Get Rich Education 472: Pennsylvania's Secretary of Banking and Securities Joins Keith
Before our PA Governor-appointed public official guest joins us, I discuss how autonomous cars expect to change real estate.
Richard Vague, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Banking and Securities from 2020-2023 joins us. We’re in the state capital of Harrisburg, PA.
We discuss America’s beginnings in real estate and banking from around 1800.
He tells us about the health of banks in the wake of recent failures due to higher interest rates.
I ask Richard about full reserve banks vs. fractional lending banks.
Great Britain prohibited colonists from owning land west of the Appalachians.
The basis of early land wealth were crops grown on the land—wheat, corn, tobacco, indigo, and rice.
Mortgages around 1800 were often 50% LTV and 6% interest rates.
Here in the 2020s, Richard believes that private sector debt is a larger problem than public debt.
Wherever debt growth is most rapid are where the economic cracks exist.
Inflation benefits the Top 10% of the economic strata.
Private debt becomes unsustainable around 225% of GDP. In the US, it’s currently 160%.
You become insolvent when you cannot make interest-only payments. That’s true for you as an individual, or a nation.
If these topics interest you, check out Richard’s new book, “The Paradox of Debt” at ParadoxOfDebt.com.
Timestamps:
America's beginnings with banking, real estate, and debt [00:00:01]
Discussion on the historical influence of Pennsylvania banking on the formation of US banking, including figures like Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton.
The impact of autonomous vehicles on real estate [00:02:54]
Exploration of the potential effects of autonomous vehicles on real estate, including reduced need for parking and changes in commuting patterns.
The role of the Secretary of Banking and Securities in Pennsylvania [00:09:20]
Insight into the responsibilities of the Secretary of Banking and Securities in Pennsylvania, including oversight of banks and consumer protections.
The fractional reserve lending system [00:10:44]
Explanation of how banks operate through fractional reserve lending and the possibility of full reserve banks.
The origins of the US banking system and the role of Thomas Willing [00:12:06]
Discussion on the founding of the US banking system and the involvement of Thomas Willing, the first banker in the United States.
The land crisis of 1796-1797 and its impact on Robert Morris [00:14:14]
Exploration of the financial crisis caused by land speculation and how it led to Robert Morris, a prominent figure in credit ratings, ending up in debtor's prison.
The formation of the nation and its intersection with banking [00:21:50]
Discussion on the short-term loans and interest rates during the formation of the United States and the role of debt in the westward expansion.
Private sector debt and its growth [00:25:30]
Exploration of the significant increase in private sector debt since World War II and the focus on the potential issues associated with it.
Debt growth as an indicator of economic crises [00:28:23]
Insight into how rapid debt growth, particularly in the private sector, can serve as a predictor of economic crises and the shortcomings of economic models that exclude debt as a factor.
The paradox of debt [00:31:47]
Debt creates wealth, using leverage and appreciation to generate wealth.
The end game of private debt [00:33:29]
When the requirement to service debt slows the economy down to near zero.
Inflation profiting with real estate [00:37:42]
Real estate is not just an inflation hedging vehicle, but an inflation profiting vehicle due to fixed interest rate debt and rising rents.
Resources mentioned:
Show Notes:
Richard Vague’s new book:
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Complete episode transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Welcome to. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. I'm sitting down in Pennsylvania with the governor's appointed state secretary of banking and securities. What were America's beginnings with banking, real estate and debt? Learn how this affects you as an investor today. And what does America's day of debt reckoning look like today on Get Rich Education?
Speaker 2 (00:00:28) - 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 (00:00:44) - Welcome from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Harrisonburg, Virginia, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold and you're listening to Get Rich. Education has been the Keystone state of Pennsylvania this week. In just a few minutes, you'll hear my sit down with secretary of banking and Securities for this great state of Pennsylvania from 2020 to 2023. The rather distinguished guest also sits on the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania's Board of Trustees. And before we're done, I'll be sure he understands at least one core principle here and get his opinion on that. Yeah, I visited seven US states so far here in the past month and I'll continue to visit so much of the United States.
