Get Rich Education 457: Interest Rates Will Go Much Higher, According to Experts with Jim Rogers
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Higher interest rates are cracking the economy—failing banks and failing commercial RE loans. With many expecting rates to go much higher, what else will break?
Keith Weinhold, the host of the Get Rich Education podcast, discusses the current state of interest rates and their potential future trajectory.
Jim Rogers, legendary investor with an estimated $300M net worth, returns. He shares his insights on interest rates and inflation.
We discuss the impact of inflation on various asset classes, including real estate, and the potential for higher interest rates in the future.
The conversation also touches on topics such as agricultural real estate, the oil market, central bank digital currencies, and the role of gold and bitcoin as alternative forms of wealth storage.
Overall, the episode provides valuable insights into the current economic landscape and its implications for investors.
Title [00:01:56]
Introduction and overview of the current state of interest rates and market distortions.
Title [00:05:03]
Discussion on the unpredictability of interest rate predictions and the acknowledgment of inflation by Jerome Powell.
Title [00:08:28]
Explanation of the historical trend of interest rates, the recent rise in rates, and predictions for future rate movements.
Title [00:12:09]
Jim Rogers on Borrowing Money and Interest Rates
Discussion on the benefits of borrowing money at low interest rates and the prediction of interest rates going higher.
Title [00:14:27]
Jerome Powell and the Possibility of a Soft Landing
Questioning whether Jerome Powell can raise interest rates enough to control inflation without causing an economic crash.
Title [00:18:41]
Inflation, Interest Rates, and Real Estate
Exploring the impact of inflation and interest rates on real estate investments and the potential risks for property owners.
Topic 1: Agricultural Real Estate [00:22:21]
Discussion on the opportunities in agricultural real estate due to erratic weather patterns and reduced yields in various crops.
Topic 2: Oil Market [00:24:16]
Conversation about the current state of the oil market, the decline in known reserves, and the potential for higher energy prices.
Topic 3: Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) [00:26:04]
Exploration of the proliferation of CBDCs and the implications of a digital currency controlled by central authorities, including potential restrictions on spending and increased government control.
Title [00:32:06]
History of Money and Gold Standard
Discussion on the different forms of money throughout history and the transition from silver to gold as the basis for the US currency.
Title [00:32:47]
The Diminishing Value of the Dollar
The prediction that the value of the dollar will continue to diminish over time and the suggestion to invest in real estate instead of saving in dollars.
Title [00:33:33]
Invest in What You Know
Advice for investors to only invest in what they know about and not rely on advice from others, emphasizing the importance of knowledge and understanding in investment decisions.
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Show Notes:
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Complete episode transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Interest rates rose fast last year, but a lot of experts think that they're going to go substantially higher from today's level, including our guest today, who is a legendary investor. How much higher will rates go and what's driving them higher today on get rich education.
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Speaker 2 (00:01:33) - You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get rich education.
Speaker 1 (00:01:56) - Welcome to GRE! From Mount Washington, New Hampshire to Mount Whitney, California, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Whitefield and you are listening to Get Rich Education. Hey, it's great to have you back. Interest rates are not high today. They're just moderate by historic standards. But of course, the rapid rate of increases last year was faster than it's ever been in our lives. And that's what introduces market distortions. Today's guest is going to talk about that with us later. That's the legendary Jim Rogers. And it's public information that he has an estimated $300 million net worth. When Jim talks, people listen. When he was here with us in 2019, he was emphatic that interest rates were going to go much higher.
Speaker 1 (00:02:43) - He was completely correct. And few others were saying that then. In fact, when he's with us here shortly, all recite the interest rate quote that he stated here on this show back then and get his forecast from this point on as well before discussing interest rates a quarter recently ended. So let's whip around the asset classes as we do here at times, because you need to be able to compare real estate with other investments. The first half of this year, the S&P 500 was up a fat 17%. I'm just running to the nearest whole percent here. The tech heavy Nasdaq index had its best first half of the year in four decades. Gold was up 6%. Oil was down 34%. Bitcoin up an astounding 84% the first six months of the year. And that's partly because it really bottomed out near the beginning of this year per Freddie Mac. The 30 year fixed mortgage began the year at 6.5%, and now it's up to 6.7 for real estate. Since it lags, we've got a realtor.com year over year figure.
