[00:00:04] Broadcasting live from atop the Rocky Mountains, the crossroads of the West. You are listening to the Liberty Roundtable Radio Talk Show. Ladies and gentlemen, you will not want to miss the 2026 John Birch Society JBS Conference. Friday and Saturday, June the 5th and the 6th.
[00:00:30] Yeah, coming up here in a month about, well, less than a month. Wow, it's crazy. A couple weeks here, and it'll be at the Radisson Hotel in Salt Lake City, ladies and gentlemen. You want to check it out, you want to get tickets, jbs.org slash conference slash SLC26 is where you go for that. We had on Timothy Martin, one of the speakers. We had on Wayne Morrow, one of the speakers.
[00:00:57] You'll hear dynamic presentations on issues about how to stop a constitutional convention. With audience Q&A, that's rare. Protecting election integrity. Yeah, that's got to happen. Got to stop the fraud for sure. Using congressional and state legislative scorecards. The JBS has been well known for their incredible constitutional scorecards. Sadly, we lost Thomas Massey, one of the greatest constitutional congressmen we've ever had,
[00:01:25] at least in my lifetime to say the least. Restoring sound money, critical issue. Yeah. Exposing and defeating the push for global control. Anyway, those are just some of the remarks you'll be checking out. We've got Eldon Stahl with us now. Field coordinator for the John Birch Society. Welcome back, my friend. Oh, thanks, Sam. It's great to be here. And we've got the Honest Money Report, and that means our dear friend, Heath Perkins, joins us.
[00:01:55] Yeah, he's been working with the Rust family for a long time now. But for 50 years, three generations of Rust family members have been helping people understand precious metals, how to invest, what to get, when. Just a steady, relentless effort to hedge your bets, if you will. Freewatercoinco.com. Heath, welcome, my friend. Thanks for having me on again, Sam. You betcha. Let's kick it off straight away with the Honest Money Report. Where's gold and silver looking, sir?
[00:02:23] Gold's bouncing right above $4,500 at $45.19.30. Silver, again, bouncing between the $70 and $80 range, and it's $75.74 right now. All right. Very interesting. What's the ratio between the two on that one now? Just shy of 60 to 1. So right there, next to 60 to 1. All right. So it bopped up to 80 to 1 there for a long time, and it even hit 100 to 1 kind of a thing at little blips, I think.
[00:02:52] They're not at their highs, but they're certainly way elevated, to say the least. Back in the day, it used to be 16, 20 to 1 kind of ratio. And back in the day, silver announced it was worth a dollar. Gold announced it was worth basically $20. That was the deal. Then they pegged gold at $35 for a long time. Now it's over $4,500 and holding. What do you expect to happen? Americans are basically saying, you know what? The top issue for us is the economy.
[00:03:22] They're saying this, Heath, and then your take. Voters continue to rank cost of living at the top of their national concerns. Recent Reuters polling shows inflation and affordability remain the leading issue influencing American voters. They say that's the priority ahead of the midterm elections. Do you want to respond to this, Heath? Yeah. Let's be honest.
[00:03:50] We have a savings rate in this nation of about 2% or 3%. You just had fuel prices go up for the entire nation, which significantly impacts the day-to-day activities of individuals. So that 2% or 3% savings, we're not there anymore. If you could compare the 2% to 3% savings versus how much we're in debt to credit card just to maintain the lifestyles that we've had,
[00:04:17] I think we're over $2 trillion in credit card debt. And those credit cards are not... If you want to talk about usury out of the Bible, those credit card companies are charging average 25% to 26%. On the high end, they're closer to 40%. Yeah, we can't... The base of the United States is really filling the pressure due to inflation as well as the price of fuel going up,
[00:04:44] especially with how low our savings are and how high our credit card debt is. They're saying that fuel is probably going to hit $4.85 a gallon for most of us in some places. It's already there and above. What do you say to that, though? Fuel, people think, just relates to filling your car, but what people need to understand is economically, fuel pretty much drives everything. Heath? Oh, yeah. Every aspect of everything being shipped across the U.S. It doesn't matter what good it is.
[00:05:14] It doesn't matter what's being delivered to your house. It doesn't matter if it's an Amazon Prime vehicle. It's electric. That has to be charged from something. There has to be a fuel source that is being utilized to generate that electricity. So fuel across the board is being utilized in every aspect of life. And because of that, when you have an increase in fuel, every other cost has to go up. At first, you're seeing a little bit of it being eaten by some of these corporations,
[00:05:42] but they're going to pass that buck on to us, the end user, and we're going to start feeling more and more of that. Yeah, it's going to be a little bit rough when it comes to that. It's hard to tell if inflation or global conflict or both are the real issue, right? I mean, that's kind of the issue here. Economic analysts are now warning, hey, inflation, trade instability,
[00:06:09] and Middle East tensions are increasing financial strain across the U.S. economy. And I guess my response to that is Congress could get stability on tariffs by actually doing something. Heath? Yeah, you can get some stability with the tariffs. The struggle with the tariffs is the tariffs are always being paid by the end user, so it's still going to affect the person buying the product.
