Are you prepared for financial maybe ruin or maybe worried about the future financially?
Speaker AHave you ever, do you have a plan for how to navigate, especially if, well, we have a reprieve right now with Trump.
Speaker ABut what if the Democrats get back in power and decide to start debanking people again?
Speaker ADo you have a plan for that?
Speaker AThat's going to be coming up right now on the RAP Report.
Speaker AWelcome to the RAP Report with your host, Andrew Ra, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
Speaker AThis is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast community.
Speaker AFor more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to striving for eternity.org welcome to another edition of the Rap Report.
Speaker AI'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, the executive director of Striving Fraternity and the Christian Podcast community, of which this podcast is a proud member.
Speaker AWe are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications and, well, in this case, for the Christian life.
Speaker AWe're going to talk some application with someone named James Hunter.
Speaker AHe is with Alps Precious Metals Group.
Speaker AI met him oh over a year ago at the first Fight Laugh Feast that I went to.
Speaker AAnd we met, we talked for, I'm going to guess probably about an hour on a whole lot of topics, not all dealing with precious metals and finances, but he has a wealth of knowledge on a lot of topics.
Speaker ABut today we're going to focus on basically on finances.
Speaker AHis, his, the who he works for.
Speaker AThe company he has is Alps Precious Metals Group.
Speaker AYou can find it at a l p s pmg.com that stands for Alps.
Speaker ASo AP the Alps.
Speaker AAnd then Precious Metals Group is the PMG, just so you know.
Speaker ASo we'll mention that throughout.
Speaker ASo, James, welcome to the RAP Report.
Speaker BGreat to be here.
Speaker BVery, very kind to have me, Andrew.
Speaker ASo for folks who, who don't know you, maybe they there were a couple people that weren't at that fight left East.
Speaker AI mean, it was a pretty big conference, but maybe there's a few.
Speaker AIntroduce yourself, let folks know a little bit about you.
Speaker AHow did, how do you become a Christian?
Speaker AAnd then how did you start out with getting into this, you know, area of dealing, helping people with their finances?
Speaker BSure.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker BWell, first of all, saved by the grace of God at Calvary.
Speaker BAnd then Christ's resurrection from the dead, ascension to the right hand of the father.
Speaker BBorn in 1963, baptized as an infant as a Presbyterian, really began to feel the no.
Speaker BOf the, of the omnipresence of the Lord when I was seven years old at a Christmas Eve service in Birmingham, Alabama, where I also felt unquestionably calling to the ministry.
Speaker BI just remember that evening listening to the, my, my minister and give the Christmas Eve of a sermon and thinking, I think I'm going to do what he's doing one day.
Speaker BI think God wants me to do that.
Speaker BAnd that is while I'm not formally ordained, I have been ordained as a lay minister, a deacon, a number of things.
Speaker BMajored in religion, have studied for, done a great deal of apprentice type studying for the ministry and I'm now an elder at a church plant here in Pensacola, Florida where I'm based called Ascension Church of Florida of Pensacola.
Speaker BExcuse me.
Speaker BAnd we are Reformed Evangelical Church.
Speaker BSo what does that mean?
Speaker BIf you kind of threw together Presbyterian and Episcopalian, that's what you get.
Speaker BI have been, I would definitely call myself a, a descendant of J.C. ryle, if you're familiar with him.
Speaker BAnd essentially he was given the moniker a Presbyterian with a prayer book.
Speaker BAnd that's pretty much what I am.
Speaker BAnd, and our, the church we started about coming up on 20 months ago.
Speaker BAs the big, the most potpourri gathering of Christian brothers and sisters.
Speaker BI mean we've got a Presbyterian Episcopalian, a fourth, fifth generation Southern Baptist, two or three pop non denominational families.
Speaker BAn old Methodist.
Speaker BIt's literally all over the entire spectrum.
Speaker BAnd there was a, this, the founder of the Reform Episcopal Church way back in the late 19th century was a guy named George David Cummings.
Speaker BAnd he felt like that if it was done right that the union of evangelical Christendom could happen under the biblically faithful and grounded expression of the faith and Episcopalian, not necessarily the governance, but certainly the, the worship.
Speaker BOkay, so that's the Reader's Digest there.
Speaker BAnd thanks be to God for his kindness and saving me.
Speaker AYou just, you just need a dispensationalist in there to have the full gamut of potpourri.
Speaker AMaybe the Southern Baptist is.
Speaker BSo you know, there you go, There you go.
Speaker BAbsolutely.
Speaker ASo essentially you're saying your, your church is what heaven will look like, huh?
Speaker AWell, yes, everyone will stop fighting and just get along.
Speaker ACrazy idea.
Speaker BAll right.
Speaker BOn the business side, because this has been somewhat of a.
Speaker BChaotic journey that God has put me on.
Speaker BOne of the things that one needs to.
Speaker BWell, I've been blessed to have a wife and children and how do you support them?
Speaker BAnd, and as I, I major in religion and graduated from Rhodes College in Memphis in 1985.
Speaker BThe General Plan at the time was I'm going to go straight to seminary.
Speaker BBut by, by the time I graduated, I'd actually bothered to really read the Bible.
Speaker BI had learned, read St. Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther and a number of other of the Christian theologians.
Speaker BAnd even though Rhodes is unquestionably a post liberal, post heretical place, sadly you did read these guys.
Speaker BAnd in reading them I was like, well, what am I going to do now?
Speaker BBecause I can't go to these seminaries.
Speaker BI didn't know enough about the continuing churches because they.
Speaker BYou had just begun to have the explosion.
Speaker BEpiscopal Church had destroyed the prayer book in 1979.
Speaker BThe president, usually the Episcopalians say over the last 150, 200 years have been the point of the spear.
Speaker BIf you look at the Oxford movement of the late, excuse me, the mid 19th century, that's where all the stuff really starts beginning to become manifest in the.
Speaker BIn the open church.
Speaker BSo.
