RADIOMay 28, 2024

THIS is Where Inflation is Coming From

The Federal Reserve may claim to be fighting inflation, but Rep. Thomas Massie joins Glenn to make the case that the Fed is also CAUSING the inflation. Between all the money printing, interest rate changes, and bank bailouts, the Fed is toppling the U.S. dollar, Massie argues. And while you’re suffering, the big banks are getting richer. So, because of this, the Fed has got to go! But what would replace the Fed? Massie gives his top choice …

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: There is somebody that I really respect, that is doing something that absolutely has to happen. You want to fix the country, we must abolish the Federal Reserve right now.

And representative Thomas Massie is on the phone with me now.

Hi, Thomas, how are you?

THOMAS: Hey, Glenn. Thanks for covering this topic. It really needs to happen.

We're done nibbling around the edges. I've introduced the bill to audit the fed for a decade.

We're past that, and we have to end it.

GLENN: Yeah. So explain to people, what the fed is, is what it has been doing lately. It's our central bank. And it has nothing to do with the federal government.

It is a private corporation. Correct?

THOMAS: Yeah. Let me just explain what's happened under Jerome Powell. And I hate to pick on him, but he's the fed chairman right now. And under him, we've seen 25 percent of the value of the dollar, disappear.

Meanwhile, during COVID, the investment bankers, and the Wall Street bankers. Had their best year ever in 2020.

And we hit 7 percent inflation. During COVID.

Thanks to the fed.

They are -- and then let me just tell you about Jerome Powell's background. Because it's indicative of the kind of people that worked there.

He started out as an attorney, and he went into investment banking. Then he went to Treasury. Then he left Treasury. And went into banking.

And investment banking. And it was Barack Obama who put him on the federal Board of Governors.

And then it was Trump who elevated him to chairman, and then it was Biden who renominated him.

This guy is the Uniparty person, who makes the investment bankers rich and everybody else poor in this country.

GLENN: But it's also -- people need to understand, the president can't just nominate anybody, or appoint anybody.

The -- the Federal Reserve -- so all of the -- what is it, seven or eight banks?

The biggest banks. We are not even allowed to know who they are, which is incredibly un-American and leads to all kinds of corruption. They get together, and they say to the president. Here are a few names, that we'll accept. You pick from one of them. Right?
THOMAS: Right. And then when that guy takes the job, who do you think he goes out to have dinner with every night?

I mean, there's this argument that we want our monetary policy to be independent of Congress or the executive branch. But it's a falsehood, that it's independent right now. It's not independent at all.

I mean, Jerome Powell lobbies Congress and the White House to engage in more fiscal stimulus. And then they're working.

I mean, when the Treasury gets their debt monetized by the fed. You think that's an independent thing?

No. That's a carefully orchestrated dance. That's what they've done recently. There's three ways you can get money for the government to spend.

You can either tax the people and get money back. Or you can borrow the money. Or you can just create it out of thin air.

And what they did during COVID, is they created trillions of dollars out of thin air.

And this is -- Congress is to blame as well. Congress spent those trillions of dollars. It's the fed that enabled it. And it's the fed that pulls it off.

GLENN: And it's also the fed.

This is what kills me. You know, they said that, you know, in 2008, these banks were too big to fail. And we have to stop that.

And everything Congress did made these banks stronger and bigger, and hurt the small banks that are not part of the Federal Reserve system, so to speak.

They're not on -- you know, they're not one of the owners of the fed. And it seems to me, Thomas, that every time something is done, the American people are the ones that lose, and the banks get the money. They get richer. And in the end, it's going to be those, however.

What is it? Five or six or eight banks, that make up the fed. Do you know?

THOMAS: I don't know the number.

GLENN: We don't even know the number.

So whatever the number is, those guys are going to be the ones that are currently holding our debt.

Now, as I understand it, whoever holds debt, you have to pay that debt. And I have had bankers tell me. Glenn, we don't have to worry about the debt.

Do you know what just our national parks are worth?

And so we will pay whatever it is they want, we'll have to give that to the banks.

Which will mean, it's a transfer of wealth from the people, to these big banks. It's just obscene.

THOMAS: Yeah. And they have no intention of selling the national parks, by the way. They are just going to take it out of our (inaudible), that's what they're going to do.

And, listen, to your first point there. The fed acts like they're the firefighters, but they are the arsonists.

GLENN: Yes, they are.

THOMAS: They kept rates low. They had easy money for banks to get.

