Jason Hartman is joined by returning guest and best-selling author of The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin, for a discussion of the hot topic of the United States’ “fiscal cliff.”
As Mr. Griffin shares, the fiscal cliff is nothing new. It has been there for roughly 50 years and applying a name to it now is a scare tactic by the government. Mr. Griffin talks about fractional reserve banking and how it has led to the economic mess our country and world are in today. It is no longer a fractional reserve; it is at zero reserve and Mr. Griffin feels the economy is going to collapse from all of the borrowing to pay old debt. This will lead to a fully regimented society, which Mr. Griffin describes as drifting toward totalitarian, a scary concept.
He goes on to discuss short and long term ways to protect ourselves, preserving any wealth one might have, and being prepared as much as possible for anything that may come to pass. He feels the Fed will continue to inflate, raise taxes for a while, and then probably cut taxes again at some point. It will be more of the same, more and more governmental control over our lives, more and more money created out of nothing, and less and less freedom.
G. Edward Griffin is a writer and documentary film producer with many successful titles to his credit. Listed in Who’s Who in America, he is well known because of his talent for researching difficult topics and presenting them in clear terms that all can understand. He has dealt with such diverse subjects as archaeology and ancient Earth history, the Federal Reserve System and international banking, terrorism, internal subversion, the history of taxation, U.S. foreign policy, the science and politics of cancer therapy, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations.
His better-known works include The Creature from Jekyll Island, World without Cancer, The Discovery of Noah’s Ark, Moles in High Places, The Open Gates of Troy, No Place to Hide, The Capitalist Conspiracy, More Deadly than War, The Grand Design, The Great Prison Break, and The Fearful Master.
Mr. Griffin is a graduate of the University of Michigan where he majored in speech and communications. In preparation for writing his book on the Federal Reserve System, he enrolled in the College for Financial Planning located in Denver, Colorado. His goal was not to become a professional financial planner but to better understand the real world of investments and money markets. He obtained his CFP designation (Certified Financial Planner) in 1989.
Mr. Griffin is a recipient of the coveted Telly Award for excellence in television production, the creator of the Reality Zone Audio Archives, and is President of American Media, a publishing and video production company in Southern California. He has served on the board of directors of The National Health Federation and The International Association of Cancer Victors and Friends. He is Founder and President of The Coalition for Visible Ballots, The Cancer Cure Foundation, and Freedom Force International. Mr. Griffin was recently a speaker at the September Casey Research Summit in Carlsbad, CA, speaking on Freedom Force.
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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Creating Wealth with Jason Hartman! During this program Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven’t thought of before, and a new slant on investing: fresh new approaches to America’s best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self-made multi-millionaire who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He’s been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 states and 17 cities. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it! And now, here’s your host, Jason Hartman, with the complete solution for real estate investors.
JASON HARTMAN: Welcome to the Creating Wealth Show! This is your host, Jason Hartman, and this is episode number two hundred and ninety-one. I wanted to get one final episode out here before Christmas, and wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. For this episode, my monologue portion will be very short, but our guest today will be G. Edward Griffin. It is the second time we’ve had Mr. Griffin on the show, and you probably know his name, he’s very famous. He wrote a book entitled The Creature From Jekyll Island, which is really the most exhaustive work I know of on the Federal Reserve system, and what it portends for our future. And what he really, to some extent, not only wrote about, but actually predicted in that book so many years ago—it’s just a fantastic book.
And this interview, it’s going to be—I just have to warn you, because of course, we already recorded it. I recorded it just last week, so it is a very fresh interview. But wanted to get it up right away, because we talk about the fiscal cliff, and some of you listeners have asked that we talk about that a little bit. And the interview starts out—it’s pretty negative for a decent part of it, but it just, all of this negativity, and all of these bad, dirty dealings when it comes to the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, government, etcetera, etcetera—they only benefit us.
If we’re following my plan of denominating our assets in things, in commodities, in packaged commodities, in little rental houses and apartment buildings, and denominating our liabilities in ever more debased, devalued fiat dollars, or any fiat currency from around the world that has the same exact set of factors that the United States is experiencing, and we get these long, fixed rate mortgages. I mean, what better formula could there possibly be to build wealth than that? Than my formula, the one I call the ultimate investing equation. You denominate your assets in things, things that have universal need, things that are not indexed just to one currency, i.e. the dollar.
You outsource the obligations, the 30 year fixed rate debt, to tenants, you have a set of laws and customs that has been around for centuries, if not millennia—these are very old, simplistic concepts and laws, and they run pretty much the same from state to state. And we invest in markets that are very favorable, of course, to landlords. So, that’s another great thing. We outsource our debts to tenants; we don’t pay our own debts. The debt is constantly devalued through inflation. The old example I used to give in my Creating Wealth seminars—and I gotta bring this back.
I don’t talk about it enough anymore. But, take this simple concept. Sometimes you can get a 10 year interest-only loan, and that would actually be my favorite loan. Assuming you don’t have to pay too much of a premium in interest rate for it. Well, really that premium is outsourced to the tenant anyway. But the 10 year interest-only fixed rate loan after year 10, in year 11 it starts to amortize, where it’s still a fixed rate loan for the next 20 years, but you pay principle and interest after the first 10 year initial interest-only period. So here’s the example. Say you were to buy 10 single family homes through our network. You buy them in say, three different cities, so you’re diversified geographically.
These are all areas where you’re buying at or below the cost of construction. You’re basically getting the land for free. And you look at al your mortgage interest statements, and you know we’re right on the verge of 2013. Hey, by the way, folks, I guess the Mayan calendar ended, and we’re all still here, right? You know, another doom and gloom thing we didn’t have to worry about, is the ending of the Mayan calendar just a few days ago on December 21st. I put a great comic up on our Facebook page. So, on Facebook, search www.jasonhartman.com on Facebook, and you will see a fantastic, really cute little comic strip about the ending of the Mayan calendar. I promise you’ll love it. Just go like the www.jasonhartman.com Facebook page, and you’ll see that little comic. It’s very clever. About the ending of the Mayan calendar. You’ll love it.
But anyway, we get these fixed rate mortgages—10 of them, in this example. Or maybe we get just one, and it’s an apartment building. Either way, we’ve got $1 million in interest-only debt, today. And that interest-only debt, we get our first mortgage statement—say it’s in February of 2013 by the time we close on these deals. And we own these 10 properties. And we have leveraged them, hopefully. And our mortgage statements, all 10 of them combined together, we add them all up, and it says we owe $1 million. So, in 10 years, let’s take a look at three different inflation rates.
