Luke Gromen
Appearances
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Oil had gone up a bunch in price, so they had a bunch of oil deficits. They were looking to basically revalue gold and then settle deficits with OPEC in gold. And the Americans in question – excuse me – And Kissinger, Weintraub, Volcker said, this isn't in our interest. This is not what we want. We want the Saudis not getting gold. We want them getting treasury bonds.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And so, right, the famous Bill Simon deal. And so I think – I can't believe they took that deal. I think it might have been a gold or the lead type of deal at that point in time. You know, we'll give you not only – you take the gold, you take the lead. And the gold is we'll provide you protection. We'll provide you weapons. We'll let you access to our markets.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And if you don't do it, we're going to regime change you. And, oh, by the way, we'll give you maybe a sweetener on your – you know, I think it's very possible they were getting – higher than market interest rates on the treasury bonds for decades as part of that deal. Who knows? But – What do you mean, who knows? It's not something that's ever been disclosed, but – Well, how can – wait.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think – I have heard credible rumblings from people that were – around then that part of that deal may have been, not just countries, just Saudi, may have gotten a sweeter deal than other countries. But how can that not be disclosed? That's how you get a $10,000 wrench at Department of Defense. Wrenches don't cost 10 grand. It's right. You move stuff around a little.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You know, it's always about power and control, right? This is about control of the system. This is the dollar system. Clearly, 71 was a default in the gold. And so we were trying to sort of get around this.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And so I think sort of the original sin or, again, the origin story of the refusal of wanting to even talk about or, you know, what is an audit, you know, what is is, you know, as it relates to audits. of Fort Knox is once we close that gold window, I think that generation of leadership, 70s, 80s, didn't want to talk about gold.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
10, 11 years, I think one of the big origin stories of macroeconomics as they have developed over the past 10 years has been the fact that global central banks on net have In 2014, stopped growing their holdings of treasury bonds. So global central banks have not bought a treasury bond on net. In fact, they've sold about $300 billion worth. U.S. Treasury. U.S. Treasury since 2014.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And going in to audit it brings gold back up and brings it back up that, hey, we defaulted on our gold clauses. Like twice in the past 80 years, by the way, FDR defaulted on gold clauses to the domestic Americans. So I think the original origin story was about this reticence about is the gold there? Has it been audited? What is an audit? Has it been fully audited? Has it been fully assayed?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
All of the things you would think are pretty easy to do. I think go back to that policy of petrodollar, We don't want gold back in the system. The Europeans do. We don't. This is the deal. We threw our weight around in the 70s, and sending people into Fort Knox to show them we have the gold doesn't help us remove gold from the system. And ultimately, why do we want to remove gold from the system?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Control, and it's easier to run deficits without tears.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Oh, it's fascinating. I've been working in investment research for 30 years and at high levels at major institutions around the U.S., around the world as, you know, doing investment research for major money managers. And it's fascinating what you say because there is always, not amongst all of them, but amongst a lot of investment professionals who They watch gold.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They're called FX Reserves, which is basically their piggy bank. And they've bought about $600 billion worth of gold.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They watch it more than you would think, more than the average American would think. They own it. But there is that stigma where it's sort of, you know, hey, you see gold? You know, it is. There is a – stigma is too strong a word, but there is a – Kind of.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You know what I mean? Well, and it's fascinating, right? Because it is... I think it goes back to that original point of why those movements are shrouded in secrecy, which is gold on some level is a hedge or an insurance policy against the existing system as it has been allowed to evolve over the last 50 years. And so once you get to a certain level of wealth, power, influence within that system,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
you clearly understand the Achilles heels and the risks and how that system will at some point, mathematically certainty, it could be next week, it could be 50 years from now, will at some point need to be reset in some fashion. You understand that. And it is not in your interest, socially, financially, etc.,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
To advocate or advertise that you are hedging or insuring against the collapse of that system. No, right. So it's the restructuring of that system.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, which is horribly ironic, because if you go back to 1948, Warren Buffett, famous investor, poo-poos gold every chance he has. I noticed.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
His father, Congressman Howard Buffett from the state of Nebraska, wrote a missive – you can still find it online – saying gold convertibility is essential to human freedom, in which on the first page he says, look, the first thing autocrats and evil empires – we just got done fighting, right? This is 1948. First thing they did when they got to power –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
was remove the convertibility of their currency to gold. So it's ironic, it's always ironic to me, people say, well, you own gold, you're anti-American. I said, there's nothing more American than gold. People say, well, what does gold do? It's useless. I said, no, no, gold, the very use of gold is that as long as you can convert your currency into gold, you are still a free person.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
