Welcome to the December Solari
Briefing on Christmas cash and coin.
We’ve got a wonderful array of
panelists today, and we’re excited
to have all of y’all with us.
All of our previous briefings are
available on our Financial Transaction
Freedom website, and if you have any
trouble finding those, please feel free.
Free to email me.
My email is elizabeth@solari.com.
We’ve got an outstanding
lineup of guests today.
Starting us off is gonna
be Breeauna Sagdal.
She is a policy fellow at the Beef
Initiatives Foundation, author of
the Solari Report, cash substack,
contributing author at the Brownstone
Institute Door to Freedom and a prolific
writer and individual li, or to advance
individual liberty and freedom for all.
Thank you so much for
joining us today, Breeauna.
Oh, hello.
Thank you so much for having me on.
Were we going to do, I thought
we were going to do a prayer.
Oh my gosh.
I forgot the prayer.
Yes, Catherine would you
please lead us in prayer?
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
For our prayer, I’m going to read
a section of an essay we publish
every year at Christmas time.
It’s called In Ho Domini by in
ho ano Domini by Vermont Royster.
And it’s about Jesus.
So let me begin.
In the middle then of a sudden, there
was a light in the world and a man from
Galilee saying, render unjust Caesar, the
things which are Caesars and unto God, the
things that are god’s, and the voice from
Galilee, which would defy, Caesar offered
a new kingdom in which every man could
walk upright and bow to none, but his God.
As much as you’ve done it unto
one of the least of these, my
brethren, you have done it unto me.
And he sent this gospel of the kingdom of
men into the uttermost ends of the earth.
So the light came into the world
and the men who lived in darkness
were afraid, and they tried to lower
curtains so that men would still
believe salvation lay were the leaders.
But it came to pass for a while in diverse
places that the truth did set men free.
Although the men of darkness were offended
and they tried to put out the light, the
voice said, hasty walk while you have
the light, let darkness come upon you.
For Heath that walketh in
darkness knoweth not wither.
He goeth.
Along the road to Damascus, the
light shone brightly, but afterward,
pole of Tauruses two was so afraid.
He feared that other Caesars,
other prophets might one day
persuade men that man was nothing.
Save a servant unto them.
That man might yield up their
birthright from God for potage and walk.
No more in freedom.
Then might it come to pass?
That darkness would settle
again over the lands and there
would be a burning of books.
And men would think only of what
they should eat and what they should
wear and would give heat only to
New Caesars and to false prophets.
Then might it come to pass that
men would not look upward to see
even a winner star in the east.
And once more there would be no
light at all in the darkness.
And so Paul, the apostle of the son of
men, spoke to his brethren, the Galatians,
the words he would have us remember
afterward in each of the year of his Lord.
Stand fast.
Therefore, in the liberty where Earth
Christ has made us free and be not
entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you
for the opportunity to gather in this
wonderful holiday season to appreciate
that our freedoms come to us by
divine and we thank you for that.
And we thank you as we enter the season
where we celebrate the birth of your son
and the coming of the covenant of grace.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
Amen.
Okay, Breeauna, take it away.
Amen.
That was wonderful, Catherine.
Thank you so much.
Alright so I am going to be
giving just a very brief overview
of the top stories for 2025.
Alright.
So if you guys have had an opportunity
to follow along with this sub
stack I would highly encourage
you to to check out the substack.
Either way, make sure that you
are subscribed and share it
with your friends and family.
So first and foremost on our
list of top stories in 2025 is
the Hung Is Hungry, for Cash.
So cash becomes a constitutional right
in 2025 in the country of Hungary.
This is a constitutional amendment where.
Cash payments are a fundamental
right, and it now carries the
force of the force of law.
And I’ll just I’ll read from the Substack
a little bit with limited exceptions
such as online subscriptions or automated
vending without staff businesses must
now accept cash in Hungarian, Florence.
I’m not exactly sure how to
pronounce that, I apologize.
But this is for, in, this is the
Hungarian dollar essentially.
And that’s this for all
in-person transactions.
The move addresses the
country’s robust cash economy.
This is really important because
Hungarians still make half of all
of their offline purchases using
cash, and there’s over 8,500 billion
Huff still in circulation today.
So the law also supports the 10%
of the population without access
to banking without a bank account.
In fact I think Hungary is.
Maybe second or third
in to the United States.
The United States still has a 14%
of the population that is unbanked
and needs access, or excuse
me, lacks access to BA banking.
Number two is Slovenia.
Again.
Slovenia has enshrined cash
acceptance and cash as legal
tender in their constitution.
And this is a really interesting
story because it comes amid the
backdrop of the EU Commission, the
bank for international settlements,
the European Central Bank pushback.
And what’s really fascinating about
the Sylvania story is that their legal
scholars used EU monetary policies
against the governing structures
and the central bankers that were
pushing back on them in their pursuit.
So the people ended up winning out.
But what’s interesting is that legal
scholars decided that cash fits the.
Legal definition of a
resilient form of currency.
So it’s a pretty interesting story
sparked by grassroots petition.
Over 50,000 signatories.
And the law underscores cash’s
important role in a crisis during
which digital systems often fail.
The third top story is Ireland.
Ireland thi this is actually really
impressive for I, I would say any
country in the United Kingdom,
especially Ireland, has had some
really interesting things happening.
I digress.
The point is Ireland recently just
moved to pass a new cash acceptance.
Law that also mandates a certain
amount of ATMs within a 10 kilometer
proximity from populated areas.
So I think Irish lawmakers drew
heavily from what is happening
in, in France, and maybe Vanessa
can speak to that a little bit.
But France for example, has had a
law on the books since the, 1980s
that mandates cash acceptance.
However, there’s a dwindling amount of
ATMs, so there’s less access to cash.
And I, Irish lawmakers really, I
think drew upon that experience
to stop the cashless creep.
And so when they ha, when they passed
this legislation, for example, they also
included that there would need to be a
a sort of threshold for how many
ATMs there were in the country.
The law is going to be taking effect
by the end of this year and should be
fully implemented starting in early 2024.
But this is a really important
bill, the steps combat.
Rural access gaps and fraud,
excuse me, fraud risks.
For example, Ireland has quickly
risen on the charts for the amount
of card fraud that the country
is ex country is experiencing.
And it, last year alone, the country
lost $160 million to credit card scams.
It’s, costing the the Irish people
quite a bit of money using card
processing payments and cash
is just much more resilient.
So very excited for the people
of Ireland and all three EU
nations that are fighting back.
And using the EU commission
and the UN’s sustainable
development goals and agenda 2030
contractually obligated laws
u using their words against them in
a sort of defined way, if you will.
Anyways, so I think that’s really fun.
Okay.
So New York, and I understand
I’m gonna pause here for just a
second, but I’ll just outline this.
So New York actually just past assembly
bill 7 9 2 9 a and its companion
bill in the Senate, which mandates
a refreshing hedge against growing
digital control and to actually.
Enshrined in law, the
protection of cash payments.
So I’m gonna pause here and allow
my colleagues to speak on this.
Susan, did you have some comments?
We had a post on the substack kind
of questioning maybe some underlying
issues with such a bill that I thought
you might have some reputations to.
Yeah, I had a lot of things to say
about the post on the substack.
They were basically saying
that cash laws are no good
because of the B2B transaction.
So they’re saying that even if
a consumer can pay cash, the B2B
transactions are all electronic.
I, think that assumption
is not necessarily true.
A lot of small businesses buy things
from other small businesses, and those
are not necessarily all electronic.
The other thing is you can take cash
from a consumer and deposit it in
your bank account and then you could
do all kinds of things with it.
You could write a check, you
could a CH transfer it, you could
do credit card payments from it,
whatever you wanna do with it.
They were making the argument
that banks charge fees to
take cash and to deposit cash.
Then my argument would be from Catherine,
who would probably say then find a new
bank, find a local, a good local bank
who doesn’t charge fees to deposit cash.
I think there’s still plenty
of banks that do that.
The other thing I would say to the
Substack post is we do have 11 states
that I’m aware of in the United States
with blanket cash laws like this, where
basically businesses must, accept cash.
We have 11 states already.
And Massachusetts, I
think is the oldest state.
They passed that in 1978.
So they’ve been doing it for a long time.
I think the most recent one was Montana.
That was 2003 I think, or four.
So there’s a lot of states doing
cash transactions and they don’t seem
to have businesses closing because
of it or any problems with B2B.
So I’m not sure if a person wrote that
that comment about cash is useless
’cause the merchants can’t do anything
with it, or if a bot wrote it or
what, but it’s just nonsensical to me.
So I wanted to speak up briefly about
it and I’ll give it back to Brie
and stop stop on my soapbox here.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
Susan.
Carolyn, do you wanna hop in and talk
about the Ohio Cash bill or did you wanna.
Sure.
There actually are two bills.
I was just looking at the legislature
site, which is not, easily
searchable, but apparently there’s
a house and a Senate version.
The senate version covers only
transactions that are $500 or or less.
And it includes governmental entities.
So the state would have
to accept cash payments.
The house version doesn’t
have an upper limit on it.
And it has some exclusions
for things like rental cars.
This is what’s really weird.
Rental car.
Rental vehicles.
It, as long as they would accept a
cashier’s check I don’t know what that
would, help in terms of having security,
which is why you ordinarily have to use
a credit card to rent a car because they
want a security against damage on the car.
But that’s, one exclusion.
And then parking lots there’s a
municipal parking lots and then
certain other parking lots that
o only accept mobile payments.
And it also has a private right
of action and the violation is a
violation of the consumer fraud law.
And so the attorney general can
bring actions the same as, he can
bring actions in cases of violation
of a, of the consumer fraud laws.
So it seems like a
pretty good both of them.
Obviously having a lid of $500 is less.
Good than, no limit.
But both of them are pretty good versions.
Thank you so much for sharing about that.
Carolyn Brie, back to you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
So speaking of a $500
transaction limit let’s see.
The last item on the list
for this year is HR 1138.
This is in Congress right now.
It has not passed, and in fact,
it may have stalled out with the
government shutdown, but it would
be fantastic if this bill picked
up sponsors, co-sponsors and began
to make its way through the finance
committee where it’s currently sitting.
This is called the Payment
Choice Act of 2025.
And it is a bill to ensure the United
States currency is treated as legal
tinder and to be accepted as payment
for purchases of good and services
at brick and mortar businesses
throughout the United States.
And for other purposes, that’s pretty
typical of legislation in Congress,
by the way, for other purposes.
Anyways, this is sponsored by
Representative John Rose from Tennessee.
Thank you very much Elizabeth.
Down there.
You guys are great.
HR 1138 would require brick and
mortar stores to accept cash for
transactions up to $500 and would
ban price hikes for cash users.
This is really important and you’re
gonna hear more about this from
Susan Luschas and our wonderful
representative from Idaho.
Heather, Ms. Ms. Heather, and.
