Joe Rogan Experience #1145 — Peter Schiff Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The countdown. Three hours? It's just basically talking to a friend. They stopped occupying? And so Reason TV did it, that said, I am the 1%. and we were losing the light. You can see by the end, you know, it's getting, it's getting darker. capitalism was, you know, the solution, not the source of their problems and that they, and i learned more and now thanks to you i'm a total libertarian or a free market capitalist and so it's it served its purpose yeah well it was

3:13 Yeah, and it's a lot easier just to talk about something just emotionally instead of interference in the economy and that the protests should be and it was all over the world. They were occupying here and occupying there. And they were setting up But the end is still the same. The interesting thing about socialism is that no matter how many times it fails,

6:05 reaction that people have is kind of another thing. The emotional reaction is there's rich don't care about money. better because the customers are in charge, individuals, right? That's what's going to It was the businesses that they created, the products that they invented, the services that they provided, and the employment, right, that was all a function of their creating their wealth.

8:36 communist, you are a socialist. But by but it doesn't mean that if you're a socialist, you're And that's an important aspect of fascism. I mean, a lot of people associate fascism with frustrated with the current system? And so they see someone like Bernie Sanders come along that offers this radical change of pace? or someone who has got a radical new approach.

10:43 maybe shows that the U.S. electorate has moved right, right, that we're more Republican or more free market. full time job. So the real unemployment number is much, much higher. And Trump talked about that. You know, and he appealed to people's, you know, their fears about immigrants. is president during this first term, which I think will be the only term. But when all the people...

12:51 compression? I don't know, five, six years. So this one is long, but also this one required the best quarter of the year. Maybe we're probably going to go downhill. But, you know, last year was, able to blame it on Trump because Trump has come in and, you know, claim credit for this great Commercial real estate? Is it credit? What is it? government doesn't need as much money. And you can, you know, you can relieve the taxpayer of the burden of paying for it. And that's great.

16:21 long before the end of Trump's term. So you think that this is what is causing the economy to be in a really, at least to look like it's in a really healthy state right now? what would you do to try to keep the economy moving in the face and Trump is not But and look at the workers, the population. school and learn a trade. I mean, a lot of people, you know, they don't have the aptitude for, you

19:22 of debt. And so we don't have a lot of people qualified to do a lot of things that need to be done. So what would you He's been president for a little over a year. He's going to have this trade war that he's convinced that we could win. That's because interest rates have been kept too low. But, you know, and Trump is right. And the income tax that was originally proposed really was a tax on the very rich.

23:16 income taxes today than they used to pay in tariffs. But now, now the president wants to We've got to cut entitlements. Why would we fight them in space? They're down on Earth. Well, maybe they want to fight in space. us? Who are we going to fight in space? Maybe we fight the Russians in space. Why would we fight anyone's going to mess with us. The problem is our

24:49 Like the Chinese are sending us all these products that they worked hard to produce and they had to use real resources, land, labor, capital to make these products. But we just don't live like a poor nation yet because we're still borrowing. Yeah, imposed on us globally And then we have to allow the Federal Reserve to let the market set interest rates.

26:52 they can't afford. You buy something if you have the money to pay for it. You don't just put it on would be that spending and people buying things is great for the economy. We need more of that. They're always telling you to not buy their stuff. Was it a national security threat or something? But, you know, whenever they talk, look, they're talking about the auto tariffs,

29:38 So why is Trump doing this? Plus, it's great for our environment because we don't have to pollute our own air because the factories are over there. buying stuff. And it also actually undermines a lot of American businesses that export yeah, that'd be great. I mean, the lower taxes are, the better it's going to be, but not if you certainly, you know, they raised lower taxes for some people, but they raised taxes for other

33:10 they were last year in the way it impacts the payer. So there's a big increase in state tax. You're like Mad Max out there. Trump had already won. I see them now on the beach. And they moved there just in time for the hurricane. My community weathered a storm the damage and the community got up and, you know, up and running a lot quicker. And so I'm ready for the next hurricane.

36:21 And so these guys moved out. the welfare state that's there. And it, you know, and the minimum wage in Puerto Rico is effectively But all of a sudden, all these big guys down there in Puerto Rico, they'll probably say something again because obviously they watch your podcast. wants a guy that has a job. for that, right? and they can write a blog, and then you talk about what they wrote because you were upset

38:38 Not only that, it's favorable. You've just got to be living in your parents' basement. By saying they want a man with a job? They don't care at all. Is she hot? Right. If a woman Really? Does he have a good sense of humor? part of the whole political correctness thing I just don't buy it. You know, this one of these contestants, I read the story, but one of the contestants on The Bachelorette, apparently on his Instagram page, he liked some jokes that, you know,

41:44 That's part of what makes them funny. They trade in being offended. Just saying it. Well, color to me. That's an interesting have individual rights. And so men and women have rights because they're individuals. They don't get not only did they not do that but they weren't making custom cakes so they didn't make custom They probably went to 100 bakeries to find the one that wouldn't bake them a cake.

