Joe Rogan Experience #1002 — Peter Schiff Transcript

Transcript

0:00 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Hopefully a little of that trickles down to me. And it tends to be very long. actually, because I read an article interviewing John Paulson. Who's John Paulson? What's going on down there? It's still cheaper than the U.S. and there's no state income tax. That's all you've got, right, is the 30 percent. yourself tax-free. No tax in Puerto Rico, no tax in the United States. And that's a great deal.

4:04 there are a lot of people that have come from California to get out of California taxes or the Northeast, the Midwest. despite the fact that you don't have to pay federal income taxes there. It's the Obamacare tax. you'll get more welfare. I'm renting space. I bought a lot of property down there. You know, more and more people like me, Management. And I moved that company from Southern California. I was based in Newport

7:15 Is it like Guam, like that kind of a situation? Is that what you mean? Well, Hawaii, you got high taxes. You know, if you've got a job down there, that's a big plus because most of the Puerto Rican guys, at the pool. Hey, you're the reason that They don't need to be a state. I mean, I took high school Spanish. And if I say, do you speak English? We're on the beach and there's a lot of different places to live.

10:47 I bought a condo. I might have to. They have a higher sales tax. Yes, much higher. So if they actually became a state, they would be in worse shape than they are now. like me will come and start creating businesses and hiring people and you know five ten years You know, so that's going to be a huge problem. And so the minimum wage of $7.25 territories, our minimum wage, which included American Samoa.

14:51 there was like 30% unemployment. And all they care about is feeling good about themselves, not about the consequences of what they do. And it costs a fortune. Well, so because the wages are just off the charts. No, no. Nobody offer them two dollars. and skilled and he's an actual audio engineer. He wanted to just get you coffee and just sit around and be around you. He's not that productive.

18:58 more skills. You know, there are people that pay to get skills, right? If you go to school, Well, even that's like show up on time, be responsible. this arbitrary minimum wage. Because when you pass a minimum wage, you're not going to force can't get a job. States, it was about trying to prevent employers what good is it being unemployed at $15 an hour? It's better to be employed at $5 an hour than

22:17 No, because there are plenty of jobs where you have entry-level positions. I mean, if They checked your tires. these kids that worked in filling stations became mechanics because all these filling stations had a mechanic there. And they learned auto mechanics and a lot of them went on to own shoe store selling shoes. I mean- You're a hustler. If you can only earn the minimum wage, you shouldn't even be trying to support a family. If you can only earn the minimum

25:02 wage has already priced them out. A lot of older people now are taking those jobs. And so the employment opportunities aren't there. And not only that, you end up with less quality. There's not enough productivity cooking French fries. You can't support a family if all you can or people that don't make much money? have small government and low taxes means that there's a lot of competition for workers. And so

27:44 Plus he's good to look at. They go to Puerto Rico and they win Miss Universe. And obviously, I'm not a financial wizard like you are. I mean, people say, hey, it's not fair. But look— He's living in a different era. It's like playing poker. is going to somehow lead to greater sales. but there's a fascinating thing that's going on today where competition is

31:19 Yeah, that is the appeal of socialism because it appeals to the lowest common denominator, some money to spend. Oh, was had a monopoly on phones? But one of the weird arguments that's happening now It's hilarious. They're angry. fact that people are upset and and that i know that the economy is not as productive as it should be. going on. And so when I went down to Zuccotti Park, the point I was trying to make, and not even so

35:36 right, if you choose to buy something, if I buy something for 20 bucks, I must value what I'm Because if they're not going to make my life better, I don't do business with them. Don't blame the banks for accepting the bailout. What do they have to gain? politicians doing politicians have power right um they want you got to get the contributions. And so they're not making policy that's good economics.

38:24 liberals say vote for me and i'm going to steal from somebody else and give you what I take because the government doesn't have anything. Why couldn't the Republicans repeal Obamacare? But, you know, there's a belief out there that government is somehow going to be a more efficient provider of health care than the free market, which is just not true.

40:15 than the system we used to have or better than the system that we could have if it was a pure your routine maintenance. The reason you buy auto insurance is, hey, what if I get into a wreck and And that's how insurance works. a gas station and didn't actually pay for the gas, you just put your insurance card into the pump and they didn't even have prices.

42:48 Yeah, I mean, we have a system that government created where people rely on health insurance to pay for everything. Right. Now, here's the problem with that. Like you have to have it, whereas health insurance is not mandatory. Which is similar to what you're talking about with health insurance, The reason why auto insurance is a bad example is because you're going to hit my car and

45:36 insurance company after my house already burns down and buy the policy for the same price? discriminate against you because you have a pre-existing condition. Yes. So the way Obama And that's why premiums are skyrocketing because nobody wants to buy because the penalties problem was the taxes were too, the penalties were too low. They needed to jack those penalties up

47:45 people more money if they're already sick. And it's because of that, that's why healthy people People didn't worry about medical bills. because we do all these things that we didn't do. Or they drag out the payments. And so this MacBook Air, obviously, this cost me like $1,200, $1,400. Healthcare today should be cheaper. All of the new technology should be bringing down the cost of medicine.

