Schiff Sovereign Podcast

In the year 1025, the Byzantine Empire stood at the height of its final golden age. Basil II had just died, leaving behind a vast and wealthy empire stretching from Southern Italy to Armenia. At the heart of its economy was the solidus, a gold coin that had served as the bedrock of Mediterranean trade for centuries. Merchants from Venice to Baghdad had so much confidence in its purity that the solidus became the primary currency for international trade as far away as China. And this ‘reserve currency’ status allowed Byzantium to project economic power far beyond its borders. But as the empire declined, so did its currency. Successors debased the solidus to cover military costs, mixing in copper and silver until it was barely recognizable. By the late 11th century, merchants could no longer rely on the Byzantine government to maintain the purity of the solidus… so traders turned to a new, up-and-coming alternative: the Venetian ducat. This pattern has repeated itself for thousands of years: reserve currencies come and go, and are eventually displaced by another. Before the solidus, Rome had set the standard with its denarius, but centuries of inflation and political collapse led to its demise. After Venice, the Spanish real de ocho became the world’s preferred trade currency, thanks to galleons loaded with New World silver. When Spanish power faded, the Dutch guilder took over, only to be replaced by the British pound sterling, which reigned until two world wars left Britain financially exhausted. Even the US dollar, during its first two and a half decades as the global reserve currency, was based on gold, until in 1971, the dollar was removed from the gold standard. The whole concept of fiat currency (i.e. paper currency which relies entirely on trust and confidence of the issuing government) holding coveted reserve status is a new phenomenon. That means trusting the largest debtor in the history of the world, trusting the US financial system, abiding by the US government’s regulations, and dealing with the whims of their central bank—despite its mismanagement, soaring debt, and reckless policies. So much can go wrong. And at some point in the future—whether years or decades from now—the US dollar will lose its status as the world’s reserve currency. No currency has ever held that title forever, and it’s naive to assume the dollar will be the exception. When that moment comes, future historians will look back in astonishment, wondering how it lasted as long as it did. Because a system built entirely on trust can only survive as long as that trust remains. And for most of this century, the US government has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted. We explore this topic in depth in today’s podcast, and discuss how and why gold will be the beneficiary of the dollar’s loss. We also discuss: The short term “wins” possible by using tariffs as a political tool The long term damage to the dollar done by threatening allies What could replace the dollar as the global reserve currency The benefits of holding physical gold (for individuals and central banks) Investments that offer exposure to gold’s upside, without paying all time highs for physical bullion We also mention a gold company that we are profiling this month for subscribers to our investment research newsletter, The 4th Pillar, which focuses on real asset investments. And if you’d like to learn more about The 4th Pillar, which we are offering at a discount for a limited time, click here. You can listen to the podcast here. https://youtu.be/ALVdo5Xu0Ms

In the year 500 AD, just a few decades after the fall of Western roman empire, the standard of living for a typical European peasant was pretty grim. Squalid hovels. No sanitation. Short life expectancy. Even food was by no means guaranteed. If you go forward in time, even 1,000 years, the standard of living of a typical medieval peasant in the year 1500 was little changed from his predecessor an entire millennium before. Human civilization barely budged, in fact, until the late 1700s and the advent of the Industrial Revolution, where the combination of new technology, and cheap, abundant energy propelled our species into an era of unprecedented prosperity. As technology became even better, and energy even cheaper, that upward trend has accelerated. On the table in front of us right now are a handful of key technological trends that have the potential to drive human prosperity at warp speed. One of those in particular is the cheapest and most boundlessly efficient energy the world has ever seen. So naturally the US government is doing everything it can to block it and obstruct its progress. It’s obvious that the US, and the world, is for the most part, a big mess. The sheer volume of debt in the world is a major concern and one that creates more inflation, and less prosperity. It’s also a problem that is growing each year at an exponential rate. But this energy issue is a perfect example of how easy it should be to get things moving back in the right direction: just stop going out of your way to deliberately harm your country and its economy. Think about it. If you had to set the table with four key pieces and resources that were necessary to grow out of a gargantuan debt problem, and create widespread prosperity: You would want to have emerging technology for cheap, nearly limitless energy. You would want to have world changing technology to boost productivity to unimaginable levels. You would want to have one of the most successful people who has ever lived, dedicated to dismantling a destructive, bureaucratic administrative state. And you would want to have an incoming government on board with spending restraint and much needed reforms in the public sector. That’s pretty much what’s in front of us right now. On the other hand, if your goal was to make things as bad as possible, you would probably engage in a massive debt bonanza and spending blowout, hobble highly beneficial emerging technology, obstruct conventional energy production, and block win/ win foreign investment deals. These are all things we’ve seen the outgoing administration do just in the last couple weeks. And it almost looks deliberate, by a petty fool, angry he was pushed out by his own party, and lashing out at the country. There is a lot of upside potential on the other side of this, but it is by no means guaranteed, and there is still plenty of risk ahead. That’s why it still makes so much sense to have a Plan B. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12v_EGhl2_Y Listen in to today’s episode here.

