Shaun Newman Podcast - #962 - Martin Armstrong & Brett Oland

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

We discuss the peace talks happening with Russia/Ukraine, collapse in Europe and an Albertan currency. Martin Armstrong is the CEO of Armstrong Analytics and is renowned for his economic forecasting model, the Economic Confidence Model, which has notably predicted major market events. He has advised governments and financial institutions worldwide, offering insights into market trends, currency movements, and geopolitical impacts on the economy. Brett Oland is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bow Valley Credit Union in Alberta, Canada. He has over 20 years of experience in the banking industry and is a Chartered Professional Accountant.Tickets to Cornerstone Forum 26’: https://www.showpass.com/cornerstone26/Tickets to the Mashspiel:https://www.showpass.com/mashspiel/Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Prophet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] the code “SNP” on all ordersGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500

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All right. Let's get on to that tale of the tape. Today's guest, include the CEO of Armstrong Analytics and the CEO of Bow Valley Credit Union. I'm talking Martin Armstrong and Brett Olin. So buckle up. Here we go. Oh, it's always a pleasure to see you, Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Martin Armstrong. Martin, thanks for hopping on. Oh, it's always a pleasure to see you, Sean. Well, and some exciting news. You're retired. turning to Calgary next year for the Cornerstone Forum.

So for anybody that enjoy to have Martin in person in the first, well, not in the first and the second Cornerstone Forum, you're going to be back again. So that's exciting news for me to bring you back to Calgary. I'll be it at a colder time of year, Martin. But it'll be exciting to have you back on stage and looking forward to that. Now, today where we sit, one of the things that you'd sent me, I forget if it was a couple weeks ago,

but you'd sent some things on the peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. And then just recently you had the meetings going on in Florida, I might add. And now you have Wikkoff over in Russia. Your thoughts on Russia, Ukraine, peace, is it possible? Will it happen? Fire away, Martin. Well, I think I've been successful in at least changing the narrative to some degree in the U.S., that what they have said to me directly is that

you're correct, we're not going to be a war with Russia. It's going to be China. But I was surprised, because I mean, pretty much everybody knows where I stand on this stuff. And I was surprised to have gotten a phone call and said, gee, would you, you know, come in? We want to give you a debriefing on Russia. I said, all right, fine. You know, you want to tell me what you're doing? All right.

I'll go, you know. And then I was asked if I would draft a peace plan that I thought Putin would actually accept. And I was also asked to use my back channels because they know I have them you know into Russia as well so so it was it was enlightening you know I think I changed the narrative explained that look Russia has no interest in going in taking the EU there's nothing there for them EU has to get all its energy from Russia no gold reserves all they're going to get is a bunch of headaches and you walk into France and they're going to ask, are you going to pay our pensions? That's about it. And so I think they understood that. But the real kicker here is the

fact that, you know, the EU is crumbling right before our eyes. And as you know, when they were creating the euro i got called into that one too i tend to get calls and mainly because i was probably the first in foreign exchange from the 70s you know um so i i seem to have been called into just about everything from around the world on that but um the main thing is that oh i warned the EU that they had to consolidate the debt in order to compete with a dollar and it was Herman Cole at the time it was Chancellor of Germany and he took Germany into the Euro unilaterally the German people were never allowed to vote so he admitted before he died he acted like a dictator and had he allowed them to

to vote, he would have lost seven to three. So his consolidation was basically no, he would take Germany into the EU, into the Euro, which was effectively 25% of the Eurozone. But he said no consolidation of the debt because he thought the German people would, feel it as a bailout for Greece in Italy, et cetera. So I warned them, I said, you know, you have to understand when you're dealing with politicians, they really have no trading experience.

And I said, look, if I'm going to pick up the phone and I can say, buy me $10 billion worth of U.S. treasuries, no problem. With Europe, I can't do that. I still have to make the same decision as if the euro isn't there. Do I want Germany? Do I want Italy? Do I want France?

Et cetera. All right. So they really didn't accomplish anything long term. And this is what is the real problem with Europe. And so I think I at least got them to understand that any peace deal is going to be sabotaged by Europe. K-Lis, in my opinion, is just Lindsay Graham and drag. That's about it.

And they need a diversion. So this is about power. And if they do not have an external enemy, you know, then the Eurozone is going to collapse. You've already had France and UK ministers come out and admitted they might need an IMF bailout. Now, as a traitor, what happens? We can look just at really even 2010. When Greece got into trouble, what happens?

All the traders look to see which bank has the most Greek debt, shorted. Okay, so now we're talking about France, which is the second largest, you know, economy in the EU. Britain left, so that's not the real problem for the Euro. But if France, even people suspect that they're going to default, all right, the traders are going to do the same thing again. You're going to look at which banks have the most French debt short it. So, you know, unlike Canada or United States, our banking systems, you know, they have reserves and they use. you know, the government treasuries. Because

they never consolidated the debt in Europe, the banks have to be politically correct. So they got a cornucopia of debt of all these different states because there is no single national debt.

So you're looking at the problem with Europe. France gets in the trouble, all right? It's the second largest economy. Its debt crisis then undermines the banking system. Add to that, on average, 70% of the pension funds have to have government debt. So you can see what I'm talking about. Europe is in is crumbling before our eyes. And they won't reform.

That's the problem. You know, I could probably fix it in 15 minutes, right? But you're talking about giving up power, you know, and that is like, you know, they start, you know, foaming at the mouth and rolling around in the dirt, you know. But that's really what has to take place. You have to consolidate this debt. Otherwise, the euro is finished. And so instead, they keep beating the war drums over there. Oh, it's Putin, Putin. He wants to invade Europe.

All right. You had France just came out saying that they're opening up for 18-year-olds to volunteer for military service. all right and Germany I got waking up at 5 o'clock in the morning today there are bills going in to start you know conscription in Germany you know Germany wants to build the largest army in Europe again all right so there is you know look there The computer is going to be right. I've tried my best to defeat my own computer and I lose all the time. It just says that we're going into war and is going to start.

