PodCasts Archives - McAlvany Weekly Commentary

Ten Year Treasury Yield up 20% in one week When Americans fear free speech, Americans are in peril Not right vs left but the people vs media monopoly The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Valuing Voice As An Antidote To Dehumanization January 13, 2021 The McAlvany Weekly Commentary covering monetary, economic, and geopolitical news events. Reflect on the hard conclusions you have arrived at by vicariously accepting what you read and watch, which are curated materials. Whether it is The Newsroom producer or a Big Tech algorithm, what you feel is a reflection of thinking done for you and a feeling by design. Right and left are both culpable. --David McAlvany Now, here are Kevin Orrick and David McAlvany. Kevin Orrick: Welcome to the Mcalvany Weekly Commentary. I am Kevin Orrick along with David McAlvany. David, one of the things that we value the most with this program is talking to people who may not always agree with us so that we can listen to other ideas. I have watched the country here, especially during the last few days, and there is a fear of speaking about what you believe in because you may be censored or lose your job. I was thinking about how, in an abusive relationship, oftentimes, the abuse comes from one person basically inflicting their views on another and not allowing the other to have a voice. What do you think? David: Yeah. It seems that there is a difference between those who seek truth and those who wish to establish power. I suppose they are not mutually exclusive, but it would, in practical terms, appear that way wherein looking to establish power is at the expense of seeking the truth. This is no longer the first priority, and so you do see a socially unique dynamic today. Kevin: Yeah, it really has been hitting me over the last week too. We have to know who the true enemy is. The left is not the enemy of the right and the right should not be the enemy of the left, per se. The enemy right now is those who are shutting the voice down. You said something last night that I think is worth repeating, “Valuing voice is an antidote to dehumanization.” What we are seeing is the dehumanization of two sides, but it is because the voice is being shut down. I would like to talk about that today, Dave, but I also want to get the markets out of the way because there are some things going on in the markets that are worth talking about, but I want to get back to this voice that has been shut down. David: Absolutely. As for the markets, there are a thousand things to discuss, and they are important. But I think they do pale in comparison to the potential missteps afoot in the areas of social and political engagement. Kevin: Jim Deeds called me and he talked about how Treasury yields had topped one percent, and he drew me to Bloomberg just to look at the commodities, and he said, “Kevin, do you see what is happening? Interest rates are rising. People are moving out of cash and they are moving into commodities.” He says this is a sign of inflation. What do you think, Dave? David: Well, I think some of the highlights, the ten-year Treasury broke out to 1.17 percent. It is a 20 percent move in less than a week, which is very significant. You have had radical volatility, which has lifted stocks to all-time highs. Even as you had insider selling spike, margin debt exploding to all-time highs, which is leveraged speculation on the continued price move higher in the equities markets. The investment world has begun to recalibrate to a new investment context, and I do think inflation is that theme, gaining momentum. I think the net effect will be a major asset class recalibration and a rotation, which I think is already afoot. Kevin: We have seen gold over this last week drop, but gold and silver – I mean that is where you go not just for deflation and instabilit...

This week we answer your questions that were submitted. Thank you for listening to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Your Questions Answered Part 2 January 6, 2021 Kevin, it seems like an obvious compliment in the context of doing a Q&A to say that I appreciate our listeners’ curiosity, because we are deeply curious as individuals. And it’s an amazing experience to see life and to see the world from that vantage point of journeying together and trying to figure out the world that we live in and the best way to engage it in the context of curiosity, with life, with finances, with so many things. --David McAlvany Now, here are Kevin Orrick and David McAlvany. Kevin: Welcome to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. I’m Kevin Orrick, along with David McAlvany. Well, Happy New Year, Dave. We’re on our second week of the Question and Answer program, one of my favorite times of the year. David: You know, back in the day, my dad would give a presentation and there would be people who would sit for four, five or six hours. Kevin: [chuckle] That’s the truth, that’s the truth. Long. David: I just don’t think that that would be the case anymore. So here we are, the second week of Questions and Answers, respecting your time and hoping that tuning in for a second week in less than marathon form, we hope you enjoy the second installment of the Q&A. Kevin: Well, it sort of like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, back in the 1800s people had that kind of patience, eight hours at a time. Actually, listening to your dad, the time flew because he flew in four hours through what he called eight hours worth of material. So let’s go to the first question. One of the things that struck me, Dave, about these questions this time around, this year, almost all of them are assuming a weaker dollar and inflation, which... Yeah, that’s interesting. What a difference a year makes. This next question brings back good memories. About five years ago, Dave, five years ago, we were in Argentina together, and man, what a great time. But the inflation rate... The inflation rate was, what? 40, 45% at the time. So obviously, people were having to adapt at that point to the very thing that we’re seeing the questions asked about today. So I’m going to read this next question. He says, “Gentlemen, a few years ago, you were both in Argentina. And my question, if we have serious inflation, then in Argentina, did real estate prices rise due to inflation, or did prices decline because interest rates increased?” David: A couple of things I want to say… The trip to Argentina was very instructive. After that trip, I crossed the border to Uruguay. I spent several days looking for various places that I could buy physical assets, gold and silver, and had done the same in Buenos Aires, and found that generations have passed since gold and silver were a part of their monetary system, and no one really understood them at all. And it was fascinating to me because it was with some effort... It took me some effort to find an opt-out. And this plays into the question about Argentina real estate, because what we find is a whole generation or multiple generations that view the US dollar, at least in Argentina, as the equivalent of a gold standard, a better alternative than the local currency. Now, to the question on real estate. In periods of high inflation, you have loan volumes which decrease significantly. There is no way for banks to hedge the kind of inflation risk that you see in those periods. And so imagine if Argentine banks were, for instance, using the equivalent of TIPS, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. We have those here in the United States, they don’t have those all over the world. But imagine an Argentine bank has the opportunity to invest in TIPS to hedge against currency devaluation,

