We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP449: Why the Dollar is the Strengthening to 20 Year Highs W/ Brent Johnson

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to TIP. With the DXY, aka Dollar Index at a 20-year high, I had to bring back Brent Johnson of Santiago Capitol to investigate whether his dollar milkshake theory is finally underway. In this episode, we discussed why the stagflation playing out today is the worst-case scenario. What is causing the dollar to strengthen to 20-year highs? Why the Japanese yen just reached 40-year lows? How high energy costs exacerbate the issue? their performance of silver and gold, why it'll be best to own U.S. assets over time and much,

Starting point is 00:00:34 much more. I always enjoy speaking with Brent, and it's especially interesting when a contrarian take begins to show merit. You do not want to miss this one, so without further ado, please enjoy my discussion with Brent Johnson. You are listening to The Investors Podcast, where we study the financial markets and read the books that influence self-made billionaires the most. We keep you informed and prepared for the unexpected. Welcome to the Investors podcast. I'm your host, Trey Lockerby, and I'm really excited to have back on the show. Mr. Brent Johnson from Santiago Capital. Welcome back. Thanks for having. Happy to talk to today. So you're becoming a recurring guest, it would seem, and I have to mention

Starting point is 00:01:25 that one of our most frequent recurring guests is Luke Groman. And from where I'm sitting, there seems to be somewhat of this lover's quarrel, let's call it, on Twitter, between you and Luke, and a lot of our listeners are pretty familiar with his side of the argument. I just wanted to see if you could elaborate a little bit more, provide some nuance or context around your position versus Luke's. Sure. Well, so the funny thing is, is that Luke and I actually agree on a lot of things. But it's not fun to talk about stuff that you agree on, right?

Starting point is 00:01:55 Where you learn is when you talk about stuff, you disagree on. And I don't have a problem per se with Luke's outlook. And to a certain extent, we come at this from different angles, right? he's writing research and I'm managing money. Those two things are not exactly the same thing. They're related, but they're not the exact same thing. And, you know, I think Luke, this is my opinion and take it for what it's worth. And, you know, I think a lot of the things that Luke talks about are possibilities,

Starting point is 00:02:21 whereas it's my perception that people read about his possibilities and turn them into high probability events. And I just don't think that that's reality. And I think whereas Luke and I kind of end up at the same end game in a way, I think there's a lot of portfolios. And again, I look at this from a monetary perspective, not just a theoretical perspective. I think there's a lot of portfolios that will not survive the path to the end game if you take all these low probability events and turn them into high probability events. And so, you know, there's two sides to every story. I don't know for certain that I'm right.

Starting point is 00:02:53 And Luke can tell you whether or not he thinks he's certain he's right. But I just know there's two sides to every story. And I don't think it's quite as simple as many people think it is when it comes to things like global reserve currencies, fiat currencies, you know, what countries can and cannot do, geopolitical conflicts. I think there's a lot of uncertainties in there. And, you know, over the last couple of years, my biggest beef with a lot of other people is the certainty with which they expressed their opinion, for lack of a better word. I've always kind of said I could be wrong. I don't think I am. I'm a pretty stubborn person. But, you know, I fully admit that I could be wrong on this stuff. And I think everybody should admit that they could be wrong on this stuff because it's a very,

Starting point is 00:03:30 very uncertain time and global markets are anything but certain. And their opinion being hyperinflation in the U.S. dollar, or what exactly position are you referring to there? Well, there's a bunch of them that are somewhat related. They're different, but a lot of them kind of go hand in hand with the decline of the American Empire, for lack of a better theme. I think there's almost this, the only word I can figure out is romantic, romantic notion that the U.S. is going to get what's coming to it.

Starting point is 00:03:59 You know, it's been these profligate spenders for decades and the global bully who's gone around and pushed and shoved our opinion on the rest of the world and the rest of the world's tired of it. And they're going to rise up and throw off the yoke of the dollar. And, you know, the U.S. is going to end up in this pile of ashes and the rest of the world is going to be sunshine and roses. And I just think that that's completely, completely wrong. And so whenever I see kind of a narrative that kind of very easily describes that scenario, I feel like it's my job to push back on that. Because I don't feel like there's a lot of people that push back. fact on that. I think it's almost like this given that America has met its zenith and it's now on the decline and it's only a matter of time. The reality is that I'm somewhat sympathetic to that viewpoint, but I just think it happens much differently and overlooked much longer time period than some of these other narratives or themes would suggest. And so I feel like one of the errors that I have experienced individual investors making is they will invest in what they would like to see happen rather than what's actually going to happen. And they will take a low probability event and turn it into a high probability event

Starting point is 00:05:02 and way overweight their portfolio to that event. So I feel like the way I can provide values to kind of put the brakes on things a little bit and say, hold on a second. You know, let's take a real kind of hard, real world look at this. And I think some people appreciate that and some people don't, but that's what I do. Well, you've become pretty well known as the milkshake man because in 2018 or so, you put out this theory about the dollar milkshake, and we walked through this a little bit on episode 397 back in November, but it's predicated on this idea, maybe crazy idea, that

Starting point is 00:05:37 someday debt will matter again. And I'm curious to know, in your opinion, what will make debt matter again? And is that what's happening now? Well, I think ultimately everything in economics comes down to two things. supply and demand and kind of a subset of supply and demand is of cash flow. A business needs to receive cash flows in one form or another. Either it needs to receive cash flow from current customers who are sending cash into it in exchange for a product or they need to be out there raising money and getting cash flow from new investors. But if you're not attracting cash flow and

Starting point is 00:06:13 you're not getting any incoming revenue stream, then that company is going to fail eventually. And the same things for an individual or for a country or kind of any organization. And one of the things that governments have been absolutely, and governments and monetary authorities have been absolutely great at, you know, and I took my cap to them as kicking the can down the road and extending the game. And typically the way that they've done that is when cash flows from customers stop flowing in, they've provided cash flow from government stimulus or bailouts or whatever you want to call it, right? And for that reason, debt. hasn't mattered. We just kicked the can down the road. In a weird way, so let me take a step back.