When you can no longer do that, Your vote really doesn't matter because they control the currency, right? It's the famous statement. Give me control of a nation's currency. I care not who makes its laws.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
He's a very powerful political player and in particularly for the banks.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
1989 or 6 with Solomon, who was a big player in the 98 long-term capital bank rescues. Buffett, Buffett.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It's the all shucks. Yeah, it's the all shucks.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think that's fair. And it's, you know, it's interesting. But he's a hard asset guy. He's absolutely a hard-ass guy.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Which sells gold. He bought railroads, right?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And he's—you can go back to— He's against gold. Oh, yeah. You— He's not against gold. You can see – and this goes back to that conflict of once you become big enough within the system, it's not in your interest to highlight some of these things. I mean one of his Berkshire letters from late 60s, early 70s, he highlights that basically Berkshire – it may have been the late 70s.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Berkshire stock priced in gold had gone nowhere for 10 or 15 years. And I mean, that flat out shows you, right? So all of these productive business and all these things he says about these productive businesses over time, 100% true. And there are instances in history where- Gold outperforms where gold preserves purchasing power. Currencies are being debased. It's interesting.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
He frequently talks about, well, I started investing in, I think it was when I was 10 years old. I bought my first stock, which would have been 1941 or 42, which just happened to be basically the all-time generational low of U.S. stocks. Because we won the battle of Midway. And at that point, it was sort of obvious we were going to win World War II and so on and so forth.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
But I always say to clients and friends, like, yes, and look back 15 years. The prior 15 years, from 1918 to 1939? 1915 to 1931? were catastrophic for financial assets of all types in the West. Gold, like all you wanted to own was gold. And so it's interesting.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think part of, you know, the point being part of, I think your view of the world depends upon when you're born and what happens as you're growing up. It's sort of that cycle theory of, you know, the fourth turning. I think it affects your views on investments too.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Sure.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And the bigger you are within that, the more pressure can be applied to you, right? If you don't get deal flow on Sunday night, if you are pumping goals, if you're Warren Buffett, or you don't get the approval of whatever thing you need approved or from the Congress. I mean, it's just, look, I'm not opining on it. It's just how the game is played.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah, I think you always want to think critically about this stuff.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah, I think so. Absolutely.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
To the extent what we can see, I would describe it simply as from the U.K. and the E.U. to a lesser extent into the U.S., It's still flowing into China. It flows into China all the time. But the big delta, the big change since the Trump election, essentially, has been a significant ramp up in the flows of gold out of the U.K. into the U.S. So that would seem good for the U.S.,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah, I think it ultimately evolved to that because it is because it isn't used for anything. Right. So there's something called stock to flow in commodities. If you analyze commodities and stock to flow is just what is the stock of inventory of that commodity and what is the flow? How much of it do you use a year? And the lower the stock-to-flow ratio, the more it is a commodity.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah, historically, when you see where gold is flowing, that's your economic winner. That's who's winning. And where the countries that are losing gold, those are the countries that are losing. That goes back several hundred years. That's sort of how it works, which makes sense. I would say several thousand years. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
No, I don't think so. I don't – at some point, Bitcoin could compete with it in my opinion possibly, but I think that's far down the road. And failing that, it would take something unforeseeable, right? We discover – We discover an asteroid that has, you know, gazillions of dollars of gold on it. And we develop the ability to go up there and bring it back cheaply in a way that competes.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yes, is ultimately its supply will be a function of price. And then there's a lot of it in the ocean, right? In theory, if you sort of dry out the oceans and filter it. Filter it, yeah. And that's just a question of price. And the question of price is ultimately a question of energy efficiency, right? If you wanted to – that's how much energy do you need to expend to –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
to dig and get that out of the crust where it is and refine it down so that it makes sense. And right now, it's going to cost you way more in energy in order to get that. And so you're not going to do that. And so if price goes up enough, then it makes sense for you to expend that amount of energy to do that.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And I think that's a really important point that ties back to our stock to flow and why gold is valuable is When you think of it in those terms, you need to expend a lot of energy to get gold, and the price of gold determines how much energy you're willing to expend to get it. It's just a compressed and portable storage of energy.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Depends which great power, right? The Chinese, all else equal, want to build a consumer society. They would like to have energy prices cheaper. America, we like cheap oil, but not as cheap as we used to like it because now we have shale. So we want Goldilocks oil. So above $90 starts to be a problem for our consumer. Below $70 starts to be a problem for our shale industry. And so...
