Your grocery bill isn’t just a headache—it’s a signal. We sit down with financial analyst and entrepreneur Matt Smith to unpack a hard truth: the U.S. debt load is on a parabolic path, and the most likely political solution is to inflate it away. What does that mean for the dollar, your wages, and the value of your savings? We connect the dots between gold’s surge, stable coins as policy tools, and why confidence—not code—decides whether new instruments buy time or burn trust.

From there, we look at the real engine behind “Made in America” 2.0: defense. If national security drives reindustrialization, expect inflation, bottlenecks, and capital controls to manage flows as we try to build what we no longer make. We compare U.S. procurement bloat with faster, cheaper infrastructure abroad, and ask the uncomfortable question: can we spend smarter before we spend bigger? Along the way, we confront a second crisis—collapsing trust in official narratives—and how existential rhetoric turns disagreements into divisions.

Then we pivot to solutions you can control. Matt shares The Preparation, a hands-on alternative to college built around 16 skill cycles and free elite academics. Think EMT certification, heavy machinery, sailing crew, geophysics fieldwork, entrepreneurship, language, and martial arts—stacked into a profile that’s competent, confident, and “dangerous” in the best way: grounded in reality and able to say no. With AI set to erase entry-level white-collar jobs, the best hedge may be human capital that can actually build, fix, and lead.

If you’re worried about inflation, curious about stablecoins, skeptical of institution-speak, or searching for a path that doesn’t start with six figures of debt, this conversation lays out the map and the mindset.

Subscribe, share with someone who needs a plan, and leave a review with the one skill you’d add to The Preparation.

Chapters:

0:00 Opening And Guest Introduction

2:20 The Debt Spiral And No-Way-Out Thesis

4:55 Printing Money, Gold Signals, And Inflation

8:40 New Instruments, Stablecoins, And Confidence

12:10 Transfers, Doom Loops, And State Capitalism

15:20 Infrastructure Costs And Comparative Efficiency

18:20 Defense As Industrial Policy Catalyst

22:10 Internal vs External Dollars And Capital Controls

26:00 Foreign Direct Investment Over Financialization

28:20 War, Oil Politics, And Budget Priorities

33:30 Trust Collapse, Official Narratives, And Risky Rhetoric

38:10 Generational Friction And Opportunity Scarcity

40:55 The Preparation: An Alternative To College

46:30 Skills, Anchor Activities, And Real-World Competence

51:40 Critical Thinking, Agency, And Being “Dangerous”

56:40 Local Solutions Amid Systemic Shocks

1:01:00 Where To Find The Book And Resources

1:02:50 Closing Statements

Our theme music, Adventures In Jazz, was used with permission. Composed and performed by Bob Mamet.