to protect us from bad information when they don't even know what the information is and don't even know the right questions to ask. And we have these failed economic policies. Here, you want failure? Here you go. Here's government failure. The average U.S. family health insurance premium in 1999 was $K and now it's 24K. Yep.

That's failure. That's government failing. Hello, government people. Can you explain why your government's going to fail less than government has failed to this point so far? Right? That's what we all deserve to ask and be answered. Yeah, and I'm trying to pull up the health care ETF right now. I mean, health care has been one of the better performing sectors of the market since 2010 because of the profitability.

It's come out of the pockets of the American people and into the corporations is what it's done. Yep. And our service is far inferior to what it was before. So right here, health insurers, this is just CEO, not the whole C-suite. We're not talking CFO, CIO, C-everything-o, right? COO. 27 million bucks for Cigna, right? UnitedHealthcare, $66 million.

Do you know how many $24,000 family health premiums are required to pay the CEO of UnitedHealthcare $66 million? For one dude, for one year, and it's been like this over and over. His first year coming out of Obamacare, the ACA was $150 million, right? Unbelievable what they've been up to. Average pay raise, 473% pay raise on the backs of working Americans. So then I think you can ask a very simple question, which is, how are you going to control rising health care costs? Like, oh, that's easy. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to slam. You know what? I'll find somebody to run UnitedHealthcare for six hundred thousand dollars.

Bet you I could. I bet you I could. Do they really need to be publicly traded? Right. I mean, that's one thing that I have an issue with. If you're in a situation where you're taking in money to send out to the participants inside of there, look, I know you can get the capital markets for funding, but does it really need to be publicly funded? Because now all of a sudden the shareholders are going to be trying to maximize profitability. So $66 million at the average premium of $24,000 a year means it takes 2,750 people paying their premium each year just to cover his salary. One guy in the C-suite.

Where do you see the rest of the C-suite packages? Well, and here, like, look at this. I got to show this because this is one thing I like to point out from time to time this is the xlv which is the health care index and it goes back to 1999 so notice from 1999 to 2012 it's relatively flat so obamacare comes in as it should be it's just health care it's a service industry yes you compete in a way and then poof you've had this just magnificent return over that period of time, which has been great for the shareholders. But the question is, has it been better for the participants? Right? No, we've got to get the corporate capture out of the health care industry, the military industrial complex. And that was a missed opportunity where we you know, we heard RFK speak.

He was very clear in being able to communicate that out there at Dallas, just the corporate capture. That's one area that I was disappointed in Trump not being able to articulate any of those points, really. You know, I saw a lot of those clips went from that RFK piece that we were in the audience for out there in Dallas. A lot of those clips went all over the place, including the stuff about the health care and the fact that, you know, pediatricians are often now a captive thing with and it's a weird dynamic with health care gives them these huge bonuses for making sure that everybody's vaccinated in their clinics practice. Right. Which is way beyond the return you would get from the cost of the vaccine is something. There's a different economic driver operating there, which RFK pointed out beautifully. But speaking of which, how about how about this one? Right.

So this is total return since 1989. Looking at aerospace on top, which is defense. S&P 500 is a total index and then industrials industrials have returned a not terrible eight percent a year the s&p has been up 10 a year on average since 1989 but aerospace defense has been up 12 a year look at the compounding effect and look where it really takes off isn't this i think we we had a Nobel Peace Prize winning president take office right about there. When I'm so tired of our blood and treasure, Paul, going to wars. You know, it's like, we don't, it's just like somehow we just skip from one war to the next, right?

It's Iraq. Oh, no, it's Libya. I'm sorry. It's Syria. Hold on. It's Ukraine. When that's over, it'll probably be Lebanon and Iran. I'm sorry it's Syria hold on it's Ukraine when that's over it'll probably be Lebanon and Iran I'm tired of this and by the way I have worse internet at my house than they have

in basically a village in the Philippines right now right just how it is because we've been putting it into things that'll blow up for corporate profits and at the expense of our infrastructure and our infrastructure is going to become a major issue because the longer you put off maintenance and repair and upgrades the more costly it's going to be in the future it really well and this is this is what i wanted to see come out last night not to make this political but i wanted somebody to to go listen if you can vote for more of that or vote to put more of those take those funds and actually put them back into america again and that's the decision then i think people should decide what they want to do about that and

i'm pretty clear where the country would fall if if it was presented properly right which is that's that's the do you want more of this big giant government that does whatever it wants without anybody voting for it like simple question like he i mean i don't i do not understand like if i was up there debating kamala harris i would have said can you explain to me who's actually running the white house right now yeah and just be quiet just just you know hey, you you apparently interact with Biden more frequently than anybody. And you didn't notice that he was unable and unfit for for duty until his debate. Somehow that escaped your notice. What kind of president would be that unobservant?

I mean, there were just so many attack vectors there, but it's been bizarre. But to me, we've got to talk about this, right, and where that's all going. So I'm just worried that nobody's going to talk about it. We're just going to keep spending as if there are no limits, and then we're going to get back to that Treasury report, which clearly says, you know, Houstonston we have a problem in here which which fundamentally i mean you remember so let me just put pull this chart up so we can be on the

same page about this because this is the one this is what i'm just like oh no you know oh no and i'm thinking about kids and grandkids i don't have any grandkids but but if i did it's this that according to the treasury department the debt held by the public which by the way isn't the whole shooting match because there's this other debt they say is not the same which is intra-governmental debt which is a really dumb idea right paul that's that's that's you wrote yourself a check and you put it in your other pocket and it's somehow an asset. It's a weird, anyway, weird thing. But they go here from, we're here, they're calling us at about 120% with intra-governmental debt. But they're saying we're at 100%. But it's going to go to 550% debt to GDP.