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
If you look at the price of West Texas crude, WTI crude oil over the last two, three years now, oil has been 70 to 90. And I think that's so like we need Goldilocks oil. The Europeans, same kind of thing. They need a cheaper oil. The Russians, they would probably like more expensive oil. The Saudis, you know, Saudi has $90 fiscal break even.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You know, anything below 90, they're borrowing money and things get spicy over there if they don't maintain their promises to their people. Right. Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And the higher stock-to-flow ratio, the more it is like money. And so, for example, oil has a stock-to-flow ratio. When oil inventories globally are really high, stock-to-flow of oil might be 1.2. When they're low, they might be 1.1. If they get below 1.1, you're going to know because you're going to see prices skyrocketing at the pump. Very low stock-to-flow.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Wheat, copper, similar types of low stock-to-flows. Silver is, I don't know, as of a few years ago, around 30 to 1, right? Because silver is both a monetary metal and an industrial metal. Gold is 60 to 1 or more. And so I think ultimately, I don't know that these ancient cultures were thinking about gold in terms of stock to flow, but I think ultimately what they were looking at is,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you. Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Stock-to-flow means it keeps well, right? You can put gold in. It's the most money-like commodity there is. And that's why I think independently around the world, all these cultures arrived at gold as the savings store of value par excellence.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
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The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It creates a bank deposit, basically, at the Treasury's bank account at the Fed that the Trump administration could then use to buy down debt, to not have to borrow as much. It's effectively money printing through gold. It's creating money supply debt. using gold through basically an accounting gimmick that is already on the books. But that gold would never be sold to anyone?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Never be sold to anyone. It's just literally an exchange of paper.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I don't think – well – I think ultimately there'll be no need to do that because you've got the assets and you've got a printing press, right? So ultimately it's really a function of the currency. Of course, as long as you're the world's reserve currency. And even if we're, I mean, I think we will be, but they'll always have the ability to print dollars.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It's precisely why. I mean, it's easily divisible, right? So even in old days using old technology thousands of years ago, you could divide into very small amounts. It doesn't rust. And so there were obviously in the old days in particular, very practical applications, you know, You store a bunch of your wealth in wheat and it gets mold and it's all gone, right?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It's just a question of- But what if nobody wants them? It would just depreciate faster.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, it's the collateral is... It's a complicated question. On some level, it's the threat of violence. I think some of what we're seeing in terms of these discussions around will we leave NATO or will we not? This is a discussion that goes back to the 70s. There was something called the Blessing Letter. Carl Blessing was a governor of the Bundesbank, the German Bundesbank. And
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
The French were asking for their gold back. Others around the world were asking for their gold back in the 60s and 70s. I guess the blessing letter might have been late 60s. The Germans started hinting about asking about their gold back. And the Americans sent a letter that essentially said, You know, if you ask for your gold back, we will have to reconsider stationing U.S.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
troops in West Germany to protect you from the USSR. So, you're going to keep taking dollars or else we're going to bring our boys home and you can deal with the Soviets yourself. And the Germans never asked for their gold back. And so, what collateralizes is a complicated multi-body, right? It is... Goodwill, protection, access to markets, the threat of violence, military protection.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Gold is way, way down there. I don't think the gold is thought of as collateral, but it could be as a reserve asset if we wanted to change the system. We would need to have it if we wanted to change from the system we've created. we've been in for the last 50 years. And that kind of gets to the strategic side of it.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
We're not, true. I think you would see some sort of grand deal be discussed ahead of that. And I think that's, you know, some of what we're seeing in real time when we talk about us and the Russians and the Saudis and the Chinese all getting together in Saudi and talking about You know, probably not how the Yankees are going to do this year. And probably not just the end of the war in Ukraine.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
No, absolutely. I don't think it's only about the war in Ukraine.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You know, those are... Think about what you've got there.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You know, you've got the four biggest... You know, Saudi, U.S., Russia. That's 40% of global oil production. And U.S., China is... What? Probably 60% of global oil imports. Global oil... So you can... Oil is going to have a role there.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Now, the strategic side of what I think we're seeing, the gold movement, is ultimately if you take a step back and try to see the forest for the trees of what the Trump administration is trying to do. The Ukraine war showed us we got outproduced by the Russians badly. We couldn't produce shells. We couldn't produce Stinger missiles. We couldn't. We were reliant.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
on essentially China to supply our industrial base, to supply our defense base. We have been borrowing money from China to build weapons to face down China using Chinese components. It's not a good strategy when your biggest geopolitical adversary is China.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Oil, you have a spill, it's all gone. The gold, it's much more portable. It's divisible, malleable. It doesn't rust. So there's, I think, some practical things, but I think ultimately it's the most money-like thing with those physical aspects.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think that absolutely could be the case. And I think that we know that the Chinese were supplying Russians with dual-use goods as well. So China's on both sides. China's on both sides. And critically, think about the implications of this, right? So we, America, when we wore the dominant power, we were the ones supplying the weapons to these types of conflicts.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Now we didn't really have the ability to credibly say... Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel, we can supply all of you at once. Empirically, we demonstrated over the last three years, it was impossible. We were moving Patriot systems out of Israel to Ukraine and then having to backtrack in certain areas in different conflicts as a result of that.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
When paired with what happened in COVID, which was, hey, we need more PPE and supplies and what have you. And China said, just as soon as we get ours. We were dependent on China in COVID. And it was made crystal clear to Washington that the defense industrial base has been too hollowed out by this currency system whereby we export dollars and we export our factories and our workers and...