For so long. That the banks, you know, they just assumed it was always going to be that way. You had a few that failed. They came in.

And, well, they failed because the fed then came in. Which whiplashed and raised rates, quicker than they ever raised them before.

And the banks were kind of in this one model. Then the fed comes and does triage on them.

The fed starts out as the arsonist. Then they come in and too the fire fighting by raising rates. Then they come in and bail out the couple of banks last year.

So they are causing the problems that they come in and allegedly solve. But I think we're almost to a point now, where they're running out of levers, where the rubber bands that attach their levers to our macro economy are stretched as far as they are stretched.

Because right now, they're not really in control of interest rates. They might like to think they can lower the interest rate to stimulate the economy again. But the problem is. When they recently put treasuries out for auction. The sovereign funds. In the other countries that oftentimes buy our debt. Said, you know what, that four and a half percent. I don't think that's a good bargain.

I'm not going to buy those. I need a higher interest rate.

GLENN: Would you honestly.

If you had -- you were in charge of a bank. Or you were making loans as a private individual. And you had somebody who came in and ran their life, the way our Congress runs our country, what kind of interest rate would you demand from them, that you would think it's worth taking the risk for that?

THOMAS: Yeah.

GLENN: I mean, it would be easy. Easy in the double digits. And most likely in the mid-double digits for me.

THOMAS: Yeah. And the other thing is then, we try to inflate our debt down.

In other words, we devalue our currency.

So it changes the impact, of let's say the nominal price of our debt in gold, if you can find some outside reforms.

So the Treasury kind of likes inflation. It kills the little guy. It's -- the big guys don't care. Because like we saw during COVID. They just reprice everything on Wall Street. Then the other assets, the fed will prop up by buying them. So they make sure the rich people can survive during inflation.

The poor people can't. Or even the middle class can't. Because you don't have these sort of financial instruments that everybody else has. That the fed takes care of.

And so it -- then the fed is -- when they cause inflation. They solve a little bit of the debt problem.

But the problem is: We're getting to a point, where it's not going to work anymore.

For a while, we had inflation, that was greater than the interest rate, that we were paying on the debt.

So you can see actually -- people will take your debt at those low interest rates, and inflation is that high. You should probably take on more debt. I hate to say it.

They're wising up in the world.

Now, here is something else that happens.

The US dollar is the world currency.

We've mucked with it. But not so much that people don't want it yet.

GLENN: Yet. Yet.

THOMAS: And when you want to. Everybody likes to do their transactions in dollars. But to do a transaction in dollars, you have to hold dollars. So the whole world is holding dollars.

So when we devalue the dollar. We're not just taxing our own people.

We're taxing the entire world. We're kind of like the credit card gets 3 percent of all the transaction at the gas station. We get that 3 percent if we create 3 percent more money every year. Which we typically do. But the rest of the world is getting tired of being used that way. They're tired of our transaction fees. I.e. inflation.

And when they start using alternate forms of money to do their transactions. Or holding different assets in their own sovereign wealth funds. Then we're not going to be able to do that trick, on anybody, except for US citizens.

GLENN: You know --

THOMAS: Again, this is all coming to a head.

GLENN: Thomas, I said this a while back.

Probably 15 years ago.

When this actually happens. We are going to be labeled. Because no politician, in any other country, is going to take responsibility for their own fiscal madness.

Everybody is going to blame it on the United States.

Because we were greedy. Grotesque. And took on so much debt.

That we devalued the dollar. And it's going to affect the entire world.

And, you know, I relayed it. And I know it's for different reasons in some way.

But I look at the way Germany looked at France. At the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II. Is I think the way the rest of the world is going to look at us. We forced. We didn't. France forced Germany into just devastation.

Where they had to inflate their dollar. I mean, it was horrible. We -- the damage that we are going to do, by destroying our dollar.

I don't think we're going to be very popular in the world.

THOMAS: No. And somebody says, okay. If you get -- they've been asking me, what if you get rid of the fed? What do you replace it with?

That's like saying, if you take out a tumor, what do you replace the tumor with?

Then the serious answer is we go back to stable currency.

The government can't manipulate.

You would -- I would prefer to have a gold standard ready.

GLENN: Me too. So I have been told. This is what a serious, serious banker at the fed level has said to me.

Glenn, the reason why we had to get rid of the gold standard. Is at first, we wanted the great society and the Vietnam War. Couldn't afford it.

But there's not enough gold to build and live at the level the world lives, right now.

