# Richard Werner: Countdown to the Dollar’s Death & Western Collapse **Channel:** Journalistically Speaking with Rick Sanchez **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I341nT-TKY4 **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/I341nT-TKY4 ## Chapters - 0:00 — Introduction and Guest Topic Preview - 2:53 — Western Economic Collapse and National Interest - 6:29 — Japanese Asset Bubble and Crash Analysis - 8:45 — European Supranational Control Explained - 11:36 — Public Discontent and Policy Failings - 15:19 — Elite Agendas and Digital Control Push - 22:46 — Central Bank History and Monetary Critique - 28:46 — Asset Protection Advice and Dollar Outlook ## Transcript **[0:00] Speaker A:** Hey everybody, I'm Rick Sanchez. This is J. Speak. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for the likes, thanks for following, thanks for subscribing. **[0:06] Speaker A:** Richard Werner is probably one of the most respected and well known economists in the entire world. He was on with Tucker recently and I found it fascinating. So we gave him a call and he decided to come on and talk to me. And one of the things that is incredible about him is that he understands not just, you know, U.S. economy or the Asian economy, he understands the Chinese economy. Obviously he's written a lot of books on it, but he also understands the European economy, economy or in many ways, kind of the fall of the European economy. **[0:35] Speaker A:** That's why I wanted to ask him a lot of questions that I think you would have wanted to ask. For example, why are we seeing rising debt and why are we seeing the shrinking GDPs in the United States and in all the Western countries? But we don't see it in Russia, we don't see it in China, we don't see it in India, we don't see it in Malaysia, we don't see it in Vietnam. We don't see it in some of these countries that have these, you know, these new developing countries, if you will. By the way, developing may not be the right word if you look at the, at the measure of what they're doing in those countries. So he, he, he helps us understand that better. On the question of digital assets, is it where we're going? And he, he understands this guy, he's written so much about central banks. **[1:18] Speaker A:** I mean, he, he's created economic guiding principles that are used today in countries all over the world, including the United States, our country, my country, I should say, pardon me. So it's important to help him understand, to have him explain to us so we can understand what happens if the central banks, as they already seem to be doing, start meddling with the digital assets. **[1:42] Speaker A:** You know, crypto is a big deal these days and people want to know where it's going to go. So I asked him about that. I will tell you this. He talks a lot about is the dollar on its death. Now he explains, and then gold, which, you know, I don't want to give away the ending here, but he's a little, he's a bit bullish on gold in terms of what he thinks the average person can do nowadays. So look, this guy's a smart guy. I just sat back and let him go. And I want you to listen as I want to thank you at this point, by the way. Once again, for all that you do, for what I'm doing, trying to get perspectives from people outside of the United States. I'm old enough that I can travel, so I'm doing it, learning and talking to people that would teach me things that I can hopefully share and pass on to you that we would otherwise not learn. **[2:34] Speaker A:** Because, you know, we're kind of in a bubble in the west and especially in the United States these days. So that's why I'm doing this. So, you know, thank you for your support. Here now, Richard, economist Richard Werner, Nobody better to talk to than Richard Werner. **[2:53] Speaker A:** He's a professor of banking and economics. He literally coined the phrase quantitative easing, which we've heard an awful lot. Professor, what a pleasure it is. Thanks so much for joining us. I saw you with my friend Tucker Carlson recently and I thought you did a bang up job, by the way. **[3:13] Speaker B:** Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks for having me. **[3:16] Speaker A:** It's a pleasure. Listen, I think if I can read the minds of most of the people in the audience who are watching us right now, I think they would want you to answer this question for them. Given what we're seeing in Germany, given the debt crisis I see in my own country, the United States, given what we just saw happening in France, is the west headed for some kind of collapse economically and how soon, if that's so? **[3:47] Speaker B:** Well, it is indeed concerning how often leading politicians, and you've just given the example of the French finance minister, but he's not the only one, how often leading European politicians now have to face the question is the IMF going to come in the other country where this has been raised and it's being debated is the United Kingdom, where similarly we're heading towards a kind of fiscal and economic crisis. And then you've mentioned that Germany, Germany is in this very disastrous situation where this is going to be and is heading to be the third consecutive year of shrinking GDP growth, shrinking economy, negative GDP growth. And you know, when the last time was this happened? You know, three years of shrinking GDP that was ending in the third year was in 1933. So, you know, these were, of course, extreme times that resulted also in extreme events afterwards. **[4:55] Speaker B:** So it does look like we're heading into major economic difficulties in Western Europe anyways. That's absolutely. **[5:05] Speaker A:** Sorry, go ahead. **[5:06] Speaker B:** Yeah, so it's basically absolutely unsurprising if you, if you look at the