The Hamilton Corner

May 16, 2025 · 48:48

Guest Host, Alex McFarland, is joined by Todd Sheets, author of On Wealth and Progress

Culture & Media

Show notes

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  1. 0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
  2. 0:03It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
  3. 0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
  4. 0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
  5. 0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
  6. 0:18And the philosophies of this world.
  7. 0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
  8. 0:24Even in this dark moment.
  9. 0:26Let's not miss our moment.
  10. 0:28and now the Hamilton Corner.
  11. 0:33Good evening, welcome to the Hamilton Corner,
  12. 0:35Alex McFarland here.
  13. 0:36Very honored to be sitting in for attorney,
  14. 0:39pastor, journalist, Abe Hamilton III.
  15. 0:42Abe is out today and as is frequently the case,
  16. 0:47I get to sit in in his stead
  17. 0:49and I'm very honored that you're listening folks.
  18. 0:51We have a great show because among other things,
  19. 0:54we're gonna talk about money.
  20. 0:56And that's something that impacts all of our lives.
  21. 0:59You know the Bible has a lot to say about economics and finances and stewardship.
  22. 1:06I think about Proverbs 22 verse 7 that says the rich rules over the poor.
  23. 1:12And here is a Bible verse that is just axiomatic.
  24. 1:15It's become part of our vocabulary.
  25. 1:18And the borrower is servant to the lender.
  26. 1:21Proverbs 22-7.
  27. 1:23And you know, I don't know that much about economics.
  28. 1:27I know you've got to take in more than you put out.
  29. 1:30You need to live within your means.
  30. 1:32What a novel idea.
  31. 1:34You know, my wife and I and our family,
  32. 1:36we try to live within our means.
  33. 1:40I very often, I wish that our government
  34. 1:42would know how to do that.
  35. 1:44But I will remember back in 2008,
  36. 1:50I was a president of a small college
  37. 1:53and we had a number of donors to the college.
  38. 1:56And there were people in real estate and people in banking.
  39. 2:01And I remember what a panic it was in 2008.
  40. 2:05And in fact, in my home state of North Carolina,
  41. 2:07a 100-year-old bank went out of business.
  42. 2:11I mean, it was actually the blue chip bank in North Carolina
  43. 2:17that was highly, highly respected.
  44. 2:21But for a lot of, I would say irresponsible lending,
  45. 2:26they ended up going out of business.
  46. 2:29And I'll say this and then I want you to meet our guest.
  47. 2:32I read about a $36 trillion deficit.
  48. 2:37And again, I'm not a primarily an economics guy, but listen, I know the billions of dollars
  49. 2:45of interest that's accruing on our national debt daily.
  50. 2:49I mean, that is something we should be concerned about.
  51. 2:52And I think the time to prepare and to be informed and to be ready for the rough waters that may
  52. 3:00lie ahead.
  53. 3:02The time to think about that, be wise about it, frankly pray about it, the time is now.
  54. 3:09Well, to help us weigh in and learn about these and some other issues, I'm very honored to
  55. 3:14have Todd Sheets, his website, one of several that I think will reference.
  56. 3:20Todd Sheets writer dot com W R I T E R. Todd Sheets.
  57. 3:27He's got a background in economics and accounting and is just a voice that many people trust
  58. 3:35and look to.
  59. 3:36He's a prolific author and a public figure when it comes to online information about
  60. 3:43government, current events and the economy.
  61. 3:45And he's with us now.
  62. 3:47Todd, thanks for making time to be with us
  63. 3:49on the Hamilton Corner today.
  64. 3:51Thanks so much for having me.
  65. 3:52I'm delighted to be with you and your audience today.
  66. 3:56Well, I always love to hear people's story
  67. 3:58and then there are a lot of current events
  68. 4:00that I want to get into.
  69. 4:01But give us a little bit about your background
  70. 4:04and how you came to do what you do.
  71. 4:07Yeah, I'll try and keep this short.
  72. 4:08If I ramble on for too long, please cut me off.
  73. 4:10We don't want to put anybody to sleep out there.
  74. 4:13No.
  75. 4:15Yeah, no, I grew up in Iowa, you know,
  76. 4:17what I call kind of a lower middle class family.
  77. 4:19My dad was a high school football coach,
  78. 4:22so my whole life was kind of built around athletics
  79. 4:25and that type of thing.
  80. 4:27Once I figured out that I wasn't gonna be
  81. 4:29either a pro football quarterback or an NBA player,
  82. 4:33I realized I had to go down a different path
  83. 4:35and got very focused on academics,
  84. 4:38came out with a CPA, went to work in the accounting industry
  85. 4:42for a few years and then went into investment banking,
  86. 4:45was very fortunate to end up at a firm here in Florida called Raymond James, which was a
  87. 4:52fantastic place to work run by incredibly bright, motivated and honorable people. I had
  88. 4:59a very good, you know, successful career that I was very thankful and appreciative for. Had
  89. 5:06the chance to retire fairly early. And then I thought I wanted to go out and start a business
  90. 5:11which had kind of been a lifelong dream.
  91. 5:14And I kind of went down that path for a while,
  92. 5:17but then after a year or so,
  93. 5:21I kind of realized that there were some other forces
  94. 5:24pulling on me, which I think happens to many people.
