The 5-Year Treasury Just Broke 5%... The Whole Curve Is Next

Diesel prices are at another all-time record high. They're now above $6.5 a gallon for diesel. And in fact, in some parts of the country, like California, they're up to 10 bucks. We got to be getting close to a point where we can't tap into the strategic petroleum reserve anymore. And then prices are really going to skyrocket. When we eventually run out of oil from the strategic reserve, we're going to have a huge increase in the price of oil. And of course, what happens if we get a real emergency, the type of emergency that the strategic reserves were established to help us deal with? Well, we don't have it, right? We've used up all of our reserve on a non-emergency. And then by the time we actually have an emergency, well, there's nothing left. [music] The Peter Shift Show. Well, I just got back from my five-day trip to Panama City. We had our Shift Sovereign Plan B conference, and I'll talk a little bit more about my Panama trip and that conference later in today's podcast. But I want to get started today where I left off on the podcast I did a week ago. That was on the Wednesday just before I left for Panama on Thursday. That was the day that the Fed raised interest rates by 25 basis points. And so I spent pretty much all of that podcast on the rate hike and on the press conference that followed. And I also mentioned a comment that Donald Trump had. But what I didn't discuss was another comment that he made later today as he was surrounded by reporters who were pressing him to make a statement about the Fed defying him and raising interest rates. This happened probably either during the time that I was recording my podcast or after, but I found out about it the following day and obviously was too late to include it in the last podcast. So, I want to start this podcast by discussing it. Summer is over and my calendar has certainly noticed. The mornings start earlier, the meetings and interviews stack up and there isn't much slack left in the day. 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That's drinkagg1.com/shiff. But I actually think that this was the most significant admission or lie one or the other from that day. And what is really amazing to me is not what Trump said, but that that there was very little reaction to it. The media uh didn't jump on it. I think it is a very significant comment because either Trump is flatout lying and you know I know Trump tells a lot of lies but this one is flagrant if it's a lie but if it's the truth it's actually even worse. If Donald Trump wasn't lying then it's an even bigger story and the media is completely missing it. So here's what happened. So, Donald Trump, he's walking, I forget if he was at an airport or someplace, and the reporters are all around him, and they're like, "Mr. President, what are your thoughts on this rate hike? I mean, Kevin Walsh, because after all, Trump appointed Worsh specifically to cut rates. That's what he wanted. That's why he had to get rid of Pal because Pal wasn't cutting rates, and he wanted to put a smarter guy who was smart enough to realize that rates should be lower." and and so obviously, you know, he's going to be disappointed, but the media wants his reaction to this being stabbed in the back by his guy, right? And so his response was, "Kevin's a good guy. He's a smart guy, but he has a very hostile board. He has a very political board." And so I told Kevin that he might as well vote with the board because it's not going to make a difference. He told him he might as well vote with the board. Well, if Trump actually told him that he may as well vote with the board to raise interest rates, that means that Kevin Walsh came to the president before that decision was announced and discussed it with him. that Kevin Worsh had a meeting with Donald Trump and said, "I hate to tell you this, sir, but the board wants to raise rates. I mean, I don't want to raise them. I'm with you. I want to cut rates, but everybody else on this damn board, they all want to raise rates. You know, I'm going to be outvoted. So, I could vote to cut rates like we discussed and like you want me to, but the rest of the board, they're not going to go along with it. They all want to raise rates." And then Donald Trump basically gave him permission to vote with the board. Now, if this actually happened, if the chairman of the Federal Reserve ran his vote by the president first to get his permission, went to the president to let him know how everybody else was voting before he decided what to do. And then when Donald Trump said, "Hey, you might as well vote with the board." It's like Trump gave him a pass. Like he didn't want to defy the president. Uh so he wanted his permission to vote with everybody else. This is what he said. I am not making this stuff up. Now, I think that he's just lying. And that would be my guess. My guess would be this conversation never took place. It took place in Donald Trump's mind. The question is, is Donald Trump lying or is he really fantasizing this fictitious conversation? Now, the only way to know, right, would be for somebody to ask Walsh. But during the press conference from last week, there were a couple of questions about the president and about, you know, what the president might have thought or what he might have said. And Worsh basically said, "I'm not going to answer those questions. I'm not going to talk about the president or our conversations." Now, the president obviously doesn't have any problem talking about his conversations that he has with Worsh. Worse doesn't want to talk about the conversations from his perspective, but the president has no problem blabbing about what they discussed. I think that warrants a question. I think at the next press conference, somebody has to ask Kevin Walsh, President Trump claims that prior to the last decision on rates that you and he met and that he gave you permission to vote with the board after you already told him how the board was going to vote. Is that true? Did this conversation actually take place? I think he needs to say because he needs to confirm whether the president is lying or not. But if the president is telling the truth, we also need to know that