You're going to see it more in 26, probably really escalated into 27. But, you know, Europe needs an external distraction, otherwise the people, they lose their pensions. their bank accounts, and they're going to be storming the parliaments with pitchforks. All right, this is why Europe is already preparing for digital currency, capital controls. You can look up just last month. If you're in Europe and you want to leave, you have to list all your accounts worldwide. How much money you got? Where is it at?

You've had Ursula, the head of the EU, come out and even say, well, they can fund their war by taking unused assets from clients, confiscating your account. You know, look, Germany did that in December 22. That's what's set off to hyperinflation in 23. I mean, it's history. repeats because these people make the same stupid decisions all the time. In this, sorry, in 1922, you're talking, Germany took unused assets, which is people's money

that's just sitting in a bank account somewhere. 10% and they handed out bonds. You can buy the bonds, which they defaulted on eBay. And look, that's why when Hitler came to power. in 1933 he passed a law it was illegal to have an account outside of germany because once they confiscated that money in december of 22 anybody with 10% brain function got their money to hell out transferred to swiss francs whatever all right um so when hit Hitler came to power in 33. He's trying to bring that money back. So he passes that law.

Nineteen 34, Switzerland then passes the numbered secret account to protect the Germans. All right. So, I mean, it's, and people don't realize capital controls. U.K. and Sweden, for example, put capital controls in 1939. All right. Hitler goes in the Poland, et cetera. You know when they were finally rescinded? Britain, I think it was 1979, and Sweden, 1988. 40 years generally of capital controls. you need permission to have an account outside the country so that these get put in they ain't going away anytime

no no this gets to be look europe is very Marxist um you know you can look up there's a whole bunch of different academics that all supported Marx um Robinson car a whole bunch of them all right and so the problem is that after world war two that's what became the dominant philosophy in europe and this is why you can look up you know go to the you know the federal reserve uh database and st louis fed and just look at a GDP chart of really EU and compare it to the United States. I mean, it's a tiny fraction. I mean, there's just no real long-term economic growth in Europe.

I mean, this has been the problem. Everything is regulated to the ntheenth degree. And it's a real problem. And so this is why I say Europe is crumbling. right before our eyes. You have NATO out there, which has absolutely no purpose in life whatsoever, but to create war. I saw the internal memos. When all the money was going to climate change, they basically said, how do we remain relevant?

All right, they only remain relevant by constantly saying, oh, Putin wants to invade Europe. As if he's Khrushchev. All right. Khrushchev was different. That was a philosophical issue. Khrushchev really was, you know, died in a world of a communist. He really believed that Marxism and Leninism that capitalism would collapse and that socialism and that socialism and communism would prevail. So it was more of a philosophical.

philosophical issue when he said, we will bury you. It wasn't economic. Like, I'm going to invade because you got something I can make money from. That wasn't the issue. So, when NATO constantly says, oh, if Ukraine falls, then Putin will come in and take the rest of Europe. So you better give us 5% of your GDP. You know, it's just a, it's a mafia type. shakedown pay me this for protection you know um so if i come all the way sorry if i come all the way back to the peace talks in miami or not miami and was it miami sorry it was in florida i forget the yes the the peace talks going back and forth to miami and also uh dc so you have all these peace talks and you bring up europe specifically because it's crumbling they need an outside enemy to deflect or

or to take everybody's eyes off what's actually happening. And so am I adding this together in the proper way when I go, okay, so the U.S. is trying to broker peace and get rid of war, but Europe really needs the war. So in order for peace to actually happen, it could possibly happen, but the problem is Europe is going to keep trying to spur it on because they need it.

So when you look at peace, you go, it's great the U.S. and Russia are talking, but the threat to that deal being brokered is sitting in Europe. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you had K-list. She came out and said in order for Russia to rejoin the G8, it requires unanimous vote, and she will never allow it to happen. I had sources that she met with the, you know, the foreign relations minister from China, all right. And she tried to strong harm him and the saying, you tell Russia to surrender and get out of Ukraine.

and the stop supporting him. His response was, we are not prepared to allow Russia to lose. Then the second, he said, because we know we would be next. But this is, you know, it's reality. you know it this is people like calis is you know she's just a biased neocon that's it i mean if you look at the Biden administration we had Lincoln Victoria Newland and Garland all right all three managed

to weasel their way in and usurped American foreign policy all three claimed that their families were from the Balkan area. All three claimed that their families were personally persecuted by Russia. These neocons, this is, it's a personal vendetta. They have used our country or foreign policy for personal gain, no different than an insider trading. Look, this is Madeline Albright, same stuff. She's the one that got NATO to bomb Serbia. Why? Because the Serbs supported Russia.

She also grew up in Czechoslovakia, hated Russians. They always seem to these people gravitate to power just to exercise. to exercise personal vendettists, which to me is treason. But, you know, I think I at least succeeded in changing the narrative that Putin is not interested in war. They asked me to use my back channels. I did. I believe the report that I did got on Putin's desk. And about two days later, you had Lavrov come out and said publicly, we are willing to guarantee we are not interested in invading NATO. Response from NATO. Oh, that's bullshit. They're lying. It's, I don't know what else to say. I mean, you know, I can't change the leadership of Europe. I mean, I've done

everything I can in the United States to at least try to stop war. When NATO says, and what they're saying out there, all right, you had Trump make that sarcastic remark. And he said, yes, Russia is a paper tiger. Ukraine, you can keep all your land. and go get some more. All right? He wasn't being serious. This is the honest-to-God BS that is being put out over there by the neocons in NATO. And, I mean, you even have a neocon kinsinger.