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
China sends us stuff and we send them dollars and they send us goods and – sorry. They send us goods. We send them dollars and then they reinvest those dollars in our financial markets. And that's fine. That has been how the world has worked for 50 years. And it's been great for Wall Street. It's been great for Washington. It's been great for China.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It's not been great for the American middle and working class whose factories got offshore to China. And Washington was fine with that until all of a sudden they realized – this process has gone so far, we cannot credibly fight a war without Chinese factories. And the Defense Department is saying, and they began saying it 10 years ago, no mas, we're done here.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
This is, we need to start reshoring as a matter of national security. And the origin problem is, is the structure of this dollar system. And so we need to get out of the business of supplying China the dollars to buy up the world. And that means we need to change the currency system that's been in place for 50 years.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, when you say these types of things, the instant response, the correct response is, well, okay, if the US isn't going to run deficits, run up debt to supply the dollars to the world, who will? No one else will. The Chinese won't and no one else can. And that is correct.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And the answer is then you're going to have to settle deficits in something else that is nobody else's debt, nobody else's liability, and that is gold. And I think that's where this is going, which is – and I think it's part of the reason why the U.S. is actually buying gold is to try to –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
When you hear President Trump say we want to go back to tariffs and cut income taxes, when you hear Marco Rubio in his confirmation hearing say within 10 years we are going to be dependent on China for everything if we do not take aggressive actions to change the system. and start to reshore, change this currency system and reshore.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
When you have Senator Vance say what he said in 2023 to Powell about the dollar increasingly being a resource curse, about which Vance is very familiar, having grown up in West Virginia and Southern Ohio and seeing the deindustrialization. The chapter in verse, this administration understands this problem.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
So in 2023, he said that the dollar shows the hallmarks of a resource curse, which is – it's often called Dutch disease. I might refer to it as that, which is effectively – If you're Saudi Arabia and you discover that you are the biggest, lowest-cost producer of oil, you produce a lot of oil and the rest of your economy shrivels up and does nothing. You know, it withers away.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And it ultimately becomes a strategic handicap or a strategic risk. And you get corruption every time. Exactly. And... Vance's point was that the dollar's reserve status, we are the Saudi Arabia of money. That's how the system has worked for 50 years. We produce the world's reserve currency. We're the Saudi Arabia of money.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And what has followed is the hollowing out of industries other than those most closely tied to the money printer, to the dollar, Washington, Wall Street. And His point is it is becoming this resource curse of being the Saudi Arabia of money is increasingly not good for the American middle class, the American working class, the U.S. defense establishment.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
He specifically cited our inability to produce shells for Ukraine in his question to Powell in 2023. And you can find this online. You can Google it. I think it was April or March of 2023. Yeah.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And so it showed a fundamental understanding of this connection between the structure of the dollar system over the last 50 years and the situation in which we find ourselves where our defense industrial base is so hollowed out and our debt level so high, we cannot credibly fight a war against our major adversaries without them supplying us. And our debt is so high that...