Speaker 1 (00:03:48) - The median listing price was up 1% to 440 K financial institutions aced their Fed stress test that they call it that measures how banks are holding up during a downturn. Q1 GDP was revised way higher than they previously calculated, so the economy is doing even better than many thought. And the number of Americans that are filing for new unemployment claims that fell the most in 20 months. So therefore, the economy is still hot by a lot of measures. Well, that puts more upward pressure on interest rates. Well, an interest rate that can be thought of as your cost of money, and they can even affect factors beyond the economic world. For example, in demographics, I mean, historically high interest rates, they've actually been a mild impediment to people's very migration and mobility. Understand the Fed's interest rate predictions and really all of their predictions have been awful, just awful. A long line of them. Fed Chair Jerome Powell's inflation is transitory. I mean, this is the latest notable one. He said that in 2021.
Speaker 1 (00:05:03) - I mean, though, look on your phones weather app, you don't trust the weather forecast ten days into the future. So I don't know why we would listen so intently, even reverentially to what the Fed economists predict for the next month or the next year. I mean, the economy can have as many or more variables than the weather. I'm going to assume. And these people know nothing Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, Yellen, Powell. They know nothing but see, they act like they know. So I just sort of wish they'd say we don't know more often. And by the way, this is why I do not predict interest rates like virtually everyone else. I know nothing on that. I joke around and I say I will let someone else be wrong and go ahead and predict interest rates. It's really hard to do now. A little credit to Jerome Powell later on, though, he did acknowledge that they ought to stop calling inflation transitory. So I think the word transitory has different meanings to different people.
Speaker 1 (00:06:08) - To many, it carries.
Speaker 3 (00:06:09) - A time, a sense of of short lived. We tend to to to use it to mean that that it won't leave a permanent mark in the form of higher inflation. I think it's it's probably a good time to retire that that word and try to explain more clearly what we mean.
Speaker 1 (00:06:26) - Another credit to Powell in today's Fed is that they'll tell you what interest rate decisions they plan to make at upcoming meetings, which is certainly a welcome departure from the opaque Alan Greenspan where you needed to try to translate his Fed speak. So if the Fed rate goes higher, then you can generally expect other rates to go higher. The prime rate mortgage rates, credit card interest rates, automobile loans and more. Jim Grant. Who's been running the interest rate observer since 1983. He recently said that we are embarking into a long era of higher interest rates. He says that that's due to inflation and asset price speculation and of course rates wouldn't move up in some sort of straight line from here. During recessions, interest rates fall.
Speaker 1 (00:07:14) - Well, in that case, if you had recessions during a longer term up spell, where you'd have is higher interest rate lows in a recession. Now, starting in 1958, something strange happened in America. In a recession, prices did not fall into many. This marked the beginning of the age of inflation. That was 65 years ago. So you're pretty used to that. If there is a recession, prices don't fall. All right. Well, after that period, rates went up, up, up until they peaked in 1981. And then they went down. Rates fell from 1981 until 2021, and now they have begun to rise again. Well, because artificially low rates that were set to deal with Covid, because they're still recent, I mean, many people have this sort of muscle memory of zero zero interest rate policy. Maybe you do, too. And it was an all you can eat buffet table of credit. And that buffet table was open for business for ten years. Well, now that we've hiked up the Fed funds rate from 0 to 5%.
Speaker 1 (00:08:28) - All right. Well, back on June 28th, Powell said that more restrictive policy is still the COB because they're continuing to fight inflation. And that includes the likelihood of quarter point interest rate hikes at consecutive meetings and two or more increases by the end of this year. Now, our frequent macro economist contributor here on the show, Richard Duncan. He says there is an unusual divergence between weak credit growth and solid economic growth. And that was probably brought about by the surge in savings from people's government checks during the pandemic. Well, if that divergence persists, then the Fed might have to raise rates even more than the half percent plus that they suggested is necessary by the end of this year. And Duncan says that the stock market is not prepared for the Fed rate to go from 5% today up to 6%. And if it does, the stock market could be in for a painful correction in the months ahead. Now, to my point about interest rates being hard to predict, some economists think that rates will generally fall after this year as well.
