Save Yourself!

As Salaamu alaikum everyone, apologies for keeping you waiting. I hope you are doing well. Today we're going to go over some of the key macro indicators, some signs good and bad that the economy is showing us that asset prices are showing us and then we're going to end with basically how do we save ourselves here. So without further ado, let's get started. Not financial advice, be sure to do your own due diligence before you make any investing decisions. Alright, so on Friday we had the PCE report and wasn't terrible. We had inflation that in many aspects was kind of encouraging. One aspect that is naturally talked about that often is how what percentage of items are actually decreasing in price. So if we look at December 2019, you can see that 10% of items had inflation above 4%, around 30% had inflation below 0%. If you look at June 2022, which was perhaps the worst period for inflation, 58% of items had inflation above 4%, whereas only 13% had items with inflation below 0%. This was basically at the peak of the inflation crisis, I would say. But right now we're at somewhat of a equilibrium between items with inflation above 4%, which are 33% of total items measured versus 30% of items with inflation below 0%. That is they are becoming cheaper. So it's not all gloomy, it's not all doom as it relates to the inflation report. And this reflected itself in improved prospects for a rate cut. Currently, there seems to be, so we're at the 525 to 550 base points right now. It doesn't seem like the market is pricing in any possibility for a rate cut in September. I went out to September because I think that's the closest there is a reasonable expectation for a rate cut. But there's an above 50% chance of a rate cut in September. So this is good, this is positive, encouraging news. That being said, as we saw with market action over the weekend today, market has early responded yet to the more encouraging PCE results. And I think there are a number of factors contributing to this. If you look at US inflation, we're still at an elevated levels at elevated level, especially compared to our target, the Fed's target of 2%. And then also compared to Europe and China, we're at a faster rate than they are. So if you look at the USA in orange, we're at 3.4% versus European unions at 2.6, and China is at 1.97%. That being said, I'd rather be the US than Europe, and it's not even close. European inflation is low, largely because their economy doesn't produce much of anything. And their demand is very weak. The consumer demand in Europe is very weak. That brings down inflation. So yes, we have higher rates of inflation in the United States, but we also have a much healthier economy and consumer as well. Now, there has been a rush for commodities from investors. So if you look at the major commodity prices, they've performed quite well. So as it relates to gold or silver or copper, copper especially, and I think copper, it is partly an actual, like practical reason for the increase in the price of copper. I've spoken about this before on this channel, which is the fact that electricity is going to become increasingly valuable as the move of the economy towards AI and compute. Deepens and as that becomes a more and more and more essential part of the economy, as well as if you look at the amount of electricity consumed per person, that number is going up. So the infrastructure to support this increased electricity consumption is largely copper based. So there is beyond speculation and shorts, but there are some fundamental reasons for the increase in the price of copper. Although that's, if you ask me, would you invest in copper? The answer is probably not. I much rather look at second and third order derivatives from the increase in the price of copper and make my move there, because that would have a lot less crowding around it. That trade would have a lot less crowding around it. There's more upside there. If you look at US interest payments, and now they've exceeded the budget of the United States on defense. So you can see this for the first time almost ever. We can now see that the interest payments are more than what the country spends on defense switches. I don't know, you can see it in many different ways, but it just goes to show how much interest is eating away at the wealth of this country. It's eating away at the ability of this country to be prosperous. Just like it does on a household level, on a country level interest will impoverish whatever entity is burdened with it. And household debt in the United States is no exception to the increase in debt. So you can see the household debt, non housing and housing debt increasing quite steadily. We had apologies. We had a slight dip between 2010 and around 2014. But other than that, it's basically a steadily climbing. And the delinquency rate on credit card loans. Although it's not at the 2008, 2009 crisis levels. It has increased to a level that we haven't seen since 12, basically. So it's been more than a decade since we've seen delinquency levels on credit cards as high as they are right now. That being said, when you zoom out, this is not historically unprecedented. But it does go to show that the burden on the consumer is increasing. And this may lead to a reduction in demand in the overall economy. Now, what I want to impart on you is that the way to save yourself from what I think is a deteriorating balance sheet for the United States. And by the way, all countries are like this. The balance, the United States is perhaps better off than many other countries. But most major economies are suffering from increased debt burdens. The current system will not last and there will be a lot of turbulence in the meantime. But to save yourself, take a look at this chart. If you had $10,000 in 2013 and put it into Bitcoin, you'd have