And my position is like, no, it's not. It's not going to. It's going to break somewhere in here before the 200 percent mark so somewhere between here and 2040 for sure it breaks i think it breaks earlier that's what we need to talk about is like well well when it does break then what happens and that's easy that's inflation it's hyperinflation because they'll have to print and that's when misery is going to come and visit and far greater amounts than what the American people are suffering right now from the inflation that we're under. I mean,

it's ridiculous. And that we're heading in that direction, like you said, nobody's, they don't seem to be concerned about it. I don't know if they're just so detached from reality that they can pick up the phone and ask for money and it just shows up. Or the fact that you're in politics and you've got so many people trying to get in your pocket or get into their strings on you so they can maneuver you to your own benefit that they've just got money being thrown at them left and right. I don't know how they're so detached from reality, but they really are. I mean, we would be better off to take the average individual, middle America individual, and throw them in that position that knows how to balance a checkbook than what we've got in the halls of power right now. I know. I know. I know. So given that, this is why for everybody listening, this is exactly why peak financial investing has been stood up and exactly why Kiker Wealth Management exists is because running a risk managed portfolio, being very careful, seeing these dynamics coming early and often is actually really important. And there are ways to help protect. And maybe even if you, you know, run things right, there might even be ways to benefit from all of this if you can see it coming

in advance. But you got to see it coming. So you need the context and then you have to run a portfolio. It's not like this is a whole new future. Paul, when this really breaks, everybody who's running what I would call a standard approach is going to get the same standard reaming out of the situation because by definition, everybody can't be protected from a mass casualty. No, because that's, that's what we're looking at here. So, so I look at this chart and I just, listen, it could end in a deflationary plunk, but it won't. At least as far as I'm concerned, it's probably more likely going to end up in a large inflation. The Fed will print. They'll print, right? As Maya Angelou said, when somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time. The Fed's shown over and

over again. They print. Okay. So if we believe they're going to print, how do you help people sort of navigate that likelihood? So one, that's a great question. More importantly, the structure of how we built our portfolios to be able to adapt, you know, the fortunate and unfortunate thing is me being kind of seeing, seeing the, the seeds that were planted of this back in 2004, 5, 6, and then, by God's grace, successfully navigate in 2008. You know, my concern back then was like when you look in the long-term trajectory, and nothing has changed, right? Now, it was so concerning, it's like you think it's going to happen in the next two to three years, and it's lasted a lot longer than what we expected. But building portfolios that can adapt and learning from history,

what did German citizens do to be able to those who were successful right because nobody really knew what to do but you go back and study history to find those threads of success for those individuals who got assets outside the country one thing that concerns me about where we are right now is it's getting harder and harder and harder to get your assets outside of of our us currency or outside the country like it's it's just getting harder because the patriot act several other things they're closing those doors then you look at precious metals and and in a shift in the investing from the things that we want to own to the things that we have to have to sustain. So there are strategies that you can utilize and implement. One of the hard parts is knowing

exactly when to implement them. And I think the problem with investors they have is they're expecting perfection, right? Nothing in life comes through in perfection. Some of the most successful individuals are going to have failures, but they adapt quickly and they get up and they stay disciplined and they move forward. So what we built our strategy to do is build discipline in there that tells us, okay, not like a dimmer switch. It's time to start allocating to this category. Now it's time to get a little bit more aggressive in this category. Now we have the tools that tells us to be more aggressive within that category. So whether it's international assets, commodities, and that's the thing that I'm very concerned about what's taking place with your standard. In reality, I hate to say it, modern portfolio theory is just kind of the

cookie cutter approach. Like the more I've thought about it and the more I look and the more people I meet and just the different presentations that are out there, everybody's doing the same thing. Everybody's on the same side of the boat. And, and, and the people I think don't understand what is taking place. And they've been marketed to from the passive investing standpoint that everybody is passive in one way whatsoever. So yeah, they're going to manage risk by diversification, But we see in 2022 when the market dropped, bonds went down 20 and stocks went down 20. There was no risk reduction from that diversification. So by having a strategy that says, I don't know exactly what tools are going to perform the best, but I know what categories are going to be,

at least have been historically, and we're going to continue to search for all of those investments out there. And it's a mindset that's important to survive an inflationary holocaust. Chris, I'll tell you quite frankly, I wish it was as simple as a deflationary bust. Like really all you have to do is be prudent and you can be conservative and be protected in that manner. But here's the thing we know about the powers that be. They hate the prudent and they hate the conservative, right? I mean, that's as clear as I can state it because they want us to be foolish. They want everybody to be in debt. They want everybody to be pushing. They've got that mentality that's like, hey, hire an employee that's in debt because you know they're going to show up to work.

It's like they know that they can control us a little bit more. And now all of a sudden, they're our masters, right? Our fate is at them. So I wish it was a deflationary bus because that would be easy to navigate through. But an inflationary holocaust is something to where unless you have tools, unless you have a willingness and a mindset to look at the investments in your toolbox and say, that's a tool that I may not have used for the past 10 years, but I have, I have guidance.

I have direction. I have a repeatable process that'll tell me when I need to own that. And I can confidently plug it into the portfolio. And Hey, if you hesitate in that first step, you're still going to be fat 10 to 12 steps ahead of the average person. Who's going at first, they're going, Hey, what's going on? Like, you know, the, the, their straw house is blowing out from around them and they're frozen because they don't know any other way

because they've not run across. There's just very few people out there that have had the fortitude and courage and discipline and understood really, and actually the thick enough skin to continue to stay down this journey. There are a few people out there, but they're far and few between. So that's a really long-winded answer, and I apologize. I know I tried to grab everything, but you have to be open-minded. You have to be willing to take steps, and you have to have a process in place that will direct your assets. Because it may be for a period of time initially when the inflation takes off that the market goes down.

