The Crisis Deepens: Europe Is Heading For Trouble
They don’t want you holding physical metal in your possession. That is then out of their reach. But I think what’s going to happen is already happening and people are stacking metals, particularly here. It’s gold. I mean, the village I live in functions almost exclusively on barter. They are preparing to abandon currency. To be honest with you, everything I’m hearing about coming out of western Germany, it’s just a western Europe is just frightening and UK guns gold in the garden right.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Introduction
4:10 Solar & Energy In The Region
11:58 Changes IN The Last Month
16:27 Is Globalization Morphing?
21:00 The Credit Situation In The Region
33:49 Accumulation
38:28 The Collapse That Can’t Be Papered Over
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
00:00:02:18 – 00:00:09:05
Lynette
They don’t want you holding physical metal in your possession. That is then out of their reach.
00:00:09:05 – 00:00:49:00
Jeff
But I think what’s going to happen is already happening and people are stacking metals, particularly here. It’s gold. I mean, the village I live in functions almost exclusively on barter. They are preparing to abandon currency. To be honest with you, everything I’m hearing about coming out of western Germany, it’s just a western Europe is just frightening and UK guns gold in the garden right.
00:00:52:16 – 00:01:07:08
Lynette
I think that it’s critically important for people to see other people moving forward because some people get very, very stuck, especially when they continue to believe Wall Street lies.
00:01:08:02 – 00:01:09:01
Jeff
Yeah.
00:01:09:01 – 00:01:09:14
Lynette
You know.
00:01:09:15 – 00:01:30:17
Jeff
Well, not even not even believing. It’s very easy to not believe those lies, but it’s very difficult to just get off of your butt and it’s easy to not believe the lies, to know that this is coming, to believe in it. But it’s another thing to actually start. And, you know, okay, next step for me was like, research the solar.
00:01:31:16 – 00:01:58:08
Jeff
That’s easy to do, but it’s still time consuming, right? So how much do we need all that kind of stuff and then get their consultation as well. And and then you’re not you then they give you the quote and you stare at the quote for a while. A good long walk. No. Right. And you’re, you know, you come up with all these excuses and but then eventually you have to believe and you have to do it and embrace the excitement.
00:01:58:08 – 00:02:17:06
Jeff
But also, whenever I’ve gotten a little bit scared in life, it’s always worked out because I’ve put myself in a very uncomfortable position and it’s always worked out to be great. So the more that I can get out of my comfort zone, generally speaking, I’m a pretty I like to think I’m a smart person. They don’t make rash decisions.
00:02:17:06 – 00:02:43:21
Jeff
So anyway, step by step and we’re going forward and we’re, we’re, we’re picking up the space, the pace lately simply because I’m listening to all the same people you’re listening to and that Alistair MacLeod again he can explain the banks, he can explain how the credit is contracting and it’s global. It’s not just here in Eastern Europe, it’s it’s everywhere.
00:02:44:12 – 00:03:03:22
Jeff
And there are, you know, George Gammon, wonderful people who can break all of this down. Dr. Chris Martenson Yourself got to be listening to these people because they can break it down for you, but ultimately then you’ve got to get moving on the mind. And that’s why I love the mantra.
00:03:04:11 – 00:03:05:20
Lynette
Because it makes it very easy.
00:03:05:20 – 00:03:25:15
Jeff
To Yeah, yeah, that’s your guide. Without without that guide, you really don’t get it. And you can’t you don’t know where to start, but you can kind of know where to start and you can kind of start checking things off the list. And you might even be able to say, Well, I’ve got part of this. Maybe you’ve got the community part figured out exactly.
00:03:25:15 – 00:03:48:07
Lynette
You’re that’s what you do. You know, you look at the whole mantra food, water, energy security, barter ability, wealth preservation, community and shelter. And you say, where do I feel the most vulnerable? And then that’s where you start. And you do enough so that you don’t feel as vulnerable there and you step back. That’s the way I did it.
00:03:48:07 – 00:04:08:19
Lynette
I just kept stepping back and say, okay, you know, I got this handled now, at least to a degree, where do I feel more vulnerable? And then that’s how you do it. That’s how I’ve done it, you know. But it does it takes a minute. And, you know. So let me ask you, because we’re talking about the solar.
00:04:09:19 – 00:04:14:09
Lynette
Why did you put the solar in? You’re in Bulgaria. Why did you put it in?
00:04:15:17 – 00:04:45:20
Jeff
Well, because we want to not have to deal with the unknowns. And about seven years ago, we were here and I don’t remember what happened or what triggered it, but there was a January where it wasn’t unusually cold, there was nothing really going on. But suddenly the power company, which is essentially a nationalized power company, decided to double their rates.
00:04:46:08 – 00:04:46:23
Lynette
It was all now.
00:04:46:23 – 00:05:10:08
Jeff
It was like 2.5 times. Right. So, you know, of course it was on the news and people were were yelling and screaming about it. But then the government stepped in and I guess the next month everything went back to normal. But for me, I was like, okay, that’s the wild, wild west. I mean, that’s something that I don’t think that you would see in North America.
