1038: Gold | Skeptical Sunday

1038: Gold | Skeptical Sunday

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[00:00:00] Jordan Harbinger: Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I am here with Skeptical Sunday co-host Michael Lio on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life.

And those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, and performers. On Sundays, though, we do skeptical Sunday, where a rotating guest, co-host and I break down a topic you may have never thought about and debunk common misconceptions.

Topics such as why the Olympics are kind of a sham, why tipping makes no sense. Acupuncture, astrology, hypnosis, internet porn, and more. And if you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiation, psychology, disinformation, cyber warfare, crime, and cults and more.

That'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit Jordan harbinger.com/start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. So we've all seen and heard commercials selling gold. They're different from other advertisements. Gold doesn't process your food. It doesn't water your lawn doesn't lower your cholesterol.

Gold is is just gold. So how did the metal that we find at the bottom of rivers and embedded deep in the earth become the original basis for money? How did number 79 on the periodic table of elements become the literal gold standard? Is it really better than government issued currency? Should everybody have a little gold stashed away in case of emergency?

Well, today, comedian Michael Lio is here to shine a light on and maybe take a little shine off of gold and, uh, okay, I promise I'm only doing this once on this episode.

[00:01:49] Goldmember: I love gold.

[00:01:52] Michael Regilio: Nice. And as my Italian uncle would say, au, we're talking about gold over here.

[00:01:59] Jordan Harbinger: Okay. Yeah. At first, I get it right, because AU is the abbreviation for gold in the periodic table.

But. I don't think that anybody who talks like that knows that AU is the abbreviation for gold on the periodic table, or possibly even knows what the periodic table actually is.

[00:02:15] Michael Regilio: Yeah. In fact, I would say my uh, Italian uncle probably thinks the periodic table is a liberal conspiracy or something. So you got me on that one.

Yeah. Look, let me ask you something, Jordan. What, what? What was your first

[00:02:27] Jordan Harbinger: awareness of gold? Well, we didn't have much gold in the house growing up, so I'm guessing it's gonna be watching the Olympics and seeing people win gold medals and kind of wondering what those things were.

[00:02:37] Michael Regilio: Yeah, me too. In fact, ever since I watched the Olympics for the first time, I really wanted a gold medal, but they never made watching the Olympics and Olympic sports.

So yeah, that must have been an oversight, I'm sure. And having watched the Olympics, I know the athletes don't wanna win the gold medal to trade it or sell it. They wanna hang onto it like

[00:03:00] Jordan Harbinger: forever. Unlike those garbage bronze medals that get immediately recycled, no doubt,

[00:03:07] Michael Regilio: bronze, come on. Why bother? Look, we humans have like this innate attraction to gold.

We wanna hold onto it. In fact, people have hoarded gold for

[00:03:18] Jordan Harbinger: centuries. Now, before we get angry emails, I do have a few friends who've won bronze medals. They're amazing people. They're amazing athletes. I could never compete with them. Calm down. But anyways, that for real, people just hide gold away. I mean, it sounds very piratey to do that.

[00:03:32] Michael Regilio: Yeah, yeah, they do. In fact, this has been a problem for the gold market ever since the beginning of the gold market. Getting the gold out from under the mattress and into the marketplace. Way back in the Middle Ages, it was called the bullion famine. People hoarded so much gold that it was hugely problematic for the economy.

Hoarding gold affected their economy and not just theirs. In fact, to address the problem of gold hoarding in modern times. President Roosevelt issued Executive order 61 0 2.

[00:04:04] Jordan Harbinger: Ooh, sounds serious. I'm not sure I've heard of that one. Or any executive order for that matter.

[00:04:11] Michael Regilio: Oh, well, it's serious. All right. On April 5th, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt enacted an order forbidding the hoarding of gold.

Americans were required to turn in their gold to the US government for the market price. Roosevelt wanted to remove constraints from the Federal Reserve and print more money. And since the dollar was backed by gold, he needed to increase the amount of gold held by the government. So even though these limitations on gold were lifted in 1974, this executive order still reverberates today as we'll.

See when we get into those commercials for

[00:04:49] Jordan Harbinger: gold, you just mentioned, so in 1933, America's dealing with the Great Depression. So I think, yeah, it makes sense. The government would wanna print more money to try to get out of that.

[00:04:58] Michael Regilio: Yeah, exactly. And all that gold stuffed under the mattresses wasn't doing the economy any good, that gold needed to get out there and do its thing.

Okay. But besides

[00:05:08] Jordan Harbinger: being valuable, what does gold actually do? I mean, the whole opening was like, it doesn't water your lawn, it doesn't lower your cholesterol, it just kind of sits there. Right.