Speaker 1 (00:09:34) - So some people see it that way, but I think there are more now predicting that they will rise rather than fall. As the legendary investor that predicted that interest rates were going to go way higher when he was back here with us in 2019 is he joins us soon. We could have some challenging audio quality on this remote to Singapore, but people really hang on what Jim has to say. That's next. I'm Keith Wild. You're listening to episode 457 of Get Rich Education. With real estate capital Jacksonville. Real estate has outperformed the stock market by 44% over the last 20 years. It's proven to be a more stable asset, especially during recessions. Their vertically integrated strategy has led to 79% more home price appreciation compared to the average Jacksonville investor since 2013. Genevieve is ready to help your money make money and to make it easy for everyday investors. Get started at GWB real Estate. Agree that's GWB Real estate agree Jerry Listeners can't stop talking about their service from Ridge Lending Group and MLS 42056. They've provided our tribe with more loans than anyone.
Speaker 1 (00:10:49) - They're truly a top lender for beginners and veterans. It's where I go to get my own loans for single family rental property up to four plex. So start your pre-qualification and you can chat with President Charlie Ridge personally, though, even deliver your custom plan for growing your real estate portfolio. Start at Ridge Lending Group. Hi, this is Russell Gray, co-host of the Real Estate Guys radio show. And you're listening to Get Rich Education with Keith Reinhold. Don't Quit Your Day Dreams. Today's guest is one of the most esteemed celebrated and legendary business moguls, investors and financial commentators of our time. He co-founded the Quantum Fund, one of the world's first truly global funds. He's created his own commodities index, his own ETF, and he is a popular author of a great many books. Welcome back. For your third appearance on Jim Rogers case. There's no reason to go into all that. I'm just a simple Earth. That's why people like listening to you, because you rather plain spoken on what some people deem to be some pretty complex concepts.
Speaker 1 (00:12:09) - So it's good to have you here joining remotely from where you live in Singapore. You were here with us in both 2019 and 2021 and in 2019 here on the show you said and I've got the quote right here, if you can borrow a lot of money for a long period of time at low interest rates, rush out and do it right now, That's what you said. That was prescient. And also in 2019 here on the show, you said, and I quote again, interest rates are going to go much, much, much higher over the next few decades and it is going to ruin a lot of people. And here we are today. So what are your thoughts with regard to interest rates and inflation here? Jim.
Speaker 4 (00:12:52) - You make many mistake. Please. It's made many, many mistakes and I'm sure hope I live long enough to make many, many more mistakes. Yes, interest rates are up. They're up substantially. It sent them, but it is not over yet. Interest rates will go much, much higher because we have friend, not just we, but central banks everywhere have printed huge amounts of money.
Speaker 4 (00:13:17) - And whenever you print lots of money, inflation, college interest rates go higher and the usual amount of money inflation gets very high. And that always leads to central banks having to raise interest rates too high level because they don't know what else to do. In 1980, before you were born, interest rates on central US government Treasury bills, 90 day Treasury bills, interest rates were over 21%. Gosh, that's not a typo. 21% because inflation was out of control and we had to take drastic measures, which meant you have to do something like that again.
Speaker 1 (00:13:58) - That would be interesting. So to bring us up to where we are right now, the federal funds rate is basically gone from 0 to 5% since last year. Mortgage rates rose from 3% to 7% just last year alone. And a lot of nations are jacking up interest rates. Turkey just decided that they are going to raise interest rates 6.5% all at once. And some people don't think that is enough. So here we are. I mean, you talked about what happened about 40 years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:14:27) - Can Jerome Powell engineer a soft landing? Does he have any chance of doing that where he can raise rates enough to quell inflation but yet not crash the economy?
Speaker 4 (00:14:37) - No, of course not. First of all, in 1980, America was still a creditor nation. Now with the largest detonation in the history of the world. Yeah, that's staggering. And they go up every week, and the amount of money that's been printed is beyond comprehension. I don't know how they can solve this problem without really getting drastic and taking interest rates to very high levels back in 1980. The Federal Reserve had the support of the president. The president told him to do whatever you have to do because the head of the central bank was all over. It was a smart man. He knew what he had to do, but he made sure he had political support before he did it. Now, the president did not get reelected because Volcker did what had to be done. We don't have as smart a central bank head now as we did then.
