Transcript

Hamilton: God has called us to be ambassadors even in this dark moment

>> Abraham Hamilton III: Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite, delivering people.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: Out of the bondage of mainstream media and the philosophies of this world.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: God has called you and me to be his ambassadors even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: And now the Hamilton Corner.

Alex McFarland: The Bible has a lot to say about finances

>> Alex McFarland: Good evening, welcome to the hamilton corner. Alex McFarland here. Very honored to be sitting in for attorney pastor journalist Abe Hamilton iii. Abe is out today and as is frequently the case, I get to sit in in his stead and I'm very honored that you're listening folks. We have a great show because among other things we're going to talk about money and that's something that impacts all of our lives. You know the Bible has a lot to say about economics and finances and stewardship. I think about Proverbs 22 verse 7 that says the rich rules over the poor. And here, here is a Bible verse that is just axiomatic. It's become part of our vocabulary. And the borrower is servant to the lender. Proverbs 22, 7. And you know, I don't know that much about economics. I know you've got a take in more than you put out. You need to live within your means. What a novel idea. You know, my wife and I and our family, we try to live within our means. I, very often I wish that our government would know how to do that. but I well remember back in 2008, I was a president of a small college and we had a number of donors to the college and there were people in real estate and people in banking. And I remember what a panic it was in 2008 and in fact in my home state of North Carolina, a hundred year old bank went out of business. I mean it was actually the blue chip bank in North Carolina that you know, was highly, highly respected but for a lot of I would say irresponsible lending, they ended up going out of business. And I'll say this, and then I want you to meet our guest. I read about a $36 trillion deficit and again I'm not primarily ah, an economics guy, but listen, I know the billions of dollars of interest that's accruing on our national debt daily. I mean that is something we should be concerned about. And I think the time to prepare and to be informed and to be Ready, rough waters that may lie ahead. The time to think about that, be wise about it, frankly, pray about it. The time is now.

Todd Sheets writes about government, current events and the economy

Well, to help us weigh in and learn about these and some other issues, I'm very honored to have Todd Sheets. His website, one of several that I think will reference todsheetswriter.com w r I T E R Todd Sheets. He's got a background in economic accounting and is just a voice that many people trust and look to. He's a prolific author and a, public figure when it comes to online information about government, current events and the economy. And he's with us now. Todd, thanks for making time to be with us on the Hamilton Corner today.

>> Todd Sheets: Thanks so much for having me. I'm delighted to be with you and your audience today.

>> Alex McFarland: Well, you know, I always love to hear people's story and then there are a lot of current events that I want to get into. But give us a little bit about your background and how you came to do what you do.

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, I'll try and keep this short. If I ramble on for too long, please cut me off. We don't want to put anybody to sleep out there. yeah, no. I grew up in Iowa. You know, what I call kind of a lower middle class family. My dad was a high school football coach. so my whole life was kind of built around athletics and that type of thing. once I figured out that I wasn't going to be either a pro football quarterback or an NBA player, I realized I had to go down a different path and got very focused on academics. Came out with a cpa, went to work in the accounting industry for a few years and then went into investment banking. Was very fortunate to end up at a firm, here in Florida, called Raymond James, which was a fantastic place to work, run by incredibly bright, motivated and honorable people. I, had a very good, successful career that I was very thankful and appreciative for. Had the chance to retire fairly early and then I thought I wanted to go out and start a business which had kind of been a lifelong dream. And I kind of went down that path for a while and. But then after a year or so I kind of realized that there were some other forces pulling on me, which I think happens to many people from many different perspectives. It might be spiritual, it might be career oriented or whatever. And it took a while to figure out what those were. But I really came, to understand that I wanted to devote a great deal of time to researching, our economic history and developing a better understanding of how we got to the point we were at. And this was in the midst of the financial crisis. By that point in time, what really was the best system, what created the best ability for people to be able to work hard and lift themselves up into a better life for themselves and their families, which I think is a goal that almost everybody out there shares. and I also became very interested in. I'd always had a lifelong interest in writing and then also started to, get involved with, music for the first time as well. So that's kind of taken me down the path that I've been on. It led to the book that you mentioned. I appreciate your bringing that up. And then also to starting to write these pieces, on, substack, in order to try and, you, know, add some current events related commentary on a much broader range of issues that are not just economic and historical, but also current events, political, geopolitical, and all of these other areas as well.

