Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 769 | What REALLY Happened with Silicon Valley Bank & Why It Matters | Guest: Carol Roth

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Today we're joined by Carol Roth, economic pro and recovering investment banker, to discuss Silicon Valley Bank, which failed over the weekend. Carol breaks down what happened on Friday with Silicon Valley Bank's failure, reportedly the second-largest bank failure in history, as well as the subsequent failure of a second bank — Signature Bank. How did the Federal Reserve's rapidly rising interest rates contribute to this catastrophe, and how will it affect us? The implications of this extend far outside of California, so we discuss how much we should be concerned and why it's important not to panic, but instead hope for the best and plan for the worst. We close out with a change in pace as we review the best and worst looks from the Oscars last night. You can grab Carol's new book, "You Will Own Nothing," this July. Visit CarolRoth.com/nothing to pre-order your copy. --- Timecodes: (01:08) Interview with Carol begins (2:40) What happened with Silicon Valley Bank? (18:27) Short-selling stocks (19:40) The federal government's response (23:30) Is this Biden bailing out his liberal friends? (27:47) Revolution of global financial market (32:30) ESG & global elites (38:02) "You will own nothing" (46:20) Is there hope? (52:45) Oscars fashion --- Today's Sponsors: Good Ranchers — change the way you shop for meat today by visiting GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE and use promo code 'ALLIE' for $20 off your first order. Subscribe in March and you can get free bacon for a year. Also this month, you can potentially win over $2000 in free meat (free meat for a year!) by filling out your March Meatness bracket at goodranchers.com/march. Epic Will — be intentional about your family, your values and your wishes. Go to EpicWill.com/ALLIE and you’ll save 10% on your complete Will package. Seven Weeks Coffee — Seven Weeks is a pro-life coffee company with a simple mission: DONATE 10% of every sale to pregnancy care centers across America. Get your organically farmed and pesticide-free coffee at sevenweekscoffee.com and let your coffee serve a greater purpose. Use the promo code 'ALLIE' to save 10% off your order. Nefarious — catch the psychological thriller (based on the book by Steve Deace) that deals with the true nature of good and evil, out April 14 nationwide. Watch the trailer now at whoisnefarious.com. --- Links: Bloomberg: "Signature Seized by Regulators as Pain Spreads From SVB’s Fall" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-12/signature-bank-closed-by-new-state-regulators-fdic-says#xj4y7vzkg New York Post: "While Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, top executive pushed ‘woke’ programs" https://nypost.com/2023/03/11/silicon-valley-bank-pushed-woke-programs-ahead-of-collapse/ The Verge: "Etsy is delaying seller payouts following Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse" https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/12/23636379/etsy-delaying-seller-payouts-silicon-valley-bank-collapse --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise – use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. One of America's largest banks, Silicon Valley Bank, has failed. The repercussions of this go beyond the bank itself and beyond California. This story actually has significance for us, for our lives. And also tells us a lot about the federal government, about economic policy, and the goal of those.

at the World Economic Forum to force people eventually to rely on a centralized government-run bank. So here to break this all down, explaining it to us like we are five in the words of Michael Scott. And to actually make us feel a lot better about this chaos is Carol Roth, economic expert and former investment banker. Then we've got a fun, unrelated segment, rating some of the best and worst of Oscars attire. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout for a discount.

That's good ranchers.com code Alley. Carol, thanks so much for taking the time to join us on what I know is a busy day for you. Can you tell us a little bit first about who you are and what you do? Sure. I kind of call myself a collector of experiences. I'm a recovering investment banker and author. author. Many people know me from Twitter or television investors sit on board. So I do all kinds of things, but I really have come from the financial space. And I think what makes me different than a lot

of folks out there is I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. So I came from a father who was an electrician, a mom who was sort of a hobby entrepreneur. And they really believed in the American dream. And I have been able, you know, through their hard work and then my own hard work to achieve that American dream. And I see that being tamped down for a lot of people. So it's my passion point to preserve that for everybody. Yeah. And that's exactly why we wanted you specifically on because there's a lot of financial experts out there. But look, my, my audience, we don't typically focus on financial stories. It's. just not really my beat and it's not always the primary interest of my audience. But yesterday I

asked on Instagram, as I often do on Sundays, what do you want to hear about? And almost every answer was tell me what is going on with Silicon Valley Bank. What is this? Should I care? Does it affect my life? Is it just a bunch of rich tech entrepreneurs that got screwed or what's going on here? So let's back up. What is Silicon Valley Bank and just kind of in summary, what? What happened on Friday? Yeah, so Silicon Valley Bank was one of the 20 largest banks in the United States. And this is why the story has become so big. They were a big friend and partner to the technology industry.