Speaker BI was really kind of that man without a country.
Speaker BSo what am I going to do?
Speaker BWell, my grandfather was a physician in Boston, but he loved talking about Wall street markets, stock markets, et cetera.
Speaker BAnd the combination of culture, government, fiscal policy and stock markets was always fascinating.
Speaker BSo I ended up getting an MBA from Auburn University in Alabama, which is usually known as Sports University usa.
Speaker BHowever, it is also the home of the Ludwig von Mises.
Speaker BAustrian Economics Institute.
Speaker BAnd as a result I had a number of professors that were free market, Austrian Econ and, and, and one element of that is the grounding in physical gold to keep governments honest.
Speaker BSo starting in the late 80s, I'm like, I have that understanding.
Speaker BBut then my first job was I got into the institutional fixed income business.
Speaker BWhich means if you ever read the book Bonfire the Vanities.
Speaker BThat was a Tom Wolf book.
Speaker BIt's about the, they were called the Bond guys of the 80s were called the quote unquote masters of the Universe.
Speaker BAnd it's a, it's a fascinating book.
Speaker BSo Tom Wolf stuff is all really good to, you know, they're, they're really engaging reads.
Speaker BBut.
Speaker BThe Bond guys were the quote unquote, masters of the universe.
Speaker BAnd there was so much money that was being put into fixed income at the time.
Speaker BThat's where that came from.
Speaker BSo I was a Bond guy and, and I'll do a real fast forward here.
Speaker BSo I ended up working for the institutional division of Merrill lynch and Lehman brothers in the 90s.
Speaker BThis is before Lehman blew up.
Speaker BThen in, starting in 05, I started a small structured credit hedge fund with a friend of mine.
Speaker BHe was also a Christian brother.
Speaker BBoth of us were of the opinion that you cannot have credit trade where it was trading in the.
Speaker BIn the mid 2000s without a.
Speaker BIt was an accident waiting to happen.
Speaker BHave you ever seen the film the Big Short?
Speaker ANo.
Speaker AAnd my audience is not surprised in the least when you, when you mentioned me and anything in movies, pop culture, sports.
Speaker AI'm clueless.
Speaker BWell, the Big Short was a film that talked was basically telling you what happened during the 2008 meltdown.
Speaker BAnd essentially the, the guy, the, the characters in there are short the credit markets and that's why they make a bunch of money.
Speaker BWell, we were also now we were a small, we were small potatoes compared to those guys but we still had some, some very excellent years during 08 09.
Speaker BBut the Newmont was watching institutions and there are five of them.
Speaker BBank America, Citibank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Speaker BLiterally, if we, if, if they had to play by the rules that everybody else had to play by and Lehman was one of them, every last one of them would be out of business.
Speaker BHe would not have Jamie diamond running around on G5 airplanes and you know, addressing the.
Speaker BHe would have been just like the.
Speaker BAgain, I'm going to do another movie reference Trading Place with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, which was a comedy but at the end of it, the bad guys, the Duke and Duke commodity brokers think they have inside information but they've got it backwards.
Speaker BSo they blow up the firm and they get a margin call at the end of the film.
Speaker BThey say, well boys, margin call.
Speaker BAnd they go, you know perfectly well we don't have $394 million of cash.
Speaker BTo which the sky running the thing says, well, seize all assets of Duke and Duke and Solar Seeds.
Speaker BWhich is what should have happened to, yes, JP Bank America, Citibank, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
Speaker BBut it didn't happen.
Speaker AThat's when they came up with the term too big to fail.
Speaker ARight?
Speaker BCorrect.
Speaker BAnd it went.
Speaker BIf you go back and actually do the math and do the like.
Speaker BWhat would have actually happened if they had done what everybody else does?
Speaker BIt runs the ground, runs in the rocks.
Speaker BIt's a corporation.
Speaker BThe United States wouldn't have fallen apart.
Speaker BThey would have, but the United States wouldn't have.
Speaker BAnd that's how they, they scared everybody to death and scared all the congressmen that don't understand what's going on.
Speaker BAnd the next thing you know, they're alive.
Speaker BAnd firms like ours, which did the right thing, suddenly we can't get credit lines.
Speaker BWe can't, you know, oh, you're too, you're too small, you don't count anymore.
Speaker BIt was surreal.
Speaker BIt was truly surreal.
Speaker BThe bad guys are still around and the guys that did the right thing can't get credit.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker BSo that, that led me to, to really looking hard at how, okay, they have, they have stitched this thing together.
Speaker BAnd what are we now, 16 years into it?
Speaker B16 years sounds like a long time.
Speaker BAnd maybe it'll always work.
Speaker BMaybe they really will have gotten away with it.
Speaker BBut I just know, I don't.
Speaker BYou know, scripturally, you can go a long, long time.
Speaker BGod can be, can get general grace for a long time, but eventually it's.
Speaker BYou don't get away with stuff that you shouldn't get away with.
Speaker BAnd all the great stories of human history ends up going, the, the guys that did the wrong thing, the pipe, the, the Pied Piper eventually comes for the bill.
Speaker BAnd so my view was, all right, well, what are you supposed to do?
Speaker BHow can, how can, how can an individual, how can a family.
Speaker BAnd let's go further, especially for Christians, how can Christians do something to protect themselves against the next time this happens?
Speaker BAnd oh, by the way, the laws have changed because we're not going to get a bail out this time.
Speaker BWe're going to get a bail in.
Speaker BAnd you say, what in the world is a bail in?
Speaker BThe one thing to reference would be.
Speaker BThe country of Cyprus in 2013.
Speaker BIn that year.
Speaker BCyprus, the.
Speaker BThere were two main banks in Cyprus.
Speaker BTheir number one asset was Greek treasury bonds.
Speaker BOkay, okay.
Speaker BNow Treasuries are supposed to not ever default.
Speaker BWell, except in Greece's case, they didn't have the money to pay them.
Speaker BSo they were.
Speaker BSo all these banks are in structural default.