00:05:11:04 – 00:05:29:16
Jeff
And I wasn’t comfortable with that. And then, of course, now with COVID and the last 12 months, we’ve seen what we’ve seen. I don’t need to explain it to you or your viewers. I’m listening to what’s going on in Germany. Things are all in Western Europe. Things are a little bit different in Eastern Europe, I have to say better.
00:05:30:11 – 00:05:38:15
Jeff
There doesn’t seem to be these fake government marketplaces for electricity.
00:05:39:08 – 00:05:40:03
Lynette
Well, yeah.
00:05:40:03 – 00:05:46:07
Jeff
There seems to be in Western Europe. It’s a it’s a complete well, it’s a game. It’s, it’s the.
00:05:46:07 – 00:05:58:12
Lynette
Derivatives that are actually I mean, that’s the thing here in the U.S. and I think in much of east of Western Europe, it’s like the Wall Street that’s controlling the price.
00:05:58:12 – 00:06:42:05
Jeff
Yes, they’ve privatized it. Right. So they’ve taken everything government. They’ve stripped that out. They’ve privatized it. They’ve created I don’t know if you listen to Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, brilliant guy, definitely leans to the left, but so, so smart when it comes to economics. And, you know, he can explain he had recently, I forget what channel he was on explaining these fake markets that Western Europe has created and how they’re this is really the problem in his opinion of why why they’re seeing the it’s it’s essentially a money grab right same thing in the United Kingdom.
00:06:42:11 – 00:07:06:08
Jeff
It’s essentially a money grab. So based on this very real in I’m sorry inflation. So anyway, your question was why did I install this to be to make sure that we know for the next 15 years I’ve calculated it. Just got the calculator out. We’re going to invest for about the next 15 years. The panels last for about 15 years.
00:07:06:08 – 00:07:31:06
Jeff
I can’t remember what the battery lasts for, so I think it’ll be a little bit less depending on how much you use the battery. And then, you know, after about four years, I’ve calculated it out based on our energy consumption, this system will pay for itself. So for me, if you’ve got the money and that money is losing what they say, 8%, which is bogus, and here they say it’s, you know, whatever, 13%, which is bogus.
00:07:31:06 – 00:07:41:20
Jeff
So if you’re I mean, you’ve got to invest in stuff. Now is the time to invest in stuff before while you can while your currency is is.
00:07:41:20 – 00:07:42:20
Lynette
Can still be worth.
00:07:42:20 – 00:08:08:00
Jeff
Something. Yeah. So it makes sense to protect yourself if you can from what they’re talking about, they’re talking about, you know, crazy, you know, you know, shutting down coal plants. And this is just scary to me. And I here in the country, they they fired up there. We’ve always we’ve been an energy exporter and electricity exporter. So we’ve always used the coal plants here and in Eastern Europe.
00:08:08:00 – 00:08:14:03
Jeff
They don’t really play along with a lot of the Western Europe. I don’t know if I mentioned that before, but, you know.
00:08:14:09 – 00:08:16:00
Lynette
The it’s different.
00:08:16:18 – 00:08:40:22
Jeff
It’s different here they have Romania, especially Hungary, Czech Republic. These guys have given the middle finger to Western Europe and the European Union of a lot of issues. And so migration and you know, they protect their borders, they don’t let migrants in. So we’re kind of the bad troublemakers, I guess. And on the energy front, we produce our own energy and some.
00:08:41:03 – 00:08:49:20
Jeff
So we do our own energy deals. We’re not really into the whole, you know, punishing Russia thing. It’s very controversial here.
00:08:50:00 – 00:09:02:02
Lynette
But but are you only doing it because of the price rise? You’re not are you not concerned about rolling brownouts, blackouts and other limitations that.
00:09:02:15 – 00:09:27:08
Jeff
Yes, the real reason? Well, the grid here I can only speak to this country. The grid here, once you get out of the larger, even if you’re in a large city, actually, you can expect to be without power 2 to 3 times a month in the summertime when there’s thunderstorms and windstorms and these kind of things around, they tend to shut down the grid for whatever reason.
00:09:27:08 – 00:09:52:19
Jeff
So the power outages are just frankly, very annoying and very difficult to run a business on. Right. So and not to mention you know, keep your refrigerators and your free from scarifying and stuff like I mean, sometimes it’s 30 minutes, it’s out, sometimes it’s 3 hours. So yeah, being self-sufficient, having control over that aspect of it is, you know, being your own producer of energy is not that big of a deal.
00:09:52:19 – 00:10:12:06
Jeff
I mean, I should say electricity is not that big of a deal. And I guess with you, you’re learning about hydro electric. And you might say, Jeff, that’s just not that big of a deal given some of the technology is given some of the methods. And you were encouraging me to, you know, get the ponds going, right with.
00:10:12:12 – 00:10:13:00
Jeff
Exactly.
00:10:13:01 – 00:10:14:02
Lynette
And also.
00:10:14:02 – 00:10:15:01
Jeff
What’s another.