[00:06:35] And the person buying the products, that end user, always pays whatever tax is added to it, whether that be value-added tax or tariff. So the tariffs can help with bringing more back to the U.S. when it comes to manufacturing, but the initial costs are up front, and those up front costs are higher prices for the consumers here in America. So it's a little double-edged sword there.
[00:07:05] Eldon, to bring you into this mix, oil prices stay elevated amid the Strait of Hormos concerns, sir. What do you say to that? Not surprising. Unfortunately, we've gone down the road of military interventionism lately. That seems to be a different philosophy that the Trump administration has embraced,
[00:07:34] and we're reaping the fruits of that. Now they're even talking about moving oil across land and trying to skip some of these Straits of Hormos and some of these other places. They're trying to move oil across land, thinking that if they can just get to different ports, it's going to be all right. I'm not really sure that's going to be the answer. I don't know how expensive that will be in the long run or if that's really a sustainable issue or if they'll just get blocked some other way,
[00:08:04] but they say that they call it Brent crude remains above $111 a barrel. I don't know how it can't force the cost of oil to go up, even though we don't even get any of that oil. We don't use that oil. We have our own oil, and so how it affects us and why, that's a pretty interesting discussion, Keith. Yeah.
[00:08:32] The global futures markets really drive that price, regardless of who's being impacted by it. We all are affected by that price. So it's unfortunate. I mean, the futures markets, like one of the largest casino houses in the world, it's people making money on things they never touch, will never have an ounce of effort to be involved in, and yet they make more money than anyone who actually produces the actual oil
[00:09:00] or food or whatever commodity it is you're looking at. Yeah, you have COMEX, but you also have the Chicago Merchant Lab Exchange, the CME. They've shown over and over that the more and more that you have institutional banking get involved with the CME, the more you have instability in prices and, again, more money being made for those who are playing with the futures contracts than those who are actually creating the product.
[00:09:31] Now, here's what I find interesting, Eldon, and I want your take on this. They have this conflicting headline, and this is what's interesting about financial information. Oftentimes, everything they say is just conflicting. Listen to this headline. Tell me what you think. New economic data shows retail sales increase for the third straight month in a row. That sounds great. But then they say, although inflation tied to energy and, quote, geopolitical pressures, continue raising consumer costs.
[00:10:01] So both may be true, but at some point something's got to give, right? Well, yeah. I mean, I guess there might be, if they're measuring in total dollars of revenue, then it's a little bit deceptive because the price or the power of the dollar purchasing power has gone down. So, of course, the prices go up, and then the gross revenue goes up.
[00:10:31] If they're still selling, they say they're not going to get the goods. Yeah. If a hamburger costs triple, then they say, oh, yeah, spending's happening. Look at all the dollars we're spending. Yeah. Oh, man, we're back to the Big Mac index, Heath. We'll talk about it in seconds. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Sam Bushman. I've got Eldon Stahl with me, field coordinator of the JBS.org, thenewamerican.com. We've also got Heath Perkins with us. Freewatercoinco.com.
[00:10:58] Why don't we say to the government writ large that they have to spend a little bit less? Anybody ever had less money this year than you had last? Anybody ever having a 1% pay cut? You deal with it. That's what government needs, a 1% pay cut. If you take a 1% pay cut across the board, you have more than enough money to actually pay for the disaster relief. But nobody's going to do that because they're fiscally irresponsible. Who are they? Republicans. Who are they? Democrats.
[00:11:28] Who are they? Virtually the whole body is careless and reckless with your money. So the money will not be offset by cuts anywhere. The money will be added to the debt, and there will be a day of reckoning. What's the day of reckoning? The day of reckoning may well be the collapse of the stock market. The day of reckoning may be the collapse of the dollar. When it comes, I can't tell you exactly, but I can tell you it has happened repeatedly in history when countries ruin their currency.
[00:11:57] Are you watching what's happening in our country and asking, what can I do? Join the John Birch Society in Salt Lake City, June 6th, for a powerful one-day conference. The day includes a host of respected speakers, two meals, and meaningful connections. You'll gain clarity on the issues and walk away with practical steps you can take to your community. Reserve your seat today at jbs.org forward slash slc26. That's jbs.org forward slash slc26.