>> Alex McFarland: You know, I think our upbringing is probably somewhat similar. I grew up on a farm in North Carolina. My mother was a public school teacher for all of her adult life. And my dad had been, with. Well, originally my dad was with ralston Purina in St. Louis. But ultimately, my grandfather, my dad, and then me. Up until young adulthood we ran a family farm. But it was just drilled into me. Maybe it was my grandparents, depression era, you know, life, and then my mom and dad. But, don't borrow money. Live within your means. You know, if you don't have the money, you know, don't do it. And so the idea of even like credit cards, because credit cards are like ubiquitous now. And Todd, we do a lot of summer camps and it amazes me, like, you know, 15 and 16 year olds that brandish two and three credit cards. And I don't know, it just kind of, it makes me kind of cringe because I just grew up in a culture that was so averse to borrowing money.

You mentioned $36 trillion of debt in one of your recent pieces

And I'm getting towards a question here. I guess you, with your background and now really being an expert voice on economics and money, how concerned are you that it's just assumed that you spend what you don't have? It's just the American culture, you live on credit and you, you borrow and you spend and just indebtedness is a part of life. How concerning, is that to you?

>> Todd Sheets: Well, I think it's a very Big concern. I mean, I think you and I were both very lucky to grow up in that kind of environment that you mentioned. and I think your references are exactly right. I've made reference to the same thing in, in the book that you mentioned. You know, that as time gone has gone on and borrowing has increased so much, it's something that would have made. The phrase I used was our Depression era. Ah, grandparents roll over in their graves. I mean, anybody who has lived through an experience of that magnitude, you know, where the things that you take for granted every day, waking up and having a job to go to an income that you can depend on, being able to feed your family, being able to go to a bank and withdraw the money that you have in the bank, and all of a sudden the rug gets pulled out from under you. And that instills a level of discipline and concern about the future and the ability to put off things till you can afford them tomorrow that you don't have to buy today. You know, that I think is very valuable. And one of the amazing things about the Depression is that was basically the mindset that not just existed throughout the country, you know, you know, out in the, you know, outside of Washington D.C. and with the people up until the Depression. It also existed in Washington D.C. up until the 1930s. If you go back to the 1800s and the first 30 years before we got into the depression of the 1900s, what you find is government spending was around 3 to 4% of what's called gross domestic product, which is basically the overall economic output of the country. Today it's over 20%. And we consistently ran either balanced budgets or budget surpluses. And so we get to this point where the depression happens and all of a sudden the people in real America learn these very vital lessons the hardest way possible. But then government starts going in the other direction where it starts to believe that actually running deficits can be a good thing and incurring debts can be a good thing. And that's led us down this very long pat of decades. That has brought us to the point. Now, you mentioned $36 trillion of debt in one of the substack pieces, that I wrote recently. That is similar to, it's not quite as bad. So I don't want to try and to scare people, but it's similar to having $120,000 mortgage on $100,000 home, because that $36 trillion GDP is 120% of our economic output, our GDP. And so we have very clearly over the decades here worked our way into a, somewhat dangerous position. And I think the deficit and the debt are two of the three big crises that we have to deal with in order to reinvigorate this economy so it can provide the kind of upward mobility that became the heart of the American dream that has driven us for generations, going all the way back to the beginning of the country.

Todd Sheets: China is now second to us in terms of GDP

>> Alex McFarland: Todd, the gdp, is that, and forgive my ignorance here, is that net or gross? I mean, tell us about the GDP, and what will it be? Calendar year 2025?