Speaker 4 (00:15:31) - And the amount of money that's been printed is overwhelming. And America's debt with the largest detonation in the history of the world and we were a creditor then. So there are things that are different. So he would be worried if I were you. In fact, I am worried, so I'll leave it to you. But I'm more.
Speaker 1 (00:15:50) - Well, that's right. Carter was a one term president. We'll see if Jerome Powell ends up breaking too many things. If Biden only ends up being a one term president, then as well, whether it's his fault or not, oftentimes the onus could fall on him. You bring up all this debt, the greatest detonation in the history of the world. And maybe the first time you and I spoke back in 2019, I don't know what our debt was then. Maybe it was 25 trillion. Now it's more than $32 trillion. Maybe just as concerning. More our debt to GDP ratio is about 121%. So I guess really what I'm getting at, Jim, is how will we know that things break and things are already breaking in a world of higher interest rates with failing banks and more stress in the commercial real estate market.
Speaker 1 (00:16:37) - So what else is going to break?
Speaker 4 (00:16:40) - Jimmy Carter did say to go do whatever you have to do and I will go you. I doubt Biden would say to the central bank, do whatever you have to do without or you. And I doubt if the central bank Powell, the head of the central bank, now really comprehend what he's gotten us into. You know, he kept saying all along, oh, don't worry, everything is under control. The secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, he's got Ivy League degrees, also kept saying, don't worry, everything is under control. We know what we're doing. We do have different people this time, not many Paul Volcker's that comes along in history. To me, the indications are going to get worse. They will not solve the problem until we have a very, very serious problem. I'm not optimistic. Having said that, if I'm not selling short or anything else at the moment, I'm worried about the markets in a year or two. But at the moment, since nobody seems to understand what they're doing at the Reserve or in the presidency, we can have okay times for a while, but the ultimate problem gets worse and worse and worse unless you deal with it.
Speaker 1 (00:17:56) - I don't know whether the economy has been slowed down enough yet or not. So in the midst of higher interest rates, we continue to create an awful lot of jobs. But there's a greater body of work that shows a lot of these jobs are just jobs that have recovered, that were lost in the pandemic.
Speaker 4 (00:18:13) - The economy is not bad in the US, economy is still strong. You mentioned office. You'll have a lot of jobs. ET cetera. Yes, we have inflation, but inflation is not as bad as it was in the 70s. And you look out the window and everything seems okay. At the moment. I'm just worried about what's coming down the road because I know that some throughout history, if you print a huge amount of money, you create big problems.
Speaker 1 (00:18:41) - We are avid real estate investors here directly investing in real estate. And as we have this chat about inflation and interest rates is real estate investors, ideally we would have low interest rates and high inflation. However, those two are positively correlated.
Speaker 1 (00:18:57) - You typically have both high interest rates and high inflation or low interest rates in low inflation. That positive correlation.
Speaker 4 (00:19:05) - Inflation always in the history has led to higher interest rates for a variety of reasons, which I'm sure you understand. If history is any guide, interest rates are going to go much, much higher eventually. And then you know very well I interest rates are not good for property, not good for real estate investors. They never have that. Even if you don't have any big debt and you don't have that problem or mortgage problems or anything, maybe your neighbors do. And if your neighbors have problems, that means their property prices will go down and that's going to affect you because you're nearby and everybody will say, oh, that property is collapsing. What about teeth? And teeth can say, Oh, no, don't worry about me. I don't have any debt. They'll say, okay, you don't have any debt, but we can buy property in your neighborhood. Very cheap because your neighbors have problems.
Speaker 4 (00:20:06) - That gives you a problem.
Speaker 1 (00:20:08) - That's right. Fortunately, Americans have plenty of protective equity in their properties despite these higher rates. You know, residential real estate here in the second half of 2023 is still doing just fine, probably because there's still a scarce supply of residential real estate. You've got more people working from home driving demand for residential real estate. But of course, office real estate has probably been hit the worst, crunched by high interest rates and the work from home trend both. So really that's where we've seen so many of the cracks in the real estate world, especially around the office space. Where else might we see cracks as interest rates continue to go higher like you think they will?