because if the president is telling the truth, then it is a revelation that we have a Fed chairman who is taking his marching orders from Donald Trump. that he felt compelled to let Donald Trump know what the board's decision was before that decision was announced to the public and to get Trump's okay to vote along with everybody else. As if had Donald Trump not said that, Kevin Walsh would have been the lone descent. Could you imagine that? You have a rate hike where all the governors vote to hike rates and the chairman votes to cut rates and everybody else mutinies the chair. Obviously that wasn't going to happen. So I I don't think that this conversation took place. But if Trump claims that it happened, the media, unless they're going to say Trump is lying, and of course I got no problem. I say he lies all the time because he does. But what about the Republicans? Are the Republicans going to call him out for this lie? Because if he's not lying and he's telling the truth, they got to call him out for that. They gota they got to call out Walsh. I mean, this is a big news story if the president is telling the truth. It's only not a news story if he's lying. But again, that's not a good thing. I mean, I keep pointing out that the president is lying, but this is a excellent example of a lie that needs to be in investigated. Anyway, the big news of today though is the continued rise in interest rates. And this is no surprise to my podcast audience. I have been talking about not only the rise in rates but that the rise was going to continue and it continued today. In fact, the worst part was the auction of the 5-year US Treasury which went out at auction at 5.03%. So above 5% that is the highest yield on a 5-year Treasury in just over 20 years. In fact, if you look at the yield curve now, all the maturities made new highs today. The 30-year bond went up to 5.41. That is a 22year high for the 30-year. The 10-year hit a new 19-year high at 5.12. You know, one thing that's interesting is that the yield curve has flattened between the 10 and the 30. I think that's going to reverse because a couple of months ago, the spread was about 50 basis points. Now, it's just under 30 basis points. I think the spread should be going the other way. I think that yields should be even higher for a 30-year because you're taking 20 extra years of inflation risk. I would not want to loan money to the government for 30 years and just get 29 basis points more than if I can get my money back in 10 years. Because if rates really spike, the loss that you're going to have on a 30-year Treasury is going to be a lot greater than the loss that you'd suffer on a 10-year Treasury because you got to suffer those losses for 20 extra years. So, the present value is going to reflect that. So, I think that right now actually a good trade would be to short the 30-year and buy the 10-year because I think that that spread is going to widen at least back to about 50 basis points if not 60 or 70 basis points. But anyway, the 2-year Treasury is now just above 4.9, I think 4.91. So, we're almost at 5% for the two-year. Now, the 3month and the six-month, they're still lower. The 3-month is 4.12 and the 6-month is 4.33 and the one year is 4.43. But I think if we get a couple of more rate hikes and the markets are expecting more rate hikes, but by next year, the entire yield curve from 3 months out to 30 years could have a five handle or higher. In fact, by the time the one year is at 5%, the 30-year is probably going to be well north of 6%, maybe even 7%. In fact, speaking of 7%, mortgage rates are now already above 7% and rising. But think about 5%. because 5% is not that high of a rate. But if the US government has to pay 5% on the national debt, on the whole national debt, because as these bonds are maturing, they need to be rolled over. If the average cost on the $40 trillion national debt is 5%. You're talking $2 trillion a year in annual interest payments. That's 35% of current tax revenue. Now, that's also more than we pay for social security by several hundred billion. So if we had to pay 5% on a $40 trillion national debt and of course by sometime next year if rates are 5% the national debt will be 42 trillion or 43 trillion. So the number is going to be even worse. But just looking at 40 trillion, 5% at 2 trillion, that alone makes interest on the national debt the biggest line item in the budget, more expensive than social security and 35% of tax revenue. That is a disaster waiting to happen. And the worst news is it's not going to stop there because the national debt is going to continue to compound because we're adding three trillion plus of debt each year. But as interest rates rise, that is going to exert a lot of downward pressure on the economy and undermine tax revenue. tax revenue that would otherwise be needed not only to make, you know, pay the bills but to pay the interest on the national debt. Now, I don't know when the markets are going to wake up to the reality. I think it's still a matter of disbelief. I think stock market investors are looking at these yields and they still just assume that this has got to be near the top. I mean, we can't go much higher than this. At some point they're going to have to capitulate not only to the fact that rates aren't going down but that they're going to keep going up. And I keep hearing uh the same arguments. I've mentioned this on the podcast before where people are dismissing the bond yields rising based on the fact that we had these high yields 19 years ago and the stock market was able to go up. Well, you know, not really because it crashed in 2008 in large part because yields had been rising. So, it's not like, you know, everything was fine 19 years ago because it was right before the 2008 financial crisis. But they point to the fact that the economy was able to withstand these yields and the stock market and so we should have no problem with it now. And I already went over on a prior podcast how much different circumstances are. Not just because we have so much more debt than we had back then, but because of the trend. We're no longer in a bull market in bonds where yields are falling. We are in a major bare market where yields are rising. So, it's one