You can go with it. He said, oh, we can defeat Russia in three days. Three days. I mean, they couldn't even do Iraq in three days. I mean, let's get real here. I mean, what is it with these people? I mean, um,

I, you know, they just, they love war. I, there's no other explanation. I don't know. I've been to dinner with some of these people. And the meeting,

they asked me, what was my opinion? I said, look, I think they grew up hating Russia. from childhood and then all of a sudden what happens communism falls are no longer communists they didn't change all right they still have to hate you know i was in in dc doing some work for the reggae administration back then and the whole g5 stuff and um you know that's when Gorbachev basically made his speech in showing that Russia was changing, and Reagan wanted to go meet him. And I can tell you that the neocons couldn't say that he was still a communist.

So they said you can never trust the Russian. And Reagan said, take it, you know, put a sock in your mouth, and he went. He rejected their advice. he didn't the berlin wall would never have fallen you know i mean it i don't know i mean i think these people just grew up hating communism to the point that they're just pissed off that they never got to you know there wasn't this great war to bring down communism they didn't get to to shoot anybody you know you different things on communism you'd put out on x china quietly moved away from communisms decades ago they saw it wasn't working and made a change without a public declaration yes

the cp is certainly authoritarian to some degree but is it is a fallacy to call china a communist nation correct i've been told china's communist no for my entire life not a chance look up what What is communism? Communism is the government owns everything. They got more billionaires than we do. All right. And you can look, you'll see that quietly, China began to open up with some companies in 1978. China at least understood that it was not. working. They gradually tried to loosen the reins. And that turned into Tenement Square.

Hey, everybody else is getting this, not us. Whereas Russia, the difference between, I would say, the Russian communist in China. I mean, I I've observed both. I know people that even grew up in Eastern Germany, etc. And the difference was that Stalin was much more paranoid. So he actually put out even a propaganda film that telling kids in school that if your parent ever said anything against the state, report them. And one guy didn't turn him into a national hero and everything. Whereas China didn't do that. that. China didn't care what you said to your wife. All right. But if he stuck your head up and told the guy next door, they called it the tall poppy syndrome. That one gets cut off. All right. So I would say

that that different was more or less why China was able to rebound faster than Russia. Russia was actually, Stalin had really destroyed the family unit. All right. Also, religion. And we're very, you know, Marx, you know, religion is the open of the masses. Whereas China really didn't do that. So as they relaxed, and they started relaxing gradually in 1978. And that's what exploded in 89. Everybody else is getting this. Why are we not?

So, I mean, I think that's basically what you see, the difference between the two. I mean, China at this stage in the game is really the second largest economy. surpassed the United States. They understand economics. Look, back in even the 97 Asian currency crisis, I was called in by the Bank of China. I went because I wanted to see what the Great Wall was. I thought I would have to listen to a bunch of bureaucrats again. And I was really surprised why they called me rather than somebody from Harvard.

Because they were all traders. China had sent these guys out and they worked on the dealing desks in New York, London, Tokyo. Then they went back to run the central bank. So it was funny because when I got back to the States, both the Fed and the Treasury people called me. Gee, what was it like? You're the first person to go there. So I took the knife, stuck it in their back, and I turned it.

I said, you know, very interesting. They only hire people with experience. But, you know, it was, they are much more down to earth in that respect. whereas in the West we tend to look more credentials like they put in the Kearney or the Central Bank of Canada and he has no real financial experience. You know, he's just a figurehead.

That's it. These people are politicians and they're taken from one position to the next to the next. You know, but do they really have any experience in doing what is in that industry and you find it's it's not draggy i mean i know people that he went and sat in the corner in dealing rooms to try and see how foreign exchange even traded and they stuck him as the head of the central bank i mean it's terrible

I'm going to pull on your historical knowledge here just for a second. We were talking NATO, we're talking different countries, right? Russia, China, just everything, economics, that type of thing. I know you were sitting behind bars when this was all playing out, or at least the tail end of it. But Gaddafi, in Libya, do you know anything about that? or I'm just kind of curious, right? Like, you start pulling on different threads, Martin,

and all of a sudden, different things coming. You're like, wait a second, that doesn't make sense. And then you pull on a little bit, you're like, I don't know. What do you, like, Gaddafi and what went on there, was he, was he the awful dictator they try and tell you he was? Or do you have a bit of a different background on what that was? Um, Back, I mean, one of the reasons I really went more institutional was we had an office in Geneva back in the 80s, and I would say it was one giant masquerade party.

I actually ended up managing money for Gaddafi twice. No kidding. I thought I was dealing with somebody from Saudi Arabia, then you'd go through all the shell companies, and it's like, what the hell? I thought I was dealing with the Geyone family in Geneva. Geyone backwards is Noga. They own all the Noga hotels. I was invited to, they had Herald Square in New York, big, built, you know, shopping, Center, et cetera. So I was invited to the grand opening of that. Next thing I know, it's,

I got the FBI in my office asking me where Marcus's gold is. And so, what are you talking about? You know, you're one of the big advisors in gold. You know, Marco owns that building. How did you get into it? Look, I thought somebody else owned it. What can I tell you? I mean, they're all connected. I mean, Marcos and Gaddafi, they were partners in trading positions. I mean, you can't make all this stuff up. I mean, it's just crazy. But as far as even you take, you know, Bill Crystal, you know, he'd even spoken to one of our conferences. I know Bill, and back in the 90s, I argued with him.

If we take out Saddam Hussein, Assad out of Syria, and Qaddafi will bring peace to the Middle East. I said, you're out of your mind. You've never been there. I have. All right. It's tribal. They don't see themselves as Iraqi or Syrian or Libyan. It's Sunni versus Shiite. You know, it's Druze, it's Kurds. I mean, it's more, it's still tribal. All three are now removed. Where's the piece? You know, it's, but they took those three out. It take the Benghazi incident with Hillary Clinton. You can look it up. When they asked her, why was the embassy attacked? Oh, what difference does it make? She wouldn't answer. Why? Because they were using that to funnel

arms in to overthrow Gaddafi and Assad in Syria. It was an arms operation. They were using the American embassy there, and that's why it was attacked and the ambassador was killed. And then Hillary wouldn't answer why it was even attacked. Look, these people have been doing this stuff for a long time. And these neocons have been everything that they say about Russia. Oh, they want to expand is what they do. Oh, well, he wants to expand. So we'll expand first.