Speaker 1 (00:01:28) - In fact, I might have done more driving this past month than at any time in my life. Now. Some people are really car people. We have this kind of car culture in the United States for some evidence that younger people aren't as interested in that is older people. I mean, some people, they get really excited about new car features or new dashboard interfaces or hybrids or EVs and charging stations. You know, none of that is really that interesting to me. However, you know, the one new car feature that I actually really care about and I'm waiting to go more mainstream. Any idea the one game changing car feature that I really can't wait to get here because it's really going to improve your quality of life. And mine and I talked about this way back in Get Rich Education Episode 13 in the year 2015 is something that is still expected to have substantial ramifications for real estate, and that feature is autonomous vehicles, also known as driverless cars. I mean, as much of the world that's automated these days and digitize, it feels like something is out of whack to have all of this technology that you have in your car today.
Speaker 1 (00:02:54) - Yet even if you're on cruise control out on Interstate 80, like I have been a lot lately, you've mostly got to keep your eyes glued to the car bumper in front of you. Yes. And the car that reliably drives itself. That's the new feature that I really want. I mean, imagine for you to be able to get some sleep or scroll your phone or I know that it sounds funny, even exercise while your car drives itself. And of course this still pretends to have a real impact on real estate. Cars will really need to be owned. It's just the subscription service that you order. A car comes to pick you up and then it drops you off where you need to go. So these cars just continue to stay in motion out there. You don't need a garage so much. And this means that cities won't need nearly as much parking. So parking lots are less important, parking garages are less important. And since you can be more productive while you're a passenger in the car drives itself, well, therefore, those neighborhoods that are say no one hour outside of the center or metro area, well, those areas won't have as much of a price discount because autonomous cars lower your time expense in commuting.
Speaker 1 (00:04:16) - But autonomous car adoption has been slower to develop than a lot of people, including me, expected. I mean, there have been a lot of experiments, But see, what happens is an experimental autonomous car crash that just makes more news than a human created car crash. And that has really slowed adoption. So yeah, I'm not so into cars. The only feature that's on the horizon that really gets me interested is winning back some of my time with autonomous cars. Hey, we have a ton of great podcast episodes lined up here at some of the most brilliant minds in the real estate and money world. Continue to join me coming up soon. Here on the show is the return of a really dynamic guest. He goes by the nickname the mad scientist of multifamily in the industry. Some call the amount of multifamily, mobile home parks self in other commercial real estate investors that have these floating interest rates, the amount of those people, it's almost insane. Higher rates are going to bring those deals down and investors will keep losing money in those deals.
Speaker 1 (00:05:27) - That's what the mad scientist of multifamily and I are going to focus on them. Yes, these people that learn how to perhaps do syndications through TikTok videos, they are losing their deals. Isn't that really is too bad because that reputation seriously that. The good operator, so we're going to sort that out for you. Then on a later episode here, one of the sharpest economic minds in the entire world joins us to discuss why the recession didn't happen as soon as he and a lot of others thought and what that means for the future of stocks and real estate and commodity prices. All of that is in the near future here on the show. But today I'm visiting my home state of Pennsylvania, where I've lived most of my life. It is the fifth most populous state, despite not being that large by area and despite the fact there are still a ton of rural areas in Pennsylvania, and of the five biggest states, Pennsylvania may very well have the deepest history. So we'll dig into some real history today.
Speaker 1 (00:06:31) - Pennsylvania banking was influential on the formation of United States banking, including that of Robert Morris. He's a pretty well known name, but he was succeeded by a better no name. Right after Robert Morse, we had Alexander Hamilton in that banking role. But yeah, Pennsylvania Robert Morris, he is known as the very financier of the American Revolutionary War. As we're about to discuss the nation's beginnings, America's formative years in land and real estate hundreds of years ago. Look, if a hundred years ago, a colonist or an early American, if he or she said this, I'm going to buy a piece of property and develop it. Okay. What do you think that meant when they said that today? If you said, I'm going to buy a piece of property and develop it, well, most people would think that you're going to build a housing development. But back then it probably meant that you were going to clear your land of trees and planted for agriculture and you're going to grow wheat or corn or tobacco.