fundamentals. **[5:16] Speaker A:** I'm wondering why, why, why? **[5:19] Speaker A:** Pardon me for interrupting. I know we have a little bit of a slight delay, so I apologize. I'm Wondering why in the west we don't see this in China, we don't even see this in Russia, and they're getting hit really hard by all kinds of castigatory measures. We're not seeing this in India, we're not seeing this in Vietnam, we're not seeing this in Malaysia, we're even not seeing it in Japan anymore. Even though you know a lot about that story, why is it only in the Western countries? **[5:44] Speaker B:** I think this is a brilliant question you're asking. And also you've actually inserted Japan there quite cleverly because really Japan gives us a hint. If you look at the countries where we don't have problems and we're going really from strength to strength, if you look at the political economy, which is really about who is making decisions, who are these people, who's behind them and what are their real actual goals as opposed to stated goals, then I would say in all these countries where things are going well, we have people in charge and making decisions who operate largely in the national interest. **[6:29] Speaker B:** Now that's something that would seem complete common sense and natural to anyone in the whole world, to ordinary people anyway. We want people who look after the country. That's their job, isn't it? Well, the trouble is that in these countries, Western countries that are in economic and greater fiscal difficulties, I've had to conclude that we have people in charge who do not look after the national interest, but have other motives, other goals. And definitely that's something we should discuss further but briefly on Japan. You see, Japan has been essentially also in that camp. I mean, he came from those countries where the leaders were acting in the national interest and things were going well. **[7:18] Speaker B:** But then something went wrong. And I show this in my book Princes of the Yen in great detail. External interference. The US interests, the Federal Reserve and other US interests in particular wanted to end this success story, this Japanese success story. And they had a ready tool in Japan to do their bidding. The Japanese central bank. Using the actual reality of how central banks operate, which is quite different to the official story, essentially I show that the central bank in Japan on purpose engineered first a massive property bank lending driven property bubble, asset bubble that then was pushed to collapse, bringing the banking system down with it. And that of course, banks being paralyzed meant there's no more bank credit creation. The whole corporate sector stops receiving funding, the economy shrinks and you get a massive recession which you can easily prolong, which is what they did for 20 years. **[8:23] Speaker B:** There's a very extreme case of this situation where, as I show in great Detail naming names and showing the mechanisms, showing all the proof, who was doing what, that we've had people in charge who were working against the country, against the national interest and creating this huge big mess. **[8:45] Speaker B:** And that is telling us really what's going on in Western Europe. I mean, the key decision makers already in Europe are often external actors that are not even in the countries affected. We have the European Central bank as the most powerful, most independent central bank in the world. Completely unaccountable to anyone. They're above the law. They're outside all these countries. No public prosecutor could ever get in there. And you know, if they have any suspicion, you know, get material or arrest anyone's out of the question. They're completely above the law. And, and so this is the ecb. Then we have Europe, we have the European Union, Brussels Union institutions, particularly European Commission. And here what most people don't understand is that the structure that was created in Europe is very unusual structure because most European countries are democracies by statute and by the institutional design. **[9:53] Speaker B:** Parliaments elected people that have that other lawmakers have the power to make laws. But all these countries over the decades, quite mysteriously would seem got together and created something that is a superstructure to which they've given their sovereignty. Brussels, the European Commission and this European Commission which has the power, the decision making power. **[10:20] Speaker B:** And you've mentioned earlier one of the commissars, the commissioners, foreign affairs, all of them. And then of course the president of the European Commission, all of them unelected officials, they have the power and they have the power to decide for the whole European Union and make the laws. Now there is a parliament and that's what's the confusing thing. So most people think European Parliament, therefore it's a democracy, but it's not. That is a rubber stamp parliament modeled on the old Soviet Union system where I mean, we know nobody would argue that the Soviet Union was a democracy in a standard, in the normal way we talk about democracy. And the reason is that they didn't have a proper parliament. The laws were actually made by the unelected Politburo and the parliament was just rubber stam, had no power, could not propose a single law. And that's the same in Europe. **[11:15] Speaker B:** All the power is in Brussels. So we already have these organizations that are supranational. **[11:21] Speaker B:** Therefore we shouldn't be surprised that nobody is acting in the national interest because key decisions about monetary policy and then about almost any policy nowadays are made in Brussels that can overrule individual countries. **[11:36] Speaker B:** And then of course we