Get Rich Education 485: The Creeping Silent Depression and Current Economic Realities with Doug Casey
Has America already descended into a depression worse than the 1930s Great Depression?
Today’s guest, Doug Casey, suggests that we have. He joins us from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where inflation has been 100%+.
Is real estate cheap, adequately priced, or overpriced?
America’s national debt is so bad that we must now spend $1T annually just on the interest alone.
Keith Weinhold and guest Doug Casey explore the silent economic depression in America, discussing signs and impacts on daily life.
They compare real estate affordability across locations, viewing housing as a consumer good. Doug offers insights on Argentina's housing market, inflation, and the new president's influence.
They critique government intervention, fiat currency, and advocate for gold-backed currency, emphasizing moral values.
Strategies to counter currency debasement, like investing in durable goods and property improvements, are shared, alongside the benefits of spending on experiences and potential tax advantages of real assets.
Timestamps:
The silent economic depression (00:00:00)
Discussion on the concept of a silent economic depression and how it may be affecting America.
Real estate and property management issues (00:02:32)
An unusual property management incident and the impact of inflation on real estate in Argentina.
The guest's background and consistency (00:03:53)
The guest's background, consistency in views, and a discussion on diverse viewpoints.
Comparison of housing costs (00:04:59)
Comparison of housing costs and other expenses between the Great Depression era and the present day.
Real estate in the United States and Argentina (00:06:08)
Comparison of real estate prices and living expenses in the United States and Argentina.
Housing as a consumer good (00:09:29)
Discussion on housing as a consumer good and the impact of government policies on housing and wealth creation.
Comparison of housing costs and amenities (00:10:56)
Comparison of housing costs, amenities, and political changes in Argentina.
Impact of inflation on standard of living (00:14:37)
The impact of inflation on capital, standard of living, and the unsustainability of the current economic situation.
Government deficits and inflation (00:18:05)
Discussion on government deficits, inflation, erosion of the middle class, and the role of the government in creating inflation.
A Currency and Gold (00:20:22)
Doug Casey discusses the benefits of using gold as currency and the potential impact of government involvement.
Investing and Loans (00:22:42)
Keith discusses investing in real estate and loans, providing insights and tips for beginners and veterans.
Government Numbers and Inflation (00:24:54)
Doug challenges the accuracy of government unemployment and inflation figures and predicts higher inflation levels due to excessive money creation.
US Involvement and Financial Meltdown (00:27:57)
Doug discusses the impact of US military involvement, potential financial meltdown, and the unstable foundation of global debt.
Strategies to Counter Currency Debasement (00:32:05)
Doug presents the concept of saving in durable goods as a strategy to counter currency debasement and avoid capital gains tax.
Beating Inflation (00:34:41)
Keith proposes spending money as a way to beat inflation and improve quality of life, while Doug emphasizes the importance of saving for the future.
Doug Casey's Novels and Publications (00:36:44)
Doug promotes his novels and encourages listeners to subscribe to internationalman.com and watch his YouTube channel for more insights.
Improving Quality of Life and Beating Inflation (00:38:03)
Keith suggests making improvements to one's home as a way to beat inflation and improve quality of life, without incurring higher tax assessments.
These are the timestamps covered in the podcast episode transcription segment, along with their respective topics.
Resources mentioned:
Show Page:
Doug Casey’s YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@DougCaseysTake
Doug Casey’s blog:
InternationalMan.com
Doug Casey on Donahue in 1980:
https://youtu.be/uAk6_74m_kI?si=qeQw0404xcTIAsOU
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Complete episode transcript:
Keith Weinhold (00:00:00) - Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Is America suffering from a silent economic depression? It's gradually creeping into your life, but you just haven't noticed. That's what today's guest believes. Where do you look for signs of this? And what do you do about it? A silent depression today on get rich education. If you like the get Rich education podcast, you're going to love art. Don't quit your day dream newsletter. No, I here I write every word of the letter myself. It wires your mind for wealth. It helps you make money in your sleep and updates you on vital real estate investing trends. It's free! Sign up a get rich education.com/letter. It's real content that makes a real difference in your life, spiced with a dash of humor. Rather than living below your means, learn how to grow your means right now. You can also easily get the letter by texting gray to 66866. Text gray to 66866.
Speaker 2 (00:01:06) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:01:13) - This is get rich education.