Happy Canada Day to our Canadian friends. And Monday, of course, is Independence Day in the United States. It’ll be an odd one for sure. Many cities are reportedly cutting back on their fireworks displays due to… yes… supply chain shortages. And many people may scale down their traditional backyard grilling due to insanely high food price inflation. There’s undoubtedly a lot of reason for concern right now, and people of all personal philosophies across the political spectrum feel it. Those on the left are angry about recent Supreme Court decisions and concerned that they may lose other rights. Those on the right fret about cancel culture. Almost everyone is concerned about inflation… and we constantly hear the cry that ‘Democracy is under attack’. There’s a mountain of problems and no real solutions on the horizon. More importantly, it seems like intense social factions have developed. Public “debate” and civil discourse is governed by those who feel but don’t think… by people who are professionally outraged but outrageously ignorant. And it is under these odd circumstances that citizens celebrate the birth of their nations this weekend. Today I wanted to provide a little bit of historic context. There are problems, yes. But you might have a more hopeful outlook for the future after hearing more about the early days of America. Click here to listen to today’s conversation… and we wish you a safe and relaxing holiday weekend.

I’m writing you today from a cruise ship, on my way to Puerto Rico. Every year, I get together with some of the smartest guys in finance and investing for my friends, the Real Estate Guys, Investor Summit at Sea. I almost never speak at conferences outside of Sovereign Man events. But I always make an exception for this one. It’s rare that you get to spend a week chatting with and learning from guys like Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, G. Edward Griffin, Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart. And it’s great to spend quality time with the many Sovereign Man readers that attend each year. But for those of you that can’t attend, just before we got on the boat I recorded a fantastic conversation I had with Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart from Peak Prosperity. I spent some time with Chris and Adam last year and they’re really great and smart guys. We’re very aligned philosophically, so I was curious to hear their thoughts on the economy today… and where they see some opportunities. I enjoyed this conversation more than any other podcast in recent memory. In our wide-ranging discussion, we covered everything from where we see energy prices going to the geopolitical risks we see today (including the recent tragedy in Syria) to the insane, cash-burning business models of today’s tech darlings. We all agree the stock market today is “priced to fantasy” and toward the end of our discussion, we shared some specific things you can do, right now, to protect your capital and still prosper while waiting for the inevitable correction. We talk about gold, raising cash, investing in cash alternatives (including assets that are actually safer and higher-yielding than cash in the bank) and what we’re all personally doing with our own money today. I hope to sit down with these guys again for another talk because there’s still a lot to cover. And I look forward to sharing more insights with you from my time at the Summit. In the meantime, I’d strongly encourage you to take some time and listen to this excellent discussion. The perspectives Chris, Adam and I share will help you navigate this difficult time of volatility, rising interest rates and historically high prices. You can listen right here…

Today’s Notes is a bit different… I recorded a conversation I had with my colleague Sean Goldsmith about my recent travels to Venezuela. I explain how I exchanged my US dollars on the black market for Bolivar (with a taxi driver I’d never met before)… and how the situation in Venezuela will get worse before it gets better. Plus, I share observations and stories of things I saw on the ground in one of the world’s poorest and most dangerous countries. Then we discuss the tragedy in Puerto Rico… and why I think Puerto Rico is still one of the greatest opportunities in the world today. They’ve run the numbers, and their tax incentives like Act 20 and Act 22 are helping the island. I expect the amazing incentives will stay in place. And, although the hurricane was devastating, the financial aid that comes along with the storm is a catalyst to get Puerto Rico back on its feet. You can listen to our conversation below.