45:18 So everybody wants to do a wedding cake. was religious reasons, and that's what the Supreme Court, I think, went on religious freedom. But It's still possible, right? I mean, I'd like to know, like, right up front that this guy who's about to bake my cake hates Jews. have, but I can't force you to give me something I don't have. And just because I feel a certain

48:13 had sex with women and you charged them money. Nice. Yeah, that's your job. Now, what if a dude Not if it's your business. Doesn't matter whether he's a guy or a girl. And you can say, what if it's not sex? you could make more money if you And you don't get offended. discriminate. The employee can discriminate. Right. Nobody would say, you know, hey, if I let's say

50:47 But the employer can do it all – the employee can do it all he wants. They can keep searching until they found the gay baker. And they can't force you to eat there if you don't want to. I'm not going to stop them from saying things. But now you're going to say, oh, you fired that person because he's black. Yes, I did see that. And on call doesn't mean he was actually driving.

53:44 Maybe it was 50 hours a week or 55 hours a week. lawsuit now the point he's out of work no he's still working there he's still working there he able to sue you. But I also wanted to point out on, you know, the overtime laws, You want more money. Well, your boss says, well, I'm sorry. But now I've got to get from my full-time job to my part-time job.

56:43 the same companies. government should stay out of it you know and that way time and half is a government law yes it's all But all of this should be free for discussion. You know, it's interesting because you have the liberals believe that, hey, there's another benefit that I would prefer to have that I could get but I can't because of government laws are requiring things that I don't want.

58:50 You're hurting the least skilled people. let's say the minimum wage is $8 an hour, hour worth of skills and I can't get a job to improve my skills, I'm stuck in unemployment been able to acquire job skills that would allow them to make much more money per hour Well, first of all, we didn't always have a minimum wage in the United States. It's an extremely wealthy country, right?

1:01:55 are furious about it. This happened years ago, actually. And the reason I even found out about the mainland. But the minute they raised the minimum wage, they made the production uncompetitive, you know, a lot of kids, you know, they're 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. I mean, people live with their I mean, I'm sure what you're saying, this free market capitalism approach,

1:04:11 minimum wage came from, you know, to try to prevent employers from hiring certain people. or an unskilled person. And let's say I can hire three unskilled people for $5 an hour, It is a mess for the people that get priced out of a job. what is her name that won in uh new york yeah you know she's actually half puerto rican one of my uh Yeah, that's her.

1:06:44 Nice-looking woman, too, actually. Beautiful. Yeah. She's a woman of color Yeah, you know Nice looking woman too actually We're not supposed to She won in a district where she didn't even run. Well, I don't think you could have two House seats simultaneously. It was the corporations. everyone in the country. the government digging holes and filling them. We want real jobs. And how does the private sector know what jobs are needed? It's demand. It's individuals that want

1:09:38 And the idea that, well, what are we going to do? mentioned earlier, is the economy is in bad shape because of all the government. That's what went back to the Occupy Wall Street is that the people are protesting because there's serious problems They promised the students something for nothing. And so all of this is the fault of government. great again, because I'm different. Because what's working, what we have now is not working.

1:12:33 that bad. Right. I mean, you know, you know, you were fine. But this next crisis, even if you don't dollar. So they're not going to reflate the bubble in stocks. They're going to prick the bubble in The Fed came up with a test that everybody passed. what if interest rates go up to 5% or 8%, 10%? What happens then, right? All the banks collapse They're going to say, well, inflation is the lesser of the two evils, but it's actually

1:15:32 But I think they're going to let inflation get a lot worse. And what that's going to mean You have gold that you can actually transact in. I can take my gold and I can send it this, and a lot of people got frustrated. I got a lot of emails from people who were frustrated. another means of, you know, transacting with other people where you can have some protection

1:17:51 Yeah, well, you're going to have to get, I'm not sure if they're going to preload your what it is. So it's always like Mixed with steel? Yeah, like $1,400. It's M-E-N-E If you spend $1,000 at Manet, you're going to get $800 worth of gold. My wife wears this Binet jewelry all the time. short run if we lose access to all those goods that we're not having to pay for with exports.

1:21:36 $50,000, $100,000 worth of gold, I wouldn't spend it on jewelry, right? You could just buy, you know, So you wouldn't want to have all your gold in jewelry. much about gold. But it's weird that gold is one of those things that's universally been thought of as valuable, like forever. I mean, look, central banks own a lot of gold. a very small piece of gold, you could plate this entire table. Exactly, yeah. I've never seen that happen,

1:24:18 ideally suited to be money. from money. Money has to be a commodity. It has to have value. And that's where Bitcoin fails. confirmed to me from several sources that basically everybody was saying But they wanted to propose it initially before the debate, get your thoughts. So it's almost like I got caught up in the Bitcoin propaganda. Look, you know, I feel badly in that – well, first of all, some of them got very rich.