That's counterintuitive. So, you know, you're you're protected and then you redeploy capital in certain areas and then you may have to shift from one place to another as that inflation unfolds. But there's no easy way to navigate it and there's no conservative way to navigate it. Yeah. Well said. So here's here's my we've talked about this before. So I think I have a pretty good sense of what the Federal Reserve is going to do if they get their druthers. Right. I know how they would like to behave and they've been able to behave however they wanted to behave. And the whole rest of the world's just sort of had to put up with our malarkey. Right. You know, third world countries and undeveloped countries having to eat inflation that we've exported and all that. But I'm a little worried that the game has changed. You i've talked about it on february 28th 2022 the united states government weaponized the dollar seized

russia's assets even seized oligarchs oligarch we call theirs oligarchs ours are billionaires you know our bill gates he's a billionaire that guy's an oligarch difference is nationality um so same term seized their yachts of people who didn't directly do anything so he said private property doesn't matter your sovereign reserves don't matter so they weaponize the dollar i think this is going to go down in history as one of the most colossally stupid blunders again perfect policy decision that i think would have you know on a foreign policy. Hey, Harris, can you please explain why y'all chose to weaponize the dollar and how you see that playing out to our long term advantage? Great question. That would have been a good one. Right. But didn't happen. And because of that, we don't have an answer. But now you and I have talked about what the BRICS nations as Brazilzil russia india china south africa and 120

others who've signed up for this now so seems to be a coalition of the willing in the real sense and they had something called the unit which you introduced to us and i just wanted to go to this real quick because i just came across this post the other day sent it to you i think you read it yes this is from somebody called make gold great again at make gold great which i'm a fan of and uh reads here the largest russian news agency has just confirmed the long rumored the unit which we discussed is real with announcements to be made at bricks on october 24th talk about a surprise announcement of uh october surprise if it happens article suggests what we talked about back a couple months ago, that it would be 40% gold-backed.

And according to Andrew McGuire, this would require a minimum of $3,000 gold price just to have enough basic liquidity to function. Double popcorns on that. One of the biggest developments in our lives, Western media, total crickets, obviously. And so lots to follow up here and take a look at. And then there is, as well, from TASS News, which is coming out of Moscow, saying, sure enough, BRICS countries are developing a wide range of instruments for creating an inclusive financial, international financial system. Some of them may be announced this autumn at the summit in kazan um and so what are we talking about well basic projects uh

something the unit which we talked about a platform for international settlements called bridge and a system pay for a payment rails and a depository clear. So we have the unit. We got bridge. We got pay. We got clear. Paul, kind of sounds to me like they've set up a parallel system and they're looking to completely cut the tether lines to the sinking Western ship. This is big news to me.

That's huge news. That is huge news. And it's something that goes all the way back to 2010 when President Medvedev, in the original conception, came out with the SDR, special drawing right gold coin. And it's evolved since then with the new technology. Well, you know, the arrogance in the Western media is that they're not going to do this. Okay. But in that same article from TAS, it says the key principles in designing the new financial system are decentralization of international interaction and the use of digital technologies. And, you know, in particular, milk, milk collation, and I'm sure I've brutalized that, please forgive me, noted that BRICS clear, the clear will quote,

use blockchain to record securities and exchange them. So it's an amazing system that they have put together that's decentralized. So now all of a sudden, Russia's not in control of it. China's not in control of it. But they've come together in an agreement together that says this is what we're going to put together as an alternative to the U.S. dollar. So what are we going to do, right? I mean, I believe more Americans are so frustrated from the powers that be preaching down to us that this is what we should do when we all understand that they're detached from reality.

Why is the rest of the world not being that way when we've weaponized the dollar? You can't trust us to tell the truth anymore. Okay. You just can't. So if you can't trust us, that's the one beacon of light that we had throughout history is there was the rule of law within the United States that you're going to go through a due process. Well, now the rule of law doesn't matter. There's no boundaries that they're walking through. They just do what they want to do. And the courts are not there to stand up for

the average individual on the national side. They, you know, weaponization of the dollar. There's no boundary by integrity. So we've basically made the pain of changing, moving to this system easier than the pain of staying the same. And my concern is it doesn't really matter if the fed starts printing money if the if there is a viable alternative to the us dollar and this clearly is right this is clearly a viable alternative it checks all the boxes now you got 60 70 of the dollars in circulation around the world uh i think it's 60 the number this is just approximate because I can't remember

exactly, but there's a large portion of dollars that are in circulation outside the United States that don't need to be held there anymore. All of a sudden, now U.S. citizens are competing with all of that money coming back to buy food, land, houses, cars. Our currency declines. We've got so many things that are produced overseas because that was the most profitable thing to do. And then that's literally a great reset for our country and not in a good way. That's in a manner where it's going to be an equal opportunity bringer of misery. And the reality is, is for those who have an investment strategy that can adapt and those who have done the research to look, they're not going to come out unscathed. the path less traveled because they recognize the signs of the times and realize that they don't

need to go off the herd with the soundbite investing strategies that that people are falling into because it's easy well this is a big big big big deal because um let's admit so first they'll have to put capital controls because if all of a sudden there is this thing called the unit and it's 40% gold backed and I can freely, let's imagine I'm a big international company. I get to decide where I'm going to keep my treasury reserves for my functions. And I either can pick dollars or I can pick pounds, I can pick euros, or I can pick this thing that's 40 guaranteed backed by gold now there's competition darn good chance i'm going to start because that's not going to zero right no not going to zero i know that much right whereas i don't have that confidence around other things so anyway point is we have competition on the landscape now where people can actually make