This week and next we answer your questions that were submitted. Thank you for listening to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Your Questions Answered, Part 1 December 30, 2020 “There is an opportunity to expand your financial footprint or to go beyond just maintaining purchasing power if you happen to be the only buyer. And frankly, with a gold and silver asset you put yourself in a pretty good position to do that because liquidity is not an issue. So, again, if you’re the only buyer, the only person with liquidity, you can more easily name your price.” – David McAlvany Kevin: Well, we hope everyone had a very merry Christmas last week. Actually, Dave, you were with quite a bit of your family. You got a chance to talk to your dad and mom in the Philippines, but your sister was here, your brother was here, the kids. One of the things that I love about working for your family is that’s exactly what it is. It’s a family. And you include a lot of people outside of the circle of just the bloodline. David: Yes, it’s funny getting together. You’re not often reminded of how many oddballs can come from one particular gene pool. But it’s a lot of fun. We had a great time. Last night we were gathered for a family dinner, and it was kind of an interesting experience. I was talking to one of the kids and I backed my seat up and I bumped one of our bookshelves. And on this particular bookshelf, we have every decanter, every plate. We’ve probably got, I don’t know, 200 pounds’ worth of porcelain and glass. Four out of five shelves came tumbling down. I barely bumped it and one collapsed on the other, collapsed on the next, and we were so grateful that no one got hurt because looking at the carnage on the floor, it was unreal. It was absolutely unreal. So when families gather, we thought to ourselves, this could have been a Greek wedding, except we aren’t Greek. But they have the tradition of taking the porcelain or whatever and just throwing it away, breaking it. It was an expensive evening, but a great family gathering, and we just laughed and laughed and laughed, thinking this is going to be one of the great tragedies that we will never forget but one of the funniest things that’s happened in a long, long time. Kevin: Dave, one of the things about family, you know, as we read through the questions, we’ve done this question and answer program now for 13 years. The company itself is going on almost 50 years old. It’s the 49th year we are coming into. But what I what I love about our listeners to this broadcast is they get the family vibe. And so even in the questions as we read through the questions, there are little personal things where people are saying, “Well, hey, on Wednesday nights, this is what we do. We turn on the McAlvany Weekly Commentary as a family.” But that’s what I really love and would encourage for our listeners, is just enjoy the real things in life. The financial is fine. It’s fine to talk about ups and downs in the monetary markets, and all of that’s interesting. But really, your intentional legacy is the true backbone of this show, and actually of what we’re trying to do here. David: And certainly the big picture matters to us, and that ties into macroeconomics. But the bigger picture for all of us is the relationships that we’re engaged with and the values that we bring into those relationships, the skills that we develop to better be able to navigate those relationships. So having skills, being able to navigate, there is some cross application, and we’re grateful to participate in a larger conversation and thought process with our listeners. So the Q and A each year is really fun for us to be able to see not only the points of connection that we’ve made through the year or through the years with those listeners, but also the things that are on their minds.

Craft Distillers & NASCAR tracks get stimulus money Save the Dollar? or Save the Bond Market? - That decision will come for the FED Q&A program in next few weeks - submit questions to info@mcalvany.com   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick What Does Your 401k Own? The Ignorant Bliss of Passive Investing December 16, 2020 “We’ve never seen these kinds of volumes in the history of U.S. equities markets or global equities markets and derivatives markets. The bottom line is really this – overpaying for assets. That’s the norm today. It is the greater fool theory, not in theory, but in practice. And the bottom line, I think, is captured by an old bit of wisdom – The fool and his money are quickly parted.” – David McAlvany Kevin: David. While we’re thinking about it, let’s go ahead and ask our listeners for questions for the shows coming up over the next few weeks. Every year we’ve made the comment that we get better and better questions. We’re just amazed at the quality of the listeners to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. David: If you send them to info@mcalvany.com and just make mention that it is questions for the Weekly Commentary, we will circle back around in a few weeks and do our very best to provide some insight, and, if not, we will sufficiently punt. Kevin: I was watching Monday Night Football, Browns/Ravens, and they were showing pictures of the vaccines coming out of the warehouse. And one of the sports commentators said, “Oh, I saw that this morning, and finally, finally, there’s hope.” I thought, “Gosh, that sounds a little bit overstated right now for a vaccine that really hasn’t had any time to be tested. When you see the pictures of the vaccines rolling out of the warehouse, did you breathe your first sigh of relief in nine or ten months, Dave? David: I can understand if somebody has a significant health issue how this is definitely a day to celebrate. Reuters reported that there are five genes linked to severe Covid-19 cases. When I see those pictures, what I’m reminded of is, when we look at age, when we look at comorbidity, when we look at the testing for those five genes, we can pretty well narrow the scope of who is at risk. I think we ought to be engaging with those facts and plan accordingly. For those most at risk, again, I’m glad we have a solution. In fact, we’ve got three to choose from here in a short while. David: That gene research was interesting too, because you have such a wide range of reactions to Covid. Some people barely know they have it, other people end up dying from it, and they’re finding that it can be genetically identified. David: Yes, there has to be a more intelligent solution than to vaccinate the global population outside of those high-risk categories, because we’re dealing with materials that up to this point have never been used on human subjects. Kevin: You don’t buy the shotgun theory where you just start shooting into the air and everybody gets it. David: No. The reality is we’ve got very little science to quantify the risks that recipients face into the future. So if I’m 85 years old, if I’m 90 years old, I’m not really thinking about what the long-term implications for my health are. I’m just wanting a solution that takes care of this problem right now. But to roll out a vaccine without double blind studies with no historical data of effects, that just doesn’t exist yet. I am reminded quite frequently as I’m listening to a drug advertisement, either on the radio or television, they give you this long list of things that can go wrong, and it’s not like mild headaches or cold sweats, it’s nasty. It’s a whole list of things, including death. And I just think, okay they’ve disclosed, you’ve chosen it. In this case, there’s nothing to disclose. The liability to the companies,