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, they're estimating right now it's right in the 29 to $30 trillion range.

>> Alex McFarland: Okay.

>> Todd Sheets: So the good news about that is we are far and away the largest economic power in the world. China is now second to us. Theirs is around 19 trillion. But, but they've got to, provide for a population that is almost four times the size of ours on a GDP that's even smaller as of yesterday.

>> Alex McFarland: It's funny, as of yesterday, China's population is like 1.42 billion.

>> Todd Sheets: Yes. And we're in the, like, 330 million range or so, so.

>> Alex McFarland: Right.

>> Todd Sheets: So GDP is maybe 2/3 of ours, but their population base is pushing four times the size of ours. So even though on a simple basis, they are becoming more of a competitor, and unfortunately, we are seeing that in their actions around the globe. But in terms of really being able to provide for the citizenry and that type of thing, they're nowhere near. We are. They're experiencing significant problems right now, and we're still the major power. But now you drop down from China and you get down to countries like Germany, Japan and others that maybe have like $5 trillion of GDP. So we're still like six times the next tier that you get down to. So we're the dominant economic power by far. We have by far the greatest economic potential of any country in the world. It's still sitting there, but it is also being constrained by a series of misguided government policies that have been implemented over the last 30 years or so that have led to these very high levels of debt and these deficits, which are critical issues for us to address.

>> Alex McFarland: Todd, let me, come in here. We've got a break, folks. This is potentially one of the most significant shows you're going to hear in many a day. Todd Sheets is our guest, Alex McFarland here. We're talking about the economy and the money that we all are going to need and how we can be a good steward of it. Stay tuned. A brief break.

One Million Moms has received complaints about an Arm and Hammer laundry commercial

And the Hamilton Corner is back.

>> Speaker E: One Million Moms has received complaints about an Arm and Hammer laundry commercial where Meghan Trainor deliberately insinuates profanity instead of a wholesome commercial Arm and Hammer deliberately chose to produce something controversial. One Million Moms finds this highly inappropriate. ARM and Hammer should have the corporate responsibility not to offend families. ARM and Hammer needs to know that parents disapprove. Take action at 1millionmoms.com. That's 1millionmoms.com.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: Shining light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.

>> Alex McFarland: Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland with you and our very special guest, Todd Sheets. I'm learning a lot from him, and I'm sure you can, too. Todd Sheets. Todd.substack.com you'll find some of the content that he's written and then also the website todd sheetswriter.com both of those I highly recommend. Todd, first of all, thank you for your time, and welcome back to the program.

Todd: America remains the land of opportunity, right? Absolutely. Before the break, we were talking about the GDP

Before the break, we were talking about the GDP and, that the American GDP is annually 29 to 30 trillion, which is, well, more than China. you know, it is uncanny how this country has the earning potential it does. I mean, really. And I was encouraged to hear you say that that's not gone away. That still is there. as they say, America is the land of opportunity. And you would maintain that it still is the land of opportunity, right?

>> Todd Sheets: Absolutely. I wrote in one of the pieces here recently, m. You think about people who are in disadvantaged circumstances, repressive regimes throughout the world, and they go to night, go to bed at night dreaming of waking up in a better place where they can maybe work hard to build a better life for themselves and their family. They don't dream about waking up in communist China, where there are limitations, there are social repressions, there are religious repressions, there are restraints on freedom and economic upward mobility. Everybody that I know of still dreams of waking up in America. And there's a good reason for that. And it's the reason that you just mentioned. And even though we have significant issues that we have to resolve, you know, in many ways, because of what's happened to many other areas around the world, we have never been better positioned than we are right now to lead the next wave of growth and upward mobility and an opportunity for raising the living standards of not just ourselves, but also people around the world. And that's. That's one of the great lessons of history in capitalism that just hasn't been taught enough, you know, for hundreds of years. Thousands really. You know, going back to the reference that you made earlier about the biblical reference of the rich suppressing the poor. That was what happened throughout history until capitalism came along. And all of a sudden you had this system where the pie itself was growing. And this, I won't get into all the details but this shows up in the GDP growth rates throughout history. Countries were basically stagnant until around the 1800s when this started to happen. And so you had a very small number of entrenched wealthy people and royalty and political classes who were very well off and everybody else worked for them with no upward mobility. And then all of that started to change in the 1800s and the dynamics that existed then are with us today. And given our leadership in technology and many other of the most important industries in the world, we are as well positioned as we have ever been to continue leading the world forward and lifting up the world around us as we do that.