This is an important concept because
in particular pieces of legislation
that we’re seeing across the country
right now businesses are attempting
to charge cash users more money
for a convenience fee, for example.
Anyways, so this, bill would prevent
that from being able to happen.
The bill is currently co-sponsored by
17 different representatives from both
sides of the aisle, including reps,
Joyce Beaty of Ohio and Warren Davidson,
all also, or Republican from Ohio.
And then there’s a there’s a sister
companion bill in the Senate and that
is sponsored by Senator Kevin Kramer of
North Dakota and co-sponsored by Senator
John Federman out of Pennsylvania.
So that’s really interesting.
The Senate bill is S 2 3 2 6, and
the language is exactly the same.
This would be a really good
time being that Congress will
be out for the holidays and.
Some of your members of Congress
may hold a town hall meeting.
It could be virtual, it might be
at a Cracker Barrel, for example.
This would be a really good time
to talk to your representative in
the house and ask your member of
Congress to consider co-sponsoring
the let’s see sorry, HR 1138.
Again, the Payment Choice Act of 2025.
So this was a really important bill and.
This would be the time to ask for
co-sponsors and hopefully with
enough co-sponsors we can get it
moving outta the finance committee
and potentially to the house floor.
And who knows, we might
just be able to pass it.
That’s all that I have for you guys.
I wanted to say thank you so much.
It’s been a pleasure writing for
the audience and it has been an
incredible honor being able to work
with the Solari crew this year.
Thank you so much and have a great
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Awesome.
Thank you Breeauna.
We’ve loved having you
join the team this year.
It’s been really fun working with you.
Okay, up next we have Susan Lucas.
Susan is an MIT educated electrical
engineer turned farmer and ranger
who moved to South Dakota in 2020
from California Silicon Valley.
Aware of the escalating attacks on
cash, Susan and her household made
the decision to always pay with cash.
When the Sioux Falls School District
announced that it was going to take all
of its sporting and fine arts events,
cashless, Susan decided it was take
time to take more of a public stand.
Susan pitched legislation requiring
the acceptance of cash payments for
admission to school, a affiliated
events to her local representative,
John Sharda, representative Sharda
and Susan and her team, cash team
got the bill signed into law Today.
She’ll be updating us
on what she’s up to now.
Welcome Susan.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
Thanks for having me.
So I’ve just been, I’ve just been
turling for cash here in South Dakota.
On the next slide, it says, who am I?
I’m just a normal citizen in
South Dakota who’s been working
on cash topics for several years,
and sometimes I’m successful and
sometimes I’m not so successful.
But I just keep turling and keep going.
I’m not afraid.
So I wanna talk.
Next slide.
I wanna talk about a few things.
I wanna talk about Cash, Halloween Cash,
Christmas Cash, Easter Cash Library
and then some legislation that we’re
doing for this session in South Dakota.
And then cash every day, because that’s
really my goal is to get everyone paying
with cash all the time every day, because
that’s how I think we’re gonna win.
So first next slide.
Cash.
Halloween.
We’ve been doing cash
Halloween for several years.
What we do is when the trick or treaters
come to our house, instead of giving
’em candy, we give them a dollar
bill with a sticker on the back or a
piece of paper with a quarter taped
on the back that says cash is king.
And why pay with cash?
We’ve been doing this for a few years.
It’s been wildly successful, so if you
have the courage to try it, I, from
everyone I’ve heard who’ve actually
tried it, they’ve had amazing comments,
amazing results with it, and it just,
it’s shocking how well it works.
I’m actually shocked myself, this is
probably, the most successful thing
I’ve done on cash is this right here.
Thank you to all the subscribers
all over the country and all over
the world who’ve done this with me.
I think we reached a lot more kids
than I ever imagined we ever would.
This year we crashed a state
park trick or treat event.
We got 800 kids there, and then
I got about 150 kids at my door.
So that was about 950
kids in South Dakota.
Some of them got dollar bills, some of
them got quarters with cash messages.
And then what I said to them
is pay with cash, not credit.
And I tell the little kids that
and they go back and tell their
mommy, pay with cash, not credit.
And they hear that year over year
and they start to, it just starts
to sink in and it plants a seed.
So I encourage you to try
it and you’ll be shockingly
surprised at how well this works.
So we have Christmas coming up.
Next slide shows our cash.
Christmas float.
This is my neighborhood float.
Let me explain to you how this works.
So this is my 80 some year old
neighbor’s pickup, white pickup truck.
And in the back of bed of the pickup,
sit the adults with the adult beverages
and in the trailer, behind the pickup,
sit the kids with their parents
and they throw stuff off the float.
So we’ve always thrown ca candy off the
neighborhood float, which was not my idea,
it was the neighbor’s idea, but whatever.
And so this year I decided,
okay, let’s throw quarters off.
We can’t really throw dollar bills
off because we have wind here in
South Dakota, so they might blow away,
but quarters would drop to the floor
if you threw them out of a float.
So I ended up getting my
five-year-old neighbor to come over.
She likes to come over, and we sat for
half an hour and we taped quarters on
the back of those paper cash messages.
We have a whole bag of ’em, and we were
gonna throw ’em off our float this year.
But then South Dakota weather
hit, it’s always a Saturday after
Thanksgiving, and we were in the
negative temperatures, and you can
imagine sitting on this open air float.
And negative temperatures did not,
people weren’t excited about that.
So our float got canceled.
So I’m, totally bummed about it, but this
has been what we’re gonna do next year.
So we’ve already got our quarters taped.
The kids.
It’s amazing how much a kindergartner.
My, my 16, 15-year-old doesn’t
really like taping quarters anymore.
She’s over it.
But a five-year-old neighbor who doesn’t
do it all the time at home thinks it’s
really fun and you can get that done
in half an hour with a five-year-old.
Next slide.
Cash Christmas this year.
This is what I’m giving
my teenager for Christmas.
Don’t tell her she is
in final exams today.
So I’m sure she’s not listening to
this, but this is what she’s getting.
So let me explain a little
background about why I think
this is a good idea for my kid.
My kid is a freshman in college.
She’s very proud of the fact that
her parents are evil and she’s
putting herself through college.
So she’s very proud of
that and she should be.
So she’s very cheap and she’s constantly
not wanting to drive her car because
gas costs money and thinking about
all these things, which is great.
So one thing we’re gonna do is give
her $10 cash per month if she doesn’t
have any digital purchases that month.
And my 18-year-old actually does not have
a credit card, but she does have a debit
card so she can pay with her debit card.
So the idea is she needs to go
get cash and pay with cash and
not use her debit card that month.
And if she does that and shows me her
transaction statement, we’re gonna
give her $10 cash for that every month.
And I actually think this is
gonna work just because I,
my 18-year-old is so cheap.
So we’ll see how it goes,
but that’s what she’s getting
this year, so don’t tell her.
Okay.
The next slide is an adult cash coupon.
I thought not everyone has a
cheap 18-year-old like I do.
So what else could you do?
So this is another idea.
You could gift your
pledge to someone else.
So you could make a cash pledge that
for one month I will only use cash.
And see how that works for you.
See what kind of conversations
that might get you in or just
see how, you can live like that.
And once it becomes a habit,
like my family’s been doing
it for years, it’s a habit.
It’s just our credit cards we
use in case of emergency only.
So, you might wanna try it.
It’s an idea for, Christmas.
So the other thing we do on
the next slide is cash Easter.
We’ve been doing this for a few years too.
I’m finding that cash Easter was
greatly successful the first few years.
We have a neighborhood Easter egg
hunt and I put people put candy
or whatever they want in the eggs.
I always put cash with a cash
message and I feel like the kids
were into it the first couple years
and now they it’s the same kids
in the neighborhood over and over.
And now they expect it and they
get the same thing at Halloween.
So it’s lost its novelty.
For us.
So now what I’m gonna do this Easter
is I’m gonna take these things and
I’m gonna hide them anonymously in the
playgrounds and the parks around town.
I’m just gonna put ’em in playgrounds
and parks and just, I’m not even
necessarily gonna know who’s gonna
find them or what’s gonna happen to
’em, but I’m just gonna sprinkle ’em
around parks and just see, what happens.
So that’s what I’m doing
this year on Easter.
The next slide is actually
a cash free library.
So this is another subscriber’s
free library book in her free
library, the little free library
thing that sits outside your house.
And she decided to put cash stickers
on her library books, and she does this
all year long and I think it is just
such a cool idea, such a great idea.
And the subscriber just just
knocked it out of the park.
So thanks to her for coming up with
the idea and and doing this next slide.
By the way, that subscriber
is not in South Dakota either.
This is, I’m so thankful to all of you all
over the country that are promoting cash.
Thank you.
Yeah, we’re with you.
We actually are starting to get a
really nice cash network of people
giving feedback and doing all
kinds of cool things and coming up
with better ideas than I ever had.
So for me, cash legislation is an
excuse to bring awareness to cash.
I personally don’t think any bill
in the legislature is gonna save us.
I think we’ve gotta save ourselves.
And so for me, cash legislation is,
bringing publicity, bringing awareness to
cash, getting people to talk about cash.
I thought it was a real win last
session with when one of our
representatives said, it seems
like all we do is talk about cash.
And I said, yes, that’s exactly
what I want the legislature
talking about is cash.
So we’re running two bills
again in South Dakota this year.
The next slide is our first bill.
It’s the.
House concurrent resolution.
So we have a representative in the
house, John Sharda, he’s fantastic.
And he’s running this
concurrent resolution.
So I’m gonna read you the first
I’m gonna read you the
first line of it here.
So it in a concurrent resolution,
encouraging the citizens of South
Dakota to pay with cash to support
businesses that offer a cash
discount and encourage the businesses
of South Dakota to accept cash.
And then it, you go into
the, whereas clauses.
So whereas payment with cash prevents
tracking and controlling purchases,
whereas payment with cash means the
pays location, Rena remains anonymous.
Whereas payment with cash saves
businesses money on transaction fees.
I’ll just say blah, blah, blah.
From there, we’ve got a few
other good reasons in here.
Then the, it starts with
the therefore clauses.
So then, now therefore be it resolved
that the citizens of South Dakota
are strongly encouraged to pay with
physical cash whenever and wherever
possible and be it further resolve.
The citizens of South Dakota are
strongly encouraged to support
businesses that offer a cash discount
and be it for further resolved.
The businesses in South Dakota
are strongly encouraged to
offer a cash discount, so that’s
our concurrent resolution.
This is not a law necessarily,
it’s just a resolution basically
to bring awareness to cash.
The house does have to vote on it.
It will go, I believe, first to committee.
I assume this would go again to
commerce and energy, and then it
would go to the house floor and then
it would go to Senate committee and
through, so it would go through in
a normal process of a normal bill.
It’s just, it’s not a law, it’s a
resolution, and so this is really.
To bring awareness and
raise awareness about cash.
Which was my goal.
To begin with next slide shows what
we’re gonna, what’s gonna be part
of our testimony for this bill is
our Cash South Dakota Cash Business
businesses with a lower cash price.