All right. So there's plenty of documentation that back in 91, they promised not to expand NATO. And then, of course, they expand. Yeah, I mean, all I've ever heard is, oh, they want to invade, so we should do it first. That's it. You can look at General Wesley Clark after 9-11. It's on YouTube. He gave a speech in 2007.

And he said he went to the Pentagon after 9-11. 11 he was told that they were going into iraq and he openly states in that speech he says he asked him oh so you you connected saddam hussein to 9-11 they said no we're just going in and they told him they intended to take out seven other countries look at his speech look this is what these people do They love war Well it's funny You know on this side Martin I watch what's being said about Russia

And then I sit and I talk to you know I just had Tom and Alex on before you And then of course yourself on And you know that opens up this This whole For the first Well the majority of my life I watched and I was like oh man

That must be a pretty bad person And they go and clean it up And you're right like nothing takes three days that's that's that's funny but i asked about kadafi i almost had you speechless i'm like i can't but i think i just made martin speechless for a second because i you know like you look back over you start playing out i was um i had two swedish guys on and they were talking about all off palme the prime minister of sweden back in the day we got assassinated in 86 and i was born in 86 so i wasn't you know like i'm like who the heck is that and they started drawing the

comparisons to what Trump is doing now with Russia, to what he was trying to do back in the Cold War with de-escalation. Essentially, I'm oversimplifying what they talked about. And I was like, what? Who? And then, you know, you go look up the story because you're hearing these two Swedish get, and you're like, no, there it is. Okay. And then I go, okay, what other things have gone on since then that I get told the story? You take the story for what you believe it to be. And you're going, well, now I got to dig a little bit. And Gaddafi's one of them, right? That he was this authoritarian, awful leader.

But if you look just a smidge deeper than that, economically, Libya was on the rise. I mean, it was doing better. I don't know, you know, I'm not from there. I have never been there. But you just look at that and you go, wait a second. Well, if things are getting better, he couldn't have been all awful. And you find out, you know, you're looking at NATO. And what do we talk about here?

Well, NATO is trying to justify why they're still there as people are kind of staring at it going, you said you weren't going to, you know, expand. You've expanded. You keep calling the one side the evil perpetrator, yet everything you say you're going to do, you actually don't do. And then you keep doing something that's going to spur on World War III, not de-escalate it. I thought the whole point of NATO was to ensure peace, you know, and I'm oversimplifying that too. And instead, they seem to pop up wherever the war zone is look Serbia

was not part of NATO Madeline Albright convinced NATO to go in read Colin Powell's memoirs what did he say about her she said we got all this military power

we should be using it she's another neocon and she attacked basically Serbia only because Serbs were supporting Russia. All right. Under that same theory, why are they not defending the Dombas? Oh, because they're Russians. You know, it, look, these people never tell the truth. what you get in

mainstream media is bought and paid for it really is all fake news they get you know the agenda what to say and they do

every as soon as you read any story or Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked really you know it's propaganda all right part of that report that i did to shock them into reality john mccain was at my dad in 2014 overthrow your government we are with you

Victoria Newland Both ruthless Absolutely ruthless neocons All right Handing out sandwiches In my Dan All right Got all this stuff on film

And McCain This isn't about anything This is about you and your freedom All right And peace Where have they gotten peace ever since You know, we had employees there in Kiev and in Donesk, all right? And they're both in Berlin now.

You know, they have not benefited at all from this. It was Victoria Newland. And just look at the facts. Victoria Newland picked the government. They installed an unelected government. And then that is the government in Kiev that attacked the Dombas and started the whole war. The people have never been behind this. Then Zelensky gets in there and just about all my sources over there say the same thing.

The election was rigged. Then you had an American journalist over there, Laura. He's the one that said that cocaine was a, you know, Zelensky was a cocaine head. He had him arrested, thrown in prison. Oh, he died of pneumonia. Really? Zelensky is shut down, free speech. Anybody that supports Russia, shut down. This is democracy. He suspends elections. We've had elections during World War I and two. We didn't shut down elections. In Britain, United States, Canada. Oh, he should. shuts them down. This polls

are like 23%. I talked to people, even military. I was told that they were sent to the border. They had no knowledge that they were going to invade the curse region of

Russia. That order came from MI6. They thought they were just going to defend the border. No, they were told to invade. Maybe then Putin will attack NATO and we got World War III. It's, I'm sick of it. I really am sick of it.

You know, it's, so in one breath, you see the peace talks going on. You're, I don't know, this guy right where I said, I'm like, oh, okay, that's, that's interesting. That's the new developments. Maybe there's some light on the horizon. And then in walks Martin with all the different things kind of, yeah, don't, don't hold your breath just yet. Because it's Europe that I'm fighting against and I know that. And I've at least got them looking in the right direction. That Russia is not the enemy.

And they have actually now said that point blank to my face. We know. You're right. Russia is not the enemy. Putin has no interest in invading Europe. The Russian people do not want to occupy Europe any more than the Canadians want to go occupy Russia or China or whatever. We all just want to sit back and take care of our families. I don't think our military is going anywhere any far past there, Martin. It's crazy.

I'm going to, wars are created by the people at the top, not not the average person. I'm going to bring in another guest. I got the CEO of Bow Valley Credit Union, Brett Olin here. I'm going to change the conversation into, I guess, monetary policy. But Brett, welcome, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, gents. Good seeing you, Martin. How you doing?

Good, good. Now, the reason why this, here for the last part of the show, folks, bringing Brett in, he's written a paper, Alberta dollar currency transition plan. And I'll let Brett just outline it. But, you know, the two gentlemen I have sitting here, I'm sure Martin can blast holes all through it. And, you know, like, because there's this talk about if Alberta were to separate where we have our own currency, right? And so Brett Olin's written a paper on it. Brett, maybe you can walk the listeners through it.