>> Alex McFarland: And you know, Todd, I've spoken and debated at quite a number of American universities and even like at ah, Christian colleges, students and faculty will come to the microphone and just berate capitalism. Oh, evil corporations that make a profit. Alex, how could you as a Christian thinker support capitalism? And I'm thinking, look, well for one thing this world is pregnant with life and opportunity and increased. and the anti capitalist Todd generally have this finite pie mentality it seems like, and I've had PhDs debate me on this, but they're like if you had a meal tonight, conversely, on the other side of the world, somebody else went hungry. And that's just not how it is, is it? I mean there's not this finite pie that if someone is fed of necessity somebody else went hungry. That's just not reality, is it?

>> Todd Sheets: No, it's not. And it was until roughly the 1800s, maybe starting a little bit before then. But then as capitalistic ideas were introduced first in Europe and then spread and introduced even more deeply in America, what we started to see was a, vast upward mobility that raised living standards, raised quality of life. You know, we talk about things like child labor, you know, we didn't end. And you talked about coming from a farm family like my mom did, and you know she had eight brothers and sisters. Part of the reason they had nine children was they wanted all those kids working out in the fields. Right?

>> Alex McFarland: Exactly.

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah. And so the ability to move away from that, you know, came as we became more of an industrial society. And efficiency, the efficiencies that came with, that enabled us to do more with less. And so all of a sudden we could end child labor. We could get to, we could go from people working seven days a week to working six and then five. We could go from 12 or 10 hour days to eight hour days and things like, you know, the ability, having weekends off, the ability to take family vacations, spend more time with each other, you know, all of these things developed out of that. And you know, unfortunately, you know, I think many people, you know, that, you know, probably the ones that have debated you at the microphone, they've adopted this idea that we kind of need this group of political elites to figure out how to carve up the pie in order to make a better outcome instead of letting all of this work from the ground up, which is the way that, you know, that, that capitalism works. And in many ways it's, it's very much like what happened with Christianity. So, you know, that's not my area of expertise, but I've often talked with friends. It's like, you know, in my limited understanding of this, you know, this was one of many belief systems and theologies that existed around the time that Christ started to become influential. And it didn't become this massive worldwide movement because there were some leaders that were forcing it onto people. It came because people, you know, could see how much better it was making their lives. And so they adopted it for themselves and it was like this natural organic growth. And that's very like what happened economically in the capitalist sphere here.

>> Alex McFarland: Exactly. You know, there's a, twice Pulitzer nominated sociologist named Dr. Rodney Stark, he was a brilliant guy, recently passed away, but he said that, you know, Christianity overtook the Roman Empire, among other things. I mean, you know, Christ had risen and the gospel was spreading. But Dr. Stark, he said it's just a better way to live. And employers realize that Christians give a full day's work. Christians don't steal from their employer. Christians are generally true to their wife and family. Christians come with this moral code. And Christianity, like you say, from the ground up, it took the world over, for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which though was it was, it was just a better way to live.

Capitalism and economic prosperity drove philanthropic growth in America

but I want to talk about, and this is so good, because I think it's helpful for people that perhaps have not really heard about some of the economic success and I would say economic greatness of America. Adam Smith, wealth of Nations. I think it was Adam Smith that talked about this invisible hand that people, come up and, prosperity breeds prosperity and the economy grows and the lives of people are bettered. And then there's with wealth, the opportunity for benevolence and charitable giving. And this has been part of our DNA, really. We have been able to feed the nations and help the downtrodden. And capitalism and economic prosperity drove that, didn't it?