Old pilots, bold pilots... no old bold pilots How long can the Fed be the buyer of last resort? Q&A program in next few weeks - submit questions to info@mcalvany.com

M2 Money supply up 23% annualized! Inflation? Most successful (buy low/sell high) investors are longly Tobin’s Q value indicator shows all-time overvaluation in stocks - CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE CHART   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick New Normal or Old Trap? Buy High Then Buy Higher December 9, 2020 "When you think about the policies that have to be implemented in order to manage this monstrosity – you’ve got the twin hammers of financial repression and inflation. I don’t know how low the dollar goes. Time will tell. But for my savings, I’m much more comfortable having ounces rather than handing money over to Biden, Yellen, Powell and the whole cast of central bank characters." – David McAlvany Kevin: Here we are, 30,000 plus on the Dow today as we record. Oftentimes, Dave, we hear people talking about how this is a new time. You need to see things differently. All the signals that we had in the past aren’t the same because we’re in a new era. They’re printing money or we’ve got Bitcoin, or we’ve got this, or we’ve got that. But I think about here in Durango, we’ve got a train that’s 130 years old that runs through town, and we have no crossing gates. Nothing closes down on the roads when the train goes through. There’s just an assumption, when you hear the train whistle, when it toots two times that means it’s going forward. When it toots three times, that means it’s going backward. And strangely enough, those train whistles have been a great signal for me, each time, to look both ways before I cross those crossings. Now we have the same thing in the market. We look at the Dow. 30,000, people are like, “Yeah, it’s got nowhere else to go but up.” But we have some old train whistles, things that people have been looking at for years, like Tobin’s Q. We’ve got things that we can listen to and say, “Hey, anytime it gets beyond this point, it’s like a train whistle. It’s going to cross the path and you’d better not be on it. David: Oftentimes there are sophomores that enter into our lives in different ways at different points. A sophomore is someone who has been at college a little while, but really doesn’t know what he or she doesn’t know. But they feel like they know a lot. Kevin: I’ve been one of those, by the way. (laughs) David: (laughs) And there’s a certain boldness, a certain confidence, a certain brashness. It’s the new guy, it’s the young guy or gal. And you contrast that with the old way of looking at things. Kevin: And usually they’re enthusiastic, so you question yourself. Even if you’ve been through it a few times you thin, “Does he know something that maybe I don’t know, even though I’ve had experience?” David: So also with valuations, we can look and say, “All right, but now that interest rates are so low, we should adjust all of our expectations to having valuations that much higher. It’s different this time.” Jeremy Grantham was interviewed on CNBC in the middle of November, and he had this to say about market valuations and projected returns. I think it captures it perfectly. “The one reality,” he says, “that you can never change is that a higher priced asset will produce a lower return than a lower priced asset.” You can’t have your cake and eat it. You can enjoy it now, or you can enjoy it steadily in the distant future. But not both. And the price we pay for having this market go higher is a lower 10-year return from the peak. Kevin: And the question is, how do we know if we’re over-paying for something? There is a Nobel Prize winner who basically said, “There’s an easy way to know if you’re over paying for something.” David: I think this reality of projected 10-year returns is a reality we often have discussed since we interacted with Andrew Smithers. He wrote his book, Valuing Wall Street. I think it’s a must read.