Speaker 4 (00:20:46) - Well, again, throughout history, when interest rates go higher and it attracts investors and money and people take their money out of property or stocks or whatever with their money and say yielding is you can buy the Treasury bills at 21%. That's attractive to a lot of people. And that's, you know, risk free and it's very high return.
Speaker 4 (00:21:12) - So as interest rates go higher in attracts money from other investment classes in other areas, it's very simple. People are not that dumb. We know that if we can get high interest rates safe, they will do it. And we have to take a risk and the stock market or something else for that spike to do.
Speaker 1 (00:21:33) - Sure. Higher rates just incentivize a few more people to be savers as they can now safely get above 4% in these online bank accounts today, where they are getting pretty close to 0% just a couple years ago. We talk about real estate investment. Oftentimes here we talk about improved property on a piece of land. But of course, the more traditional use of real estate is growing crops on a piece of land. And I know you've been a long time agricultural investing enthusiast and a thought leader in agricultural real estate investing. What are your thoughts about agricultural real estate, since in these past few years really we've seen more of these erratic weather patterns that have resulted in things like reduced peach yields in Georgia and reduced ores yields in Florida.
Speaker 1 (00:22:21) - Something else, Jim, we've seen reduced coffee yield in Panama, that last one, that's sort of a fractional ownership investment that we featured on the show here. Fractional ownership investment in coffee farm parcels in Panama. That's created some problems with their yield. Of course, you can see that reflected in the low levels of the Panama Canal as well that looks to threaten the economy. But what are your thoughts about agricultural real estate in this erratic weather that we've had? Perhaps that's an opportunity if that's reflected in lower agricultural real estate prices?
Speaker 4 (00:22:52) - I'm optimistic about agricultural land prices because, you know, for a long time, nobody wants to be a farmer. The average age of farmers in America is 58. The average age in Japan is 66. Mean, I can go on and on. Although the highest rate of bankruptcy in the UK is in agriculture. So agricultural disaster worldwide for a long time and disaster usually leads to great opportunities. If you know how to drive a tractor, if you should go buy yourself some farmland and become a farmer, if you like getting hot and sweaty every day, it can be a very exciting way to live.
Speaker 4 (00:23:38) - I just see I know from history when something gets very bad for a long time, it usually leads to a great opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:23:48) - Well, you are so experienced in commodities trading in the number one, the most traded commodity in the world is oil. And it seems that the oil price really isn't very high now, especially when you adjust that for all the inflation that we've had the past few years and of course the oil market and the oil price drives the prices of so many other downstream products. So what are your thoughts with regard to the oil market and where we're headed there? Jim.
Speaker 4 (00:24:16) - I know that known reserves of oil have peaked and are in decline just about worldwide. Does it mean it has to continue going up? But unless somebody finds a lot of oil quickly in accessible areas, the price of energy undoubtedly will go higher. The price of energy is going to stay high. Oil and natural gas, whether we like it or not, and I know we don't like it, but unless you wave a magic wand and you know, in Washington, they keep doing things that they don't help the supply of energy, they they damage it because they put restrictions and controls on energy.
Speaker 4 (00:24:55) - So unless something happens somewhere in the world pretty quickly, energy is not going to be cheap.
Speaker 1 (00:25:01) - Renewables like solar and wind may be the future, but oil has a high degree of energy density that a lot of those renewables still don't. We're talking with legendary investor Jim Rogers. He's joining us from Singapore. You talked about all this dollar printing, which has created inflation. And in order for central governments and central banks to get more control over people, discussion with Cbdcs central bank digital currencies has really percolated quite a bit in the past few years here. And with your international perspective, your world view. I'd like to know what your thoughts are on Cbdcs, whether you see a proliferation of it, where you see it starting for those that aren't aware of it. Central bank, digital currencies. That gives a government central control where all money is digital issued by the central authority, where your money can be stored digitally on your phone so that a central authority like a bank or a government can have control over you.
Speaker 1 (00:26:04) - For example, if your local economy is sagging, well, the government could tell you through your cbdc, your central bank, digital currency, for example, that you need to spend 30% of your income within a ten mile radius or else your money expires. Or this would give central authorities power to do something like say, you know, there's a curfew so you can't spend any of your money after 9 p.m. or this is where they could push ESG, environmental, social and governance agendas through targeting your spending or targeting your spending through diversity, equity and inclusion and getting more control that way through Cbdc. So what are your thoughts with the proliferation potentially of Cbdcs, Jim?