Speaker 1 (00:07:37) - That was the discussion you were having then. What crop are you developing on your real estate? It sure wasn't. Are you going to develop apartments or condos or single family homes? That's how it might sound today. In fact, the 1790 census that shows that roughly 90% of the American population was employed in agriculture. 90%. So your real estate income was largely derived on your crop yield, which you might use to pay your debt on your land. Let's start this interview that I expect to be wide ranging as we'll take it from yesteryear up to the present day. This week's guest has served as secretary of banking and securities for the great state of Pennsylvania from 2020 to 2023. It is a cabinet level agency here in the state capital of Harrisburg. He was appointed to that position by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf today. He is managing partner of Gabriel Investments as well based in Philadelphia. And today he's the author of an interesting new book. It's titled The Paradox of Debt A New Path to Prosperity Without Crisis. Welcome to Richard Vague.
Speaker 3 (00:08:53) - Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:08:55) - It's good to have you. For those of you listening in, the audio only vague is spelled vague. You and Richard, as Pennsylvania's secretary of banking and Securities, I know that you have various deputy secretaries that assist you. Tell me. I'm going to venture to guess that that role includes acts like the oversight of banks and various consumer protections. Are they important parts of that role?
Speaker 3 (00:09:20) - Without question. The fundamental job is looking to the safety and soundness of the banks chartered here in Pennsylvania to make sure they don't fail. And we all saw the importance of that recently. Silicon Valley bank failed in California. And I think if we'd had the caliber of examiners out in California that the folks here in Pennsylvania or that might not have happened.
Speaker 1 (00:09:44) - That's a nice compliment to those that have that oversight here in state, Richard. It sure has been interesting with interest rates actually not being historically high, but at the rate that they change and the rate that they spiked, making some things break everything else to tell us about that role with the oversight that you had of banks and consumer protections in Pennsylvania and really what everyday depositors are concerned with.
Speaker 3 (00:10:10) - Everyday depositors are concerned with getting the highest yield they can. Sure. And certainly they've been rewarded more lately than they have been over the last, let's say, ten years prior to that. But they also should be concerned about the safety and soundness of the bank they deposit with. And I think a lot of folks forgot that lesson. You know, a few years passed from a crisis and folks aren't worried about whether their bank's going to be around so much anymore. I'm really pleased to report the banks here in Pennsylvania are in really good shape.
Speaker 1 (00:10:44) - Richard, I don't even think that everyday depositors understand the fractional reserve lending institution system, which is really how most banks operate, and that is when a depositor gives the bank money or the money goes ahead and lends that out, that difference, that spread being their arbitrage, which is how they stay in business. I've got a rather interesting question, perhaps are full oil reserve banks feasible as the norm? And what I'm talking about there is banks that can't lend depositors money out and instead that bank needs to profit by charging fees to depositors.
Speaker 1 (00:11:23) - Now, I know everyone likes to get something for free, but would that be a more responsible system? Are full reserve banks feasible at all?
Speaker 3 (00:11:31) - If you did that. You know, that's something I've studied quite a bit, and that was a very active question, by the way. Yeah. In the founding of our banking system here in Pennsylvania in 1781, it's a question that's been around forever. Any economy needs to have money created in order to grow, and the banking system is what does that now. But if you banned that in the banking system, it would just have to happen somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (00:11:58) - Were there any prominent names that were involved with the setup of banking in Pennsylvania?