thing when you're paying 5% on the way down and you get relief. It's another thing when it's 5% on the way up and it's going to get even worse. I've been in the investment business my entire life. One of the most common mistakes that I see is when people treat life insurance like an investment. That's the wrong way to think about it. Life insurance exists to protect the people who depend on you financially if you aren't around to do it yourself. That's why term is the right answer for most people. Term gives you the biggest death benefit for the smallest premium. And that frees up the rest of your money to make actual investments. investments that will perform a lot better than the cash value sitting inside a whole life policy which inflation is going to chew through anyway. But the longer you wait, the more it costs. So the rational move is to handle it now while it's cheap and while you don't need it. That's where Ethos comes in. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to $3 million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/gold. That's ethos.com/gold. Application times and rates may vary. In fact, another announcement that came out today that should really scare these bond market investors uh was the CEO of McDonald's. And McDonald's stock was down about 5% today. That's a big drop for a company like McDonald's. But the CEO of McDonald's was interviewed and he had some comments about inflation and they're trying to I guess come up with a new marketing strategy to survive these years of high inflation. And here's an exact quote of what the CEO said. He said, "Inflation's going to be with us unfortunately many more years at elevated levels." many more years at elevated levels. Now, this guy is, you know, on the ground floor. He's in the trenches, right? He is selling hamburgers and French fries, right, to the masses and he is dealing with all of the cost pressures that are the result of inflation. Because a company like McDonald's, you're really trying to keep your cost down because you know your customers are not rich by and large. They are watching their money. McDonald's is a bargain place to eat. And so a lot of times the people that are eating at McDonald's are really pitching pennies. They're clipping coupons. They're struggling to make ends meet. And so they're eating at McDonald's as opposed to more expensive restaurants. So they're very costconscious because they know their customers are costconcious and so they they they do their best to keep their prices down, but the CEO is saying we can't we can't keep them down anymore. We need a new business model because we have to deal with many many more years of elevated inflation. Now this is the opposite of what the Fed is saying, what Kevin Walsh is saying. One of the things that Worsh keeps saying is that inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2%. Well, they're not anchored at 2% at McDonald's. The guys running McDonald's don't think inflation is going to come back down to 2%. They agree that it's going to be much higher than that for many, many years. Not just one year or two years, but many more years. I have no idea how many he means, but it's probably a lot more than two or three because he could have said a couple of years or a few years, right? A couple would have been two, a few would have been three. When he says many years, he's thinking way more than three. Well, according to Walsh, inflation is going to be back at 2% in a couple years, maybe two years, which is always what the Fed says. That's always their two-year projection. We're going to have inflation at 2%. remember somebody asked them why and they said well because our mandate is 2% and so we assume that we're going to achieve our mandate and so we always project what our mandate is so it's just a bunch of wishful thinking but Wars is basically saying don't doubt our resolve we're going to do it whatever it takes bringing inflation down to 2% in a couple of years well McDonald's isn't buying what worsh is selling they know that they're going to be dealing dealing with high inflation for a long time and the bond market knows this too. That is why yields are rising. Don't believe all that propaganda too that you hear about this booming economy. We have this great economy. I mean, a lot of the Trump cheerleaders are saying that the reason the Fed is raising rates is because the economy is booming under Trump. we have such a great economy that the Fed is worried that all that economic growth is going to cause inflation. No, it's not. In fact, that's one of the things that Kevin Worsh gets right. He has publicly stated that he does not believe economic growth causes inflation. And I agree with him. He's right. The reason that bond yields are rising, it's not because the Fed believes that the economic growth is going to create inflation. It's because the Fed believes that the inflation is already here, right? Regardless of the economic growth. In fact, if anything, economic growth would offset the impacts of inflation. Because a growing economy, a real growing economy, exerts downward pressure on prices to offset the upward pressure that the government and the Fed put on prices by creating inflation. No, what's going on here is prices are going up because of a too loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. In fact, look at what happened again today. Diesel prices are at another all-time record high. They're now above $6.5 a gallon for diesel. And in fact, in some parts of the country, like California, I think they're they're up to 10 bucks. It's insane uh how high they are over there. But Donald Trump was contemplating it. I don't know if cooler heads have prevailed, but there was talk that we were going to ban exports of diesel because, you know, we need our diesel here and so we need to ban exports. But whenever the government does that, it generally backfires. My guess would be if they banned exports of diesel, production of diesel would actually go down because you can't export it and you're going to they're going to produce less. It actually may result in even higher domestic prices based on a reduction in supply. And of course, you know, if we're not exporting diesel, our trade deficits are