Dr. Mark Skousen on FreedomFest 2022 "Turning the Tide"

Dr. Mark Skousen: Gerardo, I'm doing really well, and glad to be on your program.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Well, that's fine. And in fact, FreedomFest, we picked the theme last year and it seems to be really appropriate for 2022. And it's called Changing the Tide or The Tide Is Changing. And that is really what I think has been happening in the market where we saw the end, apparently the end of the mother of all bull markets, and the beginning of a new commodity bull market, particularly oil, not gold as much.

I mean, gold is flat this year, and the gold mining stocks are down like most other stocks, tech stocks, and so forth. But you're definitely seeing a turning of the tide it in the markets, as well as in politically, I would say the same thing. I think 2022 is turning out, it will turn out to be a major shift away from the radical Democrats, who have been in charge now for a couple of years, to a more sanguine approach by the conservative Republicans.

And we're seeing this particularly in the state level where the Republican run states are doing so much better than the states run by the Democrats. And that's a significant change. So I give, I actually think that could provide some optimism about inflation and government policy in general.

I think we see the markets looking forward as they always do. And we're seeing a bit of a recovery in the stock market. I don't know how long that's going to last, that's always a good question. And, especially, it's all going to be tied to the inflation that we're suffering from.

And it's not, I mean, certainly the war in the Ukraine, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has disrupted supply chains on top of everything else that the lockdown created. So a lot of this is engineered by major mistakes by the Federal Reserve, by the Biden administration, by Putin, and so forth. So I think this inflation is still going to be flaring up and is still going to be a problem that really is going to challenge Wall Street in our own portfolio.

I'm reminded of Dick Russell's, the late Dick Russell, the Dow Theory Letters, who said in a bear market the winner is he who loses the least. And we can all find ways to make money in the bear market, but it still is a struggle to overall be successful in our portfolio.

Dr. Mark Skousen: So when the Federal Reserve pumped 45% new money into the system over the last three years, and you have on top of that these growing deficits that started, it goes all the way back to Bush in year 2000. I mean, at that point we were running surpluses, but it's been deficit spending ever since. So you put those two together and inflation is coming roaring back. And commodities have always been the place to be during a heightened inflation.

But you have to be careful on what commodities you select, because copper's been really strong, aluminum, lumber prices, basic commodities that are used in construction and so forth. In transportation, oil and gas have both been in a super bowl market since March of 2022, when they collapsed. It's just been upward ever since.

But gold and the mining companies have really struggled. And so you have to be alert to that. I just got back from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference and they had all these penny stock companies trying to raise money. And the mining business is a tough business, as you know. We all have had a lot of experience in that. The profit margins are thin. Unless you really discover the mother load, it's not a very profitable venture. Plus they're always raising money and diluting the stock.

As opposed to buybacks, which is being… the tech companies are all engaged in buybacks rather than issuing new stock. Although executives do, when they get new stock, that is a dilution, so you have to watch that as well.

So, overall, I'm bullish on commodities. And we're talking about that at FreedomFest. We have Jim Rogers coming, for example, and Doug Casey, of course, who's very familiar with these markets, and Jeff Phillips and Van Simmons. I mean, we have a lot of people that I'm sure your audience is familiar with. And these people are going to give us... Adrian Day, I just mentioned, he's another one that will be there.

It's going to be quite a conference, where we can talk about commodities as well as the more traditional areas. Because I think, you have to remember, we're still under the Trump tax cuts, which is one of the benefits of the Trump era. And technology is still booming. There's still new technologies is being developed. We're going to have a big debate on Bitcoin and the future of cryptocurrencies as well.

So like the stock market, it's a market of stocks, not the stock market itself, that matter. So we have to, we have to look at each individual sector and determine what's the best strategy.

Dr. Mark Skousen: Yeah, in fact we have almost 300 speakers. I mean, it's just incredible. And our headliners are, of course, two of the top libertarian senators, Senator Rand Paul and Senator Mike Lee will be there. We have as our keynote speaker, John Cleese, the famous British comedian, who is really very critical of cancel theory, cancel me, the cancel culture that's going on.

We have Glenn Beck coming. We have Betsy Devos, we have Steve Moore, John Fund. The lineup is just incredible. If people go to freedomefest.com, they can see the whole lineup. In the next day or two, we're going to be posting our entire session. We have like 250 breakout sessions as well as general sessions. We do have a full three day investment conference that we're going to have with Alec Green and Jim Rogers and all the other people that I mentioned as well, Jim Woods. And so that'll be something that'll be worthwhile.

We have over 2,000 people coming out, so it's really an incredible, the buzz, when you walk in the exhibit hall. And the Anthem Film Festival that we do, the libertarian film festival, the investment conference.

The debates, we have some incredible debates. We're going to have a big debate on Trump. Should he run in 2024? We have Wayne Allyn Root against Justin Amash on that issue. Was the election stolen, we're going to cover that in our debates as well. So we really have a whole group of, it's really an intellectual feast of philosophy and history and science and technology. And it's all in the entertainment capital of the world, in Las Vegas.

So the dates are July 13th through the 16th, so it's just a month away. And we're filling up very quickly in terms of our hotel room block and so forth. If people use the code Eagle, just Eagle, E-A-G-L-E, Eagle, they can get $50 off the registration fee. And we'd love to have as many people there as you can. And it's just a great opportunity to mingle and meet people of like minds who are concerned citizens about what's happening in this country, and it's not all good.

Dr. Mark Skousen: That's correct. This is the first time we're at the Mirage, but they have really one of the finest convention centers there. You just drop right down from your hotel room and you're right there at the convention center. You don't have to walk a mile like you have with Caesar’s Palace and some of these other places.

Dr. Mark Skousen: That'll do it. Thank you.

Dr. Mark Skousen: All right, bye bye.