Speaker 3 (00:12:06) - The name that you hear the most is the guy named Robert Morris, who was the head of it was in effect, the secretary of the Treasury during the Revolutionary War. But his senior partner was the original banker in the United States, and his name was Thomas Willing in history has more or less forgotten him. And that's, by the way, the subject of my next book.
Speaker 3 (00:12:30) - I'm in the Middle of writing a biography of the origins of the US banking system and our first banker, Thomas Wells.
Speaker 1 (00:12:38) - There is a Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania, of course, and we're talking about history here, Richard. And I know that you have an excellent sense of history about the nation's beginnings in land and in real estate. Can you speak to that?
Speaker 3 (00:12:55) - The United States was all about land from the very beginning. You had massive land grants like to William Penn to found the state in the first place. But almost immediately after the founding of the country, you know, one of the reasons we had the American Revolution is because Great Britain prohibited colonists for owning land west of the Appalachian Mountains. And that was very frustrating to people like George Washington and others who had surveyed really lush pieces of land in the Ohio Valley. Immediately after the success of the revolution, the wealthy investors in America began buying millions and millions of acres towards the west, in the Ohio Valley, in Kentucky, in New York, in western Pennsylvania and the like, and got into trouble and brought the first financial crisis in US history, the land crisis of 1796 and 1797, because they were buying all that land on credit, either from the landholder, the private landholder or the the state or commonwealth that the land was in.
Speaker 3 (00:14:14) - They bought this under the presumption that the value of real estate would always go up and of course it just didn't go up fast enough. And Robert Morris to speak of someone actually ended up in debtor's prison because he overextended himself, which is somewhat ironic since he's something of a icon for credit ratings and credit prudence. And yet he was very much of a wild speculator and ended up in prison destitute.
Speaker 1 (00:14:45) - This is really interesting. Okay. And nefarious character early on in America's private real estate development, when the Appalachian mountain range in the late 1700s was deemed as the frontier to a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (00:14:59) - Absolutely. Everybody was looking west of there for the big games and the big opportunities.
Speaker 1 (00:15:06) - I mean, this is part of Manifest Destiny and the American Dream. So can you tell us more about a lot of that land in the early days west of the Appalachian Mountains? How much did the government claim is theirs and sell to private landowners on credit? And then how much were private landowners taking and were they allowed to make land claims and then sell it to someone else? Or tell us more about those early beginnings of that real estate setup?
Speaker 3 (00:15:34) - Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (00:15:35) - Most of that land was owned by the colonies, which in 1776 became states. The states own that land. The states all incurred massive debts in prosecuting the revolution itself. So by the time you get to 1783, 1787 states are deeply in debt and bondholders of state debt are not getting paid interest. And one way to alleviate that crisis was to sell land and selling it an acre here, an acre. There wasn't going to do you any good. So the states were selling land of 100,000 acre parcel a year, a million acre parcel there. Now, the guys that bought that, at first they were thinking, we'll do it, we'll develop towns, will lay out the towns, will survey them, will sell them, will attract settlers into this realm, will sell it plot buy plot to these settlers. But it was pretty clear that was a pretty slow way to make your money back. So they started looking to the wealthy in Europe and started sending brochures and agents to Europe to in essence, be able to flip their land in Early on, they were very successful at that.
Speaker 3 (00:16:54) - Guys like William Bingham, who was the richest man in America, and Robert Morris, who was one of the richest, would make, you know, 100,000 here and 100,000 there, which is tantamount to making tens of millions. Now that ended. They started doing bigger speculations. There weren't the settlers to buy it. The Europeans got a little bit smarter. You had a major national financial crisis, including, by the way, it wasn't just those Western lands. One of the biggest parts of the financial calamity was in the new town of Washington, DC, where they were moving the government, and people came in, including Robert Morris, thinking it's the seat of government where this is going to be a boomtown. And a lot of folks got into deep trouble speculating on plots in Washington DC.
Speaker 1 (00:17:42) - And if you're the listener, think that this sounds rather unorganized and free wheeling. Of course, we just need to think back a little bit earlier as to what happened when we as colonists went ahead and wrested the land away from the natives as well, of course.