Starting point is 00:06:55 As you said, I kind of started talking about this in 2018. And I am the first one to say that I was early. You know, on Wall Street, you're typically, if you're early, you're wrong. And so from that perspective, I was wrong. Now, I don't think I'm going to continue to being wrong, but there's no question I was early. I kind of saw this playing out 2019, 2020 timeframe. And when COVID hit, I thought that was the trigger. In hindsight, it was not the trigger. And again, I'm not blaming being wrong on COVID. It kind of drives me crazy when people blame all their problems on COVID. But what I think happened was COVID was such a, for lack of a better word, globally systemic event. It sort of forced the whole world to work together to combat it. And so we kind of saw the whole world,

Starting point is 00:07:36 you know, do the same thing from a monetary policy perspective, from a government spending perspective, from a trade perspective, you know, perhaps Trump and China kind of took it a little bit easier on each other than they otherwise would have if they didn't have to deal with that. But now we fast forward, and now we're in 2022. Maybe COVID isn't totally behind us, but it isn't kind of the front and center that it was two years ago or even a year ago. But now what we have is rather than the world working together, we have the bifurcation of the world.

Starting point is 00:08:04 I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say we've kind of gone back to this Cold War mentality where we've got Russia and China on one side and the U.S. and the West on the other. And, you know, sides are being drawn and partners are being picked and red lines are being put down. I think it's the opposite of coordination. Then not only that, but within those two sides, there's fractions. And now we have not only monetary policy divergence between the two sides, East versus West, but we've got monetary policy divergence within the West and within the East. Some countries are tightening monetary policy and some countries are loosening monetary policy.

Starting point is 00:08:41 That is the environment, especially when the U.S. is tightening monetary policy where really volatile things happen. And it's primarily a reason because the whole world trades in dollars, because it's a global reserve currency, and because there's so much dollar debt out there. And it's the primary funding currency of most countries. When the U.S. raises rates or tightens monetary policy, they're not just tightening it on the United States. They're tightening it on the whole world. You know, when Japan does monetary policy or Europe does monetary policy or Brazil or Australia, when they do money, monetary policy, it's typically for their own region. It's typically not a global event. But when the U.S. does it, it's a global event. And so I think because of that happening, going back to what will

Starting point is 00:09:20 cause debt to matter is I think flow of cash is going to start leaving certain places. And I think it's going to come mostly to the United States. If it moves at all, I think it's going to come to the United States. And again, if it doesn't move, capital's not moving. You're not going to get that cash flow. You're going to have a problem. And I think if it does move, I think it's mostly going to come to the West into the United States in particular. I think that's going to deprive the rest of the world of capital. And so I think that is what's going to cause debt to matter. The lack of coordination and the lack of liquidity. Now, we'll see. If that doesn't happen, I'll be wrong again, but that's kind of how I see it playing out. Or that's what I think causing debt to matter.

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Starting point is 00:14:06 Let's walk the dog on that a little bit more. So you're saying essentially, you know, now that we're raising rates, we're tightening, it's tightening the entire world. And I've heard you talk about how in the dollar milkshake theory, U.S. assets would benefit. So is that what you're talking about when dollars are coming back to the U.S. they're chasing yield. They're chasing U.S. denominated assets. And how exactly does that affect the level of debt?

Starting point is 00:14:27 I always point out, the very first time that I ever mentioned the milkshake theory by name, I was very clear that this is a story that ends badly for everybody, even for the United States. But that I thought on a relative basis to the rest of the world, the U.S. would outperform. And I actually think at some point we will get into a point where the U.S. equity market is actually rising, not just versus the, like for the last couple years, it's dramatically risen versus the rest of the world. Now, over the last month or so, you've seen it coming down. I don't think that that's over. I think it's going to continue to come down. But in the years ahead, I actually think we will see U.S. equity prices rise,

Starting point is 00:15:05 not just versus the rest of the world, but on an absolute basis. And I think that will be because of this sovereign debt and this just general debt crisis that we have. I think money will leave bonds. We're already seeing that. We're already seeing money. A lot of money has left bonds. And I think to a certain extent, to U.S. large cap equities will replace global sovereign debt as a place to safely quote unquote on a relative basis, part capital. So the way it affects the debt is that it affects the debt in two different ways. And it depends on where the debt is located. If it affects US dollar debt outside the United States, it deprives those markets who owe dollars of liquidity and deprives enough capital. So, you know, the milkshake theory is the U.S. is sucking up that capital.

Starting point is 00:15:52 When it sucks that capital into the United States, it's sucking that capital away from the rest of the world. And if the rest of the world either cannot get dollars to finance their trade or cannot get dollars to service their debt or cannot get dollars to do whatever that U.S. dollar funding for, that's a problem and that's when defaults start to occur. And again, it's very complicated. I try to make it simple, but it's actually very complicated because in a debt-based monetary system where money is loaned into existence, the system has to grow. The debt has to get rolled. It's not designed to have a reverse gear. It can go backwards for a couple months, maybe a year or two with government support, but it can't just be allowed to go and reverse on its own because if that happens,

Starting point is 00:16:33 the entire system crashes. And so that's what I think in many ways. ways the rest of the world is going to be faced with. Once you start to get a default, it leads to another default. And then when another default happens, then it leads to somebody getting laid off. And then when they get laid off, then they can't pay their bills. And then the people that they owed money to, then they can't pay their bills. And it kind of becomes this vicious cycle where the lack of liquidity gets more lack of liquidity.

Starting point is 00:16:59 And once that starts, it's really hard to turn around. It's not impossible. You know, we've seen this several times. We saw it in 2001.com. crisis. We saw it in 2008 financial crisis. We saw it in 2020, but a lot, a lot of pain happens before they can turn it around. And it takes typically a Herculane effort to turn it around. And each time, it typically takes a bigger effort than it did previously. You know, and we all know how crazy it got in 2020 and the measures they had to take to kind of turn it around. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:17:27 maybe they can turn it around again or maybe they can't. But I guess my point is, is that every time they've kicked the can down the road, they've made the problem bigger. When kicking to the can down the road does not decrease the problem. It makes it bigger. It makes it come along later, but it makes the problem bigger. So I think it will eventually get away from them. And, you know, we will have kind of a global contagion. So on that last point about kicking the can, rolling things over, the U.S. has 6.5 trillion coming due in the next 12 months. And they've got to roll that over. And now they're rolling it over at a higher interest rate, it would seem. So what kind of effect? I mean, how can we interpolate that? I mean, what is it going to be the effect of?

Starting point is 00:18:06 of moving all that to a higher interest rate? Yeah, well, so the first thing is it's a problem. I'm the first one to hold up my hand and say, listen, the U.S. is not a good shaker. This is not a good situation to be in. But the second thing I'll say is that rates are not just rising in the United States. They're rising all over the world. And not only are they rising in U.S. dollar terms, but they're rising in other currency terms because the U.S. dollar is rising versus almost every other currency.