1:27:24 But this bubble was tailor-made for me. If there was ever a bubble that I missed out on the Bitcoin bubble. But this bubble was big spender. Well, you know what happened is Just in case. of people are, you know, what Peter Schiff got wrong They think it's going to go to a million dollars or plus. $100 million? Yeah, I don't know. There's 1,500 to 2,000 of these other cryptocurrencies.

1:30:22 And it's only scarce because it's coded to be scarce. I get into a lot of arguments with these crypto guys, because they say, well, gold doesn't have currency. In fact, most of our paper currency transactions are digital anyway. I mean, recorded on some government computer. Even though these are fatally fraud currencies, they're still going to look better than the cryptocurrencies of the people who have lost a lot of money.

1:33:34 good and the free market look bad. But, you know, people get caught up in frenzies all the time. It I have to be able to make a loan. work would be cryptocurrencies that were backed by a real commodity like gold. And that can work. Take this piece of paper, and now you own the gold, right? gold, a tiny amount of gold. I can just send it to you for free. And now you own that gold because

1:36:49 of years. And, you know, you have reliable third parties that can hold on to something of real in the trying to say we have the greatest economy in history, I mean, it isn't even close. I mean, forget about the fact You know, there was just freedom here. substantially diminish the size of government. But part of that would be to return to sound money, and that would be gold.

1:39:33 No, no, they're not correct at all. Yeah, and so first of all, the tax breaks didn't start until 2012. everybody else in Puerto Rico is paying. But what enticed a lot of people to move to Puerto Rico was So some of my salary is taxed as high as 30%. taxes that brought all these people to Puerto Rico who never would have been there. And they're now didn't already live there. But by bringing a lot of wealthy people down there to Puerto Rico,

1:43:39 mean geographically it may be about the size i think it's like 30 miles maybe, and that's the length. It's skinnier than that. To go to the West Coast, no, you've got to change planes. It's like Kentucky. You still have food stamps. jobs, have left the island. Like, if you think a high minimum wage is the productive people, people who want jobs have left the island.

1:46:26 not going to pay any federal income taxes. It's all tax-free. Now, if you loan money to a Puerto They can promise all sorts of goodies to people who vote for them. What's the Jones Act again? use a U.S. ship. You can't use a foreign ship, right? So And what's also great about it is it has a real culture. And I've been there now long enough that I would go there even without the tax breaks.

1:49:42 Again, it has to do with government. Jones Act. So all the food in Puerto Rico is more expensive. or bring it to Barbados or someplace else. be thriving, but for the Jones Act, but also it is diminishing the standard of living of Puerto Rican international commerce is being limited by the Jones Act. Now, this also affects Hawaii. they don't stop off at Hawaii.

1:53:09 They'd have to pay the federal gas tax. can afford it more because Hawaiians, on average, have more money. And so if your average income is They need more freedom. Because guys like you, the free market capitalist guys, you're always saying, this this is the solution. Capitalism is solution. Give people freedom is solution. Deregulation, Because people are smarter than other people, more ambitious, harder working.

1:56:00 is that everybody is better off. When you end up with socialism, you equalize democracy. I mean, people vote for crazy things. That's why the that in the last 10 years, they've gone the other way. They've lowered income taxes, And it's not. in Sweden, I think the VAT is about 30 percent sales tax that you have to pay. I mean, this is progress. But the Swedish people have recognized that. And that's why the reforms

1:59:38 Previous to being socialist, were they successful with capitalism? What is it about socialism that's so appealing to people if there's no examples of it being Yeah, look. Certainly, it's a lack of understanding of economics. a democratic socialist and everybody gets fired up and is it ignorance yeah look it you know You just never – person. I mean, think about, I mean, the guy

2:01:43 Look. the voting age was because of Vietnam, because I would say 25 because that's the age that your frontal cortex develops. It's a territory. But so if the important thing about voting is not that you get to vote. The important thing is to have good It's there to protect us, right? It's there protecting life, liberty, property. And so the Because most people, they know who they're going to vote for.

2:04:52 OK, let's have responsible people voting who understand what they're voting for, who have actually lived and worked in the economy, who have had a job, who have paid taxes, who have run businesses, who have employed people. Because they don't know any better. They don't get it, right? now they're now they're ignorant and and mean well not just mean but harassing like people

2:07:03 It's just that the minute he won, well, about the phony economy and how we have to – the numbers are not right and we have to shrink government. those policies as well, and he So this is all predicated on your initial view that the economy is going to crash inside different talk shows saying, this is going to crash, and people weren't listening to you. And

2:08:46 You were the one guy that called it. I was like the gloom and doom guy, Dr. Doom. But over the last few years, nobody will talk to me. Now they probably think it's impossible that I could be right. crisis happened, Congress had a hearing to try to determine why we had a financial crisis. So I thought they would never invite me back, and they actually invited me back.