[00:12:34] Our dear friend, Heath Perkins, freewatercoinco.com with us for the Honest Money Report. Eldon Stahl, jbs.org, and yours truly in the round table. So sales are up, they say, for the third straight month. But yet, you know what? Everything is just costing more, and it's causing problems, because inflation and political pressure, everything's just going up and up and up and up. So like I said right before the break, if you pay triple for a hamburger, man, it sure sounds like a lot of money's flowing, but all you did was spend triple on a hamburger,
[00:13:03] and at some point, that weight is going to harm the American people. They say this, container imports into the United States fall as trade risks increase. This is something significant, because people don't realize this. You bring less containers into America, and pretty soon there's less products on the shelves. You then create increased costs for fuel to get that container from the ports to the American shelves. Heath, you have a serious issue going on,
[00:13:32] and I don't think people realize this. It's just at the beginning. When we slow down containers, it's, I don't know, 30, 45, 60 days. You'll start to see a big change in that, too. Is that a concern for you? Yeah. No, you... That kind of measures more of... Reality, the slow in containers, not the dollar amount, like we were measuring before the break. Dollar amounts don't really...
[00:14:01] Yeah, consumer spending went up, but that's just due to, again, higher prices. But these containers coming in really show you the reality of are things flowing the way they should be? Are consumers purchasing, you know, the same quantity of items? Are we slowing down with those quantities? Are we actually producing more here at home? You know, are these tariffs starting to raise the ability for U.S. citizens and businesses to produce goods here at home that can be competitive against those
[00:14:30] that are from foreign nations? So we've... The container's a great count to look at, but in seeing that slow, we've seen that a few different times, and so whether that's actual spending, businesses not being sure, there's a bit of uncertainty right now in the market, not just with consumers, but with also businesses. We're seeing a bit of a slowdown
[00:14:58] when it comes to, you know, what to be expecting. This war is kind of throwing a wrench in due to all the oil and the extra costs from the oil. And so you're having businesses that are starting to, you know, tighten up a little bit more, not spend as much, have a little bit less inventory, you know, keep things, you know, more liquid so that they can take the steps they need to because they're just not quite sure what their additional fuel charges and things like that and additional costs
[00:15:26] that are not fully aware of right now are going to be here in the near future. So it's... A lot of things are kind of making that container count go down. They're saying Senate Republicans now are advancing a $72 billion quote, migrant enforcement bill. Senate Republicans move forward with legislation funding quote, deportation operations, ICE expansion,
[00:15:54] and border enforcement programs while disputes continue to be, you know, hot over White House funding. I guess that has to do with, you know, the ballroom and all this other kind of stuff and, you know, but they're working on a big, big, big spending bill and that's kind of part of my problem is we're just seeing Congress spend, spend, spend. And unless they get a handle on that, we're going to see our credit ranking take even further. We do that,
[00:16:23] plus move everybody into quote AI, plus we're at war, plus there's now, you know, supposedly health issues with an outbreak of another virus. We've got so many things that create instability. I'm not sure what's going to be the future here in the next several months before the midterms. I hope we don't have an October surprise, Heath. Yeah. October always seems to be the month that throws a little wrench into things. You know, back in the 1929, you had the stock market crash in October.
[00:16:53] It just seems to be that's when things tip. But yeah, to see us moving forward in a positive direction, we really have to, in a sense, step away from the direction that society's been taking, which is a very social media-driven direction and kind of come back to communities that are local, communities that are near you and start supporting each other, figuring out what strengths
[00:17:24] these communities that you're around have and working together. Like, we're going to have to stop competing, kind of that, you know, keeping up with the Joneses mentality and start cooperating. And small communities are the way that we have to move forward to, you know, kind of get through these struggles that are ahead of us. And so, start to get to know your neighbors. That's a big one. Figure out who your neighbors are. Figure out, you know,
[00:17:51] how they, you know, what they succeed in and what benefits they can bring to the community. You know, learn new traits yourself to add to the community. You know, fill in the gaps where there's holes. But you need to find out what your community is capable of and bolster, you know, the areas they're lacking in. So, we need to go back to community. That really is what's going to get us through these struggling times. Amen to that. Eldon, I think Heath just said
[00:18:21] you and I need to get victory gardens, my friend. Something like that. Those are good things to have. The garden. But yeah, get to know your neighbors. A lot of people don't. And then, you know, things are just not so good when bad times hit. Do you guys realize that I know all my neighbors? I could go borrow a cup of sugar for any one of them. I know every one of them. That's awesome.
[00:18:50] That is, that is, you are abnormal in that scenario. Like most of us don't know, you know, most of our neighbors. I mean, growing up, I knew everyone, everyone who had children, I knew the families. But nowadays, it's, it's just not that way. We have too much social media interaction. Too many friends that are all over the world. We don't necessarily need the associations we have in our neighborhood, which is a sad, a sad thing. So, we need to get back to that. We need to get back to that.