have on top of that, politicians that are very much engaged with international institutions, whether it's United nations or World Economic Forum, and they seem to have an agenda to be extremely globalist and not really consider the interests of people. **[11:55] Speaker A:** How personal is that? Here's my question, and I think a lot of people are thinking this too. I hear the people of the uk, I hear the people of Germany, I hear the people of France, and they're saying, why are my wages so low? **[12:06] Speaker A:** Why is inflation so high? Why are all these immigrants in my backyard? Why are all these things happening in my country? And why are you spending so much money in Ukraine and in Israel and in all these other damn places? And when I'm seeing that the people are angry at their leaders, many of them unelected, as you say, and the conditions of the people is really bad, I'm thinking, well, where the hell is the money going then? **[12:34] Speaker A:** Are these people on the take? Do they have a deal with the banks or with the weapons manufacturers? Is that what's really going on? And how are they doing that if they're doing that? **[12:47] Speaker B:** Yes, I mean, these are exactly the right questions because really, if you wanted to create a policy package of policies that would quickly ruin a country, then essentially you couldn't have thought of a better combination than the policies taken in Western Europe by most of the governments, whether it's Germany, France, UK and so on. **[13:14] Speaker B:** And you know, essentially as you, as you pointed out, we have this massive spending, spending is going up and it's on things that essentially are wasteful from the perspective of ordinary people because it doesn't really anything for them. It doesn't improve national infrastructure or, you know, it's not investment into the country and the future of the country, the people of the country. No, it's on other things, on external agendas, on foreigners, on foreign wars, on, you know, all these things that don't really contribute to society and the economy. Now that's the spending side. But at the same time, what they're also doing is they're reducing the percentage of the population in every of these European countries who are actually working, working hard and earning money and paying taxes. **[14:06] Speaker B:** This has been going down because of course we've had millions of people imported into Western European countries, Germany being foremost among them. Maybe 20, 23 million plus people imported in the last decade. And a bit. And often they do not work, sometimes they're not allowed to. But whatever the case may be, the percentage of the population on which governments are spending that is actually working and paying taxes has Been dropping and dropping and dropping. And at the same time, as quality of life is deteriorating with the most disastrous policy combinations that you can imagine taking place over the last decade, of course, a lot of people that have information, that are well trained and have options internationally, they're leaving. So you have skilled and highly paid professionals and families actually leaving. And so the whole thing has been, from start to finish, a prescription on creating maximum economic disaster in a minimum amount of time. **[15:17] Speaker B:** And they've done that very effectively. **[15:19] Speaker B:** And the problem is that there is nobody making decisions who actually thinks about what's good for the people of these countries and for the national interest. **[15:29] Speaker A:** Is it because there is collusion between the banks, the politicians and the elitists who create the system that screws the little guy? But even though, as you said, conditions suck right now in Germany and, and we just saw what's going on in France, that's turning into a bit of a disaster as well. It doesn't matter because those people are still making bank. Is that the case? **[15:58] Speaker B:** Well, so, I mean, the question is really what's the motivation of these people? And often when you look at them, they seem to be very ideologically motivated. I think it does help that at the same time they also make a lot of money in all sorts of backroom deals. And we don't know the details often that we can only speculate. But you know, there seem to be a lot of questions, just to give an example about Ursula van der Leyen and her connections to big pharma business, you know, from going back to 2021, when billions in various pseudo pharmaceutical products were ordered and there's no transparency and her husband is somehow in that sector. **[16:43] Speaker B:** But that's just one case. I mean, there's a whole string and as you mentioned, there's the whole armaments, munitions industry. There's a lot of politicians, quite conspicuously, after a European country passes decisions to give billions or millions, hundreds of millions to Ukraine, they then go on these trips and you see them there with their suitcases and who knows whether they're fuller on the way out than they're on the way in. Speculate on these things. But it doesn't look good. That's very clear. Now, you mentioned the banks and here I would actually, I'm not really critical of the European banks because the majority of European banks are small local banks and they've done a brilliant job under extremely difficult conditions. Created by the European Central bank, which has favored the big banks, the Goldman Sachs, the speculators, and has, of course Been the ECB has been engaged in creating these property bubbles, creating bank credit driven property bubbles followed by banking crises. **[17:55] Speaker B:** First in the periphery island, Portugal, Spain and Greece. Then you crash that you have your recession. **[18:02] Speaker B:** And I think the