So if you think about all of the startups in Silicon Valley, a very large portion of them, as well as other small businesses and individuals and other businesses had relationships that built this up into a very formidable, what we would call a regional bank, not necessarily one of the ones you would see all across the country, but they did have a few different geographic locations. So that's a little bit about who they are. What happened to them is, you know, a crazy story that we have to kind of rewind a little bit and talk about the Federal Reserve. And the Federal Reserve is this quasi-private public entity that is charged with keep stability in the economy. They are supposed to hold down inflation and they're supposed to maximize

employment. As you can probably guess based on what's going around, they're not doing the best job with that. And unfortunately, as this sort of central planning entity, they are, in my own words, sort of playing God with the economy and the financial markets saying us as a small group of people are going to make these policy decisions and everything is going to flow from there and it ends up having ripple effects. So coming out of the Great Recession financial crisis, one of the things they did is they decided to make policy to basically spur the economy. And part of what they did was hold down interest rates at an artificial level and that injected a bunch of money into the economy so that the economy could grow and come out of

the Great Recession financial crisis, a quote unquote emergency measure. The problem is that they kept that emergency measure in place for the greater part of 15 years. And so when you do something that is unusual and you have this central planning kind of putting their thumb on the scale, there's always going to be reverberations. So fast forward to today and the COVID policies that came out of 2020, you had the Fed again standing by taking, taking their interest rates down to zero. There was government stimulus in the economy, and there was a lot of money sloshing around trying to find places to go. So in the Silicon Valley, all of the businesses and individuals went to the bank,

and they deposited their money in the bank, and the bank grew their deposits by like triple the amount. They tripled them between 2019 and 2021. Now, what the bank is supposed to do then, take that money and loan it out. But unfortunately, at this point, people had had enough loans or they couldn't find enough great companies. It's kind of the end of the financial cycle. And this is in, this is during COVID? So is that part of the reason why maybe not as many people were taking out loans during that time? They just weren't taking a lot of risk. That potentially could be a reason as

well, or that, you know, the bank was perhaps concerned about what the business would look like coming out of COVID and wanted a little bit more information. So they couldn't find anything to do with all of these deposits they had taken in. They weren't going to lend them out. So they said, we're just going to invest them. And they decided to invest them in what they thought would be safe. Treasury securities, mortgage-backed securities. What's that? I'm sorry to ask you probably such a rudimentary question. But what's a security? What's a treasury security and a mortgage-backed security? Yeah, so a treasury security is basically how the government finances itself. It puts out obligations that people say, oh, the government is going to pay back.

And they have very different durations. They can be really short durations or they could be 10 years or they could be 30 years. That's sort of kind of the spread from a very short number of maybe 30 days up to 30 years. So all across the spectrum, mortgage back securities. just like, same thing like what it sounds like, it's packaging up mortgages and saying, you know, basically this is what's going to back the security. So these are considered kind of the stability factor for the financial system. So the bank said, we're going to go put our money in these. This should be safe. We're going to get, you know, at the time, as I said, the interest rates were

very low. So we're going to get, you know, one plus percent, you know, more than one, but less than 2%, but they lock that up for 10 years. Instead of buying maybe a one year or a two year or even a five year security, they locked that up for 10 years. And this was incredibly stupid because these are bankers. And the head of the Silicon Valley Bank was also a member of one of the regional Fed banks. So they should have known at some point that the Fed was not going to be able to keep interest rates artificially low forever and interest rates would increase. And what happens with bond securities, like a treasury, for example, is when interest rates go up, the bond prices go down and vice versa. They balance each other out. So there's an inverse proportion there. So when the Federal Reserve

ended up in a situation where there was tons of inflation and they had to feel like they had to do something, that's when they decided to raise interest rates, which again, something that if you are a banker, you should have known that that was coming. And what did we just say? There's an inverse relationship between the bond prices and the interest rates. So when the interest rates go up, the bond prices go down. The Fed raises interest rates. Allie, what happens to the bond prices? It goes down. It goes down. Exactly. So we've got that inverse relationship. So you have these 10-year bonds, treasuries, mortgage-backed securities that are on the balance sheet, which if they hold them for the 10 years, it doesn't matter because they're still going to get to maturity.

They're not going to lose any money. They're going to get paid their interest rates. But if for some reason they had to sell them, then the market is now saying they are worth less because we could get more interest buying a different bond. So we're going to pay you less for the one that has a smaller interest rate. So as interest rates are going up, the people who have their deposits in the bank are going, well, I'm not getting very much on my deposit in the bank, Silicon Valley Bank. I can go buy a treasury, which, you know, over recent days and weeks, you could get 5% on a treasury of a short duration.

So I'm going to pull my money out and I'm going to go look somewhere else. Or maybe because the economy is slowing down, I'm going to pull more of my money out for operations. capital. So they had this money locked up and now they can't pay back all of these depositors who are pulling out more money than was expected. So to do that, they had to sell their bonds at a loss. Now again, they lost money. They did on that, which again, they shouldn't have had to do. There are other things they could have done. They could have gone out and, you know, raise capital. But just the way they communicated this to the market and the steps that they took, their customers who are very close-knits, they're in Silicon Valley, they're all talking to

each other on Slack channels, go, oh, my goodness, did you see what's happening? If more people pull it out, they're not going to be able to cover all of this. I better get my money out now. And that created panic for the next person. And that created panic for the next person. And all of these entities started pulling money. money out, which is what is considered a bank run. And if the individuals don't feel comfortable and in good faith that their deposits are secure, particularly in this case, because so many

of these were corporate clients, they had balances that far exceeded the insurance limits from FDIC, there were just a ton of uninsured balances, which made them even more. more eager to pull that money out and create safety. And that created the situation that we're in today. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity,

and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about

where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Okay, let me see if I can summarize it and you correct the points that are incorrect. And so basically, okay, so let me go back. So you said from 2019 to 2021, people were taking out fewer loans than they had before. But banks have to put their... But on top of that, they had put in a lot of money.