2:11:51 Yeah, now I have my own platform. I have a lot more people who listen to my podcast and We're going to have trillion dollar deficits. And that's not happened yet. And what's the difference between bubbles and an actual functioning economy that's Everybody is out there spending. So we're not doing that. We're all living based on a bubble, based on cheap money being sped out into the economy.

2:14:48 I mean, that's nothing. people can't get jobs because they have no skills. So the economy is not real, right? It's all this One, what is going to happen that's going to cause this big collapse you predicted way back in 2007 that hasn't actually hit yet? common sense out of you. But to get back to your question, this is how – Right. normally bring them. They never shrank the balance sheet. So now all of a sudden,

2:18:28 Ultimately, a lot of that inflation, though, is going to end up in the supermarket, right, at the gas station. trillion dollar balance sheet, how are you going to shrink a six or a seven trillion dollar balance going to the moon. We borrowed all sorts of money. We ran big deficits. And the consequence interest rates but that saved the dollar and it it broke the inflationary cycle that was in the

2:21:18 that didn't affect the majority of the debt that was out there, that only increased the cost to the government of the new debt that came out, right, the new borrowing. But today, the $21 trillion national can't really fight inflation ability to fight inflation. That means the dollar is a bottomless pit. That means the dollar is And then we get a currency crisis, right, where the dollar is plunging.

2:23:43 environment where socialism can thrive, because socialists always want to look for a scapegoat. Who can we So let me ask you this. that were listening to me on the campaign trail. right? If you go look at the debate I did with Art Laffer in 2006 when he said everything was great If he calls you up and says, what do I do? The reason I saw the crisis coming, the housing bubble, it wasn't that I was so smart.

2:26:15 I said, we're going to have to shrink government. to create it. Nobody wants to admit into it now, there's strong odds started, it was a one percent tax on payroll and it was only a small amount. And then the employer The government figured if you're smart enough to run your own business, well, then you're smart enough to save for your own retirement.

2:28:46 They're insolvent right now because there's nothing in them. it's not an asset at all. That makes sense. It's a liability. constitutional was because it wasn't legitimate. They said it was just like any other welfare Government is like, you know, it's like if you're trying to run a marathon and you've got a 50-pound sack on your back, you know, you're not going to run very fast. The secret is to take some

2:31:04 And so their lifestyle, it's not going to be as enjoyable to them. There's going to be getting up early and training. And so their So there's going to be some transition there. We're going to also have to get rid of a lot It's companies becoming more valuable because they're earning more and producing more. is a ruse. Yeah. And a lot of people who are not working have to start working. They got to start doing stuff. We got to get people off of, you know, the dole and start, you know, they're

2:33:16 But, you know, that's all going to make us richer. It's not the only solution. do the work for us, Think of all the free time now that you have. So the idea that universal basic income is the only solution to that isn't appealing to you because you think that they really – the real solution is not to give them free money. you improve your lot in life, if you go out there and you become productive, we're not going to punish you by taking away your welfare. Well, the better answer

2:35:57 Do you really think that that would ever fly in this country? But if we're willing to do without the government, then we don't need the taxes. The word school is not mentioned. They all had buggies back then, and they were writing with feathers. military for a fraction of what we currently pay. But I think the federal government should be predominantly focused on external matters.

2:37:59 They all surround Washington, D.C. you know, there's this federal, you know, abortion. The important part of the Constitution The Constitution only authorizes a few powers to the federal government. They're enumerated there enforcing the law on the government and making the government abide by the law. I mean, the laws that constitutional government to this republic. We are going to make sure the government only does

2:40:50 the more prosperous we're going to be. Now, second step, what does a person like me do to stop or to You know, I was his biggest defender after the Access Hollywood stuff. He wasn't saying that for public consumption. person who is literally known How does a person like me prevent the damage? we need to do and what you can do with your audience, which is much bigger than mine,

2:43:27 I said if a ship is going to sink and I can get you off the ship onto a lifeboat, then when the ship goes down, you might be able to help some of the people out of the water if you're not drowning yourself. Nobody is perfect. dollar lost two-thirds of its value. The reason oil prices went up tenfold in the 70s, the reason right, which you can buy, you know, larger quantities of gold through shift gold. You know,

2:45:33 and you want to buy it as cheap as you can over spot. up the most, if you really want to potentially make a lot of money on this crisis, it'll be gold The voice of doom and the voice of reason all in one man. See, time flies.