It -- we had to play funny money. And everybody is in on it. We can't go to a gold standard. Because there's just not enough gold.

Do you buy that?

THOMAS: Well, there's enough gold to do honest transactions.

But you're right. There's not enough gold to do the funny money and to fund all of these wars, for instance. That we've engaged in.

You know, typically, when the government tries to leave some kind of standard that they've been on.

It's because they have to finance a war. And nobody wants to consume enough of their debt to finance the war. So they go off the standard.

Yeah. You can't monetize your own debt. Once you get into that model.

You can't create the funny money. It's real money.

It's hard money. And that's what we should go back to.

And we shouldn't replace the fed with anything. It's Keynesian economics. The whole premise, I know a lot of Republicans may disagree with me. And they may think we need a federal reserve bank.

And that we need to control inflation. But that's the whole notion of Keynesian economics.

That you could create prosperity by tweaking the -- the interest rates and the money supply. And that the free market doesn't have enough signals and feedback. Doesn't react quickly enough. That you can have some experts in an ivory tower.

That need to be turning off to make our lives better. The reality is, the people in the ivory tower, they're investment bankers. They came from investment banking. They're going back to investment banking. They still got ties to it.

And they're tweaking it enough to help their buddies and to keep this going, until the music stops. Which is --

GLENN: So you have introduced HR24 as well, which is the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, to audit the federal reserve. And the act to abolish it. You have a lot of cosponsors. Any chance that this even gets passed, our own House Speaker?

THOMAS: Well, probably not this speaker. But we've got -- not under this Speaker, but under previous Speakers, we have passed Audit the Fed in the House. They've never brought it up in the Senate, or not passed it in the Senate. But yet, people like Bernie Sanders, who sponsored Audit the Fed when he was in the House, then he gets to the Senate and he won't even sponsor it.

But we've got to end it. So we have enough cosponsors. And enough votes to pass audit the fed. It hasn't happened in this Congress. It should happen in this Congress. But, by the way, if it were really part of the government. You could do a FOIA on it. But try FOIA-ing the federal reserve.

GLENN: You can't. You can't.

Thomas, quickly, how can people help?

THOMAS: Yeah.

So the HR number is 8421 for ending the Federal Reserve. We have 22 cosponsors right now. We need more cosponsors. Ask your congressmen to cosponsor end the fed. HR8421.

GLENN: Thomas, thank you very much.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

Why Your Actions Matter More Than Words in the Eyes of God

Glenn Beck and Eric Metaxas expose the spiritual crisis gripping America’s churches — a moment they compare to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warning before World War II. As the culture descends into moral confusion, too many Christians retreat into silence, claiming faith while refusing to act. Together, they argue that true belief demands courage — that “faith without works is dead” — and warn that neutrality in the face of evil is itself a form of complicity.

Watch the FULL Interview HERE

Is Socialism replacing the American dream?

The American Dream used to mean freedom and the chance to build your own life through hard work, faith, and independence. But today, it’s been replaced by comfort, consumption, and debt. Glenn Beck breaks down how America traded liberty for lifestyle, why socialism is gaining ground, and what it will take to reclaim the real American Dream before it disappears for good.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: I don't know if you saw the visualizing the American dream, Stu.

You know, what the American dream actually is, is that you can forge your own way.

You can -- you know, you can have a scrap of land, and grow your own food if up.

You can, you know, go to school. Not go to school.

You can find a job. If you're qualified for it, you have an equal chance of getting it, you know, based on merit.

But the percentage of Americans who say the American dream is retirement is 86 percent. Health care, 86 percent. Owning a home, 85. Raising two kids, 78. Owning a car, 72. Vacations, 71. Pets, 66. A wedding, 55 percent. That's the American dream, I can get married.

The American dream, if that's what you think, they've now estimated, the cost per household over the cost -- over the lifetime, retirement is $1.6 million. Owning a home now, 30-year mortgage, 20 percent you want to, is $957,594. Owning a car, buying and finance to begin with new cars every ten years is now $900,000 over your lifetime. Raising two kids to 18, plus four years of public college, $876,092. Two kids. Health care, over your lifetime, spending from ages 22 to 85, $414,000. Vacations, annual vacation from '22 to '85, $180,000. One dog and one cat for 11 to 13 years is $40,000!

That's more expensive than a wedding. The engagement ring, the ceremony, and the reception is now estimated to be $38,200.

There's a reason socialism is doing well. You look at that, and you're like, wow. I mean, if that's the American dream. And for a lot of people, that is the American dream!

