Carol Roth, financial expert and author of ‘The War On Small Business,’ tells Glenn that today’s economic ‘mess’ was caused by ‘unprecedented intervention in [our] monetary policy, fiscal policy, and just general government policy.’ But still, huge, powerful entities — like the Fed, for example — can’t keep their greedy, corporate hands out of our market: ‘It's the looting of America, the looting of Main Street, and [of] the average American.’ Unfortunately, Glenn predicts, times will only get worse from here. So, in this clip, Glenn gives an important tip to help you PREPARE.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: We're going to talk to Carol Roth here in just a second, about how what we heard last night, the State of the Union, and what's going on.
How SWIFT is going to affect the fed, inflation, the printing of money. All of that. What it really means to you. First, I want to go to James in Florida. Hello, James.
CALLER: How are you doing, Glenn? It's a privilege to talk to you.
GLENN: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Glenn, I'm calling because I have a difference of opinion, with some of the political pundits, and the military pundits, that I've seen in either of talk radio. Or heard on television.
GLENN: Okay.
CALLER: I lived through both the Cuban Missile Crisis. Vietnam.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
CALLER: And then Desert Storm one. Combat commander serving in Germany, northeast Asia.
GLENN: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: What we're doing with the Ukraine, as a nation. And policy currently. Militarily, politically, is absolutely disgraceful.
We should be providing those people. I bass American flags every morning, and I've taught my son and I -- who we passed the American flag.
We salute it. Because it stands for liberty. It stands for justice. It stands for peace.
It stands for prosperity. It stands for opportunity.
And what we're not doing is providing that those attributes. Characteristics, to the people of Ukraine.
In a meaningful way.
And a meaningful way. I mean, providing them, a no-fly zone.
Providing them combat air patrols.
Deterrence doesn't -- isn't effective, unless you have the willingness to use it. You know, Churchill said, right in the darkest hours, when he just took over, success is not failure. Failure is not fatal. It's the will to continue that counts. And one other motto that I've learned in my life, that was preached into us from the moment that we stepped into our first military leadership class at the Air Force Academy is, if you know what is right and not do it, it's cowardice. And that's what we're doing now, as a nation. That's what we're doing now, relatively. Politically.
GLENN: So, James, I really do appreciate your point of view. I appreciate your service.
And I hate to disagree with you. But I don't think it's cowardice to think strategically. A no-fly zone, one plane goes down, and we're in World War III with a guy we can't predict at this point, who has tons of nukes and says he'll use them.
I don't want to get into World War III. By the way, there is nothing wrong -- check your local attorney on this. But I don't believe there's anything wrong with a U.S. soldier taking off their uniform, you know, assuming they've retired.
And going over to Ukraine, and donning a Ukrainian uniform.
I think they're paying soldiers, to go over and fight.
I know a lot of soldiers, who are like, I'm going over.
I'm going to help fight.
That's good. That's good. We as individuals, should help them.
But, you know, getting into World War III, is not necessarily something I would like to jump to, in a two-week period.
Carol Roth is with us. Carol, are we doing everything we can, with these sanctions?
I mean, I -- I read conflicting reports.
That these sanctions are more than anything we've ever done. Because it's public/private, great reset kind of partnerships. Then I hear they're meaningless.
Which one is it?
CAROL: I really wish I had the answer for you, Glenn. I've been racking my brain. I've been reading all the reports. And they do somehow conflict with each other.
They say that they're going to cut Russians off, from payment systems.
But we're probably going to exempt the oil payments. Which is obviously 60 percent of their economy. Right.
So that's a challenge.
You know, I've heard about their freezing of the assets, at central banks. Including the fed. The ECB. Now the Japanese Central Bank is jumping on.
But in terms of, you know, how -- how strong that is, I think because these items are so complex, and because the White House has been fairly opaque, in terms of -- of trying to clarify them, we really don't have a good sense of -- you know, have they really gone, as far as they can?
Is there something else on the table?
And I will say, there's probably a middle ground here. You would have to thread the needle on this one.
Because going too light, creates a set of issues. But going heavy, creates a separate set of issues. All of which have reverberations here in the US.
So this is very challenging stuff.
And I'm not sure that we have the best minds, that we possibly could have.
GLENN: Yeah.
CAROL: Coming up with the strategy around this, unfortunately.
GLENN: All right. So let me ask you about. Let's just say inflation.
One of the things the fed wanted to do by raising interest rates, was to slow down, quote, I love this. It was laughable. An overheated economy.
The economy was not overheated. The stock market is overheated. Those people who got all these bailouts. They're spending money. And investing. And driving the prices of everything up.
The little guy is feeling everyday inflation of the consequence of printing that much money.
So they want to slow people down.
Doesn't this accomplish that, not at the higher level, but at the lower level?
The common person?
CAROL: This is such a mess. And it comes on the back of the unprecedented intervention that we've had in monetary policy, fiscal policy, and just general government policy.