Yesterday I told you that the US government had recently released its annual financial report to the public. And the numbers are pretty gruesome. For example, the government’s “net loss” in fiscal year 2016 more than doubled, from MINUS $467 billion to MINUS $1 trillion. It’s astonishing that anyone could manage to lose so much money, let alone in a year where devoid of major wars, recessions, financial crises, or infrastructure projects. But what else can we expect from an institution that spent billions of dollars to build a website? Today I wanted to highlight a few other items from the government’s report that are worth repeating: 1) The federal government failed its own audit. Again. (page 37) Auditors have a bad reputation. People typically conflate ‘auditor’ with the guys at the IRS who harass taxpayers. This isn’t the case. Auditors actually work for you. Their job is to be an independent, objective set of eyes. They go into a company on your behalf and review all the records to make sure that there’s no fraud or deceit. Every year, big companies submit their financial statements to auditors for inspection, and auditors spend weeks doing their own studies to determine if those statements accurately reflect the company’s true condition. In fact, our agriculture company is undergoing an audit right now by a large, international accounting firm. It’s important: audits provide an independent assessment to the shareholders indicating that everything we’ve said about the company is true. Needless to say, when a company fails its audit report, it’s a BIG deal. That’s what happened to the US government. The government submits its own financial statements each year to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), its in-house auditor. But the GAO gave the federal government a failing grade, yet again, and specifically singled out the Defense Department for “serious financial management problems.” If this were a private company, the senior executives would be out on the street and probably facing criminal charges. 2) The government’s single biggest asset is $1 trillion in student debt (p.81) This is pretty sad. Like any large business or bank, the US federal government holds a number of financial investments. Big banks, for example, have bonds, loans, and mortgages on their balance sheet. For borrowers and homeowners, a mortgage is a liability. We owe the bank money. But to a bank, a loan is an asset; they’ve loaned the money, and they’re the ones receiving interest payments each month from us. The government also holds loans as financial assets– specifically student loans. As of September 30, 2016, America’s youth owed the federal government $953.6 billion from student loans. By the end of December, that number increased another $100 billion to $1.05 trillion. This constitutes the US government’s single biggest asset, even more than the aggregate value of their aircraft carriers or national parks. In other words, the government’s most lucrative asset is the continued indentured servitude of young people in the Land of the Free. 3) This is just the tip of the iceberg… there’s so much more to tell you. Click here to listen in on today’s podcast– I’ll explain how, based on the government’s own numbers, their actual “net worth” is nearly MINUS $100 TRILLION. We’ll debunk so many myths from the debt sheep who think it doesn’t matter. And we’ll discuss a VERY plausible scenario about how this could play out over the next few years… as well as some simple strategies to limit your exposure. Listen in here.

I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong. Britain’s referendum on whether or not to stay part of the European Union was marred by some of the most blatant propaganda we’ve seen in the West in a very, very long time. But… at the end of the day, the British government at least accurately counted the votes. No shenanigans. “Leave” prevailed. So the UK will officially be leaving the European Union. This has led to some unprecedented moves in the financial markets. The pound is at its cheapest level in decades. High quality British companies are now trading for extraordinary discounts. Investors are panic-selling because they don’t know what’s going to happen next. Britain has been part of the EU for four decades, and now that’s coming to an end. Nothing scares people more than their fear of the unknown. In fact, for decades, the political, media, and financial establishments have been pushing people along a very clear path that they wanted us to follow. Elections always represented the illusion of choice between establishment candidates and their establishment policies. This referendum, just like the surge of candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, constitute a major revolt. Simply put, this wasn’t part of the plan. So the system is in complete panic. This is a huge opportunity, especially for foreign investors who have an unprecedented chance to pick up high quality British assets on the cheap. I wanted to dive into this, so I rang up my colleague Tim Price, London-based wealth manager and one of the sharpest investors I know. Tim and I discuss several options in both stock and the currency markets, and he even highlights what investments to avoid. You can listen in to our call here. Note: Tim and I cover the following… and MUCH more: Will the UK experience a major financial recession? The pound has cratered. Is it a buy? Sell this currency instead. Why the polls are always wrong. Will the US dollar remain strong? Avoid this entire industry if you’re buying stocks. What you want to think about buying… and when.