[00:05:17] Michael Regilio: It's funny you should say that because actually throughout history, that was in fact true. But in the modern age, gold has kind of found some practical uses.

Gold, as I'm sure you know, it's in all of our modern electronics. In fact, your smartphone has 0.034 grams of gold in it. Ah, that must be why they're so expensive. Not really, because that's about I. Two bucks worth of gold. Yeah. But you know, apple charges us like $78 for that gold. Yeah. And here's the thing though, in two years your iPhone is gonna be next to worthless.

What? Apple releases the iPhone cube or the iPhone sphere or whatever. Meanwhile, the gold will still be worth two bucks or, or more. Gold is unique and useful in ways our ancestors who hoarded it could have never known how so. Uh, several ways because it's non-allergenic Gold is used in dentistry. We use gold compounds for arthritis and other conditions, and it is an incredibly efficient conductor of electricity.

It's mostly corrosion proof. Gold is malleable and practically indestructible. That's why NASA and other space agencies use gold for all the spacecraft and satellites, they blast off the planet, so we're just blasting gold into space. Yep. You might say it's returning home. That's right. I've heard Neil deGrasse Tyson talk about how gold is forged in the stars for Right.

Gold comes from neutron stars and super Novi. And by the way, I originally wrote supernovas and I was autocorrected to super Novi. So how erudite and pedantic am I, I say super Novi. Now

[00:07:01] Jordan Harbinger: it does sound a little pretentious to say supernova, but you know it, it's right. It's then it's right. So here we are.

[00:07:07] Michael Regilio: Well look. You could say it comes from this hearts of stars, but what it actually comes from is the violent deaths of those stars. Because deep in the core of these stars, all the elements that are heavier than hydrogen and helium are made. And when these chemical factories that are stars explode, they shower the universe in gold.

Ah, golden showers literally. You had to go there, but it's true. That's why gold is everywhere. What do you mean everywhere? Isn't it super rare? I mean, rare is a relative term, but let's put it this way, in the earth, like way down in the earth, down in the molten core where humans can't get at it, there is about 1.6 quadrillion Wow.

Quadrillion Talk about fun words to say that's even more fun than super Novi. 1.6 quadrillion tons of it in the Earth's core. So much so that you could cover all the land on Earth in 20 inches of gold. That sounds slippery. First of all, just imagine all the land on earth looking like Donald Trump's bathroom.

There's also about 20 million tons of dissolved gold in the oceans. Look, I don't know about you, but those huge amounts of gold kind of scare me. Why would that scare you? It has to do with an unpleasant experience I had with a Mr. T doll. Look, I don't wanna talk about it. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Me neither actually.

Great. So despite these inaccessible giant amounts, only a small amount is forced up in fissures where it can be mined, but it's not so easy to mine anywhere. Most of the gold in the rivers and other easily accessible places, that's all gone. It's much more complicated to get gold Now. Gold mines are the deepest mines in the world.

The deepest is in South Africa, and it's 2.5 miles below the earth. Wow.

[00:09:05] Jordan Harbinger: 2.5 miles. That is, that's a big old hole. No other substance in human history drives people to such extremes. I mean, man, dug out literally miles for a bunch of gold that is. Wild to think about.

[00:09:17] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I know. Look, if I told you there was an original Star Wars figure, 2.5 miles below your feet, you'd be like, and there it shall remain.

But when it's gold, people are like, get a freaking pickaxe and let's go. I guess there's nothing else like it. And when you get down into the mind, by the way, it's not just there for the taking. It takes 140,000 kilos of rock and or just to produce one kilo of gold. I see. So that's what makes it rare, which makes it valuable.

Yes. And all the gold ever mind, by the way, would only fill three Olympic swimming pools.

[00:09:54] Jordan Harbinger: I'm not great at converting measurements into Olympic swimming pools. I mean, we're Americans, we don't use the metric system unless it's guns or drugs. But maybe since you're the Olympic expert, you can tell us how much that is.

[00:10:06] Michael Regilio: Yeah. It is about 244,000 metric tons of gold that have been mined ever, ever in human history. Yeah. In all the history of the world. Ever. And get this, almost all the gold ever produced is still around.

[00:10:22] Jordan Harbinger: Wow. I guess it that, I mean, that makes it sound indestructible after all. Yeah. Unlike that, Mr. T Doll.

[00:10:29] Michael Regilio: Now maybe I do wanna hear that story. Not a chance. In fact, I'm taking that story to the grave. Interestingly though, that's where many people used to take gold to the grave. The age of Egyptians for assistance thought gold came from the sun and was the flesh of Gods. Flesh of God's being one very badass, heavy metal band name.