00:10:15:04 – 00:10:23:07
Lynette
Optimizer? You can also generate energy off of it, off of the ponds in the hydro. So it’s way so yeah yeah.
00:10:23:07 – 00:10:31:05
Jeff
It’s and a lot of this stuff you can get help with there are people who can help you with that here. Not so much just the thing.
00:10:31:05 – 00:10:40:15
Lynette
It’s easy. Well, it looks really easy. When we do it up north, we’ll see how easy it is. But still.
00:10:40:15 – 00:10:59:19
Jeff
I hope I answered your question about the electricity, that the reason that we’re doing it is all of those reasons, right, to to, you know, reliability of the electric is it’s highly, in my opinion, coming from North America. You know, being without power three or four times a month on the average is unacceptable. Right.
00:10:59:21 – 00:11:02:08
Lynette
So although it could get a lot worse.
00:11:04:06 – 00:11:26:10
Jeff
Yes. Right. So that that’s that’s the other issue is while all this political wrangling is going on and I’ve experienced again, like seven years ago, just this random doubling in the middle of the winter where, you know, we were using electric to heat the place. So this is our highest energy consumption of the year. We’re like, holy crap, what do we do?
00:11:26:12 – 00:11:46:10
Jeff
Well, you pay it. And everybody was like, That’s your choice. You pay it or you’re cut off. And you had asked me last time I spoke, you know, what’s going on with energy, poverty and yeah, there I checked around. They just cut people off. There’s maybe one or two months they’ll let it go. But after that, after two months, it’s that’s it.
00:11:46:10 – 00:11:47:22
Jeff
It’s they just shut down.
00:11:48:13 – 00:12:10:16
Lynette
Yeah, well, we’re, we’re seeing a rash of that on really a global basis. And what else, you know, you were here about a month ago. What has changed? What has evolved? What are you seeing the difference just in that short period of time?
00:12:10:16 – 00:12:12:04
Jeff
People are stocking up.
00:12:12:19 – 00:12:13:07
Lynette
Are they?
00:12:14:09 – 00:12:40:16
Jeff
Yeah. On just about anything. Again, the cooking oil is really noticeable. There’s rationing. And we recently had a sale last week at one of the stores, a German store. And now this is this is sunflower oil. We’re we’re one of the largest, if not the largest exporters of sunflower oil in Europe. So this whole region is Romania, Greece.
00:12:41:19 – 00:13:00:22
Jeff
So there was a sale and that just drove people into the store like crazy. I just people filling up, you know. And again, it’s there’s still limitations to what you can buy, but you could see different family members coming. And I don’t know how they monitor you. And I guess it’s by shop or they can’t really monitor by family.
00:13:00:22 – 00:13:02:19
Jeff
You know how much you can you can drive.
00:13:03:05 – 00:13:03:13
Lynette
Yeah.
00:13:03:18 – 00:13:27:02
Jeff
But our pod, this wonderful interview with our brother that you had a few months ago, he described when he was in Romania what the people here in Eastern Europe, they’ve seen this kind of hyperinflation before and they know how fast it happens and they know the early warning signals that we’re being given, like rationing of cooking oil, like spikes in gas prices, gasoline prices.
00:13:27:05 – 00:13:55:15
Jeff
They’ve seen all this stuff before and they are just buying and hoarding any kind of commodities like wood, lumber. And that doesn’t certainly help the you know, the prices are all skyrocketing, of course, some legitimately and some illegitimately. There’s a lot of manipulation. And but it’s really crazy how people here the pace at which people are buying things with their money.
00:13:55:15 – 00:14:18:23
Jeff
And you started talking about this. Okay. You turned up the volume on it probably, I don’t know, six months ago or something like that. And so I’ve been paying attention, but my wife says, no, you don’t, you don’t get out enough. Just like people are grabbing things up. And actually and this includes metals so primarily so metals silver here.
00:14:18:23 – 00:14:25:06
Lynette
Right? So primarily gold in Romania or Bulgaria, rather. Not as much silver.
00:14:26:16 – 00:14:52:22
Jeff
Yeah, for some reason this region, Greece, also, people here are into gold and they use it similar to the Indians do. They will use it as well, a traditional wealth preservation tool. And they’ve because they have seen in the 1980s they you know, I mean, think about it. You know, I was a teenager in the 1980s. It’s not that long ago.
00:14:52:22 – 00:15:09:23
Jeff
So it’s it’s just, you know, maybe for some people who might be listening, it’s like, wow, the 1980s, that was a while ago. Not really. If you went through something like that in America, we didn’t. We went through the opposite. It was quite lovely in the 1980s.
00:15:10:05 – 00:15:36:16
Lynette
Well, so it was a boom? Well, kind of. But, you know, I mean, everybody always refers back to that period of time. But what they don’t talk about, nobody really talks about this except apparently, you know, like me. I mean, there are a lot of people that were absolutely brilliant at at the macro. But what they’re missing is that this is a currency lifecycle issue.