In our daily conversations, we regularly discuss how important it is to own real assets– especially precious metals. There’s so much risk in the financial system right now. Just consider your own bank account, for example. If you’re in the West, more than likely your bank is -extremely- illiquid, meaning that they only keep a small portion of your funds in reserve. The rest of your money is gambled away in the latest investment fad; and as we’ve reported recently, banks are once again making low-money down home loans to subprime borrowers with YOUR money. This is the same playbook that nearly causes the entire financial system to collapse back in 2008. Now, here’s the thing—and a lot of people don’t realize this: the money in your bank account isn’t really YOURS. Sure, your name is on the bank account. But as soon as you make a deposit, that money belongs to the bank. And you become one of their many, many unsecured creditors. It hardly seems worth the risk, especially given the paltry 0.1% interest they’re paying you. We’ve talked a lot about different solutions, like holding physical cash, as well as precious metals. But when we use the term ‘precious metals,’ most people immediately think of gold. That makes sense, of course. Gold is the most famous and most widely held precious metal. But there are three others, namely palladium, platinum, and silver. Silver in particular may be worth a closer look; we wrote to you several months ago that silver was very cheap on a relative basis, especially compared to gold. And so far this year silver has been a top-performing commodity. So today I thought it appropriate to take some time and specifically explore silver. I sat down this afternoon with the founder and CEO of one of the fastest growing storage and precious metals trading firms in the world, based here in Singapore, and I think you’ll learn a lot from his insights into what he considers the ‘forgotten’ precious metal. You can listen in below.

Yesterday I received a rather desperate phone call from a relative of mine named Sam. I used to spend a LOT of time with Sam growing up. And back then he was an amazing guy. Sam was the kind of person who was so charismatic that you felt happy and excited just being around him. He was an incredibly positive person with a keen interest in helping others. I remember how frequently he used to start some meaningful project to benefit his community, or quite often less-fortunate people thousands of miles away that he had never met. Sam was also incredibly successful. He was just one of those people who always seemed to be able to make money. And over the course of his life he amassed substantial wealth. Sam was constantly learning and creating; he was in to art, science, technology… a real Renaissance man. Most of all, Sam was a person of rock-solid integrity. He stood up for his values, and the rest of us deeply respected him. I’m really grateful to have had his mentorship for so long, and I know that I’m a better person as a result of his influence. But starting around 15 years ago, Sam started to change. He went through a major personal crisis… the kind of thing you hope to never have to experience in life. It was absolutely terrible. And the entire family rallied around him in support. I personally spent several years of my life going to bat for Sam, and I sacrificed a lot for him. The whole family did. But Sam never recovered. In fact he just got worse. He started making the most incredibly bizarre financial decisions, squandering away his wealth in ways that just seemed completely crazy to the rest of the family. He had dozens of businesses at that point, and ALL of them were losing money. But he refused to make any changes. He refused to tighten the business spending. In fact he started spending even more, squandering what little wealth he had left. We tried to help. Some of his accountants approached us at one point and gave us a snapshot of Sam’s finances. It was gruesome. This guy had easily been the wealthiest person we had all known. But he had been reduced, at least on paper, to poverty. His debts were astronomical, and he hardly had any savings or assets left other than his house and a few fancy antiques. But Sam refused to believe it; he insisted on living like the multi-millionaire he had always been, even though he no longer had any income to support his lifestyle. It was so bad that the entire family had to chip in and start putting money into his bank account on a monthly basis. But whatever amount we could muster was barely enough to cover Sam’s most basic living expenses, let alone all the luxury he was accustomed to. And we couldn’t even begin to make a dent in Sam’s debt burden, which was growing by the day. We found out later that he had even gone into debt with some pretty shady characters. We tried intervening again and again. But Sam wouldn’t listen. And despite all the help and support we had extended him, Sam ultimately turned on his own family, attacking the people who loved him most. He used to ring us up, and sometimes even show up on our doorsteps in the middle of the night, demanding money… screaming that we had an obligation as a family to pay him. He even got violent with some of my relatives; with others he broke into their houses and stole from them. At some point there was a complete mental breakdown, and he became totally paranoid. He started taking letters from the mailbox and reading our mail. And he even ratted out a few of my relatives to the authorities for some petty violations of the municipal code. A few members of the family started to distance themselves from Sam; at that point the guy was a loose cannon and becoming dangerous. We found out later that he started embezzling funds from his companies. He’d taken money out of his employees’ pension accounts for his own personal use. And he’d leaned heavily on his reputation in the business community to build a giant fraudulent pyramid scheme. It was really sad. Sam had changed. There were always good days and bad days, and sometimes I would occasionally see flashes of the old Sam. But for the most part his desperation had made him petty, deceitful, and abusive, even with his own family. And the man I had once known– that strong, honorable Sam who always stood up for what was right– was long gone. He and I had once been so close, and he was such an important mentor in my life. But at a certain point I had to recognize that there were too many things about another person’s life that were beyond my ability to fix. I will always love my Uncle Sam and be grateful for his life lessons and the fond memories of our time together. But I finally had to move on with my own life and become free of his destructive behavior. It was a hard decision. But I know it was the right one. It’s natural to want to help family; but to continue enabling someone so abusive only makes his problem worse. And I realized that the old Sam still exists. He’s within me. And all the rest of the family. The best thing I can really do for him is to emulate all the good qualities he used to have… and continue to live by most important values that Sam once stood for. PS- Sam may be your Uncle too… because Sam is America.