Speaker 4 (00:26:44) - We're all going to have digital money in the future, whether we like it or not. It already happened and China's way ahead of it. You can't take a tax in China with money. You have to have your digital money. Your own money. Yeah. And the ice cream in China with money. So it is happening. And nearly every country is working on computer money.
Speaker 4 (00:27:06) - Let's call it whatever you want to put your money. And governments love computer money is cheaper. It's easier. They don't have to transport it all they love. But mainly they love it because they've complete control over all of us. As you point out, they know everything you do. They'll call you up one day and say, Keith, you've had too much coffee this month. Stop drinking so much. Whatever it is, they love control and they love knowledge. I don't, but they do. So this is the world we're coming to. None of us will have money in our pockets except on our own. And yes, that's the new world. It's not far away in 2023. Okay. Anything that's not good for the citizen, Washington will catch up very fast if it's good for them. So no money is coming.
Speaker 1 (00:28:00) - Yeah. Let's hope the cbdcs don't turn up the coffee for anybody. This might make one wonder, you know, what can they do about it is you see more cbdc sentiment building in other nations with them potentially doing something like this.
Speaker 1 (00:28:15) - Is it a smart thing then for someone rather than store dollars, to instead borrow dollars by having loans on real estate? Or is it better to just completely be out of the government system of currency issuance or at least park more of your prosperity outside of the government system of dollars and euros and pesos and riyals and yen, and instead into a non governmental alternative like gold or Bitcoin. Would that be a better path? What are your thoughts there?
Speaker 4 (00:28:44) - When the government says, okay, now this is money, they're not going to say, okay, but if you want to use that money over there, use their money. We don't care. Governments love control and they love Monopoly, especially when it comes to money. So there may be competing types of money that you dollars now anyway. I guess you and I could swap gold coins or seashells or something if we wanted to. Most of the people in the US use government money and that's the way it's going to be. Whether we like it or not, the government has the monopoly.
Speaker 4 (00:29:22) - They have the guns. And if you can say, All right, I'm not going to use government money, I'll say, okay, but you're not going to be able to pay your taxes, then you're money. You're not going to be able to buy a driver's license or pay your other fees with other money. You're going to have to use government approved money.
Speaker 1 (00:29:42) - Well, the government tried to shut down ownership of gold like they did previously or Bitcoin, which would be unprecedented. I'm talking about the United States government, especially in this case or other developed economies.
Speaker 4 (00:29:54) - But when the US took away the right to go in 30s, that was gold was the basis for. Monetary system. It is much, much, much more important to the world economy. Then gold is not that important in the world's economy now. It's important, but so is right. So a lot of stuff. So I doubt if they will take gold away again. I don't see them outlawing digital money currency unless it becomes very successful and competitive to the government.
Speaker 4 (00:30:30) - Then they'll do. They always have.
Speaker 1 (00:30:33) - Bitcoin's market cap is still under $1 trillion, but increasingly you do have more and more politicians that own Bitcoin and there are a few advocates for Bitcoin there in Congress. So if that's the change you want to see, maybe you want to vote in people that are promoting the holding of prosperity outside of US dollars really by being Bitcoin advocates in Congress there. That's one thing that you can possibly do. But we talk about gold and silver. You know, I really like the fact that it is scarce. Just like Bitcoin has scarcity. There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoin. And of course gold and silver have a finite supply.
Speaker 4 (00:31:14) - Well, but first of all, please remember many digital currencies, not Bitcoin, but many have already disappeared and gone to zero.
Speaker 1 (00:31:23) - And there are some Bitcoin critics out there that say something like, well, there have been more than 20,000 cryptocurrencies. So what makes Bitcoin any better? Well, I think the fact that a lot of these cryptocurrencies that have little or no utility or mean coins, so if they come by and then they die, I don't think that should diminish Bitcoin in its utility in any way.