Starting point is 00:18:30 So if the U.S. dollars is rising versus every other currency and rates are going up in U. us dollars, then that means it's going up even more for all these other countries that have US dollar funding or you need US dollars to trade. And we get back to this relative argument. One distinction I should probably make is, you know, again, when individuals listen to this, they may make the comment, well, just sell everything and go sit in cash, you know, button down the hatches. That is possible for you as an individual. That is not possible for a large pension fund, but that is not possible for a large endowment. It's not possible for hedge funds and central banks.

Starting point is 00:19:06 And, you know, they have to place capital. Their investment policy statements probably says something that they can have a maximum size of cash position of like 3% or 5%. A 5% cash position in a pension fund would probably be fairly large. So that means 95% of their capital. It has to go somewhere. And by the same thing, they might have an allocation that allows them to go 5% to gold.

Starting point is 00:19:28 I think that would actually be even a high percentage that would allow them to go to gold. And most of them don't believe in gold. You as an individual might believe in gold, but most of these big pension funds and asset gatherers and asset allocators are not huge allocators to gold. Now, maybe they will be someday, but that's a process. So, you know, 90 to 95% of this money has to go somewhere. And so, you know, it's not a matter of going and saying, gosh, so even if you hate everything, you have to pick one of them and to place your capital there. And I think when that happens, that capital will choose a U.S. Treasury that now yields dramatically more than just about any other treasury. You can actually get some yield in bonds now. You know, for years, we've said bonds are

Starting point is 00:20:05 a return-free risk because you buy this thing, you know interest rates are eventually going to go up. You're taking all the risk, but you're not getting any interest in return. Well, again, it's not bad. It certainly hasn't normalized, but it's much closer to normal today than it was even just a year ago. So the fact that you can get, I think the 10-year hit 3% earlier today. So you can get 3% by buying a 10-year treasury. But if you buy a 10-year Japanese bond, you get 0.25%. Now, if you have to put your money somewhere and you know you have liabilities in dollars and you know you have to trade in dollars and you have to choose between buying a Japanese treasury that yields you 0.25% and a 10-year treasury that yields you three, you buy the 10-year treasury, you offset your liabilities perfectly,

Starting point is 00:20:46 you don't have to do any currency hedging and, you know, you get a yield that's almost 10 times as much as the other one. It's not that hard of a decision to make. And so from that perspective, even though it will be harder for the U.S. to fund itself now that interest rates are much higher than they year ago, I think that we will be a more attractive option for global capital than the rest of the world. And so while it is a problem and it will eventually cause us to probably maybe default in some form or another, I think it will happen to the rest of the world first. And when it starts happening to the rest of the world first, I think that makes the dollar even more attractive. So again, it's not that I'm ignoring the problems in the U.S. It's just I think there's a sequence of events.

Starting point is 00:21:24 And I think that sequence of events comes home to Roost last in the U.S. And so you kind of have to look at things on an absolute basis, just to understand the absolute game, but you cannot ignore the flow of funds that will exist based on the relative game, if that makes sense. Again, everything comes down to flow, right? And if the U.S. is getting the flows, even if the flows are smaller than they are today, but they're bigger going into the U.S. than they are everywhere else. On a relative basis, the U.S. is still better off than the rest of the world. That's so interesting. And when I asked really about when debt is going to matter again, I almost expected you to say, you know, when inflation matters again. Now we have to increase interest rates to quell inflation. And you have

Starting point is 00:22:05 everyone in the U.S. at least scratching their heads. Like, why on earth are we raising into weakness into a lot of things that are happening in the market right now? And to your point, what I'm hearing from you just now is that the Fed is thinking more globally, right? And they're saying, well, we've got to raise rates because we're going to have to print more money. We're going to create more bonds to fund that money printing and who's going to buy it. Ideally, not the Fed. You know, ideally it'd be the rest of the world. And maybe they will. if we are able to provide some real yield. Is that correct?

Starting point is 00:22:32 I mean, that's part of it. I think them raising rates is kind of threefold. One, you make it more attractive and then you get more capital. Number two, if you raise, then you have more room to cut later if you want to. Number three is the inflation point that you just brought up. And I'm going to go off on a tangent here, but I promise I'm going to come back to this point. If you think back a year ago, it was an absolute given that interest rates were never going to be raised and the government was never going to stop sending checks.

Starting point is 00:22:58 The playbook was financial repression. We're going to hold real rates negative. We're going to keep rates low. We're going to keep spending fiscal stimulus. And we are going to inflate our way out of this problem. If we can get 5% inflation for the next 10 years, that decreases the debt burden by 50%. And the point is that works really, really well on a spreadsheet. It doesn't work that well in real life because there's political ramifications of having 5% inflation. The other thing is it's very hard to get 5% inflation without it splurging out of the toothpaste tube and becoming 10% inflation or 15% inflation. And once that happens, it starts to happen, politicians start to feel it. And politicians are nothing but short-term thinkers. I mean, that's how they get re-elected is taking care of short-term problems. They don't get re-elected by taking care of long-term problems. So, and we've already seen. And so my point is, is the certainty with which financial regression was going to take hold a year ago has just a year later, we're having rate hikes. And they're going to raise rates again tomorrow or Wednesday. They may raise rates again in June. They're going to start doing QT. And if you don't believe that they're going to

Starting point is 00:24:02 do this, then I think you're not paying attention. Now, at some point, they're going to have to reverse. But I think they're going to keep tightening until something breaks. And I think that they know that if something breaks, it's in a break overseas before it breaks here. And if it breaks overseas before it breaks here, that gives the U.S. political leverage, which is, you know, again, that's what they want. As the global hegemon, that's what the U.S. wants leverage on the rest of the world. So that's why this inflation, your point about inflation, it's an important one. And to your point, inflation is causing the rate rises. The rate rises is pulling the dollar higher because you get more bank for your buck

Starting point is 00:24:37 if you put it into dollars and put it into treasuries. And then putting the dollar going higher squeezes the rest of the world. So now the rest of the world, we're in a global slowdown from a growth perspective. So the rest of the world, their top line is slowing down. But because the dollar is going higher and rates are going higher, their bottom line financing costs are going up. So they're getting squeezed. And their currencies are starting to fall because many countries are trying to combat this squeeze with more fiscal stimulus and spending more money and doing more QE in easy money policy. And again, so it becomes this vicious circle, which actually perpetuates the problem rather than solving the problem.