  95. 5:27And from many different perspectives,
  96. 5:28it might be spiritual, it might be career oriented
  97. 5:32or whatever.
  98. 5:33And it took a while to figure out what those were,
  99. 5:35but I really came to understand
  100. 5:38that I wanted to devote a great deal of time
  101. 5:41to researching our economic history and developing a better understanding of how we got to the point
  102. 5:48we were at and this was in the midst of the financial crisis by that point in time.
  103. 5:53And what really was the best system, what created the best ability for people to be able to work hard
  104. 6:01and lift themselves up into a better life for themselves and their families, which I think is a
  105. 6:07goal that almost everybody out there shares. And I also became very interested in, I had
  106. 6:14always had a lifelong interest in writing, and then also started to get involved with music
  107. 6:20for the first time as well. So that's kind of taken me down the path that I've been on,
  108. 6:25it led to the book that you mentioned, I appreciate you bringing that up. And then also to starting
  109. 6:30to write these pieces on sub-stack in order to try and add some current events related
  110. 6:38commentary on a much broader range of issues that are not just economic and historical,
  111. 6:44but also current events, geopolitical, geopolitical, and all of these other areas as well.
  112. 6:50Yeah, I think our upbringing is probably somewhat similar.
  113. 6:55I grew up on a farm in North Carolina.
  114. 6:58My mother was a public school teacher for all of her adult life.
  115. 7:03And my dad had been with, well, originally my dad was with
  116. 7:07Ralston Purina in St. Louis, but ultimately my grandfather, my
  117. 7:12dad, and then me up until young adulthood, we ran a family
  118. 7:17farm.
  119. 7:17But it was just drilled into me.
  120. 7:19Maybe it was my grandparents' depression, era, life, and
  121. 7:24and then my mom and dad, but don't borrow money,
  122. 7:27live within your means.
  123. 7:29If you don't have the money, don't do it.
  124. 7:33And so the idea of even like credit cords,
  125. 7:37because credit cords are like ubiquitous now.
  126. 7:40And Todd, we do a lot of summer camps,
  127. 7:43and it amazes me like 15 and 16 year olds
  128. 7:48that brandish two and three credit cords.
  129. 7:53And I don't know, it just kind of,
  130. 7:54it makes me kind of cringe because I just grew up
  131. 7:58in a culture that was so averse to borrowing money.
  132. 8:03And I'm getting towards a question here.
  133. 8:06I guess you with your background
  134. 8:09and now really being an expert voice on economics and money,
  135. 8:16how concerned are you that it's just assumed
  136. 8:21that you spend what you don't have.
  137. 8:24It's just the American culture.
  138. 8:26You live on credit and you borrow and you spend
  139. 8:31and just indebtedness is a part of life.
  140. 8:35How concerning is that to you?
  141. 8:39Well, I think it's a very big concern.
  142. 8:41I mean, I think you and I were both very lucky
  143. 8:45to grow up in that kind of environment that you mentioned.
  144. 8:49And I think your references are exactly right.
  145. 8:51I've made reference to the same thing in the book
  146. 8:56that you've mentioned, that as time has gone on
  147. 9:00and borrowing has increased so much,
  148. 9:02it's something that would have made the phrase I used
  149. 9:04was our depression era grandparents roll over
  150. 9:07in their graves.
  151. 9:08I mean, anybody who has lived through an experience
  152. 9:14of that magnitude, where the things that you take
  153. 9:18for granted every day, waking up and having a job to go to,
  154. 9:22an income that you can depend on,
  155. 9:25being able to feed your family, being able to go to a bank
  156. 9:29and withdraw the money that you have in the bank.
  157. 9:31And all of a sudden the rug gets pulled out from under you
  158. 9:35and that instills a level of discipline
  159. 9:42and concern about the future
  160. 9:45And the ability to pull you off things
  161. 9:48till you can afford them tomorrow
  162. 9:50that you don't have to buy today,
  163. 9:53that I think is very valuable.
  164. 9:54And one of the amazing things about the Depression
  165. 9:58is that was basically the mindset
  166. 10:02that not just existed throughout the country,
  167. 10:07outside of Washington DC
  168. 10:09and with the people up until the Depression,
  169. 10:12It also existed in Washington DC up until the 1930s.
  170. 10:17If you go back to the 1800s
  171. 10:21and the first 30 years before we got into the depression
  172. 10:25of the 1900s, what you find is government spending
  173. 10:30was around three to 4% of what's called gross domestic product
  174. 10:35which is basically the overall economic output
  175. 10:38of the country, today it's over 20%.
  176. 10:42And we consistently ban either balanced budgets
  177. 10:47or balanced or budget surpluses.
  178. 10:50And so we get to this point where the depression happens
  179. 10:54and all of a sudden, the people in real America
  180. 10:57learn these very vital lessons the hardest way possible,
  181. 11:02but then government starts going in the other direction
  182. 11:04where it starts to believe that actually running deficits
  183. 11:07can be a good thing and incurring debts can be a good thing.
  184. 11:11And that's let us down this very long path of decades
  185. 11:15that has brought us to the point.
  186. 11:17Now you mentioned $36 trillion of debt
  187. 11:20in one of the sub-stack pieces that I wrote recently.