going to be going up. The government is interfering. In fact, all of the oil that they have released from the strategic petroleum reserve, that's also a mistake. And by the way, they're going to be out pretty soon. I mean, the reserves aren't going to be empty because you can't run them down to empty. You can't empty out the tanks. So, you have to leave some quantity of oil in there in order to keep everything viable for the future. And so we got to be getting close to a point where we can't tap into the strategic petroleum reserve anymore and then prices are really going to skyrocket. But the reserve is is really meant for an emergency. Like we don't have any oil and the only way we're going to get it is from the strategic reserve. It's not about price. Biden abused the reserves for political purposes back in 2022 when we were getting close to those midterms and I I was very critical of that and so were other Republicans were saying, "Hey, this is, you know, Biden is just trying to do this uh to win votes in the midterms." Well, Trump is doing the same thing, but what we really should be doing right now since the oil is available, there's just less of it. The price needs to be allowed to go up because if the market raises prices enough then people will reduce consumption. Demand will come down and the price will be higher and companies or whoever really needs that fuel will pay the higher price because they have a a a stronger economic need. But people who don't necessarily need as much energy will find ways to do with less because of the price. Right? So the market will ration the energy to its highest and best use and cause people who might not necessarily need it as much to cut back on their consumption to enable those who really do need it to buy it. But by artificially suppressing price, demand doesn't adjust to the same degree. And then when we eventually run out of oil from the strategic reserve, we're going to have a huge increase in the price of oil. And of course, what happens if we get a real emergency, the type of emergency that the strategic reserves were established to help us deal with? Well, we don't have it, right? We've used up all of our reserve on a non-emergency and then by the time we actually have an emergency, well, there's nothing left. The most successful business owners don't do it all themselves. They delegate. Upwork lets you build a team of highly skilled specialists for every function your business needs, so you can focus on what you do best and let experts handle the rest. Find highly skilled freelance specialists from software development and AI implementation to marketing, design, and business operations. You browse profiles, you review past work, and you get help scoping the role. So, you hire with confidence and get started quickly. Upwork has actually been a part of my team for many years. With over 170,000 freelancers on Upwork, holding five-star ratings, you can easily hire someone with a proven track record. With Business Plus, you get access to the top 1% of talent with an AI powered short list matched to your goals in under 6 hours. No endless searching required. 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And pretty much always in a midterm election, the party in power that has the White House loses some seats in the House. And given that the margin was so slim, the Republicans didn't have many seats that they could lose. So it was always likely that the Democrats would we take the House, but it was thought that it was very unlikely that they would take the Senate. And I was saying when the odds were still well below 50% that the Democrats were going to take the Senate. I was predicting that they would take the Senate. And now the odds of the Democrats winning the Senate are 65%. So it's not even a coin toss anymore. The Democrats are favored. And this is despite nominating some really bad candidates, radical left Democratic socialists who defeated more mainstream Democrats in the primaries. Now, had a more centrist Democrat won, I think the odds would be even higher than 65%. It'd pretty much be a lock, just like the House right now. It's pretty much a sure thing that the Democrats are going to take the House. But even though the Democrats nominated some horrible candidates, that's not enough to overcome the damage that Trump is doing to the Republican party based on how bad the economy is. The number one issue is going to be the cost of living. And Donald Trump is still in denial. He's doing what Biden was doing, what Harris was doing. He's trying to tell people that everything is great when they know it's not. He's trying to say, "Well, this inflation problem, Biden caused it. We're still trying to solve the problems that Biden created." Well, he's been there for two years. They're Trump's problems. They're not Biden's problems. And of course, I've already gone over on this podcast how Trump helped create. In fact, Trump was more responsible for the high inflation in 2021 than Biden. I mean, Biden's policies barely came into effect. All that inflation in 2021 was the result of the inflation created in 2020 before Biden even was sworn in. And probably a good chunk of the inflation in 2022 was the result of Trump policies. But it's not just the economy. That's going to be the number one issue for sure. But the corruption, the grift, the war, all the other things. In fact, the war to me now, even though there's some optimism that things might be getting closer to a resolution, if you actually look at what's happening, we're further away than ever. It seems like the situation in the Gulf is worsening and has worsened just since my last podcast. Even though there's a little hope because the oil prices come down a bit, there's some hope that maybe things are going to take a turn for the better. They're more likely to continue in this direction they're going and take a turn for the worse. But I think these broader issues are going to be significant. One is that Donald Trump just the other day banned three news networks from the White House. It basically withdrew their credentials. This is MSNBC or they changed the name though. What is it? MS Now or something like that. They used to be MSNBC, but MS Now or whatever it's