We’re Entering ‘Greater Depression’: Brace For War, Sovereign Defaults | Doug Casey

We’re Entering ‘Greater Depression’: Brace For War, Sovereign Defaults | Doug Casey

we have a real problem here and that’s
why I’m that’s why I say that we’ve
embarked upon something I call the
greater depression and what’s going to
happen or what is happening is what’s
going to be it’s going to be much worse
and much longer lasting and much
different this depression than the the
unpleasantness of 1929 to
1946 and uh during that period incident
uh war was a big part of the equation uh
I think the war situation is going to
get much more serious quite frankly Doug
Casey joins us today he is a
best-selling author of Crisis investing
and later crisis Investing For The 90s
we’ll be talking about crisis investing
today it’s a very timely theme as Doug
believes we’re going into a greater
depression what does this greater
depression mean why will it be here and
what is going to happen to our
investments how do we protect our wealth
in this greater depression we’ll be
talking about these themes as well as
Doug’s upcoming book in his High Ground
series of novels first it was Speculator
then drug lord then assassin then the
protagonist is going to transition into
another role Doug will explain why and
how this fits into today’s society this
episode is sponsored by nordvpn Doug
welcome back to the show always good to
see you thanks for being here it’s a
pleasure to be here with you uh David
although you’re in Vancouver I’m in
Buenos areus where I am a good part of
the year I Reon that the weather where
you are is currently better than the
weather where I am although I’m hoping
that could reverse sometime soon because
we’ve had enough of winter here um well
Vancouver’s got the best weather in the
world during the northern summer but uh
bu sis is a very moderate climate 12
months of the year so it’s it’s nice to
be here in Argentina you also uh the the
argentines elected a new president we’ll
talk about economic reform a little bit
more towards um the middle of the
interiew let’s start by talking about
you know what let let me sorry give me
30 seconds as Window Washers
back oh that’s very authentic don’t
stick away or cut their ropes that’s
great it shows that you’re not you you
know
backgrounds let’s keep this going um I
want to start by talk let’s start by
talking about global growth okay uh the
wef world economic Forum uh president he
recently made a remark at um a summit in
Saudi Arabia uh borer Brenda he said
that Global growth this year is around
3.2% it’s not bad but it’s not what we
were used to the trend growth used to be
4% for decades um he said that there’s a
risk that the economy could global
economy could fall into a stagnation
like we saw in the
1970s uh he said we cannot get into a
trade War we still have to trade with
each other are you concerned about a
global stagnation
Doug well I’m actually more more
concerned that people give any Credence
or pay any attention to these people
from the world economic forces I mean
they’re the uh they’re the forces of
darkness and and evil most of these
people uh answer to the question is that
uh I’m a long-term Optimist why I’ll
tell you why because first of all all
people at least mentally sound people
tend to produce more than they consume
and try to save the difference we’re
kind of wired like squirrels that way
that’s number one and number two
technology keeps advancing and in fact
it’s advancing at thread of Mo’s law so
you add those two things together and
you come out with a happy ending but uh
at the same time and this is why I’m am
gloomy for the short term uh the world
has in recent years been consuming more
than it’s been producing that’s what all
the world all the debt in the world is
about and the amount of regulations that
we have today and the level of taxes and
the level of inflation make it much
harder to produce and for technology to
advance
so it could go either way but I’m
putting my money on what I call the
greater depression a period of time when
most people’s standard of living goes
down significantly and it’ll be
noticeable so these guys pulling numbers
like
3.2% uh it impresses me as nonsensical
these are madeup numbers uh the trend
does seem to somewhat support your
thesis of either a greater depression or
some sort of Greater slowdown because
again the E 3.2% 4% the number here may
not be relevant but the key point is
that it missed consensus expectations
for what Global growth should have been
things are slowing down much faster than
anticipated are you observing in that in
your own life or research that things
are slowing down at a much rapid Pace
much more rapid Pace than before well
here in Argentina where I am right now
we’re in an anomalous situation because
the current president Javier Malle is
overturning a 100 Years of Argentine
history where this country has gone from
one of the most prosperous and
wealthiest in the world a 100 years ago
to scraping the bottom of the barrel
where they say half of the Argentina
population are in poverty at the moment
but he’s turning that around so my
personal boots on the ground experience
here in Argentina is not at all like