How much money you’ll owe in real dollars—in constant dollars, not nominal dollars. Because remember, the reason I used the interest-only loan as the example is that your mortgage statements 10 years from now, in February of 2022, or sorry—February of 2023—those mortgage statements still say you owe $1 million, because it’s an interest-only loan, so you didn’t pay any principle! But, at three different rates of inflation—now, the first one I’m going to use is 5.1%. Why do I pick 5.1%? See, if you’re silly enough to believe the official statistics about inflation, and you believe what the government is telling you, then you would think inflation is around 3%, or some silly, crazy low-ball number like that, depending on which CPI Index you use—Consumer Price Index—you know, there are multiple CPIs, just to make things even more confusing.
There’s the CPI urban, there’s different CPIs, okay? Then there’s the core rate, which is the rate that strips out food and energy, because it’s too volatile. And that’s a complete misnomer, because I don’t know anybody that can live without food or energy. Certainly we all make food, and certainly the cost of energy is in every single thing we buy. So, these are all bogus. But, 5.1% is the official number that happened between 1972—why do I pick that year? Well, what happened the year before, in 1971? You know, if you’re a regular listener: we went off the gold standard, right? Nixon closed the gold window, and that’s when spending got really ridiculous, because the government no longer had any sort of tether.
They could just basically print money, and create electronic money into existence through the Federal Reserve system and the Treasury. But from 1972 to 2002, if you got a 30 year mortgage, and had it in those years, the official understated—okay, and they really started understating this. I did an old show about this where I talked a lot about Paul Volcker, and I shared a news clip from Bloomberg news, and it was really awesome, because it really showed how they really, really started manipulating the numbers hard in the late 70s. And you know, of course we had the Jimmy Carter era, when we had the inept President Carter, who drove us into very high inflation, and Paul Volcker, the Federal Reserve Chair at the time, was said to be the person who really broke the back of inflation, but it was painful to do! Now, how did he break the back of inflation? Well, he did it by raising rates and tightening the money supply. And of course, everybody knows that was a very tough time—when the word stagflation was coined, and when the Misery Index was coined.
Well, that’s a time when you, oddly enough, have—because this is counter to the concept of the Phillips curve—and by the way, we should really talk about the Phillips curve more on this show, and maybe I’ll do a whole episode on that. But for now, you can go to Wikipedia and just read about the Phillips curve, and while you’re there, it wouldn’t hurt to read about the Weimar Republic. Just type in the word inflation. Because I love—if you type the word inflation into Wikipedia, you see this picture from the Weimar Republic, post World War I, Germany, where you see a woman shoveling the marks, the German marks, into a fire, into a furnace, because it was cheaper to actually just burn the currency, if you can believe that. Can you imagine just burning hundred dollar bills, or maybe by then we’ll have thousand, or million dollar bills, who knows.
But just burning them, rather than buying firewood with the money, because it was cheaper to get the energy out of the actual paper, to keep warm, rather than exchanging the ever-so-worthless paper for money. Or—for currency. Or—exchanging it for firewood. Exchanging the currency for firewood. So there you go, an example of inflation. So, the official inflation rate, 1972 to 2002: 5.1%. Okay, that’s why I’m going with that number. My belief of the current inflation rate? 10%. 9 or 10%. I think it’s probably 10%. Pretty easily. Especially with real estate prices having inflated and rents having inflated so much over the past year and a half, two years. So, 10% is my number, right now, currently where we’re at. And I believe it is entirely possible that in the next 10 years, we could see 20% inflation.
So, I’m giving you three examples here, and if you want to write down some numbers, because these numbers are going to blow your mind, as to how you really, really get rich investing in income property following my plan. The numbers are: 5.1%, 10%, and then, 20%. Now, there’s no academic definition of hyperinflation. I’ve had many guests on the show talk about their fears of hyperinflation on prior episodes, and most people think of hyperinflation, although there’s no academic definition, as something like thousands of percent. And that’s still much lower than Zimbabwe-type inflation. I guess that would be comparable to Argentinean inflation—that would by hyperinflation.
But none of these examples are hyperinflation—they’re just reasonable amounts of inflation. 5.1%, 10%, and 20%. So, here’s what happens to that million dollars that you owe, that you borrow today, and your tenants repay for you. In fact, they repay you this mortgage, hopefully, with positive cash flow. So they’re not only going to pay your mortgage, your property taxes, and your insurance, and maybe your association fees—well, they’re also going to pay you a bonus just for keeping them around! It’s called positive cash flow! And the government’s gonna give you some huge tax breaks, if you qualify for all those tax breaks. And we’ve talked about that on prior shows.
So here it is, you ready, folks? That $1 million—remember, 2023. February of 2023 on your interest-only loan. You get your statement, it still says you owe a million dollars. But in real dollars, at 5.1 inflation, which has already happened, you only owe $608,000. So, you basically had inflation pay off almost $400,000 of your debt, and all along the way you’ve had hopefully positive cash flow. The asset itself has appreciated. You’ve enjoyed the benefits of leverage on that asset, which is slightly different than the concept I’m talking about here, of the term I coined, the phrase I coined, inflation-induced debt destruction. Something that even the very sophisticated people just don’t understand. Even the gold bugs, they don’t get it. They get it about inflation. They get it about Federal Reserve, Treasury, government, etcetera.
They get it about world uncertainty—wars, and things like that. But they don’t understand inflation-induced debt destruction. They think their gold will save them, because their gold is a store of wealth. A defensive strategy, something that will hold value. But we’re talking about an offensive strategy, where you’re going to win the game. There are different ways to play life. One way is playing not to lose. Well, the gold bugs are playing not to lose. And hey, that’s a lot better than losing. They’re far more aware than the average, everyday person who is walking into Merrill Lynch or Ameriprise or any of these stupid financial services firms and buying a modern portfolio theory, a bunch of crap, of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and making Wall Street rich. They’re much more aware than that, but they still don’t really get it at the highest level, like we do, as listeners here. Then the second example, 10% inflation.