Sure. And actually, I'm really looking forward to you blowing holes in it. Please humble me, Martin, on this, really do. So, you know, like it or love or hate the idea of Alberta separation, this is a very real possibility. And some powers that B asked me to put together something, and this is basically just a first crack at it. But, you know, I know no stretch an expert at this, Martin, and really wanted your feedback and to make things better, to make it good from day one. And, of course, you probably haven't read the paper yet. I'll throw it on my X-feed, but it incorporates three different phases.

Phase one would be a dual currency of Canadian US system. And that sort of allows us time as Albertans to put together trade swaps, lines of credit, things in place with the US, and think about what kind of exchange that we want to have for, you could make it as attractive as one for one, an Alberta dollar one for one with the U.S. dollar. You'd have to fill in the gaps, you know, but that's a nice little perk, a 40% perk for Albertans to change over to a new dollar. And in that time of phase one, you can create an Alberta central bank. And what that central bank would basically do is, is in phase two, is create an Alberta dollar, co-partheid backed by gold, oil, U.S. treasuries, and

Bitcoin. And that reserve would be in place for 30% of the currency. And really, the U.S. treasuries, I know it's not a great investment, but it does pander to what the U.S. is trying to do and really cater to what they're trying to do. And of course, gold and oil adding a lot of stability and Bitcoin really being a technologically favored reserve currents, a piece of the reserve. And so in that time, financial institutions would be capped with their lending based on the Alberta Central Bank reserves. That way, you couldn't get ahead of yourselves and do too much lending and cause too much inflation. With the reserves in place, it would force sort of fiscal discipline on behalf of the central banks and the governments. And part of the system in phase two would be able to keep gold and silver as legal tender.

you know, whatever that might look like, but basically an off ramp in case there's more funny business that goes on down the road. And if any debt is issued out of the Alberta government going forward, have free floating rates, none of this quantitative easing stuff and trying to control interest rates. And then phase three moving into stability of the organization. The Alberta Central Bank would keep reserves in place of 30% of the Alberta dollar. This is almost a two currency system in the end of what I have the idea of a domestic dollar, so an Alberta dollar, and then anything international, you'd use the U.S. dollar,

or the U.S. dollar, new stable coins for international trade. And then to put the icing on the cake of my grand requests for this new system of currency, a max debt to GDP of 20 to 30 percent. That's sort of the rundown of what it is. Martin, humble me, poke holes in this thing. Where did I go wrong? I'm going to furiously take notes and, you know, absolutely. We want this thing to work.

And I know things haven't worked out when you've advised in the past, but, you know, maybe we're the exception. Well, I would say first of all, the number one mistake governments do make is that they try to fix their currency, peg it or one way or another. And they tend to be academics rather than have any real trading experience. And I've tried to explain to them to all various different governments that when you fix a currency, it becomes a guaranteed trade. I can borrow a trillion dollars short your currency. You've pegged it. If I'm wrong, I get my money back. If I'm right, I make a fortune.

All right. That's, you know, what Soros did with the pound, et cetera. All right. So, but the main issue of a lot of people focus on the currency but there's something much more significant behind what really makes the currency worse something all right the u.s is reserved currency mainly because it is the largest consumer-based economy all right japan's got to sell its toyotos here and dollars, Germany is BMWs or whatever. China has looked at the European model, which has been a disaster and the United States. This is why China is trying to rebuild the Silk Road. They're trying to establish a consumer-based economy. So that is the real wealth of a nation is not its gold reserves or anything of that nature. Just look at Japan and Germany, both rows from the

ashes of World War II without reserves. It's the productivity of the people. Now, I did testify on this when we were talking about, you know, currency reforms, et cetera, back in the 90s. I testify before the House Ways and Means Committee. And what I would recommend is this. More so even than worrying about the backing of the currency. All right. What you want to do is have maybe a maximum at 15%, preferably 10 on a corporate tax rate.

All right. Hong Kong had a corporate tax rate of 15%. That's why so many companies went and established their headquarters there. Internationally, if there is no tax, then a company can be taxed back in its home district. So you wanted to pay something. All right. One of the reasons I got to meet Margaret Thatcher was that I was restructuring multinational companies, particularly the Japanese wanted to get into Europe for the euro and all that

stuff, and into the EU. And if they had, like all the auto manufacturers, et cetera, I was putting them in Britain. The airlines, I was putting them in Ireland to get the best tax deals. And I happened to have known Thatcher's personal advisor, Sir Alan Walters. And she had heard this rumor that there's this guy sending companies to Britain. And he says, yeah, that's Marty. You know him? So that's how I got to meet her.

Maggie was probably the most intelligent head of state I ever met in my life. She asked me why I was sending them to Britain. I said, look, if I pay the employee the very same amount of money in Britain versus Germany, in Germany, they have all these regulations on top of everything. The cost that the employee never sees is 40% more in Germany than in Britain. And she wasn't aware of that. What I would recommend is this, is that you want to attract companies, also, you know, you have jobs, etc. All right.

So maximum I would prefer to see is a 10% corporate tax. I would prefer to see no income tax on individuals. All right. That means an employee is going to see. what he's actually earning. All right. And you do this. You fund your government basically with a consumption tax.

Indirect. All right. That's what the founding fathers of the United States were suggesting. Okay? No direct income tax. Because then you find a hundred-hour bill in the parking lot.