Yes. The irony of course, being that gold is not considered a heavy metal in ancient Egypt to own a lot of gold showed how powerful and close to the gods you were. Not much has changed. People always flash in their bling. Right? And the Egyptian presumption about the immortality of gold, they were kind of right.

Gold is kind of godly. The B blink dug up today with the Pharaohs is as shiny today as the day it was buried. Like we mentioned, it doesn't rust or corrode. The Egyptians buried. Lots of it. They completely encased the Pharaohs in a golden sarcophagus before burial as a sort of craft into the afterlife. I guess man has been making gold spaceships all along.

Hey, maybe they got the idea from the aliens that built the pyramids.

[00:11:40] Jordan Harbinger: I.

[00:11:40] Michael Regilio: You know

[00:11:41] Jordan Harbinger: what's as good as gold, the fine products and services that support this show, we'll be right back.

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[00:14:19] Michael Regilio: It was by the decree of King creases of the ancient country of Lydia that we minted our first gold coins ever made, and that was around five 50 bc. Lydia, by the way, is part of modern day Turkey. The Egyptian soon followed suit and minted the first great currency accepted and revered around the ancient world, the shekel.

So

[00:14:39] Jordan Harbinger: I've heard of the shekel, but people who talk about shekels. Are either playing Dungeons and Dragons or they're rapping.

[00:14:46] Michael Regilio: In other words, it's people just being super chill and cool, or people that are rapping, least hip person ever. And by the way, side note, the Israel calls their currency the shekel currently, but it is not.

There's no direct lineage between. Their shekel and the Egyptian shekel, which was a coin originally weighing 11.3 grams, and it wasn't quite gold as we understand it. It was a naturally occurring alloy called electrum that was roughly two thirds gold and one third silver. The shekel became the money of the Middle East.

Oh, okay. The money of the Middle East is a pretty good rapper name though. Yes, I agree. And around 50 BC the Romans minted their first gold coin called the Arias, and I looked it up. By the way, on eBay, you can still get an Arias for around $19,000. Hmm. And why would I want one? 'cause Jordan, that's how you get into underground gladiator fights.

Haven't you ever been to Italy? Well, only for overrated

[00:15:52] Jordan Harbinger: pizza and the occasional heist, but that's about it.

[00:15:54] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Okay. Well, in 1284, Kim, the Italian coin, the Duckett,

[00:16:01] Jordan Harbinger: oh yeah. Public Enemy has a line. I don't wear gold, but I clocked Ducketts. Or was it, is it Ucat or Duckett?

[00:16:08] Michael Regilio: I've always heard Duckett. I did do the dictionary.com and found two of the three dictionaries.

Pronounce it Duckett and one ncees it kot Fair.

[00:16:18] Jordan Harbinger: Okay.

[00:16:18] Michael Regilio: What does it matter how it's pronounced? It is in a lot of lyrics. The Duckett, as I'm guessing it was pronounced, was an incredibly popular coin, regardless of how you wanna pronounce it. Why was it so popular? It was popular because it was stable and it was stable because it was made from a set amount of gold.

It was about 3.5 grams of solid

[00:16:42] Jordan Harbinger: gold. So by always being a specific set amount of gold, people could, I guess, feel secure in what they were getting.

[00:16:50] Michael Regilio: Well, that was the idea, but. Actually, it wasn't a very stable size at all because of clipping and the clippers that was messing the whole thing up. Why were the Clippers a problem?

Their record looks, eh, pretty average this season. I. Wrong clippers, Jordan, and technically it wasn't the clippers, it was the clip pings that were the problem. Clippers were just that. They were people who would clip gold coins and collect and melt down the clippings. It was actually a pretty sweet gig if you were just a little dishonest, which.

I guess everyone was back then because those gold coins were constantly shrinking. Ah, the first

[00:17:32] Jordan Harbinger: gold scam. Since gold is a very soft metal, I'd imagine it's it pretty easy to, uh,

[00:17:39] Michael Regilio: clip. Yeah. And when you see really old coins, they're like really messy around the edges. Is that why clippers? Well, actually no.

They started off a little rough around the edges. Kinda like this podcast from the production process at the mit, which made clipping the edges so easy, which made clipping the S scourge of banks and government, the damage to the integrity of coins was actually pretty serious. So much so that in the 17 hundreds, the British government tasked none other than Sir Isaac Newton to take on stopping the clippers.

Wait,

[00:18:18] Jordan Harbinger: what? I haven't heard this story of Newton. The dude has one impressive resume.