00:15:37:03 – 00:16:04:11
Lynette
And that’s what ultimately it’s about loss of confidence. The public that the public has that ultimately sends us into hyperinflation. And it’s the central banks and the governments that set that ball up. So in the eighties, what we had a boom. It was the greedy eighties, right? And dynasty and everything was about wealth and money and all of that.
00:16:04:16 – 00:16:32:13
Lynette
And it was a distraction. And they allowed people to make a little bit more money so that they did realize that we just shifted our whole standard of living and globalization and now we’re in I don’t think we’re in complete de globalized nation, even though that’s what they’re talking about. I think that globalization could potentially be morphing. What do you think about that?
00:16:32:13 – 00:16:57:10
Lynette
Can you can you see what I mean by that into a more what I see? It was a corporate globalization that shipped jobs to the cheapest place for the workers. Right. And all of the cheap money then like the U.S. and China’s currency being pegged together so that corporations could determine, oh, well, this is how much I’m going to make on that.
00:16:57:20 – 00:17:21:01
Lynette
Now we’re in a period where the supply chains are broken and it’s globalization. But at the same time, you’re seeing, again, synchronized efforts, which we’ve really seen since mostly since 2008, between governments and central banks.
00:17:21:01 – 00:17:49:02
Jeff
So again, in Eastern Europe, I’m almost excited to say that this region I’m glad to be here. That’s why I’m excited to say. But this region has been rather self-sufficient until the last 40 years or so where we’ve seen I mean, imagine well, imagine a world where credit is a credit card or a loan for a home is new.
00:17:49:02 – 00:18:17:21
Jeff
Yeah, right. These are this only became mainstream the last 20 years or so. People, you know, were able to on a mainstream basis, get a loan for a car or go shopping on your credit card. I mean, these when I first came to the country 20, 21 or 22 years ago, you couldn’t use a credit card. I don’t remember if you could use a debit card, but it was just not accepted.
00:18:17:21 – 00:18:24:06
Jeff
You had to walk around with cash, which I couldn’t. It was horrible. I didn’t like it at all. It wasn’t convenient.
00:18:25:00 – 00:18:28:12
Lynette
So was actually wonderful. But it was inconvenient.
00:18:28:20 – 00:19:09:17
Jeff
Yeah, right, right. Yeah, yeah. I’ve mixed emotions. Right? It’s really strange. But anyway, the region seems to be positioning and I think I had mentioned earlier that the east of Europe has never really gone along very much with the west of Europe. They’ve been forced to go along. Greece is being forced to go along. Italy in the south is being forced to go along by the bankers and but generally when it comes to I lost track of your question, the self-sufficiency of the region, we do produce our own stuff to a large degree in terms of the basics.
00:19:10:05 – 00:19:29:09
Jeff
But then we have imported, you know, the food from the Netherlands, for example, you know, 20 years ago you couldn’t get an avocado, you couldn’t get a mango here. You could get the most delicious fruit that you could get was a banana 20 years ago. Now, I mean, literally, you couldn’t get like you’d have to go to the mountain to pick your raspberries.
00:19:29:09 – 00:19:48:09
Jeff
You have to go to the mountain to pick wild blueberries. And people did. So now when they’ve got, you know, the new blueberries, the new raspberries coming from the Netherlands or Germany or wherever they come from, I don’t even know where they come from. We don’t need those. We’ll eat them and they’re cheap. But the people here don’t necessarily.
00:19:48:09 – 00:19:53:10
Jeff
Does that make sense out of your question? Was globalization and indeed globalization.
00:19:53:10 – 00:20:21:19
Lynette
But, you know, you brought up something that I think is really interesting because we started here with the credit cards without anything behind them in the fifties, we really started to turn to convert into a consumer driven economy in the twenties. So you’re saying that in Bulgaria, it was just 20 years ago when they started the push into a consumer driven economy with the credit cards.
00:20:21:19 – 00:20:42:00
Jeff
Like like an advanced payday type of thing, right? Those as well. There was no there were no places where you can go get paid crazy money to, you know, get your pay advanced for a week, all that stuff. Easy credit, places you can walk in. None of those places existed. Yeah. So it’s all recent.
00:20:42:01 – 00:21:05:04
Lynette
So what is. I haven’t really looked at this and maybe you know more about this. I mean, you’re there. What level of debt does the normal Romanian have now and how do and are the interest rates rising over there on revolving credit and how is that impacting people?
00:21:05:16 – 00:21:39:19
Jeff
I don’t have the data on that. I think you’ve seen the data on I hope you’ve seen the data. Was it variable variable rate insurance or a variable rate mortgages? And all I remember was that Australia was like 70%. There’s something crazy and we don’t even rank on that. And but there are some European countries on that, that, that data chart, but I do not have a good feel for that.
00:21:40:02 – 00:22:06:07
Jeff
But what I can tell you is that it is we’ve got people across the street from us and I’m like these guys where that looks like a new TV. Interesting. And you know, I kind of know what they do for a living and like a new TV and interesting that they they well, it’s purchased on credit. So I don’t I almost don’t want to know what the rate is, but I actually don’t have any information or data on that.