[00:19:20] We need to find ways to get to know them, ways to get to trust them, ways for them to trust us, ways to serve them, ways to be friends with them. I really think that's key. Help me out then if I'm looking for constitutional currency right now. What's the best thing to keep an eye on and get involved in? Heath? I'm still saying 90% silver, so your constitutional silver. The dimes, quarters, and halves. We're still selling it below melt right now. Usually, it's far more expensive than even rounds in the past.
[00:19:50] There's just an unusual glitch right now when it comes to refineries not wanting to take any more of the items they have to refine. They just want to take on items that they can just straight melt down and get 1,000-ounce bars out as fast as possible. So there's a weird lull in the constitutional silver, dimes, quarters, and halves again. What about the nickels? The wartime nickels. Those, not as familiar with most people, so those are still a great buy.
[00:20:19] They're actually a better buy than the 90%, but due to how familiar individuals are with them, the demand is a little bit less on those. Yeah, it is. It's kind of fascinating because I had somebody who we said, hey, we got some great silver nickels and the guy's like, no, listen, they're called nickels because they're made out of nickel and we had this discussion and we made him look it all up and he came back and he went, oh, yeah, I guess for a short time during World War II there was silver nickels and we're like, yeah, just so you know kind of thing. What do you learn on Liberty Roundtable
[00:20:49] with the Honest Money Report and Free Water Glencoe, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the military needed the nickel for armor plating so they had to pull it out and throw something else in so silver was the option. But yeah, there's a lot that, to go back to sound money, I mean, I've done the comparisons multiple times and at $75 back in 1964, $1.25 was minimum wage. If you took five silver quarters today, the melt value
[00:21:18] of those five silver quarters is about $66. So, your minimum wage You'd be doing pretty good, wouldn't you? Yeah, minimum wage back in 64 was equivalent to $66 a day which is about $130,000, $125,000 was the minimum wage for purchasing power. We've lost so much purchasing power in this nation. Eldon, do you want to respond to that? The average, wow, $66 an hour equivalent minimum wage buying power, Eldon.
[00:21:48] Yeah, that would make a difference, wouldn't it? And, yeah, today, the federal minimum wage I think is set to $25 still. Yes, sir, that's right. But, and what can you really buy for seven and a quarter? Not much. That's, that's basically, yeah. Yeah, you can buy a Big Mac just no drinking fries anymore. You can get into movies for that. Yeah. So, it's, it's a really tough deal for a lot of people.
[00:22:18] It's a tough deal, but ladies and gentlemen, the good news is you have a friend in the honest money business when it comes to freewatercoinco.com. They can let you know what to get, when, why, how. If you want to sell, they can make sure you get the best price. You know, it's kind of the mix. People need to be pretty conscientious. What do you expect to happen over the next several weeks? Are we going to see things just kind of hang around that $75 an ounce for silver and around that $4,500 for gold? Heath? Yeah, you're kind of seeing the floor for silver being right around $70.
[00:22:48] It's the new floor that has been tested multiple times over the last six months. It seems it's popped below that twice and then pushed back up within a, within a short period. So, it seems we're going to be in a window of, you know, $70 to $85 or so. So, some sideways movement for a bit. And then gold, yeah, it's been holding above that $4,500 mark. That seems to be the new floor for it. So, it's kind of at the bottom
[00:23:16] of that currently. And so, it's just going to be that, again, sideways movement between $4,500 and about $4,800 is what I've been seeing in the last couple months. What do you think it would take for a bump down or up to happen? In other words, hey, moving that general range or hold it, what would it take to bump it either way? A war, a fuel crisis, or a health issue? What would it take? Well, I thought that this Iranian war that we're in right now, that was going to bump it,
[00:23:45] but it didn't. Historically, that usually would bump gold and silver up because there's less stability. Same thing with the oil prices spiking. Whenever you see oil prices spiking, you usually generally have gold and silver spike, but somehow, this is the only time that it's ever been inversed compared to the past. And so, a little different when it comes to what we should be expecting because nothing's playing out the way we thought it would. Well, that's the truth under Donald Trump. It's never been different as far as we can see,
[00:24:15] but now it is. Heath Perkins, thank you so much, my friend. We'll have you back soon. Thanks, Sam. Good to be on. The Honest Money Report, ladies and gentlemen, freewatercoinco.com. I'm Sam Bushman with Eldon Stahl, John Birch Society. Check out their incredible event coming up in June 5th and 6th in Utah, jbs.org. I'm Sam Bushman. God save the Republic of the United States of America.