So people were depositing a lot of money. So they had all this money to loan out, but not enough loans to get out. Okay. But, and that is how banks typically put their money to work. So when people are depositing money, they typically use that money when people are taking out loans, correct? But because fewer people were taking out loans, they put them to work in a different way, which was through these mortgage-backed securities, through these Treasury securities. That didn't work out for them for a number of reasons. They didn't foresee, for some

reason, the interest rates would go up. So the value of those bonds went down. So when people started then, okay, you're going to have to, you might have to pick up from there. Basically, they had to sell those bonds at a lower value so they lost money. So they didn't have enough money when people wanted to take their money out to give them the money. And so then people started freaking out and saying, well, I want my money before you run out of all of your money. And then they didn't have enough money to give to the people that wanted to take out all of their money. And that's called a bank run, right? Basically, I think a couple of points to underscore here just so that everyone can really dig in

is that if people weren't pulling out their deposits at a higher rate than they had anticipated, they anticipate some level of people are going to pull their deposits, that's normal course of business. So they certainly had some plans for that. But it was the fact that they had more people who were pulling it out than they had anticipated. So these long-term securities, which again, if they had held them the 10 years, they wouldn't have had to take a loss on them, today were trading. at a loss. So it was what we call a timing issue and a liquidity issue. They didn't have enough

money to be able to pay back today. It wasn't that they were insolvent. It wasn't even that they had made toxic or bad loans or, you know, kind of bad bets that went sour in the moment. It was a really this timing issue. And that's something, as I said, again, that a bank of that size and sophistication should have been able to work around. And frankly, the Federal Reserve, who's stepped in here to create some backstops, could have done that at that point in time. I don't know if they were just arrogant or just in such a bubble

that they didn't realize that this communication, the way that they were going to communicate this issue to the market, was going to cause their clients to panic and to accelerate the pullouts. of these deposits, but that's what ended up happening. And then, you know, once you have it that happened with one bank, then everybody else starts to panic. And the system is built on people not panicking.

It's built on trust, right? It's built on trust, which, you know, given the fact that the dollar is only backed by faith and trust in the U.S. government, which is really the, you know, U.S. economy and the productivity of U.S. workers, you know, there's not a lot backing it there. So when anything happens to breach that, particularly given the broader macroeconomic backdrop, it's not like we have this fabulous economic backdrop and everyone's like, oh, you know, this should be fine. People are sort of on edge about what's going to happen and what's going to be the next shoot-a-drop. And there are a lot of parallels in the broader market that are reminding people of previous financial crisis times

and just little data points that are putting everyone on edge. so nobody wants to be left holding the bag here. Yeah, so this is like if people want to reference point in popular culture, if you think of that famous scene, and it's a wonderful life when they're about to leave for the honeymoon, and then he looks around and he sees that there's a bankground happening. At the bank, I forget what the bank is called. I can't think of it at the top of my head on it's a wonderful life.

And he has to go back there and all the people run into the bank. and they say, I want my money out. And he's like, oh, I'll give you as little money as possible. But I can't give you your money because it's not actually here. It's in your home. And it's in your home. And so I can give you a little bit, but I can't give you this $200 that you have here. And then, of course, part of the movie is about them building back up through

people's charity. But anyway, and so if people kind of want to understand a little bit of what is going on here, it's not an exact parallel, of course. So people have been talking about afterwards, people are shorting the stock. What does that mean? What does shorting the stock mean? And how does that relate to what happened to SVB? So there's two different mechanisms in terms of making a bet against the stock.

So normally, you know, we think about stocks. We think a great stock is going to go up. We buy the stock because we think that it's going to go up, right? If you think the stock is going to go down and you own it, you sell the stock, right? because you want to protect whatever you've made or you don't want to incur more losses. But if you don't own the stock and you decide it's still going to go down, you might borrow that stock from somebody who does own it and then sell it, hoping that it goes down and then you can collect your money and, you know, pay back the person that you borrowed from.

So that's basically the idea behind short selling. But there was a tremendous downward pressure, both in companies or excuse me, investment firms that owned this company directly as well as those who wanted to make bets against Silicon Valley Bank, as well as other regional financial firms. And frankly, as well as the big banks because right now everybody's nervous, what does this mean for bank earnings and the financial system, regulation and so on and so forth. So it really does spread throughout the financial system. And tell me how the federal government is responding to this or is poised to respond to it. Yeah. So what we know right now, and this is all unfolding real time, is, you know, this, by the way, happened really, really quickly.

Normally you don't see something unfold. I mean, this happened within 48 hours of the panic and the decision to close the bank. So this was sort of unprecedented, particularly for a bank of this size. So what happened over the weekend is that the federal government, you know, the Fed and the Treasury put out a joint press release together that said they are basically going to make sure that anybody who is not only a depositor of this bank, but another bank that they closed, signature bank, another regional bank, this one was based in New York, that they closed this other bank, but they said, we are going to make sure that whether you exceed that FDIC insurance limit,

we're going to make sure your deposits are secure. And this is a very specific thing. They have very specific ways that they're doing it. One of the narratives that's going around is that this is a bank bailout. And I disagree with that. And it's very nuanced, but they're not protecting the shareholders. They are not protecting management. They have shown management the door. They are basically just trying to create some of that, restore some of that faith in the system so that this doesn't become a full on contagion and they don't want everybody to panic