idea was originally then lots of people would move, being unemployed, you know, youth unemployment record figures in Spain and Greece for many many years. Greece 10 year decade of lost output. I think the expectation was more and more people would move into the center because that's always been a plan in Brussels when you talk about it, they want to mix up the people and have immigrants and so on. But that didn't really happen. So the Europeans were quite resistant to moving countries. **[18:32] Speaker B:** And so then they opened the borders in 2015 and imported millions and millions of non Europeans from third countries from various different cultures that you know of various degrees of compatibility to European history and culture. And so. But it just shows the revealed preference. These are policies, they're all policy decisions. This clearly didn't happen by chance. **[18:56] Speaker B:** And so there is the ideological conviction by a lot of these people that they want to create a United States of Europe without nations. And if you read all the official statements, publications, all official, nothing secret, it's all out in the open by the European Union and even its predecessor organizations. It's always been about ever closer union, ultimately one state without countries. Now what does that mean? Because of course the majority of the people in Europe don't want that. **[19:30] Speaker B:** Italians love Italy and I would say everyone else loves Italy, French love France and everyone else loves France to be France. People want their countries to be their countries. But that's not the agenda in Brussels by these elites, by the European Union. They want to destroy the nation state. So how do you do that? **[19:50] Speaker B:** Well, you need this mass immigration and you also need to destroy the economic viability of each country so that they then become dependent on external forces even more. Namely, what will then happen is we've seen it in Greece, they will have the IMF together with in very even more powerful positions, the ECB and the European Union, the troika they call it in Greece having even more power. And then all national interests have to be scaled down even further. There will be various measures imposed and the goal can be implemented of having one United States of Europe. That is clearly the institutional political agenda. And it's so well documented that it's shocking. Of course the texts are often so long and boring and reiterate the same thing for decades that nobody reads this stuff. But it's out there. That's they've been saying it, they're doing it. **[20:46] Speaker B:** This is the reality. And then we have the totalitarian control agenda at the same time being accelerated digital control. And that's where the central bank digital currency proposal comes in. The digital euro, digital pound in the uk and again, because nobody really needs this. We have had digital money for decades. The banks create digital money. **[21:09] Speaker B:** It works very well. Even central banks work hard to create these banking crises ever so often. Still, it works quite well. We don't need this new digital currency whose only difference is the word central bank digital currency, because bank digital currency has been around for decades. You see, the centralization of control. **[21:30] Speaker B:** And of course they want to centralize the banking system, the monetary system, financial system, only have one bank, like in the Soviet Union, which seems to be the pervasive model of all this. And then we have a totalitarian control state with programmable digital currency where there's no way out, you can't spend money on anything except if the automaton at the central bank, which will be based on AI and all the formula will be programmed if they permit it. And it turns out, oh, you've been critical of the government or the eu, well then, sorry, you'll be punished. Or oh, this book is critical of the eu. You can't buy it or that sort of food. Nowhere that is, you know, you're overstepping your carbon footprint here. You're buying too much beef. You know, all that will be a totalitarian nightmare. But how do you introduce all these, this huge power grab by the bureaucratic and central planning elites, only through crisis. **[22:26] Speaker B:** That's how they've always worked and that's exactly what we're witnessing now. They're creating these crises they had to follow from their policy decisions. It's not a surprise. It's all very predictable. And the result seems to be, sadly, what they wanted to achieve. And that's what most people need to wake up to. **[22:46] Speaker A:** Couldn't we argue that the reason they're able to do those things is because we've moved away from market principles, so far away from market principles, since we went away from the gold standard, since we allow banks to print money out of thin air whenever the hell they want, since we allow them to do credit default swaps and invent all kinds of schemes and then not pay the consequences for what happens as a result of all those schemes. Those are all things I've reported on in my lifetime working at cnn. I wrote about it in my book, for example, and I've always wondered, and maybe this is why I Tend to think the basics. And I'm not smart enough to know this, but maybe you are. The basics of the digital currency in the crypto world seems more honest to me than what the banks do. **[23:40] Speaker A:** And maybe that's where the future is. Am I wrong? **[23:47] Speaker B:** Well, first of all, cryptocurrencies, we have to distinguish the centralized ones and then the decentralized alternatives. What they want to foist on us is, of course, the central planner's dream central bank, digital currency. That is the goal. And they're working hard, step by step to