Currency Debasement + Fourth Turning = Need For Sound Money | Lawrence Lepard

**Lawrence Lepard** (0:00)
The slow deterioration of the monetary system has really caused what I consider to be the fourth turning crisis that we're in now. And as you point out, I think it's accelerating and getting worse. And the solution is the return to sound money.

**Adam Taggart** (0:20)
Welcome to Thoughtful Money. I'm its founder and your host, Adam Taggart. I've stated many times in this program that perhaps the easiest macro trend to forecast is that our fiat currencies will continue to lose purchasing power as time goes on. Today's guest explains why and what we can do to protect our wealth from this scourge in his new book, The Big Print, What Happened To America and How Sound Money Will Fix It. We're fortunate to be joined by investor, sound money advocate, and now author, Lawrence Lepard. Lawrence, thanks so much for joining us today.

**Lawrence Lepard** (0:52)
Hey, thanks, Adam. Please call me Larry. Yeah, it's great to join you and I'm really looking forward to this.

**Adam Taggart** (0:56)
All right, Larry. Well, look, I think this is your first time on Thoughtful Money, so welcome.

**Lawrence Lepard** (1:02)
Thank you.

**Adam Taggart** (1:02)
You and I are passed across from time to time. Last time we were together, I think we were on stage down at Brian London's Great New Orleans event. There were some fireworks and sparks on that panel, which everybody really enjoyed.

**Lawrence Lepard** (1:14)
It was a lot of fun. Yeah, my Bitcoin tie, my non-existent Bitcoin tie.

**Adam Taggart** (1:21)
But look, you've just ended up publishing this really impressive book, The Big Print. We're going to tell people where they can go find it. But I want to walk through its core insights today. And basically, as I read it, The Big Print is a treatise on how our current fiat monetary system, by design, abuse, or mismanagement, will continue to drain away the purchasing power of our money. And it's clear from the book that you think the pace of that's only going to get worse. So let's start there. Why? Explain for folks.

**Lawrence Lepard** (1:57)
Yeah. Okay, great. Well, it's a long story and the book lays it out. But there's been a trend really since the founding of the country, but it's accelerated more recently, toward those in the positions of power in both the government and the monetary system, have continually kind of tilted the game board or the playing board in their favor. And this is what's created the massive wealth inequality that we now have, and the unfairness in our system. And each step along the way seemed minor at the time perhaps, or maybe major at the time, and maybe somewhat minor in the long run. But it started with the War of 1812, and then Greenbacks and the Civil War, and then financing World War I, the creation of the Fed, the financing of World War I, and then yield curve control with World War II. And then probably the biggest event, the biggest monetary event that we faced was going off the gold standard when Nixon broke the link to international exchange standard link to gold post Bretton Woods. And all of these things have been inflationary, and inflation benefits the people at the top of the system who can borrow more cheaply and know how to game the system, and it harms the common citizen, and the working person who does not have the financial engineering skills to borrow money cheap and invest it in yielding assets. And this is what's led to this enormous break in our society of the haves and the have nots. And there's a great chart in the book we go to if you like, where the top 1 percent of the population now controls 92 percent of the wealth, and that grows every year, and the bottom 50 percent of the population controls 15 percent of the wealth, and that's stagnant.
And this is just really an unfair system. I mean, the Constitution was written to try and guarantee that everyone would have the fruits of their labor, and there would be a fair governmental system and a fair system. And it started off with a great premise, and for many, many years, we held on to that. But the slow deterioration of the monetary system has really caused what I consider to be the fourth turning crisis that we're in now. And as you point out, I think it's accelerating and getting worse. And the solution is the return to sound money. I mean, one thing I want to emphasize, all those things in the first, the book is divided into two sections. The first half is the problem, the second is the solution. The problem is kind of depressing, and I don't want to be a doomster or a depressing kind of guy, because I'm a very optimistic guy about what's going on in the world and how technology and other things are going to make the world a better place. But you can't address the problem if you don't understand the problem. And the problem is kind of depressing. But part two of the book is the solution, and there's a great solution, there are a lot of technical things that are happening that I think are going to take us to a much better world. But there's going to be a rocky transition between now and then. I've been watching all of your interviews, Adam. I know you're very much aware of this as are all of your excellent guests. So that transition is probably something we should talk about, but I'll let you go from here. All right.