what it is in the US or Canada uh uh
things are getting better here there’s a
period of
Readjustment uh where they’re firing not
just thousands but tens of thousands of
government employees and uh you know
inflation’s been running several 100%
per year which makes it impossible for
the average Argentine to save money
that’s changing too so um personal
experience well here in Argentina it’s
anomalous doesn’t relate much to the US
or Canada Doug is going to elaborate
more on this greater depression and the
investment implications but first a word
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what should the correct government
policy be to combat hyperinflation let’s
take Argentina as an example but we can
expand this conversation to a more um
generalist theme of how to combat
inflation but in Argentina like you
mentioned double digit triple digit
inflation hyperinflation should the
government have do have dollarized would
there have been a better solution to
dollarization
well let me comment on something that
you you said what should government
policy be and the fact of the matter is
I don’t believe in government policy now
that sounds like a shocking thing to say
I know but the reason I don’t believe in
government policy is because government
as an institution assuming you even
believe in government as an institution
uh but it should only do three things it
should defend you from force and
violence that’s all it should do that
implies an army to defend you from
violence force from outside the bail
awick of the government police to defend
you from criminals within its bwick and
a court system to allow you to
adjudicate disputes so this has nothing
to do with government policy actually
that’s all the government should do
unfortunately uh in most places in the
world the government does everything but
those three
things they they try to regulate
everything tax everything influence
everything it shouldn’t do any of these
things uh so I like to get down to the
uh kind of the basics people forget what
the basics are and those are those are
the basics government is coercion it’s
Force comes out of the barrel of a gun
like Miles said so I want to limit it
extremely okay so what about the central
bank which supposedly is an independent
entity from the rest of the government
should we have a central bank to
regulate inflation or or the labor
market no now you don’t need or want a
central bank anyway anywhere they’re
engines of inflation governments use
Central they talk about central banks
being independent this is nonsense uh
central banks are used by governments as
a means to inflate and inflation is how
government uh uh generates a great deal
of its income it can where does
government get income from taxes okay
that’s simple enough but also by
printing up money which it gets to spend
so no the Central Bank serves no useful
purpose it should be
abolished uh listen people forget that
before
1933 all the governments all the
countries of the world use gold as money
in day today
Commerce you you didn’t use Fiat
currencies paper money you used actual
gold and since then we’ve had endemic
inflation so no abolish the central bank
and of course this is one of the good
things that mle has promised to do and I
believe he will do uh well he’s promised
to dollarize and he hasn’t done that yet
does it doesn’t does it look like he’s
going to keep that promise I I believe
he will keep the promise and uh one of
the reasons that he’ll succeed in that
promise is that the Argentine population
they can’t save in pesos I mean only a
total idiot would try to save in
Argentine pesos they’ve been saving in
dollars so there are hundreds of
billions by best estimates of uh US
dollars that are secreted secreted
offshore and foreign bank accounts and
under people’s mattresses here in
Argentina and
his first step is to stop printing pesos
number one and this P peso has
stabilized incidentally it’s it’s
maintained the same exchange rate with
the dollar for the last several months
this is really unusual and uh yeah
people look what mle has said is you can
use anything here in Argentina you can
use anything you want as a currency you
can use dollars you can use pesos you
can use Euros you can use gold gold you
can use Bitcoin they’re all equally uh
legal here so that’s an excellent First
Step you don’t want to rely on just the
dollar I mean the dollar is a a floating
abstraction it’s the US fiat currency
going back to my inflation question then
if we have a country like Argentina
that’s experiencing hyperinflation if
not for government policy then what can
be done to fix that and make it easier
for the
people well stop printing money uh
there’s a uh famous anecdote about
ludvig vanon mises who is um uh Javier
mle the president of Argentina’s
favorite Economist and mine too uh where
the uh German government asked him what
to do about their famous hyperinflation
in the early 1920s in Germany and he he
took a couple of government members uh
out at night to a printing plant where
in the middle of the night the
government was printing up uh marks
destroying the currency he says kill
that noise stop that noise which was the