Keith Weinhold (00:01:22) - Welcome to GRE, heard across 188 world nations, including Equatorial Guinea. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. This is get rich education, the voice of real estate investing since 2014. How can your quality of life and your one and only standard of living actually be getting worse today, especially here in the United States? From your iPhone, with fast Wi-Fi to a stable electrical grid to a bounty of produce for you to select at the supermarket, well, we'll soon learn why today's renowned guest and prolific author feels like we've already entered a silent depression. He is going to make his case. We have plenty to get to with our guest. But first, I've got a problem with one of my property managers, and this is a really weird one. In two decades of doing this. This is among the weirdest. What happened a while back is that one of my ten ends that this manager manages. Okay, the tenant paid his rent with a paper money order and he placed it in the property managers drop box.
Keith Weinhold (00:02:32) - They're at their offices. The money order was stolen out of the drop box by a thief. The manager doesn't want to take responsibility for it. And I'm the one that's been out. The rent money, the $1,550. I've told the manager, no, I'm not going to be pushed around like that. So there are more details on that, which I expect to tell you about next week. It is an interesting situation to say the least. I'll give you more on the payment stolen from the manager's overnight drop box. Now today's guest will join me from Buenos Aires, Argentina, where they currently have inflation of perhaps 100% or 200% per year. We're going to talk about real estate and probably more with what he calls the silent, depressed. Now I'm probably a more upbeat, optimistic sort than our guest in general, but that does not make him wrong at all with this silent depression. But here, in a world where we've increasingly heard the word diversity a lot for the last decade, well, there are a lot of ways to think of diversity, and I like to champion some diversity of thought around here with our guests viewpoint today.
Keith Weinhold (00:03:53) - Now, I just recently saw a YouTube video of today's guest on The Phil Donahue Show in 1980. It was probably about the best known talk show that there was back in that era. And by the way, I'll leave that link in the show notes for you so that you can watch it too. And since today's episode is episode number 485, you can get the show notes either it get Rich education comp 485 or on your pod catcher. But yeah, Phil Donahue, he was kind of before my time. But yeah, really well-known show. And it's interesting to see today's guest and what he looked like back then. And from watching that video myself, I can tell you that one place where I do need to give this guest credit is with consistency. Now, does every single the world is going to end sort of thing that he says will happen? Does that end up happening? That's up for you to determine. But, you know, he has been consistent on promoting his ideals for a smaller government and more he's returning.
Keith Weinhold (00:04:59) - Guest. Let's meet him and discuss the silent depression. Are we on the verge of an economic depression known as a silent depression, where you're not aware of it? Today's guest has pointed out that during the 1930s Great Depression, the average home cost just three times the average income, but today it costs about eight times as much. The average car costs about 46% of a year's earnings back then. Today, it eats up about 85% of the annual average wage. Rent, which previously claimed just 16% of yearly income, now demands an astounding 42%. So by these metrics and others, you might wonder if the average person is actually in a worse position than during the Great Depression, which was the most challenging economic period in the last hundred years. A lot of people feel it. You might be getting squeezed, and by the end here you'll hear some new ideas for what you can actually do about it. We have a rather revered guest here with us today. He's been here a few times before to discuss other economic and real estate concepts.
Keith Weinhold (00:06:08) - He's a very popular author, often writing around the topic of crisis investing and known as the International Man. He hosts a podcast on YouTube called Doug Castaic. He's known as the International Man because he's extremely well traveled. He has residences in multiple nations today. Hey, it's great to have back on GRI the incomparable Doug Casey. Thanks. Okay.
Doug Casey (00:06:30) - It's a pleasure to be here. At the moment I'm in Buenos Aires, where I've lived part of the Earth for a long time.
Keith Weinhold (00:06:38) - Truly the international man living up to it today. Doug, I touched on housing to start with. With real estate show housing is one's biggest recurring expense in life, unless it's taxes. But today I actually think it's a valid question. Is real estate cheap in the United States? Is it adequately priced or is it overpriced? Now, depending on how you slice it, the median U.S. home value is 450 K, but if your mind shoots right to dollars like that, when you consider valuation, the dollar has been debased so much that it's a pretty poor measuring stick.
Keith Weinhold (00:07:15) - I know you like gold. A bar of gold is the same today as it was 100 years ago and a thousand years ago, and today it takes about 40% fewer ounces of gold to buy a home today than the long run 100 year average. So what we just did there is we got rid of dollars. We compared the relative cost between two real assets gold and real estate. You brought up a really good point in one of your articles, though. I think it's a better way to measure the cost of housing as a percent of one income, it takes two and a half times to three times as much of that annual income to own a home or rent a home today than it did in the 1930s. So when we think about housing costs, what are your thoughts?