from their financial institutions. So they said, we're stepping in here. We're going to make sure, because remember, I told you that the securities that they had to sell were good security. They were just long duration. So the Fed and the Treasury basically said, okay, well, we'll just, you know, we'll take those on. We'll create the, you know, we'll hold the money from that. We'll give a loan against that just to make sure everybody is taken care of. And that's frankly what they should have done before causing this panic. But, you know, we're here today because

nobody decided to do that. So they're trying to create this feeling that there is faith in the system and you don't have to worry the government will be there for you. So they've given sort of an somewhat explicit manner of what they're going to do for these two particular banks. And then they have also basically given a general blanket that, hey, we're going to shore up the whole financial system. We're going to make sure all the banks are safe and you don't have to worry. But they haven't been real explicit about what happens if this were to happen somewhere else. So we'll see. We'll see if that's good enough to sort of, you know, allay people's fears or if that's not good enough and they're going to need to be more explicit about what steps they're taking.

But that's the dialogue that has come out, you know, as of, you know, the beginning of the day Monday. And, you know, this narrative is probably far from over. Okay. So you disagree with those who are saying because I would say people on the conservative side are saying, while Biden is just bailing out these billionaires because they're his liberal friends or whatever, you don't think that's really what's going on. I mean, here's the alternative. And let's just let's talk about how this works.

So let's take a company like Etsy. Are you familiar with Etsy? Wonderful site, a lot of artists and entrepreneurs who are selling their wares. So the parent company of Etsy keeps their money, all the cash that they use to manage their business in Silicon Valley. Bank, or not all of it, but a large chunk of it in Silicon Valley Bank. So if you have sold on Etsy and you're awaiting payment from them, their payment is now, or before this was not available. They had to put a note out to their entire customer base saying, you know, we're trying to sort through this. Like we might not be able to pay you for some time. And God forbid this, you know,

became a bigger thing. It may be at all. So do you really want those small business owners who are, you know, making wonderful products to not get paid because you're trying to stick it to some Silicon Valley bro. Like I don't understand the mentality. If this was called, you know, small bank of, you know, Iowa, I don't think people would be having the same reaction. So again, the shareholders were not protected. The management team was not protected. But if you all of a sudden put out the signal that we're not going to help deposit. We're basically going to take down the entire banking system. And, you know, we have many more people's deposits who will be at risk.

We have a lot of small businesses who will be at risk. And it will, you know, potentially could just collapse the entire financial system. Now, that being said, not to say that there aren't many, many problems with the U.S. financial system and we're in a slow burn towards a new financial world order anyway. but I'm not in the camp that we like torched a whole thing overnight. I don't think that would be great for people. I'd rather inform people, have them get prepared, do what they can to protect themselves, and then let, you know, everything.

Try to avoid that, but if it goes in that direction, at least be prepared for that. So I think that the narrative around, oh, this is a bailout for, you know, Biden is really politicizing. If Trump were there and it was called the Small Business Bank, of Iowa, people would be feeling different. So think about it on principles, not on the specific names attached, and know that just because it starts there doesn't mean that it ends there. And this would not be a good outcome for just about anybody. You put it this way, or one point this way, on Twitter. You said a key takeaway from the Silicon Valley Bank drama is the same as it ever

was. The Fed is a consolidator of wealth over time, the biggest and wealthiest benefit from Fed policy at the expense of everyone else. the great consolidation continues on the back of the Fed. And something that I've seen you talk about in commentary is this kind of movement towards, I mean, this would be, again, kind of the slow burn and the radical long-term goal of getting rid of banks. And the Fed's saying, you know what, but we're here. You don't need all of these little banks. We are the central bank that you really can trust.

And this is kind of a movement that we're seeing globally. So tell us a little bit about that and how this, does perhaps play into what I know you write about a lot, which is this radical revolution of not just the American, but also the global financial market. Yeah. So let me draw a parallel that I think people will be able to really understand between what happened here and what happened with COVID policy. What happened with COVID policy is they said small businesses, you need to shut down.

And these big companies that do the same thing as you do. we're going to keep them open. And so the dollars went from small businesses to the biggest companies in the world. And then as I mentioned, when we were first starting this conversation, the Federal Reserve came in with their policy, which jacked up the stock prices. I mean, you had, I think it was seven tech companies that gained $3.4 trillion in value during 2020 on the back of both this direct policy of shutting down small businesses and then the Fed policy of suppressing interest rates, easy access to capital, cheap access to capital.

And so what that did was it consolidated more money and power within these bigger entities and less against the decentralized part of the economy in terms of small business. And you're seeing the same thing here that to the extent that you say, well, you know, we can't trust these regional banks, you know, they're a systemic risk. risk or you let them completely fail and then you change around some of the laws, you know, because it's a crisis and an emergency that would allow some of the bigger banks to pick off, you know, some of their assets. It is that, again, that consolidation taking away from smaller, even though this was a top 20 bank, you know, it's still a lot smaller than the JP Morgan's and the Wells Fargoes and the Bank of Americas of the world. It's that movement towards consolidating power in a handful of banks or even worse that they use the cover story, as you had alluded to, as well, we can't have bank runs. You know, we can't have this scenario where your deposits aren't available.