Speaker 1 (00:17:57) - But yeah, Richard, you talked about some of the draw and the appeal to some of the land around Washington, D.C. there along the Potomac River. But just generally overall, in a lot of cases, this new American government, who were the land sellers trying to attract or were they trying to attract them to do, for example, was it to only and to set up a farm for agriculture or was it for trapping or what attracted people to this new land grab, if you will?
Speaker 3 (00:18:24) - The basis of wealth early on in the United States was the crops that we grew. And that obviously, first and foremost was wheat and the biggest supplier of wheat, not just in the United States, but to Europe was Pennsylvania. That's why Philadelphia became the largest city in the United States. Then just south of US and Maryland and Virginia. You had tobacco, which was our number one crop, but it was our number one export. South of that, you had indigo and rice. The further north you got, there really wasn't a lot of arable land.
Speaker 3 (00:19:03) - And that's why, you know, places like Massachusetts had to turn the manufacturing so heavily. It was really that. And fishing for cod were the only thing they could do. So, yeah, absolutely. We were a breadbasket for not just the country, but the world almost from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (00:19:21) - You talk early on about the extension of credit and how that enabled settlers to go ahead and own some of this new land? Is this sort of the early formation of long term mortgages? When did that.
Speaker 4 (00:19:35) - Occur?
Speaker 3 (00:19:36) - Well, absolutely. You know, really from well before independence. One of the problems you had is that there wasn't enough currency to really facilitate economic growth. So they began issuing paper currency in various forms. And a lot of these were very successful. This was done at the state level. And what they would do is they would create land banks. And so you would go in and take your land as a farmer. You would take it to the land bank and you could get currency up to half the value of your land and you'd pay interest on it.
Speaker 3 (00:20:14) - So it was really was a de facto mortgage, a.
Speaker 1 (00:20:18) - 50% mortgage, a.
Speaker 3 (00:20:19) - 50% mortgage, and you could spend that currency. They were well managed early on. Most of these didn't work, failed. And the first real commercial bank was Thomas Williams Bank in 1781 and Philadelphia.
Speaker 1 (00:20:35) - What were interest rates like at this time in these formative years of our nation.
Speaker 3 (00:20:40) - For bigger transactions, the range was really just 5 to 6%. It might get down to four, might get up to seven. Interest rates in the U.K. were closer to five and us, they were closer to six. There were breakdowns by a slice of an interest rate, so there wasn't an interest of 5.1% or 5.2%. And for high risk transactions, you could easily get into the same interest rate realm that some of our usurious lenders do today. Yeah, you see situations where folks in dire straits would borrow for an interest rate of 5% a month. A lot of loans in those days were very, very short term. There were the land loans that were long term.
Speaker 3 (00:21:28) - Most commercial banks made loans for 30 to 90 days, and they really were meant to bridge the period from when you, as a merchandiser bought your wholesale supplies to when you sold them as goods to the folks in your town. You could roll those loans over. But they were very short term back in those days.
Speaker 1 (00:21:50) - That is interesting. Those are really short term loans. And this is pretty parallel with what I've read around that time, that interest rates seem to be about 5%, something like that. We're talking about the formation of this nation, its beginnings in land, in real estate, and how that intersects with banking and the mortgage market and really part of the manifest destiny in the westward expansion of the United States. Yes, we are talking about a popular four letter word debt, and that word debt has only become more popular in America with consumerism here in past decades. So when Richard and I come back, we're going to talk more about debt today in the United States. In his new book, The Paradox of Debt, you can get that at Paradox of Debt.
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Speaker 4 (00:24:22) - Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Reinhold and Don't Quit Your Day Dream.