noise of the printing presses printing
more marks so that’s the answer to the
question and then let the market decide
what it wants to use eventually
hopefully AR Argentina and the whole
world is going to go back to gold and
it’s not just Argentina I mean look
uh all around the world people people
are trying to get rid of the dollar
because they know that the US government
is printing up trillions of new dollars
every year to finances deficits so the
dollar is becoming a hot potato the
Russians don’t want to use the dollars
for all kinds of reasons the Chinese
don’t want to use it nobody wants to use
the dollar they realize that it’s a hot
potato so what are you going to use
instead of the US dollar well you’re not
going to use the Russian or the Chinese
or Indian currencies or or or the euro
uh they’re going to go back to Gold
that’s the answer to the
question I know it sounds incredible but
that’s what’s going to happen is there
is that the best way to discipline the
government to stop printing money which
is to Anchor their currency to gold or
any other hard asset or perhaps the
dollar or perhaps tie their currency to
another country like form a Euro zone
for example whereby many countries share
the same mon Ary
policy I think it’s a mistake for
countries to have
currencies government should not be
involved in the currency business quite
frankly and at the same time I’d say
government shouldn’t be involved in any
business shouldn’t be involved in the
education business it shouldn’t be
involved in the food business or
anything government should just protect
you from fraud and violence end of story
I know that’s a shocking thing to say
David I mean that’s not what most people
have come to that’s not the world they
live in right now I’m telling you what
should be not what not what
is when it to what when it comes to what
is what we do as speculators is take
advantage of the stupid things the
government does the distortions that
creates to create opportunities in the
market okay we’re going to get back to
the economy but since we’re talking
about government policies I know you
don’t believe I know that’s an oxymoron
for you but uh I i’ like you to comment
on the recent proposal to raise capital
gains taxes in both the US and Canada so
for the US the Biden Administration has
proposed a raise of the capital gains
tax to
44% uh on those individuals and
corporate entities with over $400,000 of
income I believe um similar policy in
Canada has been proposed except they’re
raising it to above
60% uh what is this going to do these
are completely idiotic and destructive
proposals uh North
Americans have been forced to uh buy
inflation to get out of currencies and
into hard assets the hard assets go up
in price as a result of inflation and
then when you want to sell them uh the
government steals 40 or 60% of that uh
in the form of capital gains so no
capital gains taxes should be El limited
now not not just reduced but eliminated
not raised these people have these
people are living in a Bizarro World
everything’s up I’ve heard the argument
from um somebody I spoke to uh that this
will help alleviate the government debt
problem which is to say it’ll bring down
the deficit
somewhat this is this is crazy talk
although a lot of people are making this
crazy talk it’s like alleviating an
alcoholics Problem by giving him more
alcohol I mean it’s the same thing uh
trusting the government with more money
to solve their problems like giving is
PG work like to say giving a 16year old
boy keys to the Corvette and a bottle of
Jack Daniels and telling him to go out
and have a good time okay so you don’t
you don’t think that the issue of debt
is going to be solved by higher taxes
generally speaking oh no if you want to
solve the problem you cut
expenses you stop spending because most
of the money the government spends is on
things are not just stupid and
nonproductive but they’re actively
destructive well you can start with the
wars that they’re fighting in the case
of the US they’re fighting on two fronts
now maybe soon on three fronts it’s
going to bankrupt the country in
addition to killing hundreds of
thousands maybe millions in fact maybe
they’ll go for billions of people in the
future speaking of uh debt um at the
same wef form the president made this
comment uh we haven’t seen this kind of
debt since the Napoleonic Wars we are
getting close to 100% of the global GDP
in debt he’s talking about world debt
many countries as you know including the
US has already
surpassed 100% of debt the GDP levels um
certainly this is an issue for a lot of
people what can we do about this debt
issue if it even if it even is a problem
I mean if your view is that this isn’t
really a problem so far then that’s okay
no it’s a big problem so far and the
reason that’s a big problem is because
some people owe other people that debt
and the people that are owed the debt
rely upon it being
paid uh but it can’t be paid so all this
government debt and a lot of private
debt is going to be defaulted on uh look
there’s only two ways government can pay
off its debt one by taxing its subjects
and two by inflating the currency and
they’re doing both and both are