00:22:06:07 – 00:22:30:02
Jeff
And how exposed Bulgarians are to credit. Now, you know, the the Turkish how they feel about credit. They use the word evil. And we do have a good, you know, Turkish population here that are some of them impoverished, some of them quite wealthy. So some of the middle class and you don’t see them maxing out on credit, it seems.
00:22:30:02 – 00:22:35:05
Jeff
But I don’t have a good answer for you on that. In terms of is that your question, the exposure of people here?
00:22:35:06 – 00:22:58:22
Lynette
Yeah, I would be curious because 20 years is not really all that long. And so if you equate it back to the U.S., that would have been between the fifties and the seventies here. And then, of course, the system cracked and broke. But what are interest rates doing in, you know, in your region? And how is that how do you see that impacting people?
00:22:59:06 – 00:23:04:08
Lynette
Because the two year here is really, really close to 4%.
00:23:05:02 – 00:23:28:08
Jeff
Yes, it’s the same here. So all the European banks are here. So that’s one thing we really don’t have much of are our own, you know, the the Eastern Europe doesn’t they have small banks, but it’s really all the the German banks and UK banks. And so that’s all it’s pretty much the same in terms of home mortgages and second mortgages and those kind of things.
00:23:29:00 – 00:23:35:22
Jeff
What I don’t know is what’s the fixed rate versus the variable rate, right? I think that’s the real.
00:23:36:13 – 00:23:48:08
Lynette
Well that. And do you know how long the mortgages are? I mean, here it’s pretty normal to have, thank goodness, a 30 year fixed rate.
00:23:48:08 – 00:23:50:21
Jeff
Right. I don’t know what it is here. Yeah, I don’t.
00:23:50:21 – 00:23:56:10
Lynette
Know because a lot of times in Europe, it’s a five year loan or maybe a ten year loan.
00:23:56:18 – 00:24:26:13
Jeff
It’s yeah, that’s what I, I was just going to say. What I hear most of is ten years. That’s the number. I, I mean, I don’t have any hard data for you, but that’s what I hear people making investments of ten years and that’s the, you know, looking into paying it off within ten years. I think generally speaking, people here are leery of, you know, this guy’s got his ATV, but they’re going to take it right the minute he starts making payments, right.
00:24:26:13 – 00:24:50:10
Jeff
So and that’s a so when you do that, I think people have this awareness that I’ve got my job and if you’re working for the government, you might go get that extra ETB, you might get, you know, whatever it is, something frivolous for yourself, thinking that, you know, you’ve got a government job and that, you know, these if you’re more comfortable with, you know, with being in that position.
00:24:50:10 – 00:25:01:11
Jeff
But I don’t really I don’t really understand how exposed people in Eastern Europe are, but they do seem very unlike Western Europe, you know, which lives on credit. People here don’t seem to live that way.
00:25:02:04 – 00:25:24:15
Lynette
And that’s actually reasonably new for people. Even in Western Europe. It’s more common all the way over here in the good ole USA because we’ve been working on it for so much longer and we didn’t have those walls to break down in in consciousness, on credit and debt.
00:25:25:02 – 00:25:54:10
Jeff
What has me concerned is, is the wellbeing for other people also generally in you know but for me what keeps me up at night is speed trying to get these things done as quickly as possible. But also the days are getting shorter. We had a cold snap now and you know, everything I’m hearing about coming out of western Germany, it’s just the Western Europe is just frightening and UK it’s frightening.
00:25:54:10 – 00:26:33:22
Jeff
I mean, some of this I wonder, you know, the okay, so let me give you some numbers that I just got. I think it was Bob Moriarty is reporting that, you know, the Swiss are saying if you go freeze Fahrenheit €3,000, I mean, these people are crazy. That’s German electric bills. Yeah. Have gone up by eight times. And when we say that the German electric electric bills have already gone up eight times what they normally are, that’s seven times what people are paying in the US.
00:26:33:22 – 00:26:51:03
Jeff
So yeah, France is up 1010 x ten X on their electricity bills. And here’s the crazy part, Lynnette. The government is subsidizing all this. And the same thing, I guess is going on in UK. They’re saying, you know, the government will subsidize more money printing.
00:26:51:11 – 00:26:51:21
Lynette
Well.
00:26:52:00 – 00:26:53:06
Jeff
More money printing.
00:26:53:06 – 00:27:16:13
Lynette
And who ultimately pays the subsidies is the taxpayer. Government generates money through your taxes. Then that’s what people. I think there’s always a disconnect. Will the government’s going to do this or the government’s going to do that? Well, it’s the government spending, your taxpayer money. Taxes have to go up. They have to. And will it, do you think?
00:27:16:13 – 00:27:27:02
Lynette
Well, that is clearly why the German government has nationalized three of their utility.
00:27:27:02 – 00:27:49:01
Jeff
I think this is the end of the European Union. I think the energy stuff is really going to take it apart. The union is barely holding on and like I mentioned, Eastern Europe generally doesn’t want anything to do with these guys. Southern Europe as well. That’s why I like Yanis Varoufakis. He walked out as the finance minister. They told him, here’s the game.
