Transcription
We've never seen anything like that, like this, in recorded history. So, be worried. I'm not short. I haven't sold short anything. But, uh, I am certainly worried.
As I look around the world, bonds are clearly in a bubble. Bonds have never been this expensive in the history of the world. Property in many places. You go to Korea, you go to New Zealand, you go to many places, property is certainly in a bubble. Stocks, many stocks. I mean, Amazon goes up every day. Tencent goes up every day. Samsung goes up every day. So, some stocks performing a bubble, but many stocks are still not up. So, it's not a complete bubble yet. So, there you have stocks, property, bonds, all in bubbles or forming bubbles.
The only thing that's still cheap, uh, commodities. Silver's down 60% from its all-time high. Sugar is down 70% from its all-time high. Oil is down 50%. I mean, these are not bubble numbers when you talk about big, big declines, historic declines. Uh, but with all the money being printed, the asset class in the world that I prefer at the moment would be commodities because they're cheap when everything else is booming.
I do own stocks. I do own stocks in places like China, Russia, Japan, other places. Uh, but I'm not rushing out to buy unless I find something really good. Well, I said I'm not short. Uh, I know it's going to end badly. I still, if something good comes along that's good, I'll buy. Uh, but Adam, I know this is going to end very, very, very badly. To repeat, the better it gets, the worse it's going to get when it comes to an end. I would suspect that when it ends, we're going to have the worst bare market in my lifetime.
In 2008, we had a big bare market problem because of too much debt. Adam, since 2008, the debt everywhere skyrocketed. Unbelievable. Even China has debt now. China didn't have debt 20 years ago, 15 years ago, but even China has a lot of debt now. Who's going to save us? The Chinese saved us in 2009 because they had a lot of money saved for a rainy day and they started spending it. They don't have a lot of money to spend now. Who's going to save us? North Korea. North Korea doesn't have much debt. That's why I say, but I don't think they have enough to save us because I don't think they have money saved for a rainy day like the Chinese do.
Do you have greater confidence one way or the other if this is going to end in a debt crisis or runaway money printing, or maybe both? How do you see it?
Well, first of all, I have no confidence in them. You said they, you're the other people you were talking about have confidence that they are going to save us. I have no confidence in they, whoever they are. I will say, Adam, it's a good time to be old in America because I don't have to pay for all of this when it comes to an end. My children, oh my gosh, the problems my children are going to run into in their lifetimes because of what these girl clowns are doing now. So, I say it's good to be old.
Um, but you're right, it's going to end someday, and it's going to end badly when it ends. Uh, you said either currency collapse or economic collapse. You can have both. You know, you can have one and then it leads to another. Uh, in the '30s, we had both, for instance, around the world. Uh, and then we had war and shooting war. And that's the bad, the really bad news is often in history when you have really, really bad times, especially worldwide, it winds up in shooting wars. It certainly did after the '30s. Um, so, I, it's not, it's not good news. I don't see good news. I repeat that in 2008, we had horrible problems with too much debt. Since then, the debt has gone through the roof by unbelievable amounts. And I know that's going to end badly. If we know what's going on, we'll get worried. And if we get worried, we'll probably get prepared. Then we might survive. Some people came out of the '30s very rich. Most didn't. Most lost huge amounts of money.
Well, in 2007, Iceland went bankrupt. Nobody cared. And a few months later, Ireland went bankrupt. Some noticed. Few months later, Bear Stearns went bankrupt. Ah, now we're starting to notice. And then BlackRock went bankrupt, the big bank in England. And then eventually, Lehman Brothers went. Well, then it's on the evening news. Then everybody knows. So, my point is these things snowball and they start where we're not looking, and it may have already started for all I know. I've seen some small places having problems. Um, but as I say, I'm not selling short yet. Um, because I know how much money these guys can print. Uh, and what I would suspect is going to happen, Adam, is somewhere along the line next month, stocks go down in lots of places. Well, then they're going to really panic, and because they want to keep their jobs, they're going to print even more money, and so we'll have a rally, have a rally. But I would suspect that that would be the last rally. Uh, because there's only so much. I mean, eventually the market says, "Wait a minute, guys. We've seen this movie before. We know how it ends. We don't care how much money you print."
Do you worry at all about the societal implications about what's going on here?
Absolutely. History's pretty clear that when you have bad times, there is usually social unrest. People aren't happy. Uh, and if we do, in fact, have the worst bare market of my lifetime, which I don't see how we can avoid, uh, if and when that comes, we're going to have a lot of very, very unhappy and angry people. And one difference now from the past is people really get angry now. They think that you can't do that to me. Um, you know, in the '30s, people were a little more disciplined, a little more understanding of what was going on in the world. They weren't happy. There were protests. There was some violence in the US, anyway, since that's what we're talking about. But people were a bit more accepting of the system. No, Adam, look out the window. Nobody accepts anything now. You can't do that to me. It's your fault. It's not my fault. So, no. We're certainly going to have social unrest, certainly in the US, but in other countries as well. Find out what's going on. If you do, you'll get worried, and then you'll get prepared because, Adam, it's very clear. History shows that when things go really wrong, what history shows? First of all, politicians blame foreigners. They always blame the foreigners because that's easy to do. But then it also leads to unhappy people and social unrest. I mean, one of the, I guess the main lesson of history, Adam, is people don't learn the lessons of history. I mean, I could sit here and tell you all day. We had a president recently who either didn't know history or thought he was smarter than history and it didn't matter. Well, I know history is smarter than I am, and I know it matters, and I know it always goes that way. People get very unhappy, and they look for scapegoats, and then it's not good.
They've already gotten into trillions, which you and I never could have conceived of. Most people could not have conceived of, but they don't want to stop. So, I'm wondering what's after trillions. We're going to learn new languages, new vocabulary here in the next year or two if they keep going the way they're going.
Every nearly every government, every central bank in the world has been printing huge amounts of money and borrowing and spending huge amounts of money. It's never happened like this in the history of the world. Never in recorded history have we seen so much excess. I'll call it excess. They think it's normal. They think it's fine. Uh, and this has caused many markets to go up a lot. You know, if you want to build a bridge, it takes a long time. But if you want to invest and you have a lot of money floating around, you just go on the internet and in 5 seconds, you can be, you can invest in anything you want to. And that's what's been happening, and that's what's continuing to happen. It there might be signs that it's beginning to slow down. The Chinese seem to be cutting back some. Not a lot. Well, not a lot, but they're cutting back. They're not expanding. Other countries say they're cutting back. So, and the US says, "Oh, maybe we should cut back some someday." Uh, but in the meantime, there's gigantic amounts of money floating around. It's going into markets. It's going into the real economy as well. Uh, it's artificial. If you see some of the things that, you know, the shipping business is just unbelievably hot right now because there's so much money floating around. The bad news is these things always end. And the better they get, the worse they get when they end.