Speaker BThey are insolvent.
Speaker BThey had.
Speaker BAnd so what did they do?
Speaker BThey said, we cannot pay our depositors because our assets have gone to 40 cents in the dollar.
Speaker BSo they went to the ECB and said, we need you to bail us out.
Speaker BAnd at the time it was pretty much dominated by the Germans and still probably is.
Speaker BAnd the Germans said, no, we're not going to do that.
Speaker BSo the Cypriot bank said, well, what are we supposed to do?
Speaker BBecause we're going to blow up.
Speaker BAnd they said, we tell you what you're going to do, you're going to bail in your depositors.
Speaker BSo any depositor over the insured amount, it was fair game to take what they needed to recapitalize the bank and then issue, quote, unquote, new bank stock, which was essentially, they just took their deposit and the haircut ended up being.
Speaker BSo let's say Andrew rapoport had a $10 million euro.
Speaker BLet's say your family had a restaurant business for 100 years in Cyprus and you built up a lot of capital and taking care of the family.
Speaker BWell, you went to sleep on Friday with $10 million in the, in the sippy bank.
Speaker BYou woke up on Monday with 5 million and you had 5,5 million euros in new bank stock which you don't, you do not want.
Speaker BThat is a bail in and that is on.
Speaker BAnd this is not some 10, you know, tin hat conspiracy theory.
Speaker BAll you have to do is go to the, to the Dodd Frank.
Speaker BLaw that was passed after the crisis, go to title two and look up what happens in a banking crisis.
Speaker BWhat are the, what are the mechanisms that the Federal Reserve and the FDIC and the treasury have at their disposal and you will find out that depositors in the United States are subject to failure.
Speaker BNow let's think about it in Christian terms right now as you said in your opening comments.
Speaker BRight now we've got a four year reprieve or so we've got the mid midterms coming up.
Speaker BWho knows what happens with those.
Speaker BBut let's assume we can make it at least until 2028.
Speaker BBut what happens if, if, if, if the Democrats get back in and they've got, they are loaded for bear and they're coming for vengeance.
Speaker BAnd if, and if they do things such that they blow the financial system up again.
Speaker BNow they have in their books the ability to go to the tre.
Speaker BTo the deposits of banks and brokerage companies and, and oh by the way, they also have the CUSIP numbers on the treasury bonds and bills, right?
Speaker BOh, treasuries.
Speaker BI'm immune.
Speaker BAre you really?
Speaker BAre you really immune?
Speaker BWe know, what do we know from COVID We know from COVID that bets are off.
Speaker BThey'll just do what they want.
Speaker BYeah, so, so if I'm a Christian, let's, and this is the real tragedy that, that I fear.
Speaker BGod has built a church and let's say it started building 05 and they have been faithfully putting their ties towards the ministry of the church and that God has blessed them.
Speaker BThey've grown to 500 folks and they're trying to build a big church and they put, put $20 million in the bank and the, and the elders of the session are like no, no, no, we're going to be very careful with this.
Speaker BWe're only going to put it in CDs, we're only going to put it in Treasuries.
Speaker BEtc.08.2.0 occurs the banks have to be recapitalized.
Speaker BAnd you got Democrat running the FDIC and the treasury and the Fed and oh, oh, we need to recapitalize.
Speaker BOh, well, here's the First Baptist Church of Norfolk, Virginia, and they've got $20 million in there in the banking system.
Speaker BWell, guess what?
Speaker BNow you got 10.
Speaker BAnd we don't want to hear about how terrible you have it when you still have $10 million.
Speaker BI'm sorry you won't be able to build your building this year.
Speaker BBut the United States, the banking system in the United States is going to need your help.
Speaker AAnd, and that is for folks who may think, well, that that couldn't happen.
Speaker ANot only have you shown that has happened and could have, could happen, has happened, probably will happen.
Speaker ABut I, I, as you're talking about this, it drew me back to, I don't know if you remember what PayPal came out with, their, their updated.
Speaker ARequirements or whatnot.
Speaker AAnd they had this little thing in there that people didn't realize this back in the 2020, 21 time frame when everything was about, you know, Black Lives Matter and whatnot.
Speaker AAnd they had a little clause in there that said if they, if PayPal saw that you as an individual were posting something online that they deemed offensive, they would just go into your account and deduct $1,500 per incident.
Speaker AAnd, and myself with many others said, that's it, we're, we're getting away from PayPal.
Speaker AAnd, and they quickly realized they did that.
Speaker AI think it was on a Saturday that they put out the updated.
Speaker AStats.
Speaker AAnd, and by Monday, they were, they quickly like, had to make it public that, no, we're not going to do that, we're not going to do this.
Speaker AAnd because people just started in mass canceling because they, they actually thought they have the right to just debt, take money right out of your account if you say something they don't like.
Speaker AThis is what socialists want to do, right?
Speaker AThis is what the socialists in China do.
Speaker AThey have a whole scoring system where if you' pulling the party line, you can't buy things.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker AThey would love to do that here because it gives them ultimate control because you have to agree with them to be able to use your own money or they just have the right to take your money.
Speaker AThis is why I think it's so important for people to hear what you're, what you can offer folks at alps, because.
Speaker ALook, let's be honest.
Speaker AI'm sure that a majority of people here in this audience do not have a plan for when things fall apart.
Speaker AThey, they maybe there's a lot of people who maybe have a month if, if that in savings.
Speaker ASo in, in cases like this, I mean I know you, you, you've given the, the, the worst case scenario that's also possibly a likely scenario with the way what we saw in the 20, 20, 2024, you know, presidential, that we, I can't say the Biden administration because maybe we could say the Auto Penn administration, but I don't know that Joe Biden knew what was going on.
Speaker ASo, but during that time we saw the things they were willing to do and thought they have the right to do.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker ASo, so what would be really good is let's talk through what are some ways people could take action now.
Speaker AMaybe in small ways and then maybe there's people who do have a couple of months savings, bigger ways.