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They can weaponize our debt against us. And so ultimately, I think the strategic reason why we're starting to see gold reenter the conversation, why central banks have been buying gold for 10 to 12 years, why the U.S. is – gold is – we're likely moving to a system – advocated for by the policies of the United States, if not outright saying, hey, we want gold to be the neutral reserve asset.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
But we can see the policies, and they are functionally indistinguishable from saying we want gold to be the neutral reserve asset. I think what we're going to do is move toward a system where The foreign capital flows. Basically, we bring factories that we put tariffs on. We lower income taxes. U.S. consumer spending rises.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
The dollar – we start to see foreigners send goods here, also pay us tariffs, start to reinvest in our factories instead of just buying our treasury bonds and our financial assets. Employment goes up. Building goes up. Growth goes up. Ultimately, though – If they're not recycling their dollars into – they can only put so much in factories. They're not putting them in treasury bonds anymore.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They haven't for some time. What are they going to put it in if they have a surplus left over from dealing with us? Where are they going to put their surplus dollars, et cetera? I think the answer is gold. And I think that's – I think the flows of gold, the longer we go –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
where the tariff story, you know, it's just tariffs, and it just keeps coming, and it just keeps coming, which I'm hearing is still, to this point, continuing to keep coming, gold flowing in, the more likely, in my opinion, when married with the pronouncements from Trump, Rubio, Vance, Stephen Mirren, the Council of Economic Advisors, Besant, the more likely it is that these flows of gold into the U.S.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
are effectively... front-running what will likely be a higher price of gold driven there by the recycling of global trade more into gold and less into U.S. financial assets than has been the case over the last 50 years. It's just an incredible story.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Or an economy. An economy. And I think there will still be growth in services and the abstractions and these things. This doesn't mean technology stops progressing. And when I say factories, I would use the broadest possible definition of factory, right? We're making things.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They may be robotic factories, but they're making things. Exactly. And that, I think, is where this is going. And again, critically, I think the reason it's going there is
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And I think the reason these policymakers, again, Trump, Besson, Rubio, Vance, like chapter and verse, is it has become clear that the status quo dollar system has become an acute national security threat to the United States on two fronts. We can't make weapons, which we keep hearing. We can't make them fast enough to credibly defend our allies and project power.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And our debt has gotten so high that that, too, has become a national security threat. And this sort of checks both boxes in terms of this systemic change. And it makes America great again.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, I don't think so. I mean, I don't... You know, it's one of these things where I think, you know, what's Charlie Munger say? You show me an incentive, I'll show you an outcome, right? It was one of Charlie Munger's famous quotes. And so I don't see them as parasites or whatever. I think I see them as rational people responding to it.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, think about it, right? So the system we set up, when you're the Saudi Arabia of money, as we've been since 71 – you're going to have dollar Dutch disease. This is the resource curse Vance talked about in 23. And so, you're going to have two sectors grow to the detriment of all other sectors. Federal government. Yep, yep. And finance, insurance, real estate. Right. The fire industry, finance.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Now, Both of those industries are absolutely, and I'm not calling them parasites, but they are parasitic industries. They make money by taking a small cut of everything that comes in. And if you just think about this intuitively, biologically, in the natural world, if you have a small parasite on you, you have a small, whatever, gut parasite, it takes a little bit of every meal you eat.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Maybe you don't feel 100%, but you're fine. The parasite is great, and you're fine. Right. At some point, the parasite gets so big, if it's allowed to get so big, that it's taking too many of your calories, you start to wither and you die ultimately. And that is where we're at.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Unfortunately, the symptoms of this are 100,000 people a year dying of drug overdoses, the inability to make shells, the hollowing out of the defense industrial base. And these are the things... that this fixes. I mean, it's, it's, you know, I look at myself, I was a fairly smart kid. I was going into architecture, didn't like architecture.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I could have done engineering, but I absolutely 35 years ago looked at and said, okay, well, I can study really hard and never go out to the bars and graduate in five years in engineering, or I could get really good grades, a lot less effort, go out to the bars three, four nights a week and graduate in four years in business and in finance.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
The transparency varies, right? So in the end, it isn't very transparent.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And I, you know, I made a self, you know, I made a it's a tragedy of the commons problem, right?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I'm not, you know, I people respond to incentives. And this but this this fundamentally changes the incentives when you do this neutral reserve asset. So to answer your question. There are a lot of people vested in the current system. A lot of people vested, yes. Powerful people.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think what we have been watching over the last five years, and I think that's part of the, you know, the Trump versus, you know... No question. The animosity to him.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Oh, yeah. I think absolutely. And I think there has been a... sort of the uh a progression of the u.s you know what was you know 1960 to 1980 what's good for gm's good for america and then from 1980 to 2020 what's good for goldman sachs is good for america and i think starting trump introduced some of these concepts 16 to 20 but i think covid and then um The war in Ukraine reinforced it.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think we're shifting to a what's good for the U.S. defense industrial base and middle and working class is good for America. And so there's, you know, this, to your point, this old what's good for Goldman Sachs is good for America wing of the world, the Robert Rubens and the, you know, the Larry Summers and a lot of these guys you're seeing lament against all the tariffs and all this stuff.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They're absolutely fighting. I don't know that it is terrible for their interests if... Because what you're talking about, the two most pronounced dynamics are going to be the real value of long term treasury bonds, long term dollar bonds will fall relative to industrial assets, production, equities, etc. So these guys may have less political power.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
But the reality is that's just a marking to market. Their worldview has been proven wrong. We can't make shells. There are 100,000 people dying of drug overdoses every year. You do have a hollowed-out defense industrial base. We do have too much debt. Those things are no longer debatable. They're all empirically true. They're all empirically shown to be hurting the U.S.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
So they can't argue on the merits, so they've got to attack— people trying to implement it. But in the end, I don't think they can win this argument anymore because events have proven them wrong. The system is going to change because the U.S. military is not going to sit here and go, you know what, guys, you're right. Let's keep that system.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, they would say, well, we tell you, you just have to pay very close attention, right? So you can look in the UK trade statistics. They show you how much gold is leaving London. They don't want to advertise that, but there are times... Do they tell you where it's going and why? The Swiss data are very, very good. They show you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And we'll just have China make everything for us in five years. And then, you know, when you want us to face down the Russians over in, you know, Georgia or in, you you know, we'll ask the Chinese to make weapons for it. Like, that's not going to happen. So if that's not going to happen, and if we're not going to default on our debt, then the only outcome is...