extremely destructive so uh we have a
real problem here and that’s why I’m
that’s why I say that we’ve embarked
upon something I call the greater
depression and what’s going to happen or
what is happening is what’s going to be
it’s going to be much worse and much
longer lasting and much different this
depression than uh the unpleasantness of
1929 to
1946 and uh during that period
incidentally uh war was a big part of
the equation uh I think the war
situation is going to get much more
serious quite frankly well speaking of
depression some economists have argued
that one of the catalysts for the Great
Depression of the 1930s was the
introduction of the smoo Holly Act which
raised tariffs on Foreign imports uh do
you think that a similar protectionist
measure today would be the impetus or
could be the trigger for the Next Great
Depression or the greater depression as
you like to call it well you’re quite
correct on that
um these governments
um they’re they’re capable of anything
telling people what to do what not to do
what they can buy what they can’t buy at
what price
and so
forth
uh yeah it’s entirely possible that the
US and Canada for instance are going to
have foreign exchange control foreign
exchange controls in the future let’s
take the US in particular uh most people
are unaware of the fact that the major
export of the US isn’t boeings and soy
beans or ibms any of that the major
export of the US for the last 40 years
has been dollars we print up dollars and
ship them abroad and the nice foreigners
ship us uh Mercedes and Sony’s and God
knows what else that’s going to come to
an end and as it comes to an end uh the
you the government will attempt to
control its subjects not control itself
and what that means in the monetary
realm is foreign exchange controls where
you’re going to have to ask approval to
uh send money out of the country or
perhaps even to travel within certain
dollar limits I mean they could hardly
prohibit travel but they might say sure
you can go abroad and take a European
Vacation but you can’t spend more than
$5,000 let’s say or something like that
uh I think that’s in the cards it’s
predictable because at some point uh
these scores of trillions of US Dollars
which have been expatriated shipped out
all over the world in exchange for real
Goods that have come into the US when
that
stops
uh the standard of living of the US has
been artificially increased by in effect
a debt dollars that are outside the US
are really a debt and when they come
back to the
US what’s going to happen is you’re
going to have trillions more dollars
floating around inside the US which mean
prices will go up and the titles of land
and and businesses and share
certificates are going to be owned by
foreigners who will trade their dollars
for those things so uh this is a real
serious problem that I don’t think many
people are talking about are we going to
get a market crash first before the
depression sets in like what happened in
1929 uh hard to say it’s a question of
how quickly the US government uh or I
should say the federal reserve prints up
money I mean if they print up money in
adequate amounts there’s no reason why
the stock market Should Crash although
I’ve got to observe right now that in
terms of price earnings ratio Price to
Book value ratio all the uh traditional
parameters uh the stock market is very
very overpriced it’s as overpriced as
any time in history so I really don’t
have any interest in being in the
conventional stock market it’s too
dangerous that’s say it’s going to crash
that’s a question of printing money as
much as anything else but I don’t want
to be in it so if not for the stock
markets and the obvious question would
be where would we go and I think this is
kind of the theme of your books crisis
investing and then crisis investing um
in the 90s um believe you talked about
how to how to protect your wealth in
times of Crisis or in this case a
greater depression what should we do
well I’ve long been an advocate of gold
both as money and as a speculation and
as a vehicle for savings uh I started
buying gold when it was $42 an ounce
back in the well way back when uh 50
years ago and uh it’s treated me pretty
well uh and sometimes gold has been an
excellent speculation in addition so my
suggestion to listeners is that if they
want to save money set aside Capital
they do it by buying gold coins and buy
silver coins too uh that’s what they
should do if they want to speculate on
uh things well you can do that in the
stock market and the bond market and
other places uh we could talk about all
these individual things as well yes in
the well in the 1970s you you did very
well speculating on gold what was it
back then that made you look into that
asset
well the price of gold uh uh had been
$35 an ounce since Roosevelt
artificially fixed its price at that
point uh you’ll recall that before
1933 uh you could take your $20 bill go
down to the US Treasury or any bank for
that matter and uh trade the $20 bill
and get a double legal gold coin which
is to say an ounce of gold well since
then that’s been impossible because the
US government has been printing up paper
money uh much faster than it’s been