Let’s just say we have 10%, and it’s 10 years, and we get our interest-only mortgage statement in 2023. And in real dollars—well, in nominal dollars, it still says we owe what? $1 million. But in real dollars, we only owe $385,000. So, inflation there has repaid, or paid off, well over $600,000 of our mortgages. Now, what about 20%? Wow. Is this exciting? See, you know, when you follow my plan, you really should vote for people like Obama, and Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Brown, the governor of California. The recycled, moonbeam governor idiot of California. Union sellout. Spending scumbag. Not that I have an opinion about this or anything. But all these people are really just making us richer, okay?
So, I don’t know why I don’t like them. I guess my philosophy overcomes my own personal greed. Maybe I should really just shut up and be happy that they’re running things and messing things up, because they’re creating a lot more inflation with their spending. So, at 20% inflation, it’s 2023, you get your mortgage statement. It still says you owe $1 million, and that’s in nominal dollars. But in real dollars, with the benefits of inflation-induced debt destruction, you only owe $161,000—just over $161,000. So, inflation has repaid, or paid off, about $840,000 of your debt! For free! Wow. That is the power of inflation-induced debt destruction. Now, let me give you one more example, and this example is not based on any of these higher inflation rates. It’s based on something that has already happened in real life, based on official statistics. Not my statistics. Not what I believe.
This is what the government reported, which, in my belief, is massively understated. Let’s go back to that first number, 5.1%. But, instead of looking at a 10 year example this time, I want to drag it out over the life of a 30 year mortgage. Okay. Well, now let’s fast forward. It’s 2013 by the time you acquire the properties and you get the mortgages in place. Then 10 years, 2023. Then it’s 2033, and it’s 2043 before you make the last payments on these mortgages. And God forbid, don’t you dare pay them off early. Because if you do—the only time to pay things off early, and really worry about paying your debt down, is number one if it’s consumer debt, okay? If it’s not high quality long term fixed rate investment grade debt, or if you were in a deflationary environment, because what happens—when does my whole plan backfire?
Well, my plan could backfire in a deflationary environment. If you believed the two deflationists that are out there—because pretty much everybody else says inflation, but, Harry Dent, in a convoluted way, says deflation. Although it’s pretty convoluted, frankly. I was listening to him on someone else’s show—well, Porter Stansberry’s show. And he was asking him some pretty good questions, I thought. And he’s till convoluted about this deflation thing. And Bob Prechter, who’s also been on—both of those have been on my show. Harry Dent’s been on twice. Go listen to the prior episodes, and you can hear what they have to say. But, if you listen to either of them, they’re going to say, well, deflation. Okay, well, fine.
Then your debt actually increases in value, and so does your dollar. So, your dollar would increase in value. Your debt would increase in value or burden—it would be good for the lender. Now, the lender, in a deflationary environment—they would say, don’t pay us off, don’t pay us off. Don’t pay us off early—keep the loan. But a borrower in a deflationary environment, they want to pay things off, because that mortgage is becoming more expensive, essentially. But in reality, we all know what happens. Leverage—I used to think leverage cuts both ways. It really doesn’t. Because it a deflationary environment, guess what would happen? People would start just walking away from their mortgages, exactly what they’ve been doing for the last few years. And I saw them doing this in the 90s.
You know, this is nothing new, folks. The concept of short sales. I mean, I remember in 2004, 2005, I was talking about short sales, and workouts, and people looked at me like, what are you talking about? I don’t even know what that is. Well, I experienced that for 7 years in the 90s, as a traditional real estate agent, doing short sales for my own clients in Irvine, California, in the surrounding cities, okay? When I worked for RE/MAX. And so, in a deflationary environment, if a mortgage became onerous, what would people—they’d just walk away! That’s the implicit backdoor that everybody has on these mortgages. But back to my example. Go with the understated official statistics, 5.1%. Now a 30 year mortgage, that $1 million mortgage, or mortgages, if there’s say 10 of them, for example—you’re only paying back $224,863 and 27 cents, based on the inflation-induced debt destruction. I do have to make the disclaimer—it’s a little more complex than these examples, because you’re paying your mortgage monthly.
You don’t pay it in one lump sum, although on the interest-only examples, you really kind of do, because at the end of the 10 year interest-only period, you owe a fixed amount. You owe the same original nominal dollar principle balance of those mortgages. And on the 30 year example, because the loan starts amortizing in year 11, it’s a little more complex. You have to really dice it up along the way, month-by-month, year-by-year, etcetera. But it’s good enough. You get the concept of the incredible, incredible power that you can obtain by using inflation-induced debt destruction. Incredibly powerful.
And when we hear from G. Edward Griffin, you’re gonna hear some pretty ominous stuff here in a few minutes. And I say, hey. Bring it on! Because I’ve positioned my portfolio, and hopefully you’ve positioned your portfolio, to benefit from the perfect storm. And commodity values—I didn’t even mention that—commodity values go up in inflationary environments! And we own a whole bunch of commodities, don’t we? We own packaged commodities, as I call them. That’s my phrase for it. I also call them assembled commodities. And these are all the raw material ingredients that go into a house or an apartment building—glass, steel, lumber, labor, energy, petroleum products, copper wire, etcetera—you know, all of those commodities. And they’re not indexed just to the dollar; they’re traded globally.
They’re traded in every currency on earth, and needed by every human being on earth, because every human being has three common needs, and you know what they are. The three things every human being needs—Maslow taught us this. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: food, clothing, and shelter. Those are the three basic human needs. When those needs are met, we move up Maslow’s hierarchy to another thing. Then we want love, we want recognition, we want esteem. There’s all sorts of things. And you know, what I think Maslow actually left a few things out. I think Maslow—the top of the hierarchy is self-actualization. And self-actualization—I’m all for that, I think it’s great, but I think it’s kind of—well, kind of arrogant. And I guess that’s why I’m not an atheist. Because self is not what it’s all about.
I think there is spiritual actualization. Actualization in God. And I’m not becoming religious on you here or anything, okay? This is not a religious show. But, I think there’s more than just the self to actualize, okay? There is a spiritual actualization also. So, if I were Maslow, I’d put one more rung at the top of that hierarchy, okay? And I don’t know. Where does financial actualization fit in on there? Maybe that’s what we’re doing here. And to help move you up that hierarchy of needs, so you can actualize your potential more quickly and more readily, and in more ways. Financial success just gives us options, and that’s what we want to provide here on the show for you: options, options, options.