Starting point is 00:25:13 So to your point, what causes the debt to matter is inflation is a very good, is one of the answers and maybe the best answer. Well, you talked about something breaking, especially globally. Aren't we seeing that? I mean, the yen has now broken through a 40-year trend line, and it is like falling off of a cliff that you want is following closely behind it. What are we going to have to see breaking for the Fed to reverse course here? Well, so again, there's a couple things here. First of all, they're not going to reverse course without pain.

Starting point is 00:25:43 They are a reactionary agency. They're not a proactive agency. They're going to stay on their path and tell something forces them to change. their path. And right now, it's not bad enough that it's changing. Right now, the pain, the pain that the average person in the United States is feeling right now is inflation. And so that and politically, what the biggest knock against the Biden administration right now is inflation. And if the Democrats want to get reelected, the majority in the House or whatever, they need inflation to come down between now and November because the Republicans will blame it

Starting point is 00:26:16 all on them now. Whether that's accurate or not, I mean, we could probably debate that for a century. I'm just saying the perception is that this is Biden's problem. And Biden is a Democrat and the Democrats are in control of the House. So why can't they do something to fix it? And so this is a real problem. This is the real politic of inflation. Again, they've wanted inflation for years. Now they've got it. But unfortunately, instead of getting three to five percent inflation, they've got eight percent inflation or 10 percent or 20. Whatever number, you know, you want to subscribe to inflation is much higher than was expected. And so that is the problem that they're currently dealing with. So going back to your point, what is going to make the Fed change their mind. It's going to take more pain than we currently have, because if they were to go back to QE as an example, that's going to likely increase the inflationary effects, at least in the short term. I don't really have time to get in the whole monetary reserves and what's a reserve and what's it isn't and is QE inflationary or deflationary. But I would argue that it pushes prices higher in the short term, but maybe for not for the reasons that many people think it does, but without going too much into

Starting point is 00:27:19 that debate right now, that would exacerbate the inflation problem, at least in the short term. And so they're not going to do that, I don't think, before the election, unless something forces them to. And what could force them to is kind of a global EM meltdown. If the rest of the world starts to melt down and then that comes back and starts to melt down in the U.S., then they will react. But again, if that happens, the U.S. on a relative basis is still going to be better off. Again, we are not going to have a situation where the U.S. markets are down 30 or 40 percent, and EEM is up 5 percent or 20 percent. It just doesn't work that way. I'm sorry for anybody who thinks that's going to happen, but it's just not going to happen. So it's possible that the whole world

Starting point is 00:27:59 kind of goes down together, in which case the U.S. has to bail out the rest of the world and the U.S. But if the U.S. is bailing out the rest of the world, the U.S. is in the driver's seat. The person doing the bailing out has more leverage than the other guy. Now, I know some people will say, well, if you owe the bank $100 million, then you have a the leverage well. When you also have aircraft carriers and hypersonic missiles, you know, that changes a little bit. And that's another part of my argument is that the U.S. is the global hegemon. There is, you know, not too many countries that can even consider taking on the United States. And I would argue that there's nobody that can beat the United States in a global military conflict right now. Now, that doesn't

Starting point is 00:28:35 mean that the U.S. would not get hurt in a war. It doesn't mean that I think that we could easily roll over just anybody in the world. I just mean that, you know, if you really go to the mattresses, so to speak, think the U.S. comes out ahead. And that's how a global hegemon works. You know, I think part of raising rates and making the dollar stronger is part of the U.S. kind of getting the rest of the world back in line. To me, it's a geopolitical tool as much as it is a domestic monetary tool. And I think that's kind of what you're seeing right now. Let's keep talking about what will drive something to break. You know, we've described the U.S. dollar in previous conversations as a wrecking ball, especially when it gets to higher levels. And we are now seeing the U.S., well, the DXY, at least, at 103 and change as

Starting point is 00:29:15 of today. Last time we spoke, I asked you, what would be a number that would get you, you know, be a red flag or an alarm going off for you? And you said around 97. So we're well past that and we've definitely gone above and beyond. But you've also said that what's more important than the nominal number is the rate in which it has changed and has been climbing fairly slowly over the last six months or so. Why do you think that is? And are you less concerned that it's at 103 because the rate of change has been lower? Well, I'm not less concerned. I'm very concerned. I think your point is perfect in that the reason that we haven't seen chaos, for lack of a better word, is because it's taken six months to go from 94 to 102 or 103, whereas in 2012, we went from

Starting point is 00:29:58 94 to 102 in 10 days. So that's when the wrecking ball just comes out of nowhere, nobody's ready for it, and just kind of not you over. You know, the most recent one has been kind of, for lack of a better we're kind of the slow boiling of the frog, so to speak. You know, the ratchet's gotten slowly tighter and slowly. Now, it's still tight. Don't get wrong. That ratchet is still tight. But it hasn't been the knee jerk tightening.

Starting point is 00:30:22 It's just been the slow tightening. And so I think that's why the world, for the most part, has weathered it a little better than it did in 2020. But at this level, it's starting to cause real problems. And you mentioned a little bit ago, the yen, and I said I'd come back to it. To me, the yen, and I said this at a conference a couple weeks ago. And I've actually seen it being talked about. much more over the last two or three weeks, but a month ago, nobody was talking about the yen.

Starting point is 00:30:45 But to me, the yen is the most important thing that nobody was talking about. And it's the most important thing that people are starting to talk about now because the yen is now at 130 versus the dollar. Now, a year or so ago, it was a 105, but the beginning of the year was like at 115, 110, 115. And so for a major currency, that's a big move for an emerging market currency. But for a major currency, probably the third biggest or most used currency in the world, to move that much over a two-month period, that's a huge move. And what's happening is exactly, I hate being that I told you so, Guy, but this is the milkshake, hopefully this will help explain it. And this is why I said this will happen to the U.S. last is that

Starting point is 00:31:23 Japan, despite all the problems the U.S. has, Japan has the same problems. They have a huge amount of debt. They have very low interest rates. The Bank of Japan has had to buy so many of the JGBs to keep interest rates low. People say the Fed buys all the bonds here. Well, the Bank of Japan's balance sheet and the percent of bonds that they buy makes us look like very conservative investors. And so what's happened is all of their banks, all of their insurance companies, all their pension funds own these huge amounts of Japanese bonds on their balance sheets. But they bought them with either zero or negative even yields or extremely low. So if yields, if interest rates even go up a half a percent or one percent in Japan, these pension funds and banks, they get wiped out. They have a banking crisis. And so what's

Starting point is 00:32:08 happening this year is, again, the interest rate's going up in the U.S. It's not just a U.S. problem. It's a global problem. They're going up all over the world. And so they're actually starting to go up in Japan. And the Japanese tenure has gone up 25 basis points. And just that small move has caused so much problem for the Japanese banking system is that the Bank of Japan has had to come out on several occasions now and institute yield curve control, which is basically saying we will buy as many bonds as we have to, in order to keep rates down. And if you think about that, every time they buy bonds, they're making yen available, right?