Legally, you're supposed to call the government and say, you want you're 50%, you know? So I would focus more on the economic side. The currency, it can be, don't fix it, like Brenton Woods or something like that. What you can do for psychological reasons is say it's convertive, you know, you can convert it to gold. Fine. Okay. but at a floating rate the reason the gold standard fell is what governments will always do you might sell

the idea today and then the next generation comes and you know they're just on another planet and so the problem would be that if you look at breton woods I think a three-year-old with a pocket calculator could figure out the gold standard was going to collapse because you fixed the dollar at 35 but you didn't limit the amount of dollars you were printing so obviously you know come on is you're going to have more dollars than you're going to have gold to back it up and the whole thing collapses that's why I say it should be floating because if you fix it then you're not going to be able to expand the money supply without creating a Brenton Woods crisis again. And, you know, yes, there is inflation, but the money supply must increase, at least in proportion to

the economy and population. Otherwise, you end up with deflation. So if there's 20 people and $20, we all can have one. But now if there's 40 people, when they're still only $20, now we all have 50 cents. So you have to avoid that. That's what recessions and depressions are about is deflation. When, you know, it's a very simple concept, but a lot of academics don't tend to seem to get it. Whenever, The future is uncertain. People hoard their money and they don't spend. All right.

You spend your money, look, there's all kinds of studies on real estate, for example. If you think your house is just doubled in value, you feel rich and you spend easier. If you think your house just collapsed in value by 50%, you're going to hold your money and not spend so easily. So this is a fact of humanity goes back to ancient times. So that's why in a recession, what happens is that the value of assets decline and everybody wants cash and the cash goes up. So the cash buys more assets at that point in time. When you're in a boom period, all right, you want to get rid of your cash. cash as fast as possible and buy assets because they're going up.

So it's really a scale between assets and money. They should really teach this in school, but. Well, yeah, no, it's really interesting and just even putting that lens on it. It's so you're basically putting the currency drivers in the hands of the population versus the government, which is very different, which is, yeah, I think you've nailed it. nailed it and sort of why you see money flows the way they do. Do you think because Alberta is probably the most productive province within Canada, I think that's very safe to say.

And does oil being the number one commodity in the world have sort of any factor part of that? Or do you always sort of start with the people that are being productive of driving sort of the economic benefit in the terms of it really is the people if you look objectively at japan and germany they didn't have the oil they didn't have the the resources if the people are productive all right uh that's the number one issue i mean russia is the richest country in the world. They have 75 trillion in natural resources. All right, but they lacked the rule of law. They lacked a lot of the structural things. If you just look at the resources that they have, in theory,

they should have been the number one economy in the world. But you've got to get that stuff out of the ground you need the rule of law um look you know you know i was an international hedge fund manager and the very first question you must ask all right is there a country risk i wouldn't ever put money into like iran because they confiscated you know oil reserves etc Nigeria did the same thing. So if there is no trust in the government, that's the number one question. All right, I have to trust the government

before I'm even going to invest a dollar. All right, so you need a good rule of law and so that if I bought real estate, in Alberta. I have to have confidence that there's a court that says, yes, that is yours, all right, rather than some guy comes in, sits down, now it's mine now. What do I do? All right. So, the rule of law is very critical. When the rule of law evaporates, all right, because typically corruption. And then you end up with, you know, investment starting to question what is right, what's wrong. Can I trust my money there? That has been part of the problem with foreign investment

in China. They've understood that. So they went, there were delegations of came over to look at how the American court system worked, et cetera, to copy that. So they understood that. And so I would say you need a good, strong rule of law. That is critical to attract foreign capital. And if you make it at 10%, and I say 10 mainly because others are at 15, you'll you'll create an incentive to come there other companies that I have dealt with and this is another mistake of governments I put some into Macedonia why because I got a 25-year guarantee no increase in taxes all right you can't expect a company to come in spend $5 billion, build this plant.

Okay, great. Your taxes are 10%. Oh, gee, I need some more money, so I'm going to raise it to 20% next month. You know, a company has to have a viable business plan, as you know. So the tax rate, I would say if you can do a, I would put that in the Constitution. Like here in Florida, we have, it's in our Constitution, no income tax.

You know, there's only seven states with no income tax. My father was a lawyer. I grew up with law, and his former law partner told me, he says, when I lived in New Jersey, he said, if you die here, tell your family, drag your body across the river before they tell anybody is they want 50% of what you earn while you're alive and then 40% when you die um so if if i don't mean to oversimplify things but so brett builds a paper on a currency and is looking for holes to be poked in his theory on currency and what martin what i've

heard you say is don't worry about a currency attract investment the way you do that is buy tax rate put it at 10% increase uh incentivize people to move here by putting zero percent income tax on people and from that an area will flourish and the way to make sure that more comes is establish the rule of law and by doing those things you will make it a place that people want to be and if if you could do one step on that you be like when a business is coming you put it in for 25 years we're not going to increase your tax rate of 10% and now they know that for the next 25 years as they build their business this is what it's set at they have a firm foundation if you would set in and actually it's not about building an Alberta currency it's about setting the structures properly so that people

feel comfortable moving their money there correct i mean the currency you can like i said you can say all right fine it's backed by gold on a floating basis All right. If you want to give a level of comfort to the people, because you have a lot of people think, oh, currency should be backed by gold or whatever, that's very nice. But it's not really the economic issue. You have to be able to have a good economy. If you have a good economy, then everything flows from that. I mean, that's what is really behind the U.S. dollar. It's not the government per se, other than a rule of law. And you know, you look at the chart rate of the income tax in the United States back to 19. It looks like the brainwave of a schizophrenic, you know. Oh, Democrats come in. They raised it up to 90% at one point. Who wants to pay 90% all right Trump doesn't understand it take a look at at the city of Detroit was the hub that's where all the auto industry was they all left why

because they kept raising taxes the city of Detroit couldn't fund its its debt in 1937 they suspended went basically bankrupt they finally repaid their debt in 1963. Why? They kept, oh, we're going to make a fortune. Just keep raising taxes. Yeah, I want to send my kid to the school. So raise taxes, so I got it. You know, it's this, you know, let's be honest about government. You know, these people, the Marxists think that, oh, if government, it owns everything, then we eliminate the corrupt. Really? Sorry. Human nature doesn't change. You put a guy in charge of a company. He's going to try and expand it. Okay? You put a guy in charge of the government, he's going to try and expand it. You know, it's human nature. It doesn't change simply because you work for the government versus the private sector. It's, it's, we're, you know, we're all the same. So I would say that just focus, more on the economy side. You want to drag in as many people as possible. And I mean, you

establish something like that. I'd open an office in Alberta. All right. It's trade, etc. You know, Trump doesn't understand all this stuff about, oh, U.S. lost manufacturing. but it's not that I'm paying somebody $2 an hour cheaper over there than here. You know, I've dealt with companies globally. That's not the issue. The issue is stability and taxation. All right, you raise your taxes from 20% to 40%. It doesn't change what I'm paying an employee.