Is Bitcoin a momentum trade, a value trade, or both? Digitized Money - Dystopian or Utopian to individual liberty? Gold takes a short recovery break like an athlete, only to grow stronger going forward   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Bitcoin, Marcus Aurelius & The “Essence of the Thing” December 2, 2020 “It takes independent thinking, and it takes rigorous research to figure out what has value, what warrants value, what will have value, but does not today. Bitcoin – it may sprout wings and fly. That is appropriate in the category of a speculation. I still prefer value firmly planted on terra firma. Hard assets, please. And hard assets, thank you.” --David McAlvany Kevin: I always enjoy our time on Monday nights, Dave, when we talk. We were talking a little bit about what is the essence of a thing. Marcus Aurelius – that’s sort of a summary of what he was saying. What is the essence of a thing when we invest in it? I’ve worked with you all for 33 years because I know what gold is. It’s not really hard for me to describe in a sentence what gold is. But, man, some of the investments out there are far more complicated. I’ve asked my clients when they asked me about Bitcoin, what is the essence of it? Can you explain to me what Bitcoin is in a single sentence? And so I’d like to talk about that a little bit today, Dave, because I thought it was an interesting conversation. But why don’t we talk about gold, since that’s something I do know what it is? Gold has been in a correction. We had a very, very nice rise on gold this year. Still, it’s a nice rise, but we’ve had a correction. Can you comment on the correction to give us a little bit of perspective as to how we move forward? David: Yes. And as for Marcus Aurelius, I think you’re right, it gets to something that is very important. You have to understand before you commit and that certainly is Buffett’s notion of, if it doesn’t make sense to me, if I can’t wrap my mind around it, I shouldn’t be playing with it. One of your favorite scientists used to take a similar approach which is to understand something he actually had to recreate it, and only when it was recreated did he feel that he properly understood it. Kevin: The physicist, Richard Feynman, said that he had to rediscover everything that he really learned. David: So what is the nature of the whole? What is my nature? How is this thing related to that thing? That’s what Aurelius is getting at, understanding relationships and understanding essence, being able to articulate that. Gold, as you say, is a much more basic thing to understand, and, as a store of value, as a medium of exchange, this is its history for 5,000 years. We’ve had it in a normal cyclical bear market pattern. This is short-term, the last several months – August, September, October – correcting a very healthy up-cycle, and silver as well is digesting a better than 100% move off the March lows. Corrections, in some sense, can be thought of like a recovery. You expend energy if you run a certain distance. So for the athlete you run a certain distance and then you have to recover, and you allow the energy that you have expended to be absorbed. In the case of your muscles, it’s the recovery period, which is critical to progress. Recovery is rest before more energy can be spent again. So you can view the market from an exercise enthusiast vantage point. Exhaustion is temporary, necessitating rest, and rest opens the way for more healthy activity in the future. Kevin: One of the things about that Marcus Aurelius quote is also how to relate things to other things, real things to other things. I think about the man that we met in the Bahamas, Dave, for a conference. He had sailed his boat around, through, I think, the Panama Canal from the northwest where he lived and he was over in the B...

Your local small businesses need help - buy deliberately local. Covid brings massive changes to norm, will some be “creative destruction”? CARES Act money used for mask enforcement versus help for small business. https://www.govtrack.us/misconduct   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Insider Trading: “Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others” November 25, 2020 “There still is a recognition that somethin’ ain’t right back in D.C. I just don’t think we will see any real substantive change in that geography when it comes to ethics and conduct until the cycle of excess is behind us. Easy money breeds easy ethics, and ample justification for any and all actions.” – David McAlvany Kevin: I was thinking this week, and I should be thinking all the time just how thankful I am for the provision we have, Dave. Even in these tough times, if we really look below the surface of mainstream media and below the narratives, we actually see a lot of provision right now. We’re seeing a lot of market activity right now, too. You’ve been talking for the last three or four weeks that we were probably going to experience a D-wave correction. That’s a technical term in the chart world. Gold goes up on an A-wave pattern, B on a down, up on a C, and sometimes has a D-wave right after that, and it starts the pattern again. But it’s always good to look back and say, “This is not unexpected, this is just a buying opportunity. What is your thought on the markets right now? David: You are right about gratitude and the importance of being thankful. I think for anyone who has been around the block, not just the markets, clearly, but life, gratitude is an antidote to so many things. When we look at the markets these days, there is a lot going on. We got, in the high-yield market, to 4.5 to 6% last year. That is a new low in the yield, which means a new all-time high in the price, taking out the highs of June 2014. So you have a trend in high-yield which is very risk-on in nature. We see the same thing in the stock market. And lo and behold, gold drops on the other side of that. Where we have risk-on, there is no need for gold it would seem, at least for the time being. Not a reason for concern in our view, simply because we look at all markets from both a cyclical perspective and a secular perspective, cyclical being short-term, secular being the long-term trends. And the long-term trend for gold is, in a very healthy fashion, up. And we look at the cyclical trends – those are the shorter-term trends – and as you said, it’s A, it’s B, it’s C, it’s D, and then that pattern is repeated. So A and C are the strong up-waves, C being the dominant, really strong up-wave, and B and D are the down-waves. D, the one that we are in now, is the worst. And if we looked at time and price, we might have a few weeks left of that. We ask the question, if on a short-term basis, we’re putting in a low for gold, it makes sense to probably be adding to positions in here. Just like we said last week, getting down to around $1800-1820, is to be expected, and that is probably when actions should be taken. So we thought it would come, and here we are. Kevin: As many of our listeners know, we look at finance, and we look at a person’s liquid assets in the form of a triangle, the base of the triangle being gold, which is just the preservation aspect. And yes, as the dollar continues to go down, gold will continue to go up. But also, the left side of the triangle is the managed side where you are trying to grow. McAlvany Wealth Management would be one of those elements. And actually, 3rd quarter was very kind to McAlvany Wealth Management. Of course, the right side of the triangle is cash. That’s never good because they keep printing so much. But going back to the left side, Dave, hard assets,

