Chief Investment Strategist, The Freeport Society
I’ll be straight with you: I really had second thoughts about publishing this.
But frankly, it matters.
And it’s something we should talk about.
After all, we believe in free speech at The Freeport Society. I don’t like my news censored anymore than you do.
You’ve likely seen the news that ex-Fox News host Tucker Carlson flew to Russia to do a lengthy interview with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. You may have even watched the interview, or at least excerpts.
Clearly, President Putin had a lot to say. And it would be a mistake to ignore it just because I believe the man delivering the message is a thug.
Yes, Putin believes Russia got a raw deal from the West. Some of his points might even be valid. Reasonable people could debate them. But let’s not jump to the conclusion that any of that justifies his actions. Vladimir Putin is still a butcher. Apart from the obvious wrecking of Ukraine, he’s managed to get an estimated 315,000 Russian soldiers killed or wounded with a shocking disregard for the lives of his own people.
I understand that the United States also has launched plenty of unjustified wars of its own, wrecked plenty of other countries, and gotten tens of thousands of our own young men killed or wounded. And let’s not forget that it was all done with borrowed money that left us trillions of dollars in debt.
Honestly, I wouldn’t object to throwing every living American ex-president into the gulag along with Putin. Let them debate the relative merits of their actions in hell.
But none of that justifies what Putin is doing to Ukraine and his own people. Let me be unambiguously clear on that.
Yet, the man spoke some words worth heeding…
Parsing Out the Nuggets
Putin started his interview with Carlson with a lengthy history lecture that at times bordered on the bizarre. In it, he tied the split between Russia and Ukraine to a succession law passed by Prince Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev in the early 1000s.
He then went on a lengthy diatribe about Polish aggression toward Russia in the 13th century. If you’re interested in reading a one-sided, politically charged narrative on the past 1,000 years of Russian history, then by all means knock yourself out and watch the whole thing.
But here are the bits we should care about…
Let’s start with this little nugget: “You may change presidents but you do not change those in real power. That is who we have to deal with. Joe Biden is just a facade for this power structure.”
You don’t have to fall down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole to see the truth in that statement.
No, I’m not suggesting the country is controlled by some secret cabal of James Bond villains sitting around a table laughing maniacally while stroking their Persian cats.
But our nominal leaders, both Democrat and Republican, definitely have their masters whose foot soldiers come in the form of lobbyists, lawyers, and special interest groups.
This is something we talk about regularly at The Freeport Society, and I wrote about such “regulatory capture in December, saying:
The minute lobbyists and lawyers get involved, it stops being capitalism and becomes cronyism. And the larger, more powerful, and more ever-present the government gets in our lives, the more capitalism starts to look like just that – cronyism.
There’s even a fancy name for this. It’s called regulatory capture. This is what you get when the regulators come to be dominated by the very industries they’re put in place to regulate.
Rather than look out for the little guy or the more general “public interest,” the regulator comes to be an attack dog for the existing players…
There is a revolving door of former regulators that go on to work for the companies they used to regulate… and former executives that go on to take high-level positions in government.
Of course, one particular industry benefits from constant conflict…
“The Disastrous Rise of Misplaced Power”
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who served as supreme allied commander in World War II and ought to know a thing or two on the subject, warned us about this with his now famous “military industrial complex” quote: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” he said in 1961. “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
I cannot imagine we’d be $33 trillion in debt had we heeded Ike’s advice.
Another nugget from Putin is this one…
The dollar is the cornerstone of the United States’ power. I think everyone understands very well that, no matter how many dollars are printed, they are quickly dispersed all over the world. Inflation in the United States is minimal. It is about 3 or 3.4%, which is, I think, totally acceptable for the U.S. But they won’t stop printing. What does the debt of $33 trillion tell us about? It is about the issuance.
First, I take issue with his comment that 3% to 3.4% inflation is “acceptable.” It’s absolutely not acceptable. But he is correct that the dollar is a major source of American power and that playing fast and loose with the dollar is damaging.
As Putin continues,
Nevertheless, [the dollar] is the main weapon used by the United States to maintain its power across the world. As soon as the political leadership decided to use the U.S. dollar as a political instrument, a blow was dealt to this American power. I don’t want to use any unliterary expressions, but this is stupidity and a huge mistake.
I don’t agree with Putin on much, but “stupidity” and “huge mistake” are words I find myself using regularly with respect to U.S. monetary and fiscal policy. Putin may very well be the Antichrist, but he’s not wrong here.
That’s why dollar devaluation – and how to protect against it – is one of the core themes of The Freeport Society. It’s why we already hold three dollar “hedges” in our Freeport Investor model portfolio (members can log in here)… one of which is already up 19% since December.
Look, I don’t love that anyone gave Vladimir Putin a platform. This is a man who, to this day, insists that “de-nazifying” Ukraine was one of his major war objectives and a justification for all the lives lost. Those are the words of a man who is either delusional or cynical to the point that truth no longer has meaning.
But, if even he sees the holes in our American “leadership,” and the damage they’re doing to the world’s reserve currency… then it’s high time someone does something. There’s little hope that any of the presidential hopefuls will make one iota of a difference if they capture the White House. So the responsibility falls to us to protect our freedoms and to build our wealth… despite the forces working against us.
That’s why we founded The Freeport Society. It’s why we began publishing The Freeport Investor. It’s why I urge you to join your fellow members in building an investment portfolio designed to stand the test of chaos. You can find the details here.
To life, liberty, and the pursuit of wealth.