adding to its gold
reserves
um so I guess the they’re not going to
stop doing that I mean they painted
themselves into a corner they can only
print money at this point at the time
did you observe I’ve answered the
question
at the time did you observe any
indications of a rise in the gold price
for macro forces like higher debt higher
inflation uh much lower dollar etc
etc yeah look it was obvious to me a
long time
ago having paid attention to economics
and the way the world works is that the
US government
was getting out of
control I mean that these people think
that uh government not only should but
can control the economy that they were
going to continue printing money and now
it’s going into hyperdrive so actually
gold at 2300 where it is more or less
today is probably as good a value as it
was way back when when it was $42 an
ounce so you think it could go much
higher even from today’s level yes
because they’re going to continue
printing money the government has really
no other alternative for funding itself
well it taxes a lot and they’re trying
to raise taxes too but yeah they can do
two things they can they can tax money
and they can print
money so that’s what they’re G do if if
you believe that at some point some
governments will adopt gold uh as a
reserve
uh backing or perhaps even go back to
the gold standard why would you as a
Speculator then want to buy gold because
wouldn’t the price of gold be fixed
again like it was in the Breton Woods
era yes that is going to happen in the
future I believe but it can only be
fixed at a much higher price level than
it is today uh there it’s said uh that
the US government owns 265 million
ounces of gold okay so what you have to
do is take the number of dollars in
existence and uh divide the number of
ounces of gold that the US government
owns and come up with a number and uh
you know these numbers are all floating
around inaccurate but
uh just US dollars that are outside the
US now forget about the dollars inside
the us but but just the dollars outside
the US and nobody knows how many of
those there are but it’s probably
something on the order of 30 trillion
I’m a wild guess and you come up if you
use even that number uh you come up with
the doing the math in my head $10,000 an
ounce so no it’s uh going
higher I’m not talking about tomorrow or
next week although we’re in a bull
market but yes it’s going higher if we
if we talk at this time next year again
I I think it’s going to be way above
$2,300 an ounce we spoke last year and
it was yeah much lower than today um so
your your instinct then has been correct
as well let’s talk about then the other
some other assets CL asset classes
mining shares for example you talked
about how maybe the overall stock market
may not do well in this greater
depression what about mining stocks
Doug well let me preface what I’m going
to say there it by saying that mining is
a crappy industry it’s really a 19th
century Choo Cho train industry uh and
uh young people don’t want to get into
mining today I mean who wants to go out
and play in the dirt with big yellow
trucks I mean when you can type things
into your computer apparently they pay
well so um you know that’s for a lot of
young people yes yeah that’s that that’s
true but uh look mining is a terrible
industry because you’ve got to
spend Millions maybe many millions of
dollars to go out on an Easter egg hunt
looking for a potential deposit the odds
are way way against you finding even
something that looks like a uh a
resource and then you have to develop it
which is going to cost you many more
Millions tens of millions of hundreds of
millions and then your trouble really
starts when you’ve done enough drilling
at Great expense to
yes there’s an or body of some type down
there gold nickel copper whatever what
have you uh then it’s going to cost
probably billions to build the mine all
this money is upfront on the IFC come C
so there’s a business plan that’s a
horrible business plan to uh make make
guesstimates for huge amounts of money
that you’ll probably fail at and then
after you’re in production uh you have a
fixed asset where governments will tax
you and uh NOS will try to shake you
down and make your life miserable and
Native groups will look for their piece
of the pie it’s a horrible business so
why am I interested in mining stocks
because they’re a very small area of the
market and sometimes they go from being
very very very very cheap too cheap to
very very very expensive too expensive
they’re they’re really the most volatile
class of of stocks in the world they’re
even more volatile than than high-tech
stocks so your timing has to be good now
right now is is an excellent time to get
into them has been for the last couple
of years they’ve gone nowhere for the
last couple of years but I’m a buyer I
think I think that um price-wise they
have a great future ahead of them is
that because they’ve been undervalue
relative to the underlying medals gold
for example very much so I mean gold has
going up a lot but the the companies
that mine it have not uh what does it
cost mine an ounce of gold well a lot of
definitions of what constitutes cost but
all ins sustaining cost