  188. 11:25That is similar to.
  189. 11:26It's not quite as bad.
  190. 11:27So I don't want to try and scare people.
  191. 11:30But it's similar to having a $120,000 mortgage
  192. 11:35on $100,000 home because that $36 trillion GDP
  193. 11:41is 120% of our economic output, our GDP.
  194. 11:45And so we have very clearly over the decades here
  195. 11:49worked our way into a somewhat dangerous position.
  196. 11:53And I think the debt and the debt are two
  197. 11:56of the three big crises that we have to deal with
  198. 12:00in order to reinvigorate this economy
  199. 12:04So it can provide the kind of upward mobility, you know,
  200. 12:08that became the heart of the American dream
  201. 12:11that has driven us for generations,
  202. 12:13going all the way back to the beginning of the country.
  203. 12:15Todd, the GDP, is that, and forgive my ignorance here,
  204. 12:21is that net or gross?
  205. 12:24I mean, tell us about the GDP
  206. 12:26and what will it be calendar year 2025?
  207. 12:31Yeah, they're estimating right now.
  208. 12:33It's right in the 29 to $30 trillion range.
  209. 12:36Okay.
  210. 12:37So the good news about that is we are far and away the largest economic power in the world.
  211. 12:45China is now second to us.
  212. 12:47There's is around 19 trillion.
  213. 12:50But they've got to provide for a population that is almost four times the size of ours
  214. 12:57on a GDP that's even smaller.
  215. 12:59So.
  216. 13:00As of yesterday, it's funny.
  217. 13:02of yesterday China's population is like 1.42 billion.
  218. 13:09Yes. And we're in like 330 million range or so. So GDP is maybe two-thirds of ours,
  219. 13:19but their population base is pushing four times the size of ours. So even though on
  220. 13:25a simple basis, they are becoming more of a competitor. And unfortunately, we are seeing
  221. 13:32that in their actions around the globe. But in terms of really being able to provide for
  222. 13:38the citizenry and that type of thing, they're nowhere near where we are. They're experiencing
  223. 13:43significant problems right now. And we're still the major power. But now you drop down from
  224. 13:48China and you get down to countries like Germany, Japan and others that maybe have like $5 trillion
  225. 13:58of GDP. So we're still like six times the next tier that you get down to. So we're the
  226. 14:03dominant economic power by far. We have by far the greatest economic potential of any
  227. 14:11country in the world. It's still sitting there, but it is also being constrained by a series
  228. 14:19of misguided government policies that have been implemented over the last 30 years or
  229. 14:24so that have led to these very high levels of debt and these deficits which are critical
  230. 14:29issues for us to address.
  231. 14:31Todd, let me come in here.
  232. 14:33We've got a break.
  233. 14:34Folks, this is potentially one of the most significant shows you're going to hear in many
  234. 14:38a day.
  235. 14:39Todd Sheets is our guest.
  236. 14:40Alex McFarlane here, we're talking about the economy and the money that we all are going
  237. 14:46to need and how we can be a good steward of it.
  238. 14:48Stay tuned.
  239. 14:49A brief break in the Hamilton Corner is back after this.
  240. 14:51One Million Moms has received complaints about an Arm and Hammer laundry commercial where Meg
  241. 15:06and trainer deliberately insinuates profanity.
  242. 15:09Instead of a wholesome commercial, Arm and Hammer deliberately chose to produce something controversial.
  243. 15:14One Million Moms finds this highly inappropriate.
  244. 15:17Arm and Hammer should have the corporate responsibility not to offend families.
  245. 15:21Arm and Hammer needs to know that parents disapprove.
  246. 15:24Take action at one millionmoms.com.
  247. 15:27That's one millionmoms.com.
  248. 15:29Live into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
  249. 15:41Welcome back to the program Alex McFarland with you and our very special guest Todd Sheets. I'm learning a lot
  250. 15:49from him, and I'm sure you can too. Todd Sheets.substack.com.
  251. 15:56You'll find some of the content that he's written and then also the website ToddSheetswriter.com.
  252. 16:03both of those I highly recommend. Todd, first of all, thank you for your time and
  253. 16:08welcome back to the program. Before the break, we were talking about the GDP and
  254. 16:13that the American GDP is annually 29 to 30 trillion, which is well more than China.
  255. 16:22You know, it is uncanny how this country has the earning potential it does. I mean,
  256. 16:31really and I was encouraged to hear you say that that's not gone away. That still is there.
  257. 16:40As they say, America is the land of opportunity and you would maintain that it still is the
  258. 16:45land of opportunity, right?
  259. 16:48Absolutely. I wrote in one of the pieces here recently. You think about people who are in
  260. 16:56disadvantaged circumstances, repressive regimes throughout the world, and they go to bed at night,
  261. 17:05dreaming of waking up in a better place, where they can maybe work hard to build a better life
  262. 17:12for themselves and their family. They don't dream about waking up in communist China,
  263. 17:19where there are limitations, there are social repressions, there are religious
  264. 17:26repressions, you know, there are restraints on freedom and economic upward mobility.
  265. 17:31Everybody that I know of still dreams of waking up in America and there's a good
  266. 17:40reason for that and it's the reason that you just mentioned and even though we
  267. 17:43We have significant issues that we have to resolve.