50:54 I mean, it's just the unintended consequences. require everybody to listen to the Joe Rogan podcast if that was mandatory? Force them to listen to my podcast instead. Some Swiss company can't come over here to California. Hell, they won't even let companies You have to pay off the people that helped put you in office. And, you know, he wants to help other, you know, Democrats get elected, you know, and maintain

53:02 this is a good idea, right? Right. I think they were like $500 or $600. Remember long distance? Now I have unlimited. Yes. And then quality. of the policies that that guy was proposing, and some of this, the idea of, you know, Robin Hooding, You one percenter. is all about the individual. It's about freedom and recognizing the value of the individual and

56:54 socialist experiments. And, you know, you can look at the countries that are the most prosperous, And President Trump was tweeting out not too long ago, not just more people voting for other socialists. So the appeal of socialism, essentially the same appeal of turning Puerto Rico into a state, that you're going to get something for it. these programs. It's not because they're mean. It's just that they recognize the unintended

59:03 70-something years old? And he thinks like a like a teenager i mean he didn't learn anything from all this life experience you know Some people would say, no, it's not what I want. of life. And, you know, if you want to get a job, I mean, somebody has to hire you. Somebody has to have the capital. Somebody has to be able to pay you. Right. You're not going to

1:01:06 you would say, that's wrong, right? You can't do that. They shouldn't be able to use it to influence politicians. And that is not a fault of capitalism. That is a fault of government. When you empower government And now, obviously, are there going to be people who are just born, they're just not, 90 cents is going to go to the people who need money.

1:03:59 want to expand poverty. They want more poverty because then their program gets bigger. Then they Wouldn't you love to have a debate with him? These ideas are very pervasive in our culture, and they were thought to be the solution to the ales that we're in. If you're going to bail out those banks, why not bail out the little guy? have lost their jobs, and they didn't. And so that's a moral hazard, because the government

1:06:39 That's why for years, you know, while the housing bubble was going up, I was pointing this stuff out. we're coming to, the next one, is going to be much worse than the one we had in 08. the positive had lost some money. Yes, they would have. But, you know, I agree that had we not done the bailouts, it would have been worse, but it would have been healthy. It would have been a step in

1:08:45 possibilities, like having no bailout, and we're looking at us here nine years later, But at the cost of exacerbating the underlying disease that is the cause of the pain. But we do have rising rents. Nobody has the guts to tell the truth to the voters. Everyone wants to pretend that they've when the cost of living is skyrocketing, that is going to be a big problem for a lot of people.

1:12:11 Yeah. maybe aren't, they weren't on television saying it. But what's going to happen is we are going to go back at some point into another statistic recession. They're going to do exactly what they did before. They're going to take interest rates and bring them back to zero them back up to normal. So you had a few years of artificially low interest rates, and that gave us

1:14:32 And now what happens to the dollar? Because, see, the dollar has been rising these past few years And then when the crisis hit, it actually caused people to buy the dollar. was happening because the dollar was falling. for banks. They're going to destroy the banks. They're going to destroy the housing market. I I mean, right now, interest rates are almost zero, and we're spending about $250 billion a year on interest.

1:17:07 It's true. But, and so, obviously the Fed has to keep interest rates low so the government can service Is that a trillion? But that's the largest budget item. God. If interest rates spike, there's no way that the government can pay that debt. a candidate and he got elected because by and large, he told the truth about the phony nature They're not counted as being unemployed.

1:19:39 working fewer hours so i'm going to have to have more i have more jobs right if i have where labor force participation is collapsing is with young people. People in their 20s and 30s can't get jobs. Meanwhile, 70 and 80 year olds are working in record percentages, And Trump said, well, it's a bubble. This is fantastic. He was going to drain the swamp.

1:22:20 He's surrounded himself with the same cronies that were around in the Bush administration. I mean, what good is going back to Bush? What is his incentive to do this in the But, you know, does he think about his legacy? I mean, does he want to actually So they were there. But I mean, I voted for him, but that was why I vote for him because I didn't want to vote for Hillary.

