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 The point I wanted to try to make is that yes, there are an incredible number of problems in the United States, too many to list. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the world is in great shape. And I feel like a lot of times the articles are framed that China holds all the cards and has the upper hand. But when you dig in to China with the same level of forensic analysis that people do on the United States day after day, you realize they're in a lot of trouble as well. I'm here at Rebel Capitalist Live once

again with my friend Brent Johnson. He, you know, we used to be neighbors and uh now I moved up into the mountains. So, it has it's been a while since I've seen him. Brent, how you doing? I'm good. Good to see you. Great. So, um uh you know, you said once that there will come a time when the dollar and gold both rise together. Tell me about that. Well, essentially what I the point I was trying to get across was that fiat currency loses value over time. That's it's just the nature of the beast,

right? But for many reasons, the US dollar has many advantages over other fiat currencies. But because governments around the world all try to deal with the same problems in the same way, increase stimulus, bailouts, increase the money supply, inflate their way out of the debts that they have, I thought we would get into a situation where all fiat currency was losing value versus gold, but that all other fiat currencies was losing value versus the US dollar. And in many ways, we've seen that over

the last four or five years. And we've seen gold do dramatically well, especially over the last two years. Um, and the dollar has risen versus its fiat peers, you know, over the last two or three years, over the last 10 years. And so, we've sort of seen that. Now, whether that continues, I'm not sure. I don't know. But I I'm I just think that this is a day and age with all the uncertainty in the world. I think that gold should be the kind of the cornerstone of every portfolio. And I

don't really care what the price does. I don't I think, you know, it goes up over time. Is it going to go up every day? Probably not. Is there going to be pullbacks along the way? Probably so. But it doesn't change the fact that it provides a great foundation for an overall diversified portfolio. Uh your presentation uh was largely about how China contains so much risk. I mean people think that uh the US is in sort of a bad situation with debt and so on. Uh but you had some great charts and

some great insights. Tell us a little bit about your presentation. Yeah. Well, the part of the reason I did the presentation is over the last six months as Trump has come into power and started to implement his vision for the world, a lot of people have said, and perhaps rightly so, this is going to cause a number of problems for the United States. And we've seen that been expressed in the capital markets. But I haven't seen too many people talk about the problems this causes for the rest of

the world. I feel like it's always framed as this is bad for the United States. Trump is crazy for trying this. what is he trying to do? And the point I wanted to try to make is that yes, there are an incredible number of problems in the United States. Too many to list. But that doesn't mean that the rest of the world is in great shape. And I feel like a lot of times the articles are framed that China holds all the cards and has the upper hand. But when you dig in to China with the same level of forensic

analysis that people do on the United States day after day, you realize they're in a lot of trouble as well. They their banking system has $60 trillion worth of loans in it. The whole the entire United States economy is 28 trillion. So they created and this has all been loaned into existence in the last 20 25 years. So they created $60 trillion of debt in a quarter of a century that the United States hasn't created in 200 years. So if you think the debt in the United States is a is a problem, I think you need to hold China

to the same standard and say the debt in China is a problem. And part of the issue that I tried to highlight was the way that they were able to do that incredible amount of GDP growth that they've had over the last 25 years was via foreign direct investment coming in and then borrowing against it, leveraging up the system, creating all these loans and putting it into the economy. That's fine as long as it keeps going in that direction. Mhm. But but when the tide turns and the capital starts to flow

out and part of the way that China was able to attract all that investment was that they pegged their currency and made it stable. When the capital starts to flow out, if that if they no longer have the dollar reserves to maintain that currency peg, it can lead to a dramatic outflow. And the last time we saw a small devaluation of the Chinese currency in 2015, it caused havoc for two or three weeks in global markets. And I think that is a risk again. That same thing could happen again, especially because

15 years ago, we were not in an adversarial relationship with China. I think anybody who's been paying attention now knows that there's an adversarial relationship between the United States and China. China. And I think when you're trying to reset a system the way Trump is trying to reset a system, you're inevitably going to have unintended consequences come out of that. And that will ultimately also mean unintended consequences for countries around the world, not just the United

States. And I think something like a Chinese yuan deval could be an unintended consequence. I don't think that Trump necessarily wants that to happen because that would probably cause a global crisis. I don't think Trump wants a global crisis. I think he wants a great beautiful deal where everybody wins and the United States stays on top. I think by trying to achieve that he may cause some unintended consequences that leads to some outcomes that many people are not ready for. And so that was the

kind of the presentation. Yeah. And we learned with long-term capital management and then uh the global financial crisis of 2008, the derivatives just connect every economy. And if any major economy sneezes today, the whole world catches a cold. Right. That's exactly right. And this is what what you just described is really kind of the point I've kind of been making for several years now with my whole dollar milkshake theory. Not that the US dollar is a great currency, not that the US United States is the greatest country

in the world, but that as it stands right now, the entire world runs on dollars. Yeah. Right. And so if if a problem develops in that US dollar system, it's a problem for the whole world. It's not just a problem for the United States. And the unintended consequences of trying to reset that system, I think, could be more dramatic than many people expect. Wow. Okay. Some profound statements from Brent Johnson. So what's your website? Uh santiago Capitalap.com. Awesome. Santiago Capital. Uh he manages money for high-

netw worth individuals. I want to thank you for watching. This is Rebel Capitalist Live.