46:44 You can find all his work at stevecortez.substack.com, but I was on Steve Bannon's show last week and he was on right before me so i'm sitting there watching him He did the best in like nine minute breakdown we actually played it later on my show Of the demolition of the economy and what's causing this collapse one thing? I may disagree with is that it's incompetence It's a plan here really clouded pivoting on steroids So let's do this steve thanks for joining us i'm going to reintroduce you here about five minutes We're going to break we'll come back and join some stations but Give us a prelude to what you're going to break down because, You only had about 8 minutes on Ben and did the best job I've seen. This way we'll have like 20 minutes when we come back To really flesh it all out and talk about solutions but thanks for coming on with us!
47:24 Of course. Thanks for having me, first time on your show so maiden voyage for me and you know look I worked for 25 years on Wall Street. I was an interest rate trainer covered some of the biggest hedge funds in the world before i got into politics when that orange guy came down the escalator and really frankly changed my mind. I used to be a bit of a wall street republican used to believe in free trade and used to basically trust the financial institutions in the United States, organizations like the Fed and the US Treasury. And big business. He opened my eyes and I have an incredibly different worldview now a much more skeptical far more populous worldview but I still take that same
48:02 skill set in the same acumen I have for capital markets to apply it to this new political mission that I'm on. And the American economy is being destroyed right before our eyes, particularly for people of middle and lower incomes. The trend is terrible and the trend is worsening Alex. And the reality is unless we course correct incredibly quickly, unless we reverse in major ways on both monetary and fiscal policy. The United States is headed, quite frankly for an absolute economic train wreck for a financial cataclysm. And that is the reality as projected by the metrics not by Steve Cortez's opinion or Alex Jones but by the actual metrics of the economy things like interest rates I often say when it comes to financial markets price is truth you know that the price doesn't lie
48:52 And the prices and the metrics out there in the economy increasingly point to a place of intensifying dangers and increasing heightened risks throughout the economy. So I'm trying to ring the alarm, to make sure that there's a sense of immediacy and urgency out there to start fixing this before it's too late And again, to your point you're an expert on this and did a great job laying it out. But clearly they know this is coming their pre-positioning to bring in the central bank digital currencies bring in their new systems I think we're about to see the end of Bretton Woods and new system and it looks like You know, obviously China and Russia and India and Brazil know that. They're saying well we're done with the dollar this is the biggest ball drop even if I don't like the establishments that you know it's hijacked country why would they run their own power structure into the ground? Maybe you're right maybe it is mismanagement
49:40 Well, listen I think it can be both right. I don't think it has to be binary that it's either or there can be a certain amount of planning right because I think the ruling class in the United States knows that in this managed decline of America they can extract for themselves an enormous amount of wealth by managing that decline effectively at the same time and there is also a lot of incompetence so I'm not sure if it has to completely be a binary pick you know? So for example let me get specific Janet Yellen when she Continually lied to the American people and said inflation was transitory. I think she probably at least suspected otherwise, so there is some actual malice and dishonesty in there but i think theres also probably some measure of incompetence where she truly didn't have the skills despite her sterling resume lets face it shes a fool when it comes to the economy Where she both was missing because of incompetence but at the same time willing to miss
50:30 because of her malevolence. All right, we got a real thousand pound brain with us until the bottom of the hour. Been following him for six seven years since he helped quarterback things with Trump and he's been one of the top stock traders and fun folks out there I watched him for many years on Fox News CNN CNBC but he got basically drafted or just chose to join Trump six plus year ago Steve Cortez populist
51:15 patriotic populist, bad hombre born for a storm. Former Trump 2016-2020 spokesperson former contributor as I already mentioned stevecortez.substack.com So Steve i'm going to try to give you the floor to describe what managed decline is The Chinese century seems like the U.S government's trying to break with that What happened there? You did an excellent analysis last week on Steve Bannon where you laid out how they created these policies that have imploded things and where you see that going. And the key point you make is we've got to change course quickly, We don't have long You've got the floor Thanks for joining us quantify that You bet, Alex. Thanks for having me and you're right about the immediacy and the urgency of the situation I do believe that we can course correct.