  268. 17:48In many ways, because of what's happened to many other areas around the world, we have never
  269. 17:54been better positioned than we are right now to lead the next wave of growth and upward
  270. 18:02mobility and opportunity for raising the living standards of not just ourselves, but also people
  271. 18:10around the world and that's one of the great lessons of history and capitalism that just
  272. 18:15hasn't been taught enough.
  273. 18:18For hundreds of years, thousands really, going back to the reference that you made earlier
  274. 18:23about the biblical reference of the rich suppressing the poor, that was what happened throughout
  275. 18:30history until capitalism came along and all of a sudden you had this system where the
  276. 18:37The pie itself was growing.
  277. 18:39I won't get into all the details,
  278. 18:40but this shows up in the GDP growth rates throughout history.
  279. 18:46Countries were basically stagnant until around the 1800s
  280. 18:49when this started to happen.
  281. 18:51And so you had a very small number of entrenched wealthy people
  282. 18:56and royalty and political classes who were very well off
  283. 19:00and everybody else worked for them with no upward mobility.
  284. 19:04And then all of that started to change in the 1800s.
  285. 19:07And the dynamics that existed then are with us today,
  286. 19:12and given our leadership in technology,
  287. 19:16and many other of the most important industries in the world,
  288. 19:20we are as well positioned as we have ever been
  289. 19:22to continue leading the world forward
  290. 19:24and lifting up the world around us as we do that.
  291. 19:27And you know, Todd, I've spoken and debated
  292. 19:31at quite a number of American universities.
  293. 19:34And even like at Christian colleges,
  294. 19:37students and faculty will come to the microphone
  295. 19:40and just berate capitalism,
  296. 19:43oh, evil corporations that make a profit.
  297. 19:47Alex, how could you as a Christian thinker
  298. 19:50support capitalism?
  299. 19:52And I'm thinking look,
  300. 19:54well, for one thing,
  301. 19:55this world is pregnant with life and opportunity
  302. 20:00and increased. And the anti-capitalist Todd generally have this finite pie
  303. 20:07mentality. It seems like, and I've had PhDs debate me on this, but they're like,
  304. 20:12if you had a meal tonight conversely on the other side of the world, somebody
  305. 20:18else went hungry. And that's just not how it is, is it? I mean, there's not this
  306. 20:24finite pie that if someone is fed of necessity, somebody else went hungry. That's just not
  307. 20:32reality, is it?
  308. 20:33No, it's not. And it was until roughly the 1800s, maybe starting a little bit before then, but
  309. 20:41then as capitalistic ideas were introduced, you know, first in Europe and then spread and
  310. 20:47introduced even more deeply in America, what we started to see was a vast upward mobility
  311. 20:57that raised living standards, raised quality of life. We talk about things like child labor.
  312. 21:07And you talked about coming from a farm family, like my mom did. And she had
  313. 21:13eight brothers and sisters. Part of the reason they had nine children was they
  314. 21:20wanted all those kids working out in the fields, right? Exactly. Yeah and so the
  315. 21:26ability to move away from that came as we became more of an industrial
  316. 21:32society and efficiency, the efficiencies that came with that enabled us to do more
  317. 21:40with less and so all of a sudden we could end child labor. We could get to, we could
  318. 21:48go from people working seven days a week to working six and then five. We could go from
  319. 21:5312 or 10 hour days to eight hour days and things like, you know, having weekends off,
  320. 22:00the ability to take family vacation, spend more time with each other, you know, all
  321. 22:04of these things developed out of that. And, you know, unfortunately, you know, I think
  322. 22:10many people, you know, that that, you know, probably the ones that have debated you at
  323. 22:14the microphone, they've adopted this idea that we kind of need this group of political
  324. 22:22elites to figure out how to carve up the pie in order to make a better outcome instead
  325. 22:30of letting all of this work from the ground up, which is the way that, you know, that capitalism
  326. 22:36works. And in many ways, it's very much like what happened with Christianity. So, you know,
  327. 22:41that's not my area of expertise, but I've often talked with friends. It's like, you know,
  328. 22:47in my limited understanding of this, you know, this was one of many belief systems and theologies
  329. 22:54that existed around the time that Christ started to become influential. And it didn't become
  330. 23:01this massive worldwide movement because there were some leaders that were forcing it on to people.
  331. 23:08It came because people could see how much better it was making their lives and so they adopted it
  332. 23:15for themselves. And it was like this natural organic growth. And that's very like what happened
  333. 23:21economically in the capitalist sphere here.
  334. 23:24Exactly.
  335. 23:25You know, there's a twice Pulitzer-nominated sociologist named Dr. Rodney Stark.
  336. 23:32He was a brilliant guy.
  337. 23:33He recently passed away.
  338. 23:35But he said that Christianity overtook the Roman Empire.
  339. 23:41Among other things, Christ had risen and the gospel was spreading.
  340. 23:46But Dr. Stark, he said, it's just a better way to live.
  341. 23:50And employers realize that Christians give a full day's work.
  342. 23:55Christians don't steal from their employer.
  343. 23:58Christians are generally true to their wife and family.
  344. 24:02Christians come with this moral code.
  345. 24:05And Christianity, like you say from the ground up, it took the world over for a lot of reasons,
  346. 24:12not the least of which though, was it was just a better way to live.
