This is a pretty big announcement; I'm going to be a regular on the Glenn Beck show.
He reaches a very large audience, and my role will be to both explain the economic circumstances and what people can do about making their own lives more prepared and resilient.
GLENN: Chris Martenson. Chris Martenson from peakprosperity.com, who is now a member of our team. A guy who I have been literally looking for, a guy like this for at least 15 years. A guy that sees the world in the same way that I do, can explain it, and also can give us options of, what do you do about that? And it’s taken us a while to be able to work out a deal so he could come on because he had complex contracts.
But we’re so thrilled that he’s a part of our team now. And we’re going to hopefully sit down soon, Chris, and work out some things to get you very involved in GlennBeck.com and the Glenn Beck radio show, to be able to teach some of these things. Because I think people will understand why I’m so concerned and stressed out. Because nobody is explaining this stuff to them in a way that they can understand. And I think people on the business shows on TV — correct me if I’m wrong — are living an absolute illusion or delusion.
CHRIS: No correction necessary. It’s a self-delusion. It’s astonishing. And here’s the funny part about this, Glenn: You know, when I talk with some of these people, their public — they have the same public and private positions, right? Publicly, they say what they say. I get them behind closed doors, and I say, “Do you really believe that, or how concerned are you?” And some of these people — some of the wealthiest people I know have jets ready to take them to literally bunkers in Switzerland —
GLENN: Unbelievable. Can I tell you something, Chris? I find it reprehensible. I can’t tell you how many people who are on television saying everything is fine have said to me off air, “I can’t say this, Glenn, but keep saying it — the same thing — I’ve got a Gulfstream ready to go.” Really? Well, thanks a lot. You’re telling us something opposite of what you’re doing. And they just — they don’t — they believe that if they say this, then people will panic and it will be over a lot faster. And I think — they never say this — but I think they think there’s more money to be taken off of the table.
CHRIS: I think that’s part of it. There’s a lot of self-interest. Can I tell you one of my most disappointing moments in a person’s career, is what I call the retirement speech. Say, a senator, finally on the retirement day, they tell you everything they never said while they were actually in a position to do anything about it.
GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.
CHRIS: And then I don’t care anymore I don’t care if you tell me how far off the rails the country has gone now that you’re retiring. What a weak way to go out. Come on, you know.
GLENN: Yeah. I know. So, Chris, the bubble that I think was coming in 2008 — I started talking about it in ’04 and ’06. And it was the housing bubble. And I said, “It’s going to be Great Depression-style.” And it turns out it wasn’t. I didn’t figure in TARP. Now, I think what we’ve done because of TARP and money printing and everything else, I personally think it is western world depression or even worse, a game-changing kind of scenario. A, do you agree with that? And, B, what does it look like? And, C, is there a TARP, or is there something that changes that, that I don’t see?
CHRIS: Absolutely. I agree with the position. I was a very vocal critic of all the bailouts, in particular bailing out places like Goldman Sachs at 100 cents on the dollar for their bad bets with AIG, Citigroup. These were badly run organizations that needed and deserved to go out of business. They didn’t. They were rescued. And because of that, Glenn, I think that that was an opportunity to take a painful fall from a ladder that we were four rungs up. Now, because of the Federal Reserve and TARP and all the bailouts, what we’ve gotten is we’re about 20 rungs up the same ladder now, much more painful fall, and may even be worse than that. So the next crisis is going to be bad.
And they’re going to fight it tooth and nail because they believe in their heart of hearts that it could be a lights-out crisis if they don’t. And I understand how they got there. Remember, 2008, we had to wait a year and a half when Hank Paulson’s memoirs came out, and Mervyn King, then the Bank of England governor — they came out and said, “Guys, we were like three or four hours from a systemic banking collapse that could have wiped the world out.” That’s what they were thinking, right? So what do you think they’re thinking today, when everything that was in place then is still in place, but larger? Do we have fewer derivatives? Is sovereign debt lower? All of this — no. Is the housing bubble — where is it? It’s right back where it was.
GLENN: Or worse.
CHRIS: So what they do is they pumped the credit markets up, and it was a double-fingers crossed moment. They were saying, “Please, growth. Please, please, will growth come and bail us out.” It didn’t come. And that’s where we are, at this awkward moment, with the fed saying, “We think we need to raise rates.” We’re like, “Guys, too little, too late. And you’re going to do it into a weakening environment, not a strengthening environment? Never been done before. Good luck with that.”