Speaker 1 (00:24:37) - Welcome back to Get Rich Education. We're talking with the guest that served as the secretary of banking and securities for the great state of Pennsylvania since 2020. Today, he's the author of an interesting new book. It's titled The Paradox of Debt A New Path to Prosperity Without Crisis. His name is Richard Vig. He's joining us from here in Pennsylvania, where we are together today. And Richard, I know that you have a lot of commentary about modern debt and what we can do about today's debt and how debt really seems to have expanded a lot since Nixon pegged us from the last vestige of the gold standard back in 1971.
Speaker 1 (00:25:14) - I guess really the preeminent question, Richard, is should debt be a concern? We read all these stories about unrelatable numbers, about how the United States has $33 trillion of stated public debt. What's problematic?
Speaker 3 (00:25:30) - There's a lot more private sector debt than public debt. And I think private sector debt is the area where we need to focus and where our concern needs to be. Private debt has increased since World War two from 35% of GDP to 160% of GDP. Wow. So it's almost quintupled. There's about $41 trillion worth of private sector debt. That's a bigger number than the government debt number, and that's globally as well. There's about a $150 trillion worth of private sector debt and only about $90 trillion worth of government debt.
Speaker 1 (00:26:09) - And what is private sector debt? Are we talking about automobile loans, credit card loans, student loans?
Speaker 3 (00:26:14) - It's roughly divided between business and household debt. So if we've got 40 trillion in debt, it's about 20 business and 20 households. And within both of those categories, the single biggest type of debt is real estate by far.
Speaker 3 (00:26:31) - So within household debt, it's about 20 trillion. Almost 14 trillion of that is mortgage debt. On the business side, it's about 20 trillion. About 6 trillion of that is commercial real estate debt. So there's never been a time where real estate debt, household and commercial has not been really kind of the driving force of the economy.
Speaker 1 (00:26:57) - You got public sector debt and you got private sector debt. And, you know, it's kind of funny, Richard, if someone asked me what the difference between those two is, there's a few different directions you could go. What I like to tell some people is, well, the government can just print dollars, okay? Everyday consumers in businesses, they don't have that handle. So the government can print dollars and they can call that whatever name they want to quantitative easing. Maybe they want to call it currency creation. But over here, if the individual tries to do something like that, it's called counterfeiting. So, yes, it can be more problematic. Individuals cannot print their own dollars at home.
Speaker 3 (00:27:32) - That's exactly right. And that's why private debt is the area that we should focus more on. If you think about the great financial crisis of 2008, mortgage debt in 2002 was $5 trillion. By 2007, it was $10 trillion. It had doubled in less than five years. And we all now know that was millions of mortgages that it should never have been made. That was mortgages where the individuals had no income, no job, no assets. Those were homes that stood empty for years. And in many cases, they had to get torn down.
Speaker 4 (00:28:10) - Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:28:11) - If you want to look out for trouble, the place to look is in the private sector debt. And the way to detect it is wherever it's growing very, very rapidly, that's where you're going to have a problem.
Speaker 1 (00:28:23) - So that's therefore a way to help predict economic crises. It's debt growth or I guess you could really call it credit growth as well, right? I mean, both credit and debt are basically the same terms for the different side of a transaction wherever the growth in that is most rapid is really where the economic cracks are.
Speaker 3 (00:28:43) - That's exactly right. And the fact that the Federal Reserve did not spot that in 2005 and six is one of the great stories of our time. They build economic models that don't even include debt as a factor whatsoever. Everybody finds that very surprising. It's called the DSG model, and it models the future of the economy without taking into consideration anything about debt.
Speaker 1 (00:29:12) - Why is that excluded? Mean, I'm a bit taken aback by what you just told me. Think you can tell.
Speaker 3 (00:29:18) - It's the fact. And economists got so theoretical going back a couple of decades that they started separating out financial economy from what they call the real economy. And they just stopped studying the financial economy as kind of a secondary matter to the real economy. The real economy would be, you know, the wheat and the automobile that gets manufactured and so forth and so on. My argument is those two things are inseparable. You shouldn't and cannot consider one without the other. And that's a huge blind spot in our Orthodox economics profession.