is the most popular maybe the most
accurate parameter of what it costs to
mine an ounce of gold and industrywide
for producers that number is roughly
$1,300 an ounce right now
selling at 2300 so the big mining
companies are making a lot of money
right now but they’re not recognized now
why is that because you know people hate
the idea of mining it’s they say all
these terrible things about uh about
mining companies and with the Dei and
ESG parameters that big fund managers
like Black Rock and Goldman have they
don’t want to own mining companies
that’s like the kiss of politically
correct death so they’re under owned
right now so I’m a buyer I think that
that’s going to change at least at least
if you want you know steel to build
buildings and aluminum to build aircraft
and so forth so generally then I’m
guessing you prefer the producing
companies rather than the Juniors
looking to get a deposit or find a
deposit no well yes and no uh because in
a bull market the big companies that
currently have earnings are always the
ones to move first I mean they’re the
names people know they’re what people
will buy first but I’m not crazy about
big mining companies because they’re run
by not by
entrepreneurs they’re run by suits
they’re run by bureaucrats so the
companies that I prefer to speculate
with uh are let’s say smaller producers
or God forbid even explorers if I like
the people that are running the
companies and like the results they seem
to be getting because these small
companies these micro caps no no they’re
not even micro caps they’re uh they’re
they’re Nano caps uh some of them are
Pico caps they’re so small that uh they
tend to be very very volatile and it’s
possible because I’ve done it to get a
thousand to one over the course of a few
years that’s possible uh unlikely but
possible but uh when the market gets the
bit in its teeth uh the average Mining
stock will go up 10 to one many will go
100 to one someone might say to you Doug
that sounds like gambling betting on a
thousand to one odds with very little
chance of
success yeah I see yes I I see that and
the problem is that many people confuse
speculating with gambling uh but they’re
very very different
uh gambling is taking an even odds bet
or or even less than even odds if you go
to a casino obviously uh I’m not
interested in that when you’re a
Speculator what you’re doing is you’re
capitalizing on distortions in the
marketplace caused by government which
is the major factor in the marketplace
today so if you know something about the
mining business and know something about
geology and a little about mining
engineering and know about the PO ICS
that are involved and the people that
are involved you can make an intelligent
assessment of what’s likely to happen as
opposed to
what the Hoy pooy who don’t know
anything about mining think so it’s yes
it looks like it’s gambling but it’s not
or at least it shouldn’t be so how would
you even the odds in your favor let’s
say you were to pick a junior Explorer
to invest in or speculate in and there’s
thousands to choose from what would you
how would you screen for them such that
at least your odds aren’t close to
zero well over the years I’ve developed
a neonic I call them the nine
PS uh so you can remember them and don’t
forget them and they’re all things that
begin with the letter P to help you
remember them and the first is people uh
it’s more important than all the other
people put together good people make for
good
business so living in
Vancouver uh you’ve got all kinds of
people involved in the mining business
and you want to sort them out you want
people that are technically competent
and have voice Scout virtues then after
that you look at the properties that
they’re uh playing with and you have to
know something about how to assess them
look at the properties small deposit big
deposit single metal multimetal many
many many things uh the next thing that
you might want to look at is financing
spelled with the pH uh it’s great if you
have good people and a good property but
how are they going to finance it are
they capable of doing that how much
money is in the bank or do they have
debt uh so forth uh politics it’s
another p uh what’s the jurisdiction is
it
in Quebec or is it in God forbid
Massachusetts
uh so you have to analyze where it is is
it is it in the Congo or is it in
Finland because the political situation
in all these places is different
uh the paper how much paper is out there
these companies the main thing that most
of them produce is Metals It’s Paper
selling stock so who owns the stock uh
what What’s backing each share in terms
of dollars so there’s a lot of things to
to look at uh before you decide to
speculate and incidentally I do say
speculate because you can’t invest in
mining companies really I mean they’re
too unpredictable to invest in that’s
why Warren Buffett uh famously never
invests in mining companies well he also
doesn’t like gold but that’s a
conversation for for another for another
time Doug uh two more assets I want to
ask about the first is uh uh bonds you
had said on my show last year that you
expect interest rates to perhaps rise to
double digits while the long end of the