  347. 24:17But I want to talk about, and this is so good, because I think it's helpful for people that
  348. 24:23perhaps have not really heard about some of the economic success, and I would say economic
  349. 24:31greatness of America.
  350. 24:34Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I think it was Adam Smith that talked about this invisible
  351. 24:38hand that people come up and prosperity breeds prosperity and the economy grows and the lives
  352. 24:49of people are bettered and then there's with wealth the opportunity for benevolence and
  353. 24:57charitable giving.
  354. 24:59And this has been part of our DNA really.
  355. 25:02We have been able to feed the nations and help the downtrodden, and capitalism and economic
  356. 25:10prosperity drove that, didn't it?
  357. 25:13Absolutely.
  358. 25:14And I think there's another very important point that comes out of that is, again, kind
  359. 25:19of beginning with the depression and the mistaken impression of what caused that that came out
  360. 25:26of it.
  361. 25:27started going down this path that government had to take on a lot of these responsibilities.
  362. 25:34But if you go back to the late 1800s, the early 1900s, when industrialization was really kicking
  363. 25:42in, wealth was developing, upward mobility was occurring, we allowed more immigrants to come
  364. 25:52to this country as a percentage of the population base that has ever happened before our sense
  365. 25:59here or anywhere else in the world. You know, we went from like 5 million people in 1800 to around
  366. 26:05100 million people in the early 1900s, and there was somewhere around 30 million immigrants that
  367. 26:12came to the country in that time. So think about that, 30 percent of the population base,
  368. 26:17And the economy was growing so fast that they were absorbed in without any problems of unemployment,
  369. 26:26you know, without any resentment from the people that lived here.
  370. 26:31And so this was an amazing period.
  371. 26:34Government was not playing a big role.
  372. 26:36And as these immigrants came, they set up communities of, you know, providing support
  373. 26:44for the others that were coming.
  374. 26:46And so this was coming naturally through the churches or in the Jewish community through
  375. 26:50the synagogues.
  376. 26:53And people were, if you're not getting a lot of your income taxed away, which wasn't happening
  377. 26:57back then, there was no income tax until the early 1900s, it's very easy to go to church
  378. 27:03and say, look, I see people around me who aren't as fortunate as I am, they're not as
  379. 27:08well off.
  380. 27:09I want to help them out.
  381. 27:11And so charitable donations through the private sector typically funded through religious organizations
  382. 27:18like the churches or the synagogues became a primary way of helping new immigrants come
  383. 27:25to the country and become absorbed, learn the language, become a part of the workforce
  384. 27:32and start contributing and then they make donations.
  385. 27:35And then like you said, we have this organic growth happening where the pie is expanding
  386. 27:41And it's not just the economic pie,
  387. 27:44it's also the philanthropic pie that's growing alongside.
  388. 27:48So yeah, there's all these benefits that,
  389. 27:50as you said, unfortunately,
  390. 27:55the people in academia have turned away from.
  391. 28:00They became hammered with these ideas of communism
  392. 28:03or government interventions, things that are designed
  393. 28:06by other academics that are supposed to solve
  394. 28:08all these problems.
  395. 28:09And, you know, they just have not worked out nearly as well as what we had going before.
  396. 28:16We went down that path.
  397. 28:19This question might seem a little simplistic, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
  398. 28:24Todd, what happened in the Great Depression?
  399. 28:28Help us understand how that happened and what was the Great Depression?
  400. 28:34Yeah.
  401. 28:35So, there's a couple important points to understand.
  402. 28:38And if I talk too long on any one of these, just interrupt me and redirect.
  403. 28:42But the first thing to understand is we truly had a limited government model from the time
  404. 28:50of our foundation, you know, going back to the 1800s, really starting with Thomas Jefferson,
  405. 28:55who was a big believer in limited government.
  406. 28:57And it lasted all the way up until the Depression of the 1930s.
  407. 29:03And the depression then was the greatest economic collapse we had experienced to that
  408. 29:08point in time.
  409. 29:10The economy started to collapse, unemployment, which had never been a problem before, shot
  410. 29:17up up into the 20 to 25 percent range.
  411. 29:22Think about that.
  412. 29:23Almost a quarter of the people in the country were out of work.
  413. 29:27There were massive banking failures and panics that occurred.
  414. 29:31went to the banks and they couldn't get their money out. So the economy starts to shut down,
  415. 29:35and it lasted much longer than any other downturn. It lasted for over roughly about 10 years.
  416. 29:42So unfortunately, the message that was taken away from this was that this was a result of private
  417. 29:52market failure. And a lot of this thinking came out of the Roosevelt administration and the so-called
  418. 30:01brain trust that they brought into enact or create all these big government programs to try and
  419. 30:06turn things around, most of which failed, which is evidenced by how long it took for recovery to
  420. 30:13actually occur. Roosevelt came into office in the early 30s and we didn't come out of the depression
  421. 30:18until 1939, 1940. But because things kept cycling down, they went a different direction. And this
  422. 30:27thinking developed that you could start the depression
  423. 30:32with the great stock market crash of 1929,
  424. 30:36which was a symbol of private market failure,
  425. 30:39that evidence need for government
  426. 30:41to play a much bigger role in the economy.