[00:18:24] Michael Regilio: Yeah, he was an intense dude. Side note, but my favorite Isaac Newton story is when he was studying color and light and he wanted to see how he would perceive light differently if he poked his eye with a pin. So he did.

That guy was curious as hell and possibly a little bit insane. Right. And Newton was obsessed with stopping the clippers. He even had spies out in the population looking for clippers, spies. Wow.

[00:18:53] Jordan Harbinger: And to think this whole time I thought he was just the apples and gravity guy

[00:18:57] Michael Regilio: look old pin in the eye. Newton set out to foil the clippers as the new master of the mint, and he saw the coin edges that we already discussed as the cause of and solution to the clipping problem.

Newton created a coin with a defined printed edge. So if someone took a chunk out of it, it'd be obvious. It seems like it should have been obvious to make that a thing before. Right. And once Newton reinvented the coin, Britain had a quote, recoined. All the coins were recalled and replaced, and Britain's currency became stable.

[00:19:34] Jordan Harbinger: So you could then trust how much your coins were actually worth, which I guess that seems logical. What an expensive mistake that must have been.

[00:19:41] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Yeah. You know what we talk about the stability of gold. I think it's worth noting, and this is just me here, that I think there's something primal at play with the stability of gold.

Like we as humans, we see it, we want it, we yearn for it. We know that people will always want it. It is our precious. So it's reasonable to assume that it will always be valuable. Well, to be

[00:20:05] Jordan Harbinger: fair, the precious in Lord of the Rings, that's not a good thing. It drives people crazy. Smeal was like a normal guy, and then he was that little goblin guy because of the ring.

[00:20:13] Michael Regilio: Yeah, and guess what? So does gold. It would be impossible to tell the story of gold without telling the story of greed. As poet John Ruskin asked, do we have gold or does gold have us? Okay. I

[00:20:30] Jordan Harbinger: don't know John Ruskin, but bat line, eh, kind of sucks. It sounds like something A 14-year-old trying his first joint stolen from his uncle's glove compartment thinks is

[00:20:39] Michael Regilio: deep, bruh.

Okay. Phi, I only used it to illustrate that the human want of gold is insane. People do baffling things for gold. It's like the hot girl at middle school and dudes just turn into dumb asses around her. It's like. Lost city of gold through the dense disease and Snake Riddle Jungle. Yeah. Okay. Get me a machete.

Let's go. I guess

[00:21:05] Jordan Harbinger: gold does to men, what boobs do to boys. Are you referring to the legend then of El Dorado and the Spanish conquistadors and all that?

[00:21:12] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I am, but just as an example of gold fever or gold sickness or, or greed or whatever it is, there are plenty of examples of the destruction, madness and burning want of gold.

The Spanish are just one. The conquest and destruction of the peoples of the new world is in many ways a result of the human want of gold. It's always captivated men, much like this podcast. It was actually the writings of Marco Polo who talked of Chinese and Japanese gold that inspired Christopher Columbus, and that's what Columbus was trying to do.

I did not know this to get to Japan for the Japanese gold. Wait, what? He was going to Japan. How am I just learning this? I had no idea about any of this. Well, I looked into it. He was actually, he ultimately wanted to get to India, but he thought he'd just do a quick stop over in Japan, pick up some gold, and then use it to buy some spice in India.

I.

[00:22:11] Jordan Harbinger: That is a hell of an errand list. I had not heard of that whole stop over in Japan. Fact before, but he ends up in the new world.

[00:22:17] Michael Regilio: Well, wherever he ended up, he was going to look for gold. Columbus was crazy for the stuff. In fact, Columbus' Diaries mentioned gold 65 times. He definitely had

[00:22:29] Jordan Harbinger: his money on his mind.

Him and his trusty sidekick, Monet of the Middle East, and they

[00:22:34] Michael Regilio: all did. That's the fact. All the explorers that followed had gold on their minds. Pizarro took the quest for gold to new extremes. He made the trek into the unknown looking for El Dorado, the city of gold you just brought up. It seems so ridiculous now, believing in an entire city made out of gold, right?

Not to mention, if you're like a conquistador in the gold game and you found an entire city made of gold, wouldn't that lake. Flood the market and crash the price of gold. Maybe

[00:23:07] Jordan Harbinger: this is where that innate human want of gold thing comes in. Maybe you just sell it bit by bit like crypto scammers are doing now in the modern era, which reminds me if anybody wants to buy some dogecoin, hit a brother

[00:23:19] Michael Regilio: up.

The sad thing is, despite all the pain and suffering caused by the Spanish quest for gold in the new world, the gold plundered by the Spanish was squandered. Spain failed to become the economic powerhouse they had hoped to be. They built some nice buildings with the money, but for the most part, they just burned through it.