00:27:49:01 – 00:28:24:17
Jeff
You’re going to play with the Germans and we’re all going to get to eat. And he said, No, no thanks. I’m I’m not your guy. And he walked out. So and they just got some other clown to go deal with the German the German banks. Right. And they did a deal. So, you know, to some degree, our neighboring countries, specifically Greece, what’s going to happen, they are not in the same position that we are in in terms of that national debt to try and how bad is it going to get there?
00:28:24:17 – 00:28:55:01
Jeff
Because we rely on them. We you know, we go there as tourists once in a while, but we get a lot of our fruit, oranges and a lot of fruit from there. But I’m very worried about the European Union. Yeah, I’m increasingly worried about what’s going on in Ukraine. I don’t see anybody talking about peace. I don’t see yeah, I see a lot of reports, credible reports of, you know, Boris Johnson having nixed a peace deal.
00:28:55:09 – 00:29:21:21
Jeff
And, you know, I just see more weapons being poured in port in port, in port. And I see the Russians ratcheting up. You know, there are threats. Essentially, they’re cutting off the gas. I just don’t see that going in a good direction. It’s very close to here. And, you know, people are more and more refugees are coming. The people here are starting to get a little bit crazy with all the refugees flowing in.
00:29:21:21 – 00:29:57:16
Jeff
We’re getting a lot of illegal migration right now. So it’s you know, you know where to put people who subsidizes these people and what are the ramifications of all these subsidies? You know, free money, free money, free money. We had we were very lucky where we are, we almost became flooded. But we had 200 houses underwater, very close to our our home here from a large rainstorm, basically one of these 800 year rains.
00:29:58:09 – 00:30:27:15
Jeff
And, you know, you can see people are quite angry with the subsidies, you know, millions and tens of millions of subsidies for Ukrainian refugees who deserve help and need help. Again, these are young children and older grandmothers, primarily the young. And they need the help. They got nowhere to go. They got no money to eat or they burned through the money, whatever money they had.
00:30:28:06 – 00:30:54:10
Jeff
But, you know, there’s lots of money for them, but there’s no money for these 200 people, these 200 homes. They literally gave them 300. I think it was 300 level the other day. I don’t know. I can’t believe it. I think it was this morning on the news. They gave them 300 leva, which is the equivalent of $155 for.
00:30:55:04 – 00:31:28:20
Jeff
That’s do that’s the offset there. Yeah. There are no more home. No more home. Home is gone. It was completely up to the roof and water. Many of these are made the walls are made of clay. So literally gone. And, you know, that’s what worries me is governments don’t not taking care of their people and civil unrest. Bob Moriarty is saying not here, but I just you know, in some of these larger European, I feel safe in eastern Europe.
00:31:28:20 – 00:31:53:23
Jeff
I really do. There’s not a lot of civil unrest here because we don’t seem to be experiencing we are experiencing the inflation, the gas, gasoline prices are way down. They are back to just above the pre-COVID levels. Wow. Of about of about $5.80 a gallon. And that and by the way, that’s low here.
00:31:54:00 – 00:31:54:09
Lynette
That is.
00:31:54:09 – 00:32:22:00
Jeff
Low. We were paying about $6.70 a gallon. Greece, we took a trip to Greece. Greece was paying we were paying $13 a gallon in Greece a couple of months ago, if you can even imagine that. But people here and again, by the way, when I say the gas here right now is $5.80, that’s a low number. Very low number because of the surge in the dollar’s strength.
00:32:22:00 – 00:32:42:15
Jeff
So when I’m doing this conversion, the dollar, as you’ve been explaining to people on the strength of the dollar, is able to buy more leva or more euro. So but I’m still very worried about just people in general civil unrest. I feel safer in a small village as you do and you’re bug out. But it’s.
00:32:42:15 – 00:32:43:02
Lynette
True.
00:32:43:13 – 00:33:09:05
Jeff
I and I feel safer in a place where the cold season is shorter in Southern Europe generally, and we are able to grow our own food. We are growing our own food where we have we have rabbits, we have chickens. So I have a couple of geese was given as a birthday gift last year. So, you know, we are moving into self-sufficient mode increasingly.
00:33:09:05 – 00:33:17:01
Jeff
But I’m just worried about what are the ramifications of the European Union falling apart, what are the things that we do enjoy?
00:33:17:03 – 00:33:43:17
Lynette
You know, that’s going to be huge. But, you know, honestly, history would tell us that was an absolutely failed experiment to begin with because you cannot take all of those different economies and peg them together. I wanted to go back to how you said, because I think people need to be aware of this, that it really is about preparation and it really is about security.
00:33:44:04 – 00:34:16:13
Lynette
And you said that you know, people what you’ve noticed the change in just a month is that people are accumulating a lot more things. You can’t accumulate strawberries because they have a shelf life. Right. So a lot of these things do indeed have a shelf life. And you also mentioned that they are accumulating more gold and silver. So can you talk to that a little bit more and combine their experience with the money oddities.