more than$700,000 right now. If you just let it be the melting ice cube in your savings account, that $10,000 would have the purchasing power of $7,000 in today's term and today's terms because of inflation. So you would have lost basically a third of your purchasing power, just keeping it idle, melting like an ice cube without it, without deploying it. In this case, in Bitcoin, that being said, I want to expand this concept to tell you that it's not just Bitcoin that can save your purchasing power, but investing in general, investing in the right assets can save your purchasing power. If you invested in NVIDIA or invested in Tesla or Microsoft or Apple, you would have saved your purchasing power. I'm not commenting on the comfort rating of these particular assets, but just to illustrate the point, take a look at the S&P 500. If you had invested $10,000, you would be at close to $30,000. If you just invested in a property on average, you would have had $15,000 or if you invested in gold, you'd have close to $16,500. So investing is no longer a luxury. As the rate of interest payments go up, as the rate of indebtedness goes up, the urgency for you to leave fiat currency becomes even more pronounced. So yes, Bitcoin is one solution. Investing in the right asset is the only way to save yourself, basically, and save your wealth and your purchasing power and the economic well-being of your family. Investing is the only way for you to do that. I highly encourage you to take the time to educate yourself about investing, what are the best assets, and get started sooner rather than later. This is why we created the PIF community of Hello Conscious investors trying to do good and do well. We share what we invest in, move from move with our members. So do become a member if you're not a member already. And with that, if you have any questions, I'll be glad to take it. To be honest, I am very bullish on Afghanistan, although you probably will find it quite difficult to invest in it right now, but their financial policies have been quite good. I'm also bullish on places like Turkey and Qatar. I think they're moving in the right direction. I think there's a lot of great companies in Turkey. I can tell you, having lived in Turkey for 11 out of months in 2023. A lot of the appliances that we used, a lot of the products that we used were made in Turkey, and they were, in many cases, better than similar products that are made in the United States or in Europe. For example, I can tell you my wife really liked the kitchen appliances that we had in Turkey a lot more than she did the ones that we were using in the United States. Although now we've upgraded our appliances when we move back, and so they're competitive again, but the Turkish industry is actually quite dynamic. They're very serious about the things that they produce, and I think there's a lot of undervalued opportunities there. So I do intend on making investing in Muslim countries a priority, and it's something that I am working on in addition to the new portfolio that we plan on revealing to PIF members soon. As investing is becoming a necessity, wouldn't then incentivize people to buy assets and not save thus further increasing the velocity of money and inflation. Well, it will increase the, it will increase some of the valuations, perhaps, as people flee out of the US dollar. Something I'm really concerned about is, you know, the demand for debt issued by the United States is going to, is starting to grow weaker as the country seems inevitably headed towards bankruptcy, to be honest. Now, when does this happen? Does it happen in the next five years? Does it happen in the next 10 years, 15 years? I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. But the current path that we're on is unsustainable. So unless, you know, AI and robotics get us out of this mess, there's some miracle happens. This path has been tried before, and the end is known, and that end is with hyperinflation, and increasingly as people recognize this, they will flee out of the US dollar into other assets. Now, what concerns me is that the US government may end up having to increase the interest rate on its debt in order to stimulate demand for its debt, so it has to make it more attractive, which in turn will increase the interest payments and causes snowball to go faster. So this is something that really, you know, people need to be aware of and plan accordingly. I don't mean to be alarmist, but I do mean to be a realist and tell you things how I see them. For someone who's not a US citizen, but aspires to be naturalized, do you advise him or her to go for it, or the taxes are too high for investors? So I'll tell you something that I learned. So first of all, regardless of my opinion of the US foreign policy, which is poor, but I think that it's been basically hijacked and does no longer reflects the will of the US people. But I hold a lot of indebtedness towards this country. The country and its people have been quite nice to me and my parents and my family. And so I hold a lot of indebtedness to them. And, you know, I'm reminded, you know, I lost power to Allah. What should be the return of kindness, except kindness in return. So I do feel, I do feel a certain amount of indebtedness to this country. That being said, so, you know, I would never like renounce my citizenship to this country. But what I can say is that something unique about US citizens is that regardless of where they are, regardless of where they work, they owe US total taxes. And this is something that, you know, was something I had to deal with when I lived last year in Turkey. And so this should be something that you think about if you have the, you know, citizenship elsewhere before you become a US citizen, it should be something in your calculation. Because basically, this means that regardless of where you are, you owe US taxes. As I mentioned, if it was just a financial consideration, then, you know, not being a US citizen, you know, may have been an option for me, but for me, it's more than that. Oh, a lot to this country, which has been very good to me. And so I wouldn't feel right. I wouldn't feel like I did this country justice if I didn't pay back what I felt was given to me. And so that's why. And I, you know, as much as possible, if I'm able to do something good that's beneficial to this country, then I'll definitely try to. Hair looks great, by the way. It's like every, every live I get a comment about my hair. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Something that was inconceivable. Only just a year ago that I would be talking about my hair because it didn't exist last year. But thank you. I appreciate that. Is it incorrect to say the US is immune because that is in its fiat currency? Well, it's fair to say that the US will never default because they can print their own currency. However, the purchasing power of that currency cannot be saved by simply printing it. In fact, the opposite is true. Actually, I skipped a bunch of questions. Let me go up very briefly. So I'm okay. I'm waiting to hear from you. Love your new ideas. Thanks a shot. I really appreciate that. How can we invest in Turkey? Perhaps I'll have some more information on that. Also, is renting a waste of money compared to getting a house. So for me, I, I've opted to rent for many reasons. Actually, top of list would be the absence of a way to finance the purchase of the house without using interest bearing debt. Red, that's implicit or explicit. And so I haven't found a way to do that. But also, even if there was a way, I'm not sure I would do it. Only because you have a lot of maintenance work and cost. And I like renting because it allows me the flexibility to move quickly when I want to. And I don't have to worry about maintenance. And I don't have to worry about upkeep of the house. And I think that I can achieve returns just as good as buying equity in a property in other markets that are much more liquid and require less maintenance and upkeep. So that's why I've stayed away. I think generally speaking, a rule of thumb would be if you plan on staying in a place for 10 years plus, then owning makes sense. But if you plan on staying in a place less than that, then the fees of purchasing and then selling become a really big factor that you should take into account. Some other have you heard of Fida that's based in the UK? Yeah, I have heard of them. I haven't done a review of them, perhaps in the future. Are there ETFs there? Okay, I'm not sure what that is. Is it incorrect? I answered that side. Some are like in one of your videos, you said day trading stocks is halal as long as the stock is halal and other factors since in day trading is constructive ownership. Do you still think the same? Perhaps I'll talk about day trading in a future video. Otherwise, you can look at the videos that I've made before. Yeah, US is the only country. I know that tax or citizens buy citizenship regardless of where you work in the world. That's actually true. Usually countries don't do that. Turkey has had very high inflation, but its economy is doing quite well. Do you have an explanation for that? Yeah, maybe I'll go into that in the future. I think that's, I think it's good to figure out what exactly is going on to ascertain whether or not there's an opportunity there because as I mentioned before, the thing that I start my investing with, the question I start my investing with is what is out of favor? Right now. Right now, I think what is out of favor is the Turkish Lera and the, I think to some extent, Turkish companies. And I think that's probably largely unjustified. So there may be a good opportunity here to make some money and support the Muslim country. Turkey has had, sorry, US can't be good on if they use our taxes to go into the world. Like I said, foreign policy is not something that I agree with here in the United States. Morocco lately is making good economical steps. That's great to hear actually. I'd love to take a closer look at that. I'd love to take a closer look at that. So the number one thing that you want to look for when you're investing in the country, just a base layer is rule of law. If you have rule of law, then there's opportunity there. If you don't have rule of law, then this is not a place you should put your money in. So with regards to Morocco, it's a country that I've heard many great things about in terms of people visiting it as a tourist, but I really don't know much about it. Otherwise, I know it's a beautiful country, beautiful people, very tasty food, but I don't really know much about the sort of economic life there. But it's something, a topic that I'm definitely interested in. Only homes comes with maintenance costs, property tax, yeah, exactly. ETFs in Turkey, I would be surprised if there weren't any, but because of how commonplace they are and how increasingly popular they're becoming. So I suspect there are, but I didn't know none right off the top of my head. Are you working in IT? No, I'm working in investing. This is what I do. I manage the PI of portfolios. I've recently been added to an investment committee for a big charity here in the United States. Perhaps I'll tell you guys more about them. And yeah, my life is about investing. Watch my video on Forex and watch my video on options armor. Thank you all for coming. Before you leave, please do leave a like. I really appreciate that. It helps this video be seen by other people. It helps us grow our community. So if you did appreciate the video and you learned something, then do leave a like. As I mentioned, I really appreciate that. Take care of yourself. Salaam alaikum. And peace be upon you all.