Doug Casey (00:07:58) - It depends on where you are and where should I start? Right now, as I said, I'm in Buenos Aires and the apartment that I'm in here is about 5500ft² in a part of town, which is very much like the Upper East Side of New York.
Doug Casey (00:08:16) - It's called the Recoleta. Now, what would a a very classy top building with 24 hour security apartment of 5500ft² cost you in, uh, on the Upper East Side of New York, I'd say probably $20 million, roughly here in the Buenos Aires. This apartment is really got a current market price of about $1 million. In other words, 5% of what it is in New York. Yeah, costs of maintaining it are in line with that. That's point number one. Point number two is in most of the world, or certainly here in South America, when you buy something, you buy it for cash. In the U.S., when you buy something, it's usually for a mortgage. And the old saying, I'll give you the price you want if you give me the terms I want. Right. Not quite as attractive as it was just a while ago, where the average mortgage, now 30 year mortgage fixed in the US 7%, and for a while it was 8%. What do I think of the price of housing in the US? That's where most of your listeners live.
Doug Casey (00:09:29) - First of all, housing is not, in my opinion, an investment. It's a consumer good. It's very expensive. Consumer goods are not throwaway consumer goods like toothbrushes. Longer live consumer goods like a suit of clothes longer yet like a car and a house is just a longer alive consumer good. But an investment is something that produces new wealth, right? Housing doesn't it? Can? I mean, if you use it as a business. Yes. Okay, look, treat your house like a consumer. Good. That's the first mistake that everybody makes. They think it's an investment. That's going to go up. It's not. It's like a car. It should depreciate. It's got expenses to maintain it. That income that maintains you. I know you can rent it out and so forth, but.
Keith Weinhold (00:10:20) - Yeah, we champion residential income property around here. Something that I think you and I do consider an asset. But yeah, you're completely right. When you talk about the primary residence side, a home is primarily a liability, not an asset.
Keith Weinhold (00:10:32) - Why is that? Because a home takes money out of your pocket every month. Rather than putting money into your pocket every month like you touched on. Doug, before we go on about that 5500 square foot apartment there in Buenos Aires, I'm not familiar with the area. Can you just tell me a little bit more about the amenities that you have there? Are there very steep condo association dues? Is there a doorman? Tell me more about it.
Doug Casey (00:10:56) - Well, we have a doorman here in the building. We only have six apartments in this building. I have a two story penthouse, so it's probably the best apartment in the building. This area, the Recoleta. Like I said, it's like the Upper East Side of New York. We have lots of fine restaurants with short walk away. I pay my maid. We have a full time maid here. In addition, she earns $1,000 a month. Where can you get a full time maid in the US for a thousand bucks a month? Let me point something out.
Doug Casey (00:11:25) - That's very interesting. In Argentina, they elected a new president. And this is one of the most radical political changes in all of Western history. The new president of Argentina is a chap named Javier Mula. He identifies radically and openly as an anarcho capitalist. In other words, what he's interested in doing is basically tearing apart the government of Argentina and getting rid of as much of it as he can, all of it that we can. Now. Argentina is full of taxes, full of regulations. That's a delightful place to live. But if you want to do business or create wealth, it's a very bad place to live.
Keith Weinhold (00:12:10) - Well, with inflation.
Doug Casey (00:12:11) - Yeah, exactly. I mean, right now they have inflation of about, they say 140% per year, but it's more like 200 or 300% per year. You can trust the Argentine government's figures at all. You can only trust the US government's figures marginally more. But Melaye, as we talk, is firing massive numbers of government employees. It's eliminating agencies and so forth, and the government and the next step will be radically reduced taxes, radically reduced regulations.
Doug Casey (00:12:41) - So this department here is, I think, within the next five years, going to be selling for about what one what its sister on the Upper East Side of New York might be selling out. So I hope to make 10 to 1 on my money on this piece of real estate as a speculation. And it's a nice place to live in the meantime.