So the Fed, we're just going to control this all with a digital dollar, and you'll never have to worry about that. The downside of that is the loss of freedom and control. What they're trying to do and what they're exploring and their tests that they're conducting as we speak on central bank digital currencies or CBDCs is the ability for them to have complete control. I mean, imagine like a dollar that you have sitting around. Imagine it had a tracking chip in it. And they could track the movement anytime you went and you see. spent. And if they didn't like what you were spending on, theoretically, they could say, sorry, that dollar isn't valid today. Or it's only valid if you spend it with these stores.

I mean, think about how much power and control that would give them. And for anyone who thinks this is a conspiracy, we've all lived through COVID. And we saw the things that were done here, Canada, around the world. It's not a very big leap to think that that could happen. And plus, we're actually already seeing banks, not a central bank, but we're already seeing banks and credit card companies saying, well, we're not going to allow you to use these funds to purchase a gun. You're not going to be able to go to these gun stores. And so, I mean, if these quote unquote private companies are already kind of imposing

their values on the customer by saying you're not going to be allowed to use your own. money to be able to purchase things that we don't politically agree with, then of course, I think that we can all understand. We can all deduce very easily that the federal government would certainly do that. And we already see that kind of thing in China. So tell us what ESG, which we've talked about several times on the show, environmental, social governance score, these points that basically all of these companies are trying to score. Tell us what this has to do. with this because as I've seen a lot of people report, Silicon Valley, very high ESG score. That means in kind of our terms, extremely woke. There were a lot of reports on the different

risk management people at SVB who were very focused on diversity, very focused on equity and inclusion and all of the different activism sectors in the left wing world. And, you know, I don't know if one has to do with the other, but I'm curious to hear. your assessment? I mean, were they too woke for their own good? Or are those kind of two separate issues? So I always hate the word woke because I don't think that it always communicates, you know, some of the deliberate and nefarious actions that are going on around things like ESG. I mean, ESG is business social credit. It's a score, but it's not a well-defined score because it changes based on the whim and the decisions and the needs of, you know, these group of elite and what it is

that they want to have benefit them by the day. And that's very, very scary. And so they're using mostly like the World Economic Forum, but also the global leaders that are kind of in with the WEF. Yeah. I mean, all of the political and business elite that are tied into, you know, the UN, the W.EF, and a number of organizations around the W. world and this is infiltrated. And it's really kind of crazy because if you go into organizations who are pushing ESG, a lot of times the CEO doesn't know what it means. I met somebody who was in charge of ESG for a publicly traded company who'd never even heard of the World Economic Forum. So they don't even know where these ideas are coming from. But yet it's sort of, you know,

basically creating a distraction. And I think that's the message that we want to take away here. it's not necessarily, you know, a cultural war other than we don't want people who are in a small group of people coming in and using business and using your own investment funds to be able to push their political agenda. Businesses work for certain reasons. And one of them is their laser focus on creating shareholder value. And when you push things like ESG and all of the other alphabet soup that's related to it and you have the bank that's focused on trying to please these other masters, it does take the eye off the ball. So I think it's a very valid question is whether it's at the SEC level, whether it's at the Fed, whether it's within the banks,

all of these pushes for climate justice and, you know, DEI and all of these things that aren't related to running a business. What kind of impact are they having? on really important businesses that are fundamental to the economy running smoothly. And I think that that is an important takeaway and one that we should not push to the side, that businesses need to be focused on their shareholders, their directors need to be doing a fiduciary duty, making sure that the shareholders are being taken care of. And within the market mechanisms, other things sort themselves out. And if we start distracting them, you know, not only are there evil ideas being infiltrated, but it really can bring down really important systemic businesses that will completely obliterate

the economy. Now, you can make the argument that that's intentional. I'll leave that up to you. But whether it's intentional or incompetence, the outcome is still bad. And so we still need to stand up and say, enough's enough. We can't have more of this. infiltrating the business space. Yep. And people are concerned about this. And I think rightly so, not just in the banking industry, not just when it comes to economic issues, but really every industry.

People are worried about this. You know, as you mentioned, alphabet soup, all of the different, you know, acronyms that are a part of left-wing activism, distracting students in the education system. Is that why our reading levels are so low? And they are spending less time learning math and science in more time learning about so-called gender equity or whatever it is. We're worried about that in the aviation industry. We're worried about that in the medical industry. That actually these people who should just be focused on excellence, should be focused on competence, should be focused on safety.

I mean, there's a finite number of hours in a day and especially in the workday. And so what are we sacrificing in order to focus our efforts, our energy, our time, our excellence, our money on this left-wing activism, that we are actually told, oh, well, we can do both. We can focus on DEI and all of these inclusion efforts and be competent. Well, I say prove it, because actually what's being proven in all of these different industries is the opposite. You're proving that taking time away from competence and excellence and serving your customers and all of that stuff and focusing on activism is actually manifesting itself in a lot of chaos and a lot of failure in all of the different industries that we just list it.