a decision or choice your first prediction is you're going to see capital controls put on Western nations so that people like you and I wouldn't be able to access a unit, currency system. That would be too much of a threat. But my point before was that the Federal Reserve is going to do what it's going to do unless it's forced. So you mentioned something very important. There's all these dollars that are offshore. They've just been out there, and we export a lot of them, and they're sitting there, and all of a sudden,

let's imagine I'm one of these foreign countries. It's like, ah, dollars or units? You know what? Let me mix it up, half of each. Well, what happens to those half the dollars I used to be holding, right? Well, off they go. And then those start coming home. And the way we experience that here in the United States is falling currency and rising prices for things like oil, anything that's internationally traded. The only thing now the Fed is actually in a box. It's going to have to raise interest

rates in order to defend that. Yes. Dollar, right? You have to raise interest rates in order to defend that yes dollar right you have to raise interest rates enough so that people go well do i want units but you know treasuries are yielding pick a number 12 that's good think about those higher interest rates slamming into an economy that has a hundred trillion dollars of debt on top of it now which is the total number not federal number people knows 35 trillion uh this is a problem can you imagine 12 trillion dollars getting you know going into just interest payments it's like that's half the economy anyway it's just it's the whole thing breaks very quickly this is what i want to alert people to is that i see the unit is a forcing function that potentially causes the Federal

Reserve to be on the defensive, not offensive part of the of the monopoly board. Oh, no doubt, no doubt. And it and all of a sudden, all of these programs to where they're spending and fiscally irresponsible to try to prop the economy up are gone overnight. And the American people aren't ready for it when the when their savings rate is down dramatically, like dramatically. And that made me think I was looking at, if I can find the chart here, I wanted to point out federal budget surplus or deficit.

Let me shorten this up a little bit and I'll show it because we're already in trouble. So you add that on top of it in the situation we're in. I mean, literally what is it that you do if you're in a situation in a battle and you want to avoid war, right? You wait till your opponent is in a very weak position and then you capitalize on that. We're in a position right now to where we put ourself in that weak foundation where they could take advantage of us. So, you know, and you go look at that deficit just here to bring it up. So you can see here, this is our deficit going back to what, 19, going all the way back to 1902. We stay in there,

we're fiscally responsible, we bounce a little bit and then woof. We haven't seen anything yet if interest rates were to jump dramatically. I mean, what is going to change this at this point with the policies that we have in place? And by the way, love the chart, but that's a cash accounting basis chart. The accrual basis accounting chart is actually two to three x worse than that on a yearly basis i love the fact that you point that out but two to three times worse so it's even worse yeah it is i just i this just went out um for people who haven't seen it i put out a piece about this treasury report but it's it's in black and white. It's right here. So let's take a look at this very quickly. Okay, so this is from the U.S. Treasury's annual report for 2023, right?

Get my little dotty tool out here. So it says here, well, the gross cost on an accrual basis for the government was $7.8 trillion, right, net cost. And we took in $4.4 trillion. So we actually had a $3.4 trillion negative net operating cost but they only reported a cash basis budget deficit of 1.695 call it 1.7 trillion where did the other 1.7 trillion go missing in action it's just stored for the future paul that's for your kids your grandkids that's for later right and of course

there it is in black and white and this is is is the landscape that i'm worried about because we're heading we're steaming into this full full steam ahead you know there's icebergs in the in the water full steam ahead you know and and we're just pretending like we're untouchable you know like like nothing it's not we don't really have to worry about this you know we dictate the terms of reality and and you got all those bricks nations over there very quietly preparing for a different reality uh it's wow it's big deal well and a bully can dictate the terms of reality until somebody punches them in the face. And that's my concern. We're acting like a spoiled rotten is an, is a,

is a leadership in our country, spoiled rotten bully. That's gotten everything they wanted. Their parents have bailed them out in every circumstance and now they've become a monster. Right. And, um, but one thing I got to thinking about, this just popped in my mind, so I pulled it up. You know, it was April 1st of 2019 when the G20 changed the asset classification on gold to move it from a tier three asset to a tier one asset. Now, if I remember correctly, a tier one asset is just considered, along with treasuries and the core holdings in the bank, one of the safest things that they can have. Yes, good as cash, treasuries, and gold. Those are tier ones. Cash, treasuries, and gold. But prior to April 1st, 2019, right, it was a tier three asset after it had been a tier one asset, what, in the 1990s?

So what is it in 2019? Is it that those bankers knew the unit had moved far enough along in its progression that it became a potential that that they get together and they're quietly change it to a tier one asset so they can start accumulating now whether they've accumulated or not i don't know i'd have to go back and take a look at that but but we can clearly see that this unit is gaining momentum and we've heard that they're going to announce it in the past. It's not happened. But the pressure keeps getting worse. And I wasn't able to find it here at the last minute, but I know there's been some issues or there's been some talk with what's taken place with extra sanctions that the U.S. is talking about putting on China so that they can restrict their ability to do business in rubles.

So it may be to the point now that China is like, hey, we got to implement this thing. And it's announced in October. And that's a game changer. I don't know what it does for the dollar immediately. Right. Because it's going to take some time for it to be adopted. But I would anticipate that that's good for gold. And maybe, you know, you go back and take a look at gold prices on those major breakouts. You know, that was a big deal when gold made that move earlier in the year. We just didn't know what was taking place because it's not U.S. investors that are chasing it. But maybe that's the one threshold that people said, hey, we're

not going to keep trying to wait and buy at this resistance level. We want it now because of what outcome is about to arise. Yeah, you know, gold has been just remarkably resilient. They keep spanking at it and doing their usual shenanigans. It's, you know, hanging tough above 2,500 an ounce. And it just speaks to, like as you and I have talked about, Paul, there's a change in the air. I've been watching gold for decades. I hate to say it, and I have talked about, Paul, there's a change in the air. I've been watching gold for decades. I hate to say it, but I have. My first gold purchase, and I remember I was like, this is so quaint.