So we have a website and a flyer
with by city in South Dakota
with businesses that have a cash
discount or a lower cash price.
So that will be part of our
testimony, is to bring awareness
to the flyer and the website.
And then the next slide shows the
second bill that we’re gonna run.
We’re gonna run cash at
retail attempt number two.
We ran this bill last session.
We ran businesses and the
government must accept cash for
purchases under a hundred dollars.
That’s what we ran last session.
We, I went back and listened
to our testimony on it.
We were in committee
testimony for about an hour.
I personally think we
rocked the testimony.
I think we just did so well.
We presented statistics.
All of that is on the turtle
link for cash website.
All of our statistics, all
of our handouts we gave them.
I just thought we did a fantastic
job listening back to it.
And we had a lot of
friends on the committee.
We had two people tell us they wanted
the bill brought back, but we got
a zero to 13 vote in committee.
So we lost on the vote big time.
But we did plant a seed.
We did raise awareness and our
representative, John Arda, wants to
bring this back and he actually had one
of those representatives from last year
reach out to him and say, bring this back.
So we’re gonna bring it back.
And the good news is that I was able to
list the testimony from last session.
So I’m trying to make
better testimony this time.
We cleaned up some language.
Then we also do this is cash at
retail, less than a hundred dollars.
It includes the government entities
and the government contractors.
As we know, government is
often contracting stuff out.
And we added an equal payment clause,
which was copied basically from
the Ohio legislation and the Idaho
legislation that Representative
Scott’s gonna talk to us about.
This means equal payment clause means
you can’t charge more for a cash
payment than you do for any other
payment, and we do not have this problem
in South Dakota that I’m aware of.
We had the threat of this problem.
The threat was in this cash at
school events bill that we got
through the legislature last session.
We had three.
Let me say it this way.
I’ve had sent out three emails to various
schools and various districts saying,
you’re violating state law because you’re
not accepting cash for your school event.
Okay.
So just because we passed a
bill doesn’t mean that they’re
following that anybody’s following.
Doesn’t mean the schools are following it.
You’d think the schools would follow
it because they’re state funded, but
apparently some of them don’t think they
have to, even though we passed a bill.
So I sent three emails to three
different schools at various points in
the fall saying You’re not accepting
cash, and that’s violating state law.
Long story short, one school who
will remain nameless said, okay,
we’re gonna charge $15 cash at the
gate and only $6 on the app online.
And I said, okay, that’s fantastic.
Do that because then we’ll bring
another bill about equal payment
and about cash acceptance.
That will only help us.
Basically because people in South
Dakota aren’t gonna think that’s right,
that you charge grandma $15 at the
gate the rich sort of middle class
person, or not rich, but middle class
person only has to pay $6 on the app.
That’s not gonna go over well here.
So that’ll be a great
bill for next session.
And I’ll put your high
school name on it too.
So let’s say they, so anyway,
they backed down on that.
They did not do that,
but that was a threat.
So we haven’t seen problems with
businesses charging more for cash
payments, but you can certainly
see where that might come in.
The other argument I’m planning to make is
there was the visa cash cashless challenge
a few years ago where they offered
food trucks $10,000 to go cashless.
So you can imagine if you’re
offered $10,000 not to cash or
$10,000 not to accept cash, then.
You wanna make that up by charging
the cash people more money if
you’re not gonna get your $10,000.
So you can see if credit card companies
are bribing people, then you know,
then that could potentially create
an issue with businesses wanting
to charge more for cash payments.
And we have seen that in the past.
So that’s the other argument
I’m planning to make there
on that equal payment clause.
Those are the two bills we’re running.
We’re running cash at retail and we’re
running a concurrent resolution to
use, encourage people and businesses
to use cash and offer a cash discount.
And in summary on the next slide I
really think we have to save ourselves.
I think local government can’t save us.
I think bills, legislative
bills can’t save us.
The governor can’t save us Congress.
Congress won’t save us,
Trump won’t save us.
The only savior is many of us using
cash every day all of the time.
And that’s what they’re afraid of.
They’re afraid of the people
rising up and not complying.
And in my mind, using cas.
It’s a very low friction thing to do.
You don’t have to stand outside
football games in a cash costume
like I did, handing out dollar bills.
You don’t have to knock doors
you just use cash all the time.
So that’s what I’m really
encouraging and people to do and
trying to raise awareness about.
That’s really my goal.
So the next slide shows team
cash resources on Solari
all my, all of our bills and testimony.
We’ve got a draft of our concurrent
resolution that’s up there.
If the states that already have
cash laws might wanna just pass a
concurrent resolution, encouraging their
citizens to use cash and encouraging
businesses to offer a cash discount.
All the, all of our language is there.
You, it’s in draft format ’cause
it hasn’t been through legal yet.
But you can find all that there
as well as statistics and, yeah.
And testimony points.
There’s my email address.
You’re welcome to email me if you want, if
you have questions or if there’s anything
I can help you with in promoting cash.
I did see the comment in the
chat about what are the 11
states that have cash laws.
I, it’s on that website actually.
If you click on that website
and then click on other
resources, you’ll see the map.
There’s actually a US map of the
states that have a cashless ban or
I think that’s how they phrased it.
But I will dig up the original source
for that and I’ll post it in the
chat as soon as I’m done talking.
And get a minute on my computer here.
I will post that in the chat.
So in summary, use the next slide.
Use cash every day.
Pay by check if you can’t use
cash and refuse to shop at
businesses that don’t take cash.
And don’t be afraid to
at least do these things.
Turtle forth.
Thank you so much, Susan.
That was wonderful.
We’ll be hearing more from Catherine
later, but Catherine, I think you
had a special announcement right now.
I wanted to announce the
CEL Hero for the year 2025.
Is, are you ready for this?
Susan Luschas and Susan, we
couldn’t be more thrilled.
We as we have a hero of the week every
week on the Solari Report, and it’s a very
big deal to be the hero of the year, and
I just put down some words that describe
Susan and describe why she’s been chosen.
First and foremost is integrity.
This is somebody who really
walks her talk leadership.
She’s not only been a leader
in South Dakota, but for the
Solari team, she’s really.
Inspired us and we’ve changed
direction as a result of next word,
her intelligence and her realism
about what is the most effective way
to get something done on the ground.
As you can tell, this is a person who
takes action every day in every way, and
does it with extraordinary creativity.
The, we had so many subscribers do
Halloween or cash Halloween, including
John Titus did Cash Halloween.
Susan, I don’t know if he told you that.
And and we just think
these are incredible ways.
If you look at having a hundred kids run
and tell their parents about cash, what
a great way to spread the word virally.
Persistence.
Susan as er here of the year gets
a turtle award and generosity.
She’s been very generous
with Susan, with your time.
And all of your research and all
the work you put into testifying in,
South Dakota, you’ve made available
to people all over the country.
And I just think if you pull up the
next slide, Susan joins an incredible
group of people including I would
say, because she is an engineer.
Leonardo da Vinci was here of the
year in 2019, so you’re the second
engineer who’s been here of the year.
But we had Mark Skidmore, John
Rappaport, da Vinci, Russ, and
Pam Martins, who have Wall Street
weak, then Wim Hoff, Polly, Tommy.
We had Senator Nicely and
Representative Halsey of Tennessee
last year was Congressman Thomas
Massey, another MIT graduate.
So I guess the three engineers you,
Thomas Massey and Da Vinci are, we have
a predilection for, engineers at Solari.
So Susan, congratulations.
Thank you so much.
We are so grateful for everything
you do and for knowing you and
we just can’t thank you enough.
Big round of applause from everybody.
Thank you so much.
Catherine, if I can just say something
to me, this is really a hero of the
year for cash and for all of you
all over the country that did HA.
Cash Halloween and Cash Library and
all the cash things that everybody
is doing and really we’re all
heroes of the year for using cash.
Just thank you all for using cash
and spread the word as best you can.
And if you’re not comfortable
spreading the word, that’s fine.
Just use cash every day and don’t shop
at businesses that don’t take cash.
Thank you.
Thank you, Susan.
Okay,
wonderful.
Congratulations, Susan.
You definitely deserve it.
Up next, we have
representative Heather Scott.
Representative Scott has been
a member of the Idaho House
of Representatives since 2014.
She is a professional aquatic biologist,
a small business owner, and the
co-chair of the Idaho Freedom Caucus.
Today she’ll be sharing with us about
a piece of legislation she passed on
cash acceptance and also what she’s
working on in the 20 20 26 session.
Welcome representative Scott.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
It’s hard to come after Susan.
I, was just so proud when I was listening
to all that I had no idea, but the power
of the educated and engaged citizen
and, What most of government doesn’t
realize is, all power is in the people.
And, you’ve proved that.
And so I was, it was really great to hear
that I, I toyed with throwing out coins.
I was only gonna send out nickels from
the parades and I didn’t know that’d be a
great look for a politician to be throwing
nickels out and money to the citizens.
So I I resisted, but I love what
you’re doing, so very exciting.
So they asked me to just come
on and share a little bit about
the bill that I got passed.
We got passed about three,
two years ago 2024 session.
And it was a cash bill.
I had tried to run it a couple
times to force businesses to
accept cash along with government.
I couldn’t quite get the
business part passed.
Obviously it was just a harder lift
telling businesses what to do and what not
to do not letting them make the choice.
So what we did was passed a really
simple piece of legislation that just
said that government has to accept cash.
And I, think someone’s,
they’re gonna pull up my bill.
I, I don’t know.
I don’t see it up there.
But we, by taking it out of the businesses
too and putting it in the government,
it, it just got put in a general section
of, state government and government
affair affairs under miscellaneous.
So it was pretty much a standalone bill.
It was pretty easy.
We didn’t get into a
lot of complicated code.
It was just a brand new section
of code and, I don’t see it up,
but I have it in front of me.
But it was House Bill four 17 in 2024.
And it literally, it just says any
official department, board, commission
or agency of the state of Idaho that
accepts payment for transactions
shall accept cash as a method of
payment along with any other method.
And then we did add a clause in there
that just said that, they may not charge
an additional fee for a cash payment.
And it seemed, I guess my, we tried,
like I said, you have to just kinda keep
trying it and they did try to put a limit
on it oh, $500 and, we just kept it super
simple and by co I would say compromising
by not doing that business section.
It just passed right through,
which was really cool.
But what I didn’t realize would happen
is exactly what Susan mentioned is
governments just not following the law.
And or they try to skirt around it.
And what we’ve seen is the biggest skirt
around the law is the universities.
And what they are doing is in order
to get into their football games or,
whatever, they make you stand in line.
You stand in line to pay, you
get up there with your cash and
they’re like, oh, I’m sorry.
You have to go over to this other
line and put your cash in the machine
and get a card and pay with a card,
which is, just a skirt around the law.
And but that’s their workaround.
There’s always the workaround.
I think Susan had asked me before the call
when we were getting ready, just what,
could you use for reasons to promote this?