  427. 30:43Forgive it, why did the stock market crash there in 29?
  428. 30:48Yeah, so you never know exactly, but what we do know,
  429. 30:52and this is from people on both the left and right,
  430. 30:54The stock market crash played almost no role in causing the Great Depression.
  431. 31:00Economic production had actually turned down in the summer before the crash.
  432. 31:06It was more of a symptom of underlying problems that were starting to emerge than it was a
  433. 31:12cause of anything.
  434. 31:14And so there were two big causes of the depression.
  435. 31:18And another thing that's not well understood is that this was not just a domestic event,
  436. 31:24which is the way most of us learn about it and study about it in school.
  437. 31:28It was also an international event.
  438. 31:31The international cause of the depression actually dates back to World War I.
  439. 31:37And what happened in World War I is all of a sudden the major economies of Europe who had
  440. 31:44been growing for the first time in history over the previous century, they make this
  441. 31:49extraordinary mistake of being pulled into what some people have called the war over nothing
  442. 31:57that costs them everything, which is a great decision of it.
  443. 32:01And they start this is going to go right back to what we were talking about earlier.
  444. 32:07They go from having balanced budgets and reasonable debts to having extreme budget deficits to
  445. 32:15to finance the war and massive borrowings.
  446. 32:18And God, forgive me, forgive me.
  447. 32:20We've got to take a break.
  448. 32:21We're talking with Todd Sheets, riveting information, folks.
  449. 32:25Stay tuned.
  450. 32:26We're going to come back more after this.
  451. 32:30Is our theology of money upside down?
  452. 32:33Our vision is that all Christians would see God
  453. 32:36as their ultimate treasure.
  454. 32:38It's a game changer of an idea.
  455. 32:41And we start with this idea that God owns everything.
  456. 32:45And we are his household managers of what he has entrusted to us.
  457. 32:49So we own nothing, but we have stewardship responsibilities,
  458. 32:53faith and finance with Rob West weekdays at 9 a.m. Central
  459. 32:57or on the AFR app.
  460. 33:05A Hamilton Quarter Podcast and One-Bitted Common Terrets
  461. 33:08are available at aFR.net.
  462. 33:10Back to the Hamilton Quarter on American Family Radio.
  463. 33:22Welcome back to the program.
  464. 33:23Alex McFarland here.
  465. 33:24We're going to resume our conversation with Todd Sheets, but I want to make you aware of
  466. 33:29our Summer Speaker Series and our summer camps.
  467. 33:33Just humor me for a moment, a little bit of shameless self-promotion, but my website is
  468. 33:38AlexMcFarlane.com.
  469. 33:41Let me refer you to AlexMcFarlane.com slash conversations.
  470. 33:46We've got a Summer Speaker Series.
  471. 33:47We just had Dinesh D'Souza in great voice of political science and Trump's first few
  472. 33:55months in office.
  473. 33:57But we've got another session coming up.
  474. 33:59Dr. Gary Chapman famously wrote a book called The Five Love Languages, sold 20 million copies,
  475. 34:06and he is America's relationship doctor.
  476. 34:10And he's going to be with us in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on June 15.
  477. 34:15And I would invite you to come to that.
  478. 34:16Then we've got Charlie Kirk later on this summer,
  479. 34:20Lauren Green of Fox News.
  480. 34:22If you would check out alexmichfarlane.com slash conversations.
  481. 34:27One other thing I would ask you to pray about is our summer youth camps.
  482. 34:32We've done these for 25 years and we've got camps in seven states,
  483. 34:36beautiful places like Montana, upstate New Jersey and the Hudson River Valley.
  484. 34:42And so tell your friends about the summer camps that we're doing.
  485. 34:47And we're teaching kids not only about the gospel and about Christianity, but we teach
  486. 34:51about America.
  487. 34:53We teach kids about American exceptionalism, why this country is great.
  488. 34:58And we try our best to inspire young people, to love God and country and to be patriotic
  489. 35:05and to get a vision for what their future can be.
  490. 35:10I don't have a lot of patience for pessimism and doom and gloom and so many young people.
  491. 35:16I wish you could see their faces as we tell them that look you were born for a purpose and
  492. 35:23life is worth being excited about and you've got skills and gifts that you can develop and
  493. 35:29not only be a blessing but be blessed.
  494. 35:33So keep us in prayer.
  495. 35:34My speaking tour, I'm always on the road somewhere every weekend.
  496. 35:39It's all at AlexMcFarlane.com.
  497. 35:40Well, our guest in this hour is Todd Sheets.
  498. 35:45First of all, Mr. Sheets, I want to thank you.
  499. 35:47I'm learning a lot.
  500. 35:48I'm taking notes.
  501. 35:49You were before the break, talking about the causes of the Great Depression.
  502. 35:55I welcome you to resume that.
  503. 35:58But for a moment, let's talk about the gold standard.
  504. 36:03I've heard it said that like, for example, somebody might say, well, in the last 12 years,
  505. 36:11our house doubled in value because we paid $250 and if I sold it today, it would be $500,000.
  506. 36:19I've heard somebody say that, no, your house didn't really double in value.
  507. 36:23The dollar's ability diminished by 50%.
  508. 36:28The buying power of the dollar went down.