Wilbur Ross: “Investors need to start thinking about inflation again,”. China AAA rated coal company suddenly defaults on debt Vote switching new? No, see attached: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-voting-machine-switches-vote-obama-romney_n_2083015 https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/H.I.G.%20McCarthy,%20&%20Staple%20Street%20letters.pdf   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Dollar Depreciation Certain… Election? Not So Much November 18, 2020 “But here’s the deal. We go farther into the risk-taking mode, and there’s a greater reliance on interventionist measures to come in and save the day. It’s like a version of game theory. Speculators believe that regulators have too much to lose in an interconnected financial system to not intervene. So they take outsized leverage bets, leaving the whole system subject to spectacular collapse, knowing that they’re covered, at least, because the actions of the central banks are that predictable.” – David McAlvany Kevin: Well, you know, we’re all waiting to hear how it went. Let’s face it, 2020 has been a really weird year. But for you, you had quite an accomplishment, Dave. You set your mind and your goal on a full Iron Man. And I warned you ahead of time, “Have you talked to your wife about this?” She was supportive. So tell the listeners how it went. There you were last weekend. What was it, 140 miles? David: Yes, it was a great day. It was a beautiful day. It was fantastic. The swim was enjoyable, went too fast. The bike was tough just because it’s a long time to be on a bike. Kevin: You were saying 80 miles on, at that point you’re starting to hurt a little. David: You’re just uncomfortable, and that’s a part of the race is actually just getting a little bit of comfort with being uncomfortable and staying uncomfortable because the marathon is – no part of it is comfortable after doing 112 on the bike. Kevin: And then there was the run. I was watching on the app. Iron Man has an app, which is an amazing thing. If the listeners know anybody who races, just tune into the Iron Man app. There are checkpoints so often that I could actually watch how you were doing. But you slowed way down on mile 14 of the marathon, the full 26 miles. You slowed way down for just a short period of time. Now I was mistaken. I thought you were hurting. I was like, uh-oh, he went from nine plus minute-miles to 11-minute miles. But then you told me, actually, that wasn’t the case. You stopped for refreshments. David: Yes, stopped to fuel, make sure I had the electrolytes and I didn’t cramp up in the last half of the race, and I was able to finish pretty strong, happy with the time. Kevin: And where you stacked up in your category. I’m not going to say it. I won’t say it, but it was excellent. It was better than the top 10%. David: Good for a first race, for sure, and I’m excited about doing a couple of half Iron Man’s next year. But yes, checking in with Mary Catharine, it would be a big commitment to keep on doing that length of race, just in terms of the weekends. Kevin: It’s the training. David: Yes, but honestly, what was what was most rewarding in the whole process was not the race. It was getting ready for it. I think a lot of is missed when we put this sort of pinnacle event on the horizon and forget, actually, the process of getting there. I’ll never forget, Thursday nights are game nights with the guys in our house. And so we’re playing cards and sometimes we’re watching movies, and sometimes when we finish the movie, the guys go run with me. And rain or shine, these are memories that I’ll always have. They were a part of the process. Kevin: Yes, you included the family. And that’s what you do, Dave, on so many occasions. One of the things,

Warning: your google search is "customized," for the narrative you prefer Simple, common sense steps to personally filter out garbage info The quality of your conclusion is influenced by the quality of your data analysis CLICK HERE for Dr. Justin McBrayer's latest book   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Dr. Justin McBrayer: Being A Steward Of Truth In A Fake News World November 11, 2020 “It’s not just that we lack truth-based incentives. That would be bad enough, but we also have perverse incentives. You have incentives to be entertained, to fit in with the people around you, to cheer for the tribe that you identify with and so forth. And those incentives are pushing against whatever limited incentive you have to get to the truth. And it makes us, unfortunately, irresponsible consumers of information.” – Justin McBrayer Kevin: Our guest today, Dr. Justin McBrayer, has written a book on fake news. That’s sort of the vernacular now, Dave. We all have heard this, and think we know what fake news is. But he’s actually calling us to personal responsibility and saying, “Hey, you had better check out your sources and understand why you think the way you do. David: He is a philosophy professor at Fort Lewis College, a liberal arts college here in the state Colorado system, and he’s written a number of books, co-edited the companion to The Problem with Evil, which is a Blackwell’s published book. He has done “Introducing Ethics” and “Skeptical Theism”, new essays. So Beyond Fake News: Finding the Truth In A World of Misinformation is hot off the press. Kevin: Well, the timing of this interview was well chosen by you, Dave, with what’s been going on, not only with the election but everything that surrounds the election. David: What matters to us is tools and engagement and perspective, and we want our listeners to be able to engage in a way that is winsome. And I hope the conversation today enables you to cut through some of the chaos of the current moment and see that there are practical things that can be done to improve the situation that we see unfolding in the political sphere. And as Justin says, there is a hopeful aspect to this. *     *     * Justin, you’ve studied and taught philosophy for several decades. You’re a Fulbright scholar. You’re the Executive Director of the Society of Christian Philosophers, and play a role in administration at the liberal arts college where you teach. Apparently, ideas matter to you. I’ll assume this is one of the underlying motivations for writing the book. Obviously the topic of fake news is relevant given the political context we find ourselves in. So perhaps you could start by telling us what you think is at stake today, with a 24-hour news cycle, with a constant bombardment with information from both traditional and nontraditional sources, and an electorate that is stepping into the fray either more or less informed. Justin: Sure. Yes, I’m interested in ideas because ideas have consequences. What people believe alters the actions they take every day. It changes how people vote. It changes how people buy. It changes how people interact with their family members. So as a philosopher I’m intensely interested in ideas, and it turns out that it’s getting harder and harder to sort ideas or to evaluate ideas, and in particular, harder and harder to try to figure out what’s true because our world is getting ever more complex. This matters in our personal lives, but it also matters for the political body as a whole. When we’re thinking about a democracy, a place where people are supposed to have the power, if you strip those people of knowledge, you’re stripping them of power. And so if we want our democracy to be functional, we have to make it the kind of place where citizens can find the truth,