So, before we go to our guest, G. Edward Griffin, author of The Creature From Jekyll Island—we will be up with him in just a moment—but I wanted to mention a nice little Christmas gift I have for you, a little promotion. Everything in the store at www.jasonhartman.com; everything there, we’ve got a huge discount. I don’t think we’ve ever done anything like this before. But if you want to gain a little more education before the end of the year, here is your opportunity to grab any of our products, and all you do is you go to www.jasonhartman.com/products, or you go to www.jasonhartman.com and click on products, and you can have anything there, for several more days, through the end of the year, at half price. Any product there, half price. It’s a blanket deal on any of the products in our store—50% off.
And here is your promo code: it’s easy to remember: it’s Christmas. So just type in Christmas as the promo code when you’re checking out, and 50%, half-off discount will be applied to any of the products in the store. Alright. Well, happy shopping, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and I’m looking forward to a great 2013 with all of you, and thank you so much for being in our listener family, and thank you so much for your support in being our clients, and for the faith that you have in us throughout the year; we really, really appreciate it. And we certainly will never take it for granted. So let’s go to our guest, G. Edward Griffin, and we will be back with that in just a moment.
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ANNOUNCER: Now you can get Jason’s Creating Wealth In Today’s Economy Home Study Course: all the knowledge and education revealed in a 9-hour day of the Creating Wealth boot camp, created in a home study course for you to dive into at your convenience. For more details, go to www.jasonhartman.com
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JASON HARTMAN: It’s my pleasure to welcome the very distinguished G. Edward Griffin to the show! He has been a guest previously; he was on a couple of years ago, and of course I’m sure most of you are familiar with his seminal work on the subject of the Federal Reserve, entitled The Creature From Jekyll Island, just fantastic book. He’s of course a writer, a documentary film producer, and has many successful titles to his credit. He’s also listed in Who’s Who in America, and is well known on many, many topics, ranging from medical research to political and socioeconomic, Federal Reserve type topics, and it’s just a pleasure to have him back. How are you today?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: I’m doing very well, Jason. Thanks for inviting me on the show.
JASON HARTMAN: Well, the pleasure is all mine. So, you’re coming to us from Thousand Oaks today, right?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Right.
JASON HARTMAN: Fantastic.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Southern California.
JASON HARTMAN: Right, my old stomping ground. I grew up in West LA, and lived in Orange County for many, many years after that. So, the fiscal cliff is the hot topic nowadays. Tell us what your thoughts are!
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Well, the fiscal cliff is just a catch phrase. It’s a new way of describing something that’s been going on for a long time, which is that the economy is tanking. So, they make it sound like this is something brand new. Well, it’s not. It’s just a continuation of the fact that these politicians who we are trusting to fix this problem are the very same group by and large that’s created the problem in the first place. And so, naturally, they only—their only fix is more of the same. That in a nutshell is how I look at it. The basic problem is that they have created too much money.
They—years ago, they created the Federal Reserve system, and gave this group of private bankers, this cartel of banks, which the Federal Reserve really is, and they gave them the power to create the nation’s money without anything to back it! Which means, with no limitation. There’s nothing limiting the amount of money that they can create. Whether they want to create for their own political or economic advantage. And of course, they’re always saying that they’re doing this for America, they’re doing this for the economy, they’re doing this for you folks. But the fact is, it’s a cartel. A banking cartel. And they’re creating money hand over fist, and they’re pushing it—trying to push it into the economy, so they can collect interest on it. That’s the name of the game. It’s not that they spend the money for their own purposes, but they push it into the economy, and they lend it to the government, and they lend it to corporations, and they lend it to you and to me, and they collect interest on this money that they created out of nothing, which is—it’s a pretty good scam, really.
Basically, when you look at it, that’s what banking is. It’s one of the greatest scams of all time, but it’s all dressed up in pinstripe suits, and they drive around in limousines, and they speak about being a conservative banker and all that sort of thing. But it’s basically one of the biggest scams of the world, when they get the government involved in it to protect them, to bail them out at the taxpayers’ expense, you’ve got not only a scam, but you’ve got fraud now, that is a gigantic proportion is because the whole thing is really a means of plundering the average person. That’s my take on it, so now, it just gets worse and worse and worse, and finally they say, let’s call it something that will make it sound dramatic. So they call it the fiscal cliff. They’ve been on the fiscal cliff for 50 years, but now they decided to say we’re on the cliff, and they’re trying to, in a way, justify draconian measures—tax increases, creation of more money—in other words, more of the same. And they’re trying to scare people into thinking that this is good now. Just continue administering this dying drug addict—keep giving him more drugs, and that’ll take care of everything.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, and I just want to have you make a distinction, if you would. When you say banking is a scam, you’re really referring to fractional reserve banking—the modern form of banking. I mean, the concept of basic banking—legitimate banking—isn’t a scam in and of itself, where people deposit money, and borrow money, and things like that.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: No, no. Yeah, I’m glad you made that distinction, Jason. I should have said that. We’re talking about modern banking, as the way it really is in the world—not the way it should be, or the way it could be, or in some cases, even the way it was. There were a few cases in history where we did have honest banking. But the truth of the matter is, those instances are very rare, because banking, by its very nature, is just—it’s a great temptation for fraud, and almost from the very beginning—and we’re going back centuries now, as banking evolved—it has almost always been based on fraudulent practices. And almost from the very beginning, it went from deposit banking into fractional reserve banking, and that’s when everything starts to fall apart, and perhaps your listeners need a little definition of fractional reserve banking. And basically, that simply means that the banks don’t have reserves for the money that they loan out. In other words, they’re lending out paper money. They’re lending out—
JASON HARTMAN: Electronic—it’s even better than that, it’s electronic money.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah, it’s electronic money.
JASON HARTMAN: We’re not even constrained by having to print anything anymore.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Right.
JASON HARTMAN: Now it’s a click of the mouse.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Right, it doesn’t even cost paper and ink anymore. It’s just—whatever it costs for the electricity to create a little imprint in a chip somewhere. So, that’s the kind of money that’s actually being used today, and it’s imaginary. It doesn’t really exist. It’s just a system of debits and credits and numbers and phantom figures and so forth. And so the whole world is running on this ruse. It’s a mirage. And so there’s no limit to the number of these little digits they can create. And it used to be that they could only create enough money as they had gold or silver in the vault to back it up. Something tangible. Something that took human effort to produce. Something that had value built into it. And therefore, money supply was always limited, based upon the amount of bullion that backed it.