Speaker 1 (00:30:01) - Tell us more about how what we've discussed ties in to the thesis of your book.
Speaker 1 (00:30:06) - Richard The Paradox of Debt. What's the paradox?
Speaker 3 (00:30:10) - Paradox is that debt creates wealth, but it also creates calamity. So, for example, in the pandemic, 20 through 22, government debt alone increased by $8 trillion. Household wealth increased by $30 trillion. So the money the government spends does not disappear. It actually goes into the checking accounts of households. So at the end of that three year period, households had 8 trillion more in deposits in their checking accounts. And the flood of new money had pushed up real estate and stock values. So cash in bank accounts increased by 8 trillion, and the value of real estate and stocks increased by 20 something trillion. So households were $30 trillion better off at the end of 22 than they had been at the end of 19. However, most of that, like 80% of that benefit, went to the top 10% of the population. And that's for the very simple reason that most assets, most stocks and real estate are held by the top 10%, like 65% of all the stock in real estate in the country is held by the top 10%.
Speaker 3 (00:31:32) - The bottom 60%, six 0%, only hold about 14% of the stocks in real estate. So for real estate and stock values go up, it's the most well-to-do that get the benefit.
Speaker 1 (00:31:47) - That's right. And it's really the listeners on this show that we want to help take from poor or middle class and help them understand something you said in just a couple of minutes ago, that debt creates wealth, which is a paradox to many. The title of your book is The Paradox of Debt. So here what we often do is get 75 to 80% loans on an income producing property where the rent income meets or exceeds all of the expenses. And this is creating wealth. How is that wealth generated debt? A 75 to 80% loan debt is leverage and leverage appreciation actually makes compound interest look pretty slow. So a very concrete example in a sense of the paradox of debt that we're using right here at Get Rich education. Richard.
Speaker 3 (00:32:31) - You have described something that is not just true about real estate transactions, but it's true about the economy as a whole.
Speaker 3 (00:32:40) - That's the essential analysis. Yeah. And to put some macro numbers on it, in 1980, total debt in the economy, government plus household was 125% of GDP. Today it's 260% of GDP. Yeah. Yeah. And that exact same time span, household wealth, net of debt went from 352% of GDP to 600% of GDP. Debt created. Well.
Speaker 1 (00:33:12) - Yes, those are some astonishing figures. I guess as we're winding down here, Richard, one might wonder, well, where is the ceiling? When is the day of reckoning? When do we reach a calamity? How do we know that there's too much private debt and how does that actually look?
Speaker 3 (00:33:29) - We have a chapter on that very subject in the book there. It's pretty easy to see that there's an end game on the private sector side. And right now we're at about 160% of GDP. We think that that's probably somewhere in the 225% of GDP range here in the United States when there's so much debt that the requirement to service that debt slows the economy down to near zero.
Speaker 3 (00:34:00) - On the government debt, for the very reason you suggested that limitation doesn't really exist, the government could refinance its debt in perpetuity. As we said a moment ago, that ends up in the bank accounts of households anyway. So the thing I look to and I'm concerned about is private debt. Even though if you go flip on the cable news channels, you would think the world's about to end because of our government debt.
Speaker 1 (00:34:26) - Now tell me, am I oversimplifying things here, at least with private debtors, everyday Americans, when an interest only payment on your debt exceeds your ability to service it each month? Is that the path to bankruptcy right there?
Speaker 3 (00:34:42) - You got it. And whatever you say about an individual, you can say about the economy as a whole, because GDP is really just the sum of the individuals and businesses in the US. So if all the individuals and businesses are approaching this, the circumstance you just described, economy is not going to grow well there.
Speaker 1 (00:35:03) - Any last things that you would like to tell us about you very well received book because again, it's called The Paradox of Debt in the subtitle is A New Path to Prosperity Without Crisis.