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
They're going to have to restructure the system in this way, which will be good for these people's equity basis. Right. There'll be a lot more bank loans. So it's just more it's not catastrophic. It's just catastrophic to a worldview. But the worldview, like to any objective observer, is already dead.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think absolutely. I mean, ultimately, you think about everything we've shifted to, you know, this system has required us offshoring infrastructure, manufacturing, et cetera, that stuff needs to be rebuilt, right? When you look at the flows of the last 50 years, Our infrastructure looks like we lost a war. It's been hollowed out. It's been dilapidated.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And so there's decades of open field running of, I mean, I'm an investor in a private equity investment in U.S. electrical infrastructure. It's a boring business. They just make metal bending stuff that goes into transformers.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It's absolutely the future. And they've got so much demand, they can't hire enough people, they can't, you know, and so there's, once you get the right incentives in place in terms of the monetary system and those flows, the markets will start to work and they'll start to feed on themselves. And then we can get into things, okay, wow, we have enough, you know. We've got enough demand.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Now we need to build the power plants. Once we build the power plants, then we can build more high-speed rail. We build more high-speed rail. We need more train stations. We need more electricians. We need more – Totally. And it can feed on itself. It's not easy.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
There's a high degree of executional risk, not least of which is because we have dawdled so long, because this other wing of Washington has been so successful in fighting off what has long been obvious to the military and others – we got to run fast. We got to run not quite on a Manhattan project type of timeframe, but we don't have... We need to be aggressive in doing this.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Swiss data are always good. The Swiss are very precise. So you have an idea. But again, when I say it's transparent or not, those data, as long as it is what they classify as non-monetary gold, according to IMF shipping classifications, we'll call them, however they, industrial classifications, non-monetary gold gets recorded. Monetary gold, to your point,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And I think it's part of the reason why we've seen the Trump administration be so aggressive with some of their moves so early on. I mean, it has been fascinating how quickly they've been doing things and moving fast and breaking stuff. And some of the stuff is like, oops, we didn't need to do that.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
But I think that speed reflects, in my opinion, my read of that speed of action by the Trump administration is a – nod towards understanding that this needs to get going fast. It's so big picture.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Oh, they absolutely are. You can see it in their public pronouncements.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I think Vance understands it at a level... As good as any politician that I've seen in this country in decades. And I think some of that is, you know, if viewers haven't watched Hillbilly Elegy or read the book Hillbilly Elegy. He understands it at such an intuitive level because he lived it. He was in Middletown, Ohio. He saw what happened in Middletown, Ohio. He saw what happened to his family.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
He saw the hollowing out. I mean, so much so that Larry Summers, one of the people trying to fight this, was publicly praising –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Show me how. You know, so Vance, I think, really gets at a – he lived it. He saw, like, more than anyone in that seat that we've seen in our lifetimes, I would argue, saw and has spoken about – has spoken about – the resource curse. And so Vance, you know, the, the dollar Dutch disease, what happened to manufacturing? What happened to families?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
What happened to the social fabric of the middle and working class across America? And he wrote about it. He's, you know, the movie is about him and, and, um,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
in 2023, he specifically linked reserve currency status of the dollar, specifically said it might not be a good thing for the U.S., specifically said we are getting wildly outproduced by the Russians in Ukraine and we can't credibly maintain our defense obligations because we don't have the industrial base to do so because of the dollar system and the resource curse, and kind of left it open for Powell to kind of say, hey, you know, you got two minutes to answer, you know, what do you think?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And I think he gets it so fundamentally from – we talked earlier about where you grow up leads and influences your views on investing in the world, et cetera, the timeframe in which you grow up and where you grow up. Think about the timeframe in which he grew up and where he grew up. And he's brilliant and his ability to just synthesize data and understand not just the direct linkages –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
doesn't have to be declared as it moves, is how I understand the rules. And so when you see the monetary gold movements, there is still very much an element of secrecy and non-transparency. And yes, some of that is the public's money, and it's not being disclosed why it's moving and how much exactly. It's almost like... It's almost like being in the movie Jaws, right?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
but the second and third derivative implications and the policies that could be taken, the levers that could be pulled to move those second and third derivatives in a way that is beneficial to fix, to really fix the issue and not just, you know, print money and try to pay for it. He's very encouraging in my opinion.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