It was $300 an ounce, give or take like 50 cents, right? And I remember because I used to watch it even back then, and I didn't have these instant daily updates. Like there was this website I could go to, and it would sort of update, I forget, twice twice a day or something but if it went up or down 50 cents or a dollar in a day that was big news right you know and that was then but you know that was at any rate uh it's watching so i've been watching it since 300 an ounce i kid you not daily when it's trading i've seen it since then so okay it's it started doing something different in 2022 i'd never seen before i don't have a model for it it's like operating in new ways and i'm just observing and seeing because i i have to come up with a new understanding i totally knew gold

before you if you could show me negative real interest rates and invert it i could tell you the price of gold whether it was going up or. If you showed me the movement in the dollar, the correlation was high enough, most of the explanatory function could come from that. One of those two things. Now it's just doing whatever the heck it wants to do, right? And so it's being driven by other factors, and I don't know what to correlate it with at this point. So just watching. But it's different, and I like it when things are different. It gives you some information. I do too. Well, and I have to show these because I love these two charts because they do give us a

lot of information just about the change. So this is gold on a monthly basis, and this is going back to 1995. And I've got, you know, some love that chart. Yeah. Red and green are just kind of, uh, cell signals that were generated, but we're flirting along and it's bouncing, it's bouncing and bouncing and boom, it breaks out. And we've held that breakout. I mean, so far, we've not even come back and tested prior resistance, which typically happens. And that's just a testament to the strength of the move in gold, especially with interest rates being high.

But this is one of my favorite charts that I like to look at from a long-term standpoint. So this is gold continuous contract going back to 1975 with a quarterly price to PMO or moving average that's over the bottom of it. And you can see that kind of was a, tells you to avoid it for a period of time. And then in the early 2000s, that moves on an offensive signal you take off, but look at this huge breakout that's taking place quarterly. You've got just continued follow-through on a quarterly basis, and we're nowhere near on the relative strength index overbought like we were back in 2011 and 2012. So, you know, whatever is causing gold to move, I mean, that's a, that's a sheer vertical move, like a near panic purchase, which the same thing occurred back in 2019. And then it consolidated and started to take off.

So, you know, there's, there are forces behind, and here's the interesting thing. Have you had a cabbie, an Uber, you know, have you had one of your grandkids call you up and say that they, you know, hey, mom, dad, you got to buy some gold, right? Nobody, there's no sentiment out there right now. So this is either sovereign institutions or professionals or foreign governments that are, you know, have been quietly picking it up. I would assume this is speculation on my part because I haven't had, I haven't had any general retail call me or anybody have a conversation about gold. And I was having all kinds of conversations. I could have lined up in 2012 if I'd have, if I'd have just started telling people to buy gold kind of at that price when sentiment was high and had people lined up down

the street and appointments six months out, you know, ready to buy it. And right now you still kind of have to convince even the ones who know that they need to own it, that it's, that it's a good asset to own because the there's just not that much retail momentum, but when it comes, it's going to be fun. There's a, there's another thing that used to track pretty well for me was grams of gold to buy a barrel of oil. It was a little noisy, but okay, it makes sense, right?

There's two physical things. They have a relationship, right? And they're both sort of correlated with the dollar, so there ought to be some. It was okay. It's a little noisy. Oh, boy, that's broken. That one just got shattered and broke completely and by the way not for nothing um but looking at this this is the price

of oil over time here and i hate these little pop-ups get rid of that so it's up a buck today just bouncing a tiny bit but here we see it's come all the way down from 85 in July. It's down at 67. It's down here in this range around 70, below 70. So it's just been going nowhere. I don't understand this because we're at the lower end of the five-year storage for OECD. We don't have a lot in storage right now. We don't have a lot in storage right now. We don't have a lot of new drilling

going on. Everybody's talking about where supply going to come from over the next few years. This looks like so Zero Hedge put it really well. You know, inflation is coming down. We just had an inflation reading today. They said, oh, inflation CPI in the U.S. is at its lowest since three years. Again, that doesn't mean we have.S. is at its lowest since three years. Again, that doesn't mean we have negative inflation. It just means it hasn't gone up as much as it has recently. I don't know why that's such a source of confusion for journalists, but second-grade math seems to elude them in this stuff. But at any rate, Zero had said that we are one energy shock away from just repeating the 70s.

Yeah. Right? So something happens in the Middle East. the strait of hermuz gets locked down something something if we get one of those geopolitical supply shocks or eventually people just wake up and go wow we should have invested over the past five years but forgot to because it was all this negative sentiment i paul i really think we're going to be seeing an oil shock in the next year or two. I just, I could be wrong, but I think we're going to see that. And then we're going to see part two of this inflationary hike. And then if that comes with this whole unit thing around the same time, a lot of things stacking up to say, wow, you better have a plan,

you know, and being paralyzed with fear. It's not a good plan. No, no, it's not. That's one of the things we've been talking about on the investment committee recently and having conversations around this, like, okay, you know, what, what if, what if we head down this path? I spend a lot of time scenario planning and I spend a lot of time actually planting seeds with clients so that they kind of have an indication of what we're going to do.