Starting point is 00:32:45 They're exchanging yen for bonds. And so then those banks can take those yen and loan them out or use them as reserves to make loans and extend the game. And, you know, that basically makes the increases the yen available. And so the yen is starting to fall in value. And they've basically said, well, this is the point with yield curve control. A lot of people will make this point with a dollar. The U.S. is going to have to choose.

Starting point is 00:33:06 Do they save the bond market or do they save the dollar? And I agree, the U.S. is going to have to make this choice someday. Unfortunately for Japan, that someday is already today. They have to choose between saving their bond market and saving the yen. And because they can't afford a banking crisis, they've decided to sacrifice the yen. They're going to save their banks and sacrifice their citizens purchasing power. That's what they're doing. And so you see the yen just continuing to fall. And I think that's going to continue to happen. I think the yen's going to go to 140 before it turns around. And then maybe it'll have a little bit of a rally. And then it's going to go to 150, 175. And I think it's going to go to 200 because I don't think there's anything that the bank of Japan can do to stop it. And so, you know, if that happens, and then that's going to contribute greatly to the DXY going higher. And again, as the dollar shows to go higher, then it starts to cause other people problems. What's interesting about the yen is that we've talked about the problems that it will cause for Japan,

Starting point is 00:33:56 but it's already starting to cause problems for China because China is a regional competitor to Japan. And as the yen continues to lose value, Japanese goods become more competitive. with Chinese goods. So China is already dealing with stagflation because they have deflation in their real estate market and their economy. They've got rising inflationary problems because they have to import a lot of their food and energy. And so they're getting squeezed in the middle. But the yuan is pegged to a band. Now, it floats a little bit, but it's pegged to a band. And because the yield on the yuan was higher than the dollar for the last couple years, they got a lot of inflows. And it's those inflows of capital that allows them to peg their currency. But now, because U.S. interest rates have

Starting point is 00:34:38 risen so much, they're no longer getting those inflows. And because of the fear of sanctions on China, money's coming out of China. So we've seen the biggest outflows out of China since 2020. And they're picking up speed. So it's making it harder for China to compete with Japan because Japan's currency is lower. And they're not getting the dollar flows that they used to get. So it's very possible that the weakening yen will put pressure on the China to depreciate the yuan. And if you look back in history, 2013, when the yen lost value, it eventually led to the yuan losing value. And in 2015, a week yen is what ultimately led to the yuan doing their mini devout. And so, you know, if the yuan has another mini devout, that's going to send a deflationary wave to the rest of the world.

Starting point is 00:35:23 Now, whether that wave lasts for a couple days or a couple of months, I don't know, but I know that it's not a pleasant economic event should that happen. So to your point, you know, this even though we've had this slowly boiling frog of the DXY going from 94 to 103 over 6, 8, 9 months, it is a problem at these levels. And if something breaks, when something unexpectedly breaks, that's when the DXY gaps higher. That's when you get the real move. And then that causes other things to break. So it's kind of like the perfect storm right now, to be honest.

Starting point is 00:35:52 Stagflation is kind of the worst of all worlds because you're getting squeezed from both sides and you try to solve one problem and you exacerbate the other. And I just don't think that the monetary authorities are going to be able to manage their way out of this one without significant volatility. Now, it doesn't mean the world's going to end and we're all going to be in a pile of ashes, but I think it's, I think it's going to be very painful. Where you're seeing a lot of volatility right now is in oil and energy that's been climbing higher. And to your point with the yen, I mean, collapsing for lack of a better word, you know, that just makes energy more expensive, right? And they used to be able to export their inflation by when they were printing money doing yield control activities. But if we move into this de-globalization where we're all kind of going back to our own, you know, native mindset and nationalist mindset, how does that affect energy prices in your mind?

Starting point is 00:36:40 I mean, the price of oil, you see that going higher and higher from here? Yeah, I mean, I think in the very short term, I think it's possible we could have a demand shock to a certain extent. Maybe oil comes back down into the 80s. That would not surprise it. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see it oil in the 80s. But I do think over the next year or two, we're going to go much higher in oil. Like, I would be a buyer of oil, you know, if we get a pullback. I mean, we already own, you know, some energy names and stuff.

Starting point is 00:37:02 But in general, I think energy prices are going higher. Again, geopolitical conflict is typically inflationary because it causes less cooperation. It causes more supply chain disruptions. Again, one of the big debates over the last couple of years was, are the inflationary affects the result of all the bailouts and the helicopter money, or is it the result of COVID shutdowns and supply chain problems. And the answer is it's probably a little of both. But for everybody who is saying it's just a matter of what the central banks are doing,

Starting point is 00:37:29 I hope that that has been put to rest because, you know, we now we've got some tightening going on and we've still got supply chain problems and we've still got prices rising. I mean, a lot of people didn't think it was possible to have inflationary pressures while the dollar's rising. And I kept saying you can absolutely have inflation with a rising DXY. And again, a lot of times this comes from individuals is I will get pushed back and they'll say, Brent, it doesn't matter if the dollar rises if it's only rising versus other fiat. It only matters

Starting point is 00:37:57 if it's rising against real things. And, you know, that is the worst because the entire system runs on dollars. And if you get a deflationary wave in dollars and people have to get margin calls and they have to liquidate things in their accounts, everything will get sold just like it did in 2020. Now, it may be it lasts for only a few days or a few weeks, but it will happen. Or it can happen. And in a debt-based monetary system, you can never rule out deflationary shocks or deflationary waves. But the worst of all worlds is when the dollar is going up versus other currencies, but it's also going down versus things you need. That's stagflation. And that is what leads to hyperinflation in other currencies, not the US dollar, but in other currencies.