Speaker 3 (00:35:14) - We cover the same material for the other six largest countries in the world. So if you read the book, you're not just going to learn about the US, you're going to learn about China, Japan, Germany, France, England and India. And I think it gives you the kind of fulsome grounding you need to better understand the news stories that we get such a barrage of every day.
Speaker 1 (00:35:38) - That's right. We need a frame of reference and putting our own more domestic debt into perspective here. Well, Richard, if someone wants to get a hold of the book, remind them of how they can best do that.
Speaker 3 (00:35:49) - Thank you so much. Go to Paradox of Debt or go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and just search for that and it'll be right there.
Speaker 1 (00:35:58) - Oh, Richard, you've helped expand our debt mindset somewhat here on the show today. It's been great having you here.
Speaker 3 (00:36:05) - It's been such a privilege. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:36:14) - A lot of interesting history with Richard Vig today, this great state of Pennsylvania's secretary of banking and securities.
Speaker 1 (00:36:20) - One concept that really hasn't changed throughout history that we discussed there is that inflation mostly benefits those at the top. Again, check out Richard's book at Paradox of debt.com. But yes, real estate, it is still known as an inflation hedge. You still hear that term thrown around a lot but I really try to use a different term not hedge I don't like hedge. Okay. In the investing world, the word hedge means something that you do to offset risks. I don't like that word used with real estate. So therefore, the word hedge that really correlates with a defensive strategy. I mean, hedge, that's probably a better term for gold. Gold is a hedge against inflation. That makes sense to me. But where I draw the distinction is that investment property bought with a loan is not merely a hedge against inflation. That's why when I coined the real estate pays five ways back in 2015, the fifth benefit, it's not called inflation hedging. It is called inflation profiting. Now, if you're only looking at the overall capital price of your real estate, even your own home, well then it's dollar denominated price alone.
Speaker 1 (00:37:42) - Well, that could be a hedge against inflation. But that's only the beginning, because when you get the fixed interest rate debt with it, now you're profiting because inflation debases your debt while the tenant makes all of the payments. And then as your rents rise with inflation, the reason that your monthly profit, your cash flow rises faster than inflation is, of course, due to the fact that your principal and interest payment stays fixed and feels really low over time. That's the inflation Triple Crown that I just described right there. And that's why when you buy investment property, REIT real estate is not just an inflation hedging vehicle, it is an inflation profiting vehicle. And today real estate isn't just scarce. It is still about 60% below the needed supply. And then amidst that, within that, single family homes are even more scarce. And then entry level homes that make the best rentals are even more scarce than that. But here on the show, we connect you with those builders and providers that are making the most in-demand properties available.
Speaker 1 (00:38:59) - Oftentimes these single family homes that are entry level. So therefore, in this environment, if you can get a hold of those, you are going to own a scarce asset that everyone wants. That's what we help you do here. But mortgage rates have been a hindrance for adding investments. But with our referral network here, we have largely solved that problem for you. We have providers that offer 5.75% mortgage rates because they buy down your rate for you less. We're going to show you've heard how a Marketplace income property provider is offering an astounding 4.75% mortgage rate. And although it has some shortcomings, there are also 2.99% seller financed investment properties that you can tie up. Yes. Today. So profit from a scarce asset that everyone wants and benefits from higher inflation. And today it really tilts toward you, often giving more consideration to new build properties because builders, they're the ones that are aggressively buying down your rate for you today. And new builds also have lower insurance rates last year. To make it easier for you, we started our free investment coaching service so contact your investment coach to help get you started.
Speaker 1 (00:40:19) - Some of our more popular markets lately are in Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Georgia in summer. So whether you like to connect with the provider on your own, if that's what you like to do or if you don't, you can then just utilize our service free of charge investment coaching. You can do all of that at GREmarketplace.com thanks to Richard Vague today until next week I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream!
Speaker 5 (00:40:57) - Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.
Speaker 1 (00:41:25) - The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. Get rich education.