called. CNN and Politico, right? Those three obviously leftleaning networks, but they've been banned. And Donald Trump's excuse for banning them is that they're reporting fake news. But it's not up to Donald Trump to make that decision because he's basically saying, "I don't like how they're reporting the news. I don't like specifically how they're reporting what I'm doing as president." Because obviously the only thing that changes if they don't have access to the White House is they're not going to be able to file stories based on their reporting of what's going on in the White House. So Trump is basically saying, "I don't like the way CNN or Politico are reporting about what I'm saying as president, so I'm not going to let them into the White House to cover what I'm saying." This should be a huge problem. It should be a big problem for Republicans because if the Republicans are going to condone this kind of censorship from the White House, what's going to happen in 2029 when there's a Democrat? Is he going to ban Fox News from coming to the White House? Is he going to ban whatever networks are not reporting on the president the way the president wants to be reported? Look, the job of the media is to criticize the president. You know, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the White House. You're supposed to be able to take this type of criticism. But Donald Trump, his reaction is, I don't like the way you're reporting. I'm just gonna label that as fake news. But of course, he loves the fake news that flatters him. And so if you're gonna report stuff that's also wrong, but Trump likes it, that's not fake news, right? Fake news is in the eye of the beholder. When I went on, and I mentioned this on my last podcast, but I go on Fox and Friends and I'm telling the truth. I'm saying prices are going up. They're still going up. The inflation problem isn't solved. It's going to get worse. I am 100% right because the Fed is now hiking rates because the inflation problem has gotten worse. Prices are rising across the board. But Donald Trump got mad at me for saying that. Donald Trump said prices are falling dramatically. Who booked this jerk, this loser, this Trump hater? Find out the booker. Who's the booker? And obviously, and I know for a fact from my FOYA work, but the president's guys over at the housing finance, they reached out. They got copies of my interview to look at it. And I'm sure they reached out to Fox. And if they didn't reach out directly, believe me, when the president of the United States is publicly threatening the Booker, like who booked this jerk? Like, what are they doing? That's going to scare the hell out of bookers. that that that's why not only have they not booked me, they won't even email me. They won't return my emails. They probably blocked them. I mean, they're scared because the president didn't want me telling the truth. He wants Fox News to lie about how great the economy is. So, that's the kind of fake news that he likes. But if somebody's criticizing him or even being accurate, in fact, I think as much as I don't like CNN and MSNBC, I think that they're more likely to be accurate uh when covering Trump than Fox News. Trump derangement syndrome works both ways. Now, there are people that accuse me of having it. I don't have it, right? I I look at everything objectively, but yes, there are people who look at what Trump does and everything is a negative spin. And there are other people who put a positive spin on everything. Now, the problem is I've been very negative on the stuff the president has been doing lately because it's all been bad. That's the problem. There's so much bad stuff that's happening that I have to be critical about it. I mean, if he wasn't doing this stuff, like another example, he just got sued and I I called this out immediately, but I think it's in San Francisco. They filed a lawsuit against Truth Social, his company, Donald Trump Media, right? They're being sued by California, for basically selling insider information to people who can afford it. I talked about this the day it happened and said this is not only unethical, it's got to be illegal what they're doing. But what they're doing at Truth Social, if you want to get Donald Trump's posts a few milliseconds early, you can pay like a 50 to 100,000 a month and you will get the post a few seconds or milliseconds before everybody else. Now, this is specifically designed for traders because otherwise, who cares? What difference does it make if I get the information even a few seconds early? Like, I can't wait. Like, I'm so desperate to know what Donald Trump's going to post that to to hear it two seconds earlier, I'm going to pay 50 grand a month. The reason is if you have a a program that's trading that is keyed on immediately entering buys and sells based on what the president says. The earlier you get that um signal, the the the better off you are in the market because you could beat somebody to the punch. You got to get that trade entered before the entire market moves. So if Trump says something that's going to make the oil price go up, the sooner that you can get that quote and react to it, the better chance you have of selling oil before the price drops. Because once the news is disseminated, then everybody wants to sell oil. Nobody wants to buy oil and the market tanks. But if you get that market moving post before everybody else, you have a chance to sell oil before they know what's going on. That's why they're willing to pay all this money because they're buying insider information from the president himself who is profiting from his office. Because let's say I wanted to charge people extra to get my ex posts early. No one's going to pay me. I mean, my posts aren't going to move the market. I I got I got no influence on the market. But when you're the president of the United States, then your post can move the market because you have the power to executive order. You can put a tariff on. You could take a tariff off. You could start a war, right? You could end a war. You could do things that are going to have a profound impact on the market that private citizens could not do. In fact, if Donald Trump was not president, had he lost uh his re-election