And I think the one thing I would say is.
Most citizens are starting to wake up.
They, realize something
is just not quite right.
They watch what happened with COVID, with
the control coming from Global Control.
They’re starting to see little
pieces of, things come together.
And I would say as our country is
founded on Christian principles many
are aware of no buying or selling in
the end days without, without a mark.
And nobody knows really what that looks
like or what it’s gonna look like.
And I think that you can, use that to
help try to, people know, you don’t have
to say it, you just say, we know where
this is headed to a cashless society
and we wanna avoid it at all cost.
And then when you add that to
the facts from Solari and the
tracking and the central banks, it
all just came together in Idaho.
So.
that’s really all I was gonna share.
It’s, been a couple years ago
since I, I’ve got it passed.
It looks like it’s just coming up on
the screen for those of you watching,
and I can answer questions at the end
if there’s any other questions about it.
And then the other thing that I was
asked to share is that I’ve been working
with Solari to to run an another bill
this year on the programmable money.
And so that I think they have
a standalone bill on that.
And we’ve worked it into our code.
I, think, I’m hoping that it will
we’ll get traction this year.
I, think there’s a
really good possibility.
I, truly believe more and more people
are waking up and with groups like
what Susan’s doing with the cash.
I’m very hopeful for
the programmable money.
And we’re not outlawing
it the way, it’s written.
It’s not outlawing it, but it is,
basically saying they can’t they
can’t discriminate against you.
They can’t use things against
you to not use your money.
So I think that’s really all I had
and I’ll answer some questions at
the end if anyone has any or however
you wanna work it, Elizabeth.
Awesome.
Yes.
We’ll do a q and A at the end,
so if anybody has any questions,
there’s actually a q and a box or
you can put it into the webinar chat.
But the q and a box does make
it a little easier for us to
keep track of the questions.
Okay.
Up next we have Stefan Gleason.
Stefan Gleason is the chairman
of the Sound Money Defense League
and President of the Money Metals
Exchange, a national precious.
Company, a new service with
over 1 million Raiders.
Gleason’s articles and expert comments
have appeared in the Wall Street
Journal, Detroit News, Washington
Times, and the National Review.
Thank you Stefan, for joining us today.
Thank you.
Great to be here.
And also to follow Heather Scott,
who’s one of the really great
conservatives for over a decade in
Idaho, where Money Metals is located.
She’s in the Coeur d’Alene area.
There’s a lot of really good
folks up there in the legislature.
But anyway, it’s great
to be with you guys.
I just have the opportunity here
to just briefly talk about giving
of gold and silver for Christmas.
This is again sound money.
The idea that this is the money that
the US Constitution has prescribed
as the money of the, nation.
We’ve gotten away from that.
The federal Reserve note,
of course, is unbacked.
And just putting a piece of silver or
gold into somebody’s hand, at least for
me, and I think I’ve seen this over the
years, it gets the wheels turning about
in somebody’s mind about what is money.
And we’ve all thought that paper
money as we grow up, as this
is the money, this is money.
And we, and maybe never really thought
about the fact that it’s really just
a, an instrument, a debt instrument,
and there’s nothing backing it.
And it’s a useful tool of course, because
it is off the grid and it’s specy and
it’s payment and it’s still accepted.
Ultimately the real money,
the money that holds its value
over time is, gold and silver.
And I think once you put a piece of gold
or silver into somebody’s hands, I think
it starts getting the wheels turning it,
it allows for new conversations about
what is money and what is value and,
what is this Federal Reserve system.
It, it really can start a process,
I think, in somebody’s transition
into understanding what money is and,
maybe changing the way that they,
view their investments and their
savings over time to their benefit.
So I, I think giving a piece of silver
in particular, which is very accessible
still, even though it’s doubled in value
in, in terms of federal reserves notes
over the last year, is certainly a a
good way of giving out a gift that would
hold value that wouldn’t just end up in a
garage sale next year, that kind of thing.
I have the opportunity here
just to show a few ideas.
There’s different ways to approach
investing in precious metals.
And I just want to start by just pointing
out our philosophy as a bullion dealer.
Money Metals Exchange is a bullion dealer.
We’re also involved heavily in, in
sound money, public policy, leading
that across the country, removing taxes,
doing things to promote sound money.
But the core, of my operation is,
buying and selling of gold and silver.
We also store, we have one of the largest
deposit depositories in, North America.
And our philosophy is that you
should always be looking at
what is the actual melt value
of the metal that you’re buying.
And unfortunately about half of our
industry is populated by companies
that are doing a, disservice to those
who have finally gotten to that point
where they realize that gold and
silver is something they need to own.
Which of course, most Americans
haven’t figured that out yet.
But then at the last minute they get
diverted in and upsold into supposedly
rare or collectible coins and.
It’s been particularly prevalent when
it comes to cable television with
celebrity spokespeople and so forth.
Just about all of the dealers
and companies that are out there
on TV advertising with celebrity
spokespeople are actually doing a
bait and switch where they try to
upsell people into very high premium.
Types of things and get them to
put their IRAs in gold eagle proof
coins or some special issue, 1.25
ounce Canadian such and such coin.
And unfortunately a lot of folks have
really gotten gotten ripped off over
the years with that business model.
And it’s also a very high pressure model,
involves a lot of high commission pre
salespeople that call you constantly.
So first, the first thing that
people need to think about is what
is the melt value of what I’m buying?
And the melt value is
essentially the, spot value.
What is this metal worth on the
market as silver or as gold?
And that’s a highly transparent
value that is around the clock.
Is my screen okay?
Here we go.
And I should mention we’re
not the only bullion dealer.
There are other good dealers in the
country, large dealers that are online.
That compete with us that are,
doing the right thing in terms
of their business models.
I’ll even mention apmex,
SD Bullion, JM Bullion.
These are bullion dealers that, that
are not doing the sales model that
I mentioned that is so problematic.
So all of us will have on
our websites the spot price.
And this is the, round the clock.
Five days a week, 24 hours a day.
It’s clo the market’s closed on weekends
but the price is always still displayed.
And that’s the global market
price for gold and silver.
Now, just because it says
silver is at 63.99 doesn’t
mean you can buy silver 63.99.
That’s the price on the London
market for a thousand ounce bars.
That’s the benchmark.
That’s really only the, place where
that price is actually the price.
But that’s how it’s set.
And then it’s a reference point for
the products that are, available.
And in most cases, you’re
gonna see a premium above
the spot, price of the metal.
But it shouldn’t necessarily be very
much, especially if you’re buying more
than just onesie, twosie type of things.
Now you know it for real
money that you’re investing.
Focus on the melt value or the spot
price and how much above or below you’re
paying and try to keep it very low in
terms of very close to the spot price.
There are times when it deviates and
might be 15% higher than the spot
price on silver or 20% sometimes
depending on market conditions.
But on the whole, as long as you’re
paying re relatively close to the
spot price, you’re doing fine.
And especially for your big money that
you get into larger items like thou a
hundred ounce bars of silver, one ounce
bars of gold 10 ounce bars of gold.
Things like this are highly
efficient ways of getting ounces
at the best price per ounce.
So moving beyond that you also
have things the idea of giving
a gift in precious metals.
Now, in the case of gifts, I
would say it’s a little bit of a
different consideration because
you also wanna, you might wanna do
something that’s special or unique
or, maybe makes a nice presentation.
And so that might be a scenario where
you might look at paying some, buying
something that has a higher premium.
So I’m gonna go to our gift page here.
There’s a link at the top and
there’s just a bunch of ideas here,
a bunch of categories, and these are
all more kind of gifty type items.
So they aren’t always gonna
be the low premium bull items,
but they’re not gonna be.
Super expensive.
Also another thing that meant, I should
mention is the smaller something is tend,
it tends to be more expensive over the
spot price because of the minting costs
and especially in the case of silver.
We have a category here, holiday
silver bullion, where you have
some items that are nice ideas.
You got ornaments colorized,
silver bars, Santa.
These are silver rounds.
This is a pretty low cost
way of buying silver.
Those premiums on the non Christmas
items are even a little bit lower.
So here the price of silver’s about 64.
This is about 68.
So what is that 6% over the spot
price to buy a Rudolph silver round.
If you’d bought it six months
ago, it would’ve been th $20
less because of silver’s.
Gone ballistic here.
But anyway, there’s
some good ideas in here.
Ornaments.
My son was just polishing the, this one
actually tarnished, I guess not all silver
will tarnish, but this one did a year ago.
We bought it, it was a little
bit tarnished, so we, he actually
polished that last weekend.
Colorized items, this is neat.
Little, added pizazz we got all
these different major leagues
major league baseball, the NBA,
some of the favorite teams.
I think we have all the
all the NFL teams in there.
So if you’ve got a fan,
now this is pure silver.
Some of ’em are coming in.
We don’t have ’em all in stock
yet, but they’ll be in any day.
You’ve got a football fan,
that might be a nice gift.
Lots of ideas there.
Now I wanna mention jewelry.
Most of the jewelry that is available
in the US stores is gonna, not gonna
be the kind of jewelry you wanna buy.
It’s stuff that’s gonna be literally
many multiples of the actual metal value.
And that would be, so that’s a thing
in the US people people buy these,
14 karat jewelry, they’ll pay a
thousand dollars for something, but
it may only have $200 of gold in it.
So in India and other parts of the
world, the jewelry is more of a
bullion type jewelry where it may
still have a lot of the same beauty,
but it’s almost entirely or mostly
valued based on the metal content.
So we actually have some of these
items where you’re looking at maybe 40%
over the gold price rather than 400%.
So if you’re interested in that kind of
stuff, we have some great ideas in here.
Now, again you look at these prices,
$2,000, this is about a third of an ounce.
So it’s, about 50%, 40%
over the spot price.
You’re not necessarily used to seeing
those kind of prices on a pendant,
and that’s because it’s probably.
14 carat or even gold plated.
That’s the other side of it.
These things can be expensive because
gold is quite expensive, but at the end
of the day, you’re mostly getting gold and
that has a a value that can be recovered.
And then there’s other things that are
smaller and cheaper, but bull and jewelry
is another nice thing to consider.
So here’s, this is the kind of thing,
you don’t wanna buy more than one
of these, but there’s some companies
that will try to put, fill your IRA
with all of these things with entirely
filled with silver proof coins at
50% or more over the spot price.
You don’t wanna do that, but as a gift
maybe a particular year, a birth year
you can, come up with stuff that makes
a nice presentation, it has a nice
box certificates, that kind of thing.
Anyway, lots of cool stuff.
Silver bullets.
People really like these.
These are you can kill
werewolves with these.
They actually f actually fit in
the, in, in the a nine millimeter.
Apparently it will fit in, the chamber.
It won’t, I don’t think you
can fully close it, but anyway,
it’s just a cool novelty.
Again, these are gonna be a little
higher, but they’re pure silver, so
you’re paying a, you’re paying a premium
for those, but it makes a nice gift.