That's not what the American dream is supposed to be, but, you know, once -- you know, once Woodrow Wilson and FDR got a hold of us and they started advertising, it became stuff instead of freedom. It became stuff. And, you know, when there's a new report out. Let me see if I have that.

There's a new report out now that shows, first time home buyers made up just 21 percent of the home purchases. That's the lowest on record.

The typical age of repeat buyers hit an all-time high of '62. The median downtowns, reaching 23 percent.

The highest since 2023.

And also, where is it?

The last one is -- the median age for first time home buyers, in 1981, it was 29 years old.

I'm sorry. Yeah. Twenty-nine years old. In 2021, it was 33 years old.

What is it this year?

Median age, first time homeowner, forty.

You're 40 before you can buy any kind of home. That puts these things that people want, dream about, out of reach, until you're 40?

You know, 29 is one thing. But if you're not seeing -- you're not seeing your life really kind of settling down until you're 40, I -- I can understand why you're like, you know what, this system doesn't work.

Because you've never seen it work. It's betrayed you.

Or so you've been sold. It's betrayed you.

And everything is being pushed out of your reach. And when you're young, the one thing you're not is patient.

And at 40, I can see why people are not, you know, yeah. Well, socialism is neat because capitalism isn't working. How would you respond to that?

STU: I mean, it's more lengthy than we have time for. But I would say that the response to, you know, you thinking that you want a home is not to embrace an ideology that murders 100 million people.

That's not -- that's not a good answer to the problem that you think you have.

GLENN: But they're not learning that anywhere.

They're not -- that is our responsibility! To teach those things. Because they're not learning it anywhere.

Glenn Beck Warns of 3 Economic Outcomes That Could Change EVERYTHING | Ep 467

Socialism is spreading fast among America’s youth, and the shocking election of Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani for mayor in New York City marks a major cultural and economic shift. Glenn exposes how runaway debt, record home prices, AI job disruption, and the collapsing stake in capitalism have led many Millennials and members of Gen Z to embrace socialism and communism. He reveals the three possible economic futures for 2026: two that are disastrous and one that could change everything if the Trump administration’s global financial overhaul succeeds. Plus, Justin Haskins, president of the Heartland Institute, joins to reveal some terrifying truths about why young Americans are embracing socialism from a poll he conducted with Rasmussen Reports.

The world is about to realize the DEADLY enemy we face

"The world doesn't understand yet. We're already in World War III," Glenn Beck warns. "That foe is not China. That foe is militant Islam." Glenn explains the battle we're currently facing and what's to come if we don't wake up soon...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: From New Jersey, it's Brian. Hello, Brian.

CALLER: Hello!

GLENN: Hey.

CALLER: Yeah. Thanks for taking the calls today.

GLENN: Sure.

CALLER: Yeah. I'm worried that we are headed towards another French Revolution-style because we have entire generations. Or actually people just not being heard by their representatives.

GLENN: Hmm.

CALLER: And it's not just here. It's around the world.

GLENN: Uh-huh.

I -- actually, I had scheduled for this time, I'll just do it some other time. Talking about what's happening in -- in England.

I think England is headed for a Civil War. And -- and it's very close.

I mean, you can't put 4,000 people. 4,000 people, in jail, or try them for hate crimes. And speech crimes.

You can't -- you can't do it. In England!

You can't do that in one year. And expect people to just put up with it!

You can't -- you know, we're -- we're -- America doesn't understand yet.

The world doesn't understand.

We're in World War III. We're already in World War III.

I don't know when it becomes a hot war. Or even a war that we on our side recognize. But we are in World War III. And that -- that foe is not China.

That foe is militant Islam, period. And, you know, when we have a situation to where people are -- when the government is just like, no. It's not a problem.

It's not a problem. You know. You've got illegals all over.

It's not a problem.

It's not a problem.

It is a problem. Don't tell me what -- what the problems are not!

Because we're the ones living it!

You're the experts, who keep telling us, no. It's going to work out fine.

And it doesn't work out fine. And it just gets worse and worse.

Oh. We can spend this money. No. It looks like we can't spend this money. Oh, we can afford this. No. It looks like we can't afford this.

You know, if we do this with Ukraine, it will work out fine. No, it didn't, did it? These endless wars, all of this stuff, don't tell me what the problem is. Listen to the people and start talking to the people. Honestly, this is the reason why I'm doing this today. I -- I need to hear from you.