Speaker AHow can people protect themselves?
Speaker AHow should they be thinking of their finances?
Speaker BWell, okay, so if we're, if, if they're kind of levels here, right Andrew, if someone only has a month of savings to keep them, you know, keep the lights on, that's a totally different story.
Speaker BThey really wouldn't be affected by, they're going to be affected by just mischief in the, in the system only because of higher inflation rates, et cetera, that sort of thing, but that they're not really at risk of their deposits being confiscated like we're talking about because.
Speaker BThey don't have any, any regime is not going to go out there.
Speaker BThose guys don't help them.
Speaker BWhat does help them is where there's material amounts of capital and that's where to the extent that there may be many of the listeners to, to the show that are.
Speaker BNo, we, we have saved and we have, we've, we've taken care of things as far as we understand or as far as our.
Speaker BOur financial advisor has told us.
Speaker BNow this is where I go to, this is where I get into Donny Brook with.
Speaker BSomeone like what's the fellow out of Nashville?
Speaker BDave Ramsey.
Speaker AOh yeah.
Speaker BDave Ramsey will tell you till the cows come home that you're not supposed to be involved in physical gold.
Speaker BI would love to be on a platform with Dave Ramsey anywhere, anytime and have that debate because, not because I want to be ugly, but just because Dave, seriously brother, come on.
Speaker BWhat has, let's, what time period do you want to talk about?
Speaker BBecause if you say, well, gold doesn't have an income stream, okay, I, I'll grant you and, and real estate held for investment doesn't either.
Speaker BAnd there are, there Are lots of things that we could, we could talk about where it's just in gold's case, you have to pay a storage fee of some form if you keep it in on your property.
Speaker BYou know, I've got a, if I have a gun safe, I've got to, you know, go buy something to keep, keep it secure.
Speaker BYou know, there's some way, some form where you have to pay to securitize your physical goal.
Speaker BThe question is, what does gold do when it really matters?
Speaker BAnd the question, and let's start with August 15, 1971.
Speaker BWhat happened on that day?
Speaker BOn that day, Richard Nixon and John Connolly, who was the Secretary of the treasury, said no longer will gold be exchangeable at the treasury window for dollars.
Speaker BWhy did they do that?
Speaker BBecause the French had realized what a quagmire we'd gotten into the into in Vietnam, realized their dollar denominated holdings were losing value.
Speaker BSo they wanted to trade the dollar denominated holdings, treasuries, cash, what have you for physical gold.
Speaker BConnolly and Nixon went oh my gosh, if they do that and not.
Speaker BAnd how serious were they?
Speaker BThey sent a destroyer into the New York harbor to pick the stuff up.
Speaker BIf they did that.
Speaker BSo, and everybody gets a bright idea that we're going to do that too, we're going to be out of gold.
Speaker BSo they suspended those payments.
Speaker BAt the time, gold was something on the order of about 40 to 4, plus or minus $40 an ounce, right?
Speaker BWow, that's August 1571 in nine years.
Speaker BIn 1980 now allowed to free float.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker BBecause it's not a fixed price anymore.
Speaker BBecause it's not a fixed exchange.
Speaker BAt the treasury window, we went from $40 an ounce to eight, $800 an ounce in nine years.
Speaker BThat's a 20X.
Speaker BAnd what was going on in the 1970s?
Speaker BNixon and Watergate.
Speaker BNixon resigns.
Speaker BWe look like the Keystone Cops in Vietnam.
Speaker BCarter comes in, begins socialist projects, left, right and center.
Speaker BRunaway double digit inflation.
Speaker BIt takes Paul Volcker being Jimmy Carter had to put Paul Volcker on the Federal Reserve or the Japanese were not going to participate in the next U.S. treasury auction in 1980.
Speaker BAnd ultimately finally was, was Reagan going to be elected?
Speaker BAll that led to a 20x rise in gold.
Speaker BWhat did stocks do during that time?
Speaker BNothing.
Speaker BThey were down.
Speaker BSo who was the winner?
Speaker BIf I would.
Speaker BIf all I had to do, all I had to do was put 5 lousy percent of my net worth in gold.
Speaker BThe day they closed that gold window ten years later, I protected my entire net worth with 5% physical gold allocation.
Speaker BGold does well when things are chaotic.
Speaker BNow Ramsay would then.
Speaker BOh yeah, Jim.
Speaker BBut let's talk about what happened from 80 all the way to 2000.
Speaker BYou had 20 years for gold.
Speaker BDid nothing but go down.
Speaker BRight Dave?
Speaker BThat's correct.
Speaker BBut is it conceivable, do you have to pour concrete around your feet?
Speaker BI'm buying gold and I'm never ever going to sell it.
Speaker BNo, you don't have to do that.
Speaker BGold is liquid as water.
Speaker BAnd yeah, if you get to 1980 and goals 800 and the Dow Jones Industrial is 800.
Speaker BYeah, I'm supposed to sell gold by the Dow and take my percentage of gold down to 1% of my portfolio or something like that.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BOkay.
Speaker B20 years we go down and then what happens in 2001?
Speaker BSeptember 11, 2001, the planes hit the towers in New York.
Speaker BGold has fallen from $800 an ounce to 275 because of basically 20 years of downward trending interest rates, relatively stable US government.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BEven, even Clinton didn't really screw anything up because they, they didn't really do anything.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BBut when the planes hit the towers, gold has fallen to 275 an ounce.
Speaker BIf we then look so, so I've basically given you three epic periods.
Speaker BThe 70s, 80 to 2000 and then 2000.
Speaker BThe, the basically this, this century and this century I have seen, we have seen gold rise from 275 an ounce to now 4, 200, 4200 an ounce.
Speaker BIf Dave Ramsey sitting across me like Dave, I'm not telling everybody to go crazy, light their hair on fire, sell everything they have and not and have 80 gold.
Speaker BI'm saying get at least 10% of your net worth in physical gold.