>> Todd Sheets: Absolutely. And I think there's another very important point that comes out of that is, you know, again, kind of beginning with the depression and the mistaken, impression of what caused that that came out of it, we started going down this path that, you know, government had to take on a lot of these responsibilities. But if you go back to the late 1800s, the early 1900s, when industrialization was really kicking in, wealth was developing, upward mobility was occurring, we, allowed more immigrants to come to this country as a percentage of the population base than has ever happened before or since here or anywhere else in the world. We went from like 5 million people in 1800 to around 100 million people in the early 1900s. And there was somewhere around 30 million immigrants that came to the country in that time. So think about that 30% of the population base and the economy was growing so fast that they were absorbed in without any problems of unemployment, without any resentment from the people that lived here. And so this was an amazing period. Government was not playing a big role. And as these immigrants came, they set up communities of, you know, providing support for the others that were coming. And so this was coming naturally through the churches or in the Jewish community, through the synagogues.

>> Todd Sheets: You know, and people were, you know, if you're not getting a lot of your income taxed away, which wasn't happening back then, there was no income tax until the early 1900s. You know, it's very easy to go to church and say, look, you know, I see people around me who aren't as fortunate as I am. They're not as well off. I want to help them out. And so, you know, charitable donations through the private sector, typically funded through religious organizations like the churches or the synagogues, became a primary way of helping new immigrants come to the country and, and, and, and become absorbed, learn the language, become a part of the workforce and start contributing. And then they make donations. And then, like you said, this, you know, we have this organic growth happening where the pie is expanding. And it's not just the economic pie, it's also the philanthropic pie that's growing alongside. So yeah, there's, there's all these benefits that, you know, as you said, unfortunately, you know, the people in academia have turned away from. They became enamored with these ideas of communism or government interventions, things that are designed by other academics that are supposed to solve all these problems. and they just have not worked out nearly as well as what we had going before we went down that path.

Rob West: Todd Sheets discusses the Great Depression on American Family Radio

>> Alex McFarland: this question might seem a little simplistic, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Todd, what happened in the Great Depression? Help us understand how that happened and what was the Great Depression?

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, so there's a couple important points to understand, and if I talk too long on any one of these, just interrupt me and redirect. But the first thing to understand is we truly had a limited government model from the time of our foundation, going back to the 1800s, really, starting with Thomas Jefferson, who was a big believer in limited government. And it lasted all the way up until the depression of the 1930s. The depression then was the greatest economic collapse we had experienced to that point in time. The economy started to collapse. Unemployment, which had never been a problem before, shot up, up into the 20 to 25% range. Think about that. Almost a quarter of the people in the country were out of work. There were massive banking failures and panics that occurred. People went to the banks and they couldn't get their money out. So the economy starts to shut down. And it lasted much longer than any other downturn. It lasted for over roughly about 10 years. So unfortunately, the message that was taken away from this was that this was, a result of private market failure. And a lot of this thinking came out of, the Roosevelt administration and the so called brain trust that they brought in to enact or create all these big government programs to try and turn things around, most of which failed, which is evidenced by how long it took for recovery to actually occur. Roosevelt came into office in the early 30s, and we didn't come out of the depression until 1939, 1940. but because things kept cycling down, they went a different direction. And this thinking developed that you could start the Depression, with the great stock market crash of 1929, which was a symbol of private market failure that evidenced need for government to play a much bigger role in the economy.

>> Alex McFarland: Forgive me, why did the stock market crash there in 29?