Keith Weinhold (00:13:01) - Yeah, with Malay in Argentina, it'll be interesting to see if he sticks with their currency moving from the Argentine peso to the dollar. It sounds like he might already be backing off of that. But getting back to your condo there, Doug. And yeah, that would be a terrific arbitrage play if you indeed bought low in the Buenos Aires market goes up, it sounds like an exceptional value you get there. We talk about our homes overpriced today, especially in the United States. Or are they underpriced? We talked about how one spends more of their proportion of income on housing today, and if that might make them trend toward this silent depression. But of course, you also get more home today.
Keith Weinhold (00:13:39) - I mean, 100 plus years ago in the United States, a new Victorian style home, it had sparse amenities and maybe 950ft². And today, an American home averages 2415ft². That's the figure. So you might pay two and a half times more of your income, but you might get two and a half times more square footage and of course, maybe like you're finding in your place there in Argentina, Doug, the average American home, it has features today that would have been considered unthinkable a hundred years ago. Luxuries, things that would have been considered luxuries back then like air conditioning and multiple bathrooms, quartz countertops, closets so vast that you could play pickleball inside them. So you're getting more home today, and it really hardly feels like a depression era lifestyle for many. But there are some less fortunate people, and inflation has widened this gap between the haves and the have nots. So what are your thoughts, especially when it comes to housing and the fact that you're getting more today? But not everyone is.
Doug Casey (00:14:37) - Because advances in technology, number one and number two, the fact that the average person is wired to produce more than they consume and save the difference, of course, we have more today than we did 100 years ago. That goes without saying, but it doesn't seem that way because even though workers are more productive than they were in the past, everything is fine. As with debt today, people talk about inflation as if it's just part of the cosmic firmament. It just happens. It doesn't happen. The government is the sole and entire cause of inflation. It does it by printing up money directly and indirectly. And what that does is it destroys the capital that you save. Americans save in dollars. Okay. You want to get ahead. You use more than you consume and you save the difference in dollars. But when the government destroys those dollars through inflation, your standard of living goes down. Now, that's been disguised through that. It used to be that when you bought a house, you paid cash for it.
Doug Casey (00:15:52) - Then many years ago, it started out with the. A five year mortgage with 20% down. Now we're talking about 30 year mortgages so that you really never own your home. Inflation is the real problem. It destroys capital. It destroys people's standard of living. The standard of living, generally speaking, in the US is going down. It's disguised by the fact that when you borrow money, you're either taking capital that people have saved in the past and you're using it for consumer goods now, or you're mortgaging your future for a higher standard of living. Today, all of that we have in the US, I think is unsustainable. And we could have either a credit collapse if they don't create money fast enough, or if they raise interest rates too high, or we can have something resembling a hyperinflation we have down here in Argentina. Either way, it's going to be very, very bad news because in an advanced industrial society like the US, to poison the money supply with inflation is asking for economic catastrophe.
Doug Casey (00:17:06) - So I think what we're looking at over the next ten years, and this is true for a number of reasons, not least of them, is the fact that Americans have elected in Washington people that are the equivalent of Jacobins during the French Revolution. I mean, they have the same ideas. I'm looking for very, very tough times, quite frankly, not just in the US, but almost everywhere in the world.
Keith Weinhold (00:17:32) - Today in the United States, compared to 100 years ago, one spends more of their income on housing and transportation and healthcare, and less on food and clothing. And yet, Doug, to your point about inflation, like dollars are such a poor measuring stick. That's why earlier, when we look at the cost of housing, I tried to discard dollars by going ahead and looking at the ratio between the home price and the gold price. I brought up the point last month with our audience that actually there's no such thing as grocery inflation or rent inflation. It's the government that creates the inflation.
Keith Weinhold (00:18:05) - So it's not landlords or grocers that are creating inflation. Those higher prices are just the consequence of the inflation that the central bank creates. And that's creating this erosion of the middle class, because those in the lower middle class and the poor, they don't have assets that benefit from the inflation. Yet they have the same fixed consumer costs that we're talking about here, like housing, transportation, health care, food and clothing. Talk to us some more about the problem in the government and how that could help lead us toward a silent depression. I know you brought up the point that the US government is running embedded deficits of $2 trillion per year, and that number is going to go much higher, if only because the interest cost alone is $1 trillion per year.
Doug Casey (00:18:49) - Yeah, people have to stop looking at the government as being their friend. It's not. It's a predator. It's a dead hand on top of society. It's certainly not a cornucopia, which is the way most people see the government. The government will give them stuff, right? The government will do stuff now it doesn't.