This week I’ve been down in Southern Chile with the Board of Directors of our agricultural company. It’s summertime right now, and the weather is absolutely gorgeous. Last night, after a long day visiting one of the farms I had a chance to sit down with Tim Price to share a bottle of our very own Sovereign Valley wine and record a podcast. It’s been about two months now since the last episode, so I invite you to listen to our comeback with the Podcast Awakens. Over the course of a few glasses we dive into discussion about oil prices, financial markets, and an entire investment class that most people haven’t even heard of. One that’s likely to do VERY well this year. We invite you to clink glasses with us and listen in as we share the best kept secret in finance.

March 20, 2015 Sovereign Valley Farm, Chile Imagine going to the bank to withdraw some cash. Having some cash on hand is always a prudent strategy, and especially today when more and more bank deposits are creeping into negative territory, meaning that you have to pay the banks for the privilege that they gamble with your money. You tell the teller that you’d like to withdraw $5,000 from your account. She hesitates nervously and wants to know why. You try to politely let her know that that’s none of the bank’s business as it’s your money. The teller disappears for a few minutes, leaving you waiting. When she returns she tells you that you can collect your money in a few days as they don’t have it on hand at the moment. Slightly irritated because of the inconvenience, you head home. But as you pull into your driveway later there’s an unexpected surprise waiting for you: two police officers would like to have a word with you about your intended withdrawal earlier… If this sounds far-fetched, think again. Because it could very well become a reality in the Land of the Free if the Justice Department gets its way. Earlier this week, a senior official from the Justice Department spoke to a group of bankers about the need for them to rat out their customers to the police. What a lot of people don’t realize is that banks are already unpaid government spies. Federal regulations in the Land of the Free REQUIRE banks to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ or SARs on their customers. And it’s not optional. Banks have minimum quotas of SARs they need to fill out and submit to the federal government. If they don’t file enough SARs, they can be fined. They can lose their banking charter. And yes, bank executives and directors can even be imprisoned for noncompliance. This is the nature of the financial system in the Land of the Free. And chances are, your banker has filled one out on you—they submitted 1.6 MILLION SARs in 2013 alone. But now the Justice Department is saying that SARs aren’t enough. Now, whenever banks suspect something ‘suspicious’ is going on, they want them to pick up the phone and call the cops: “[W]e encourage those institutions to consider whether to take more action: specifically, to alert law enforcement authorities about the problem, who may be able to seize the funds, initiate an investigation, or take other proactive steps.” So what exactly constitutes ‘suspicious activity’? Basically anything. According to the handbook for the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council, banks are required to file a SAR with respect to: “Transactions conducted or attempted by, at, or through the bank (or an affiliate) and aggregating $5,000 or more…” It’s utterly obscene. According to the Justice Department, going to the bank and withdrawing $5,000 should potentially prompt a banker to rat you out to the police. There’s something else about this that I want to point out, though: this may be a very early form of capital controls in the Land of the Free. This is the subject of today’s Podcast. You can listen in here:

January 22, 2015 Santiago, Chile You probably know Jim Rickards as the author of two incredibly insightful books on finance and global geopolitics: Currency Wars and The Death of Money. Jim worked on Wall Street for 35 years and has an intimate understanding of how global finance and the monetary system work. He knows and regularly talks with key policymakers at the Fed Board of Governors and US Treasury, and he testifies before Congress on financial matters. Bottom line, he’s an extremely respected person in the world of finance. Not some tin-foil hat, gloom and doom guy. When he speaks, every sensible person should listen. I have an excellent relationship with Jim, and we talk often. He’s also going to be one of the speakers at our investment event in a few months. We talked again this morning and I found the information and insights he was giving so valuable that I asked him if I could share them with you. To which he happily agreed, so I hit the record button. The stuff he shared is truly remarkable. We talk about the US economy and its fundamentals, the Fed (“The Fed has the worst models. I’m not joking, they have the worst forecasting record of all time. Over the past five years they have been consistently wrong, by orders of magnitude.”) and what they’re most likely to do (or not do). He discusses how the economy is really on a knife’s edge right now as the great battle—between natural forces that are pushing for deflation and central banks and governments that are pushing for inflation—plays out. He shares his advice on what investors are supposed to do in this environment (hint: prepare for both and hold real assets). We talk about oil prices and how the fallout from oil’s drop is likely to wipe out a significant part of the $10 trillion debt market related to oil. If the default rate hits only 10%, this means a trillion dollars is on the line. More than in the sub-prime crisis a few years ago. Jim also gives an exact number of what the price of oil is likely to hover around in the medium term and why (hint: it’s all about Saudi Arabia vs. the shale industry). He also talks about gold and how its perception is starting to change (it’s being treated as money and not as a commodity)—and much more. It’s a conversation packed with so much valuable information that it’s impossible to recap it all here—I strongly encourage you to give it a listen: https://www.schiffsovereign.com/investing/powerful-investment-wisdom-from-jim-rickards-the-economy-is-on-a-knifes-edge-2-15997/ The crucial takeaway here is that there are so many different and competing forces at play. And while it might all seem fine and dandy, especially in the US, people shouldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security by the temporary respite. Sure, the dollar is strong against other fiat currencies at the moment, the stock markets are at all time highs, and the headline unemployment number is lower than it used to be—but rational people understand major risks just beneath the surface and have a plan B.

People around the world are now being sparked into action, sick and tired of limitations on their freedoms. We have a number of members from our team with boots on the ground in Hong Kong, where people are politely, but fiercely protesting the state. They are not alone. Globally, the system has to change. History shows us that this always happens. World superpowers, the prevailing social contract and the monetary system––none of these can last indefinitely. We are now living in a unique time in history where all three of these systems are on the way out.

Looking back over the past ten years, I can’t even begin to describe all the experiences I’ve had in Ukraine. For a while, I actually owned a business based here. I’ve been travelling here frequently for years. I still have many friends here. Some of our employees are based here. And Kiev is one of the cities in the world that I know best. Yet even after all of that, I still can’t make heads or tails of this place.

Henry Ford once said, “It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” He was right about at least one thing– it’s true that hardly anyone on the planet really understands the monetary system… or the way that central bankers manipulate the entire global economy.

I’m here in the Land of the Free, in New York City. And just as I was wondering what I would say to a high-ranking US politician if they asked me for advice on how to destroy their financial system, Joe Biden’s limousine arrived at my hotel accompanied by small army of secret service agents. Alas, he hasn’t yet sought me out for my input but if he did want to know how to destroy the US financial system here’s what I would tell him:

Jim Rickards, author of one of my favorite books Currency Wars and his upcoming book “The Death of Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System”, joins me today to discuss the death of money. You’ll hear about: Why a collapse of the international monetary system is coming Why it will be bigger than last time, and bigger than central banks Why he thinks the Fed can’t print their way out of the next crisis And why you won’t like the solution Liked this? Listen also to my next chat with Jim Rickards on how the economy is currently on a knife’s edge.