campaign and if he was just sitting at home as a private citizen, nobody would be paying extra for his posts to get them early. The only reason he could sell those posts for so much money is precisely because he is the president of the United States. So, you can't do that. And when the lawyers for Trump Media were asked to comment on this lawsuit, their response is, "Hey, we're just doing what every other company does." You know, this is standard in the industry. Everybody does this. It's not standard because not every social media company is owned by the president of the United States. There's only one company that's owned by the president of the United States. And there's only one company that's able to deliver these market moving posts, especially when you have so much power now in the presidency. I mean, Donald Trump probably moves markets. Not probably, definitely. His comments have a bigger impact on markets on a regular basis than any president ever. And in fact, once you give Donald Trump the ability to sell access to his posts that he knows are going to move the markets, he is going to deliberately make more market moving posts to increase the value of his service. Right? The more Trump is going to post on on truth social information that's going to move markets, the more opportunity people who subscribe to his service have to make money. So the way he can maximize the value of his service and therefore maximize how much he can charge for this preferential access he is going to deliberately make posts that will move the market to enrich himself by making money for his customer. So this thing is completely unethical. But now you've given the Democrats just, you know, a layup here. So they finally filed this lawsuit. But it shouldn't be some California lawyer, some DA or something. The the SEC should be doing this. The Republicans should be saying something about this. They should not be going along with it because by going along with it, they are complete hypocrites. Not only did they lose their ability to criticize Democrats when they do something like this or even worse because now Trump is setting the precedent that can be exploited by future presidents. But I think they are undermining the entire party. I think one of the reasons that you're going to see so many representatives and senators losing their seats is because they're they're basically going down with this Trump ship. They are refusing to call out what is obvious and they're conceding that ground to the Democrats. You know, the Republicans probably picked up some votes because of the way the Democrats were hiding problems in the Biden administration. They were denying what was going on with Hunter Biden and and and all the money that he was earning and all the money that was being laundered through all these straw accounts that were being set up and how the the Democrats were lying about uh the president's mental health. Uh he was sharp as attack and then of course we saw how sharp he really was during that first debate. So, I think the fact that the Democrats were lying so much is one of the reasons that Trump was able to get more votes from independents. And that's the same reason that he's going to be losing votes from independents now and other Republicans because they are in denial. They are defending what really is the undefendable when it comes to what Trump has been doing and what his administration has been doing for personal profit. Well, I want to get back and [music] talk a little bit now about my trip to Panama, Panama City. So, first of all, we had a great conference there. I think we had about 130 to 140 people from all over the world. People were coming from far off locations in Asia and in Europe and South America. So, it wasn't just Americans who are looking for a plan B. Everybody is looking for a plan B. You know, there are a lot of Canadians up there. You'd be surprised at how many Canadians want to get the hell out of Canada and they're looking at Panama as a place to go, but you don't have to come down to the conference if you're interested in getting some information. And really what a plan B is all about is just in case because most people they don't have any backup plan if something really goes bad in their country, whether it's the United States, Canada, or any other country. If things get really bad, you may need to leave. I mean, literally leave. I mean, I am investing my money abroad, but I'm not leaving. I'm still here in the United States. Things haven't gotten that bad that I feel like I got to flee. But you never know. I mean, because you never nobody knows. I mean, how quick things can turn around very quickly. Uh especially, you know, the way the political winds are blowing and how the pendulum is swinging. So, it's good to have a plan B uh where you are able to pick up and and go and you have uh a residency or a second passport. Uh you have you have a way to leave the country, whatever country you happen to live in. I mean, you you don't want to have all of your eggs in any one um jurisdictional basket. You want to be able to leave uh if if you have to leave. and and so there's a lot of information on on how to prepare a and put together your your plan B. And if you weren't at our conference, uh you can still sign up. We have a specific newsletter at Shift Sovereign. We have a number of different products there. But if you go there and you look at uh plan B confidential, you can subscribe and you can get uh all of the same information and and and decide what you want to do. But you know, Panama is getting a lot of people coming in. A lot of people are moving there uh not as a plan B. They're moving there as a plan A. I mean they just want to go there uh because what the country has to offer in the way of infrastructure and lifestyle and and taxes. You know a lot of um Orthodox uh Jews have been moving there are surprised uh uh at at the Jewish community the strength of that community uh in in Panama. And in fact 98% of the Panameanian Jews keep kosher. That's how religious they are. I mean it's in New York maybe it's the opposite. maybe 2% of the Jewish population is is is uh is kosher. So, uh it it's you know it's an excellent place especially with the