  509. 36:32So let's talk about if you don't mind the gold standard, was that a good thing and why
  510. 36:41when the government just prints money, just puts ink on paper, that doesn't really increase
  511. 36:48the strength of the US dollar, does it?
  512. 36:51No, again, this is another great question.
  513. 36:54I mean, that period that we were talking about, the 1800s, early 1900s, we were on a gold standard
  514. 36:59throughout that. And if I can introduce just a little bit of additional history, which comes
  515. 37:04back to the importance of these deficits and debts that we started the program talking about.
  516. 37:11If we go back, Europe throughout the Middle Ages and up into, you know, towards this 1800s,
  517. 37:181900s period went through these recurring cycles of wars. And as countries would go to war,
  518. 37:25they would run up big deficits, which would cause them to print too much money and borrow too much
  519. 37:31money, and it caused people to lose confidence in their currencies, which is exactly kind of the
  520. 37:36issue that you're addressing here. And so, Great Britain, realizing that this can't keep going on,
  521. 37:42or if it does, they're going to lose the ability to borrow. They actually started to create a gold
  522. 37:48standard back in the late 1700s. And actually, a little one more little tidbit here, Sir Isaac Newton
  523. 37:56played a role in this. He became the master of the mint and basically implemented policies that made
  524. 38:03gold the hard standard of the British pound at that point in time. So the gold standard, it was
  525. 38:12incredibly effective throughout this hundred plus year period of time in limiting government
  526. 38:19spending and limiting government indebtedness until we get to World War I when spending
  527. 38:27breaks out again deficits go crazy, they borrow too much money and that's one of the big factors
  528. 38:32that let us end the depression. So post-depression, we come out, we go on kind of a modified gold
  529. 38:40standard and then in the 1970s what happens is and it's the same old story again and again,
  530. 38:47the same risks. There's a phrase out there, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes.
  531. 38:53We keep seeing these same kind of things happening again. In the 70s what was happening was when
  532. 39:00Lyndon Johnson became president in the early 1960s after JFK died or was assassinated,
  533. 39:07And he embarked on two major spending programs.
  534. 39:11One was the escalation of the Vietnam War, and one was what he called the Great Society
  535. 39:16Programs, which were supposed to end poverty.
  536. 39:20Those programs started creating big budget deficits.
  537. 39:24The Federal Reserve, as it always does, started printing money to fund those deficits.
  538. 39:31And as they started printing more and more money, it basically was getting to the point
  539. 39:36where people around the world were realizing,
  540. 39:39we weren't gonna be able to honor our obligation
  541. 39:42to exchange dollar bills for gold,
  542. 39:45because we were printing too many dollars
  543. 39:48relative to our gold holdings.
  544. 39:50And so that's when Nixon took us off the gold standard
  545. 39:54at that point in time.
  546. 39:55And since then, we've basically been on a currency
  547. 40:02that is only supported by trust and faith
  548. 40:05in the fact that the government won't abuse its ability to print unlimited number of dollars.
  549. 40:12Isn't it true that like a piece of money, it's in and of itself is not really valuable,
  550. 40:21but it represents something that guarantees the value.
  551. 40:28Like the gold is the actual tangible asset and the dollar in circulation represents that
  552. 40:38tangible asset.
  553. 40:39Is that a fair way to say it?
  554. 40:41Yeah, very much so.
  555. 40:42And I would expand on it just a teeny bit.
  556. 40:46The most critical factor is the confidence in the dollar or the currency.
  557. 40:51So if you and I both have confidence in it, even if it's not backed up by gold, it can
  558. 40:57be a worthwhile medium of exchange. I can get dollars for doing something that I do for writing a book
  559. 41:04and I can turn around and donate to a ministry that then uses those dollars to go out and do good
  560. 41:10within the church and that type of thing. So as long as that confidence is there, the dollar or any
  561. 41:17currency can serve its purpose as a common medium of exchange. The critical element of the gold
  562. 41:24standard was in helping to maintain that confidence and ensure that government couldn't do the
  563. 41:31kinds of things that it has repeatedly done throughout history, which is to print too many dollars
  564. 41:38and to destroy the value of the dollar to the point where it destroys that confidence that makes the
  565. 41:44currency an effective medium of exchange, which makes everything much easier to do. If you don't
  566. 41:51have that. You think about how awkward things are. Then you now we're talking about going back in
  567. 41:57time to where I'm a shirt maker and I have to give you a shirt and you put hooves on horses
  568. 42:06and I have to hope that you want my shirts so that you'll re-shod my horse and that kind of thing.
  569. 42:11That's an incredibly inefficient system. The barter and currency-based thing. Everything becomes much
  570. 42:17more efficient because I can give you something that's a value to you even though you may not
  571. 42:23care at all about what I did to earn that dollar in the first place as long as it was
  572. 42:28leaked legitimate.
  573. 42:30Yeah.
  574. 42:31So, I got to ask you this because I'm glad Trump won.
  575. 42:36I voted for Trump.
  576. 42:39I'm a big Trump supporter, but the midterms are coming.
  577. 42:44And I know there are some in this country that have a vested interest in the economy
  578. 42:49doing poorly because they don't want Trump to succeed or conservatives to win in the
  579. 42:56midterms.