And it was a very good thing! Because it prevented all kinds of mischief. It slowed down expansion of business and production and all that sort of thing—yes, that’s true. People might say yeah, but that slowed down the boom cycle. Well, yes, it did! In fact, it prevented a boom cycle. And that meant there was no crash cycle either. So, even though the growth of the economy might have been slower under a sound banking system, there would have been no crashes either. This whole boom bust cycle that’s been plaguing mankind for hundreds of years is just impossible when you’ve got true, honest banking where reserves are required and the money supply cannot be expanded any faster than the reserves. So, that’s what they mean by fractional reserve banking, is that—really, it’s another way of saying no reserve banking. Because the fractions started off in the beginning—well, we’ll keep 50% of this in reserve, and we can then create the other 50% out of nothing. And then they said well, that works, so we’ll only keep 40% in reserve, and create 60% out of nothing. And then well, that works, so we’ll only keep 30% and so forth. So now, today, it’s 0%. And that’s what fractional reserve always turns out to be, is 0. 0 fraction. Because the temptation to go further and further and further is just too great and too profitable for the scammers.
JASON HARTMAN: So, what’s really happening with fractional reserve lending, then, is that money is created out of thin air. It’s lent into existence.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: That’s correct. That’s right. It’s based on debt, and with real, honest banking, or what I would call honest banking, in the old style concept, money would be based on a supply of gold or silver bullion. But now, all it’s based on is a piece of paper which contains a borrower’s signature. The borrower says, let’s just, in this case, let’s call up the government. That would be the biggest borrower of all. The government comes in and says, here’s a bond, or a treasury note, or certificate, and it’s basically an IOU. It says we the government promise to tax the American people until they’re dead, in order to get the money to pay back this loan to the Federal Reserve.
And so that’s an IOU, and they’re pledging our productivity to pay back that loan. And most Americans say oh, that’s wonderful, we don’t have to pay taxes on that—they can just borrow the money! They don’t realize that their own productivity is on the line behind it. So, that’s how the loan is created. The Federal Reserve creates the money out of nothing and gives it to the Federal Government, based on a government bond, or a certificate of some kind, an IOU, and the government then spends the money into circulation, and it’s left with that bond, that debt behind. Well, 30 days later, 60 days later, or a year later, the bond is due, and the government is supposed to pay it back, plus interest. Well, they don’t have the money to pay it back, plus interest, because they’re still spending more than they’re taking in in taxes. And so what do they do? They just go out and borrow more money to cover the repayment of the older loan, plus interest. And that’s basically why the national debt just keeps growing and growing and growing. It’s a Ponzi scheme, really. They always are having to create new money to cover the debt for the old debt. The money for the old debt, I should say.
JASON HARTMAN: Doesn’t it seem, just on the political or the spending side of the spectrum, that that is so incredibly selfish? For the current generation to spend the money and make the future generation slaves to debt? What’s just amazing to me is that on the left side of the political spectrum, that’s the group that says they’re compassionate, and they want to help people, but what they want to do, really, is take today, and have government-sponsored healthcare, have this entitlement program, that entitlement program, and they tax for it, and most people notice taxes, you know. That’s something that there are so many groups against more taxes, and so forth. But there are very few groups against inflation, and against the Federal Reserve, and the way the banking cartel works. But you know, many of them talk about taxes, and the problem of higher taxes. But it just seems very selfish, to me, that someone would just vote themselves more today and just say hey, we’ll slave the next couple of generations. Kids will be born with $200,000 debts on their head that must somehow be repaid, either through taxes, inflation, or productivity. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t see it coming from productivity.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: No.
JASON HARTMAN: We don’t have a monopoly on the industrial world anymore like we used to.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Right, and eventually the system destroys productivity. Productivity’s actually going down as people are being put out of work. Industries are closing. Productivity’s going down. So, you’re quite right. I might question the word selfish. Are they being selfish? I think that’s too kind a word. I think they’re criminal. Because, everybody knows who’s in the game. They know that this debt is not going to be paid back, in terms of paying out money. The debt—this debt that they’re creating now cannot be paid back. It’s so big, and it’s expanding so rapidly. It’s a Ponzi. Can you close out a Ponzi game? No. You can’t make a Ponzi scheme work. It destroys itself. It just falls apart at some point. It’s the end of the game; it’s over. And that’s where we’re headed. It’s not that the younger generation is going to have to pay back this debt in terms of writing a check, or sending in new taxes, or something like that. It’s just that the economy is going to collapse. It’ll be over. And all that will be left will be the state. The state will be left to provide food, clothing, and shelter for all the hungry, starving people, and provide education, it’ll provide healthcare, it’ll provide everything, because the economy won’t be able to do it. So, where we’re really headed is much worse than a bad economy.
JASON HARTMAN: The state, of course, can’t do it either. I mean, I know you know that.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: No they can’t. But they can require people to pretend like they’re doing it. In other words, they’ll regiment everybody. It’ll be like living in a huge army camp. It’s like everybody in the army—you all have rank, you’ll all get food, as long as you take orders, and there’ll be those with higher rank. There will be the generals, the captains, the lieutenants, the sergeants, the corporals, and all the privates down here, taking orders and saluting their superiors. And you know, it just—it’s a system of complete compulsion. Collectivism is a better word for it. And that’s where it’s headed. It’s not even an issue of money anymore. The economy will be gone. It’ll be a totally regimented society, and when you think about that, it’s even more frightening than the fact of economic crisis.
JASON HARTMAN: Sure, because it’s partially 1984. Not completely. But certainly it’s Orwellian in a lot of ways. But you know, here’s the thing I want to ask you. And we all know that this is a complete scam. It’s a total Ponzi scheme. It’s just massive crookery on a global banking scale. We know that. My listeners and I couldn’t agree more with you, okay? However, the question really becomes a question of when. It becomes a question of kicking the can down the road. And obviously, they’ve been successful, the powers that be, at kicking the can down the road—well, I guess you could start at 1913, and then you could start at the FDR era, the New Deal, and then you could go to the LBJ era, and the Great Society, and then you could go to 1971, which untethered them and allowed them to do whatever they want, coming off the gold standard. But the question is, is it possible that they can just keep kicking the can down the road for decades longer? And this is why I say that. Because logically, it’s impossible.