Speaker BIf you had done so the day the planes at the towers.
Speaker BYou are now up something like 15x.
Speaker BCompare and contrast that to the stock market.
Speaker BCompare and contrast that to the bond market.
Speaker BGold has blown both of them away.
Speaker BNow you say, oh well wait, I must be too late.
Speaker BIt's 4200G whiz.
Speaker BI missed the boat.
Speaker BWell, remember that the Dow Jones is.
Speaker BWhere is it today?
Speaker B47,000.
Speaker BSome gigantic number.
Speaker BWe're still, we're still 10x away.
Speaker BWe've got a long way to go for gold to get matched up again with the stock market.
Speaker BSo, and that's just a general rule of thumb.
Speaker BIt's always easy to say when to buy.
Speaker BIt's very difficult to say when to sell.
Speaker BYes, but at least, but at least you have a general idea that if, if, if, if stocks are selling at a price that is so risk averse that you could buy gold for the same amount.
Speaker BThat's when you turn, you tack into the wind and go this is now a time for me to do differently.
Speaker BBut we are not there yet.
Speaker BEven at 40$200 an ounce and especially not there.
Speaker BIf you look at the world situation.
Speaker BIf you look at the.
Speaker BYes, we have, as you say again, we have a reprieve.
Speaker BBut you, when you have, when you have events like Charlie Kirk being martyred for his, for his faith in his straightforward conversation, it tells you.
Speaker BThe other side is ready to shoot and shoot to kill.
Speaker AYes.
Speaker BAnd if they're ready, if they're ready to shoot to kill.
Speaker BWe are not in a period yet where I should be short gold, I should be long gold until, until something has occurred.
Speaker BWhether that's you see it in the financial markets or whether you see it that culture truly as, as become more Christian which you need is going to have to do if we're going to get there.
Speaker BOr at the very least the aggressiveness of the opposition has.
Speaker BEnd for a while.
Speaker BWell, I see absolutely no evidence of that at all.
Speaker BI see retrenching, reforming the lines of the opposition and.
Speaker BIt'S we ain't there yet.
Speaker BYeah, so, so, so, so that long, what is that long comment?
Speaker BSimply to say.
Speaker BGold is something that if I'm, I don't care if I'm a tiny individual, tiny family, I have very little.
Speaker BIf I can just think in 5 or 10% of whatever my net.
Speaker BIf you've got, if you've got more debt than you have assets.
Speaker BThis is not a discussion pay down the debt.
Speaker BYou got to get the debt pay down to where you have clear assets.
Speaker BSo, but, but I really am speaking to.
Speaker BChristian families that are, that can lead churches that can build schools, they can do something that is fixing the culture and especially churches that are front and center in that culture war that may have very.
Speaker BKind hearted, good hearted, responsible elders who are listening.
Speaker BAnd I'm not saying Dave.
Speaker BDave, what's his name?
Speaker BRamsey.
Speaker BDave Ramsey.
Speaker BI'm not saying he's a bad guy.
Speaker BI just think he's terribly misinformed on this particular issue and the facts bear that out.
Speaker BThere's another guy named David Bonson.
Speaker BA lot of guys listen to read his stuff.
Speaker BI'm in the exact same place with him.
Speaker BYou know, I'm like Dave, you're just wrong on this.
Speaker BAnd.
Speaker BAnd so that's my hope and my prayer is that and yeah, sure, Do I make, am I, am I talking about books?
Speaker BWe make our money.
Speaker BYes, of course we do.
Speaker BBut I'm just saying that how God built me the career he gave me and why that led to this is why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Speaker AAnd you know, I mean, some things to think about with it is, it is interesting that every Christian person I know in finance, whether you with precious metals, others that are financial advisors, they never seem to agree with Dave Ramsey.
Speaker AYou know, and, and he's the guy everyone goes to for financial advice and looks to.
Speaker AAnd yet all the experts go, yeah, don't listen to him.
Speaker AIt's, you know, so that's, that is something where, and I know whenever we mention Dave Ramsey and people come in and say something in a negative way, boy do we get lots of emails and response and it's like, folks, listen, it's okay.
Speaker ABut just hear, hear what James is saying here because you and I talked about this a couple months ago, I think, or a month ago.
Speaker AThe fact that one of the things I do is, you know, my kids graduated college, I gave them a 1 oz gold coin as a thing to say, hey, this is an investment.
Speaker AYou hold on to this because it's going to increase in value.
Speaker AOne of the things I'm doing with my grandkids is, you know, I get them a quarter ounce because it's a little bit easier to do each year, but for every year and when they turn 20, you know, they're going to have several ounces of gold that they will, that over time is, by the time they get it, it's going to be worth way more than the 4,000 and people go, oh, well, that's a bad investment.
Speaker ABut because that, that's something that we have, we see it just as you've pointed out, increasing so much.
Speaker AWhy is holding on to a precious metal for some, like thinking that's a bad thing when you, no matter what you're gonna, no matter what you're gonna do with your money, there's always a risk.
Speaker ASome people think like there's things, there's no risk, there's always a risk.
Speaker AYou stick it in the bank, there's a risk, you know, and one of the things I'd like to bring out is have you bring out, you're saying, well, hey, the people that have a small amount, the government's not going to come after them.
Speaker AAnd so, so after this break, I'd like to discuss, because Joe Biden, when he first got in office, made a threat to take people's pensions.
Speaker AAnd this is some people don't think about because there may be those in the audience are going, hey, James, I live paycheck by paycheck.
Speaker AThey're not going to come after, I don't need to think about precious metals.
Speaker AI don't need to protect myself because I don't have anything.
Speaker AAnd they don't think about all that money that maybe their company puts in or they put in in a 401k.
Speaker ASo let's, after this break, let's talk about how vulnerable people really could be and how people may not be aware of what could happen and how the government could take their, their livelihood.
Speaker AThey plan for the future and take that away because that, that I think is some people don't think about.