1:24:16 They don't have congressional representation, because it was like he was like the best protest vote I could cast, I thought. he might lose. I mean, I didn't think it was 100 percent guaranteed, but I thought he was It's already great. And the average guy doesn't feel so great to me. Obama, which he didn't. And now, look, it's a mess. So he should not be claiming credit yet

1:27:13 hey, wait a minute, we're going to get tax cuts, we're going to get regulatory reform, We're going to lower taxes, but we're not going to reduce government spending. And the real sad part is no one is talking about The middle class. We're not going to make ourselves rich by spending money on infrastructure. Oh, yes, let's repeal it. or Ryancare, right? I didn't even like this whole idea. Let's repeal and replace. But repeal,

1:30:01 they're covered. If they're going in there and they have cancer, they can still get covered. I may get it next year, in two or three years. The question is, what do you do with the person who made the mistake of not buying insurance when they were healthy, Well, first of all, the best thing is to make sure that person buys the insurance policy while he's still healthy.

1:31:34 It's all this other crap that they want to mandate that makes it so expensive. Doctors get a lot of satisfaction from helping people. Look, it's funny. whatever they have background music on in the Starbucks. And so he asked the guy behind the is the most ridiculous. I mean, I remember when I, you know, in California, this is a true story. Now, I've never even seen a stripper in a wheelchair,

1:34:58 I mean, just because I'm hard of hearing doesn't mean the whole world has to accommodate the fact that I'm hard of single swimming pool in the country have to accommodate somebody in a wheelchair? Why can't people who have wheelchairs go on the internet and find out which hotels are catering to that It was like a dog beach, and I forget the name of it.

1:36:39 They had to have those spots, but they didn't have to have some sort of a ramp access to the beach because that's nature. the solution is not the Americans Disabilities Act. And, you know, there are a lot of employers Well, I've heard this argument about women in tech. If what she's saying is true, that they create this hostile work environment for women, they shouldn't

1:38:40 employees. They don't sue that one guy. And I can have all the policies I want, but, you know, guys are horny. And so the easier you make it to sue, the less likely you're going to get a job. easier if I just talk about Jews versus something else. But so let's say somebody doesn't want If there was a restaurant that had a sign that said no blacks, there's no way I would eat there.

1:40:58 You name me one, you find one restaurant in this country with the internet that put out a sign, right. You know, you have this big movement because we had the riots in Charlottesville statues, nothing's going to change. Now they have to get rid of something else. account that I retweeted Because he was a good killer. So was George Washington. differently about slavery than I do today? There's a good chance that I would. I mean, it was the

1:43:54 those statues have been And so it was a reaction. A long time ago, right? The part that was bad is the part that went into the private realm and said, if you are a private person, you can't discriminate. All the women that you, you know, you can't just date white women. You're not Jewish. So look, employers are, you don't lose your rights because you create a business.

1:47:06 You're not holding any power over someone. Discrimination, but you're being discerning more than anything, right? You're being racist or sexist. Being discriminating- Or homoph picky, right? Right. You're talking about discriminating based on a factor like race or sexist or homophobic. I'm less likely to get sued if I have to terminate him because he's not doing a good job because he can't claim.

1:48:25 Is that statistically true? you fired me so it is it is a statistic a statistic that somebody can consider anti-women if you're trying to make a and just hedging your bets? Well, you know what? No. I don't care. turn down a better quality female worker and you're going to settle for somebody who can't do Because one of the things about that memo was the gentleman that was fired, what is

1:51:04 Yeah, I mean... They were discriminating on, like, discriminating against straight white males But what he was trying to do is point out the fact that fewer women are just in programming. And what's ironic is he's suing. That was the main reason they publicly stated that he was being fired for it. my principles are consistent. But I do think that they probably violated California labor law in the

1:53:55 you know, there's going to be certain ways that the average man is going to be different than This is something that's been studied. That's like if the UFC said, listen, we need more women fighters. Because that's mostly a masculine thing. about being sexually harassed. Maybe they're worried about discrimination of other men on the job. Maybe they're worried about being sexually harassed.

1:56:02 When it's not. And also, you know, I don't like this idea when you say, you know, oh, I was offended, right? I don't want to be offended. offended by the fact that i believe in the free market or people could be offended that i think looking beyond sex and looking beyond, you know, race and just hiring based on ability and based I would only hire women.

1:59:24 It appeals to women to get She didn't travel as much. that they make along the way and you're gonna earn the same as the guy. the money is right so the votes are with employees much more people have jobs than create jobs, right? So if he's going to give you more vacation, it's because he's going to pay you less in wages. It's a thing that people do in order to get you to lean towards them more and to have people feel that this person is looking out for my needs, this person is looking out for my point of view and my perspective, and he understands the plight that women go through.

2:02:58 Right. Because otherwise, I would support the law. Right. See, when I think about most liberals, You give politicians all this power and then you trust them to use it benevolently. They're going to use the taxes for good. or where they go to school. The whole socialist system. mean, if there's money to be made, an entrepreneur is going to come in and satisfy that desire.