We of course look at history, we say, every fiat money society has had a collapse. Every fiat currency—none has ever survived. But, the difference we have, is we have the biggest military on earth; we have the reserve currency, but we should of course lose that status with our profligate behavior. But we’ve got the ability to push the world around through the military, mostly. And also through the fact that we’ve got the biggest—and I know this is completely dysfunctional, but, we’ve got the largest economy by far, and the largest consumer base by far. So, everybody will always want us as a customer for their exports, even if we pay back in fake money. Which ultimately loses value. I mean, China and Japan have to understand this. Of course they do. But you know, the question is when. When will this Ponzi scheme—when will the chickens come home to roost?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Well, that’s a good question. As you were describing that so well, I was thinking, how do you deal with this analogy of the kicking of the can, and it suddenly dawned on me that every time they kick the can, a little piece of the can flies off. And by the time they’ve kicked it so many times, there’s no can left. That’s the point. When we use that analogy, kicking the can down the road, it sort of implies that somewhere or other, we’ve got to stop doing that and solve the problem, and fix it. And deal with reality. The fact is that these people, these politicians, have no intention of ever stopping this process, until the can is gone. There is no way to fix it. That’s what I was talking about a moment ago. The whole game changes. It’s no longer about the can. It’s no longer about the economy. It’s a question of just pure survival, and that’s where the state is all supreme, and it’ll provide all food, clothing, shelter, and so forth, and you’ll live, you’ll be able to function as long as you’re good boys and girls, and don’t question authority. And that’s where it’s going. And that’s where the can is going. And we won’t even recognize it anymore. It’s not the can. It’s a change.
JASON HARTMAN: But why does it have to go there, ultimately? I mean, the powers that be may want it to go there so they can exert more control over people. In fact, they may be—there may be some grand design that this is part of the plan; it’s almost like a false flag, if you will. Although it’s not false. But they created the problem just so they can come in and “solve the problem.” And justify extreme measures like martial law. And you know, when you look at the incarceration rate in the United States, I mean, this is just appalling. The prison has become a business in this country, and it is scary.
There are so many laws—John Stossel did a very interesting show on this, and you probably saw it. It was about how nobody can possible know the law anymore! Edward, I was brought up—my mother, I remember her saying this as I was a child—ignorance of the law is no excuse. You’re not allowed to be ignorant of the law. You have to obey it anyway. That’s a pretty legitimate statement, in the 1950s. Now, I didn’t grow up in the 50s, but I’m just saying. Back in the Leave it to Beaver era, the world was very simple. When I look at those old TV shows. But nowadays, nobody can possibly know the laws! Everybody’s breaking some abstract law. Especially if you’re a business owner.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah. Well, the underlying issue there is, why are they doing this? What’s the motive? And I think that different groups have different motives. From a political side, I don’t think it’s that the politicians are—most of the ones that we vote for, at least, who are themselves selected by others less public. The reality is that our politicians are servants to much more powerful forces, and that’s not the voter. It’s the ones who provide the campaign funding, and the media attention that gets them elected and so forth. The elite groups and so forth. But anyway, the politicians that we vote for, and that we see visibly—I don’t think they have any, for the most part, they’re not conspirators, they’re not trying to create this super collectivist state. They’re just following the path of least resistance, the path that feathers their nest. They’re making money, they’re getting prestige, they get all the benefits, and they don’t care. They’re just totally ruthless people. And well, I’m gonna get my money, and retire as a—they don’t care about anybody else. They’re ruthless individuals. Well, this is a show, so I won’t use the word that came to mind.
JASON HARTMAN: Right, I know though. I get it. I agree.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: The kindest thing I could say is that many of these people are slime bags. That’s what we can use to call—anyway, so that’s the politician. Then we’ve got those at the top—the ones who are clustering in the Council on Foreign Relations—the master planners that are creating policy. I think it’s a little different with them. I think they do have an ideology. I think they’re trying to create this one world government—they call it the new world order, that’s their fond word for it—I think they really do want to change society. They’re human engineers. They want to regiment people to follow orders, be nice citizens, and team players, and don’t rock the boat, because they really think that’s the best for society, and they know that that requires people to make decisions on behalf of the masses. Smart people, like themselves. And so somebody’s gotta do that, and they just appoint themselves. I think it’s kind of an ego trip for them, and everybody’s got their different reasons, you know, for allowing this system to be demolished, and evolve into something else. You mentioned one little group; obviously it’s clear that there’s a big industry in prisons now. People are making money operating prisons. So there’s their motive. And on and on and on. Everybody has got their own selfish reasons, and meanwhile, the country goes to hell in a handbasket.
JASON HARTMAN: Let me take a brief pause; we’ll be back in just a minute.
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JASON HARTMAN: Well, I want to ask you to cover two more areas, if we can. The first area I want to talk about is, what should someone do? What are some real, concrete action steps? I assume you’re going to say things like, buy gold and silver. However I’m not sure. I want to just hear what your take is on that. You know, financially, what should someone do?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Sure. Well, I think we have to be clear that there is a short-term view, and a long-term view in regard to that question. The short-term, if we’re just thinking of the next few years—maybe the next decade—we just try and avoid the consequences as best we can, and get out of the way of this locomotive that’s coming down the track. Just get off the track. And so, if it’s the short-term, obviously you want to protect your wealth, if you have any, and most people have a little bit. And whatever they have is worth protecting. If you have anything in savings, anything in CDs, or a savings account, or even in an insurance contract, insurance policy that’s gonna pay off in terms of dollars—anything that’s denominated in a Federal Reserve note is very suspect.
I mean, that value is going down, down, down, and will continue to do so, in my view, until it’s worthless. So, the smart thing to do is to get out of dollars and into something else that’s not going to depreciate in value—into something that takes human effort to produce, and something that is fairly widely in demand, even under conditions of depression. And what would that be? Well, we know, historically, that’s gold and silver. But you can’t eat gold and silver, as they say. Even though I recommend that everybody use gold and silver as a storehouse of value to protect their savings from this inflationary effect. But then, I would think people should look in terms of stockpiling some food. If you’re in business, load up on inventories, you know? If you have enough money, buy a warehouse full of cheap white wine! Or something like that. Something that—
JASON HARTMAN: Cigarettes and vodka. And bullets. Those three things.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yes. So, it’s pretty simple, when you think about it. But it’s not easy, because it takes a radical departure from the way we were raised. Our parents, and our grandparents, always said—you save your money, put it in a savings account, and then you get a job with a corporation, and a nice retirement plan, and everything’ll be fine. Well, that doesn’t work anymore. But anyway, even so, you might be able to preserve your savings for a short-term, but if the process we’ve been talking about continues on the long-term, it won’t make any difference, because you’re going to be in the same boat with everyone else. And in fact, when everything really gets bad, it’s quite possible—it’s always been in revolutionary times, at least in modern times of revolution, in terms of the people’s revolution—Marxist type revolutions—those with money have been the first ones to be prosecuted, and to be victims of all the hungry and the poor and the resentful and the envious. They say look, see that rich guy over there? He’s the problem. He created all of this. We were all working and starving, and he was hoarding gold and silver, and look, he’s driving around in a big, nice car, and we’re hungry. Go get him! You know?