Doug Casey (00:19:08) - The government produces absolutely nothing that it doesn't take away first from society as a whole. So they have people have to stop looking at the government. It's a friendly big brother. It's more like increasingly the kind of big brother that you might have discovered in George Orwell's 1984. If we want to save the idea of America, which is one of the best ideas that humanity has ever had, we have to get rid of the government or as much of it as we can, and go back to the values, moral values, social values type of thing that this country had 200 years ago, what it was founded. I mean, that's my answer to the question. And the money, the dollar itself is a floating abstraction. It's a fiat currency. It's an IOU. Nothing on the part of a bankrupt government which can't even tax enough to give the money value. It just prints up more money and people out of inertia accept them. Well, there's nothing else they can use to trade Buck. We should go back to gold as being money and even a gold backed currency.
Doug Casey (00:20:22) - A currency is money. It's just a medium of exchange and a store of value. You don't need to insert the government and a central bank in between you and what you do with your fellow citizens in a country. That's why we should use gold, which for thousands of years has proven to be the best thing to use is money. It's one of 92 naturally occurring elements. And just as aluminum is particularly good for building airplanes, uranium is particularly good for making nuclear. Power plants. Gold has unique characteristics that make it unique. Almost unique. Uses money so the government shouldn't be involved in this. In all, this is a radical thought. I know that's something that most people have even thought about. They'll say, oh, this is completely ridiculous off the wall. This is unrealistic. This is the direction that the country should be going, but it's going the opposite direction at an accelerating rate. So yeah, we're looking at a nasty depression and it's been building up for many years. This isn't a recent phenomenon that's come up just since Biden, although the Biden pieces are making it much worse.
Doug Casey (00:21:37) - This is a trend that's been building up slowly for decades.
Keith Weinhold (00:21:42) - With the government having all of that debt that I just mentioned, that would create the propensity for them to create even more dollars so they can pay back their own debt, which could create more inflation and just this perpetually vicious cycle. Doug and I are going to come back and talk more about where all this is headed. When you think about the profundity of some of these things, if our currency went on to a gold standard or a Bitcoin standard, the fact that the government would not even be involved in currency issuance anymore, as you think about that, Doug and I have more on the silent depression when we come back. This is Jeffrey situation. I'm your host, Keith Weintraub. Role under the specific expert with income property, you need Ridge Lending Group and MLS for 256. In gray history, from beginners to veterans, they provided our listeners with more mortgages than anyone. It's where I get my own loans for single family rentals up to four plex's.
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Speaker 4 (00:24:04) - This is Rich dad, sales advisor Blair Singer. Listen to get Rich education with Keith Winehouse. And above all, don't quit your day dream.
Keith Weinhold (00:24:22) - Welcome back to get Rich. And we're talking with Doug Casey, the international man, about the Greater Depression. That's really a silent depression as he sees it. And Doug, I want to know where you see us headed, because a lot of people see today unemployment under 4% in the United States, we have GDP growth that's decent. The rate of inflation is still higher than the fed target but has come down substantially. The Fed's even talking rate cuts this year. So where do you see this all headed with the silent depression.
Doug Casey (00:24:54) - First of all, it's a big mistake to trust the government's numbers. If you look at the way the government computed unemployment and the way it computed inflation back in 1980, it's very, very different from the way these numbers are computed today. And if you computed them the way they did way back when in 1980, you'd find that our current unemployment is something more on the order of 10%, and current inflation is not I don't know what they say.
Doug Casey (00:25:27) - It is not 2%, 3%, 4%. It's also more like 10% or more. But with the amount of money that they've created, I mean trillions of dollars that have been cranked out of Washington in recent years. I expect we're going to see inflation go back to much, much higher levels. There's no limit to how bad it can get. And since the government has promised all these things to various pressure groups in the US, they have to be paid. The taxes aren't there to do it. The borrowing they can't borrow anymore, especially as interest rates go up. And incidentally, I point out that because of the debasement of the currency, that's a better phrase to use than inflation. The basement of the currency is an actual thing that's done by the government and its central bank, whereas inflation people think, well, maybe inflation falls on the butcher or the baker or the gasoline maker. No it's not. Those people fight the effects of inflation. Inflation is something that comes out of Washington because the government has all these pressure groups that get all kinds of benefits.