[00:23:38] Jordan Harbinger: They were like a lottery winner who blows it all on leopard print, leather, couches and caviar.

[00:23:44] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Only they didn't want caviar. They wanted spice. Europeans wanted spice, and they traded gold for it. Most of the spice trade was with the east. The Europeans paid for spice and gold and the east kept the gold.

[00:24:01] Jordan Harbinger: It's also crazy to think about how crazy the Europeans were for spice.

[00:24:06] Michael Regilio: Yeah. Empires rose and fell on spice. If you've ever had British food, by the way, you'll know that that spice was very needed.

[00:24:15] Jordan Harbinger: Yeah. I need a. Time machine and a hundred pounds of Cheeto dust and I'll control the world. It'll be

[00:24:20] Michael Regilio: brilliant.

Speaking of brilliant, let's add one more notch to Isaac Newton's accomplishments. Newton as master of the Mint is also credited with devising the gold standard, and this gold standard was adopted by the global economy.

[00:24:35] Jordan Harbinger: So damn, he was accomplished. I'm wondering if I should maybe poke myself in the eye as well.

[00:24:41] Michael Regilio: Do not poke yourself in the eye. No one poke themselves in the eye. Okay, fine.

[00:24:47] Jordan Harbinger: But as weird as it is to say, I am really impressed with Sir Isaac Newton right now.

[00:24:53] Michael Regilio: Yeah, devising the gold standard. Revolutionizing science. Inventing calculus. To be honest, I see a little bit of me in Isaac Newton.

[00:25:03] Jordan Harbinger: Oh yeah. Oh sure.

We all do, I'm sure. But can you clearly define what the gold standard is exactly?

[00:25:10] Michael Regilio: Well, uh, the roots of it go back to the weight of gold. Gold traders were getting lower back problems and transporting it left them vulnerable to attacks from thieves. Yeah, it so it's kind of like leaving a casino in Jersey City.

Exactly. So merchants began using bills of exchange, that is to say, paper notes that represented actual physical gold being kept somewhere, but people had to trust that that piece of paper represented an actual amount of gold. These notes had to be backed by reputable banks and merchants. So like money?

Yes. And now the reputable bank or merchant was the government. So with each paper note being a receipt for physical gold, the world's money stabilized. We tied it to the price

[00:25:59] Jordan Harbinger: of gold. Is it true that you could go to a bank and exchange paper money for gold?

[00:26:03] Michael Regilio: Yes, back in the day you could really do that.

This ended though with FDRs executive order in 1933, but yes, at one time you could exchange dollars for gold. But why? The whole point of paper money was that you could trust that the gold was there. You didn't need the gold.

[00:26:23] Jordan Harbinger: Funny, there was an executive order demanding people turn in their gold so they could print money.

Then you could take your money to the bank and demand that they give you your gold,

[00:26:31] Michael Regilio: right? That's exactly why FDR, I mean, technically he suspended the gold standard in 33. The US dollar was still backed up by gold, but he ended that practice. You could no longer just go turn in your gold because people during the depression were getting nervous that their money wasn't gonna be worth anything, but that gold would be.

So more people were turning in their dollars for gold than were just hanging onto their dollars and FDR in order to ah, get the economy going. Said. You've got to turn in your gold. Right. It sounds

[00:27:00] Jordan Harbinger: a little suss, right? It's kind of like, oh, I'd like to see the gold that backs up this money. Actually, we're changing the rules, and you can no longer do that now that you've asked.

No, the answer is no. Yeah. Now for a golden shower of savings from the fine products and services that support this show, we'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by homes.com. homes.com knows having the right agent can make or break your home search. That's why they provide home shoppers with an agent directory that gives you a detailed look at each agent's experience, like the number of closed sales in a specific neighborhood, average price range and more.

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So I guess there were a bunch of countries that subscribed to the gold standard.

[00:28:48] Michael Regilio: Yes. And because the price of gold was fixed, this caused prices around the world to move uniformly. This was a huge step forward for the global economy. By the 1830s, America was on a form of the gold standard, and in 1900, the US Congress passed the Gold Standard Act.

We know that period from 1880 to 1914 as the classical gold standard. During that time, most countries used the gold standard, and this was a time of great economic growth. So what happened? The Archduke Franz Ferdinand happened. He just couldn't control his whole getting assassinated fetish and World War.

I broke out. Never heard it put quite that way. Poor old Fran deferred. Well, whatever the reason, the governments at war couldn't resist the temptation to just print money to pay for their war. They did lots of it. So they were printing money that was then not based on gold. Exactly. And after World War ii, only the dollar remained tied to Gold.