JASON HARTMAN: Well, yeah, that’s true. But not really when they have the government to protect them. The inner circle, they control the laws, and the military, and the ability to inflict violence, and the ability to—
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Oh, yeah, but Jason, I’m not talking about the elite.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, right, okay.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: I’m talking about people like you and me.
JASON HARTMAN: Okay.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: People who are just trying to get out of the way and protect themselves. You’re absolutely right—the elite, the rulers of things—and of course, they’re living behind the walls, and they’ve got security forces all around them, and helicopters, and all that sort of thing.
JASON HARTMAN: Right. But for the rest of us, I guess maybe one of the lessons is, live a somewhat low-key lifestyle. Don’t flaunt your wealth, so that when such and such hits the fan, if you will, people aren’t coming to you thinking, this is someone I’ve got to get even with. If it really gets that bad. See, I think the way this will all play out is just a slow—there’s that quote, I don’t know. I want to say it’s Oliver Wendell Holmes, or something. But, how does the universe end? Not with a bang, but with a whimper. I just think as we slowly descend into this apathy and inflation and people just gradually become poorer and poorer, they sort of just come to accept it when it comes gradually.
It’s when it’s not too sudden and shocking. And that’s why I think of the six ways that I’ve identified to get out of a mess, most likely and politically expedient is just to inflate their way out. And each generation sort of doesn’t remember, in some ways, how good the last generation had it. I think this generation, if they think they’re going to retire and be playing golf on beautiful golf courses, and going on cruise vacations around the world, I think they’re smoking dope, you know? I mean, it’s just not gonna happen that way for most people. It will for some, of course. But it’s just going to be this slow, kind of acceptance of a lesser life. Now, the one part that kind of hides it, though, other than inflation being this slow, giving away of prosperity, is technology. The technology keeps getting better, and you can argue—I had Bill Waddell on the show, and he talked about this great video, this show about how the poor have it so much better than they’ve ever had it. They’ve all got iPhones and iPad and $200 tennis shoes, and cool cars, sometimes, and things like that. So, it’s sort of—I don’t know, it’s sort of hard to reconcile. Kind of not always sure which way it’s really going. Your thoughts on that?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Well, I think that’s true, technology is always working in the opposite direction of inflation and economic depression.
JASON HARTMAN: It’s a deflationary force, no question.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah. So, that’s a positive force, and I think we can expect that to continue up to a point. But when finally industry itself—the producer of this technology—is beginning to struggle under the strain of this, then I think that it probably won’t continue. I don’t really know. And I have another thought on that. A couple of thoughts, actually. One is that I know—I’m shocked to find out recently that a lot of these people you see that are in the bread lines, while they’re standing in the bread lines waiting for their welfare—
JASON HARTMAN: They’re talking on their iPhone, yeah. The new one, the iPhone 5.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah. And I found out that governments issue those to these people.
JASON HARTMAN: The Obamaphone, you mean?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah, the Obamaphone. So, we’re paying for that too. That’s not really a sign that the poor are living better; it just means that the government is plundering the productive people even more, and it’s distributed to the poor. Well, that’s basically what I’m talking about. Everything will come from the government. And if you’re good, and you follow orders, and don’t make waves, you’ll get your iPhone. And if you’re not, you may not even get your breakfast. So, anyway, that’s my view on it. And my final thought is that we’re talking about something here, really, that’s more important than economic welfare. Economic status, or how well you live physically. We’re talking about freedom itself. And I don’t care how many iPhones you’ve got. If you’re not free as a human being, you’re not free to do what you want, to say what you think, to go where you want to go, to work at what you want to do, to handle the affairs of your own life, then what good is an iPhone, for God’s sake? You know? So I think that people get too focused on the economic aspect of it, without realizing that this thing is drifting into a nightmare of totalitarianism.
JASON HARTMAN: It sure looks that way, in many, many ways. It definitely does. Well, the other question I wanted to just ask you is, what do you think will ultimately happen with this show? I’d call it really a show, made for primetime TV, with countdowns and so forth, on the fiscal cliff. I love the way the media just hypes this stuff. We went off the fiscal cliff years ago. But now it’s a big deal all of a sudden. And you didn’t hear about this before the election, oddly. At least I didn’t. It was right after the election we started talking about it. And it just shows how small the attention span of the American media consumer is. There’s only six stories in the news; that’s all you can comprehend, as if nothing else is going on in the world. But, what do you think they’ll do? Inflate more, raise taxes, print more money? The usual?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Well, I know what they’re going to do: they’re going to do the same thing they’ve always done. And that is, they’re going to inflate more, yes, of course. That’s their primary tool. That’s the only thing they can do instantly. Just by raising your hands and voting for it, that can be done. And there’s the money. So, you see, they’ve solved the problem. They got the money. Now they’ve got the money. And, of course, inflation just ramps up a little bit more. So, in other words, they’ll kick the can down the road a little more, or what’s left of the can, and yes, they will raise taxes, and then probably, in my view, they’ll cut taxes later. And they’ll say wow, we beat this one. It’s back and forth, back and forth. It’s theater, but basically the trend will be in the same direction it has always been: more and more money created out of nothing, more and more government control and power over our lives, and less and less freedom.
JASON HARTMAN: And the people who get burned are all the people that have been doing the “right thing” for so many years. Saving money, their savings is under attack, you own stocks, the value of your portfolio is under attack, bonds, even worse, very much under attack, and it’s just so unfair that the people doing the right thing, you know, living a prudent life, not spending all of their money, saving it for the future, taking care of themselves, being responsible—those are the ones getting burned the most. And everybody else seems to get a free handout.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: That’s right. It’s not fair, because it’s not designed to be fair. It’s designed to be totally unfair. It’s designed to take money from the average person and redistribute it to not the poor, but to the wealthy.