So you have the fed intervening in the market. To the tune of trillions of dollars. You had the government doing this. You know, quote, unquote, relief spending. Which, as we know, most of that ended up, in the hands of the wealthy, and well-connected. And not the individuals that really needed it.
And then you had these policies, that said, oh, let's just, you know, turn off large swaths of the economy. And we'll just flip they believe back on. Like we're power cycling a modem. And that disrupted labor and supply chains. To the point, where it's difficult to come back. And it has reverberation through inflation.
Now you have people who have created this policy. And let me just be very clear, and underscore this.
This was not consumer driven. This was not demand driven.
This was not corporate greed driven. This was entirely policy driven.
And there were points along the way, where they could have dialed it back, and maybe, you know, still had some issues, but not the level that we're having today. And they have refused to do so, to the point, that the fed just finished -- I mean, they were in the market in February. Still providing support to the market.
So you have these people, who missed the call on inflation. Have told us everything under the sun. It's not going to happen. It was just going to be a little hot. It was just going to be transitory. Oh, it's good for you. Okay. Yeah. Maybe it's a bad thing.
Now thinking, that they can also thread the needle, perfectly, and bring the economy in, for a soft landing.
But what is monetary policy going to fix?
Even if we didn't have the Russia/Ukraine crisis. Is it going to fix the fact, that we have millions of people, who dropped out of the labor force. And that we're still going to have wage inflation.
Is it going to fix the fact that we still have all this money, in the financial system?
I'm just not sure what they think this policy is going to do.
So the concern for us, as -- again, even ex-Russia/Ukraine. But with that layered on. With the fed, who is now going through a period where we have potentially slowing growth. And rising inflation. Is going to try to come up with the perfect policy. And if you think these people, who have made every mistake in the book, over the past couple of years. And going back over the last even 15 years. Now all of a sudden, have the perfect policy.
Well, I have a bridge to sell you, at that point.
GLENN: Yeah. It's horrible.
I had a friend over at the house last night. And they said, Glenn, people like me.
Regular person, working, you know, come with the family. Said, Glenn, people like me. We're on the edge.
We're not -- we're not going to make it through all of this.
And I don't think there's a single elite -- you know, when the president says, I'm going to try to make this easier for you. And then he proposes gigantic packages, which will just mean trillions more in spending, which will mean inflation even higher. You know, and then he proposed a 15-dollar working wage. Carol, isn't that -- that's the death spiral. Right?
When prices are going up for inflation, and so then you hike wages, that will make prices go up even further. Then you have to hike wages.
I mean, that's the death spiral.
CAROL: Yeah. It was a very strange economic lesson, that we heard from the president, last night. During the State of the Union.
He wants everyone to buy American. Which we all know is more expensive.
But then he would like for companies, to keep costs down. But also, raise wages.
GLENN: Yeah.
CAROL: And then he tells you, how much he wants to tax the companies. So just the circular logic of all of that. Migraines.
It just went sort of cuckoo. I don't sort of know what's going on here. And I don't know if it made any sense. But we are living through, and are living through, the greatest transfer of wealth in history. From the average --
GLENN: No. Rephrase that. This is the largest robbery or theft ever in the history of the world.
That's really what happened.
CAROL: It's the looting of America. And it's a looting of Main Street. And the average American. The working American. For the benefit of the wealthy, and well-connected.
And this inflation, as I've been saying, all along, is a permanent task. On the average person.
And over time, supports the people who own the assets.
And it's going to be very, very -- continually very difficult, for the average person, to -- to survive. And when you hear things like, oh, well, you look at the -- the personal savings rate. Or you look at how much cash people have.
And the average American is doing well. It's because the people at the top, have so much money. They are distorting the averages. Look at the median.
Don't look at the average. And you will see a very different story.
GLENN: Carol Roth. The author of the war on small business.
She's a recovering investment banker. And really doing everything she can. To make sure the average person understands what's going on.
Carol, thank you as always. I appreciate it.
Let me -- let me say to you, what I said to my friend, last night. And I know this sounds trite. But I'm telling you, your money is not going to be worth what it is today, in three months. Six months. A year from now.
So if you buy something for a dollar, today, you -- let's just say your dollar of today is worth 100 cents.
Six months from now, it could be worth 90 cents.
So you're having to pay really, a dollar ten, for whatever it is, you could have used. You could have bought now, for a dollar.
And that's a just going to continue, until you have, you know, 60, 50, 40 cents on every dollar in buying power.
So when you -- if you are at the edge, when you go to the grocery store, when things are on sale, and you don't necessarily need that many boxes, buy them now. Because you will actually be saving money. You will actually be making money. Your -- the value of that box of hamburger helper or whatever it is. Will be worth more, than what you could buy it for, in the store. Please, there is real hardship. I believe Great Depression-style hardship. Coming soon.
I hope to God I'm wrong.
But please, prepare now.