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, so you never know. Exactly. But what we do know, and this is from people on both the left and the right. The stock market crash played almost no role in causing the Great Depression. Economic production had actually, had actually turned down in the summer before the crash. It was more of a symptom of underlying problems that were starting to emerge than it was a cause of anything. There were two big causes of the Depression. Another thing that's not well understood is that this was not just a domestic event, which is the way most of us learn about it and study about it in school. It was also an international event. The international cause of the Depression actually dates back to World War I. And what happened in World War I is all of a sudden the major economies of Europe, who had been growing for the first time in history over the previous century, they make this extraordinary mistake of being pulled into what some people have called the war over nothing that costs them everything, which is a great distinct genoven. And they start this is going to go right back to what we were talking about earlier. They go from having balanced budgets and reasonable debts to having extreme budget deficits to finance the war and massive borrowings.

>> Alex McFarland: Hey, forgive me. Forgive me. We've got to take a break. we're talking with Todd Sheets. Riveting information, folks. Stay tuned. We're going to come back more after.

>> Rob West: This is our theology of money Upside down. Our vision is that all Christians would see God as their ultimate treasure. You know, it's a game changer of an idea. And we start with this idea that God owns everything and we are his household managers of what he has entrusted to us. So we own nothing, but we have stewardship responsibilities.

>> Alex McFarland: Faith and Finance with Rob west, weekdays at 9:00am Central or on the AFR app.

>> Abraham Hamilton III: The Hamilton Corner podcast and one minute commentaries are available@afr.net back to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.

Alex McFarland wants you to know about his summer speaker series and camps

>> Alex McFarland: Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. We're going to resume our conversation with Todd Sheets, but I want to make you aware of our summer speaker series and our summer camps. just humor. Ah, me for a moment. A little bit of shameless self promotion. But My website is alexmcfarland.com Let me refer you to alexmcfarlane.com Conversations. We've got a summer speaker series. We just had Dinesh d' Souza in great voice of political science and Trump's first few months in office. But we've got another, session coming up. Dr. Gary Chapman. Gary Chapman famously wrote a book called the Five Love Languages. Sold 20 million copies. And he is America's relationship doctor. And he's going to be with us in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on June 15th. And I would invite you to come to that then. We've got Charlie Kirk later on this summer, Lauren Green of Fox News, if you would check out alexmcfarland.com conversations One other thing I would ask you to pray about is our summer youth camps. We've done these for 25 years, and we've got camps in seven states, beautiful places like Montana, upstate New Jersey, and the Hudson River Valley. And so, tell your friends about the summer camps that we're doing. And we're teaching kids not only about the gospel and about Christianity, but we teach about America. We teach kids about American exceptionalism, why this country is great. And we try our best to inspire young people to love God and country and to be patriotic and to get a vision, for what their future can be. You know, I don't have a lot of patience for pessimism and doom and gloom. And so many young people, I wish you could see their faces. And as we tell them that, look, you were born for a purpose, and life is worth being excited about. And you've got skills and gifts that you can develop and not only be a blessing, but be blessed. And so keep us in prayer. my speaking tour. I'm always on the road somewhere, every weekend. It's all@alexmcfarland.com well, our guest in this hour is Todd Sheets.

You were before the break talking about the causes of the Great Depression

And, first of all, Mr. Sheets, I want to thank you. I'm learning a lot. I'm taking notes. You were before the break talking about the causes of the Great Depression. And, I welcome you to resume that. but for a moment, let's talk about the gold standard. And, I've heard it said that, like, for, example, somebody might say, well, in the last 12 years, our house doubled in value because we paid 250. And if I sold it today, it would be 500,000. And I've heard somebody say that, no, your house didn't really double in value. The dollar's ability diminished by 50%. The buying power of the dollar went down.

The most critical factor is the confidence in the dollar or the currency

so let's talk about, if you don't mind, the gold standard. was that a good thing? And why, when the government just prints money, just puts ink on paper, that doesn't really increase the, the strength of the US Dollar, does it?