Lots of good stuff.
Fractional gold coins.
Nowadays with gold, you’re obviously
you’re paying it it’s, shocking how little
gold you get for the money these days.
It’s $4,300 an ounce.
But, and that’s why silver might be
a better, avenue because it, really
does feel like you’re getting more.
But here’s here’s a key chain.
This is a half gram bar of gold.
On a key chain.
It costs a hundred dollars.
It’s a little bit of a higher
premium again, because it’s
such a small piece of gold.
And the minting cost is material
but again, makes a nice gift
going into silver just in general.
Silver bullion, silver coin, silver round
silver bars Give a one ounce silver bar,
$4 over the spot price, for example.
There’s all kinds of different ideas.
So anyway just, I’ll let people go.
I don’t need to belabor it further,
but please go to money metals.com if
you’re looking for some gift ideas or
if you wanna actually make approach it
from an event investment standpoint.
We’ll obviously help
you in any way you need.
Happy to help.
And again, there’s a couple other
good bull dealers out there.
They probably have their
own gift shops as well.
You can, go check out.
So anyway, Merry Christmas and thank
you so much Catherine and the team
for letting me speak about this today.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for joining us, Stefan.
We really appreciate your
knowledge on this subject.
Coming up next.
Coming up next, we have
Catherine Austin Fitts.
Catherine served as the managing
director and member of the board
of directors of the Wall Street
Investment Bank, Dylan Reed and Company.
She served as Assistant Secretary of
Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner
at the United States Department of Housing
and Urban Development in the first Bush
administration and was the president of
Hamilton Securities Group, incorporated.
Catherine is now the president
of Solari, publisher of the
Solari Report and managing member
of Solari Investment Screens.
Welcome Catherine.
So thank you Elizabeth,
and thank you everyone.
Thank you Stefan.
That was great.
I had no idea that I
could get silver bullets.
I’ve always heard about Silver
Bullets, but it never occurred to
me I could go online and buy ’em.
Before I dive into talking
about the People Bank, I was
wondering if I could bring Tim in.
Tim, if you’re there, could you unmute
and would you be willing just to review
with us under tax rules how much we can
gift in one year, if we wanna give to
family and friends what the, rules are.
Is Tim there?
Yes.
Hi Catherine, can you hear me?
Yeah, Tim.
Yeah, sure.
So you have you can give
silver and gold if you wish.
And, but when you’re giving that, you
are, it’s a capital asset, so that
means it’s subject to capital gains tax.
And so you are giving it.
The person who receives
it gets your basis.
So if you pay $30 for a coin and you give
it for Christmas for $60, if the person
you gave it to goes to sell it, their
basis is $30 just like it was for you.
The limit that you’re talking about for
a limit for giving is $19,000 for 2025.
So that’s another limit.
That’s just a limit where you
don’t have to file gift tax
paperwork if you stay below that.
It’s not that you can’t give
more than that, but you have
to start filing IRS paperwork.
And
one I guess one other thing about
giving, sometimes you try to give,
you may consider giving for education
purposes and you cannot give anything.
You can’t give gold or silver and get a
deduction for it while paying tuition.
And you can’t do that for, and you,
there’s no tax benefit to giving
it for a to a 5 29 because there’s
no federal deduction for that.
So I don’t know if that covers just
the basics of what you want to cover.
So the one question I would ask is if
you’re giving it to your heirs, of course
you have a lifetime exclusion, so you
can go above that 19,000, can’t you, if
you give it to your heirs at your death.
So if you give it I think there’s,
I’m not i’ll, answer two ways.
See if this, answers your question.
If you wait until you die and then
you leave it to your heirs, currently
there’s what’s called a step up in basis.
So if you paid a, penny for gold
and it’s a million dollars an ounce
when you pass, then your heirs can
sell that for and pay no tax on it.
But if you’re giving,
if you’re giving cash.
So I can give 19,000 in cash.
That’s not a that’s, tax free.
But if it’s an error, can I
give them a is there a lifetime
exclusion if I’m giving cash?
Yes.
It’s currently $14 million per individual.
Yeah.
So you, it gets into, you have
to file, if you give more than
19,000, you have to file a form.
And at the end of your life,
the IRS totals all your
gifts, plus all your assets.
And if you’re above the threshold,
currently $14 million for an individual,
then you’re, you might pay a state
tax, but below that you wouldn’t.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I’m in no risk unless I win the lottery.
Thank you, Tim.
You’re welcome.
Okay so, let’s talk about the People bank.
My we, every year we do a wonderful
holiday greeting at the Solari Report that
describes all the wealth of things that
are going on during the holiday season.
And I told my favorite story is the
quote at the top of our holiday greeting.
Maybe if someone, if Ricardo, if
you could just put a link to the
holiday greeting in the chat.
But it’s a story of Harper Lee.
Harper Lee was a young writer living
in New York, supporting herself
by working in a travel agency.
And she explained to her friends
that she just weekends and evenings
was not enough to really write.
And she had two wonderful friends
who decided that they had a very
good year in business and they
decided to gift her and they put it
as a check in the Christmas tree.
And the gift was enough money so she
could quit her job working at the
travel agency and write for a year.
So they, it was basically a gift of time.
They gave her the money she needed to.
Pay her living expenses
for a year while she wrote.
And what she wrote that year was To Kill
a Mockingbird, which has by the time
of her death it sold 40 million copies.
And as a result, Harper Lee
was quite financially secure
for the rest of her life.
And of course we know To Kill
a Mockingbird is a wonderful
book and very, famous.
And I like to say, I think
that’s one of the greatest
Christmas presents I ever heard.
Now not everybody can afford to
fund a year’s worth of expenses,
but I think it’s a wonderful
example of investing in people.
So I wanna talk a little bit about
my expression, the People Bank.
What happened to me was in in 1996,
I was a very successful entrepreneur.
I’d had a very successful career in
Wall Street and then worked in the first
Bush administration, started a company.
I consulted 30 people in the
process of starting the company.
They all said it was a ridiculous idea.
It turned out to be a very good idea.
The company was very successful, and
needless to say, I was doing quite well.
I had, monthly income of about a
million dollars in the company, and
our expenses were about 800,000.
And we were spending the rest
of it just building software.
And the, equity value of the
company was quite quite significant.
And Carolyn Betts, our general counsel
was, there at the time she can remember,
and she’s with us tonight Anyway what
happened was I started into a process.
We were targeted by the Department
of Justice and we, and by a lawsuit.
And I found myself in a process where
I had 18 audits and investigations, 12
tracks of litigation, a smear campaign,
and and literally physical harassment.
And needless to say, what happens when
that happens is you begin to lose.
You have a Rolodex of 5,000 people who
all stop returning your phone calls, and
literally you’re cut off for most credit.
And, income.
Literally I went from having a
million dollars a month in the
business of income to having
800,000 of expenses, but no income.
And it’s quite a crash
course in how to economize.
And anyway, so one of the
things I discovered was that
the, essentially the Department
of Justice also targeted my
family and friends, trying to get
them to drop me and not help me.
And I had one wonderful uncle who
bought some of my farmland that
I was selling to his family farm
that I owned a percentage of.
And I had warned him that he might
be targeted if he did and sure
enough, he had he got a call from
the Department of Housing and Urban
Development Inspector General’s office
saying, your niece is a criminal.
Why are you helping her?
And we wanna see all the
financial statements on the farm.
And he said I’d be delighted to send them,
but please just send me a letter because
I wanna make sure I, do everything up and
up with my attorney checking, and instead
of sending him a letter, they showed up
at his door a week later in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire with a subpoena three FBI
guys in the hood, inspector General.
And it was clearly
designed to intimidate him.
And what happened was my family, many
members of my family apparently got on a
conference call with my uncle and said if
we help her or associate with her, we’ll
be targeted, so we need to all drop her.
And my uncle said, no,
I’m not gonna drop her.
And the reason I’m not gonna drop her
is because she’s always helped us.
She made a lot of money and she’s lent or
gifted or helped everybody in the family.
Whenever anybody was in
trouble, she always helped.
And so now that she’s in
trouble, I’m not gonna drop her.
He was a very standup guy and sure
enough he continued to support.
And so my family didn’t drop me
thanks to his sort of intervention.
And over the next 11 years one of the
things I discovered in the process
was that I had gifted or lent what
turned out to be about 250,000.
I never counted it up.
But because of what was happening
with my finances, I had to count it up
and I gifted or lent people 250,000.
And over the next 11 years, thanks
to my sort of my uncle in the lead,
people gifted or repaid to me 250,000.
And it wasn’t.
We won, the big pieces of the litigation,
we got a settlement, and when the
settlement came in, I wanted to square
it with everybody who lent or helped.
And I sat down and did the calculations
and realized, wow, I had lent or
gifted 250, and by some miracle,
really almost exactly the same had
come back to me in gifts or loans.
And it was so shocking when I did the
calculation and I realized that this.
Magical balancing of what I’d
gifted to, to what had come or
lend and what had come back.
And I was so struck by it.
I called my CPA and I had said, I want
to do the taxes before I do anything with
this money once we get the settlement.
And I called my CPA and.
I had a 500,000 in a 401k that I’d had
to cash out and pay huge fees on so that
I could use it for make work compliance.
They, put you in a squeeze where
they create all this very expensive
make work and, so if you’re gonna
keep up with it, you watch enormous
amounts of money go down the drain.
Anyway, I’d cashed out the 401k, paid
225,000 in taxes and fees and then used
the rust for this make work compliance.
So my CPA said, let’s
fund up that 401k again.
And one of the reasons I’d had to
cash out the four oh k is right
before they hit me with the subpoenas.
The IRS had miraculously put it under
audit, so I couldn’t, borrow from
the 401k anyway, so I said to them.
I said to my CPA, Nope.
I am never going into business
with the US government again.
Being in a 401k means I won’t be free
to, do the report and do what I do.
So I’m gonna take that 500,000 and I’m
gonna bonus it back out on the people
bank because that’s the only bank I trust.
And so I use that 500,000 to pay
people back or to gift back things
that they gifted to me or to pay
fairly large bonuses to the people
who had stuck with me and helped.
And out the 500,000
went on the people bank.
And I had several people tell me,
oh you need that money because.
Now that you’ve been destroyed,
you’re a failure and you know you
ought to go off and live in the woods
and read for the rest of your life
’cause you’ll never do anything.
I said, no, I’m gonna
start a company called er.
It’s gonna be very successful.
Don’t worry about it.
I’m gonna put this 500,000
out on the people back.
Now I mentioned that because what I
discovered was in a, situation as the
one I was in, in a highly political
situation where people are trying to
control you with the financial system.
If there’s one bank you can
trust, it’s the people bank.
So one of my favorite quotes is
from a doctor in Switzerland.
He said, the currency of the future
will be relationships of trust.
And one of the things I discovered
is that when you’re in a situation
and I think we’re all now going into
exactly the kind of situation that
Carolyn and I were in once upon a time.
