Episode 222: “What You Need to Know About Your Money and the Federal Reserve” with Cato’s Norbert Michel
Release Date: 04/12/2023
Episode 273: Investing in a Polarized America: Federalism and Entrepreneurship with Jim Pinkerton
The Bill Walton Show
In this lively episode of the Bill Walton Show, Bill talks with Jim Pinkerton in a thought-provoking discussion about investing in the turbulent waters of today's toxic political climate. With a focus on the stark Red-Blue divide in America, Jim offers a contrarian view that it’s fertile ground for what he terms "directional investing." Drawing from his upcoming book, "The Secret of Directional Investing: Making Money Amidst the Red-Blue Divide," Pinkerton—a veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and a long-time Fox News contributor—unpacks the intriguing...
info_outline
Episode 272:The Art of the Flail: Expert Takes on US National Security Blunders with Stephen Bryen and Brandon Weichert
The Bill Walton Show
This episode of The Bill Walton Show is a riveting discussion with two astute geopolitical analysts, Dr. Steven Bryen and Brandon Weichert. Together they dissect the exploding tensions in the Middle East, specifically the dramatic escalation by Iran’s air attack on Israel. And the big questions: How are global players like the US, Russia, and even China moving their chess pieces in this high-stakes game? The episode is a whirlwind tour through the strategies, fears, and potential flashpoints that will likely redraw the map of global power. Dr. Bryen, with over 50...
info_outline
Episode 271: Modern Dilemmas: Regulatory Capture, Global Governance, and the Surveillance State with Dr. Robert W. Malone
The Bill Walton Show
In this episode Bill Walton is joined by Dr. Robert Malone in a wide ranging and engaging discussion about modern societal and financial control mechanisms. Their great concern is the relentless and growing overreach of both governments and corporations into personal freedoms through the guise of security, safety and public health. Robert W. Malone is an internationally recognized scientist/physician and the original inventor of mRNA vaccination as a technology. He holds numerous fundamental domestic and foreign patents in the fields of gene delivery, delivery formulations, and vaccines:...
info_outline
Episode 270: Voices in the Supreme Court: Protecting Our Free Speech with Aaron Kheriaty and Jenin Younes
The Bill Walton Show
On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Murthy v. Missouri challenging whether the government can induce social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor constitutionally protected free speech. A sinister web of federal agencies, the White House, social media platforms, NGOs and others are orchestrating a vast system of censorship to suppress viewpoints that contradict “preferred government narratives”about COVID-19 policies, climate change, election integrity and other issues that should be open to free & fair debate. The Supreme...
info_outline
Episode 269: How the United States’ Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed Fueled China’s Rise with Jim Fanell and Brad Thayer
The Bill Walton Show
After achieving victory in the Cold War against the Soviet Union, US political leadership, starting with the Clinton Administration, has made a continuing string of strategic blunders that have brought the United States to the point where - after building China up for decades - we face an enemy determined to become the new global hegemon and that now possesses equal economic, military and diplomatic resources. To learn how this came about, in this episode Bill talks with James E. Fanell and Bradley A. Thayer, Ph.D, authors of Embracing Communist China: America’s Greatest...
info_outline
Episode 268: Conspiracy: Why FDR's White House Ignored a Chance to Change History with Chris Farrell and Shea Bradley-Farrell
The Bill Walton Show
“What if in 1943 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his White House advisors had acted on an offer from high-ranking German officials that they were prepared to kidnap Adolf Hitler and all of his top cronies. They would then turn Hitler over to the United States and sign an armistice ending the war with Germany. The German high officials wanted then to join with the United States to stop the Communist Soviet Union from advancing in Europe. They had a well-thought out plan as to which units they knew were loyal, what units they knew would actually move on the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's...