Fort Knox stabilized the dollar and the dollar stabilized the world's money. It was called the Bretton Woods System, and it more or less forced the world to accept the dollar as the global economic currency. Bretton Woods sounds like a summer camp for east coast rich kids. Isn't that what these world economic forms are?

Every time I see a G eight summit on the Greek islands or someplace, it just looks like rich folks dividing up the world. So in 1971, tricky Dick himself, Richard Millhouse Nixon took the US off the gold standard. Nixon is no Newton. That is for sure. In fact, it's more appropriate to say that he was a new sense.

Hold for applause. That is gonna be a long hold there. Unfortunately. Well, now if you wanna exchange paper money for gold, you can't go to a bank. But before FDR you could. I.

[00:30:53] Jordan Harbinger: But certainly you can buy gold. I mean, I see ads selling gold all the time.

[00:30:59] Michael Regilio: Oh, yes. The commercials selling gold and gold coins. There are many companies doing this, and many of these companies have been fined for deceptive practices, including one back in 2012, which was convicted on a 19 count criminal fraud wrap.

A company goldline. Touted by a huge cable personality at the time. Glenn Beck. Those ads seem so predatory. Yeah, and that's because the sales pitches are targeted at older, more conservative people. The pitch plays off of a fear of government overreach and used a certain executive order to scare people into thinking the government is coming for their gold.

Ah, yes. Shout out to FDR in the gold executive order. Now, that actually sounds a little like a children's book. FDR in the gold executive order. It's gotta end with a flying wheelchair. I see the whole thing in my head. Oh wow. I think your idea needs to end right about now. Again, fine. But both the cable news guy and the salespeople had some version of this pitch.

Everybody should diversify their retirement portfolio with gold. But did you know that the government can confiscate your gold? That liberal tyrant FDR already did it once. Well, what's to stop Future President Birdie Sanders or Greta Thornberg from doing the same?

[00:32:25] Jordan Harbinger: I mean, since Greta isn't even American, I can safely say that you're exaggerating, but I understand the vibe.

[00:32:30] Michael Regilio: Yes, exaggerating fine. That's but not by that much. They played on fears about the government inflation, retirement, and of course the old chestnut societal collapse. Ah, yes, societal collapse, classic cable TV news, fair fear sell, I'm afraid. And the fact of the matter is once you are fearful, the ads hit you with the sales pitch.

The government can come for your gold, but they can't come for your gold coins. Gold coins are protected. And let me guess, gold coins are what they are shilling

[00:33:10] Jordan Harbinger: in

[00:33:10] Michael Regilio: the commercial. Aha. And unlike pure gold bullion, gold coins have this thing called. Newmatic or collectible value. So what is bullion Gold?

That's just gold. That's what You're just buying gold. You're buying gold bullion. I

[00:33:26] Jordan Harbinger: see. And the, the coin is more valuable than just the gold it's made of because what? It's got a eagle printed on

[00:33:34] Michael Regilio: it. Right? Exactly. That's the numismatic value. Except that's highly speculative. Right. And these companies aren't selling shekels or ducketts.

They are relatively random coins minted recently. In fact, some of these gold companies have minted a new term to try and get around this false advertising. They call their coins semi numismatic, which that's not a thing. So they just made up

[00:34:01] Jordan Harbinger: a term to describe selling novelty coins disguised as money.

Okay.

[00:34:05] Michael Regilio: I think I get it. Yeah. In fact, Pokemons have a higher collectible value than some of these coins. These coins are marked up 90%, and I saw some of the companies that were marking them up as much as 120% all higher than the melt value of the gold.

[00:34:21] Jordan Harbinger: I think I've seen this where it's like $5 gold coin, 27 95.

Look how collectible this is. It comes in a case that's made out of solid plastic. Yeah, right. Melt value. Is it melt value? What is melt value?

[00:34:34] Michael Regilio: It is exactly what you think of it. It is. It is the value of the gold the coins are made from. Ah, so. If you melt down the coin, you're left with the actual value of the gold.

So with these, these markups, even if the price of gold doubled, which it doesn't, the person buying the coins would just break even. So this is what's known in the industry as a quote, shitty deal.

[00:35:00] Jordan Harbinger: Sure, sure. Sounds like it. And people fall for this 'cause I've seen those commercials, but of course, nothing like this appeals to me.

The last thing I want is a bunch of plastic encased. Eagle coins that are worth one third of what I paid for them.

[00:35:13] Michael Regilio: Yes, they did fall for it. And plus, this is so important. This is where the rubber meets the Rube, if you would, and this is where all the motivation came in. The sales person at all these companies received a higher commission when they sold the collectible coins than just the gold bullion.