And you mentioned, okay, either it's just incompetence, all these well-intentioned people just really do want a more equitable and inclusive world, and I'm sure that's true of some of them, or if it is a, you know, a purposeful decline. And you're writing a book or you've already written it. It comes out this summer about you will own nothing. Well, everything we're talking about, especially in the last few minutes, is a part of that. That is a slogan that we've heard from the world. economic forum by 2030 or whenever it is, you will own nothing and be happy. And it's hard for me

to hear that motto and to see the decline of all of these once excellent industries, especially in the United States, because of these left-wing efforts and not think, well, it seems purposeful to me. It seems purposeful to me to put all of our trust, you know, out of the private sector and put it into the government. And then the government has all the power in the world to, quote unquote, take care of us. So tell us how you see it. Tell us what this book is about and how some of what we're talking about today has to do with that. Yeah, so it's interesting. Financial world orders go and cycle. This idea that a new financial world order is coming about sounds very conspiratorial until you look back in history. We have been the world's reserve currency and kind

of the center of the financial world for about 80 years. I know that we all think it's been since the beginning of time, but it hasn't. It was the British before us. It was the Dutch before the British. If you go even further back, you know, it was the Roman Empire. And these empires, financial empires, always rise and they always fall based on the same issues and their things like debasing the currency and the government getting too big and taking on too much debt and they get desperate. So we know that that is happening. And we just don't know how long. we have until things change. But the people who are smart and well-connected see this happening. And so they are, in my opinion, jockeying to come out on top based on whatever reshuffling of the

financial order is going to happen. And we see the events that happened over the last few days. And there's no doubt that that is tied in to late stage financial empire stuff. And as we saw, the elite jockeying to make sure that they're taking care of. So there are all of these different things that are happening at once, you know, whether you have the push for social credit at the individual level or the business level through ESG, you know, the Fed exploring this central bank digital currency, big entities, corporations, competing with you to buy single family homes, big wealthy people buying up, land and water rights.

Yeah. And you're talking about Black Rock, Vanguard, probably others that I haven't even heard of. Yeah. I mean, on the land and water rights, you know, Harvard University, that what I call the hedge fund was masquerading as a university or what the university is attached. You know, they are going out and they're doing all these things that are creating impediments to ownership.

And ownership is what creates wealth. You know, it's one thing to make a living. But when you put that money to work from you, when you build assets that retain value and have the opportunity perhaps to even grow in value, that's what locks in your wealth. And at every turn, every sort of aspect of the financial elite, whether it be the government and the Fed, whether it's these big global NGOs and big businesses and big tech, you know, they're all working to. secure more of that for themselves and in the process leave you owning nothing. So what the book

will do is explain everything that's going on, you know, kind of like we've been doing here, very easy to understand, broken down by topic. And the message isn't for you to panic. It's to give you the tools to fight back. I want you to own everything. I want you to get in to hard assets and to be figuring out ways that you can shift your financial. lifestyle so that you are creating that opportunity to own things. Because if you don't have that ownership, you will not be able to pursue that, that American dream. And frankly, if you own nothing, they own you. And we cannot have that. Every sort of, you know, isom, you know, Marxism, communism, you know, any bad sort of central planning part of the spectrum, they don't believe in property rights

because you owning something gives you power and gives you that opportunity to create wealth and independence and freedom and they don't want that. And unfortunately, we're moving in that direction. So we need to band together and fight and preserve that American dream for everybody. And nowadays, just with how the economy is, you don't just fall into ownership. It takes a lot more strategy and a lot more foresight and a lot more thought than it did before, which is why people like you and your book are so important. because I mean, not all of us are going to kind of have those natural skills and that natural knowledge of how all of this works. How do we make sure that we invest in those hard assets?

How do we make sure that we are owning? There was a time maybe in our parents or even grandparents generation when ownership was just kind of the default. That was what you were able to do pretty early on in life. If you got yourself a good job, you can own a house and, you know, own it for 30 years. Now that's just a lot tougher. Even young people who are making pretty good money in their first job, they don't feel like they can afford a mortgage. They don't feel like they can afford a house. And so they're renting everything, which... If I can mention to you.

So this is one of the things we dig into the book that was so fascinated to me is that millennials, you know, in that sort of 35 to 45 age range, actually make more money on an inflation ingested basis. So counting for inflation than Gen X did or the boomers did. I believe that. So you have more opportunity. in terms of earning power, but so much less wealth, including, like you said, in terms of real estate. And that has to do with the way that the Fed has distorted the market. They brought down the

interest rates. They've made the capital more cheap, you know, and available. But it's inflated the cost of those assets so much. So, you know, our parents and grandparents, when they went to buy a house, maybe their mortgage rate was really high, but that house was affordable. And that dynamic has completely flipped. And now it has not only favoring the wealthy and well connected, but within the last 12 years, you now have corporations who are coming in to compete to rent you the American dream. And we do not want to rent the American dream. We want to own the American dream. I know that you talk about individual changes that we can be making in our lives to kind of combat that. But I mean, is there any hope for top down change when it comes to that? I mean, it just seems

like such a huge problem. I mean, how do we really compete against the power of the Fed? To me, it's probably the fault of both Republicans and Democrats when it comes to this kind of policy. And so, I mean, is there any hope that things can change? They can go back to a time when it was, you know, if you're making $100,000 a year, you can afford a pretty good house and be comfortable with your family or not really. So I would say there are two answers to that. I mean, there absolutely is a trajectory and a path here. Do I think that there are politicians who have the wherewithal the backbone to come in and do what's necessary? It's really tough. Have not seen it yet. So, you know, that's really going to take some major fortitude. And unfortunately,

politicians tend to be very reactive, as we've seen in the events over the last few days. You could have prevented this. But no, you've chosen to act once there was panic. And unfortunately, that's the way that, you know, things go. But are there things that you can do individually to change your lifestyle to put yourself in a better position and whether it's owning some precious metals or maybe looking to own a smaller, you know, home in a location that, you know, isn't your first location choice, but a second location choice. There are choices that you can make to make sure that you are insulated so that whenever this completely becomes unraveled and there is a financial changeover, as again has been done in history before, you know, Bretton Woods for the

United States, but before that with the British and the Dutch, this is not a conspiracy theory. This is very well documented throughout history that when these changes happen, that you're putting yourself in a good position. And one of the data points that I've been pointing to is central. banks over the last year bought a record amount of gold, 1136 tons, which the first time they sort of kept track of this was 1950. It was the largest year since then. So if central banks think that that's something that they need to do to kind of support their financial foundation, it may or may not be right for you, but it certainly is an interesting and compelling data point.

