Episode 414: America Doesn't Own America Anymore

On this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan and Corey welcome Garrett Baldwin to the show. Garrett is a research economist, financial analyst, and investigative journalist. He's also a contributor to our flagship newsletter, Stansberry's Investment Advisory, as well as author of the Me and the Money Printer Substack.

Garrett kicks off the show by explaining how he got his start in finance, why leaving the gold standard was the American economy's "core breaking point," and how liquidity is driving boom and bust cycles. He says that even though Consumer Price Index inflation can come in at 3% officially, actual currency debasement is 6% to 8% per year based on real assets. This leads Garrett to break down the "Cantillon effect," how everyday folks are most disadvantaged by excessive money printing, and why the American manufacturing sector has been destroyed. He also delves into the troubling trend of Americans essentially paying rent to foreign investors, why we'll "hit a wall" in 2026 or 2027, and how you can protect yourself from the inevitable fallout...

I was not a gold bug before I dug into all of this. I viewed it as something that was shiny. I wanted to have a gun – I wanted to have bullets and green beans – after the COVID crisis. Now I want to have gold... I want to be involved in real estate. I want to be involved in the assets that are higher than inflation.

Next, Garrett analyzes a pattern that warns him to flee the markets, plus the contrarian signal of insider buying that he uses to time his reentry into the markets. He notes that this trend has been playing out consistently since 2008 and allows those aware to successfully buy the dip. Garrett says that company fundamentals still matter, however, and he explains what he looks for in a company before investing. He then reviews liquidity versus momentum, the Federal Reserve's relationship to liquidity, a core problem with the traditional banking system, and why the Fed tolerates shadow banking...

Look at the way that Lehman [Brothers] collapsed. It was run by the shadow banking apparatus... The Federal Reserve tolerates the shadow banking system because it creates the euro-dollar market. It creates the world for the demand for the dollar, going back to the dollar curse. It creates a system where the Fed now has to perpetually back up and provide backstops to that system.

Finally, Garrett talks about the relationship between liquidity and bitcoin, why he likes silver today, and how quantitative easing paradoxically leads to a higher dollar. He explains that many paradoxes in our fiat currency system started in the 1990s, thanks to six major policy shifts and their incentives. Garrett goes in depth on how such policy has affected our financial system today and made the Fed more consequential for our wallets than the president...

People ask questions, and they'll blame presidents and they'll blame Congress. But at the end of the day, it is the perpetual monetary policy shifts that have led to higher asset prices [and] led to higher food prices. People keep asking, "Why is everything so expensive?" They don't know what the central bank does... How many [folks] actually know that [the Fed is] consistently backstopping the global financial system, opening liquidity swaps, engaging in stabilization of hedge funds, and then tolerating other certain things?

Click here or on the image below to watch the video interview with Garrett right now. For the full audio episode, click here.

Additional past episodes are located here.)

The transcript is coming soon.

This Week's Guest

Garrett Baldwin is a research economist, financial analyst, and investigative journalist. He also has experience consulting for hedge funds, private equity, blockchain, housing policy, supply chains, and public equity coverage. Plus, he's a contributor to our flagship newsletter, Stansberry's Investment Advisory, and author of the Me and the Money Printer Substack.

Garrett graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He later earned a Master of Arts in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Science in trade economics from Purdue University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Indiana University, and a certificate in global business and international finance from Harvard Business School.