Doug Casey (00:26:43) - They're going to have to keep printing up money to pay for these things, and you're going to wind up in the same position as Argentina has wound up. In fact, it's going to be worse because unlike Argentina, which doesn't have any foreign involvements, they had a war with the Falklands 40 years ago. But there's basically no Argentine Army. There's no Argentine Navy to speak of. But the US has 800 military bases scattered all over the world. They're very expensive to maintain. The natives aren't particularly happy to have foreign soldiers in their lands. In addition to the war in the Ukraine, why were involved in a border war between two countries is a mystery to me. And now we have Israel and Gaza dusting it up. Literally, I feel sorry for both sides, but on the other hand, I don't epoxide both their houses. It's not our problem. This has been going on between these people for 2000 years, and the US getting involved in it is going to add on to our ongoing bankruptcy and maybe start World War three.
Doug Casey (00:27:57) - There's new wars popping up all over the world that are going to cost us huge amounts of money. And of course, the Defense Department spends giant amounts of money building high tech toys, which are basically useless in today's military world. It goes on and on. It's a big problem, and I suspect we're going to reach a crescendo by the 2024 election, assuming we have one. I don't know who's going to win that election if had anybody, quite frankly. So it's we're looking at chaos, political chaos, economic chaos, the potential for a financial meltdown because the whole world is built upon a foundation of debt, which is a very unstable foundation to build things on. And of course, you've got all kinds of sociological problems, starting with total and absolute corruption of the US educational system, which is spread like poison throughout society. We're seeing that now, incidentally, with the presidents of Harvard and Penn, MIT, but all of the higher educational institutions in the US suffer from the same problem. This is like a many headed hydra.
Doug Casey (00:29:10) - Where are we going to take any one instance of a problem in society? And when we examine it, you find that it's even worse than you might think. Like I was talking about education. Your kids are being indoctrinated a great cost. I think it's the University of Michigan has 161. I believe that's the number for the University of Michigan D administrators. That's the diversity, equity and inclusion administrators. All are earning over six figures. And what are they doing? Well they're justifying their positions by doing absolutely ridiculous things in education that shouldn't be about educating as opposed to. Enforcing somebody's goofy ideas of diversity and equity and inclusion. So anyway, we've got lots of problems beyond real estate and beyond the high level of rent that people have to pay today. But listen, it's so hard to build a new house. God forbid, build a new apartment building today by the time you jump through all the hoops. Local. County. State. Federal. The cost of construction is probably twice what it should be.
Doug Casey (00:30:21) - Because of inflation. Because of regulations. I hate to be so gloomy, Keith, I do, but.
Keith Weinhold (00:30:28) - Well, there's a lot there. We talk about diversity. We're in an era where people are very conscious of that. But a lot of people think of it with regard to race or gender or perhaps religion. But I like to champion diversity of thought as well. And then when it comes to we.
Doug Casey (00:30:44) - Don't have any of that anymore.
Keith Weinhold (00:30:45) - Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. But when it comes back to the root of productivity, I think that's really important because whether the government gives away money to programs in the United States or outside the United States to Ukraine or Israel, whether you believe in that or not. And a lot of the giveaways have been in the hundreds of billions of dollars to those nations were now running a national debt of over $34 trillion. And my point is, is that the United States doesn't produce as much as they used to. However, the United States produces a lot of dollars and a lot of debt.
Keith Weinhold (00:31:17) - And when the government has giveaways, either domestically or internationally, a productive person is the one that has to end up paying for that. So, Doug, we think about a lot of the problems out here, much of it coming back to the root of inflation. But you tell us more about what can be done. In fact, I know you have a practical, common sense way where you don't save in dollars. You and I have talked before about how real estate or gold can give you a hedge or even help you profit against inflation, but you've talked about the importance of real material things, like food that you can store, or light bulbs that you can put away, or tools that you can use because you're also not taxed on those sorts of things. So can you tell us more about that?
Doug Casey (00:32:05) - There was a book written years ago, and it's still available on Amazon by an old friend of mine named John Pugsley, and the book's name was The Alpha Strategy. The point that John made in that book was that rather than trying to save in dollars, you should save in things that have a long shelf life that you're going to need and use.