No. And, you know, last weekend's a perfect example. And again, it goes to that whole the existing system that's empirically been proven to not be what's right for us. All you heard about last weekend was how he had insulted free speech in the UK and in the EU and everything. Is that what they were saying? I don't follow that stuff. Oh, my goodness.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Every wilting flower about, oh, liberal free speech and blah. And I think they buried the lead.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
He said... Germany, you were the only country that did not follow, and I quote, the stupid Washington consensus of the 70s, 80s, and 90s that de-industrialized all of us. And now you're choosing to de-industrialize?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And that ties back into this whole point of these policymakers. When was the last time you had the vice president of the United States call the 70s, 80s, 90s? Holy grail. This is the dollar system. Stupid. The stupid Washington consensus. Right. I don't ever remember hearing that. And if it was a one-off, okay, whatever. But we've heard it, the interactions with Powell.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Trump saying, I want to make us like great like we were 1870, 1913, which is tariffs, low income tax, no income tax. Rubio saying, listen, guys, we can't make stuff. In 10 years, we're going to be dependent on China for everything we need. Besant saying in his confirmation hearing, Wall Street's had a great run. Main Street has really suffered. It's Main Street's time.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
We need to pursue policies that bolster Main Street. Wall Street will still be okay. They'll still do fine. Maybe not as well, but it's Main Street's time. We need a Main Street. These policymakers are telling us – and it all, in my opinion, goes back to the structure of the system, which is as long as we store global surpluses in our financial markets and in particular treasuries –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
That system is going to continue. You move to a neutral reserve asset like gold because now when they store money in gold, price of gold goes up. Currencies can move around. It's a natural rebalancing mechanism. The dollar will weaken against the yuan, right? What have we been saying?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
We want the Chinese to weaken the yuan, weaken the yuan – excuse me, strengthen the yuan, strengthen the yuan, strengthen the yuan, strengthen the yuan. If gold goes up in dollars and doesn't go up as much in yuan –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
by virtual flows into, you know, dollar flows into gold and fewer yuan flows into gold, the dollar's going to go down versus the yuan, which is the very thing we've been trying to get the Chinese to do to stop dumping so much cheap product here. Gold will take care of it. It just does what it's... Are you advising the new administration?
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I agree. And one of the things I've... I don't have as much familiarity with that. And so I would admit naivete towards the degree of that to a certain extent.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Well, and it's the... From a layman's perspective, I thought a lot of the Trump appointments were interesting in and of themselves. But as you know, there's appointments and then there's confirmations. And so I was withholding judgment to see... And I think there is some, to me, again, as a Washington layman, encouraging that he picked Vance, number one, after what Vance said.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
So, okay, Vance gets it on that policy. But then when you see Tulsi, very unpopular in the Beltway, okay, not only does she get picked, she gets confirmed. RFK Jr. I know. Not only gets picked, but gets confirmed. Like, Cash, yesterday. Okay, another. So, point being that you are seeing, you know, Hegseth, unpopular, confirmed.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Where early on, you know there's a shark out there, and you see the impact of the shark, and every now and then you'll get a glimpse of it, but you don't really fully see the shark very often.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
So, there's this slate of people that are non sort of deep state, if we will, get picked. Yeah. and get confirmed.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And so, to me, you know, I would defer to your judgment, but as a layman to Washington, the fact they got picked and then that they got confirmed is at least encouraging that fight that I think presents executional risk to this optimistic view of where we could be in two, three, five, ten years. In my opinion, it's
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
those appointments and what have you have, have on some level mitigated, or at least their victories, their victories.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you very much.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
We'll be right back. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You know, it's one of these things where gold has long been the competitor to the dollar system. And once you start getting into competitors to government currencies, which are, as you noted, the method – a very effective method of control, right? This is why we use dollar sanctions, why we've been using dollar sanctions.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
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The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
It is when things get spicy, gold has a 6,000-year track record. And I think store of value, your point store of value is really critical, right? Because currency has medium exchange, unit of account, store of value. Those are the three functions of money. And we have moved on from gold as a unit of account. Our bank accounts aren't denominated in gold. We moved on from gold.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
That quickly gets into the reason for – I think at least some of the reason for the secrecy around gold as it relates to governments, which is – Number one, as Greenspan said, the only currency that's better than the dollar is gold. And it's been that way for a long time. And he said that in 2013 or 2014. And so that...