So it's all of those kinds of things that if you're not talking about finances and you don't want to kind of deal with it, I get it. But at some point, you're going to need to take control of your financial future to create that American dream for yourself and for your family. And it can be a scary thing. And so that's why I want to be here and be a partner and help, you know, kind of demystify this and make it easy for people because, you know, as an American, we still have people coming here from every part of the. the globe trying to pursue that American dream, you know, we need to preserve that opportunity because it's something that's really special, you know, in terms of the history of the world. Well, Carol, thank you so much. Thanks for breaking that all down. Honestly, I feel better after hearing you explain it. There are still some scary things in the world, but

definitely hearing you reasonably kind of talk through what this actually means and that there are steps that we can take in our own lives to protect ourselves and to protect our family is a really good reminder. So thank you so much. Again, your book, you will own nothing. It'll be out this July. It's available for pre-order now, though, right? It is. It is. And in fact, if you go to carolwroth.com slash nothing, we're actually going to be doing some really cool pre-order bonuses. So you can go right now and pre-order it. But if you want to get a bonus, which I always like to get a little something extra, you want to own something. Yeah. Go to Carol Roth.com.com slash nothing. Leave your email. And then I'll get back to you and, you know, when we have the bonuses up, which I think should be really soon.

But I think, to Ellie, to take away what you were saying, it is, you know, basically you want to pray for good outcomes. You want to pray that we're going to have that calmness, but you also want to prepare for chaos. So, you know, you want to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It's not about panicking. It's just about preparation. So hopefully if you move through it that way, that will give you some comfort. And also, you know, anybody in your audience who wants to reach out for me and reach out to me and need some reassurance. I'm very accessible as well. Pray for a call and prepare for chaos. I like that. That's really good. And a good note to end on. And yes, we'll put the link to that, Carol Roth.com slash nothing, correct? Correct.

And we'll put that link in the description and everyone pre-order your book, follow you on Twitter and all that good stuff. Thank you so much, Carol, for taking the time to talk to us. Thanks for making this platform available. I appreciate it. Okay. Now for a fun little segment on the Oscars. I don't know if you knew, but the Oscars happened last night. And I did not watch any of it, but per usual, I looked at some of the outfits, some of the dresses garb on social media. And I like to assess. Now, I don't typically know the names of a lot of these actresses and actors. And so I'm going to have producer Bree come on the mic and she's probably going to have to explain who these people are. And I also like to hear her opinions about this, too.

And Dylan, also, if he would like to share his opinions about the attire at the Oscars. All right. Let's go ahead and pull up the first one. I always make up the scoring metrics as I go. We'll do 10 being the worst thing that I have ever laid eyes on. No, no. Let's do the opposite. Let's let 10 let 10 be beautiful, gorgeous, awesome, handsome, brilliant. Let's let one be the worst thing I've ever laid my eyes on. All right. Let's see. Okay, who's this, Bree?

So this is Zoe Saldana. She's in Guardians of the Galaxy. Okay, tell me why we don't have a red carpet. Why do we have a beige carpet? Is this new? I did look that up. They decided to do that this year, and there was not a reason. and they also said it will probably not even be permanent.

They just wanted to do it this year. All right. Bage carpet doesn't really have the same ring to it. Now, here's the question. Did the celebrities know beforehand that the carpet was going to be beige and not red? Do you know, Bree? I don't know that, actually, but that's a good question. It's a good question.

Because she matches. She matches. That's, yes, exactly. So she kind of runs into the carpet because her dress is the same. is the same color. Well, she is very beautiful. She is maybe one of the few people that can even pull off this, this color because it's really pretty with her skin tone. I don't really like what looks to be like a bra kind of coming out of the top of her dress. It looks like it should be strapless, but it, it's not. So I'm a little confused about that. It's like also like kind of

lingerie, kind of not. But the shape is beautiful. I don't know. know what do you think yeah i think it looks like there was supposed to be a dress on top of it like that's the under that's the underdress yes that yeah it does kind of look like that it looks like a slip or something okay honestly i'm going to go with like a four because this beautiful person could have worn something that was way better yeah okay next up is okay i'm going to guess these people's names i have never this person. This is also matches the carpet. Her name is um good luck with this one. Lauren Marino and she is in a movie called second guessing. That's what the movie's called second guessing. Sure. What's her name? I have never seen this person. Believe it or not you didn't

guess this. It's Rooney Mara. Runei Mara. That was next. This is just ugly. I mean, it's hard to pull off, as I've said before. It's hard to pull off an empire waist unless you are pregnant. Last time I said that, you were like, oh, this person is pregnant. So I don't think this person is, though. The off-the-shoulder empire waist cinched at the bottom. It looks like it's like tied at the bottom to where it's a little pluffy.