rise of of anti-semitism around the world. I think a lot of Jews might be looking for a place where they may feel uh more welcome and [snorts] and certainly there's a great and growing community uh there in Panama. Um, but I I also think that the people that are coming there by and large, see, it's kind of like, you know, here in Puerto Rico, but people are coming there uh looking for freedom, uh, looking for economic opportunity. You know, they don't have any tax on your foreign earnings. So, if you have global income, if you run a global business, you're generating income outside of Panama, you're not paying any tax on that. You don't have to pay any capital gains tax. And so they're attracting the right kind of people. They're they're people are not coming to Panama because they want to go on welfare. They're coming to Panama so they could work and so they can keep more of what they earn. And and and that's what you want. I mean, that's what built America. All of my uh grandparents, all four of my grandparents came to America looking for freedom and opportunity. And you know, I this is something I don't think I've pointed out because there's so much talk about uh immigration and you know, how we you know, we have to crack down like the immigrants are part of the problem. There's too many people coming into the country. We need to shut down the border. That's a big thing that Donald Trump talks about is the security of the border. Well, Donald Trump also talks about the guilded age, right? the the time period from really the late uh 1800s to early 1900s. Uh and that was the period of time where America enjoyed its greatest period of economic growth. and and Donald Trump likes to talk about that time period because we didn't have an income tax and we had tariffs and and so he attributes our economic success to the tariffs when the tariffs were not the reason that the economy succeeded. The economy succeeded despite the tariffs. The the fact of the matter is we succeeded because we didn't have an income tax. We didn't need an income tax because we had a very small government. the government was so small that we could afford to pay for it with tariffs. So that was the reason that we were successful, not because we had tariffs, but because that's all we needed because we had a small government that allowed uh for maximum individual freedom. And in fact, when it comes to immigration, when people came to this country, when my grandparents came to this country, they didn't have any paperwork. They didn't have any passports. They didn't have any visas. They didn't even have a work permit. They had nothing. They just showed up in the country. The way it worked, you bought a ticket on a steam ship or something and you arrived at Ellis Island and when you got there, there was somebody from the government that asked you a few questions. I mean it I mean it wasn't like you if you answer these questions wrong they were going to put you back on the ship and send you home. I mean they were just keeping track of who was coming in. They weren't stopping people from coming in. They were just trying to have some kind of record. And it wasn't that much. I mean basically they would ask you for your name. Sometimes they spelled it right, sometimes they spelled it wrong. But they'd get your name. Uh they ask you how old you were and and when you were born and you know what town you you you you left, what ship you arrived on or they probably already had the ship, but they would just jot all this stuff down and then that was it. And then then then you were on your way. You know, you could go I looked up my my father's uh parents on the um this uh on the uh Statue of Liberty website for Ellis Island and you can look up and you can see when your if you if you know your grandparents came in. And so my grandmother uh arrived in 1902 through Ellis Island. She was 15 years old when she came here. And my grandfather was 18. He came in in 1903 and they didn't have anything. My grandfather got a job, started a business, never filled out a form. In fact, the government didn't even start kind of keeping track of employment until the 1930s when they passed social security. So when social security came in and people had to get a social security number, now when you got a job, you would have to give your employer your social security number because now uh you were paying social security taxes and and and he was paying taxes or she was paying taxes uh as your employer and the money was getting sent to the government. But that's the first time. But before the 1930s, if you wanted a job, you just showed up and got hired. there there was no forms. You don't have to fill out anything, you know, if you wanted to hire somebody. Again, they just started to work. Now, the first time they started to keep track of of the non-citizens who were living in America was in 1940 because we were in World War II. The government got scared and so they passed a a law, an alien registration act, and it said, "Hey, if you're in America and you're not an American citizen, you need to register. you need to let us know that you're here because we were worried. Remember, we we interned the Japanese, right? If you were if you were here from Japan, we we put you in an in an internment camp. Uh but we wanted to know who the foreigners were that were living among us because up until 1941, we had no idea because when people came into this country, they could stay as long as they wanted, right? It wasn't like, you know, they they could only be here for 90 days. You came in, my grandparents came in, they never had to leave and they didn't even have to become US citizens. They didn't have green cards. What happened was when the war ended in 1946, instead of repealing the Alien Registration Act, they reformed it into basically the origin of what we now call the Green Card. So, green cards basically started in 1946. Uh, but that's like 40 years after my grandparents came to this country. They didn't have any green cards. They had nothing. In fact, my grandfather didn't become a US citizen until 1932 when he when he naturalized. I mean, that's, you know, people decided to be US citizens. They weren't required, but they thought it was an honor. Like, a