The question is who can
you trust and how can you.
Money circulating out on the people bank.
One of the reasons I love cash and all
the work that Susan’s doing is that
you see how that trust works
and that liquidity works.
There’s something called a hand or a
partnership that many of the immigrants
use when they’re when they’re saving
towards buying a house or buying a car.
And you come together, it’s like a C
circle and everybody comes together
once a month or once a week maybe.
They come together for a potluck
dinner, and then a hand is the amount
of money everybody puts into the circle.
It’s like a savings club.
So 10 people start a circle, everybody
puts in $10, and then one person
takes all the money each time.
And literally what you realize is if
you do something like this before you
know it, everybody’s got thousands of
dollars circulating out on the people
bank instead of being in a, in financial
institutions where more and more they
feel like they’re being controlled.
And I think for these kinds of
systems to work, and they’ve worked
for many immigrants in the process
of saving when they came to America.
But for these systems to work, it
means we have to be trustworthy
and we have to work together.
I just got back from another wonderful
trip to Idaho and seeing Representative
Scott, summer colleagues, and it’s
always marvelous to watch them because
you have the Idaho Free, Idaho Freedom
Caucus, and you’re watching legislators
working together under very high
friction, difficult circumstance, getting
enormous amounts done for freedom.
There was one health
and representative Scott
get how, help me make sure I get
this right, but you guys passed the
first law, I think in the country
saying that healthcare treatment could
not be mandated to people in Idaho.
Is that correct?
Yeah, the first health freedom
act across the country.
And no one can make the decisions
on your healthcare, but you
325 million people are
gonna have to move on.
No, we don’t have any more room.
I know.
Anyway but, it’s the currency
of the future in this period
will be relationships of trust.
And and so I really encourage you,
Christmas is a time of giving and
if people need cash in the short
run, you’re gonna wanna give ’em
cash if they need to be investing.
Coins, as Stefan said,
is is the way to go.
But we really want you to think about
in 2006, 2025, the holiday season,
and then in 2026, how are you going
to invest in the people bank and
how are you going to be a person
that the people bank can trust?
Because that’s what it’s gonna
take to have the kind of financial
revolution that Susan’s talking about,
aspiring, and that we all need to
be inspiring in our day-to-day life.
So that’s the people bank.
I turn it back to you, Elizabeth.
Do we have time for questions?
We definitely do.
We’ve got about 40 minutes left
and we had some questions come in.
Maureen asks, some say old coins will
not be confiscated if the government
begins taking up gold and silver.
Any thoughts on that
and any panelists?
Feel free to chime in to answer.
Stephanie, do you want to take that one?
I’m sorry, what was the question again?
Could you repeat it?
The, question is a new miss
mad some people see that old
coins will not be seized.
What do you think?
Yeah.
The, that is okay.
So that, implies that the US government
is constrained by what it did in 1933.
So this is, I think it’s, first of
all, the US government believes that
it has the authority under, Federal
Law, trading with the Enemy Act.
And I think the War Powers act to
seize any private asset for any
reason and a time of emergency.
Back in 1933, FDR did Expropriate, he
compelled said that if you have more
than five ounces of gold, that’s not
a collectible, you have to turn it in
and we’ll give you $20 as a payment.
And then six months later, they changed
the price of gold to $35 an ounce.
Basically swindling everybody
who turned in their goal.
But they did exempt collectible coins.
And so that has now been stated as
though that’s some sort of precedent
that has to be followed in the future.
So first of all, I think there was a
different scenario, which is that in
order to inflate the currency, they needed
more gold in the treasury to do so at the
time, because that was the way it worked.
We no longer have that constraint.
They can inflate the currency.
Without gold in the treasury
and they do it all the time.
So maybe the rationale, if it was at any
basis for it, it doesn’t really exist.
And the other is there’s a practicality
that I don’t think that it’s likely that
gold they’ll go door to door and seize
any form of gold collectible or otherwise.
They can do much more creative and easier
things like say that you have to buy
US treasuries in your IRA account in
order to maintain your tax preference or
something like that in order to maintain
the, tax efficiency, things like that.
Or maybe they’ll do a
windfall profits tax on gold.
So these things are, doable.
But I guess my point is I wouldn’t put
a whole lot of stock in the idea that
collectible truly collectible gold coins
are somehow specially confiscation proof.
I think that’s often used as a
way of pushing people into paying
for the high premium stuff on
the idea that this is somehow,
protected.
I, think that if, you’re gonna end up
de fact by de facto having part of your
wealth confiscated, if you buy something
that’s two, three times more than the
price of gold on the basis that it’s
somehow gonna protect you from some,
like unlikely future confiscation.
So you’re basically giving into an
immediate confiscation of half of your
investment for the potential protection
of a fairly unlikely confiscation later.
I and it’s usually not even
collectible the people that perpetuate
that argument, they say this is
collectible, but it’s really not.
At the end of the day, there are
some true collectibles, but you
have to be an expert to really get
into that market, in my opinion.
And that’s why we, think people should
stay, keep it simple and just buy bullion
and look at what the melt value is and
try not to pay much more than that.
So I, went on there, but
hopefully that covers.
So the issue, I agree with everything
you said, Stefan, but I want also
want to emphasize that when the gold
was confiscated, it was only there
was only one person I had gold home
at home that got it confiscated.
It was the ones that were
hold institutionally.
But more importantly, at the time
of the confiscation of gold, was
an important part of family wealth.
If you look at what percentage it
is of family wealth now, it’s tiny.
All the monies and IRAs are 4 0 1 Ks.
So if you’re gonna confiscate,
you’re gonna go where the money is.
And in 30 in the thirties
the money was in gold.
Now it’s in the IRAs of 4 0 1 Ks.
I think doubly for that reason,
the whole concept that new miss
mad are worth paying value for any,
premium for is completely absurd.
I would into it.
And to build upon that, another
thing that we notice that happens is
at, in a bull market, as the metals
prices rise, the premium does not
necessarily rise at the same rate.
And in fact, in many cases, the
premium falls right as a percentage,
if not in real terms, in actual
federal reserve, no terms.
And then if you look at a Mad Max scenario
with a total breakdown are you really
gonna be able to find somebody to pay you
three times the spot price of this for
this coin that you paid when you bought it
to when people need the money and, wanna
have something that’s fungible or liquid.
That’s that.
And, we’re already seeing that
now, where things that are at a
premium have come down quite a bit
and a lot of stuff that was sold at
way at high premiums is basically
being bought back at a round spot.
You might get an extra few dollars.
You end up losing a
lot of that investment.
Now there are times when like a pre
1933 coin, you can buy it at spot, you
can buy it at the actual gold value.
And at that point, all of
that premium has gone away.
And now you have a piece of history
that you’re buying for the melt value.
That’s great.
And we we sell that kind of stuff on
our site like Liberty $10 liberty coins.
We sell them at 1% over spot.
They’re pre 1933.
They’re not necessarily the graded
ones that are in the slabs and cases.
The, but even those are
pretty cheap nowadays.
Unless you have something truly rare.
I thank you so much, Steph.
And this next question is also for you.
Someone asked, what do you
recommend for those of us who
got sold into buying rare coins?
I want to make the switch to bullion,
but not sure the best way to do it
without losing with the same dealer.
And we have a lot of those folks come come
in and it’s, discouraging, but I think
that the damage has already been done.
I, would say so.
I don’t necessarily think that
you should sell them Now you
the damage was done when you bought
it in terms of the loss or the
not capturing the gain that you
would’ve gotten at this point.
It’s worth what it’s worth and it might
very well be worth basically the same as
something else that you would buy today
a new, and so there’s not much point
in trading out of it, in my opinion.
It’s definitely worth the price
of silver or the price of gold.
But I don’t think you’d necessarily
wanna incur transaction costs just
to switch it into a silver bar or a,
one ounce gold coin or a gold eagle.
But there may be exceptions to that.
So if you wanna call money metals
and ask Hey, I’ve got this,
what would you pay me for it?
Do you think the premium will
go down further from here?
My guess is you’ll probably just wanna
hold onto it at this point because it is
worth the value of the medal at least.
Awesome.
Tha thank you so much Stephan.
Katherine this is a
question for you from John.
Katherine, would you comment on the
popping silver scene today, or do you
think it’s best to stick to purely cash?
Thanks for your work.
I really love Solari.
I’m not sure I understand the question
because cash is for transactions.
Yeah, silver is for investment, so
I’m very enthusiastic about silver.
Obviously it’s run up a
tremendous amount but it is still
relatively cheap compared to gold.
So the gold silver ratio is still
attractive and I think, whether or not
it makes sense for you to be buying
silver right now depends very much on
many issues related to your holdings and
where you’re going and what you need.
But I I continue to be, and if you, listen
to the Slayer Report equity overview that
we do with Tim quarterly, I continue to
be a long-term bull on gold and silver.
Stefan, do you wanna, I
haven’t looked at the chart.
I’m assuming it looks
very overbought right now.
Yeah.
It’s really hard to, predict, but I
did not expect silver to break through.
So convincingly the $50 level,
which had held it for 45 years, but
now that it has, it appears that
it’s it’s re-rating, if you will.
It’s moving into a new zone.
And from a technical standpoint,
some people think it’s very,
quickly gonna get to $72 which
is another 10% gain from here.
But I think that if you don’t
already own a, meaningful amount
of gold and silver, then you don’t
really have the luxury of waiting.
And that applies to 98%
of the American people.
So everybody thinks, oh it’s, the top.
I don’t wanna buy the top.
If you don’t have any,
you need to buy some.
If you already have a good position,
then you know, start thinking
about timing and trading and not
trading, but timing the market.
I personally think silver’s
gonna go a lot higher.
I think it will outperform
gold even more from here.
Historically, in a bull market, silver
goes accelerates in the latter half
of a bull market compared to gold.
And the gold silver
ratio is just around 70.
In 19, in 2011, when it last, the last
bull market, it got to about 32, which
which would imply a double in the silver
price compared to gold not moving.
If we got back to that.
So it’s, but again don’t,
buy more than you can afford.
And keep in mind that these are
volatile, especially silver.
So I’m gonna put up a link in the chat.
Let me get it for a second.
But I want to emphasize
what Stefan just said.
When it comes to precious metal
holding, there’s a core position and
then there’s an investment position.
And your core position is what
you have For the worst case,
it’s central bank insurance.
And if you don’t have your core, you need
to get your core and, you need to get it
I would say in a reasonably timely way.
If it’s an investment position, then
you wanna make sure you’re buying
smart, which is why if it’s run up a lot
maybe it’s time to, to say average in.
Okay.
But you wanna be careful to not
buy too high at the same time.
I’m with you Steph.
And I think the gold silver
ratio can drop a lot more.
So that implies silver’s
gonna continue to rise.
Susan’s got her hand up,
Elizabeth, so can we ask her in?
Sure.
Susan, would you like to add something?