>> Todd Sheets: No. Again, this is another great question. I mean, that period that we were talking about, the 1800s, early 1900s, we were on a gold standard throughout that. And if I can introduce just a little bit of additional history, which comes back to the importance of these deficits and debts that we started the program talking about, if we go back Europe throughout the Middle Ages and up into, you know, towards this 1800s, 1900s period went through these recurring cycles of wars. And as countries would go to war, they would run up big deficits which would cause them to print too much money and borrow too much money. And it caused people to lose confidence in their currencies, which is exactly kind of the issue that you're addressing here. And so Great Britain realizing that this can't keep going on, or if it does, they're going to lose the ability to borrow, they actually started to create a, ah, gold standard back in the late 1700s. And actually a little, one more little tidbit here. Sir Isaac Newton played a role in this. He became the master of the mint and basically implemented policies that made gold the hard standard of the British, pound at that point in time. So the gold standard, it was incredibly effective throughout, this hundred plus year period of time in limiting government spending and limiting government indebtedness until we get to World War I when spending breaks out again, deficits go crazy. They borrow too much money. And that's one of the big factors that led us into the Depression. So post Depression we come out, we go on kind of a modified gold standard. And then in the 1970s what happens is, and it's the same old story again and again, the same risks. you know, there's a phrase out there, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. You know, we keep seeing these same kind of things happening again. In the 70s, what was happening was when Lyndon Johnson became president, in the early 1960s after JFK died or was assassinated, he embarked on two major spending programs. One was the escalation of the Vietnam War. And one was what he called the Great Society programs, which were supposed to end poverty. Those programs started creating big budget deficits. The Federal Reserve, as it always does, started printing money to fund those deficits. And as they started printing more and more money, it basically was getting to the point where people around the world were realizing, you know, we weren't going to be able to honor our obligation to exchange dollar bills for gold because we were, you know, we were printing too many dollars relative to our gold holdings. And so that's when Nixus took it. Nixon took us off the gold standard at that point in time. And since then we've basically been on, a currency that is only supported by trust and faith in the fact that the government won't abuse its ability to print unlimited number of dollars.

>> Alex McFarland: isn't it true that a piece of money, in and of itself is not really valuable, but it represents something that guarantees the value. Like the gold, is the actual tangible asset. And the dollar in circulation represents that tangible asset. Is that a fair way to say it?

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, very much so. And I would expand on it just a teeny bit. The most critical factor is the confidence in the dollar or the currency. So if you and I both have confidence in it, even if it's not backed up by gold, it can be a worthwhile medium of exchange, you know, that we can. I can get dollars for doing something that I do, for writing a book, and I can turn around and donate to a ministry that then uses those dollars to go out and do good within the, you know, within the church and that type of thing. So as long as that confidence is there, the dollar or any currency can serve its purpose as a common medium of exchange. The critical element of the gold standard was in helping to maintain that confidence and ensure that government couldn't do the kinds of things that it has repeatedly done throughout history, which is to print too many dollars and to destroy the value of the dollar to the point where it destroys that confidence. That makes the currency, an effective medium of exchange, which makes everything much easier to do. If you don't have that, you think about how awkward things are then. Now we're talking about going back in time to where I'm a shirt maker and I have to give you a shirt and you put, hooves on horses and I have to hope that you want my shirts so that you'll reshod my horse and that kind of thing. That's an incredibly inefficient system. You know, currency based thing. Everything becomes much more efficient because I can give you something that's of value to you, even though you may not care at all about what I did to earn that dollar in the first place, as long as it was legal and legitimate. Yeah.

Todd Sheets: Can you prognosticate what the economy will look like

>> Alex McFarland: So, listen, I've got to ask you this because, you know, I'm glad Trump won. I voted for Trump. I've, I'm a big Trump supporter. but the midterms are coming and, you know, I know there are some in this country that have a vested interest in the economy doing poorly because they, they don't want Trump to succeed or conservatives to win in the midterms, based on where we are. Can you prognosticate, Todd Sheets, what will the economy look like by the midterm elections and by the end of Trump's term?