  580. 42:58Based on where we are, can you prognosticate Todd Sheets?
  581. 43:03What will the economy look like by the midterm elections and by the end of Trump's term?
  582. 43:09Yeah, so I would say that, you know, I think, I don't agree with everything that we're doing,
  583. 43:17but by and large, I agree with you.
  584. 43:19I think the Trump administration has taken on a broad range of critical issues that need
  585. 43:25to be addressed, many or most of which fall into the economics sphere.
  586. 43:30And I think we are headed in a much better direction than we were headed in before.
  587. 43:36And my expectation is that these initiatives will pay off and that in four years we will
  588. 43:46be in a substantially better place than we would have been before.
  589. 43:50Predicting what happens in the midterm elections, not that far out, that's a much tougher call
  590. 43:56because it often takes time before these things start to kick in.
  591. 44:00But I would be reasonably optimistic about things here.
  592. 44:03I think overall they're headed in the right direction, most on most of these items.
  593. 44:12They've got a good plan and we've got a really talented and brilliant group of people who
  594. 44:18are working with him to lead these initiatives.
  595. 44:23Are the tariffs going to bring substantial revenue to the U.S. government?
  596. 44:28And if so, what do you speculate will be done with those revenues?
  597. 44:34Yes.
  598. 44:35So, I think they will bring some revenue.
  599. 44:38I mean, our deficit is in the neighborhood of $2 trillion.
  600. 44:42So, the first big thing is to cut that in half, which should be an achievable objective.
  601. 44:49Get it down to about a trillion.
  602. 44:51Hopefully, doge can contribute something at least in the $3 to $500 million range to that
  603. 44:57remaining trillion and then potentially tariffs can contribute another chunk that may be as
  604. 45:03similar to what Doge is doing to help deal with those issues.
  605. 45:07So yeah, I think there's a possibility that they'll make or a likelihood that they'll
  606. 45:12make a meaningful contribution on the deficit side of the equation.
  607. 45:17Why do you think we don't have a balanced budget amendment?
  608. 45:24Well, there's not many people in Washington who like the idea of operating with a balanced
  609. 45:28budget, but again, I would go back to look, the mentality about all of this changed in the
  610. 45:34Depression, you know, from 1800 until 1930, except in times of war, like the Civil War or World War
  611. 45:44I, we ran either balanced budgets or a surplus. And that was Republican and Democratic administrations
  612. 45:53because there was a deep belief in that model.
  613. 45:56But then this failure to understand the real causes of the Great Depression led the FDR administration
  614. 46:03and all of their supporters, many of whom came from academia.
  615. 46:07They were part of the brain trust that was designing these programs to believe that government
  616. 46:14spending and government direction was needed to offset the likelihood that the private
  617. 46:22economy would push us into these disastrous circumstances.
  618. 46:26So John Maynard Keynes became an advocate of the idea that government deficit spending
  619. 46:33could actually be a good thing.
  620. 46:36That borrowing by the government to help pull out of an economic downturn could actually
  621. 46:43help with things. And you know, unfortunately, that totally changed the mentality on these
  622. 46:49issues. And once you do that, the nature of politicians, they love spending somebody else's
  623. 46:55money on their constituents, right? And Republican or Democrat. And so, you know, since that time,
  624. 47:03we've had this, you know, building dynamic where we've gone off in, you know, this unfortunate
  625. 47:08direction and it's gotten dramatically worse over the last 15, 20 years.
  626. 47:13Todd, I think a lot of people, earlier you mentioned the Federal Reserve and for a lot
  627. 47:20of us and folks, here's a name that you haven't heard in a while, but I think it's an important
  628. 47:25name, Alan Greenspan.
  629. 47:27I remember, you know, people in, I don't know if it was maybe the late 80s, early 90s,
  630. 47:34I used to say, forget who's president,
  631. 47:36Alan Greenspan really runs the country.
  632. 47:39But, and feel free to comment on his legacy if you want to,
  633. 47:43but oh man, we're out of time.
  634. 47:47Oh my goodness.
  635. 47:48Cause I was gonna ask you to explain
  636. 47:50what the Federal Reserve does.
  637. 47:52So Todd, listen, I hear the music.
  638. 47:55We've got to have you back.
  639. 47:56This is so helpful, so instructive.
  640. 47:58Before we go, give us your website again.
  641. 48:00You're writing how people can find what you do.
  642. 48:03Yeah, yeah, the website is Todd Sheets Writer, W-R-I-T-E-R,
  643. 48:07and Todd is with 2D's and Sheets is just like Sheets of Paper.com.
  644. 48:12If you go there, you can find my book,
  645. 48:14and you can also find a link to the substac pieces
  646. 48:16that I'm putting out, which, as we talked about,
  647. 48:19are free of charge.
  648. 48:20Well, thank you so much, Todd Sheets.
  649. 48:22And folks, thank you for listening.
  650. 48:24I want to thank Marty Sparks and Jeff McIntosh
  651. 48:27for helping engineer the show.
  652. 48:28Alex Meforran here.
  653. 48:29Thank you for listening.
  654. 48:30You can listen again at AFR.net.
  655. 48:33shows archived. May God bless you and may God bless America.
  656. 48:40The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
  657. 48:44Family Association or American Family Radio.

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