Starting point is 00:38:42 And I hate that even said that word because I think hyperinflation is the most overused word and fintwit and global finance. and I think it gets bandied about way too often because it's, to a certain extent, it's lost its effect. You know, what we're experiencing now, while painful from an inflation perspective, is nowhere near hyperinflation. Hyperinflation has about as much in common with regular inflation as a Ferrari has with a horse. I mean, they both move, but completely different. But this is the environment in which hyperinflation of peripheral and currencies would happen because there's no global demand for their peripheral currencies. So when they print, it has to stay in their own country. And so it loses all his purchasing power in its own country, and it loses

Starting point is 00:39:23 dramatically versus the dollar. But as the dollar continues to rise, their costs continue to go up. So if anybody thinks that the relative currencies don't matter, especially when the DXY is rising, I would just urge you to rethink that because it's actually even worse. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. No, it's not your imagination. Risk and regulation are ramping up, and customers now expect proof of security just to do business. That's why VANTA is a game changer. VANTA automates your compliance process and brings compliance, risk, and customer trust together on one AI-powered platform.

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Starting point is 00:42:51 can be found in the income funds prospectus at fundrise.com slash income. This is a paid advertisement. All right. Back to the show. They say that the road to ruin is paved with good intentions. And then last time we spoke, we were talking about how these politicians and even people in the Fed, they're kind of like magicians because they can continue to kick this can down the road and come up with all these creative ways. And just lately, you're seeing, well, for one, we're talking about student debt forgiveness here in the U.S. We're talking about 10 grand for about 13% of our population here, which equates to roughly, you know, half a trillion dollars of stimulus, really, which is what it is, right? Because that's debt. They don't have to service. They can go

Starting point is 00:43:31 spend it in other ways. And then in Australia, you're seeing them, their government come out saying they're going to buy our offer up 40% of home purchases just to keep that bolstered. And so where I'm kind of confused is, you know, quantitative easing didn't seem to create any inflation. And it seems like we're now in this place where we're really hesitant to go back to quantitative easing for right now. And we're more prone to go direct with direct stimulus, which in my mind just kind of creates more problems, right, with inflation and everything else. So why do you think we're seeing, is it just because they're trying to get reelected? The thing you mentioned with Australia is a perfect example, because this is the opposition

Starting point is 00:44:10 party. There's an election coming up in Australia. This is the opposition party. They're already starting to see downward pressure on home prices in Australia, which is a huge problem for Australia. And they haven't even raised interest rates. They're probably going to raise interest rates tomorrow, but they haven't yet. And so this is a perfect example of the opposition party trying to get elected, making campaign promises. And again, they're not coming out and making a promise to cure inflation. Or they're not coming out and making a promise, you know, to take money away from somebody. They're coming out and making a promise to give more money to them or help them in some form. You know, they're not coming out and saying, we're going to help you with inflation,

Starting point is 00:44:40 where we're going to come out and help you buy that home in order to keep home prices coming up. And they're using that as a, they're dangling that shiny object to get elected. And that's, again, whether you're a current politician, you're somebody who's trying to get elected, that is how you get elected. And that's how these problems get kicked down the road. And that's why they just become bigger and bigger. Again, there's no easy solution now because, is whichever way they go, they cause one of the other problems. If they continue to raise rates, they're going to cause a credit contraction because, you know, people will start defaulting at some point to with higher rates. But if they cut rates and go back to easy monetary policies, it's going to

Starting point is 00:45:11 extenuate the inflationary pressures that are being felt. So again, it's kind of a damned if you're new, damned if you're dumb moment. And this is, like I said, this is why it's the worst of all worlds because there is no easy solution. There is no easy way to get out of us. And typically, typically, if you just stood back and let the free markets do its work, it would be really painful, but it'd probably be over in six to nine months, right? But governments don't stay in power by just standing back and let the free market work and new people don't get elected to positions of power by saying, I'm not going to do anything. Please elect me.

Starting point is 00:45:41 I'm not going to do anything to help you, right? No, that's not a very good campaign platform. And so these problems just get bigger. Eventually, eventually, debt will matter. Eventually, the markets will overpower the monetary, Androns, for lack of a better word, and the central bank, you know, omniscience. But again, central banks are very powerful. And that's why one of my other pet peeves is when people say, oh, the central bank,

Starting point is 00:46:03 they're going to, they're out of bullets. There's nothing they can do. Well, trust me, there's a lot more things they can do. Now, ultimately, I think they're going to lose control. And I'm not a fan of central bankers at all. But to say that they don't have any power, they're out of bullets and they can no longer do anything. I would be very careful if I was making that bet.

Starting point is 00:46:20 Well, said another way, I think what people are referring to is to your point earlier, it's they could do quantitative easing and increase the asset prices, which, you know, basically decreases the public's purchasing power in a way. Or they can create stimulus, thus creating real inflation and, you know, everyday goods, which thus decreases purchasing power. So it just seems like no matter which way they go, our purchasing power is going to be collapsing more and more over time. And to your point, I think it's like, you know, we'll be the last ones in the race or the last to be affected, which is a, I think, a really interesting nuance to the discussion. that's not often, I think, appreciated.

Starting point is 00:46:55 And I guess my question then would be, so if our purchasing power is going down, there's usually you would think to flock to a store of value, right? A store of wealth. And gold comes to mind to your point with endowments, may or may not be going to gold. I mean, we did see gold shoot up recently, went over $2,000. It's come back down. I'm a little surprised gold hasn't done more, given the environment we're in. I mean, obviously there's the other store of values out there as well.

Starting point is 00:47:22 we could talk about. But that one in particular, with everything going on today, why is that not much higher than it is today, in your opinion? It's a very good question. You're not alone. A lot of people are trying to figure that out. I tend to think that it's a combination of a couple things. One is that rates have gotten high enough now to where real rates are positive. When real rates were negative, because inflationary pressures are starting to come down a little bit, again, they're hot. I'm not pretending that they're not high. But, you know, the price of oil has stopped skyrocketed higher, you know, copper started to come down a little bit. Some of the other inflationary effects are either not rising as fast or they're expected to not rise as fast. And so