Because when it happens, right, we haven't had that happen in the past. I mean, we had oil shocks, right, but not a currency collapse. We've been basically built from not being the global reserve currency to the global reserve currency. So in America, the sun has been rising through all of history and it's panned out on our benefit, but because of, you know, and here's the thing that concerns me. Now, I don't know that I would have the restraint that some of the other countries do with the way we've treated them. When we're this week, we've opened ourselves up to an oil shock, to a financial shock, to a, you know, an, an, an economic an economic shock i mean just imagine if if if somebody got together and said we're just not going to ship oil or we're going to shut down

shipping in certain parts of the country what that's going to do to us so we have no armor we've opened ourselves up to our enemies to easily cause us a lot of pain. So that concerns me greatly. And it doesn't make sense that oil is just so oversold like it is right now. Well, speaking of mysteries, I know markets get a little bouncy near turns and tops and bottoms and all that but this one I don't understand this so the S&P is selling off here because CPI came in less than they thought so it kind of reduces the rate cut and then all of a sudden magically here at 1050 in the morning maybe 1045 it just decides ruler straight to go the other way this is over a hundred and sixty points Paul what in the news cycle came about to suggest it's time for 160 point ruler straight launch of the S&P?

Besides the fact that the Federal Reserve likes stocks to go up coming into elections. What else you got? Well, hey, I can build the narrative from this standpoint, the feds getting ready to cut and you know, so yeah, inflation was a little bit higher, but things are slowing. The feds getting ready to cut. So the market's off to the races. I mean, they have essentially trained Pavlov's dog, uh, the market participant like Pavlov's dog to buy this dip and Hey, rah, rah, re-asset prices are going to take off. So I think this is a psychological thing. And I think it's a

computer algorithm thing where the same psychology has designed the trading programs to be able to move, hey, anything that's going to increase the likelihood of a Fed rate cut, they're not going to let this market sell off. You better buy the dip because you're not going to keep up with the Joneses if you don't. So I think this is late market cycle, pure speculation for individuals that had convinced themselves this is the new way to invest. I mean, I think that people believe it's completely different this time that the Fed's going to save the day. And they look over at Germany and say, hey, they've had a bad recession and their market's going on to all time highs. So the U.S. is going to be OK. Yen carry trade started to blow up. I think that was a birth pain. I think that was a shot across

the bow for the investor who's willing to to walk the path less traveled. You've got to pay attention and look for your exits. But I think it's a psychological standpoint behind it, really, just from what I'm seeing out there. Maybe that's not dark enough. And I think it makes the powers that be really happy because, hey, if the markets are great into the election, that's one less thing they have to worry about stacking against the current administration is potentially not retaining power. Yeah, well, we know the Fed is completely a political animal, completely biased, and it will do what it can to keep markets stabilized, which is going up into the right. But the other way for me to interpret this is to say we're heading into like let's imagine you're really big money paul big money like you know trillions like your norway sovereign wealth fund or all the big big big money

they can't all move into gold they can't move couldn't even begin to move into silver it's just commodities just tiny so let's say you know the fed's gonna have to not just cut rates but start going back into QE. Every possible dip is just another opportunity to go a little bit longer because you know inflation is coming, and it's really hard to protect a trillion dollars from inflation. Like, let's say you're BlackRock. How much do they have now? 1.72?

I forgot what the number is. It's some ridiculous number. But if you're BlackRock, why isn't this just BlackRock saying it's the only game in town for dudes our size? That's true. Every time I see it bounce hard like that, I'm like, I'm worried that somebody knows QE is coming. I don't, right? I'm like out here in the cheap seats looking through the window, you know? Well, they're going to know before we are. One thing that I like to take a look at, just to kind of reference in the big picture, because when the market starts really getting gyrating like this, I just want to pay attention to support and resistance levels in the markets.

So what I'm showing here is basically the S&P 500 on a daily basis. The white lines, your 200-day exponential moving average, your 20-day. But we have this big bounce off of short-term support here, which is not uncommon. So we did kind of reverse around that area. At least there's a battle in place. But we've also stopped right here at the 20 20 day moving average but we've got a declining Trent you know tops in place lower highs the question is are we going to get lower lows so you know if we are topping in this market this is going to be a battle in this area right here and we're not going to

break through the top side of that range you know we may go may go lower. So bull markets aren't going to die easily because you've got market participants. You know, some people, if we get back close to this 200 day moving average, you're probably going to have some people get in there for a bounce. But, but, you know, in the big picture, it's still, to me, looks like we're in a topping process. And this is just part of that psychology that's taking place at least that's what i have the information changes i'll change my mind but that's what it looks like to me is we're in a topping process yeah and as you and i have discussed uh you know when do you get to the tops well when the fat lady sings as they say in the opera uh but that's when the fed sings right when the fed finally starts cutting rates that's when the Fed sings, right? When the Fed finally starts cutting rates, that's pretty reliably sell the news kind of a moment.

So the fact that the Fed is toying right now, the debate is, was it 25 or 50 basis points, you know? It's still a cut. It's still a change in trend. It's still somebody singing, you know? Well, and that kind of brings to mind a point, a conversation that I had over the weekend, which was, was very interesting. So, you know, I'm a big believer that if, if somebody, if somebody asked my opinion, especially when I'm out around public, I'll do it. So a lot of times people come up to me and they'll talk about the markets or whatever, but they never actually asked my opinion. So I never offer it unless they ask. Now, if they're a client, you pay for my opinion, you're going to get my opinion whether you ask or not, right?

I mean, that's what I'm supposed to do. But individual is talking. It's like, hey, man, you know, the market's going to be great going into the year. Fed's getting ready to cut. I am so excited. I'm kind of piling in all that first cut. So this is a retail investor that's in the construction industry, does it as a hobby on the side, gets all excited about it, enjoys it. And I do enjoy having conversations, but then you turn around and you read something like the mad King who puts out his research report

and other professionals on the institutional side is like, hold the markets until the first fed rate cut. So you've got this, this dichotomy taking place right now where you've got a retail investor that's so excited about this first Fed rate cut. And then you've got institutional professionals that this is what they've done for a living and there's seasons at it, right? That are saying, hey, the time to sell is after the first Fed rate cut. And the last time that the Fed cut rates, I think we talked about it last week, was September the 18th, 2007. And the market peaked within, what, 30 days after that?