I need to know what's on your mind, so I stay focused and -- and clear on what America is saying.

Because I don't think -- look, you know, me taking phone calls is -- is not a true representation of anything, but it does give me a sense of -- of where you are, as an audience. Maybe not as America, but as an audience. And there are lots of things that concern me. But I want to hear it from you.
But I think you're right! We're headed for real, real trouble. All you need is real economic trouble.

You start getting real, true economic trouble. 1930s kind of depression stuff. And we're in Civil War.

Dan, Oregon. Welcome!

CALLER: Hello, Glenn. How are you?

GLENN: I'm great!

CALLER: Yeah. Good. It's been a long time.

I guess it's been over ten years, since I've had a chance to talk with you. I was one of your first insiders. I was listening to you, since you were in Florida.

GLENN: Wow. Wow.

CALLER: So it's been a long -- yeah. It has been. And I can't say I've enjoyed all of it.
(laughter)

GLENN: Neither have I!

STU: I can't say that either, I'll be honest with you.

CALLER: You know, you were talking on yesterday's show, reminiscing with Stu about how you guys started. And I remember those old shows. And, you know, at the end of the -- the fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: Right.

CALLER: And there was a lot more entertainment. I remember I laughed a lot.

GLENN: Oh, yeah. I know. I know. Those days are long dead.
(laughter)

STU: There's nothing to laugh about now.

CALLER: Yeah. I -- I'm 78. I still work 40 hours a week. I love my job.

GLENN: Good for you.

CALLER: Been married for 55 years. I have seven kids.

GLENN: Good for you.

CALLER: I've got a daughter -- I've got a daughter who is in her 40s. And she has severe TDS. She -- we don't -- I mean, we're not cutting each other off. She hasn't done that at all. We're still very close as a family. But she was down visiting the other day, and got into a conversation with my wife. And I wasn't in the room. But Kathy said it was just like listening to one of those young people out on the street that was being interviewed by the news media. And she was -- and she was in tears about it. My wife and my daughter both.

And, I mean, I love her, and I continue to support her. She's a single woman, not by choice. She just never found the right guy.

GLENN: Yeah.

CALLER: And I really think that's part of the problem. Because she started reading -- back when Trump was first running, she started reading all of this stuff about him being misogynistic and all of this stuff.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.

CALLER: And it's just gotten worse. I -- I'm at a loss. I really am. Because I -- like, I see the country doing better. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. But I still feel like that at least right now, we're doing better as a whole. But what do we do about -- what do we do about our kids about -- she went to Portland State University for the last two --

GLENN: Oh, jeez, for the love of --

CALLER: Well, yeah. For the last two years, she went to -- she went to a little college in Idaho called Ricks for the first two years, and Utah State.

GLENN: Oh, yeah.

CALLER: And then she served a mission for our church in Brazil and came home, but then she went to Portland State University. And it just seems to have gone downhill from there.

GLENN: Yeah. Yeah. So, Dan, I think you are suffering from the same thing that almost all parents are suffering from. If you're not suffering from this, then, I mean, God bless you. You know, get on your knees and thank God. Because you are a lucky, lucky family. Everybody has in their family. I have it in my family.

And you have to ask yourself, what is your goal?

My -- what is your goal with your daughter? Your real goal?

CALLER: My real goal is for us to be united eternally. That's my goal. That's my goal as a father and has been to teach her --

GLENN: And how -- and how is that going to happen with politics?

CALLER: We just stay together as a family regardless of what politics does.

GLENN: That's exactly right. Exactly right.

I think we're in a place now where as parents, you can ask your kids, but it has to be honest. It cannot be trying to win. It has to be honest. How did you get there?

I mean, I remember. You know, we've talked about this before. And you didn't believe that before. What has changed?

Can you help me with that?

I would like to see what you're reading, or what that was.

And just ask questions. But they have to be honest. They can't be, you know, because I'm setting you up. Because I want to change your mind.

But keep a dialogue open with them. And just love them!

Just love them!

Because if you do anything else, you're going to drive them away. And then they're really lost. So just love them.

CALLER: Oh, I know that. Glenn, when she was young -- when she was young, I considered her one of the elect. And the Scripture says, that in the last days, even the elect are going to be deceived. And that's what I'm seeing. But everything you've said, I -- I am doing. I'm doing it that way. Because I know --

GLENN: Okay. Good. Then you didn't need to -- I appreciate it. I'm so glad you called me. But you didn't need to -- my advice, you already have it down. You're a very wise man.