Speaker ASo let's talk about that right after this quick break from our sponsors.
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Speaker ANow thing is that we mentioned Dave Ramsey and you go, well, Dave has a lot of good things to say, but is he biblical?
Speaker AMaybe you want to compare what James is saying with what Dave Ramsey says.
Speaker AAnd what's our best authority?
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Speaker AAnd so James, there's, let's, let's get to the fact that there's a lot of people think, as you said, hey, I don't have to worry.
Speaker AI don't have much money.
Speaker ABut the Biden administration was threatening, I'm glad they backed off, but they were threatening to just take over people's 401ks.
Speaker AAnd I know one individual, a pastor that I'm friends with who got so nervous at that time, he moved his entire, well, the 401k, I think it's the, I forget what it is for ministers, but he moved it all into, to Bitcoin.
Speaker ANow I'm not saying that he should do that.
Speaker AHe, he did quite well because I think he did it when it was only at like 60,000 and now it's a 90 some thousand.
Speaker ASo it worked out well for him.
Speaker ABut he got nervous.
Speaker ASo he has it where he, he, he set that up so that at any point and, and his thinking was at any point where the government says, hey, we're, we're gonna, you know, take this, this pension or your 401k, he could just move it right out like he has it with, with a broker.
Speaker AAnd, and it requires, in that case it requires three, three, two out of three signatures.
Speaker ASo this pastor and his wife could just move everything out and just move the whole wallet into another wallet.
Speaker ABut he did that because he had the realization to realize, hey, if the government's threatening that they could just take a 401k and for 401k to liquidate it and it's going to take time and by then the government just takes it.
Speaker ABut there's other ways that people could be wise in investing and may not even think hey, my 401k could be at, at risk.
Speaker AYou know, let's speak to that person.
Speaker AYou know, what kind of things can they do to protect against.
Speaker AThat sort of action?
Speaker BSure, no, absolutely.
Speaker BAnd great, great point.
Speaker BAnd first of all, let's.
Speaker BA number of listeners may have 401ks and there's not much you can do with the 401k depending on how old you are.
Speaker BIf you've gotten to where you're getting in the 50s and 60s where you may have some flexibility and can move it into a self directed Iraq, then there's all sorts of solutions which we can help obviously do where you, you simply open a, an account with a physical gold and silver custodian.
Speaker BThen once the accounts open you do the trade through us where you're converting dollars or.
Speaker BAnd the dollars will come from the sale of stocks in your 401k bonds, your 401k.
Speaker BBut since you're doing a rollover, there's no tax implications for so doing and it's just simply, it's nothing fancier than you're just doing a swap and you're saying okay, yeah, I'm living paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker BBut she, I've been working for the same.
Speaker BYou know, maybe I'm a teacher or fireman or what have you and I've worked for 25 years and all of a sudden things worth $250,000, well maybe I want to put 25, 50 and to put it in physical gold and silver.
Speaker BThat's when you would do that sort of a rollover.
Speaker BAnd yes, that, that is imperative to do and it's something we can certainly help them do.
Speaker AAnd it's important to be not have all your eggs in one basket.
Speaker ARight, well, exactly.
Speaker BAnd again that's what I'm saying.
Speaker BAnd when I've given the example, I'm not saying head for the hills, pour dirt on you and get a bunch of golden sardines.
Speaker BI'm saying just be smart and know that look at historical evidence.
Speaker BSince gold was not a fixed price and was free floating from 1971 to the present, it's almost up a hundred X.
Speaker BIt is up 100X.
Speaker BYes, right.
Speaker BExcuse.
Speaker BNot almost.
Speaker BIt is up 100X now that's in 50 years.
Speaker BWhat kind.
Speaker BWhat else is up 100X?
Speaker BWell, Bitcoin.
Speaker BDid you can, you could say Apple There, there's one offs here, there.
Speaker BBut, but when we compare and contrast something like gold to you, you really need to compare it to aggregate indices.
Speaker BRight?
Speaker BHow did it do versus global stock markets?
Speaker BHow to do versus well, it's blowing all those things away.
Speaker BSo simp, all you're doing is saying again, I'm not trying to be.
Speaker BA chicken with my head cut off or chicken little or whatever.
Speaker BI'm just saying, why don't I do this?
Speaker BBecause it certainly works when it matters.
Speaker BAnd then let's talk about scriptural grounding.
Speaker BOn our website we have Genesis, chapter 2, verses 11 and 12.
Speaker BAnd there were four rivers that ran out of Eden.
Speaker BOne was the sun, and it ran to the land of Havil.
Speaker BAnd there is gold in that land, and the gold of that land is good.
Speaker BMy question when I was reading was like, wait, why is God telling me pre fall, pre fall about gold in the land of Havilah?
Speaker BWhy does that matter?
Speaker BWell, perhaps it's because in the subsequent books of the Bible, the Lord is going to use gold as the standard by which he, one can judge things.
Speaker BWisdom is far better than pure gold.
Speaker BComparison after comparison where gold is the standard or I'm going to burn the dross off the silver in order to make the silver the real silver.
Speaker BSo he's using, he's, he, he knows exactly what he's doing.
Speaker BHe put it in the earth crust.
Speaker BIt quickly became the go to.
Speaker BMoney.
Speaker BAnd, and if we define what is money?
Speaker BMoney is a unit of account.
Speaker BIt's a medium of exchange.
Speaker BWell, dollars or yen or euros can all do all.
Speaker BThey can be unit accountant, medium exchange.
Speaker BThe question is, can they be a store of labor and a store of value?
Speaker BThat's the problem.
Speaker BBecause if I don't have something where the supply is relatively fixed, which gold is, well, I can do all kinds of nasty things with the supply.
Speaker BAnd suddenly my labor gets devalued.
Speaker BEven though I still worked, why did my labor get devalued?
Speaker BBecause somebody that was controlling what represented that labor monkeyed around with it.
Speaker BAnd then ask your question.
Speaker BAsk yourself the question.