curve has been steadily Rising since
then we haven’t retraced 5% on the
tenure yet although it’s inching towards
that level um can you recap your thesis
one more time about why interest rates
might go higher and ultimately what this
means for Bond
holders
well it’s a mystery to me why anybody
would buy a long-term Bond at the this
point because I think that uh you can’t
trust the government inflation numbers
US
Government they’re only slightly more
reliable than the numbers that the
Argentine government puts out quite
frankly so why would somebody buy a
long-term Bond and tie up their money
theoretically for 30 years maybe to get
a 5% return um when actual inflation is
probably running
it depends on who’s Computing the
numbers eight or 10% I mean that you’re
like locking in a loss of 5% per year
but but there are other risks to bonds I
mean it’s not just the interest rate
risk in the it’s there’s a risk of
default perhaps not with government
bonds because they can always print up
money to give you the dollars back I
watched an old interview of yours where
you actually said and you recommended
that a government default on its debt
because back then you had said that it’s
unfair for the government to uh pass on
this debt to the Next Generation and
have them in uh Deb or
servitude yes that’s quite correct I
mean where do where do people think the
money is going to come from just to
service
these all this debt uh the US government
is now at the
stage with interest rates where they are
and the amount of debt that there is
we’re just paying the interest bill just
the interest bill on US Government debt
we’re talking at trillion dollars per
year so where’s that money going to come
from well I guess it’s going to come
from the young people frankly that are
going to have to pay for that debt so
it’s going to be defaulted on eventually
anyway there’s two ways you can default
on government debt one by inflating it
out of existence well that’s something
the argentines have done any number of
times uh the US can do that or it can a
more honest thing to do is say we can’t
pay it we were stupid and therefore we
won’t pay it and I kind of like that
better because it’s forthright it’s
honest it’ll create actually less damage
uh in the society than inflating that
existence over time so so yes that’s
what’s going to happen there are no
Alternatives it’ll be defaulted on the
only question is how will it be
defaulted on and uh I also like the idea
of default because it’ll punish uh the
people that have been enabling uh the US
government by lending it more money well
wouldn’t that wouldn’t that put a lot of
people in the fund management business
out of business and have Ripple effects
throughout the
economy of course but let me point out
that the economy is over financialized
there are way way too many people in my
opinion uh shuffling Dollars around
buying and selling stocks not really
producing anything I mean look initially
the stock market was about raising
Capital to fund productive businesses it
was pretty simple there weren’t a lot of
stock Brokers but today everybody’s
involved in the financial business the
world is over
financialized
uh that’s one reason why it’s become
corrupt so yeah that’s right the number
of people that are in the financial
business would drop tremendously and the
world well the world needs more frankly
the world needs more plumbers and
electricians doesn’t need more stock
Brokers the other uh asset I wanted to
ask you about is passport portfolios you
had talked about this even on your own
website International
about having a portfolio of passports in
case things in your domestic country
where your country of domicile uh fall
apart and you need to go elsewhere where
where which passports should we be
collecting uh well you should definitely
have more than one because uh passports
are it says right on your passport if
you look it says this is the property of
the US or Canadian whichever government
you’re looking at uh and if it’s their
property they can take it away from you
and if they take it away from you or
invalidate it it means that you’re stuck
just in the country where you are so
it’s good to have a backup system so you
should have at least one other
citizenship that you can rely
on um so what should you do
U what uh well look it’s more it’s
probably even more important for a um
it’s important for both Americans and
Canadians because the problem with um
being a US citizen there are a number of
problems with it but one of them is that
even if you leave the US and go to live
in Costa Rica or anywhere uh the US
government is still looking to you for
taxes for the rest of your
life that’s rather shocking even if you
never return to the US Canada is much
better that way but uh many governments
in the world are looking at following
the US lead and taxing their citizens
not based on residents but based on
citizenship so um it’s uh another
Direction Another another way where the
world is heading in the wrong direction
actually becoming more dangerous from
the point of view of an individual who’s
trying to live his life well I encourage
people to check out your website
International man where you talk about