Starting point is 00:48:01 forward-looking rates, real rates are positive now. And when there were negative, gold was screaming. So I think that's part of it. The other thing is I think there's also this understanding that there is uncertainty out there. Again, you know, a year ago, everybody was absolutely certain the government was never going to stop sending checks and they were just going to do QE forever. But But now they're not. And every time we've had a financial crisis, again, people always say buy gold for a financial crisis. And listen, I agree with that. But you have to understand that in a financial crisis, the reason you have an insurance policy is so that you can use it in a financial crisis, right? And the thing is, gold is always liquidated. No matter what the environment is, you'll always be able to sell gold. So when a financial crisis, people start to cash in their insurance policy. So, you know, if we have another financial crisis and everything gets liquidated, I think gold gets liquidated with it. Now, I think it will come back. back faster than just about anything else, just like it did in 2020. But in 2020, the market for gold, I think, went from, was it, 1600 to 1400? It went down like $200. The miners went down 40 or 50%. You know, and so it wasn't immune from this market sell-off. Now, I think that you can buy gold. And as long as

Starting point is 00:49:08 you understand why you own in a portfolio, I don't really think it matters, whether it goes higher or lower, you own it as insurance. But if you're buying gold as a speculative way to get rich, then I think there's a lot of risk in that. You know, if you have a long time horizon, maybe you don't. But if you need to use that part of your portfolio to live or to pay bills or to fund some other project, there's nothing to say that we couldn't have a pullback in gold in which case you'd become a distressed seller rather than a distressed buyer. But I think it's really, really hard to find stores of value right now. I mean, gold is about as good a store value as there is. But even that's not a guarantee. There is unfortunately no guarantees, right?

Starting point is 00:49:42 This is a really, really hard time, you know, for people who are trying to protect their portfolios. Now, you tweeted today, has there ever been an asset that that's, It's broken more hearts than silver. And I got to say, I'm one of those brokenhearted people because I've been hanging on to silver, admittedly, for years now. And I saw it as a very asymmetric bet. The thesis wasn't terribly strong. I just saw it as incredibly cheap.

Starting point is 00:50:04 And it has just done really nothing for years. So I'm right in that camp. And I'm just kind of curious, why do you think that is? Is it similar to the gold argument? And what's your prospect for silver? I think it's similar to a gold mark agreement. I think it's also that silver is more of an industrial metal than gold. right? And so, you know, with some questions of what's going on in the economy now, we see other risk assets selling off. To me, it's not shocking to see silver selling off with it. I think part of it is it's just, it's a smaller market and it can be pushed around a lot easier. So when people do sell, you know, in size, it affects it more. But, you know, I, listen, I think that gold and silver are both going to do phenomenally well, you'll say over the next five years, but it doesn't mean it's going to happen over the next five months. And I'm not one of these people who thinks every day that I come in and gold is down, that it's because of manipulation.

Starting point is 00:50:50 I think people who rely on that, rely on that too much. And the second thing I'd say is if you think it's that easy to manipulate the market, then you really want a market that can be manipulated that easy as the bedrock of your portfolio. Again, I think any of these speculative assets, which I consider silver a speculative asset, now that doesn't mean that the speculative asset won't go up 10 times in the next five years. But it's much more of a speculative asset. And I think it has uncertainty creeps back into the market. and inflationary pressure start to wane a little bit and real interest rates rise,

Starting point is 00:51:22 silver starts to become a little less desirable. And again, I think one thing that would help people, especially people who are investors in silver or even gold, is when you think about stuff like this, you know, don't think about how you think about it. Put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Think about the person who you spoke to last week who had no idea what the price of silver even was. What would they do?

Starting point is 00:51:43 And if the answer, if they don't even know what the price of silver is, they're probably not going to go buy silver. So if they're not going to go buy silver, then who is? So you can't think of what you or what, you know, people who are like-minded like you are going to do. You kind of have to think about what's the rest of the market going to do. And if the rest of the, if you think the rest of the market's going to go to silver, then then go buy it. And if it doesn't go up, then it just means you were wrong. But just under, I think the idea that, you know, you can just put your money in gold and silver and there's no risk involved. I think that's wrong. Well, speaking of what

Starting point is 00:52:12 the rest of the world is going to do, there's been a lot of speculation around Russia. You know, now that they're cut off from the SWIFT system, they have been stockpiling gold for quite a while. And there was a lot of speculation as to whether they would back the ruble by gold or maybe even oil or some kind of energy asset, given that that's their leverage at the moment. What is your prospective future for something like the ruble? And how does it tie in with China? Because China is saying that this could be a quote unquote new model, you know, but the Russia-China relationship could be a new model for the rest of the world.

Starting point is 00:52:42 What do you think they mean by that? So I think what's going on is it's extremely interesting. And it's kind of funny because because of my dollar views, a lot of people will say to me, Brent, how can you not see these things that are happening? And the red is I do see them. I see the what's that are happening. I admit that these are kind of historical events in the historical times and that the world is changing. But I don't necessarily see it the same way that some of the others who think that these are

Starting point is 00:53:07 like genius moves by, you know, the East that the U.S. never thought could happen. There's been books been written about exactly these events happen. So it's not like these were unknown possibilities. But I think what I would say with regard to Russia and China, if you had to choose between the two places, I would choose if I was an alien coming down to Earth and I was observing all that was going on and I could choose between being the United States and Europe, or maybe just the United States, leave Europe out of it, and Russia and China, I'm going to take the United States, not because I grew up here, not because I think it's the greatest place in the world, but despite all the problems, if you look at all the problems and all the advantages for both North America and then Russia, China, I think that the U.S. has more advantages and less disadvantages than the ones over there. Now, that doesn't mean that Russian China are not formidable adversaries. They are. They're very smart and they have resources. The fact that Russia is one of the biggest natural resource producing countries in the world gives them.

Starting point is 00:54:08 tremendous leverage. Now, I don't think it gives them enough leverage to go rule the world. And I don't think that the ruble is going to overtake the dollars, the global reserve currency. But I do think the fact that they have these assets that the rest of the world needs does give them leverage. I think to a large extent, they have played their hand pretty well because they had these sanctions put on them. I'm talking about Russia now. They had the sanctions put on them. And they used their resources and their central bank in order to prop up the value of the rubble. Because the rubble, because the ruble fell dramatically. And I think some of the capital controls, the raising of interest rates,

Starting point is 00:54:42 and I think the job owning that they've done with the gold has helped the rubble obviously come back. Now, I don't think, you have to understand, this is an extremely manipulated currency at this point. This is not the free market bringing the rubble back to where it was prior to the war. But that said, you know, Russia did it. They played their card. And it's helped them, you know, increase the value of the rubles so that at least they're not going through like super, super high levels of currency debasement right now. I still think that it's very possible that happens, but as of right now, they're not. And, you know, their biggest customers, China and China said, we're going to buy a lot of your energy.