States try to vote out electoral college Markets tense & uncertain, awaiting election results Past shows to revisit on control of information Nazli Choucri Cyber Politics and You Monroe Price: Free Expression and Strategic Communication Robert Jervis - Does Instant Twitter Diplomacy Change The Game With China, Iran, & North Korea?   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Election 2020: What Can Gilgamesh Epic Teach Us? November 4, 2020 “Biases lead to looking at information that is most readily available, and it’s easiest to process and most understandable, rather than to probing more deeply for what is more illuminating and diagnostic. When we look at this election and we say, ‘Oh, well, this was obvious, this is how it happened,’ we need to make sure that we’re not the drunks under the light looking for our keys. And so accounting for our bias is a pretty important part of sorting through perceptions, and, of course, what could potentially be misperceptions.” – David McAlvany Kevin: Well, many people have just voted as we record this program because we’re recording a couple of days before Election Day. But let me ask you, what are you going to be doing on Election Day? David: The market is always concerned about things like taper tantrums and what there’s going to be in terms of a market response to this or that, and we’ve got a really big weekend. I’m not so much concerned about the tantrum following the taper, but I am in a taper, which is to say, my exercise load is decreasing each day until the race this next Saturday in Florida. Kevin: Yes, 140 miles. And actually, I remember those tapers. I only did the half Ironman with you a few years ago, but I just I loved those last two weeks. It was weird because you get antsy. All you’ve been doing up to this point is training. And now you’re tapering. They’re actually saying, Dave, relax. David: Yes, it’s going to be interesting being in Florida away from our house and all the things that are sort of naturally comfortable in the context of not only the election but what may end up being a very tumultuous period of time. So we’ve already got our meetings lined out for the Wealth Management group in terms of when we’re talking and how we’re operating and what our protocols are. So that’s fine. Kevin: This working remote goes anywhere, doesn’t it? David: It does. It does. So it will be a fascinating week. Looking back at last week, I think this is really critical. We had stocks down. We had Treasuries down. We had the Blue Wave narrative shifting from being advantageous to potentially being problematic. And most importantly, we saw that the market is saying, “Wait a minute. There is a risk in the credit markets.” So far the equities markets have been able to ignore that. It’s kind of the elephant in the room. We’ve seen such massive distribution of credit into the system this year. But finally this last week, a bit of an outflow from high-yield, anywhere from $2.5 to $3.7 billion coming out of HYG and your other high-yield products. Kevin: Just call them junk bonds. David: Yes, exactly. That’s the euphemism. But we’re in an interesting place. We’re recording this commentary prior to the final vote count, which means there are significant data points we don’t have, mainly who won the election, and by what margin. And nothing’s conclusive. It’s thought that a decisive win may take some time to determine, because of the millions of mail-in votes. And you’ve got the contested election, which would be sort of the worst outcome in the short run, a disaster for the equities markets just because people don’t know what to do with uncertainty. Kevin: Well, I liked what Lila Murphy had to say, too, though. She said a lot of what you’re calling disaster would look like disaste...

