Frank Gaffney (00:10):
Welcome back and very special welcome to one of our regulars here at Securing America. Bill Walton, a former master of the universe for covering. We like to think of him as a senior executive at Allied Capital on Wall Street, some $6 billion under management. Now he speaks for the people of the United States on the Bill Walton Show, and we're very grateful to him for doing so right here as well. Bill, it's great to have you with us. As always. Welcome back,
Bill Walton (00:38):
Frank. Thanks. Great talking with you. Thanks for having me on.
Frank Gaffney (00:41):
I wanted to start by just getting your take on the Janet Yellen visit to Beijing. Bill, it's kind of the context in which a number of things I want to visit with you about need to be seen. What do you make of it?
Bill Walton (00:56):
Well, if I may be irreverent, if you've ever seen the Wizard of Oz, she reminded me of one of the munchkins, and I don't know if there's a world record for bowing rapidly. I think she said it. I watched her do that with three or four different officials. The visuals were so entertaining and in fact they reflect the substance of her message. And if you want to see Oz as maybe President G, the thing that was interesting is that President G didn't deign to meet with her, so he was behind the curtain while she was there dealing with the almighty odds, and she was saying things like, "Well, the Chinese we know do not have any hostile intent and we know they want to be peaceful and we've been too tough with them on freight trade with Donald Trump, and if we're just nice to them, everything's going to be fine." Well, that's either naive or completely cynical.
Frank Gaffney (01:55):
Irreverent suits you, sir. I love the munchkin analogy here.
Bill Walton (01:59):
I'm probably in trouble already.
Frank Gaffney (02:01):
This was after she was essentially given the back of the hand in terms of welcoming party and ceremony.
Bill Walton (02:10):
It's two in a row. First Blinken, now Yellen.
Frank Gaffney (02:14):
She was told to go find dinner on the economy instead of having it be any kind of official function. And there's literally this kowtowing I think, it wasn't maybe full prostration physically, but it certainly was in terms of the spirit and tone. And Bill, this is coming at a time when the Chinese are acting to do what we've long warned they would, which is start garotting those supply chains, gallium and geranium, whatever that is. I thought it was a flower. But these are things that apparently are absolutely central to manufacturing of most interesting things that we do here. And it's only the beginning, don't you think?
Bill Walton (03:09):
Well, absolutely. If you think about the real economy, the real world of making things, it turns out that small things can count for a lot. And those two elements, which I can't pronounce either, I'll give it a try later, are essential in making silicon chips and they're essential in making a lot of other things that we count on. And this was a symbolic gesture. These elements are really produced as a trace element of other things like lead and lithium and other sorts of mining as a byproduct and we don't do any of that. So therefore China does, and therefore China controls the export. Then it's just basically saying, "Look, if you want to do anything to restrict us, look what we can do to you." Which is something you and I have been talking about for years now and anybody not paying attention ought to.
Frank Gaffney (04:02):
But Bill, here's the point, if as I think we both agree is now decidedly and prospect, and Xi Jinping was meeting with some of his military leadership the other day and it was like the munchkins, it was speed clapping.
Bill Walton (04:20):
Oh yeah, they're good at that.
Frank Gaffney (04:21):
Again, a sign of submission to the great leader. But Bill, I mean he was talking about war. He was talking about preparing for combat.
Bill Walton (04:30):
While she was there.
Frank Gaffney (04:32):
Yeah, while she was there and he was not seeing her-
Bill Walton (04:35):
He was over towards Taiwan talking with the troops about getting ready.
Frank Gaffney (04:40):
Hard to mistake the import of all of this. And if we are not actually decoupling from China as much as we can, and she said, "No, we can't do that. It's too risky. It would be too bad for the world economy and so on." They're going to decouple us under the worst of circumstances and this is just something that we're on notice about, are we not?
Bill Walton (05:03):
Well, on the economic front, if you look what's happening, they've got Saudi Arabia now committing to maybe up to one to $2 trillion of investments in China, Chinese companies, and they talk to you about the way investors think, Frank. They think their portfolio is underweighted with China. They've only got about 1-2% of it without giving any thought to geopolitical risks of war in their investment allocation there, because we've really dissed Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab countries under the Biden administration. The world is not waiting for us. The world is going ahead. And another example is this brick plan, which is Brazil, Russia, India, China, and now South Africa. They want to put together-
Frank Gaffney (05:48):
Among others, actually.
Bill Walton (05:49):
Among others.
Frank Gaffney (05:50):
They have quite a large conclave.
Bill Walton (05:50):
I think there are 41 countries, which the devil will be into details with that. But the headline is they want to create a new currency backed by gold and they've been buying, they meaning all the rest of the central banks in the world have been piling up gold most rapidly in the last year or two. And so they want to announce a currency somehow supported by gold, whether it's redeemable in gold. I doubt that can happen because there just is not enough to make it happen, but the world is moving quickly to realign while Janet Yellen does her munchkin act.