Starting point is 00:55:15 So I do see, you know, this kind of goes back to the point we were making earlier on where we've got these two blocks, right? We've got the Eastern block and the Westburn block. And there's a lot of partnership going on inside those blocks, but there's not a cooperation outside of them. And so I think that you're going to see more of this. I think the world is going to continue to try to de-dollarize. I think the world is going to continue to try to use the assets they have today. advantage to try to get out from underneath the oppression of the dollar or the U.S. global reserve currency or the hegemon, however you want to describe that.

Starting point is 00:55:45 I think that those efforts are going to be much less successful than they are written on paper. I would almost equate it to, you know, we were talking about the financial repression earlier about how, you know, all you got to do is keep rates low and then print money and you inflate away the debt over 10 years and it works beautiful. And it's one of those things that it works beautiful on a spreadsheet, but it doesn't work so well in the real world. And I would kind of point that out here with the kind of the trading and the currency manipulations that are being done between China and China and Russia. I'm not saying they're not trying. I'm not saying they will have zero success, but I think it's going to be

Starting point is 00:56:20 much harder to pull all this off in the real world than it is on a spreadsheet. Is it also that this time is just different? For example, when we did that financial repression, we were basically coming out of World War II. So you're talking about like the 1950s time frame We've basically inflated that debt away. That wasn't nearly the global economy we have today, right? Is the fact that we have this global economy part of the reason why we can't just inflate away the debt? Yeah, it's a big part of it. Number one, debts are much bigger and the growth potential is much smaller.

Starting point is 00:56:50 Now, I never say never. Crazy things happen. Perhaps there will be some new technology that is discovered or invented and will allow us to wean ourselves off $100 oil or $200 oil or whatever it is. And maybe something will be discovered that we can, increase crop yields by 500% by sprinkling some fairy dust on the fields. And it will solve these inflationary problems and these supply chain problems. And it will lead to global growth and we'll grow out of this. I think it's highly unlikely. Again, very small probability of that. I wouldn't put it at zero, but I wouldn't put it much higher than one or two percent either. So to your point, it's just,

Starting point is 00:57:23 it's going to be very, very hard to get out of what we're seeing right now. And the other thing I would say is that for the Russia and China and some of the other countries who are trying to break away from the U.S. dominance and the global reserve currency, however you want to define that whole movement, that is unfortunately not going to happen without a military conflict. It's just not. They can try and maybe they will have some successes and maybe something that will happen to the U.S. and, you know, we will stumble. But global reserve currencies do not transfer from one place to another without significant amount of pain and typically, with, you know, without military conflict. Again, it's not impossible. It's just really, really, really low probability.

Starting point is 00:58:03 So I hate saying that and I hope to God that it doesn't come to that. You know, I have a son who's 13 and, you know, in the next few years he'll be at the age where he would, God forbid, have to participate in something like that. And I just, I hate even thinking about that. And I don't want anybody else's sons or daughters to be involved in that either. But when I look at history, that's what it tells me. So you mentioned things might get worse before they get better. So just as a mile marker here, of Friday at least, you know, about half of the NASDAQ was down 50%. 22% of the NASDAQ was down 75%. And about 1 and 20 of them are down 90%.

Starting point is 00:58:37 So, you know, I would speculate that of all the things, of all the assets in the world, high-flying tech companies are probably the thing the Fed cares about the least. But if that starts to spill over into other like even value-based companies and we start to see a bigger decline happening, where do you think we're going from here before, you know, things maybe turn around? Well, I think we're going lower in equity. I mean, maybe we get another, you know, we had a sell off in March. We had a really strong bounce the last two weeks of March and then it just rolled over hard in April.

Starting point is 00:59:03 I don't think the Fed wants chaos. I don't think the Fed minds lower asset prices because I think they want to get inflation down. And I think bringing asset prices down is part of getting inflation under control. But they don't want to collapse. I don't think they want to collapse. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if after the Fed meeting they jawbone in some way that gives equities a little bit of a left. Now, again, I'm totally speculating. and I'll have to wait and see what they actually say.

Starting point is 00:59:27 This doesn't mean that I'm positioned one way or another, but it wouldn't surprise me if we get a little bounce somewhere of the next couple weeks, but I think between now and the end of June, we're going lower. I think it's most likely that, you know, probably below, I don't like making predictions like that. But, you know, I think it wouldn't be a dollar surprised me to see,

Starting point is 00:59:44 you know, equity prices five or 10% lower from here. Well, one prediction you have made is that the dollar is kind of strengthened over time. And so far, you've been right. I mean, since 2018, maybe there's been some meandering along the way, but what we're seeing right now sure sounds like the Dollar Mokeshake Theory in play. So I have to give you credit for that. And it's always a pleasure speaking with you, Brent. Thank you for coming back on the show and updating us.

Starting point is 01:00:06 I hope we can continue to do this because this is a movie that's unfolding and it's not going to be boring. No matter which way it goes. It's funny. I would say that too. Listen, I don't know how the next couple years are going to play out. I obviously have opinions and I'm happy to share them. But I don't know for sure.

Starting point is 01:00:20 But the one thing I am kind of certain about is not going to be boring. So I think the way you just said it's perfect. Well, before I let you go, Brent, I want to make sure I give you the handoff for where people can find you and follow along with your updates. So I've got a website. It basically just has my very basic contact information on it. So if you go to Santiago Capital.com as contact information there, you can send me a message. And if you want more information, I'm pretty active on Twitter. You can search it under either Santiago Capital.

Starting point is 01:00:48 My handle is Santiago A-U Fund. You can also go to either Google or YouTube and type in, you know, Santiago Capital or milkshake theory or Brent Johnson. And, you know, hard to believe that there's many links at this point. And I'm always happy to, if I have time, I'm always happy to answer emails. It gets kind of hard to do it sometimes, but feel free to try. Well, Brent, again, always a pleasure. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 01:01:13 All right, everybody. That's all we had for you this week. If you're loving the show, don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app. And if you'd be so kind to leave us a review, we really, appreciate it. You can also reach me on Twitter at Trey Lockerbie. And next time you're at your computer, go ahead and Google TIP Finance and check out all the resources we have for you there. And with that, we'll see you again next time. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to Millennial Investing by the Investors Podcast Network and learn how to achieve financial independence.

Starting point is 01:01:44 To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only, before making any decision consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.

We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - TIP449: Why the Dollar is the Strengthening to 20 Year Highs W/ Brent Johnson

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