lot of people came here and they fell in love with America, that they wanted to be Americans. They didn't want to just live here among us. They wanted to be one of us. And people would often celebrate when they finally, you know, became a US citizen. And in order to do that, you would you would register your intent. My grandfather actually registered his intent to become an American in in 19 1926, but he didn't actually take the oath and and and and fill out all the forms uh until 19 19 um 32. I think you had to wait two years at a minimum before you registered your intent and then when you could actually become an American citizen. But you had up to seven years to do it. And he he kind of did it right before the end of the seven seventh year. But my grandmother my grandmother stayed in the United States until 1950. She was like 62 years old by the time she became an American citizen. But before that she she was just here. Um so we didn't do anything. And we had a great economy. We had a booming economy. Millions and millions of immigrants were coming into America. No paperwork, no work permits, no green cards, nothing. They were just showing up and they could work wherever they want. They could buy property. Um if they wanted to, uh they could even vote. Most immigrants who came to America, even though they weren't citizens, most states you could vote. Not only could you vote in local elections and state elections, you could vote in national elections based on the same criteria as American citizens. So, we didn't even care if you were living in this country, your vote was important. But of course, the the uh aliens who were living here, not Americans, they were subject to the same restrictions. So, if there was a pole tax, they had to pay that. If there was a literacy test, they had to pass that. And of course, uh, those requirements were were quite common, uh, back then. There used to be property, uh, requirements, owning property, but, you know, by 1900, a lot of the states that had those property requirements no longer had them, but but the literacy tests, uh, and the pole taxes, uh, you know, were around for a while, but that was it. We we didn't even differentiate. So, we want to put a lot of our problems now on, hey, we can't have a country if we just let all these immigrants in. Yes, we can. Provided that we don't have a welfare state. That is the key difference between the America that my grandparents came to and the America that exists today. There was no welfare state. You came in to America and you got no help from the government. You just you were here and you were on your own. It was sink or swim. You had to fend for yourself. You had to get a job. You had to earn money. You know, you didn't get welfare. You didn't get food stamps. You didn't get government provided health care. You didn't get housing vouchers. Nothing. You either contributed to the American society, economy, or you left. That was it. That was the deal. And if we did the same thing today, if we turned off the welfare magnet, not just for immigrants, but for everybody, if we really made America great again and went back to that freedom rugged individual, you know, opportunity seeking, freedomloving country that all of my grandparents willingly came to. They left their own country because there was more freedom here and they decided to become Americans. They decided to reject the citizenship of their ancestors and of their birth and become Americans, assimilate into the American culture legally. And there was a lot of pride uh associated uh with with with finally becoming an American because people were here for years and years and years and they weren't Americans. But the point I'm making is there we don't need all of these laws and regulations restricting people coming to America if we make sure that they're coming for the right reasons. And the only way to do that is this to dismantle the welfare state. Unfortunately, because the country is so different now than it was when my grandparents came, we can't have open borders. But the the problem is not immigrants. The problem is our welfare state. The new system that we have. When the best and brightest and hardworking people from all around the world were coming to America, it was great. Now they're going to places like like Panama, right? That's where they're going. in other countries that can offer a lot more economic freedom than America can offer because we have to support so many people who are living off the government. The people who are working are now forced to pay much higher taxes in order to make that possible. So, we're not really the destination anymore. Um, it's it's it's other countries that are now, I think, leading and are going to lead. Yes, there are still some people uh you know in the tech field and there's certain uh industries where we're still dominating. We're probably still attracting people, but overall I think you're going to get an exodus uh from the country. And again, that's why you need to have your plan B. uh because things could get a lot worse, especially after the 2028 election, if we get a Democratic sweep, if the Democrats already have the House and the Senate, and then they get the White House, and it's a total democratic socialist uh um you know, government, and we have a complete uh economic crisis because we have a bond crisis, we have a sovereign debt crisis, who knows? Who knows? because the next president may have a lot of powers based on what Trump did. He'll be able to follow in his footsteps with even more draconian and worse do even worse stuff with that power uh than Trump did. So, in the meantime, you know, get your financial house in order. That's what I'm doing. I my my plan B starts with my portfolio before my I'm physically leaving the country. my my investments are leaving the country and you know and make sure you have your gold and silver uh make sure you have your T- gold account. Make sure all your economic ducks are in a row uh so that when you implement a plan B it'll be effective. That's it for now. Bye-bye everybody. I'm actually off. I got dinner plans. Tonight is uh my 14th wedding anniversary. So my wife and I are going to be celebrating that. So take care everybody.