Doug Casey (00:32:30) - So, for instance, if light bulbs common thing, they burn out if you wait until there's a sale on light bulbs. Get them cheap. Buy them in quantity, buy them extra cheap, put them aside. You're not going to have to buy a light bulb forever. Whereas if you don't plan ahead and do it that way. If your light bulb burns out, you don't have one. You got to get in your car or in gasoline. Buy it at the convenience store where it's going to cost you. License much, and you can do this with many areas of your life planning ahead. In other words, this is a variation, if you would on the old Mormon idea. A lot of people are aware that Mormons or their religion tells them that they should put aside three months or a year worth of food, and it's storing food which is properly canned and so forth, so that no matter what happens, they'll always be able to eat. Well, the alpha strategy is something that you take that attitude towards food and you apply it to all the consumable things that you have in life.
Doug Casey (00:33:37) - And as they go up in price, lightbulbs go up from $1 to $5. With inflation, if you made an investment that kept pace $1 to $5, you'd have to pay capital gains tax on it. But you don't on the consumable that you put aside. So, I mean, this is just one of a number of strategies that you can use to counter the effects of currency debasement.
Keith Weinhold (00:34:03) - I love that as a strategy on what you can do. You are not taxed on the gain in price or value of an entire pallet of food or tools, like a tractor or ladder or table saw. So it's a really elegant way to beat inflation. Doug, I have an idea, and it might not be one that you heard before. It might even make the listener laugh a little bit. Here. I have an elegant way to beat inflation and improve your quality of life at the same time. And it's something really simple. And that solution is to spend your money. It's an elegant way to beat inflation and improve your quality of life.
Keith Weinhold (00:34:41) - At the same time. If a mediterranean cruise for you and your wife is going to cost $18,000 this year, and you think it's going to cost $22,000 next year, spend beat inflation and get an experience that you'll never forget that as long as you've got something set aside already spend, it's a way to beat it and live a better life.
Doug Casey (00:35:01) - I can't argue with that case. But on the other hand, it's wise to put aside capital for the future, because once you consume that grows, the capital is not there anymore, and you may need it in the future. But this is one of the problems created by currency debasement. People start thinking in terms of live for today, because tomorrow we might die with their money, and that's not a good way to get wealthy. Although it's true, you do beat some of the effects of currency debasement that way.
Keith Weinhold (00:35:34) - Yeah, if there were no inflation, there would be less incentive to do something like that. In spend would also be less incentive to invest.
Keith Weinhold (00:35:41) - But Doug, you've given us a lot of good ideas today for this creeping of the silent depression fueled by inflation and some actionable things about what we can do about it. Give us any last thoughts and then how our audience can learn more about you.
Doug Casey (00:35:56) - I've written a series of novels. Well, they're quite well written that explain a lot of these principles in the form of an exciting story. They're called speculator, where our hero, uh, gets involved in gold mining in Africa and a bush war and so forth, and it becomes a drug lord. Or we show a drug lord can also be a good guy, and then he becomes an assassin because he's so pissed off. There are four more novels to come. So I suggest people go on Amazon, pick up those three novels that are out there. That's one thing they should do. Second thing, I'd encourage you to go and subscribe to International man.com, and you'll get a great free daily blog from me and other people. It's really a good publication.
Doug Casey (00:36:44) - And the third thing on YouTube is we have Doug Cassie's take where once or twice a week I, uh, talk about different subjects.
Keith Weinhold (00:36:54) - Though our subject is depression, our conversation has not been thoroughly depressing. So thanks so much for coming back out of the show.
Doug Casey (00:37:02) - I see you again, Keith.
Keith Weinhold (00:37:10) - Well, you might wonder what kind of prepper weirdo is going to save a bunch of durable goods like tires or crescent wrenches, or even store an extra car, or a few extra cords of firewood that may or may not be feasible for you, some of it having to do with your storage capacity, whether you live urban or rural. But what you can do if you're really concerned about persistent inflation is to beat it by making improvements to your own home, and you can do that sooner rather than later. And see, that way you might actually get to enjoy the item and integrated into your lifestyle. For you, that might mean getting yourself new windows, or a new water heater, or renovating a bathroom, or remodeling the kitchen.
Keith Weinhold (00:38:03) - And if you can avoid activities, though, that create a higher tax assessment, then you will not get taxed on those real assets, all while improving your quality of life at the same time. So there's an idea, some real guidance, spurred from today's chat with Doug Casey. Big thanks to him. Next week, I'll tell you more about the weird problem with my rent payment that was stolen from my property manager and what I'm going to do about it. My manager says he's not taking the loss. I'm not taking the loss either. Interesting stuff. Until then, I'm your host, Keith Weintraub. Don't quit your day dream.
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