JASON HARTMAN: To the wealthy insiders—the banksters. Yeah.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah, that’s what I mean. The politically favored class. Not the people who have made a lot of money by working hard and saving and doing good, and making right decisions, and so forth. That’s not what I’m talking—I’m talking the politically favored wealthy.
JASON HARTMAN: It’s just really, really amazing what goes on in our world. It’s amazing we’ve come to this. Do you think the Federal Reserve will go on forever? Will they ever be knocked out of power? I mean, you can’t talk about auditing the Fed, God forbid. You can’t even talk about auditing the gold in Ft. Knox. It’s just—these things are like verboden in our society. It’s amazing. It so obviously needs to be discussed and exposed.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Well, the trend is happening. Right now there’s more awareness of the Federal Reserve than there ever has been, and that momentum is accelerating. I’m pretty happy to see that. But still, at the present time, the forces that are beholden to the Fed, which are all the money forces, are still firmly in control. They still firmly control Congress and the Senate and all the political—the coercive parts of society they still control. And so, I think what’s going to happen while this movement of awareness and opposition is growing, and let me interrupt for a moment—I think eventually we, and I say we—those of us who understand what’s going on, and really want to see an end to this nonsense—I think we are going to win. But that’s not going to be next year. It’s going to be probably another, maybe a generation away. But it’s moving, and so that’s encouraging. But in the mean time, the mean time is that these guys are firmly in the saddle, and the Federal Reserve may go away, but not in essence. It may change its name. In other words, I think what they’re trying to do is push us into a new monetary system. A new currency, possible in North America, they’re trying to create something similar to the Euro.
JASON HARTMAN: The Amero.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: The Amero, yes. Which would be the currency common to the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But that’ll be no—basically no different from what we have, it’ll just be regional rather than national. It’ll still be fiat money. Still be controlled by the same international banks, the same elite. Nothing really changes except the appearance. And then ultimately, they want to merge the Amero and the Euro, and the Pacific currencies, and the Middle Eastern currencies—merge them all into one international single currency, possibly called the Bancor, and then that would be the end of the road, as far as they’re concerned, because that’s what they want.
JASON HARTMAN: Do you know what I call a global fiat currency? I have a name for it. I call it checkmate. We’re done. If that happens, they have literally control over everbody on the planet. And they can determine the value of your money, and they can determine what you can afford to buy, and what you can’t afford to buy, and that is world domination. Checkmate. A global fiat currency.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: It’s a very good name for it.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah. It’s a scary thought.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: But that’s where they want to go, and they’ve been very clear about that for at least two decades, you know? But—in fact, this was clear right after World War II. They—you know, Bretton Woods they discussed this sort of thing. They knew what they wanted to create, and they’ve not deviated once in all of these years.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah, they’re moving towards the business plan. But they’ve got so many problems with the Euro that I don’t know, that may put their plans on hold for a while. It’s falling apart.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah, it’s going to be rough. There’s going to be a lot of civil unrest. And that’s what I’m saying, is that when this things starts to unravel, it always leads to a series of events that ends up with total state control. And one of the intervening stages is civil unrest: when there are riots in the streets, and buildings burning, people will say oh please, let’s have martial law. Please, let’s have it!
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah. Help, save me! Save me from myself, from my neighbors.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah. That’s just part of the process. So that’s where we’re headed. But fortunately, I really believe that ultimately we’re going to turn this around, and return to sound banking. That is if people like you, and me, and we all do our job, and continue to inform our fellow citizens, then it can be turned around.
JASON HARTMAN: Well, maybe that’s a good place to close, then. Because we’ve talked about some pretty negative things on this interview today. I mean, are you ultimately an optimist? You think it can be turned around?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Oh, I know it will be! And perhaps that is a good place to end. The only negative part is that it’s not gonna happen real soon. It’s taken 100 years to convert this country from a real republic into this democratic dictatorship that it is now. So, you can’t reverse that process in four years, at the next election. It might take 100 years. But I think it can be done in less time than that. But it’s not gonna happen real quickly. But the fact that we’re laying the foundation right now, the understanding, the blueprint for a better way—we’re creating all of that now. That will ultimately prevail. And that’s a very encouraging thought to me, even though no doubt I will not be alive to see it. I can’t in my mind’s eye, right now, I can see it unfolding, and I know that it’s something that I’m helping to create. And I take a great deal of pleasure in that thought.
JASON HARTMAN: Yeah. I do too. So, thank you for making everybody so aware. I mean, your book has been such a hot seller, and I remember when someone recommended it to me about, I don’t know, 13 years ago, maybe. And it’s just a perennially great book. The Creature From Jekyll Island. And before we started recording this show today, we discussed the possibility of having you come and speak at one of our events, and your calendar was booked during the time of our Meet the Masters event, which is coming up in Southern California. But Mr. Griffin, we would love to have you speak at an upcoming event of ours. So we will definitely make that happen in the future. And when your schedule works, and our schedule works, we’ll get something planned, okay?
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
JASON HARTMAN: And give out your website, before we go.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: We have a couple of websites. We have a commercial website where we sell things—books and recordings—and that’s easy to remember; it’s called the Reality Zone. It’s www.realityzone.com; we have about 100 different times there. And [unintelligible] website is where we talk about the ideological and philosophical base of the problem, and we talk a lot about solutions there. And how to fix this. And what it will take. And that’s where I hope people will take an interest. Freedom Force International.org.
JASON HARTMAN: And that’s a dot org. www.freedomforceinternational.org. Well, good.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Yeah. That’s where the action is. That’s where the rubber hits the road, if we want to change anything. Which I’m sure most of your listeners do. That’s where they should come. And they’ll find the blueprint there, and I think most people will be very excited at the thinking that went into how we’re gonna turn this around.
JASON HARTMAN: Fantastic. Well, G. Edward Griffin, thank you for joining us today, and we really appreciate having you on the show, and look forward to having you back in the future.
G. EDWARD GRIFFIN: Thank you Jason, I’m looking forward to that.
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ANNOUNCER: This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www.HartmanMedia.com, or email [email protected]. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, or business professional for any individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own, and the host is acting on behalf of Empowered Investor, LLC. exclusively.
Transcribed by David
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