In some cases, like 20 times more commission. That is a sizable chunk. I can see the motivation. Bingo. Like I said, one company was convicted on 19 federal counts. Ever since then, the game has changed a little bit. FDR and the Gold Executive Order can no longer be used in ads, so no one will mention it. One thing that is definitely worth mentioning is, and this blew my mind when I learned it.

All these companies that were selling the coins, they all had a ratings with the Better Business Bureau. The companies with the 90% markup had a

[00:36:05] Jordan Harbinger: ratings with the Better Business Bureau.

[00:36:07] Michael Regilio: Yeah. It turns out that companies that buy membership with the BBB get A's, a's a's. In fact CNN did an investigation into the Better Business Bureau and found quote.

BBBS rating system is seriously flawed, resulting in grades that appear to be arbitrary and change erratically. End quote.

[00:36:27] Jordan Harbinger: So you can buy your way into the Better Business Bureau. No, that sounds like another episode of Skeptical Sunday in the making.

[00:36:33] Michael Regilio: Right, and I'll get right to work on it. Discovering the BBB is a forest is such a disappointment.

It turns out many disreputable companies buy high ratings to lure people, so beware. That said, these highly motivated gold salespeople are still out there trying to get people to buy $6,000 worth of gold for $10,000 in the form of gold coins. Gross, despicable. Is anyone stopping these gold scammers? The Security and Exchange Commission has just this year charged three gold company executives in fraud targeting retirement accounts.

And, surprise, surprise, it was another gold coin scam. I mean,

[00:37:18] Jordan Harbinger: I'm not sure how true the premise is to begin with. If there was some sort of societal collapse, would gold coins be the go-to commodity to trade?

[00:37:27] Michael Regilio: You're gonna haul those things around. Yeah. I'm thinking if the world goes mad Max, I don't want to be hauling around sacks of gold coins.

I'm thinking sacks of canned food would probably be worth more. Mm-Hmm. I'll point out another doomsday prepper notion is that if you have to get outta the country and the, the, the world is in collapse. You're gonna want to take gold with you because it doesn't have a country of origin. But in the modern age, you'd never halt gold around.

It would be so much easier to just take a thumb drive filled with crypto. The bottom line is gold coins are not a good investment, and the companies pushing them are dishonest. So they're the modern day

[00:38:08] Jordan Harbinger: clippers with an even worse record. Sounds like we need another Sir Isaac Newton.

[00:38:13] Michael Regilio: It seems like not only are humans drawn to gold, but we're drawn to gold scams.

These scams are everywhere. I wanna tell you a personal story. This really happened to me. Is it about your Mr. T doll? No, I'm taking that to the grave. Oh yeah, you said that. And I am, in fact, I'm taking the Mr T doll to the grave as well, like a Egyptian in the sarcophagus. So I'm sitting in a cafe in LA some years ago.

This guy comes in and he strikes up a conversation with me, and this was such the perfect con. 'cause he starts by getting my empathy. So he starts by telling me how expensive it is to go to Disneyland nowadays and how he just wants to take his kids to Disneyland, man. But it's so, so gosh, darned expensive.

And once I commiserate with him, I'm like, oh man, I really feel for you. Yeah, it's super expensive taking your kids to Disneyland these days. That's what he hits me with there he goes, Hey. I wanna show you something. And he pulls out these gold coins that are clearly just replicas of old gold coins. And he says to me, he's like, I was cleaning this mansion up in the hills and I came across this drawer full of gold coins, and I got a level with you, man.

I stole 'em. So I can't sell them, but I will sell all 10 of these gold coins to you for a hundred. Dollars and then you could turn around and sell them legally. So first thing I did was they were, like I said, replicas of old coins. So I looked them up on the internet, like what the actual coins were worth, if they were real, and each coin was worth around $15,000.

I was like, dude, if these coins were real, each one of them is worth around $15,000. So I'm not sure you should be selling all 10 of them to me for a hundred bucks. He's not willing to give up the scam at this point. So he says, no, no, that's fine. A hundred bucks is fine, man. I'll take a hundred bucks for all 10.

I said, okay. Well, here's the other thing, my man, see these pictures of the actual gold coins, I'm looking up that I just looked up on the internet. See how they're all worn and weathered? And you can see that they're really old. Your coins look brand new. These are brand new. These are clearly replicas of gold coins.

To which the guy who could not give up on this idea of getting a hundred bucks outta me, he said, uh, you're really smart, huh? You're too smart for me, man. I'm not smart enough to do this scam, but you are. I will sell you these coins, and you could go scam people with them. Just gimme a hundred bucks for the coins, and then you could turn around and go sell them for a lot.