Yeah, I had a comment on Stefan’s
talk actually, and relative to this
discussion, that’s a crazy comment, but
I figured I’d make it anyway because
it’s relevant, was relevant to me and
might be relevant to some other people.
Stefan was talking about the premium
over spot and he was also talking about
jewelry and how in, in India particularly,
they wear their, precious metals.
So one of the things I did in college,
I went to MIT with Thomas Massey.
Is that I went to Harvard.
There was one thing Harvard was
good at or good for back then, and
that was their jewelry making class.
They had it in the
basement down at Harvard.
I, just looked at Harvard extension.
It turns out they have a more of
a jewelry history class now, but
they used to have jewelry making.
So I made my own wedding rings
and there were a bunch of us
cheapskates from MIT who went to
Harvard to make our wedding rings.
And we just ordered gold or whatever we
wanted to make our wedding rings out of.
And we took it to Harvard and
went and made our wedding rings.
So you can make your own jewelry
and in fact, I was just looking,
Harvard Extension doesn’t have that
anymore, but I noticed that Sioux
Falls extension has jewelry making.
So one thing you could do that might
be fun is order some relatively
low premium metals and go have
fun in the jewelry making class.
Awesome.
I had no idea that you made
your own wedding read, Susan.
That is so cool.
Richard asked, how does the panel
view us real estate as a hedge against
confiscation and as a holder of value?
It’s a little bit off topic, but
I thought I’d ask it confiscation.
Of course that’s tough because it
doesn’t you can’t take your real
estate with you and, hide it.
So I guess, and that’s, a risk, but real
estate is a decent inflation hedge goes
on average three 4% up per year, which
is probably barely not keeping up with
inflation depends on the location the way,
but the way that people make money in real
estate is by essentially becoming debtors.
And so you’re, if you buy it with leverage
you’re shorting the dollar by buying,
with a, loan and paying that over time.
So you have a tangible asset that you’re
holding for the long term and then you’re
shorting the dollar at the same time.
So it’s, almost a double barrel debt.
On on, inflation.
And that’s been a pretty good
bet the last a hundred years.
’cause that’s baked in, that’s the plan.
You buy it with cash, you’ll
probably keep up if you buy it with
leverage assuming you can handle
that and are careful with it.
That’s how you, can actually beat,
beat the government at its own game.
Oh, but I’ll add one thing.
If you have land, you can grow food.
And that adds a whole nother
realm into investment in your
future for health and stuff.
Farmland is never about
investment, in my opinion.
So just my 2 cents.
Definitely agree.
Okay.
This question is from Doug.
How does the panel feel about the
suspension of minting pennies?
Will this affect cash flow?
I’ll mention that we sell pennies by
the pound by 34 pound bags at 10 to
about 20% over the spot price of copper.
It’s actually the best way.
These are the pre 1983 ones.
The current ones are mostly zinc.
And so I think they’re only worth
about a penny and a half in metal.
But the copper ones are worth about
4 cents, I believe, right now, in
terms of the, and that’s pre 1983.
So if you can find those and pull ’em
outta circulation, people do that.
There’s people that do that at scale.
In fact, we’re actually communicating
with the US mint right now to find
out if the fact that it’s no longer
being minted means that it’s no
longer illegal to melt copper.
’cause they have a prohibition on that.
So we’ll let you know what they say.
They probably won’t answer it, but
but anyway it’s, interesting there’s
been a lot more interest in copper
in particular, and also pennies in
particular since all of this has
happened in terms of the bullion market.
But the other part of the
question, I don’t really, I
don’t really have a of you.
Susan, I see your hand is raised.
Oh, it might be still raised from earlier.
Yeah.
No.
I do have my hand raised on this one.
I would like to comment.
I talked to my local banker.
I have a very good local
bank here in South Dakota.
She said there is no penny
shortage, so she said they’re
having no trouble getting pennies.
I’ve never seen a business so
far here in South Dakota that’s
had trouble giving me pennies.
We, I saw one store had a, note
that they were gonna round if it was
not a nickel sort of transaction,
but that was a multi-state company.
And my banker thinks that that they’re
gonna start minting pennies again.
She thinks that we’re gonna get a new
administration in the next election
probably, and she said they’ll
probably start minting pennies again.
That’s her, perspective, and she
said, at least in South Dakota,
we have no penny shortage.
So I’m not really sure if this
penny thing is just a trial balloon
to try to get rid of physical cash
and say, see, use your credit card.
It’s better.
Or I’m just not really
sure what the OP is here.
I think there’s some kind of
op I think there was an article
that Carolyn, or maybe someone
I saw from somebody that said.
It’s cheaper to keep minting pennies
because now you have to make mint
more nickels and they cost more money.
So it’s actually cheaper
to keep minting pennies.
So that part of it doesn’t make
any sense, which makes me think
there’s a higher goal here.
Maybe a trial balloon
or something like that.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on pennies.
Yeah, and the whole thing
is just a perfect example
of number one Gresham’s law.
That things the bad money stays in
circulation, the good money comes out.
Those pennies that are copper have
been pulled out of ci circulation.
But also just the it’s it’s, ironic they
say this is a cost saving measure, but
and, maybe it is ’cause it costs 4 cents
to mint a penny, even the zinc one.
But of course it’s just such
great proof of the devaluation.
And if you look at the case of 90% silver,
it’s trading currently the same quarter.
If you know the difference
between the two one’s pre 1965.
That’s 45 times the, quarter,
the value of it as legal tender.
The, and that’s, how much
depreciation we’ve had in, 50
years of the Federal Reserve note.
So I just have to mention that
when I lived in Washington and
I all my life, whenever I see a
penny on the ground, I pick it up.
I, always pick it up and, ’cause I think
it’s also good luck, but when I lived
in Washington, I would, I can’t tell you
how many pennies I collected every year,
just picking them up from the ground.
I moved to Tennessee and I, didn’t see or
was able to pick up a penny for two years.
It took me two years until
I saw a penny on the ground.
So I think part of Penny’s getting
canceled is Washington culture.
Interesting, Susan.
Okay.
You’re, was there anything else?
Yeah, I wanted to, yeah, I forgot
to say one more thing on the
pennies that I wanted to mention.
If you wanna I’ve found, maybe this is
just my family, that if you wanna know
what’s go really going on or what’s
being pushed, the propaganda being
pushed, just listen to your kid in public
school and what they come home with.
And then, you’re like, whoa.
’cause I don’t normally listen to
news or pay any attention to that.
So the other, I think it was last
week my high schooler came home and
said, mom, all my friends are all
of a sudden talking about pennies.
They’re saying that we all want to,
we should all save our pennies in our
piggy bank because someday they’re
gonna be worth a million dollars and
we should all start hoarding pennies.
That’s what she came home
saying, and I said, oh.
Where’d you get that?
And she’s I don’t know.
All my friends are saying that.
They’re all saying the same thing.
And I said, and then I said
are you guys gonna do that?
Are you guys gonna do that?
And she’s I don’t know,
but we’re talking about, so
interesting.
I’ll have to start saving some pennies.
Okay.
This question for the panel says,
could you please comment on JP
Morgan, precious metals trading
desk suddenly moving to Singapore.
Any thoughts on that?
Just in general, there is a major
sort of move of precious metals
market infrastructure to Asia.
It used to be that New York was
the center of the financial world.
London in the precious metals
market has been significant.
But over the last 10 years, huge
amounts of metal has been flowing out
of the west, going to Swiss refineries.
Formed into kilo bars and sent
to Singapore, sent to Hong Kong
sent, to Shanghai and so forth.
So I think that’s, and that’s where
the growth is in our market in
terms of all the excitement around
new vaults and new businesses being
launched in the precious metals market.
They just had the LBMA meeting in Asia.
It was in Kyoto.
So it’s just, that’s where a lot of
infrastructure is being built for the
precious metals market and gold and
silver flow, especially gold flows to
where it’s most adored and they have
savings in that part of the world.
So they’re stockpiling gold.
China has way more gold
than they’re admitting.
We’ve, revealed this in
some of our own research.
A lot of other people in, the
mainstream have now picked this up.
China may have as may even have the, be
the second largest central bank holder.
A lot of it’s held in other
entities within the government.
They, but bottom line is that’s,
they understand what’s happening.
They understand what we’re doing
to the Federal Reserve note,
and they’re acting accordingly.
And that’s where the market’s growing.
JP Morgan and, many others are,
building out in Asia for sure.
Fascinating.
Barbara asks, in an estate, is gold,
silver in asset that is marked to market
when inherited the way that a house is?
I think that might be determined by if
gold and silver is recognized as legal
tinder, I’m not a lawyer, but Carolyn,
maybe you, so I answered this in the chat.
It’s a capital, any capital asset, whether
it’s stocks or bonds or gold and silver.
Steps.
The current law is that
it steps up in basis.
So if you hold it until you pass
away and you leave it to your heirs,
they can sell it on the day that you
die and pay no capital gains tax.
Scold and silver is
taxed as as collectible.
So it’s taxed at a 28% rate
instead of capital gains, which
is a sliding rate based on income.
But the answer is it steps up like other
things like, a house or gold and silver
at the current time under the current law.
It is not how it was depending
on the law, it changes over
time, but that’s the answer.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Barbara asks, where do you
recommend keeping precious metals?
Is there a home safe that anyone wants
to suggest or anything like that?
So I’m gonna put in the chat a interview
we did with the president of Hidden Safes.
About how to hold cold and silver at
home or in your, personal possession.
So your choice is to hold it yourself
or to hold it in a depository
or in a safe de deposit box.
Do you seven, since you are running
a depository, do you wanna talk
about the depository option?
Yeah.
It, first of all, I
think it’s really good.
Everybody should at least have
some other gold and silver in
their personal possession at home.
That should be part of what your,
planning is, even if it’s a small amount.
And part of security is keeping your
mouth shut maybe a trusted person
or two should know where it is.
Not necessarily holding
it in your safe ha.
Or using a decoy safe, we actually
have something called a book safe
that looks like a dictionary that
you can put it on your bookshelf.
Bookshelf.
It’s, it could be a good Christmas gift.
It’s like $30.
Moving beyond that though,
when you have larger amounts.
And or where you want to have more
convenience to sell, situating it
with a a, dealer with a depository
like money metals is a good idea.
We have the largest private vault in
North America in terms of a class three
gold vault for it’s 8,500 square feet,
twice the size of Fort Knox, guarded
around the clock, full-time security.
Half our employees are armed dual
controls, all kinds of stuff so
we have I won’t say how much,
but it’s, what would it be?
10 figures in, metal stored in our
facility insured by Lloyds of London.
It’s convenient if you have silver
in particular, and you have a lot of
it, then you don’t have to ship it to
get the best price when you sell it.
A couple of our competitors
also have deposit depositories.
So it’s, worth doing if you have a large
amount, if you live in a state place where
you feel unsafe, if also if you want the
convenience of selling without having
to ship it or deliver it to a local coin
shop, that might not pay you very much.