I'm moving. All right. It's, you know, It's like anything else. I mean, you have to understand this. It's, you know, the Marxists, the biggest problem with them is the Marxist theory of that nothing has any value unless it is, you know, labor involved in it. And that's just simply not true. You know, there's some things that do not necessarily take labor to have a value to it.

And there's demand. You know, one of the famous, you know, utility value, things of this nature. There's a lot more complicated issues that are in there. The guy that came up with supply and demand theory. was John Law. All right. And you can read his book and he came up with this idea of, he explained the difference between water and diamonds. Diamonds have no real value, but the demand for a diamond over water, which is everybody needs, all right, is worth less than something that has no real value to it. it other than it looks pretty you know um so he's trying to explain this stuff and he came up with

his paradox of water versus diamonds um coming up with supply and demand that's where it all comes from um so i would just you know understand that to create the best possible outcome for Alberta all right also look at the economy side the currency You know, I would say to give confidence to a lot of people, you have resources, et cetera. You know, I would say, fine, it's backed by gold, but on a floating basis. I did get that part right. I did float that gold in there. Yes.

But no, no, what you're doing is fine. You know, I did read your paper. It's there is a transition. I think what you did is good. I'm just saying that there is dealing with. multinational. And from Middle East, Europe, Asia, all over, they all act the same way. All right. And everybody will take an action in their own self-interest. So when it's their benefit, they will show up.

You're absolutely right, because we see the productivity declining in Canada because it might be bang on. It's like we've just lost that rule of law like we have. And we see it with our neighboring province in BC where, you know, there's serious skepticism where people actually own the land or not. And so as a financial institution, I can't lend on that. And it's like, sorry, you don't know if you're in a lease or you actually own the land. I can't lend on that. Sorry. That was the most stupid legal decision I've ever heard.

Well, and the thing with the couch and legal decision, you're seeing it spread now across Canada, right? You're seeing that idea spread. Now, there's going to be, as Barry Kirkham, the lawyer who's been on the show folks, has said, you know, like there's certain areas where it has a more legal standing because of treaties signed versus not signed, all this jazz. But regardless, that decision in B.C. in Richmond, the Cowatron trial. is spreading all across BC and it's going to spread you're seeing it start to be talked about all across Canada and if you go back to

what Martin's talking about if I'm a company that is in Canada and I'm looking at Canada I'm hearing they're going to you're going to do away with or they're going to fee simple title maybe doesn't mean what it's always meant all of a sudden if I'm an investor I'm unsure of it

and the government can pay me however how many billions they want and you're seeing this play out over and over again in Canada where they come man, they take the money, and then all of a sudden they go defunct or they move their headquarters somewhere else. They take the government money and they just leave. And I would think that investment is not only drying up, it's running away from Canada at this point because there is no certainty that anything really exists, the rule of law, the rule of ownership of private property, like all these things are coming into question.

Yeah, I just had one client who came down to our conference and he's got a place in B.C. and they wanted the reseller's house to retire, and it can't. Wow. You know, that's what I mean about the rule of law. I mean, if that decision was so brain dead, and there's no other way to put it, you know, the problem is they may understand some legal aspect, but, I mean, look, you have an argument in the United States that,

Technically, the income tax is unconstitutional, all right? If you really ruled strictly on that issue, you would be correct. However, no court's going to say, oh, yes, it's unconstitutional, because then they lose all their salaries. So, I mean, there's a practical side to this versus, and in BC, they did not take the practical side. I don't know if they are just brain dead or what, but you undermine that rule of law. Is this house mine or is it not? You know, it gets to be really crazy. What about the idea of just in using the interim currency for full time, just using the U.S.

dollar as our currency in Alberta? Because I know there's been conversations that happened at the State Department in the United States, and they're all four sort of taking a look at this as long as we win a constitutional majority to separate from Canada. Should we just leave and say, hey, we're just going to use the U.S. currency from now on, and it can just take care of itself? Look, you can peg it to the dollar.

Well, I'm not even talking about pegging it. I'm just saying, yeah, we'll just use the U.S. to all of it. That's fine. The downside to it is that you are then importing whatever the inflation or deflationary aspects of the United States into Alberta. So the Fed raises interest rates because of some issue that would then affect Alberta. You know, what you have to understand is that when, as I say, said it at Sean's last conference. The Federal Reserve was originally created absolutely brilliantly.

All these different branches, but they were all independent. All right, because you do have regional capital flows. You had agriculture, they need money when it's time to plant, when they sell it, then they got excess, et cetera. So I saw that in Canada also. back then. They were raising interest rates to fight real estate speculation in Toronto. And meanwhile, they were putting farmers and miners into bankruptcy in Alberta. All right. One size does not fit all. So that's the only caution I would make on that,

that you import whatever the economic trend is. is from the United States into Alberta. It's funny you say that. It's funny you say that because I had the benefit or misbenefit of actually asking Mark Kearney a question about eight years ago. And this was at the time when Alberta wasn't doing so well. And Toronto was doing very well and BC was doing very well. And it's like, well, have you ever thought about having different interest rates for the

