International Man: In the 2020 Presidential elections, there were allegations of cheating, voter fraud, and all sorts of shenanigans.
What do you expect to happen in the 2024 election in this regard? Do you think the outcome will be disputed?
Doug Casey: Election disputes are not unique to the current era. In the 1960 election, Chicago’s Mayor Daley stuffed ballot boxes, allowing Kennedy to win over Nixon in an extremely close election.
It happened again when the baby Bush ran against Al Gore in 2000. The Hanging Chad issue was decided by Bush’s brother Jeb, who was the governor of Florida. Since his brother was critical to Bush’s victory, the election resembled the type of thing that happens in Latin America.
And you’ll recall how Hillary whined and complained about Trump stealing the election from her in 2016. It was supposed to be “her turn.” You may recall that I handicapped Trump to win in 2016, against huge odds. I even made and won a gentleman’s bet of 100 ounces of silver with my friend Marin Katusa.
Trump’s complaints about fraud in 2020 are nothing new. But, despite the widespread denials of the mainstream media, I think Trump is right. I handicapped the Dems to win then, strictly on the basis of fraud (link).
So what do I expect to happen this year? Let’s assume a less than 100% chance the election proceeds more-or-less as usual. I certainly hope we don’t have some type of emergency that delays or cancels the election but don’t plan your life around it. Anyway, I’m confident enough to have bet 100 ounces of Ag with a hedge fund manager friend.
As I said before, we’re on the cusp of a civil war. No matter which side wins, the other side will be bitterly and perhaps violently unhappy. The election will be contested by the loser in any number of ways. It’s likely to be a chaotic and ugly situation. I know that seems like an outrageous thing to say.
But the Blues and the Reds really despise each other and seem incapable of polite discourse. It’s completely unique in living memory. And the mutual antagonism is getting worse, not better.
International Man: What is your top cultural prediction for post-election America?
Doug Casey: The best analogy for the United States today might be China in the late 1960s.
The US is experiencing a cultural revolution to eliminate anything that’s traditional. The Chinese Cultural Revolution was about getting rid of the Four Olds—old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. I wrote an article five years ago discussing that revolution and why Trump would lose in 2020. I urge you to read it.
The Woke Revolution going on today is similar in lots of aspects to the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Not least is the intense radicalism in the universities, and its promotion by the government and the media.
My guess is that even though some people are reacting against the Woke cultural revolution, it may be too little and too late. The problem is that they don’t have a sound alternative philosophy to rally around. They’re simply against things they don’t like, but they lack any coherent beliefs to actively promote. Worse, they accept many of the Wokesters basic moral principles. They just think they’re too outrageous, and going too far, too fast. They fail to see them as evil and outright destructive. Worse, some of them want to impose their own brand of authoritarianism.
Let me re-emphasize that I hope Trump wins not because he’s a solution. He’s not. He has no core philosophical, economic, or political beliefs. But he’s at least a cultural conservative who doesn’t want to overturn the essence of what’s left of America.
What’s going on is a psychological war, and the lack of a well-defined philosophy and moral tenets is exactly how you lose a psy-op war.
International Man: What is your top geopolitical prediction for post-election America?
Doug Casey: The US military is the one thing—about the only thing—the US government has that still works relatively well and has the respect of the population. Although it’s working less well all the time. The rank-and-file are being indoctrinated with all manner of crazy woke notions, while white males with traditional values are being actively discouraged. Flag officers are now largely self-promoting political operatives.
The US military resembles a giant hammer. It consumes around a trillion dollars of the government’s spending annually. And as everyone knows, if all you’ve got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Those 11 very expensive carrier battle groups the US government has floating around foreign waters have nothing to do with “defense.” At best, they’re an attractive nuisance, looking for trouble and provoking the natives. If they’re used to actively solve some problem, there’s an excellent chance some will be sunk.
My prediction is that we’re heading for World War 3, although nobody can pinpoint the exact time or place. Gaza and the Ukraine are obvious candidates for US involvement to spin out of control. But with several hundred US military bases around the world, there’s plenty of room for some black swans the size of Pteranodons to land.
International Man: What is your top financial prediction for post-election America?
Doug Casey: Interest rates, the price of money, are the most important market. And, perversely, they’re the market that’s most manipulated by the Fed.
Interest rates are still much lower than they “should” be, considering the amount of dollars being created by our central bank, the Fed, and the commercial banking system.
Higher interest rates are inevitable after going down for approximately 40 years, from 1982 to 2022. They last peaked in the 15-20% area in the early 1980’s. They bottomed in 2022. They’ll likely go up for many years from here, regardless of what the Fed or the US Government wants. Higher real rates are necessary to discourage consumption and speculation, and encourage savings to rebuild the country’s capital.
Higher interest rates make things tougher for the economy (in the short run) and work against the stock market. I don’t know when a bear market will get seriously underway, but in terms of gold—real money—we’re already in a bear market.
My recommendation is: generally avoid bonds and stocks. And for that matter, real estate’s very dangerous too, especially as interest rates go up. You can’t buy or sell most real estate without mortgage money, and that’s going to stay expensive and get more expensive. Taxes on property will rise, reflecting the near-bankrupt condition of most state and local governments.
International Man: Given everything we’ve discussed today, what steps can people take for prudence and profit?
Doug Casey: Get liquid. Be a prepper and set aside a few months’ worth of essentials in case the going gets tough.
Build your savings not necessarily in dollars, but in gold, silver, and Bitcoin. Try to hone your skills as a speculator, because I expect that the markets will become chaotic. At some point, the markets will start going up and down like an elevator with a lunatic at the controls, which is actually a very good analogy in today’s world.
Bullish as I’ve been on gold, and most other commodities, I continue to think that resource stocks are going to catch the public’s attention. Junior producers and developers could head up 10 to 1 as a group, as they’ve done about five times in the last 50 years.
I think we’re up for the sixth bull market in these problematical little stocks, even while most markets will do poorly.
All things considered, we’re in for what the Chinese would call “interesting times.”
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