52:09 should be the birthright of Americans. So let me put some numbers behind this, you know when you talk about managed decline because I want to just give you my opinion on where things are. Let's look at what the American people how they view their own financial predicament both right now and into the future. And the statistics on this, frankly are just incredibly dire and we're hitting all kinds of really unfortunate records you know some of them all time records CNBC which is no friend of ours ideologically right part of the MSNBC NBC family team we see just put out a survey and asked Americans what they think of the current economic situation in the country and looking forward
52:46 The negative combination there was 69%. Seven out of 10 Americans have both a negative view now and looking forward. And CNBC itself was even honest enough to admit, rare moment of honesty and bluntness on that channel, it was willing to admit that is the worst in the history of this survey but that's not the only data point similar outlook unfortunately dour outlook from The Wall Street Journal at University Chicago they've been doing a survey for 30 years asking Americans kind of big macro questions. And one of the fundamental questions is, do you believe your children will be better off than you are? Thankfully through most of American history that answer was always in the affirmative far more people said yes my kids are going to have a better life than I have it started to flip a little over a decade ago and it has now has flipped massively to the negative where the survey just released by The Wall Street Journal shows
53:38 78% of the American people, four out of five Americans say their children will not be better off than they are today. So the despondency right now is ubiquitous and it's spread throughout the American economy why? Well because of what profligate spending exorbitant borrowing and spending what it has done to the United States and because of the concerted policy attacks on the United States dollar. And let me get specific, specifically if I could about both of those points because I think it's also crucial for us to recognize that this is a created crisis. This isn't bad luck Alex. It's not just the business cycle. It's not just sort of the way in the world these are secular trends over which we have no control. These are created crises and
54:22 at the behest and at the will of the ruling class of America. So let me be specific on the inflation front, we had three month treasury yield so very short term money, three months treasury money when Joe Biden took office it was effectively free it was nearly 0% It was 0.1%. To borrow money from the United States Treasury for three months is now over 5%, it has absolutely soared catapulted higher Alex, that's the highest level for three month treasury yield since 2007. Now I'm sure I don't need to remind a lot of the folks in the audience what happened into 2007-08-09 with the housing crisis? What spike in interest rates did to the American economy
55:04 back then. Now in 08 and 09, the risks primarily were in the residential housing market where there was far too much leverage that are far too many people taking on no doc liar loans. OK? That's where the risk now is in commercial house. Now it's in commercial, exactly. And this is the point that I made when you and I were on Back to Back on Steve Bannon Show and I covered this extensively in my newest article on my Substack which I called a syllabus of economic errors. Commercial real estate, CRE what the pros referred as, commercial real estate That is where the risks lie now. Why? Because commercial real estate was based on two premises, number one sustained low interest rates while that's gone as I just indicated regarding treasury yields because of Biden's inflation low interest rates are a thing of the past we're in an entirely new inflationary interest rate regime
55:52 But then the other aspect is commercial real estate was highly levered because it was considered to be pretty safe, Alex. It was considered to be a relatively boring allocation for big institutional money. Why? Because people have to go to work quite frankly. They needed a place they needed office buildings to go to work well all of that changed because of the unscientific, illegal and draconian lockdowns of 2020. American workers were forced to work effectively at least effectively enough remotely to work from home. At the same time Alex, the BLM riots and I don't think this gets enough attention, the economic ramifications of those riots, the BLM riots of 2020
56:32 It's spread like wildfire across the cities of this country. They turned many city centers in America into places of violence and that violence persists to this day, you know if you don't believe me walk around I used to live in Chicago for many years a lot of these very forces pushed me out of Chicago. around the Chicago loop, which is the downtown of Chicago right now on a weekday on a work day. And believe me it is still a ghost town number one people learn to work remotely. Number two It's not safe The only people you do see in downtown Chicago or downtown San Francisco are frankly sketchy characters So good hardworking citizens for valid reasons don't want to go there What does that mean? Empty office towers Office towers that are highly leveraged That were based
57:20 you on low interest rates. So commercial real estate, we're already starting to see really significant cracks in this sector and some of the folks out there might say wait a second Steve I don't live in the city and I'm not invested in commercial real estate well unfortunately you're exposed whether you think so or not number one you may be invested and not know it through your 401ks or other investment vehicles but number two it can have such widespread ramifications for the economy that's going to impact you just as in 08-09 maybe you were responsible with your mortgage But it didn't matter, you suffered the economic fallout because so many others were not. Similarly I think the situation sets up right now in commercial real estate but the point is Alex, whether it's commercial real estate or other sectors right now the Biden administration is accelerating what has been a decades long trend
58:09 of destroying the American economy, destroying the American dollar. Hollowing out the middle class of this country and things are getting worse at an accelerating pace in other words that the crash is intensifying right now corporate media is not going to tell you this certainly the Biden White House or the Fed aren't going to tell you this but if you pay close attention if you're willing to do your homework and study the actual economic metrics I think it's getting increasingly obvious and blunt I would argue right now, you know what's the first step toward fixing this? I would argue the first step is the Republicans in the House holding the line on the debt ceiling. That's not a silver bullet certainly doesn't solve every problem but it's at least a beginning of a step towards a trajectory back to reasonable inflation and reclaiming prosperity for regular Americans. I totally agree with you so here's um...I say a microcosm it's a huge issue but you have India