They forgot to cut it, so they had to tie it at the bottom. They forgot to cut it or she had it tied up so she could. go to the bathroom and she forgot to let it go. Yeah. She also looks very sad and I don't like her necklace. And yeah, it matches the carpet perfectly. And so I guess all the designers, they didn't know about that. Very, very, I think, unfortunate, bridesmaids dress.

It looks like an unfortunate bridesmaids dress. So, yeah, I'm probably going to go with it too on this one. Also, the off-the-shoulder look is almost always a little matrix. for this young gal. What do you think? Agreed. I'd go with it too also. Okay.

Next up. Ooh, love the pop of color. Okay. So this obviously contrast. This is purple. Yep. But I don't like it. I'm just not like a poofy gal myself.

This also from here looks like chiffon, which is a choice. And this. the sleeves are really big beautiful person who is this this is angela bassett oh i've heard that name haven't i what is what was she in for well this she's nominated for being in black panther this year oh okay um the shape of the dress is pretty minus the top so i'm going to go with probably a four it's very much not my style it's very 1980s Um, I'm going to go to the four. What if I told you, I think this is the case.

Those are not sleeps. Those are like the top of her dress. And yeah, her sleeves, her like arms are bare. So it's just covering her shoulders. Let me see. Let me see again. Um, but it looks like sleeps. It does in this photo.

It looks like sleeves. It could be, but I'm pretty sure it's not. I think that it would look better. Minus the bow. I don't like the bow at the bottom. And if it had been strapless, or if it had been like a different top, I think I would like it better.

Also, I think I would have liked it because it's so much in the sleeves. I think I would have put her hair up, probably. Stylist Allie. Yeah, stylist Allie. Probably would have, probably am going to give a four, even though she is very beautiful and it's a beautiful color on her. You sort of ruined this one for me. I liked it, and now I'm not so sure.

Sorry, Pree. Change your mind. Okay, next one. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All of these people, it's so funny that they chose this year to wear beige. No, this is fugly. I mean, this is just awful. Awful, awful.

No, there's nothing. There's nothing that I like about this. I like the shoes. I would probably wear the shoes, depending on what the heel looks like. I can't really tell. So, okay, so I'm forgetting that there are people listening and not watching on YouTube. But okay, so this, how would I even describe this? So this is this. Who is this? This is Florence Pugh. Oh, okay. I know that this is from that one movie that also has Harry

Stiles in it and was directed by Olivia Wilde. And there was some drama there. But who, what, what's the movie? Don't worry, darling. Don't worry, darling. Okay. She should be worried. She should be worried about this dress. Okay. So it is like a mini black. dress that barely covers the crotchal region and then but it's that's only like the bottom part the top part is I don't even know how to describe something that covers the breast area and it's beige and then huge goes out again like empire waist but opens up in a triangle in the front and then her off the shoulder sleeves are like as big as Saturn and off the shoulder sleeves I mean it's like down to her elbow so it's very bizarre

Again, a very, very beautiful woman. But this dress would do zero people any favors whatsoever. That's my thought on it. Bree. I want you to look at the hair. I can't really see it. I need glasses. Yeah, we would have to zoom in.

Basically, it's like an extension. And she's draped it over her head to look like bangs. Those aren't bangs. Wait, what? What? Yeah. That's the back of her hair. It's a ponytail that has been like, okay, so it's a ponytail going forward like this.

A ponytail going forward, but until it reaches for bangs. Yeah. Okay. It's a look. Again, another decision. But obviously, okay, so obviously she's going for quirky. Like she's going for a bizarre. That's what I always ask myself.

Do people who wear things like this? Are they going for beautiful? They think it's objectively beautiful. What are they going for quirky? If you're going for quirky, girl, it's quirky. And it's quirky. You still look beautiful, but it's a little weird. That's fine.

Remember, most of these people were theater kids growing up. And so we've got some dimensions to their personality. Okay. Do we have another one? Beautiful. Beautiful. I think that she is like very beautiful and unique looking. She looks gorgeous.

Her leg looks great. her shoe looks great. Again, I would do without... So this is Kara. How do you... How do you say her last name? Delavine. Delavine.

She's a model. And I guess she acted in something, too. She does. I think she was just there this year. I think this is a beautiful dress. I don't love the thing on the shoulder, personally. But that's just because I'm a simple gal.

But I think that she did... This is what I'm talking about with the one that we saw. Angela Bassett, is that her name? Um, who had the like puffy sleeves. I feel like her hair should have been like this. I like Kara's hair like this. I think this is a great color on her.

Um, she is someone who is like quirky and wears weird stuff typically. I think that this is very Oscars. Also, she definitely benefited from not having a red carpet because this deep red probably wouldn't have looked good. So I forgot to rate the last one. The last one. Oh, Florence.

Sorry, that's a zero. This one. I would say like eight and a half. Eight and a half, nine. I really like it on her. What do you think? Yeah, this was one of my favorites. That's why I included it.

I would say nine. Nine. Love it. I even love the shoulder. I think it's just different. Like a statement. It's great. Yeah.

All right. You can weigh in people. Let me know what you think about these outfits. All right. That's all we've got for today. We'll see you back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie,

you already understand that the biggest issues face. our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.