this issue in more depth uh Doug final
topic I’d like to touch on with you you
told me offline you’re working on uh
well a body of work that explores what
people should do with their education
you had said to me Offline that perhaps
postsecondary education College um
universities may not be the optimal
course for most people or many people um
like to get your thoughts on this why is
that and what should we do instead of
college yes I’d go further than that
David it’s actually not not optimal it’s
highly suboptimal I’m not talking about
taking stem courses science technology
engineering math uh where you need lab
work you need the formal discipline okay
that’s what
college uh is still fine for uh most
people don’t take that though they take
some type of so-called liberal arts uh
where they’re in fact being
indoctrinated for four years and at huge
expense so you get out of four years at
school you’ve actually learned nothing
of value but the main thing you’ve taken
away is all a huge amount of student
debt which you’re gonna is going to be
an albatross rod in your neck paying it
off so I suggest no don’t go to college
that’s a mistake from many points of
view and this book that I’m working on
with Matt with Matt Smith who shares my
podcast with me Doug Casey’s take on on
YouTube is um exactly what should a
young person do with that four-year
period of time and the money that he’d
otherwise frit her away uh giving it to
some University uh where should he go
what book should he read oh what should
he learn and uh we’re doing this right
now with Matt’s son who’s um you know
first thing he did was he gained an EMT
took a course he’s now a registered EMT
that’s allowing him to um this summer
for his summer vacation kind of he’s
going to become a um a forest fire
fighter you know these guys that go to
where their brush fires and put them out
stationed out west and going wherever
the fire is pay is good he’ll learn a
lot meanwhile he’s reading lots of books
especially classical
literature uh he’s taking a courses to
learn to become expert chess player
after he Masters that game at least to a
degree he’ll take go and become a master
go player he’s learning Spanish formally
disciplined to learn Spanish and after
that probably Chinese would be the best
language to learn so by the time he’s 22
years old he’s going to have a an
immense body of practical knowledge and
theoretical knowledge and wisdom and
experience whereas the average person
that goes to college for four years it’s
just going to spend the time frankly
drinking beer and chasing girls so
that’s it in a nutshell and hopefully
that book will be out within the next
year and when we talk next year I can uh
show you a a copy I’m not sure if people
read books these days but the book will
I think get written at this point well
certainly we should read your books
where can we find your
books well I’m very proud of my novels
the high round Series where they we
trace the uh evolution of our hero
Charles knight uh where’s a Speculator
in number one goes to Africa gets
involved in a bush war and he becomes a
drug lord the idea is to show that these
Politically Incorrect occupations you
can be a good guy so he becomes a drug
lord in novel number two called drug
lord number three uh he’s kind of pissed
off at this point after they put him in
jail for a couple years he becomes an
assassin where we talk about the
Assassins trade and the next one to be
out is terrorist where he’s accused of
being a terrorist and uh of course I
have a lot of views on terrorism as a
method of warfare uh which will shock
people but you know it kind of amuses me
to say shocking things well if if I’m
sure some people enjoy being shocked um
so I I I guess your books are a place
for that so tell us where so we can find
your work you mentioned you have a
podcast on YouTube International man
yeah those those books are on Amazon of
course all books are um on YouTube uh
Doug Casey’s take and I guess your show
will be on YouTube among other places I
imagine um and um International man.com
where it’s an excellent free website we
have great articles every day so
I think people should uh take a look at
those things perfect well Doug I
appreciate your time today and we
appreciate your insights uh thank you
very much we’ll speak to you again next
time right here on YouTube so
uh pleasure thank you always a pleasure
to have you thank you don’t forget to
like And subscribe and follow Doug in
the links down below

Doug Casey, best-selling author, discusses what is going to be a “Greater Depression”, where lower living standards will affect the populace.

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*This video was recorded on April 29, 2024

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0:00 – Intro
2:20 – Global economic growth
7:50 – Fighting hyperinflation
10:55 – Dollarization in Argentina
15:45 – Capital gains taxes
18:05 – Global debt problem
20:00 – Trigger for next Great Depression
24:50 – Speculating in gold
29:20 – Mining stocks
38:39 – Interest rates and bonds
43:00 – Passport portfolio
45:00 – Post-secondary education
48:22 – Doug Casey’s work

#economy #investing #money