2:05:47 But when people are struggling, they really like the idea that at least education is free for their children. The stuff that you get from the free market that you pay for is much less expensive and it's a much higher quality. So now people go to college and they graduate with a mortgage without a house. You know, I mean, my father went to college, They would have been better off having a summer job instead of just partying all summer

2:08:07 It is terrible. Or consequences. I worked to the people who were working on Bourbon Street. Right. They were strippers. They were bouncers. without college. They could have done it right out of high school without all this debt. You've got a worthless degree. You've got politicians that are saying everybody needs to have a college degree. OK, well, if everybody

2:10:48 or not politicians, maybe colleges. Because think about the typical person is actually making more money than the guy who went to college. Maybe he started a business, You can get it online. Well, I'm anti the government saying the only way to get educated is to have a school do it. I mean, now anybody, any kid in a poor inner city has Yeah. Speaking of the Internet, I know we've spent a lot of time here,

2:13:39 And I'm as skeptical about them now. Right. And the fact that I don't believe it, I'm just, you know, I'm either a fool. And I never tried to equate the two. And that's where I see the similarity in the cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin. yes, dollars and euros and yen, intrinsically, there's no value there. It's just a piece of paper and they're created out of thin air. But that wasn't always the case. I mean,

2:16:58 It was very inefficient barter. It has value. you can buy a suit of clothes today, a nice suit of clothes for an ounce of gold. So, you know, I mean, I can't scrape off a little piece of it and buy a cup of coffee. I can break it in half in tenths, you know, and it's divisible. But it can't happen because there is no value that ultimately Bitcoin has that can be stored.

2:20:22 cryptocurrency is based on the willingness of somebody else to accept it in It's nothing. Right. So if somebody comes up with a better cryptocurrency, then what's your Bitcoin worth? But, you know, I don't think any of these, you know, you have like They hope it's going to go up in value. their Bitcoin. They're using dollars. They're selling their Bitcoin and then they're not actually using their Bitcoin.

2:22:15 You can use your Bitcoin and you can purchase gold with the Bitcoin. You sold a digital currency. At one point, somebody would give you a lot of money for that stock, and now they'll give you nothing. it. The only thing I can do with my Bitcoin is give it to somebody else. But I know people think, There's a company and, you know, it called Gold Money, goldmoney.com.

2:24:12 They sell it to you for one half of 1% over spot. And now you own that gold, right? I can just transfer my ownership to somebody else. in the short run, let's assume that somebody... Is that a gold card? heavy. Like, listen. Well, we'll make you one. I need one. We can get you one. Well, the idea is very appealing.. Wow, I need one of those in my life. We'll make you one.

2:26:21 But I think that government fiat money does not work. But let's say I go to a merchant who doesn't want gold because he doesn't know any better. So I can spend my gold now, but the merchant is actually not getting gold. and they're going to get burned. And then the government's going to say, you see, we told you gold, you know, that he was storing and he would write an IOU and, you know, and the person would

2:29:36 your gold, but instead of giving the person the piece of paper that you can go back, you actually I mean, it's going to be cheap. can store your gold. And a year later, two years later, you know it's going to have value, right? We can use gold now in a way that, you know, our forefathers never could. We've become broke with this fiat standard. But the people who are buying these cryptocurrencies should be buying gold.

2:32:46 what they were buying. Gold is money in the Constitution. It says But it was the greenback. then what is the government going to do? I mean, the source of the government's power really is the money they spend. We don't need the government to make gold money. but i have this this in my wallet right i can Yeah, I, but I can carry, if I have $100,000 worth of gold, I have $100,000 in this wallet.

2:35:48 getting greedy. A lot of people think, oh, these things are going to be worth a million dollars a bull market in cryptocurrencies. I think it's a bubble. And I think the people who are making But they haven't sold, because they think it's going to $10 million. like me doesn't get it, because they need more people. They need a bigger market. They need more

2:38:14 okay, well, if it sells off, it's just going to rally back. What if it doesn't? It doesn't have The only problem there is the government won't like that They know all the KYC. If I was going to blackmail you and I was going to threaten to shut down your podcast unless you send me some money, I can demand payment in Bitcoin. I can't afford to do that business in Bitcoin.

2:40:33 Well, they should go to the website goldmoney.com, just open up an account online. And so when you open up your account, they'll give you a little free gold. account, you have your money in a bank account. What if the bank fails? This money is banked. It doesn't matter how much money the government prints. I mean, and again, there are other people that say, oh, Peter, you know,

2:43:03 commissions. And if people took their money and bought gold, I wasn't making any money, but I thought they should buy it because it was the right thing to do. the monetary system that our founders believed in. That's what was embodied in the Constitution, you own that gold. It's worth it. Yes, because Yeah. Actually better than a black card. Yeah, they sign you up.

2:44:43 Listen, we're going to come back. Thank you.