’cause that’s not necessarily
the best place to sell.
So anyway, those are the options.
And it’s it, costs a lot less to store
it in a depository than it would cost
for you to add it to your insurance
policy on your homeowner’s policy.
And there’s a limit to how much insurance
you can get under a personal articles
policy for something stored in your house.
You might be able to
get maybe 25, $50,000.
It’ll probably cost you 1% a
year if you can even get it.
Whereas a, depository will
have both the security and the
insurance for less than 1% a year.
In our case it’s, about a
little less than half percent.
So that’s something to think about, but
everybody should have some gold and silver
they can get their hands on immediately.
So start with that.
I would just I posted an interview
that Tim and I did where we
covered all the different issues
of getting to know gold and silver.
But I would like to point out that when
I was an investment advisor, one of the
things I learned, and I saw it in my
client base, is that one of the number
one ways people lost money on precious
metals was they forgot where they put it.
So I’m sure you’ve seen that stuff.
So yeah, just make sure you
have a system when if you hide
it, that you have a system to
remind yourself where you put it.
And tell one trusted person, at least
leave it in an instructions in your will.
In the case of a depository,
you can put a beneficiary on the
account and that kind of thing.
I like the idea of sending it
to the depository in Idaho.
I think that’s a really good choice.
We’re, securing the state.
We I’ve actually visited the depository.
It’s, amazing.
It, is just amazing the security
features there and it, the simplicity
but the, security features, awesome.
Send it to Idaho.
We’ll take care of it for you here.
Thanks Heather.
No confiscation from
Heather and her colleagues.
That’s not gonna happen, right?
No way.
No way.
We’ll stand up to those feds
when they come after it.
Representative Scott, someone is
asking about if they can sue Boise
State for not accepting cash.
They play the workaround game
by sending you to a kiosk to
get a card in exchange for cash.
I believe your bill only applied
to government agencies, right?
Not universities.
No, that we included the universities,
so that’s why they’ve done the cash card
to get around our bill and, Okay, gotcha.
So we’ve had a big problem in
our state with the city of Boise
not wanting to follow the law.
Other government agencies
not following the law.
They just ignore the law and as a result,
we don’t wanna put a consequence in every
direction we give to government because
it, there should be a, just a, minimum.
I, usually just follow the law.
Government should always follow the law,
but we’re in, a place in society where
they pick and choose the laws they want.
So we are working on a blanket bill
this year that will have consequences
in the tax they get back to the
jurisdictions if they violate the law.
There’s not gonna be a penalty like, oh,
if you don’t do this or that, it’s just
gonna be a blanket if you do not follow
the law, we can withhold as a state
your taxes your sales tax dispersion.
And so that is what we are looking at.
It will take care of the city that
refuses to follow our flag law to
restrict certain offensive flags and.
Hopefully the university
with, the cash guards.
Good question.
Susan, did you wanna chime?
Oh, awesome.
Thank you.
Yeah, I had a question
for Representative Scott.
I actually read your bill when I heard
you were gonna be on, which I guess was
a few days ago, and maybe I’m remembering
incorrectly, but I did not see anything
in your bill about universities.
So how did you do that?
Or is that because they’re
government entities ’cause they’re
Bo, board of Regents funded or
how, are the universities in the
language is the number one question.
And then I have another comment
about them not following the law.
So as I mentioned, we had that problem
in South Dakota with cash at school
events and I was able to get everyone to
comply basically by threatening emails.
But when my daughter went to New York
City, who’s had a blanket cash law for
many years, not New York State, New York
City, she went there last year to march
in the Macy’s day Thanksgiving parade.
And all the parents were
saying, don’t send your kid
with cash because it’s not safe.
They, you should send them with
these prepaid visa cards or
whatever, which of course have fees.
And I just said in the parent chat,
I said New York City has a cash law.
They have to accept cash.
And in fact with, cash, there’s no fees.
And my daughter, she can stuff some
in her bra stuff, some in her socks
stuff, some in her her little pocket
in her pants and all, the places she
can put five bucks in all the places.
Okay.
And hopefully not all of it gets stolen.
Okay.
So, then my daughter went to New
York City, which has had this
blanket cash law for many years.
And I said did everyone take cash?
And she said, no, mom, there were a few
businesses that just did not take cash,
even though it was law in New York City.
And I said, wow, it’s amazing.
They’re just not following the law,
which is part of the reason I use Legis.
I think of legislation as bringing
awareness, bringing attention, because
we all have to use cash all of the time.
And then the laws will be whether
people follow the law or not.
We’ll be irrelevant because
if we’re all using it all of
the time, it’s gonna be used.
So that was my New York comment
that I wanted to go ahead and make.
But back to Representative Scott.
I would love to hear how the
universities were included in your bill.
Okay, so I
I made it very specific because I’ve done
other things before and they’ve tried
to say, oh, we don’t qualify under that.
So I put any official department,
board, commission or agency of
the state of Idaho, they are
an agency that the universities
are covered under one of those.
That’s what my LSO said that the
universities are covered under.
I said I wanna make sure colleges are in
there, but I don’t wanna say colleges.
And so that language
incorporates all of ’em.
Awesome.
And as to government not following
the law, people not following the law.
We used to start with 10 laws, right?
A long time ago.
The 10, 10 laws.
And look how many laws we have
to just keep passing law after
law to get society to behave.
We are, toward the end
of times, I would say.
And our country was built on a moral with,
assumption of a moral body of people.
And so as we get further and further
into the timeline I, think it’s
gonna continue to be a problem.
You can only pass so many laws and
unless the people you know you, have
year after year of children being pumped
out of these government schools, that
they don’t understand rights, they don’t
understand morals, they they’re activists.
It’s.
It’s a quick decay of our society that
we’re seeing and it’s frustrating.
So I don’t know.
At some point you can’t force people
to follow the law if you don’t have
the electorate and the citizens like
what you’re doing, the engaged citizen
out there pushing it and holding them
accountable, at some point we’ll lose.
So we hope it’s not soon, but, okay.
Awesome.
Thank you for clarifying that.
Yeah.
I had read your bill and I didn’t
recognize that universities were
covered under it either, so that’s,
that was a great way to handle that.
Very, clever.
Susan, this question is for you.
Someone asked if a business does
not accept cash currently, what
would you say to them in order
to get them to change their mind?
I thought maybe you would have
some personal experience with that.
I. I generally don’t because
usually the person working in
the business is not the owner.
Sometimes that person is the owner.
If they are, I might try to engage
them, but usually the people that are
doing that aren’t really engageable.
So what I do in that case, for example,
we do have a few businesses here that
don’t take cash, is that when I talk
about this locally, to either just in
person to people or for example, I’m
go to speak at some groups, Republican,
democrat, freedom people, whatever groups.
I say, let’s not shop at the
businesses that don’t take cash.
And I have a list.
That list wouldn’t necessarily be
relevant here because I don’t think
anyone here lives in the Sioux Falls area.
But I do have a list of businesses
and I say, let’s put this car
wash out of business, please.
And I, talk about that every time I get
in the cash discussion with someone local.
So if, you are local, I don’t know
that there are any local people on
here, but if there are businesses
not taking ca accepting cash in
South Dakota, please let me know.
I think I know of most of them and
I do have a list and I am promoting
that list and just trying to get
people not to use those businesses.
Unfortunately most of them seem to be
what I would call not small companies.
They don’t care we are seeing the small
companies or the smaller companies
here are the ones offering the cash
discount and trying to pass that onto
the consumer and things like that.
And so the ones that aren’t
taking cash here tend to be
medium to larger businesses.
Got it.
Representative Scott, I
see your hand is raised.
Yeah.
I would just say too to that.
I agree, it’s the corporations the
airlines don’t wanna take cash anymore.
It’s the big corporations and anytime
you can promote local, just buying
local, supporting local, and I’ve,
started to put a lot into my language
anymore about the corporations.
I just call ’em the
corporations and, people get it.
And I wanna share a
real encouraging story.
I’ve been volunteering at a thrift store
for, it’s probably been 25 years now.
It’s a bunch of elderly ladies that
run it, and they just have a cash box.
I just was thinking about that,
like, where do I shop that has cash?
Oh, they don’t accept any credit cards.
They don’t, have anything.
It’s just a cash box every day.
They count the money and
it it’s, really cool.
I guess it’s just really cool.
I just wanna share that.
So that’s thinking of it.
Awesome.
Yeah, that is cool.
A system of trust.
Barbara asks, under a collapsed
situation, how would you be able to
get your gold out of a depository?
I guess that’s probably for me
we, anyone can come
and pick up their gold.
We have backup, all kinds of things.
Backup power, backup security
systems solar, gas all batteries.
So we will be functioning.
Now whether the phone lines are working,
that’s a little out of our control.
We have backup on that as well.
But obviously there’s things can go down.
Coming to our facility,
you can pick up the metals.
We use different carriers.
If the carriers are not
functioning, that’s an issue.
But your metal is secure.
And that’s something you have to weigh.
You have to weigh how much do you want the
security and perhaps cost efficiency of
a depository from an insurance standpoint
versus having personal possession.
And we think the answer
is you should do both.
First you should have personal possession.
And if you have a more significant
amount, then consider a depository.
But I would say less than 5% of our
customers store in the depository.
Most people want personal possession.
We send out 2000 boxes a day through
FedEx in the mail and so forth.
Different means depending
on the situation.
And so most people want
personal possession.
That’s why they want gold and silver.
They don’t want the counterparty risk.
Not that you don’t directly own it
in our depo depository, but you are.
It’s away from you.
You’re relying on us.
That can be good, but in some
scenarios it’s not what you want.
And in most scenarios, people
wanna have personal possession.
And I encourage that because then
you, have the money in your, hand.
It’s it’s not reliant on anyone
else’s promise or com or performance.
So again, 95% of the folks
want personal possession.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Seven.
Thank you everyone of our panelists today.
This has been a great briefing.
I just put a link into the chat where you
can find all of the recordings for all of
the briefings that we’ve done this year.
We haven’t announced our schedule
yet for next year, but classically
we always do these briefings on
Thursday from two to four Eastern.
So please feel free to check back
at the link I just posted to see
when we announce our next one.
Oh, Catherine, you have your hand raised.
Yeah.
Two questions.
So somebody wanted to know if they
could get a copy of the PowerPoints
and I asked Ricardo to make a PDF.
Did he send that to you or is he
gonna post it at the briefing?
We’ll post Catherine, it’s, where is it
posted in the monthly briefings at FT two.
So I’ll, post the chats.
Yeah.
Does anyone else wanna say
anything before we close?
’cause we have hit the four o’clock hour.
Thank you.
And Merry Christmas, Mery Christmas.
Everybody have a wonderful holiday
and, a wonderful Christmas.
Happy holidays.
Merry Christmas.
Thank you everyone for joining us.
Hope everybody has a
good rest of the year.
See you in January.