Bore. I was like, dude, I don't want your replica scam coins. And as this dude was walking out of the restaurant, I had to know, I was like, excuse me sir, do you even have kids? And he was like, hell no. As he walked out.

[00:41:09] Jordan Harbinger: So this is so ridiculous. So you went from having someone to try to sell you fake gold coins.

To trying to sell you the scam of selling fake gold coins. That is amazing. It sounds, this guy sounds like a bonehead. I mean, I appreciate the hustle, but he, he was right about one thing. He's not smart enough to run this scam. I think I'll avoid buying gold coins except duc cuts or ducketts. That is, and by the way, LIO, next time someone tries to scam you, maybe don't give them tips

[00:41:40] Michael Regilio: on how to improve the scam.

Numb nuts. Good point, good point. Okay. Fair point. Sometimes I can't help myself. And as for Ducketts, you know what? I think I'm more of a shekel man.

[00:41:52] Jordan Harbinger: Well, sir Lio, I award you a shekel medal that I found in a drawer while cleaning out a 200 year old mansion in northern California.

[00:42:04] Michael Regilio: Yeah, I, I appreciate that.

Thanks, Jordan. Thank you. All right, just one more time.

[00:42:09] Goldmember: I love gold

[00:42:15] Jordan Harbinger: dive into the intense world of bare knuckle boxing with undefeated champion Bobby Gunn and his biographer Staton Bonner, as they reveal the gritty realities and rich history of the sport raised in the raw and resilient world of the traveler community. Bobby's journey began in parking lots, fighting for cash at the age of 11 under his father's watchful eye.

[00:42:31] Clip: If you understand where I come from, my culture, my upbringing. All dogs are dogs. They got different breeds of dogs. Bulu swallows their pit bulls. Gypsy traveler people. We're pit bulls. My world is a different world. Fighting is is our religion. My grandfather was a champion fighter. My great-grandfather, old black Bob Williamson was a great athlete.

He goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. I was raised around it formed jam molded by it. Unfortunately, in my life, there was a lot of darkness and growing up in this tough full world. My old man, he molded me. I was bred and born to be dis person of the made. It was a hard upbringing and he was tough that way.

It prepared me. The underground circuit was here before I was here, and it's still thriving. It'll be here when I'm dead and gone. But there were some fights I was in and I fought people that were bad evil bastards. They tried to do me in. Some people are rotten. I'm a bully slayer. I don't like bullies. I was the king of my world for a long time, and I, I run it and I'm proud and I promise you, you want something going for it.

You might not get there fast, but you'll get there. I promise you. Do it. Please go for it. Don't sit back and don't. I wish I gonna do it. Do it. You got one life. You got one name, you got one story. Don't leave the page is black. My God. Fellow.

[00:43:58] Jordan Harbinger: You can do it. Tune in to uncover the untold stories behind the scars and successes of bare knuckle legend Bobby Gunn on episode 9 81 of the Jordan Harbinger Show.

Thank you so much for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday toJordan@jordanharbinger.com. Show notes@jordanharbinger.com. Transcripts are in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show all at Jordan harbinger.com/deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. Michael Lio is at Michael Lio on Instagram, Michael lio comedy.com. Tour dates are up now as well, and we will put that in the show notes because as always, nobody can spell Lio. This show is created an association with Podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Foggerty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi.

Our advice and opinions are our own. I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer, so do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. I would hate for you to lose DUTs because of my advice. Also, we may get a few things wrong here and there, especially on Skeptical Sunday. If you think we really dropped the ball on something, let us know.

We're usually pretty receptive to that. They all know how to reach me, jordan@jordanharbinger.com. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use a good dose of the skepticism. That we doled out today.

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

[00:45:29] Clip II: Hi, cold Case Files fans. We have some exciting news for you. Brand new episodes of Cold Case files are dropping in your feed. And I'm your new host, Paula Barrows. I'm a cold case file super fan, true crime aficionado, and I love telling stories with unbelievable twists and turns.

And this season of cold case vials has all of that and more. I want to die.

[00:45:51] Michael Regilio: I don't want to die. I

[00:45:52] Clip II: want to die. Her cause of

[00:45:54] Jordan Harbinger: death was strangulation, crying

[00:45:56] Clip: face down on the bed. She was in a pretty advanced state of decomposition. A little bit of bloody froth had come from Deborah's mouth. He panicked and decided he was getting rid of the body.

[00:46:04] Clip II: I saw danger in everything. So get ready. You don't wanna miss what this season hasn't. Door. New episodes of Cold Case files drop every Tuesday. Subscribe to cold case files wherever you listen to podcasts.