Speaker BWhy is it the global central banks, global governments, and literally the wealthiest human beings on the face of the earth, why do they all have physical gold allocations?
Speaker BEvery last one of them?
Speaker BAnd if you say where, if the question's asked, where has Been say over the last two or three years, where has been the push for, for the main demand side for gold?
Speaker BWell, the minute the western governments started threatening the Russians that we're going to take your 300 billion of, of reserves of financial reserves that are in our bank, we're going to take them.
Speaker BLook at what happened to the, to the buying of central banks to go.
Speaker BIt's like oh, if they're going to play the game that way, we're not going to keep getting exposed to U S Treasuries in US Dollars because we can't trust them.
Speaker BBut I can sure trust gold.
Speaker BSo I've got a scriptural.
Speaker BI can go back to the, to the dawn of creation and there is gold.
Speaker BI can look at any, any Christian, any Muslim, any secular, any, every place in the face of the earth.
Speaker BPhysical gold is always viewed as money ultimately.
Speaker BAnd when I say that, I want to emphasize that I'm focusing mainly on a store of labor that.
Speaker BWhat, what, what, what does one want to be true?
Speaker BAndrew Rapaport wants to know.
Speaker BHey, I script and scran.
Speaker BI did these podcasts and it took me three hours per podcast.
Speaker BI did it five days a week.
Speaker BYou want that labor to not lose its value over time.
Speaker BYou want to have saved that labor and you save it in a, in a store of value, store of labor.
Speaker BAnd gold's the only thing that you can really say that I can trust it.
Speaker ASo let me ask you a question for some folks.
Speaker AYou mentioned a custodian, right?
Speaker ASo, so how two things.
Speaker AWhat, what is that for folks who may not understand how, how that works and then what can you do?
Speaker ABecause I want to get direct people to you and a way to they can get a hold of you is if they go to, you know, Alps P pmg.com so it stands for Alps Precious Metals Group.
Speaker AIf you go there.com there's, there's a way that they can contact you, James, but what, what is a custodian?
Speaker AAnd then what, how can you help people get set up to get some gold?
Speaker BOkay, so we work with it.
Speaker BWe have a partner for US residents, US corporations, US based churches, etc.
Speaker BOur partners are Texas Precious, Texas Precious Metals out of Shiner Texas.
Speaker BWhy do we have partners?
Speaker BWe have partners because we have not built our own vault here in Pensacola, Florida.
Speaker BWe do, do we trade gold and silver from our offices here in Pensacola, but we do not store them.
Speaker BSo I knew that I needed to get a partner for actual storage of physical gold and silver, but I wanted a partner that was not a government, not a bank and not a brokerage company.
Speaker BTexas Precious Metals.
Speaker BAnd you can go to that just pull them up too.
Speaker BAnd there there's a link on our website as well.
Speaker BIt was built by a family called the Caspers.
Speaker BK A S P A R the Casper family is fascinating and that the original patriarch moved to the was Swiss.
Speaker BHe was a Lutheran Christian who came to the prairie land of Texas to be a missionary and open churches.
Speaker BAnd he and he opened three churches in the late 19th century.
Speaker BHis descendants are are all Christian but they were not missionaries or church planners as he was.
Speaker BAnd what did they do?
Speaker BWell they got into.
Speaker BWhat do you get into if you're in the prairie land of Texas?
Speaker BThe wire business, barbed wire etc.
Speaker BBut then.
Speaker BOne of the one of the page now patriarchs was trying to figure out what else could he do with wire.
Speaker BWell.
Speaker BLong story short they built the first shopping cart which debuted in Houston Texas and they made some money off of that.
Speaker BBut where they really made their money is and the family has been very blessed materially and financially if you remember.
Speaker BAnd there's still some of them around the the when you used to go put a quarter or four quarters or something in the little machine on the corner of the street which had newspaper in it and when you pull the thing forward after you put the quarters in the the newspaper was held in the little window by wire and the whole box had wire all in it.
Speaker BAll that wire came out of Shiner Texas and the Casper Wire Works.
Speaker BSo that's where their family capital came from.
Speaker BIn the current family member that is the managing director of the of the family office.
Speaker BHe went to Wall street as a young guy out of Texas A M and hey, I'm gonna go do veg funds.
Speaker BThis is going to be great.
Speaker BWhen he gets up there right in 0809, watches the financial world meltdown and begins to have some conversations with a gold guy because maybe this is might be the way we want to go.
Speaker BAnd that gold guy was a guy named Tarik Saab S A A B and Tarik and Jason Casper became not only business.
Speaker BAssociates but became friends.
Speaker BAnd eventually Jason convinced the family that this was the direction they needed to go in.
Speaker BThey started Texas Precious Metals Trading which eventually led to Texas Precious Metals Depository where they use some of the family some of the Casper physical plants a bit to to have a makeshift Vault.
Speaker BBut in 2023 it's now two years old.
Speaker BThey opened what is probably the state of the art vault in the world in Shiner Texas.
Speaker BAnd if and when you click through on our website and go to theirs, you'll see there's a little video you can watch and it just talks about what they built and what Texas Precious Metals Depository is all about.
Speaker BYou can't get.
Speaker BThere is nothing in Switzerland and I've seen them.
Speaker BThere's nothing in Switzerland, there's nothing in London.
Speaker BThere's nothing that is, is better than what the, this thing is.
Speaker BAnd, and so when one opens an account with say their ira, the first thing they're going to do is if you, you would click to us, click through to Texas Precious Metals and you would see for IRAs.
Speaker BThe four custodians we use, one of them is Gold, Gold Star, one is Strata, one is Horizon, I forgot the other ones.
Speaker BNow these custodian firms really only exist because Congress came up with.
Speaker BRetirement accounts, 401ks and IRAs.
Speaker BAnd they have one job and that's simply to be a third party administrator custodian of retirement assets.