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah. So I would say that, you know, I think I don't agree with everything that we're doing, but by and large, I agree with you. I think the Trump administration has taken on a broad range of critical issues that need to be addressed, many or most of which fall into the economic sphere. And I think we are headed in a much better direction than we were headed in before. And my expectation is, is that, that these initiatives will pay off and that, you know, in four years, we will be in a substantially better place than we would have been before. Predicting what happens in the midterm elections. You know, that's, you know, not that far out. That's a much tougher call because it often takes time before these things start to kick in. But I would be reasonably optimistic about things here. I think, overall, they're headed in the right direction. Most of the. Most on most of these, items, they've, got a good plan, and we've got a really, talented and brilliant group of people who are working with him to lead these, initiatives.

>> Alex McFarland: are the tariffs going to bring substantial revenue to the US Government? And if so, what do you speculate will be done with those revenues?

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, so, I think they will bring some revenue. I mean, our deficit is in the neighborhood of $2 trillion. so the first big thing is to cut that in half, which should be an achievable objective. Get it down to about a trillion. Hopefully, DOGE can contribute something at least in the 3 to $500 million range to that remaining trillion. And then potentially, tariffs can contribute another chunk that maybe is similar to what DOGE is doing to help deal with those issues. So, yeah, I think there's a possibility that they'll make, or a likelihood that they'll make a meaningful contribution on the deficit side of the equation.

>> Alex McFarland: Why do you think we don't have a balanced budget amendment?

>> Todd Sheets: Well, there's not many people in Washington who like the idea of operating with a balanced budget. But again, I would go back to. Look, the mentality about all of this changed in the depression, from 1800 until 1930. Except in times of war, like the Civil War or World War I, we ran either balanced budgets or a surplus. And that was Republican and Democratic administrations, because there was a deep belief in that model. But then this failure to understand the real causes of the Great Depression led the FDR administration and all of their supporters, many of whom came from academia. They were part of the brain trust that was designing these programs to believe that, you know, government spending and government direction was needed to offset the likelihood that the private economy would push us into these disastrous circumstances. So, you know, John Maynard Keynes became an advocate of the idea that government deficit spending could actually be a good thing. that borrowing by the government, you know, to, help pull out of an economic downturn could actually help with things. And, you know, unfortunately, that totally changed the mentality on these issues. And once you do that, the nature of politicians, they love spending somebody else's money on their constituents, right? And Republican or Democrat. And so, you know, since that time, we've had this, you know, building dynamic where we've gone off in, you know, this unfortunate direction, and it's, it's gotten dramatically worse over the last 15, 20 years.

Todd Sheets: Alan Greenspan really runs the country

>> Alex McFarland: Todd, I think a lot of people, earlier you mentioned the Federal Reserve, and for a lot of us, and folks, here's a name that you haven't heard in a while, but I think it's an important name. Alan Greenspan, I remember, you know, people in, I don't know if it was maybe the late 80s, early 90s, they used to say, forget who's president. Alan Greenspan really runs the country. But, and feel free to comment on his legacy if you want to, but, Oh, man, we're out of time. Oh, my goodness. Because I was going to ask you to explain what the Federal Reserve does. So, Todd, listen, I hear the music. We've got to have you back. This is so helpful, so instructive. Before we go, give us your website again, your writing, how people can find what you do.

>> Todd Sheets: Yeah, yeah. The website is Todd Sheets, writer, W R I T E R. And Todd is with 2ds and sheets is just like sheets of paper, dot com. If you go there, you can find my book and you can also find a link to the substack, pieces that I'm putting out, which, as we talked about, are free of charge.

>> Alex McFarland: Wow. Well, thank you so much, Todd Sheets. And folks, thank you for listening. I want to thank Marty sparks and Jeff McIntosh for helping engineer the show. Alex McFarlane here, thank you for listening. You can listen again@afr.net, the show is archived. May God bless you and may God bless America.

>> Todd Sheets: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.