And then we're down 57% over the next year and within the next year and a half. I think March 2009 was the bottom. The average stock bottomed in November of 2008, but the indexes didn't bottom until March of 2009. So that's what gave us an indication that that March 2009 was the time that you wanted to start, you know, getting a little bit more aggressive because your average stock bottomed in November of eight, but the indexes bottomed in March of 09. Interesting. Now you had a Mad King chart we looked at before we got on here.

That one with the divergences, I think that's worth sort of fits in the topic of what we're talking about here. This is the one we were talking about here, right Chris? So basically what he had gone through was he said, look, the economy is slowing. We've got all kinds of data that's showing that it is, but it hasn't mattered because payrolls have been strong.

But in here, we've got government, you know, U.S. total nonfarm payrolls going back to 1994. And then you've got the Mad King payrolls composite. So I put in here this divergence. But, you know, why after 30 years, why after 30 years of correlation, do we all of a sudden have non-correlation that's occurred? Huge non-correlation. Yeah. I mean, that that's tremendous. Well, if we take the evidences of what's taken place, you know, we're being told one thing, you're getting statistically all of these revisions to the numbers behind, and then truth is not honored or loved by the media or the politicians. And if they think that

they're operating in integrity, where they're just carrying their boundaries around them, right, there is no boundaries to them, then this is an indication that something has changed. And that adds, you know, you add the smoke and the evidence that they're lying in so many other areas. Can we trust the data that's coming out of the government now? That's my biggest question. I do not. This is just another piece of evidence that tells us we cannot. That's a, that's a massive divergence. You know, at least back in 1997, they're still headed in the same direction. One was a little bit higher than the other, but you know, they both stalled at the same time. They've had this correlation. And then all of a

sudden, you know, this is just another piece of data that tells us that the economy is not as strong as what they're telling us it is. What exactly is that red line? The red line that's under the nonfarm payrolls in black? Yeah. So that's the Mad King's U.S. payrolls composite. So that's something that he's put together as a composite to try to track the U.S. total nonfarm payrolls. Okay, that's interesting.

So we all know that that top black line, they've been lying about that, right? Because, you know, lying is when you systematically overstate something and there's a system to it. That means it's lying, right? So we know that the BLS has been lying about this to the tune of 818,000 jobs over the past year. And they just had to down, even here in 2024,

they had to downgrade the last two months. So they just say it's a big number and then they downgrade it so that top line probably has to come down now again this would be awesome stuff in a debate format because you know one of the things i hear from the biden harris side is they're like oh we created 13 million jobs they like to say that as if the president actually has anything to do with that, which they really don't. So they should just leave it aside. But even that aside, that red line says that actually we're about the same number of jobs, give or take a slight wiggle, as we were in 2019. Right. So we're really we've gone nowhere.

There's not you can't make a case for 13 million new jobs anywhere on that. Right. Not a chance. You cannot. And if I move it around, you're right. Very perceptive. That goes back to 2019. I was highlighting it basically stalling there, but you're right.

Yeah. That just basically tells you the entire narrative has to be wrong. And the revisions are telling us that. And the thing that concerns me the most about that is if you look at what's taken place, all of the computer trading algorithms are built on the headline because you could trust the headline numbers. So by the time the revision comes along, those computers have not, at least at this point now, if I'm a hedge fund manager and institutional investor at this point, I'm going to change my trading algorithm. I may trade the headline, but I'm also going to trade the revision. And, um, you know, I don't know if they'll do that or not, but that that's the

problem it's automated and they're taking advantage of that through their deception to try to make things look stronger than what they are. It's a, it's a plastic face. We don't love the reality. It is. And so let's talk about it. Cause if things are weaker than advertised, of course, you know, then, then the headlines aren't giving you the number. But this is from the Kobasi letter again, writing just a couple of days ago, wrote, this is insane. Quote, full time employment dropped by one million workers in August on a year over year basis, marking the seventh consecutive monthly decline since the June 2023 peak. Full time job count in the U.S. has fallen by a whopping one and a half million. Meanwhile, part-time employment rose by a million year over

year in August. And additionally, the number of permanent job losers jumped by 324,000 year over year to 2.5 million, highest since November 2021. So this is the longest streak of part-time job gains since the 2008 financial crisis this is the reality of the job market fewer full-time workers more part-time workers that is a sign of weakness not strength but they still all get counted in the non-farm payrolls is a part-time and a full-time counts as one each, right? So I disagree with that methodology. I think they ought to have different weightings, but that's okay. But then the real shocker, of course, has been, and I think this again, I won't read that out because we're probably on YouTube here, but this is coming from Geiger Capital saying, I thought this was a typo,

but in just August, 635,000 immigrants, legal and illegal, gained a job. Meanwhile, 1.325 million native-born Americans lost their job. And here you can see in red, foreign-born, illegal and legal. This is what they've gained. You can tell who's getting the love in this story. And the blue is native-born, and you you can tell who's getting the love in this story. And the blue is native born. And you can tell who's not getting the love in this story. And this needs to be talked about. What kind of an administration do you want? One that loves the red line or maybe spends more attention on the blue line? Is it mattered? Is it a difference? Should we be, you know, caring about one versus the other? But you can clearly see, Paul, at least to my eye, that this has not been a colorblind society where everybody has an equal shot.

And we're just bringing in new people to give them a fair leg up. Somebody has officially been leaning on tilting this so that one group of people is doing much much better than another group of people and again i think that's worthy of conversation i think we ought to be saying like let me fractal it down if in my town my town said hey chris your taxes are going to go up and in fact we need you to lose your job because we got these other people who we want to give free housing and a job to. So we need you to fund that. Obviously, you would go, I would say, how about no, right? No.