introduce that. But they haven't won. **[24:12] Speaker B:** They realize there is resistance. And as long as we refuse to play game, as long as we refuse to accept digital id, which is step number one, and then also digital central currencies, digital central bank currencies, I think we have a chance to still avoid this because the central bankers don't have a thick skin. They are not political actors in the sense of doing things out in the open and slugging it out. They're not used to that. So we need to oppose them quite openly and directly in a peaceful and polite way, of course, but firmly. **[24:53] Speaker B:** And they're used to doing things behind closed doors. Do all those backroom deals. But back to your question. Is it really moving off the gold standard? Was that the key thing and then becoming less and less market oriented? **[25:09] Speaker B:** Well, certainly the story of the free market has been used a lot by the central planners whenever they want to achieve something. But the reality is there's never been a free market in the sense that the key decisions are freely made out there as soon as we allowed central banks. So really we have to go back earlier than 1971, when the US defaulted on its international obligations. That's how I would put it. Namely to change the dollar into gold, which it had firmly promised and signed deals, contracts, agreements on. **[25:48] Speaker B:** We have to go further back. It's the moment you allow a central bank in your country, that's when you basically get the creeping process of certain centralized bureaucracy becoming ever more powerful and doing the things that would perpetuate and increase that power. I call it regulatory moral hazard, because what happened, and I've warned about this for many years, whenever crisis happened, these central planners will say it's because we didn't have enough power, give us more power. And for some reason, well, certainly they're supporting that. When you're central bank, you have almost unlimited resources. **[26:30] Speaker B:** So they have control through money over the media even. And certainly the process has been strongly influenced by central planners. The public debate and so then everyone in the media saying, yes, yes, we need to give them more power, and they get more power, then they create the next crisis, they get even more power. That's the real problem. So it would go beyond 1971, which was just one of those games they've been playing. Of course, it was an important turning point. No doubt. Entirely agree with that. Because since then, actually, you see a huge gap unfolding between productivity growth, which continued nicely, and how the resources are allocated. It became extremely unequal because it allowed even more money creation. But the money creation has always been there because even under the gold standard, we had money creation in the banking system, but controlled by the central banks. **[27:28] Speaker B:** And so they used that just to increase their power. And it's a process. So in the US it started in 1913 when the federal Reserve was introduced, really against the majority opinion. They used various procedural tricks to get this through Congress. **[27:43] Speaker B:** But most people in America were really against this. In America, for most of its history did not have a central bank. For that reason, Americans don't like this idea. And ever since, once you have such a powerful institution, what the worst critics at the time have been warning really has been happening. And the same in other countries. Of course, in some countries, like in England, you have to go back to 1694. That's when the rot set in, when finally those who were wanting to establish a central, privately owned central bank succeeded previous monarchs, the whole Stuart dynasty, monarch after monarch, refused to do that. And they had all these regime change operations to finally push it through. So that's the same story in every country. So I would say that is really when things started to go wrong. **[28:30] Speaker A:** So central banks are evil because central banks are people who are unelected and have been chosen by other elitist and powerful people to make sure their money is controlled and that the system is controlled and the people have very little control of anything that the central bankers do. **[28:46] Speaker A:** That makes all the sense in the world, the way you're explaining it. Maybe we get to the final part of this and I'm gonna try and ask a question for the average viewer who's sitting out there. Millions of people who are listening to and following your words and wondering, so what do I just. Little guy in Kansas or in Delhi or somewhere in some country in Asia, and I wanna protect my family's assets as much as possible. **[29:11] Speaker A:** A lot of them are thinking in terms of just buying gold. Some of them are thinking in terms of cryptocurrency. As long as that cryptocurrency, you Say is not tied to some kind of central bank and actually is, I guess like bitcoin still is in some measure. What do they do? What advice would you give to that person? **[29:29] Speaker B:** Right, right, thank you. That's of course a very important question. Just before I answer that, if you let me just further specify the earlier point, because I do know and I do believe there's a lot of good people even at central banks. And of course, as you mentioned yourself, we have quite a few countries where things seem to be going fine. So what is the difference even with these central planners at the central banks? **[29:56] Speaker B:** Well, they need to know their position in society. They're supposed to serve the people and a lot of them do have that ethos, but they're not the most powerful ones in the system. You know, in the hierarchy you will have