info_outline
Episode 267: CO2: The Miracle Molecules with Dr Will Happer and Greg Wrightstone
The Bill Walton Show
Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is portrayed as the worst villain in climate alarmism’s pantheon of satanic gases. The claim is that increasing levels of greenhouse gases are purportedly driving atmospheric warming to dangerous and unprecedented levels which is said to be leading to ever increasing natural disasters, severe weather events and human health concerns. But what if these claims are wrong, catastrophically wrong. What if, rather than being at unprecedented high levels, CO2 is at one of its lowest concentrations in the long history of the Earth and that the modest warming anticipated from...
info_outline
Episode 266: It’s Time to Leave the WHO with Reggie Littlejohn and Meryl Nass
The Bill Walton Show
At a meeting of the World Health Assembly at the end of May, less than three months from now, the World Health Organization (WHO) will be voting to amend its International Health Regulations agreement and to create a brand new Pandemic Agreement. Until now the World Health Organization has been largely an advisory organization. If voted in, these changes would make its edicts compulsory. The proposed amendments replace the word “may” with “shall” over 100 times and the word “non-binding” has been deleted to make the recommendations of the WHO binding. The agreements authorize...
info_outline
Episode 265: Ukraine: Has the US Lost Yet Another Proxy War? with Stephen Bryen
The Bill Walton Show
While Americans have become preoccupied with other things - the election, the border, the economy - events in Ukraine are spinning out of control. People have been talking hopefully about a ceasefire and a truce. Instead, with a couple of more blunders we could be heading for a World War III. To learn where this might be headed next, I’m back talking in this episode with my go to guru on all things national security Stephen Bryen - Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy Some takeaways from our conversation: The head of NATO Jen Soltenberg’s reckless statements and...
info_outline
Episode 263: Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness with Carrie Sheffield
The Bill Walton Show
In this episode Bill follows up from his last conversation with Carrie Sheffield to talk about her extraordinary memoir, which is being published this week: Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness. As you’ll learn, the book is much more than her riveting and heartwrenching personal story. It is a beacon, reminding us that even the direst circumstances need not dictate the outcome of our lives. Carrie Sheffield grew up fifth of eight children with a violent, mentally ill, street-musician father who believed he was a modern-day Mormon prophet destined to become U.S....
info_outlineIs the Federal Reserve a godlike Zeus able to control our money and the economy, preserve financial stability and keep a lid on inflation?
Or is it like the Wizard of Oz? A little man behind the curtain pulling levers to create smoke and noise to terrify and control people, but in the end only one market participant among many worldwide.
If you’re a bond trader in New York, trying to predict minute day to day changes in interest rates, it’s more like Zeus. For the rest of us, I believe, it’s like Oz.
Trying to figure out the Fed is a complicated business and I'm delighted to be joined again on this episode by one of my favorite guests and good friend Norbert Michel, who's vice president and director of Cato Institute's Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives.
“The Fed does set an interest rate target,” says Norbert, “and they do administratively set a policy rate that they pay on reserves. But the idea that the Fed is sitting down in a basement and turning some dials and cranking up unemployment or cranking down inflation or cranking up GDP, it's just not true.”
In this episode we delve into this, and a lot of other news in the headlines about our money. Like whether the United States dollar is likely to lose its status as the world’s reserve currency.
The United States enjoys an enormous gift which is also a curse: with the world’s reserve currency, it can run massive federal budget and trade deficits as long as other countries want to hold dollars. That’s not likely to change in the near future.
“The US economy is still about a quarter of the global economy. And then almost another quarter of the global economy is China. Well, who on Earth wants to hold Chinese currency when it’s controlled by the Chinese Communist Party? And so you're really left with no place else to go.”
Norbert is also one of true experts in the very real threat to our liberty that the Biden Administration (along with many other governments worldwide) is cooking up: a central bank digital currency.
“Our paper dollars today are technically liabilities of the Federal Reserve; but with a CBDC, your checking account is with the Fed, giving it potential control of every transaction.”
“On Cato’s website we have direct quotes from international government officials talking about how great it is going to be to control what everybody does with their money. So this is real. This is coming.”
Given how complicated all this stuff is, Norbert and I try to keep the conversation from getting too dense. Listen in. These are important matters that do concern you and your money.