Speaker BBecause the whole point was well, we don't want people saying that they have retirement assets and they're really out there doing stuff that they're not supposed to be doing with their retirement funds.
Speaker BSo that's what the third party purpose is.
Speaker BBut if Andrew wanted to open an account, you'd say, you, you'd say okay, I've got, I've got250,000 of assets in my 401k.
Speaker BI can now roll it over.
Speaker BI'm going to open an account say with Gold Star.
Speaker BYou open the account, Gold Star opens the account for you.
Speaker BThen you say, please face my current 401k administrator and tell them I want $50,000 put into my new self directed IRA.
Speaker BOnce that's there, then we get, we get the call.
Speaker BWe, we put it into the Gold Silver after we consult what you would like to do.
Speaker BAnd then the gold is held at Texas Precious Metals suppository in your IRA account.
Speaker AAnd, and that's something where I encourage folks even, you know, you can start small but get started, right?
Speaker AThat's the thing.
Speaker ABecause I think a lot of people, James, they think like oh well I can't, I don't have the money for that.
Speaker AYou don't have to put in tens of thousands of dollars to start.
Speaker AYou could start smaller, but it's better to get started.
Speaker AEspecially if you, if you do something where it's reoccurring so that you're kind of offsetting as there's the ups and downs.
Speaker AAnd so it Would be good for folks to check out, you know, Alps Precious Metals contact James, say, hey, how can I get started with this?
Speaker ASo, you know, go to alpspmg.com you can check them out from there.
Speaker AThere's a contact James.
Speaker AWe'll get back with you, set up a time, talk about your financial situation and see how he could be of a help to you.
Speaker ABecause we need to have some diversity.
Speaker AYes, that's right.
Speaker ASometimes diversity is good.
Speaker ANot when it comes to the way the DEI refers to it, but in your finances.
Speaker AIt's good to have some diversity.
Speaker AAnd it would be really good to add some gold to your portfolio.
Speaker AMay maybe good to just say, even if you're buying a little bit every month, it'll add up over time.
Speaker AIf, if you're 20 years old and you start putting just a little bit of gold aside once a month, even by the time you're looking to retire at 60, you'll probably thank James very much for having set this up with you.
Speaker BAll right.
Speaker BAnd also remember, silver too.
Speaker BSilver is.
Speaker BIt is.
Speaker BIt is.
Speaker BIf gold is 95amonetary metal, silver is probably 60amonetary metal because a lot of silver gets used in a lot of other things which actually could work very much in your.
Speaker BIn one's favor.
Speaker BSo, gee, I can't afford one ounce of gold at 4200, but I can sure afford one ounce of silver.
Speaker BSilver at 50, at 60 bucks.
Speaker AYes.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker BAnd so the silver is the other way to skin that cat, if you will, because, okay, I can't, I can't get to gold, but I sure can get silver.
Speaker BAnd the only other thing I'd add, Andrew, is that, yes, you can use IRAs, but just remember, unfortunately, the IRA still, that it's, it's like the Balrog and Fellowship, the ring, when he's falling down the thing, he still has one tentacle and he throws the whip and gets Gandalf.
Speaker BThe tentacle of the IRA being tied to the government is the only thing that, you know, I'm not saying don't do it.
Speaker BI'm just saying keep in mind, there is, there is that government tentacle to the extent that you can get some of the assets completely away from them.
Speaker BThat, that's really the best of.
Speaker BOf all possible worlds.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker ASo folks, I do want to encourage again, go to alps pmg.com get a hold of James, see how he might be able to help you just to offset.
Speaker ABecause look, I really do believe that, that we are in a reprieve right now.
Speaker AI believe that The Democrats will come back into power and when these socialists do, they're not, they're not going to take any chances of another Trump Trump like figure that's going to get in their way and they're going to look to do with the academy.
Speaker AAnd if you under Barack Obama we saw that they targeted Christians Christian businesses and made, I mean I know someone, one of our supporters ended up selling his business because they just bogged him down in investigations with the IRS that were just nonsense.
Speaker ABut it just, it took him spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in audits and for the only reason was that he donated lots of his, his income to Christian organizations like ours and he ended up just selling the business instead.
Speaker BRight.
Speaker AAnd so things like this they're going to, to be targeting and I think they're going, they will look for however they can get more money to pay the people that are voting for them and they're going to take your money and my money.
Speaker AAnd so we have to have a plan.
Speaker ASo go check out Alps Precious Metals Group.
Speaker AIt's going to be something that you will, I would say in a few decades you'll be very thankful that you did this.
Speaker ASo James, any, any last things you want to share with folks before we, we end the show?
Speaker BWell, no, I, I, first of all, just again I'm very gracious and grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to, to speak with you today.
Speaker BI, I, I just we, we started this firm because of, of how God had built me, the, the, the life he had given me, the career he had given me and.
Speaker BAnd just being as the wisdom that he gave me to make me wise as a serpent but innocent as a dove simply means.
Speaker BAs, as far as I can tell, this is one avenue and yes you're, you are diversifying.
Speaker BYou are not.
Speaker BA church, an individual, a family.
Speaker BThey're not going crazy.
Speaker BThey're really just being wise.
Speaker BThat's, that's if there's one message be wise.
Speaker BSadly you have socialists with an ax to grind and loaded for bear.
Speaker BYou have to be paying attention otherwise it could get, it could get nasty.
Speaker BAnd you know, and nasty is part of what, you know, the, the blood of the martyrs, the seat of the church.
Speaker BAnd maybe that's what's coming, but at least we can do what we can to perpetuate the Lord's kingdom.
Speaker AThere we go.
Speaker ASo guys, one last time, go to Alps Precious metals group.
Speaker AThat's alpspmg.com go to the contact us and get set up a meeting with James.
Speaker ASee how he might be able to help you.
Speaker AI think that, like I said, in.
Speaker AIn a few decades, you'll thank us for.
Speaker AFor suggesting that.
Speaker AJust my thought.
Speaker AAnd folks, with that, that's a wrap.