00:34:16:23 – 00:34:44:00
Jeff
Anything that’s a commodity? I don’t see any food. Well, yeah, I guess the cooking oil would count as that. But I think what people are doing is they are preparing to abandon currency. To be honest with you, we in Eastern Europe, what I mean, I don’t personally know because I’m an expatriate. I don’t know if I’ve said that word enough, but I know some people in comments on the videos are like, who is this guy?
00:34:44:00 – 00:35:18:14
Jeff
I’m an I’m an expat. I’m an American citizen living in Eastern Europe. But the people here have done barter before. I mean, the village I live in is functions almost exclusively on barter, but that’s the community part of it. Yes. So I think when you say the industrialized nation, first of all, I think nations and states are going to rely on themselves more and we’re already starting to see it and keeping what they want, you know, kind of like kind of like California.
00:35:18:14 – 00:35:42:03
Jeff
They keep all the good wine in California. They don’t send much of it out. Right. But I think what’s going to happen is already happening. And people are stacking metals, particularly here. It’s gold and they are some people are turning in their gold because they you know, they don’t have the cash. They don’t they don’t you know, they’re having a hard time making ends meet.
00:35:42:03 – 00:36:10:04
Jeff
So they’re having to cash out, which is very unfortunate. But people are preparing for their openly talking about like like if we’re going into these places that are dealing in building materials of all kinds, plumbing, electric, but also the wood and and cement and all these and the prices are all over the place, but the people are generally unloading their currency.
00:36:10:04 – 00:36:38:12
Jeff
And I’m talking about the the retailers. Right. They want to you know, they’re trying to move as much as they can. And people are coming in and just unloading their currency because of the inflation. It’s that simple. So I think the inflation here seems to be, you know, tamped down by these gas prices, but nobody here expects that to last.
00:36:39:09 – 00:36:40:14
Jeff
It’s kind of the price.
00:36:40:15 – 00:36:45:02
Lynette
How are the other prices going up? It’s just the gas prices and that makes.
00:36:45:03 – 00:37:14:22
Jeff
Know everything else. The food has leveled off and and the commodities, the building materials have always been like you get crazy numbers all over the place, mostly high. Generally, people are preparing for the extreme devaluation of currency. They’ve seen it before. They’ve seen the early warning signs, whether they’re older, especially the older folks in the Middle Ages, they’ve seen it before and they can explain it to the young people and they’re not stupid.
00:37:15:11 – 00:37:36:21
Jeff
And I mean, people are smarter than that. I think the governments give them credit for certainly the European Union, you know, thinks that people are not very bright, but people in Eastern Europe have been through this currency collapse stuff before, not a full collapse, but hyperinflation.
00:37:37:06 – 00:38:02:19
Lynette
And, well, hyperinflation. And then you go into a whole new currency regime and that lasts as long as it lasts. And we’re at the end of it. But this time it’s global. It’s not just one country here or one country there. And we’re going to wrap this up. But there was a very interesting study. I don’t know if you saw the piece that I did on the two recent IMF reports.
00:38:03:04 – 00:38:35:20
Lynette
There were two September report. Yes. And one where in the past they’ve always talked about the interconnected nature of the financial system. But this time, for the first time, they took a look at the full interconnected nature imports, exports, investments, the whole nine yards. So, you know, I mean, do you think it’s going to matter where the the collapse that cannot be papered over is going to start?
00:38:35:20 – 00:39:03:04
Jeff
That’s what keeps me up at night. You asked me, what keeps you up? I’m like, you know, because I listen to you and I understand thanks to you, that worries me because I learned that Zang is not some crazy person who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You’ve studied this your whole life. And by the way, Lynnette did not ask me to say all this, so I’m sorry, but I you you know, you do a very good job.
00:39:03:09 – 00:39:27:04
Jeff
First of all, like you said, you do not believe me, do you? Dr. Chris Martenson always says do your own research, and that’s basically what you guys do, what you and Dr. Chris do. You guys take the research, you put it in. It’s pretty actually plain language that they use. It’s not that technical and you just break it down line by line and you kind of color it in with some examples.
00:39:27:04 – 00:39:52:22
Jeff
When you go through that report, you’re like, Look at this, look at that, look at this. These this is the evidence that we have for what they’re describing and then what they’re describing potentially happening and opening the door for essentially, you know, the merger of private banks into into government banks. And they’re just talking about it. Right, right in the open.
00:39:52:22 – 00:39:59:14
Jeff
So what does that mean for for us? You know, you and I hope we’ll be alive when this shakes out.
00:40:00:10 – 00:40:01:04
Lynette
I don’t think it’s.
00:40:01:04 – 00:40:26:08
Jeff
Going to be. Yeah, me neither. But I mean, I’m worried about, you know, the kids and young adults and people who are you know, it’s just not going to be the same place. And I think, you know, you know, get educated, definitely go to school, get educated. But you better have a skill. And that’s one thing that I like that you keep saying that has been challenging for me.