Politics & media benefit from inflaming the masses To escalate or de-escalate is a choice, not a consequence Media: Don’t censor truth, give it to me & let me decide   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Election Outcome Prediction: Blue Or Red They Print More Money October 28, 2020 “We need to be able to engage and not move toward writing someone off and assuming that they are uneducated, and uninformed, with a blanket accusation like, ‘You’re a socialist.’ End of conversation. ‘You’re a racist.’ End of conversation. Social media, of course, exaggerates the trends toward those unfiltered, knee-jerk responses, a kind of verbal tyranny, if you will, and I think this is where both the right and the left need to calm down.” David McAlvany Kevin: In history there are turning points. There are forks in the road that make all the difference in the world. We have talked over and over about our economy being run by, worldwide actually, back in the late 1800s or early 1900s, it was founded on and run by a gold standard, which was implied discipline. You had to balance your payments over time. Then, of course, they changed it a little bit in the 1920s. We went to a different type of gold exchange standard. And then, of course, we went through Bretton Woods in the 1940s up to 1971 when we finally just lost the gold thing altogether. But that was a major fork in the road. Remember, you bought for me the book Monetary Sin of the West, which was published right before that fork was taken? David: That’s right. Jacques Rueff was trying to make the case to Charles de Gaulle that there were issues with the U.S. and the U.S. dollar. He had been a young man in Britain just before the pound sterling devaluation, pretty massive sterling devaluation. And so, as an older man with some experience, was trying to get the ear of de Gaulle, but de Gaulle wouldn’t listen for whatever reason, and so he started publishing things to Le Monde, the popular magazine/daily newspaper in Paris. Kevin: And that got de Gaulle’s attention. David: It did. Kevin: It made sense. What Jacques Rueff was saying made sense. David: As soon as the people were paying attention, the politician had to, as well. He had to play a little bit political in order to get de Gaulle’s ear. Ultimately, he did. The Monetary Sin of the West is kind of the description of what is happening throughout the late 1950s, early 1960s, and what Jacques Rueff sees as a deteriorating financial circumstance for the United States. Kevin: One of the chapters, Chapter Four, is a copy of de Gaulle’s press conference where he is calling for a European Union, but in a different way. He is talking about how as we have seen the move away from the gold standard to the gold exchange standard, it has really ruined the economies. And even though the U.S. dollar was still exchanging for gold, he saw the end of that line. So what he was calling for in this press conference that he gave, he was calling for Europe to go back to the gold standard that they had before 1914, before World War I. How different would the world have been if we would have gone back to an all-out gold standard instead of going off of the gold standard? Look at the inequalities that we see in society right now. A lot of that is based on some people being able to print their own money, and others have to earn it. David: We know the world as it is, not as it could have been, and so there could have been a number of things that we didn’t like as a consequence of the gold standard, things that we enjoy today because of the excesses in the system. Household net worth has never been higher, stretching toward 120 trillion dollars. So there are those things that we think, well, we could have that, too. But probably not. We would be dealing with a smaller dollar that would buy more,

The pandemic allows for hyper-money printing Debt trap starts with we can, then we should, then we must CLICK HERE To Register For The Tactical Short Q3 Call Thursday October 22, 2020 – 4:00pm Eastern / 2:00pm Mountain   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick The Fed Breaks The Window, Then Offers The Loan To Fix It October 21, 2020 “This is unbelievable. The fact that they’re talking this way suggests to me that there is an imminent problem. The game is nearly up. Instead of saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘We did it wrong,’ they’re basically saying, ‘We’ll just need greater regulatory control to make sure it doesn’t actually get out of hand.’ I’d suggest that this is a whole new level of reverse incentives where central banks get to create the mess, then rather than be discredited for their contribution to it, they’re charged with cleaning it up.” – David McAlvany Kevin: Well, of course, since we talk about economics, we all have on our bookshelves here at the office, and I even have one at home, Economics In One Lesson. One of the examples right as you start into that book is what they call the broken window fallacy where an economist might say, “Well, gosh, if there’s a broken window, we’re going to see economic expansion because you’ve got the people who make the glass, you’ve got the workers who put the new window in.” But actually, the fallacy of that is there is no real productivity. And thinking about this, Dave, as we look at what’s going on with the central bankers creating problems and then coming in and saying, “Hey, we can solve your problem.” It reminds me of the broken window fallacy, only one more step. That step is, they break the window, then they provide the resource is to fix the window. Sounds like an abusive relationship to me. David: Right. “I created the problem, but I can solve the problem for you, as well, for a fee. I oftentimes wonder, how did we get here? And sometimes there are inspiring cases where if you unpack that question, you can see a strategy worthy of emulation, or at a minimum, there is inspiration and gratitude. There are also the cases where maybe it’s more cautionary than rousing, where answering the question, how do we get here, is a reminder of what not to do, and we’re still living in the dreamy side of credit expansion at present. So nobody’s really asking the what not to do aspect of it, because it’s working. So here’s today’s preview. Somebody is going to add to your Economics 101, not Economics In One Lesson, that’s already been written, but the New Economics 101, or Managerial Finance 101, the nightmarish aspect of the credit markets. Kevin: How many people when they’re young don’t find the nightmarish aspects of credit markets on their own? When my wife and I got married we had come from middle class families and obviously we had not really wanted for anything. We weren’t rich, but when we got married, we really wanted to continue the pattern, even though I was making, I think, $4.85 an hour and she wasn’t making much more than that. So we had credit cards. I remember when I married my wife she was like, “You don’t have credit cards? And I’m like, “No.” She said, “Oh, well, I have good credit. We want to make sure that we continue to use it.” And we did. David: Living the dream. Kevin: We used that credit. Well, it’s a little bit like the nightmarish outcome, because at some point you have to pay that credit off. Unless – unless you’re the government. David: Well, you know, every 18-year-old who heads off to college will find in that first week on campus that there are credit card companies everywhere and they play into the naiveté of an 18-19 year old. And this is where you start your credit. You have to start young and they’re there to help you. Kevin: We got married at 20 and getting married is another time … eve...