regions of Canada? And he sort of gave me the song and dance about, well, it's more or less like a bathtub and you can't fill one area of the bathtub further than the other area of the bathtub. And I didn't really like that answer, but that's just funny that is really probably the better way to do things. Yeah, look, he's not a, that's why I mean, he has no real experience. Just because he was the head of a central bank doesn't mean anything. you know, actually be in the trenches and see how capital moves. And like I said, the Federal Reserve, if you just have one bathtub,

then why do we need all these branches? All right, they shut, you know, and it was, there were two major problems. One, when the Fed was set up, it's stimulating. the economy because and the reason it had this title of lender of last resort was that you got a company you went to the to borrow and the banks in trouble so they're not lending any money so you would then issue a 90-day paper the Fed would buy that that was a direct stimulus to the economy now you have the funds to pay your employees you don't have to lay them off okay that was the design world war one came and our politician said oh no longer buy corporate paper you buy

our paper because we have to fund for the war and then they never put it back all right Roosevelt then comes in oh well I want to put in this new deal I need Okay, I want one interest rate for everybody. So he usurps in 1935, the Federal Reserve, creates a, you know, a Fed chairman that he appoints one size fits all out of Washington. All right, Toronto is basically following that model. It is insane. It does not function properly.

all right it ignores the regional differences that we have that's the real issue in canada and why alberta in the west should separate from the east it's a different economy all right and you have carney in all honesty i've looked at everything he said he was part of climate change and and we have to save the planet and all of a sudden he's not he's signing a deal for pipelines do you stand for anything or you just change whatever you say with with the wind um did you believe any of that stuff that you said before i mean i you know i don't know i don't know where he stands honestly um but very nice signing a you know an agreement for a pipeline for albert it sounds great does he then

shut it down six months from now or what you know um because the birds are dying or something else i mean it it's kind of hard to say but there's there's more holes in that than there is in my currency paper so probably um but so i would i would just say you know look at the economic side i'd be glad to help you know no problem um my view is that we can get one country to adopt this idea, you know, we don't need the income tax. That is a Marxist type thing. Like I say, you find a $100 bill in a parking lot. Legally, you're supposed to call the government say, here's your 50%, you know. It should be a consumption tax and indirect. That's what the Founding Fathers basically said in the United States, no direct taxation.

Because it sounds nice, oh, we're only going to tax the rich. Okay, how do I know you're not rich? You've got to file and say I'm not. What's the legal implication? If you fail to file, that's a criminal act. If you file and say, well, I can't pay. that's not they can't put you in prison for not paying your taxes they put you in prison for not telling them that you owe it substantial difference that's how they get around the constitution

right um so that's why i i i say no income tax then you don't have to report everything you're doing if if you all of a sudden every alberton brett and i don't know the the numbers off the top head but you went no income tax what does that drop them uh every every person listening us what would they what are they paying right now in income tax oh yeah i'd say at the very least probably 20% of the income you know it's i did work down in the cayman islands at one point where they don't have any tax and i was just baffled it's like here's your salary divided by 12 there's your check for the month and and it's absolutely baffling how much they take off with CBP, EI, type things like that, but there is a consumption tax down it.

I would say it's higher than 20%. I would say it's, I'm almost certain it's higher than 20%, but maybe I'm wrong on that. But if every Albertan was in this got 20% more in their pockets and then you flipped it around and said, well, all we're going to do is have a consumption tax, which I assume means Martin, when you go buy things, there's just a tax on everything. Well, I mean, heck, there's already a sales tax. you go buy liquor, Brett could laugh at this, right? Every April 1st, our sales tax on liquor goes up every year.

It's an escalator tax. You're already paying all these things and you're saying if you did away and you had 30 or while, I don't know, Brett's number 20%, I'm going to say 30%. Somewhere in there, if you had that money in your pocket, what are you going to do? You're going to buy things. And then that consumption tax gets funneled back to help support the infrastructure of the country. That's a very interesting thought, Martin. Look, I'm here in Florida.

We have no income tax. We just have a retail sales tax, all right, and a property tax. But the governor is even trying to get rid of that now. But we have a balanced budget. It can be done. It's not, you know, it's the problem with politicians is that they don't want to reform. I need more money. Just raise the taxes. That's basically what they always do. And there is a level of resistance. Like I said, just look at the city of Detroit where all the cars began. There's nobody there. Everybody left. All right, there's a classic, look, the same thing, the city of Maine's in Germany. All right, that's where the Gutenberg Press was, all right, 14th Central. Same thing. They start raising taxes. Oh, this is a boom. We're going to make a fortune. Even Gutenberg left. The city ends up bankrupt. All right. The Pope even excommunications. All right. And then the city gets sacked by its creditors because it defaulted. I mean, it's the same story over and over.

and over again. It's not my personal opinion. This is just the way it is. You put somebody in government once they have that power. They don't want to hand it back. So the key is making sure that you do a constitution. I mean, look, if I do insider trading, it's 20 years in jail. I can tell you they're trying to put through a bill on Capitol Hill to outlaw politicians from insider trading. What do I have? What have I heard? I said, listen, I wish you all the best of luck, all right? Well, how am I going to pay for my child's tuition if I can't trade stock? I go to jail for 20 years. You get to be a multimillionaire. And how they, you know, they're virtually bankrupt when they go in and they come out multi-millionaires all the time.

Yeah. Martin, I appreciate you giving us some time today. Brett, appreciate you hopping on. And I hope it's enlightening on a few things. Either way, gentlemen, I appreciate you hopping on and doing this. I think there's some things to chew on there. Yeah, thanks again, Martin, for giving us a little extra time today. No problem.

If you need any help, Brett, no problem. No, thanks for that. We look forward to having your office here in Alberta, so that'll be nice. Well, and I tell you what, before then, we look forward to having Martin back at the Cornerstone Forum in March. That's going to be going on in Calgary. So, and if anybody's listening and is going, holy crap, I should grab a ticket for that. Early bird prices are on until December 31st. Go grab a ticket today.

Anyways, there's my sales pitch. Gentlemen, thanks for hopping on. Well, thank you for inviting me and good luck up there, really.