00:40:26:08 – 00:40:44:09
Jeff
I mean, how can I take my skills and how can I use my skills in a in a world of barter? And my wife is already beginning to do it as a doctor here in the village, and she’ll continue to do that. So you have to have and you don’t have to be a doctor. You can you can do woodwork, you can do metalwork.
00:40:44:18 – 00:40:45:11
Jeff
You know, her father.
00:40:45:16 – 00:40:57:18
Lynette
Lay so you can be a farmer. You get you anything. You can, a writer you can, you know. So there’s always a way to translate your skill sets into areas.
00:40:57:18 – 00:41:23:17
Jeff
But you have to go for figure it out. Yes, yeah. You just have to figure it out. And I’m trying not to panic as I think about this future world and see how I can position to, you know, protect my wealth, which it has helped me do and, you know, continue to stack silver and, you know, whatever, continue to protect what wealth you have.
00:41:23:17 – 00:41:42:22
Jeff
But also how do you, you know, get rid of your currency and, you know, if you need something, then buy it. If you really need something, now’s the time to buy it. Right. So you know what are you waiting for? Because guns, gold in the garden.
00:41:43:09 – 00:41:45:02
Lynette
Right after.
00:41:45:03 – 00:41:45:17
Jeff
The three.
00:41:45:17 – 00:41:46:20
Lynette
G’s, the three.
00:41:46:20 – 00:41:50:13
Jeff
G. I think that was Gerald Celente, right. Guns, Golden.
00:41:51:00 – 00:41:51:18
Lynette
Gardens.
00:41:51:18 – 00:41:52:02
Jeff
I think.
00:41:52:04 – 00:42:37:04
Lynette
Yep, yeah, yep, yep, yep. And that’s what he has to. And that’s certainly what I have to do. Well has been great. Thank you so much for coming on and keeping us updated and I look forward to the next time, you know, and hopefully it won’t be horrendous the next time, but who knows? We’re in a very precarious position and actually what they talked about is the world and this was I think it was the chief security secretary at the U.N. I could be wrong about what his position is, but he said this morning the world is in peril and paralyzed.
00:42:37:04 – 00:42:38:15
Lynette
That’s not a good. I’m sorry.
00:42:39:09 – 00:42:39:17
Jeff
Who said.
00:42:39:17 – 00:42:55:00
Lynette
That? He was some some high saw. I just saw it as I was coming in for to film this. So it’s some big bigwig at the U.N. The world is in peril. Oh, I realized.
00:42:55:05 – 00:43:00:16
Jeff
Yeah, he’s made other but he made other statements. I think he’s a former chief security officer.
00:43:00:16 – 00:43:01:07
Lynette
I think so.
00:43:01:09 – 00:43:10:21
Jeff
I remember something like this. He’s come out and he’s made a couple of other statements that are variable and I can’t remember what they were. This is just breaking in the last 24 hours, I think. Yeah.
00:43:11:12 – 00:43:27:06
Lynette
So, you know, I think it’s it’s absolutely true. And when you hear it over and over again, because we are hearing it from from those of the top, it is really a warning that you better get yourself prepared.
00:43:27:06 – 00:43:36:23
Jeff
There they are. They are openly talking about everything they’re going to do and why they’re doing it. And what the options are.
00:43:37:02 – 00:43:38:18
Lynette
So they’re getting.
00:43:38:20 – 00:43:46:10
Jeff
Yeah. And it’s none of it’s good, right? None of it’s good. And people are saying, yes, there will be civil unrest and oh yeah.
00:43:47:03 – 00:43:48:21
Lynette
That’s the one that’s been rising.
00:43:50:04 – 00:43:59:06
Jeff
If you look at what Trudeau keeps saying, you know, he’s got to he’s got a plan for that and he’s already shown what the plan is.
00:43:59:17 – 00:44:00:06
Lynette
Thank you.
00:44:00:06 – 00:44:27:21
Jeff
So stay safe like you say. Stay safe out there. Stay protect yourself. Stick while you can, you know, get your garden, get your gold, get your silver and, you know, get your community lined up. And if you can be self-sufficient with energy, you’d better get it done. Get it done, get a target on all of this year. Yeah, we’re trying to get it done.
00:44:27:21 – 00:44:46:07
Jeff
We’re trying to get it done. And yeah, thank you for your your praise and your being proud. I feel proud, too. It’s nice to have earned your your positive feelings. And whenever I can deliver anything that’s changing out here, just let me know if you’d like to speak again and. Oh, hopefully it’ll be better news. But I don’t anticipate better news, but not.
00:44:46:07 – 00:44:59:13
Lynette
For a while. But yes, I really appreciate it because it’s so great to have somebody that’s actually living over there rather than what we typically get here because we don’t really get the troops.
00:45:00:00 – 00:45:01:06
Jeff
Boots on the ground. Right.
00:45:01:06 – 00:45:15:21
Lynette
It’s on the ground. And I hope you’ve gotten as much out of this today as I have. And then till next, we mean please, you want to do it with me because you know it. Please be safe out there. Bye bye.
00:45:16:16 – 00:45:17:04
Jeff
Cheers.