A monetary tsunami continues to pour over every asset class. Low interest rates are like free money to big institutional investors. Putin claims “shared values,” between Biden/Harris & Communism.   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick The Feigned “Blue Wave” & The Real Fed Wave October 14, 2020 “Maybe we call this, not the blue wave, but the green wave, because that is our currency color. We’ve learned from history the cost of security is freedom. And what we are learning in terms of the markets is the cost of predictability. It’s in the stability of our currency. So whether it is a blue wave, or an orange wave, it’s still the Fed tsunami I worry about most.” – David McAlvany Kevin: You know, David, something fun to do every once in a while is to just go walk outside in a group of people and start looking up. What you will find is, a second person, then a third person, will look up. Before long, everyone is looking up. There may not be anything to see, but it’s human nature, if someone thinks they see something in the sky or if you see somebody looking up. David: “What are you looking at?” Kevin: Yes. “What are you looking at?” David: They want to know. Kevin: It reminds me of the Federal Reserve. They start talking about things – not about the past, not about the present, but they start acting as if they know what the future is. What in the heck is this blue wave? Is it just all of the mainstream media looking up at the same time, hoping that everybody else does? David: Well, do you see it? I think I see it. Kevin: I don’t know that I see the blue wave they’re telling me about. David: Well, the blue wave is quickly becoming what the news media prints as an inevitability. I think it’s wishful thinking. Most often it is repeated by those outlets that want to speak reality into existence. “This is what is going to happen. We’re going to have a clean sweep of the Senate. We’re going to have Biden and Kamala as President and Vice President.” Kevin: It reminds me a little bit of, when you’re looking at financial technical charts, a lot of times you are also looking forward in time, and you wonder if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. David: I think to talk about the blue wave is to create a sense of inevitability, and there were some aspects of that in 2016 where there was just this energy coming into the election. It ended up being a little bit different than everyone anticipated – a real surprise. And to be honest, I prefer the Elliott Wave to the blue wave. It’s where you’re looking at the probabilities of upside and downside, and you’re looking at charts and numbers, and stripping away some of the political aspects. If the Dow closes above 29,174, Robert Prechter says the probability of a rise into 2021 will increase substantially. On the downside the most important level is 27,773 on the Dow, or the corresponding number on the S&P 500 would be 3,361. These are the lows set on Tuesday, October 6, and you break below them and it’s Katie bar the door. Watch out below. Kevin: Just for clarity, for the person who doesn’t watch the news, good for you. And for the person who doesn’t have Internet, maybe, good for you, too. Blue wave is really just referring to a Democrat sweep at this point. David: Politics is too often an expression of self-interest, and frankly, an expression of tribal desire. In an age of fake news and twisted narratives from both the right and the left, what is published may have little to do with reality, and more about desire. Kevin: What we want to have happen, or what the media wants to have happen. David: Yes, what you want to be versus what truly is. And you will find that your proclivity toward the news outlet that you want to watch reflects your desire. So on that point,

Stephen Roach warns of a crash in the dollar by as much as 35%. “Money is no longer scarce,” will lead to money no longer having value. Scarcity and value go hand in hand & vice versa. Click Here For The Article Mentioned In The Program   The McAlvany Weekly Commentary with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick Redefining Money, or, “If Wishes Were Horses…” October 7, 2020 Kevin: Many of our listeners know that on Monday nights we meet, you smoke a cigar when you’re not training, and I drink a little bit of a Talisker, and we talk about things. One of the things that we’ve been puzzled by, Dave, is this amazing amount of money that’s been created, this sea of money, and we’re just wondering where velocity went, which is how many times a dollar changes hands. Velocity has been falling now for about a decade, really. As we were talking about it, because we knew you had committed last week to talking about velocity, in particular, of money this week, it hit us both. We’re not talking about velocity of money. We’re talking about scarcity. Is there even scarcity anymore? Money used to be something that was scarce. That gave it value. Is there scarcity? And is that the direction we should look at today? David: Yes, and scarcity is our subject. Does scarcity have value or is abundance to be preferred? The answer seems obvious. If a little is good, a lot must be better. So abundance is, I think, where we end up landing. Kevin: Even how we measure money has changed over the last 100 years. David: Yes, even our theories of money. The quantity theory of money is being left behind because it depended on an old definition of money. We’ve been redefining money for the past 100 years in different ways, in different iterations, beginning in 1922 at the conference of Genoa when we shifted to the Gold Exchange standard, a subtle difference. But then a hard shift in 1933 when we made gold illegal domestically, but still maintained legitimacy with our foreign creditors by keeping the exchangeability of gold with foreign creditors. That followed up at Bretton Woods in 1944 when we defined the World Monetary System according to the U.S. dollar based on our massive gold reserve assets and a stable economy. And then, of course, more recently, when we left the Bretton Woods system and unhinged the dollar from any tangible backing in the 1970s. That final move allowed us to shift from a narrow definition of money to a very broad one, including credit, in the new definition of money. Kevin: And that’s something you and I can’t do. To me, that’s the defining line. You and I can count what we have in our bank account as an asset. We really can’t count what we could go charge on our credit card as an asset. Yet what you’re talking about is, that’s how money works. If you think about debt, and we’re going to talk quite a bit about that today, I think of the old saying, “If wishes were horses, all beggars would ride.” Now, if you think about that, debt is a wish brought from the future into the present. And there’s still a cost. David: So you redefine money and the benefits then accrue to those segments of the financial universe that are closest, both to the creation of money, as it was and as it is, and its flow. So now you have securities, you have money-like instruments, and credit, primarily, is what we’re talking about. And so who’s the primary beneficiary? Wall Street and your major financial firms have, really, since the 1970s and more rapidly since the 1990s, displaced even commercial banks as the handlers of money, as the creators of and the distributors of, this new form of money. So even as deposits and currency in circulation have become a smaller part of what today constitutes money, Wall Street has had a bit of a haven. Kevin: So the question becomes, how then do you count velocity? If old money,