Erik Bethel

Look, I'm trying not to catastrophize this too much, but it's not unreasonable for them to push countries in their orbit to use the Chinese renminbi as opposed to the dollar.

as the currency of trade in Asia.

Assuming that happens, you have to ask yourself, what happens to the dollar?

Does it cause inflation back here?

If it does, and the Fed's job, among other things, is to counter inflation, what does the Fed do?

It has to jack up interest rates.

So imagine a world, again, look, I may be going out on a limb here, but imagine a world in which your mortgage rate spikes to double or triple what it is today.

Or if you're going to finance your car, how much does it cost?

So there's a reason.

Economics does play into all of this.

Currencies play a role.

Treasuries play a role.

I think unchecked spending as a US government plays a role in this.

And I think it's very foolish.

Yep.

It's bad.

And one could make the argument that when you have massive youth unemployment, an insane amount of real estate defaults, and debt to GDP levels that are really bad and unsustainable,

What does one do to deflect from domestic problems?

You know, you point to the West, you point to Taiwan, and I think this is a time of maximum peril.

10 years from now, I'm not as concerned, but the next couple of years, I think are pretty bad.