How about no? How about no? But this is what's actually been happening. And so, again, those algos can make stocks go straight up and that they're having their little fun time and then the headlines will be written about how great this all is and markets were cheered by stop we need to start talking about the fundamentals in this story which is a weakening economic environment an out-of-control government spending program if followed up by a federal reserve that just can't help itself whenever

wall street gets so runny nose it's there with a box of tissues giving them you know another bailout and so that's been the system and unfortunately it's created a weaker more uncertain future for our kids and grandkids and for the youth for the youth. It really has. And it's priced out. I mean, in every metric across the economy, you know, trying to, trying to buy your median household, median home, right? Your starter home. Our citizens are priced out. And then you've got states that are fronting money up front for non-citizens. So it's like, you know, the way I thought about it, it's like, I tell my kids that they need to go to college, but when it comes time for them to go to college, I don't fund their

college. I go fund somebody else's college and they have to go borrow money to get there. Right? So it doesn't make sense. Why would you not take care of your own as a family and then get that family strong and then reach out to be a blessing to others, right? We, we want the right people to come into our country. We want good people to come here. We want them to come here because they want to, to participate in the American way, their discipline. They, they fight, you know, for a better country and to pass what we've been able to inherit down to their children. We don't want to open it up and just give a blank checkbook to people who aren't going to

appreciate it because they're not coming here for the opportunity to be rewarded for their struggles. Okay. Some of them are, but when you wave this money out there, they're coming here to get something free. Okay. It's coming here so that I can have somebody take care of me, not so that I can come into a country that gives me the opportunity to be rewarded for my hard work. And, and we're, we're hurting American citizens, our own family. We're, we're taking away from them to give to others that, that don't necessarily appreciate that way of life. And it's just, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make,

it makes sense if you're a globalist and you want the U S to fall and you want to have all nations equal and you want a one world government that, that one, you know, that that's there, but it doesn't make sense if we're watching out for what's best for the American people. Absolutely. And of course, you know, again, it's just all gets confused. We can't have simple conversations. Look, we already had an immigration program. Immigration is a thing. It's a big, complicated process.

People apply. Somebody asked them a bunch of questions. We find out if they're a good fit, if they are in the come right. Migration ain't that process process that's just people just coming in from wherever unvetted it imagine again to bring it down let's imagine you have 10 people working you're you're you're you're a small manufacturing plant and you make stuff and it involves i don't know cad machines and lathes and you know it's complicated and the government comes in and says hey we got 10 random people you gotta you gotta bring them in you gotta you just 10 randos off the street now are your new workers you're like no how about no right that's going to be a disaster well if that's true there

is true everywhere right you don't like you would never bring in like as a landlord you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna go bankrupt pretty quick if you're just like you know the first person who decided to cut me a check is are my new renters you know uh that's not gonna work out either you might do a credit check a background check a criminal check a reference check there's some processes you would go through of course of course why is it any different at the national level it's not but that's the story we've we've been we've been living in and so i'm very worried about how this is gonna this is gonna play out because it's all sort of easy paul to absorb people sort of when things are okay but you know recessions happen resources get tight things don't always turn out the way you thought the unit comes along

and next thing you know the federal reserve is up against a wall and now now you watch the competition has to start up between native-born non-native-born as they say in the own in the federal reserve's own you know website however you want to characterize that i just think somebody has not been thinking this through from a dimension which the question was, how do we make this country and this world a better place? Right, right. I don't think that was the question. It's what can we do for our own benefit or for our globalist agendas, what it seems like

it will be. Yep, yep, which is a very abstract concept, and it's not grounded in reality, all of that. So, well, that's the time we have. And of course, your portfolio really ought to be grounded in reality, all of that. So, well, that's the time we have. And of course, your portfolio really ought to be grounded in reality and your conversations with your financial advisors ought to be grounded in reality. So I invite you, if you want to talk with Paul and his amazing team, please go to peakfinancialinvesting.com. Fill out a very simple form.

Somebody from Paul's team will be in touch with you within 48 business hours, if not sooner. And Paul, how's it been going so far? It's been going great. I had somebody today that made me feel so good because it's like, look, I've had so many conversations, and I've asked you things that I'm embarrassed to ask other people about, and you're not judging me. We're just having a conversation and how we plan for that. And my answer was like, we don't have to worry about that right now, but that's a great question. Here's how we'll deal with that. And here's the indication that we need to make that

adaptation when that time comes. And it's just enjoyable, you know, to me, that's what I've been doing for people for my whole career. And it's disappointing that, that, that there's not more of us in this industry doing that. Right. It is disappointing. So I enjoy it. It's been going great. Um, you know, we we're, we're continuing to add people to the team so that we can help provide, you know, the service that people deserve and, and help them navigate the days ahead. And that's the most important part. Just all the feedback I get, you work with people, not accounts. You deal with the people involved, and I love that. I love that about you and your team.

So with that, look, people, we talked about some stuff. Some of it seems a little dark. There are things you can do. I believe that being paralyzed is not a good strategy at this stage. Like it or not, we're in the game. The game is going on. We're going to have to make moves. Not making a move is a move.

That's where we are. You deserve to work with somebody who sees the world that way and can have an honest conversation about it all. With that, Paul, can't wait to see you soon. See you at the Summit, I guess tomorrow. Tomorrow. I'll wait to see you soon. See you at the summit, I guess, tomorrow. Tomorrow. I'll get to see you tomorrow. So looking forward to it. Fantastic. In person. So with that, thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week. And I hope

you enjoyed this episode of Finance U with Chris Martinson and Paul Kuyker. Thank you.