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Number one is there's a perception, right, where if you're trying to be a manager of the dollar, as the U.S. government is, that is a perception you are trying to manage. And so I think there's some element of that. I think there are other countries that have been, for example, the Chinese have been buying lots of gold. They have long said, you can find it in WikiLeaks documents from 2009, that
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
China's buying gold to kill two birds with one stone. It's number one, it will build up and help internationalize the renminbi over time. And also the Americans and the Europeans, they specifically said, have historically tried to prevent gold from rising too much in order to increase the prestige and the attractiveness of their own currencies. And so we're buying gold for that reason. So
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
You get into – gold is very much a geopolitical metal because when you think of it in those terms, if you're China and you're buying lots and lots of gold, as China has done at times over the last 15 years after the great financial crisis, let's be clear. That can be construed in certain circles in Washington and in Brussels and in London as a tax on those nations' currencies.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And so it is in the interest of nations that might want to diversify from –
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
the dollar from the euro reserves which in which fx primarily i want to check a number while you're talking primarily denominated in uh it it behooves those nations to have a level of secrecy around it as well so it's that element of um trying to manage currency systems uh from two opposite sides of the coin okay so let me let me this is directly to your point
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And this is why when I say it's a political and geopolitical metal. Right. Because those are those are the official monetary reserves. Chinese have been bringing in thousand plus tons of gold every year. The Indians have been stockpiling gold for thousands of years. I mean, to their great credit. I'm not criticizing.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah. The chart of gold and Indian rupees looks like Apple in dollars.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I'm not walking around with gold coins in my pocket. Unfortunately. Yeah. but it has always retained that store of value component of money and critically at the highest levels of finance.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
And there's a reason for it, right? There's always a real reason why that is. Why, you know, for that, for that.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah, it's, I want to say, yeah, there's some there, there's some in Denver, there's some at this point.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
We're told, oh, that's too complicated.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
I don't think it's anything to do to your point. It's not complicated at all. I think it comes down to policy and that gold is a geopolitical metal. And if you go back to, again, declassified documents of conversations and memos around a lot in the 70s, and you'll see some familiar names there, Volcker, Kissinger, Weintraub, some of those types of names. Yeah. The U.S.,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
in the 60s, was losing a lot of gold, right? The system was essentially dollar is pegged to gold, $35 an ounce. Everything else is paid to the dollar. And it started becoming clear as we got deeper and deeper in Vietnam and guns and butter with LBJ that we didn't have the gold to cover our debt offshore at $35 an ounce.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Yeah, we went from, I want to say after World War II, we had 18,000 tons of gold, official gold, And by the time we got to call it 71, we were down to the 80, 100 we have today. And that's where we shipped out about 10,000 tons of gold to satisfy these deficits. Actual physical gold. Oh, absolutely. Like, here are my dollars. Send me my bars.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
If I recall the story correctly, the French sent warships into New York to pick it up. Oh, yeah. No way. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And we were sending, you know, if I recall correctly, we were sending an airplane a month to Riyadh with bullion. Right. To settle gold deficits, as we had agreed to.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Saudi owns so much gold. It's just not on the official list.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
The global central banks who are running our currency and monetary system, as much as we have moved away from gold and those other functions, as much as we've moved to fiat currency, as much as technology has developed, as much as our economies have developed, they have always continued to hold their gold. And in the last decade,
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
Right, so, but, and I think the reason why the numbers are lies is when you, or why there's not great clarity, right? Why they manage the optics in the way they're clearly managing the optics is, you can go back, once we close the gold window, In 71, Nixon said, hey, no more gold. You know, the dollar is now free floating. And you can read from these declassified documents that the U.S.
The Tucker Carlson Show
Luke Gromen: Why the CIA Doesn’t Want You Owning Gold, & Is Fort Knox Lying About Our Gold Reserve?
very much had an interest in getting gold out of the system. We didn't want – because there were – there was one of the declassified documents in question. There is – There was a proposal that was afoot in 73, 74 by the Europeans to revalue their gold to settle oil deficits, right? Because Europe doesn't have a whole lot of oil. They were importing a bunch of oil.