Speaker 1 (00:31:42) - Just like there have been over 20,000 stocks in history. And if a new stock comes by that doesn't have any value or any fundamentals and it fails, it doesn't diminish the market cap leader Apple one bit at all. So I don't think it's a valid comparison to say that just because a new cryptocurrency comes and goes that shouldn't diminish or knock Bitcoin at all, just like it shouldn't Apple, if a flashy new stock comes by and dies?
Speaker 4 (00:32:06) - Well, throughout history, money has come and gone. People use seashells, people use cows, People use lots of things, glass beads all over the world. You know, the US was founded on a silver standard at 1792. Silver was the basis for the US currency that later changed to gold.
Speaker 1 (00:32:27) - What's so interesting, Jim, written in our United States Constitution, it stated that gold and silver shall be money, but of course it's not. In Nixon completely departed the last vestige of that in 1971. Yet there was no amendment written to the Constitution to supersede it.
Speaker 1 (00:32:47) - Gold and silver shall be money when it comes to currency and how one measures the prosperity in the United States. It is the dollar. We know it's going to continue to be the dollar for some period of time yet, and you can't get too many certainties in investing. And really the second near certainty we can get is that the dollar is going to continue to diminish in value. So that's why rather than save it, we borrow for real estate. Jim, wrap it up here. In this world of higher inflation, though, it's come down in higher interest rates where you tend to think they will keep going higher. What should one do, maybe especially a younger person today, You know, any direction that you would have for a younger person, a younger investor, or maybe that's even investing in themselves and developing skills themselves. So what are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (00:33:33) - They're all investors. Young, old, whatever should invest only in what they themselves know a lot about. If you want to be successful, don't listen to somebody on the TV or in the magazine or even on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (00:33:48) - You know your program. They should invest only in what they know about you. Listen to somebody and she said, Buy X and you buy x and x goes up. You don't know what to do because you don't know why you bought it. Right? X goes down, you don't know what to do because you don't know why you bought it. So if you want to be successful, just stay with what you yourself know a lot about. You might say that's boring. Be boring If you want to be successful, be boring. You know, invest in what you know. And I cannot tell you how important that is for all investors, young or old.
Speaker 1 (00:34:31) - Yeah, well, to sum it up on rates, Jim Rogers said that governments have debt, therefore governments will keep printing. So then governments will raise rates to keep inflation in check. Remember, just last year, a lot of people didn't think that Powell would have the guts to raise rates so high. Well, he sure did. Who else did I ask about how high interest rates will go? Will, I asked you on our get Recession Instagram poll, the majority of you think.
Speaker 1 (00:35:01) - That the Fed rate will exceed 6%. And again, it's about 5% now. All right. Well, then with mortgage rates around six and three quarters now, perhaps they'd go up to about 8%. But of course, mortgage rates don't track the Fed rate in lockstep. They more closely follow the yield on the ten year note. Now, this is really interesting for real estate investors when inflation is low. So interest rates, well, in those environments, real estate people seem to love that. But you know what? Those two things pretty much cancel out. Well, since we're big borrowers as real estate investors, you get less benefit from low inflation and more benefit from low interest rates, just like high inflation and high interest rates cancel out because now you've got your debt being debase faster and a greater interest expense to pay. So really it's a wash either way. If for some reason real estate investors seem to be more concerned about high interest than they are thinking about the benefits of the high inflation and in fact, real estate investors, hey, we can totally have our cake and eat it too, because when inflation goes high, well, you can stay fixed on your low interest rates.
Speaker 1 (00:36:16) - And then when inflation and rates go low, you can refinance. So savvy real estate investors then in fact benefit from the inflation and interest rate dance. This kind of tango that they do where they stay together. If you enjoy the show here each week, do you mind doing something as a give back that takes less than two minutes of your time? Leave a podcast rating and review. The fastest way to do this is just perform a search. Either search how to leave in Apple Podcasts Review, or how to leave a Spotify podcast review. I'd be grateful that helps others find the show. And we've got a bunch of terrific episodes coming up for you here on Gray, providing you with free content and reliably showing up for you every week. I would greatly appreciate your podcast rating in review. Again, it's easiest to simply search how to leave an Apple Podcasts Review or how to leave a Spotify podcast review until next week. I'm your host, Keith Weintraub. Don't quit, dude. Adrian.
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