a lot of people lower in the hierarchy who there because they want to help and do good and they're really our allies. But top down, there's sadly too many people who have different agendas, that is not to serve the people and the public, but do other things. Things got wrong because the central bankers were made more and more powerful and less and less accountable. **[30:36] Speaker B:** Now if you go to China, if you go to Russia, if you go to all the countries where we've had decent economic growth actually for quite a long time and good performance, it's because the central bank knows its place. It knows we are just a bureaucracy that has a job and that is to help the country and help the people and do good. And they're working hard for that and they're accountable and they're called to account. And if they don't perform, they're punished. The top layers, they get kicked out, all sorts of things. **[31:08] Speaker B:** It's all about the incentive structure. But in the west, since the 70s, we've had this very strong agenda being pushed that central banks have to be independent, which in reality meant unaccountable. And that has really led to all these disasters, particularly from the 70s onwards at a time when, as you mentioned, we unleashed the money creation process even further by cutting the link to gold. And that's already my answer to your main question. Now, what should people do? **[31:37] Speaker B:** Well, I think the financial markets have shown this certainly this year very clearly. One of the most attractive investments this year has been gold. Of course there's also silver, but of course there's a big gap in value and it depends how much money you have to invest. For the smaller amounts, silver is clearly the better option. If you're thinking about your Lifetime savings and bigger amounts, then gold will be more attractive. **[32:09] Speaker B:** I've been positive on gold. I've been recommending people to buy gold actually for a long time, since the late 90s and certainly with 2020, all the strange policies happening there, massive central bank money creation in March 2020 and many, many countries under very, very strange pretexts and various government measures being introduced. I again reiterate that buy gold, buy gold now for quite a few years, from 2020 to, I don't know, 2022, perhaps, the gold price seemed to be just moving sideways. Not much was happening. But that's because it's a very manipulated precious metal, because it's so important to the financial system, because it is really the main competition. To the central planners, it is gold. And they can't really control it as much as they'd like to because they've been working hard to suppress the price and they play various tricks to paper gold and derivatives and the gold market and various shenanigans. **[33:15] Speaker B:** And of course central banks are the biggest owners as far as individual institutions are concerned globally. But ultimately you can't suppress that forever. And I think what we're seeing now is the gold price is breaking out from the straight jacket that's been artificially put on it. **[33:34] Speaker B:** And I think the gold is still cheap. Some people say, well, it's gone up so much, surely it's too late to buy. I don't think so. I think it has way to go. Just think about the massive, massive money creation by central banks, instigated, forced on the system by central banks from 2020 alone. We don't even have to go back to 2008, 2009. That alone is still a good argument to buy gold with gold, of course, the important thing is to buy the physical gold as much as you can and ensure you have safe access and storage. So it's slightly, maybe slightly difficult in practice, but that will be my number one recommendation. **[34:13] Speaker A:** I hate to do this to you because we're just down to like a minute and a half before we gotta go, but I'd love to know the answer to this question. If you can keep it short, is the dollar on its death now? **[34:27] Speaker B:** Yes and no. I mean, it's a question of timing. Yes in the long run, but no in the short run because these are not just economic processes which are often slower than people think. They're also political processes. And at the moment it remains still the number one currency in the world. **[34:53] Speaker B:** But we have an alternative system now rising, the BRICS countries and Also people realizing even the dollar is being debauched. US national debt is on this exponential curve, like also in European countries, and that's not viable. So ultimately there is a clear big problem. I mean, there's much more to that. Perhaps we can talk about that next time because the US can pay its debt in its own currency, which is not true for many other countries, but still it is an unsustainable trajectory at the moment. **[35:27] Speaker A:** I'll write it down as unsustainable, but not necessarily in its death. Now you are so smart. **[35:34] Speaker B:** Well, it's a question of timing, you know, so in the very short term, it takes a bit longer. You know, it's been such an entrenched, powerful, dominant currency that it just, you know, it's not going to disappear overnight, but the alternatives getting more and more attractive, that's for sure. **[35:50] Speaker A:** You are so good. **[35:51] Speaker A:** I am telling you. It's such an honor to talk to you. You really understand this stuff. **[35:55] Speaker B:** Thank you very much. **[35:55] Speaker A:** You're so quoted and you really are able to explain it in terms that even the rest of us out here are able to explain it. **[36:02] Speaker A:** Professor Richard Werner, professor of Banking and Economics. Good enough to join us on this day. Thank you, my friend, for spending time with us and I look forward to hearing from you once again.