Frank Gaffney (06:28):
Yeah. And Bill, we've been told for some time that the dollar cannot really be displaced. Do you think that is now what is in prospect or at least that there will be this alternative currency that will reduce its reserve currency status somewhat?
Bill Walton (06:47):
Well, I don't think it will succeed, but in a way I hope it does because what that would do, if we had a real currency backed by gold, it would provide some alternatives to people who have to hold the dollar. And the dollar, the people behind the dollar, our Federal Reserve and our fiscal authorities, including Congress with these trillion dollar deficits, we've been absolutely reckless. We've been thinking there's no alternative for the world except the dollar. An alternative might be a very healthy reminder that we're not alone.
Frank Gaffney (07:22):
Well, if it's just an alternative but not actually displacing it.
Bill Walton (07:26):
I don't think it's going to happen. I don't see it happening. The government of South Africa, Brazil, China, India maybe-
Frank Gaffney (07:35):
Watch this space Bill, I think we're into-
Bill Walton (07:37):
We'll be covering it.
Frank Gaffney (07:39):
A whole new realm we will definitely be talking about it.
Bill Walton (07:41):
It's going to be an exciting-
Frank Gaffney (07:43):
Let me ask you about one other piece of this, Bill, and that is that this month the Federal Reserves, speaking of the guys who are behind our currency such as they are, are going to be introducing Fed Now. Sort of a leading edge I guess, of the Central Bank digital currency of the United States. I'm among those, I must tell you, who are very concerned about the idea that the government is going to be able to control our access even to our own accounts with these digital currency ones and zeros in our bank ledgers. What do you make of it?
Bill Walton (08:27):
Even a finance guy like me, the details make your eyes glaze over, but in essence it's a checking account with the Federal Reserve. And one of the benefits that they talk about among each other is this will allow them to see what people are spending their money on. And if they're spending money on guns or fossil fuels or things that are not part of the woke acceptable purchases among the elites that run the Fed, then that's going to be a problem.
Frank Gaffney (08:55):
Non-electric vehicles and all the like. Yeah.
Bill Walton (08:58):
Yeah, if you want to buy that F-150 I own, I better not let them know I have it because they won't let me put gas in it.
Frank Gaffney (09:05):
Well, but they will know you bought it if they have this kind of oversight. And again, Bill, we talk about this a lot on the program, this would it seem be a final element to put into place if the World Health Organizations digital IDs and the vaccine passports and the European Union's components thereof and all the rest sort of coalesce into what amounts to this Chinese social credit system. And it's just chilling because that really is the end of freedom. If the kind of surveillance, monitoring, oversight, whatever else you want to call it, turns into actual control. No?
Bill Walton (09:57):
Well, Frank, but they promise they'll keep us safe and that we'll be happy with owning less, and we won't be able to travel much, but that's okay because they're going to take care of us. The big brother [inaudible 00:10:11]-
Frank Gaffney (10:11):
Then Klaus Schwab says you'll own nothing and you'll be happy and this sort of chilling prospect.
Bill Walton (10:17):
Exactly. This has been a dream from Davos World Economic Forum and we thought it was sort of suspect or in the clouds five, ten years ago. Well, it's not. It's here and we need to sound the alarm.
Frank Gaffney (10:32):
Yeah, well, sounding the alarm is one thing and I guess offering alternatives and our colleague Kevin Freeman has been promoting, I think quite impressively and his native state of Texas, this idea of having a digital gold-backed currency that is essentially minted by the state of Texas and that gold is held in the repository there. The state legislature pulled some shenanigans and did not act on this legislation, though it could have, and I think he's still working hard to get a special session there that would enable it to be adopted.
Bill Walton (11:13):
It's a great idea, Frank. A friend of mine gave me a book on the history of fiat currencies. That's currency only paper backed by nothing and every single one of them over the last 3000 years, including currencies in China and India and places like that, have failed.
Frank Gaffney (11:29):
Yeah. Doesn't work out.
Bill Walton (11:31):
And so, we're going to end up, and then the central bank digital currency by the way, is an attempt to circumvent that so that we don't have alternatives.
Frank Gaffney (11:40):
Not have backed by anything. Still just ones and zeros.
Bill Walton (11:43):
Full faith in Janet Yellen.
Frank Gaffney (11:48):
We have to leave it at that. Come back to us next week Bill, thanks so much. In the meantime, God bless.
Bill Walton (11:51):
Okay Frank. Good talk.
Frank Gaffney (11:51):
We'll be right back with more, right after this.
